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, during the Soviet era, was the first to deploy a rail-mobile nuclear missile system known as the SS-24.
The rail-based missile is being developed by Russia’s Moscow Institute of Thermal, which also is building the new Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missiles, as well as existing land-based Topol ICBMs.
The rail-mobile ICBMs were prohibited under earlier versions of the U.S.-Russia START treaties. However, the 2010 New START treaty did not prohibit rail-mobile basing of missiles, and Moscow is taking advantage of the omission.
In addition to the new strategic missiles, Russia is building a new strategic bomber that is expected to be deployed by 2020.
By comparison, President Obama is expected to announced soon that he will seek a new round of talks with Russia aimed at cutting U.S. nuclear forces even further than the 1,550 deployed warheads under the 2020 New START treaty.
The cuts are expected to be justified under a Pentagon strategic review that was completed months ago but withheld from release. That report is expected to suggest that U.S. warhead levels could be cut to as few as 1,000, causing critics to say the administration is undermining U.S. deterrence and the ability to extend the nuclear umbrella to European and Asian allies.
Rep. Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, said in a recent speech that the administration is short between $1 billion and $1.6 billion that was promised in 2010 for nuclear modernization.
Among nuclear programs in trouble are a new strategic submarine, life extension programs for B-61, W-76 and W-88 nuclear warheads and a long-range standoff nuclear cruise missile. A needed plutonium facility in New Mexico was also canceled, Mr. Rogers said.
The Pentagon also postponed a test launch of a Minuteman III ICBM last month over concerns that it might be misconstrued as an attack on North Korea, which threatened nuclear missile attacks on the United States.
“I find this deeply concerning, given the sorry state of the nuclear modernization commitments made during the last round,” Mr. Rogers said of plans for additional nuclear cuts.
The Pentagon also has signaled a further lack of resolve toward its nuclear modernization program by ordering an environmental impact study of shutting down an entire land-based nuclear-missile wing.
“New START doesn’t require shutting down a missile wing, and I have heard no explanation for this requested study,” Mr. Rogers said.
N. Korea provocation alert
U.S. intelligence agencies are stepping up monitoring North Korean’s military and missile activities now that the annual U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises have ended.
The increased surveillance comes amid new worries that North Korea will conduct some type of military provocation during the visit to the United States next week by South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Mrs. Park arrives Monday on her first visit as president.
Officials tell Inside the Ring there are continuing signs that North Korea is moving some of its mobile missiles and could possibly conduct a test launch of the new intermediate-range Musudan missile, with an expected range of about 2,500 miles — enough to hit targets at the U.S. island of Guam.
Also, intelligence imagery revealed some type of activity at North Korea’s nuclear testing facility that could be an indication of a fourth underground nuclear blast. “It could just be maintenance” on the site in the northeastern part of the country, one official said.
A key worry is that the North Koreans, who engaged in a new round of saber-rattling last month and then appeared to calm down, are now ready to take some type of action that would upset the Park visit.
The new South Korea president is said to be ready to engage North Korea in talks, if Pyongyang dials back its hostile rhetoric and threats.
U.S. officials said there are subtle signs that China recently pressed North Korea’s government not to conduct a military provocation, like the Musudan test.
Chinese envoy Wu Dawei, considered a hard-line, pro-North Korea official, recently met State Department officials. Sources familiar with the talks said Mr. Wu did not present the same Chinese policy line toward North Korea as he has in the past.
China deploys DF-21D
Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn revealed last month that China has deployed its new mobile DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee in prepared remarks that the unique aircraft carrier-killing ballistic missile is now fielded opposite Taiwan among 1,200 ballistic missiles aimed at the U.S. ally.
Describing China’s nuclear forces, Gen. Flynn said the Chinese military is “augmenting the over 1,200 conventional short-range ballistic missiles deployed opposite Taiwan with a limited, but growing number, of conventionally armed, medium-range ballistic missiles, including the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile.”
It was the first time a senior official confirmed that the missile is deployed.
China’s Gen. Chen Bingde said in July 2011 that the DF-21D was “still in the research stage.”
The DF-21D is part of what the Pentagon calls the Chinese military’s anti-access and area-denial weapons, along with anti-satellite missiles and lasers, submarines and missile defenses.
The weapons prompted the new military concept called Air Sea Battle that seeks to better coordinate Navy and Air Force systems in Asia to deter and, if needed, defeat China in a future conflict.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.The owner of a north Edmonton shoe repair store says the reason he refused to serve a woman wearing a burka was motivated by safety, not religious or cultural reasons.
“We have a no-mask policy in the store and I certainly cannot discuss any race, religion, politics on the (sales) floor,” said Ryan Vale, owner of Edmonton Shoe Repair in Northgate Centre mall.
The response comes in the wake of accusations from 19-year-old Sarii Ghalab who claimed Vale told her he could not serve her because it goes against his ethical beliefs.
“He blatantly told her not to touch anything in his store and that he will not offer her any service,” Ghalab’s sister wrote in a Reddit post while searching for online advice.
A burka is a traditional dress worn by some Muslim women that covers everything except the eyes.
Ghalab later told CBC News that she tried to deliver flowers to Vale along with a letter explaining the reasons she wears the burka. But she said he simply ushered her out of the store.
Vale said that isn’t the case.
“I certainly did not bring up the issue of race,” said Vale, pointing out a hand-written sign on his counter saying “Please, for security reasons no facial coverings Thank you” as well as another printout saying “For security reasons NO MASKED CUSTOMERS ALLOWED” with a silhouette of a head wearing a balaclava.
“That’s the way it’s always been. I know lots of businesses adhere to that business — strictly a no-mask, veiled mask, policy in the store; for white people, black people, dogs, anything. Please show who you are for safety,” Vale said.
Ghalab said she isn’t looking for retribution (though her sister posted she would file a human rights complaint) and the incident details remain he-said-she-said.
According to Susan Coombes, a manager in education and engagement with the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC), it is rare that a complaint makes it as far as the hearing stage and no such case involving the wearing of a burka or niqab have made it that far in the province.
The Alberta Human Rights Act says shop owners or salespeople have to provide the same service to anyone, regardless of a number of characteristics including race, religion, place of origin and ancestry to the point of “undue hardship.”
Coombes said legally contravening the law based on what someone is wearing would depend on the shop owner showing crime or violence rates linked to specific clothing use. She said each case is considered independently but even assuming someone could shoplift because of their clothing could offend them and spur a complaint.
Retailers or customers unsure of their rights are encouraged to call the AHRC confidential inquiry line at 780-427-7661.
[email protected]
Twitter.com/SUNDaveLazzThe break from exchange has been taken keeping the government in loop, Rajeev Rishi, Head of IBA told CNBC-TV18.
The Indian Banking Association (IBA) has implemented a one-day ban on over the counter exchange of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on Saturday.
Only the older citizens will be permitted to exchange old currencies tomorrow.
The IBA said the move is to help banks to concentrate on other customer issues.
The break from exchange has been taken keeping the government in loop, Rajeev Rishi, Head of IBA told CNBC-TV18.
He added that the intend is to take care of existing customers, who are getting neglected due to complete focus on currency exchange.
Rishi also reiterated that there is no currency shortage in the system.
Watch video for more..PENGSHAN, China (AFP) - Thousands of voracious white maggots wiggle frenetically while tearing through trays full of leftover meat, vegetables and fruits in an unusual farm in south-western China.
It may not be a pretty sight, but the gluttonous larvae could help China eat away something far uglier: the country's mountain of food waste.
The individual larvae of black soldier flies, which are native to the Americas, can each eat double their weight of garbage every day, according to experts. The farm in Sichuan province then turns the bugs into a high-protein animal feed and their faeces into an organic fertiliser.
"These bugs are not disgusting! They are for managing food waste. You have to look at this from another angle," said Hu Rong, the manager of the farm near the city of Pengshan.
There's no shortage of grub for the larvae: Each person throws away almost 30 kilos of food per year in China, a nation of 1.4 billion people.
"On average, one kilo of maggots can eat two kilos of rubbish in four hours," Hu said.
Hu buys the discarded food from Chengwei Environment, a company that collects such waste from 2,000 restaurants in the city of Chengdu.
"If you put a fish in there, the only thing that comes out is its white skeleton," Chengwei Environment director Wang Jinhua said.
One third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted, while some 870 million people are going hungry, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
This waste also exacerbates pollution problems. In a 2011 report, the FAO said that if food waste were a country, it would rank behind only the US and China for greenhouse gas emissions.
Each year, China produces a total of 40 million tonnes of food waste - the equivalent weight of 110 Empire State Buildings.
But there are cultural reasons behind the issue, Wang said.
"When you invite someone to dine at a restaurant, the custom is to always order more dishes than necessary, to show your hospitality. Inevitably, the leftovers are thrown out," he said.
But the black soldier fly, a rather long and slender critter, does more than eliminate waste.
Once fattened, some of the larvae are sold live or dried to feed animals such as chickens, fish, and turtles. They boast a nutritious composition: up to 63 per cent protein and 36 per cent lipids.
The maggots make it possible to recover proteins and fat still present in waste, then return the nutrients into the human food cycle through the livestock.
The larval faeces can even be used as organic fertiliser in agriculture.
China, Canada, Australia, and South Africa are among the countries where it is legal to feed poultry and fish with insects.
"It's more restricted in the United States and in the European Union," said Christophe Derrien, secretary general of the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed, a non-profit representing Europe's insect production sector.
The EU will allow insect protein as feed in fish farms from July, Derrien said.
"It's an encouraging first step because the EU is opening up to this more and more," he said.
Recycling food waste may offer an economic benefits as well as environmental ones.
Hu makes a comfortable living selling live black soldier fly larvae and fertiliser.
Taking into account costs (electricity, labour, delivery fees, and the price of waste), she makes an annual profit between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan (S$40,343 to S$60,524) - a large sum in China.
It is no wonder, then, that black soldier fly farms have been surfacing all over China since the first sites appeared in the country three years ago.
"This year, we expect to open three or four new sites around Chengdu," Wang said.
"The idea is to transform waste into useful substances."
Leftovers are not the only thing that could get a second life in China.
Chinese energy firm Sinopec plans to build next year a factory in eastern Zhejiang province to turn cooking oil - which is sometimes illegally reused in restaurants - into biofuel for passenger planes.BEIJING: Worried about the rise in people's interest in spiritualism six decades after the early Communists declared it to be evil, China's atheist government is calling for use of religion as a patriotic tool to rejuvenate the nation. It is also persuading religious leaders to condemn self-immolations among Tibetans."Among our people, it remains secondary whether they choose to believe or not to believe in religion, or which religion they choose to believe in. The common goal of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is primary," said Yu Zhengsheng, a member of the powerful standing committee of the political bureau of the Communist Party of China The CPC is trying to build bridges with religious groups instead of discouraging them. Party leaders are telling religious groups that there are more similarities and few conflicts between socialism and spiritualism.This is a far cry from the Mao era, when the "great helmsman" had described religion as poison, outdoing Karl Marx, who had called it 'opium of the masses'. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, thousands of Red guards destroyed religious symbols like crucifix, statues of the Buddha and even Classical Chinese texts, putting up posters like 'Destroy the old world; Forge the new world'.A little over 10 years ago, the Chinese leadership had cracked down on the spiritual sect of Falun Gong or the Dharma Wheel practice, calling them people completely "opposed to science and communism", and classifying them as believers in superstition and scientifically incorrect.But Yu Zhengsheng visited the high-level Tibetan Buddhism College of China, and asked the faculty to deepen research regarding the compatibility of Tibetan Buddhism and socialist society.The Buddhist Association of China, which is affiliated to the Communist Party, recently held a conference in Chengdu to condemn the anti-government movement by Tibetans, who are attracting international attention by committing self-immolations."Buddhism is a religion that respects life and opposes killing or suicide," said Chuan Yin, president of the association. He added that inducing, encouraging or praising suicides were as deplorable as murder.Yu went round visiting the headquarters of associations run by different religious groups like Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and Catholics over two days on Monday and Tuesday. He canvassed the idea of using religion's "positive role" for national building.The party's different units have been asked to "support religious groups and help them solve practical problems", the official media said.Yu also urged the religious groups to pay attention to organization building and personnel training, and to discover more positive elements in religious doctrines.Food for Thought’s issue #100—shared with 9,957 peers—focusses on how to figure out what to build. We learn how to apply continuous product discovery, how to achieve product-market fit, how to use empathy mapping, and why a hypotheses backlog helps to avoid cluttering the product backlog.
We also discover Scrum misconceptions by analyzing job ads for scrum masters, and what cross-functional means with regard qualifications of individual team members. Moreover, we understand ways to improve your Kanban—by Mr. Scrum Jeff Sutherland himself—, and how the principles of the agile manifesto can be matched to change management.
Finally, there is an entertaining interview with Atlassian’s head of R&D on messiness, anarchy, structure, and what all of this has to do with creativity.
Have a great week!
Product Discovery & Lean
Teresa Torres : 3 Best Practices for Adopting Continuous Product Discovery Teresa Torres shares in this video her definition of continuous product discovery.
Dan Olsen (via Mind The Product ): Dan Olsen shares advice on How to Achieve Product-Market Fit Dan Olsen, the author of The Lean Product Playbook, shares advice on how to achieve product-market fit.
Dave Gray : Empathy Map Dave Gray explains how to use empathy mapping for discovering insights about customers.
Mel Hambarsoomian (via Medium ): Use a hypothesis backlog to capture and refine your problems Mel Hambarsoomian describes her hypotheses backlog, a collection of opportunities to improve the product.
Scott Sehlhorst (via Tyner Blain ): Product Management Synapses Scott Sehlhorst shares some random thoughts inspired by a Rorschach test of product management concepts.
Brandon Chu (via Medium ): Making Good Decisions as a Product Manager Brandon Chu dissects how decision-making as a product manager is supposed to work.
From Hilarious to Sad: 22 Scrum Master Anti-Patterns from Job Ads
Job ads for scrum master or agile coach positions reveal a great insight into an organization’s progress on becoming agile. To gain these, I analyzed more than 50 job ads for scrum master or agile coach positions. Learn more about what makes job ads such a treasure trove with the following 22 scrum master anti-patterns.
Read More: 22 Scrum Master Anti-Patterns from Job Ads.
Agile & Scrum
Simon Powers : Here's the Thing About "T-shaped" People Lloyd Jones on cross-functional teams and common misconceptions about how they become high-performing.
Jeff Sutherland (via Scrum Inc ): How to Optimize Your Kanban Jeff Sutherland suggests some improvements—borrowed from Scrum—to Kanban to reduce the average cycle time.
Jason Little : A Manifesto for Agile Change Management Jason Little shares examples how his workshop participants matched the principles of the agile manifesto to change management.
The Essential View
Bob Sutton and Dominic Price (via Stanford ECorner ): Dominic Price: Constructive Chaos vs. Clusterf***s Bob Sutton interviews Dominic Price, the head of R&D and “work futurist” at Atlassian, on how to achieve a balance between structure and (creative) anarchy.
✋ Do Not Miss Out: Join the 2,125-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Team
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack team and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join now all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.The UK Independence Party has launched its Northern Ireland manifesto for May's European and council elections.
UKIP criticised what it called the "cosy coalition" between the DUP and Sinn Féin at Stormont claiming the major parties were letting voters down.
Policies include requiring the union flag to be flown permanently on all public buildings, stopping councillors co-opting relatives into elected positions, and giving priority for social housing to people born in the UK.
Another is to end special treatment for European migrants by leaving the European Union.
Asked whether UKIP's intervention will simply fragment the unionist vote, the party's European candidate Henry Reilly said that "the current strands of unionism and nationalism have failed the ordinary people of Northern Ireland.
"We see an assembly that's moribund and quite pathetic in many ways.
"We are not getting any action in terms of how to improve the quality of life of people here.
"So, our message is, as well as the European message, our big message is that we will grow and we will provide a viable alternative to the mess that we have now."
The UKIP manifesto launch was also attended by the party's deputy leader, Paul Nuttall MEP, and the party's only MLA, David McNarry.One of the most difficult aspects of preparing ESL students for college is getting them up to speed with citations and plagiarism. They’re still learning the language, but they must also learn how to correctly cite sources that they use, a skill that many of their native-speaking peers are still trying to master.
1. What plagiarism is and what the consequences are
“Plagiarism,” with its consonant clusters and soft g, is a hard word to pronounce, but as a concept, it’s not so difficult for students to understand. If your students have had any kind of formal education, they should know that it is not okay to copy another student’s work and pass it off as their own. Perceptions of plagiarism might vary depending on culture, but not as much as some have been led to believe.
Explain to your students what “plagiarism” means and have them do some practice picking it out. Purdue OWL has great resources for that (I’ll be referring to that website quite a bit).
From there, you can discuss the penalties for plagiarism. I’m not always a fan of scare tactics, but for a topic as potentially boring as citations, it helps to have a stick along with the carrot. When I teach the topic, I show my classes the university policy on plagiarism to let them know that it’s a serious issue. If your institution has something similar, you can do the same.
2. Explain why (and not just the negatives)
It’s helpful to have a discussion about the benefits of citations as well as the punishments for plagiarism. Some points to discuss:
Sources make your essay look more credible.
Also more professional.
Readers can find extra information about the topic.
It shows that the writer did their research.
3. What plagiarism isn’t and what Common Knowledge is
It’s a bit tricky to teach what should be cited versus what doesn’t need to be. Some students get nervous when they realize that they’ve learned almost everything they know about their topic from somewhere else…do they need to cite all that?
The key here is to teach what “common knowledge” is. Again, Purdue OWL has a great resource. Here are a few key points:
Common knowledge is
things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
and
generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, “writing is a process” is a generally-accepted fact.
But students inevitably have the same question: “How do I know if something is ‘generally accepted?’ And what if I don’t know a certain myth or legend?”
Purdue OWL has the answer again:
[…] you can regard something as common knowledge if you find the same information undocumented in at least five credible sources.
4. How to find good sources
So now students know what they need to cite and why they should cite it. Time to start hunting.
Most internet-savvy students generally have a good sense of what sources are reputable, but it’s often helpful to have a quick discussion. Some points to consider:
Do use sources that are:
Recent
Well edited (no typos or formatting problems)
Well designed (not painful to look at)
From well-known institutions (government, universities, etc.)
Don’t use sources that are
Outdated
Amateur in editing and design
From commercial or independent websites (“Uncle Bob’s Facts about the US Guverment”)
5. How to choose information and quotes
The best source in the world won’t help a writer if there isn’t any information to support their thesis. It’s very important that students understand that. Everything that they find needs to be connected to their essay.
For this reason, it’s often best to have students write their thesis statement and topic sentences out before they start hunting for support. Especially with ESL students, who can misunderstand the information they find, it’s very important to stay focused on only what is relevant.
Once appropriate support is found, it needs to be incorporated appropriately as well. A statistic or quote could help support the thesis, but it should also be put in the right place and connected to the rest of the essay with transition words. Teach your students about paragraph unity and how every sentence within a paragraph needs to be connected to the same topic (Here is a good exercise for that). They could have a great statistic about literacy rates in Canada, but it won’t help them if their essay is about pollution in Chile.
6. MLA, APA, or Chicago
The different citation styles can be overwhelming – mostly for the teacher. In general, don’t stress out too much. Teach your class the one that you’re most comfortable with. However, if you do have a certain group of students who are all studying in the same field, you might want to choose the citation style they are likely to use. Purdue OWL has information comparing the big three.
7. In-text Citations and Works Cited
Once you’ve got a style you want to use, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty with in-text citations and Works Cited pages. Again, Purdue OWL comes to the rescue.
My students always have trouble with this. Almost every time I teach citations, no matter how much time spent on explaining the distinction between the in-text citations and Works Cited, there is at least one student who puts at least a partial (but sometimes entire) Works Cited entry right in the middle of his/her essay. It just takes several examples and sufficient practice (see point 8).
Another option for the Works Cited page is to use an online citation builder like Citation Machine. Some students have heard about these from their friends or will find them anyway, so there’s no point in hiding them and forcing students to make their Works Cited pages from scratch. In fact, getting it out the open can lead to better results. Citation Machine doesn’t always do a good job of automatically filling in Works Cited entries. For example, it will locate something bizarre as the author’s name, or not reverse the first and last name (e.g. “JOHN SMITH” instead of “Smith, John”). It helps to show students an example of bad output so they can see the problem and address it pre-emptively.
8. Practice, practice, practice (with feedback)
Most native-speaking students won’t cite everything correctly on their first try. Since ESL students have the additional hurdle of not knowing every word in a source, they are especially prone to making mistakes.
For practice, I think it’s best to start with just one paragraph that includes only one or two in-text citations and Works Cited entries. If students try to incorporate everything they learn about citations into a longer, more complete essay, it tends to get very messy and confusing. Start small and simple so that they understand the basics of in-text citations and Works Cited pages, and work your way up from there.
I’ve found that students learn these skills by doing them, receiving feedback from the teacher, and then doing them again. So, like with all language skills, practice is essential.
Thanks for reading.
***
Featured Image Credit: Dan4th NicholasBy JACK GOLDSMITH
Review of POWER WARS: INSIDE OBAMA’S POST-9/11 PRESIDENCY, by Charlie Savage
Little, Brown and Company, 2015
In a testament to how law-dominated war has become, Charlie Savage has written a 698-page tome almost entirely about internal deliberations among Obama administration lawyers and national security officials about the “war on terrorism”—the second full-length treatment on this topic published during the Obama presidency. (The first was Daniel Klaidman’s Kill or Capture.) Savage is deeply sourced inside the Obama administration and has for years been writing authoritatively in the New York Times about the administration’s in-house legal theories and debates on controversial national security issues. His book builds considerably on his earlier reporting to present a rich blow-by-blow account of how and why the Obama administration determined the legality of its war-on-terrorism policies.*
“Lawyerliness suffused the Obama administration” and “shaped Obama’s governance,” says Savage. The President and Vice-President were lawyers, as were several chiefs of staff and cabinet members. The national security lawyers who advised these law-savvy policymakers were “some of the most important counterterrorism practitioners and legal scholars in the world,” according to Obama’s National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, himself a lawyer. These impressive lawyers had been “withering in their criticism of the Bush-Cheney legal team” for “having signed off on extreme and implausible legal pronouncements” related to national security. They came to office determined to be different. Donilon revived an “interagency national security lawyers group” to fix the “process failures” that “led to poor decisions” for President Bush. Intensive legal deliberation became central to national security policymaking. Savage says that in contrast to their predecessors, the Obama legal team tried “to fight al Qaeda while adhering to what they saw as the rule of law.”
And yet despite its commitment to rule of law, and to right process, and to not being like its predecessor, the Obama administration pulled back on very few counterterrorism practices after January 2009. The biggest change was formally ending the CIA’s detention and black site program, but that program had been defunct for years. Most of the new administration’s decisions preserved continuity. It maintained the war powers approach to counterterrorism; continued bulk surveillance, military detention, and military commissions (with tweaks); supported Bush-era state secrets cases and asserted the state secrets privilege in new cases; adopted Bush administration positions on the standard for rendition and against habeas corpus for overseas detainees; and failed to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center (but did stop sending new detainees there and did prosecute in civilian courts a few terrorists picked up abroad).
One reason why so little changed, Savage explains, is that “most of the rule-of-law problems” with Bush’s counterterrorism policies “had actually already been fixed” by 2009 as a result of judicial and congressional endorsement or pushback, as well as internal executive-branch self-corrections. Another was that the Bush administration had in some contexts “been much more serious about its responsibilities than [the Obama Team] had thought.” Savage says that several Obama administration officials were surprised to learn, once gaining access to government files, that many detainees in GTMO were in fact too dangerous to release, and that the Bush administration’s basis for asserting the state secrets privilege was thorough and convincing.
The Obama Team also came to grasp the consequences of not stopping a homeland terrorist attack. Savage compellingly frames the first part of his book around Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009, which he describes as “Obama’s 9/11.” Behind the scenes the administration’s law enforcement response to the issue worked pretty well. But the near-miss revealed weaknesses in the administration’s defenses against terrorists. And public gaffes by top officials made it seem like the administration did not appreciate the gravity of the terrorist threat. Republicans pounced. Led by former Vice-President Cheney, they charged the administration with making the United States less safe by pretending it was not at war. The political fallout put a halt to Obama’s efforts to close GTMO, increase civilian trials, and enhance transparency.
The Christmas Day plot also changed the administration’s attitude toward counterterrorism operations. Attorney General Holder “told his subordinates that it was time to rethink all kinds of terrorism-related policies.” And President Obama went from a “passive mode” to an active one. “Terrorism and the threat to the homeland went from a theoretical concern to something that the president understood could shape the course of his presidency,” Savage learned from Michael Leiter, who led the National Counterterrorism Center under Obama. “The president suddenly understood that in an instant, people could still be killed inside the United States by al-Qaeda and that such an event could have catastrophic political consequences for the rest of his agenda.” Soon after the failed Christmas bombing, “Obama grimly asked his team to imagine how the world would have been different had the bomb exploded.” Nearly three hundred people would die, the transportation system and the economy would be wrecked, and his ambition to scale back U.S. involvement in the Middle East would go unrealized. Obama suggested he would fire people if the missteps surrounding the incident were repeated. “It’s strict liability now,” he said, echoing George Bush’s “Don't ever let this happen again” directive to Attorney General John Ashcroft soon after 9/11.
Everyone, including the lawyers, got the message about the threat. Harold Koh, the human rights champion who from his perch at Yale Law School harshly criticized Bush administration legal policies, came to the top legal job in the Obama State Department uncomfortable with targeted killings. Savage reports that Koh looked hard at the classified evidence and discovered that “[t]here really were people out there actively plotting to kill innocent Americans, as the Christmas 2009 attack vividly demonstrated.” Koh received heat from his traditional allies in the academic and human rights communities when he robustly defended the legality of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies. According to Savage, Koh told his critical former colleagues at Yale, apparently without irony, that it was “easier to take purist stances from the faculty lounge than from a position of responsibility.”
Savage’s account of the Obama administration’s continuity with the Bush administration breaks less new ground than does his reconstruction of the many ways in which it expanded the President’s war powers from the Bush baseline. In Savage’s portrayal, the Obama lawyers often accommodated rather than restrained the President.
The drone strike program grew in intensity and geographical scope. The Obama lawyers approved the expansion with novel legal analyses that included support for the targeted killing of an American citizen (Anwar al Awlaki). The lawyers extended executive precedents to approve the President’s use of force in Libya in 2011, and then later concluded that intensive lethal air strikes did not amount to “hostilities” that would have triggered a duty to cease military action under the War Powers Resolution. They also stretched the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force against al Qaeda to conclude that Congress had approved military action in 2014 against al Qaeda’s rival, the Islamic State. And they advised the President that he could invoke his exclusive Article II powers to disregard (among other laws) a congressional notice restriction that stood in the way of his desire to swap the Taliban Five for Bowe Bergdahl. Finally, the administration cracked down on leakers and the journalists to whom they leaked.
Perhaps more surprising than these and other lawyerly approvals of expanded presidential power were the breakdowns in the vaunted inter-agency lawyers process. That process did not prevent the lawyers from overlooking the criminal prohibition on killing Americans abroad in their original approval of the al-Awlaki operation. (Savage says a blogger pointed out the omission.) And the deliberation, consensus, and restraint promised by the process declined as power over legal issues shifted over the years from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department to the President’s Counsel and National Security Advisor in the White House. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon didn’t allow the Justice Department to know about, much less opine on, the May 2, 2011 operation to kill Bin Laden. A few weeks later, the President ordered a continuation of the bombing campaign in Libya even though the lawyers group had reached consensus that doing so would violate the War Powers Resolution. Without re-convening the lawyers group, and rejecting the views of the Justice Department, White House Counsel Bob Bauer cobbled together a new theory that he advised the President was “legally available,” a term Savage says means “not laughably off the wall.” Although Savage says at the beginning and end of his book that the Obama administration maintained a nearly dogmatic commitment to process and deliberation, he acknowledges – indeed, is the one who brought to light – these exceptions to that pattern as a challenge and a complication to this claim.
In sum, despite a clear intention to be different than their predecessors, and despite frequent devotion to lawyerly values, the Obama lawyers were much less successful in pushing back against presidential power than anticipated, and they often supported novel expansions of presidential power. Time and time again the lawyers seemed to fudge, stretch, or retrofit the law to accommodate the imperatives of national security.
Power Wars will lead some to conclude that law and lawyers don’t matter much to national security. But I think that is the wrong conclusion. Savage naturally focuses on the sexiest high-stakes issues, where goals and consequences inform interpretation more than usual, and where direct precedents are sparse. As one moves down the executive branch hierarchy, legal interpretation becomes more guided and restrained by settled law and tiered review. If we had a blow-by-blow insider account of Supreme Court decisonmaking on high-stakes issues, I doubt we would be impressed by the quality of deliberation or the extent to which law or precedent, considered in the abstract, governed outcomes. And yet the lower federal courts dispose of most legal issues they face through a straightforward application of settled law to fact. It would be a mistake to conclude that law is not terribly consequential in the judiciary based on Supreme Court practice. It is a similar mistake to conclude that law does not restrain mid- and low-level intelligence and military officers simply because it does not appear to restrain senior officials on the biggest questions.
It is also a mistake to conclude that law and lawyers do not restrain senior national security officials. What never shows up in books like Power Wars, and what the public never sees, are the scores of times that lawyers preempt operations and policies – in a phone call, conversation, or preliminary meeting – that are clearly out of bounds. Nor can we ever see the stream of dreamed-up and potentially useful operations and policies that never make it to a conversation because the policymaker knows that the answer will be “no” and thus never asks. In these and related ways, law hems in the President’s decisonmaking by limiting the policy options that reach his desk. A complete assessment of the effect of law on senior national security decisionmaking would need to compare the questionable approvals and fudges we see against the much-harder-to-perceive instances that law constrains by limiting possible courses of action. Reporters cannot easily get at this latter type of information.
Savage does help us see another way that law constrains at the top. In a speech at Harvard in 2011, Obama’s then-counterterrorism czar John Brennan stated: “The interagency lawyers will get together to look at what is being proposed and then have that discussion, that is very rich, about whether or not what is being proposed is consistent with the law and consistent with best practice, or are we actually sort of now going in new areas and new directions.” Such legal deliberation forces policymakers to confront how things have been done in |
– A realisation by Liz Kendall’s supporters that she isn’t going to win and an increasing clarity that Cooper is the moderate candidate other than Kendall prepared to take on Corbyn. This means some of her support has gone straight to Yvette and an overwhelming majority of her 1st preferences (85% according to anecdotal canvassing evidence) are putting Cooper 2nd.
– Whilst Corbyn hasn’t made any mistakes, he had continued to come under intense scrutiny, none of which will have garnered him additional support, and his campaign had lacked major set piece game changing interventions. One big public rally is exciting and newsworthy. Repeated big public rallies just shows you have fans who like going to political meetings (many of whom have not even registered to vote in the contest).
All these factors point towards Yvette being in clear second place in the first round, then establishing a commanding lead over Burnham in the next round once Kendall’s votes have transferred. The key question is whether enough of Burnham’s votes go to Cooper rather than Corbyn to put her ahead on the final round. He says they don’t, in a curious “don’t knock me out because my supporters aren’t as sensible as me” manoeuvre, but Cooper’s campaign says enough do.
In terms of the different sections, what I have heard from canvassers across the campaigns is that:
– Corbyn is way ahead in the £3 Registered Supporters section (113,000 people) – perhaps taking 70% of the vote. The turnout here is high as they are all online voters and all registered specifically to take part in the contest.
– The full members section (293,000 people) is competitive – including the large tranche of members who joined between the General Election and the close of leadership nominations.
– Contrary to expectations generated by Unite and Unison heavily recruiting and nominating Corbyn, the Affiliated Supporters section (148,000 people) is also competitive, with an older generation of trade unionists from a period when some unions were on the right of the party reported to be sticking to that positioning. Corbyn’s team seem particularly disappointed with the Unite voters. The new system is allowing all candidates to reach union members direct rather than them just receiving a line-to-take from their union. The 67% support for Corbyn YouGov found among Affiliated Supporters is widely accepted as being way too high a figure. The turnout here is low as many signed up fairly passively, just saying yes to a phone call from their union to register.
Based on all these straws in the wind my guess is a first round where Corbyn gets 42%, Cooper 30%, Burnham 18% and Kendall 10%; leading eventually to a final round where Corbyn and Cooper are both on 49-51%.
As readers will know I have been supporting Yvette Cooper but this is my dispassionate analysis of the state of play, not just what I hope will happen.4.1 Factors Contributing to Widespread RSL
The study region contains vastly more RSL sites than the other documented locations on Mars. For example, 13 confirmed sites were reported for the southern midlatitudes [Ojha et al., 2014], 4 in the northern midlatitudes [Stillman et al., 2016a], and 5 equatorial locations not in Valles Marineris [McEwen et al., 2014], as compared with 23 described herein. An independent assessment of the global inventory of detections estimates ~50% of RSL sites to be located in Valles Marineris [Stillman et al., 2016a].
The RSL within Coprates and Melas are also detected within diverse and widespread geologic environments. Craters, landslides, canyon walls, and, possibly, duneforms all host these RSL, including zones thought to be source areas, although it is unclear if they all form from identical mechanisms. The 41 sites identified by HiRISE are very densely populated with active RSL commonly with CTX candidates in the adjoining regions (Figure 2). These locations occur over a broad elevation distribution (−5.1 km to +3.7 km) spanning a greater range than most other RSL localities on Mars. For example, southern midlatitude sites range from −1.5 km to +2 km in elevation [Ojha et al., 2014]. One partially confirmed site is located on the floor of Hellas at −6.4 km (see ESP_040443_1345), so this may simply reflect the relatively uniform high elevation of the highlands. The one clearly relevant factor is the abundance of steep slopes in Valles Marineris (see below). This broad‐scale spatial and vertical distribution may suggest that environmental conditions and/or other surface properties (e.g., albedo, composition, and presence of salts) are also more conducive to RSL formation and recurrence than other global locations. Regardless, the elevation distribution of RSL within eastern Coprates falls in the range of wall stratigraphy earlier spectral analysis has described as diverse, with erosion‐resistant, high‐calcium pyroxene‐dominated, basaltic material (+2 km to −1.5 km), weakly layered chlorite‐ or iron‐smectite‐bearing material (−1.5 km to −2.8 km), overlaid on massive, low‐calcium pyroxene‐dominated mafic units (<−2.8 km) [Murchie et al., 2009; Ehlmann et al., 2011].
Why conditions in Coprates and Melas Chasmata are so conducive to RSL formation is unclear. These canyon systems contain large expanses of steep slopes and roughness values detected at multiple scales, which are greater than most locations on Mars [Kreslavsky and Head, 1999; Smith et al., 2001; Chojnacki et al., 2014b; Jaumann et al., 2015]. RSL are known to be located only on steep slopes [McEwen et al., 2011; Ojha et al., 2014; Dundas et al., 2016], yet many regions on Mars, including western Valles Marineris, have steep slopes but are higher albedo (dust mantled) and largely lack detected RSL. Slope streaks are present, and we have monitored several areas but have not seen the temporal behavior of RSL. Valles Marineris, particularly the eastern chasmata, are also known to show some of the lowest albedo locations on Mars [Smith et al., 2001; Putzig and Mellon, 2007; Chojnacki et al., 2014b]. This low albedo is partly due to numerous dark dune fields, sand sheets, and fans populating the canyon floors and walls [Chojnacki et al., 2010, 2014c]. These extensive “blankets” of dark sand that frequent the midwall locations of Coprates and Melas may play a role in RSL formation. For example, these relatively low thermal inertia sand materials will rapidly respond to early morning sunlight and heat up faster and to greater absolute temperatures [Putzig and Mellon, 2007; Putzig et al., 2014] than talus or bedrock surfaces and would provide a thermal dichotomy with those contacting surfaces. The frequent detection of RSL at these sand‐bedrock or sand‐talus contacts may imply some sort of thermal control. Another contributing factor may be the favorable geometry of parallel rows of spurs and ridges providing multiple slope aspects, some of which will be ideally suited for RSL formation in a relatively small region (e.g., Figures 2 and 3).
This region is also prone to a number of atmospheric phenomena. Both the 2001 and 2008 global dust storms crossed the Valles Marineris system [Smith et al., 2002; Cantor, 2007; Wang and Richardson, 2014]. This is relevant as RSL activity was more extensive and prolonged during the 2007 (MY28) global dust storm [McEwen et al., 2014]. There is also a yearly Acidalia track dust storm system that can enter the canyons [Cantor et al., 2001, 2014] and has been correlated with notable darkening of RSL fans (e.g., MY31 [McEwen et al., 2014]). During these storms, dust storm tracks intersect with Valles Marineris (e.g., Syria‐Claritas and Acidalia) and variable‐altitude dust clouds can obscure troughs entirely for a short period [Cantor, 2007]. Large‐scale, annual recurring cloud trails emerging out of Valles Marineris have also been detected and appear to be unique to the region [Clancy et al., 2009]. These distinctive features are interpreted as high‐velocity (up to 40 m/s) thermally driven updrafts that formed along canyon walls composed of dust and water ice particles [Clancy et al., 2009].In this entry I will attempt to underscore the need for the development of a passion for deep reading. My proof consists of quotes from two who have written books about this topic: David Mikics’ "Slow Reading in a Hurried Age" and Mark Edmundson’s "Why Read?"Mark and David are friends, which is fitting, as both agree that reading is not, as was once used as a tag line on TV spots, fundamental; rather, it is essential to living an examined life--something Socrates said was the only one worth living.Mikics, David (2013-10-08). Slow Reading in a Hurried Age. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.Edmundson, Mark (2008-12-01). Why Read?. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.Mikics, David (2013-10-08). Slow Reading in a Hurried Age. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.Mikics, David (2013-10-08). Slow Reading in a Hurried Age. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.*******************************************************************************Edmundson, Mark (2008-12-01). Why Read?. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle EditionMikics, David. Slow Reading in a Hurried Age. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.*********************************************************************************I am well aware that my cutting and pasting of these texts should be categorized under the part of the problem section of this entry. What has been even more unsettling (and this is what reading does), I have just finished reading Dave Eggers' new book “The Circle”. Eggers’ critically acclaimed book takes place in the not too distant future. A company modeled on Google and Facebook, provides the background and the action for a plot that centers on the way humans begin to live their lives through the connections they have with media. Eggers updates what Big Brother was in Orwell’s. The seemingly benign Circle actually encloses us and limits any form of personal freedom. It is frightening and has spoken to me personally. It took me a while to write this entry and to read the book. In between, I have been commenting on various websites, updating my Facebook page, sending tweets, answering many emails, responding to texts, watching YouTube videos and listening to playlists on Spotify, and yes, comenting or upvoting on Quora. I have been busy, but I have been tied to my computer, phone, and kindle. There’s been little time for actual conversation with people face to face. I know that my predicament is not unique and that is what Eggars, Edmundson, and Mikics worry about. We, as a species, are losing touch with touch, the feel and smell of a page as it turns, the sound of a voice across a table, and the sight of the mountains on a late fall day. But I don’t think the apocalypse is near. Instead, I think some of us need to learn to find the time to live well in the world and the word, both virtual and real.I hope that some of these words, mine or those of others, will encourage at least a few readers to pursue the way of the slow, even if you have read this entry quickly.
Did this ad speak the truth without knowing it?“How you read matters much more than how much you read.”David MikicsIncome generated from a copy fee built in to the price of recordable CDs and DVDs – and shared among artists and copyright holders – has almost halved over the last two years. In 2007, sales of blank discs generated 200 million kronor ($28 million) for artists, compared to just 113 million kronor in 2009.
Copyswede, the umbrella organisation for copyright groups that administers the fee, believes the plunge in revenue can be attributed to a shift in the ways music and films are now consumed.
“We're seeing a technology shift whereby the discs in themselves are no longer of interest. File sharers and others have started using different technologies. Things can instead be stored on people's computer hard drives or their telephones,” Copyswede's managing director Mattias Åkerlind told news agency TT.
Copyswede distributes the funds generated from fees that are included in the prices of recordable hard drives, mp3 players, and blank discs. But as its members' revenues shrink, the organization is pushing for legislation that will extend the fees to other technologies.
“We don't currently receive any revenue from hard drives or telephones despite legislation decreeing that fees should apply to any products that are particularly suitable for piracy. The pattern we think we're seeing is one of piracy moving to external hard drives and USB flash drives while telephones are being used for storage,” said Åkerlind.
Copyswede's proposed fee would add around 100 kronor to the cost of a mobile phone with 32 gigabytes of memory. But negotiations have stalled of late, with the organisation enjoying scant support from electronics retailers opposed to price hikes on goods like telephones and hard disks.
“We'll probably have to ask the legislator for help and we've already approached the justice ministry about this matter. We're hoping for a reaction by autumn,” said Åkerlind.'Virtually identical' to previous arguments, legal team says; Also seeking order directing Gov & SoS to certify Franken's electoral victory
Oral argument set for June 1...
Ernest A. Canning Byon 5/12/2009, 3:51pm PT
Guest Blogged by Ernest A. Canning
During a news conference yesterday (video here courtesy of TheUptake.org) Marc Elias, representing Sen.-elect Al Franken in the election contest brought by former Sen. Norm Coleman, announced the filing of Franken's brief [PDF] responding to Coleman's appeal [PDF] of the decision by the tri-partisan, three-judge election contest panel's ruling which found: "Franken received the highest number of lawfully cast ballots in the November 4, 2008 general election for United States Senator and is entitled to receive the certificate of election."
Noting that, because of its ability to make credibility determinations, a trial court's factual findings are entitled to "great deference" in an appeal, Elias observed that Coleman had a "heavy burden" in showing that the three-judge panel erred on the facts and the law. He says it's a burden the Coleman team has not met in their appellate arguments. Elias noted that the legal contentions made in Coleman's opening brief were "virtually identical" to those that were made and rejected by the three-judge panel.
We discussed Coleman's arguments, and the three-judge panel's rejection of them, last month in 'For Coleman, the End is Near...'. As our legal analysis detailed, we agree with Elias' May 11, 2009 assertion that the Coleman legal challenge is "without merit."
For example, per Elias, Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg continues to tell the media that 4,400 uncounted absentee ballots were improperly rejected, but as we observed...
Ginsberg is referring to the three-judge panel's February 13, 2009 ruling which found that Minnesota's strict standards for the opening and counting of absentee-ballots must be applied on a ballot-by-ballot basis. Ginsberg will be appealing this ruling to a MN Supreme Court which, in Coleman v Ritchie (March 6, 2009), already ruled [PDF] that those strict standards must be applied. Good luck with that, Mr. Ginsberg.
Elias noted that during the contest trial, Coleman's legal team conceded, and the three-judge panel found, that all but 700 of those ballots were cast by individuals who were not even registered to vote at the time of the November 2008 election. So how can any court order those ballots opened and counted?
Coleman attempted to put a new spin on the argument by urging that application of Minnesota's strict statutory standards for determining which ballots shall be counted, resulted in a denial of due process. Elias argues that Coleman waived the due process argument by failing to raise it until closing arguments before the three-judge panel and that the case cited by Coleman in his appellate brief actually says the reverse is true --- that due process would have been denied if the three-judge panel had replaced the statutory standards that required a ballot-by-ballot examination with Coleman's lax standards that would have allowed in votes without an individualized showing that each absentee ballot had been lawfully cast.
Oral arguments before the Minnesota Supreme Court are set to commence, finally, on June 1, 2009 at 9:00am Central time. They will be available to watch live via video stream right here.
Elias announced that Franken has asked the MN Supremes to affirm the district court decision, declare that Franken is entitled to a certificate of election; that judgment be entered immediately and that the Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty and Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie be ordered to perform their "ministerial duty" to prepare, countersign and deliver the certificate of election promptly to the secretary of the U.S. Senate. In order to expedite that decision, Franken waived appellate costs, a move that would avoid a ten day delay following the MN Supreme Court's decision. Franken has not waived the award of costs from the contest trial.
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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California State Bar since 1977 and has practiced in the fields of civil litigation and workers' compensation at both the trial and appellate levels. He graduated cum laude from Southwestern University School of Law where he served as a student director of the clinical studies department and authored the Law Review Article, Executive Privilege: Myths & Realities. He received an MA in political science at Cal State University Northridge and a BA in political science from UCLA. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).When it was first launched in 2009, Aadhaar signalled a promise to repair the corroded plumbing of India’s leaky public delivery systems. The unique biometric identity would help reduce duplicate and ghost entries in the list of beneficiaries of government schemes, and pave the way for direct benefit transfers to them eventually, the then government headed by the Congress party told us. The elimination of false claimants and a chain of government officials who administer public delivery systems would help cut down on corruption and enable the state to do more with fewer resources, we were told.
Eight years after its launch, and more than a billion Aadhaar registrations later, much of that promise remains unmet even as the project remains mired in a number of controversies. The Aadhaar project has survived a change in government but has met with a rising tide of questions from the Supreme Court, the national auditor, and from the civil society at large.
Why has the dream turned sour? A survey of the existing research on the subject suggests four key reasons. First, the Aadhaar project seems to have been launched and executed without adequate legal safeguards on the storage, usage, and distribution of data of citizens, and with limited scope for redresses. The risks of abuse have been constantly understated by policymakers. The ambiguous stance of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which runs Aadhaar, and the government as a whole, on privacy concerns, has not helped inspire confidence in the project.
Second, there does not seem to have been a rigorous attempt to perform an independent cost-benefit analysis either before or after the launch of the project. The results of pilot projects—which suggested several challenges—did not seem to have any impact, and there was little attempt to even fix criteria for evaluating the project. Various claims about public savings from linking Aadhaar to various beneficiary databases have emerged but as we shall see, they rest on weak evidence.
Third, the sequencing of steps required to implement an Aadhaar-based payment and direct benefit transfer (DBT) architecture did not receive the attention it deserved, leading to debilitating challenges as the project gets universalized. The issue of implementing cash transfers in a country such as India is a separate and complex issue in itself, and one that an earlier instalment of Economics Express dealt with.
Finally, the mindless expansion of Aadhaar linkage to schemes or areas where there is limited scope for leakages at a time when several problems have emerged regarding such linkages have only served to weaken the original premise of Aadhaar: That of being an effective instrument in targeting leakages. Had the linkage been restricted to a few key programmes, and the evidence regarding such linkages carefully examined and analysed, the response to the Aadhaar project would have been quite different from what it is now.
Let’s start with the evidence so far on the savings from the Aadhaar linkage. The Aadhaar-linked DBT scheme for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) subsidy or direct benefit transfer for LPG (DBTL) has been the success story cited most often by government officials and lawyers representing the government in courts. The Economic Survey 2015-16 claims that DBTL led to a reduction of LPG subsidy by close to 25%. Different policymakers at different venues have claimed that the linkage led to savings worth Rs15,000 crore for the government.
On close scrutiny, such claims appear to be misleading. First, such claims do not take into account the decline in subsidy outgo because of the sheer drop in global oil prices. According to one estimate by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, the fall in oil prices account for 92% of the “savings" attributed to the DBTL scheme. Secondly, we do not know if such estimates account for exclusion errors at all (genuine beneficiaries being knocked off the LPG list).
The more empirically grounded study in favour of the DBTL programme comes from a study by Michigan State University economist Prabhat Barnwal.
Using a rich transaction-level data set on LPG purchase, Barnwal shows that the introduction of the DBTL policy led to a decline in domestic fuel purchases ranging between 10% and 13%. But even this estimate remains silent on the issue of non-compliant or excluded households. And, this problem plagues almost all estimates of savings claimed by the government: We simply do not know how much of such “savings" are at the cost of genuine beneficiaries rather than ghost or duplicate accounts. Ground reports from different parts of the country seem to suggest significant exclusion errors of genuine beneficiaries in Aadhaar-linked schemes.
One recent field study published in the Economic and Political Weekly investigated the implications of linking the public distribution system (PDS) for foodgrains in Hyderabad with Aadhaar.
Based on an interview of 80 households, the study found that 66% of these households reported issues with the technology including fingerprint authentication errors, Aadhaar seeding issues, and poor connectivity.
The Economic Survey 2016-17, which is otherwise very gung-ho about the Aadhaar project, noted the high rates of authentication failures in several states. According to a more recent report on the state of Aadhaar by Ronald Abraham and co-authors published recently by IDinsight, an international development consulting organization, between April 2015 and March 2017, the pension programme in Andhra Pradesh reported fingerprint authentication failure for 17.4% individuals, despite three attempts. Similarly, the failure rate averaged 7.8% for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in Telangana. These estimates indicate the upper bound of authentication failures rather than actual failures because some of these “failures" might be because of people trying to fraudulently access benefits (which is what the authentication is supposed to prevent). Nonetheless, these estimates suggest that genuine exclusion errors may be far higher than what was originally anticipated. In 2011-12, when the UIDAI tested authentication processes, it expected only 1% of beneficiaries to face such difficulties, the report notes.
The challenges faced by beneficiaries in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are a bit surprising because Andhra Pradesh (undivided) has a long history of leveraging technology and smart cards for identifying beneficiaries and delivering payments to them. In fact, one of the oft-cited studies in favour of Aadhaar is based on evidence from the introduction of smart cards in MGNREGS in the state.
The introduction of the smart card was done in a phased manner and so the researchers were able to measure the relative impact of the introduction of the smart cards. Economists Karthik Muralidharan and Paul Neihaus of the University of California, San Diego and Sandip Sukhtankar of Dartmouth College found that the new system “delivered a faster, more predictable, and less corrupt NREGS payments process without adversely affecting program access".
The researchers estimated that the new technology brought down leakages in MGNREGS by 12.7 percentage points. The value of beneficiary time savings alone exceeded the cost of the intervention, the study said.
Despite this experience, Aadhaar linkage does not seem to have been as successful in the state. One big reason for the difference could be connectivity issues. Unlike the smart card initiative, which relied on offline authentication, the Aadhaar-based authentication system requires access to a central server for authentication.
Another big challenge is biometric mismatches of genuine beneficiaries when their fingerprints no longer match with what is recorded on the central database. The hands of the daily wage earner are too chafed and the biometric doesn’t work; they are asked to apply vaseline and wait for days before they can avail benefits, journalist Anumeha Yadav wrote. Yadav pointed out that neither the point-of-sale personnel nor banks nor the district administration were adequately prepared for the rollout of Aadhaar in Jharkhand. Similar problems were recorded in pilot projects elsewhere.
The lack of attention to proper sequencing has meant that neither the gaps in the country’s digital infrastructure nor those in payments systems were addressed before the Aadhaar-linked DBT initiative was scaled up.
One reason for such unplanned expansions is the absence of any parameter or base-line surveys for gauging the impact of Aadhaar-based DBT, in sharp contrast to the Andhra Pradesh smart card initiative. When a journalist asked the then Union minister and a key proponent of this initiative, Jairam Ramesh, about the performance parameters for judging Aadhaar-based DBT, he was told that answers to such questions “...can only be provided as we go along".
There was one attempt at a cost-benefit analysis of the Aadhaar project by a research group at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), funded in part by the UIDAI itself. The study estimated that utilizing Aadhaar for schemes such as PDS and MGNREGS could help the government save at least a tenth of the amount spent on these schemes. But a rebuttal by development economist Reetika Khera pointed out that the estimates are based on old data on leakages, and over-stated assumptions about “ghost beneficiaries".
The Parliament once asked for a full-fledged analysis of the Aadhaar project. Sadly, there is very little data that the government has shared in this regard, and hence there is little information on the economic returns from the project.
The lack of evidence-based policymaking has meant that the project has run ahead without adequate course corrections, and those pointing out flaws or challenges have either been ignored, or silenced. One critic of the project found himself facing a first information report (FIR) filed by the UIDAI.
Most policymakers have tended to underplay the concerns about data fraud and data breaches. But the human and financial implications of such breaches in the digital age are not trivial. Often comparisons are made with the social security number (SSN) system in the US but the SSN contains far less information, and is linked (or can be linked) to far fewer databases than is the case with Aadhaar. Yet, identity theft involving SSN numbers costs billions of dollars annually in the US, and these costs have been rising over time, as the digital transformation sweeping the world has made it easy to link different sets of data and the personal information of victims. The dangers of abuse by the state surveillance machinery, or by rogue officials, are also very real in the case of Aadhaar.
Ideally, these issues should have been debated threadbare and addressed on the floor of Parliament before the launch of the UIDAI project, or at least before the passage of the Aadhaar Act. But the flip-flops of the major political parties on the Aadhaar project means that not enough attention was paid to issues relating to data sharing or privacy, some of which are now being taken up by the courts.
The lack of attention to details while scripting the Aadhaar law has also meant that there is very limited scope for redresses, as economist Renuka Sane and lawyer Vrinda Grover pointed out in a Mint article.
“As Aadhaar becomes the core around which our relationship with the state revolves, we need to ask ourselves if the surrounding legal framework provides enough clarity on the enrolment, authentication, and storage processes," the duo wrote. “Are there adequate protections against misuse? Do citizens have access to an adequate grievance redressal mechanism? We think the answers to these questions are a resounding no."
Sumit Mishra teaches economics at the Institute for Financial Management and Research, Sri City.
Economics Express looks at the world through the lens of economics.This post is about a fairly technical detail of how Galera works. I'm writing it down in preparation for testing this feature so that I can agree with Alex whether to file a bug or not. I'm sharing it on my blog just in case someone else might benefit from learning this.
Galera 2.0 introduces rolling schema upgrades. This is a new way to do non-blocking schema changes in MySQL.
As the name suggests, it is done as a rolling upgrade. Having seen clusters doing rolling upgrades before, I assumed this is what happens:
Execute alter table on Node 1.
Node 1 is removed from the cluster and stops processing transactions.
Node 1 completes alter table.
Node 1 re-joins cluster and catches up so that it is in sync.
Execute alter table on Node 2.
Node 2 is removed from the cluster and stops processing transactions.
Node 2 initiates and completes alter table.
etc...
The result is that at any single point in time, only one node is unavailable but the rest of the cluster is working just fine while you are executing the alter table.
When testing this feature with our team, we found that while Node 1 was processing the alter table, we were still able to select from it. Normally this should not be possible if a node is disconnected from the cluster. Galera by default will prevent you from reading stale data. This is a very good feature of Galera. So we filed bug 966679.
Discussing this with Alex at the Galera BoF in Santa Clara, I learned that the above is not at all a correct understanding of what Galera is doing. Possibly our test is therefore flawed and there might not be a bug after all. This is now my current understanding of what Galera is doing:
Execute alter table on Node 1 for table T.
Node 1 continues to be part of the cluster and apply other updates too, as long as possible. Basically, anything that isn't updating table T can be applied.
If other nodes update table T (which they can, since there is no alter table ongoing on those) then this event cannot be replicated and replication will halt.
Node 1 eventually completes alter table.
If replication was stopped, Node 1 will now catch up.
Execute alter table on Node 2 for table T.
etc...
So once again the Galera team has gone to great lengths in trying to provide a really nice user experience and do something far beyond my expectations. (And my expectations are not low.)
So, with this knowledge, we have to test RSU again and be much more detailed in how the test is setup. Something like this:
Setup Galera cluster with 3 or more nodes. Configure all nodes to use RSU (non-default).
Create tables t1 and t2. Insert N records into both. (N is large enough so the alter table will last a while.)
Alter table t2. For the remaining steps, assume that the alter table is executing on Node 1, and we do inserts on Node 2.
Launch a for loop doing inserts into t1, on Node 2.
Select from both t1 and t2 on Node 1. This should succeed. (Selects on Node 2 and 3 should also succeed.)
Launch a for loop doing inserts into t2, on Node 2.
Select from both t1 and t2 on Node 1. Should this succeed or fail? See discussion below. *
Stop the for loops.
Wait until alter table is finished on Node 1.
Select from both t1 and t2 on Node 1. This should succeed. Selects on Node 2 and 3 should also succeed. All nodes should again be in sync (such as SELECT COUNT(*) returning the same value)
Repeat above by executing alter table on Nodes 2 and 3
So what should Node 1 return at the point I marked with '*'? In my view, it should return Unknown error since replication is not happening anymore. Alternatively, it may continue to return a normal (but stale) result. This I consider a bug. We will see.Using feature flags for granular release control and risk mitigation
Blue-green deployments have long been a proven technique to mitigate risk in software releases. By adding feature flags, developers are ushering in a new era of blue-green deployments, one with unprecedented granular control over feature releases. This article discusses how to effectively integrate feature flags into your blue-green deployment process.
At its core, a blue-green deployment is a release practice that maintains two production environments called blue and green, switching between whether the blue or green environment is live. The primary benefit of this approach is to mitigate risk and control the timing of releases. The blue version might have the new version and green the old version. If something goes wrong, you can switch back to the more stable environment.
The old way of blue-green deployments was more of an all-or-none approach. Traffic was funneled in a binary fashion, all to blue or all to green. It was also focused around timing: you could determine when you wanted to switch traffic and then switch back if something went wrong.
Blue-green deployments, therefore, are a macro level of risk mitigation. You are not focusing on testing smaller features, like a new search bar, and it’s usually something controlled by your operations team, not development.
With this blue/green deployment methodology, we are placing the burden of risk mitigation on our system architecture to test different application versions. Imagine if you just wanted to test a small search bar update, would you want to go through an entire versioning process of duplicating environments and routing traffic? This method may be overly excessive for small changes, especially if you are practicing continuous delivery and releasing multiple times per week (or per day).
To get more refined release granularity, you can complement your blue/green deployment with feature flags. These flags are conditionals (if/else statements) that compartmentalize code at the ‘feature level’, meaning you can control the display of particular features instead of relying on separate application versions.
Using feature flags, you could still manage your traffic with a load balancer with the added benefit of gradually rolling out new features to your users. For example, you could switch from green to blue with the feature flag turned “off” in blue. Then, once traffic was flowing to blue, you can turn on the feature flag and gradually release the feature to 1%, 5%, 20%… of your users until you were satisfied with the performance and feedback.
Coupling feature flags with blue/green deployments could be best used with major application releases (like upgrading from version 1 to version 2 of a platform). However, for less substantial feature changes or gradual testing, you could utilize feature flags to manage feature releases within a single production environment. This will allow you to continuously release small features while still mitigating risk. It also allows you to release faster because you can practice continuous delivery while substantially reducing risk in the release phase.Adolescence against Diabetes
Lifestyle trends show that kids are growingly inclined towards unhealthy practices. But there are ways to keep diabetes at bay.
Diabetes is fast growing to become a common chronic diseases in children and adolescents. When diabetes strikes during childhood, it is usually assumed to be type 1, or juvenile-onset diabetes. The body simply stops producing insulin and the child becomes dependent on an external source of insulin for the rest of his/her life. However, in the last two decades, the trend of type 2 diabetes is also increasing among children and adolescents between the age group of 10-19 years, especially among children who are obese with a strong family history of type 2 diabetes. In type 2 diabetes, although the body does produce insulin, but due to various reasons such as obesity, physical inactivity or a poor diet, there is insulin resistance and this results in building up of glucose up in the bloodstream. Eventually this glucose reaches dangerous levels. So the child has to depend on external sources of insulin for his entire life.
Symptoms
Type 2 diabetes can cause serious health complications. That is why it is very important to know how to spot type 2 diabetes symptoms. Even pre-diabetes can increase the chance of heart disease, just like type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The symptoms of type 2 diabetes due to high blood sugar may include:
• Increased thirst
• Increased hunger (especially after eating)
• Dry mouth
• Frequent urination
• Unexplained weight loss
• Fatigue
• Blurred vision
• Headaches
• Loss of consciousness (rare)
It’s important to get a diabetes test done to prevent serious diabetes complications and start with a timely treatment. Type 2 diabetes is usually not diagnosed until health complications being to surface. Most often, there are no diabetes symptoms or a very gradual development of the above symptoms of type 2 diabetes.
Prevention
Preventing diabetes in children is crucial as diabetes is not curable. It can only be controlled. Diabetes caused due to overweight in children and teenagers can be prevented mainly by bringing up kids in a healthy environment and inculcating good eating habits. Since young children pick up habits from their parents, it is important for parents to guide them and |
to Connecticut for Lieberman.[6] The change was not entered in the state's electronic voter database, however.[7]
On November 15, 2006, John Orman changed his party registration from Democratic to the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, having been told by the Secretary of the State that there were no registered party members.[7] Orman, a professor of politics at Fairfield University, had briefly challenged Lieberman for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 2006.[8][9]
Party rules were filed with Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz on December 21, 2006, by Orman. According to Ted Bromely, a state elections attorney who works for her office, then said, "If someone wanted to challenge it, they'd have to go to court."[6][7][10]
On January 12, 2007, Korchin filed a different set of party rules with the Secretary of the State, which were also accepted.[6] In response to an inquiry, Korchin received a letter from a lawyer in the Secretary of the State's office on January 17, 2007, stating that the state had "very limited jurisdiction" over intraparty battles, and was not taking a position over just who was in charge.[7]
In March, Korchin changed the English Wikipedia article about the party to reflect his role and in response to Orman's claims.[6]
In Milford in January 2007, at what was billed as an "organizational meeting" of the party, Orman and Korchin appeared, each claiming to be the party chairman. Korchin announced the annual party meeting would be held in August and left, after which the Milford gathering elected Orman as chair, by a 5–1 margin.[11]
On July 10, 2007, Orman wrote to Bysiewicz and Jeffrey Garfield, executive director of the Elections Enforcement Commission. He asked them to have the state attorney general's office investigate the petitioning done by Lieberman in 2006. Orman's contention was that Lieberman had violated state law by knowingly circulating false petitions, in that he had no actual intent to join or form a new party.[12]
The next month, Korchin told the Hartford Advocate that he had held another party meeting on August 9, although he refused to say where it had occurred. Orman said he had not been informed of any such meeting.[13] Korchin responded that Orman had been notified but had "declined to attend in an e-mail."[14]
On March 6, 2008, there was a statewide party caucus organized by the faction that had chosen Orman as party chair. With Orman declining to run for re-election, Dr. John Mertens was elected to succeed him.[15]
Lieberman himself is not a member of the party; he is a registered Democrat.[16] The Senate website listed him as an Independent Democrat.[17]
Party mission [ edit ]
The two competing factions have differing views of the party's mission in the wake of the 2006 election.
As Orman expressed it in 2007, "What we said was that if the state was going to allow a fake institution to exist, we were going to turn that fake institution into a real party to hold Joe accountable."[13]
Korchin, however, stated: "Connecticut for Lieberman is a new political party that carries on what used to be the ideals of the Democratic Party: A liberal approach to domestic issues coupled with a strong commitment to a robust foreign policy. New members who subscribe to this platform are welcome."[18]
Later activities and demise [ edit ]
Activist John Mertens was nominated as the party's candidate for United States Senate in 2010. Mertens is an ardent critic of Senator Lieberman, and during an interview with Monmouth University's student newspaper, he said: "[In 2012] the party will run a candidate against Joe Lieberman!"[19] Lieberman, however, announced in January 2011 that he would not seek re-election to his Senate seat when his term ends in 2013.[20]
In January 2013, the party lost its minor party status after not fielding any candidates in the elections of November 2012. Mertens, who left the party and became an Independent shortly after the elections, said, "We don't have a ballot line. With Joe retiring, its purpose has been kind of served."[21]
References [ edit ]A historic event took place moments ago when Mark Johnson, the global head of cash FX at HSBC was arrested at JFK airport for his role in a "conspiracy to rig currency benchmarks", and specifically for frontrunning customer orders. He is the first person charged by the US in the ongoing FX rigging probe.
As Bloomberg reports, a "senior manager at HSBC Holdings Plc was arrested in New York for his role in a conspiracy to rig currency benchmarks, according to two people familiar with the matter, becoming the first person to be charged in the Justice Department’s three-year investigation into foreign-exchange rigging at global banks."
The DOJ adds that Mark Johnson, 50, a U.K. citizen and U.K. and U.S. resident, and Stuart Scott, 43, a U.K. citizen and resident, were charged by complaint with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Johnson was arrested last night at JFK International Airport in Queens, New York, and will be arraigned later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom of the Eastern District of New York
From Johnson's bio:
Johnson is global head of foreign exchange cash trading at HSBC, based in London. Prior to joining HSBC in 2010, he was founding managing partner and chief investment officer at Johnson Stewart Partners. Before that, he was global head of trading at Deutsche Bank.
More details:
Mark Johnson, HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport Tuesday and is scheduled to appear before a judge in federal court in Brooklyn Wednesday morning, said the people, who asked not to be named because the case hasn’t been made public. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the people said. According to Bloomberg, Johnson’s arrest comes more than a year after five global banks pleaded guilty to charges related to the rigging of currency benchmarks. HSBC, which wasn’t part of those criminal cases, in November 2014 agreed to pay $618 million in penalties to U.S. and British regulators to resolve currency manipulation allegations. HSBC, which still faces investigations by the Justice Department and other authorities for the conduct, has set aside $1.3 billion for possible settlements, according to an August filing. Rob Sherman, an HSBC spokesman, and Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.
From the DOJ complaint:
“As alleged, the defendants placed personal and company profits ahead of their duties of trust and confidentiality owed to their client, and in doing so, defrauded their client of millions of dollars,” stated United States Attorney Capers. “When questioned by their client about the higher price paid for their significant transaction, the defendants wove a web of lies designed to conceal the truth and divert attention away from their fraudulent trades. The charges and arrest announced today reflect our steadfast commitment to hold accountable corporate executives and licensed professionals who use their positions to fraudulently enrich themselves.” “The defendants allegedly betrayed their client’s confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “This case demonstrates the Criminal Division’s commitment to hold corporate executives, including at the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions, responsible for their crimes.”
The full details, as revealed in the DOJ complaint, allege that in November and December 2011, Johnson and Scott misused information provided to them by a client that hired HSBC to execute a foreign exchange transaction related to a planned sale of one of the client’s foreign subsidiaries.
HSBC was selected to execute the foreign exchange transaction – which was going to require converting approximately $3.5 billion in sales proceeds into British Pound Sterling – in October 2011.
HSBC’s agreement with the client required the bank to keep the details of the client’s planned transaction confidential. Instead, Johnson and Scott allegedly misused confidential information they received about the client’s transaction.
On multiple occasions, Johnson and Scott allegedly purchased Pound Sterling for HSBC’s “proprietary” accounts, which they held until the client’s planned transaction was executed. The complaint alleges that, as part of the scheme, both Johnson and Scott made misrepresentations to the client about the planned foreign exchange transaction that concealed the self-serving nature of their actions.
Specifically, the complaint alleges that Johnson and Scott caused the $3.5 billion foreign exchange transaction to be executed in a manner that was designed to spike the price of the Pound Sterling, to the benefit of HSBC and at the expense of their client. In total, HSBC allegedly generated profits of roughly $8,000,000 from its execution of the FX Transaction for the Victim Company, including profits generated from the front running conduct by Johnson, Scott, and other traders whom they directed.
* * *
Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve banned former UBS Group AG trader Matthew Gardiner from the banking industry for life for his role rigging currency benchmarks. Gardiner used electronic chat rooms, with names including The Cartel and The Mafia, to facilitate the rigging of foreign-exchange benchmarks and to disclose confidential customer information to traders at other banks, the Fed said in astatement Tuesday. That matter is separate from the one involving Johnson, the people said.
Recall that DOJ unwillingness to prosecute HSBC was the ultimate catalyst that prompted former AG Eric Holder to admit that some banks are "too big to prosecute." Perhaps with this arrest things are slowly starting to change.
Now, if frontrunning clients is officially an arrest-worthy offense, we can't wait for the DOJ to unleash a crackdown on criminal HFT algos whose only purpose in "life" is to do just that.Born on Twitter, fueled on Kickstarter and built in Hollywood, the WRESTLING REVOLUTION PROJECT is a 13-episode seasonal concept built on wrestling storytelling with a complete three act narrative structure. Cutting the cord completely from the modern wrestling industry chronology, it's the launch of a new universe with new characters and new rules. WRP aims to combine modern, relevant themes with compelling in-ring storytelling to create a unique wrestling television experience.
Wrestling fans can officially join the cast of WRP by being a part of the production process on October 11, 12 and 13 in Hollywood, CA. Joining the WRP production will offer fans a unique, one of a kind experience that lifts the curtain on the processes behind both independent filmmaking and professional wrestling. Attendees are not just members of the audience but instead are fully functioning members of the WRP cast, gaining weekly on-screen credit for their participation and contribution towards the product.
Additionally, attendees will be front and center in an intimate setting to watch acclaimed performers like Prince Devitt, Colt Cabana, MVP, Kenny Omega and many more as they show their skill inside the squared circle.
We now take a look at our final WRP reveal -- for now.
PRODUCING WRP #2
Thomas Laughlin, best known to wrestling fans as Tommy Dreamer
A native of Yonkers, New York, Thomas Laughlin has earned international fame and industry-wide respect as the hardcore legend "Tommy Dreamer." Originally trained for the ring by Johnny Rodz, Laughlin made his debut in 1989 before getting his initial break in 1991 with the now defunct East Coast independent promotion IWCCW. It was in 1992, however, where he would make the defining move of his career, joining a nascent independent promotion called Eastern Championship Wrestling. It was in ECW where he would find his greatest acclaim as the "Innovator of Violence," becoming a key component of the renamed Extreme Championship Wrestling via classic feuds with Raven and The Sandman. He would ultimately become regarded as the "heart and soul" of ECW, becoming an integral member of the organization behind the scenes under impresario Paul Heyman. In the years following the end of ECW he has continued to influence new generations of talent, with roles both in front of and behind the camera throughout the wrestling industry. Now - in 2011 - he brings his knowledge, talent and wisdom to the production team of the WRESTLING REVOLUTION PROJECT.
Please follow Tommy Dreamer on Twitter and join us in welcoming him to the production team of WRP.
The WRESTLING REVOLUTION PROJECT begins production this October in Los Angeles and will be distributed in both physical and digital media by Image Entertainment throughout North America. For more information on WRP check out the official WRP website and follow us on Twitter at @TheWRProject and @KatzMoney.Dusty Baker wants the Nationals to trade for a closer. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Nationals Manager Dusty Baker cannot escape the talk about his struggling bullpen. He takes questions on the subject, recently to his visible displeasure, every day before and after games. He can’t even escape it during games.
“They’ve all struggled, which one would you pick out to replace?” Baker said Wednesday. “Because I hear people in the stands, ‘Hey Dusty, take him out of there.’ Okay, who would you want me to put in? Because everybody, at some point in time, has struggled.”
[Rizzo: Bullpen’s struggles ‘will not affect team morale’]
The Nationals’ relief corps got back on track in Tuesday’s win over the Braves after collapsing in three straight games, but protecting a five-run lead in the ninth inning didn’t exactly go smoothly: Baker was forced to emerge from the dugout to take out Shawn Kelley after he allowed two singles and two long flyouts. Oliver Perez closed it out.
Matt Albers probably would’ve drawn the assignment if he were available after allowing a three-run home run Monday, and Koda Glover probably would’ve been the choice if he were healthy. But Baker doesn’t think either right-hander should handle those situations, and he wants a stout addition to eventually take the job — and he didn’t hesitate to say so Wednesday.
“I honestly feel like a bona fide closer would put everybody in a position where they should be,” Baker said. “Like Albers, he got his first save after 10 years so evidently if he was a closer he would’ve been there before now, 10 years ago. And all the other guys … not that they’re capable, they don’t know and we don’t know what it’s like. Because that sixth and seventh is different than the eighth and ninth.”
[The hallmark of Joe Ross’s brief career continues to be inconsistency]
The Nationals have had six relievers register a save this season. Blake Treinen was the first choice as closer. Kelley was next and then Glover. Enny Romero, Perez and Albers have made cameo appearances in the role at various points. Albers (2.10) and Romero (3.82) are the only ones with an ERA under 4. The bullpen has thrown fewer innings than any other in baseball. Its 1.62 home run rate is the highest. Its 5.02 ERA is ahead of only the Twins’ relief corps.
“We just got to put everybody into place, but that’s a tough situation right now because a lot of teams feel they’re still in it and nobody’s going to give up nothing right now,” Baker said. “And you’re not going to just go get somebody to go get somebody if you’re not really improving the quality above of what you have now.
“And, plus, everybody knows what you need. Everybody knows what we need. You write about it every day and other people read it, too, so it’s a tough situation. And I know is addressing it. For now, nobody’s going to give you anything. Or if they give you something, they’re going to rob you for it. So this is a situation we already discussed. I told you back in March that the save by committee don’t really work.”
But that’s where the Nationals are right now, rolling out different pitchers based on availability and matchups, and crossing their fingers. It hasn’t worked very often.
‘SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS’
Baker got a call from a friend in California at around 8:30 a.m. local, 5:30 a.m. Pacific, Wednesday morning. His friend had seen there was a shooting at a baseball field in Alexandria and he wanted to make sure Baker, who lives there, was safe. Baker was safe, but the shooting hit closer to home because he recently had lunch with the managers of Thursday’s congressional baseball game.
“I was very aware,” Baker said. “It’s a sad state of affairs … I always told my family you have to be aware of your surroundings because you just never know. Especially in crowds, especially with important people around. We always see things happening afar, but there’s a problem here domestically too. I don’t know what the answer is. It’s just sad when innocent people get hurt.”Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that, in the wake of the Cologne attacks, where hundreds of women were abused and robbed, the EU needs to call a summit to immediately put a stop to uncontrolled immigration.
His calls echo those of his Hungarian and Polish counterparts, who have both spoken out against the spread of refugees and that lack of action by the EU to protect its borders. They have also been critical of Germany — and its Chancellor Angela Merkel in particular — for its liberal attitude to refugees, which Fico described as "political correctness."
Slovakia's vow to not accept Muslim refugees and the outpouring of support for the policy is the most bigoted thing I've seen in 2016 — bunz (@BunnymanSevim) January 8, 2016
Fico said, in a TV debate following the Cologne assaults, that migrants are being treated like a "protected species" and called for urgent action to stem the flow of refugees and other migrants flooding into Europe.
— Greig Markham (@BearGardenMan) January 10, 2016 The racists now seek to stigmatize all Syrian migrants and exclude them because of Cologne. Disgraceful. Refugees deserve respect. — Peter Sutherland (@PDSutherlandUN) January 10, 2016
He has already refused to take part in the European Commission's plan to relocate 160,000 using a mandatory quota system.
"Not only are we refusing mandatory quotas, we will never make a voluntary decision that would lead to [the] formation of a united Muslim community in Slovakia. Multi-culturalism is a fiction. Once you let migrants in, you can face such problems," he said in a reference to the November 13 shootings in Paris and the Cologne assaults.
Slovakia is a largely Catholic country with a population of 5.5 million and which took in only 170 refugees last year, but is being asked by the European Commission to accept over 800 asylum seekers.
Support from East European Neighbors
Fico's comments are backed up by Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who has called for the EU to pay for a new frontier to be erected on the northern Greek border because he does not believe a US$3.4 billion deal to pay Turkey to stem the flow of refugees will work.
@EadeDebbie @PDSutherlandUN @bendiestraw oh your generation has done enough damage. You are ruining our peaceful societies for the young — Skiguru Milo-Holborn (@skiguru) January 10, 2016
European Union leaders have agreed to pay Turkey US$3.4 billion and allow visa-free EU travel for its citizens in return for Ankara doing its utmost to stem the tide of asylum seekers crossing its borders to reach Europe.
© AFP 2018 / THIERRY CHARLIER Slovakia Files Lawsuit Against Mandatory Refugee Quota - Prime Minister
However, Orbán — who has gained popular support for his tough stance on refugees and was quick to erect razor wires fences along Hungary's borders in September 2015 — said he does not believe the Turkish plan will be sufficient to deal with the refugee crisis.
Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo accused Western European and German politicians last week of not having taken the refugee problem seriously enough, while the Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka called for the immediate and automatic deportation of offender-refugees from Europe.
The Romanian government has also said it would not join in the relocation scheme, while the Conservative-Liberal Romanian European lawmaker Traian Ungureanu wrote in the daily newspaper Adevarul, that Angela Merkel and her 'open doors' invitation to refugees had brought about the "disaster of the century."Wikipedia is under a censorship attack by a convicted murderer who is invoking Germany's privacy laws in a bid to remove references to his killing of a Bavarian actor in 1990.
Lawyers for Wolfgang Werle, of Erding, Germany, sent a cease-and-desist letter (.pdf) demanding removal of Werle's name from the Wikipedia entry on actor Walter Sedlmayr. The lawyers cite German court rulings that "have held that our client's name and likeness cannot be used anymore in publication regarding Mr. Sedlmayr's death."
German media have already ceased using Werle's full name regarding the attack. Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says German publications must also alter their online archives in a bid to comport with laws designed to provide offenders an avenue to "reintegrate back into society."
"It's not just censorship going forward. It's asking outlets to go back and change what is already being written," Granick said in a telephone interview.
It's not the first time Wikipedia, the world's most popular online, public-driven encyclopedia, has been targeted by would-be censors. And it likely won't be the last.
The site went offline overseas for a day in December, as British censors blacklisted it over an entry on the German rock band Scorpions. The entry included the cover art of the Scorpions' 1976 Virgin Killer album, which depicts a nude young girl.
Werle is suing Wikipedia in a Hamburg court to try and get it to comply with the German law.
"Our client has served 15 years of his life sentence for murdering Mr. Sedlmayr in 1990. He has been released on parole [sic] in August 2007. His rehabilitation and his future life outside the prison system is severely impacted by your unwillingness to anonymize any articles dealing with the murder of Mr. Sedlmayr with regard to our client's involvement," according to the Oct. 27 cease-and-desist letter, which demands legal fees and compensation for "emotional suffering."
Wikipedia did not respond for comment.
Granick said the First Amendment protects San Francisco-based Wikipedia. But it could find itself in the same position as Yahoo, which has been fined millions by a French court for allowing users to auction Nazi paraphernalia, which is illegal in France.
In that case, Yahoo asked the American courts to intervene. So far, the U.S. courts have refrained, because France has not moved to collect the fine.
See Also:Introduction
A popular map for many, Cache has been a big map for many professional teams during the major and is a common map to find yourself on when playing competitive CS. As the more complicated of the two bomb sites, A has a number of different positions and strategies that can be played successfully as a CT with rifle, AWP and eco options throughout the site. I’ll be taking a look at some of the attacks you can potentially expect and the strategies you can use to effectively counter these plays.
The Terrorist side
First, we have to look at the options available for the Terrorist players to see the kinds of strategies a CT player can employ successfully. The Terrorists have 3 main options when entering the A site; A Main, Squeeky and Highway. Typically, a split will come out involving these areas and if you have a player mid successfully holding the position you really only have to worry about A Main and Squeeky. The players Main can both rifle and AWP from this position, quite often an AWPer will peek towards Quad accompanied by a flash and slowly clear the right hand side of the site before his team will bust out explosively. This can be accompanied by a squeaky player who can do one of two things, clear Fork and Catwalk while his teammate peeks A Main or delays their push until the players on site are distracted towards Main. If you lose Mid it starts to become difficult, as you essentially have 180 degrees of potential entry points, making it hard to keep an eye on all the avenues of attack. This will be the Terrorists' strategy, to give you too many points to defend, cut off vision and trade frags.
AWP
The AWP is a very effective weapon on the A site, being used by players such as Skadoodle with great success. Here the most common position for an AWP is Quad where there are multiple ways for you to peek and plenty of cover to take advantage of. The best thing about this position is that it is difficult to smoke or molly without showing yourself A Main, meaning that players with quick reactions will be able to pick the player before their position is compromised. Primarily you have to worry about being counter AWP’ed from Main or overrun, as the main negative of this position is that it’s quite hard to escape once the push has begun. Luckily you’ll have time to get two or three shots off before the Terrorists reach you and it’s really your goal as a Quad AWPer to be a distraction for your teammates and get as many kills as possible before you die so it’s easy for your team to retake the site.
Another effective place to AWP is Truck. Here you can take maximum advantage of range from the safety of your spawn. However, this position is quite passive and allows the T's to easily access the site with a simple smoke. This position might be better played towards the end of a round if the T players have used their utility and you know they are rotating towards the A site after an unsuccessful B push or playing for picks.
This smoke can be difficult to deal with
Rifle and Eco
Rifles and other weapons have a number of flexible positions on the A bomb site that can be exploited as a CT player. The first is shared with the AWP and is successful for similar reasons being the ability to adjust your peeks and easily defend yourself. However due to rifles being better at shorter ranges, this opens up NBK or Fence as a potential option. This is kind of a one kill position that gives you an advantage over the first person you see, but leaves you no options of retreat. From here you might want to do some damage in initial trades and as they enter the site hide right in the corner and make sure you take one person with you before you go down.
Forklift is another popular spot to play with a rifle due to its easily defensible nature and strange shape. Here it can be quite difficult for T’s to dislodge you as the protrusions of the model defend you from their fire and give you the ability to take pot shots and dodge. Here you can also look directly at Squeaky, being able to take out players before they even enter the site from that position. You also have the unique ability to look into the left side of A main where people might cross to gain scouting info and clean out your position. Your biggest enemy here is being flanked or rushed, particularly SMGs and Tec-9s can be an issue due to their higher moving accuracy and ability to one-shot you from close range. Luckily the typical Fork/Redbox smoke won’t affect you and can even be a boon as it allows you the ability to safely retreat and keep the enemy guessing. If you are getting executed on and they smoke that position, you can cross to site, back off to Highway/Cat, or even hide in the smoke giving you a ton of options.
Catwalk holds a similar position to Forklift with the trade-off of less cover and vision into Main but more verticality making it harder to preaim you and giving you a stealthier position. Furthermore, depending on your positioning, it is really easy to retreat into Highway if you get overwhelmed. This position is kind of a pseudo-A position, when in reality you are almost playing mid and A depending on the info your team gives you. The elevation of this position also means that smokes can't affect you meaning that you can quite often get unexpected kills on entry. Generally keep quiet until the T’s push onto site, then try to get as many kills as possible while they aren’t looking.
Boost is an interesting position to play and requires two people to get there. There are two techniques to reaching the Boost position next to A Main, either performing a run boost on Redbox or boosting on the toxic barrels at the doorway of A Main. This can be a risky strategy, but by getting a player up there you have a massive advantage when defending the site. From this position you have the ability to be completely covered from anyone entering the site from either A Main or Squeaky and as a more unconventional spot it is rarely checked by people pushing Highway. Typically, it is more effective on slower plays that give you time to set up a successful execution defense, your teammate can play passively on site allowing the T’s to enter and then you can set up a crossfire taking them out from behind while their attention is distracted.
Aggression and general tips
Generally, you want to smoke A Main before you do anything else as it allows you to control the site without fear of early aggression. Simply stand in the corner of Truck as you run to A and throw the smoke as shown below to get a consistent and fast A Main smoke.
This also opens up opportunities for aggression. If you want to push A Main you can easily throw a flash on the empty side of A Main that will flash the enemy and leave you with vision allowing you to land a pick and escape back through the smoke into safety. It is also possible to push into Squeaky before the T’s reach it. Simply run in and hold your position for a few seconds to make sure a player isn’t rushing in to secure the kill. If it's all clear you can even sneak out and take a look to see if a player is boosted and get information that the T’s may be setting up for some kind of Mid or B push.
Conclusion
The A site on CT side Cache is very fun to play and offers players of all techniques various successful options to hold. Find out the positions you prefer to play and mix them around to keep the T’s guessing on their executions. Always remember that you don’t necessarily have to completely shut down a push by yourself. Wuite often you just need to get enough kills to let your team retake the site from all angles once you die.
Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!Second MLP related drawing. Best work I've done in years. Good enough that I've decided to return to DeviantART anyway after a many year hiatus.Work keeps me busy but with the assistance of the more-than-helpful r/MLPdrawingschool community I'm confident I can pull myself up by the bootstraps with simpler forms back into the loftier areas of complex forms and schema again.On the painting: Not the best representations, I'm afraid. The clouds looks a bit like rocks, I'm told. Another thing to work on as I improve. For reference, Rainbow Dash is supposed to be a few inches above the cloud, having just flapped her wings (which I also need to work the anatomy of in later pieces) and creating the crater in the cloud underhoof.The Mare in the Moon displayed in the image is not mine; much as I wish it were. It is the property of speedingturtle. A link to the image follows:By Jeff Fulmer
Occupy Wall Street has quickly grown from a single protest at Zuccotti Park in New York to over 900 cities around the world. There are several reasons why the Occupy Movement has experienced such exponential growth in only three months, but the primary one is that they boldly seized a cause that was crying out for a champion. There was, and still is, a groundswell of people who desperately want to restore balance to a fundamentally unjust economic system.
While more Americans than ever slipped below the poverty line in 2011 (46.2 million), the wealthiest 1% now controls 40% of the nation’s wealth. That kind of disparity is wrong by any standards, and is an injustice that falls squarely with the church’s domain. Some pastors have been fighting the good fight for years; however, many are strangely silent when it comes to getting actively involved in shaping policies that help the sick, hungry, and poor (aka “the least of these.”) Not wanting to create a riff in their congregations or upset contributors, they tend to shy away from the “controversial” issues.
2000 or so years ago, a radical preacher and healer spoke out against the powers of his day. “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23:4) Jesus was speaking about the Pharisees, but he could have easily been talking to business people who have exploited the public, as well as the politicians who protect them. He also had some pretty harsh things to say about money and those who hoard it. (Matthew 6: 24, Matthew 19:23, Luke 12: 13 – 21, Luke 16: 19-31)
Besides tapping into the discontent of many Americans, Occupy Wall Street is doing some other things churches would do well to emulate. For instance, #OWS is very decentralized and democratic. While they have organizers, they seem willing to put everything to a vote, including what and where to protest. Listening to their members and empowering them to take up the banner in their own communities has helped the movement spread like wildfire. And when the press and celebrities show up at their rallies, they are greeted without fanfare and treated like normal people.
While it often feels like Washington only listens to people who can afford lobbyists, church leaders can be just as guilty of cozying up to the rich and powerful. “… they love the places of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplace and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ (Matthew 23: 5 – 7) Big denominational organizations pronounce official edicts on morality, and mega-churches put their charismatic preachers on pedestals. These top-down hierarchies can often rob the church of the untapped potential in their pews.
From the beginning, #OWS has been fiercely. Inspired by the protests taking place in Egypt, it was Adbusters who originally floated an email about a march on Wall Street. (Adbusters produces ads that challenge misleading corporate messages). For many of us, the notion of not selling out is appealing… After a lifetime of being told that happiness can be ours for the price of a cell phone or car, many are no longer buying the lies.
People are hungry for an alternative to the never-ending cycle of consumerism, and churches can draw a starker line between the love of God and love of the world. Christmas is the most obvious way religion has been co-opted by capitalism, but money finds many more subtle ways to creep in and corrupt the most well-intentioned plans. Jesus never seemed angrier than when he drove the moneychangers from the temple. (John 2:14 – 16) That’s a pretty strong message that God will not be bought.
Finally, Occupy Wall Street is using peaceful methods to protest the powers that be. The fact that they have been evicted from various public areas only makes them more sympathetic. And when they are willing to go to jail or endure physical hardship (such as the Marine, Scott Olson), it engenders respect. This is essentially the same method that Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi used to protest – both of whom were influenced by Christ and his peaceful (except for the moneychangers) ministry.
When was the last time Christians came together and linked arms to protest anything? Many of us have missed meaningful opportunities to let our voices be heard. While martyrdom isn’t required for most modern day believers, we are called to make sacrifices. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Matthew 9:23) Not only is speaking out being true to your convictions, it also offers a beacon of hope to others. The world is attracted to people who are passionate enough to live out their beliefs in the open and out on the streets.
It can be dangerous to paint all of Wall Street with the same brush, just as the Tea Party does more harm by vilifying all things government. While I’m reluctant to embrace everything about #OWS, I certainly hope they will bring about positives changes. Even if I don’t Occupy Wall Street, or even my hometown of Nashville, there are endless opportunities to make a difference. After all, as Christians, we have been called to occupy the nations and lead the way to a better, more just world.
Jeff Fulmer lives in Nashville TN and is the author of Hometown Prophet.OAKLAND, Calif. — Jimmy Butler spoke with Carmelo Anthony three days ago.
It was a catch-up call, Butler said Wednesday.
It should’ve been a recruiting call, letting Anthony know he’s still welcomed if he waives that no-trade clause to escape the Knicks.
But don’t rule out Butler making that type of call soon.
“That is half the battle,’’ Butler said about making a player from another team feel appreciated. “And I could still do that. Everybody knows what Carmelo can bring to a team. The dude is a hell of a player.
“But we have some things that we’ve got to worry about here first in the next few weeks [leading into the Feb. 23 trade deadline] before we go down that road.’’
Anthony almost joined the Bulls as a free agent in July 2014 but opted to stay in New York, re-signing with the Knicks for five years and $124 million, almost $50 million more than what the Bulls could offer.
“It came down to Chicago and New York,’’ Anthony said later that season. “Chicago was the one from Day 1 [and] was something I was very impressed with.... There was one point that I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going.’ ’’
So what has changed since?
Everything.
Anthony still might love New York, but New York no longer loves him. At least Knicks president Phil Jackson doesn’t.
The latest shot from Jackson came Tuesday in a tweet in the wake of a Bleacher Report article by Kevin Ding that was critical of Anthony and his desire to win. By the way, Ding and Jackson have had a close relationship for more than a decade.
“Bleacher’s Ding almost rings the bell, but I learned you don’t change the spot on |
Transactor and Java run-time baked into an AMI, is so that when a machine is launched it has everything it needs to get going, rather than depending on scripts to go and fetch what it needs at a crucial stage in deployment.
The default Datomic transactor AMI is a good approach for getting going, but at some stage you may want to consider building your own AMI to give you more fine grained control. For example you may want to allow SSH access on the transactor so that you can more closely monitor the process. You may also want to embed agents onto the machine to capture logs or to distribute machine profiling metrics.
This is where Packer comes in. In our pack-datomic repository we have an extensible datomic.json packer template that you can use to build your own Datomic Transactor AMI. To build, simply run (substituting in the correct variables):
packer build -var 'datomic_version=?' -var 'datomic_user=?' -var 'datomic_password=? datomic.json
Using Terraform
CloudFormation templates are not an ideal choice for storing infrastructure-as-code. CloudFormation JSON is verbose, unwieldy, lacks for comments, and doesn't have a modular structure.
Terraform has its own DSL that solves these problems, as well as providing an intuitive command line API that allows you to plan for and to make fine grained updates to existing infrastructure, as well as being cloud agnostic. Terraform is restricted in scope and doesn't solve every problem for you (i.e. configuration management where tools such as Ansible and Puppet may still feature), but so far we love it.
There is an implicit emphasis to make reusable Terraform modules, and that's what we've done in pack-datomic, providing a Datomic Transactor module. This module will create the relevant security group and IAM role permissions, an S3 bucket for logs, and an Auto Scaling Group with a Launch Configuration.
To use it, add to the module to your existing Terraform setup:
module "datomic" { source = "github.com/juxt/pack-datomic//modules/transactor?ref=0.2.2" # Declare variable inputs #... }
See the sample Terraform template for a setup example.
I originally bootstrapped Datomic and Terraform using Robert Stutterford's example that is more comprehensive (alongside other things, it adds a Datadog agent and Memcached); it's well worth checking out and is being constantly updated.This is … crazy simple. I wanted to move a site from ipstenu.org to ipstenu.com (yes, I own that too). While ipstenu.org is a Multisite network, ipstenu.com is where I put a ton of add-on domains. I was moving a site over and, as it was WordPress, did it in a matter of minutes.
Add the domain to the … domain # Add the domain to the … domain
Since I don’t care to have multiple hosting accounts, and I’m the only one with SSH/FTP access, it’s safe enough for me to do this. There is a risk when you share multiple domains in one hosting account, that if one gets hacked they’re all vulnerable, but I consider it low in my situation. Every plugin is vetted, every file is checked, and then I went and gave each add-on it’s own FTP account. Neurotic? Thy name is me.
Anyway, I add the new domain to my hosting where I want it.
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Create the new DB # Create the new DB
I have to make a new database, and generally a new DB user, on the server too.
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On existing hosting, I do this:
wp db export
That gives me my SQL file, thanks to WP-CLI. It’ll be named example_com.sql and will sit in my folder with.htaccess and everything else.
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I do it via SSH. I go to the new location and run this:
scp -r [email protected]:path/to/files/.
Since I have ssh keys set up, it’s easy. If I don’t, I’ll put in the password, but that’s straightforward.
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Now I have to point to the new DB. Sometimes I name it the same, but usually I don’t, so I’ll edit the DB name, DB user, and password.
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Import the old DB # Import the old DB
Ready?
wp db import example_com.sql
Boom. It’s all dumped in! Only two steps left!
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I love this one.
wp search-replace example.com newexample.com --dry-run
I ALWAYS dryrun test it. This is a serialization safe search, so rarely is it ever going to be an issue to just run, but it lets me make sure I don’t get any wonky results. I never have, so re-run without dry-run.
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Delete the SQL file, delete the old files on the old server.
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I moved code. That’s shipping, right? Or is it margaritas are for migrations?He’s set to appear Thursday at a closed-door event for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the Washington Post reported.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez told the Post that Obama wants to help “build the bench” for the Democrats.
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“That bully pulpit still very much rests with him,” Ward told the Post.
Obama wants to support the committee’s “efforts to address unfair gerrymandering practices that leave too many American voters feeling voiceless in the electoral process,” spokesman Kevin Lewis said.
“Restoring fairness to our democracy by advocating for fairer, more inclusive district maps around the country is a priority for President Obama,” he added.
NDRC Executive Director, Kelly Ward would not say how much Obama’s appearance is expected to bring in, said he “still has such a microphone” to woo donors to invest in state-level races.On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” network contributor Brit Hume said President Donald Trump “got rolled” in his debt ceiling deal with Democratic leaders House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY).
Hume said, “No doubt Chuck and Nancy were happy. He got rolled. The president got rolled and his administration, therefore, got rolled because as you pointed out correctly doing the short-term deal attached to the Hurricane Harvey money, which was a must pass and therefore a good vehicle to do a longer debt limit extension and perhaps other things as well, is now a three month deal and we are right back where we started except the Hurricane Harvey leverage when December rolls around. It’s a terrible deal, and I think the president wanted to sign something so he got something to sign but he got rolled.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNENPeru's Congress has sacked the prime minister, Ana Jara, shown in Lima on August 20, 2014, over alleged spying against lawmakers, reporters, business leaders and other citizens (AFP Photo/)
Lima (AFP) - Peru's Congress has sacked the prime minister, Ana Jara, over alleged spying against lawmakers, reporters, business leaders and other citizens.
Supreme executive power in Peru is held by the president, in this case Ollanta Humala. It is the biggest crisis in his four years in power.
This is the first time the congress of Peru has deposed a prime minister since 1968. With a year left of his term, Humala must now name a prime minister for the seventh time.
The censure vote against Jara was 72 to 42, with two abstentions.
On March 19, the magazine Correo Semanal published a list of Peruvians who had allegedly been investigated by the National Intelligence Directorate, or DINI.
These people included politicians and their families, journalists, business people and thousands of everyday citizens.
After the news broke, Jara, who in July completed her first year in the post, was summoned to Congress.
She said she had asked for an investigation and said the data search against the investigated people went back at least two previous governments.
The practice went back to 2005 "and nothing was done. Now, someone who wants to do something (investigate), is censured," said ruling party lawmaker Victor Isla.
In early February the government ordered the intelligence service called the DINI to close temporarily. It is accused of spying on both government officials and opposition figures.
"Although she did not give instructions for this to happen, it is clear that in politics someone has to take responsibility," opposition lawmaker Javier Bedoya said during debate prior to the vote that ousted the prime minister.The phrase, attributed to China's then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, appears in a previously suppressed diary which publishers say will lift the veil of secrecy over how the decision was made to send in the tanks on the night of June 3-4.
Leaked extracts of the diary said to be by Li Peng, the hardline former head of China's government in 1989 who is most deeply associated with the bloody crackdown, appeared yesterday as dissidents commemorated the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square.
"The measures for martial law must be steady-handed, and we must minimise harm, but we must prepare to spill some blood," Deng told officials on May 19 1989, according to a copy of the manuscript.
Mr Li, now 81 and reportedly in frail health, is said to have written his diary to justify his own role in the killings and to counter long-standing beliefs in China that it he pressured Deng Xiaoping into ordering the use of lethal force.
"From the beginning of the turmoil, I have prepared for the worst," Mr Li is quoted as saying.
"I would rather sacrifice my own life and that of my family to prevent China from going through a tragedy like the Cultural Revolution," he added, referring to a period of bitter political in-fighting in China from 1966-76.
The memoirs come a year after the publication of the secret memoirs of Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party general secretary, who Premier Li helped push from office for seeking to negotiate with the protestors.
The publishers say they taken every possible to assess the authenticity of the memoirs which were passed to them through a middle-man, but admit that some doubts remain which will set out in a footnote to the book that will come out later this month.
News of the Li Peng memoir came as an estimated 50,000 people, many of them students, gathered in Hong Kong's Victoria Park for the annual candlelit vigil to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre.
All mention of the "Tiananmen Incident" is suppressed in mainland China, with the authorities banning any mention in the state-controlled media, although former dissidents expressed their feeling through online forums.
It was quiet in central Beijing on Friday as black cars marked "special police" - each manned with two armed officers wearing helmets and flak jackets - patrolled at regular intervals.
However, in a message to mark the anniversary, Taiwan's president Ma Ying-jeou said that China must learn the lessons from 1989 and be more tolerant toward dissidents if it wants to convince the rest of the world of its good intentions.
Mr Ma urged Beijing to adopt "a brand new approach to human rights issues and [to] convince the world that the rise of mainland China was peaceful and would embody the universal values of freedom, democracy and human rights." Elsewhere another of the leading figures of the 1989 movement, the student activist Wu'er Kaixi who was listed as number two on the government's "most wanted" list, was arrested trying enter the Chinese embassy in Tokyo.
Now 42, Wu'er Kaixi, became a celebrity overnight after he dared to interrupt Li Peng during a meeting between student leaders and politicians that was aired live on state television on May 18, 1989.
Last year, on the 20th anniversary of the massacre Wu'er Kaixi tried to enter Macau to hand himself over to the authorities, but was refused entry and deported back to Taiwan where he has been living in exile.
After returning to Taipei he said at the time: "I am deeply saddened that I have not been able to see my family for 20 years and that my intention to return by turning myself in was barred.
"The Chinese government is avoiding something that happened 20 years ago...
I am wanted in China but I cannot even turn myself in. Is China really a confident, great nation?"Table of Contents
1. Overview
This article discusses how to set up both Basic and Digest Authentication on the same URI structure of a REST API. In a previous article, we discussed another method of securing the REST Service – form-based authentication, so Basic and Digest authentication is the natural alternative, as well as the more RESTful one.
2. Configuration of Basic Authentication
The main reason that form-based authentication is not ideal for a RESTful Service is that Spring Security will make use of Sessions – this is of course state on the server, so the statelessness constraints in REST is practically ignored.
We’ll start by setting up Basic Authentication – first we remove the old custom entry point and filter from the main <http> security element:
<http create-session="stateless"> <intercept-url pattern="/api/admin/**" access="ROLE_ADMIN" /> <http-basic /> </http>
Note how support for basic authentication has been added with a single configuration line – <http-basic /> – which handles the creation and wiring of both the BasicAuthenticationFilter and the BasicAuthenticationEntryPoint.
2.1. Satisfying the stateless constraint – getting rid of sessions
One of the main constraints of the RESTful architectural style is that the client-server communication is fully stateless, as the original dissertation reads:
5.1.3 Stateless We next add a constraint to the client-server interaction: communication must be stateless in nature, as in the client-stateless-server (CSS) style of Section 3.4.3 (Figure 5-3), such that each request from client to server must contain all of the information necessary to understand the request, and cannot take advantage of any stored context on the server. Session state is therefore kept entirely on the client.
The concept of Session on the server is one with a long history in Spring Security, and removing it entirely has been difficult until now, especially when the configuration was done by using the namespace.
However, Spring Security augments the namespace configuration with a new stateless option for session creation, which effectively guarantees that no session will be created or used by Spring. What this new option does is complete removes all session related filters from the security filter chain, ensuring that authentication is performed for each request.
3. Configuration of Digest Authentication
Starting with the previous configuration, the filter and entry point necessary to set up digest authentication will be defined as beans. Then, the digest entry point will override the one created by <http-basic> behind the scenes. Finally, the custom digest filter will be introduced in the security filter chain using the after semantics of the security namespace to position it directly after the basic authentication filter.
<http create-session="stateless" entry-point-ref="digestEntryPoint"> <intercept-url pattern="/api/admin/**" access="ROLE_ADMIN" /> <http-basic /> <custom-filter ref="digestFilter" after="BASIC_AUTH_FILTER" /> </http> <beans:bean id="digestFilter" class= "org.springframework.security.web.authentication.www.DigestAuthenticationFilter"> <beans:property name="userDetailsService" ref="userService" /> <beans:property name="authenticationEntryPoint" ref="digestEntryPoint" /> </beans:bean> <beans:bean id="digestEntryPoint" class= "org.springframework.security.web.authentication.www.DigestAuthenticationEntryPoint"> <beans:property name="realmName" value="Contacts Realm via Digest Authentication"/> <beans:property name="key" value="acegi" /> </beans:bean> <authentication-manager> <authentication-provider> <user-service id="userService"> <user name="eparaschiv" password="eparaschiv" authorities="ROLE_ADMIN" /> <user name="user" password="user" authorities="ROLE_USER" /> </user-service> </authentication-provider> </authentication-manager>
Unfortunately, there is no support in the security namespace to automatically configure the digest authentication the way basic authentication can be configured with <http-basic>. Because of that, the necessary beans had to be defined and wired manually into the security configuration.
4. Supporting both authentication protocols in the same RESTful service
Basic or Digest authentication alone can be easily implemented in Spring Security; it is supporting both of them for the same RESTful web service, on the same URI mappings that introduces a new level of complexity into the configuration and testing of the service.
4.1. Anonymous request
With both basic and digest filters in the security chain, the way an anonymous request – a request containing no authentication credentials (Authorization HTTP header) – is processed by Spring Security is – the two authentication filters will find no credentials and will continue execution of the filter chain. Then, seeing how the request wasn’t authenticated, an AccessDeniedException is thrown and caught in the ExceptionTranslationFilter, which commences the digest entry point, prompting the client for credentials.
The responsibilities of both the basic and digest filters are very narrow – they will continue to execute the security filter chain if they are unable to identify the type of authentication credentials in the request. It is because of this that Spring Security can have the flexibility to be configured with support for multiple authentication protocols on the same URI.
When a request is made containing the correct authentication credentials – either basic or digest – that protocol will be rightly used. However, for an anonymous request, the client will get prompted only for digest authentication credentials. This is because the digest entry point is configured as the main and single entry point of the Spring Security chain; as such digest authentication can be considered the default.
4.2. Request with authentication credentials
A request with credentials for Basic authentication will be identified by the Authorization header starting with the prefix “Basic”. When processing such a request, the credentials will be decoded in the basic authentication filter and the request will be authorized. Similarly, a request with credentials for Digest authentication will use the prefix “Digest” for it’s Authorization header.
5. Testing both scenarios
The tests will consume the REST service by creating a new resource after authenticating with either basic or digest:
@Test public void givenAuthenticatedByBasicAuth_whenAResourceIsCreated_then201IsReceived(){ // Given // When Response response = given().auth().preemptive().basic( ADMIN_USERNAME, ADMIN_PASSWORD ).contentType( HttpConstants.MIME_JSON ).body( new Foo( randomAlphabetic( 6 ) ) ).post( paths.getFooURL() ); // Then assertThat( response.getStatusCode(), is( 201 ) ); } @Test public void givenAuthenticatedByDigestAuth_whenAResourceIsCreated_then201IsReceived(){ // Given // When Response response = given().auth().digest( ADMIN_USERNAME, ADMIN_PASSWORD ).contentType( HttpConstants.MIME_JSON ).body( new Foo( randomAlphabetic( 6 ) ) ).post( paths.getFooURL() ); // Then assertThat( response.getStatusCode(), is( 201 ) ); }
Note that the test using basic authentication adds credentials to the request preemptively, regardless if the server has challenged for authentication or not. This is to ensure that the server doesn’t need to challenge the client for credentials, because if it did, the challenge would be for Digest credentials, since that is the default.
6. Conclusion
This article covered the configuration and implementation of both Basic and Digest authentication for a RESTful service, using mostly Spring Security namespace support as well as some new features in the framework.This article is about the neurosurgeon and author. For his great-grandfather, see Eben Alexander (educator)
Eben Alexander III (born December 11, 1953) is an American neurosurgeon and author. His book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (2012) describes his 2008 near-death experience and asserts that science can and will determine that the brain does not create consciousness and that consciousness survives bodily death. Alexander is also the author of the 2014 book The Map of Heaven which builds on the claims in his previous book, and coauthor of the 2017 book Living in a Mindful Universe which describes his personal journey since 2008.
Early life and education [ edit ]
Alexander was born in Charlotte, North Carolina.[1] He was adopted by Eben Alexander Jr and his wife Elizabeth West Alexander and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with three siblings.[2][3] He attended Phillips Exeter Academy (class of 1972), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (A.B., 1975), and the Duke University School of Medicine (M.D., 1980). He completed his Neurosurgery residency at Duke University Medical Center in 1987 followed by a Cerebrovascular Neurosurgery fellowship at the Newcastle General Hospital in the United Kingdom in 1988.[4]
Medical career [ edit ]
Alexander has taught and had appointments at Duke University Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and the University of Virginia Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute et al.
While practicing medicine in Lynchburg at the Lynchburg General Hospital, Alexander was reprimanded by the Virginia Board of Medicine for performing surgery at an incorrect surgical site two times over the course of a month. In one instance, Alexander altered his operative report because he believed the surgery had diminished the patient's symptoms. He was sued by the patient for damages totaling $3 million in August 2008, but the case was dismissed by the plaintiff in 2009. As a result of the mishaps, Alexander lost his privileges at the hospital and was forced to pay a $3,500 fine to the Virginia Board of Medicine and complete ethics and professionalism training to maintain an unrestricted medical license in the state.[6]
Following the release of his 2012 book Proof of Heaven, Esquire magazine reported that Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits and that he settled five malpractice suits in Virginia within a period of ten years.[7]
Writing career [ edit ]
Proof of Heaven [ edit ]
In 2012, Alexander authored a semi-autobiographical book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, in which he asserted that his self-experience of out of body and near-death experience (NDE), while in a meningitis-induced coma in 2008, proved that consciousness is independent of the brain and that death is a transition phase into another realm.[8][9] Alexander said in a New York Times interview that he had preferred a title of "An N of One" (a medical trial size of one patient) instead of "Proof of Heaven". He said, believers in heaven were not happy with the title because, "This is not scientific proof."[10]
Alexander's book was excerpted in a Newsweek magazine cover story in October 2012.[11] Alexander provided a slightly more technical account of the events described in his book in an article, "My Experience in Coma", in AANS Neurosurgeon, the trade publication of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.[12]
Since the release of the book, he has presented hundreds of lectures around the world in churches, hospitals, medical schools, and academic symposia, besides appearing on TV shows including Super Soul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey.[13][14] Alexander has also expanded on his NDE in the Congress of Neurological Surgeons[15] and the peer-reviewed Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association.[16][17]
Proof of Heaven was included on The New York Times Best Seller list for 97 weeks.[18]
The Map of Heaven [ edit ]
Alexander's second book, The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife, was published in October 2014, where he again asserted the existence of an afterlife and that consciousness is independent of the brain. The Map of Heaven was number 12 on the New York Times bestseller list during the week ending November 2, 2014.[19]
Living in a Mindful Universe [ edit ]
Alexander's third book, Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Heart of Consciousness, was coauthored with Karen Newell, cofounder of Sacred Acoustics. Published in 2017, the book discusses attempts to understand the true nature of consciousness backed by scientific findings and cultivating a state of harmony with the universe and our higher purpose. The authors also discuss awareness of spiritual realms and developing experience that leads to profound understanding for a more harmonious and peaceful world.[20][21][22]
Criticism and reaction [ edit ]
In a 2013 investigation of Alexander's story and medical background, Esquire magazine reported that before the publication of Proof of Heaven, Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. He settled five malpractice suits in Virginia within a period of ten years.[7]
Esquire also found what it said were discrepancies with regard to Alexander's version of events in the book. Among the discrepancies, was that Alexander had written the cause of his coma was bacterial meningitis, despite his doctor telling the reporter that he had been conscious and hallucinating before being placed in a medically induced coma.[7][23] In a statement responding to the criticism, Alexander maintained that his representation of the experience was truthful and that he believed in the message contained in his book. He also claimed that the Esquire article "cherry-picked" information about his past to discredit his accounts of the event.[23]
Proof of Heaven was also criticized by scientists, including Sam Harris who described Alexander's NDE account on his blog as "alarmingly unscientific", and that claims of experiencing visions while his cerebral cortex was shut down demonstrated a failure to acknowledge existing brain science with little evidence prove otherwise.[24] Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks agreed with Harris, and argued that Alexander had failed to recognize that the experience could have been the result of his cortex returning to full function at the outset of his coma, rather than a supernatural experience.[25] In 2012 Alexander responded to critics in a second Newsweek article,[26] where he said that he vividly remembers having periods of hallucination and explains that there was a massive difference between them and his 'fully immersive' visions of the afterlife. Alexander describes the hallucinations in his book, saying that they were disjointed and centred around both random events and his doctors. He then compares them to the "hyper-real" experience of the afterlife, and says they do not match up. He also made a prediction in his book that secular critics, which included himself before his coma, would attempt to discredit him and his experience without looking into it properly.
Personal life [ edit ]
In 2000, Alexander located his birth parents but learned his birth mother did not want to meet him.[27] His birth mother eventually changed her mind and Alexander met his birth parents and siblings in 2007.[28]
See also [ edit ](Newser) – Veterans who return from service not only have to deal with everyday re-entry issues (finding jobs, reacclimating to life with family and friends), but also with the injuries and PTSD they may have brought home with them. To cope with the physical and mental pain, many of them are prescribed painkillers, and as Valerie Bauerlein and Arian Campo-Flores reveal for the Wall Street Journal, there's now a "large population" of drug-addicted veterans—and the Department of Veterans Affairs is conceding its own part in creating the problem. The piece delves into how vets had a tougher time getting the meds they had grown accustomed to after 2013, when the department started cracking down on prescriptions and the opioids became harder to come by. That's when many veterans turned to the streets to get their painkillers, and when that cost became unwieldy, some even turned to illegal drugs like heroin.
And now, as veterans look for someone to help them break out of the addiction cycle, the VA is hamstrung by budgetary and bureaucratic constraints, leaving many addicts flailing in the wind. The problem is especially prevalent around Fort Bragg, the nation's largest military installation, in Fayetteville, NC, where a study showed 47% of opioid prescriptions there get abused. The Fayetteville VA offers limited treatment options with plenty of red tape, lack of staffing, and long wait times to get into treatment. "It gets discouraging," says a 30-year-old North Carolina Army vet who tried to get help for himself after suffering severe injuries in Afghanistan and attempting to kill himself. "It makes it easier to just say, 'F--- it, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing." Read more on the problem at the Wall Street Journal. (Read more Longform stories.)Image copyright PA
So in case anyone thinks that the bubble in the London housing market has been caused by the government's second Help to Buy scheme, today's stats show that is an absurd notion.
The important questions about Help to Buy are different ones:
has it been helpful in providing affordable mortgages to first-time buyers?
has it been useful in reviving the housing market outside London?
is it in fact a waste of effort and money, because the housing market was in the process of rebounding anyway?
is it appropriate for the taxpayer to subsidise mortgages?
The killer stat, when it comes to London, is that just 0.6% of all housing transactions funded by mortgages involved a Help to Buy government guarantee. The proportion would be even lower, if the large number of cash purchases in London were included.
And in the most red-hot part of London's housing market, Brent - where prices have been rising at annual rate of about a third - there has been just one Help to Buy mortgage.
In the land of the super-rich, Kensington and Chelsea, there have been two Help to Buy mortgages.
London prices, rising at an annual rate of 17%, are being driven by cash purchases being made by foreign investors, by a local economy that is reviving much faster than anywhere else in the UK, by buy-to-let purchases and by old-fashioned speculative fever and fervour.
Huw van Steenis of Morgan Stanley estimates that buy-to-let mortgages in London had more than 10 times the impact of Help to Buy in the first three months of the year.
In London, Help to Buy is a near irrelevance.
Image copyright Getty Images
So if the London bubble poses the greatest current threat to financial and economic stability, as the governor of the Bank of England recently opined, abolishing it or modifying it would make damn all difference.
Which poses something of a problem for the Bank's Financial Policy Committee (FPC), since at the top of its agenda for next month's meeting is what to do about that localised overheating.
It would be slightly odd, given the data, if the FPC put pressure on the government to scale back or abolish Help to Buy.
Apart from anything else, Help to Buy is being used at the bottom end of the market, not the frothier top end: at the end of March the price of houses bought or remortgaged through the scheme was just 60% of the average UK house price.
Or to put it another way, Help to Buy appears to be helping first-time buyers - who represent 80% of all Help to Buy deals - and those on lower incomes.
More interesting is not whether Help to Buy is some lethal danger to the sustainable revival of the UK economy - it is whether there was any need for it.
There the answer is nuanced.
Some 95% of housing completions funded by Help to Buy were outside London, including 14% in the South East, 14% in the North West and 9% in Yorkshire and Humber.
What is striking is that in the more depressed regions of the North East, Northern Ireland and and Wales there were relatively few Help to Buy mortgages deals: collectively those areas represent just 10% of all such subsidised transactions.
So here is one important uncertainty: is Help to Buy stimulating demand or responding to demand?
If you look at the regional pattern of take-up, Help to Buy seems to be used after local people start to feel more confident, rather than causing them to feel more confident.
And, for the avoidance of doubt, the revival in the UK housing market was under way for the best part of a year before Help to Buy was launched.
All of which broadly means that Help to Buy should probably not be seen through the prism of financial stability or economic policy, but as social policy.
What matters about Help to Buy is whether, in a UK suffering from a chronic shortage of residential accommodation that causes housing to be pricey, it is appropriate for the government to provide subsidised mortgages to those on lower incomes.
Which is more about politics than economics, about whether that's the best and fairest use of public money.Well, well, well, it seems like Ru and the queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race have a fan in one of the most talented, and gorgeous, actresses in the world — Miss Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett, who just wrapped a Broadway run in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and is currently filming Captain America: The Winter Solider alongside Chris Evans, tells Marie Claire that there is really only one thing she wants to do when she gets some free time.
“I’ve been obsessed with RuPaul’s Drag Race. I love the makeup, I love the hair, I love the looks. That’s been my escape.”
A great actress with great taste. Now the only questions is, which new queen will be serving us some Scarlett Johansson realness during season six’s Snatch Game episode?
You can read more about the amazing Scarlett in the May 2013 issue of Marie Claire.
Scarlett Johansson’s Stunning Dolce & Gabbana AdThis Christmas, I preached through the Christmas story as told by Luke. For all the times I've read the story, I've never noticed this small line hidden in the middle of the Christmas narrative. But this year was different. This year, that small, innocent line refused to go unnoticed and forced me to see it.
After Elizabeth became pregnant with John, she praised God. "The Lord has done this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people."
We know that disgrace. My wife knows that disgrace. I know that disgrace.
Infertility.
No, it isn't the same type of disgrace that Elizabeth experienced. In that day, an inability to bear children was equated with sin. It was assumed that the reason for barrenness was your own doing. You must have done something. You must have something to repent of. Some sin you committed. Some reason God was withholding his blessing from you.
You.
You created the problem by your disobedience, and now God is punishing you.
Thankfully, the shame of disapproving eyes and rumored gossip doesn't surround infertility in America anymore. But shame still exists.
Shame grows with constant thermometer readings. Peeing on countless sticks. Needles. Probes. Tiny plastic cups. Forever counting days. Sex that feels mechanical and forced because "It's time."
Shame slips in with the silent words spoken as another month pregnant only with hope passes by. It is amazing how much silence surrounds the struggle of infertility. The silence of not wanting to talk about it. The silence of wanting to talk about it, but being scared. The silence of trying to avoid the one thing you are wondering about, but not wanting to focus on it, and yet having your mind dominated by it. The silence of not feeling comfortable talking with others about it because it involves sex. The silence because you just don't want to deal with the questions.
That silence gives shame all the voice it needs to whisper silently, "Something is wrong with you."
Infertility is a shame-filled, silent trial, isolating couples in closed bedrooms of pain.
As a man, the pain of infertility is difficult to talk about. While my wife and I walked through our experiences together, she felt the pain of not being able to conceive more acutely than I did. Pregnancy was failing to take place in her body. Even though the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with either of us, she was the one scheduling the monthly ultrasounds. She was the one taking medications. She was the one physically being reminded every 28 days of the failure to conceive. The pain was much closer and much more tangible for her. And all I could do was stand back and watch. I felt hopeless. Unable to do what I normally do when situations aren't what I want them to be: Fix it.
We stood in the kitchen having the same discussion we've had every month. The sadness was making Sarah cry and I stood there helpless. I hugged her, but I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't fix this. This was out of my control.
Helplessness is not a feeling I do well with.
As I held my crying wife, I didn't cry, but quietly grieved and started pulling back from hope. The grieving brought on by infertility is different from other grief I have experienced because you do not grieve what was lost, but what never was. At some point, you start grieving for what never will be.
Men don't talk often about infertility. My guess is that, if we started the conversations, a lot of guys would feel helpless. When people dream of starting their family, no one sees years of disappointment and frustration as part of the process. No, when we dream of starting our family it is a nice and tidy schedule. "First we will go off birth control, then in 3-6 months we will get pregnant." Wouldn't that be nice?
Instead, those struggling with infertility find themselves dealing with resignation, bitterness, anger and exhaustion.
Exhaustion from fighting to hold on to hope.
Infertility is a brutal cycle that steps on hands gripping hope. The cycle begins each month with hope only to be followed by disappointment.
Hope.
False alarm.
Hope.
Discouragement.
Hope.
Frustration.
Hope.
Shame.
Hope.
Despair.
At any point in this cycle you are constantly reminded of what you cannot do by running into countless pregnant women in the grocery store, at church or at the gym.
Church is a good place to find support, but it isn't always a tower of refuge. The American church is one place in our culture where marriage and kids is an expectation. Singles are constantly met with questions about when they will get married, and unnecessarily pitied or prayed for when a potential spouse isn't in the picture. Young marrieds are bombarded about when they will start having kids, as if their marriage doesn't really matter until a child validates it.
Around church, having kids is talked about as if it is like scheduling a tune-up for your car. "Isn't it time the two of you start having kids?" is one of the most painful questions a couple dealing with infertility can hear. Because that's exactly how they feel! It is time for them to start having kids. They've been hoping and praying and wanting and waiting for a long time for God to respond to |
them– being turned on by men’s penises without being attracted to men in general is bad and wrong and they should stop. I think this is a silly argument. Of course it is wrong to lead someone on about whether you’re attracted to them; instead, you should clearly communicate that you are turned on by penises, but not really attracted to men in general. But there are, in fact, quite a lot of men who would be perfectly okay with this situation and even aroused by it.
You might argue that only being aroused by someone’s genitals is “objectifying”, which I take to mean that it is wrong to have sex with someone and treat them like just a body without a mind attached, to not pay attention to their subjectivity and agency and autonomy and so on. But I also feel that if not being attracted to someone causes you to ignore their subjectivity and agency, then that is a personal problem that not everyone else has. The penis is the only part some people might be aroused by, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only part they’re going to pay attention to; of course a good sexual partner will care about whether everyone involved enjoys themselves and is making a free and informed choice.
Or you may think that while those women may exist, and their sexuality is fine, but we shouldn’t talk about their existence, even in a context that makes it perfectly clear that they’re a tiny minority. That I consider to be appalling.
I mean, some straight people might read Erika Moen’s comic and get confused and think that female bisexuality is the condition of wanting to fall in love with women and suck men’s cocks. (That would be a refreshing change from straight people thinking that female bisexuality is the condition of wanting to fall in love with men and eat women’s pussies.) However, an earnest and well-meaning straight person would look at the overwhelming amount of evidence that bisexual women do, in fact, fall in love with men, and get themselves straightened out. The real issue we need to be concerned about here is people who think that it is any of their business whether other people are ‘fake’ or not, that they are allowed to mistreat people whose consensual sex lives don’t fit their standards, and generally that they get a say in other people’s sexualities. Those people are going to wander around causing trouble regardless of what they do or do not believe. The fundamental problem is not that they think some women want to marry women and fuck men. The fundamental problem is that they think they think other people’s consensual sex lives are any of their business.
I am sick and fucking tired of people who want to throw people under the bus in the hopes of appeasing assholes. My line here is “if you personally are happy with your sex life, and it contributes to your growth and fulfillment as a human being, it is okay”; my line is “you don’t have to justify your sexual choices to me or to anyone.” My enemy is people who do not believe this. My goal is to get them to agree with me about the fundamental issue here, not to get them to grudgingly admit that this or that group is maybe okay.
Furthermore, representation actually matters. It matters, for those of us who are completely invisible, to see that people like us exist. Imagine the tremendous struggle it would be for any lesbian to come to terms with being turned on by men’s penises. Compulsory heterosexuality is still alive and well. There are more than enough people who are happy to say “if you think you might want to give a blowjob, it means you have to be willing to get married to men and have children”; there is more than enough pressure on lesbians to become attracted to men; it is difficult enough for a woman to articulate a lesbian identity. It helps for someone to say “look, if you want to give a dude a blowjob, all that means is that you want to give a dude a blowjob. It doesn’t mean you need to date men, or fall in love with them, or marry them. It doesn’t even mean that you’re sexually attracted to them in general, as opposed to having a fetish for a particular body part. And if you think your experiences, taken as a whole, are best expressed by the term ‘lesbian’, you have a perfect right to it.” And frankly I care more about the happiness and self-acceptance of actual queer women than I do about whatever nonsense straight people might think up.
AdvertisementsBy: Jesus Shuttlesworth and Eric Nahlin
Background
“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats.”— M.L. Mencken
In a sentence, that’s how we feel about this Texas program from top to bottom and last week was one fiasco too many as the Texas brass, and to an extent Charlie Strong, pulled up in their clown car, collectively honked their bright red noses, and proceeded to nearly make Tulsa University look like a destination job. After watching the events last week, I can’t help but wonder if Mike Perrin wears size 18’s. To be fair, after watching the last two seasons of Texas football, I’m nearly convinced Strong does.
But the difference between last week’s clown show and the two football seasons preceding it is one of intentionality. You don’t miss out on your best hope for 2016, Sonny Cumbie, and nearly get “Heismanned” by Tulsa’s finest with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in the form of donations, ticket revenues, and merchandising dollars, not to mention the damage to a once proud “brand” which once could pull the best and the brightest with a phone call and a stroke of pen. You don’t unless that’s your preferred outcome which makes me think, oh how the mighty have fallen—so far that they’ll likely be coming to a rodeo near you.
So who’s to blame for one of the most embarrassing weeks in the history of Texas football?
We know what we know and we know what we think we know, and we’ll try to paint an accurate picture for you about last week and the circumstances leading to the fiasco. Perhaps the most important piece of information to keep in mind as you read the rest of this piece is the following—there is a critical mass of donors and members of the athletics department that feel Charlie Strong getting a fourth year would be disastrous for the Texas program. Full disclosure, I agree with them.
Where we disagree is the way to go about making sure that does not happen for the good of the program. On the flip side, if the Texas brass says it wants to give Strong the resources to succeed, then they need to do it with actions and not words. Their actions last week tell me that’s not the case and it wouldn’t be fair to not report on some.
Not to get into a history lesson here, just some background only, we’ve never been mouth-pieces at Inside Texas. Perhaps through cyber osmosis the fabric of our outfit has been influenced by our founder Robert Heard. Heard is famous for being the upstart journalist who grilled DKR in what were historically “soft-ball” formatted press conferences. After one especially heated press conference, one which Heard repeatedly pressed the venerable coach, Royal asked one of the friendlier reporters as they were walking out of the press room, “Who the hell was that?”
The reporter replied, “Oh, that was Robert Heard, you know, the guy who got shot by Charles Whitman.”
Royal replied, “Hell, is he still pissed about that?”
So yes, that’s IT in a nutshell. We won’t stand quietly aside and let anyone get railroaded, especially the Texas fans and anyone being pushed out unfairly to the detriment of the school. As Texas fans, you should be upset, and here’s where you can assign your blame.
Charlie Strong Not Blameless
Why are we here to begin with?
From a wins and losses standpoint, Strong’s first two seasons at Texas are, once again, historically bad. When you throw in the manner in which he’s lost ball games in blowout fashion, there are plenty of reasons to dump the head guy. The blowout losses in 2015 alone including a shutout defeat to Iowa State, a team that Westlake High School could manage a field goal against, is reason enough to fire the guy and reason enough to pull out all of the stops to land Cumbie, but I digress. However, what makes this even more frustrating is that Strong was warned by the former AD (and this publication) that bringing in Shawn Watson initially would result in offensive disaster. And the disaster of 2015 was certainly offensive, netting Watson a demotion after the first game of the season and an embarrassing scarlet letter of a lost spring and August for a team and an offense that can’t afford to waste time in a rebuilding period.
Which brings us to the current situation…
Mismanagement of players’ personalities and team dynamics has been an embarrassing hallmark of Strong’s tenure at Texas. The case in point is Jake Raulerson, ostensibly your starting center in 2016 and someone who failed to find snaps playing behind Taylor Doyle—the Mike Webster of Texas football allegedly. Here’s a kid, a poster boy for the Strong core value/work ethic and someone Charlie had sat down with in-season to talk about snaps and what Jake needed to do to get better and more playing time, and it’s beyond comprehension that Strong was shocked when Raulerson stuck a transfer form on the coach’s desk at season’s end. If you’re going to tell a player like Raulerson, a solid citizen, and a player who’s at least as good as Doyle for even the most discerning eye, that he’s going to get snaps, then you’d better get him snaps or you’re out one starting center for the all-important 2016 season. Losing future starters who graduate in three years is not the stuff of rebuilds. This just in.
All of this and more can be set at the feet of Strong, and I’m confident Mike Perrin knows full well every detail of every aspect of Strong’s failing. Dickens said, “Never do tomorrow, that which can be done today. Procrastination is the thief of time.” Charlie Strong’s timeline is certainly a thief if we’re being honest.
To Fire or Support
“Blank Checks, Charlie has our full support”. Stop! It’s as clichéd as “winning is a game of inches” or there’s not an “I” in team. It’s well documented on our site that there’s a faction of donors, actually a majority of big donors that matter who think coach Strong is simply not the man for the job. It’s critical mass that has been steadily building since the Notre Dame game and includes all geographic regions in Texas and all age demographics. Hell the guy who pledged Strong’s buyout is in his 40’s.
There’s also the case of the athletic director who has to operate in the realm of firing a head coach two years into a rebuild and by all reports he’s feeling the exact same as the stakeholders he reports to after consulting a contingent of football people. As we’ve reported on the site, Perrin was always going to give Strong another year because firing coaches after two seasons isn’t what Texas does, but make no mistake, Perrin thinks Strong needs to be gone after 2016 so Texas can get on with the business of winning and so do the vast majority of his constituents. This isn’t news…
What is news is Perrin really didn’t give coach Strong “full support” in procuring Cumbie. He wasn’t on the ground in Austin when Strong needed a “go-between” to navigate asymmetrical questions from Cumbie like, “will Strong be around in 2017?” or “can you tell my pregnant wife how to navigate the sales side of the house process if we need to relocate to Lubbock if Strong does get canned?” A true salesman, ahem, Mack Brown would have answers to these questions, but we have a football coach, not a salesman. I know it, you know it, and Perrin knows it.
We all know that Strong is not Mack Brown, so where’s the support? Where’s Perrin to close the deal if we are truly committed to winning in 2016? The short answer is NYC. The long answer is a bit more Machiavellian.
Athletic Director Incompetence or Machiavellian Tendencies
Passive aggressive is your term of the day because that’s how the athletic department seems to be acting lately in its operations with coach Strong. There are leaks dating back to November that give names and contract numbers to outlets when everyone knew the Cumbie hire was the most important hire in Texas football since, well, Charlie Strong. Had we cared about Cumbie, you plug the leaks, go on a mole hunt, and then reset the story line so the negotiations you began in October don’t sabotage what is going to take place in November. Again, we’re not guessing here.
As someone who is privy to how the sausage is made, why not just fire the guy if you’re going to allow a drip, drip, drip of bad news in the program including but not limited to the clown show that was the offensive coordinator hiring process? The answer simply is that the Texas program and specifically the athletic director think the biggest risk for the program is to win nine football games next season. It’s sad but true.
So evidently the AD thought it better to feign support for the Strong regime publicly on one hand, and allow Strong to sink or swim with the most important hire of his tenure during the negotiation process on the other. Now some —this writer included— will argue that we’re here as a result of Strong’s incompetence in assembling a staff but it doesn’t change the fact that Cumbie was there for the taking after two months of negotiations if the Athletic Director truly wanted this to happen. The AD’s attitude also belies the fact that Cumbie gave Texas the best chance to win and recruit in 2016 so pulling out the stops, regardless of who was at fault, was the play all along—unless you want to sacrifice the short-term in order to maximize the long run.
For background, Texas paid Perrin a lot of money to be at Texas and paid Brown a lot of money not to be at Texas. So it begs the question, why is Perrin in NYC when one of the biggest assistant coaching contracts in college football history needs to be signed on the line that is dotted? If that’s full support, then give me half support every day of the week. You don’t let a guy like Strong, with an obvious deficiency in negotiations, lean on his weaknesses to hire offensive coaches and right the program’s ship unless you prefer that outcome. Unless you’re going to argue that Perrin is incompetent which I don’t believe he is.
And if you’ve had the golden handcuffs you understand Work Performance Programs in corporate America. Corporate America loves them because they allow you to fire an allegedly substandard employee with a modicum risk of legal blowback. From my corporately trained eye, I think Strong is being documented, right or wrong, and his hiring skills are one of the tasks they’ll use to document his deficiencies. The question is begged that if that’s the case, why let Fenves come in to save the day with Sterlin Gilbert? The obvious answer is that Fenves realized the PR disaster of Gilbert going back to Tulsa unsigned and stepped in to limit the PR damage. Is that Strong’s fault? I guess it is to an extent, but couldn’t we just fire Strong and move on if he’s not the guy instead of risking embarrassment to the University?
Leaks and Shenanigans
More damning for the AD is that Inside Texas had the offensive coaching search story for two months and sat on it until other outlets caught on and reported on it. We could have reported about Cumbie down to the dollar and cent, but our choice was not to affect the deal because we knew how important it was to the program. Consequently, early reporting on this subject was going to do the program no favors and it didn’t if we’re being truthful. Not only did these leaks make it more difficult on the primary target, Sonny Cumbie, but it made the negotiating landscape for Strong, a coach not adept at negotiations, that much more difficult, especially when the numbers being bandied about were made public. Aside from putting Cumbie on the defensive with his own boss it gave every subsequent OC candidate a baseline for their own negotiations—an agent’s wet dream. At this point, Texas was negotiating down from $1.3 million instead of up from $500,000. Gordon Gecko gets pantsed in negotiations from this position so what does that say about Strong?
Furthermore, it’s been reported recently by other outlets that Strong low-balled Gilbert. In order to believe that you have to believe Strong is negotiating against his own interests because it’s not Charlie’s money at the end of the day. The fact of the matter, from someone very close to the situation, is the money didn’t break down negotiations late Wednesday, which flies in the face of Strong’s role in complicating the negotiating process as reported by some outlets. The money was fine and Gilbert was happy with it.
As it stands, we think we know the source of the leaks about money, candidates, and even the Miami Hurricanes being a soft landing spot for Strong and you can probably guess this person is a Texas long-timer and stated by name in one of the articles that ran this week. He’s certainly no friend of Strong’s but we suspect Charlie gets that now.
Sterlin Gilbert
Now that Sterlin Gilbert can afford to buy a “g”, let’s discuss what really happened here. The timeline goes thusly. As of Wednesday evening Sterling Gilbert gets on a plane to Tulsa thinking he has the offensive coordinator job at Texas. Thursday morning, news breaks that Charlie Strong is set to interview another OC candidate, Tony Franklin. This revelation sends the Gilbert deal into a tail spin and reports break on Friday that Gilbert is withdrawing his name from consideration for the Texas job. Chaos ensues in Longhorn fandom, and President Fenves, Charlie Strong, and Mike Perrin board a plane to save what shred of dignity the Coaching Hire Flow Chart has left to offer. Three years at $900,000/per later, and Texas has procured a football coach, from TU, or Tulsa University. Yay, us! We only had to pay a half-million dollar premium.
Fenves
Obviously you never want to involve a sitting University president when the subject of coaching hires rears its ugly head. The University of Texas has a recent and glaring cautionary tale replete with a contract negotiation that will go down as historically bad. Ironically Bill Powers is your cautionary tale giving Strong a guaranteed $25 million.
In this case, Greg Fenves was forced to be the adult in the room and salvage the negotiating process of a hire that should have gotten done in the high $700,000’s at most, and it is the most obvious case in point that the there’s something amiss about the Longhorn hiring process. If Texas could have just corralled the AD leaks alone, the Gilbert deal gets done with perhaps a quarter of a million dollar savings, which is a chunk of change for a bunch who claims being stewards of the Universities resources is of the utmost importance. Instead, THE boss has to get on the plane to Tulsa, Oklahoma to acquire what amounts to a mid-level manager that doesn’t need Board of Regent approval for his salary. It’s a ringing indictment of the hiring process and one that should send the AD and the president’s office into rehab mode in short order. I shudder to think what the Tom Herman negotiation looks like if this is the template.
Board of Regents Role
Here’s what we know about these players who seem to be taking on stones in some circles for things they had nothing to do with. First and foremost, it’s highly unlikely that the sitting board would allow there to be a hiccup in contract negotiations involved with the University of Texas football program. Some of these members including the head of the BOR, Paul Foster, are acutely aware of their standing with the governorship in light of the fact they’re non-Texas people occupying a University of Texas board. They’re short timers by definition because Rick Perry appointed them, and these guys are walking on egg shells as it is and are loathe to be perceived to be getting in the way of a University of Texas football hire.
Secondly, we’ve also been told that the Texas-centric members of the BOR have always been onboard with keeping Strong for at least another season. They have little appetite, in the case of Cumbie, to sabotage the hire and we’re told from sources close to the situation that this wasn’t the case to begin with. As for Gilbert, we’re told that the dollar amounts involved precluded the BOR from having any input on the situation so any mention of BOR interference on that negotiation is inaccurate.
Finally, if you’re looking for a scape-goat in any of these bungled negotiations especially as it pertains to Cumbie, look no further than the bridge between Coach Strong and the Board of Regents. It’s been reported that Coach Cumbie’s negotiations looked disorganized because the numbers that were agreed upon were not necessarily approved by the BOR. We don’t believe that this was the case because after two months everyone pretty much knows what time it is. Two month negotiations rarely end with such a disjointed result so if you think there were surprises on numbers in the end we can’t help you. All of the parties involved knew the numbers and any ambiguity of whether Strong was to be retained in 2017 was just that.
Fallacies
Strong passed on Cumbie because he didn’t call plays—no shit this is making the rounds. Let me get this straight; Cumbie and Texas play footsie for two months, Strong flies to Fort Worth on a Sunday night, likes how the meeting went, and has Cumbie’s pregnant wife come to Austin. Strong’s wife also shows Cumbie’s wife around Austin, but Cumbie isn’t out of play until Wednesday and it’s because Strong finally realized he wanted a play caller and then targets a Tulsa coordinator who has always worked under an offensive minded head coach? Seems legit. Please, squash this rationale.
The second fallacy is Strong had a blank check. Sure, I guess, if you claim it wasn’t signed either. Seriously, Cumbie may have had a blank check relatively speaking, but it was always subject to BOR approval. As for Gilbert, there was no blank check, but the price of poker went up significantly with the leaks of Cumbie’s numbers. Inconveniently for those that argue otherwise, Cumbie always claimed the numbers were right for him. He’s never said otherwise and we’re not guessing here. His questions resided in the gray areas of stability and no one in a position of power was available in Austin to placate his concerns. Either Strong is the Grand Poohba or he’s not.
The last fallacy is that Strong wasn’t going to let Gilbert bring his offensive line coach Matt Mattox as some have hinted at. Obviously that’s patently false because Mr. Mattox is now your new offensive line coach. So Coach Strong was against the offensive line coach before he was in favor of it? Right.
To wrap things up, we’ll let you know what we know, what we think we know, and where we go from here…
What we know
It’s a wild ride so please bear with us. What we know is that Cumbie worried about the time frame to get his offense installed. He worried about Strong’s longevity to that end and he worried about not having a quarterback on campus to run his offense. More importantly, Cumbie worried about having the support he needs and saw it up close and personal when he couldn’t get answers to his questions put to the athletic department. It had nothing to do with money or guaranteed dollars no matter what Arthur Johnson claims happened. Again, we’re not guessing here. On an ancillary point, it didn’t help that Cumbie saw the negotiating process up close and personal which showed the disorganization within the AD and the football program. Whether or not that disorganization was done purposefully or not is a matter for your interpretation dear reader, but just know that Mike Perrin being in and around Austin when these questions were lodged would have gone a long way to procuring the guy most likely to save Charlie’s and Texas’ bacon. Rhetorically, was Deloss Dodds in Barbados when Will Muschamp was procured?
What we think we know
People in the AD, whether it be leaks or actively choosing not to help with negotiations have done Strong zero favors. Is Perrin incompetent? We doubt it. He’s a successful trial lawyer who gets what UT and its stakeholders think is needed in a football coach.
He also doesn’t need this job so loyalties should be targeted towards those things that can help the program. On the other hand, it does seem like he’s taking an interest in not winning too many games next season because he thinks being able to fire Strong helps the program, so not being there to ensure a Cumbie hire seems like a calculated decision based on the background we have.
Third, Strong, Perrin, and the BOR had no effective go-betweens to bridge the information gap. “Who was to blame” or “why wasn’t it done” doesn’t matter at this point because Cumbie is long gone and Gilbert became an already embarrassing anecdote in Texas lore. In a perfect world, a decent purveyor of information would have alerted Perrin to the danger of losing Cumbie and Perrin would have reacted swiftly to the risk of losing the TCU wunderkind if that was truly his motivation. But the true screw up was lost in translation evidently.
Finally, we’re dubious about who was to serve as the go-between for Perrin and Strong because said go-between is the one who leaked the Strong to Miami soft landing narrative to begin with after Strong confided in him in the heat of the battle. Perhaps it’s Charlie’s fault and he should have known that this person wasn’t someone to be trusted, but I thought we were all friends here. Or at least I thought we have all given Strong our “full” support.
Where we go from here
Let me count the ways. We have Spring ball, an offense that is quarterback friendly and should generate points to benefit a young hungry defense perhaps not at the level of Cumbie but a system implemented for a spring, summer and fall can’t hurt. Also, you have recruiting which should be invigorated. And despite last week, it seems to be trending well if you’ve been reading our site. Also, the lack of talent in the 2016 class won’t hurt Texas next season, so we have that going for us, which is nice.
The bottom line is, however, if none of the above works, Herman will crawl on broken glass to Austin to be the University of Texas head football coach. It’s his dream job and he should kill it here. My guess is that you’ll see a full court press this time next season that wasn’t seen last week for Cumbie if Strong stumbles to seven or eight wins in 2016. Alternatively, nine wins in 2016 for Strong probably means no Herman and everyone gets that. I’ll let our readership do the calculus with respect to what went down last week, but again I ask, if you don’t like the guy, why not just fire him now? Charles Dickens would.
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**Boss man wants us to clarificate. I think the article was clear but people are misconstruing some things. Let’s work through this together.
– Strong is a bit player in the whole week. We began the article with him harboring some blame to draw a clear, objective line. He’s not faultless in his tenure, but last week he wasn’t at fault, at least not to the degree some made him out to be. If you read our article as us lambasting Strong you misinterpret the reason we wrote it in the first place. I’ll admit upon further review some things could have been worded more delicately in our original post but that only makes it more palatable, not more accurate.
– The timeline of events tells you a lot. Either Strong had no support, or he had it and didn’t want it. You can think he was in the middle of negotiating contracts and recruiting in Michigan while being aloof to his job description or not. It seems he busted his ass that week and if he messed up the Cumbie negotiations then why was he in charge of the Gilbert negotiations? Newsflash, he messed up neither. In the press he was blamed but it’s wrong, and again, why we’re posting what we’re posting.
– Mike Perrin was in New York.
Herein lies the difficulty. Our article has been taken as Strong was getting a free pass or all of the blame. The same has gone for Perrin. People don’t read good, and though I should probably have more patience, I don’t feel like re-spelling out what we’ve already spelt.
My personal position is Strong got jammed (it could be accidentally) and whether or not he’s the best coach for Texas doesn’t matter to me. I don’t like people getting jammed.I ruined a promising relationship by going to see the Pixies.
I was living in Boston, and took the train to New York City to spend a couple of days giving a budding romance with a New York boy a chance. This was May of 1988, and the band I loved the most at the time was the Pixies—fellow Bostonians—who had a gig at Maxwell’s in Hoboken that week. Perfect, I thought. The New Boyfriend and I can go see my Favorite Band at the Bar I Love.
Except the Boyfriend, as it turned out, was not into the Pixies. He refused to go to the show and even asked me not to go. I had a clear choice: the Boyfriend or the Pixies.
Think me heartless: I chose the Pixies. With a tinge of sadness but no regrets, I found my way to Hoboken on the PATH train and soon was settled, cozy and alone, on top of the piano at the back of Maxwell’s. Any last trace of sadness evaporated in the glorious reverberations of the band at their ferocious peak. When I recall that gig I can almost see the piano levitating, lifting me above the crowd where I could gaze upon the four members of the Pixies: Black Francis, practically speaking in tongues; Dave Lovering powering out monstrous beats; Kim Deal, driving each song with her melodic bass lines, flashing a big smile and flipping the bird to the dumb dude who yelled, “I love you, Kim.”
And Joey Santiago. Santiago’s playing stood in stark contrast to the jangle that seemed to come from every other Boston guitarist. His sound was spacious, sharp, and a little scary, with notes wrapped in washes of feedback that hung in the room like magic. I was positive I’d made the right decision. There would be other boys. There would never again be a chance to see this band so close and on fire.
The Pixies maintained a heroic pace of gigging and releasing records until they broke up in 1993. Since reuniting in 2004, they have been playing to big crowds at festivals and major venues around the world. Much has changed since 1988, but some things remain the same. The Pixies still rock. And, as Joey Santiago disclosed in a recent chat with Paste, the Pixies still have hummus in their dressing room, just like they always have. Santiago ate nothing but celery and hummus before that gig at Maxwell’s, and it’s the only thing he’ll eat before playing to festival crowds today.
Santiago, who now lives on the other side of the continent in California, has eaten his way around the world, and holds strong opinions about sushi in LA (better than in Japan), curry in Nashville (better than in Manchester) and the relative merits of consuming Simple Green versus rotten shark.
Paste: What’s the quirkiest food item in the Pixies’ rider?
Joey Santiago: It’s not quirky, but it’s a weird fact: from day one we have always had hummus. But one time we were given instead a bowl of mayonnaise in our dressing room?!
Paste: You’re at a truck stop, you’re starving, and you have five minutes to assemble a meal. Please describe that meal.
JS: I just grab a bag of trail mix. My only rule is it must contain almonds.
Paste: When you’re on tour, what food from home do you crave?
JS: Sushi. I live in LA, and I’ve yet to find a better place for sushi. And that includes Japan.
Paste: When you’re home, what do miss about eating on tour?
JS: I miss the variety of local cuisine, like barbecue from the south, lobster from New England, or steaks from Argentina.
Paste: Can you describe one or two restaurants anywhere in the world that you most look forward to visiting when you’re on tour?
JS: First on my list is Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City. It’s inside a gas station, which is quite charming. I get the brisket there.
Second is a great Indonesian restaurant in Utrecht. I don’t know the name, I only know it by sight. I know the corner it’s on. Their language has a lot v’s and k’s and is stingy on vowels.
We always get the rijsttafel (rice table). It’s a variety of veggies and proteins in little cups.
Paste: Is there anything special you like to eat before playing a show?
JS: Hummus and celery is the only thing I eat in our dressing room.
Paste: Do you have any superstitious pre-show drink rituals?
JS: I like to have a double shot of vodka and an espresso fifteen minutes before the show.
Paste: Can you tell me about a food that you were supposed to like but didn’t?
JS: One of the local dishes in Iceland is hákarl. It’s rotten shark. Smells like ammonia and taste like ammonia. I’d rather drink Simple Green.
Paste: Do you have any funny on-the-road food stories?
JS: We were all eating at a restaurant in Barcelona. Two of our crewmembers were eating mussels covered with salt and other ingredients. I was wondering what they were having that was so crunchy and loud. They were eating the shells too!!
Paste: What’s the best meal you’ve had lately?
JS: That would be Indian curry at Chauhan Ale and Marsala House in Nashville, Tennessee. I was sitting next to a professor from Vanderbilt on the plane to Nashville, where the Pixies were rehearsing for a leg of a tour, and he recommended it. Our crew is from Manchester, U.K.—they love their curry there, so we made a reservation.
The curry was just as good if not better (gasp) than the ones I’ve had in Manchester.
Paste: Can you describe something you like to cook at home?
JS: My kids crave macaroni and cheese. The directions are on the box.
Freda Love Smith is a drummer and writer whose food memoir, Red Velvet Underground, is forthcoming on Agate. She blogs at lovesmiths.blogspot.com. Follow her on twitter: @fredalovesmithE-cigarettes are less toxic and safer to use compared to conventional cigarettes, according to research published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Cancer Research UK-funded scientists found that people who swapped smoking regular cigarettes for e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for at least six months, had much lower levels of toxic and cancer causing substances in their body than people who continued to use conventional cigarettes.
For the first time, researchers analysed the saliva and urine of long-term e-cigarette and NRT users, as well as smokers, and compared body-level exposure to key chemicals.
Ex-smokers who switched to e-cigarettes or NRT had significantly lower levels of toxic chemicals and carcinogens in their body compared to people who continued to smoke tobacco cigarettes. But, those who used e-cigarettes or NRT while continuing to smoke, did not show the same marked differences, highlighting that a complete switch is needed to reduce exposure to toxins.
Dr Lion Shahab, senior lecturer in the department of epidemiology and public health at UCL, and lead author of the publication, said: "Our study adds to existing evidence showing that e-cigarettes and NRT are far safer than smoking, and suggests that there is a very low risk associated with their long-term use.
"We've shown that the levels of toxic chemicals in the body from e-cigarettes are considerably lower than suggested in previous studies using simulated experiments. This means some doubts about the safety of e-cigarettes may be wrong.
"Our results also suggest that while e-cigarettes are not only safer, the amount of nicotine they provide is not noticeably different to conventional cigarettes. This can help people to stop smoking altogether by dealing with their cravings in a safer way."
Alison Cox, Cancer Research UK's director of cancer prevention, said: "Around a third of tobacco-caused deaths are due to cancer, so we want to see many more of the UK's 10 million smokers break their addiction."
"This study adds to growing evidence that e-cigarettes are a much safer alternative to tobacco, and suggests the long term effects of these products will be minimal.
"Understanding and communicating the benefits of nicotine replacements, such as e-cigarettes, is an important step towards reducing the number of tobacco-related deaths here in the UK."MANASSAS, Va. (WJLA) - A highly contagious, deadly feline virus has broken out at the Prince William County Animal Shelter in Manassas, and officials warn it has possibly spread into the local cat population.
InsideNoVA reports Feline Panleukopenia Virus (FPV) recently broke out at the shelter, coming from a stray cat that was taken in.
According to the report, FPV is highly contagious among cats, as well as ferrets, raccoons, mink and foxes. It is most often spread through the animal's bodily fluids or feces, or through fleas.
Though the virus does not affect humans, it can also be spread from animal to animal through contact with humans, or through items like food dishes, bedding, animal toys, clothing and the like.
Symptoms include diarrhea - which can be bloody - vomiting, lethargy and fever.
Animal control officials warn cat owners may not want to let their cats wander outside unsupervised, and may not want to leave dishes of cat food outdoors.
In addition, officials suggest that all cats, including indoor cats, should be vaccinated for FPV.
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DreamT Entertainment stated, "Girl's Day's will conclude their broadcast activities for 'Female President' on the July 27th broadcast of MBC's 'Music Core' and will promote their new '2013 Summer Special' digital single, 'Please Tell Me', immediately afterwards."
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HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- A photo obtained by WTVR CBS 6 News allegedly showed John Wiggins, 55, using a cellphone camera to snap photos up a woman's dress at the Walmart in Short Pump. That picture was taken by the husband of another woman who claimed she was also one of Wiggins's victims.
Henrico Police arrested Wiggins after he allegedly violated two women by using his smart phone to snap pictures under their skirts on Sunday, May 31. Officers said one victim became very uneasy when he bumped into her in the middle of the store and pretended to drop something in the store.
Caught Red-Handed
The woman whose husband snapped the photo spoke to WTVR CBS 6 reporter Joe St. George on the condition of anonymity Wednesday.
"If it can happen to me, it can happen to you," she said about the incident.
So how did it happen? The woman said Wiggins dropped a box of pasta on the floor as a distraction – and as an excuse for him to reach down to get closer to the floor and into the perfect spot to snap a pic.
"It started in the shampoo department and that's when it happened the first time," she explained. "I just turned the aisle and he looked directly at me and I felt his guilt."
After the ordeal, the woman said her husband decided to follow Wiggins around Walmart to try to catch him in the act.
That's when he snapped the photo of a woman in a green and blue striped dress wearing flip-flops reaching for an item in the spice section. That photo also captured the suspect squatting down to lower what appears to be a cellphone under her dress.
The victim said the incident caused her to change her shopping routine.
“I definitely haven't worn a dress out shopping -- and I don't know when I'll do that again,” she said.
Teacher's Aide
WTVR CBS 6 has learned from students at Clover Hill High School that Wiggins worked at the school as a teacher's aide.
"He didn't really say much, he would just sit in the back," said Jayla Boyd, a student at Clover Hill High.
Boyd said Wiggins appeared in her social studies class and that at one time he coached wrestling.
"He doesn't need to be around children at all," Tamara Wynn, a Clover Hill parent said. "He needs to get some help,"
Chesterfield Public Schools said late Wednesday Wiggins is no longer employed by the school system.
Support for the Suspect
Wiggins does have a number of supporters reaching out to on Facebook who said he is good guy and that they stand by him. As for the Wiggins family, the suspect’s daughter emailed WTVR CBS 6 about the allegations.
"My dad is obviously struggling with mental illness. My family and I are being affected greatly by this situation,” she wrote. Wiggins's two counts of “upskirting” are misdemeanors.
37.652038 -77.608452When great thinkers think about problems, they start to see patterns. They look at the problem of people sending each other word-processor files, and then they look at the problem of people sending each other spreadsheets, and they realize that there’s a general pattern: sending files. That’s one level of abstraction already. Then they go up one more level: people send files, but web browsers also “send” requests for web pages. And when you think about it, calling a method on an object is like sending a message to an object! It’s the same thing again! Those are all sending operations, so our clever thinker invents a new, higher, broader abstraction called messaging, but now it’s getting really vague and nobody really knows what they’re talking about any more. Blah.
When you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don’t know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don’t actually mean anything at all.
These are the people I call Architecture Astronauts. It’s very hard to get them to write code or design programs, because they won’t stop thinking about Architecture. They’re astronauts because they are above the oxygen level, I don’t know how they’re breathing. They tend to work for really big companies that can afford to have lots of unproductive people with really advanced degrees that don’t contribute to the bottom line.
A recent example illustrates this. Your typical architecture astronaut will take a fact like “Napster is a peer-to-peer service for downloading music” and ignore everything but the architecture, thinking it’s interesting because it’s peer to peer, completely missing the point that it’s interesting because you can type the name of a song and listen to it right away.
All they’ll talk about is peer-to-peer this, that, and the other thing. Suddenly you have peer-to-peer conferences, peer-to-peer venture capital funds, and even peer-to-peer backlash with the imbecile business journalists dripping with glee as they copy each other’s stories: “Peer To Peer: Dead!”
The Architecture Astronauts will say things like: “Can you imagine a program like Napster where you can download anything, not just songs?” Then they’ll build applications like Groove that they think are more general than Napster, but which seem to have neglected that wee little feature that lets you type the name of a song and then listen to it — the feature we wanted in the first place. Talk about missing the point. If Napster wasn’t peer-to-peer but it did let you type the name of a song and then listen to it, it would have been just as popular.
Another common thing Architecture Astronauts like to do is invent some new architecture and claim it solves something. Java, XML, Soap, XmlRpc, Hailstorm,.NET, Jini, oh lord I can’t keep up. And that’s just in the last 12 months!
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these architectures… by no means. They are quite good architectures. What bugs me is the stupendous amount of millennial hype that surrounds them. Remember the Microsoft Dot Net white paper?
The next generation of the Windows desktop platform, Windows.NET supports productivity, creativity, management, entertainment and much more, and is designed to put users in control of their digital lives.
That was about 9 months ago. Last month, we got Microsoft Hailstorm. That white paper says:
People are not in control of the technology that surrounds them….HailStorm makes the technology in your life work together on your behalf and under your control.
Oh, good, so now the high tech halogen light in my apartment will stop blinking randomly.
Microsoft is not alone. Here’s a quote from a Sun Jini whitepaper:
These three facts (you are the new sys admin, computers are nowhere, the one computer is everywhere) should combine to improve the world of using computers as computers — by making the boundaries of computers disappear, by making the computer be everywhere, and by making the details of working with the computer as simple as putting a DVD into your home theater system.
And don’t even remind me of the fertilizer George Gilder spread about Java:
A fundamental break in the history of technology…
That’s one sure tip-off to the fact that you’re being assaulted by an Architecture Astronaut: the incredible amount of bombast; the heroic, utopian grandiloquence; the boastfulness; the complete lack of reality. And people buy it! The business press goes wild!
Why the hell are people so impressed by boring architectures that often amount to nothing more than a new format on the wire for RPC, or a new virtual machine? These things might be good architectures, they will certainly benefit the developers that use them, but they are not, I repeat, not, a good substitute for the messiah riding his white ass into Jerusalem, or world peace. No, Microsoft, computers are not suddenly going to start reading our minds and doing what we want automatically just because everyone in the world has to have a Passport account. No, Sun, we’re not going to be able to analyze our corporate sales data “as simply as putting a DVD into your home theatre system.”
Remember that the architecture people are solving problems that they think they can solve, not problems which are useful to solve. Soap + WSDL may be the Hot New Thing, but it doesn’t really let you do anything you couldn’t do before using other technologies — if you had a reason to. All that Distributed Services Nirvana the architecture astronauts are blathering about was promised to us in the past, if we used DCOM, or JavaBeans, or OSF DCE, or CORBA.
It’s nice that we can use XML now for the format on the wire. Whoopee. But that’s about as interesting to me as learning that my supermarket uses trucks to get things from the warehouse. Yawn. Mangos, that’s interesting. Tell me something new that I can do that I couldn’t do before, O Astronauts, or stay up there in space and don’t waste any more of my time.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
May 1, 2013, 11:48 AM GMT By John W. Schoen
Even before the federal spending crunch began to pinch March 1, Chi-Yeh Han Boone was already feeling the pain of the budget squeeze known as the sequester.
The co-owner and CEO of Fort Worth Gasket & Supply – which sells parts to the military – said the loss of supply contracts forced her to lay off contract workers filling orders in the company warehouse.
“If you don’t have the cash flow, with a reduction of 25 percent of revenues you have to cut staff,” Boone said.
More job cuts are on the way as the river of government spending flowing through the U.S. economy continues to slow. The $85 billion federal spending squeeze – part of a doomsday budget package originally approved last summer to force a more rational spending plan – has now lopped more than a full percentage point from gross domestic product over the past six months and eliminated tens of thousands of federal jobs.
The hit to federal payrolls is expected to show up Friday in the latest monthly job numbers for April. Most economists are expecting the report to show a net gain of 145,000 jobs, according to the economists polled by Reuters.
The pace of layoffs is expected to pick up speed this summer. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that for the full year, federal spending cuts will reduce overall employment by about 750,000 jobs. Most agencies have just gotten started.
Private economists say that budget office estimate is probably on the high side because government managers will be looking to generate whatever savings they can by temporarily furloughing workers and cutting back hours – before resorting to outright layoffs – in order to hit their 5.1 percent sequester savings mandates.
“The extent to which it’s done through hiring or through furloughs is pretty hard to get handle on,” said Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Either way, there certainly will be less hiring than would otherwise take place.”
That means Uncle Sam’s belt-tightening will weigh on the job market through the rest of the government fiscal year, which ends Oct. 1.
Though the cuts officially took effect March 1, the impact is expected to build through the summer as federal agencies work to meet the Oct. 1 deadline.
“The way the sequester is designed, it’s gradual in its nature," said Gregory Daco, an economist at IHS Global Insight. “You cut budget authority, but that doesn’t mean you immediately cut spending. So the actual cuts to outlays take time to materialize.”
Those cuts will also hit other spending programs that will bring indirect pressure on non-government hiring, economists say. Cuts to federally funded, state-managed unemployment insurance programs will be concentrated in the summer months. Those cuts will hit hardest in later in the summer in states that delay implementing them.
The hit to consumer spending is expected to ripple through payrolls of industries from leisure and hospitality to retailers.
“They’re going to take a secondary hit from lower disposable income from people that are receiving benefits like unemployment compensation and other federal payments,” said Brian Kessler, an economist at Moody's Analytics.
The biggest wild card in the forecast remains the ongoing political standoff over the budget. Many agencies that have yet to announce furlough plans are still scrambling to avoid service cuts.
Some may be hoping to win a “carve out” from the sequester. The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, was recently granted a budget reprieve after air traffic control tower furloughs began snarling the nation’s airports with delays. The IRS recently announced furloughs that could delay tax refunds.
While that piecemeal process may help the agencies winning a reprieve, it could slow progress on a wider solution, Stone said.
“Carving out the squeaky wheels probably reduces in the impetus to get a deal,” he said. “And it doesn’t change the cuts that have to be made. It just focuses them on a narrower set of programs with less visibility or political interests.”
If no deal is reached, the budget cuts will continue into next winter – and beyond. The current cuts are part of a 10-year “budget control” law that caps federal spending through 2022.
But those future cuts won’t be as painful. Though they slow the growth of federal spending, they don’t reduce outlays like the current round of cuts. That means they’ll have less impact on future economic growth and hiring.
“This year, the change in (federal) spending is going to tap the breaks on job creation and the recovery,” said Kessler. “Next year is sort of a lighter tap on the gas. So adjusting to that move down is what slows growth and kills jobs.”
The hope, of course, is that the private sector economy can fill in the spending gap by creating jobs faster than the government is shedding them.
But the political gridlock over the sequester may be holding back hiring there as well. Many small business owners complain that it’s just too risky to take on new workers until they get more certainty over issues like tax reform and health care spending.
Not all business owners agree.
Boone said that as her competitors pull back, she’s developing plans to draw on savings to invest in new manufacturing equipment and hire skilled staff to expand her product line.
“It is risky. It’s a long learning curve and it’s a lot of investment in hiring and equipment,” she said. “But if I don’t take the risk to invest, the result is zero. If I take the risk to invest – and work hard and learn – we might open up a new market to make up for the business that we lost.”A few years ago, 3-D was hailed as the next big thing in television, the logical successor to high definition. But viewers in the United States did not buy the hype, and now the eye-popping format is seen as an expensive flop.
That impression was cemented last week when ESPN, the nation’s largest sports network and an early adopter of 3-D technology, said it was turning off its three-year-old 3-D channel. A spokeswoman said the decision was “due to limited consumer adoption of 3-D services to the home.”
The news spurred debate about whether anyone would be left watching in 3-D soon, or whether anything would be available worth watching.
“Many in the industry have said over the last few years that if ESPN ever pulled the plug on 3-D TV, that would be the format’s final chapter,” Phillip Swann, the publisher of the industry Web site TVPredictions.com, wrote after ESPN’s announcement. “Today, it’s hard to deny that statement.”Orion Construction will make it official on Tuesday.
The multi-service construction company will unveil its plans for a new $28-million development it will put up on a parking lot just west of the Van Andel Arena, which is owned by the Grand Rapids Downtown Development Authority.
Company officials, such as co-founders Gary Postma and John Boonstra, will be joined at the event by Mayor George Heartwell, development partners like Ray Kisor of Colliers International, major tenants and others.
Arena Place
The construction plan for the development, called Arena Place, reportedly calls for a 50,000-square-foot office building and an 80-unit apartment complex.
The apartments will be of the market-rate variety and include studio, one bedroom and two-bedroom units. The development will be designed with a European flair.
The first floors of both buildings will have 13,000 square feet set aside for retail and restaurant use.
The project also includes 82 below-ground parking spaces and 42 surface spaces for a total of 124.
The office structure would become the first new Class A building of its type downtown in the last 20 years.
The development is planned for the Area 1 lot on Ottawa Avenue SW, between Weston and Oakes streets, near the arena and Bistro Bella Vita restaurant.
View Larger Map
The project is expected to create about 150 jobs.
$2.25M lot
Grand Rapids-based Orion entered into a one-year option with the DDA to purchase the lot in May at a cost of $50,000, a fee that isn’t refundable, but will be applied to an eventual purchase. The lot carries a price tag of $2.25 million.
The DDA listed the lot for sale in April, and Orion and its partners, doing business as Arena Place Development for the project, submitted the lone offer.
Arena Place is the first project to be announced following the completion of the DDA’s visioning plan for its parking lots located near and south of the arena.
Cornerstone Architects directed that work.NY Senator Charles Schumer told a New York Jewish audience a week ago that the U.S. and Israel have very different interests re a possible Iran deal and as a senator representing Americans, he may determine that the deal is in his country’s best interest. In a remarkably frank discussion of dual loyalty, he said his concern for Israel comes second.
“I have to do what’s right for the United States first of all, and Eretz Yisrael [the land of Israel] second.”
Schumer says his opposition to the deal has made President Obama “mad,” but then suggested he’s going to come around. He told the Jewish group that a military strike on Iran may not work, and could cause the deaths of “tens of thousands” of Israelis. A deal will give the United States greater control over Iran’s program than it would have without a deal.
People have been watching Schumer’s response to the Iran deal closely, because the powerful senator has, atypically, been very quiet about the matter. Though he has opposed Obama’s actions, with the support of the rightwing Israel lobby, his acceptance of the deal could bring a lot of the pro-Israel faction in the American Congress on board. In the speech the senator spoke of himself as a guardian of Israel– “someone who tries to be a shomer Israel”– and said it was one of the most “momentous” decisions of his political life.
He has consulted closely with Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog, as well as getting five hours of briefings from Secretary of State John Kerry and Under Secretary Wendy Sherman.
The story was first reported in Haaretz. “In speech to Orthodox Union, one of the most pro-Israel Democrats seems to be gearing up to back Obama in abandoning the military option on Iran.”
Schumer was open about the issue of dual loyalty. He said that he wanted to speak bluntly to the Jews in the room (“tachlis”) but that because the speech is being recorded, he was going to be more nuanced. “Some things should be said in the mishpocheh,” he said. He went on to explain the difference between the American interest and a Jewish interest (or the interest of “many” Jews, as Schumer explains). If President Obama or the average American thinks there’s a 95 percent chance that the deal is good, they’ll sign off on it; but Jews, almost all of whom support Israel, won’t find a 5 percent margin comforting. So this is a case, Schumer says, where American interests and Jewish interests are dissimilar– “there is a basic difference in viewpoint”– which is why it’s been such a difficult question for him.
The worst case is that Iran would get a nuclear weapon, because it might use it against Israel:
If God forbid, a nuclear weapon were to be exploded over Jerusalem… a million would die and everyone else would leave, so the millennium old dream of the Jewish people to have a homeland in Eretz Israel, now 67 years old, would be gone.
But the threat to the U.S. from an Iranian nuke is “not an existential one.” But it would change the balance of power. The odds are all too high that the Sunni nations would want to get a nuclear weapon, and they have a willing seller in Pakistan.
Now the next worst situation is a military strike against Iran. Why?
First, it’s not clear that it would be successful. Second, Iranians would direct terror attacks against the US and Israel. And at the minimum they’d direct Hezbollah to send 10s of thousands of rockets into Israel.
The odds are tens of thousands of Israelis could die.
Schumer moved on to the idea of a deal and acknowledged that Jews and organized Jewish groups are leading the opposition to a deal. “Why doesn’t the world see this the way we see it?” he asked. Well, let’s say the agreement has a 95 percent chance of assuring that Iran won’t have nuclear weapons.
“If you are president of the United States, president of one of the European countries, or an American, an average American, you say that’s pretty good to me… “But because a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel, if you’re prime minister of Israel or an Israeli citizen or for that matter an American Jew or at least some American Jews, many, you say I can’t live with a 5 percent chance that Israel will be annihilated…. So there is a basic difference in viewpoint.”
Jews have to stand up for that different viewpoint, he said. Because in part for fear of being accused of dual loyalty, the American Jewish community “ignored the threat of Hitler, or pushed it aside–never mind, he’s just a maniac. And of course look what happened.” He said the New York Times covered up “the initial acts of depravity in Germany” because it didn’t want to be accused of dual loyalty.
For related reasons, Schumer doesn’t trust the Europeans.
Make no mistake about it, while the US sanctions are the toughest and most important, if the Europeans leave, and– it so bothers me to have the Jewish fate in European hands. People say have to please the French the Germans and the British. And the I tell them, we’ve been through this before, the Jewish people, of leaving our fate in the hands of Europeans.
He said anti-Semitism in Europe is equivalent to “racist anti-black sentiment” in America, it is deeply engrained.
Schumer said he is being very skeptical about the agreement as it moves forward, but he faulted Netanyahu for his obstructionist approach.
I have to tell you the day that Prime Minister Netanyahu came out, the day after the interim agreement. He made a mistake. He made a number of mistakes. Because no one thought he — He should have said, I have five or ten questions, I’m going to judge it on how those questions are answered.
Schumer then listed the questions he have. All are extremely detailed. First, what is the exact character of the inspection regime? Second, what actions cause the sanctions to be lifted? Third, Let’s say the sanctions are lifted, what are the snapback provisions; does the US need the allies or the UN to agree with us, or can the US restore sanctions on its own. Fourth, What are the inspections allowed on military sites? One is the size of Rhode Island. Fifth, what happens to the $100 billion that’s “sitting there” in frozen Iranian accounts because of the sanctions. Sixth, 10,000 kilograms of uranium goes down to what number, 300; and how much goes to Russia?
The senator has 14 pages of questions, he said, and has had five hours of briefings with top officials. He made it clear that the Jewish group would learn what he learns.
As I said, this is one of the most important decisions that I will ever make, as an American, as well as someone who tries to be a Shomer Yisrael. I’m spending much time on this, I’m talking to everyone, obviously including the administration and the prime minister of Israel. I’m talking to some very smart people on the other side. Bougi Herzog and [Amos] Yadlin, who was going to be the defense minister [in a Herzog led government], who’s very smart about these things… I spent some time with Dr. Kissinger. I’m spending time with experts. It’s a serious decision, and I’m an elected official 41 years. When you have the toughest decisions, you don’t let politics interfere, you don’t let party interfere, you don’t let pressure interfere, you do the right thing as best you can. That’s my promise to you. I assure you that’s what I’m going to do. It’s momentous times, ladies and gentlemen, momentous momentous times. The more I learn the more I’ll tell you.
Thanks to Scott RothYou might have read how, back in the day, cowboys drove wild critters along the Texas Trail from Cowtown to Shreveport.
By “back in the day,” we mean mid-April.
On April 16, a local outfit known as the Fort Worth Vaqueros (Spanish for “cowboy”), accompanied by a group of their most animated fans, took a trip to Northwest Louisiana to play soccer against Shreveport Rafters FC. The teams hope the match represented the start of a historic rivalry. They’ve even given it a name rooted in the cities’ shared past: The Texas Trail Series.
The idea behind the title came from Rafters co-owner Will Broyles.
“I am a huge history buff,” he explained. “When you’re promoting a soccer series like this or anything else, if you can root it in the history of the two cities, it makes it more impactful and meaningful.”
The Texas Trail ran between the two cities, with cattle driven from Fort Worth to Shreveport for distribution down the Mississippi River.
“The Texas Trail goes back to early 1800s,” Broyles said.
It followed paths long established by the Caddo Indians. Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, and Broyles pointed out that the name “Texas” comes from the tribe’s word for “friend”: “tejas.” The development of a friendly rivalry along the old trail is the ideal result for these National Premier Soccer League franchises.
“Both teams, they want to go out and win regardless if it’s a cup game or a league game,” noted Vaqueros coach Mark Snell. “It will turn into a rivalry because we want to have the trophy.”
The winning team will retain a set of mounted cattle horns. Shreveport got a leg up on acquiring the talisman with a win in the first game of the two-leg series. It was an unusual contest.
“We planned to play one goalkeeper each half. The agreement was that we would play by NPSL rules, with which there’s no re-entry, meaning once you’re subbed off, you’re subbed off. We pretty much dominated the game, had a lot of chances. Their goalkeeper played very well,” Snell explained.
“The second half, we subbed our goalkeeper in. We only bring two goalkeepers, of course. Within ten minutes, there was a bad back pass to the goalkeeper and he had to come out and take down with a strong tackle the opponent and it was a last man call, meaning it was an automatic red card. So that was a PK (penalty kick) and they scored on that. And we had to put a field player in goal as well as play a man down.”
The Vaqueros kept it close, but Shreveport won the game 2-0. It was effectively a preseason game, and the first in the expansion-Rafters’ history. It’s possible that this kind of unusual match could indeed fuel a rivalry, with fans likely to remember its unique circumstances. It turns out a lot of Vaqueros fans were there to see it. The team’s supporters group took a bus to the Port City for the game (and maybe the casinos a bit, too). Snell appreciated their support on the road.
“We are beyond fortunate with this group. They call themselves the Panther City Hellfire,” said Snell. “These guys are just die-hard soccer fans.”
Broyles took notice of the visiting crew.
“The fans of Fort Worth were impressive,” he said.
Broyles also indicated that the Hellfire did more than just cheer for their team.
“They set the tone for that game, they set the tone for our fans for the season,” he noted. “Because everything was new, nobody in our crowd knew how the stands looked. When the Fort Worth contingent marched in with drums and flags, it gave us something to aspire toward. Our guys rallied. They got together the next game and we had drums. Now we actually have a trombone in our supporters group. We’ve got the flags.”
Fort Worth, then, may have helped fuel this budding rivalry by showing the Rafters’ own passionate fan club, now known as the Riverjacks, the right path to follow. Broyles expected many of his squad’s fans to travel the Texas Trail (whose route I-20 mirrors) tonight, when the series concludes with a game at the Vaqueros’ Martin Field. Perhaps they’ll be able to say they saw something historic.Monastic Tradition: Way of the Drunken Master
You follow an often-misunderstood tradition that imitates the stumbling movements of a drunkard. Monks of the Drunken Master utilise unpredictable swaying and falling to break traditional rules of engagement and attack from odd angles. While generally viewed as a joke or at best an impractical exhibition style, in the hands of an expert the drunken style is a powerful and mesmerizing form.
Many of the monks that follow this tradition defy the typical image of a monk, abandoning strict asceticism in favour of a more hedonistic and chaotic lifestyle. Drunken Masters are rarely found in temples or monasteries; they are more likely to be found out on the road adventuring, fighting in an arena, or gambling at the nearest tavern.
Bonus Proficiencies
When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with Brewer's supplies and improvised weapons. Improvised weapons count as monk weapons for you.
Hollow Body, Sloshing Belly
At 3rd level, you learn to fight from a stumbling but deceptively agile stance known as sloshing. As a bonus action on your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to induce a drunk-like state in yourself and begin sloshing.
While sloshing, you gain the following effects:
When you start sloshing, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Monk level.
You have advantage on Dexterity saves.
Your opportunity attacks have advantage, and opportunity attacks against you have disadvantage.
You have disadvantage on Wisdom saves and checks.
If you are able to cast spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while sloshing.
Your sloshing lasts for 5 minutes, and ends early if you are knocked unconscious.
Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest. The number of times you can use this feature increases to two at 6th level, three at 11th level, and four at 17th level.
Drunken Techniques
At 6th level you learn to use your drunken stumbling to make special attacks. You learn two drunken techniques from the list below, and can use them only while sloshing. You learn one additional technique of your choice at 11th and 17th level. Each time you learn a new technique, you can also replace one maneuver you know with a different one.
Crazy Hermit Opens Cask. You kick with both legs, sacrificing position for power. As an action, you can spend 2 ki points to fall prone and force one creature in melee range to make a Dexterity save. On a failed save, the creature takes 5d8 bludgeoning damage, plus an extra 1d8 bludgeoning damage for each additional ki point you spend, and knocks the target prone. On a successful save the creature takes half damage and is not knocked prone.
Down the Hatch. When you hit another creature with a melee attack, you can spend 2 ki points to attempt to strike it in the throat, silencing it. The creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be silenced for 1 minute. While silenced, the creature cannot speak or make noises using its mouth, and cannot provide the verbal component for spells. At the end of each of its turns, the target can make a Constitution saving throw, ending this effect on a success.
Drunken Lady Flirts With Master. As a bonus action, you spend 1 ki point to make a grapple attempt with advantage.
Gambler Cheats Game. When you hit a creature with an attack using an improvised weapon, you can spend 1 ki point to attempt to disarm the target. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or drop one object of your choice at its feet.
Grasshopper Rises Early. While prone you can use your reaction and spend 1 ki point to immediately stand up. Each creature within 5 feet of you must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. If you would hit a creature that is already prone, it takes damage equal to two of your martial arts die.
Spill the Cup. When an attacker you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction and fall prone to halve the attack's damage against you. This technique can't reduce psychic damage and can't be used if you are already prone.
Teetering Monkey Rush. As an action, you gain the ability to move through the space of other creatures until the end of your turn. When you move through the space of a Large or smaller creature in this manner you may choose to spend 1 ki point. That creature must then succeed on a Strength saving throw or take damage equal to your martial arts die and be knocked prone. On a successful save the creature takes half damage and is not knocked prone. You may choose to spend ki in this way for each creature you pass through. You cannot end your move in another creature's space.
Down in the Dirt
At 11th level, your practice with stumbling and falling has made you well adapted to fighting from seemingly disadvantageous positions. While prone your melee attacks don't have disadvantage and enemy melee attacks don't have advantage, and standing up costs you 10 feet of movement.
Intoxicate
At 17th level you learn to use your own ki to spread the effects of intoxication to your opponents. As an action, you spend 4 ki points to target up to 3 creatures within 15 feet of you. Each creature must succeed on a Constitution save or be subjected to the effects of the Slow spell for 5 minutes. Affected creatures may use their action to make a Constitution save, ending the effect on a success.Copy and paste this link into an e-mail or instant message: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/The-Book-of-Unwritten-Tales-2/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802354807de?cid=SLink Click to create and send a link using your email application
The Games on Demand Version supports English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. A new adventure from KING Art, the creators of The Book of Unwritten Tales, The Critter Chronicles and The Raven – Legacy of a Master Thief A fantasy story with over 20 hours of pointing and clicking The trademark BoUT-humor, lovingly spoofing LotR, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Discworld, The Hobbit, WoW and more Hundreds of weird, yet oddly logical puzzles The well-proven "Multi-Character-Gameplay" An ensemble of quirky characters, both well-established and brand-new Projection Mapping technology unites the merits of 2D and 3D styles and technique An epic soundtrack with all the classics and many new compositions The established four playable characters Wilbur, Nate, Ivo and CritterBack in 2004, the Bush administration launched an international program called the Millennium Challenge Corporation to help developing countries reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth through a series of bilateral compact agreements.
Under this novel approach, the U.S. eventually committed to spending $9.3 billion in foreign aid on roads, bridges and other infrastructure in 26 countries that qualified by scoring well in 17 different categories, including political and civil liberties, government effectiveness, anti-corruption efforts and a commitment to investing in their people’s health and education. At the same time, the U.S. Agency for international Development regularly conducted surveys on behalf of the U.S. Trade Representative to identify and quantify the government’s activities overseas to build up trade capacity.
In effect, the Bush administration sought to use foreign aid as a lever to promote economic growth, poverty reduction and social reform to expand free markets in recipient countries for U.S. trade. If that all sounds a lot like what Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney was talking about yesterday in his speech before President Bill Clinton’s annual global charitable gathering in New York, that’s because it is.
Demonstrating once again how few original or creative ideas are being offered up in the presidential election campaign, Romney unveiled a proposal for “Prosperity Pacts” that he said would link U.S. trade policy with development policy to promote investment and entrepreneurship in developing countries.
Under the Romney approach, the modest pool of U.S. foreign aid funds would be more closely linked to trade policies as well as private investment and corporate partnerships. Romney said he wanted to use aid initiatives, like the ones the Clinton Global Initiative supports, to encourage lasting change in the Middle East and other developing regions. His program would focus on small and medium-size businesses overseas that are too large for micro financing but too small to qualify for traditional bank loans.
“Nothing we can do as a nation will change lives and nations more effectively and permanently than sharing the insight that lies at the foundation of America’s own economy, and that is that free people pursuing happiness in their own ways to build a strong and prosperous nation,” Romney said.
Working with the private sector, the Romney |
Till I finally figured out the right answer.
"And you know what that answer was? Go ahead, take a guess." Billy appeared in the kitchenette doorway.
"I suppose you told them you'd read a lot of them but not all of them."
Gaspar waved the guess away with a flapping hand. "Now what good would that have done? They wouldn't know they'd asked a dumb question, but I didn't want to insult them, either. So when they'd ask if I'd read all those books, I'd say, 'Hell, no. Who wants a library full of books you've already read?'"
Billy laughed despite himself. He scratched at his hair with idle pleasure, and shook his head at the old man's verve. "Gaspar, you are a wild old man. You retired?" The old man walked carefully to the most comfortable chair in the room, an overstuffed Thirties-style lounger that had been reupholstered many times before Billy Kinetta had purchased it at the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop. He sank into it with a sigh. "No sir, I am not by any means retired. Still very active."
"Doing what, if I'm not prying?"
"Doing ombudsman."
"You mean, like a consumer advocate? Like Ralph Nader?"
"Exactly. I watch out for things. I listen, I pay some attention; and if I do it right, sometimes I can even make a little difference. Yes, like Mr. Nader. A very fine man."
"And you were at the cemetery to see a relative?"
Gaspar's face settled into an expression of loss. "My dear old girl. My wife, Minna. She's been gone, well, it was twenty years in January. " He sat silently staring inward for a while, then: "She was everything to me. The nice part was that I knew how important we were to each other; we discussed, well, just everything. I miss that the most, telling her what's going on.
"I go to see her every other day.
"I used to go every day. But. It. Hurt. Too much."
They had tea. Gaspar sipped and said it was very nice, but had Billy ever tried Earl Grey? Billy said he didn't know what that was, and Gaspar said he would bring him a tin, that it was splendid. And they chatted. Finally, Gaspar asked, "And who were you visiting?"
Billy pressed his lips together. "Just a friend." And would say no more. Then he sighed and said, "Well, listen, I have to go to work.
"Oh? What do you do?"
The answer came slowly. As if Billy Kinetta wanted to be able to say that he was in computers, or owned his own business, or held a position of import. "I'm night manager at a 7-Eleven."
"I'll bet you meet some fascinating people coming in late for milk or one of those slushies," Gaspar said gently. He seemed to understand.
Billy smiled. He took the kindness as it was intended. "Yeah, the cream of high society, That is, when they're not threatening to shoot me through the head if I don't open the safe."
"Let me ask you a favor," Gaspar said. "I'd like a little sanctuary, if you think it's all right. just a little rest. I could lie down on the sofa for a bit. Would that be all right? You trust me to stay here while you're gone, young fella?"
Billy hesitated only a moment. The very old man seemed okay, not a crazy, certainly not a thief. And what was there to steal? Some tea that wasn't even Earl Grey?
"Sure. That'll be okay. But I won't be coming back till two A.M. So just close the door behind you when you go; it'll lock automatically. "
They shook hands, Billy shrugged into his still-wet trenchcoat, and he went to the door. He paused to look back at Gaspar sitting in the lengthening shadows as evening came on. "It was nice getting to know you, Gaspar."
"You can make that a mutual pleasure, Billy. You're a nice young fella."
And Billy went to work, alone as always.
When he came home at two, prepared to open a can of Hormel chili, he found the table set for dinner, with the scent of an elegant beef stew enriching the apartment. There were new potatoes and stirfried carrots and zucchini that had been lightly battered to delicate crispness. And cupcakes. White cake with chocolate frosting. From a bakery.
And in that way, as gently as that, Gaspar insinuated himself into Billy Kinetta's apartment and his life.
As they sat with tea and cupcakes, Billy said, "You don't have anyplace to go, do you?"
The old man smiled and made one of those deprecating movements of the head. "Well, I'm not the sort of fella who can bear to be homeless, but at the moment I'm what vaudevillians used to call 'at liberty.'"
"If you want to stay on a time, that would be okay," Billy said. "It's not very roomy here, but we seem to get on all right."
"That's strongly kind of you, Billy. Yes, I'd like to be your roommate for a while. Won't be too long, though. My doctor tells me I'm not long for this world." He paused, looked into the teacup, and said softly, "I have to confess... I'm a little frightened. To go. Having someone to talk to would be a great comfort."
And Billy said, without preparation, "I was visiting the grave of a man who was in my rifle company in Vietnam. I go there sometimes." But there was such pain in his words that Gaspar did not press him for details.
So the hours passed, as they will with or without permission, and when Gaspar asked Billy if they could watch television, to catch an early newscast, and Billy tuned in the old set just in time to pick up dire reports of another aborted disarmament talk, and Billy shook his head and observed that it wasn't only Gaspar who was frightened of something like death, Gaspar chuckled, patted Billy on the knee and said, with unassailable assurance, "Take my word for it, Billy... it isn't going to happen. No nuclear holocaust. Trust me, when I tell you this: it'll never happen. Never, never, not ever."
Billy smiled wanly. "And why not? What makes you so sure... got some special inside information?"
And Gaspar pulled out the magnificent timepiece, which Billy was seeing for the first time, and he said, "It's not going to happen because it's only eleven o'clock."
Billy stared at the watch, which read 11:00 precisely. He consulted his wristwatch. "Hate to tell you this, but your watch has stopped. It's almost five-thirty."
Gaspar smiled his own certain smile. "No, it's eleven."
And they made up the sofa for the very old man, who placed his pocket change and his fountain pen and the sumptuous turnip watch on the now-silent television set, and they went to sleep.
One day Billy went off while Gaspar was washing the lunch dishes, and when he came back, he had a large paper bag from Toys "R" Us.
Gaspar came out of the kitchenette rubbing a plate with a souvenir dish towel from Niagara Falls, New York. He stared at Billy and the bag. "What's in the bag?" Billy inclined his head, and indicated the very old man should join him in the middle of the room. Then he sat down crosslegged on the floor, and dumped the contents of the bag. Gaspar stared with startlement, and sat down beside him.
So for two hours they played with tiny cars that turned into robots when the sections were unfolded.
Gaspar was excellent at figuring out all the permutations of the Transformers, Starriors and CoBots. He played well.
And they went for a walk. "I'll treat you to a matinee," Gaspar said. "But no films with Karen Black, Sandy Dennis or Meryl Streep. They're always crying. Their noses are always red. I can't stand that."
They started to cross the avenue. Stopped at the light was this year's Cadillac Brougham, vanity license plates, ten coats of acrylic lacquer and two coats of clear (with a little retarder in the final "color coat" for a slow dry) of a magenta hue so rich that it approximated the shade of light shining through a decanter filled with Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1945.
The man driving the Cadillac had no neck. His head sat thumped down hard on the shoulders. He stared straight ahead, took one last deep pull on the cigar, and threw it out the window. The still-smoking butt landed directly in front of Gaspar as he passed the car. The old man stopped, stared down at this coprolitic metaphor, and then stared at the driver. The eyes behind the wheel, the eyes of a macaquc, did not waver from the stoplight's red circle. just outside the window, someone was looking in, but the eyes of the rhesus were on the red circle.
A line of cars stopped behind the Brougham.
Gaspar continued to stare at the man in the Cadillac for a moment, and then, with creaking difficulty, he bent and picked up the smoldering butt of stogie.
The old man walked the two steps to the car -- as Billy watched in confusion -- thrust his face forward till it was mere inches from the driver's profile, and said with extreme sweetness, "I think you dropped this in our living room."
And as the glazed simian eyes turned to stare directly into the pedestrian's face, nearly nose to nose, Gaspar casually flipped the butt with its red glowing tip, into the back seat of the Cadillac, where it began to burn a hole in the fine Corinthian leather.
Three things happened simultaneously:
The driver let out a howl, tried to see the butt in his rearview mirror, could not get the angle, tried to look over his shoulder into the back seat but without a neck could not perform that feat of agility, put the car into neutral, opened his door and stormed into the street trying to grab Gaspar. "You fuckin' bastid, whaddaya think you're doin' tuh my car you asshole bastid, I'll kill ya... "
Billy's hair stood on end as he saw what Gaspar was doing; he rushed back the short distance in the crosswalk to grab the old man; Gaspar would not be dragged away, stood smiling with unconcealed pleasure at the mad bull rampaging and screaming of the hysterical driver. Billy yanked as hard as he could and Gaspar began to move away, around the front of the Cadillac, toward the far curb. Still grinning with octogeneric charm.
The light changed.
These three things happened in the space of five seconds, abetted by the impatient honking of the cars behind the Brougham; as the light turned green.
Screaming, dragging, honking, as the driver found he could not do three things at once: he could not go after Gaspar while the traffic was clanging at him; could not let go of the car door to crawl into the back seat from which now came the stench of charring leather that could not be rectified by an inexpensive Tijuana tuck-'n-roll; could not save his back seat and at the same time stave off the hostility of a dozen drivers cursing and honking. He trembled there, torn three ways, doing nothing.
Billy dragged Gaspar.
Out of the crosswalk. Out of the street. Onto the curb. Up the side street. Into the alley. Through a backyard. To the next street from the avenue.
Puffing with the exertion, Billy stopped at last, five houses up the street. Gaspar was still grinning, chuckling softly with unconcealed pleasure at his puckish ways. Billy turned on him with wild gesticulations and babble.
"You're nuts!"
"How about that?" the old man said, giving Billy an affectionate poke in the bicep.
"Nuts! Looney! That guy would've torn off your head! What the hell's wrong with you, old man? Are you out of your boots?"
"I'm not crazy. I'm responsible."
"Responsible!?! Responsible, fer chrissakes? For what? For all the butts every yotz throws into the street?"
The old man nodded. "For butts, and trash, and pollution, and toxic waste dumping in the dead of night; for bushes, and cactus, and the baobab tree; for pippin apples and even lima beans, which I despise. You show me someone who'll eat lima beans without being at gunpoint, I'll show you a pervert!"
Billy was screaming. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm also responsible for dogs and cats and guppies and cockroaches and the President of the United States and Jonas Salk and your mother and the entire chorus line at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Also their choreographer."
"Who do you think you are? God?"
"Don't be sacrilegious. I'm too old to wash your mouth out with laundry soap. Of course I'm not God. I'm just an old man. But I'm responsible."
Gaspar started to walk away, toward the corner and the avenue and a resumption of their route. Billy stood where the old man's words had pinned him.
"Come on, young fella," Gaspar said, walking backward to speak to him, "we'll miss the beginning of the movie. I hate that."
Billy had finished eating, and they were sitting in the dimness of the apartment, only the lamp in the corner lit. The old man had gone to the County Art Museum and had bought inexpensive prints -- Max Ernst, Gerome, Richard Dadd, a subtle Feininger -- which he had mounted in Insta-Frames, They sat in silence for a time, relaxing; then murmuring trivialities in a pleasant undertone.
Finally, Gaspar said, "I've been thinking a lot about my dying. I like what Woody Allen said."
Billy slid to a more comfortable position in the lounger. "What was that?"
"He said: I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
Billy snickered.
"I feel something like that, Billy. I'm not afraid to go, but I don't want to leave Minna entirely. The times I spend with her, talking to her, well, it gives me the feeling we're still in touch. When I go, that's the end of Minna. She'll be well and truly dead. We never had any children, almost everyone who knew us is gone, no relatives. And we never did anything important that anyone would put in a record book, so that's the end of us. For me, I don't mind; but I wish there was someone who knew about Minna...she was a remarkable person."
So Billy said, "Tell me. I'll remember for you."
Memories in no particular order. Some as strong as ropes that could pull the ocean ashore. Some that shimmered and swayed in the faintest breeze like spiderwebs. The entire person, all the little movements, that dimple that appeared when she was amused at something foolish he had said. Their youth together, their love, the procession of their days toward middle age. The small cheers and the pain of dreams never realized. So much about him, as he spoke of her. His voice soft and warm and filled with a longing so deep and true that he had to stop frequently because the words broke and would not come out till he had thought away some of the passion. He thought of her and was glad. He had gathered her together, all her dowry of love and taking care of him, her clothes and the way she wore them, her favorite knickknacks, a few clever remarks: and he packed it all up and delivered it to a new repository.
The very old man gave Minna to Billy Kinetta for safekeeping.
Dawn had come. The light filtering in through the blinds was saffron. "Thank you, Dad," Billy said. He could not name the feeling that had taken him hours earlier. But he said this: "I've never had to be responsible for anything, or anyone, in my whole life. I never belonged to anybody... I don't know why. It didn't bother me, because I didn't know any other way to be."
Then his position changed, there in the lounger. He sat up in a way that Gaspar thought was important. As if Billy were about to open the secret box buried at his center. And Billy spoke so softly the old man had to strain to hear him.
"I didn't even know him.
"We were defending the airfield at Danang. Did I tell you we were 1st Battalion, 9th Marines? Charlie was massing for a big push out of Quang Ngai province, south of us. Looked as if they were going to try to take the provincial capital. My rifle company was assigned to protect the perimeter. They kept sending in patrols to bite us. Every day we'd lose some poor bastard who scratched his head when he shouldn't of. It was June, late in June, cold and a lot of rain. The foxholes were hip-deep in water.
"Flares first. Our howitzers started firing. Then the sky was full of tracers, and I started to turn toward the bushes when I heard something coming, and these two main-force regulars in dark blue uniforms came toward me. I could see them so clearly. Long black hair. All crouched over. And they started firing. And that goddam carbine seized up, wouldn't fire; and I pulled out the banana clip, tried to slap in another, but they saw me and just turned a couple of AK-47's on me... God, I remember everything slowed down... I looked at those things, seven-point-six-two-millimeter assault rifles they were... I got crazy for a second, tried to figure out in my own mind if they were Russian-made, or Chinese, or Czech, or North Korean. And it was so bright from the flares I could see them starting to squeeze off the rounds, and then from out of nowhere this lance corporal jumped out at them and yelled somedamnthing like, 'Hey, you VC fucks, looka here!' except it wasn't that... I never could recall what he said actually... and they turned to brace him... and they opened him up like a baggie full of blood... and he was all over me, and the bushes, and oh god there was pieces of him floating on the water I was standing in... "
Billy was heaving breath with impossible weight. His hands moved in the air before his face without pattern or goal. He kept looking into far corners of the dawn-lit room as if special facts might present themselves to fill out the reasons behind what he was saying.
"Aw, geezus, he was floating on the water... aw, Christ, he got in my boots!" Then a wail of pain so loud it blotted out the sound of traffic beyond the apartment; and he began to moan, but not cry; and the moaning kept on; and Gaspar came from the sofa and held him and said such words as it's all right, but they might not have been those words, or any words.
And pressed against the old man's shoulder, Billy Kinetta ran on only half sane: "He wasn't my friend, I never knew him, I'd never talked to him, but I'd seen him, he was just this guy, and there wasn't any reason to do that, he didn't know whether I was a good guy or a shit or anything, so why did he do that? He didn't need to do that. They wouldn't of seen him. He was dead before I killed them. He was gone already. I never got to say thank you or thank you or... anything!
"Now he's in that grave, so I came here to live, so I can go there, but I try and try to say thank you, and he's dead, and he can't hear me, he can't hear anything, he's just down there, down in the ground, and I can't say thank you... oh, geezus, geezus, why don't he hear me, I just want to say thanks... "
Billy Kinetta wanted to assume the responsibility for saying thanks, but that was possible only on a night that would never come again; and this was the day.
Gaspar took him to the bedroom and put him down to sleep in exactly the same way one would soothe an old, sick dog.
Then he went to his sofa, and because it was the only thing he could imagine saying, he murmured, "He'll be all right, Minna. Really he will."
When Billy left for the 7-Eleven the next evening, Gaspar was gone. It was an alternate day, and that meant he was out at the cemetery. Billy fretted that he shouldn't be there alone, but the old man had a way of taking care of himself. Billy was not smiling as he thought of his friend, and the word friend echoed as he realized that, yes, this was his friend, truly and really his friend. He wondered how old Gaspar was, and how soon Billy Kinetta would be once again what he had always been: alone.
When he returned to the apartment at two-thirty, Gaspar was asleep, cocooned in his blanket on the sofa. Billy went in and tried to sleep, but hours later, when sleep would not come, when thoughts of murky water and calcium night light on dark foliage kept him staring at the bedroom ceiling, he came out of the room for a drink of water. He wandered around the living room, not wanting to be by himself even if the only companionship in this sleepless night was breathing heavily, himself in sleep.
He stared out the window. Clouds lay in chiffon strips across the sky. The squealing of tires from the street.
Sighing, idle in his movement around the room, he saw the old man's pocket watch lying on the coffee table beside the sofa. He walked to the table. If the watch was still stopped at eleven o'clock, perhaps he would borrow it and have it repaired. It would be a nice thing to do for Gaspar. He loved that beautiful timepiece.
Billy bent to pick it up.
The watch, stopped at the V of eleven precisely, levitated at an angle, floating away from him.
Billy Kinetta felt a shiver travel down his back to burrow in at the base of his spine. He reached for the watch hanging in air before him. It floated away just enough that his fingers massaged empty space. He tried to catch it. The watch eluded him, lazily turning away like an opponent who knows he is in no danger of being struck from behind.
Then Billy realized Gaspar was awake. Turned away from the sofa, nonetheless he knew the old man was observing him. And the blissful floating watch.
He looked at Gaspar.
They did not speak for a long time.
Then: "I'm going back to sleep," Billy said. Quietly.
"I think you have some questions," Gaspar replied.
"Questions? No, of course not, Dad. Why in the world would I have questions? I'm still asleep." But that was not the truth, because he had not been asleep that night.
"Do you know what 'Gaspar' means? Do you remember the three wise men of the Bible, the Magi?"
"I don't want any frankincense and myrrh. I'm going back to bed. I'm going now. You see, I'm going right now."
"'Gaspar' means master of the treasure, keeper of the secrets, paladin of the palace." Billy was staring at him, not walking into the bedroom; just staring at him. As the elegant timepiece floated to the old man, who extended his hand palm-up to receive it. The watch nestled in his hand, unmoving, and it made no sound, no sound at all.
"You go back to bed. But will you go out to the cemetery with me tomorrow? It's important."
"Why?"
"Because I believe I'll be dying tomorrow."
It was a nice day, cool and clear. Not at all a day for dying, but neither had been many such days in Southeast Asia, and death had not been deterred.
They stood at Minna's gravesite, and Gaspar opened his shooting stick to form a seat, and he thrust the spike into the ground, and he settled onto it, and sighed, and said to Billy Kinetta, "I'm growing cold as that stone."
"Do you want my jacket?"
"No. I'm cold inside." He looked around at the sky, at the grass, at the rows of markers. "I've been responsible, for all of this, and more."
"You've said that before."
"Young fella, are you by any chance familiar, in your reading, with an old novel by James Hilton called Lost Horizon? Perhaps you saw the movie. It was a wonderful movie, actually much better than the book. Mr. Capra's greatest achievement. A human testament. Ronald Colman was superb. Do you know the story?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember the High Lama, played by Sam Jaffe? His name was Father Perrault?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember how he passed on the caretakership of that magical hidden world, Shangri-La, to Ronald Colman?"
"Yes, I remember that. " Billy paused. "Then he died. He was very old, and he died."
Gaspar smiled up at Billy. "Very good, Billy. I knew you were a good boy. So now, if you remember all that, may I tell you a story? It's not a very long story."
Billy nodded, smiling at his friend.
"In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the civilized world would no longer observe the Julian calendar. October 4th, 1582 was followed, the next day, by October 15th. Eleven days vanished from the world. One hundred and seventy days later, the British Parliament followed suit, and September 2nd, 1752 was followed, the next day, by September 14th. Why did he do that, the Pope?"
Billy was bewildered by the conversation. "Because he was bringing it into synch with the real world. The solstices and equinoxes. When to plant, when to harvest."
Gaspar waggled a finger at him with pleasure. "Excellent, young fella. And you're correct when you say Gregory abolished the Julian calendar because its error of one day in every one hundred and twenty-eight years had moved the vernal equinox to March 11th. That's what the history books say. It's what every history book says. But what if?"
"What if what? I don't know what you're talking about."
"What if: Pope Gregory had the knowledge revealed to him that he must readjust time in the minds of men? What if: the excess time in 1582. was eleven days and one hour? What if: he accounted for those eleven days, vanished those eleven days, but that one hour slipped free, was left loose to bounce through eternity? A very special hour...an hour that must never be used... an hour that must never toll. What if?"
Billy spread his hands. "What if, what if, what if! It's all just philosophy. It doesn't mean anything. Hours aren't real, time isn't something that you can bottle up. So what if there is an hour out there somewhere that... "
And he stopped.
He grew tense, and leaned down to the old man. "The watch. Your watch. It doesn't work. It's stopped."
Gaspar nodded. "At eleven o'clock. My watch works; it keeps very special time, for one very special hour."
Billy touched Gaspar's shoulder. Carefully he asked, "Who are you, Dad?"
The old man did not smile as he said, "Gaspar. Keeper. Paladin. Guardian."
"Father Perrault was hundreds of years old."
Gaspar shook his head with a wistful expression on his old face. "I'm eighty-six years old, Billy. You asked me if I thought I was God. Not God, not Father Perrault, not an immortal, just an old man who will die too soon. Are you Ronald Colman?"
Billy nervously touched his lower lip with a finger. He looked at Gaspar as long as he could, then turned away. He walked off a few paces, stared at the barren trees. It seemed suddenly much chillier here in this place of entombed remembrances. From a distance he said, "But it's only... what? A chronological convenience. Like daylight saving time; Spring forward, Fall back. We don't actually lose an hour; we get it back."
Gaspar stared at Minna's grave. "At the end of April I lost an hour. If I die now, I'll die an hour short in my life. I'll have been cheated out of one hour I want, Billy." He swayed toward all he had left of Minna. "One last hour I could have with my old girl. That's what I'm afraid of, Billy. I have that hour in my possession. I'm afraid I'll use it, god help me, I want so much to use it."
Billy came to him. Tense, and chilled, he said "Why must that hour never toll?"
Gaspar drew a deep breath and tore his eyes away from the grave. His gaze locked with Billy's. And he told him.
The years, all the days and hours, exist. As solid and as real as mountains and oceans and men and women and the baobab tree. Look, he said, at the lines in my face and deny that time is real. Consider these dead weeds that were once alive and try to believe it's all just vapor or the mutual agreement of Popes and Caesars and young men like you.
"The lost hour must never come, Billy, for in that hour it all ends. The light, the wind, the stars, this magnificent open place we call the universe. It all ends, and in its place -- waiting, always waiting -- is eternal darkness. No new beginnings, no world without end, just the infinite emptiness."
And he opened his hand, which had been lying in his lap, and there, in his palm, rested the watch, making no sound at all, and stopped dead at eleven o'clock. "Should it strike twelve, Billy, eternal night falls; from which there is no recall."
There he sat, this very old man, just a perfectly normal old man. The most recent in the endless chain of keepers of the lost hour, descended in possession from Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII, down through the centuries of men and women who had served as caretakers of the excellent timepiece. And now he was dying, and now he wanted to cling to life as every man and woman clings to life no matter how awful or painful or empty, even if it is for one more hour. The suicide, falling from the bridge, at the final instant, tries to fly, tries to climb back up the sky. This weary old man, who only wanted to stay one brief hour more with Minna. Who was afraid that his love would cost the universe.
He looked at Billy, and he extended his hand with the watch waiting for its next paladin. So softly Billy could barely hear him, knowing that he was denying himself what he most wanted at this last place in his life, he whispered, "If I die without passing it on... it will begin to tick."
"Not me," Billy said. "Why did you pick me? I'm no one special. I'm not someone like you. I run an all-night service mart. There's nothing special about me the way there is about you! I'm not Ronald Colman! I don't want to be responsible, I've never been responsible!"
Gaspar smiled gently. "You've been responsible for me."
Billy's rage vanished. He looked wounded.
"Look at us, Billy. Look at what color you are; and look at what color I am. You took me in as a friend. I think of you as worthy, Billy. Worthy."
They remained there that way, in silence, as the wind rose. And finally, in a timeless time, Billy nodded.
Then the young man said, "You won't be losing Minna, Dad. Now you'll go to the place where she's been waiting for you, just as she was when you first met her. There's a place where we find everything we've ever lost through the years."
"That's good, Billy, that you tell me that. I'd like to believe it, too. But I'm a pragmatist. I believe what exists... like rain and Minna's grave and the hours that pass that we can't see, but they are. I'm afraid, Billy. I'm afraid this will be the last time I can speak to her. So I ask a favor. As payment, in return for my life spent protecting the watch.
"I ask for one minute of the hour, Billy. One minute to call her back, so we can stand face-to-face and I can touch her and say goodbye. You'll be the new protector of this watch, Billy, so I ask you please, just let me steal one minute."
Billy could not speak. The look on Gaspar's face was without horizon, empty as tundra, bottomless. The child left alone in darkness; the pain of eternal waiting. He knew he could never deny this old man, no matter what he asked, and in the silence he heard a voice say: "No!" And it was his own.
He had spoken without conscious volition. Strong and determined, and without the slightest room for reversal. If a part of his heart had been swayed by compassion, that part had been instantly overridden. No. A final, unshakable no.
For an instant Gaspar looked crestfallen. His eyes clouded with tears; and Billy felt something twist and break within himself at the sight. He knew he had hurt the old man. Quickly, but softly, he said urgently, "You know that would be wrong, Dad. We mustn't... "
Gaspar said nothing. Then he reached out with his free hand and took Billy's. It was an affectionate touch. "That was the last test, young fella. Oh, you know I've been testing you, don't you? This important item couldn't go to just anyone.
"And you passed the test, my friend: my last, best friend. When I said I could bring her back from where she's gone, here in this place we've both come to so often, to talk to someone lost to us, I knew you would understand that anyone could be brought back in that stolen minute. I knew you wouldn't use it for yourself, no matter how much you wanted it; but I wasn't sure that as much as you like me, it might not sway you. But you wouldn't even give it to me, Billy."
He smiled up at him, his eyes now clear and steady.
"I'm content, Billy. You needn't have worried. Minna and I don't need that minute. But if you're to carry on for me, I think you do need it. You're in pain, and that's no good for someone who carries this watch. You've got to heal, Billy.
"So I give you something you would never take for yourself. I give you a going-away present..."
And he started the watch, whose ticking was as loud and as clear as a baby's first sound; and the sweep-second hand began to move away from eleven o'clock.
Then the wind rose, and the sky seemed to cloud over, and it grew colder, with a remarkable silver-blue mist that rolled across the cemetery; and though he did not see it emerge from that grave at a distance far to the right, Billy Kinetta saw a shape move toward him. A soldier in the uniform of a day past, and his rank was Lance Corporal. He came toward Billy Kinetta, and Billy went to meet him as Gaspar watched.
They stood together and Billy spoke to him. And the man whose name Billy had never known when he was alive, answered. And then he faded, as the seconds ticked away. Faded, and faded, and was gone. And the silver-blue mist rolled through them, and past them, and was gone; and the soldier was gone.
Billy stood alone.
When he turned back to look across the grounds to his friend, he saw that Gaspar had fallen from the shooting stick. He lay on the ground. Billy rushed to him, and fell to his knees and lifted him onto his lap. Gaspar was still.
"Oh, god, Dad, you should have heard what he said. Oh, geez, he let me go. He let me go so I didn't even have to say I was sorry. He told me he didn't even see me in that foxhole. He never knew he'd saved my life. I said thank you and he said no, thank you, that he hadn't died for nothing. Oh, please, Dad, please don't be dead yet. I want to tell you... "
And, as it sometimes happens, rarely but wonderfully, sometimes they come back for a moment, for an instant before they go, the old man, the very old man, opened his eyes, just before going on his way, and he looked through the dimming light at his friend, and he said, "May I remember you to my old girl, Billy?"
And his eyes closed again, after only a moment; and his caretakership was at an end; as his hand opened and the most excellent timepiece, now stopped again at one minute past eleven, floated from his palm and waited till Billy Kinetta extended his hand; and then it floated down and lay there silently, making no sound, no sound at all. Safe. Protected.
There in the place where all lost things returned, the young man sat on the cold ground, rocking the body of his friend |
.04. USA Mobile, AL - Saenger Theater
21.04. USA St. Petersburg, FL - Jannus Landing
22.04. USA Miami, FL - Olympia TheaterShortly after Roskomnadzor, Russia's Internet censor, added PornHub to its registry of blocked websites in September of 2016 (in the name of preventing minors from being able to access pornography), the online porn website made Roskomnadzor an offer: unblock PornHub in Russia and it would receive a free premium account.
At the time, Roskomnadzor rejected the proposal, suggesting that watching online porn might hurt Russian demographic growth.
sorry, we are not in the market and the demography is not a commodity. — Роскомнадзор (@roscomnadzor) September 15, 2016
But yesterday, little more than a month after Roskomnadzor unblocked PornHub in Russia (users must now enter their date of birth before being given access to the website), Vadim Ampelonsky, a Roskomnadzor representative, said his agency is ready to cash in on PornHub's offer.
Speaking on a panel at the SPIK 2017 Internet Conference in St. Petersburg with Dmitry Kolodin, a digital specialist at PornHub, Ampelonsky said he had yet to receive his free premium account. Kolodin responded that he would receive a subscription as soon as PornHub's headquarters in Montreal opened on Tuesday.
According to Felix Zinatullin, a marketing executive who attended SPIK and called attention to the exchange on VKontakte, Ampeonsky said he would make sure that all Russian Internet providers had granted users access to Pornhub in return for the premium subscription.
Today, the website TJournal reported that PornHub has given Ampelonsky 10 free premium subscriptions, five of which he offered to TJournal employees “for charitable purposes.”NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner defended his financial stabilization plan Tuesday, telling senators it is "fundamentally different" than the one pursued by his predecessor, Henry Paulson.
Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, Geithner conceded that the plan he outlined Tuesday morning lacked some details, including how much it might cost and how much additional funding might be necessary beyond what's available under previous congressional authorizations.
But even without those sorts of details, Geithner said he felt it important to "lay out the broad architecture of what we need to do."
The comments came after financial stocks plunged Tuesday. The KBW Bank Index plummeted 14%, wiping out the past week's rally. Big banks Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) each dropped at least 10%.
Investors had hoped to see a plan that would address two of the biggest problems in the banking sector: the toxic assets keeping banks from lending, and the shortage of capital at major institutions at a time when losses are expected to rise sharply.
While Geithner pledged to raise as much as $500 billion from public and private sources to relieve banks of toxic assets, he didn't explain how the program would bring together buyers and sellers who have been locked in a stalemate for 18 months.
In response to a question from Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Geithner said the administration intends to provide longer-term financing that has been absent during the credit crisis. The presence of stable financing could allow investors to accept lower returns in exchange for greater leverage, which magnifies returns.
And while he pledged to provide "capital support" for banks that need more money, skeptics note that Treasury has just over $100 billion available for capital infusions -- which surely won't be enough to tide over an industry facing losses that could reach into the trillions of dollars.
Promise to spend money wisely
Asked about the size of the problem facing the financial sector, Geithner declined to project how much money he might need but said he wanted to be "candid" about the rising costs of the bailout.
Treasury has $320 billion available under the Paulson-era Troubled Asset Relief Program, though Tuesday's plan earmarked more than half of that for lending and housing programs.
"I think this is going to be a substantial problem for the nation that will require substantial resources," Geithner said Tuesday afternoon in response to a question from the committee's ranking member, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. "We will move to use existing resources as efficiently as possible."
Asked by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., to specify how much money the administration would need to solve the financial crisis, Geithner reiterated his promise to spend whatever resources Treasury has at its disposal wisely.
"At this point we do not have a judgment about whether and how much additional resources we will need to solve this," Geithner said.
Though Geithner's vagueness may not help him win over critics, he has stressed that his plan isn't in danger of turning into a rerun of the troubled Paulson plan.
"You need to change the basic public perception around how this is going to be managed by bringing a new set of values and sense of responsibility," Geithner told Fortune in an interview Monday. "These banks need to understand that access to government resources is a privilege, not a right. It's not for the banks. It's for the people, and companies depend on that."
Nobody liked the old TARP
The original TARP has drawn scorching criticism from both sides of the aisle in Congress for its failure to lay out clear goals, account for how taxpayer funds were spent or demand adequate compensation for taxpayers.
The Congressional Oversight Panel appointed by the Senate reported last week that the Paulson Treasury paid $254 billion in 2008 capital purchases for stock and warrants that were worth just $176 billion.
What's more, Paulson sold Congress last fall on a plan to solve the toxic asset problem -- and then changed his mind without telling anyone until weeks later. That is one reason why lawmakers were so insistent on hearing more details from Geithner before committing to support his approach.
"I've been down that road before," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. "We're not going there again."
Geithner said that while there are "common elements" to his and Paulson's approaches, he promised to impose more transparency and tougher conditions on recipients of federal funds.
"The path we have taken to date was too limited," he told the Senate Tuesday..
Though observers agree with Geithner's assessment of the Paulson regime, some wonder whether he's falling into a similar trap - promising clarity and then not delivering.
"Geithner was right that they screwed up before," said Simon Johnson, a finance professor at MIT who writes the Baseline Scenario blog covering the financial crisis. "But why should we trust him now?"by
Photo by thierry ehrmann | CC BY 2.0
Once again, it’s happening, this time with the release of leaks by Wikileaks, supposedly via Russia, of the Clinton campaign’s emails and Hillary’s speeches to Wall Street.
Hard not to remember the way the mainstream media treated the important and valuable reporting done by Glenn Greenwald on the abuses of U.S. and British surveillance agencies exposed by Edward Snowden.
The Beltway press jumped into action to discredit Greenwald, often neglecting to deal with the actual wrongs of our Big Brother government.
Not hard to understand given that so many, including the most supposedly influential media, now simply feed at the trough of those in power. When somebody’s excellent journalism challenges your daily work routine of just reprinting press releases from Washington, you immediately attempt to kill the messenger.
(Have to wonder what would have happened to Greenwald had he actually hacked the government rather than Snowden, who now lives in exile in Russia. Chelsea Manning, who did hack government sites, uncovered actual war crimes. For that she was treated barbarically and faces years in prison. So far, no one has been prosecuted for what she uncovered.)
And the same is going on with Wikileaks’ reporting of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton. Remember, not hacked by Wikileaks or Julian Assange, but by others who gave them to Wikileaks.
It’s supposedly being done by the Russians, a convenient way for Clinton to smear what is actually being uncovered.
Shocked, shocked, the whining goes, that some foreigners dare attempt to influence our elections.
Funny, isn’t it, how such outrage is never even approached when it comes to AIPAC and Israel’s significant influence in American elections for decades?
And where’s the anger and finger-pointing for all of the U.S. attempts to influence elections throughout the globe, from the third-world to Europe?
A basic precept — or it used to be — in journalism is that you pay attention to what was leaked and not so much the leaker. Newspapers are — or were — protected as long as they had no foreknowledge of or solicited the specific leak.
What was important was the actual wrongdoing.
For example, despite Richard Nixon’s attempt to destroy the reputation of Daniel Ellsberg, the focus of the New York Times and other then-great newspapers — and subsequently by most Americans — was on what was actually in the Pentagon Papers.
In fact, a court even dismissed the charges against Ellsberg.
More than just the way the news is delivered has changed since the collapse of newspapers.
The New York Times didn’t pilfer the Pentagon Papers. They were given to them.
Wikileaks didn’t hack those emails. They were passed on to it.
We forget that distinction these days.
Still, it’s good to know that somebody or something still understands the role of a free press in what remains of our democracy.
And speaking of Nixon, that is just who Clinton and Barack Obama bring to mind when it comes to the abuses exposed by Greenwald and Wikileaks.
Killing the messenger.
These days, it seems to be working.
Just ask Nixon’s heirs.
Bruce Mastron is a writer living in Florida.Thursday, September 14, 2017 9:45 am unwatch 0 40k
GENEVA, Sept. 14, 2017 – After an investigator of the U.N. human rights council presented a report slamming the U.S. and EU for imposing sanctions on Russia, which he said amounted to “unilateral coercive measures,” a Geneva-based watchdog group took the floor to challenge the Special Rapporteur, former Algerian ambassador Idriss Jazairy, on the ethics of his receiving $50,000 from Russia last year for his mandate, as disclosed in a recent UN report. (See intervention below.)
The U.N. report “makes the astounding claim that the Russian government of Vladimir Putin is a victim of human rights violations, and that the perpetrators are the EU and the U.S.,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights group.
Russia immediately embraced the report, saying that Moscow “categorically rejected unilateral coercive measures” which amounted to “collective punishment” and “violated the standards of international law and fundamental human rights.”
Russia’s delegate said “the sole authority to introduce sanctions should be the UN Security Council.” Sanctions had been imposed “following the legitimate right of the citizens of Crimea to exercise their right to self-determination.”
Venezuela, Cuba and China are members of the 47-nation council, and have been able to influence the appointment of experts friendly to their regimes.
UN Watch expressed concern over a “fixed” panel discussion this afternoon on Western sanctions against human rights abusers. The panel includes Jazairy and two other experts installed by Cuba—Qaddafi Prize co-founder Jean Ziegler, and Alfred de Zayas, a hero to Holocaust deniers—along with the Venezuelan ambassador, and a pro-Russian Belarus academic. The event is chaired by the Egyptian ambassador.
#####
UN Human Rights Council testimony
Delivered by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer
14 September 2017
Mr. Jazairy, thank you for coming today to answer questions about your report on Russia.
Human rights activists worked hard to see the U.S. Congress enact the Magnitzky Act, which uses sanctions to hold Russian officials to account, for their role in the false imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitzky, the courageous whistleblower against corruption.
Mr. Jazairy, I am confused, therefore, that you have submitted a report which, in its essence, makes the astounding claim that the Russian government of Vladimir Putin is a victim — that the Kremlin is a victim of human rights violations, and that the perpetrators are the EU and the U.S.
Mr. Jazairy, I am further confused that you wrote an entire report touching on Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, but yet you never mention the words occupied territory. While you say, at note 1, that you followed the language of Resolution 71/205, we take this opportunity to remind all UN experts that, in fact, this resolution makes explicit reference to “the Russian occupation authorities” and “Condemns the temporary occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine.”
Mr. Jazairy, I have one other issue, and it is a serious one. I was reading Council report 34/34/Add.1, and under the list entitled “External support received by mandate holders,” you are listed on page 37 as receiving, over the past year, the sum of $50,000 — from Russia.
Mr. Jazairy, could you please clarify for us:
(a) Did you receive the Russian funds before or after you wrote this report, in which you describe Russia as a human rights victim?
(b) Have you considered the ethical implications, and the appearance, of a UN expert receiving money — $50,000 — from just one country, and then visiting only that country, to write a report warmly embraced by that government, as we just heard?
Finally, on 11 August, you said sanctions on Venezuelan officials would “worsen the situation,” and you spoke of the lack of food and medicine. But why did you not mention that it was the Venezuelan government’s catastrophic policies that caused these shortages in the first place?
I thank you.
[Mr. Jazairy responded to say he would not react to “disparaging attacks.”]
______
Extract from UN list (p.37) showing Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy received $50,000 from Russia:President Donald Trump’s decision to dismiss former FBI Director James Comey has precipitated a small cataclysm in the nation’s capital, as commentators speculate that Trump has dealt a deathblow to his administration’s integrity.
Whether the public shares their assessment is still an open question, but Trump could strike a blow for competence and trust by installing a seasoned prosecutor widely admired by his political opposition — Judge Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama’s last nominee to the Supreme Court.
The White House has been silent with respect to possible successors, though names like Michael Chertoff and Ray Kelly have circulated widely in the hours after Comey’s dismissal.
The strength of his resume alone could make Garland a serious candidate. The judge is a veteran of the highest levels of the Department of Justice, where he executed and supervised sensitive investigations and prosecutions of the sort America can expect in the coming years.
Garland first joined DOJ in the waning days of the Carter administration, when he served as special assistant to Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti. He returned to public service in 1989 as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, where he prosecuted a wide range of cases on behalf of the federal government.
Four years later, he was appointed deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division at DOJ, where he supervised several sections of Department prosecutors. He was so capable a prosecutor and manager that the Justice Department’s second-in-command asked him to serve as her principal deputy in 1994.
In this capacity Garland forged a national reputation for thorough, vigorous prosecutions. He led the trial team that brought a successful death penalty case against Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and directed the prosecution of unabomber Ted Kaczynski from Washington. His ascent in the Department was meteoric, and the legacy he left won bipartisan acclaim.
His government experience is supplemented by a decade in the private sector at Arnold & Porter, where he handled complex corporate litigation matters of the sort that would also leave him well qualified to execute the Bureau’s white collar crime operations.
Obvious political advantages would attend Garland’s appointment at this precarious moment of Trump’s presidency. Senate Democrats joined the previous administration in offering uniformly glowing assessments of Garland’s quality and experience. None could now plausibly marshall a convincing case against him, after mounting a year-long campaign to secure him a spot on the nation’s highest tribunal.
His appointment would also open a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Democratic appointees have a 7-4 advantage on the court, widely considered the second most important in the country, as it has jurisdiction over most federal agencies. Trump’s allies in conservative legal circles would relish the prospect of another GOP appointee on the panel.
All this is to say nothing of the fact that Garland is regarded as a man of unimpeachable integrity. An investigation under his supervision into collaboration between Trump aides and Russian operatives would be immune from questions of rectitude. If Trump is committed to a thorough investigation that will mollify his critics, there’s no better choice than Judge Garland.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected] Milton Friedman's case, I believe that it was a conviction that the LM curve was steep enough and the IS curve flat enough that the fiscal side was fundamentally unimportant--that about the same effects were achieved whether the extra money was introduced into the economy via being dropped from helicopters or via open-market operations. To focus on how open-market operations worked would thus confuse listeners who would then have to think through asset market-equilibrium to no substantive gain in understanding. In Friedman's view, the entire Tobin analytical tradition, not to mention Wicksell, was largely a distracting waste of time. So why go there?
Why did Milton Friedman set it forth in his writings as one of the paradigmatic cases of expansionary monetary policy? Why did Ben Bernanke refer to it and so gain his unwanted nickname of "Helicopter Ben"?
Why is it called: "helicopter money"? Why isn't it called: "expansionary fiscal policy with monetary support to neutralize any potential crowding-out of private-sector spending"?
In the case of Ben Bernanke and of the rest of the participants in today's debate, I think it is has different causes. I think it is a result of the default Washington-Consensus Great-Moderation assignment of the stabilization-policy role to independent and technocratic central banks. In that paradigm, directly-elected governments are supposed to limit their focus to the "classical" tasks of rightsizing the public sector and adopting an appropriately-prudent long-term government-spending financing plan.
To speak of "expansionary fiscal policy with monetary support to neutralize any potential crowding-out of private-sector spending" is to open a can of worms. To speak of "helicopter money" is to convey the impression that this is the central bank undertaking its proper business, but in a context in which as a result of unfortunate historical accidents of institutional development the independent central bank needs the active support of the directly-elected government. The active support of the directly-elected government is needed undertake what is, after all, a fundamentally monetary policy. And it is, in this line of thinking, a fundamentally monetary policy: Milton Friedman himself said so.
Now comes the extremely-sharp Adair Turner to try to focus the debate in a productive direction.
Many today are unwilling to advocate for more expansionary fiscal policy out of:
a fear that many economies that would find their governments engaging in it lack fiscal space for it to be of much use, a fear that directly-elected governments allowed to cross the line and engage in open-ended explicitly stabilization policy will not give due weight to the objective of keeping inflation low over the long term, or a fear that central banks allowed to control fiscal-policy levers will be captured by and use their powers to then take taxpayers' money and spend it enriching the banking sector.
So what is the solution? How can we build institutions that will:
avoid the Scylla of allowing directly-elected governments that use fiscal levers in support of monetary expansion to enforce fiscal dominance and abandon prudent inflation targets, while also avoiding the Charybdis of allowing central banks that may well have been partially-captured by their banking sectors of using their powers to spend the taxpayers' money further enriching the bankers?
The solution is obvious: Social Credit. Adopt the policies of the Social Credit Part of Alberta in the 1930s. Adopt the policies of Upton Sinclair's campaign for Governor of California in the 1930s. Adopt the policies that are taken as a matter of course and are in the background of Robert A. Heinlein's 1947 novel Beyond This Horizon.
Central banks should, instead of taking all the revenue from seigniorage they create and transferring it all back to the Treasury, calculate each quarter how much of the seigniorage they hold should be distributed to citizens in the form of that quarter's helicopter drop.
I am not certain about how the legal-institutional constraints bind the BoJ, and ECB, and the BoE. I believe that the Federal Reserve could start such a policy régime today:
Incorporate--for free--everybody with a Social Security number as a bank holding company. Let everybody then have their personal bank holding company join--again for free--the Federal Reserve system as a member bank. Offer every such personal bank holding company a permanent long-term open-ended infinite-duration zero-interest line-of-credit to draw on, up to some set maximum nominal amount. Raise the amount of the line-of-credit maximum every quarter by that quarter's desired helicopter drop.
The same institutional forces that have, since the selection Paul Volcker, kept the Federal Reserve focused on avoiding an inflationary spiral would still bind. There would be no way to gimmick such a Social Credit system to turn it into a giveaway to the bankers. It would give the Federal Reserve the power to engage in the one policy that nearly all economists are confident will always have traction on nominal demand. Once the Federal Reserve was off and rolling, other central banks would, I think, quickly find mechanisms within their current institutional-legal competence to accomplish the same ends.
And it would, I think, make the FOMC and its members "very popular", as Marty Feldman playing Igor in the movie Young Frankensteinsays of the monster they are creating.
Adair Turner: Are Central Banks Really Out of Ammunition? : "The global economy faces a chronic problem of deficient nominal demand...
...But the debate about which policies could boost demand remains inadequate, evasive, and confused. In Shanghai, the G-20 foreign ministers committed to use all available tools – structural, monetary, and fiscal – to boost growth rates and prevent deflation. But many of the key players are keener to point out what they can’t do than what they can.... Central banks frequently stress the limits of their powers, and bemoan lack of government progress toward ‘structural reform’.... But while some [SR measures] might increase potential growth over the long term, almost none can make any difference in growth or inflation rates over the next 1-3 years.... Vague references to ‘structural reform’ should ideally be banned, with everyone forced to specify which particular reforms they are talking about and the timetable for any benefits that are achieved.... Central bankers are right to stress the limits of what monetary policy alone can achieve.... Negative interest rates, and... yet more quantitative easing... can make little difference to real economic consumption and investment. Negative interest rates... [may have the] the actual and perverse consequence... [of] higher lending rates.... Nominal demand will rise only if governments deploy fiscal policy to reduce taxes or increase public expenditure – thereby, in Milton Friedman’s phrase, putting new demand directly ‘into the income stream.’ But the world is full of governments that feel unable to do this. Japan’s finance ministry is convinced that it must reduce its large fiscal deficit.... Eurozone rules mean that many member countries are committed to reducing their deficits. British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is also determined to reduce, not increase, his country’s deficit. The standard official mantra has therefore become that countries that still have ‘fiscal space’ should use it. But there are no grounds for believing the most obvious candidates – such as Germany – will actually do anything.... These impasses have fueled growing fear that we are ‘out of ammunition’.... But if our problem is inadequate nominal demand, there is one policy that will always work. If governments run larger fiscal deficits and finance this not with interest-bearing debt but with central-bank money.... The option of so-called ‘helicopter money’ is therefore increasingly discussed. But the debate about it is riddled with confusions. It is often claimed that monetizing fiscal deficits would commit central banks to keeping interest rates low forever, an approach that is bound to produce excessive inflation. It is simultaneously argued (sometimes even by the same people) that monetary financing would not stimulate demand because people will fear a future ‘inflation tax.’ Both assertions cannot be true; in reality, neither is. Very small money-financed deficits would produce only a minimal impact on nominal demand: very large ones would produce harmfully high inflation. Somewhere in the middle there is an optimal policy.... The one really important political issue is ignored: whether we can design rules and allocate institutional responsibilities to ensure that monetary financing is used only in an appropriately moderate and disciplined fashion, or whether the temptation to use it to excess will prove irresistible. If political irresponsibility is inevitable, we really are out of ammunition that we can use without blowing ourselves up. But if, as I believe, the discipline problem can be solved, we need to start formulating the right rules and distribution of responsibilities...
Note also that chapter 23, "Notes on Mercantilism, the Usury Laws, Stamped Money and Theories of Under-Consumption", of John Maynard Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money can be read with great profit here...Josef Hirtreiter (1 February 1909 – 27 November 1978) was a German war criminal and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland.[1][2]
SS career [ edit ]
Hirtreiter was born in Bruchsal. After elementary school, he worked as unskilled construction worker and bricklayer. He failed the exam in lock-picking.[3] On 1 August 1932 he became a member of the Nazi Party and Sturmabteilung (SA). After the invasion of Poland, in October 1940 he was assigned to the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre where he worked in the kitchen. In summer 1942 he joined the army. Four weeks later he was sent back to Hadamar, and then to Berlin from where Christian Wirth transferred him to Lublin reservation camp complex back in occupied Poland. There, he acquired the rank of SS-Scharführer and was shipped to Treblinka death camp. Hirtreiter served at Treblinka II from October 1942 till October 1943 at the camp-zone 2 Auffanglager receiving area. He monitored naked women waiting to be gassed and took particular pleasure in murdering their babies and little children.[4] Later, he served at the Sobibór extermination camp.[3]
After the closing of Treblinka in October 1943, Hirtreiter was ordered to Italy where he joined a police unit for the so-called anti-partisan "cleansing" operations. His death camp superior, Franz Stangl, went there in order to set up the Risiera di San Sabba killing centre in Trieste.[5]
Trial and conviction [ edit ]
Hirtreiter was arrested by the Allies in July 1946 for having served at the euthanasia centre in Hadamar, but was released due to lack of incriminating evidence. He was re-arrested in 1951 after testimony of Treblinka prisoner Szyja (a.k.a. Sawek,[6] or Jeszajahu)[7] Warszawski, who survived in a burial pit wounded, and slipped away under the cover of night, but in his 1946 testimony misspelled Hirtreiter's name as Hitreider.[4][6] Hirtreiter was charged in March 1951 at Frankfurt am Main, and convicted in the torture slaying of prisoners. He was the first of the Treblinka extermination camp SS-men who were tried over a decade later at Düsseldorf in West Germany. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 3 March 1951 for killing children; many aged one to two, during the unloading of the transports notably, by grabbing them by their feet and smashing their heads against the walls of boxcars.[6][8] Hirtreiter was released from prison in 1977 due to illness. He died 6 months later in a home for the elderly in Frankfurt.[3]TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Wading once again into an emotionally charged debate, Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Friday vetoed a bill that would have ended permanent alimony payments and would have urged judges to enforce equal time-sharing with children of divorcing parents.
Scott rejected the bill amid an acrimonious campaign that included supporters and opponents of the bill yelling at each other in the lobby of the governor’s office this week. His office received thousands of phone calls after a divided Florida Legislature passed the bill in March.
Three years ago Scott vetoed a similar measures and backers of the bill tried to make changes to win his support this time around by removing portions that were viewed as making the bill retroactive to existing alimony arrangements.
But the Republican governor, who noted in his veto message that he is a father and grandfather, said he was troubled by the proposed child custody changes.
“Current law directs a judge to consider the needs and interests of the child first when determining a parent plan,” Scott wrote. “This bill has the potential to up-end that policy in favor of putting the wants of a parent before the child’s best interest by creating a premise of equal time-sharing. Our judges must consider each family’s unique situation and abilities and put the best interests of the child above all else.”
Scott’s decision appeared to catch supporters of the bill off guard.
Sen. Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican and one of the main backers of the legislation, called it “quite a surprise” since during this year’s session Scott’s staff did not mention the child-sharing portion of the bill as a problem. Lee, who talked to Scott’s chief of staff about the bill earlier this week, maintained the measure would do nothing to change the primary role of the court.
“At this point it is unclear what future family law reform legislation the governor may find acceptable,” Lee said in a statement. “Today’s veto message is vague and does nothing to further illuminate the governor’s concerns.”
Rep. Ritch Workman, a Melbourne Republican who is running for the state Senate, vowed to bring back the bill and said he would separate the alimony changes and child custody measures into separate bills.
“Florida families deserve consistency and fairness in their divorce proceedings,” Workman said.
Brian Burgess, a former aide to Scott who had recently written an opinion piece urging the veto, praised the governor’s action.
“At his core, Rick Scott is a family values conservative and this was the obvious choice to protect children and their primary caretaker,” Burgess said.
Heather Quick, a family law attorney from Jacksonville, said the governor was correct to focus on the child-custody issues because the switch could have allowed some parents to pay less in child support. She maintained it would have had a “negative impact” on both women and children.
The final bill (SB 668) replaced permanent alimony with formulas based on the length of the marriage and the spouses’ incomes to set the amount and duration of the payments. Those supporting this change called the current system unfair and said they would have to continue to work past retirement age in order to meet their alimony obligations.
But opponents asserted that the wording of the bill would have a dramatic impact on the lives of former spouses, most of them female, who had stayed at home to care for children and could not easily re-enter the workforce.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC.What would Jesus buy? Preacher leads anti-shopping church in war on consumerism Mike Aivaz and Mike Sheehan
Published: Wednesday December 5, 2007
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Print This Email This With Americans expected to spend about almost $500 billion this Christmas, ABC's 'Nightline' takes a closer look at one man trying to spread the message that America is being crushed under the weight of consumerism. "We're proceeding into the shopping season under an enormous misunderstanding. We think we are consumers at Christmas time," shouted the flamboyant Rev. Billy Talen of the Church of Stop Shopping. "No, we are being consumed!" Talen is an activist and performance artist who's made his presence known at malls and chain stores in New York City. His efforts to halt what he and his followers call the "shopocalypse" have been chronicled in a new documentary, 'What Would Jesus Buy?' In the film, Talen is shown being kicked out of a Starbucks, performing an exorcism at Wal-Mart headquarters, and getting arrested in front of a Disney store. "I think the commercial Christmas has become the Grinch," says Talen. "Polls indicate that most Americans now think of Christmas with dread rather than happy anticipation, and that's sad."Greetings!
My name is JuJu-Fish, I am the younger brother of Robot from Robot Loves Kitty! I am super excited to have the privilege to work on, and to announce Robot Loves Kitty’s new hardware project,
(Dramatic pause.)
The GameKid.
Last Christmas I unboxed my childhood. My brother had emptied a Gameboy, leaving only the outside shell. Inside the gray and clear case, was a Raspberry pi, running every game we had as kids and even modern games like Cave Story!
Instantly recognizing that everyone needed to have these, we have been hard at work to bring something more than lint to your pant holes! Something that can only be described as a pocket full of nostalgia.
We’re currently making the prototype using a 3D printer however, the end goal is clear. Manufacture the GameKid, and get them into your hands.
We’ll keep you updated on progress as we move forward! Thanks for taking the time, and please stay tuned!Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
March 31, 2016, 9:21 AM GMT / Updated March 31, 2016, 11:53 AM GMT By Cassandra Vinograd
What was it like being married to the world's most-wanted terrorist?
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Iraqi ex-wife described a "shallow" marriage to a "normal family man" who spoke little other than to give "orders."
The revelations from Saja al-Dulaimi were published in an interview with Swedish newspaper Expressen. NBC News was not able to independently verify its contents.
Saja al-Dulaimi is seen during a 2015 prisoner swap. Al Jazeera
She said that after her first husband died in an Iraqi resistance group leaving her to care for young twin boys, her uncle approached her father about a potential new husband looking for a widow. That new husband was the current leader of ISIS — but not to al-Dulaimi.
"I married a normal person who was a university lecturer. At the time his name was Hisham Mohammad," al-Dulaimi told the newspaper.
Al-Dulaimi said she moved into his home with her kids — a "tough" arrangement given that al-Baghdadi’s first wife also lived in the "small space" with her children.
Her new husband "didn't say much about his background," al-Dulaimi explained.
"I could have lived like a princess. I don't want money. I want to live in freedom"
"He was mysterious. He wasn't very talkative," she said, adding that he taught religion at the university but would "sometimes disappear " for days at a time.
Still, al-Dulaimi said she "didn't notice" any involvement in the Syrian resistance while they were together.
"He was a normal family man," she said. "How he could become emir of the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world is a mystery."
While al-Baghdadi "loved the children" and was "their idol," al-Dulaimi said she was deeply unhappy in the "shallow" marriage.
"I didn't love him," she explained. "He was an enigmatic person. You couldn't have a discussion or hold a normal conversation with him … He just asked about things and told me to fetch things. He gave orders, nothing more."
So she decided to leave after just a few months — "you could say that I fled from him" — while pregnant with a daughter, Hagar.
The last time she spoke to her ex-husband was in 2009, al-Dulaimi said, when her ex asked if she wanted to come back and she refused.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, left, and a woman believed to be Saja al-Dulaimi, right.
Looking back, al-Dulaimi said she didn't truly understand who her "lecturer" husband had become until she was arrested in Lebanon in December 2014 for crossing into the country illegally with her new husband using forged identity cards.
“They showed me pictures of my ex-husband and asked me if I recognized him," she said. "It turns out I was married to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It was a shock to find out — seven years later — that I'd been married to the most dangerous man in the world."
A year later, she was freed as part of a prisoner swap with al Qaeda's Syrian wing in exchange for Lebanese captives.
The publication said the interview was conducted in a secret location near the Lebanon-Syria border four months after al-Dulaimi’s release from prison.
Al-Dulaimi told the newspaper she now wants to move West — and should not blamed for the horrors perpetrated by her former husband.
"Where is my guilt?" she asked. "I was the one who left him... If I wanted to live with al-Baghdadi, I could have lived like a princess. I don't want money. I want to live in freedom."Set in the same universe as Cloverfield (but without the annoying shaky-cam), this film is thrilling, scary, suspenseful and glued me to my seat for its' |
Sweden I really wasn’t comfortable leading up the fight.” Johnson said, “It was a different atmosphere, I wasn’t used to the surroundings. I came out a few days earlier than I was supposed to so by the time I was supposed to fight I was already ready to leave, and I checked out of Sweden a few days early. My head wasn’t really into the fight at that point. I think it’s a bit different for London, I’m having a different feeling. I’m feeling really good about this one.”
In his last fight Johnson finished the very dangerous Gleison Tibau in impressive fashion, and Johnson concedes that he was “extremely impressed with myself after that fight.”
“I felt good in the Tibau fight. I knew I was the underdog coming in, and that’s when I fight my best. If I could be the underdog for the rest of my career I’d have no problem with that at all. I knew going in what we needed to stay away from and that was grappling with him…I needed to stay relaxed and not rush anything…the knockout came, I wasn’t looking for it at that moment but it just presented itself.”
“It’s huge for me to keep this roll going.” Johnson said, speaking about his current two fight winning streak, “A loss only starts you back right at the back. I’m not trying to take any steps back…I lost two fights that I shouldn’t have lost, so I went back to the drawing board and talked to myself. I said ‘hey, I can’t let this happen again.’ I need to give my opponents the respect they deserve.”
“I want to fight whoever is in front of me. I was campaigning for a fight with Nate Diaz before this and if he’s still around then I would love to fight him.”
What are Johnson’s goals for 2014? “My goal is to be top five and be a title contender this year, and be fighting for a title by 2015. That’s a huge goal of mine, and I’m definitely going to accomplish that.”
Johnson will take on Guillard at UFC Fight Night 37 this Saturday night from the 02 Arena in London, England.
For more on UFC Fight Night 37: Gustafsson vs. Manuwa click HERE.Bill Morrison does not bring his viewer found footage. What he does is more like guiding you through the back streets of an old city, through an alley whose entrance you never would have discerned on your own. Down the alley, he pulls back the curtain of a window. It cannot open. It should show the inside of the building but instead, through frost and dirt and fog, you can see another world — or the past. Or both. Diving into the world’s cinematic archives for the rarest excerpts of forgotten films, Morrison recombines them to tell new stories, or arranges them into a portrait of their time.
Most news about film preservation concentrates on the new restorations of classics or undiscovered gems. Morrison works with seemingly unsalvageable material, with home movies, with orphaned reels of otherwise lost works. His films are singular, soulful meditations on impermanence, mortality, and memory.
Morrison’s newest film is Dawson City: Frozen Time, a documentary about an unlikely triumph for film preservation and history. The titular Yukon town, an early focal point of the Klondike gold rush, exploded in population from 500 to around 40,000 in the 1890s. All manner of entertainment venues were set up to service the miners flocking to Dawson City — gambling dens, dance halls, and theaters for then-new motion pictures. Isolated as it was, the city was the end of a distribution line for theatrical runs: Its movie theaters there would get the “latest” Hollywood films two or three years after they originally came out, and since it was considered too costly to have the reels shipped back to the studios, Dawson proprietors were instructed to burn them. But they didn’t. Instead, hundreds of reels were put into storage, and eventually they were used to fill in a swimming pool so that an ice hockey rink could be installed over it. There they lay, in permafrost, for decades before being excavated — a very different kind of buried treasure from that which built the city in the first place. More than 500 silent film reels that were thought gone could live again.
Morrison tells this story using few documentary conventions, eschewing voiceovers and most interviews and relying almost entirely on film and photographic elements from the period. In addition to these primary sources, he incorporates the entertainment of the time. Chaplin’s The Gold Rush illustrates turn-of-the-century conditions, augmented by Eric Hegg’s astonishing photographs. Recreation lives alongside witness. The meta-presentation deepens as Morrison uses snippets of the actual films discovered in Dawson City to explain the times. After bringing us into this locale, we are then put into the seats of the city residents, for whom the movies were a pipeline of information about a world far, far away. Morrison covers the 1919 Black Sox scandal and 1920s labor struggles, tying their underlying issues of capitalistic exploitation back to the devastation of the Klondike by mining companies, as well as the pitiless pragmatism of the movie studios.
Frozen Time emphasizes that despite its remoteness, Dawson City was in fact intimately tied to the wider world. The Klondike was where Fred Trump first made his fortune in hospitality. Dawson City was where future movie theater magnate Sid Grauman, then a newsboy, learned to be a showman. Impresario Alexander Pantages opened his first theater there. And then the place was forgotten, its population dwindling to less than a thousand just a few years after the boom. But the movies kept coming, eventually waiting to be rediscovered — suspended in a quantum state of existence, unobserved and unknown.
Morrison’s scope includes the very origin of film. Movies are the misbegotten children of war. Photographic film stock was first created by combining camphor with nitrocellulose, or “guncotton,” an extremely flammable substance that made for a powerful blasting agent. From the time motion pictures began until the middle of the 20th century, they were captured on nitrate film, and we still speak of movie images “on celluloid,” even though few are shot on physical film now. The combustibility of nitrate led to many a fire, and that combined with film studios’ careless attitude toward the long-term prospects of their work (it was policy to trash most film reels after their theatrical runs, even popular ones), brings us to the precarious modern state of film preservation. Half of all movies made before 1950 have been lost, as well as around 75 percent of all silent films. Occasionally there are miracle stories of discovery like Dawson City’s. Those become less and less frequent as time goes on.
Celluloid is a malleable substance, and film strips stored improperly will warp, melt, fade, or rot (or, of course, burst into flame if they’re nitrate). The material can be put to a variety of uses beyond the photographic: made into toys or tools or furnishings. During World War I, the French army took Georges Méliès’ films and melted them down into boot heels — bringing the nitrate full circle, back to war.
In carefully molding these relics, Morrison is less a traditional filmmaker than he is a sculptor. Film is an art form made of light, and what’s generally considered to be skillful filmmaking conceals the process of generating that light. Instead, Morrison fleshes out its underlying physicality. He takes the old material as it is, warts (or cigarette burns) and all. The slow-moving, warped, scratched images seem emulsified in scotoma.
Morrison frequently collaborates with musicians specializing in dissonant, even atonal compositions, which enhances his works’ otherworldly feel. For his masterpiece, Decasia, which is the first film released in the 21st century to be inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry, he edited badly degraded silent footage from numerous films (only two of which have been identified) into an avant-garde meditation on ephemerality. The short “Light Is Calling” takes scenes from 1926’s The Bells and turns a love story into a ghost story. Spark of Being adapts Frankenstein via found materials from other films — an elegant thematic recursion. The Miners’ Hymns reconstructs the daily life of British coal workers via archival materials, and The Great Flood does the same for migrating sharecroppers in 1920s Mississippi.
Cinephiles frequently compare movies to dreams. Morrison’s movies feel like half-remembered reveries formed from memories you can no longer consciously recall. Hovering at the intersection of reappropriation, preservation, history, music, and art, any one of his works will haunt you for the rest of your life. Dawson City: Frozen Time is no exception.
Dawson City: Frozen Time will be released in New York on June 9, and Los Angeles, San Diego, and Chicago on June 16.Arrow and Beast Mixtape ‘18 Cheers to a killer shop edit from our homies in Stuttgart, Germany. Enjoy!
Paul Hart's "In Hart We Trust" Part Paul takes tricks you might expect to see on a small hubba or rail and brings them to obstacles much bigger and gnarlier. This part is full of jaw-droppers and rewind moments, including a totally mind-boggling ender.
Paul Hart's "In Hart We Trust" Premiere Photos If you’ve seen Paul’s interview in the October Thrasher, then you already know he is pro. Check his video part on Monday and get ready to have your brain sautéed.
"DUET" Art Opening DUET, presented by Almost skateboards, Cliché skateboards and HVW8 Gallery, features limited-edition skateboard decks and drawings from internationally-renowned French artists Jean Jullien and Jean André.Ask any Republican candidate about reducing the cost of health care and part of the answer is likely to include rewriting the rules for medical malpractice. In 2003, Texas lawmakers passed a package of changes to malpractice law, plus the state added a few more through a referendum known as Proposition 12.
These turned the state into a beacon of hope among tort reformers and Texas Gov. Rick Perry talks proudly of the good the changes have done.
When he was asked about medical malpractice at the Politics and Eggs Breakfast in Bedford, N.H., on Aug. 17, 2011, he had some precise numbers at his fingertips. "I’ll tell you what one of the results was," he said. "This last year, 21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued. Some 30 counties that didn’t have an emergency room doc have one today. Counties along the Rio Grande, where women were having to travel for miles and miles outside of the county to see an ob-gyn, for prenatal care and now they have that care."
For this fact-check, we're examining his claim that that the state gained 21,000 doctors because of tort reform.
First, we found the number is wrong.
Perry’s campaign relies on data from the Texas Medical Association, a physician trade group, which counts the number of medical licenses issued in Texas. The problem is, not everyone with such a license practices in Texas.
The Texas Medical Board issues licenses and tracks whether those doctors actually work in the state. According to their numbers, between 2003 and 2011, the accurate increase is 12,788. That’s about 8,000 doctors fewer than the governor’s claim.
Still, thousands of additional physicians is nothing to sneeze at, and the next question is, can credit be put at the feet of tort reform?
Not much. By far, the biggest driver is population growth. From 2002 to 2010, the population of Texas grew by 20 percent. At the same time, the number of doctors went up 24 percent.
Jon Opelt, executive director of Texas Alliance for Patient Access, a group that supports tort reform and is funded by health care providers, sent us some analysis he had done that filtered out the population effect. Opelt said the higher rate for doctors -- 24 percent -- translates into an additional 1,608 physicians thanks to tort reform.
At least, that’s what he said when we first spoke to him. Later, after we showed him that the growth of doctors increased at a faster rate in the pre-reform years, Opelt sent us new numbers, saying tort reform brought 5,000 more doctors to the state and the ratio of doctors to residents has never been better. (We found those numbers to be a stretch: The upward revision comes from including administrators, teachers and other licensed doctors who don’t actually treat patients.)
In any event, from the pro-reform vantage point, the most accurate figure is 5,000 -- a far cry from 21,000.
But the case for Perry’s statement gets even shakier when you review numbers prior to the new malpractice rules. It turns out that in the nine years before tort reform, the number of doctors grew twice as fast as the population. So Texas did a pretty good job attracting doctors before the law changed.
Tom Banning, chief executive officer of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, said that back in the early 1990’s the state began passing laws that made it physician-friendly. Among them, a prompt-pay rule to "to ensure that insurers pay physicians promptly and correctly," Banning said, "which creates a very good environment for practices."
Banning said tort reform was more good news for doctors, a sentiment borne out by opinion surveys from the state’s medical association. But he acknowledges that population growth is the biggest force behind the growing ranks of doctors. "It’s like the Willie Sutton rule," Banning said, referring to the famous bank robber. "Go where the money is. From a doctor’s standpoint, you go where the patients are."
Especially patients who can pay. Banning and other observers in Texas note that most of the new doctors are clustered in the affluent, fast growing suburbs around the state’s biggest cities.
This puts a damper on one of Perry’s additional points, that tort reform opens the doors for physicians to practice in the state’s most rural counties. The results here are mixed. The governor is right about emergency room doctors. The state has 60 percent more of them then it did in 2003 and tort reform likely played a major role, experts told us. ER doctors got more protections from tort reform than just about any other medical specialty.
But Perry also boasted that rural counties were getting specialists in obstetrics and gynecology that they never had before. The reality here is murkier. A report from the Texas Alliance for Patient Access says 14 counties (of 254 total) gained an ob-gyn. We looked at one community along the Rio Grande, Starr County, and found that yes, four years after tort reform, they got one. But the situation has flipped back and forth, and as of May 2011, Starr County had no ob-gyn specialist.
Our ruling
There is no question that tort reform drove down medical malpractice insurance premiums and reduced the number of malpractice suits. And there is no question that most health care providers like the change and say it’s a factor that leads them to practice in the state. But the wholesale transformation that Perry describes is not backed up by the numbers.
Perry said Texas has 21,000 more doctors thanks to tort reform. That’s flat out wrong. Texas has only about 13,000 more doctors in the state and the historic trends suggest that population growth was the driving factor. We rate his statement False.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The Tartan Army have laid siege to the Slovenian capital Ljubljana – mounting a full-on assault of the bars and even storming its castle.
Scotland supporters launched the takeover yesterday as they prepared to help Gordon Strachan’s Bravehearts breach Slovenia’s defences tonight and continue our march to Russia 2018.
Our travelling fans made their presence felt by hanging a Saltire from Ljubljana Castle.
Friends David Birnie, 44, Ross Turner, 28, Gary Turner, 55, Liam Newton, 26, and Gerry Gahan, 52, scaled the tower, which is perched 1200ft above the city.
David, from Leith, said: “It was some climb and I’m absolutely shattered.
“We’ve invaded the castle and flown the flag for Scotland and now we’ve just got to do what we can to help the team do the business.”
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
The Tartan Army had early cause for celebration as they watched Belgium beat Bosnia–Herzegovina 4-3. The result means a Scotland win tonight will guarantee us a World Cup play-off match – no ifs, buts or maybes.
About 5000 Scotland fans have made the trip to cheer on the team – even though the Slovenian FA handed over just 2567 tickets for the match.
Last week, we revealed how the football authorities had attempted to clamp down on the Tartan Army taking over the 16,000-capacity stadium by cancelling fans’ online orders.
But that didn’t put off supporters from making the journey to be at the most important match of the campaign – and neither did the dramatic collapse of Monarch Airlines, which threw the travel plans of some foot soldiers into jeopardy.
John Watt and six friends made it to Ljubljana after an epic journey involving two planes, a monorail, a train, a bus and a gondola after their original travel plans were scuppered by Monarch folding.
The 44-year-old, from Paisley, said: “We were meant to be flying from Gatwick to Zagreb but all our flights were cancelled on Monday.
“But there was no way we were missing this game, so we plotted a route to get us here. We got a taxi to Glasgow Airport, then a plane to Gatwick and a monorail between terminals to jump a train to Luton.
“Then we flew from Luton to Venice, got on a gondola to take us to a minibus, which then took us a three-hour ride to Ljubljana.”
Alastair Young, 34, of Mauchline, Ayrshire, was furious after booking Monarch flights to Zagreb via
Manchester for him and two pals just days before they went out of business.
He said: “They took £600 off us on the Saturday and then went bust on the Monday. It’s pretty shameless.
“I was scrambling about like mad to get new flights, because we had our tickets for the match.
“We had to get a train to Luton and then flew to Ljubljana and it cost us £1100. That’s how determined we were to get here.”
Stewart Park was among a group of 13 fans who paid £580 to get a taxi to Ljubljana from Zagreb in Croatia.
The 54-year-old, from Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, said: “We flew from Glasgow to Zagreb via Amsterdam and then shelled out 650 euros to get a minibus here. But it’ll be worth it if we qualify for Russia.”
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod)
Even William Wallace will be at the game tonight to support our Bravehearts. The 66-year-old, from Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, said: “No one ever believes me when I tell them I’m William Wallace but I had the name before Mel Gibson.”
Meanwhile, Sammy Wightman isn’t letting throat cancer stop him from cheering on Scotland.
The 58-year-old, from Motherwell, was diagnosed three years ago but has travelled to every one of Scotland's World Cup qualifiers – except the Lithuania game, when his travel plans were scuppered by a Ryanair flight cancellation.
He said: “I’ve had 30 radiotherapy treatments and although I might not be able to shout as loud, I’ll be roaring them on against Slovenia.
“I’ve been following Scotland home and away since my dad took me to games as a wee boy and nothing gets in the way of me following my country.
“It’s been far too long since the Tartan Army and Scotland made it to a World Cup and I’m feeling confident.”ANAHEIM – On Friday, No Doubt is set to resume a seven-night run at the 6,000-seat Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal CityWalk, promoting its latest album, “Push and Shove.”
But 20 years ago, singer Gwen Stefani was no international music and fashion icon. She was, well, just a girl from Anaheim.
A girl with a gift for singing. Who liked to perform. And who dreamed of bigger things with her bandmates.
But, back then, in an era when glam-metal bands dominated the scene and grunge music from up north was starting to take over, the idea of an upbeat, ska-influenced band from Orange County making it big was unlikely at best.
I can speak with some authority about that time in the career of No Doubt: I was along for the ride in those early years, playing saxophone in a backing horn section from 1988 to 1994.
To this day, as I drive around Anaheim – the city I now cover as my beat – I remember a time when No Doubt was virtually unknown to music fans outside of Southern California. A time when the members of No Doubt lived and worked here – without people taking a second look.
Click through the photos to see the places that helped define the band.
To see a 1997 Register story by Eric Carpenter on his memories of No Doubt, click here.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3769 or [email protected] Breeding Returns In Final Fantasy Type-0
By Laura. October 23, 2011. 10:30am
Game Jouhou have posted new details about Final Fantasy Type-0, sourced from a NicoNico presentation on the game with director, Hajime Tabata.
In Type-0, you can catch chocobos on the world map and breed them. Because wild ones will run away, you’ll have breed one to be able to ride it and leave it without it escaping. There are many breeds of chocobo that are obtainable.
There are also dungeons on the world map that are unrelated to the progression of the story. If you challenge these dungeons, you’ll be able to acquire good items. There are some dungeons where your 3-person team will have to split up to explore them.
Finally, from the title screen, if you go to “Tactics” menu, you can find all the missions you’ve cleared in the main story and enjoy them in multiplayer. You can also play them at a higher difficulty than in the main story.
You may also recall that Type-0 comes on two UMDs instead of one. Despite this, the game will see a download release over PSN, and the download version is 2.4GB in size.Muni stabbing reminiscent of September attack CRIME Attack like one on schoolboy
Undated police sketch of the suspect sought in the stabbing of 11-year-old Hatin Mansori on the Muni 49 Line outbound on 19th Street and Mission Street on Sept. 1, 2009. Undated police sketch of the suspect sought in the stabbing of 11-year-old Hatin Mansori on the Muni 49 Line outbound on 19th Street and Mission Street on Sept. 1, 2009. Photo: San Francisco Police Department Photo: San Francisco Police Department Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Muni stabbing reminiscent of September attack 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
A passenger riding Muni's J-Church Metro line was stabbed by a stranger Monday, an unprovoked incident that bore similarities to an attack in September on an 11-year-old boy riding a bus, San Francisco police said.
Rachel "Ty" Brown, a 24-year-old student at San Francisco City College who moved to the city just three months ago from Portland, Ore., was riding an outbound train at Church and Market streets when she was stabbed at 10:40 a.m., said police and Brown's partner, Gabby Winder.
Brown was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where she was in stable condition with a non-life-threatening wound to the left side of her abdomen, authorities said.
Brown was asleep next to Winder when the assailant, who had boarded at the Powell Street Station, stabbed her as he walked past the women, police and Winder said. He then fled the train.
"He didn't say anything," Winder said Monday night. "It felt like he just punched her several times. I tried to rub her side because it was hurting. Then I saw all the blood in my hand."
The operator said he did not see the stabbing, investigators said. Another passenger alerted the operator, who summoned police.
Judson True, spokesman for Muni, said the transit agency had provided police with surveillance video taken by the Metro train's surveillance cameras.
Police spokesman Sgt. Wilfred Williams said the suspect was a 6-foot, bearded African American man in his 30s with a black sweater, a black jacket and a black do-rag. "He had strong body odor," Williams said.
Police said the man was carrying tennis shoes hanging from his neck, and Winder described his pants as baggy.
The description was nearly identical to that of the man who stabbed 11-year-old Hatim Mansori at 19th and Mission streets Sept. 1 as the boy was riding the 49-Mission bus home from baseball practice. The Marina Middle School sixth-grader suffered a wound to his liver and stomach.
In that incident, the stabber was described as a "scruffy-looking" African American, in his mid-20s to 30s, 6 feet 2 and 190 pounds, with dark facial hair. He was wearing a black hoodie, blue jeans and dark shoes, and was described as having a strong body odor.
"We are aware of the similarities, and as part of the ongoing investigation will be looking at those similarities," said police spokeswoman Lt. Lyn Tomioka.
The boy's mother, Laila Elfazouzi, said Hatim has largely recovered and is back at school.
"I hope they catch him," she said of her son's attacker. "I want it over."
Winder said she assumed the man who stabbed Brown on Monday was mentally ill.
"I felt sorry for him," Winder said. "If you find him, help him. I feel bad. I didn't want the dude to go to jail, but he's not mentally there."
True said a sketch of the man who attacked Hatim has been distributed to Muni drivers, along with the description of the stabber in the latest incident.
"We want to do everything we can to assist the police in catching whoever committed these crimes," True said.Nasal hair.
Nasal hair or nose hair is the hair in the nose. Adult humans have hair in the interior nasal passage. Nasal hair functions include filtering foreign particles from entering the nasal cavity and collecting moisture.[1] In support of the first function, the results of a 2010 study indicated that increased nasal hair density decreases development of asthma in those who have seasonal rhinitis, possibly due to an increased capacity of the faces to filter out pollen and other allergens.[2]
Nasal hair should not be confused with cilia of the nasal cavity, which are the microscopic cellular strands that, unlike macroscopic nasal hair, draw mucus up toward the pharynx via their coordinated, back-and-forth beating.[citation needed]
Removal [ edit ]
A number of devices have been sold to trim nasal hair, including miniature rotary clippers and attachments for electric shavers. The trimmers shorten the hair to such lengths that they do not appear outside of the nasal passage. A pair of tweezers may also be used to facilitate the removal of such hairs. Other means are in effect such as waxing.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Device to track truant students raises privacy concerns Ankle device keeps track of students
GPS program lets court officials monitor truants
SAN ANTONIO — Court authorities will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring.
But at least one group is worried the ankle bracelets will infringe on students' privacy.
Linda Penn, a Bexar County justice of the peace, said she anticipates that about 50 students — likely to be mostly high schoolers — will wear the thick ankle bracelets during the six-month pilot program announced Friday. She said the time students wear the anklets will be on a case-by-case basis, but she doubted any will wear them the entire half-year.
"We are at a critical point in our time where we can either educate or incarcerate," Penn said, linking truancy with juvenile delinquency and later criminal activity.
Penn said students in the program will wear the ankle bracelets full-time and will not be able to remove them. They'll be selected as they come through her court, and Penn will target truant students with gang affiliations, those with a history of running away and skipping school, and those who have been through her court multiple times.
Penn said the electronic monitoring is part of a comprehensive program she started four years ago to reduce truancy. She cited programs in Midland and Dallas as having success with similar electronic monitoring measures.
But Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said requiring students to wear the GPS bracelets full-time raises privacy concerns.
"We're all for keeping kids in school, and we applaud any efforts to make that happen," Burke said.
"But the privacy issue: What happens with the bracelet or anklet after school is out? Is that appropriate for the school or courts to know where and what this person is doing outside of school?"
Burke said truant students and runaway kids are different issues.Judging from a Facebook page for a University of Calgary event, you might think thousands of students are interested in a Nazi-themed protest of Justin Trudeau — but Nina Rojkovskaia wants you to know that's not how the page looked when she initially responded.
The U of C student said she and her friends appear to have fallen victim to a bait-and-switch. The page was initially set up last week to look like an event listing for the prime minister's town hall at the university on Tuesday night.
But the title and description of the event were altered the day before Trudeau's visit, and the posts on the page veered from questions about how to attend the town hall into anti-Jewish rhetoric.
An internet security expert says the page may have been sold to a third party and that Facebook could decide to take it down — but only if enough people complain.
Some of the anti-Semitic comments came from Facebook profiles that include images of Nazi flags and people with parentheses around their heads, a relatively new online signal targeting Jews that has been added to the Anti-Defamation League's hate symbol database.
Rojkovskaia said she was troubled by the change as she and some 1,500 other people had already RSVP'd to the event and another 3,400 had indicated — publicly, for anyone who visits the page to see — that they were interested.
"I'm definitely not wanting to be associated with that," Rojkovskaia said.
"I'm really concerned... about that being misrepresented as student support."
Profiles that posted to the University of Calgary "event" page with hate symbols in their cover photos. CBC has removed one obscene word from the screenshot at left. (Facebook/Screenshot)
The number of people listed as interested or going to the event fell by 1,500 after the page title was changed, but Rojkovskaia said she's concerned many people who RSVP'd last week may not have checked the page recently and may unwittingly end up attending a protest they don't agree with.
"I think that's just highly dishonest," she said.
"If a group of protesters want to gather support for their cause, they should do it in a more honest way."
Ryan Lacroix, who's not a U of C student but was interested in attending the prime minister's town hall, said he RSVP'd to the Facebook event last week and then didn't look at it again until Monday.
"It was very different from what it was when I first looked at it," he said.
"It changed dramatically from what it was to what it is now."
The top image shows how a Facebook event for "Justin Trudeau - U of C visit" appeared as of noon on Monday, as accessed via Google cache. The bottom image is how the event appeared Tuesday morning, having been altered to "Justin Trudeau - U of C Protest." (Google cache/Facebook/Screenshots)
Rojkovskaia said she was blocked from accessing the event page after calling the administrators out.
CBC News contacted someone listed as an administrator for the page by email, who replied that the event "was always a protest group."
But Google cache, which archives past versions of websites, shows the event page as being titled "Justin Trudeau - U of C visit" with a photo of the prime minister in front of a Canadian flag as of noon on Monday.
It was later changed to "Justin Trudeau - U of C Protest" and a photo of Trudeau with Fidel Castro.
And while early posts on the page discussed how to attend Trudeau's visit and debated the prime minister's policies, later posts veered into anti-Jewish rhetoric, anti-immigrant memes, and a vulgar sexual reference about the prime minister's wife.
The administrators of the page changed several times, but it's unclear who is actually behind it. The administrator profiles contain limited or fake information.
A post on another event-listing website appeared to offer the initial "Justin Trudeau – U of C visit" Facebook event for sale.
"If someone wants to take over this event and pay me for it, email me," the post reads.
Page may have been bought and sold
Computer security expert Tom Keenan said it's not unheard of for people to sell Facebook events, sometimes along with entire Facebook profiles and email accounts.
"You're not supposed to sell Facebook pages — it's against the terms of Facebook — but people do it and, once somebody has possession of the page, they can put whatever they want up there until somebody gets around to complaining about it," he said.
Keenan said he wouldn't be surprised if Facebook took the event listing down, as the company has "absolute discretion" over what appears on the site.
"If they decide something brings Facebook or anybody on it into disrepute, they can take it down," he said.
"Then again they may just say, 'Hey, that's Canada. We don't care.'"
In general, Keenan advised taking unofficial listings for public events "with grains of salt" and said to be aware that the internet is full of deceptive people.
"There's plenty of fake of stuff out there, so this is just one more fake thing," he said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passes by reporters as he arrives at a Liberal cabinet retreat in Calgary, Alta., on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017. He is set to hold a town hall at the University of Calgary on Tuesday evening. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
The prime minister's actual town hall at the University of Calgary is set to start at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the Jack Simpson Gymnasium.
Calgary Centre Liberal MP Kent Hehr said everyone is welcome to attend, whether they support or oppose the prime minister, but the event is expected to be filled to capacity.
"This evening I look forward to joining Prime Minister Trudeau at the University of Calgary for an engaging discussion with Canadians," Hehr said in an email.
"This will be a great opportunity to hear from Calgarians of all ages and political stripes and discuss the issues that matter most to them."Wednesday night at the first presidential debate, Republican nominee Mitt Romney promised to end public financing of America’s largest classroom — PBS. “I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things,” the ex-governor said. “I like PBS, I love Big Bird.”
Critics immediately seized on Romney’s comments, pointing out that the former CEO of Bain Capital was already thinking about the imaginary characters he would fire as president. Some suggested that Romney should merely outsource Big Bird to China, where using Bain’s market expertise, he could find child laborers to emulate Big Bird at a fraction of current costs.
PBS — an organization familiar with Republicans calling for its defunding — seized the opportunity to defend its efforts. “The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget,” the organization said in a statement. “Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating.”
The statement went on to explain that PBS understands Mr. Romney’s concerns and wishes to appeal to all Americans with its programming.
“This is why we are proud to announce the newest member of the Sesame Street family — ‘Big Oil’.”
Big Oil is a lovable, mushy fellow who finds his way into the neighborhood when Elmo accidentally tips over an oil tanker outside Hooper’s shop. Everywhere Big Oil goes, he leaves a trail of toxic ooze that his friends “The Lobbyists” paper over with actual dollar bills. This creates such a disgusting mess that even Oscar the Grouch will be convinced to clean up and get on antidepressants, which will be provided by one of several new corporate sponsors also set to join the Sesame Street family.
Mr. Romney defended subsidies for the oil industry in the same debate he promised to fire Big Bird: “First of all, the Department of Energy has said the tax break for oil companies is $2.8 billion a year,” Romney said. “And it’s actually an accounting treatment, as you know, that’s been in place for a hundred years.”
“If this works out,” the PBS statement concludes, “next season we’ll meet Big Oil’s imaginary friend, ‘Clean Coal.'”
With America’s long tradition of sucking up oil and sucking up to the oil companies, Big Oil may be PBS’ best hope for surviving a Romney Administration — especially since Mr. Rogers isn’t around to make the case anymore:
Photo credit: AP Photo/Matt Sayles, FileIt has finally happened. After decades of skeptics proclaiming that they would drop their skepticism about UFOs and alien abductions if only an extraterrestrial intelligence would contact them directly, it has finally happened right smack in the middle of the Skeptics Society offices. An ET appeared one day to lay to rest once and for all whether or not ETs have |
's rootkit (ark) default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for suspicious files and dirs, it may take a while... nothing found Searching for LPD Worm files and dirs... nothing found Searching for Ramen Worm files and dirs... nothing found Searching for Maniac files and dirs... nothing found Searching for RK17 files and dirs... nothing found Searching for Ducoci rootkit... nothing found Searching for Adore Worm... nothing found Searching for ShitC Worm... nothing found Searching for Omega Worm... nothing found Searching for Sadmind/IIS Worm... nothing found Searching for MonKit... nothing found Searching for Showtee... nothing found Searching for OpticKit... nothing found Searching for T.R.K... nothing found Searching for Mithra... nothing found Searching for LOC rootkit... nothing found Searching for Romanian rootkit... nothing found Searching for Suckit rootkit... Warning: /sbin/init INFECTED Searching for Volc rootkit... nothing found Searching for Gold2 rootkit... nothing found Searching for TC2 Worm default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for Anonoying rootkit default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for ZK rootkit default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for ShKit rootkit default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for AjaKit rootkit default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for zaRwT rootkit default files and dirs... nothing found Searching for Madalin rootkit default files... nothing found Searching for Fu rootkit default files... nothing found Searching for ESRK rootkit default files... nothing found Searching for rootedoor... nothing found Searching for ENYELKM rootkit default files... nothing found Searching for common ssh-scanners default files... nothing found Searching for suspect PHP files... nothing found Searching for anomalies in shell history files... nothing found Checking `asp'... not infected Checking `bindshell'... not infected Checking `lkm'... chkproc: nothing detected chkdirs: nothing detected Checking `rexedcs'... not found Checking `sniffer'... lo: not promisc and no packet sniffer sockets eth0: PACKET SNIFFER(/sbin/dhclient[577]) eth1: not promisc and no packet sniffer sockets Checking `w55808'... not infected Checking `wted'... chkwtmp: nothing deleted Checking `scalper'... not infected Checking `slapper'... not infected Checking `z2'... chklastlog: nothing deleted Checking `chkutmp'... chkutmp: nothing deleted Checking `OSX_RSPLUG'... not infected
Install the Latest Version of chkrootkit
The chkrootkit version that Ubuntu Trusty Tahr shipped is version 0.49 while the latest version is 0.50. We can use latest version by downloading from chkrootkit website.
Download the latest version of chkrootkit :
$ wget -c ftp://ftp.pangeia.com.br/pub/seg/pac/chkrootkit.tar.gz
Download the package md5 hash file.
$ wget -c ftp://ftp.pangeia.com.br/pub/seg/pac/chkrootkit.md5
Let's verify that the file we downloaded is not corrupted or tampered with in any way. It should show OK.
$ md5sum -c chkrootkit.md5 chkrootkit.tar.gz: OK
Extract the package.
$ tar xzvf chkrootkit.tar.gz chkrootkit-0.50 chkrootkit-0.50/chkproc.c chkrootkit-0.50/COPYRIGHT chkrootkit-0.50/README.chkwtmp chkrootkit-0.50/chkutmp.c chkrootkit-0.50/chkwtmp.c chkrootkit-0.50/ifpromisc.c chkrootkit-0.50/strings.c chkrootkit-0.50/chklastlog.c chkrootkit-0.50/chkrootkit.lsm chkrootkit-0.50/check_wtmpx.c chkrootkit-0.50/chkdirs.c chkrootkit-0.50/Makefile chkrootkit-0.50/README chkrootkit-0.50/README.chklastlog chkrootkit-0.50/ACKNOWLEDGMENTS chkrootkit-0.50/chkrootkit
Go to extracted directory and compile chkrootkit.
$ cd chkrootkit-0.50 $ make sense
Now to run chkrootkit you can use command below :
$ sudo./chkrootkit
To check whether we already get the latest version we can use -V option :
$./chkrootkit -V chkrootkit version 0.50
The one installed from Ubuntu repository is still there, we can check the version also by running command below:
$ chkrootkit -V chkrootkit version 0.49
Enable Scheduled Check
chkrootkit
/etc/chkrootkit.conf
Replace the first line:
RUN_DAILY="false"
with
RUN_DAILY="true"
Summary
In this tutorial we learned how to install and use chkrootkit on Ubuntu 14.04. We also learned to install the latest version of chkrootkit by downloading the source code and compiling the code to create executable binary. We also learn enabling daily check schedule that comes with chkrootkit package.
Using chkrootkit will help us secure our servers by making sure the server does not have rootkits running.Number of bombs and missiles fired by British military small compared to US and France
Britain is playing a prominent political and diplomatic role over Libya but a remarkably modest one in the military campaign, an initial analysis of available information of the first week's action suggests.
The Ministry of Defence, in marked contrast to the Pentagon and the French armed forces, declines to say how many bombs or missiles have been fired from RAF Tornados or how many Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired from HMS Triumph (a Trafalgar-class submarine which the MoD declined to identify until David Cameron named her in the Commons).
However, defence sources say a total of seven Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired from Triumph, compared to at least 168 fired from US submarines and ships.
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said Tornado aircraft on Thursday launched "a number of guided Brimstone missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles which were threatening the civilian population of Ajdabiya".
He described Brimstone as a "high-precision, low collateral damage weapon optimised against demanding and mobile targets".
Four Libyan tanks with their guns facing Ajdabiya were destroyed by Brimstone missiles, Major General John Lorimer, Britain's chief military spokesman, said later on Friday. Three other tanks nearby were hit by missiles fired from French or US planes.
One of three Tomahawk cruise missiles fired on Sunday night got stuck in the submarine's launch tube, it emerged.
This was the first time the Tornados – whose home base is RAF Marham in Norfolk but which now fly from the southern Italian base of Gioia del Colle – had fired weapons at Libyan targets since Saturday, the first night of the campaign. Four Tornados were involved, probably firing no more than two bombs or Storm Shadow missiles each.
The following night, the Tornados' bombing run was aborted because a number of civilians, later identified as including western journalists, were found to be in the "intended target area", the MoD has said.
It is possible that no more than about eight bombs or missiles had been fired from RAF Tornados before the Brimstone attacks on Thursday night. That contrasts with hundreds of attacks by US and French aircraft, with, in one reported incident, US planes firing 40 missiles at one Libyan air base.
A total of eight RAF Tornados and 10 Typhoons are involved in the conflict.
William Hague, the foreign secretary, said on Thursday that the RAF had flown 59 missions over Libya. The large majority have been reconnaissance missions. They have also included what the MoD emphasises were the first Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft deployed in what it described as "hostile airspace".
The 10 Typhoons are only suitable for air-to-air combat, according to the MoD. The ground attack version apparently is not ready to take over the Tornados' role – though defence sources point out that the high profile the Tornados are enjoying will make it much harder for the government to scrap them as soon as it would otherwise like to.
The RAF is responsible for policing the "no-fly zone" over eastern Libya, the rebel stronghold. Actively engaged in Afghanistan, it does not have any more aircraft available to take part in the Libyan operations.A US government report detailing widespread waste and missed opportunities in America’s $60 billion reconstruction effort in Iraq is unlikely to dramatically alter America’s aid policy, say international development experts.
Yesterday the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released a report entitled Learning From Iraq that examined many of the challenges and mistakes that led to the wasting of at least $8 billion, or 13.3 percent of US reconstruction spending in Iraq.
Although the report offered suggestions for improvement, the US continues to fund a number of programs in Afghanistan that bear a strong resemblance to the failed Iraq projects outlined in the report.
Ashley Jackson, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, says that most of the problems highlighted in SIGIR’s final report on Iraq were issues the agency repeatedly warned Congress and Presidents Bush and Obama about.
“This is something they started reporting on years ago and nothing has changed,” she says.
SIGIR’s sister institution, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, has issued regular reports on US spending in Afghanistan, uncovering many of the same wasteful spending patterns. Both organizations’ findings have resulted in numerous criminal investigations, but Ms. Jackson says the watchdogs lack the authority to implement aggressive changes that could prevent future waste.
“These agencies are really useful in exposing things, but unless they have the ability to correct them, it’s not going to happen. It’s just going to be another report,” says Jackson, who has worked extensively in Afghanistan.
Providing adequate oversight remained a consistent problem in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where security concerns prevented American monitors from directly supervising the work they funded or making regular site visits.
As the US looks to provide aid to areas such as Pakistan, Yemen, and other strategically important countries, the question of project oversight in dangerous areas remains a consistent problem that many development experts say remains unaddressed. Additionally, the political climate has made it more difficult for policymakers to enact measures that would support more front-line monitoring.
“The 9/11 attack in Benghazi proved that the political atmosphere in Washington DC won’t accept risk. Everything is hyper-politicized,” says James Miller, a Syria analyst and associate editor of EA Worldview. “Money being wasted is a political liability, but I think that money being wasted is less of a liability than lives being wasted.”
Still, George Ingram, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution, says that it’s problematic to use reconstruction programs for Iraq and Afghanistan as examples for most US assistance programs.
The sheer size of the Iraq and Afghanistan programs, $60 billion and $89 billion respectively, make them anomalous. If anything, he says the two wars may have taught the US that it is often better served by more modest spending that allows for more careful planning and comprehensive oversight.
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“You haven’t seen the US rush massive amounts of assistance into the Middle East. I think it’s been a combination of a difficult budget situation, but also a little more humility on the ability of the US to rush in with large amounts of money and create sustainable solutions to the problems there,” says Mr. Ingram.
“You’re already beginning to see the impact of some lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, of the US being more cautious and moving a little slower until it gets a better fix of what’s going on in the country and how we can be helpful effectively.”By PTI
DHAKA: Bangladesh has proposed joint military operations with Myanmar against Rohingya militants fighting in Rakhine state, as the UN raised fears over reports of civilians killed during fresh violence in recent days.
An upsurge in fighting in Rakhine, an impoverished state neighbouring Bangladesh, has been raging since Friday when Rohingya militants staged coordinated ambushes against Myanmar's security forces.
More than 100 people, including around 80 militants, have been confirmed killed in the fightback, which has seen thousands of Rohingya villagers fleeing for Bangladesh.
The United Nation's Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "is deeply concerned at the reports of civilians being killed during security operations in Myanmar's Rakhine State," according to a statement from spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
He called on Bangladesh to step up assistance to civilians escaping the violence, noting "many of those fleeing are women and children, some of whom are wounded".
More than 3,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar, where the stateless Muslim minority faces persecution, in the past three days, the UN refugee agency said yesterday.
Bangladesh has said there are thousands more Rohingya massed on its border with Myanmar, where it has stepped up patrols and pushed back hundreds of civilians who have tried to enter.
Their flight comes as Human Rights Watch said it has satellite data "consistent with widespread burnings" in 10 populated areas of the violence-wracked wedge of Rakhine State near Bangladesh.
Those include Rohingya villages as well as Rakhine- majority settlements attacked by the militants.
In a meeting with Myanmar's charge d'affaires in Dhaka, a top Bangladeshi foreign ministry official proposed joint military efforts against the militants along the border.
"If Myanmar wished, the security forces of the two countries could conduct joint operations against the militants, any non-state actors or the Arakan Army along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border," a foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity, as he was not permitted to speak to the media.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) is a militant group that says it is fighting to protect the Muslim minority from abuses by Myanmar security forces and the majority- Buddhist Rakhine community.
There was no comment from the Myanmar diplomat.
At the weekend, as violence in Rakhine worsened, Bangladesh's foreign minister summoned Myanmar's charge'd affaires in Dhaka to express "serious concern" at the possibility of a fresh refugee influx.
There are already some 400,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in squalid camps near its border with Myanmar.
Bangladesh is waging a bloody crackdown on homegrown Islamist militancy and has vowed 'zero tolerance' towards violent extremism, domestic or otherwise, on its soil.
Dhaka has repeatedly asked Myanmar to take back the Rohingya refugees and address the root causes of problem.
Despite decades of persecution, the Rohingya in Myanmar's western Rakhine state largely eschewed violence.
But in October ARSA, a small and previously unknown militant group, staged a series of well coordinated and deadly attacks on security forces.In political television shows and films, it’s the ultimate cliché: a senior aide or Cabinet secretary, standing in a hallowed hall, declares that he or she serves at the pleasure of the President. But in Donald Trump’s Administration, the adage is being rewritten. At one time or another, almost everyone who works in the White House has discovered they are serving at the President’s displeasure.
Amid the Russia investigations and Washington’s legislative morass, Trump has turned his frustrations on some of his most loyal advisers. His stunning parade of attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom the President faults for recusing himself from the Russia probe, has drawn much of the attention. But since the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is increasingly under fire as well.
Scaramucci, whose title doesn’t fully capture his influence with the President, has taken the lead in the hunt to root out the source of leaks in the Trump Administration. That effort has quickly turned into an all-out-assault on Priebus—one seemingly sanctioned from the top.
In a late-Wednesday tweet, Scaramucci speciously accused Priebus of “leaking” his publicly available financial disclosure form. That tweet followed a dinner with the President. Then Scaramucci called into CNN Thursday morning, compared his relationship with Priebus to the Biblical feud between Cain and Abel, and suggested that the chief of staff should answer publicly for his leaks. That call also followed an early-morning chat with Trump.
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Priebus been under fire since the start of the Administration. As the nominal top aide in the Trump White House, he’s an easy person to blame when things go awry—especially when Trump refuses to admit that he’s the one at fault. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, arguably the two most influential advisers to the President, have expressed frustration with Priebus’ performance.
But the arrival of Scaramucci has turned up the heat on the beleaguered chief of staff. The bad blood between the two dates back to the beginning of the Administration, when Priebus was among those who sought to keep Scaramucci, a former hedge fund executive from New York, from taking a role in the White House. Ironically, part of the reason Priebus sought to block Scaramucci was due to concerns that he would leak to reporters with whom he has relationships through his role in GOP finance circles.
Sessions and Priebus may be the two most embattled officials, but they are hardly the only ones on the hot seat. Trump has also taken aim at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He hasn’t taken steps to defend National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster from damaging leaks. And in their effort to squeeze Priebus, Trump and Scaramucci are targeting the chief’s allies inside the White House.
It’s not clear to the aides enduring public scoldings or the people around them whether the President wants them gone, or simply wishes to see them squirm. Some believe the President is flailing for a fix in a dysfunctional West Wing. Others see it as the art of distraction. Still more say Trump’s pure love of political bloodsport is the reason why he is sponsoring the internecine attacks.
Asked about the drama on Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “The President likes that type of competition and encourages it.”
Six months into his administration, Trump has all but stopped listening to some of the veteran Washington hands in his White House. This has been a pattern throughout his time in public life: Trump has a capacity to listen to professionals, but when the going gets tough, he almost always falls back on his penchant for disorder.
But the consequences of Trump’s decision to promote tumult aren’t confined to the realm of palace intrigue. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were left scrambling Wednesday to deal with the fallout of Trump’s hastily announced plan to ban transgender troops, having not been informed ahead of his half-baked pronouncement on Twitter.
What’s clear is that the officials under fire face a stark choice: resign, or power through the insults. In the case of Sessions and Priebus, they appear committed to the latter path.
Contact us at [email protected] file now attached...
Please read the whole thread if you can or at least the whole OP down to the bottom before asking questions as your question might have already been answered... Thank you...
Hi guys, you can unlock you N7105 via the Samsung hidden menu. [Also works with N7100 and some Galaxy S3 (SIII) variants - NOT ALL]
I can confirm the unlock survives ROM flashing
Before doing the instructions below, please double check your phone that it is actually LOCKED by inserting a sim card from a different carrier/provider... you may or may not leave that sim card on the phone while unlocking
Quote: Unlock your N7105:
Note: your phone must be running at least Jelly Bean 4.1.1 (if 4.1.1 does not work, try 4.1.0) otherwise some of the menu choices are not present
Do this procedure AT YOUR OWN RISK
To those who were able to unlock their phone with the method above, can you please post in the thread and let us know which phone model (N7100 or N7105) you have, Country and Network/Carrier your phone was locked to...... and if I have saved you some cash, please click the Thanks button or the Donate button on the left just below my name to buy me a can/bottle of Heinekken, Quilmes, Budweiser, Fosters, Tiger, Stella Artois, or San Miguel
NOTICE:
To those having "Conditional Call Forwarding" pop up message or similar pop ups appear everytime you make a call (but they disappear within a few seconds), this is normal with an old sim card, or when using a ported number. There is no restriction to calls or internet or whatever. This is confirmed by my provider when I walked in and asked them about it. They even showed me one of their sample Note 2's and S3's having the same message.
######################################################################################################################################Just dial the following keys *#197328640#Main Menu > [1] UMTS > [1] Debug Screen > [8] Phone Control > [6] Network Lock > Options [3]Perso SHA256 OFF > (after choosing this option, wait about 30 seconds, then go back one step by pressing the Menu button then select Back, now you are in [6] Network Lock then choose [4] NW Lock NV Data INITIALLIZ..... wait for a minute then reboot your phone... enjoy!!! There is no confirmation on the phone that the unlock was successfull.... just reboot your phone....To test, just insert a sim card from a different carrier/provider. If the new sim card works then your phone is now unlocked.I have done this to my other Note 2 N7105 originally locked to Orange.....================================================================================...================================================================================I have mentioned in my old thread that there was a pop up message that says "Conditional call forwarding active" everytime I make a phone call using another SIm card that the phone was not able to use before unlocking.I can confirm that this was due to my Sim card. It is a very old O2 sim card that I have used for years. I have tried that Sim card on another factory unlocked phone (Galaxy i8160 bought from P4u) and it had the same message.The Saudis have initiated a major campaign to undermine Iran’s ally Hezbollah, which they believe is vulnerable today. Riyadh is likely to have considerable but not complete success. It’s a characteristically risky strategy.
The Saudis branded Hezbollah a terrorist organization earlier this year and then persuaded their Gulf Cooperation Council allies to do the same on March 2. Then Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef pressed a summit of Arab interior ministers to join in lambasting Hezbollah in Tunis in early March. The Arab League formally agreed to label Hezbollah a terrorist group at a Foreign Ministerial in Cairo later in the month. Only Iraq and Lebanon abstained.
Fall from grace
It’s a long way from when Hezbollah was hailed as the symbol of Arab resistance to Israel a decade ago. The Saudi leadership may have been privately critical of Hezbollah during the 2006 war with Israel, but the group was far too popular for fighting Israel with punishing missile strikes to tackle publicly. Hezbollah squandered its popularity with the Arab street over the course of the next decade.
The current Saudi campaign dates to last summer when the Crown Prince’s spies captured the mastermind of the Khobar Tower attack. Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil is a Saudi Shiite who masterminded the June 25, 1996, attack on an American military barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Mughassil was detained by the Saudis last August as he was exiting a flight from Tehran to Beirut and was transferred from Lebanon immediately to the kingdom. Nineteen U.S. Air Force personnel were killed at Khobar and 372 were wounded in the attack. The FBI put a $5 million bounty for information leading to his arrest years ago.
Hezbollah squandered its popularity with the Arab street.
The FBI identified the bomb maker in the Khobar attack as a member of Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran had connected with Mughassil. It is likely that Mughassil gave the Saudis considerably more details on Hezbollah’s role in the operation after his detention. Mughassil also could detail the links between Iran, Hezbollah, and Saudi Shiite radicals.
Hezbollah’s strong support for President Bashar Assad’s regime also added impetus to Riyadh’s determination to go after the group. Hezbollah has sent hundreds of fighters to prop up Assad and fight Syrian Sunnis backed by the Saudis. Instead of defending Arabs from Israel, Hezbollah became Assad’s proxy in his brutal war against the Syrian people. Russia’s intervention backing Assad this winter only added to Saudi determination to go after the weakest link in the Syrian-Iranian-Russian axis.
The Saudi war in Yemen is another factor. The Saudis have accused Hezbollah of assisting the Houthis in their bid to seize control of Yemen. When it began the war a year ago, Riyadh’s worst nightmare was that the Houthis would become a Yemeni version of Hezbollah, an Iranian ally controlling a state on Saudi Arabia’s southern frontier. Saudi spokesmen today argue that the war has at least prevented that from happening.
Hezbollah’s angry denunciation of the Saudi execution of Nimr al Nimr in January was the final link. Hezbollah called the Saudi Shiite leader a martyr, whose martyrdom presaged the coming collapse of the House of Saud. The Saudi Ministry of the Interior blamed Nimr for encouraging terrorism and the secession of the Shiite-majority Eastern Province from the Kingdom.
Come join the bandwagon
Since the Arab League statement listing Hezbollah as terrorists, the Saudis have encouraged their Gulf allies to expel Lebanese emigres accused of having connections to the group. This promises to further polarize the Lebanese community in the Gulf between Shiites and other sects, Sunni and Christian.
Riyadh is likely to start pressing the Europeans to brand Hezbollah as a terror group. The Europeans have long argued that only the military wing of Hezbollah is terrorist and exempted the political party from sanctions. Israel has argued this is a dubious splitting of hairs since the party controls the fighters.
Riyadh has much more clout in Europe than Jerusalem. London and Paris are desperate to keep their lucrative arms sales relationships with Riyadh. They also need Saudi help to fight jihadist terrorism. If Riyadh presses hard, the Europeans will find it difficult to resist.
It’s still unclear how far the Kingdom will push its case against Hezbollah. The risk is too much pressure will destabilize Lebanon. The current Saudi leadership is much more risk prone and unpredictable than its predecessors. King Salman and his top aides want to deliver hard blows to Tehran—and for them, striking Hezbollah is a good way to do it.With your help, 100 veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could soon have extra assistance in the form of a free service dog.
The dogs will be donated by Explore.org, the multimedia arm of the Annenberg Foundation. Up to 100 dogs, valued at $500,000, will be donated to veterans — one dog for every 5,000 "likes" received at the Dog Bless You Facebook community. The initiative aims to spread awareness about the healing role dogs can play in the lives of those suffering from PTSD.
Dog Bless You was founded by filmmaker Charles Annenberg Weingarten, a trustee of the Annenberg Foundation and also the founder of Explore.org. Partners in this effort include the IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) and other veteran and service dog organizations.
"Dogs are serving this country unlike any other animal — from the battlefields of war, to the front lines of search and rescue to the ranks of police and fire forces across this country to the everyday person in need of a companion," said Weingarten in a prepared statement. "We want to raise awareness about the amazing role dogs can play in the lives of veterans and people who suffer from emotional and psychological damage, while giving everyone a chance to participate through a zero-cost contribution."
"Doctors, psychologists, and certainly veterans will all attest to the incredible benefits dogs bring to those suffering from the impact of war," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of IAVA.
PTSD service dogs can help veterans and other trauma survivors to reduce their anxiety levels and — for those who are physically disabled — navigate through the world. They can also be trained to wake their humans up from nightmares or to remind them to take their medications. "I see big increases in confidence with the dogs," Jennifer Petre, founder of the service-dog training organization Stiggy's Dogs recently told Hometownlife.com. "The veterans aren't as worried as much with the dog. It takes pressure off them."
According to a survey by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (cited by a report at PsychCentral), 82 percent of patients with PTSD who received service dogs experienced a decrease in symptoms, while 40 percent found they were able to reduce their medications.
In addition to simply liking the Dog Bless You Facebook page, people are invited to upload patriotic photos and videos and share personal dog-related stories.
"I'm sure during the course of this campaign, we'll see and hear some amazing stories from our brave service people whose dogs have been a prime source of salvation," said Rieckhoff.
According to the nonprofit Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs, it costs about $20,000 to raise, train and place a medical service dog.
The Dog Bless USA Challenge Grant runs from Memorial Day (May 30) through July 4.
Facebook challenge grant aims to donate 100 service dogs to vets with PTSD
For every 5,000 Facebook likes, a service dog will be donated to a war veteran.In an underground base in Wyoming, there lies one of 450 Minuteman-3 missiles, tucked away and ready to launch upon the president’s command.
The missile lies on an unassuming fenced-off property, beside a neighboring ranch where cattle graze among of hay. Yet it has the potential to cause 20 times the amount of catastrophic damage of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
“60 Minutes” got a rare look inside this base and discovered that floppy disks are still used to operate missiles such as this. Big, old floppy disks, too, not the smaller 3.5-inch kind that you’re probably thinking of, but big 8-inch disks.
The silo’s 23-year-old deputy missileer (yes, that’s a real job) said she had never even seen a floppy disk before looking after this silo that could obliterate the planet.
This all probably seems quite concerning knowing that the world’s deadliest weaponry is being safeguarded by ancient technology, but operating them is an extremely costly business. It’s estimated that to operate the arsenal and modernize the systems would cost $350 billion over a decade.
The more concerning part, however, is that the “irreplaceable” configuration and maintenance guides are on old formats and are degrading to the point where data is becoming unrecoverable. According to the Department of Energy, this all means that the safety and reliability surrounding America’s weapons could soon be an issue.
But hey, who specializes in hacking 50-year-old technology? Surely that’s a positive, right?
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.Lewis Schiff, adviser to the superrich and founder of the private wealth specialty firm Advanced Planning Group, coauthored the recently released The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America. Schiff defines "middle-class millionaires" as those with a net worth of between $1 million and $10 million who earned their wealth rather than inherited it. They are people, the author says, who live a fundamentally middle-class life, yet are exerting powerful influence on society.
Schiff and his coauthor, Russ Alan Prince, surveyed more than 3,600 middle-class-millionaire households for their book. Schiff spoke with U.S. News. Excerpts:
How does a middle-class millionaire approach retirement?
I think the traditional retirement concept of stopping work and living on the assets you've accumulated is something the middle-class millionaire is redefining. The notion of retiring at 65 is not something you necessarily hear from them.
Folks who are succeeding in America are knowledge workers, in financial services or creative services, where their brain is their No. 1 asset. The body is healthier for longer and longer periods, and now that the body isn't failing and you have the technology where you can get on a yacht and continue to do business, they might just look to scale back and not retire, because their bodies are up to it anyway.
What kind of person becomes a middle-class millionaire?
They on average work 70 hours a week and take fewer vacation days. They show perseverance in the face of adversity. They've had more failures in their professional life, but what's interesting is what they do in the face of failure. They observe information in a more savvy way and tap into the flow of information capital, and they know how to leverage this enlightened self-interest.
You talk about persevering in the face of adversity. What does that look like to this group?
These are people who have had an average of three career setbacks, and three quarters of the group we surveyed said that each time, they've come back in a different way. Persevering in the face of adversity is easier said than done, but it's a distinguishing characteristic.
The middle-class millionaires we spoke to said that failure and defeat are crushing no matter who you are, but some of them will say, "I have to rectify this because I prize financial independence above all else."
Seriously—70 hours a week?
There's a certain absurdity to it. "Are they really working 70 hours a week?" But they walk around with their BlackBerrys and do business at their kids' soccer games. Why do they do what they do? They work hard every day because they want their kids to grow up in a financially stable environment and have opportunities. Middle-class millionaires are people working on behalf of their families.Why The Academy Needs To Start Recognizing The Incredible Visual Effects In Superhero Movies By Adam Holmes Random Article Blend Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (which was also excellent), the other nominees for Best Visual Effects this year were Interstellar deserved to win, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s time that the Academy put aside its apparent bias towards superhero movies and start recognizing the impressive visual magic they deliver to both hardcore comic book fans and general moviegoers.
To put this into perspective, the last superhero movie to win a Best Visual Effects Oscar was Spider-Man 2 in 2004. In the 11 years since then, the Dark Knight Trilogy reinvented Batman, a whole new decade of X-Men films unfolded, and we got another Spider-Man series (okay, ignore that last one), but most important is that these movies have continually provided improved effects that dazzle the eye and brought to life characters that many of us grew up reading. So it’s odd that while the Academy has nominated many of these films for Best Visual Effects, none have received the award, and this year was truly an exceptional snub.
Among the impressive visual effects in the superhero films in 2014 included an Interstellar, comparing that to what last year’s superhero movies provided, Christopher Nolan’s latest flick doesn’t quite measure up. Twenty years ago, most of these movies wouldn’t have been able to be translated onto the big screen, but thanks to advancements in movie technology, it’s now possible to watch adventures unfold that were previously only doable on the pages of a comic book or in some form of animation. The stories might not have the more Oscar-friendly storylines that movies like Interstellar, Gravity, Life of Pi or the other recent Best Visual Effects Winners, but there’s no denying that the effects in most of these superhero movies are impressive to watch, are getting better with each year, and deserve to be recognized.
Look, Academy, we get it. You don’t care for superhero movies. That much is clear from the two disses directed towards them during the first 20 minutes of the ceremony. We’re not expecting anything from the genre to earn a Best Picture nomination - but it would be nice you started giving recognition for what these movies truly excel at: great visual effects. Yes, a well-written story and character development is key to enjoying the antics of comic book characters on the big screen, but let’s not lie to ourselves, we love it even more when they’re dealing with detailed CGI threats and throwing down with superpowered bad guys. Don’t you think that’s deserving of a It’s official: Interstellar has taken the 2014 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Featuring impressive space travel and a whole lot of other eye-candy surprises (no spoilers here), it’s certainly understandable why it earned a nomination. However, there’s a genre of cinema that continually gets nominated in this category, but hardly ever wins: the superhero movie. Excluding(which was also excellent), the other nominees for Best Visual Effects this year were X-Men: Days of Future Past Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: The Winter Solider. In other words, 60% of the category was superhero films, and all three of them were visual treats. It’s understandable why some may think thatdeserved to win, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s time that the Academy put aside its apparent bias towards superhero movies and start recognizing the impressive visual magic they deliver to both hardcore comic book fans and general moviegoers.To put this into perspective, the last superhero movie to win a Best Visual Effects Oscar wasin 2004. In the 11 years since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was created, thereinvented Batman, a whole new decade of X-Men films unfolded, and we got another Spider-Man series (okay, ignore that last one), but most important is that these movies have continually provided improved effects that dazzle the eye and brought to life characters that many of us grew up reading. So it’s odd that while the Academy has nominated many of these films for Best Visual Effects, none have received the award, and this year was truly an exceptional snub.Among the impressive visual effects in the superhero films in 2014 included an anthropomorphic raccoon, a talking tree, mutant powers, giant robots seeking to kill those mutants, a raid against three gigantic aircraft, time travel and much more. As cool as the space travel and other effects were in, comparing that to what last year’s superhero movies provided, Christopher Nolan’s latest flick doesn’t quite measure up. Twenty years ago, most of these movies wouldn’t have been able to be translated onto the big screen, but thanks to advancements in movie technology, it’s now possible to watch adventures unfold that were previously only doable on the pages of a comic book or in some form of animation. The stories might not have the more Oscar-friendly storylines that movies likeor the other recent Best Visual Effects Winners, but there’s no denying that the effects in most of these superhero movies are impressive to watch, are getting better with each year, and deserve to be recognized.Look, Academy, we get it. You don’t care for superhero movies. That much is clear from the two disses directed towards them during the first 20 minutes of the ceremony. We’re not expecting anything from the genre to earn a |
troublesome” and “would exceed the budget.”
The couple, who run an English-language school, said the elementary school may not have had intended to be discriminatory, but they were nonetheless deeply hurt by its response.
In November, they started collecting signatures for a petition that they hoped would push local authorities into changing their practices and introducing solutions for families with disabled children.
They also filed a written complaint to the Osaka Bar Association arguing that the school’s practice violates human rights.
The campaign gained a certain amount of attention nationwide when friends and relatives of other children at the boy’s kindergarten spread the word about it, anticipating how the authorities might respond.
In January, Steve Sasaki-Samuels received an official apology from the board of education. Board officials said they will compile a manual for schools containing guidelines on the enrolment of children with disabilities and will inform institutions what forms of assistance such students are entitled to.
“We’ve shed a lot of tears, but we have had our voices heard,” Junko Sasaki-Samuels said.
Steve Sasaki-Samuels said, “Instead of rejecting (disabled children) from society, they should be accepted and live together with everyone else.”
He added that “every child is a vital member of society.”Hey everyone! I received another pen this week that I am really excited about – a Newton Pen! When I first started reading about different pens, I was really interested in Newton Pens because of how amazing Shawn Newton’s products are as well as the message he brings to the fountain pen community with his scholarship fund for highschool students.
I did not create the design for this pen, it was all Shawn Newton. It was a pen that he had listed on his “Sales” section of his website. I have started at this pen for a couple of weeks now, wishing I could purchase it. I was able to pick up a couple hours at a local gaming store so I decided to buy the pen.
Custom Newton Gibby Pen – Small
About
Specifications:
Body Material: Ebonite and Acrylic
Color: Black, Blue, and Brown
Nib material: Stainless Steel
Fill type: Cartridge/Converter
Price: $250
Packaging
One of my favorite things to see when it comes to packaging is that the packaging is one that protects the pen and is attractive. Shawn’s packaging not only accomplishes these things, but is also very practical! Whenever you order a pen, it comes packaged in a pen wrap made by Elizabeth Newton, Shawn’s wife, and delivered in a very nice tumbler mug! I think this is the best packaging anyone could do. Having something practical that someone can use everyday is much better than a case that will just be sitting in a box. On top of that, the pen wrap is very good for keeping your pen protected.
I really hope that other pen makers will adopt this practical style of packaging. Love.
Appearance
Like I said, I stared at this pen on Shawn’s website for weeks because of how amazing it looked.
The pen is absolutely beautiful with the blue and brown acrylic body and the black ebonite for the grip and the cap. I love how much dimension that the blue and brown acrylic has in it – it’s things like this that I find beautiful and artistic. Another thing that caught my eye are the sliver bands. It shows off the acrylic even more because of the barrier it makes between it and the ebonite.
Nib and Performance
The nib is amazing, absolutely amazing. Shawn did a great job with the custom grind. When I sent him a description of I wanted, it was a mangled mess of words and Shawn did a great job interpreting it. The fine stub nib is the exact width that I want – a nib that can I use for everyday writing with a little bit of flair. And this is the exact thing that I received. No complaints whatsoever. I think I’ve fallen even more in love with steel nibs than I originally thought I had.
In Hand Feel and Balance
For me, the pen is a little large (I have small hands), but the pen is lightweight so that doesn’t matter too much. It is much more balanced unposted, but I can’t help but write with a pen posted. Even when it is posted, it still feels pretty good in my hand.
The ebonite is a great material for the grip as well. It is easy to hold, not slippery at all, and a beautiful material. I love how this pen feels in my hand.
Keep in mind that this is a SMALL pen if you get a custom pen. Shawn offers slim, small, medium, large, and oversized pens. If you get one, just make sure you are getting the right size.
Pros and Cons
Conclusion
Overall, I absolutely am in love with this pen, even if it is a little big. I think when I graduate I’ll design a pen of my own to order from Shawn, but this time I’ll do it in a slim size. The fine stub nib is amazing and I can’t wait to get another one!
If you want to read more and Shawn Newton and Newton Pens, visit his website here and see The Pen Addict’s interview with Shawn here.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or requests don’t hesitate to comment here or email me at [email protected].
Thanks for reading!
AdvertisementsLeslie Benzies, boss of the Edinburgh-based Rockstar North studio behind the development of the Grand Theft Auto series, has left Rockstar Games. Benzies had been on sabbatical for the past 17 months and decided not to return to work for the company.
Alongside Rockstar co-founders Sam and Dan Houser, Benzies was instrumental in the development of the Grand Theft Auto series—which continues to be developed out of Edinburgh—as well as the likes of Red Dead Redemption, Manhunt 2, LA Noire and Max Payne 3.
Benzies' contributions to the industry were recognised back in 2014 as he was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame alongside Dan and Sam Houser.
"We are very grateful for Leslie's contributions to Rockstar over the last 15 years as we worked together to make some amazing games," Rockstar Games said in a statement. "Leslie helped us build an incredible team that will continue to create great experiences for our fans. Leslie will always be a friend to the company and of course we are going to miss him but we wish him the absolute best for the future."
Benzies joined Rockstar in 1999, back when the company was still know as DMA design. He first worked as a programmer on the N64 game Space Station Silicon Valley, before focusing his efforts on the Grand Theft Auto and the groundbreaking GTA III. Rockstar North is now led by Rockstar veterans Aaron Garbut and Rob Nelson.Will the third revolutionary wave hit the U.S. next? The revolutions in today’s world are getting ever closer to America.
Revolutions tend to occur in waves, triggered by the aftermath of wars, like the world wars, or by revolutions in leading countries, like the French Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In the last generation, there have been four regional waves of revolution. With the end of the Cold War, communist regimes were swept from power from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, surviving only in a few countries including China, North Korea and Cuba. Unable to justify themselves with the pretense of fighting communism, military dictatorships were swept away in Latin America. Then the Arab Spring triggered a wave of populist if not necessarily democratic revolutions against autocracies in North Africa and the Middle East.
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Are we seeing a new wave of revolutionary politics in the heartland of the industrial West? Although governments are not being violently overthrown in Europe, political systems are being destabilized by the rise of anti-system movements opposed to the major establishment parties. In Greece, the leftist Syriza party and the far-right Golden Dawn have sapped power from the political center. The most recent Italian election was dominated by anti-system candidates, including Silvio Berlusconi and the comedian Beppe Grillo.
Even closer to the U.S., anti-system movements are upending politics in Germany and Britain. In Germany, an anti-euro party, Alternative for Germany, has gained ground with voters. In Britain, an anti-EU party, the UK Independence Party, has stunned observers by doing well in local elections.
The European protest parties are driven partly by voter backlash against the costs of the economic crisis. Ironically, Europe’s common currency, the euro, is the target of anti-system populists both in countries with large trade deficits like Greece and those with large trade surpluses, like Germany. Britain is not part of the common currency zone, but that does not prevent the British radical right from wanting Britain to leave the European Union altogether.
As this suggests, most of the protest parties and movements in Europe are found on the populist and nationalist right. In addition to being hostile to supra-national institutions, they tend to be hostile to large-scale immigration. They channel the feelings of ordinary people who feel that their ability to control their own country is being sapped from above and without.
This rising populist nationalism is colliding with the post-nationalist culture shared by much of the elite on both sides of the Atlantic. For much of the trans-Atlantic corporate and intellectual elite, overt patriotism is as disreputable as racism. In corporate suites and seminar rooms, many in the political class think of themselves as citizens of the world and beneficiaries of global markets.
The divide between post-national technocratic elites and nationalist citizenries is growing. The democratic language of national self-determination and popular sovereignty is alien to the vocabulary of the Euro-American elite, who instead speak a blandly utilitarian language in which many political issues from the nature of jobs to the regulation of finance are depoliticized and treated as purely economic or technical questions.
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While European elites insist that the answer to the failures of European integration is even deeper European integration, European voters are suggesting that the answer may be less Europe and more nation-state — Greece, Italy, Germany or Britain, as the case may be. Wealthy and well-paid European elites who prescribe years or decades of austerity-induced pain for most Europeans have created the backlash against them by means of their own unpopular policies.
The surprising thing is that a similar anti-system backlash has not yet appeared on the same scale in the U.S. The Tea Party movement was never more than the right wing of the Republican Party, and after helping the Republicans win the House in 2010 it showed its weakness in the presidential election year of 2012. The Occupy Wall Street movement fizzled out, after launching the concept of “the 1 percent” into wider public discourse.
If a serious movement of protest against the bipartisan political establishment were to appear in the U.S., it would probably be a movement of the populist and nationalist right, as in Europe. The leaders might be figures like Ross Perot and Lou Dobbs.
While their influence has waned, Perot and Dobbs did much more to reshape American politics than is usually realized. Although the billionaire Pete Peterson has spent a fortune and decades pushing regressive deficit reduction, it was another billionaire, Ross Perot, who unfortunately made federal deficits a populist issue in the 1990s. Under Clinton both parties sought to appeal to the Perot vote by focusing on balanced budgets (while ignoring Perot’s other populist issue, balanced trade). For his part, Lou Dobbs during his years of greatest influence as a TV commentator helped to make opposition to illegal immigration and mass immigration a central part of conservative populism.
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Populist anxieties about immigration are likely to grow, rather than fade, in the future, on both sides of the Atlantic, even as support for protectionism declines. Thanks to outsourcing and automation, most people in developed countries already work in the nontraded domestic sector, where they don’t compete in a global market with foreign workers. Domestic service sector workers, however, may compete in their own nation’s labor market with immigrants. What is more, the combination of low native birthrates with high levels of immigration gives the native majorities in many countries a sense that their cultures and languages are being marginalized in their own homeland. Such anxieties are often exaggerated, but to dismiss these concerns as mere bigotry instead of addressing them seriously is to provide a gift to demagogues.
At present the elite consensus in the U.S. seems to be that America is on the road to recovery and the only question is which Republican will oppose Hillary Clinton in 2016. But this ignores the possibility that the destabilizing political forces we see in Europe may find equivalents in America. Having earlier avoided the mistake made by the Europeans with their self-destructive austerity policies, thanks to the sequester the U.S. is now foolishly adopting the kind of contractionary economic policies it earlier spurned. Do not be surprised if several years more of high unemployment and the creation of low-paying jobs produces anti-system movements in American politics with more staying power than the flash-in-the-pan Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. It can happen here.From suspensions to arrests, Black students are more likely to be disciplined in US public schools than white students. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)
The nearly 50 million students in the US public school system are not all at equal risk of facing harsh disciplinary measures: Black students are more than three times more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled from school, according to our original analysis of data compiled by the US Department of Education.
The data also includes statistics on other ethnic groups, but in our investigation we focused in particular on the glaring and well-documented disparity between white and Black students using data collected by the department’s Office for Civil Rights for the 2011-2012 academic year. The statistics show that nationwide 15 percent of Black students received out-of-school suspensions, compared with 4 percent of white students.
In several states, the disparities were especially alarming: Wisconsin suspended 26 percent of its Black students, but just 3 percent of its white students. In Minnesota, Connecticut, Iowa and Nebraska, Black students were six times more likely than white students to be suspended from school.
Virginia’s statistics were similar to the national numbers: 14 percent of the commonwealth’s Black students received suspensions, versus 5 percent of white students.
Expulsions are far less common than suspensions, but the pattern is the same. Nationwide, 1.6 of every 1,000 white students were expelled from school in 2011-2012, compared with five of every 1,000 Black students.
Ultimately, national data suggest that Black students are the overwhelming likely candidates for expulsions in comparison to their white counterparts — even in school districts where demographically Black students are the unequivocal minority.
Virginia: A Case Study in Disproportionate Discipline
In Virginia, about two of every 1,000 African-American students were expelled, versus one of every 1,000 white students.
Other journalists also have looked at the US Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection. The Center for Public Integrity, for example, focused on the number of students who were arrested or referred to police.
Its reporters found that Virginia had the highest rate in the United States for calling police on students: Of every 1,000 students in the commonwealth, almost 16 were arrested or referred to law enforcement in 2011-2012. Nationwide, the figure was about six in every 1,000 students.
Virginia’s tendency to call the cops on kids has led Gov. Terry McAuliffe to initiate “Classrooms, not Courtrooms” in order to reduce disproportionate police referrals for students of color and students with disabilities. McAuliffe’s new state initiative comes as the Center for Public Integrity reports that Virginia leads the nation in police and court system referrals.
McAuliffe’s policy sets out to eliminate suspensions for minor offenses, such as cursing and refusing to sit down, in order to keep students in the classroom. Suspensions of this nature contribute to the “push-out” – not dropout – rate in schools, where students fall behind academically due to time out of school on account of behavior. “We cannot have our schools viewed as hostile environments where children are branded as criminals,” McAuliffe said.
The data shows racial disparities when police get involved with students. In Virginia, for instance, about 25 of every 1,000 African-American students were arrested or referred to police, as opposed to 13 of every 1,000 white students.
In conjunction with the disproportionate suspensions of students by race nationally lies a disparity among students within the commonwealth’s school districts. For instance, on a micro level, Greensville County Public Schools has a 64 percent Black student suspension rate — in contrast to Hispanic students at 25 percent and white students at 30 percent of students suspended.
Virginia’s percentage rate of expelled students is not indicative of any disproportionate targeting, due to the racial makeup of certain school districts, but larger school districts such as Henrico and Fairfax have glaring disparities.
The existence of this polarity has many reformers and advocates of school policy uniting with parents in order to address this disparity.
Efforts to Reduce Disparities
Daniel Losen, director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, conducts research on this very topic and fosters comprehensive reform of school policy. In the publication “Discipline Policies, Successful Schools, and Racial Justice,” he recognized that nationwide more than 3 million students were suspended at least once during the 2006 school year. This is approximately 7 percent of students enrolled in both primary and secondary public schools.
Solutions to this epidemic are outlined in Losen’s publication, where he recommends that school districts with high rates of exclusions implement technical assistance in classrooms and behavioral management.
Evandra Catherine, 32, has a son with a disability enrolled in Richmond Public Schools. She expressed a concern that her child is vulnerable to the school district’s policies.
“I am aware of my son’s school district’s financial plight when it comes to managing normal students,” Catherine told Truthout. “So I have to be extra vigilant of his treatment, because of the lack of resources in play, which may recommend discipline instead of accommodating him.”
Dr. Russell Houck, executive director of student services for Culpeper County Public Schools in Virginia, is an advocate of case-by-case disciplinary policy. He believes mild and moderate violations should receive mild and moderate levels of punishment.
“We work really hard to give students help, not punishment,” Houck told Truthout. “For kids who have a chronic history of disruption, we have a students’ assistance program where they can receive counseling and stay in school.”
Houck said that this framework allows students to stay in school and by doing so prevents them from falling behind in class.
“Discipline in my world means to teach,” he said. “We need to find new ways to teach them coping skills in order to get to the root of the problem, both behaviorally and instructionally.”
Note: The national and Virginia-based statistics on racial disparities in discipline rates in this article were respectively calculated based on data from the Center for Public Integrity and the Civil Rights Data Collection. This spreadsheet presents our original calculations of these racial disparities.7k SHARES Share Tweet
Just about everyone’s mother’s brother’s uncle’s sister’s cousin’s dog is well aware of the nonsense going on in the NFL with the whole kneeling during the National Anthem business.
Professional athletes, who make millions of dollars to play a game most people play for free every day, have been “protesting” inequality — so they say — by getting down on one knee during the anthem, caring little for the fact that such an act is a pretty big display of disrespect toward those who have given their lives to defend the freedom these folks take for granted.
There’s been a pretty big backlash from fans who have opted to boycott the NFL, sending their ratings plummeting straight through the dirt. Many players have even lost sponsorships for their attempt to look hip, cool, and relevant.
Unfortunately, it seems a significant amount of damage to our culture has already been done, thanks to these dolts, as the “kneeling” phenomenon is now spreading well beyond the realm of sports and has entered the world of local politics.
Apparently four city council members from Ann Arbor, Michigan, decided to take a knee during the Pledge of Allegiance.
via MLive:
Chip Smith, 5th Ward; Chuck Warpehoski, 5th Ward; Sumi Kailasapathy, 1st Ward; and Jason Frenzel, 1st Ward; moved in front of the council’s table, turned toward the flag and took a knee when it came time to recite the Pledge of Allegiance after the meeting was called to order. Warpehoski said the move was an act of attention, concern and respect. “I can’t speak to what is in each person’s heart, but for me to ‘take a knee’ is an act of attention, of concern, and of respect,” Warpehoski wrote on his website ahead of Monday’s meeting and also stated at the meeting. “And it is in that spirit that I take a knee at tonight’s City Council meeting: out of respect for the aspiration that we be a nation ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ with full attention that we fall short of that ideal in many ways, and with humble dedication to continue to work that the promise of the pledge may be fulfilled.” During the meeting, Kailasapathy said she knelt during the Pledge to demonstrate her commitment to upholding democratic values. “For me, taking a knee is also showing solidarity with the group of people who have been doing this at the national level,” she said.
Could these people have made their desperate cry for attention any more obvious? The neediness of these four is painfully awkward and to be honest, makes them look like silly children trying to get mom and dad to buy them a new toy at the store by showing off in public.
The bottom line here is these folks did this to get eyeballs on them, seeing how it has been effective for football players. Guess they figured it would get them fifteen minutes of fame. And look, it’s working.
I’m not quite sure what kind of solidarity they think they’re accomplishing here, other than standing with a bunch of spoiled brats who are insulting their fellow countrymen and spitting on the graves of the brave souls who put on a uniform and fought to preserve our freedom and security from outside threats.
If these people really want to make a difference in the world they need to put on their big boy pants and actually tackle the issues facing Americans today in an educated debate/discussion format, presenting their ideas for the world to see and judge. They should be drafting resolutions based on the concern of their citizens, letting them see their voices are being heard.
Perhaps that’s just too much work.
Follow Michael on Twitter @MCantrell0928 and on Facebook]A guard tower above the entrance to the Camp VI detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The sprawling camp of barbed wire and hardened cell blocks costs U.S. taxpayers about $454 million each year; that comes to about $2.7 million per detainee. (Photo: Charles Dharapak, AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has lifted a temporary restraining order that had stopped the U.S. military from force feeding a hunger-striking prisoner at Guantanamo Bay naval base, saying the man's life hangs in the balance.
Late Thursday night, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said the military must be allowed to carry out force feeding in the case of Abu Wa'el Dhiab because of the "very real probability that Mr. Dhiab will die."
Lawyers for Dhiab are challenging force feeding during the hunger strike as abusive.
The Defense Department has said the military only feeds prisoners against their will to keep them alive, and follows all laws when it does so.
Kessler says the detainee is willing to be fed at a hospital at Guantanamo Bay if he can be spared what the judge calls the agony of having feeding tubes inserted and removed for each feeding. The judge says the Defense Department refused to make any compromise from current procedure.
On Wednesday, the judge brushed aside the Justice Department's objections and ordered the government to produce 34 videotapes that show Dhiab being forcibly removed from his cell, followed by force feeding the hunger-striking prisoner. In her order Thursday night, she said the court will move quickly in the case to consider the merits. Kessler issued the temporary restraining order a week ago.
"The court is now faced with an anguishing Hobson's choice," Kessler said, in lifting the temporary restraining order.
If she issues another temporary order to stop the forced feeding, Dhiab probably will die, the judge said. Alternatively, allowing the force feeding possibly will result in great pain and suffering, she added.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1nAeLDROn May 9, Slowdive will perform a private session at a recording studio in Brooklyn. Pitchfork is excited to announce that, as part of our ongoing Pitchfork Live series, we will stream the set live on our homepage, our YouTube channel, and Facebook beginning at 1:15 p.m. Eastern.
This week, the shoegaze icons returned with their first new record in 22 years. Slowdive is out now via Dead Oceans. They are currently on tour through August. Find their schedule here.
Pitchfork Live is streaming performances held around the country throughout the year. Previous installments have included shows from Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós, Future Islands, Run the Jewels, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. On Monday, May 8, the series will feature Mac DeMarco.
Revisit our documentary on Slowdive's classic album Souvlaki:UPDATE: Extended N.J. bear hunt kill total increases to 306 for first 2 days
NEWTON -- The second day of the extended bear hunt in New Jersey saw another 75 bears killed, bringing the two-day total to 281, according to figures released by the state Department of Environmental Protection Tuesday night.
The two-day total is more than 50 percent of the number of bears harvested during the entire 2015 hunting season when a total of 510 bears were killed.
As of 7 p.m., the DEP hadn't released a breakdown of the number of bears harvested in each county, the biggest bear killed or the number of tagged bears killed.
On Monday, the first day of the extended hunt, a total of 206 bears were killed, the DEP reported.
The 2016 bear hunt in New Jersey marks the first time in decades that hunters in the state are permitted to kill bears using bow and arrows. The bow and arrow season runs until Wednesday.
Protesters call bow, arrow season cruel
From Thursday to Saturday, hunters may use bow and arrows as well as muzzleloaders to kill bears, according to the DEP.
David Chanda, the director of the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Division, said Monday that in the northern one-third of New Jersey, the state has a population of 3,000 bears, the highest population in North America per square-mile over a 15,000-square-mile area.
Chanda said previous hunts harvested between 400 and 500 bears but another 700 to 800 cubs were born, negating any decrease in the population.
The first bear killed on Monday was a 104-pound female in Sussex County.
Five bear hunting zones are open to hunting in Bergen, Hunterdon, Mercer, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties. The DEP sold 7,664 permits for the first week of the bear hunt compared to the 8,799 permits sold for the 2015 season.
Hunters will have to apply for new permits when the firearm-only season takes place from Dec. 5 to Dec. 10.
The DEP has set a maximum number for the bear hunt based on the total number of bears tagged by state wildlife officials in the current year. In 2016, 197 bears have been tagged so far by DEP.
In the first day, 16 tagged bears were killed by hunters. If the number of bears harvested reaches 30 percent of bears tagged in 2016, about 59 bears, the hunt would end early.
More information on the bear hunt is available on the DEP's bear hunting season website.
Dave Hutchinson may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.The people behind dating site Date a Gamer have launched a new site in the UK: Shag a Gamer.
Apparently it "fills the gap left for horny geeks who aren't necessarily looking for dating or a long-term relationship, but who are interested in scouting for sex online and meeting up for no-strings nookie".
Date a Gamer chief Tom Thurlow said members of Date a Gamer had been using the site to search for sex rather than relationships. Thus, Shag a Gamer. Already hundreds of members have defected, Thurlow claimed.
"Over the past few months we noticed that instead of looking for love, many of the members were using the site purely to meet up for sex - it's not something we were expecting, but obviously gamers get urges too.
"It got us thinking that, perhaps by providing a platform where geeks and gamers over the age of 18 could arrange to meet up and get it on, we could help people who may feel uneasy in social situations, find someone and get some action.
"People were using the Date a Gamer site to meet up for sex anyway, but this way they have a space where they can do this more openly in an arena they are comfortable in, in other words, online."
He added: "We realise this concept will raise more than a few eyebrows. But we're all adults and by using this platform all members know what they are there for and the activity is far more transparent. We're hoping it may even become self-regulating because of this."
After the launch of Date a Gamer back in February Eurogamer received reports that its 150,000 strong database was largely comprised of members of other dating websites who had been added without them knowing.
Thurlow admitted to Eurogamer this afternoon that he used a site called Global Personals that helps dating site creators get an initial starting base to lift Date a Gamer off the ground.
"Only members that specifically express an interest in 'computers' and 'computer gaming' were selected to be displayed on Date a Gamer for our members to meet," he said. "Global Personals allow partner sites (such as mine) to hard niche membership. As the site owner, I wanted members to have the best chance to find a successful date, so by working with a larger company I could be sure to achieve this."
Thurlow said since Date a Gamer launched, its membership had swelled to 260,000 members. "This is a result of direct marketing to gamers who have been coming to the site since launch in February and as a gamer myself, I'm genuinely happy that I've been able to build this niched community of single gamers. "
He denied users from Date a Gamer will be automatically signed up to Shag a Gamer.
"Our initial'starting base' of members for this site will again be determined by user interests 'computers', 'computer gaming' and ones who are purely only interested in no-strings rendezvous," he said.
"But members from Date a Gamer are already joining the new site in large numbers and I'm very hopefully going to replicate the success I achieved with Date a Gamer on Shag a Gamer."Fires rage as country swelters
TWO firetrucks have collided while fighting a bushfire in South Australia, as many parts of the country continue to swelter through a heatwave.
The two Country Fire Service (CFS) trucks collided at the scene of a bushfire on the state’s Yorke Peninsula, possibly because of reduced visibility due to thick smoke.
One firefighter suffered injuries to his head and leg in the incident and was taken to hospital.
A second volunteer suffered shock.
Three other firefighters were believed to have escaped with minor injuries.
Firefighters halted the progress of the fire this afternoon but the CFS said it was not yet contained.
The CFS said it was concerned a wind change expected during the night could turn the flames back towards the nearby town of Curramulka.
The CFS said the blaze had already destroyed more than 660 hectares of grass and stubble near Curramulka, after bypassing the town earlier yesterday.
More than 20 crews fought the flames during the day with the help of two water-bombing aircraft as the flames raged along a 700-metre front.
However, the Curramulka fire and another outbreak burning strongly at Streaky Bay on the west coast, were the only major concerns in South Australia on a day when the state faced horrific conditions.
A catastrophic fire risk was declared in three districts. Several schools were closed and police launched an operation to monitor the movements of known firebugs.
Record temperatures
Temperatures soared into the low 40s in several centres with Port Augusta's 44.8C among the highest.
Adelaide's temperature reached 42.8C just after 3.30pm (CDT) - the city's hottest November day on record.
The Bureau of Meteorology said a cool change moved into the west of the state this afternoon and was expected to reach Adelaide by early tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, NSW residents have been urged to be prepared for bushfires, with catastrophic fire conditions forecast for some parts of the state tomorrow.
Rural Fire Service (RFS) commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the Lower Central West Plains, Southern Riverina, Northern Riverina, South Western and Far Western areas will experience a catastrophic fire danger tomorrow.
Total fire bans have also been declared for much of the state until midnight tomorrow.
NSW residents warned
Mr Fitzsimmons warned even houses that are designed to withstand a bushfire and are properly prepared may not be safe during a fire in areas issued with a catastrophic bushfire warning.
"Under these conditions any fire that starts and takes hold will typically be uncontrollable, unpredictable and fast moving," Mr Fitzsimmons said in a statement.
"Embers will be blown ahead of the fire, creating spot fires that will move quickly and may threaten your home earlier than the predicted main fire front."
He said the safest option for people living in a bushfire prone area under catastrophic rating is to leave early.
"People in these areas need to be on the highest state of alert and be prepared."
Mr Fitzsimmons said people in catastrophic-declared areas should avoid being in fire prone areas tomorrow.
"This is not a call for alarm or panic," he said.
"Simply, if you live in these areas, plan activities away from a bushfire prone area, such as going to a friend's house, a shopping centre or into town."
A map of affected areas can be found on the RFS website at www.rfs.nsw.gov.au.
Tough fire conditions in Victoria
In Victoria, firefighters were called to a number of small grass fires across the state during the day, but no fire was out of control, said Stuart Ord, a Country Fire Authority spokesman at the State Control Centre.
The state escaped largely unscathed from its toughest fire conditions since Black Saturday.
"All is quiet on the western front," Mr Ord told AAP this afternoon.
"We've had no major fires. There's been a few small incidents, but we've jumped on to those very, very quickly."
A total fire ban - the first under the new bushfire warning system - had been declared across the northwest, northeast and central districts, where the fire danger was rated severe.
- With AAP
Originally published as Fires rage as country sweltersCruisers, aircraft carriers and minesweepers from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.
Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s oil traded by sea.
A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the Oman to the south.
In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.
The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region.
They will practise tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills.
The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three US Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force.
The carriers are supported by at least 12 battleships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers and assault ships carrying thousand of US Marines and special forces.
The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region.
In addition, commanders will also simulate destroying Iranian combat jets, ships and coastal missile batteries.
In the event of war, the main threat to the multi-national force will come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, which is expected to adopt an “access-denial” strategy in the wake of an attack, by directly targeting US warships, attacking merchant shipping and mining vital maritime chokepoints in the Persian Gulf.
Defence sources say that although Iran’s capability may not be technologically sophisticated, it could deliver a series of lethal blows against British and US ships using mini-subs, fast attack boats, mines and shore-based anti-ship missile batteries.
Next month, Iran will stage massive military manoeuvres of its own, to show that it is prepared to defend its nuclear installations against the threat of aerial bombardment.
The exercise is being showcased as the biggest air defence war game in the Islamic Republic’s history, and will be its most visible response yet to the prospect of an Israeli military strike.
Using surface-to-air missiles, unmanned drones and state-of-the-art radar, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and air force will combine to test the defences of 3,600 sensitive locations throughout the country, including oil refineries and uranium enrichment facilities.
Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya air defence base, told a conference this month that the manoeuvres would “identify vulnerabilities, try out new tactics and practise old ones”.
At the same time as the Western manoeuvres in the Gulf, the British Response Task Forces Group — which includes the carrier HMS Illustrious, equipped with Apache attack helicopters, along with the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaul |
was perhaps good at heart, and his killing was entirely the Ring's doing. But it's also likely that Sméagol was harbouring dark thoughts to begin with. Their argument bases on several points, including...
The sight of the Ring at the Council of Elrond or at many points in the journey of the Fellowship did not cause anyone to suddenly murder someone else. It is possible for Hobbits to be evil; for instance, Ted Sandyman and Lotho Sackville-Baggins. Bilbo was corrupted far more slowly by the Ring because his adventures with it began with an act of mercy, while Gollum began his with murder.[6]
edit] Etymology
The Ringbearers Turner Mohan -
Sméagol's (pron. [ˈsmæ͡ɑːɣoɫ]) name is Old English one, from sméah, and adjective meaning "creeping in, penetrating". It is etymologically related to the word smials. This title was also applied by the Anglo-Saxons to the Biblical Cain, from the story of Cain's murder of his brother Abel in Genesis. This draws a clear connection between the two.
Sméagol is the translation of an actual Westron name Trahald. The meaning of which was "burrowing, worming in" or "apt to creep into a hole". In both Westron and Old English, Sméagol's name is related to Smaug's: Smaug's name in "true Dalish" was Trāgu, and the Trah- stem in Trahald and Trâgu is thus an analogue of the Germanic stem present in both Sméagol and Smaug.
Tolkien explained in his "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings" the origin of the name Sméagol in the lemma on smials:
"Smials. A word peculiar to hobbits (not Common Speech), meaning 'burrow'; leave unchanged. It is a form that the Old English word smygel 'burrow' might have had, if it had survived. The same element appears in Gollum's real name, Sméagol." ― {{{2}}}
The name Smaug which means "squeezed through a hole" is thus related.[7]
edit] Pronunciation
In both the 1981 BBC radio adaptation and in Peter Jackson's films Sméagol is pronounced as "SMEE-gol", although the placement of the acute accent suggests that the correct pronunciation is "SMAY-uh-gol". On the other hand, in Tolkien's recordings of The Lord of the Rings he also pronounced it "SMEE-gol" or "SMEE-AH-GOL", suggesting that éa should either be pronounced as a long "i"-sound or as a diphthong ea, and not as two distinct vowels "e" and "a". Tolkien had a habit in his writing to put diacritics in varying places, as can also be seen in the name Eärendil, which also occurs spelt Ëarendil.
edit] Other versions of the Legendarium
In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum did not appear quite as wretched or as bound to the Ring. Tolkien revised this characterisation to fit the concept of the Ruling Ring developed during the writing of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien then explained the version given in the first edition as a lie that Bilbo made up to tell the Dwarves and Gandalf.[8]
In The Silmarillion, it is mentioned that the One Ring was found "ere the Kings failed in Gondor". This can mean that originally, Gollum's age was intended to be considerably more than six hundred years (further reinforced by certain places in The Lord of the Rings like Gollum referring to tales about an uncorrupted Minas Ithil or Gandalf comparing his people to "fathers of the fathers of the Stoors"). In fact it seems likely that Sauron leaving the Mirkwood in 2063 T.A. and some Hobbits settling there after that are details added for the purpose of making the smaller age possible; perhaps in order to make it possible for Gollum and the other characters to have the same language.
edit] Inspiration
John Garth has suggested that the character of Gollum carries echoes of the "night-haunting, man-eating" ogre Grendel in Beowulf.[9]
edit] Portrayal in adaptations
edit] Films
1977: The Hobbit (1977 film):
Gollum is a frog-like green creature, voiced by Brother Theodore. Here, his "Gollum" noise sounds like muttering instead of swallowing.
1978: The Lord of the Rings (1978 film):
Gollum is depicted as a skinny, dark grey creature, voiced by Peter Woodthorpe.
1980: The Return of the King (1980 film):
Brother Theodore reprised his role from the earlier Rankin/Bass production. Some footage from The Hobbit was reused to introduce the viewer to the story.
2001-03: The Lord of the Rings (film series):
Gollum is a CGI-motion capture creature voiced by actor Andy Serkis. He is barely glimpsed in The Fellowship of the Ring, where he is voiced by Dominic Monaghan in absence of Serkis. Gollum becomes a central character in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The groundbreaking CGI character was built around Serkis's voice, movements and expressions, sometimes by using a motion capture suit which recorded his movements and applied them to the digital character, and sometimes by the more laborious process of digitally "painting out" Serkis's image and replacing it with Gollum's. In one such shot in The Two Towers, Serkis' real spittle can be seen emerging from Gollum's mouth.
In The Return of the King Serkis himself appears in a flashback scene as Sméagol before his degeneration into Gollum. This scene was originally earmarked for The Two Towers but held back because it was felt that audiences would relate better to the original Sméagol once they were more familiar with who he became. The decision to include this scene meant that Gollum's face had to be redesigned for the second and third movies so that it would more closely resemble Serkis'.
2012: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:
Andy Serkis reprised his role as Gollum.[10]
edit] Radio series
1955: The Lord of the Rings (1955 radio series):
The voice of Gollum is provided by Gerik Schjelderup.[11]
1968: The Hobbit (1968 radio series):
The narrator refers to Gollum (voiced by Wolfe Morris) as "Galloom", even though Gollum himself manages to pronounce his name correctly. Gollum's role is based on that of the second edition of The Hobbit.[12]
1979: The Lord of the Rings (1979 radio series):
Gail Chugg provided the voice of Gollum.
1981: The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series):
Gollum, again performed by Peter Woodthorpe, has the first lines of the play (save the narrator). He is described as "slimy and as dark than darkness".[13]
edit] Games
1982: The Hobbit (1982 video game)
Gollum appears in the tunnels of the Misty Mountains. He will persistently speak riddles to Bilbo, and strangle him to death if he fails to answer them in time. However, if Bilbo puts the Ring on, then Gollum will not be able to see him. He can also be killed by Bilbo or his companions, even though doing so would seriously conflict with established canon.
2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (video game):
Gollum, voiced by Quinton Flynn, is seen thrice: first, in the introduction scene, he is stooping over his precious, dashing away from the camera. He is a creature in colour and clothing much like Jackson's version. He is briefly glimpsed again in Moria, but not more than a dark shape with a green outline can be seen.[14] His most important role is in the final stages of the game: he can be seen atop several ridges, and can even be visited on a rock on the shores of Nen Hithoel. He throws a fish, the "Xiphiidae", at "Ranger". This will become the most deadly weapon in the game, and replaces Andúril in the weapon slots.[15]
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (video game):
Gollum is accompanying Sam and Frodo during Osgiliath mission and the is the final boss of the game at the Crack of Doom. Unlike all other enemies of the game, he takes no damage from any attacks - instead the players must perform combinations to push him into lava below.
2003: Sierra's The Hobbit:
Gollum appears in a cut scene after the level "Riddles in the Dark". Only Bilbo's last riddle - "What have I got in my pocket?" - is shown, after which Gollum spouts out all possible answers in one sentence rather than in three turns. Gollum is a dark grey, hobbit-like creature with seven spiky teeth, who walks on all fours like an ape would, and like his Rankin/Bass counterpart, his "Gollum" noise is a muttering instead of a swallowing. He is voiced by Daran Norris.[16]
2004: The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring:
Gollum is a "Hero" unit for the Servants of the Enemy, used primarily for scout missions.
2004: The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth:
Gollum is a "Hero" for the Mordor factions. His health is extremely low and his attacks extremely weak, but has value for the scout missions.
2006: The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II:
In non-storyline battles, stealthed Gollum is roaming the map. If detected and killed, he drops The One Ring, which can give huge advantage to the side that gets it.
2007: The Lord of the Rings Online:
Gollum is encountered thrice, though the player has yet to know his name. The first time he is met in southern Trollshaws, where the player prevents him from attacking the baby of two Fishermen; the second time he is seen in southern Mirkwood, where the player must defeat the Orcs who attempts to capture him, the third time is on the Shores of Anduin, where the player has to make sure he does not fall prey to the spiders.
2012: Guardians of Middle-earth:
Gollum is a striker-type "guardian" with four abilities: Throttle, My Precious, Coward and We are starved.[17]
2014: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor:
Gollum is featured in the game as a supporting character. In the game, set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Gollum is searching for the One Ring and encounters Talion, the protagonist of the game and helps him in his Quest.
edit] See alsoCompiled by Irving Chernev in 1954, and a favorite from my young days. Back in the 1960s, I checked it out of the public library and determined to play through all the games by hand during the three week loan period. I did so, but was fortunate that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome had not yet been invented.
But the experience drilled basic mating and tactical patterns into my head, forming the basis of my later chess style. For better or for worse.
The games are arranged by length (from 4 to 24 moves). Chernev does abbreviate a few favorites to squeeze them in within the limit, and there are all the usual apocryphal games. But don't worry about it. This is a collection for fun, and who knows? You might even learn something. I did. For better or for worse.
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Missing games
Not all the games can be found in our database. While I will submit some, Chernev gives so few historical details that it is not possible to submit the games with accurate information.. I'll include missing games in the introduction; if you can identify them, please leave a note in my forum.
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Game 2: Kennedy - Amateur, Brighton, 1845 (Odds Ng1): 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 Nxe4 4.dxe5 Nxf2 5.0-0 Nxd1 1-0
Game 13 : Innsubsh - Goring, Munich, 1899: 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nxe4 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe4 Nc6 6.Qf3+ Kg8 7.Ng5! 1-0 Duplictae: Kutjanin vs Jakobjuk, 1940
Game 55 Hopkins - Amateur, London, 1932: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nge7 5.Nc3 g6 6.Bg5 Bg7 7.Nd5 Bxd4 8.Qxd4! Nxd4 9.Nf6+ Kf8 10.Bh6# Duplicates: B Blumenfeld vs NN, 1903 and M Movsisyan vs T Patton, 2004Team Gleason officials released this update on Steve Gleason Tuesday:
Last night at the Saints/Eagles game Steve was experiencing flu like symptoms (nausea, fever, dehydration and light headedness, which can be intensified for ALS patients). With the help of Superdome staff, friends and family he was taken to Ochsner Medical Center. Doctors, nurses and staff helped stabilize Steve's symptoms and monitored him overnight. He is being released from the hospital this afternoon and will follow up with his primary care doctor over the next 48 hours.
Steve and Michel are incredibly grateful to friends, family, Ochsner, the Saints, and the public for their continued love and support.
Steve is no stranger to overcoming adversity and obstacles. So, despite spending the night in the hospital after an incredible day of Gleason Gras and watching the first quarter of the Saints/Eagles game, Steve is ready to get back to work with Team Gleason.
Great game last night.
No White Flags!
Team GleasonHillary Clinton “owes the state of North Carolina a very big apology,” Donald Trump thundered, condemning the loss of manufacturing jobs due to free-trade deals supported by the Democratic presidential nominee.
The attack line drew no more than polite applause at his event last week in Charlotte.
In the state that may be the most pivotal to Trump’s White House bid, the audience for the Republican’s chief economic pitch is shrinking by the day. Textile and furniture manufacturing no longer dominates the state’s economy as it did a generation ago. Banking, technology and others industries have driven North Carolina’s economic output to grow faster than any state in the past three years.
Voters are flowing into the state at a firehose rate – young, educated and many to take high-paying jobs when they arrive. They’re coming from everywhere and quickly diluting North Carolina’s conservative political underpinnings.
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“Clinton is winning,” said North Carolina Republican pollster Michael Luethy. “Particularly because folks who have moved to the state in the last five years are very different voters. They’re persuaded by a different issue set than those have been here a while.”
Meet Katie Snyder of Asheville.
She moved to the hip mountain town two years ago as a new college graduate to take an engineering job waiting for her at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a global laboratory equipment maker that has a freezer division in Asheville.
The Ohio native said she tends to support Republicans, but “I don’t know what I’m going to do in November.” She doesn’t fully trust Clinton, and the 2010 health care overhaul enacted under Democratic President Barack Obama has been hard on some of her peers. But she adds: “I don’t know if I can see myself voting for Trump.”
On the road to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, the inability of Trump’s message on trade to win over voters such as Snyder in North Carolina is a major problem for the Republican nominee. A win here and in neighboring Virginia would open a path for Clinton reach 270 even if Trump captures the traditional powerhouse battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida.
“I don’t see a path without North Carolina,” said Chris Jankowski, a Republican campaign strategist based in Virginia whose work includes North Carolina candidates.
In 2008, Obama was the first Democrat to win North Carolina since 1976. While Republican Mitt Romney won the state four years later, political professionals such as Luethy believe the more than 200,000 people that have moved to North Carolina since the 2012 election increase the challenge for Trump.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll found Clinton up 9 points in North Carolina in early August. But it also showed that she’s substantially outpacing Trump in the state’s economic boom regions. She had more than 50 percent support in the Charlotte area and led Trump by more than 2-to-1 in the Triangle.
Trump’s attacks on the North American Free Trade Agreement may echo in rural North Carolina, but urban centers have done well in the decades since NAFTA was enacted.
The Charlotte area has nearly doubled in size over the past 25 years, due in part to its transition to a transportation and financial hub. It is home to Bank of America Corp., the nation’s second largest bank by assets. The Raleigh-Durham area has doubled in size in the past 15 years, exploding alongside the university region’s medical and technology businesses.
Even the Asheville area, small by comparison, has grown by 45 percent since 1990 – and faster since 2000. The metropolitan area now has a population of roughly 500,000, many like Snyder who benefit from free trade. Thermo Fisher Scientific, her employer, has roughly 50,000 employees in 50 countries.
Clinton’s statewide advantage among such younger and college-educated voters is also helping tighten the race in what were once the more conservative regions that surrounded Asheville in the state’s west and Fayetteville in the east.
Gia Haynes moved from Atlanta after graduating from college in May to Fayetteville with the hope of landing a job as a scientist for one of the major food processors in the region, such as Smithfield Foods Inc. For her, paying off her $25,000 student loan is more pressing than global trade.
“Trump’s down side is he doesn’t empathize with people or understand what they are going through,” she said.
Jankowski, who has been a leading Virginia legislative race tactician for more than 20 years, said a similar economic transition is helping put Virginia out of Trump’s reach. Northern Virginia has evolved in the past generation from a bedroom community for federal employees into a technology hub, especially for military and aerospace design.
Obama twice carried Virginia, which hadn’t gone with a Democratic nominee for the 11 consecutive previous presidential elections. Apparently confident in her leads in public and private polls alike, Clinton suspended advertising in the state early this month.
“In North Carolina, you’re seeing a smaller version of what’s happening in Virginia,” Jankowski said.
Cautiously optimistic, the Clinton campaign’s battleground data analyst Michael Halle said new voters give her an advantage in North Carolina, though not to the same degree as in Virginia. But, he added: “North Carolina is moving in that direction, faster than Virginia, in fact.”Recently by William Norman Grigg: The Death-Dealing ‘Divinity’ in the WhiteHouse
Nineteen days before the killing of Trayvon Martin by self-appointed block "captain" George Zimmerman, Manuel Loggins was murdered by an Orange County Sheriff's Deputy in the parking lot of San Clemente High School. Loggins, a deeply religious man, often visited the school to walk on the track and discuss the Bible with his daughters, who were with him on the morning he was murdered.
According to the most recent of several official versions of the incident, the Deputy was concerned by Loggins' "irrational" behavior, which involved crashing through a gate and attempting to leave the scene. Even this rendering of the episode, however, doesn't explain why a Deputy would shoot an unarmed man behind the wheel of an SUV containing two young girls.
The Deputy initially insisted that he "felt threatened" by Loggins. Within a day or so of the story becoming public, the story had undergone a critical revision: The Sheriff's Office claimed that Loggins had to be shot in the interests of "the perceived safety of the children."
So zealous were the officers for the safety of two young girls who had just seen their father murdered in front of them that the department took them into custody held them incommunicado for thirteen hours while the official narrative was being worked out. In the words of the family's attorney, "They just incarcerated them."
Sgt. Loggins was black; his killer, Deputy Darren Sandberg, is white — and he's back on patrol duty, without facing criminal charges or administrative punishment of any kind. His union, displaying its customary gift for arrogant self-preoccupation, insists Loggins was entirely to blame.
"It is heartbreaking that Manuel Loggins created a situation that put his children in danger and ultimately cost him his life," oozed police union spokesperson Tom Dominguez. “It is unfortunate that his actions put his own children into immediate danger and resulted in his death.”
That smarmy, dismissive statement irresistibly reminds me of the radio exchange between U.S. troops involved in the Baghdad massacre documented in the "Collateral Murder" video.
Eleven Iraqis were massacred in the unprovoked attack, and several others — including two small children — were seriously wounded.
"Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle," one of the murderers snarkily insisted when informed that small children were among the victims.
Loggins's widow gave birth to another daughter at about the same time she buried her husband.
While this atrocity garnered a great deal of local attention, and a modest amount of national coverage, it didn't receive the saturation coverage in which the Trayvon Martin killing has been immersed.
Neither Louis Farrakhan nor Al Sharpton reached out to the Loggins family. As a gesture of solidarity with Trayvon, the Miami Heat basketball team was photographed wearing hooded sweatshirts, the "suspicious" attire the teenager was wearing when he was chased down and shot by George Zimmerman. The Sacramento Kings abstained from a similar symbolic display of sympathy for Manuel Loggins.
Asked by a reporter to comment about the Trayvon Martin killing, Barack Obama pointed out that if he had a son, the young man might resemble Trayvon. The President has yet to be asked to comment about the murder of Manuel Loggins — who is one of two black Marines to be murdered by police within the space of three months.
Last November, 68-year-old retired Marine Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. was slaughtered by police at his apartment in White Plains, New York. Chamberlain, an elderly man who suffered from a heart condition and several other ailments, was not a criminal suspect. He had inadvertently triggered a medical alert, which resulted in a visit by paramedics. The police, unfortunately, responded as well, and they quickly displayed their infallible gift for making matters worse.
Chamberlain ordered the police to leave. That was a lawful order the police are required to obey. They didn't. Instead, the dozen officers who had formed a thugscrum outside Chamberlain's door taunted and mocked the elderly man, eventually breaking down the door and invading his home.
Once inside, the police were confronted by a terrified old man who — as documented in video recovered from a Taser — was clad in boxer shorts, with his hands at his side. This dreadful specter was enough to trigger the "Officer Safety" reflex — practically anything will — and the heroes in blue shot him with a Taser and a beanbag gun before gunning him down.
The original story was that Chamberlain "came at the officers" with a butcher knife and — I'm not kidding — a hatchet. His son points out that his father's heart was so weak that he couldn't walk more than forty feet without resting. The initial account is difficult to reconcile with the footage captured by the Taser and security cameras. Furthermore, even if the old man had lunged at the cops, they had the duty to retreat: They had no legal or moral right to be in the home, and Chamberlain had the legal and moral right to evict them by force.
Long after the incident, the police rationalized that the invasion was necessary because they weren't sure whether "anybody else inside was in danger." This is a matter that could have been cleared up through use of an obscure piece of technology called a telephone, a remarkable instrument that could have been used to contact either Mr. Chamberlain or his son, who didn't live far away. But this would have deprived the armored adolescents on the police force of an opportunity to bust down a door and impose themselves on someone who couldn't fight back.
In his self-appointed role as watchman, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s killer, has perceived practically every black male — on one occasion, a child he described as "7-9 years old" — as suspicious.
Predictably, Martin's family believes that Zimmerman acted on bigoted motives. In the case of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., however, there is material evidence of racism at work: Recordings of the standoff captured racial epithets, including the "n-word," hurled at the harmless old man by some of the officers involved in murdering him just a few minutes later.
Nevertheless, the Tolerance Police — for some reason — haven't made the slaughter of Kenneth Chamberlain a cause celebre.
One much-remarked detail in the killing of Trayvon Martin is the fact that the supposedly suspicious teenager was "armed" with Skittles and a can of iced tea. This summons memories of Jordan Miles, an 18-year-old from Pittsburgh who was nearly beaten to death on the street near his grandmother's house two years ago.
His assailants claimed that Miles struck them as "suspicious" because he fled at their approach, and that they feared for their lives when he appeared to be armed. It turns out that his concealed "weapon" was a bottle of Mountain Dew, an admittedly toxic substance but one harmful only if taken internally.
Miles, who stands 5'6" and weighs about 160 pounds, was swarmed by three large adult males, who slugged him, kicked him, and beat him with a club improvised from a tree branch.
The attackers were police officers, who weren't prosecuted or subjected to administrative punishment. As is customary whenever a Mundane is left bloody by the ministrations of the State's high priests of coercion, Miles was charged with "aggravated assault," which presumably took the form of flailing his arms while bleeding on his sanctified assailants.
When those charges were dismissed, the police union — in a typical fit of corrupt petulance — conducted a mass "sick-out" as a protest. This had the unintended, if short-lived, effect of making Pittsburgh's streets just a little safer. The crime committed against Jordan Miles was quickly forgotten, and the victim's family recently received a trivial, tax-subsidized settlement from the City of Pittsburgh. Once again: This episode, which offers several strong points of similarity to the Trayvon Martin killing, didn't ignite a nation-wide firestorm of media outrage.
Every week — perhaps every day — innocent young black men are beaten and killed by armed strangers who act with impunity, and often in circumstances quite similar to those in which Trayvon Martin was killed. The perpetrators of those assaults are police officers, and not all of them are white. George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old man of Latino ancestry, was a self-commissioned "captain" in a Neighborhood Watch program with which he had no formal affiliation.
For some reason the Sanford Police Department saw fit to treat him like a cop by granting him the kind of "qualified immunity" usually afforded only to fully accredited members of the exalted brotherhood of state-sanctioned violence. This might have something to do with the fact that Zimmerman, the son of a retired magistrate judge, had previously attended a "Community Police Academy" sponsored by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office.
Zimmerman's actions would be understandable — not justifiable, but understandable — if he had absorbed the contemporary police doctrine that anything other than immediate, unqualified submission constitutes a "threat" to "officer safety." The Sanford PD's decision to accept his account at face value is more difficult to understand — and more difficult still to defend in light of the fact that this is not the only recent episode in which they have refused to charge someone who assaulted an unarmed man.
Justin Collison, the son of a Sanford police lieutenant, was recently captured on camera sucker-punching a man to the back of the head outside a bar. The victim — who had been trying to break up a fight — had no chance to defend himself, and suffered a broken nose when his face struck a light pole. Despite having both video and eyewitness evidence of a deliberate act of aggravated assault, the police declined to arrest Collison (who had reportedly assaulted two others during a drunken rampage), and no charges were filed.
Apparently, the Sanford PD employs a "sliding scale" of some kind when dealing with such matters. However, the preferred media narrative focuses on the supposed iniquity of a Florida law recognizing the natural right to self-defense.
Civilian disarmament advocates have implicated Florida's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law in Trayvon Martin killing. The Sanford Police have refused to charge Zimmerman, insisting that "under the law, it had no call to bring charges," reported the New York Times.
Enacted in 2005, Florida's "Justifiable Use of Force" statute (Title XLVI, Chapter 776) recognizes that an individual has the natural right to use deadly force when confronting the threat of "death or great bodily harm" from an intruder or an aggressor. This does not apply when "The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in … [a] dwelling, residence, or vehicle," or if the individual who employed the defensive force "is engaged in an unlawful activity…."
Martin, an unarmed teenager with no criminal record, was headed to his father's home in the Miami Gardens gated community. Although he was described by Zimmerman to the police as a "suspicious individual," Martin had an unqualified legal right to be where he was.
In his 911 call, Zimmerman told a police dispatcher that "There's a real suspicious guy. This guy looks like he's up to no good, on drugs or something…. These a**holes always get away." Zimmerman actively pursued Martin, after being specifically instructed that this was unnecessary.
When Martin noticed Zimmerman, the teenager — who was speaking to a girlfriend via cellphone — made reference to being “…. hounded by a strange man on a cellphone who ran after him, cornered him, and confronted him," as summarized in an ABC News report.
"Why are you following me?" Martin asked Zimmerman. A few moments later, Zimmerman shot Martin with his 9 millimeter handgun. Several witnesses reported hearing the teenager cry for help before the shot was fired.
"They're wrestling right in the back of my porch," one witness told a police dispatcher. "The guy's yelling help and I'm not going out."
For some reason, police investigating the matter "corrected" one key witness, a local schoolteacher, by insisting that it was Zimmerman, not Martin, who had cried for help.
In addition to "correcting" one eyewitness, the Sanford PD pointedly ignored the testimony of Martin's girlfriend, to whom the victim expressed his own fears about the unidentified man who was stalking him.
Zimmerman's original story, as summarized by the Miami Herald, was that u201Che had stepped out of his truck to check the name of the street he was on when [Martin] attacked him from behind as he walked back to his truck.u201D Subsequent leaks from the police department reported that Zimmerman claims to have been knocked down and seriously injured in a fight with Martin, and that he shot the teenager u201Cbecause he feared for his life.u201D An anonymous witness confirmed seeing the two of them struggling, and Zimmerman apparently getting the worst of it and then seeing the prone figure of Martin following the shooting.
How did the fight begin? Zimmerman's account, as made available through second-hand sources, is that Martin pursued him to his SUV and then lunged at him when Zimmerman reached for his cell phone. He insists that the unarmed and demonstrably frightened teenager he confronted — after being explicitly instructed not to — was the aggressor. Interestingly, he made a very similar claim seven years ago in response to a domestic violence petition filed by his ex-fiancee.
In her court filing, the woman claimed that Zimmerman had visited her home in Orlando to demand documents from her. When she ordered him to leave her property, Zimmerman allegedly insisted on staying, then he grabbed her cellphone and shoved her and a fight ensued. He filed a petition of his own claiming that she had been the aggressor, claiming that she had struck him in the face. She blamed the injuries on her dog. Both of them acknowledged that their relationship had been plagued with violence — and each of them was granted a restraining order against the other.
That earlier account may be crucial here because it strongly indicates that Zimmerman, whatever else can be said about him, doesn't understand the non-aggression principle and is in the habit of creating unnecessary conflicts and escalating them to the point of physical violence. And it is the non-aggression principle — not the politics of racial collectivism — that is the most important question in the killing of Trayvon Martin.
Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee — who has been compelled to resign, perhaps temporarily — pronounced that he was satisfied with Zimmerman's version of the incident, moving quickly to wrap up the case because "there is no evidence to dispute the shooter's claim of self-defense." The police released him without testing him for drugs or alcohol.
Zimmerman, who was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer in 2005 — has called the police to report "suspicious" black males 46 times since January 2011. Neighbors have described him as "fixated on crime" and have complained about his "aggressive tactics."
An aggressor, of course, isn't "standing his ground." During the February 26 incident, Zimmerman pursued Martin, who had a legal right to be where he was. By creating the confrontation, Zimmerman was the aggressor. He had both the moral and legal duty to retreat, rather than to escalate the confrontation by employing force of any kind.
Florida's self-defense law, like similar statutes elsewhere, makes an exception for law enforcement officers. Although he was not employed by a police department and not an official member of the volunteer neighborhood watch, Zimmerman clearly considered himself to be acting in a law enforcement capacity.
According to ABC News, "The Sanford Police Department says it stands by its investigation, and that it was not race or incompetence that prevented it from arresting Zimmerman but the law." Under the terms of the Florida state statutes, however, Zimmerman most likely committed an act of criminal homicide, not justified self-defense. Yet the civilian disarmament lobby — most likely working in collaboration with police unions — moved quickly to implicate the "Stand Your Ground" law in the killing.
Police unions, the civilian disarmament lobby, and the state-centric media all subscribe to the idea that the government should have a monopoly on the use of force. This is why they oppose "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" laws recognizing the individual right to armed self-defense.
The opposition of police unions has become particularly acute in recent months as they have lobbied against "castle doctrine" laws in Minnesota and Indiana that explicitly recognize the natural right of citizens to use lethal force against police officers who unlawfully invade their property or threaten their lives.
Yes, the familiar cast of prejudice profiteers and racial ambulance chasers — who failed to be moved by the racially charged police murders of Manuel Loggins and Kenneth Chamberlain — has helped turn the killing of Trayvon Martin into a public works project. But the ideology that has propelled this issue to the top of the media agenda isn't a variant of racial collectivism: It is the even more murderous doctrine of government supremacism, under which Zimmerman's lethal actions would be considered entirely appropriate if he had been swaddled in a State-issued costume.
Within six months we should see a plethora of bills — supported by a coalition that includes the Brady Campaign and police unions — bearing Trayvon Martin’s name, all of which will seek the repeal of “Castle Doctrine” and “Stand Your Ground” self-defense laws.
Reprinted with permission from Pro Libertate.
The Best of William Norman GriggWhat our data tells us about the shape of the referendum campaign with two days to go
Today's YouGov poll for The Times, with a two point lead for Leave, is within the margin of error of the last poll published in The Sunday Times, which showed a one point lead for Remain.
For those trying to identify momentum, to tell "the story" of the campaign, it must be frustrating: having recorded a surge towards Brexit, we now show the campaigns roughly neck and neck again, where they have been for most of the past three months.
So what is the story? Let's start with some narratives that you will hear but that are not borne out by the evidence.
First, the idea suggested by Nigel Farage on Sunday – that "we did have momentum until the terrible tragedy" [of Jo Cox’s murder] – does not appear to be true.
This morning YouGov released results of a model developed by our chief scientist, Professor Doug Rivers, together with Benjamin Lauderdale of the LSE, which computes our daily data from voters.
It suggests that the surge towards Brexit was building throughout the second week of June, building to a "peak Brexit" moment on June 12-13 (one week ago, when the last Times survey showed a seven point lead for Leave), and was already starting to come back down again by the Monday before Jo Cox was attacked.
The data stops at teatime on Sunday, before the prime minister’s performance on Question Time – we’ll be publishing updates to the model before Thursday’s vote.- Bespoke pass through waterblock rendersToday i've been busy modelling how the pass through floor panel could work, although as of yet I don't know the exact position of many |
a built in editing suite. Robust social networking support is included, whilst the phone is expected to be the last major Symbian release from the Finnish phone makers.
Mark Loughran, General Manager, Nokia UK, says, “The Nokia N8 is a great multitasker, packed with market leading innovations, which include the best picture and video capability available on a smartphone.
“The Nokia N8 is perfect for creating and sharing great content in high-definition, using HDMI out to connect to your TV as well as hot-USB swap. We’re making it fun and easy to capture and share memorable moments on the go.”
Click below for some more shots of Nokia’s N8 smartphone
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Like this: Like Loading...KAMLOOPS (NEWS 1130) – An accident at a pistol competition in Kamloops has left a 50-year-old Vancouver man dead.
Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jodi Shelkie says officers were called to the Target Sports Shooting Complex at around 1 p.m. Sunday.
She says the man lost control of his pistol and shot himself in the torso. He died from his injuries shortly after arriving at the local hospital.
There were several witnesses to the accident, some of whom tried to administer CPR.
“This is a real anomaly,” Shelkie says. “Rarely are there accidents — in fact I’ve never heard of one — at a gun range. Gun ranges are known to be a very safe place with the rules and regulations that they have. So this was something unusual for us.”
The man’s name is not being released.Cecil replies:
Dear G.:
I don’t know that I would call 1976 "recently," but yes, the four-color map problem was solved (more or less) using a computer by two prairie geniuses at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Wolfgang Haken and Kenneth Appel.
The four-color map problem, as all mathematically hip personages know, is to determine whether there is any map that requires the use of more than four different colors if you want to avoid having adjacent regions be the same color. A matter of no great consequence, you might think, but this is the sort of thing that fascinates math aficionados–in this case for well over a century. Haken and Appel proved that (as was widely suspected) four colors are all you ever need.
Cecil would be pleased to reproduce H&A’s proof here, except that it took 1,200 computer hours and a zillion cubic yards of printout paper to do, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it. Basically what the computer did was check out all the possible map combinations by trial and error.
There are those who complain that this process does not constitute a mathematical proof, as that term is usually understood, but rather falls more into the category of an experiment, understandably something of a novelty in the field of abstract mathematics. Some suggest that a simpler and more elegant proof may yet be found. But most experts regard the H&A proof as quite sufficient in the meantime.
Send questions to Cecil via [email protected] Mishari al-Kharraz. As the author notes about our Creator, ‘The sweetness of this life lies in remembering Him, the sweetness of the next life lies in seeing Him! The next time you proceed for prayer, go because you love Him, go because you miss Him and long to be with Him. Feel your heart flutter. Only then, will you be on your way to attaining that inner peace and comfort Salah was prescribed for.’
May Allah [swt] grant us the most blessed conditions in our Salah and achieve the status of being amongst the most beloved to The Beloved Himself. O Allah, bless us with Your Love, the love of whom You Love and the love of deeds which bring us closer to Your Love. Please save us from the Fire, Forgive us for every sin and bless us and our families to be with You in the highest places of Jannah [ameen].
DownloadThis is an example clock of conversion of time between the current ("imperial") time to the better ("metric") time. There are no timezones in metric time. All is calculated from UTC.
The idea is that the the time is easily divisible by base 10 like every other useful unit of measurement in the metric system
Note: we use the term "metric" very loosely (meaning "new", what we've actually created is a decimal clock). There already is an actual metric time standard you can read about here
Click on the time to change the format
"Metric" system
1 day = 10 hours
1 hour = 100 minutes
1 minute = 100 seconds
"Metric" conversion
1 "metric" day = 1 "imperial" day
1 "metric" hour = 2.4 "imperial" hours
1 "metric" minute = 1.44 "imperial" minutes
1 "metric" second = 0.864 "imperial" seconds
"Imperial" conversionA Chinese court has convicted an American businesswoman of spying, sentencing her to three and a half years in prison and deportation.
Sandy Phan-Gillis, a resident of Houston, has been in custody in China since March 2015 when she was detained during a business trip with officials from Texas.
One of her lawyers, Shang Baojun, said she pleaded guilty Tuesday to espionage charges in a closed court hearing in the southern Chinese city of Nanning.
It wasn't immediately clear how much longer Phan-Gillis will remain in Chinese detention before she is deported.
Related: Canadian imprisoned in China released after 2 years
Her husband, Jeff Gillis, has been campaigning for her release, insisting that she's innocent. He has said in the past that he has documents that show she was in the U.S. during the period in the 1990s when she is alleged to have spied for the American government in China.
Phan-Gillis may have chosen to plead guilty at her trial in order to try to secure an earlier release.
"She's supposed to serve the sentence in China," Shang said. "But maybe there's a condition based on which she can be deported to the U.S. before the imprisonment. We hope she can return to the U.S. as soon as possible."
China hasn't publicly released details of the allegations against her. Shang said he wasn't permitted to reveal further information about the case without official approval because it concerns national security.
The U.S. State Department has repeatedly raised Phan-Gillis' case with the Chinese government.
The U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, a major city in southern China, didn't respond to a request for comment Wednesday.The government is telling us they did away with the phone records collection program. They were supposed to turn the information over to private entities but they haven’t done it. They voted to do it but that’s as far as it got.
Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul on Sunday warned that the intelligence community is deceitfully using the terror attacks in Paris to promote its surveillance agenda.
“When you have a fearful time or an angry time, the people are coached into giving up their liberty,” said the Kentucky senator on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Paul has long railed against government surveillance, a topic that has been thrust into the spotlight in the wake of the Paris attacks that killed about 130 people.
The Paris attacks that killed 130 people has Rand Paul concerned that the government officials and lawmakers are misleading the public on the need for more extensive surveillance programs which were exposed by Edward Snowden after he worked as an NSA contractor.
Paul is pushing for an aggressive bill while several lawmakers like Marco Rubio have pushed to maintain the bulk phone records collection program which Congress voted to abolish at the beginning of the year, but didn’t.
“What they’re not telling you and what they’re being dishonest about is that we still have the phone records program,” Paul said.
He also noted that France’s surveillance programs are “1,000-fold greater than we have.”
“They still didn’t know anything about this,” Paul added.
“You can keep giving up liberties,” he said, “but in the end I don’t think we’ll end up safer.”
Sunday on Face the Nation, John Dickerson asked Paul how much he worried about “overreach in terms of additional surveillance operations?”
Paul said :“
I’m very worried about that because I think when you have a fearful time or an angry time, that people are coached into giving up their liberty. Already many in the intelligence community are saying, oh, if we only had the bulk phone collection program back. Well, what they’re not telling you and what they’re being dishonest about is, we still have the phone collection program.
In the United States, all phone records are still being collected all the time and we still had the attacks. And realize that in France, they have bulk collection or surveillance of their citizens a thousand fold greater than what we have with very little privacy protections. They still didn’t know anything about this. So what I would argue is that you can keep giving up liberty, keep giving up liberty, but in the end I don’t think we’ll be safer, but will we — we may have lost who we are as a people in the process. And I — I’m going to fight to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Watch:Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is an ergotamine derivative with a high affinity for and agonist properties at several different neurotransmitter receptors; however, signalling at the serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT 2A R) is thought to be crucial for its psychedelic effects (Nichols 2004). The remarkable psychological properties of LSD were first discovered by Albert Hofmann in 1943 (Hofmann 1980), and thereafter, LSD was investigated as a psychotomimetic (Fabing 1955) and tool to assist psychotherapy (Savage 1957) before regulatory restrictions in the mid-1960s that effectively suspended all of the relevant scientific research (Nutt et al. 2013; Stevens 1987). In the early 1950s, cold war pressure motivated a search for new methods to enhance interrogation and behavioural control, and in this climate, a covert programme of research code named ‘MK-ULTRA’ was commissioned by the US government to explore the potential of LSD to facilitate mind/behavioural control (Marks 1979).
Suggestibility refers to an individual’s susceptibility or responsiveness to suggestion. Suggestions can be given for alterations in the contents of consciousness and can target perception, sensation, cognition, emotion or behaviour. Suggestibility can be measured behaviourally, i.e. by the performance of suggested behaviours, or subjectively via the reported vividness or realism of suggested subjective experiences. Classically, a strong response to a suggestion is accompanied by the feeling of ‘involuntariness’ (Weitzenhoffer 1980), and suggestions have been demonstrated which allow participants to overcome normally automatic responses, such as word comprehension in the Stroop effect (Raz et al. 2002).
Different forms of suggestibility have been proposed, e.g. primary, secondary and interrogative suggestibility (Eysenck and Furneaux 1945; Gudjonsson 2003). The present study focuses on primary suggestibility defined as the induction of thoughts and actions via suggestion (Eysenck and Furneaux 1945). Assessments of suggestibility are often delivered following a hypnotic induction and are said to assess ‘hypnotizability’, but the same items can be delivered in the absence of hypnosis in which case they assess ‘imaginative suggestibility’ (Braffman and Kirsch 1999; Hull 1933) which is the ability of an individual to engage in fantasies that have the potential to alter his/her behaviour and/or subjective experience. Hypnotic suggestibility is strongly predicted by imaginative suggestibility (Braffman and Kirsch 1999), and both can be considered forms of primary suggestibility.
Some of the most popular suggestibility scales in use in the twentieth century (e.g. the Stanford Hypnotic Suggestibility Scales) were designed to follow an initial hypnotic trance induction procedure (Barber 1995; Weitzenhoffer and Hilgard 1959), but scales of this era have been criticised for being too aggressive and authoritative in style, e.g. asserting that the participant’s jaw is locked shut so that they cannot speak (Wilson and Barber 1978).
The creative imagination scale (CIS; Wilson and Barber 1978) is a suggestibility scale that was specifically designed not to require an initial trance induction nor to involve an authoritarian suggestion style, which may have risked provoking anxiety in participants under LSD (Johnson et al. 2008). The CIS involves asking participants to imagine scenarios such that their outstretched arm is becoming heavier, that they are drinking cool and refreshing water, that time is becoming distorted or that they are experiencing localised anaesthesia in their hand. It assesses the subjective intensity of these suggested effects and, therefore, measures imaginative suggestibility (Braffman and Kirsch 1999).
Suggestibility has been found to play an important role in treatment outcomes for some conditions. For example, hypnotic suggestion is an effective treatment for acute and chronic pain, and there exists an association between the suggestibility and magnitude of clinical effect (Patterson and Jensen 2003). Suggestibility may also play a role in psychotherapy outcomes (Kirsch and Low 2013; Paddock and Terranova 2001).
After a hiatus of several decades, clinical research on LSD has recently restarted, with the publication of a report documenting the safety and efficacy of LSD as an aid to psychotherapy in the treatment of anxiety related to terminal illness (Gasser et al 2014). There is presently much interest in the potential of LSD and related psychedelics to treat anxiety and mood disorders as well as addiction (Grob et al. 2011; Krebs and Johansen 2012), and relevant trials are currently underway.
The potential of LSD to enhance suggestibility was first noted by clinicians working with the drug in the 1950s. For example, the psychiatrist Mortimer Hartman commented that “the patient under LSD, from a therapeutic point of view, is quite definitely hypersuggestible” (Josiah Macy and Abramson 1960). There are two published reports from the 1960s on the suggestibility-enhancing effects of LSD. The first employed a measure of imaginative suggestibility (i.e. the 17-item Stanford Suggestibility Scale) delivered without a hypnotic induction (Weitzenhoffer and Hilgard 1959) in a within-subject design involving 24 healthy participants and compared the effects on suggestibility of LSD (1.5 μg/kg), psilocybin (225 μg/kg), mescaline (5 mg/kg), all 3 drugs combined and hypnosis in the absence of drugs (Sjoberg and Hollister 1965). Two different versions of this scale were administered before and 2–3 h after ingestion of each drug and separately before and after hypnotic trance induction. Results showed that suggestibility was significantly enhanced by LSD, mescaline, the three drugs in combination and hypnosis, but not by psilocybin alone. The second study looked at the effect of LSD (75 μg i.v.) on a single body sway suggestion (i.e. a forward and back swaying made in response to suggestion) in 11 ‘neurotic’ patients, 15 patients with depression and 10 with schizophrenia in a within-subject placebo (i.v. saline) controlled design (Middlefell 1967). Suggestion began 90 min post-infusion, and test days were separated by 48 h and conducted in a balanced order. LSD significantly enhanced body sway relative to placebo, and this effect was most pronounced in the neurotic patients and least so in the depressives.
The present study sought to test the hypothesised suggestibility-enhancing effects of LSD in a modern placebo-controlled study. Consistent with a previous study investigating the effects of nitrous oxide on suggestibility (Whalley and Brooks 2009), it also sought to address the effect of the drug on cued mental imagery using a modified version of the Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (QMI; Sheehan 1967). This task involves instructing the participant to imagine, with eyes closed, a succession of sensory experiences such as the taste of honey or the smell of freshly cut grass (see ‘Methods’ for details). Baseline measures of depressive symptoms and personality traits were acquired ahead of testing days to assess their potential predictive value in relation to the primary experimental outcomes. The primary hypotheses were that both suggestibility and cued mental imagery would be significantly enhanced by LSD.Mo Farah has been warned by a tearful former team-mate that more revelations about Alberto Salazar are in the pipeline and he risks tarnishing his reputation if he stays with the coach. On a day when Farah pledged to speak under oath to the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Kara Goucher – who trained alongside Farah in 2011 and 2012 – refused to criticise him directly but urged anyone thinking of training with Salazar to “think long and hard because you’re going to be labelled something for the rest of your life”.
Goucher, one of the whistleblowers in the BBC Panorama programme, also said she was confident Usada would find enough evidence for “the truth to come out” but admitted it would probably not happen overnight.
“I know that these things take time,” she added. “I saw Lance Armstrong on Oprah, and afterwards [the Usada CEO] Travis Tygart was on. I told my husband Adam: ‘You get me that guy and I’ll talk to him.’ Seven days later I was in his office. I believe that Usada is doing everything in its power. Think of how long it took for Lance. I believe the truth will come out. When? I don’t know.”
Goucher’s claims came a day after it was revealed Usada’s team of detectives, who brought down Armstrong in 2012, has put its investigations into Salazar and Farah’s training partner Galen Rupp on a more formal footing by interviewing the Oregon Project athlete Treniere Moser. On Sunday night Salazar promised to co-operate with Usada if it decides to question him, saying: “Absolutely, I’ve got nothing to hide.” However, when asked whether he would do so under oath, he said: “I don’t understand exactly what that means. I’d need to speak to my lawyer.” When told it would mean if he lied then he would be in trouble, Salazar repeated: “I would have to speak to my lawyer about that.”
Usada is also expected to speak to other members of the Oregon Project and its investigation may even involve senior figures at UK Athletics, which employs Salazar as a consultant. There is no suggestion Farah has committed any wrongdoing and he has made it clear to friends he would be happy to speak to any relevant authority, at any time, in any circumstances.
Goucher, the 2007 world 10,000m bronze medallist from the US, said “multiple sources” had come forward since the Panorama documentary aired at the start of June. In the programme Goucher alleged Salazar had coached Rupp to try to get a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for an intravenous drip before the 2011 world championships and had offered her a thyroid drug to get her to lose weight. In his 11,750-word response to the BBC’s claims last week Salazar called both claims false and published detailed email documentation that appeared to show he was happy with Goucher’s weight.
Yet Goucher stands by her story and says there is more to come. “I have, constantly, all day long, people passing me information, wanting me to bring it forward,” she said.
“I really want to encourage all the people who have reached out to me to reach out to Usada. I pass everything along that you give me but the case is much stronger if it comes from you.
“I will most definitely give all my evidence in the coming days. They took my quotes out of context and when you put partial emails or emails from a 10-email-long chain and just put one in, you don’t get both sides. I understand that, if you read it through, it looks like I’m a liar. I don’t like being labelled a liar, just like anybody else.”
Goucher insisted she would continue to fight for a clean sport despite Salazar’s ferocious counterattack on her character. “I’m being dragged through the mud and it will probably continue but I’m still here, I’m going to keep racing and I stand by my statements and I always will. I want my son to be able to believe in the sport and the system.” Goucher, who first spoke to Usada in February 2013, also confirmed that she would be happy to go under oath. “I would welcome that opportunity for myself, for every former Oregon Project member, for every doctor that’s been involved,” she said.
Rupp, who finished third in the final of the 5,000m on Sunday, said he had sent Usada “tons of documents and had nothing to hide”. He added: “Usada knows everything. I’ll do everything I need to do to co-operate with them.”
Rupp’s team-mate Matthew Centrowitz, who won the 1500m at the US trials on Saturday, insisted he had never seen any evidence of wrongdoing at the Nike Oregon Project. ‚ÄúIf I ever saw one thing that I felt was wrong or whatever I would be the first to leave,‚Äù he added.
The most impressive time of the final day of the trials came from the controversial sprinter Justin Gatlin, who became the fifth fastest man in history over 200m when he ran 19.57sec.
The most impressive performance, however, came from Alysia Montaño, who won the 800m only 10 months after giving birth to a daughter. Montaño ran in last year’s championships when she was pregnant.Word story
The history of dork is a short one. It’s been around only since the 1950s or 60s, originally as a slang term for “penis.” Most likely dork was just an alternative form of dick, a word that started out as a nickname for Richard—a name meaning “fellow”—but which by the late 1800s, had taken on the additional meaning of “penis” (which is certainly part of a fellow) in British army slang.
By the late 60s, American college students had extended the meaning of dork to refer to a socially awkward person. While at first this sense of dork carried pejorative connotations, the term has since been “taken back” by the people it once so cruelly described, and now can even be given as a compliment. If a girl calls a guy “adorkable” (the combination of “dork” and “adorable”), she means to say he is cute in a socially awkward, yet endearing way.
Geeks and nerds, while still dorky, are generally considered more intelligent than dorks. Next time you call someone a dork think about its short history in the English language, and reflect upon what a word nerd you are.If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.
Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus.
Cascades are especially common in medicine as doctors take their cues from others, leading them to overdiagnose some faddish ailments (called bandwagon diseases) and overprescribe certain treatments (like the tonsillectomies once popular for children). Unable to keep up with the volume of research, doctors look for guidance from an expert — or at least someone who sounds confident.
In the case of fatty foods, that confident voice belonged to Ancel Keys, a prominent diet researcher a half-century ago (the K-rations in World War II were said to be named after him). He became convinced in the 1950s that Americans were suffering from a new epidemic of heart disease because they were eating more fat than their ancestors.
There were two glaring problems with this theory, as Mr. Taubes, a correspondent for Science magazine, explains in his book. First, it wasn’t clear that traditional diets were especially lean. Nineteenth-century Americans consumed huge amounts of meat; the percentage of fat in the diet of ancient hunter-gatherers, according to the best estimate today, was as high or higher than the ratio in the modern Western diet.
Second, there wasn’t really a new epidemic of heart disease. Yes, more cases were being reported, but not because people were in worse health. It was mainly because they were living longer and were more likely to see a doctor who diagnosed the symptoms.
To bolster his theory, Dr. Keys in 1953 compared diets and heart disease rates in the United States, Japan and four other countries. Sure enough, more fat correlated with more disease (America topped the list). But critics at the time noted that if Dr. Keys had analyzed all 22 countries for which data were available, he would not have found a correlation. (And, as Mr. Taubes notes, no one would have puzzled over the so-called French Paradox of foie-gras connoisseurs with healthy hearts.)
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The evidence that dietary fat correlates with heart disease “does not stand up to critical examination,” the American Heart Association concluded in 1957. But three years later the association changed position — not because of new data, Mr. Taubes writes, but because Dr. Keys and an ally were on the committee issuing the new report. It asserted that “the best scientific evidence of the time” warranted a lower-fat diet for people at high risk of heart disease.
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The association’s report was big news and put Dr. Keys, who died in 2004, on the cover of Time magazine. The magazine devoted four pages to the topic — and just one paragraph noting that Dr. Keys’s diet advice was “still questioned by some researchers.” That set the tone for decades of news media coverage. Journalists and their audiences were looking for clear guidance, not scientific ambiguity.
After the fat-is-bad theory became popular wisdom, the cascade accelerated in the 1970s when a committee led by Senator George McGovern issued a report advising Americans to lower their risk of heart disease by eating less fat. “McGovern’s staff were virtually unaware of the existence of any scientific controversy,” Mr. Taubes writes, and the committee’s report was written by a nonscientist “relying almost exclusively on a single Harvard nutritionist, Mark Hegsted.”
That report impressed another nonscientist, Carol Tucker Foreman, an assistant agriculture secretary, who hired Dr. Hegsted to draw up a set of national dietary guidelines. The Department of Agriculture’s advice against eating too much fat was issued in 1980 and would later be incorporated in its “food pyramid.”
Meanwhile, there still wasn’t good evidence to warrant recommending a low-fat diet for all Americans, as the National Academy of Sciences noted in a report shortly after the U.S.D.A. guidelines were issued. But the report’s authors were promptly excoriated on Capitol Hill and in the news media for denying a danger that had already been proclaimed by the American Heart Association, the McGovern committee and the U.S.D.A.
The scientists, despite their impressive credentials, were accused of bias because some of them had done research financed by the food industry. And so the informational cascade morphed into what the economist Timur Kuran calls a reputational cascade, in which it becomes a career risk for dissidents to question the popular wisdom.
With skeptical scientists ostracized, the public debate and research agenda became dominated by the fat-is-bad school. Later the National Institutes of Health would hold a “consensus conference” that concluded there was “no doubt” that low-fat diets “will afford significant protection against coronary heart disease” for every American over the age of 2. The American Cancer Society and the surgeon general recommended a low-fat diet to prevent cancer.
But when the theories were tested in clinical trials, the evidence kept turning up negative. As Mr. Taubes notes, the most rigorous meta-analysis of the clinical trials of low-fat diets, published in 2001 by the Cochrane Collaboration, concluded that they had no significant effect on mortality.
Mr. Taubes argues that the low-fat recommendations, besides being unjustified, may well have harmed Americans by encouraging them to switch to carbohydrates, which he believes cause obesity and disease. He acknowledges that that hypothesis is unproved, and that the low-carb diet fad could turn out to be another mistaken cascade. The problem, he says, is that the low-carb hypothesis hasn’t been seriously studied because it couldn’t be reconciled with the low-fat dogma.
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Mr. Taubes told me he especially admired the iconoclasm of Dr. Edward H. Ahrens Jr., a lipids researcher who spoke out against the McGovern committee’s report. Mr. McGovern subsequently asked him at a hearing to reconcile his skepticism with a survey showing that the low-fat recommendations were endorsed by 92 percent of “the world’s leading doctors.”
“Senator McGovern, I recognize the disadvantage of being in the minority,” Dr. Ahrens replied. Then he pointed out that most of the doctors in the survey were relying on secondhand knowledge because they didn’t work in this field themselves.
“This is a matter,” he continued, “of such enormous social, economic and medical importance that it must be evaluated with our eyes completely open. Thus I would hate to see this issue settled by anything that smacks of a Gallup poll.” Or a cascade.Search Gallery Panphao - creature design Cloister 227 Pathfinder iconics in action (fan art) Cloister 349 Advertisement Advertisement Grimwood Scene Illustration 4 Cloister 169 Grimwood Scene Illustration3 Cloister 162 Grimwood Scene Illustration 7 Cloister 346 The Goblin Key Cloister 281 - Hydra, your days are over. Cloister 694 Autumn Adventures II Cloister 268 Ghidjarin - Creature Concept Cloister 474 The Tar'Bukhi - creature design Cloister 370 Wohrgnaal - creature design Cloister 279 Hinodarthian - Creature concept Cloister 340 Nasterex - Creature Design Cloister 309 Niralfin - Creature Design Cloister 386 Rucculith - Creature Design Cloister 213 Metterix - creature design Cloister 417 Bleuborrah - troll creature concept Cloister 263 Mutarong - Creature concept Cloister 242 Saergathin - Creature Design Cloister 370 Drocharan - Creature concept Cloister 322 Arraphilon - Creature Concept Cloister 262 Erkentaar - Creature Design Cloister 310 Bhorkenbyg - Creature Design Cloister 401 Lurlorach - creature design Cloister 349ASRock is readying is new, high-end socket LGA2011 motherboard targeting the upper-most tier of the PC enthusiast market, the X79 Extreme7. This board will be a part of the company's first wave of LGA2011 motherboards, which are slated for mid-November, 2011. Pictures scored by XFastest reveal the board to be filled to the brim with features. The CPU socket is powered by a 16-phase VRM making use of high-grade chokes, and server-grade poscap capacitors.The socket is wired to six DDR3 DIMM slots arranged in sets of three on either sides of the socket, powered by a 4-phase VRM. Among channels A, B, C, and D; channels B and D have two DIMM slots wired, so if you have four DDR3 modules, you should populate slots 0, 2, 3, and 5; to take advantage of quad-channel DDR3 memory. There are heatsinks over the memory VRM areas, that are connected to the heatsink over the CPU VRM using heat pipes.Expansion slots include five PCI-Express x16, two of these can run at full-bandwidth PCI-E 3.0 x16, four at PCI-E 3.0 x8 bandwidth (depending on how the slots are populated with add-on cards), one of these is wired to the X79 PCH and is PCI-E 2.0 x4 capable. There's a legacy PCI slot, too.Storage connectivity includes four SATA 6 Gb/s ports, seven internal SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and one eSATA 3 Gb/s. Other connectivity options include six USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, four via headers), 8+2 channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, two gigabit Ethernet connections, FireWire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports.The Trump administration is considering mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up illegal immigrants, according to a draft memo obtained by AP. The White House said the agency’s report is “false,” however.
What the AP called “unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement” would affect locations as far north as Portland, Oregon and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana, according to the 11-page document, purportedly written by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.
The proposal would four states bordering on Mexico – Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas – as well as the seven neighboring states of Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah. Governors in the eleven states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate in the round-up, according to AP.
The White House responded to the news with only one word: “False,” according to Reuters.
David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, also said the department was “not considering mobilizing the National Guard for immigration enforcement.”
from White House on @AP report to our @PatrickTerpstra: "False. There is some forthcoming implementation guidance and nowhere is this in it" pic.twitter.com/4sjOHTYjNk — Justin Gray (@grayjustin) February 17, 2017
“This is not true,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer tweeted about the AP report, adding that Homeland Security confirmed it as “100 percent false.”
This is not true. DHS also confirms it is 100% false https://t.co/MFIJci7XaU — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) February 17, 2017
According to AP, the draft memo was dated January 25 – the day President Donald Trump issued an executive order “enhancing public safety in the interior of the United States” – and has been circulating among Homeland Security staff for the past two weeks. It is reportedly addressed to the acting chiefs of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
The draft memo says the mobilized National Guard troops would be activated under a revived state-federal partnership program and authorized "to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension and detention of aliens in the United States."
AP posted a photocopy of the draft memo shortly before 12:30pm Eastern Time on Friday. A TIME magazine reporter posted a PDF shortly after noon.Do you have an idea for a new business? While you may find it easy to generate many new business ideas, it isn’t as easy to identify which ones are truly stellar.
How do you know when you’ve come up with a fabulous business idea? We asked successful business owners what key characteristics point to a great business idea. Here’s what they told us.
It fills a need and solves a problem
One simple sign of a great business idea is that people want it and need it.
Wade Gilchrist, startup consultant and host at TechStartRadio.com, said he likes to tell startups that they should identify a problem that is currently not being solved or is not being solved well. If your idea is a better solution than those currently available, and there is a way to prove it’s a moneymaker before a long and expensive development process is undertaken, it could be a great business, Gilchrist said.
And don’t think your idea has to be especially innovative, said Ebong Eka, a small business expert and television personality. “Too many entrepreneurs believe that good business ideas have to be unique or the first of its kind,” he said. “That only matters with products you can patent, and biopharmaceuticals.”
In fact, it’s more important for your idea to solve a real-world problem, and solve it well, said Shireen Shermak, CEO of venture capital and startup firm Launch Angels.
“A great business idea must solve an easily articulated problem that a large group would like to have solved,” Shermak said. “If you are creating a solution when there is no problem, no amount of marketing is going to create a big business.”
It reaches large and/or multiple markets
An easily identifiable and measurable potential market for the product or service is another hallmark of a great business idea, Eka said.
“It’s imperative that, when you’re sharing your idea, you can describe the market demographics,” he said. And at the very least, the market must be big enough to make money. “The idea must target a large market,” Shermak added.
Another market-related characteristic of a solid business idea is that it can be replicated in other markets, said Greg Isenberg, a 25-year-old award-winning serial entrepreneur, founder of Wall Street Survivor and CEO of mobile video app 5by.com. After all, if a business works in San Francisco, it’s likely to work in Los Angeles, he said.
“All of a sudden, you’ve doubled your target market overnight,” Is |
Hollow from the inside, the blobs house student lounges, and that this non-residential function should correspond its odd shape to equally oddly shaped windows reflects the modernist tradition of relating exterior to interior. But from outside Simmons, it’s impossible to know that the windows do signal the otherworldly volumes that intrude upon an otherwise Euclidean landscape. It’s a secret for the residents alone.
It is also a solution to their boredom. Just as the building’s large openings transform Simmons into an experience that happens on multiples planes, these shapes actively contradict the idea that a user simply inhabits a rectangular (or L-shaped) room within a rectangular box. As Bade puts it, “This is basically the typology of a double-loaded corridor building, but we were thinking about how do you make a double-loaded corridor building interesting. We tried to have the hallways end in daylight, for instance. And we interrupt the double-loaded corridors – we have the atrium spaces bust into them, really trying to create a sense of surprise and curiosity, an enigmatic quality that really makes you want to walk through the building.”
In some ways, users may want to relate to these blobs as much as they do to the building elevations. If they don’t spark one’s curiosity to explore the whole building, they’ll at least pique enough curiosity to take a look inside. Constantly intervening, the blob spaces never cease announcing themselves to the residents. You know these lounges exist for reading, cooking, or movie marathon-ing, and so if they suffer from lack of use, I can’t imagine invisibility will be the reason for it.
Significantly, Robert Campbell, who calls the blobs “smoke signals,” explains just how important it was for MIT to have such loud public spaces: “No longer is the typical student a white male engineer. Now, 43 percent of students are women. Students arrive with a variety of backgrounds and ambitions and MIT believes they need to meet and learn from one another.” By spanning multiple stories, Bade says, students can also meet people other than their immediate neighbors, and so are not forced to identify themselves by the floor on which they live.
Students will occupy the blobs for another, less noble reason: The individual dorm rooms are just not all that convenient. Although the windows are certainly large enough to encompass a resident’s field of vision from close range, the square windows, nine to a room, create too many gaps in daylight and views for some of us to endure. Moreover, each window has its own curtain. The strategy permits a student’s privacy without sacrificing daylight, or can optimize lighting for different functions (think computer glare). And yet I imagine that instead of juggling the constant opening and closing of curtains, students crunched for time will gravitate toward the bright, uninterrupted lounge spaces.
But let’s not pin too many hopes on these blobs to activate space. Sometimes, they just appear as objects. Simmons’ hallways, for instance, are an expansive eight feet wide, and spacious enough to accommodate multiple public interactions. When the outside perimeter of a blob interferes in the hallway-cum-streetscape, it seems as if it’s literally trying to push students together, forcing them to interact. But the hallways are just so wide, that that just doesn’t seem possible. Socializing will happen according to whim or need, not environmental determinism. On the other hand, this is fertile ground for skateboarding. And unlike painting one’s dorm room, that’s an activity that the administration can’t prevent.
Simmons Hall, which has already received a 2000 Progressive Architecture Award and 2002 NY AIA Design Award, opened in September.
Client: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Senior Project Manager: Jonathan Himmel
Project Manager: Thomas Murray, Casali Group, Inc., Somerville, MA
Design Architect: Steven Holl Architects, New York
Design Team: Steven Holl (Principal), Timothy Bade (Project Architect), Ziad Jameleddine, Anderson Lee (Assistant Project Architects), Peter Burns, Gabriela Barman-Kramer, Annette Goderbauer, Mimi Hoang, Matt Johnson, Erik Langdalen, Ron-Hui Lin, Stephen O'Dell, Christian Wassmann (Project Team)
Associate Architect/Architect-of-Record: Perry Dean Rogers | Partners, Boston
Design Team: Charles Rogers, Peter Ringenbach (Partners in Charge), Michael Waters (Project Architect), Jeff Fishbien, Samantha Pearson, Brent Stringfellow, Gerry Gutierrez, Brad Prestbo, Alejandro Soto, Mark Wintringer (Project Team)
Landscape Architect: Child Associates
Structural Engineer: Guy Nordenson and Associates, New York
Engineer of Record: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc.
MEP Engineering: Ove Arup & Partners, New York & Cambridge
Lighting Design: Fisher Marantz Stone, New York
Contractor/CM: Daniel O'Connell & Sons, Holyoke, MA
PerfCon Concrete panels: Beton Bolduc, Inc. Quebec
Cladding & Windows: Cheviot Corporation
Public Art: Dan Graham, artist
Named America's favorite architect in 2001 by Time magazine, Steven Holl established Steven Holl Architects in New York in 1976. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, as well as the Chapel of St. Ignatius at Seattle University are among his best known works. A writer and professor as well as an architect, Holl's honors include induction as a member in Art in The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000.
In October 2002, the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota and the Parking Garage and Entry Plaza (Phase I) at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City opened.
Founded in 1923 as Perry Shaw & Hepburn, Boston-based Perry Dean Rogers | Partners has a national reputation for service to academic and cultural institutions. Over the past 79 years, the firm has completed or is currently involved in projects for more than 100 colleges and universities. Projects have ranged from feasibility studies for small, independent colleges to master plans for large universities, to major renovations or additions to existing buildings, to the design of new buildings. As a consultant to Steven Holl Architects, Perry Dean Rogers | Partners Architects worked in collaboration with Steven Holl on all phases of the Simmons Hall project from design through construction. PDR|P was also the Architect-of-Record for the project.
At MIT, the firm has also recently overseen the renovation of Alvar Aalto’s Baker House Dormitory. Other current and recent university clients include: Harvard; Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Yale; Fairfield University, Bowling Green State University; and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and new libraries at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the University of Colorado at Fort Collins, Webster University, Marshall University, Dickinson College, and the expansion of the National Library of Medicine.
About the author: David Sokol regularly contributes to Architectural Record and Metropolis magazine's online feature “Urban Journal.” This is his first review for ArchNewsNow.Sir John Sawers has warned that the security services face a growing challenge to monitor terrorists. Credit: PA Wire
The security services must watch everyone if they are to continue to prevent terrorist atrocities in the UK, the ex-head of MI6 has warned.
Sir John Sawers said it was not possible to monitor terrorists without intruding upon the lives of ordinary people. In his first speech since leaving the role, Sir John agreed with with the Prime Minister's belief that there cannot be "no-go areas" online where terrorists can "play their trades".
He also warned that a terrorist attack in the UK is now highly likely.
"Of course there is a dilemma here because the general public and politicians and the technology companies, to some extent, they want us to be able to monitor the activities of terrorists and other evil doers but they do not want their own activities to be open to any such monitoring," Sir John said.
Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) on the west of Cheltenham. Credit: PA Wire
David Cameron has pledged to revive the controversial'snooper's charter'. Credit: PA Wire
"I think one benefit of the last 18 months' debate is that people now understand that is simply not possible and there has to be some form of ability to cover communications that are made through modern technology."
"The prime minister must have been right when he was saying last week that you cannot afford to have complete no-go areas, we cannot have no-go areas in our communities where the police cannot go, because that just allows space room for the evil doers to ply their trades."
Sir John was speaking at the central London launch of the Edelman Trust Barometer, an international survey of public trust in institutions including the security services and other government institutions.
His comments come weeks after the head of MI5 warned that a group of al-Qaida terrorists is planning "mass casualty attacks" against Britain and the West, following the attacks in Paris which left 12 people dead.Share This Essay More from This Issue
April 2014
People in the rest of Canada often perceive Alberta as a monolith. You know those Albertans: they all vote Conservative, they have all that oil money and want more, they do not care about the environment, they pay no sales tax, they are more American than Canadian, and now that they are running the federal government they are ruining our image as a progressive, peace-loving country. Of course, there is also an admiring counter-narrative of Albertans as the most entrepreneurial Canadians who are driving the national economy and reducing the emphasis on government while increasing personal economic freedom and restoring the military to its proper place in Canadian society.
Image by Jeff Kulak
Central Canadians are probing westward in an effort to engage constructively with the emergent power of Albertans. Too often their starting perception is that Albertans are a unified block of like-minded people that can be accessed through either Calgary or Edmonton on the assumption that if you have been engaging with the one you have covered the other. This view of Albertans is a potentially calamitous misunderstanding. Albertans only behave monolithically for the purpose of keeping Central Canada at bay. It is time for people from other parts of the country to take a closer look at this enigmatic province.
The Battle River
There are, in fact, two very distinct regions in Alberta dominated by Calgary and Edmonton. The dividing line is the aptly named Battle River. Preston Manning, the founding Reform Party leader and son of a long-serving Alberta premier, shared with me the legend that Alberta is cursed to be divided by this river, a small watercourse that is hard to spot on a map. Rising in the foothills southwest of Edmonton, lazily meandering east past Ponoka, Wetaskiwin, Camrose and Wainwright before it rolls into Saskatchewan, the Battle River cuts the province in two. Do not let its size fool you. It demarcates the very different mindsets and spheres of influence of Calgary and Edmonton. Manning said, “You can always tell a federal politician doesn’t get Alberta when he gives the same talk in Calgary and Edmonton.” He added that Edmonton tends to look north while Calgary tends to look south. Knowing which side of the river you are on is key to being well received by Albertans.1
The Battle River got its name because it was the contested zone between the Cree and the Blackfoot. It roughly formed the line between parkland forest to the north and the great plains to the south and marked the northern limit of plains bison, which were at the heart of Blackfoot culture. That meant it formed a line between the fur trade and the buffalo economy. The Cree saw opportunity, became the great fur-trading intermediaries for the Hudson’s Bay Company, and thus were adept at dealing with Europeans. The Blackfoot wanted nothing to do with the fur trade or Europeans and were happy hunting buffalo, which supplied all their needs. As the Cree grew in power, they expanded south out of the woodlands onto the Great Plains. The Blackfoot fiercely resisted both the Plains Cree and white fur traders.2 The result has been the inverted history of Alberta.
The standard Canadian narrative is that we are all huddled along the Canadian border and have slowly probed north and west in search of natural resources establishing northern outposts as we go. This is the opposite of what happened in Alberta, where the north was settled before the south. The first settlement in Alberta was Fort Chipewyan in 1788, which is located just south of today’s Northwest Territories. Fort Edmonton, where the city is now, was established in 1795 by the Hudson’s Bay Company beside an earlier fort set up by the rival North West Company. It thrived as a fur-trading centre.
All early 19th-century efforts at establishing fur-trading posts south of Edmonton and the Battle River in the Great Plains went nowhere because the Blackfoot were not interested and had the power to keep Europeans out. It did not matter to them that their territory had been conveyed by the king of England to the Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson’s Bay. The Blackfoot closed the fur-trading route over Howse Pass to British Columbia, and thus forced the map-making David Thompson to find a new route to the Pacific further north over Athabasca Pass. Even though the fledgling country of Canada acquired all the Hudson’s Bay land by 1870 to serve as a colony of Canada (not Britain), there was in fact no Canadian presence in Alberta south of the Battle River at the time of Confederation.
Of Ontario origin, Methodist missionaries John and George McDougall first began working in northern Alberta in the 1860s. They then ventured south of the Battle River in search of souls to save. When camping they met a group of Sioux-speaking Stoneys who were out on the plains hunting buffalo. The Sioux and Blackfoot were enemies, but the Stoneys had been able to establish a foothold on the east slope of Alberta, wedged between the Blackfoot-dominated plains and the mountains. The Stoneys invited the McDougalls to set up a mission among them, in part to help keep the Blackfoot away. Thus Morleyville, the first community below the Battle River, was established in 1873.
Morleyville—now called just Morley—is located halfway between present-day Calgary and Banff, neither of which existed then. It was a multi-week ride from there to get eastern supplies from Winnipeg via Fort Edmonton. It was only a few days’ ride to Montana, where it was possible to bring goods by steamboat up the Missouri River as far as Fort Benton. So the McDougalls looked south to Montana for supplies. They invited additional families from Ontario to join them at the Morley mission by journeying from Canada through Chicago, St. Louis and Fort Benton. The few families huddled at Morleyville among the Stoney encampment were, then, the only Canadians in southern Alberta.
A Unique Relationship with the United States (But Not the One You Think)
Canadian control of southern Alberta was not a foregone conclusion. Whisky traders from Montana had encroached on the area of present-day Lethbridge to set up Fort Whoop-Up, which traded rot-gut whisky to the Blackfoot in exchange for furs. This alarmed the infant nation of Canada, which did not want to lose control of its new colony in the Northwest. The North West Mounted Police Force led by Colonel James Macleod was created to drive the Americans out, reaching Fort Macleod in 1874. The NWMP then set up Fort Calgary in 1875. Thus, with the McDougalls and the Macleods, a Scottish character and a pattern of engaging with the Americans while keeping them at arm’s length became engrained in the early history of southern Alberta.
Treaties were signed between aboriginal people and the government of Canada. The natural division in Alberta is reflected in Treaty Number 6 around Edmonton and Treaty Number 7 around Calgary. It is a major point of pride that Treaty 7 enabled the orderly settlement of southern Alberta in marked contrast to the violence of the American wild west. In southern Alberta, law and order predated settlement and there were no wars with aboriginal people. (Treaty 6, which extends into Saskatchewan, was more turbulent because of the Plains Crees’ involvement in the Riel Rebellion.)
The state of mind of the early immigrants to southern Alberta was that they were engaged in the worthy work of expanding the British Empire as part of the Dominion of Canada. As Elizabeth Boyd McDougall, the first European woman in southern Alberta, put it, “the Indian missionary pioneered the country, made peace, opened the way for settlement, prepared the way for government and was the real foundation layer to empire.”3 Thus the setting-based stories chronicling the distinct relationship with Americans found in Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Englishman’s Boy and The Last Crossing or Wallace Stegner’s Wolf Willow: A History, A Story and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier resonate more deeply with a southern Albertan reader than the Ontario settings found in the excellent writings of Margaret Atwood or Robertson Davies. They are all great writers, but there is more than one Canadian Anglo-Saxon narrative. Similarly, the Big Sky paintings of Montanan Charlie Russell often speak more to southern Albertans than do Group of Seven images of red maples, and this is reflected in the Glenbow Art Museum collection. The Edmonton Art Gallery (now called the Art Gallery of Alberta), on the other hand, was founded with the gift of an impressive Group of Seven collection.
While several parts of Canada have strong ties to Scotland, the West is particularly strongly linked and southern Alberta perhaps most of all. The St. Andrews Society and Calgary were founded the same year and the society’s president, George Murdoch, became the town’s first mayor. One hundred years ago, after noting Nova Scotia and Ontario, George Bryce wrote in The Scotsman in Canada something that catches the character of many southern Albertans to this day: “yet it is to the broad and hospitable West, with its Scottish-like climate, its hearty warmth for the industrious stranger, its liberal expenditure for educational advantages, its predominant religious atmosphere suited to his taste, that the Scottish immigrant is especially attracted.”
Alberta is the only province that is close to debt free, which is as much a reflection of its Scottish thriftiness as its oil and gas revenues. The name “Calgary,” the Robert the Bruce statue in front of the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium overlooking the city (an exact replica of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, that is found in Stirling, Scotland, at the site of the Battle of Bannockburn), elite institutions such as Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School and the Glencoe Club, and the Calgary tartan all reflect a deep Scottish connection. Long-time Calgarians still tear up whenever a Highland band marches by in the Stampede Parade.
Railways and Immigration Divide Alberta
The national decision to assert Canadian sovereignty close to the border by routing the Canadian Pacific Railway through Calgary instead of Edmonton had an enormous impact on Alberta’s internal division. Calgary became a regional agricultural hub for grain farming and livestock. The Calgary Stampede became the “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth,” drawing cowboys from Texas north. Canada’s first national park was established at Banff (another Scottish name) and mountain recreation became an essential aspect of life for affluent Calgarians. By contrast, the rich soil, longer growing season and colder winter around Edmonton lent itself to mixed farming and a greater interest in civic development, there being no mountains close at hand to escape to.
While Edmonton also had Scottish influence through the fur trade, French Canadians were common too. Francophone settlements such as St. Albert were established near Edmonton and Catholic missionaries spread out in search of souls. There are still several communities in northern Alberta where French is the first language. But the greatest divergence in Edmonton’s character from that of Calgary came with the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway that ran north of the Battle River. The railway that would become known as CN opened up vast new areas for farming around Edmonton in 1905, but there were too few Canadians to come homesteading. Some Americans came from Iowa, but the biggest group came as a result of a forward-thinking plan from Clifford Sifton, the minister of the interior in Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal government. He realized that the conditions around Edmonton were similar to those in Eastern Europe so he sought “hardy peasants in sheepskin coats” from Ukraine and places nearby. They came en masse, thrived, and by World War One became a dominant group north of the Battle River. By 1960 Edmonton was one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Canada, while Calgary remained dominated by Scots and others from the United Kingdom with neighbouring Saskatchewan being a major source of in-migrants.
Edmonton served as the jumping-off point for an all-Canadian route to the Yukon gold fields in 1898 and later developed a Klondike Days Festival as an answer to the Calgary Stampede. While there were certainly other ethnic groups than Ukrainians in Edmonton, just as there were others than Scots in Calgary, Calgarians disparaged Edmonton as “the Yukon City: there is a Uke on every corner.” Edmontonians called Calgary “Cowtown” and remarked on the stink of the stockyards as a characteristic of every visit to the city. Even though all the stockyards are gone, this label for Calgary continues to roll contemptuously off Edmontonians’ lips.
When province-hood came for Alberta in 1905, Edmonton had stronger ties to the Liberals in Ottawa and emerged the big winner, getting both the provincial capital and the university. This was deeply resented in Calgary and the absence of government largesse deepened the entrepreneurial identity of Calgarians.
The worst way to engage Edmontonians is to tell them how things are done in Calgary. They pride themselves on their superior intellectual culture based on the University of Alberta’s strong reputation as a research university, the support shown for the arts and their view of themselves as more worldly than crude Calgarians. Some attribute what they perceive as the greater sophistication of Edmonton to the predominance of European immigrants. Calgarians, for their part, are hardly aware that Edmonton exists and are more likely to engage with other cities in Canada or the United States. To tell them that you are engaging with Edmonton will be met with complete indifference.
Uniting Against Vestiges of Central Canadian Colonialism
If the Battle River divide between Calgary and Edmonton is so deep, then why do Albertans sometimes behave monolithically toward the rest of Canada? That is easy to explain. Albertans will unite to defend their economic freedom and autonomy. They will put aside any difference to avoid being told what to do by Central Canada.
This tendency to circle the wagons against the “East” (which to them means the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa triangle) is a direct consequence of the unique Canadian colonial history of Western Canada. Remember that Alberta (and neighbouring Saskatchewan) were once part of the vast Northwest Territories that were acquired from the Hudson’s Bay Company around the time of Confederation. The purchase was done to create a colonial domain for Ottawa. Its only purpose was to serve the growth of newborn Canada and it came to provide a market for the fledgling manufacturing industry under Sir John A. Macdonald’s National Policy.
The other colonies that were bound together at Confederation (including British Columbia in 1870) were all colonies of Great Britain, not of Canada. The various colonies in the Maritimes and Upper and Lower Canada ensured their identities and interests were protected in the division of powers between the provinces and the federal government when the British North America Act was passed. Even when Alberta and Saskatchewan were granted provincial status in 1905, the federal government retained control over Crown lands and natural resource wealth. Every other province controlled its Crown lands. This was a major irritant and source of political tension between Ottawa and Alberta until it was finally rectified by the transfer of natural resources in 1930. It has never been forgotten in either Calgary or Edmonton.
Peter Lougheed, Alberta’s most honoured premier, always called himself a Canadian first and Albertan second. He was often called Peter the Red for his love of social policy, the arts and his tendency to create Crown corporations. But when Ottawa announced it wanted to tax oil exports from Alberta in the “national” interest he saw red. In a speech to the Canadian Club in 1973 he said words that reflected the provincial mood perfectly: “We are going to be forced to take certain action we do not want to take … We have to try to protect the Alberta public interest—not from the public interest of Canada as a whole—but from central and eastern Canadian domination of the West.”
Despite Albertans’ love of the country they helped expand, there have been several potent symbols of colonial grievance toward the “East” through time: the Crowsnest Pass freight rate; the higher price of manufactured goods that Albertans paid compared to Montanans; the eastern banks that foreclosed on farmers during the Dust Bowl years of the Depression; risk-averse Easterners who would not invest in the province’s oil industry, which forced Albertans south to the United States to find capital; and, of course, the National Energy Program. While old colonial grievances may seem likely to be diluted or ignored by the massive inflow of immigrants (Calgary is now over one quarter visible minorities and slightly under one fifth Scottish), the tendency remains. The new iteration is a growing regional hostility over the development of the oil sands/tar sands.
Like many Canadians, Albertans are torn between the enormous economic benefits of the oil sands and the negative environmental impacts they have. But that nuance is lost when they hear Ontarians and Quebecers spouting piously about environmental concerns. They know about Hamilton’s steel mills, the pollution of Lake Ontario, Sudbury’s former moonscape, about Hydro-Quebec’s flooding of almost every river in southern Quebec and the grim condition of the St. Lawrence. The exploitation of nature to build wealth is a recurring challenge in Canadian history, not a unique event due to Albertans’ supposed American character. It just happens to be going on in Alberta now. We will never get the nuanced national dialogue we need if the issue continues to be framed as a problem with “those greedy Albertans” instead of the challenge of balancing all Canadians’ love of nature with their equal tendency to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.
So like the mystery of the Holy Trinity where three are one and one is three, it would behoove all Canadians to understand when Albertans are one and when they are two. Remember the Battle River and the very different characters of Calgary and Edmonton. Engage Albertans in building Canada without lecturing them about what that means or by insinuating that they are Americans. They will love you for it and behave generously. Albertans are, after all, inclined to be builders of Canada first.Eleanor Hasken / Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting
John Schnatter’s long-running, multi-generational ties to the University of Louisville just grew $4.64 million deeper.
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the university’s College of Business, President James Ramsey confirmed a $6.3 million, seven-year grant that will fund the establishment, staffing and operation of the new John H. Schnatter Center for Free Enterprise. Scheduled to open in the fall, the center will “engage in teaching and research that explores the role of free enterprise and entrepreneurship in advancing society.”
The source of Schnatter’s wealth, the publicly owned Papa John’s International pizza chain, is already emblazoned across the UofL campus. Through gifts exceeding $20 million, the company and John and Annette Schnatter have helped build Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium for football and Cardinal Park for mens’ and womens’ sports.
“We’ve been fairly successful in business at Papa John’s and we want to share that with entrepreneurs and teach these kids how to be successful,” he said. “If we can get just one or two kids from the $6 million, it will be money well spent.” Their share of the gift is equal to the cost of 515,555 small pepperoni pizzas at Papa John’s.
The $4.64 million from Schnatter’s family foundation will be boosted by $1.66 million from the Charles Koch Foundation.The $6.3 million will go toward two tenure-track and two visiting professors, up to five research grants and up to four doctoral fellowships, as well as classes, a speaker series, seminars and salaries for center staff.
Free enterprises centers funded by the Charles Koch Foundation at George Mason University, Florida State University, the University of Kansas and other U.S. colleges have ignited controversy in their collision with dominant liberal arts cultures. Opponents have objected to contracts that give the Koch Foundation authority over hiring and curricula.
At U of L, faculty hired with the Schnatter-Koch grant “must have demonstrated a track record that is supportive of the center’s mission or show promise of developing such a record.” The university said all hiring and programming will conform with university policies and procedures.
Facing reporters Tuesday, Ramsey denied that the university is ceding academic control to a Schnatter-Koch tandem linked to Republican politics and libertarian economic philosophy.
“You all are seeing something that’s not here,” he said. “This is what a higher educational institution does. It talks about different points of view. It encourages discourse among people and not just one perspective or point of view.”
The legal agreement behind the $6.3 million gift, along with its terms and conditions, was not provided to reporters. Ramsey said the contract has not yet been signed.
Named to lead the Schnatter Center was Stephan Gohmann, an economics professor who joined the U of L faculty in 1988. He is already the BB&T Distinguished Professor in Free Enterprise, which is funded by the charitable arm of BB&T Bank.
“I’ve been here for 26 years and I’ve wanted to have a free market economics institute for a long time,” Gohmann said. “What we’ve found about economic freedom is that there’s a strong association with the things that we like.” Things, he said, like wealth, literacy, entrepreneurship and jobs.
University spokesman Mark Hebert said the U of L College of Business has 1,871 undergraduate and graduate students, making it the fourth biggest college on campus.
Linkages to the University of Louisville run up and down the Schnatter family lines. His wife Annette and grandfather Louis Ackerson are U of L alumni, and his brother Chuck, daughter Kristine and two uncles are all graduates of the Brandeis School of Law.
Reporter James McNair can be reached at [email protected] and (502) 815-6543.
Disclosure: In October 2014, the University of Louisville, which for years has donated to Louisville Public Media, earmarked $10,000 to KyCIR as part of a larger LPM donation.1+ Shares
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5 Key Words to Trigger Emotional Responses on Social Media
Do you have a social media strategy?
Of course you do. Everyone does—or so they say.
But what everyone doesn’t know is that you can’t simply write awesome content and hope that it will draw people like flies to honey from social media.
Mark Schaefer says that writing content is the starting line, not the finish line! You have to learn how to ignite that content to bring about a better response when it’s time to share it on social media.
So throw out the idea that all you should be doing is saying “Check This Out” in your social media updates, throwing your link up, and hoping for the best.
That’s not a social strategy.
You must learn to provide ignition for your content. If content is fire, and social media is the gasoline, as Jay says, make sure you’re throwing the gas in the right direction.
Let’s assume you already understand who your target market is, the relevancy of your content to your audience, and the filler words that need to be used in between. These words I’m about to show you are a powerful couplet when married with relevancy and “need to know” topics.
I want to talk about five key words—not keywords, but KEY words—that you should be using to trigger an emotional response from your target audience on social media.
You have seen these words before. You have probably even performed an action on these words without even knowing it. They are so subtle, you don’t even recognize that these words are making your brain spin overtime processing the information that comes from them.
The most powerful words you can use to attract people on social media are known as the Five “W’s.” Want to see?
Who
The Who is an important part of your strategy when you are crafting a social media update. No, I’m not talking about Roger Daltrey and the famous band, but you definitely won’t get fooled again if you use the word “Who” in your update.
Let me give you some examples of social media titles:
Who You Should Know In The Content Marketing World
The Social Marketer Who Does This To Capture Readers
You get the drift. Use the word “Who” to grab the readers attention.
Psychological Ramifications on Your Marketing
In this Journal of Experimental Psychology, Isabel Gauthier put together some amazing research into building communities. In one area of the journal, she talks about the power of language and touches on the word “Who.”
Saying the word “Who” automatically makes the person listening or reading want to know who you are talking about. It is a common psychological trigger that is closely related to #FOMO (fear of missing out) that you’ve heard so much about lately.
We are more like the animals than we care to admit. We are creatures of community. We flock like birds, and gaggle like geese around each other for support and help. Dr. Gauthier explains that in using the word “Who,” we immediately want to find out who this is and how we can get them into our community.
Using this word will make the reader dig deeper into who you are talking about.
What
As with all of the Five “W’s,” the word “What” induces a question in the left hemisphere, or Brocal area of the brain. This is where your language center is located and where people will process the words that they see or hear.
Here’s some examples:
What You Are Missing In Your Marketing
The What In Your Social That Is Creating Success
Psychological Ramifications on Your Marketing
The term “What” tells us that there is a topic or subject matter being discussed. While you’re not giving away the secret, you are letting them know that the answer is found by reading the article, heading to the landing page, etc.
In a study done by various Cognitive Psychologists, they found that the word “What” was recognized 52% more than the other Five W’s in language cognition.
This is a very readable word and one that is acted upon the most in your marketing.
Take a look at article titles today. I can almost guarantee that you will see this word at some point in someone’s title. Do they know the power of the word “What?” Perhaps, and maybe they don’t. Either way, it’s a word that makes people pay attention because you are indirectly telling them that you’ve got something they need.
When
I can remember Doc from Back to the Future looking at Marty saying, “Not where, but when!” Meaning they were going back to the future, or was it the past? I can never remember..
In many experiments of time, the results show that we are creatures of the clock. We are people who are obsessed with it.
Everyone is impacted by time. Dr. Anderson revealed that time creates who we are and what we do for ourselves in the future. We are directly impacted by time, which is why this particular word is one of the most powerful words you can use.
“Chaston and Kingstone’s findings are important because of society’s focus on time. As Richard A. Block and Dan Zakay explain, ‘A person must encode temporal properties of important events.For example, driving a car requires a person to estimate duration’s in order to engage in appropriate actions at a correct time.'” – Tiffany Sikorski
Psychological Ramifications on Your Marketing
So how does throwing around the word “When” have anything to do with time?
Using this word automatically in your marketing, as this journal suggests, makes your audience start to think of a time frame in which something could happen—for instance, When To Change Your Marketing Strategy.
Well, if you’re going to change it, the time is now, right? People will immediately put a date stamp on this word because they understand and appreciate time—but only if it’s fast.
We live in an age where we can text someone across the world in a matter of seconds and microwave a full meal in five minutes. We don’t want to wait for things to happen.
Having said that, you must understand that if you promise this in your article title or social update, you should be prepared to deliver results to your readers within the said time frame.
A study performed by Dr. Nehro Johnston says that when you promise something and don’t deliver with the word “When,” 64% of the people will lose trust in what you tell them after the fact.
Use this word wisely.
Where
This word lets people know the location of something or how to find something. Using the right language in your social updates can bring about more results.
The use of the word “Where” again brings another question that needs to be answered in someone’s mind. According to the Journal of Science & Health, using the word “Where” brings a more personal approach to the person.
As we are people that naturally grow communities with each other, we want to go places and be where the action is happening.
Here are some examples:
Where You Should Post Your Content For Best Results
Promoting Your Content Where The Pros Do
It’s a promise to fulfill a need of community in a person’s psyche.
Psychological Ramifications on Your Marketing
Understanding the personal use of language will show you that the use of the word “Where” makes the reader want to go to the place you are talking about.
It comes from a sense of wanting to belong to something, to be included in the mix with other marketers. No one wants to be left out, and telling someone where something is triggers an emotion. They won’t be able to resist the urge to click.
Why
The word “Why” demands closure. It demands an answer right away. Usually when people ask you why, they expect you to know the solution to something.
The word “Why” is pronounced “Cur” in Latin and has been used forever.
We are a race that needs to know. Look at the power of these three little letters! Just in the past 30 years, the scientific breakthroughs and technological revelations have been enormous—simply because of three little letters.
The power of curiosity is strong, and it can help your marketing when you use this word.
Psychological Ramifications on Your Marketing
The best blogs always ask a question. For example, Social Media Examiner’s blog normally starts its articles with a question. Why?
(Did you see what I did there?)
Because it gets the reader to thinking about something you want them to start thinking about.
Sometimes people don’t understand that they need a certain question answered. Other times they already know they need a question answered, and you just reminded them.
Either way, the word “Why” reveals closure, an answer, and it shows people |
relationships with store owners, knowing someone that works for a distributor or checking every store in your town when a hot new release comes out. The majority of the time none of that matters because geography is the single biggest factor that decides if you’re getting that new limited edition bottle. Simply, some have it easier than others because it’s not a level playing field out there.
The U.S. government basically leaves it up to the states to decide how they manage their alcohol sales. Besides the federal overarching 3-tier system of distillery/distributor/store, 50 states means an almost endless amount of different laws that govern how consumers can buy their booze. All of these different laws can affect things like when a state gets shipments, how much they get, how soon they approve them for sale, and bottom-line consumer cost based on how much tax is levied.
Is there a true “best state to buy bourbon in?” Do some bourbon drinker have so many cards stacked against them that owning a bottle of BTAC or even a new release like I.W. Harper, Woodford Rye, or Blade & Bow is nothing more than a pipe dream?
A few of the main factors that determine if a state is favorable to bourbon buyers are timely releases, breadth of selection, how much the price deviates from MSRP, and the amount of limited releases that make it to a state.
It’s difficult to find many data points on these factors, so this is where the bourbon community will come in. Over the course of this living article we hope to track, adjust, and in the end make some general conclusions on which the best (and worst) states are to buy bourbon in.
In our initial research we have found one clear and obvious answer to our question, but we also realize how much more information is needed to present a clear understanding of the entire landscape. We have broken down the main factors below, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Community feedback is essential to understanding the true scope of the buying diversity in this country.A Ukrainian naval serviceman has been killed by Russian troops who stormed a military base in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, Interfax has claimed.
NBC's Ed Flanagan was first to break news of the assault:
The victim, a Ukrainian officer, was taken to hospital, according to the head of the Ukrainian navy, Serhiy Hayduk.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said: "One Ukrainian serviceman has been wounded in the neck and collarbone. Now we have barricaded ourselves on the second floor.
"The headquarters has been taken and the commander has been taken. They want us to put down our arms but we do not intend to surrender."
"We are being stormed. We have about 20 people here and about 10 to 15 others, including women," an unidentified serviceman told Fifth Channel television.
"One of our officers was wounded during the attack, grazed in the neck and arm."
According to reports, 15 Russian soldiers armed with shotguns and AK-47 stormed the military base.
It happened after Russian president Vladimir Putin and Crimean leaders signed a treaty to annex the Black Sea peninsula after the independence referendum.
British foreign secretary William Hague called the annexation of Crimea by Russia as a land grab. The Ukrainian foreign ministry said that it did not recognise the annexation treaty.
Prime minister David Cameron warned that President Putin's annexation of Crimea has sent a "chilling message" across the whole of Europe.The woman was filmed attacking the man with her breasts (Picture: FocusOn News)
A controversial video has emerged of a woman attacking a man with her breasts after she allegedly caught him staring at her.
The footage, taken in Ribeirao Preto city centre, south east Brazil, shows a young saleswoman, who had been handing out flyers, pinning a man to the ground with her foot as she accuses him of pestering her in public.
A crowd of onlookers watch as the woman shouts at the unidentified man on the pavement, telling him she is fed up of being ‘touched and sexually harassed while just doing her job.’
The man pleads for her to stop, claiming he ‘was out shopping with his wife and has done nothing wrong.’
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
But as the man protests his innocence the irate female, who is not named, shouts: ‘I’m fed up being treated like a sex object. Is it boobs you want?’
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She then strips off her top, exposing her breasts and seconds later straddles the supposed offender.
Bending over her alleged attacker, she slaps him around the face then proceeds to pummel his face with her bare chest.
Some onlookers support her actions and urge her on, while others are outraged with one woman shouting: ‘This is absurd, there is no justification for doing this. How can you do this in front of children in the city centre?
‘You’re disrespecting women with your actions.’
A crowd of onlookers watch as the woman shouts at the unidentified man on the pavement, telling him she is fed up of being ‘touched and sexually harassed while just doing her job.’ (Picture: FocusOn News)
Others say the woman is courageous and ‘this has humiliated and exposed the attacker.’
It comes as Hollywood sex assault allegations continue to shine the spotlight on unwelcome sexual advances in the workplace.
The incident was staged by a theatre crew at the end of last year in a bid to highlight the unwelcome attention that can often turn into sexually explicit and degrading comments.
Fausto Ribeiro, director of the Confluências group, creators of the piece said: ‘We wanted to expose and address something that happens every day to our sisters and female friends.
‘This was meant to challenge people’s perceptions and empower women with the shock tactic of retaliation. We wanted to force men to think more responsibly about their actions and the consequences.’
It comes as Hollywood sex assault allegations continue to shine the spotlight on unwelcome sexual advances in the workplace. (Picture: FocusOn News)
At the time of its posting, the video gained over a million views but was withdrawn after it was heavily criticised.
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It has since re-emerged amid the escalating Hollywood sex abuse scandal.
The high street company, whose tee-shirt the actor was wearing, denied any involvement in the incident.
In a statement the business said: ‘There was no involvement of any employee or representative in this theatrical action.’
MORE: Why ‘Jansporting’ is dangerous for students drinking too much
MORE: Twitter might be giving everyone 280 characters… so Donald Trump can really let fly. How to order: J ust select all the new items you want by checking the boxes, then click on the "Add to Bag" button at the bottom of each section to add them to your cart. Hurry! These limited edition shades will vanish without a trace at the stroke of midnight, all Hallows Eve, October 31....But they will magically reappear EVERY Friday the 13th! Ingredients: Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxides, Tin Oxide Some Colors May Contain: Ultramarine Blue, Ferric Ferrocyanide, Copper, Silica Full Size: 5 gram sifter jar $8.25 | Sample Baggie $1.00. skeptic trepidation unlucky supernatural this one will make a believer out of you! bright periwinkle with copper and pink iridescent color changing fire *not for use on lips metallic cinnamon hued copper with golden caramel highlights and pink glow soft metallic umber-rose with glowing pink/ red iridescence golden celadon green with orange/pink iridescence and fire Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Full Size Sample paranormal bad luck cursed spell blue green or is it green blue? simply put, its both and it's glistening with iridescent teal fire, too golden bronzed toffee with orange iridescence twinged with warm russet undertones soft sage green with golden red/orange highlights and color shifting blue fire chromatic cerulean blue with green iridecent fire and aqua glow *not for use on lips Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Full Size Sample accident "13" fate misfortune metallic copper lame with a dark undertone and gleaming metallic iridescent fire-Wetlines:RED! uh-oh...well, what would a friday the 13th collection be without this one? eerily mystical, it glows green and gold with orange highlights and iridescence color shifting deep ocean blue with a subtle dark undertone and aqua duochrome overtones metallic green/blue with gold iridescence Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Full Size Sample broken mirror paraskevidekatriaphobia shiny silver with green iridescence and multicolor fire New! Limited Edition: bright iridescent aqua with green highlights. Oh by the way, paraskevidekatriaphobia means "fear of Friday the 13th". How fun is that? Rumor has it that if you learn to pronounce it, you're cured. Full Size Sample Full Size Sample Add Friday the 13th colors to your bag ----> **THESE COLORS ARE ONLY AVAILABLE ON FRIDAY THE 13th DATES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR**CNN political analyst and New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman appeared as a panelist on Friday’s “New Day,” where she stated that Hillary Clinton supporters started the “birther” movement— conspiracy theories positing that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and thus isn’t legally eligible to be president.
Haberman says that the theories started in 2008 with supporters of Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign— when at the time, most conservatives were rejecting the issue
The revelation came about during a discussion of Donald Trump and the fact that Trump ally Rudy Giuliani recently stated that Trump now believes Obama was born in the U.S., a seeming reversal of his support of the “birther” movement.
Giuliani made the comments during an episode of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” telling host Chris Matthews:
“Donald Trump believes now that he was born in the United States, but that issue was raised originally- That issue was raised originally by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
After showing a clip of Giuliani’s “Hardball” appearance, “New Day” co-host Chris Cuomo asked, “Maggie Haberman, did Hillary Clinton start the birther movement?”
Haberman then made the implication that backers of Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid were behind it:
“There were some supporters of Hillary Clinton who started the birther movement. Hillary Clinton never talked about it. There was some internal memo that leaked at one point, and then it never went anywhere.”
The panel discussion continued but concentrated more on why Trump has not announced the reversal of his opinion himself and seemingly had Giuliani act as a surrogate in this respect.eBay has just posted a strange message up on the community homepage and press page of its daughter company, PayPal. The headline is a bit worrying, implying that eBay has possibly had some kind of security or maintenance problem, leading it to request all users to change their passwords. On the other hand, the body of the post (shown after the break) is empty except for the words "placeholder text," and nothing has yet been published on eBay's own site. We've contacted eBay's press office to find out what (if anything) is going down, but in the meantime it might be worth changing those passwords, just in case.
Update: We haven't heard anything back, but PayPal's website people seem to be in the process of removing the password message. It's gone from the community page and is now only visible on the press site, so it's looking increasingly likely that it was posted in error.
Update #2: Even if this morning's post was published early by accident, the underlying issue is genuine. eBay has just released an official statement confirming that it has been the victim of a hacker attack that "compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data." It does indeed recommend changing your password.New England Yearly Meeting has asserted two testimonies recently, and I am watching with keen interest how we go about accepting the challenge we’ve given ourselves. We sometimes forget all the tools Friends have used to make this happen. We have used these tools for centuries. They are the ways Friends teach, learn, experiment, and realize a testimony (in the sense of “make it real”).
It’s not only “going from words to life.” “Life,” the living out of the Spirit’s guidance, also tutors us in how to talk about, think about, understand, what we’ve been led to live. The divine Word is also divine act: creation’s Let there be!, now being enacted in the substance of our living: part of the mystery of Incarnation.
As you read this catalog (in the comments, add things I’ve missed!!!), I urge you to remember that “unity” around a testimony is not the same as “unanimity,” because each of us, in grappling with what the testimony means for us, will bring to it different constraints and resources. (We are all familiar with this, insofar as we have grappled with our living out of “simplicity” or “peace.”) These are not methods to force anyone’s conscience! In the Lamb’s War, we are to use the Lamb’s methods. I will return to this at the end of this post.
A. Meeting actions
1. Minutes. It’s glib to say that “it’s easy to pass a minute.” Anyone with a concern who’s worked to bring it to the meeting for business, and then participated patiently and persistently in the deliberation, debate, revisions, delays, questions, threshing and committee work that likely ensues before the meeting feels easy with the minute — such a Friend will say “What do you mean, ‘easy’?!” But in truth, how often a minute is passed by a meeting, and essentially no measurable change results in the lives of most of the members! Yet a minute can be a powerful starting point, a tool that equips us, gives us a way into the next layers of change and following. You could say that when a meeting has gotten to the point of affirming a statement on a matter, it has undergone something like convincement. How do we move then to conversion, not of “the meeting” in some abstract way, but of the meeting in all its members?
After all, a testimony is a way of saying “We are clear in this matter of what God’s will is for us, and consequently we can say that this should be characteristic of every Friend.” A minute codifies the understanding thus far, and should begin the work of grounding the witness not only in reason and present circumstance, but also in Friends theology and Scripture.
2. Meeting for business. In meetings where there are committees, we tend to delegate testimony work to one or another committee (Peace and social concerns, for example) or the Meeting on Ministry and Counsel. But a testimony is something that bears, to some extent, on all aspects of our group life and work, so even if it’s in right ordering to ask a particular standing or ad hoc committee to pay special attention to the testimony, all committees ought to explore its implications, from the point of view of the committee’s charge — and this can be a way to bring it “home” to the committee members, too.
But the meeting for business is a time of united worship, where as much of the body as possible is present together, and so the clerk can serve the meeting’s growth by finding room on the agenda for some consideration — even if it’s only a period of focused worship — of the testimony. This will be increasingly useful if other activities within the meeting are also exploring it in other ways. No action need be on the agenda, until it arises as a clear leading, and then gets taken into the “seasoning” processes. When we read the Queries at our meetings for business, we bring forward at least for that time something the Society has agreed is an important challenge, and so with a fresh testimony — the only result may be increased awareness, or some opening to ministry — but the issue is kept alive in the meeting’s mind.
3. Visiting committees. For most of our history, meetings at every level have felt it important from time to time to ask a few Friends to visit in homes under the weight of some concern. These visits can be educative in intent — making sure that each member is aware of the meeting’s commitment, and explaining how it came about, etc.. They can be information-gathering: Do you know about the meeting’s minute? What issues do you see? What do you think, what are you doing, what do you hope Friends will do, what might help you address and live into the testimony?
4. Threshing sessions. These seem to me sort of like meeting-sized worship-sharing, in which information can be passed, questions asked, issues raised – but in a spirit of worship. Meeting leadership should be present, and in addition to any other role, seek to feel the meeting’s condition, and to be on the lookout for indications that some other more specific work would be helpful (such as something else on this list!).
5. Meeting media — newsletters, announcements, list-servs, websites. Circulate the news until it’s not news to anyone in the meeting community.
6. Public declarations. Letters to the editor, to politicians, to area organizations; websites; epistles to other meetings, etc. To quote William Penn, when he was encouraging Friends in the ministry (in Rise and Progress, see the Library on this blog for a copy!):
Your country folks, neighbors, and kindred want to know the Lord and his truth, and to walk in it. Does nothing lie at your door on their account?
Being on the lookout for places to announce, articulate, perhaps defend, the testimony will do at least three important things which make for spiritual growth: First, it will challenge you to understand ever better what it is you’re led to, and why, and what the implications are beyond the nurturing confines of the meeting. Second, it may provide an occasion for a spiritual opening in any who encounter the declaration. The prophet’s words are certainly true of our times: I will send a famine on the land: not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. (Amos 8:11). Third, it may make you visible to others, in other communities, who are being led in a similar fashion, and so build a sense of unity between Friends and others.
7. Dedicated worship. Appoint a public meeting for worship with the specific concern to hold the testimony in prayerful consideration in the divine presence. The meeting might open with a reading of the key minute, but the whole tone here is not one of information sharing and deliberation, but waiting on the Lord, each in our current condition, with an expectation of guidance, solace, challenge, and accompaniment.
8. Naming and nurturing gifts. Concerns and testimonies are channeled through individual hearts and minds, and individuals’ “experiments with truth” (as Gandhi would say). Some Friends may find more laid on them than personal transformation; part of their faithfulness may require them to travel, or teach, or engage in a visiting ministry, or some other action. Does your meeting have a practice of noticing, identifying, encouraging, and overseeing gifts in ministry and service? If not, now’s the time to work one out! New England Yearly Meeting is rich in meetings and individuals who are experienced with this process, and there are of course a jillion things to read, too. If you don’t know where to begin, reach out to Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel, or the Yearly Meeting secretary, and say “We would like to get ready for when gifts are activated among us — who knows, maybe there are some already present, and we didn’t notice! Now we want to learn how to notice!” You will get lots of help! (Penn once again, talking about good and wise people who may be found in meetings — “yet it does not always follow, that they may have the room they deserve in the hearts of the people they live among…” May this not be true of your meeting!!!) If your meeting has not yet done this work, Now is the time! Penn again: Behold, how white the fields are unto harvest… and how few able and faithful laborers there are to work therein! This takes work, organization, persistence, hope, and information — and nothing is more urgently needed.
9. Clearness committees!
B. Acts of individual concern
P rayer. Everyone means something different by “prayer.” Start with your version, and bring the testimony (perhaps in the form of the originating minute) into your prayer intentionally — more than once, but patiently, openly, sweetly, expectantly. Now would be a good time to ask someone else in your meeting “What do you mean when you say ‘I’ll pray about it,’ or ‘I’ll hold it in the light'”” T alking with your friends. Just because a meeting for business has threshed an issue, and emitted a minute does not mean that you know what your friends think — or maybe even what you think. Dialogue and dialect are powerful and free! Opportunities. By this I mean “informal periods of worship with another Friend or Friends.” There are good guides for this practice, ancient among us, and somewhat revived over recent decades. One simple way to start: settle into worship for a while (± 20 minutes), and then in the quiet, cleansed atmosphere created by such intimate worship, slowly surface and ask the question, or name the issue, closest to your heart. Following leadings in ministry. Be on the lookout for a sense that a concern has been laid on you. Hold it steadily in prayer and reflection, until some clarity about the leading, and the first step you should take to follow it. Then bring it to a discerning Friend or two, and as the way opens, bring it to the meeting for clarity, support, oversight. Don’t let it go until the leading is definitely taken from you! Once again,there are plenty of people and books to consult, as you begin and go on in the work, as it is given you to take part. Your meeting should have resources about this (see A8 above) — if it doesn’t, well, I will repeat myself: Now is the time! Behold, how white the fields are unto harvest… and how few able and faithful laborers there are to work therein! This takes work, organization, persistence, hope, and information — and nothing is more urgently needed. Seeking to understand how this testimony is rooted in the whole edifice of your faith. Study, think, explore, dream, listen.
The point, Friends, is that — in our testimonies of simplicity, abolition, and everything else — we have needed all of these and others I have not added to the list. “Success” means that every Friend can see the importance of the testimony, and sees that they cannot ignore it.
To put it in terms of the NEYM Climate Change minute: Not everyone will be called to make climate change their first priority, to drop everything else to work on that. Jesus did not say “Sell all you have and give it to the poor” to everyone he spoke with! But we have been led as a body to unity, to a unified statement that, to the extent we understand the Divine will for us, this issue must be incorporated into our understanding of the Gospel as held by Friends, and none of us is free to ignore it — just as we accept that it is our responsibility to come to worship with hearts and minds prepared. What that looks like will vary, and most of us have misgivings that we are not as faithful as we can be; but that discontent can be a God-sent goad, preserving us from complacency, and keeping the door open to fresh responses to the divine initiatives that may come to us inwardly, or from the witness or words of others. The two watchwords on my mind this morning as I write this are: Behold, I stand at the door and knock and to turn ourselves and all we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the chief business of our lives. The listening and the following, the seeing and the turning take preparation of our selves and our beloved communities. We have the resources, we have the Teacher, we have each other— let’s be about the work!
AdvertisementsA relief well being drilled deep into the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico to shut down the gushing oil well could be completed ahead of a long-set deadline of mid-August only if conditions are ideal, government and BP officials said Thursday.
National Incident Commander and retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Thursday that the relief well is expected to intercept and penetrate the Deepwater Horizon well pipe about 18,000 feet below sea level within seven to 10 days.
But they won't know how long it will take to stop the oil until they get there. The gushing well has several rings, and oil could be coming up through multiple rings, Allen said.
The plan is to pump heavy mud and then cement into the well to overcome the upward pressure of the huge oil reservoir below.
If the oil is coming through the outer ring of the well, then they will have to pump in mud and cement to stop that layer first. Then they would have to drill through the hardened cement and repeat the process in each ring until they reach the center pipe and do it again.
That scenario would push into the middle of August, which is the timeline the company and government officials have held to for weeks, despite repeated reports that the drilling was ahead of schedule and the oil could be stopped as soon as late July.
"If you have to exhaust all means for the ways that hydrocarbons are coming up the pipe, then that puts you into middle August," Allen said.
If the oil is only coming up the center pipe, then it's possible to stop the leak sooner. BP spokesman Scott Dean said late July has been suggested as a completion time if everything is ideal. A single major storm is enough to cause delays. That's why the company is sticking with mid-August.
The relief well is currently the best hope for stanching the oil leak sparked by the April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and began an environmental catastrophe for the region.
Shaving even days off the mid-August timeline would stop millions of gallons of oil from escaping into the Gulf. The broken well has spewed between 86 and 169 million gallons of oil, according to federal estimates. That's enough oil to fill about 3.4 million standard bathtubs.
The weather will have to cooperate. Lingering tropical weather that began last week with the faraway Hurricane Alex halted offshore skimming operations and caused high seas that have delayed the hookup of a third vessel expected to suck oil from the gushing well head.
Another tropical depression formed in the Gulf on Wednesday and was closely following the path of Alex to the coast at the border of Texas and Mexico. It was expected to have a minimal effect on the eastern Gulf.The highly anticipated fantasy MMORPG Black Desert Online released just two months ago. If you’re still on the edge about buying the game or not, we have good news: Wccftech partnered with Daum Games Europe in order to organize this Guest Pass giveaway! We have 2K codes allowing you to play the game freely for a week; afterwards, if you choose to purchase Black Desert Online, you will be able to continue your progress right where you left.
The keys will work for people in USA, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Nordics, Benelux, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Australia, and New Zealand.
Black Desert Online Guest Pass Giveaway
Redemption instructions:
1. Go to blackdesertonline.com/shop/code
2. Make an account (if you don’t have one yet)
3. Redeem key
4. Download client from your account
5. Have fun in exploring Black Desert Online!
Korean developer Pearl Abyss also shared the following roadmap for future Black Desert Online updates:
Maritime content – There will be naval combat (guilds can build boats and fight each other)
Merchant ships and battleships
Major oceans will be added to the world and you need to navigate by use of compass and sea charts + intercontinental trade nodes
Navigation – a new category of leveling earned by water navigation and/or naval combat
It will be possible to dive for treasure, and partake underwater exploration
Dark Elf class and the Kamasilvia region will be added (land of elves). Grandir is the capital city and the land is governed by two queens, Brolina from the Ganelle clan and Herawen who are in charge of domestic and foreign affairs.
Dregan region will be added (the land of Giants)
New horse tier 9!
Deepening and expansion of professions and crafting
Character AwakeningsThe Alabama Public Service Commission kicked off a meeting on power rates last week with a prayer against gay marriage and reproductive rights. John Delwin Jordan, who was at the meeting to testify on behalf of the Prattville Tea Party, opened up the meeting in prayer after receiving a laudatory introduction by Twinkle Cavanaugh, the head of the PSC.
After asking attendees if they believed in the power of prayer, Jordan concluded his prayer by lamenting, “We’ve taken you out of our schools; we’ve taken you out of our prayers; we’ve murdered your children; we’ve said it’s OK to have same-sex marriage, God. We have sinned.”
Birmingham News columnist John Archibald writes that the sectarian, political prayer may have helped Cavanaugh frame the debate over the PSC’s pro-corporate bent:The ultimate goal of virtual reality developers is to recreate the holodeck, first named and shown in Star Trek The Next Generation. In a new video feature on The Verge, the web site is given a tour of Microsoft's Edison Labs where the goal of the creators is to create truly realistic looking 3D virtual environments without the need for glasses.
Stevie Bathiche, who is the director of research at Microsoft's applied sciences lab, shows off several different types of technology that his group is creating. One is a hardware set up that projects LED light to a person's eyes. The setup apparently uses a Kinect to detect a person's head movement. The video shows the final result, although there's really no way to experience the full effect via a 2D video. There's another demo in the video that shows a larger display that moves its image when the user moves.
Bathiche hints that Microsoft has some cooler tech ideas in the works in this kind of virtual environment genre but it's still not ready to be seen by the public.Today’s guest post is by animal technologist, Jazzminn Hembree, who explains why she became an animal technologist and what her job involves. If you enjoy this, also check out an older post by Kelly Walton, DVM, where she explains why she became an animal veterinarian.
I’ll start by introducing myself, my name is Jazzminn Hembree and I am a certified laboratory animal technologist. I started in this field when I was 17 as a student helper at the University of Cincinnati, simply because all I wanted to do was work with animals. I graduated high school from Live Oaks CDC with a certificate in Animal Science and Management. Since then I have worked in several positions within animal research, I have been privileged to be co-author on several papers, present data, earn certifications, and do something that I love every day. I could not see myself working in any other field.
Growing up, I always said I wanted to be a veterinarian and open my own clinic. Things have changed. Once I saw the possibilities available when I got into an animal facility, I knew this was my niche. I am inspired by the science behind it, and am passionate about the animals I work with. I have to admit that up until now I have been nervous to tell people what I do, people don’t understand animal research. I think this needs to change, we need to be more open and transparent about what we do, but we have to do so in a responsible manner.
Let me explain what a certified laboratory animal technologist is in the US is. Laboratory Animal Technologist (LATG) is the highest level of certification available through the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS). There are three certification levels: first, Assistant Laboratory animal technician (ALAT), second, Laboratory Animal Technician (LAT), and third, Laboratory Animal Technologist (LATG).
“The future of the profession and biomedical science depends on promoting the benefits of biomedical research through public outreach and ensuring that high-quality training and education programs and materials are available for those working in the profession of laboratory animal science.” – AALAS Public Outreach website
As a Laboratory Animal Technologist today: I work closely with the research staff, the veterinarian, and the facility director to provide excellent care for the animals so the researchers can collect accurate and sound data. My job is to provide the daily care, such as health monitoring, feed and water, properly disinfect and sterilize equipment, and prepare work areas. I also assist in technical procedures such as blood draws and injections, as well as health treatments. Occasionally I might have to monitor the animals’ weight and or size, or food and water consumption. As a team, my co-workers and I are required to keep up to date and accurate documentation for the facility operations. I also assist the supervisor and director with the quality assurance monitoring by testing surfaces to ensure cleanliness, as well as the training of new students and employees within the facility.
Now that you have an idea of what I do I’ll get to ‘How could I work in this field if I love animals so much’? This may sound odd to some, but I do it because I love the animals. I know what we are doing is not only helping humans but also other animals. How would we ever know how to treat a sick pet if we hadn’t researched the disease and tested the treatments? I get to care for and handle animals on a daily basis. I am able to help a sick animal get well again. I know what I am doing today is going to help someone tomorrow. I believe these animals should be respected and honored for what they provide us. I know it is portrayed that the animals in a research facility are sad, distressed, hurting, and scared; frankly this is just not the case. Research animals are loved and cared for better than some companion animals. These rats are not at risk of diseases, they are not scrounging for food or shelter, they are provided sterile food and water, a clean environment, temperature and light controlled rooms, and have caretakers to care for and love them.
I have been on both sides of research, I have worked as a technician doing the daily cleaning and in a lab performing the studies and collecting the data. I know the importance the animal model is to the science, and have seen the outcomes. I was in a lab which mainly studied diabetes and metabolic diseases as a part of a team collaborating with a pharmaceutical company for many years. Having diabetic friends and family, I felt what I was doing could help save their lives one day. I am proud of the papers we published; in fact we won the 2014 Journal of Peptide Science Best Publication Award. I could not be more honored to be part of such a great group of people at the time. I then worked in another lab for a short time in which I was part of the Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Core, in which we worked on characterizing mouse models in support of quality research. I am now back to working on the daily care side of research with a new perspective of what our job and the animals provide to the researchers and their data.
I hope to share with everyone my strong belief that education, such as technical aining, competency in research procedures, and knowledge of the laws and regulations, are what keep the animals healthy, and results in effective, accurate research data. As I continue to work on my education, I want to inspire others to do the same. I also want to inform people of the critical importance of animal research. I believe the motives and caring nature of the people who take care of the laboratory animals, as well as the laws and the regulations we follow, are misunderstood by many which leads to the impression of cruelty. There are many institutions, regulations, and guidelines established to protect the welfare of the animals used in research. Research institutions are guided by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), Public Health and Safety (PHS) Policy on the Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW), as well as the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. I believe we, as a field, are failing to educate the general public in the laws and regulations we must follow to protect the animals in our care. As an animal lover myself, I understand the fear the general public has about animal research. What we do in research is very similar to the practices your veterinarian does, we are just trying to come up with new procedures and medications and answer questions to advance both the veterinary field as well as the medical field. I believe part of my job as a Laboratory Animal Technologist is not only to be an advocate for the welfare of laboratory animals and ensure that we follow all regulations and guidelines, but also to teach others the importance of the work being done.
Jazzminn Hembree, LATGHow to summarise Hayao Miyazaki in a few words? Brilliant, magical, ecologist, fantastic, cultural, wise, a true master of his art: animation. The Japanese director is one of the most iconic and undisputed great film directors of our times. Over a career than spanned five decades, Miyazaki has vowed to enchant, mesmerise and enlighten the viewers willing to delve into the master’s lyrical worlds.
From his first major hit Nausicaä in 1984, Miyazaki has been extraordinarily consistent in the quality, the richness and the freshness of his following features, building one of the most accomplished filmography in cinema’s history made of strong testament films to educate the world and its people (Nausicaä, Mononoke, The Wind Rises), delightful stories (Kiki, Ponyo, Totoro) and beautiful adventures (Laputa, Howl’s Castle, Spirited Away, Porco Rosso).
In this beginner’s guide of Hayao Miazaki we will browse through the Japanese director’s most important works outlining his style, the themes dear to him and the brushes of magic he graced the Seventh Art with.
Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind (1984)
Nausicaä is the first major work of Miyazaki and perhaps the most important piece of work of the director. After finding its definite drawing style through the intensive study of the French animated film Le Roi et L’oiseau (the King and the Mockingbird) by Paul Grimault in the early |
decide what's illegal.
“PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity,” the company said on its blog.
Fortunately, WikiLeaks is not without friends. Amongst them are the international Pirate Parties, which put freedom of information online as top priority on their political agenda.
The Swiss Pirate Party has registered wikileaks.ch and obtained assurances from SWITCH, the.ch ccTLD operator, that there is no basis for domain suspension under the current situation.
Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned the attacks on WikiLeaks and the threats made by American officials against Assange, calling them a danger to the freedom of expression and net neutrality.
Anonymous also stepped up and decided to respond to retaliate to attacks against WikiLeaks. The group is known for not holding back on using illegal means to achieve its goals.
“While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same: we want transparency (in our case in copyright) and we counter censorship,” the group said in a statement, according to Panda Security.
“The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and not express how we feel. We can not let this happen,” it added.
The first target for its signature DDoS attacks was PayPal’s blog, which has been down for several hours already.Hitman: Absolution - Elite Edition for Mac now out in the field
15 May 2014
Hitman: Absolution – Elite Edition, the first Hitman game ever to be released for the Mac, is available now from the Feral Store, Steam*, the Mac App Store and other fine Mac game retailers.
Take on the role of Agent 47, a genetically-engineered killer equipped with extraordinary reflexes, creative stealth techniques and a powerful arsenal of weapons. As Agent 47, you’ll use your skill and ingenuity to turn assassination into an art.
Hitman: Absolution - Elite Edition is the complete package, containing all previously released additional content, including the standalone hit Hitman: Sniper Challenge, a “making of” documentary and a 72-page artbook.*
The Hitman: Absolution - Elite Edition minisite has been declassified, report straight away for a full mission briefing.
Good hunting.I have to make one quick note before we begin: it’s important to remember that your goals for an eco round on T-side aren’t the same as they are during gun rounds -- you’re trying to cause economic damage to the enemy team to prevent them from establishing their economy, while simultaneously building your own economy through bomb plants.
In an eco round, you need to adjust your definition of “winning” -- if your team kills 2-3 CTs and/or gets a bomb plant during an eco round, then it’s a success.
It's tempting to call for a rush into a random site, hoping you'll score a lucky frag or two and potentially be able to get a plant. Part of what makes the eco round such a fascinating gameplay mechanic is that it allows you to adjust your playstyle and discover new and exciting ways to play rounds -- you can do things that you would never risk doing during an actual gun round, because you haven't made a massive economic investment in the outcome. If you play an eco round well, it can mean the difference between losing a game and winning a game.
So, let's start off by looking at a strategy that seems to lack much in the way of depth or finesse and figure out how to turn it into a viable and potentially round-winning strategy.
Strat #1: Rush Z Connector
“ALL MID, ALL MID, ALL MID!"
Your team is going to fully commit to rushing mid with glocks/P250s and no kevlar. There is a single goal at the start of this round: to get as many Terrorists into the Z connector as possible. The difference between most “eco rush” strats for the Terrorist side and this one is that you’re not attacking a bombsite, you’re focusing your offensive efforts on a single isolated member of the Counter-Terrorist team and gaining control of a dynamic and powerful position on the map. If the Terrorist team has full control of both Z and Mid, they are able to attack either bombsite easily, and, furthermore, are now equipped to deny the fastest and safest rotation route for CTs between the two sites.
Recommended Utility Grenades:
- 1 player with two flashes and a smoke grenade
- 2 players each with one flash of their own
However! I would like to point out that this strategy is highly situational, and is best used under the following conditions:
- You lost a bunch of rounds in a row, won one, and then lost the next one, so you have to full eco in the middle of the half.
- You know the enemy team has an AWP that likes to play Mid from Z connector or White Box.
- If the CTs have been using a 2-1-2 setup for their defense (2 players on A, 1 player Mid, and 2 players B).
- You understand that you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Your entire team goes into Garage on your side of Mid. If the exit to Mid is smoked off, wait it out. One player should be preparing to throw two flashes into Mid -- once the flashes are announced and thrown, the charge begins immediately.
Your primary focus needs to be on getting into Z, so it’s important that you don’t get distracted or killed by a CT on highway. Throw one smoke onto Highway, followed by a flash or two, if they’re still available.
Once the AWPer calls that 5 players are rushing Mid, the fastest place that the CT side can offer support to the AWPer from is Highway. Thus, the line of sight towards Mid through Highway is obscured, and the Counter-Terrorist in Z is fully isolated, meaning that your team is now able to safely close the distance without having to worry about being attacked from another angle.
Once your team has moved into Z, you have a free AWP. Congratulations! However, if the AWPer falls back from Z after seeing you (which is the smart play in this situation), follow them and keep shooting until they’re dead. This goes back to some Counter-Strike fundamentals -- the easiest way to counter an AWPer is to rush them down. Even if they pull out a pistol as you get closer, a lone Counter-Terrorist will be decimated by four close-range Glock spamming Terrorists nine times out of ten.
Now, let’s say that three of your team members survived your journey across Mid. Although there’s no set play for how to handle the rest of the round, here are the two options that I’ve found work fairly well.
- Attack B through Tree Room and Heaven, and secure a fast plant. Depending on how well the other team is communicating, you might be able to catch one of the CTs that are holding B by surprise and score another free kill. If you have enough teammates alive, one should hold a defensive position in CT Spawn to cut off or delay the rotation from A.
- Throw away the AWP. I know, you really want to hold onto it, but if you lost 3 teammates while crossing Mid, you’re almost certainly not going to win the round, which means that the CTs will get their AWP back as soon as you die. Find a place to throw the sniper rifle where it can’t be retrieved before the end of the round (such as deep in CT spawn or on top of one of the props in tree room), and the enemy team will have to re-invest $4750 if they want an AWP. Again, this is situational. If you're in a 5 v 3 (your favor) after crossing Mid, then it's a good idea to hang onto the AWP and see how the round plays out. But if you're in, say, a 2 v 4, then it's time to cut your losses and toss the AWP away.
One possible variant is to have one player on your team lurking in B halls while the rest of you run towards Z. That way, after you make it through Z and start attacking the B bombsite, you’re able to attack through three different angles; Heaven, Tree Room, and B Main (or Checkers). If you choose to go with this variation, the smokes and flashes for Highway are a requirement for limiting the amount of damage you sustain while attacking Z.
The short-lived NA mix team Torqued used this strat to great effect in several games played during early 2015. In this POV video from Joshua “steel” Nissan’s Twitch stream, Torqued, who were now on match point (15 - 12), originally planned to rush highway from mid, but he made a call for the team to all go Z. Once they had secured control of Z, one of the Ts set up a lurking position in Mid, and managed to pick off two rotating CTs. One of the A defenders tried to attack the Terrorists in CT spawn from Truck, and met his demise. Another teammate, who had made his way up to Heaven on B site, was able to score another kill, meaning that Torqued was left in a 4 v 1 and managed to not only win the round, but the game itself.
I would, however, point out, that this is an incredibly easy strat for the CT defense to counter without even meaning to -- if there are two CTs defending Mid, or if the CT guarding Z has an M4 instead of an AWP, or, even worse, if the CTs are defending Mid with three players, then your army of Glocks will meet a very quick demise.
Strat #2: Rush B, Please Stop
“B B B B B B B -- wait, it’s planted A?”
This one is a simple fake, but it works almost every time. 4 brave Terrorists push into B halls, spamming Tec-9s, Glocks, or P250s at B Main and hopefully baiting a CT into peeking them. Meanwhile, the other terrorist (who has been given the bomb), slowly walks into the Squeaky door hallway and waits. The players in B halls need to let themselves be spotted by one of the CTs on B -- their goal is to make it look like they’re messing up a B rush and draw out an overrotation off of A, thereby letting the player in Squeaky sneak out onto the site and get a free bomb plant.
This eco strat is a good choice for when you’re on a full save and the enemy knows it. An overrotation off of the A bombsite is much more likely when the enemy team knows that the Ts are going to be lacking rifles and/or armor, partially because almost everyone gets hungry for eco-frags, and partially because there’s nothing particularly suspicious about Ts opting for a B rush when they’re eco-ing.
Things to consider:
- This strat relies on your teammates in B halls to be spotted by the CTs on site AND stay alive long enough for the other team to either partially or fully rotate off of the A bombsite. If everyone dies in B halls immediately to the CTs that are holding the site, then you’re less likely to pull a full rotation off of A.
- The sound cue from opening Squeaky will alert CTs to your presence if they’re still hanging around on site, so you’ll have to plant fast -- check Quad/Forklift and go for the fastest and safest plant you can. Commit to the plant, even if you hear the footsteps of a rabid mob of CTs approaching.
- There’s always a chance that one of the CTs will decide to rotate through Squeaky over to B after your teammates have been spotted--most people would go through A main for this rotation, but people (especially in MM) are unpredictable. There isn’t a whole lot the bomb carrier can do to counter this, other than hope you manage to catch the CT with their guard down and take them out with your pistol before running to the site and planting immediately.
- Following your team’s initial aggression towards the site, and after you’ve been spotted, falling back to sun room or the part of B halls that connects to the Mid warehouse is a great way to convince the enemy that you really just suck at B rushes - which is the play that you’re trying to convince them you’re doing. Teammates should occasionally peek out and fire off shots towards the site. Don’t give them any reason to think that you have a presence anywhere else on the map.
- If you’re playing against a disciplined CT team, it’s common for one player to remain watching A site from a position like Truck while the rest of the team rotates. But even if this lone defender hears the sound cue from the door opening, there’s a very small window of time in which they’re able to stop you from planting. Yes, you will probably die immediately afterwards, but you got the plant, and that was the whole point.
Na’Vi actually pulled this one off in their ESL ESEA Pro League game against EnVyUs on June 11th, 2015. It worked perfectly, and you can watch the full round play out here if you're interested.
****
Both of these strats are incredibly simple, and are easy to do in a PUG or MM if your team is communicating-- there aren’t any complicated timings, no complicated smokes to line up and coordinate, or anything of that sort, so they’re perfect for playing with a group of strangers. And, as both Na’Vi and Torqued have proved, they can also work in higher level CS. Happy fragging!
Got comments, ideas, or feedback? I’d love to hear what you have to say. You can find me on twitter (@jpcorner) or just drop a comment below and I'll read it.
Are you into fantasy leagues? Then check out AlphaDraft and put together your allstar lineup!A German 'Pfaelzer Saumagen' sausage is sliced in the southern German town of Landau November 8, 2006. Staff at a German butcher's shop were shocked to discover a customer had hidden two sex toys in their sausages for transport to Dubai, police said on Wednesday. REUTERS/Alex Grimm
BERLIN (Reuters) - Staff at a German butcher’s shop were shocked to discover a customer had hidden two sex toys in their sausages for transport to Dubai, police said on Wednesday.
“It was two latex dildos with a natural look,” said a spokesman for police in the southwestern city of Mannheim.
After shopping there earlier in the day, the man, who spoke broken English, returned to the butcher’s with two large “Schwartenmagen” sausages. He asked a shop assistant to wrap and cool them until he departed for Dubai the next day.
But the assistant noticed the goods had got heavier and alerted police. Officers discovered the man, who was about 50, had removed some of the meat and packed the dildos inside.
“He could have used a loaf of bread,” the spokesman said. “It’s not against the law here. But obviously I can’t speculate on what customs in Dubai will have to say about it.”Image copyright Getty Images
Economic growth in Scotland is expected to pick up pace and match the UK-wide performance next year, according to a report.
The EY Scottish Item Club forecast puts GDP growth north of the border at 1.4% for 2018, equalling the UK figure.
That suggests a significant improvement on 2017, with the report predicting Scottish growth of 0.8% for this year.
Household spending is expected to be a key driver behind the stronger performance.
However, the report warned its forecast assumed that some of the uncertainty over Brexit will ease next year, leading to increased business confidence and investment.
It added: "If there is not progress in 2018 towards a transition arrangement, then that would be likely to affect our forecast for the year."
Greater clarity
The item club also forecast a weakening of employment growth in Scotland next year, slowing to 0.4% and stagnating the following year, after a strong performance in 2017.
Looking further into the future, the report forecast an annual average Scottish economic growth rate of 1.7% a year to 2022, below a projection of 2% a year for the UK over the same period.
EY chief economist Mark Gregory said: "The longer-term, five-year growth projections act as a reminder that the pace of growth comparable to the rest of the UK can be difficult to maintain and an enduring focus on how to grow Scotland's economy must be a priority.
"Unsurprisingly, Brexit is the biggest unknown factor in Scotland's immediate economic future.
"If uncertainty around this issue eases and government can provide greater clarity for business, we can hope to see an increase in business confidence and investment.
"This will undoubtedly be assisted by government and business working together, harder and smarter than before."Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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Facts are stubborn things, as John Adams famously said. Unless, that is, you’re talking about religion. Then facts don’t seem to matter at all: right you are if you think you are. The Hobby Lobby case was billed as a test of religious freedom versus the power of the state: Did the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) mean that David Green, the evangelical Christian CEO of a chain of crafts stores, could be exempt from providing coverage for the full range of contraceptives for his employees under the Affordable Care Act? Green balked at including Plan B, Ella (another form of emergency contraception) and two kinds of IUD, because, he claimed, they caused “abortion” by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg. Ad Policy
The Court’s 5-to-4 decision—which featured all three women justices ruling for the workers, and all five Catholic men ruling for the corporation—was wrong in many ways. But the thing I really don’t understand is why it didn’t matter that preventing implantation is not “abortion,” according to the accepted medical definition of the term. And even if it was, Plan B, Ella and the IUDs don’t work that way, with the possible exception of one form of IUD when inserted as emergency contraception. As an amicus brief from a long list of prestigious medical organizations and researchers laid out at length, studies show that emergency contraception and the IUD prevent fertilization, not implantation. They are not “abortifacients,” even under the anti-choicers’ peculiar definition of abortion. (Green is actually more moderate than some anti-choicers, who include hormonal contraception, aka “baby pesticide,” as abortion.) Why doesn’t it matter that there is no scientific evidence for Green’s position? When did Jesus become an Ob/Gyn?
For five members of the Supreme Court to accept a canard that happens to accord with their oft-expressed anti-choice views suggests that their sympathies from the outset lay with the anti-choice CEO and not his women employees. What about those workers’ religious freedom? The decision means that the government cannot compel a CEO to violate his religious beliefs, but a CEO can violate the religious beliefs of his workers. How is that fair? But then, it was a bad day all around at the Court for women and workers. In Harris v. Quinn, the same five justices ruled that home health aides, even when paid by Medicaid, are only “quasi public” employees, which means that those who refuse to join a union don’t have to share in the costs, even though all workers will benefit from union victories. Ninety percent of these aides are women, whose ability to bargain collectively will now be significantly weakened.
Where will it all end? “It is not for us to say that their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial,” Justice Alito writes. There is no limit to religious requirements and restrictions in our land of a thousand “faiths.” Several companies have already filed cases that object to all forms of contraception, not just the four singled out by Hobby Lobby, and the day after the decision the Court clarified that its ruling applied to all methods. And why draw the line on legal exemptions at religion anyway? Plenty of foolish parents now risk their children’s lives and the public’s health because they reject vaccines on “philosophical” grounds. What happens when Aristotle, the CEO, claims that birth control—or psychotherapy or organ transplants—goes against his “philosophy”?
Justice Alito’s opinion is canny. Slippery slope? No problem: “our decision in these cases is concerned solely with the contraceptive mandate. Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs.” He specifically mentions vaccines, blood transfusions and protection from racial discrimination as being in no danger, but he gives no argument about why Hobby Lobby’s logic would never apply. In other words, birth control is just different. Of course, it’s about women. Anyone could need a blood transfusion, after all, even Alito himself. And it’s about powerful Christian denominations, too, to which this Court slavishly defers—for example, in the recent decision finding no discrimination in the Christian prayers that routinely open town council meetings in Greece, New York.
As Ruth Bader Ginsburg argues in her stirring dissent, there’s “little doubt that RFRA claims will proliferate, for the Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood—combined with its other errors in construing RFRA—invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith.” The reason it’s unlikely the Supreme Court would uphold a religious exemption for vaccinations or blood transfusions is not something intrinsic to those claims; it’s simply that Alito finds them weird. Birth control is banned by the Bible? Sure. Blood transfusions are banned by the Bible? Don’t be silly. For now. We have no idea, really, how far the Court might be willing to extend RFRA. Could a CEO refuse to pay childbirth costs for unmarried women? Could he pay married men more because that’s what the Lord wants? (Actually, he’s probably already doing that.) But here’s my prediction: the day a religious exemption burdens by so much as a mouse’s whisker the right of men to protect their own bodies from unwanted, well, anything, is the day the Supreme Court Five discover that religion is not so deserving of deference after all.
It would be nice to think this ruling, which applies only to “closely held corporations,” will affect few women. Unfortunately, these are not just sweet little family businesses. As Ginsburg noted, some are huge—Dell, Cargill, Mars. Altogether, they employ some 52 percent of the workforce. True, most either offer contraception coverage already or are exempt because they employ fewer than fifty workers, but who’s to say what the future holds? Companies change hands, CEOs find Jesus—or Allah or Thoth or L. Ron Hubbard. It’s not reassuring that a CEO’s views of a fertilized egg get deference today, but workers’ contraceptive coverage is left to the fates.Football season is back this weekend, so we’ve picked out four players who we think will have a big impact this week.
Hull start off the season with a home game to Huddersfield, which they will view as a winnable game, given they were a Premier League side this time last year. Despite selling Robbie Brady and James Chester for a combined £16m, they have made a few impressive signings and look like a side capable of going straight back up. Chuba Akpom is a talented forward who could make the difference this season. Though he’s never scored a professional goal, his record at youth international level is superb, and he has shown flashes of real ability. Arsenal, and Akpom himself, will be hoping a spell at Hull will do him a world of good.
If Akpom can find the finishing ability to match his physical prowess, he will be a frightening player for any Championship defence.
Wolves’ front line was talked about a lot last year, as they tore through defences with incredible pace and power, with all of them able to score goals. Though they’ve lost Bakary Sako, who embodied everything about that front line, they’ve brought in Sheyi Ojo from Liverpool. Liverpool have high hopes for Ojo, who they are hoping follows the path of Sterling and Ibe into their first team. It could be a coup for Wolves to bring him in on loan, and it would appear that he’ll play on the left of the three.
Wolves harbour hopes of promotion this year, but face a difficult opening game away to Blackburn. Sheyi Ojo could be the difference this weekend, so keep your eye out for him.
One player we’re excited to see this season is Joe Garner of Preston. Jermaine Beckford was the hero at Wembley, but Garner’s record is fantastic and it will be very interesting to see if he can carry it on at a higher level. He’s had spells in this league before, but he’s established at Preston and part of a successful side that have gone up, so he will be hoping that this time he can make his mark. At 27, if he scores goals at the rate he did last year, he might get a chance to play in the Premier League – but for now, he’ll be worried about keeping Preston up.
Preston came up via the playoffs, so will not be expected to do much this year. With the help of their strikeforce they could surprise quite a few people next year.
Finally, we look at Reading, who face a difficult start away to Birmingham. Nobody’s quite sure how good Rowett’s side will be, so Reading could have a good chance to start their campaign extremely well. Their most interesting acquisition was that of former Fulham striker Orlando Sa. Sa’s record in the last two years is impressive, however he hadn’t been prolific until a move to AEL Limassol in Greece. He scored 14 in 33 last season for Legia Warsaw, but clearly Reading have seen something in the forward. It will be very interesting to see how he does at Reading, given he never made a name for himself at Fulham.
Sa is a very interesting buy, and will be an interesting watch this year.Starbreeze Studios, the developer behind the Payday series of games, has just surprised the world by unveiling their own VR headset, known as Project StarVR.
The new VR headset will be shown off at E3 this week, alongside Overkill Software's upcoming shooter based on The Walking Dead. Starbreeze has acquired French VR hardware developer InfinitEye, with InfinitEye turning into Starbreeze Paris. Moving onto StarVR itself, which is sporting a huge 210-degree horizontal field of view, with a resolution of 5120x1440, courtesy of its dual 5.5-inch panels.
StarVR is really upping the ante on VR headsets, offering gamers immersive orientation and positional tracking as it features a plethora of gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers, and an optical tracking system. The developer teased a shotgun prop that was tracked positionally, so just imagine that in The Walking Dead game for a minute.
Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson Klint said: "The landscape of entertainment is rapidly transforming. Experiences are moving from linear to user-determined, pushing storytelling to responsive and inclusive formats. The virtual reality setting allows us to completely immerse our players in our games. Starbreeze is on the frontier of VR development and we see it as a new platform ready for AAA experiences in games such as Overkill's The Walking Dead".
He added: "Virtual Reality is here to stay and will skyrocket the world of entertainment to a completely new level. At Starbreeze, we are set to be one of the frontrunners of this ground breaking development, bringing the next generation entertainment experiences to reality".U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker stated in a ruling unsealed last week:
"The (subpoena's) chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America. Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon's customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases," the judge wrote in a ruling he unsealed last week.
For their part, Amazon.com said in their court documents that they hope Judge Crocker’s decision will make it more difficult from here on out for prosecutors to obtain records involving book purchases. But, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil conceded no such ground, commenting on Tuesday that he doubted the ruling would hamper any further legitimate investigations.
For me, the operative word there is "legitimate."
Wednesday’s International Herald Tribune has the troubling story:
Crocker — who unsealed documents detailing the showdown against prosecutors' wishes — said he believed prosecutors were seeking the information for a legitimate purpose. But he said First Amendment concerns about freedom of speech were justified and outweighed the subpoena's law enforcement purpose. "The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote. "It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else." Federal prosecutors issued the subpoena last year as part of a grand jury investigation into a former Wisconsin official who was a prolific seller of used books on Amazon.com. They were looking for buyers who could be witnesses in the case.
The official in question, Robert D’Angelo, was indicted last month on money laundering, fraud and tax evasion charges. According to prosecutors, D’Angelo ran a used book business out of his city office and did not report any income from the venture. He’s since pleaded not guilty to the charges. Apparently, D’Angelo sold books through the Amazon Marketplace feature, and then buyers paid Amazon, who extracted a commission from the process.
Vaudreuil said:
"We didn't care about the content of what anybody read. We just wanted to know what these business transactions were. These were simply business records we were seeking to prove the case of fraud and tax crimes against Mr. D'Angelo."
Amazon turned over many records but refused to identify the book buyers, citing their right to keep their customers’ reading habits private, when served with the subpoena, requesting records of 24,000 transactions dating back to 1999. Later on, apparently, prosecutors pared down the scope of the subpoena substantially, asking Amazon for a much trimmed 120 customer identities.
To their credit, Amazon.com stood firm, and obviously Judge Crocker saw through the suddenly mitigated postulation and attached appropriate (un)importance to the government’s request. Instead, Crocker proposed a compromise in which Amazon.com would send out letters to the 24,000 customers in question describing the government’s investigation and request, and asking anyone of them wishing to cooperate, to voluntarily contact prosecutors if interested in testifying.
Judge Crocker reportedly scolded prosecutors back in July for not seeking alternatives earlier when they disclosed that the reason they needed the information was because computer analysts initially failed to recover the data from Vaudreuil’s computer hard drive.
The judge was apparently angered further by the fact that prosecutors told him they were able to retrieve the data on the second try – after requesting the subpoena.
"If the government had been more diligent in looking for workarounds instead of baring its teeth when Amazon balked, it's probable that this entire First Amendment showdown could have been avoided," he wrote.
So, not only is our government acting flagrantly, egregiously unconstitutionally, they’re also being lazy about doing it. That’s got to be an added insult to our beloved U.S. Constitution.
Hmm, I wonder if that constitutes a ‘high crime or misdemeanor?"
How much more will We the People take?
[Update:] As an aside, I'd feel remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to remind everyone that there's a highly insidious bill GovTrack H.R. 1955 passed by the House and due for a vote in the Senate next week. Please read it then contact the senate.
It's also depicted in this diary: But mom, you said it couldn't happen here!
We need to stop this poison pill!
Impede, impeach and imprison.
PeaceBrennan Linsley and Chris Carlson / AP Photo
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are set to face off tonight in the third and final presidential debate of the 2016 election.
In August, The New York Times reported that Clinton's campaign brought in psychology experts to help her prepare for her first debate with Donald Trump — which is weird, because that's not really what psychologists do.
Here is the relevant part of The Times' article (emphasis mine):
"Hillary Clinton's advisers are... seeking insights about Mr. Trump's deepest insecurities as they devise strategies to needle and undermine him... at the first presidential debate... Her team is also getting advice from psychology experts to help create a personality profile of Mr. Trump to gauge how he may respond to attacks and deal with a woman as his sole adversary on the debate stage. They are undertaking a forensic-style analysis of Mr. Trump's performances in the Republican primary debates, cataloging strengths and weaknesses as well as trigger points that caused him to lash out in less-than-presidential ways."
There's not a tremendous amount of information here, but it's enough to work from if we want to find research relevant to the work these psychologists (or "psychology experts") are reportedly doing. The strange part is that there isn't much to find.
If you have somebody who's narcissistic, you want to threaten their ego. But I guess you and my grandmother probably knew that, right?
Psychology has long been interested in the nature and structure of personality. But as for studies of "trigger points," strategies for needling and undermining people, or systems for predicting how a man with a misogynistic past might betray his true feelings in the future — there isn't much to be found.
David Silber, a professor emeritus of psychology at George Washington University, told Business Insider that while he considers Trump a "narcissist," he's not aware of any particular science that might help Clinton take advantage of any personality disorder the Republican candidate could have.
(The American Psychiatric Association has a rule, known as "the Goldwater rule," that prohibits psychiatrists from offering any diagnoses or opinions about the mental health of public figures whom they have not personally examined. I have not asked any researchers — psychologists in this case, not psychiatrists — to break it. All three whom I spoke to for this story used the word "narcissist" unprompted.)
Another researcher, Scott Lilienfeld, who studies and teaches the psychology of personality at Emory University, told Business Insider he also could not point to any particular advice psychologists could offer Clinton in taking on Trump beyond what he called "the obvious thing."
"If you have somebody who's narcissistic, you want to threaten their ego," he said. "But I guess you and my grandmother probably knew that, right? You find out what they're insecure about and you hound them on that. You go for the person's weakness."
Brent Roberts, who studies and teaches personality psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, broadly agreed — though he suggested some clinicians might have enough less-than-empirical clinical experience with narcissists to offer more specific suggestions.
Lilienfeld was less optimistic that there might be a cohort out there with the skills to dismantle Trump.
"If they did, I would have thought that they'd have been able to stop Donald Trump by now," Lilienfeld said.
He said it's worrying to hear that psychologists might be consulting the Clinton campaign.
"I say this without knowing what these experts are saying — it's possible they're working some magic I'm not aware of," he said. "But I worry a little bit about psychologists overclaiming expertise as though there's some well-established body of psychological science that says, 'Oh, you should really do X as a candidate.' I'm just not aware of any along those lines."
If I can talk to you, why wouldn't I be able to talk to a presidential candidate?
If politics were within the domain of psychology, he said, there'd have to be controlled trials and peer-reviewed studies before anyone was qualified to offer advice. Those people would have to show that Trump voters or independents presented with a particular kind of message were significantly more likely to vote for Clinton three months later.
As for research into how to induce bad behavior on a debate stage? Both Roberts and Lilienfeld offered that it might be difficult to get an institutional ethical review board to approve that kind of work.
Lilienfeld also said that he thinks there are dangers to psychologists consulting with politicians.
"I think our job as psychologists is to better inform and educate the public, and I think there's a real danger in allowing ourselves to get too entangled in politics," he said. "I think it can tarnish the reputation of psychologists."
Roberts was less concerned.
"If I can talk to you, why wouldn't I be able to talk to a presidential candidate?" he said.
He said there are no specific ethical guidelines to prevent psychologists from offering bad advice, and that psychological consultants do so all the time — noting the example of personality questionnaires offered to businesses to help evaluate their employees.
That said, he allowed that there are "questions" about the validity of any claims purported to emerge from empirical findings about how Trump might behave.
Lilienfeld said he wishes psychologists would just stay out of it.
"I would prefer psychologists better help the public to evaluate information, and become better critical thinkers, and learn how to become more resistant to misleading, false persuasion on the part of political candidates. That, I think, would be a much better use of psychologists' time."
Clinton's |
query/p:page" : "searchPhotos", /*As we can see, URLs may contain as many ":param"s as we wish*/ /*Sample usage: http://unicorns.com/#/search/lolcats/p1*/ "/photos/:id/download/*imagePath" : "downloadPhoto", /*This is an example of using a *splat. splats are able to match any number of URL components and can be combined with ":param"s*/ /*Sample usage: http://unicorns.com/#/photos/5/download/files/lolcat-car.jpg*/ /*If you wish to use splats for anything beyond default routing, it's probably a good idea to leave them at the end of a URL otherwise you may need to apply regular expression parsing on your fragment*/ "*other" : "defaultRoute" //This is a default route with that also uses a *splat. Consider the //default route a wildcard for URLs that are either not matched or where //the user has incorrectly typed in a route path manually /*Sample usage: http://unicorns.com/#/anything*/ }, showAbout: function (){ }, getPhoto: function (id){ /* in this case, the id matched in the above route will be passed through to our function getPhoto and we can then use this as we please. */ console.log( "You are trying to reach photo " + id); }, searchPhotos: function (query, page){ console.log( "Page number: " + page + " of the results for " + query); }, downloadPhoto: function (id, path){ }, defaultRoute(other){ console.log( "Invalid. You attempted to reach:" + other); } }); /* Now that we have a controller setup, remember to instantiate it*/ var myGalleryController = new GalleryController;
Note: In Backbone 0.5+, it's possible to opt-in for HTML5 pushState support via window.history.pushState. This effectively permits non-hashtag routes such as http://www.scriptjunkie.com/just/an/example to be supported with automatic degradation should your browser not support it. For the purposes of this tutorial, we won't be relying on this newer functionality as there have been reports about issues with it under iOS/Mobile Safari. Backbone's hash-based routes should however suffice for our needs.
Backbone.history
Next, we need to initialize Backbone.history as it handles hashchange events in our application. This will automatically handle routes that have been defined and trigger callbacks when they've been accessed.
The Backbone.history.start() method will simply tell Backbone that it's OK to begin monitoring all hashchange events as follows:
Controller.saveLocation()
As an aside, if you would like to save application state to the URL at a particular point you can use the.saveLocation() method to achieve this. It simply updates your URL fragment without the need to trigger the hashchange event.
JavaScript Copy /*Lets imagine we would like a specific fragment for when a user zooms into a photo*/ zoomPhoto: function (factor){ this.zoom(factor); //imagine this zooms into the image this.saveLocation( "zoom/" + factor); //updates the fragment for us }
Views
Views in Backbone don't contain the markup for your application, but rather are there to support models by defining how they should be visually represented to the user. This is usually achieved using JavaScript templating (e.g. Mustache, jQuery tmpl etc). When a model updates, rather than the entire page needing to be refreshed, we can simply bind a view's render() function to a model's change() event, allowing the view to always be up to date.
Creating new views
Similar to the previous sections, creating a new view is relatively straight-forward. We simply extend Backbone.View. Here's an example of a one possible implementation of this, which I'll explain shortly:
JavaScript Copy var PhotoSearch = Backbone.View.extend({ el: $( '#results' ), render: function ( event ){ var compiled_template = _.template( $( "#results-template" ).html()); this.el.html( compiled_template( this.model.toJSON()) ); return this ; //recommended as this enables calls to be chained. }, events: { "submit #searchForm': " search", "click.reset': " reset", "click.advanced" :'switchContext" }, search: function ( event ){ //executed when a form '#searchForm' has been submitted }, reset: function ( event ){ //executed when an element with class "go" has been clicked. }, //etc });
What is 'el'?
el is basically a reference to a DOM element and all views must have one, however Backbone allows you to specify this in four different ways. You can either directly use an id, a tagName, className or if you don't state anything el will simply default to a plain div element without any id or class. Here are some quick examples of how these may be used:
JavaScript Copy el: $( '#results' ) //select based on ID or jQuery selector. tagName: 'li' //select based on a specific tag. Here el itself will be derived from the tagName className: 'items' //similar to the above, this will also result in el being derived from it el: '' //defaults to a div without an id, name or class.
Understanding render()
render() is a function that should always be overridden to define how you would like a template to be rendered. Backbone allows you to use any JavaScript templating solution of your choice for this but for the purposes of this example, we'll opt for underscore's micro-templating.
The _.template method in underscore compiles JavaScript templates into functions which can be evaluated for rendering. Here, I'm passing the markup from a template with id'results-template' to be compiled. Next, I set the html for el (our DOM element for this view) the output of processing a JSON version of the model associated with the view through the compiled template.
Presto! This populates the template, giving you a data-complete set of markup in just a few short lines of code.
The 'events' attribute
The Backbone events attribute allows us to attach event listeners to either custom selectors or el if no selector is provided. An event takes the form {"eventName selector": "callbackFunction"} and a number of event-types are supported, including 'click','submit','mouseover', 'dblclick' and more.
What isn't instantly obvious is that under the bonnet, Backbone uses jQuery's.delegate() to provide instant support for event delegation but goes a little further, extending it so that 'this' always refers to the current view object. The only thing to really keep in mind is that any string callback supplied to the events attribute must have a corresponding function with the same name within the scope of your view otherwise you may incur exceptions.
Namespacing
When learning how to use Backbone, one important area that that is very commonly overlooked in tutorials is namespacing. If you already have experience with how to namespace in JavaScript, the following section will provide some advice on how to specifically apply concepts you know to Backbone, however I will also be covering explanations for beginners to ensure everyone is on the same page.
What is namespacing?
The basic idea around namespacing is to avoid collisions with other objects or variables in the global namespace. They're important as it's best to safeguard your code from breaking in the event of another script on the page using the same variable names as you are. As a good 'citizen' of the global namespace, it's also imperative that you do your best to similarly not prevent other developer's scripts executing due to the same issues.
JavaScript doesn't really have built-in support for namespaces like other languages, however it does have closures which can be used to achieve a similar effect.
In this section we'll be taking a look shortly at some examples of how you can namespace your models, views, routers and other components specifically. The patterns we'll be examining are:
Single global variables
Object literals
Nested namespacing
Single global variables
One popular pattern for namespacing in JavaScript is opting for a single global variable as your primary object of reference. A skeleton implementation of this where we return an object with functions and properties can be found below:
JavaScript Copy var myApplication = ( function (){ function (){... }, return {... } })();
which you're likely to have seen before. A Backbone-specific example which may be more useful is:
JavaScript Copy var myViews = ( function (){ return { PhotoView: Backbone.View.extend({.. }), GalleryView: Backbone.View.extend({.. }), AboutView: Backbone.View.extend({.. }); //etc. }; })();
Here we can return a set of views or even an entire collection of models, views and routers depending on how you decide to structure your application. Although this works for certain situations, the biggest challenge with the single global variable pattern is ensuring that no one else has used the same global variable name as you have in the page.
One solution to this problem, as mentioned by Peter Michaux, is to use prefix namespacing. It's a simple concept at heart, but the idea is you select a basic prefix namespace you wish to use (in this example, myApplication_) and then define any methods, variables or other objects after the prefix.
JavaScript Copy var myApplication_photoView = Backbone.View.extend({}), myApplication_galleryView = Backbone.View.extend({});
This is effective from the perspective of trying to lower the chances of a particular variable existing in the global scope, but remember that a uniquely named object can have the same effect. This aside, the biggest issue with the pattern is that it can result in a large number of global objects once your application starts to grow.
For more on Peter's views about the single global variable pattern, read his excellent post on them here: http://michaux.ca/articles/javascript-namespacing
Note: There are several other variations on the single global variable pattern out in the wild, however having reviewed quite a few, I felt these applied best to Backbone.
Object literals
Object literals have the advantage of not polluting the global namespace but assist in organizing code and parameters logically. They're beneficial if you wish to create easily-readable structures that can be expanded to support deep nesting. Unlike simple global variables, object literals often also take into account tests for the existence of a variable by the same name so the chances of collision occurring are significantly reduced.
The code at the very top of the next sample demonstrates the different ways in which you can check to see if a namespace already exists before defining it. I commonly use Option 3.
JavaScript Copy /*Doesn't check for existence of myApplication*/ var myApplication = {}; /* Does check for existence. If already defined, we use that instance. Option 1: if(!MyApplication) MyApplication = {}; Option 2: var myApplication = myApplication = myApplication || {} Option 3: var myApplication = myApplication || {}; We can then populate our object literal to support models, views and collections (or any data, really): */ var myApplication = { models : {}, views : { pages : {} }, collections : {} };
One can also opt for adding properties directly to the namespace (such as your views, in the following example):
JavaScript Copy var myGalleryViews = myGalleryViews || {}; myGalleryViews.photoView = Backbone.View.extend({}); myGalleryViews.galleryView = Backbone.View.extend({});
The benefit of this pattern is that you're able to easily encapsulate all of your models, views, routers etc. in a way that clearly separates them and provides a solid foundation for extending your code.
This pattern has a number of useful applications. It's often of benefit to decouple the default configuration for your application into a single area that can be easily modified without the need to search through your entire codebase just to alter them - object literals work great for this purpose. Here's an example of a hypothetical object literal for configuration:
JavaScript Copy var myConfig = { language: 'english', defaults: { enableGeolocation: true, enableSharing: false, maxPhotos: 20 }, theme: { skin: 'a', toolbars: { index: 'ui-navigation-toolbar', pages: 'ui-custom-toolbar' } } }
Note that there are really only minor syntactical differences between the object literal pattern and a standard JSON data set. If for any reason you wish to use JSON for storing your configurations instead (e.g. for simpler storage when sending to the back-end), feel free to.
Nested namespacing
An extension of the object literal pattern is nested namespacing. It's another common pattern used that offers a lower risk of collision due to the fact that even if a namespace already exists, it's unlikely the same nested children do.
Does this look familiar?
Yahoo's YUI uses the nested object namespacing pattern regularly and even DocumentCloud (the creators of Backbone) use the nested namespacing pattern in their main applications. A sample implementation of nested namespacing with Backbone may look like this:
JavaScript Copy var galleryApp = galleryApp || {}; /*perform similar check for nested children*/ galleryApp.routers = galleryApp.routers || {}; galleryApp.model = galleryApp.model || {}; galleryApp.model.special = galleryApp.model.special || {}; /*routers*/ galleryApp.routers.Workspace = Backbone.Router.extend({}); galleryApp.routers.PhotoSearch = Backbone.Router.extend({}); /*models*/ galleryApp.model.Photo = Backbone.Model.extend({}); galleryApp.model.Comment = Backbone.Model.extend({}); /*special models*/ galleryApp.model.special.Admin = Backbone.Model.extend({});
This is both readable, organized and is a relatively safe way of namespacing your Backbone application in a similar fashion to what you may be used to in other languages.
The only real caveat however is that it requires your browser's JavaScript engine first locating the galleryApp object and then digging down until it gets to the function you actually wish to use.
This can mean an increased amount of work to perform lookups, however developers such as Juriy Zaytsev (kangax) have previously tested and found the performance differences between single object namespacing vs the 'nested' approach to be quite negligible.
Recommendation
Reviewing the namespace patterns above, the option that I would personally use with Backbone is nested object namespacing with the object literal pattern.
Single global variables may work fine for applications that are relatively trivial, however, larger codebases requiring both namespaces and deep sub-namespaces require a succinct solution that promotes readability and scales. I feel this pattern achieves all of these objectives well and is a perfect companion for Backbone development.
Additional Backbone Tips
Automated Backbone Scaffolding
Scaffolding can assist in expediting how quickly you can begin a new application by creating the basic files required for a project automatically. If you enjoy the idea of automated MVC scaffolding using Backbone, I'm happy to recommend checking out a tool called Brunch.
It works very well with Backbone, Underscore, jQuery and CoffeeScript and is even used by companies such as Red Bull and Jim Bean. You may have to update any third party dependencies (e.g. latest jQuery or Zepto) when using it, but other than that it should be fairly stable to use right out of the box.
Brunch can easily be installed via the nodejs package manager and takes just little to no time to get started with. If you happen to use Vim or Textmate as your editor of choice, you may be happy to know that there are also Brunch bundles available for both.
Clarifications on Backbone's MVC
As Thomas Davis has previously noted, Backbone.js's MVC is a loose interpretation of traditional MVC, something common to many client-side MVC solutions. Backbone's views are what could be considered a wrapper for templating solutions such as the Mustache.js and Backbone.View is the equivalent of a controller in traditional MVC. Backbone.Model is however the same as a classical'model'.
Whilst Backbone is not the only client-side MVC solution that could use some improvements in it's naming conventions, Backbone.Controller was probably the most central source of some confusion but has been renamed a router in more recent versions. This won't prevent you from using Backbone effectively, however this is being pointed out just to help avoid any confusion if for any reason you opt to use an older version of the framework.
The official Backbone docs do attempt to clarify that their routers aren't really the C in MVC, but it's important to understand where these fit rather than considering client-side MVC a 1:1 equivalent to the pattern you've probably seen in server-side development.
Is there a limit to the number of routers I should be using?
Andrew de Andrade has pointed out that DocumentCloud themselves usually only use a single controller in most of their applications. You're very likely to not require more than one or two routers in your own projects as the majority of your application routing can be kept organized in a single controller without it getting unwieldy.
Is Backbone too small for my application's needs?
If you find yourself unsure of whether or not your application is too large to use Backbone, I recommend reading my post on building large-scale jQuery & JavaScript applications or reviewing my slides on client-side MVC architecture options. In both, I cover alternative solutions and my thoughts on the suitability of current MVC solutions for scaled application development.
Backbone can be used for building both trivial and complex applications as demonstrated by the many examples Ashkenas has been referencing in the Backbone documentation. As with any MVC framework however, it's important to dedicate time towards planning out what models and views your application really needs. Diving straight into development without doing this can result in either spaghetti code or a large refactor later on and it's best to avoid this where possible.
At the end of the day, the key to building large applications is not to build large applications in the first place. If you however find Backbone doesn't cut it for your requirements I strongly recommend checking out JavaScriptMVC or SproutCore as these both offer a little more than Backbone out of the box. Dojo and Dojo Mobile may also be of interest as these have also been used to build significantly complex apps by other developers.
Building The jQuery Mobile Wireframe
Introduction
This section of the tutorial will focus on showing you how to prototype a mobile user-interface using jQuery Mobile. Beginners may wish to read Nick Rigg's 'Building Cross Platform Apps with jQuery Mobile' article beforehand as it introduces many of the initial concepts we'll be building on.
One of the great things about jQuery Mobile is that it allows you to easily create functional mock-ups of your intended mobile UI simply using mark-up and data attributes. Similar to Dojo Mobile, jQuery Mobile comes with a large suite of pre-themed components and UI widgets that can be used to structure a complete interface without needing to touch a great deal of CSS during the prototyping phase.
This means that rather than opting to wireframe your application using pencil sketches or a tool like Balsamiq/MockFlow, the same amount of time can be invested in creating a mock-up which can be render tested cross-platform and cross-device prior to coding any real logic for your web app. We can then easily write the models, view logic and routers for our application and simply tie them to the prototype to complete the project.
What are we going to build?
We're going to be building a complete mobile photo search application that uses the Flickr API and provides views for results, individual photos, options and sharing - all which will be bookmarkable. In Part 2 of the tutorial, we're actually going to write the Backbone.js code that powers the rest of the app but for now, it's imperative that we get the prototype right. So that we have something to reference easily, I've decided to call the application Flickly.
What devices do we want to offer an optimal experience to?
My thoughts on device-driven design with respect to web applications are as follows: time-permitting, a developer should ideally consider opting for something akin to Andy Clarke's 'Hardboiled' approach to web design where we deliver an experience that may be individually catered to take advantage of the strengths a particular browser or device has to offer.
The reality is however that we don't always have the scope to create per-device experiences, so today's application will attempt to optimize for the devices or browsers most likely to access it. It's essential that the content the application exposes is readily available to all users, regardless of what browser they are accessing it from so this principle will be kept in mind during the design phase. We'll be aiming to create a solution that's responsive from the start and jQuery Mobile simplifies a lot of the actual heavy lifting here as it supports responsive layouts out of the box (including browsers that don't support media queries).
Let's imagine that hypothetically, our analytics state that 50% of the users who come to Flickr access it via the iPhone, 10% via the iPad and the other 40% via the desktop. If we're going to build a web application catered to mobile, it would thus make sense to ensure iPhone users get an optimized experience with iPad and other devices (Blackberry etc.) getting an experience that looks acceptable.
With jQuery Mobile, this may just mean views being stretched or widened a little more, but the overall application will still remain fully usable.
Structuring the user interface
Home/Index screen
In my opinion, landing/first screen of a mobile application should focus on encouraging engagement with your app or service's primary function. Keep it very simple. With Flickr, this is relatively straight-forward - search. Once the primary function has been identified, avoid the temptation to over-clutter your UI for the sake of making it look more advanced than it has to. Flickr offer a number of advanced search options through their API and I initially thought including some of these options on the same page would make the user feel more empowered.
The problem with this assumption is that the majority of users just want an easy way to search for photos using keywords. That's all the first screen needs to offer - a search box. I ended up moving all of the advanced search options to an options page, but as it's just a click away, advanced users likely won't mind the small amount of extra work required to use those features. A fixed-position navigation toolbar that appears on the very bottom each view ensures that getting to where you need to seldom takes more than a touch.
Search results
The next concern was how to display search results. In my first draft of the application, I thought that mimicking Flickr's desktop experience (the N x M image grid found in results) would give users something familiar that they'd be comfortable with. Wrong again. On a mobile device, you're usually constrained by limited dimensions and should attempt to offer an experience that works best for this scenario rather than assuming one that works well elsewhere. It's a different paradigm. The grid on mobile suffered from a number of issues like lack of readable meta-data and difficulty selecting (touching) images as the thumbnails were quite small.
What I opted for instead was a jQuery Mobile ListView which was created specifically for the purposes of displaying a list of thumbnails with a description. Each thumbnail is given it's own row on the screen with meta-data positioned to the right and it's extremely easy to navigate around. The jQuery Mobile design team really thought this through and it shows. By using header-positioned previous and next buttons, I was then able to give users an easy way to navigate through paginated results without limiting their experience in any way. As mentioned, each of these result pages can be bookmarked and maintain information about the search type selected, page number and keywords chosen.
Single photos and sharing
Another important view was that for a single photo. The Flickr API has distinct calls required for both search results and single photos (with full meta-data) so it made sense to offer a view that could provide all of the available information about an image to the user if they clicked on a particular search result. In this case, the desktop experience wasn't overly complex - display a large image with captions beneath it. Porting this idea over to jQuery Mobile, a larger image was displayed at the top of a photo view with an inline list (resembling a 1-column table) for the meta-data. It was clean, easy to read and worked well on all devices.
I chose not to access the comments section of the returned data-set as in my opinion, this would have let to further views for user profiles, user pages and items again, outside the scope of this project. To give the user an opportunity to view a richer experience if they so choose, each single photo page also includes a link to it's corresponding page on Flickr. This way the user doesn't feel overly locked into the application if they want to access a complete view of the original data (with comments and the complete site experience). A'share' page with links to post the item to Facebook and Twitter was also added.
Other pages
A number of other pages were created as a part of the application. These included about, source and help. Unlike the other views of the application that were required a great deal of thought, each of these pages simply used variations of the jQuery Mobile list options to render data in a readable, row format. You can see screenshots of some of these below, including samples of how the other pages that were mocked up might look in the final application.
Some developers may find the descriptions of my thought process around the mobile application minimalist, but I believe this is paramount to creating an experience that emphasizes usability and appropriateness for the intended audience's device of choice over other factors. It's a way of thinking that has worked for mobile applications I've created in the past, however I'm always open to considering other approaches if accompanied by a sound argument :)
To fork or download the jQuery Mobile prototype above, please see https://github.com/addyosmani/flickly-wireframe.
Conclusions
That's it for Part 1 of this tutorial. I hope it's come in useful. In Part 2, we're going to jump right in to some heavy Backbone.js development, using the concepts that have been introduced in this first part to create a fully functional mobile web application that will work cross-browser and cross-device. See you again soon!
About the Author Addy Osmani is a User Interface Developer from London, England. An avid blogger, he has a passion for encouraging best practices in client-side development, in particular with respect to JavaScript and jQuery. He enjoys evangelizing the latter of these and is on the jQuery Bug triage, API and front-end teams. Addy works at AOL where he's a JavaScript developer on their European Products & Innovation team.
Find Addy on:Share. Plus, the J.J. Abrams sequel’s start date has been announced. Plus, the J.J. Abrams sequel’s start date has been announced.
Exit Theatre Mode
We kind of figured this out already -- actually, some of us are old enough to have been waiting for this announcement for the past three decades -- but Lucasfilm has confirmed today that Star Wars: Episode VII will be set about 30 years after Return of the Jedi.
Additionally, StarWars.com has the reveal that the film will star “a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces.” Again, we basically knew that more or less, but there is such a scarcity of solid, confirmed news on the Episode VII front that we’ll take any tidbit we can get.
Exit Theatre Mode
And by the way, that’s getting weird, that lack of news, considering another confirmation from the studio today -- the film will start principal photography this May at London’s Pinewood Studios. So in like two months, and we still don’t even know who’s going to be in the movie. Hmmm… what up, J.J. Abrams?!
You can also head over to StarWars.com for a rundown of all the first days of shooting in Star Wars live-action movie history. Here’s a sample:
March 22, 1976 -- The first day of principal photography in Tozeur, Tunisia, for Star Wars. A crew of 130 ventures into the desert in 42 trucks and cars, including eight army trucks full of equipment. The first shot was completed at 9:35 a.m.
Star Wars: Episode VII will hit on December 18, 2015… with a cast or not.
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottIGN, on IGN at scottcollura and on Facebook.Riverside Elementary School serves children from prekindergarten through fifth grade in Princeton, NJ, USA. Our diverse student body includes children from more than 23 different countries, and we all love to learn about brains! We also have a science lab, a courtyard with frogs, and box turtles, a team of dedicated teachers and support staff, and a great principal who always supports new opportunities for learning. Fourth grade students are either in Ms. Levy's or Mr. McGovern's classroom, and Mr. Eastburn is their teacher in the science lab.
Scientist and Professor, she studies how people use their brains to pay attention to specific activities (e.g., how can it be that you do not hear your parents calling for dinner when you play a videogame or read a book). Sabine also enjoys spending time with her two kids and loves the Beatles.
I study how our brain recognizes objects that we see, hear, or touch (or smell!) and how our brain enables us to use objects as tools. Outside the lab I like to hang out with my friends and play with my friend's dog Renny (see photo) or my nieces. I also love looking at colorful photos from National Geographic, and my favorite animals are sharks.
Do you enjoy building airplanes, cars, houses, or robots with Lego blocks? Humans are the only animal species that can create complicated constructions from simple Lego blocks – our Lego building ability is “human-specific,” since it is only found in human beings. What would our closest relatives, apes or monkeys, do with a box of Lego blocks? They would probably chew on them, and lose interest when they find out that they are not edible! Why are humans the only Lego builders in the animal kingdom? What happens in our brains when we build a Lego construction?
Let us first take a look at how humans differ from other animals.
How are Humans Different from Other Animals?
Humans can do a number of things that no other animals – not even our closest relatives (such as chimps and gorillas) – can do. We are the only species that has developed languages with a set of rules (a grammar) that requires words to be in a certain order. You might have seen monkeys calling each other (for example, a “koo” call is signaling friendliness), but you have never seen one writing a letter and wondering about spelling! We are also able to predict from the look of a friend's face or the sound of his/her voice how he/she feels about the world, whether he/she is happy or sad. In addition, we pass from generation to generation the knowledge that we have learned about the world and our universe – this is why we go to school! Going to school and teaching children about the world is part of the human “culture,” another human-specific characteristic. Language, predicting a friend's mood, and culture are all examples of “human-specific” abilities. Why can we do all these things and other animals cannot? It is because our brain has developed extra machinery for these abilities: there are specialized parts of the brain that produce language or predict a friend's mood (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 - Human-specific brain regions.
The cortex (the folded surface) of the human brain is divided into four parts: the temporal cortex (yellow), the occipital cortex (red), the parietal cortex (green), and the frontal cortex (blue). The human brain has developed specialized regions for understanding and producing words (language regions, purple font) and to predict what other people think and feel (orange font).
In this article, we want to describe another ability that we think is human-specific: to build, use, and know about tools. But first, are we really the only tool users in the animal kingdom?
Humans are Not the Only Tool Users but the Most Intelligent Ones!
Many kinds of animals use objects that they find in their environment for a specific purpose. Thus, they are using the objects as “tools” [1] (see Figure 2). For example, the Egyptian vulture picks up rocks with its beak and uses them to pound the shell of an ostrich egg. When it cracks, the vulture can eat its favorite food. Octopuses carry around shells (sometimes even coconut shells) to hide underneath, or they tear off tentacles from jellyfish and wield them as a weapon when attacked. Chimps, our closest relatives, strip leaves off twigs to use as sticks for fishing termites out of a termite mound. The examples are endless. However, no chimp can do what a 2-year old child can do: use the stick for a different purpose if the situation asks for it. For example, a child might use a drumstick that is lying around to get a ball that rolled underneath the sofa. The child can do this because he/she is able to plan ahead and understand what the stick will do to the ball. So even though humans are not the only tool users, we are the only ones able to use tools in a highly intelligent way!
Figure 2 - Examples of animals using tools.
Chimpanzees tailor twigs to fish for insects (1, 2). Vultures pound rocks against ostrich eggs until they crack open and they can eat the content (3). Dolphins wrap sponge around their nose to protect the skin when scavenging for food on the ocean floor (4). Octopuses use halves of shells or other things they can find to hide and protect themselves (5). Dresser crabs often drape sea anemones on their backs as camouflage (6). Finches use twigs to pry out their meal from small holes (7). Sea otters carry stones around on their belly that they use to pound open clams and oysters (8). Some ants use leaves as containers for carrying food and water (9). Source of photos: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/15-remarkable-animals-that-use-tools.
Not only are we very creative in transforming simple objects like Lego into complicated constructions like airplanes and robots but we are also very smart about making complicated tools for very specific purposes. We even build tools that work together in specific ways – like screws and screwdrivers or hammers and nails – and we design machines that can make these tools. We can even program computers that run the machines, which gives us free time to build even more!
But how did it all start?
The Origins of Tool Technology
Our ability to use tools in an intelligent way can even be seen in the earliest human tools we have found, which are made of stone. We think that early hominid (human-like) species, which were our extinct ancestors, used tools made from organic materials like sticks, leaves, and wood before using stone, but we cannot find any traces of them because these materials decay. This is why the first objects we know were used as tools are stones [2]. The oldest known stone tools were found in Ethiopia (Africa) about 2.5 million years ago. Typical stone tools are shown in Figures 3A,B. The stone tools that have been found clearly show that they have been made by intelligent toolmakers. Hominids made these tools by hitting one rock (called “core stone”) with a “hammer stone,” thereby knocking off flakes (see Figure 3A). Both the flakes and the cores of the stones were used as tools. The flakes had sharp edges, so they could be used as cutting tools.
Figure 3 - The origins of stone tool technology.
A. Flaked stone tool production. Our extinct ancestors used a “hammer stone” to knock off flakes from a “core stone.” The flakes had sharp edges and were used as cutting tools. Adapted from Science, Vol. 291, Ambrose SH, Paleolithic technology and human evolution, p. 1749 (2001). Reprinted with permission from AAAS. B. Examples of stone tools: (a–d) core stones and (e–g) flakes. Reprinted with permission from Macmillan Publisher Ltd.: Scientific Reports, 3, Ao et al., p. 2, copyright Nature Publishing Group (2013). C. Simplified timeline of human species and tool use evolution.
In order to break flakes from the core, the core stone had to be hit by the hammer stone just at the right angle. This means that the core and hammer stones had to be held firmly and that force had to be applied in a very precise way. Humans and their ancestors could only accomplish this because they have what we call a precision grip, which means that our thumb can touch the tips of our other fingers. The way that stone tools were prepared shows that our ancestors understood the characteristics of the stones and how they could use the resulting tools on other objects (like using a sharp-edged stone to slice meat). Importantly, there is evidence that the early hominids taught each other how to produce stone tools, which they passed to the next generation – they developed a culture of using and building tools.
Stone tool technology did not only change the different grips that our hands can accomplish, but it also changed our brain (see Figure 4).
Figure 4
Evolution of the brain from rhesus monkey (left), to chimpanzee (middle), and to human (right). Parts of the brain that have developed most in the human brain are the prefrontal cortex (dark blue, part of the frontal cortex in blue) and the parietal cortex (green). These parts of the brain are important when you use tools. The temporal cortex is shown in yellow and the occipital cortex in red.
Our Brain has Specialized Machinery for Knowing and Using Tools (Call it Our “Lego Building Network”)
What happens in your brain when you use tools, or build a complicated Lego construction? Different parts of your brain are specialized in processing information from different senses (see Figure 5). When you look at Lego blocks, what you see is sent from your eyes to the back of your brain, where the visual cortex is located (in the occipital cortex, see Figure 5A). The visual cortex will extract things like shape, size, and color of the blocks. Once you have decided what you want to build, the motor cortex that controls all movements (located in the frontal cortex, see Figure 5) will tell your muscles what to do and in what order. But the motor cortex needs to know where the Lego blocks are (an arm length away and piled up, the one you want to use first is in the middle) and how they are oriented (the long end is facing you). The parietal cortex, which is located between the visual cortex and the motor cortex (see Figure 5), translates sight information into something that the motor cortex can understand. This is how you will be able to stretch your arm the right length and grasp the Lego block from the correct side.
Figure 5 - Tool-specific brain activations or the Lego building network.
A. Simplified flow of information processing: what we see is sent to the visual cortex (bright red) and transferred by the parietal cortex (green) to the motor cortex (bright blue) which then sends action commands to the muscles. B. Tool (Lego building) network. In addition to the basic processing steps that all objects undergo as shown in A, the human brain has additional machinery (tool-specific regions) for processing objects that we use as tools. |
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“While there are still some aborigines leading tribal lives, the possibility of preserving their civilisation either as a museum piece or in respect to their wishes seems small,” Horne wrote in 1964.
Horne added that assimilation ultimately meant “absorption, and that means extinction... As a ‘nation’ with its own way of life, and even as a race, the aborigines are still destined to disappear.”
Altman says Horne’s view shows “how little the dominant settler colonial way of thinking about the Indigenous economy has changed”, because central policy goals of many governments since have still been “to integrate Indigenous people into the conventional Australian economy and society”.
He says, “The current articulation of this goal is the Closing the Gap policy framework, pursuing targets unilaterally set by the state and measured by official statistics.”
According to Altman: “Policy is increasingly influenced by a neoliberal trope emphasising individualism, entrepreneurship, material accumulation and the free market – anathema to many Indigenous people, whose norms and values remain focused on kin, community and country. It sounds little different from the assimilation discourse of the early 1960s.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A march through Sydney to mark the 40th anniversary of the citizenship referendum in 2007. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
The pervasiveness of this philosophy is especially evident in the federal coalition government’s Indigenous Advancement Strategy, which has resulted in $534m cuts to Commonwealth-funded Indigenous programs. This strategy was excoriated by the UN’s Tauli-Corpuz as having “effectively undermined the key role played by Aboriginal and Torres Strait organisations in providing services for their communities”.
The policy coincided with former prime minister Tony Abbott’s assertion that the continent was “unsettled or, um, scarcely settled” in 1788, and his suggestion (still echoed by other government members) that Indigenous people in remote communities are exercising a “lifestyle choice”, rather than living culturally connected lives.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Former prime minister Tony Abbott visits the grave of land rights activist Eddie Mabo in the Torres Strait. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/EPA
In fact, it is conservatively estimated that at least 750,000 Indigenous people lived on the continent when the first fleet arrived from Britain to begin colonisation. After invasion on 26 January 1788, Indigenous people were almost decimated by massacres and widespread poisoning, imprisonment, the forced removal of children and programs of assimilation and racial “dilution”. By federation in 1901, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population had diminished to about 117,000.
However, according to the Australian National University’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australia is now experiencing a significant resurgence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
After the 2011 census, the centre determined the number of people who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander had increased by 20% in five years. The national census is taken every five years, and the results of the next (from 2016) are expected to show a further increase. By 2031, the Indigenous population will be greater than in 1788.
Yet despite this positive growth, Australia’s governments have consistently demonstrated an inability to make policies that improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives.
After the referendum it was like the work was done... when it was actually just the bloody beginning Sol Bellear
In Redfern, LaVerne Bellear – Sol’s sister, and the director of the Aboriginal Medical Service – says many of her clients won’t engage with mainstream heath services because of experiences with institutional racism, which manifest in assumptions about their lifestyle because of their aboriginality.
“They’ll suffer rather than seek treatment,” Bellear explains. “I’m of the belief that racism does make you sick. And racism was also a key factor as to why this service was established: people grow up with stories about how other [Indigenous people] would be left to last in the emergency departments, or not be seen at all, or told to come back tomorrow.”
Talk to enough Aboriginal leaders, policy specialists, anthropologists, historians and everyday community members, and they will repeatedly mention the imperative of dealing honestly with Australia’s terrible colonial history and lingering racism.
As Sol Bellear says: “It all goes back to history and what people choose to remember. I’ve argued for the need for a [South African style] truth and justice commission to reconcile with the past – but no takers.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Indigenous artwork on the boots of Rabbitohs rugby league player Angus Crichton. Photograph: Matt King/Getty Images
A crucible for change
Formed in 1944, the Redfern All Blacks are the oldest Indigenous rugby league team in Australia. After a hiatus of about 15 years, the club had a resurgence amid the activism of the 1960s, offering talented Indigenous players who were shunned by other league clubs an opportunity to showcase their skills in South Sydney.
The club formed a bridge to urban Indigenous society for young Aboriginal men from the country. Sol Bellear left northern New South Wales and moved to Redfern in the late 1960s – along with about 30,000 other Indigenous people, after the 1967 referendum resulted in the closure of the oppressive church-run missions and government reserves into which many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had been forcibly moved since the turn of the century.
Bellear still lives across the road from Redfern Oval – the All Blacks’ home ground, where the Rabbitohs also train - in a suburb that, despite its gentrification and $1.5m-plus house prices, remains the Ground Zero of modern Indigenous activism.
Redfern was the crucible for the real fight for change after 1967: a place from which renowned Indigenous activists – among them Paul Coe, Gary Foley, Bruce McGuinness, John Newfong, Kath Walker, Roberta Sykes, Bob Maza, Chika Dickson, Bellear and his brother Bob (the first Aboriginal judge) – took the fight to the rest of Australia.
They formed a new wave of younger, firebrand activists, united by a determination that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders themselves would continue the ongoing fight for justice (which meant land rights and access to services), ahead of organisations such as the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), which had been critical to the Indigenous struggle and eventual success of the 1967 referendum.
They’ll suffer rather than seek treatment. I’m of the belief that racism does make you sick LaVerne Bellear
Dulcie Flower, a former FCAATSI activist who still lives in Redfern, recalls that, in the run-up to the referendum, it was not always easy to capture Indigenous hearts and minds.
“To talk to people about a referendum when what they needed was a house, access to running water, a job, basic services that everybody else had, was pretty difficult,” she says. “A lot of Aboriginal people weren’t convinced a referendum was the way to go.”
Flower, now in her 80s, grew up under the oppressive 1897 Queensland Aboriginal Protection Act, which forced Indigenous people off their traditional lands and required them to have permits to travel anywhere, to marry and to work. Nationally, the so-called “White Australia policy” – still held up by some activists as part of the template for South Africa’s apartheid laws – lasted from the country’s federation in 1901 right through to 1973.
Flower recalls: “After the 1967 referendum, I said: ‘Our work is still only just beginning. What we need to do is remove the state legislation, the welfare acts, because people aren’t free to move.’ There was so, so much more to do.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest January’s Invasion Day protest march in Melbourne. Photograph: Alex Murray/AAP
Gary Foley – an actor, artist, professor of history at Victoria University and perhaps the most important living Indigenous activist of his generation – described in his 2012 doctoral thesis the disenchantment among his coterie after the referendum.
He wrote: “The young people were told to assist in the campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote as that would be the answer to Aboriginal people’s ongoing oppression and marginalisation. Then, when the referendum resulted in the biggest ‘Yes’ vote in Australian history, the old guard of the Aboriginal movement effectively declared the battle won, but nothing really changed.
“In fact, in New South Wales things got significantly worse, as the state government repealed the Aborigines Welfare Board and withdrew administration for reserves around the state, effectively abandoning tens of thousands of Aboriginal people who were then left in limbo. This led to disillusionment and discontent on the part of the younger generation, whose white counterparts were challenging the white political mainstream over issues to do with imperialism and neo-colonialism (Vietnam), and personal freedom.”
‘Nothing has changed’
Henrietta Fourmile Marrie was born in 1954 on the isolated Anglican mission at Yarrabah, an hour’s drive from Cairns, the tourism mecca she refers to in Yidindji language as Gimuy.
She was, like tens of thousands of northern Indigenous people, brought up under the [1897] Act, dictating where she and her family could go, work, be educated and marry. Yarrabah was established and run, with a mixture of military precision and muscular Christianity, by missionary Ernest Gribble, who introduced segregation by gender and put the children in dormitories away from their parents. It became home to more than 30 different – often historically fractious – tribes of the Gunggandji and Yidindji people.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ye-I-Nie, ‘King of Cairns’ and great-grandfather of Henrietta Fourmile Marrie. Photograph: Alfred Atkinson/Paul Daley
Marrie is the great-granddaughter of Ye-I-Nie, a Yidindji leader acknowledged by the white interlopers as “King of Cairns” for his capacity as a peacemaker, and given a brass breastplate that said as much.
As a girl, Henrietta Fourmile (as she was then) would see a famous 1905 photograph of Ye-I-Nie, taken by photographer Alfred Atkinson. In the photograph Ye-I-Nie stands bare-chested, holding an elaborately painted shield. The plate hangs around his neck and he wears a shell headdress believed to have magical properties.
Marrie, with a diploma in teaching and a masters in environmental and local law, has worked for the UN and in philanthropy in the United States. But since she was a student in Adelaide in the 1970s – where she came across the South Australian Museum’s vast Aboriginal collection – she has explored the institutional theft of Indigenous culture, including that of the Yidindji.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Henrietta Fourmile Marrie in Yarrabah. Photograph: Paul Daley
As a member of the National Museum of Australia’s Indigenous Reference Group, she was consulted on the museum’s 2015 exhibition Encounters, featuring loaned items from the British Museum’s 6,000-piece Indigenous Australia collection.
“They were showing us items that might be ‘loaned’ to Australia, which is where they come from and belong anyway. They [the British Museum] had all of these Yidindji shields – so distinctive – and then I saw my great grandfather’s jewels,” Marrie says. “I recognised the shell jewellery from that [Atkinson] photograph. I got to touch these things in London – and I wanted them returned to the country where they belong. But they said ‘no’.
“Our people, like so many people, were removed from their land and taken away from their culture and put on missions and reserves. And then their culture was taken and put in museums all over the world, and reinterpreted, so that we are now told what it means.”
I’ve watched Marrie tell this story at an international museology conference at the National Museum: people in the auditorium wept. Now she is talking about the trauma of reuniting and again separating from her ancestor’s artifacts as we take the windy, wet road to Yarrabah.
The 1967 referendum gave us the right to be counted on the census, but it didn’t give us anything much else Henrietta Fourmile Marrie
Today it’s a community of 5,000. But there is an acute housing shortage: an estimated 700 more homes are needed to accommodate the population, which is largely welfare dependent.
Yarrabah has the social and economic issues – teenage pregnancy and child removal, alcohol abuse, poverty, unemployment, health problems, petty crime, inadequate housing – that underscore life in too many Indigenous communities but escape the notice of the rest of Australia. There have been three suicides in the past few months; one just a week or so earlier.
“There’s no jobs in Yarrabah. If you want a job, you have to leave,” Marrie says.
Along the way, she points out massacre sites such as Skeleton Creek, where the white men cut off the Jidindi’s heads and put them on sharpened stakes that lined the waterway as it meandered up into the hinterland. We cross Blackfellow Creek, also a massacre site and an old Aboriginal camping ground, before heading up the valley.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The cemetery at the old Yarrabah Mission. Photograph: Paul Daley
“The ’67 referendum gave us the right to be counted on the census, but it didn’t give us anything much else. It was just words on paper that had really no meaning. Everything we got after that, we had to fight hard to get – and nothing has changed.”
Marrie says the federal government was empowered to make Indigenous lives better, yet laws – state and federal – continue to oppress them. She cites the 2007 Northern Territory Intervention, during which government troops were sent into communities amid allegations of child abuse. Convictions for child abuse in relevant communities did not increase significantly during the intervention.
A 1967 referendum poster
She also discusses the 2013 Protection of Cultural Objects on Loan Act: a law passed largely at the behest of the British Museum, to provide a legal barrier to claims from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owners of items on loan to Australia from the museum’s Indigenous collection. She sees this as an act of cultural imperialism and oppression – part of a continuum consistent with the theft of traditional lands, the policy of assimilation with all its malevolence, and the disconnection from her people’s culture.
Back in Cairns, Marrie introduces me to a mother and son, Tarneen and Djerami Callope. Tarneen was born in Victoria in 1960, and Djerami in Queensland in the 1990s – either side of the 1967 referendum.
Tarneen’s mum, born to a non-Indigenous mother and Aboriginal father from the Framlingham Mission, western Victoria, was removed at birth and shunned by her white family. She was put to work as a domestic, made to bathe in bleach and denied contact with her Aboriginal family.
History repeated. In the year of the referendum, Tarneen, her sister and brother were taken from their mother and put in an orphanage. It took the children two decades to reconnect with her.
Mother and son share a lively banter. Tarneen talks about the imperial nature of local nomenclature – of Queensland and James Cook University (after the Captain who made first east coast contact in 1770), where she works as Indigenous engagement officer. Djerami refers to the big increase in Australia’s Indigenous population, and the irony of how the university is “being taken over from the inside” by a burgeoning Aboriginal student presence.
I ask him about 1967.
The Inequality Project: the Guardian's in-depth look at our unequal world Read more
“My mother was seven at the time and so was my father. So that means I am the first person in my family line to be born a human being in Australia. I think about what that means,” says Djerami, an anthropology student at James Cook.
“But we are still not free,” Tarneen insists.
“We cannot pretend we belong to a free and democratic nation, and not advocate against the human rights violations directed specifically at Aboriginal people in this country. We have to expose the truth, tell all of our stories and teach our children real Australian history – even if it strikes at the core of Australian identity, challenges land ownership, and causes people to become fearful, which in turn perpetuates racism,” Tarneen says.
“As a nation, if we are truly going to achieve reconciliation, we need to come together and acknowledge the truth and tell our stories. We have to be honest, respectful, and own our shared history.”
There it is again: history.
If you have experiences relating to this article that you would like to share, please email [email protected] in Rif Dimashq Governorate, Syria
Maaloula or Maҁlūlā (Aramaic: ܡܥܠܘܠܐ - מעלולא; Arabic: معلولا Maʿlūlā)[2] is a town in the Rif Dimashq Governorate in Syria. The town is located 56 km to the northeast of Damascus and built into the rugged mountainside, at an altitude of more than 1500 m. It is known as one of three remaining villages where Western Neo-Aramaic is spoken, the other two being the nearby villages Jubb'adin and Bakhah.
Etymology [ edit ]
Maʿlūlā is from the Aramaic word maʿʿəlā (ܡܥܠܐ), meaning 'entrance'. The name is written in English and other Indo-European languages in multiple different ways, e.g. Maaloula, Ma'loula, Maalula, Ma'lula, Malula. However, "Maaloula" is the most common one.
Population [ edit ]
According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Maaloula had a population of 2,762 in the 2004 census.[1] However, during summer, it increases to about 10,000, due to people coming from Damascus for holidays.[3] Half a century ago, 15,000 people lived in Maaloula.[4]
Religiously, the population consists of both Christians (mainly members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church) and Muslims. For the Muslim inhabitants, the legacy is all the more remarkable given that they were not Arabised, unlike most other Syrians who like them were Islamised over the centuries but also adopted Arabic and shifted to an Arab ethnic identity.[5]
Language [ edit ]
With two other nearby towns al-Sarkha (Bakhah) (Arabic: بخعة/الصرخه) and Jubb'adin (Arabic: جبّعدين), Maaloula is the only place where a Western Aramaic language is still spoken, which it has been able to retain amidst the rise of Arabic due to its distance from other major cities and its isolating geological features. However, modern roads and transportation, as well as accessibility to Arabic-language television and print media - and for some time until recently, also state policy - have eroded that linguistic heritage.
As the last remaining area where Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken, the three villages represent an important source for anthropological linguistic studies regarding first century Western Aramaic. According to scholarly consensus, the language of Jesus was also a Western Aramaic dialect; more specifically the Galilean variety of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.
Despite frequent misstatements in the media,[6] however, the Neo-Aramaic spoken in Maaloula, Bakhah and Jubb'adin is no longer identical to the dialect which Jesus of Nazareth spoke, firstly it evolved from a separate Western Aramaic dialect than the Galilean dialect of Jesus, and secondly, as a part of natural language evolution it has undergone significant changes since the first century AD (~2,000 years ago) in a similar way that Old English (~1,000 years ago) and even Middle English (~500 years ago) may be unintelligible to Modern English speakers.
Monasteries [ edit ]
The monastic complex of Saint Sarkis
There are two important monasteries in Maaloula: the Eastern Catholic Mar Sarkis and Greek Orthodox Mar Thecla.
Saint Sarkis Monastic Complex [ edit ]
The monastic complex of Saint Thecla
Saint Sarkis Monastic Complex of Maaloula is one of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria. It was built on the site of a pagan temple, and has elements which go back to the fifth to sixth century Byzantine period.[7] Saint Sarkis is the Assyrian name for Saint Sergius, a Roman soldier who was executed for his Christian beliefs. This monastery still maintains its solemn historical character.
The monastery has two of the oldest icons in the world, one depicting the Last Supper.
Saint Thecla Monastic Complex [ edit ]
This monastery holds the remains of Thecla, which the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla accounts a noble virgin and pupil of St. Paul. According to later legend not in the Acts, Thecla was being pursued by soldiers of her father to capture her because of her Christian faith. She came upon a mountain, and after praying, the mountain split open and let her escape through. The town gets its name from this gap or entrance in the mountain. However, there are many variations to this story among the residents of Maaloula.
Other monasteries [ edit ]
There are also the remains of numerous monasteries, convents, churches, shrines and sanctuaries. There are some that lie in ruins, while others continue to stand, defying age. Many pilgrims come to Maaloula, both Muslim and Christian, and they go there to gain blessings and make offerings.
View over the town of Maaloula from East to West (2007)
War in Syria [ edit ]
Maaloula became the scene of battle between Al-Qaeda linked jihadist Al-Nusra Front and the Syrian Army in September 2013.[8]
Syrian rebels took over the town on October 21. Around 13 people were killed, with many more wounded.[9]
On October 28, government forces recaptured the town.[9]
Maaloula was taken over by al-Nusra Front, opposing the Syrian government, again on December 3, 2013. The Front took 12 orthodox nuns as hostages.[10] The nuns were moved between different locations and ended up in Yabroud where they stayed for three months. Then, officials from Qatar and Lebanon negotiated a deal for their release. Those negotiations produced an agreement on a prisoner exchange under which around 150 Syrian women detained by the government were also freed.[11] After the nuns were freed on the 9th of March 2014, they stated that they were treated well by their captors.[12][13]
On 14 April 2014, with the help of Hezbollah and SSNP, the Syrian Army once more took control of Maaloula. This government success was part of a string of other successes in the strategic Qalamoun region, including the seizure of the former rebel bastion of Yabroud in the previous month.[14][15]
Virgin Mary statue [ edit ]
The people of Maaloula celebrated as a new statue of the Virgin Mary was erected in its centre, replacing the figure destroyed in rebel attacks in 2013. On 13 June 2015, Syrian officials unveiled the new statue of the Virgin Mary, draped in a white robe topped with a blue shawl, her hands lifted in prayer. The fiberglass figure stood at just over 3 metres (10 feet) tall and was placed on the base of the original statue.[16]
The statue is titled as Lady of Peace (Arabic: سيدة السلام).
Climate [ edit ]
Climate data for Maaloula Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Average high °C (°F) 7.1
(44.8) 8.0
(46.4) 11.7
(53.1) 16.3
(61.3) 21.6
(70.9) 26.0
(78.8) 28.5
(83.3) 28.7
(83.7) 25.8
(78.4) 20.8
(69.4) 12.9
(55.2) 8.7
(47.7) 18.0
(64.4) Daily mean °C (°F) 2.7
(36.9) 3.3
(37.9) 6.3
(43.3) 10.4
(50.7) 14.8
(58.6) 18.9
(66.0) 20.9
(69.6) 21.3
(70.3) 18.4
(65.1) 14.2
(57.6) 8.2
(46.8) 4.3
(39.7) 12.0
(53.5) Average low °C (°F) −1.8
(28.8) −1.4
(29.5) 0.8
(33.4) 4.5
(40.1) 8.0
(46.4) 11.7
(53.1) 13.3
(55.9) 13.8
(56.8) 11.0
(51.8) 7.5
(45.5) 3.5
(38.3) −0.1
(31.8) 5.9
(42.6) Average precipitation mm (inches) 46
(1.8) 38
(1.5) 22
(0.9) 16
(0.6) 14
(0.6) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0
(0) 2
(0.1) 16
(0.6) 30
(1.2) 45
(1.8) 229
(9.1) Source: Climate-data.com[17]
Sister city [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:How Democrats Steal Elections - Top 10 Methods of Liberal Vote Fraud Over-Voting. In Democrat strongholds like St. Louis, Philadelphia and Detroit, some precincts had 100% of their registered voters voting, with 99% of the ballots going to Gore. Clearly, multiple voting resulted in extra tallies for Gore in the 2000 election. (New York Post, 12/09/00). Dead Voters. This classic Democratic method of vote fraud goes all the way back to 1960 in Chicago and Dallas. The 2000 election was no exception. In Miami-Dade County, for example, some of the 144 ineligible votes (those which officials actually admitted to) were cast by dead people, including a Haitian-American who's been deceased since 1977 (Miami-Herald, 12/24/00). Mystery Voters. These "voters" cast votes anyway but are not even registered to vote. In heavily Democratic Broward County, for example, more than 400 ballots were cast by non-registered voters. (Miami-Herald 1/09/01) Military ballots. Many of these votes were disqualified for the most mundane and trivial reasons. At least 1,527 valid military ballots were discarded in Florida by Democratic vote counters (Drudge Report, 11/19/00). Criminals. Felons are a natural Democratic voter and they're protected on voter rolls across the country. In Florida at least 445 ex-convicts - including rapists and murderers -- voted illegally on November 7th. Nearly all of them were registered Democrats. (Miami-Herald 12/01/00) Illegal aliens. These voters have long been a core liberal constituency, especially in California. In Orange County in 1996, Rep. Bob Dornan had his congressional seat stolen from him when thousands of illegal aliens voted for Loretta Sanchez (Christian Science Monitor, 9/2/97). Vote-buying. Purchasing votes has long been a traditional scheme by Democrats, and not just with money. In the 2000 election in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Democratic workers initiate a "smokes-for-votes" campaign in which they paid dozens of homeless men with cigarettes if they cast ballots for Al Gore (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 11/14/00). Phantom Voters. These voters don't really exist, but their ballots do. In the 1996 Lousiana Senate race, GOP candidate Woody Jenkins had the election stolen from him when he discovered that 7,454 actual votes were cast but had no paper trail to authenticate them (Behind the Headlines, F.R. Duplantier, 4/27/97). Dimpled chads. Those infamous punch-cards were a ballot bonanza for Al Gore. Democratic poll workers in Palm Beach, Dade and Broward counties tampered and manipulated thousands of ineligible ballots and counted them for Gore, even though no clear vote could be discerned. (NewsMax.com 11/27, 12/22, 11/18, 11/19/00). Absentee ballots. Normally it's assumed that Republicans benefit from absentee ballots. But in the case of Miami's 1997 mayoral election, hundreds of absentee ballots were made for sale or sent out to non-Miami residents. Fraud was so extensive in the race that the final results were overturned in court (FL Dept. of Law Enforcement Report, 1/5/98).Recently we’ve been making some changes to our diet (hate that word), by incorporating a lot more vegetables and fruits into our routine, as well as cutting down on meat. We start everyday with a hearty smoothie or smoothie bowl (basically a thick smoothie you can eat with a spoon), and lunch will usually consist of a soup and salad, or a turkey sandwich. Cutting out carbs has never been a huge goal, but we did want to reduce the amount of processed foods we were consuming. It’s been a bit of a struggle, and we’ll be honest that we have still enjoyed some of our favorite “bad foods” – and that’s totally okay with us. It seems unrealistic to think we won’t ever have a Big Mac again, or share a giant bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. Probably less often, is all.
This is what an average week of grocery shopping looks like these days. We should mention that our dog Milo eats the majority of those bananas!
This is the first time we’ve ever really paid attention to our eating habits, and that in itself has been interesting. You would think as food bloggers we would be thinking about food non-stop, but until recently we had never really been so aware – on a day to day basis – what kinds of decisions we were making. A lot of them weren’t that great.
It’s true that winter can be a challenging time to embrace a plant-based way of eating, but it’s totally doable. There are so many beautiful varieties of winter vegetables to choose from, like beautiful squash, turnips and apples. We do buy local when we can, but during the winter months we do find ourselves with more imported produce than other times of the year.
We’ve been having a lot of fun creating simple and delicious dishes, like these Salad Crispbreads with Roasted Squash Cream. It was actually a little difficult to choose a title for this post, because admittedly there’s a lot going on with this recipe! But we promise it’s actually very simple and requires very little actual cooking. Spending just a little time assembling your toppings is what will make these look so special, and when the produce is this beautiful it does most of the work for you.
You can feel free to use whatever salad toppings you like – sky is the limit. This is an ideal raid-the-fridge recipe, and would be lovely as a Sunday brunch or snack. The roasted squash cream is the only thing that takes some time. We like to use a smaller butternut squash for this recipe. Remove the skin and cut it into small pieces so it roasts faster. Yogurt is used here, but you may omit it if you want to keep the dish vegan. You may need to add a small amount of water to your blender while mixing, to achieve the desired creamy consistency without it being too thick.
You may be asking, “and what the heck are crispbreads?” They’re a flat and dry type of bread or cracker, containing mostly rye flour. We really like the Wasa brand, which come in a variety of flavors (sourdough rye is our favorite!) Enjoy these as a starter, or make a batch for a healthy and delicious brunch. They’re light, cripsy and packed full of flavor – and best of all, taste just as good as they look. Serves 2
Print Salad Cripsbreads with Roasted Squash Cream Ingredients For Roasted Squash Cream 1 small butternut squash, skin removed and cut into small cubes
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, skin on
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tbsp greek yogurt (or 1 tbsp of water)
For Salad Crispbreads 4 Crispbreads
Pomegranate Seeds
Red Radish
Flowering Purple Kale
Alfalfa Sprouts
Red Bell Pepper
Ube Potato Chips
Baby Tomatoes
Thai Basil
Cilantro
Mint
Watercress
Instructions Preheat oven to 400. Remove skin from squash, and cut into small dice. Place on a lightly greased pan and toss gently with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Nuzzle in the garlic cloves, skin on. Roast for 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown and soft to the touch. Remove garlic from skins. In a food processor or blender, combine roasted squash and garlic with yogurt until smooth. Smear roasted squash mixture on crispbreads while still warm, and top with salad toppings as desired. Serve immediately. 3.1 http://www.foodgays.com/salad-cripsbreads-with-roasted-squash-cream/Extremists in 'Patriot' Movement Calling Joe Stack a Hero Expert: Online Cheers for Joe Stack Reflect Growing Anti-Government Movement
Most were shocked by the charred scene of Joe Stack's kamikaze attack on a Texas IRS office, but for an alarmingly growing number of Americans Stack is a hero.
The Web was studded with praise for Stack almost immediately after his plane slammed into the Austin office complex Thursday morning. The admiring salutes appearing on sites ranging from Facebook to the pages of extremist groups reflect what experts say is an "explosive growth" in the anti-government patriot movement.
"Extremist groups are already aligning behind [Joe Stack], beginning to talk about him as a hero," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center which studies American militia and hate groups. "The growth of those groups has been astounding."
Stack's suicide note, an angry rant against the IRS and the government which was posted online the morning of his death, got around 20 million hits before it was taken down at the request of the FBI, according to Alex Melen, president and founder of T35, the network service provider for the Web site where the note was posted.
Melen, 25, said within minutes of taking the note down, the company was "bombarded" with around 3,000 e-mails demanding Stack's words be reposted. Some of the e-mails contained personal threats against Melen.
"What's funny is most people were pretty much praising him," Melen told ABC News.
Bob Schulz, founder of the anti-government We the People Foundation, said that while he only advocates non-violent means of protest, he can understand Stack's motives and said it is a reflection of a movement unlike any he's ever seen.
"There's a huge patriot movement," Schulz said. "I've been doing this kind of work for 30 years. Never have I seen the likes of what's going on now. It's delightful."
The anti-government movement gathered strength during the early 1990s, resulting in several high profile stand-offs with the FBI. Anti-government militias trained in the woods and prepared for a confrontation with the U.S. The militia movement peaked in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
The anti-government movement became dormant until the mid-2000s. Potok said a militia and extreme anti-government movement, fueled initially by anti-immigration sentiment, is back in a big way, especially since President Obama took office.
According to an April 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security, the current anti-government climate "parallels" what federal officials saw in the 1990s.
"Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propoganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning," the report said.
For many, Obama's election was a near perfect storm of disappointments, Potok said.
"The longer term thing goes back seven or eight years due to immigration," Potok said citing the surge of border patrol militias like the Minutemen. "But Obama's election, which is in a way related to the non-white immigration issue, was representative proof that this country is irreversibly changing demographically. Then the economy has played a role and things have gotten worse and worse."
The result is what Potok referred to as a "broad-based, right-wing populist rebellion," generally short of violent extremism.
Expert: Violent Acts 'Inspire' Extreme Groups
While not necessarily extreme itself, many groups in the overall movement are "shot through with radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism," Potok said. "Sometimes these attacks do serve as inspiration for other groups and individuals."
One reason anti-government groups are embracing Stack, rather than distancing themselves from his extreme actions, is that he does not seem to be crazy, Potok said. It's a characteristic that troubles forensic pyschiatrist and ABC News consultant Dr. Michael Welner.
"It's easy to get a sense that someone like snaps," Welner told "Good Morning America" today. "But this is the kind of crime that's planned for a long time... I don't find it to be psychotic. That's the problem here. It's rational."
Schulz believes Stack was simply beaten to the point of desperation by the government.
"The government is routinely allegedly violating the Constitution... Then when you call them on |
9-3 record, Tulsa sits in sixth place in the USL West. The club is unbeaten in its last three games and has earned points in four of its last five.
Tickets for Wednesday’s match can be purchased in advance at SaintLouisFC.com or at the Marco box office at Soccer Park. Fans can also purchase tickets by calling 636-680-0997.
Preview Wednesday night’s match between Saint Louis FC and the Tulsa Roughnecks after the jump. Can’t make the match Wednesday night? Scroll down for the streaming link.
Wednesday’s contest will be the second and final meeting in the regular season between Tulsa and STLFC. Tulsa won the first meeting between the clubs earlier this month in Tulsa. Jorge Luis Corrales and Joey Calistri scored for Tulsa with STLFC’s lone tally coming on a Roughnecks own goal.
Tulsa will likely be without the services of Juan Pablo Caffa and Kosuke Kamara due to injury. Both players have been on the field for more than 1,490 minutes this season.
Caffa is one of the leading scorers for Tulsa with six goals this season. Ian Svantesson leads the team with 10 goals on the season.
Saint Louis FC is 3-2-1 all-time against Tulsa.
Last Time Out For Saint Louis FC
Two penalty kicks doomed STLFC last time out. Milan Petosevic had his attempt saved by the visiting goalkeeper while Corey Hertzog converted his attempt to give the Pittsburgh Riverhounds a 2-1 win last weekend.
Daniel Jackson left the match early in the second half due to an apparently leg injury. His status for Wednesday’s match has not been announced.
What To Expect From Saint Louis FC Wednesday
Trying to predict Preki’s lineup on a game-by-game basis this season has been a lost cause. Wednesday’s mid-week contest is the second in five days and the middle match in a three games in eight days stretch.
After playing just two league matches in the month of May earlier this season, Wednesday’s will be the club’s fifth of seven in the month of August.
Fans could get their first look at the recently signed Tyler Feeley against Tulsa. The 20-year old forwards holds dual American and Serbian citizenship and has represented Serbia at the U17 and U18 levels. He previously played in the USL for the Orange County Blues.
Aedan Stanley is another player that may see meaningful minutes in the four-day span.
Saint Louis fans will also, no doubt, be hoping to see the return of A.J. Cochran on the back line. He has been absent from the lineup recently and his status is unknown.
Octavio Guzman Out 4-6 Weeks After Surgery
STLFC announced earlier this week that midfielder Octavio Guzman will miss 4-6 weeks after undergoing knee surgery this week. Guzman had played in 19 matches this season (12 starts) while scoring twice and accumulating two assists.
Guzman joined STLFC prior to this season after three seasons with Sacramento Republic FC. Guzman was on the 2014 Sacramento club, coached by Preki, that won the USL Championship and also included STLFC’s Max Alvarez and Ivan Mirkovic.
Guzman has been absent from the lineup since August 10, missing the previous two matches.
Pack The Park Wednesday Night
Saint Louis FC has dealt with more than its fair share of weather issues in its existence. In less than three full seasons, Soccer Park has flooded twice and had to be rebuilt. The unpredictable St. Louis spring weather wreaks havoc on the early-season schedule, which gives way to the often-unbearable St. louis summer weather.
Wednesday’s match, however, should hit a sweet spot. Forecasts are calling for temperatures in the lows 70s with clear skies.
Tickets can be purchased in advance online at SaintLouisFC.com or by calling 636-680-0997. Tickets can also be purchased at the Marco Box Office at Toyota Stadium on Wednesday night. For more information, check out the club website.
General admission tickets start at just $16. Ample parking is available around Toyota Stadium starting at $10 per car.
Don’t want to drive out to Fenton? Take a Pub 2 Park shuttle. Complimentary shuttles offer door-to-door service from Molly’s In Soulard, Amsterdam Tavern, Smugala’s Pizza in Sunset Hills and Hotshots in Fenton. For more information and to reserve your spot, check out the Pub 2 Park program page.
Already have plans to be at Toyota Stadium? Make sure you stop by and see the St. Louligans supporters group in the parking lot before the match. Each week, the Louligans take in Charity du Jour donations for a different charity. The group is on pace to raise $40,000 by the end of the season, the third for the club and program.
This week’s Charity du Jour charity is the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.
Be sure to check out the Match Day Guide for Wednesday’s match.
Stream Saint Louis FC v Tulsa Roughnecks
Every USL match this season is streamed live for free on YouTube. The streaming link is below. Don’t want to watch the match at home, but can’t make it to Soccer Park? Head to Hattrick’s Pub in O’Fallon, Missouri.
Saint Louis FC v Tulsa Roughnecks 8-23-17 #stlvtul
Ryan Ryan is a weird dude. He doesn't cook, yet owns a plethora of kitchen gadgets. He rationalized buying a SodaStream while unemployed. He counts Step Up 2: The Streets as one of his favorite movies along with Footloose, Rent, Grease and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. He loves Mizzou but only wants them in the SEC so he can tailgate in Nashville. He owns a ShakeWeight and AbLounger, but still loves him some John Donut and Billie's Fine Foods. You can get more of Ryan at iLoveSoulard.com or just check the stool on the far end of the bar at iTap in Soulard. More Posts - Website Follow Me:
Brought to you by Mills ApartmentsThe Texas Rangers are more inclined to trade prospects than sign big free agents this winter, according to Ken Rosenthal, who tweeted a few things about the team's current thinking.
Sources: #Rangers open to trading better prospects in lieu of spending big on FAs. Gallo, Alfaro believed untouchable, but others in play. — Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 23, 2014
#Rangers remain open to trading any SS in right deal, but Andrus now least likely to move. Team believes he is headed for big year. — Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 23, 2014
Putting those pieces together, perhaps the Rangers would be a good trade partner for the Mets. Texas has three shortstops who could be appealing in Elvis Andrus, Jurickson Profar, and Luis Sardinas.
Andrus has spent six seasons in the big leagues and is still just 26 years old. His defense and baserunning have been the most valuable parts of his game throughout his career, as he has hit just.272/.335/.345 while playing half his games in a very hitter-friendly ballpark. That translates to an 84 wRC+ for his career, which is not good but holds up a little better at short than it would anywhere else on the diamond. Oh, and he's signed to an eight-year, $120 million contract that starts in 2015.
Profar has been a highly-touted prospect—he ranked number one overall at Baseball Prospectus before the 2013 season—but missed the entire 2014 season to injury. He struggled a bit in his major league debut in 2013, but he's still three months shy of his twenty-second birthday. His minor league track record as a hitter has been pretty good.
Sardinas is also 21 years old, and like Andrus, the best parts of his game have been speed and defense. He got a taste of the big leagues in 2014 and hit pretty similarly to Profar in his first major league stint and Andrus over his major league career.
Of course, the Mets have quite a bit of starting pitching and could probably spare some of it. It's hard to imagine the Mets considering taking on Andrus's contract, but a player like Profar just might be intriguing enough for them to part ways with a significant pitcher.On Dec. 10, 2012, hundreds of Detroiters lined up outside of The East Lake Baptist Church, braving the cold for the last of a series of public hearings on “the Hantz Woodlands deal.” At stake was the “largest speculative land sale in the city’s history”: 140 acres comprised of 1,500 lots of city land. Local multi-millionaire John Hantz wanted to turn this plot into a large timber farm that would be, as he promised, “Detroit’s saving grace.” But the hundreds of residents waiting outside had another idea of what saving the land could mean: They wanted the city to sell individual vacant plots at affordable prices for people to plant community gardens.
Despite the public outcry, the council accepted Hantz’s bid to buy the land — an outcome that dismayed Charity Hicks, co-founder of the Detroit Food Justice Task Force.
“We have lost the ability to think collectively about our own interests in the public political sphere,” she said. “Our public policy is completely distorted, and John Hantz represents that kind of corruption of our governance.”
The Hantz deal symbolizes a broader battle occurring in Detroit: the struggle over who will control the rebuilding of a major American city after the decline of its industry. The city that was the home of manufacturing in the United States in the 20th century is posed to become once again a city of producers. But today, power is growing from the ground up thanks to Detroiters who are giving new meanings to value and work by redefining their relationship with the land, themselves and each other.
‘Our work’
To Charity Hicks, there is something liberating about a city that has, in her own words, undergone “profound collapse.”
“You get to remake yourself,” she said. “You get to re-imagine yourself. You get to reawaken to new possibilities of being.”
These possibilities are growing in more than 1,000 urban gardens and three full-scale farms that now cover the once-industrial landscape. These farms, tied together by various networks and coalitions, are transforming the way Detroiters relate to the food system. As the Detroit Black Food Security Network explains on its website, the role of African Americans in the city is often that of consumers, rather than producers. But the urban agricultural movement is changing the way Detroiters define their work and their own individual and collective value.
The Black Food Security Network reports that although Detroit’s population is 85 percent African-American, there are only two African-American-owned grocery stores in the city. To address this fact, the Detroit Food Justice Task Force runs a host of initiatives aimed at achieving food sovereignty for Detroit’s residents. There are community meals that include education about urban farming and institutional racism; campaigns to fight against genetically-modified foods; legislative initiatives to make city land available for long-term community leases; gardening scholarships, workshops and roundtable discussions; and, of course, hundreds of active farming operations inside the city’s limits.
For many residents, traditional employment is hard to come by. Official statistics report that 30 percent of Detroit is unemployed — but in 2010 Mayor Dave Bing said that he believed real unemployment to be closer to 50 percent.
“When we lost our jobs, most of us went into a depression, because for most of us the majority of our identity is in what we do,” said Hicks. “If you don’t have access to a job then who are you? What are you? We started asking those questions.” Through the urban farming movement, she has found that many realized, “We are more than a job! We didn’t die. We still live here. We’re not ghosts.”
“Now people don’t say ‘our jobs,’” she said. “They call it ‘our work.’”
In this way, urban farming is not only replacing disappeared jobs; it is also redefining the very substance and philosophy of work by asking questions about what the meaning of work should be in the first place.
To Wayne and Myrtle Curtis, founders of Freedom Freedom Growers, a farm on Detroit’s East Side, work is about meeting collective needs. “[The jobs] we once had didn’t satisfy our needs,” they wrote on their website. Instead, they desire work that respects their community, themselves and the earth. The collapse of industry in Detroit and the organizing that has followed make it possible to try again.
The roots of the movement
Detroit is a place where labor, manufacturing and race relations have intersected to create a deep history of organizing. The city was a center of the labor movement during the 20th century, when it gave birth to powerful unions like the United Auto Workers. It was one of the centers of the Black Power and Pan-African movements, the home of The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the birthplace of The Nation of Islam.
“This was one of the first cities where Black Power talked about a different kind of city,” said Shea Howell, a member of the Boggs Center and a community activist.
This history of Detroit as a stronghold of labor and African-American organizing has been lost in the story often told of Detroit’s collapse, which included a 60-percent decline in the city’s population since 1950. Charity Hicks summarized the faulty narrative about Detroit: “It is really poor. It has collapsed. It is the most blighted area in North America.”
In this narrative, “Capitalists are not to blame,” she explains. “But the people of Detroit are.”
To Hicks, this story, which places the fault of Detroit’s collapse on the city’s residents and particularly the African-Americans who stayed after the factories chased cheaper labor overseas, is mere propaganda. The real story of Detroit’s decline is the intermingling of deindustrialization, capital flight and fear sparked by radical African-American organizing. Beginning in the 1950s, middle-class white families fled the city center to white-only suburbs. Thousands more followed after the Detroit Rebellion of 1967, which was sparked by outrage at the racial inequality in the city, particularly policing in African-American neighborhoods.
Yet, through the city’s food sovereignty movement, Detroiters are countering that narrative of Detroit’s collapse to reflect a city that is building a new kind of future — one rooted in its long movement history.
Land is the basis of power
Today’s gardens in Detroit grew out of a long history of urban farming that begins with the Great Migration: the wave of six million African Americans who moved northward from the South throughout the 20th century. In Detroit, some of these migrants brought with them their agricultural roots. They formed a group called “the Gardening Angels” in the 1980s. The movement grew food both for sustenance and to bestow the traditions of the elders to the youth, who had little connection to the earlier generation’s agricultural knowledge.
The politics of this urban gardening movement grew out of the core tenets of the Black Power and the Pan-Africanist movements — political orientations that are still alive in today’s food generation of farmers. Malik Yakini is the director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and was formerly a member of the Pan-African Congress in the 1970s, which held the position that land is the basis of power.
In a recent Facebook post regarding the Hantz Woodlands deal, Yakini articulated that position again, which holds a significant meaning in light of the present struggle. Amidst a landscape dominated by blighted structures and vacant lots, this philosophy reflects not only the idea that land sustains life but also that it builds community and allows one to create a sense of home, identity and belonging in a place. This is all the more necessary in neighborhoods that have been deeply fractured by the incarceration of African-American males and neighborhood violence due to the war on drugs.
Hicks explains that for her as “an African-descendant-American woman,” Detroit is a “city of profound violence and murder” but also “profound possibility.” “It is a place of trying to repair black people’s identity and self-worth,” she said. In Detroit, which has the largest percentage of African-American residents of any major U.S. city, the idea that land is the basis of power has become not only about food sovereignty and self-determination but also about re-planting African-American cultural roots deep enough to regrow community.
The battle between two futures
As the emerging possibilities in Detroit become ever more evident, Charity Hicks asks, “Whose possibility is Detroit the place of?”
Municipal and state political leaders, as well as large landowners, are confronting the new power being sewn from below with increasing resistance. The Hantz Woodlands deal, passed despite community outrage, is only one of a slew of recent power grabs.
Late last year, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed both the Right to Work law, which attacks labor power, and the Emergency Financial Manager law, which could lead to the state’s full-scale takeover of Detroit’s municipal finances. The fact that these laws and deals passed in spite of so much public opposition was not an unexpected outcome for many Detroiters, who are growing accustomed to city and state officials disregarding the voices of their constituents with the demeaning excuse that the people don’t know what’s best for them.
But to Shea Howell, these moves also signal something new — and positive. “We are now posing not just some little alternatives here and there,” she said. “These alternatives are now beginning to suggest a totally different direction for the city.”
“Detroit becomes two worlds,” Hicks explains. On the one hand, it is “the world of possibility, of the emergence of a new way of life, a new understanding, a kind of re-emergence of our humanity.” But on the other, it is “the old status quo of perpetual growth and the capitalist constantly making a profound return on the dollar.”
The battle for a new direction for Detroit resembles similar struggles in many crisis-ridden urban areas — especially those experiencing the consequences of storms like Katrina and Sandy. As climate change continues, we’re sure to see more neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward and Far Rockaway: communities struggling to rebuild while abandoned by capital and the political elite. In these neighborhoods, people will be left to rebuild as they have been doing in Detroit in the decay of industrialism.
As Shea Howell says, “Detroit is so compelling, in the way that Chiapas is so compelling, because you can see places where real liberation is actually happening — not in its fullness, certainly not, but enough that we know that there can be a better future.”
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This story was made possible by our members. Become one today.The Health Care System Is Leaving The Southern Black Belt Behind Filed under Public Health
Sitting outside of a Starbucks on the corner of a strip mall in Tuscaloosa late last year, Dr. Remona Peterson described her hometown of Thomaston, Alabama, population 400. “Everybody loves our grocery store. That’s, like, our pride,” she said with a laugh. She was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama’s fifth-largest city, finishing her medical residency when Dave’s Market opened in an old Thomaston high school gym last year. Peterson said it became the only place to buy groceries for miles in any direction, and it was one of the few changes to the town she can remember from the last three decades.
Peterson wants to be a part of positive change in the region, which is why she’s back after a circuitous journey through medical school. She was valedictorian of her 29-person high school class and graduated summa cum laude from Tuskegee University, where she earned a full scholarship and the university’s distinguished scholars award. She went on to medical school and got the residency in Tuscaloosa. It was her first choice; she felt that the University of Alabama would best prepare her for her long-term goal: to add her name to the short list of African-American doctors working in the Alabama Black Belt who were also born and raised there.
The Black Belt refers to a stretch of land in the U.S. South whose fertile soil drew white colonists and plantation owners centuries ago. After hundreds of thousands of people were forced there as slaves, the region became the center of rural, black America. Today, the name describes predominantly rural counties where a large share of the population is African-American. The area is one of the most persistently poor in the country, and residents have some of the most limited economic prospects. Life expectancies are among the shortest in the U.S., and poor health outcomes are common. This article is part of a series examining these disparities.
The disparities partly stem from a lack of access to care — but access is a complicated notion. Early in the Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the GOP homed in on the idea, saying the party wanted to guarantee “access to health care” for everyone. But the ongoing national policy conversation has hinged on insurance coverage, the main issue tackled by both the Affordable Care Act and the current GOP efforts. Yes, measuring who’s insured illuminates one way by which people have access to the health care system, but it’s only part of the picture. The term “access to health care” has a standardized federal definition that’s much broader: “the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best health outcomes.” And there’s a list of metrics to measure it. Researchers consider structural barriers, such as distance to a hospital or how many health professionals work in an area, to be important. As are metrics that gauge whether a patient can find a health care provider that she trusts and can communicate with well enough to get the services she needs.
Southern states have health outcomes that are among the worst in the U.S. overall, and they have some of the largest in-state health disparities, according to County Health Rankings, an annual report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin. Transportation options are limited, and health care worker shortages are routine. In Alabama, Black Belt counties have fewer primary care physicians, dentists and mental health providers per resident than other counties. They also tend to have the highest rates of uninsured people. Poverty rates, which are associated with limited access to care, are also high.
Becoming a doctor in the Black Belt
Peterson knows these challenges well, but she objects to people viewing the region as hopeless. “The Black Belt is just so much in need. I don’t want to be looked at … as though people are dumb. And people do look at us like that,” Peterson told me. “Some people just need opportunity. Like me, I needed that opportunity. Someone just gotta give us a chance.”
Peterson likes to acknowledge the help she got during her quest to become a doctor. Her impressive résumé masks the deeply rooted challenges she encountered growing up. Her parents were teachers, which gave her family financial stability, but the largely segregated public schools she attended had little in the way of supplies or technology. She had some great teachers, including a chemistry teacher who Peterson credits with her love of science, but she was shocked by what her classmates already knew when she reached college. “I’m looking around the room like, ‘how do people know this?’ I was lost,” she said. She went on to win an award from the university in her freshman year, for best chemistry and math student. Though she was always a straight-A student, testing wasn’t her forte, and she had trouble with the MCAT, the exam required for entry to most medical schools.
She enrolled in a master’s program in rural and community health, trying to buy time to lift her test scores. She finished the master’s, but didn’t raise her test scores, so she ended up at medical school on a Caribbean island, working simultaneously on an MBA that allowed her to receive some U.S. student loans to pay tuition. After two years she was back in the U.S., her family tapped out of money, trying to figure out how to pay for the rest of her degree.
Then, Peterson was connected to a hospital near her hometown via a farming cooperative she’d worked with while getting her master’s. She explained her situation to the hospital administrator, and, thrilled by the idea of a doctor from the area coming back to work in the community, he struck an unusual deal: Greene County Health System, about midway between her hometown and Tuscaloosa, would pay for the rest of Peterson’s education if she agreed to work there after she graduated. She readily accepted. She found a program she could finish from within the U.S., and in 2014, she graduated from medical school.
Insurance and access
Greene County Hospital is in a low-slung brick building a couple of blocks from the center of Eutaw, Alabama. The town has hollowed out over the years, though its past riches are still on display in the Kirkwood plantation house, and empty stores line the main square. The hospital was hit hard by the county’s shrinking population, which is about 8,400 — less than a third of what it was in 1860, when more than three-quarters of the population were slaves. Jobs and potential patients have evaporated. But the dwindling population isn’t all that makes it hard for the hospital to stay afloat, CEO Elmore Patterson III said.
Greene County is high on poverty and low on resources; centuries’ worth of inequalities have led to major health disparities. And the hospital suffers from problems plaguing rural health systems across the country — too many uninsured people, patients who are sick and have few resources, and aging infrastructure.
The mix of people who use the hospital’s services also poses a financial challenge. People with money and private insurance mostly travel to larger cities to seek care, which means most people using Greene County Health System are uninsured or on public insurance like Medicaid or Medicare. About 7 percent of patients have commercial insurance, Patterson said, and about 8 percent have no insurance at all. This affects the hospital’s bottom line.
Doctors, policy experts and even some state officials say an important but controversial first step would improve access to health care: expanding Medicaid.
Nearly half of the people who use the Greene County Health System now are on Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income people. Having so many patients on Medicaid is a stress on the system because the program offers lower reimbursement rates for care than other health insurance providers, Patterson said. But from the hospital’s perspective, it’s far better than a patient having no insurance at all.
Alabama allows broad access to Medicaid for children; anyone under age 18 in a family earning below 312 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $76,000 for a family of four, qualifies. But Alabama is one of the most conservative states when it comes to access for adults. Healthy, childless adults aren’t eligible for Medicaid, no matter their income, and parents must make below 13 percent of the federal poverty line to qualify. “You don’t have any healthy people on Medicaid in the state of Alabama,” Patterson said. That means a lot of care and little money to pay for it, he said.
Even though Medicaid doesn’t pay a lot, the uninsured patients are even more of a strain on the system. Adult men working for low hourly wages without benefits have no realistic way to buy health insurance, and they often end up in the emergency department when something goes wrong, Patterson said. That was meant to change with the Affordable Care Act. The law was written to expand Medicaid in every state, in theory reducing the number of uninsured people using hospital services, and so it cut some of the federal government’s reimbursements for care provided to the uninsured. But after the Supreme Court ruled that states could choose whether to expand Medicaid, Alabama, like most of the Black Belt states, said no thanks. The result has been less support from the federal government for uninsured patients, many of whom would qualify for Medicaid under the expansion.
“The Black Belt is a road map,” said Patrick Sullivan, a professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University who previously worked on HIV surveillance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “That’s what’s so tragic and so compelling. It’s an endgame depiction of what happens when you have social and structural inequalities. It’s the vestiges of slavery and inequality, and in the long run those things do play out as health inequalities.” Sullivan and colleagues have studied why HIV rates are so much higher among African-Americans and Latinos than other racial groups and found that health insurance is the most important mediating factor. People in both racial/ethnic groups are more likely to be poor and have less education, which are related barriers, but insurance coverage is where the local and federal government could improve access to treatment, Sullivan said.
Since most Southern states chose not to expand Medicaid, there’s no clear way to dismantle that barrier. And a GOP push not only to roll back the expansion but also to shift costs onto states for the longstanding parts of the program could leave even more people uninsured or with access to fewer services.
Structural barriers and access
Greene County Hospital has been struggling for years. Its operating profit margin is -19.5 percent, according to an evaluation by the Chartis Center for Rural Health, making it one of the worst-performing rural hospitals, financially speaking, in Alabama. Care is often more expensive to provide in rural settings, where hospitals are too small to negotiate the best prices for supplies and equipment. The bills the GOP has proposed to replace the ACA would make the problem worse: Cuts to Medicaid would disproportionately hit rural hospitals, which largely depend on funding from the program.
Other rural hospitals are collapsing under the weight of these problems, too. Nearly 80 have permanently closed in the U.S. since 2010, according to data compiled by the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina. Alabama alone has lost five of 54 rural hospitals since 2010; several more, like Greene County’s, operate in the red.
Having to travel long distances for essential care can be a barrier to access. People who live far from emergency rooms are more likely to die from emergencies such as heart disease or accidents. People in rural areas also frequently live farther from pharmacies and are less likely to receive preventive services. For example, there is no prenatal care available in Greene County, Patterson said, which is a problem in much of the Black Belt and in other rural counties across the U.S. The Greene County Health System can provide a few basics, such as prenatal vitamins, but pregnant women must travel for an ultrasound. That’s also the case when it’s time for women to have their babies. It’s nearly an hour-and-a-half drive to Tuscaloosa from Peterson’s hometown, Thomaston, but the nearby labor and delivery unit in Demopolis closed in 2014. During Peterson’s residency, she met women who had given birth in the car while making the drive to a hospital.
States are looking for solutions, alternatives to full-service rural hospitals, to create new kinds of geographical access to care. Some places are considering the use of freestanding emergency departments. There’s also a movement toward allowing nurse practitioners to take charge of more services than they are currently allowed to provide. But these ideas require additional research and regulatory changes. In the meantime, rural hospital systems are often the only option for communities when an emergency strikes. Patients need facilities, and those facilities need to be reimbursed for care if they are going to survive.
35 Years Of American Death: Our maps show estimated mortality rates for leading causes of death for every county in the U.S. going back to 1980. Read more »
Some places have found creative ways to buck the closure trend. In Centreville, just north of the state-defined Black Belt, the Cahaba Medical Care facility serves a largely low-income population, and a quarter of patients are black. It’s attached to a county hospital, and together they opened a labor and delivery unit in 2015. It was the rebirth of a facility that had closed about 15 years before. The man who led that effort, Dr. John Waits, also runs the only rural family medicine residency in Alabama and is part of a small but tenacious group of Alabamians trying to expand training options for doctors who want to work in rural communities.
Waits, who is white, grew up in a conservative, Christian Alabama family with a father who was a surgeon. His conservative beliefs extended to the health care system, and he spent a summer as an intern at the Family Research Council, fighting Hillary Clinton’s 1993 effort to overhaul health insurance. He then studied medicine, assuming he’d work as a missionary abroad. But after his residency, he found himself at a hospital in Centreville, a rural town southeast of Tuscaloosa. He remembers being blown away by the disconnect between conservative policy proposals and the conditions in the community. “I distinctly remember two weeks post-residency, sitting down on the sofa and thinking, ‘I haven’t met a single patient for whom a health savings account will solve anything,’” he said, referencing a cornerstone of conservative health policy that allows people to put money aside tax-free to pay for medical services. He says it quickly became apparent to him that the state needed to get insurance to the poorest Alabamians and that sometimes the coverage would need to be free.
Waits and several partners set about opening a new clinic, one that would provide a full range of health services to an underserved community and would charge on a sliding scale based on patient income. Today, the staff of Cahaba provides mental health, primary, and pediatric care. Its staff also see patients at the county hospital’s nursing facility, labor and delivery, and inpatient units.
The clinic won Waits accolades around the state, including from the governor’s mansion. It also helped land him a spot on a task force that former Gov. Robert Bentley convened to find ways to improve access to health care in the state, with a focus on rural communities. “We’ve got unanimous resolution that it’s Medicaid,” Waits told me late last fall, before Bentley resigned because of a sex scandal. In a carefully worded report, the group suggested that the state “must move forward at the earliest opportunity to close Alabama’s health coverage gap.”
“Nothing happens without Medicaid,” Waits said. “It is the No. 1, the No. 2, it is the top 10 solutions.”
Years of work have also taught Waits that a functional system has to at least be able to provide preventive care for women and children. “It’s a whole nother thing trying to get the men in for their colonoscopies. But if the kids are getting in for their vaccines, kids are in school, teenagers aren’t pregnant, that’s kind of the backbone of the health care system.” But preventive care is also about things that happen outside a doctor’s office. Recent research has found that the risk of heart disease, even for those with family histories, decreases by half if people don’t smoke, get exercise at least once a week, eat healthy food and aren’t obese (even if they are overweight). But some of those are hard things to accomplish in the Black Belt. As was the case when Peterson was growing up in Thomaston, people must often travel long distances to reach a grocery store, which makes it hard to get fresh produce. As in many rural areas, there are few sidewalks in the Black Belt, and the hot weather during parts of the year is not conducive to exercise outside anyway. Waits counts lack of exercise as among the biggest barriers to health for people in the region.
Trust and access
And there are more intimate problems as well, such as communication between doctors and patients. “It definitely takes time, being a white doctor, for a black resident to trust you. To some extent that’s true everywhere, but it’s lengthier and deeper here,” Waits said. “Some of it relates to relatively recent medical ethics.”
Waits was referring to the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiments, in which researchers deprived a group of black men with syphilis of treatment for some 40 years, until 1972, in order to study the progression of the disease. But that’s not the only cause of a documented lack of trust of medical professionals among African-Americans. Trust is a hard-to-measure but important aspect of how researchers gauge the ability of a provider to address a patient’s needs once she reaches a facility.
African-Americans are more likely to report being treated with disrespect by a doctor and are less likely to be health literate than whites, which can make it difficult to understand prescription drug labels or complete medical forms. And research shows that African-Americans do receive different treatment than whites. The 2015 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that black Americans received worse care than whites on 41 percent of health care measures.
A doctor such as Remona Peterson, who is African-American and comes from the community, is likely to be a key part of the solution here. She said her whole reason for going to medical school was to take her intimate understanding of the area where her family has lived for more than a century and use it to improve her community’s health. The issues of trust and access hit home: Peterson remembers an aunt who was hypertensive and uninsured. She didn’t think any of the local doctors would see her, so she received little in the way of treatment. She had a stroke and died at age 54.
In some ways, Peterson’s winding path from straight-A student to rural doctor could help her adjust to working in such a challenging environment. Peterson hopes that she’ll be able to communicate more effectively with her patients and that they’ll trust that she cares. She also hopes she’ll be better at understanding their needs beyond physical and mental health. That could include making sure they have transportation to appointments or remembering to prescribe generic drugs people can afford. All of this could go a long way toward improving access to care. “If you grow up in this, you know what it’s like,” she said.
Peterson alternated between concern and excitement about what’s ahead. “I worry if I’m going to be good enough for them, for my people. I want to do my best; I want to be good enough.” She also described her ideal rural practice: a bus that can go and get patients, an office with a nutritionist, an exercise program, community health educators. She has high hopes for the future.
“There’s so much we could do in the Black Belt; I don’t even know where to start. I know what I can do as a doctor,” Peterson said, “but it’s going to take more than just me. It’s going to take a team of people who want to see the community change and get better.” Peterson will soon be part of that team. She will join the staff of the Greene County Health System on July 24.
Reporting for this story was supported by the Center for Health Journalism’s Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and the Fund for Journalism on Child Well-being.On 13 September, in his annual State of the Union address, President Jean-Claude Juncker stated: "Our Union needs a democratic leap forward. Too often Europe-wide elections have been reduced to nothing more than the sum of national campaigns. European democracy deserves better. We should be giving European parties |
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"If you were a 90's kid, chances are there was a point in time when AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was a huge part of your life," wrote Michael Albers, vice president of communications product at Oath, in a blog post. Oath is the new brand for the combined AOL and Yahoo. "You likely remember the CD, your first screenname, your carefully curated away messages, and how you organized your buddy lists."
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After that date, users won't be able to sign in.
AOL Instant Messenger was wildly popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s and claimed more than 100 million registered users in 2001. Its popularity as a communication tool waned amid the rise of text messaging, Google Chat and social networking sites.Lisa Haydon will be the guest narrator for the play on March 21
The play: Masterminds Theatre presents Three Women, a musical in association with t2
Where: GD Birla Sabhagar
When: March 21 and 22; 6.30pm
What to expect: “A saucy, satirical, modern-day spin on the lives of three of Rabindranath Tagore’s women — two fictional characters and Kadambari Devi, Tagore’s sister-in-law and
lifetime muse — then and now,” said singer Isheeta Ganguly (inset), who has written and directed Three Women.
About the play: It is about the ups and downs of desire, purpose and second chances set to folk-pop beats with a fictional take on the lives of the three women.
The narrative traces the evolution of two women from Tagore’s novellas — Bimala from The Home and the World (Ghare Baire) and Charu from The Broken Nest (Nashtanir) — seen from the perspective of a modern-day “Sex and the City-esque” Kadambari Devi.
The three women reflect on love and life only to realise that while there may have been an external revolution for women between the 19th and the 21st centuries, their quiet, inner struggles remain much the same. Three Women illustrates the continuing relevance of Tagore’s work as women today negotiate similar issues of beauty, love, identity and empowerment.
Amrita Bagchi plays Charu, Avantika Ganguly plays Bimala and Dipika Roy plays Kadambari. Queen girl Lisa Haydon will be the guest narrator.
The 90-minute play premiered in Mumbai in 2014.
Organiser speak: “We want to bring nationally acclaimed plays to Calcutta. We aspire to entertain, stimulate, educate and make one laugh. And we feel so encouraged by the response we’ve been getting from theatre lovers in our city,” said Surekha Mimani, proprietor, Masterminds Theatre.
Tickets: Priced at Rs 1,500, Rs 1,000 and Rs 700, tickets are available at the venue from March 16 (11am to 6pm) and on bookmyshow.com. To get tickets home-delivered, call 9830044455.
What: The 2nd edition of International Grandmasters Open Chess Tournament, in association with The Telegraph
When: March 16-24, 2.30pm onwards
Where: ICCR, 9A Ho Chi Minh Sarani
What to expect: As chess players from 11 countries gather around the table, gear up for a battle of brains with 138 players fighting it out for the International Grandmaster title. Expect grandmasters from various countries as well as seasoned pros to make this an engaging tournament. For grandmaster Dibyendu Barua, who conceived of this tournament, it is also a great platform for budding talent. “With the youngest player being only 10 years old, it is a learning opportunity for amateurs who’ll come in contact with and watch the games of the pros,” said Barua.
What: Pratibimb: Reflections of Women in Theatre
When: March 16-18, 7pm
Where: GD Birla Sabhagar
What to expect: A three-day festival that puts women under the spotlight and serves as a forum to highlight the trials and tribulations of women past and present, through theatre, music, literature and dance. Three diverse productions will mark Pratibimb to be inaugurated by Jaya Bachchan on Monday. The festival opens with No Ordinary Love, a blend of music and monologues on three women from literature and history — Nati Binodini, Meerabai and Chitrangada. Shahana Chatterjee will give voice to the three women against a backdrop of live music by You & I duo Soumyojit Das and Sourendro Mullick. Day Two features Usha Ganguli’s play Hum Mukhtara with Ganguli in the role of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman who was gang-raped more than a decade ago. On Day Three dancer Anita Ratnam from Chennai will slip into the role of A Million Sitas to retell the tale of women from Ramayana through dance-theatre, mime and movement.
Organiser speak: “This festival was conceptualised with the idea of using performance not only to entertain but also talk about issues related to gender disparities and empowerment. What better time than around the International Women’s Day to celebrate and pay tribute to the spirit of womanhood and its diverse expressions?” said festival director Shahana Chatterjee.
Correction: Devlina Banerji (picture left) was incorrectly identified in the Adspace article published in the March 14 edition of t2. The error is regretted.Yuimetal and Moametal interview – Hedoban Vol. 10 Yuimetal and Moametal interview – Hedoban Vol. 10 This is for reference purposes only. Please get your hands on a copy of: Hedoban Vol. 10 A symbol of the ‘Evolution of Metal’ BABYMETAL Yuimetal (Scream and Dance) Moametal (Scream and Dance) Our 10 thousand character interview ‘So, is it true that are we really granting dreams to people?’ (Yuimetal) Q: This is the first time for any of the 3 of you to appear in ‘Hedoban’ since 2 years ago. Yuimetal: Eh! Moametal: Is that right?! For some reason or other it doesn’t seem like to me DEATH! Q: That may be because we feature reports on your live shows in just about every issue (laughs). However, as for interviews goes that is how it stands. The first time the 3 of you were interviewed by us was about 3 years ago which means that you were both still 1st graders in Jr. High school! Yuimetal and Moametal: (laughing) Q: With that, I would like for you to look back on and reflect about the 2 years where we have not been able to interview you. These 2 years were a succession of stimulating and miraculous happenings and I am sure that for both of you those 2 years went by in a flash. Moametal: I do really feel that the 2 years passed by in the blink of an eye. There is absolutely no way that I can call that span of time as being 2 years. That is because each and every happening was so incredibly deep and rich in content. There were so many instances that I felt were so enjoyable and so many that were so difficult to deal with! While of course there were truly tough times, it is only the fun times that come back to me in my memory. Q: Do you mean to say that the fun times far outweigh the hard times? Moametal: There is no comparison DEATH! Q: How about Yuimetal? Yuimetal: It really did fly by in a flash…so many things, too many things happened in that 2 year span. I am amazed that all that happened occurred in just 2 years. That includes Yokohama Arena that took place just a little while ago, as well as Sonisphere… they all feel like something out of a dream and when I reflect back on things none of it has a sense of reality about it. Q: These 2 years felt like you were living in a dream, like your feet weren’t touching the ground? Is that how it felt? Yuimetal: Hmm..yes, that sounds right. And so, when I was Yuimetal I was myself existing in a dream, and when I was in my temporary disguise I was my ordinary self. It was a traversing back and forth between the two states. Q: Is that the same for Moametal? Moametal: Yes, I think so. There were way too many rich and intense happenings to rightly be jam packed into a 2 year period of time (laughs). Kitsune-sama truly determined to barrage us with a ton of challenges and tests and so I think he (she?) is a bit malicious. (laughs) Q: (laughs) Moametal: I was so busy that it was became almost impossible to distinguish between dreamland and ordinary reality. If this is really happening in the real world then it is truly and amazing occurrence. I don’t think there has ever been a band that has driven upwards and on at the speed we have. Q: Indeed. I doubt you would be able to find another band that has taken on the world stage at this kind of speed even if you searched the world over! Yuimetal and Moametal: (laughing) Q: While you felt as if all of this was happening inside a dream, in the realm of reality you have brought dreams to people all over the world, don’t you think? Has this fact struck home with you? When you performed at the Rokumeikan there were only around 300 people in the audience. From thereon the number of fans coming to your shows rapidly increased until at the end of last year at Yokohama Arena BABYMETAL performed in front of 30 thousand fans in 2 days. The whole world is going crazy over BABYMETAL and there are enthusiastic fans who have been greatly moved by you. In your position as BABYMETAL you have granted a storm of dreams to people all over the world resulting in what is being called ‘The BABYMETAL phenomena’. How do you feel about what is going on? Moametal: Moametal simply, in no way, can keep up with all of this…I am truly happy that people say things like that however. We personally continue to move without knowing in what manner we have grown and succeeded, nor where our final destination will be. When we are told that, ‘you are granting dreams to people, you know’, I get a renewed understanding of how things are. This makes me happy DEATH! Yuimetal: I am so happy to hear you put it like that, DEATH! So, it true that are we really granting dreams to people? Q: I think you are doing that in spades! You have done so in Europe and are granting dreams to a wide variety of people here in Japan. For us at ‘Hedoban’ you have given us a dream to extent that we have plowed ahead to follow you on your overseas tours. Yuimetal: It is all very difficult for me to imagine….none of this has struck home as being real to me. P. 9 Q: Would this seem more real to you if it was seen as taking place inside a dream? Yuimetal: Yes, that sounds right (laughs). Looking from our perspective from the stage, we can see that the audience numbers are getting bigger. However, no matter how big the venues get, our desire to perform with a beginner’s mind is something that never changes DEATH! 2015 December 12 to 13 World Tour 2015 in Japan [The Final Chapter of Trilogy] Yokohama Arena ‘I was afraid if I looked down my tears would definitely drop down on the fans, so I sang looking upwards.’ (Moametal) Q: That is fantastic, DEATH! From this point on I would like to ask you to look back on and reflect about the major events of the past 2 years. To begin with, the one closest in time to us now is last year’s Yokohama Arena show. You do remember that show, correct? (laughs) Yuimetal and Moametal: Yes! (laughing) Q: First of all, how did it feel to ride in on a gondola making your entrance in front of the fans? Wasn’t it scary? Moametal: No, it wasn’t scary at all. I was surprised the first time I heard about it though (laughs). You know, there are many artists who fly around above the stage in their shows, right? Q: Yes, there are – above the stage as well as above the audience. Moametal: I was curious about what the scenery would like when we got to experience it ourselves. I was worried if I would be OK in such a high place, but I knew that the 3 of us could become as One on that Gondola! I felt an immense power coming up my back. I was a bit uneasy about it at first, but once we actually rode out on it, it was pretty much just like a ride at an amusement park (laughs). Q: (laughs) A bit like the feeling of having fun at an amusement park? Moametal: Yes, that’s right (laughs). But, as you know, Yokohama Arena is a really big place! Riding on that gondola I was so delighted to be able to see so many fans. Then, later we sang ‘The One’ from that gondola DEATH! Q: That was the unveiling of that song, right? Moametal: Yes. And in spite of it being the first time to perform it, the fans all sang along with us! I was so moved by that that I was afraid if I looked down my tears would definitely drop down on the fans, so I sang looking upwards. Q: That’s how you felt riding on that gondola…. Moametal: Yes, and so….that really propelled the intensity of how emotional it was. Yuimetal: I wanted to laugh and wave my hands but the atmosphere of the doesn’t really allow for those sorts of actions….. I was, however, able to clearly see the faces of the fans and everyone had smiles on their faces, you know. I was so happy to be able to so directly experience the feelings of the fans. I felt love from them. Q: From your vantage point riding in the gondola, were you able to hear the fans singing? Moametal: Oh, yes, we could hear them! We really wanted to wave our hands, right? Yuimetal: I was itching to do so! (laughs) P. 10 Moametal: I so wanted to wave my hands and look down on the crowd but,… ‘The One’ is not a song that has that kind of atmosphere about it and so I held myself in check (laughs). Q: You debuted 2 new songs at Yokohama Arena- ‘The One’ and ‘Karate’, right? How did you you both feel about these songs the first time you heard them? Maometal: We first did the recording for ‘Karate’ of the parts of ‘Seiya! Sessesse Sesse Seiya!’ and ‘Soiya! Sosso Sossoiya!’ which made me think that this would prove to be a really interesting song. And, once we completed it I thought, ‘Wow, this song is one that I really love!’. There is this ethical understanding in Karate that the martial arts ‘begin with a bow <good manners>, and ends with a bow’, right? I felt that this is also something that is absolutely essential in living our own lives as well. Q: You have really grown. Moametal: (laughs) When I first listened to ‘Karate’ I felt that this feeling is something that we must never lose sight of. In addition to that it also focuses on the importance of ‘the fighting spirit’. If we perform this song at a live show I felt that there is nothing that the 3 of us have to be afraid of. When we perform this song I feel that I want to fight and continue on with this team. Q: Yuimetal, how do you feel about ‘Karate’? Yuimetal: We first only heard the ‘call out’ sections of the song and so I thought that it might be a song designed to draw out the humorous side of BABYMETAL. But, once I heard the whole song in its entirety I felt it was a really cool song with an immensely deep core intent contained in it. And the lyrics are so incredibly straightforward, don’t you think? Q: Yes, it is almost too straightforward and direct. Yuimetal: The choreography is also so amazingly cool. It is also packed with BABYMETAL-ish ‘call outs’ and yet it is a also a perfect song to fit with the aspect of BABYMETAL pioneering ahead in that pathless path that we are traveling down. Moametal: What I learned when it was decided that we would be performing a song called ‘Karate’ that made a deep impression on me was that in all of the Martial Arts it is only Karate that does not have a ‘Ukemi’ <protection, self protection, defense> aspect to it. Q: I see. Moametal: And so, I felt that it was a song that perfectly fits with the feeling of BABYMETAL of never looking back and of only charging ahead! Q: That is so true! Moametal: I think that also is an amazing part of it. Yuimetal: Karate is something that Japan has created, right? And so I think this song has a feel about it that is similar to ‘Megitsune’. Q: It does have a Japanese <Harmonious> feel to it. Yuimetal: Yes, it does DEATH! I think the overseas fans will perceive it as being really fresh and new and I hope that with this song as well as with ‘Megitsune’ that we will be able to convey a sense of Japan <Harmony>. 2012 March 1 and 2 ‘Red Night Legend <Giant Neck Brace Festival> ~ Tenka Ichi Metal BudouKai Final~’ Black Night ‘Legend <Doomsday> ~ The ritual of summoning>’ BudouKan Q: Going way back in time from Yokohama Arena we go back 2 years to the 2 days of shows at the BudouKan. Do you remember that? Yuimetal: I remember it! Q: Really? (laughs) Moametal: I remember it fairly well (laughs) Q: (laughs) On the first day’s show we had the happening with Yuimetal, right? What was Moametal’s state of mind when that happened? P. 11 Moametal: In my way of looking at things, the BudouKan served as a turning point… ‘I switchover in my mind thinking, ‘ I will just have to dance for 2 now”. (Moametal) Q: Do you mean it served as a turning point in the activities of BABYMETAL? Moametal: Yes. Up until that point we had never performed at such a big venue for 2 days of shows. And more than focusing on the choreography we actually prioritized our time remembering where to stand on the stage at certain times and were working hard to get used to the stage props and so I must admit I was uneasy about everything. So many things occurred on the first day that I was in a bit of panic wondering ‘what should I do?’. I knew that we just had to get through the hardships somehow or other. I felt, well, if I get confused about things I should just make things work out by dancing! Q: Did you switchover to that kind of mindset the moment Yuimetal disappeared from the stage? Moametal: At that moment in ‘Hedobangya!’ I switchover in my mind thinking, ‘ I will just have to dance for 2 now’. Q: ‘Dance for 2’ – that is a remark that will be etched in history. How were the BudouKan 2 days for you? Yuimetal: It was a tremendous thing to me. I mean, you know, the BudouKan is such an amazing venue. It is a venue that I knew about from the time I was a little girl. I never imagined that one day I would be able to perform on that stage where so many famous artists have performed, so when I heard that we would be playing at the BudouKan I was really surprised. I thought that because of its stature we would have to truly put on a show that would not be unbefitting. Q: Yuimetal, what was your mindset regarding the 2nd day show? Yuimetal: Well, since I had caused so many people to worry about me I felt that I had to perform in a way that would let them know that I was completely fine! And I went all out to do that. Moametal: Something that the 3 of us talk about amongst ourselves recently is the idea that we would like to perform the same set list that we used at the BudouKan once more time, DEATH! Q: Do you mean the 1st day or the 2nd day? Yuimetal and Moametal: The 1st day DEATH! Moametal: It was really tough at the time, but now that we have added power and stamina through our World tours we would like to see what kind of show we could put on now. When we performed for the first time, at the Rokumeikan, it was truly gruelling. Q: The Rokumeikan show was a tough one as well? Moametal: Yes. And that is why we would like to perform those 2 shows one more time DEATH! 2014 July 5 Sonisphere ~ Apollo Stage Knebworth, UK Q: I personally would love to that someday. So with the completion of the BudouKan shows you then prepare to travel to Europe. BABYMETAL, this band that has caused so many miracles to occur is about to open the curtains on their first World Tour which begins with Sonisphere. There were 50 to 60 thousands people in attendance at that time, right? This is of a scale that is even bigger than the Festivals you had theretofore experienced in Japan; weren’t you nervous? Yuimetal: We couldn’t see the crowd at first. Moametal: Yes, right, right. ‘….experience of performing at Sonisphere has helped us overcome any hardships we have faced at other big venue shows after that. (Yuimetal) Yuimetal: We wanted to see what the audience looked like, and perhaps because we took a peak at a slanted angle from the side of the stage, it didn’t seem like there were very many people gathered to our show. And so, we faced the stage with the uneasy feeling that there may not be any people there to watch us. But once we actually made our way onto the stage we saw that there were people stretching way back out of sight. P. 12 Yuimetal (cont): What is more, this was our first overseas Metal Festival and I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority of the people there were seeing BABYMETAL for the first time, and this being the first time to perform on such a large stage, we were really nervous. But, as we progressed through the songs the crowd started raising their fists in excitement and even doing the Fox sign. Plus, when we finished they were screaming out, ‘We want more!’. Q: Yes, we could clearly hear those screams for more. Yuimetal: We could really hear it! When I heard that I thought to myself, ‘BABYMETAL’s music has really reached these Metal fans!’. I was so happy to have gotten the strong realization that we had grabbed the hearts of these people. The deep realization has led to more confidence, and that experience of performing at Sonisphere has helped us overcome any hardships we have faced at other big venue shows after that. Q: So, looking back on things, do you consider Sonisphere to have been a turning point for BABYMETAL? Moametal: Yes, I think so. There is no doubt in my mind that it was a turning point! At first, the sense of trepidation outweighed the sense of having fun…..and we knew that this would be our first time doing an ‘away from home’ show and at an overseas Metal Festival. Q: But, you, the 3 girls of BABYMETAL are so ridiculously strong when it comes to ‘away from home’ performances, right? Moametal: You think so? (laughs) Q: No mistake about it! Moametal: That said, it is because of Sonisphere that we come to consider ‘away from home’ to equal ‘fun’. Recently I have come to like our ‘away from home’ venue locations (laughs). It is incredibly fun to build up the fun and excitement and bring everyone along the BABYMETAL path, DEATH! Q: You mean, even playing the big venues turns to fun as you perform? Yuimetal: It is fun from the get-go. P. 13 Moametal: Yep. Q: Really?! Yuimetal: You know, the Festivals are made up almost totally of people who don’t know BABYMETAL. It is true that it is a task to convey the charm of BABYMETAL to new people starting from scratch, but it is precisely because of that there is a huge sense of achievement at that moment when we feel we have grabbed their heart. I really like Festivals as they are. Q: Regardless of whether they are overseas or domestic? Yuimetal and Moametal: Yes, DEATH! 2014 November 8 Back to the UK Tour 2014 O2 Academy Brixton, UK ‘However, I had the best time of all in the unveiling of ‘Road of Resistance”. (Moametal) Q: Next, we have your 2nd solo live performance in London at the Brixton Academy. This was the debut of the song, ‘Road of Resistance’, right? In our interview with Kobametal in ‘Hedoban Vol. 6’, he said that Yuimetal had made a request to debut ‘Road of Resistance’ at Brixton Academy. Yuimetal: I may have said that (laughs). Q: (laughs) That song has now become a song that represents BABYMETAL. What was your impression of it the first time you listened to it? Yuimetal: First of all, let me say I am so incredibly happy that this song got made. The songs of BABYMETAL before this one had a humorous perspective about them in their lyrics, but this song contains a very hot, passionate message. And what is more, since it fits perfectly with the state that we are in at the moment, there is so much in the lyrics that we can totally relate to, DEATH! Yuimetal tends to put great emphasis on the lyrics of songs when I listen to music. Q: Does that go for both songs by BABYMETAL as well as other artists? Yuimetal: Yes. I focus on the lyrics when I listen to the songs of other people as well. I tend to feel, ‘Ah, I like this song’, in light of the lyrics. And because of that, out of all the BABYMETAL songs it is ‘Road of Resistance’ that I like the best DEATH! I really like songs that energize me with power. I also like the dance for this song, DEATH! Q: The dance is absolutely cool. What does Moametal think about ‘Road of Resistance’. Moametal: It is a song that I like as well. I really like the unveiling of new songs. Q: Does that go for all songs? Moametal: Yes. The first time we debuted ‘Doki Doki Morning’ I was overwhelmed with fun and excitement looking ahead to performing it. Q: Do you remember that? Moametal: Of course I remember it! However, I had the best time of all in the unveiling of ‘Road of Resistance’. Q: Did you think that even as you were dancing? Moametal: Yes, I felt that as we were dancing. With this being set up to be debuted as a new song overseas, and with more love of performing new songs from the outset, I was absolutely, totally overwhelmed with delight when so many of the fans sang along with us in spite of it being its first performance. Q: I was there at the show and the foreigners were really going all out singing along with you. We you surprised by that? Moametal: I was really surprised! I was ridiculously happy, DEATH! Q: Are you able to hear the fans when they sing ‘Wow wow~’? Moametal: Of course, we can hear them. I take out my ear monitor to hear them. Q: Do you take it out on purpose? Moametal: Yes, I want to hear their singing voices (laughs). Yuimetal: You can even hear them singing with the ear monitor in. Q: Do the 2 of you get energy from that ‘Wow wow~’? Yuimetal: Yes. And that goes especially for when we debuted it in England! The response of the fans was totally unexpected and off the charts. For example, we feel more at ease performing in Japan than overseas, right? England gives us a feeling that is close to that – it is a feeling of being able to perform without worry you could say. England feels like a second home to us. P. 14 Yuimetal (cont.) And that is probably the reason why I said that hoped we would debut ‘Road of Resistance’ at our 2nd performance in England. Q: Just as Yuimetal just now said, England is a place where one feels at ease. You have traveled there about 4 times, right? Yuimetal: I think we have gone more times than that. Moametal: We go there quite often. Q: So, anyway, does England truly have the feeling of being your 2nd hometown? Yuimetal and Moametal: Yes! Yuimetal: Part of that is probably due to the length of the time we have spent there as well. Moametal: We sometimes stay in London for a full week at a time, so I feel completely comfortable there (laughs). 2015 May 9 BABYMETAL World Tour 2015 Circo Volador, Mexico City, Mexico Q: Next, I hope we can talk about a show that out of the BABYMETAL shows that I have seen overseas made a strong impression on me personally-the Mexico show. You had already toured in Europe, but I believe this is the first time for you to play in Central America. What was your image of Mexico before going there? Moametal: I had no real image outside of the food, DEATH! Q: (laughs) You mean tacos? Moametal: Yes! (laughs) I only knew Mexico for tacos. I had the image in my mind that it was a country where they only ate tacos all the time and so I wondered what kind of country it would actually be. When we actually went there I realized that it is situated at a very high altitude! ‘We went and climbed a pyramid there in Mexico as part of our training’. (Moametal) Q: Did you feel a lack of oxygen when you were performing? Moametal: Yes, I did. We rehearsed at a venue we had rented out before the show and it was quite tough there as well. We went and climbed a pyramid there in Mexico as part of our training. Q: You went to the pyramid not for sightseeing, but rather for training purposes? Moametal: That’s right, DEATH! It was in order to get used to the high altitude. Q: Yuimetal, what did you think of the response of the fans? Yuimetal: I can’t really say as I don’t have much of a memory of the live show. The altitude was so high at that show that I was just focusing with all my might on performing each song one at a time. Q: I was there and the fans were singing out ‘Ole, ole ~’ like they were cheering on a soccer game, right? Moametal: They were singing like that! Q: The atmosphere of the venue was that of like being in a soccer stadium. Also, following the ending of the show the fans didn’t go home even though you had exited the stage. They just kept riding the excitement. Yuimetal: I was so incredibly happy! Q: When they would they would spot a Japanese they would ask, ‘can I take your picture?’. Yuimetal and Moametal: Wow, really? Q: It was like a non-ending Festival. 2015 May 29 Rockavaria Olympiapark, Munchen, Germany 2015 May 30 Rock Im Revier Veltins Arena, Gelsenkirchen, Germany Q: After this there were 2 Festivals – Roc Kavaria and Rock Im Revier. Do you remember them? Moametal: The German Festivals, DEATH! Q: That’s right. Munich and Dortmund. Many of the super famous overseas Metal bands like Metallica and Limp Bizkit were also appearing at these shows. When you see these overseas bands perform do you get interested in their music and go on to listen to them? Moametal: Yes. When I heard Limp Bizkit’s ‘My Generation’ I immediately thought to myself that I had heard it somewhere before. (laughs) ‘For us, ‘Metallica-san IS Metal’, you know.’ (Yuimetal) Moametal: We do an homage to them, but the first time I heard them perform it, it made me feel like they were doing an homage to us (laughs). Q: (laughs) Moametal: And so, I think the German Festivals were fantastically fun, DEATH! I was able to go around and see a lot of different performances. P. 15 Q: What impressions does Yuimetal have of the German Festivals? Yuimetal: I was also deeply impressed by Limp Bizkit, but it is the presence of Metallica, in the end, that has really impressed me. Q: They are that big to you?! Yuimetal: Yes, DEATH! The first Metal band that we met was Metallica-san, you see. For us, ‘Metallica-san IS Metal’, you know. When I saw them perform I thought they were so cool. When we actually met them in person backstage they were so friendly and kind, and it was this gap that really attracted them to me. They have that ‘Star quality’ in spades. Q: You also saw them at the Reading&Leeds Festival. Moametal: Yes, we saw them there as well! I don’t think I have ever had a case of goose bumps like I got when I saw them! Q: You got goose bumps watching the Metallica performance? Moametal: We were able to watch the show from the side stage. I was so amazing to experience that volume of sound at such close proximity and the guitar and vocals were just so cool. They even glanced our way when they exited the stage. I wonder if they remembered us. That feeling of having been recognized also made me very happy, DEATH! Q: The reason you were able to feel that Metallica is so cool is proof that the spirit of Metal has completely taken up home inside you, I think. Yuimetal: When we first saw them we just thought of them as some middle aged foreigner men. Moametal: That’s right (laughs) Q: What was the moment when you changed into thinking they were cool? Yuimetal: When we met them at Summer Sonic I was just of the impression that foreigner are friendly, but when I saw them actually performing a live show I thought, ‘Are these really the same people?’ – the gap was that big. When we saw them live the other day….their ability to grab ahold of the audience was totally amazing – something almost otherworldly. We are not even close to that level yet, DEATH! Q: Is Metallica an existence that is something like a target for you? Yuimetal: We have always and continue to say that our aim ‘is to be the only one’ and I believe we have absorbed a great deal from Metallica-san, DEATH! Moametal: Rather than treating them as a target I would say that we want to absorb all we can from them, take that and change it into ‘our own style of Metal’. Q: Wow, you have come a long way in 2 years to be able to speak like that…. Yuimetal and Moametal: (laughing) 2015 September 16 to October 16 World Tour 2015 in Japan ‘I had so wanted to do a Japan Tour for long that I was so excited leading up to it.’ (Yuimetal) Q: After you returned from Europe you began your first Japan Tour. In every interview you were saying, ‘we would like to do a Japan Tour’, and so this must have been something the 2 of you were looking forward to for a long time, right? Yuimetal: I was very happy! Moametal: It was a lot of fun! Q: A while back you said that you wanted to go to Kyuushuu, didn’t you? Yuimetal: Yes, she was saying that! Q: Do you remember? Moametal: I do remember that! Honestly, I only have fun memories about everything to do with the Japan Tour. Out of last year’s World Tour the part that I feel was ridiculously fun was the Japan Tour part. You know, when you do a World Tour it is not so easy for Japanese fans to make it to the shows, right? That is why I had felt that I wanted us to do a Japan Tour from |
"I honestly cannot believe I'm here," he quipped at the start of the show. "It's an honour that everyone else said 'no'."
The show also included a tribute to the James Bond franchise, followed by an appearance by Dame Shirley Bassey, who sang her theme song to the 1960s Bond classic Goldfinger.
A salute to movie musicals saw Chicago Oscar-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones and Dreamgirls winner Jennifer Hudson join Les Miserables cast members Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter and Amanda Seyfried on stage.
During the section of the show that pays tribute to those who died in 2012, Barbra Streisand sang the late Marvin Hamlisch's The Way We Were, from the 1973 romantic drama in which she starred with Robert Redford. It was Streisand's first Oscars performance for 36 years.Nick Akerman -- MSNBC screenshot
Speaking on MSNBC, a former Watergate prosecutor explained that a very thorough Special Counsel Robert Mueller has an “ironclad case” an against ex-Trump campaign manager, and that the White House should be concerned that former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has been wearing a wire for months.
Speaking with host Ali Velshi, attorney Nick Akerman said he had looked at the indictment against Manafort and said that he had no doubt that Trump associate would be found guilty.
“Now this it’s not like a witch hunt where there is nothing,” Akerman began.”Now you have got something that is real.”
Following a break to listen to a press conference held by Manafort’s attorney, Akerman picked up on the deal that Papadopoulos made with investigators, saying, if Mueller has done his job properly, the former Trump associate has been wearing a wire for months as part of a deal.
“It’s quite obvious that Mueller is playing this out very skillfully,” Akerman explained. “First of all that [Manafort] indictment is a slam-dunk, as I said before, it’s proven by documents. But then you look at the Papadopoulos one that they put under seal all of this time.”
“He’s pled guilty, pled guilty to a felony, lying to the FBI,” Akerman continued. “He’s basically, if you looked through his allocution, you have allocute. They don’t name names, it’s against Justice Department policy to do that. But he refers to campaign officials, other officials — it’s very obvious he has information on lots of people and on top of that, he’s been cooperating since July.
“If I were the prosecutor, and I guarantee you Robert Mueller has done this, he’s had him out there wearing a body wire, playing dial-a-crook on the phone, trying to get recorded conversations to use as evidence against other people,” he asserted. “If I were the other people, and they know who they are in that information, I’d be extremely nervous right now.”
You can watch the video below via MSNBC:OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past week, including one of the strongest ever recorded in the state, have led to calls for the governor to make changes to oil and gas drilling regulations and reduce seismic activity scientists link to the energy industry.
Two large earthquakes were recorded in northwest Oklahoma on Wednesday, including a magnitude 4.8 quake. The quakes were part of a surge in seismic activity over the past several years.
Scientists have tied a sharp increase in the intensity and frequency of quakes in Oklahoma to the disposal of saltwater, a byproduct of oil and gas extraction, into deep wells. Oil fields have boomed in Oklahoma over the past decade thanks to advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
State Representative Richard Morrissette, a Democrat who has said the state’s Republican leaders are not doing enough to address the problem, will host a public forum at the Capitol on Friday to discuss the rash of earthquakes.
He wants the state to halt operation of injection wells at quake sites and do more to prevent them from causing quakes.
“No one in a position of authority is taking this seriously,” said Morrissette, who accused the state’s leadership of bowing to pressure from the energy industry.
Morrissette is hoping to build grassroots support to take on the oil and gas drilling industry, a powerful player for decades in the state and a major source of employment.
The industry is Oklahoma’s largest source of private capital spending and tax revenue and accounts for about 10 percent of the state’s annual economy, according to the Oklahoma State Chamber, which represents more than 1,000 Oklahoma businesses.
Although the quakes last week caused no major reported damage or injuries, they left many Oklahomans shaken. Firms providing quake insurance saw a surge in calls inquiring about coverage.
“We don’t have overall data on how much injection is going on in this area, but we attribute most of the earthquakes these days to deep injection of produced oil wastewater,” said Jerry Doak, director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
State leaders have been instituting changes, but critics said they have not gone far enough.
In response to the quakes, Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican, said last week that the state has been regulating disposal wells, taking some steps to limit their injection rate and depth of their injections.
“Science is ever-evolving as to what actually causes earthquakes. We know that disposal wells can cause earthquakes, but not all earthquakes. There are fault lines that are just natural in Oklahoma,” she told The Oklahoman newspaper.
Energy companies have also been responding.
Phillips 66 has overhauled how it plans for earthquakes, a sign U.S. energy companies are starting to react to rising seismicity around the world’s largest crude storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, site of many disposal wells.
The changes include new protocols for inspecting the health of crude tanks, potentially halting operations after temblors, and monitoring quake alerts.
The strongest quake recorded in Oklahoma was a magnitude 5.5 that struck in April 1952, the U.S. Geological Survey said.News
The TPP includes expansion of already draconian US copyright law. It also fails to provide explicit protections for fair use.
Here is an excellent video covering copyright that explains fair use in a hilarious way. Without explicit fair use protections, people could potentially be prosecuted and face stiff penalties in fines and prison time for daring to express their creativity.
The Videos Of Misty's Commercials for various topics that are important to her.
UCCS political forum
Please join Misty this Friday at UCCS for a political forum!
Misty Meme Quotes
"Misty Plowright is the Democratic Congressional candidate running for the 5th district against current Republican Representative Doug Lamborn in Colorado. A first-time candidate, a Bernie Sanders supporter and an Army veteran, Misty took some time off from the campaign trail to speak with Politisite’s Jennifer Williams and answer some questions:"Councilman Zimmerman waiting to respond to controversial Facebook comments Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Austin City Councilman Don Zimmerman Councilman Zimmerman waiting to respond to controversial Facebook comments Austin City Councilman Don Zimmerman prev next
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- There's outrage about comments an Austin City Councilman made on social media regarding gay marriage.
Don Zimmerman, who represents District 6, held a town hall meeting today on city issues. But his words were on some minds. A man in the audience asked Zimmerman if he thinks pedophilia and gay marriage are morally the same thing.
Zimmerman made comments on Facebook, implying the Supreme Court is deciding the country's morals by approving gay marriage. Zimmerman wrote some believe pedophilia should be legal, just as some believe in gay marriage, so why should they be judged as criminals.
"Somebody who wants to marry their partner, who's in a committed relationship with somebody, I mean there's a level of consent there
first of all, and pedophilia generally there's never any consent," said Will Davies, who asked Zimmerman to respond to his comments.
Zimmerman said he won't comment at this time.
Below are screen shots of Zimmerman's comments on Facebook.
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reservedIntroduction
Born in 1853 in Hertfordshire, England, Cecil Rhodes was the fifth son of Reverend Francis William Rhodes. Although Rhodes debated whether to follow in his father’s footsteps as a vicar or his brothers’ paths in the army, he knew neither choice suited him. Cecil was quite sick as an adolescent, so much so that one week before his seventeenth birthday and with the expectation that Rhodes’ overworked heart could wear out within six months time, the physician recommended the Victorian panacea — a long sea journey — for his recovery (Roberts 7). Rhodes’ parents sent him to join an older brother in South Africa. The exoticism of the new continent thrilled Rhodes, providing entirely new territories for his exploration. His dreams of moving into new territories grew after he joined his brother in cotton farming in Natal. Rhodes began to develop his belief in the the strength and mission of British colonialism in South Africa.
Reports of successful gold and diamond mines enticed the Rhodes brothers to Kimberly where Rhodes built his fortune by investing in mining, railroads, and lucrative schemes. While he amassed a fortune in Kimberley’s diamond trading, he devoted part of each year to continuing his education. In 1873, he began traveling back and forth between South Africa and Oxford University’s Oriel College for eight years. Health problems forced him to cut his post-graduate studies short in 1873, and he returned to the mines amidst their flooding. He earned a fortune by pumping out others’ mines, then he devised a plan to monopolize the diamond markets in order to retain the jewel’s value. In 1888 he founded the De Beers diamond mines. He became one of the wealthiest men in Africa, and political success followed financial success. In the 1890s he served as Prime Minister of the Cape as he worked to expand Britain’s land holdings throughout Africa. Rhodes was one of the most significant agents in the treaties and negotiations that dispossessed the Ndebele and Shona peoples. In 1895, the settlers renamed the land Rhodesia, after Rhodes. In 1902, Rhodes’ heart condition led to his early death.
Rhodes’ Vision
At the end of the nineteenth century, Rhodes fixated on a vision of the map of Africa, which would be colored exclusively in red, which represented British control. In addition to founding the company that remains the world’s largest commercial diamond producer, De Beers Consolidated Mines, he also invested in railroads. Rhodes considered the transportation industry a more stable business than diamonds, and he envisioned a line that stretched from the Cape of South Africa to Cairo, Egypt. He amassed great wealth through entrepreneurial endeavors. However, Rhodes’ desire to build a personal empire fell a distant second to his desire to increase the British throne’s colonization of Africa. In Rhodes, Antony Thomas included Rhodes’ explanation of his British idealism:
It often strikes a man to inquire what is the chief good in life; to one the thought comes that it is a happy marriage, to another great wealth, and as each seizes on the idea, for that he more or less works for the rest of his existence. To myself, thinking over the same question, the wish came to me to render myself useful to my country. (113)
Building Empire: Rhodes’ “Confession of Faith”
Rhodes contended that sharing British imperialist ideals would benefit all humans. Scholars have labeled this as his “Confession of Faith”:
I contend that we are the finest race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre added to our territory means the birth of more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this, the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars. The objects one should work for are first the furtherance of the British Empire, the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, the recovery of the United States, the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. (Gross 61)
Accessing The Gateway to the North
While Rhodes served as Prime Minister of South Africa in the 1890s, Germany and Portugal increased their hold on land in Northern and Western Africa. Rhodes feared Britain could lose access to the rest of the continent. Therefore, he planned to obtain a gateway through Africa’s central portion.
One year before he and his associates obtained a royal charter to form the British South Africa Company in 1889, Rhodes found an access point for this gateway. It included a stretch of fertile land, which lined the border of Bechuanaland near the Transvaal. Ethnic groups had fought over this area for years. They were prepared to fight against British troops to prevent imperialist domination of their portion of Africa’s geography.
King Lobengula, the king of the Ndebele people granted Rhodes and his associates access to minerals in Bechuanaland, the land inhabited by Lobengula’s tribe. However, the British South Africa Company’s charter from the Queen authorized them to settle and administer this area, which was located immediately to the north of the South African Republic and west of the Portuguese territories. King Lobengula later revoked the company’s access to minerals and denied access to the land. He wrote to Queen Victoria in 1889:
The white people are troubling much about gold. If you have heard that I have given my whole country to Rhodes, it is not my words. I have not done so, Rhodes wants to take my country by strength. (O’Meara 27)
Rhodes’ Legacy
Rhodes legacy as an empire builder includes more than the formation of Rhodesia. He built monuments and established game reserves in some of the most beautiful settings within South Africa and Rhodesia in accordance with the colonial ideals of preserving the territories’ natural treasures. Some scholars contend that his ideas to civilize the natives in Africa’s interior fertilized the seeds of apartheid in South Africa and Rhodesia. Roberts wrote in Cecil Rhodes:
Throughout his life he proclaimed his faith in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race: a faith that was to lead to his being likened to Adolf Hitler. Nor did he make any secret of his own role in furthering British interests (1).
Rhodes’ gifts to the United Kingdom’s Oxford College remain his best known legacy, the Rhodes Scholarship. Although the Rhodes Scholarship program remains one of the most prestigious awards for international study, it is crucial to understand that Rhodes was a fervent imperialist and that the founding of the scholarship was intended to support the expansion of British (white) imperialism.
See also: Zimbabwe’s Struggle for Liberation, Essentialism, Nationalism, and Geography and Empire
Works Consulted
Akers, Mary. Encyclopaedia Rhodesia. Salisbury, Rhodesia: The College Press, 1973.
Afigbo, A.E., A. E. Ayandele, R. J. Gavin, J. D. Omer-Cooper, and R.Palmer. The Making of Modern Africa, v. 1. Essex: Longman Group, 1986.
Blake, Robert. A History of Rhodesia. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1977.
Fage, J.D. A History of Africa, 3rd ed. New York: Rutledge, 1997.
Gross, Felix. Rhodes of Africa. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957.
Hole, Hugh Marshall. The Making of Rhodesia. London:Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1967.
Keppel-Jones, Arthur. Rhodes and Rhodesia The White Conquest of Zimbabwe 1884-1902. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1983.
Rotberg, Robert I. The Founder Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Thomas, Anthony. Rhodes. London: BBC Books, 1996.
Walker, Eric A. A History of Southern Africa. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd, 1957.
Author: N/A Spring 1999
Last edited: July 2017Two psychologists will face claims they are financially liable in lawsuit brought by three victims of US intelligence agency’s torture program
A civil lawsuit brought by three victims of the CIA’s torture program against the two psychologists who created it will go to court on 5 September in Washington state, after a judge ruled that more than a year of discovery had yielded sufficient evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claims.
Inside the fight to reveal the CIA's torture secrets Read more
Judge Justin Quackenbush issued a written opinion on Monday in the suit, in which James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen are accused of designing, promoting and sharing responsibility for the interrogation methods to which the three men were subjected.
It will now be up to a jury in Spokane, Washington, to decide if the psychologists, who reportedly were paid $75m-$81m under their contract with the CIA to create the so-called enhanced interrogation program, are financially liable for the physical and psychological effects of their torture.
Two of the men, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian national, and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, who is Libyan, survived their ordeal in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan in 2003; they are now free and living in their home countries. The third, an Afghan national named Gul Rahman, died as a result of torture in the facility.
“This is a historic day for our clients and all who seek accountability for torture,” said Dror Ladin, one of the ACLU attorneys who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the three men in October 2015. “The court’s ruling means that for the first time, individuals responsible for the brutal and unlawful CIA torture program will face meaningful legal accountability for what they did. Our clients have waited a long time for justice.”
How the CIA tortured its detainees Read more
This is the first lawsuit brought by victims of torture in the CIA’s secret prisons even to reach the pretrial discovery phase. In previous cases, the Bush and then Obama administrations intervened to persuade courts to dismiss the suits, arguing state secrets were at risk if proceedings continued. But the publication of a 2014 Senate intelligence committee report revealed many details the government had long suppressed, including the names of the 39 men who endured Mitchell and Jessen’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” in a prison code-named Cobalt and other secret CIA facilities.
That report confirmed that Salim and Ben Soud were among those who had been subjected to torments including shackling in painful stress positions, walling, water dousing and confinement in closed, claustrophic boxes, and that Rahman had been stripped, doused with water, and shackled to a concrete floor on a freezing night and died of hypothermia.
With so much information officially confirmed, the Obama administration signalled early that it would not claim state secrets to scuttle the suit. Judge Quackenbush, in a series of rulings over the past year, has repeatedly rejected moves by Mitchell and Jessen’s attorneys to dismiss the suit, and has ordered an unprecedented level of discovery, including the depositions not only of Mitchell and Jessen but also of Jose Rodriguez, the former director of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, and John Rizzo, the deputy counsel of the agency when the black sites were in operation.
At a final pretrial hearing on 28 July, Quackenbush indicated he was satisfied that the claim brought by Rahman’s family should go before a jury, but said he wanted to review “the sufficiency of the evidence as it applies to plaintiffs Salim and Ben Soud”. His ruling on Monday made clear that they too had submitted strong evidence supporting their claim that Mitchell and Jessen bear responsibility for their torture.
The Guardian view on the US torture report: America’s shame and disgrace | Editorial Read more
News of the ruling reached attorneys for both sides as they gathered in the Carribbean island of Dominica to take testimony of Ben Soud to present to the jury in September. Both Ben Soud and Salim were denied visas to travel to the US earlier this year for depositions, and neither is likely to be allowed to appear in person at the trial proceedings. US embassy officials in Kabul did grant a visa to Obaidullah, the nephew of Rahman, who is representing his family in the lawsuit.
In his deposition in New York in January, Obaidullah described his family’s anguish at the disappearance of his uncle, and the gradual discovery that he had been kidnapped and tortured to death in a secret CIA prison. The family still has not received confirmation of his death or been able to recover Rahman’s body. “If they killed him, I wish they would let us know, ‘Here is your dead body,’” Obaidullah testified, explaining what his family is seeking with this lawsuit. “Hold it up. At least present the dead body to us.”The Star Wars Saga films ar sitting out this year, but star Adam Driver is still having quite a 2016. He began with a supporting role in Midnight Special this spring, and this winter he has two more movies out. One is Martin Scorsese’s Silence, which just secured an awards-season release date from Paramount. The other is Jim Jarmusch‘s Paterson, which has just unveiled its first trailer.
The title refers to both the main character and the location of the movie. Driver is Paterson, a bus driver in Paterson, NJ. Under his unassuming exterior burns a bright, creative soul: he spends his free time writing poems that he declines to share with the world, despite the loving encouragement of his wife (Golshifteh Farahani). Paterson follows its protagonist through the ins and outs of daily life, culminating in a very minor tragedy that threatens to disrupt his comforting routine. Watch the Paterson trailer below.
Yahoo shared the first Paterson trailer.
I caught a screening of Paterson for the New York Film Festival, and will have a full review of it up soon. For now, though, suffice it to say this is a lovely and unusual picture. It might take you a while to ease into its rhythms (it did for me), but it’s worth the trouble. The entire film rests on Driver’s shoulders and he uses that opportunity to remind us yet again why he’s so in demand, turning in a subtle and sympathetic performance that’s miles away from his glowering role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens or his troubled one in HBO’s Girls.
Paterson is in theaters December 28.After Donald Trump won last month’s US presidential election, hot takes speedily declared it game over for the planet. But as Al Gore said at the weekend, “despair is just another form of denial”. About this, he is entirely right. Now is not the time to cry into your graphs of melting Arctic sea ice. That only helps the people who profit from delay on climate change.
Frightened by Donald Trump? You don’t know the half of it | George Monbiot Read more
Because climate denial isn’t just something other people do – bad people, sad people, stupid people. It’s not just a niche hobby practised by the president-elect and weirder bits of the internet. It’s mainstream.
Yes, there are those marginal, attention-seeking types who see a bit of light climate denial as banter. You know the type, that annoying guy your mate went to uni with, Ukip candidates, embarrassing relatives.
Global warming talk can be a lot of hot air | Letters Read more
Then there are the lonely ones who do it to make friends. There’s a strong social element to a lot of climate scepticism – conversations in comment threads, debates in forums, offline meetups. There’s even climate sceptic fanfic if you know where to look.
There are “lukewarmer” types who admit climate change is happening but flail around looking for reasons why we shouldn’t bother to act. They might argue it won’t be that bad, or even that it’ll have positives – see, for instance, most oil executives.
Some have a genuine – albeit skewed – love of science. The idea of busting a global warming myth carries the attractive illusion of heroic, outsider genius. It’s not for nothing that a group of Australian sceptics style themselves on Galileo. There’s also a narrow empiricism to the idea that if you can see snow, global warming can’t be real. As Prof Joanna Haigh politely explained to Boris Johnson in response to one of his less-than-rigorous newspaper columns, it’s because scientists are so into empiricism that they bother to look at a load of data – not just what you can see out the window at that moment.
But there is an even bigger group than any of the above: the rest of us. You probably agree climate change is happening, have maybe even bothered to cut down on how much meat you eat or bunged Greenpeace a quid or two when Russia locked up those Arctic activists. But most of the time you avoid looking global warming in the eye.
In many ways this everyday denial is understandable. Climate change is abstract. We only know about it through vast, complex, global and multi-generational networks of interdisciplinary, highly advanced science. It’s easy for it to drop out of our minds, even if we believe in it.
It’s also very scary. A friend who, once upon a time, was the greenest person I knew, hugs her infant son tight and tells me softly, slowly: “I just can’t think about climate change since I had him.” This feels entirely rational to me.
But it’s this rather prosaic climate denial that lets the Trumps of the world get away with their more extreme forms. It also lets less extreme politicians and businesses off the hook, helping keep climate change as a low-priority topic. At best it puts the issue to one side, and allows us to imagine that Chinese solar businesses, Elon Musk, Ivanka Trump or some other ethereal hero will save us. At worst, it skips the issue entirely.
Not everyone has the luxury of ignoring climate change. People are already feeling it as droughts, wildfires and floods become more common. As temperatures creep ever higher, it’ll hit more and more of us, more and more obviously. Knock-on effects mean that, along with battling fire, water and mud, food will become more scarce. If you don’t spot climate change in the rising tides, you may well feel it in your stomach. This is already happening. Arguably, the way climate change affected crops was a contributing factor in the Arab spring.
This is the most dangerous time for our planet | Stephen Hawking Read more
But here’s the hopeful bit. Climate change happens by degree, and every fraction of a degree celsius matters. Last month’s report saying we’re already 1.2C above pre-industrial levels is bad. But 1.2C is less risky than 1.5C, which is less risky than 2C.
This doesn’t let us off the hook. Indeed, the idea that 2C is somehow safe is itself a pernicious bit of climate denial. But there isn’t a single point or temperature at which everything is lost. There will always be something to fight for.
A few years ago I saw a climate scientist glumly sitting on a table in a seminar room, swinging his legs, quietly sketching out the vision of the future that kept him awake at night. His picture wasn’t an all-out dystopia where we’ve destroyed humanity. What scared him was a future where we do take action on climate change, but only some. A few rich people live in a comfortable bubble they’ve managed to insulate themselves in, and everyone else is left to battle the storms. Perhaps those lucky few notice the plight of the people they’ve left behind. Or perhaps they insulate themselves from that too.
That future is possible. It might even be probable. But it’s not inevitable. We can choose to see climate change, and we can choose to do this before it’s too late. So how can we escape the quagmire of denial? As it turns out, the first step isn’t that hard: just talk about it. To your friends, family, colleagues – even to yourself. By talking about climate change, you’ll make it feel less scary. By talking about it, we’ll unlock solutions. And, crucially, it’s by talking about climate change that we’ll break the silence that allows it to go unnoticed and ignored.Sitting at the front of the room, only occasionally cracking a smile at the long line of people that has queued up largely to accost him, John Rogers diligently takes notes. He has the auspicious title "president of Comic-Con," but what this mostly boils down to is making sure the event runs as efficiently as possible. The lines must keep moving. The fans must be placated. The system must stay in place.
What Rogers is racing against is the simple fact that if you put 130,000 human beings — plus staff, plus the onlookers who crowd into downtown — in one place, things are going to start going haywire somewhere along the line. And that's what this session is for. It's the part where people tell Rogers all about what went wrong, and he writes it down, in hopes that 2015 will be the year everything works out perfectly.
He doesn't move much, mostly looking down at his pad as he takes notes. His head goes up, then down again, almost like an animatronic character, and it's easy to forget he can even speak, so long do some of the harangues go on. But then he does, and it's inevitably laced with a kind of acid wit, particularly if he doesn't think much of the complaint being lodged. When something genuinely awful has happened, he apologizes and pledges to try harder next year. When someone is just talking to talk, he lets them run themselves out of steam.
But most of the time, his answer to these queries is simple: he doesn't know.
The town hall meeting
The official name of the session, one of the last at Comic-Con, is Comic-Con Talk Back, but I've taken to calling it the Comic-Con Town Hall Meeting, so strongly does it remind me of the town hall meeting scenes from the comedy Parks & Recreation. At it, Rogers and Rogers alone sits at a table at the front of a room and listens to the complaints of a long line of people. When the session begins, the line very nearly stretches out of the door of the room, and when I finally have to leave to catch my train two hours later, it's still going. Technically, Comic-Con is supposed to wrap at 5 p.m., but Talk Back lasts until everyone has said their piece.
It's easy to see why the session is as popular as it is. Comic-Con is so self-evidently flawed that it's a fun game for attendees to play to imagine how to make it better. The event is so wedded to its origins as a fan-driven convention that its management of its explosive growth has been a little weird at times.
In particular, the show is never quite sure what to do about its line problem, about the fact that someone could get in line at 4 a.m. and not get into the event they're hoping to see. No one – not the city of San Diego, not the convention center, not the Con – particularly wants to see people camping out overnight, but there's also no good way (nor enough incentive) to stop them. And so the balance of the Con continues to shift toward those who have massive amounts of time to devote to it and only it.
There are ostensibly simple answers to this. The larger panels could shift to an even bigger location. (One woman at the Talk Back suggested nearby baseball stadium Petco Park.) The Con could clear the room after every panel, so there's greater turnover (though this might have to result in a multiplicity of lines for different events). It could sell premium passes to certain events, or offer the convention equivalents of Disneyland's E-tickets, offering the truly passionate a chance to skip the line at any time with a ticket they paid a heightened fee for.
But as much as these sorts of solutions might add a fun level of strategic gamesmanship to Comic-Con that many of the attendees would likely welcome, they're not likely to be implemented any time soon. The Con very much takes pains to project a vision of itself as being fundamentally by and for fans, and no one else, and forcing people out after a panel to just get back in line for something they might want to see later, say, is the antithesis of that.
Plus, there's just not a lot Rogers or anyone can do.
Logistical impossibilities
This is a theme that crops up again and again throughout the Talk Back. There are a handful of times when Rogers is confronted with a problem he can solve or look into solving easily enough. Yes, he can check to make sure that certain information is included on the website, and sure, he can look into whether the curb by the smoking area can be improved to allow greater access for people in wheelchairs and carts.
But a lot of the complaints people have are simply complaints about trying to make sure other people behave in certain ways, when there's no good way to do so. Take camping out. As camping out for events has become a part of the Con (and its ramping up as a thing lots and lots of people did is a relatively recent addition to the convention), it's brought with it a host of new logistical nightmares. For instance, one person might camp out all night, then suddenly turn into six people when her friends join her in the morning, well-rested from staying in their hotel rooms. This kind of line-cutting was aggravating to the faithful. So Comic-Con decided to try doing something about it.
Enter the wristband system, which has been by far the most discussed change to the Con in several years. The basic idea is this: if you want to have one person stand in for a whole group of people by camping out overnight for something happening in Hall H the next day, fine. But before everyone who's not that person heads off to their hotel rooms or homes, they need to be in line with their friend in order to get a wristband of a particular color. Once they have their wristbands, they can leave, and when they return in the morning to the friend they made sleep on the cold ground, the Con will know they're not technically "cutting," because they'll have wristbands of the same color as everybody else in their section.
This also allows Comic-Con to get a rough idea of how many people are in line for the next morning's events, so anyone who arrives at, say, 5 a.m. without much of a prayer of getting in can be properly warned. The number of wristbands given out should roughly correspond to the number of people who are going to enter the hall, and the color-coding allows for even more ability to drill down into that data. If all of the red wristbands are given out, then that means X number of people got into line between 8 and 9 p.m. And so on.
It's an elegant idea in theory, but in practice, it led to plenty of complaining in the Talk Back, complaining that wasn't always aimed solely at Rogers but occasionally at fellow Talk Back attendees, who spoke up for or against the new system. The central issue, as those who disliked the new system (or at least thought it could be improved) saw it, was the use of deadlines. See, wristbands for Hall H would only be given out until 1 a.m. each night, then resume distribution at 5 a.m. What happened, ultimately, was that those who wanted to get into Hall H rushed to get into line before 1 a.m., and on Friday night, they had actually gotten the entire capacity of the Hall into line before 9 p.m. for panels that wouldn't start for another 13 hours.
Yet what can Rogers do? Certainly, he can modify or improve upon the wristband system. And certainly, he could abandon it entirely. (Ballroom 20, the other big venue for long lines, didn't adopt the new system, and it had far fewer problems with that kind of camping out.) But as he pointed out again and again, he can't exactly stop people from camping out in what's, ultimately, a public area. He and the city can keep people from putting up tents, and maybe he could send police officers through the area on periodic sweeps to keep people from sleeping there. But that wouldn't be in the spirit of what the Con believes itself to be, so it's not going to happen.
The actual problems
Amid the concerns, complaints, and exercises in game theory, however, there were several legitimate, horrifying issues raised, particularly with the Con's treatment of disabled people. Because of a miscommunication somewhere along the line, disabled fans who lined up for Hall H were left with nowhere to camp out, outside of the cold, hard cement, and when one man raised this issue with someone who at least seemed to be in charge, he was told that Comic-Con did not "condone" the disabled camping outside.
Again and again, stories like this were told by disabled Con-goers or their caregivers as the session wore on. Someone had separated a caregiver from the person she cares for. A woman with crutches was made to wander up and down long lines in search of where she was supposed to go. And always, always, there were concerns about how too often, the Con's staff simply didn't know where disabled attendees were supposed to go. Usually, they're let in via a separate entrance or at a separate time, but too many staffers were confused on this point.
These, of course, are the problems that will arise with a hastily trained, mostly volunteer workforce. Comic-Con has a number of full-time employees, but they mostly work on behind the scenes stuff. The public face of the Con is too often volunteers who don't yet know the entire lay of the land or missed something important in training. Or, worse, the public face of the Con becomes the security guards who patrol it at the behest of the convention center, not the Con itself, and often don't know the Con's own policies on things, like letting disabled attendees camp outside on the grass just like anyone else.
To a degree, Rogers has no control over this. He can't personally step in and make sure every person who volunteers knows exactly what to do and when to do it, and he doubly can't control security guards or other convention center staff. The best he can do — and what he does throughout the Talk Back — is listen, and offer apologies, and say that the Con will try harder in 2015. But that doesn't matter to someone whose convention was ruined by a casual, callous remark. It only takes one person behaving poorly to ruin somebody's good time, and Rogers seems acutely aware of the fact that Comic-Con has 130,000 potential day-ruiners floating around out there.
The lost city
What became abundantly clear while following the Talk Back, however, was that the majority of those who attended were there to discuss long |
white factory workers, they argued, they should defer to the leadership of the black lumpens. Instead of the advanced capitalist countries leading the way for the rest of the world, it now fell entirely to the “Third World” to make the global revolution.
Another growing problem was the tendency to homogenize distinct social groups in ways that erased their internal differences. Increasingly, oppressed groups came to be seen as, and often saw themselves as, undifferentiated entities. Some militants in the Global South, for example, spoke of a unified “Third World project,” which tended, in the words of Aijaz Ahmad, to divide the world into monolithic blocs. Evoking the idea of a universal “sisterhood,” some feminists in the United States claimed that all women, irrespective of class or racial differences, were united by the same experience. At the same time, many black radicals evoked an organic “black community,” to which all blacks were said to belong.
Indeed, in the 1960s, most black nationalists, including the Black Panthers, spoke of the “black community” as the basis of their political projects – community defense, community control, community empowerment. But some Panthers made pains not to homogenize the black community into a single whole, excluding, for example, those black business owners who refused to contribute to the Panther survival programs. As Eldridge Cleaver later put it, “We found that we had enemies in the black community that were just as deadly as our enemies in the white community, so the white community and the black community became meaningless categories for us.”
Nevertheless, some nationalist currents argued that the racial unity of African Americans in the face of white America superseded all other potential divisions within the black community. Although the idea had some basis in reality, and could serve the performative function of producing unity, this conception of an organic black community ended up flattening crucial intraracial divisions, naturalizing the social construction of the “community,” and ultimately paving the way for a politics based on authenticity.
The focus on community control played an important role in the growing emphasis on the politics of representation, which included, but was not limited to electoral representation. Beginning in the late 1960s, black activists set their eyes firmly on capturing state power. Even the most revolutionary groups, like the BPP, began to prioritize electoral struggle, with Bobby Seale running for mayor of Oakland in 1973. The idea of the “black community” played a crucial role in pushing a wave of black politicians into office, but it was double-edged. “In the black community construct,” Adolph Reed has argued, “those who appear as leaders or spokespersons are not so much representatives as pure embodiments of collective aspirations.” This leaves the relation between leaders and led “unmediated.”
The consequence, Reed points out, is a problematic kind of political representation:
By the same token, in this view of black politics the constituency issue is resolved from the onset; there is one, generically racial constituency, as all members of the organic community are presumed to share equally in its objectives and the fruits of their realization.
What emerges, in other words, is the assumption that all the members of the community possess the same interests, and that representatives are therefore immediate embodiments of this collective will. This was not without its challenges. Operating with such a deeply organicist conception of community, it became very hard to evaluate representatives. The only way to condemn a black politician whose policies did not benefit the allegedly undifferentiated black community they were elected to represent was by recourse to the language of authenticity: they weren’t really black. In addition, assuming the identity between representatives and a predetermined constituency opened the door to a kind of tokenism. The result, Reed describes, was that white outsiders, socialists or otherwise, came to argue that since they were not a part of the black community, they needed to identify black individuals or groups “who reflect the authentic mood, sentiments, will, or preferences of the reified community.” “This impulse,” he goes on, “places a premium on articulate black spokespersons to act as emissaries to the white left.” Inter-racial solidarity risked being reduced to tokenism.
Lastly, without a clear program, constant grassroots pressure, and a durable connection to mass movements, elected officials might fail to make fundamental changes to real social relations. Or worse, they could be absorbed into the state apparatuses as a distinct leadership layer, designed to to keep their constituency in order. As Amiri Baraka presciently quipped in 1972, “black faces in high places, but the same rats and roaches, the same slums and garbage, the same police whippin’ your heads, the same unemployment and junkies in the hallways mugging your old lady.”
The over-personalization of politics spawned another set of potential limits. Claiming the personal was political necessarily implied that the political also had to be personal, a line of reasoning that could devolve into individualistic lifestyle politics. Hippies could claim that growing their hair long, smoking pot, or listening to rock and roll was a kind political subversion. Black cultural nationalists advocated that African Americans focus on changing their lifestyles, wearing different clothes, or adopting African rituals – even if this meant inventing new ones, like Kwanzaa, invented by Maryland-born Ron Everett after he changed his name to Karenga, which meant “keeper of tradition” in Swahili. Arguing that the personal was the basis of radical change, some radical feminists burned bras, cut their hair short, and embraced political lesbianism as the only way to truly break with patriarchy. Christine Stansell summarizes the logic: “If you could transform the power dynamics of personal life, then everything else – the law, politics, education, work, marriage – would follow.”
The turn to lifestylism also met with fierce criticism. Radicals like the Revolutionary Union claimed the counterculture risked collapsing into hedonistic individualism that easily lent itself to commodification – although the RU often bent the stick too far the other way, instructing its members to look “clean-cut” so as not to alienate workers. Others claimed the focus on symbols did not guarantee a change in material social relations. The Black Panthers, for example, denounced the separatist “pork chop” nationalism of Karenga, which they counterposed to a “revolutionary nationalism” based in the multiracial struggle to overturn capitalist relations. Meanwhile, lesbians who spent decades struggling against homophobia took offense at the newly minted “political lesbians” who often denounced them for not being “politically conscious,” or worse, as still enslaved by masculinism.
This turn to the personal led to an intense focus on the micropolitics of everyday life. Since sexism was and is reproduced daily, and often in invisible ways, feminists rightly scrutinized interpersonal interactions and drew attention to everyday acts of sexism. But while criticizing offensive behavior was an indispensable part of emancipation, especially given the pervasive sexism on the left, incessant public denunciation ran the risk of devolving into an end in itself, detached from the larger, collective struggle against institutions and state apparatuses.
“Trashing” as it was sometimes called, was also potentially self-destructive, forcing many women out of the movement. “A vague standard of sisterly behavior is set up by anonymous judges who then condemn those who do not meet their standards,” explained Jo Freeman in an April 1976 article. Through incessant affronts, “trashing,” she continued, “makes you feel that your very existence is inimical to the Movement and that nothing can change this short of ceasing to exist.”
To be sure, this kind of toxic, confrontational politics was not unique to feminism, but suffused much of the radical left in those decades. Denunciations and humiliations were common ways of addressing problems, and offenders were often forced to publicly criticize themselves for the smallest infractions, leading back to a politics of shame and guilt. In such an atmosphere, attempts at unity became strained. Modern day call-out culture has its origins here.
Identity Politics
Recoding political struggle in terms of “identities” was the most consequential of these tendencies to emerge from the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Though commonplace today, the term “identity” only appeared as a popular category of social analysis in the 1950s. Leading the charge were sociologists, such as Erving Goffman, and psychologists, the most important of which was Erik Erikson, the psychoanalyst famous for coining the term “identity crisis.”
As Philip Gleason points out, although they interpreted the term in distinct ways, these intellectuals all used “identity” to rethink the relationship between self and society, a major topic of academic inquiry in the 1950s and 1960s. Identity, Erikson explained, concerns “a process ‘located’ in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his communal culture, a process which establishes, in fact, the identity of those two identities.” By the mid-1960s, the term had passed into popular usage, and against the backdrop of the tumultuous events of the decade, everyone began to make reference to “identity” as a way of referring to collective subjectivity.
It is in this context that “identity,” entered U.S. social movements, especially those, like black and women’s liberation, that emphasized the psychological, everyday nature of oppression. Take, for example, Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton’s usage in their 1966 book, Black Power:
Our basic need is to reclaim our history and our identity from what must be called cultural terrorism, from the depredation of self-justifying white guilt. We shall have to struggle for the right to create our own terms through which to define ourselves and our relationship to society, and to have these terms recognized. This is the first necessity of a free people, and the first right that any oppressor must suspend.
As L.A. Kauffman has suggested, identity came to signify not only a description, but a project – a sense of self shaped by the experience of oppression, but also something to be embraced, affirmed. Echoing the psychological provenance of the term, which linked the individual to the group, it was also a communal project. As Carmichael and Hamilton explained, Black Power meant creating a “sense of peoplehood: pride, rather than shame, in blackness, and an attitude of brotherly, communal responsibility among all black people for one another.”
Gradually, some activists took this line of thinking to another level. They argued that personal experiences created relatively stable identities, that everyone possessed one of these identities, and that politics should be based on the search for that identity and its subsequent naming, defense, and public expression. Whereas many 1960s radicals once had argued that exploring personal experiences could serve as the first step to discovering particular oppressions, understanding how they operated, and ultimately developing political strategies to overcoming them, some now came to insist on a direct and unmediated link between one’s identity and one’s politics. Rather than being a part of a political project, identity was now a political project in itself.
This idea that one could draw such a direct line between identity and politics would become the basis of identity politics in its contemporary form, the core around which all these other elements – guilt, lifestylism, or the homogenization of groups – came to gravitate around over the next decade. Although this kind of thinking remained marginal at first, over the 1970s and 1980s, a vicious conservative backlash, the destruction of radical movements, the migration of political critique into the universities, the proliferation of single-issue campaigns, and the restructuring of capitalist relations all worked in unexpected ways to create the historical conditions that allowed identity politics to eventually achieve a kind of hegemony on the left.
But its limitations were clear from the outset. Most importantly, identity politics tended to flatten important distinctions within otherwise heterogeneous identities. It was in this context that the idea of “intersectionality” emerged. Although now regarded as synonymous with identity politics, the concept actually originated as a critique of its flaws.
“The problem with identity politics,” Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who coined the term “intersectionality,” argued, is that “it frequently conflates or ignores intragroup differences.” She attempted to overcome one of the key limitations of identity politics by showing how some groups suffer not simply from one kind of oppression, but from the intersection of several oppressions. Thus, identity was not monolithic, but often composed of multiple vectors, which meant the political subject had to be clarified: not just black, for example, but black, queer, woman.
Although intersectionality theory added some much-needed nuance to identity politics, it, too, ran into its own limits. As Sue Ferguson and David McNally have explained, while “intersectionality accounts have rightly insisted that it is impossible to isolate any particular set of oppressive relations from the other,” they have not developed any coherent explanation of “how and why” different forms of oppression intersect with each in other in some ways and not others. The result is often an enumeration of oppressions without an adequate explanation of their articulation into a structured, though always uneven, whole. This is precisely why, for example, partisans of this kind of intersectional identity politics almost always revert to composing breathless catalogues of injustice when trying to explain what they oppose – the colonial white supremacist heteronormative patriarchy, or something to that effect. Moreover, since the list is the only way to present the object of social struggle, failure to include a particular oppression in the master list will often be mistakenly interpreted as the willful rejection or erasure of a particular struggle against a particular oppression.
In the absence of a theory explaining why these multiple oppressions came to exist, how they interact, and why they are reproduced together, a tendency to naturalize socially-constructed identities emerges. As a result, identities come to appear as ready-made, obscuring the complex historical conditions that created and continue to recreate them. “Identitarian political projects,” Wendy Brown explains, transform suffering into “essentialized identities,” but forget that “suffering cannot be resolved at the identitarian level”:
It may be easier to see this dynamic in discourses that essentialize conflict in places such as Northern Ireland, the Middle East, or South Africa. To formulate the problem in those regions as one of Catholics versus Protestants, Arabs versus Jews, or blacks versus whites, rather than understanding the oppositional character of these identities as in part produced and naturalized by historical operations of power (settler-colonialism, capitalism, etc.), is a patently dehistoricizing and depoliticizing move — precisely the sort of move that leads to moralizing lament or blame, to personifying the historical conflict in individuals, castes, religions, or tribes, rather than to potent political analysis and strategies.
In other words, among many partisans of identity politics, there is a tendency to uncritically use identities like “race” to explain phenomena, when it is precisely the historical existence of these identities that must themselves be explained. These identities then tend to close onto themselves as fixed expressions of life itself.
Only those who belong to a given identity are said to be able to understand certain oppressions. This implies not only that those who do not belong to the identity cannot understand that oppression, but that all those who belong to said identity will have an automatic knowledge of it: no white person can ever truly understand racism, just as every person of color will naturally understand racism simply by virtue of having darker skin. It is then further assumed that this experiential knowledge will necessarily lead to the right political stances against those oppressions.
One of the fundamental problems of contemporary identity politics is therefore reductionism. As the very term suggests, for partisans of identity politics, one’s politics are a direct reflection of one’s identity. One’s gender, race, or sexual orientation, the assumption goes, will lead automatically to certain political stances. Because you are a white woman, you will naturally vote for Hillary Clinton. Because you are black in a fundamentally racist society, then you must automatically have anti-racist politics. If you belong to any marginalized group, you must endorse identity politics. In this way, identity politics has come to erase the contingent mediations between identity and politics.
As everyone knows, those who are said to belong to a certain identity often – if not most of the time – fail to behave according to their ascribed interests. When this happens, a number of arguments are marshalled to salvage the determinism of identity politics. First, in language hauntingly similar to the discredited concept of “false consciousness,” partisans of identity politics blame those who betray their interests as having been duped. Second, they charge collaboration. For example, instead of engaging with the content of their work, some critics denounce writers like Adolph Reed and Barbara Fields as “Uncle Toms,” even likening them to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Third, those who deviate from the politics demanded by their identity might be accused of not actually being of that identity. This is why people of color who criticize identity politics are so often accused of being white.
Crisis
On April 12, 2015, six Baltimore police officers, of which three were black, murdered 19-year-old Freddie Gray under the watch of a black police commissioner, mayor, attorney general, and President of the United States. When thousands rose in protest, Barack Obama took it upon himself to denounce them as “criminals” and “thugs.” The racist murder, and the massive state repression that followed, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has argued, represent a watershed. “There have always been class differences among African Americans, but this is the first time those class differences have been expressed in the form of a minority of Blacks wielding significant political power and authority over the majority of black lives.”
By insisting on diversity, foregrounding the struggles of those whose histories have been so often effaced, and highlighting the ways that oppressions reproduce themselves in everyday life, identity politics did diversify radical politics for a time, but it ultimately rested on highly problematic assumptions that recent events have thrown into crisis. Baltimore showed that the quest for descriptive representation based in the illusion of organic racial solidarity cannot end racism. “When a Black mayor, governing a largely Black city, aids in the mobilization of a military unit led by a Black woman to suppress a Black rebellion, we are in a new period of the Black freedom struggle,” Taylor writes. While undoubtedly still necessary, representation remains insufficient on its own. It matters who these representatives are, what interests they serve, what they do in practice, and how they are held accountable.
This past election cycle presented yet another challenge to our assumptions about the direct link between identity and politics. How, according to this view, could one explain the fact that 52% of white women voted for a sexual predator? Or that up to 30% of Latinos cast a ballot for a man who called Mexicans criminals? In short, how can one explain why so many people acted against the “interests” allegedly demanded by their identity?
By forcing a short-circuit between one’s background and one’s specific political positions, identity politics has effaced the crucial middle step: political struggle. The hard work of engaging with people, listening to their particular needs, collectively connecting their desires to a project, of building a political movement through organizing and struggle is replaced by an appeal to their alleged identity. As this election shows, not only does identity politics rely on shaky theory about how people become politicized, it does not even work.
Despite its progressive origins, identity politics has now increasingly become an obstacle to unity. In an ironic reversal, what once began as a critique of reductionism within socialist movements has now fallen into the same conceptual error. Historically, many socialist movements were mired by a crass “workerism” that argued workers necessarily had the correct political worldview simply by virtue of the fact that they were workers. If any bad ideas had entered the movement, it was on account of petty-bourgeois influences. Those issuing from proletarian backgrounds were lauded, while those who did not were heavily scrutinized, forced to atone for parents’ occupations, or pressured to change their “class identity.”
As historian Sheila Fitzpatrick has shown, in the Soviet Union, class was even biologized for a time, reduced from a social relationship to a thing that one inherited from one’s parents. A similar “bloodline” theory of class identity also appeared in China during the Cultural Revolution. Behind all this was the assumption that one’s class position automatically determined one’s politics. All else was epiphenomenal, an afterthought. In the 1960s and 1970s, women, African Americans, immigrants, queer folk, and others criticized this extreme class reductionism, rightly arguing that it posed a massive barrier to unity. But today, identity politics has snuck determinism in through the back door.
Alternatives
Since what eventually became formalized as identity politics originated in those explosive struggles that aimed to overcome the socialist movement’s real limitations, it’s often assumed that contemporary identity politics is the only way to ensure diversity and inclusivity. In fact, for many, the term “identity politics” has become shorthand for respecting, including, and foregrounding the struggles of marginalized peoples. Criticizing identity politics is therefore often treated as tantamount to silencing marginalized voices and reverting to an old, class-reductionist framework of socialism.
But identity politics represents only one solution to the challenge of building unity. It need not be the only one, and given its growing limitations, it seems necessary to collectively fashion a better solution. This does not at all mean abandoning the particular struggles, needs, and interests of marginalized social groups, but finding a better way of building mass movements. While it is important to criticize identity politics, it is far more important to find positive alternatives that better address the very real problems that partisans of identity politics have tried unsuccessfully to resolve.
Of course, building such an alternative strategy takes time, and can only be a collective project. But one of the first steps is to invent more effective concepts. This does not mean uncritically returning to the inherited concept of “class.” In fact, those who automatically counterpose “class” to “identity” do nothing to solve the problem. Most often, their conception of class, revealed in an obsession with a fictitious “white working class,” is even more reductionistic than identity politics, offering little to address the real needs of marginalized groups. We should return to the concept of “class,” but it, too, needs to be reinvented, not taken for granted.
Instead of taking for granted the existence of a collection of bounded, undifferentiated, organic communities, perhaps we should look to the concept of class composition, that is, tracking the correlation between the manner in which a class is materially constituted at a specific moment in history and the manner in which that class composes itself, or how it actively combines the different parts of itself to construct into a single force. Instead of making assumptions about the needs of marginalized people, perhaps it might be worth undertaking concrete inquiries and self-inquiries to discover what people really want, why they have adopted certain political positions.
Finally, instead of assuming an automatic link between one’s DNA and one’s politics, we should turn to the concept of articulation to understand the contingent ways that different subjects arrive at different politics. As defined by Stuart Hall, articulation is a “connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions. It is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for all time.” Hall elaborated:
You have to ask, under what circumstances can a connection be forged or made? So the so-called “unity” of a discourse is really the articulation of different, distinct elements which can be re-articulated in different ways because they have no necessary “belongingness.” The “unity” which matters is a linkage between that articulated discourse and the social forces with which it can, under certain historical conditions, but need not necessarily, be connected… Let me put that another way: the theory of articulation asks how an ideology discovers a subject rather than how the subject thinks the necessary and inevitable thoughts which belong to it; it enables us to think how an ideology empowers people, enabling them to begin to make some sense or intelligibility of their historical situation, without reducing those forms of intelligibility to their socio-economic or class location or social position.
By challenging deterministic thinking, articulation can better explain why people adopt seemingly alien political positions, why antagonistic social forces enter into contradictory alliances, and why those who may not immediately face a particular oppression may still be in a position to combat those oppressions.
Severing the unmediated link between identity and politics means abandoning the illusion that people will inevitably be drawn to radical politics – or others to reactionary politics – simply by virtue of their identity. This invariably makes our work more difficult. But having the courage to break with this ideology will reopen the space for political strategy, enabling us to invent a new, historically appropriate solution to the problem of unity. This is the only way to effectively combat the identity politics of Democratic Party ideologues like Palmieri, while holding true to the emancipatory spirit of the Combahee River Collective.(Chico, CA) – “The ultimate whole-cone hop experience.”
Just got a sell sheet for Sierra Nevada Hoptimum tipped my way. The beer will be released on a very limited basis beginning New Year’s Day.
A group of hop-heads and publicans challenegd our Beer Camp brewers to push the extremes of whole-cone hop brewing. The result is this: a 100 IBU, whole-cone hurrican of flavor. Simply put- Hoptimum: the biggest whole-cone IPA we have ever produced. Aggressively hopped, dry-hopped and torpedoed with our exclusive new hop varieties for ultra-intense flavors and aromas.
Hops, hops and more hops are the stars of this big, whole-cone Imperial IPA. Resinous ‘new-school’ and exclusive hop varieties carry the bold and aromatic nose. The flavor follows the aroma with layers of aggressive hoppiness, featuring notes of grapefruit rind, rose, lilac, cedar and tropical fruit – all culminating in a dry and lasting finish.
Beer specs:
ABV: 10.4%
Original Gravity: 22.8 Plato
Final Gravity: 4.5 Plato
Bitterness Units: 100 IBU
Color: Orange Amber
Bittering Hops: German Magnum
Aroma Hops: Simcoe & New Proprietary Variety
Dry Hops: Simcoe & New Proprietary Variety
Topedo Hops: Citra & Chinook
Malts: Two-row Pale, Golden Promise, Munich & Wheat
Yeast: Ale06 April 2017
Many of you must be really excited about the new Samsung Galaxy S8. But many of you are probably not really excited for Bixby. Not to worry, as a new video that surfaced through Reddit shows that the button can be re-programmed to open something else, say Google Assistant? Okay, or maybe Pokemon GO You know who you are.
Anyway, Dylan Bertwell from YouTube walked into a Best Buy store and played with the Galaxy S8. He found that the Bixby button can easily be reconfigured to open another application by using a third-party app. The app in question is called All in One Gestures and is currently available on the Play Store.
In the video, Dylan pressed the Bixby button and the Google Now homepage popped up instead. All while ignoring the Samsung reps pitch for the new phone. In any case, this answers one huge doubt that many folks may have had about the Bixby button. It should be remap-able, right? After all, the Samsung Galaxy S7 active had an extra key, and you could remap it to whatever you wanted if you didnt prefer to use Samsungs Activity app.
ViaTalk about a bad day at the office. A man in Allentown, Pa., is not only accused of showing up drunk for his job and being sent home; he was then hit with a DUI in a parking lot as he attempted to drive away.
As our sister website, LehighValleyLive.com, reports, Johnathan Ranieri of Allentown now faces DUI charges brought by Pennsylvania State Police at Fogelsville in Lehigh County, stemming from the incident which occurred around 5 p.m. earlier this month.
Pa. mom pens 'brutally honest' obit for daughter, 20, dead of heroin - more Pa. Buzz
Police did not identify where Ranieri worked, but said he allegedly showed up to work drunk around 5 p.m., was confronted on the job, and then left.
From there, Ranieri allegedly drove his vehicle to a private parking in Lower Macungie Township, where troopers found, arrested and charged him with DUI.
His arraignment is scheduled this month.Copyright by KSNW - All rights reserved Starbucks is pictured on the WSU Innovation Campus. (Courtesy: WSU)
Copyright by KSNW - All rights reserved Starbucks is pictured on the WSU Innovation Campus. (Courtesy: WSU)
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) - Wichita State's first free-standing Starbucks will open on the Innovation Campus on Friday. The 2,000-square-foot building is just north of WSU's Woodman Alumni Center near 21st Street and Mike Oatman Drive. Hours will be 5 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and 6 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays.
The location accepts Starbucks gift cards and rewards and will have mobile order and pay for faster service.
Starbucks is the first retail building on the Innovation Campus.
The master plan for that area also includes future restaurant and retail development, as well as a hotel on the south side of the new 19th Street along Oliver. The development will be privately funded.EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Town leaders decided on Monday to let residents vote in June whether to support a proposed North Woods national park, but not before they tell Maine’s federal delegates what they want from the plan.
The Board of Selectmen informally agreed during its meeting Monday to hold informational forums and draft a letter to Maine’s federal delegation detailing the town’s requirements to accept a park. Selectmen said they want residents to be well informed about the controversial proposal before they vote during the annual town meeting on June 11.
“There’s still a lot of misinformation out there,” board Chairman Mark Scally said Monday. “This is a different proposal than was offered in 2011 and I am concerned that many people don’t know that.”
East Millinocket’s government is the first to schedule a referendum and the third to take on the park question since Feb. 7. That’s when Millinocket officials said that U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, had asked them last fall how they could contribute to a federal park bill should one be drafted. Millinocket’s letter is pending.
Bangor’s City Council delayed taking a stance in support of the park on Monday. Councilors said they wanted to wait for towns closer to the park area to state their positions.
Councilor Sean Faircloth, an advocate for the proposed national park, said Bangor would benefit from the formation of a park, pointing out that the city would be a key transportation hub between the new park and Acadia National Park and would provide many jobs for the region.
Bangor councilors have not drafted a bill on the proposed park.
“I’m afraid we don’t have the full story, and I’d like to make sure that we do have the full story,” council Chairman Nelson Durgin said.
“From what I understand, it’s the feeling of the people proposing this that that kind of support, with all the cities in the [Katahdin] region, should help push the congressional delegation to support it as well,” said Councilor Gibran Graham, who voiced tentative approval of the proposal.
East Millinocket’s selectmen had similar concerns.
Lucas St. Clair proposes to donate family lands east of Baxter State Park to create a 75,000-acre national park and a same-sized multiuse recreation area as a gift to the nation. His proposal follows a similar plan his mother, millionaire industrialist Roxanne Quimby, offered in 2011.
That year, East Millinocket residents voted 513-132 against supporting a feasibility study of her proposal.
Park opponents have said they fear a park would bring federal authority into Maine, cramp the state’s forest products industries, generate only low-paying jobs and morph into a 3.2 million-acre park plan offered in the 1990s.
Proponents said a park would generate 400 to 1,000 jobs, be maintained by $40 million in private endowments, diversify a Katahdin region economy devastated by the closure of two paper mills and coexist with existing industries.
St. Clair’s spokesman, David Farmer, said he was encouraged at the uptick in park talk since King’s letter. He and St. Clair have maintained that support for the park is growing. The Penobscot Indian Nation recently endorsed it, as has a group of Katahdin residents who seek to meet with the state’s federal delegates.
“We believe that the jobs and opportunities the proposal will create will revitalize the area without” harming the forest products industry, Farmer said Monday.
East Millinocket Selectman Mark Marston reiterated most of the opposition’s arguments and quashed Scally’s notion of writing an endorsement of the park plan. Such a letter would be “unethical” given voters’ rejection of the plan four years ago, Marston said.
Scally said that he understood that the park’s management would be divided between the National Park Service and a board of local residents and stakeholders. This would alleviate at least some concerns about federal overreach, Scally said.
It is too early to say whether such a joint board would be created, Farmer said.
“We do believe there is a way to accomplish the local input but I don’t know that this would be the mechanism,” Farmer said. “We just haven’t worked out that level of detail yet.”
BDN writer Evan Belanger contributed to this report.Eos has just published the results of a survey of 3146 Earth Scientists conducted by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman. The graph below shows the results for this question:
Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
The 97% of active climatologists is 75 out of the 77 in the survey. Doran and Zimmermann say:
While respondents' names are kept private, the authors noted that the
survey included participants with well-documented dissenting opinions
on global warming theory.
I'm guessing that Lindzen and Spencer are the two that said "no".
The difference between the opinion of the general public and the scientists is striking. For comparison, despite the ongoing efforts of right-wing pundits here, 80% of Australians answered "yes" to a similar question.
James Annan is a little peeved, because last year Eos refused to publish the results of his poll on the basis that Eos did not publish the results of opinion polls. I think it is good that they have changed their policy, but of course they should have published the results of the other poll last year.
My thanks to reader MarkG for sending me a copy of the Doran and Zimmermann article.
Update: Here are links to the EOS article and the full report on the survey. (From Doran's home page.)The generation of renewable electricity in the UK has increased by a fifth spurred on by dramatic increases in solar PV capacity, according to figures published in the Renewable Energy Association’s annual REview.
The report, authored in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Innovas, reveals that a total of 64,404Gwh of electricity was generated from renewable sources in 2014, compared to 53,667GWh in 2013.
The report also notes that the rise in electricity generation has matched an increase in jobs in the renewable sector, growing by 9% since 2013. The association said that regions such as the East Midlands, North West, London and Scotland had exhibited stronger than average job growth in the period too.
“2014 has been another strong year for investment in the renewable energy sector, bringing the total investment since 2010 to £40 billion,” said Ronan O’Regan, director, renewables and clean tech at PwC.
He continued: ”The majority of investment during 2014 was in renewable electricity generation, attracting almost £10 billion of capital, with solar the big winner, representing £4.5 billion of investment.”
John Sharp, director of Innovas, echoed O’Regan’s sentiments, adding: "Though the capacity of solar PV in particular saw a high level of increase, the decrease in equipment cost and higher efficiencies through large-scale deployment meant that the overall market value did not increase at the same rate as capacity.
“The forecast growth to 2020 with the current incentive and support schemes for the renewable energy sector as a whole is about 48% adding a further £7 billion to the market value with a total of £22 billion forecast. This would equate to a further 27,000 more people employed by 2020. This is far in excess of what is forecast for the economy as a whole.”
However, Sharp warned that the predicted level of growth for the sector would be “jeopardised” if government intervention in policy causes uncertainty in the market.
The REA is particularly concerned about the outcome of a number of imminent renewable decisions that will have to be made by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Most notably the feed-in tariff review and the possible extension of the renewable heat incentive.
Dr Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the REA, explained: “We cannot be complacent. Our analysis shows that, where regulatory and financial support for renewable energy has been stable and sufficient, there has been considerable success, but where there has not, technologies have either stalled or gone backwards.”
The REA notes that the UK still needs a 16% growth rate to meet its EU obligation of generating 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 – one of the highest for any EU member state. Skorupska said: “In light of the growth rate for renewables needed for the UK to meet its 2020 targets, it is vital that the new government demonstrates the necessary leadership and ambition to enable our industry to thrive.”
O’Regan added: “Reaching the 2020 |
case of Otto Warmbier touches the American heart like no other.”
As one student claimed, Dettwyler once stated that she “hates America and U.S. ways,” it is apropos her heart was only touched with bigotry for someone else’s all-American kid whose story touched the hearts of true Americans.
***This story was updated to show Dettwyler was fired for her social media posts concerning Otto Warmbier and his family. Justice has been meted out to Ms. Dettwyler.
AdvertisementsOlivia Culpo once again wins our high heel celebrity of the week. This time though Olivia impressed with an unusual style for her outfit.
Olivia was at the Pretty Little Things launch event in Hollywood this past week. She impressed in a very stylish outfit and look.
It’s one of her best looks we think. Olivia added an unique touch to her outfit which could have backfired badly, but actually it didn’t.
Olivia’s outfit featured an oversized long white shirt. She rolled up the sleeves and kept it mostly unbuttoned to create a daring deep V-neck.
What kept the shirt in check was a tightly fitted black patent leather skirt. The skirt was with an asymmetrical style with a high waist and a bow on one side.
It was also quite short, but that wasn’t a problem. Why? Because Olivia rocked the lower part of the shirt showing below the skirt. Thus the skirt was actually acting like a very wide belt.
It sounds risky like a fashion statement, but it worked. Olivia definitely looked good and the outfit drew attention to her toned legs and stylish shoes.
She opted for a pair of pee-toe ankle booties. They had thin high heels with a classic shape and style and matched well with Olivia’s overall look.
She kept her hair loose and opted for a dash of eyeliner. And she added some further provocativeness to her look with a wetlook red lipstick. A great look for Olivia and a deserved another high heel celebrity of the week win for her!On this episode of the Unofficial Universal Orlando Podcast.we begin with a Butterbeer preference from Listener Travis Terrell.
We then head to the news, which includes the announcement of the last two Mardi Gras acts, Harbor Nights Romantico, the Blues Brother show at Universal Studios Hollywood being discontinued and the recent publication of the Injury report at the theme parks.
We then let you know the winner of our last Disney Versus Universal : was it Men In Black or Toy Story Mania?
To wrap up this show we go “On Location” WITH Gregory to Tchoup Chop at the Loew’s Royal Pacific Hotel for a live review and some Rapid Fire questions with his guest.
Enjoy.
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We appreciate your support and ask you to give some kindness to our amazing sponsor: If you’re looking to go to Universal Orlando or Disney World, then why not give our Sponsor, FAIRYGODMOTHER TRAVEL, a try? They’re magical!!!The Windows 8 user interface is designed to scale to systems of all sizes. Like Windows versions of old, it will have to scale all the way from 1366×768 10-inch tablets up to 2560×1440 30-inch desktop monitors and beyond. But it's not just different numbers of pixels that Windows 8 will have to cope with: different sizes of pixels matter too. Windows 8 will have to scale from screens with around 96 dots per inch all the way to screens with almost 300 dpi, as system vendors are finally starting to increase pixel densities (no doubt inspired by the launch of a rather successful new tablet). An explanation of how this has been done is the subject of a new post on Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog.
Windows has long had support for both different resolutions and pixel densities. The former are easy to handle; run Windows on a system with a high screen resolution and you'll fit a lot more stuff on screen. Traditionally, monitors have all offered about 96 dots per inch, so no matter what resolution you used, the objects on screen (buttons, text, images, and so on) have more or less maintained their physical size.
More problematic have been monitors with wildly different pixel densities. If a program draws buttons that are 16 pixels tall, they might be perfectly readable on a 96 dpi screen, but far too small to be easily understood on a 200 dpi one. Windows has a slider to control the number of dots per inch the screen uses, and if you use a screen that's substantially higher than 96 dpi, this slider can be used to restore the physical size of objects on-screen.
However, using this slider has never been a panacea. Most of the time it does work well enough, but some applications break, drawing themselves improperly. Other applications simply don't fit on-screen. For example, the Samsung Slate 7 tablet has an 11.6 inch 1366×768 screen, which is about 135 dpi. With the operating system set to use 96 dpi, everything comes out a little small. Unfortunately, at this resolution, some of the operating system's own dialog boxes no longer fit on-screen, and have their bottom portions placed behind the taskbar, or off the screen entirely.
As a result, most Windows users tend to just leave the operating system at 96 dpi, and accept that things will come out a bit small. And for a mouse-driven operating system, it isn't that big a deal: the mouse is a pixel-perfect pointing device, so the mouse can hit even small targets with relative ease.
But when touch is thrown into the mix, that's no longer the case. For touch, preserving the physical size is essential: if something's too small, you can't touch it. This problem already plagues Web sites, and it makes for a substandard user experience. Everything touchable needs to be about 9mm × 9mm at a minimum.
With Windows 8 being designed for touch apps, and with higher pixel densities starting to become mainstream, clearly the problem needs to be addressed. And for Metro applications, that's exactly what Microsoft is going to do. Metro-style applications will have much stronger support for high-dpi screens, and will preserve their physical dimensions on touch systems, regardless of pixel size.
Creating scalable interfaces for Metro-style apps will be much easier than it is for desktop apps today. Metro apps will have a minimum size of 1024×768, a widescreen minimum of 1366×768, and a snapped view of exactly 320 pixels wide. They're also not infinitely resizeable: in addition to these minimum sizes, they'll always have an aspect ratio of around 16:9 or 4:3. Together, these decisions greatly reduce the number of permutations and complications that developers will have to consider.
Scaling itself has also been standardized. Windows 8 will have two scaling factors for Metro apps, 140 percent and 180 percent. These numbers seem strange, but they are designed to make content on 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 screens appear the same size as 1366×768 screens with the same physical size.
Microsoft explains that it expects 10-inch and 11.6-inch tablets with 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 resolutions to be common for Windows 8. Windows 8 will automatically pick a scaling factor depending on the device's physical size and screen resolution.
The core XAML and HTML development frameworks used for Metro applications will automatically handle the scaling of text and vector images. For bitmaps, developers can either depend on the built-in scaling, or include multiple versions of bitmap resources that have been manually redrawn at the larger sizes so that their images will remain crisp and clean even when used on these high-resolution machines. HTML applications will be able to use CSS media queries to switch out low-resolution graphics with high-resolution equivalents.
For testing applications to ensure that they scale correctly, Visual Studio 11 includes a "Windows simulator" that allows developers to see how their applications will look on a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions.
Microsoft didn't elaborate on whether the desktop would be treated differently. In the current Consumer Preview, the Windows 8 desktop supports the same kind of resolution scaling as Windows 7, and the setting appears to be independent of the scaling applied to Metro applications. The Windows 8 desktop is not touch friendly in any case, so the difference is less important—to work well, it needs a pixel-perfect input device anyway. On the other hand, with Office 15 using the desktop, some improvement in touch friendliness and scaling is highly desirable.
More problematic will be Web sites. Although technically they could include multiple bitmap sizes using CSS, the reality is that there are essentially no sites on earth that actually do this. This means that Internet Explorer 10 on high resolution systems is going to have to scale everything on a Web page by 1.4 or 1.8 times. This is a problem, because these fractional scaling factors will produce fractional results. For example, an image that's 16×16 will be scaled to 22.4×22.4 or 28.8×28.8. Obviously this will have to be rounded down or up, but that rounding will cause a slight change in the proportions of the layout. Lines and boxes that fit exactly on the screen's pixels at 96 dpi will end up being smeared across multiple pixels when scaled.
Ensuring that lines and boxes, as well as bitmaps, look good with these scaling factors may well prove challenging. For Metro applications, Microsoft recommends using a 5-pixel grid; objects whose natural size is a multiple of 5 will scale cleanly with both scaling factors. But the Web is altogether more freeform.
Apple's high resolution displays, the 960×640 screen on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and the 2048×1536 screen on the 3rd generation iPad, avoid this conundrum by using only integer multiplication—they scale by exactly 2. A straight-up doubling of Microsoft's baseline 1366×768 would be easiest to handle and exhibit the best visual quality, but 2732×1536 might be too high to arrive during Windows 8's lifetime.Amy Schumer has a thing for tipping really well. And the media has a thing for expressing astonishment about it:
Most recently, Schumer Most recently, Schumer gave a $500 tip for an $80 tab in Boston. According to People magazine, she was dressed very casually so as not to draw attention to herself. “She was very nice,” restaurant owner Joe Milano said. “She said to [the server] that she was once a waitress and knew how hard it was.”
In an In an interview with Howard Stern, Schumer explained how her generous tipping comes after spending 10 years in the service industry. A former struggling performer who waited tables for years now wants to give back. Makes sense, right? But despite her attempts to revert to incognito mode, Schumer’s random acts of tipping still make the news every time.
Why?
The first answer is the public’s obsession with fawning over celebrities performing normal acts in extraordinary ways, The first answer is the public’s obsession with fawning over celebrities performing normal acts in extraordinary ways, like tipping, or walking their dogs on a Sunday morning in $1,000 get-ups without appearing hungover somehow. But Schumer draws unusual attention for her gratuity because of who she is — a loud, in-your-face Jewish female comedian who likes to discuss her vagina.
Does any description better contrast the stereotypical good tipper?
That contrast is the crux to the constant attention. A feel-good story is usually boring — but not if it’s about a hated figure. People petting cats is boring. Nazis petting cats, however — that’s That contrast is the crux to the constant attention. A feel-good story is usually boring — but not if it’s about a hated figure. People petting cats is boring. Nazis petting cats, however — that’s internet gold. So a Jewish, female comedian who speaks louder than everyone else in the room offering a generous tip? It’s like the mating call for “alt-right” trolls to swarm. Remember — Schumer’s haters are so passionately vocal, they trolled the ratings for her comedy special until Netflix had to change their ratings formula. And I’ll tell you a little secret: Online controversy elicits clicks, so outlets are more than happy to host the bizarre attention.
Schumer’s raunchy femininity defying Barbie standards is the antithesis of all that is holy in the land of patriarchy. Granted, the constant controversy surrounding Schumer isn’t simply because she’s a woman — she’s been accused of Schumer’s raunchy femininity defying Barbie standards is the antithesis of all that is holy in the land of patriarchy. Granted, the constant controversy surrounding Schumer isn’t simply because she’s a woman — she’s been accused of stealing jokes and dabbling in racism and rape jokes as well. But as fellow female comedian (and member of the tribe!) Iliza Shlesinger recently described, when female comedians employ shock value to their shtick — as male comedians do all the time — they’re crucified for it. D*ck jokes are a patriarchal pastime. Vagina jokes aren’t.
And yes, she’s Jewish! Jews are supposed to be greedy! I’ll be honest — I think far fewer people hate on Schumer because of her Jewishness than because of her pointed feminism. But you think the online “alt-right” trolls don’t have that in mind at all when they go after her?
Ultimately, the stereotypes that produce this obsession over Amy Schumer’s tips are based on antiquated stereotypes stemming from historical systems of oppression — Jewish lenders in medieval times forced into usury, and women denied access to work and fair pay for centuries so men take care of the check. The greatest tipper I know, actually, is a Jewish woman — my mother. She demands good service, but these people aren’t “the help.” They are people with names and lives who she will even insist join us for family pictures if they feed her enough cosmos (about two).
My mom and Schumer’s generosity shouldn’t be surprising at all. They exemplify how women know better than anyone else what it’s like to be underpaid or not paid at all for their work. And they follow a legacy of Jews who lead the fight for workers’ rights in the late 19th century and early 20th century (see: this very outlet).
With enough “shocking” tips from Schumer, maybe the surprise will wear off so that people can acknowledge what this case really is: just a well-off Jewish woman who remembers what it’s like to be underpaid and ignored.
Steven Davidson is an editorial fellow at the Forward.Reports from the summer sumo PR tour in central Japan are that Yokozuna Hakuho has withdrawn. Complaining for persistant and increasing pain in his left knee, Hakuho has returned to Tokyo to rest prior to the Aki basho in just one month.
Fans have greatly enjoyed seeing “The Boss” back in fighting form for the past two tournaments, but as we have cautioned, he is one injury away from having to struggle to make it through a basho. Like any combat sport, the mechanical injuries sustained by the athletes never really go away, you can only get them so that you can continue to compete. In the case of this injury, the Yokozuna declared that this had been troubling him since before Nagoya.
This leaves only an injured Harumafuji and an injured Kisenosato remaining with the tour. Fans might infer from this that the roster for Aki could in fact be rather light at the top ranks if none of sumo’s grand champions are fit to fight.
Share this: Tweet6.02pm BST
• Theresa May, the home secretary, has indicated that a wide-ranging inquiry into whether public bodies did enough to investigate child abuse claims in the past will be able to inspect files held by MI5. She made the offer as she used a Commons statement to confirm that the government will set up a Hillsborough-style panel "to consider whether public bodies – and other non-state institutions – have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse". (See 4.09pm.) Asked if the panel would be able to see intelligence files, May suggested that it would, and that she might ensure that a privy counsellor heads the panel so that he or she can have access to secret material
My intention is that the fullest possible access should be made to government papers in relation to these matters. As I'm sure you and other members of the House will recognise, where there are files where there are certain issues around who can have access to those files we will need to ensure we have an appropriate means of ensuring the information is available to the inquiry panel. But as I said, I am looking to appoint a very senior figure to be chairing that panel and I'd expect it to be possible to ensure that all government papers are available.
• She said that the panel would not have the power to summon witnesses to give evidence but that, if the chair felt it needed this power, she would upgrade it to a full public inquiry to allow it to subpoena witnesses.
• She said that the political parties at Westminster and the churches would be among those institutions covered by what she is intended to a wide-ranging inquiry. Its terms of reference will be published in due course. When Lisa Nandy, a Labour MP, said that a Tory whip from the 1970s had revealed that the whips protected MPs involved in this kind of scandal (see 12.42pm and 4.21pm), May replied:
It is not my intention that political parties should be outside the scope of the inquiry.
At another point May specifically said she expected churches to be covered by the inquiry.
• She said the inquiry would not cover specific allegations.
I should perhaps clarify a point; the inquiry panel will not be conducting investigations into a specific allegation, in so far as those would be matters properly for criminal investigations to take place. It is looking across the board at the way things have been approached in the past and asking that question as to whether, and I expect to draw this quite widely, people did have in place the proper protections for children or not and if not, what are the gaps, are those gaps still existing today, and what do we need to do to make sure that those gaps are filled?
• She said the inquiry could lead to legislation. When one MP suggested MPs should be subject to CRB checks, May said this was the kind of issue the panel would look at. (See 4.30pm.)
• She said she had not read the full report into how the Home Office dealt with allegations about child abuse submitted by Geoffrey Dickens and others because the claims included references to Conservative MPs.
I did not see the full report and there was a very good reason for that - the matters that lay behind this were allegations that senior MPs and in particular, as we've seen, suggestions that senior Conservative MPs may have been involved in these activities. I thought it was absolutely right and proper therefore that the commissioning of the investigation and the work that was done should be led by [the Home Office permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill] and not by a Conservative politician.
• She announced that the NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless to review how the Home Office, and subsequently the police and prosecutors, handled abuse allegations raised by Geoffrey Dickens and others.
• Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the new inquiry should look at the need for current child protection rules to be tightened.
Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) Welcome overarching inquiry into child abuse, something we've called for for 18m. Must look at current child protection inc vetting& barring
Cooper also pointed out that May had originally resisted calls for a wide-ranging inquiry of the type announced today.
That's all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.View Caption Hide Caption Brad Kaaya (left) smoked Chad Johnson (right) in FIFA. (Getty Images, Twitter, Post illustration)
Well, this is something different.
Sunday evening, Hurricanes quarterback Brad Kaaya competed against former NFL wide receiver and Miami native Chad Johnson in FIFA 16 battle. Despite some public smack talk from Johnson, Kaaya beat him three times in a row.
And apparently, Johnson is bruised and battered, but still claims he’s better at the game.
Here’s how it went down:
Johnson, who ended a 12-year NFL career in 2012 Dolphins camp, loves Twitter. He also loves his 3.59 million followers. He takes interactions with some of them offline, sometimes meeting up for games of FIFA, the popular soccer video game. If you challenge him, he will show up at your house.
Saturday, he wanted some action:
Any of usual Miami followers free to lose at FIFA16 like always, my door is opened until 5 o'clock for a** whippings‼️ — Chad Johnson (@ochocinco) February 27, 2016
Kaaya, who likes watching soccer and playing FIFA in his down time, called him out:
@ochocinco I really want to humble you in Fifa 16 — Brad Kaaya (@BradleyKaaya) February 27, 2016
Apparently, Johnson didn’t get the message. So when he was back at it again Sunday …
It's a new day, anybody free to lose in FIFA16, my door is open till 6‼️ — Chad Johnson (@ochocinco) February 28, 2016
… Kaaya reminded him that he was waiting for a response:
I know you saw my tweet man https://t.co/FYzZASfL47 — Brad Kaaya (@BradleyKaaya) February 28, 2016
Johnson, 38, wasn’t about to let someone 18 years his junior come at him like that …
My door is open to embarrass you at FIFA, hell I'll uber to Liberty City then catch the metro rail to your campus. https://t.co/ehPnhauiPW — Chad Johnson (@ochocinco) February 28, 2016
… and when Kaaya confirmed it was on, Johnson kept it up:
May God be with you or your journey because you're going to need him. #FIFA16KING https://t.co/Rp3RuuwpVW — Chad Johnson (@ochocinco) February 28, 2016
With details presumably worked out over direct messages, the match began just before 8 p.m. Sunday, likely at Kaaya’s apartment near campus.
The youngin’ whipped him …
I lost in FIFA16 to @BradleyKaaya which hurts my heart, I was on a roll during Black History Month & I have failed to remain perfect 😩 — Chad Johnson (@ochocinco) February 29, 2016
… but even though he was humbled, Johnson still wouldn’t crown his opponent.
Soooo I beat @ochocinco 3 times in a row and he still says I'm not the new Fifa 16 King. Looking forward to our rematch soon 85. — Brad Kaaya (@BradleyKaaya) February 29, 2016
In case you were wondering, Kaaya said he won twice with Barcelona against Johnson’s Real Madrid, and once with Tottenham Hotspur vs. Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund.
As midnight neared, Johnson was still hurting:
I have a headache from losing in FIFA16 earlier, I feel so empty & cold… — Chad Johnson (@ochocinco) February 29, 2016
He might get his rematch, but it probably won’t be between March 15 and April 16. Miami has spring practices then. Kaaya might be a little busy.
RELATED: Hurricanes spring practice preview assesses Kaaya, Richt and the QBs
Update: Kaaya plans to play a little FIFA this summer.By Elliot Foster
Tony Bellew has made it clear that he wants to be out of the sport of boxing within the next 12 months.
The Liverpool cruiserweight, who is the current WBC champion and next week steps up to heavyweight to take on former WBA champion David Haye at London’s O2 Arena, made the revelations on Wednesday.
Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) faces Haye on March 4, exclusively live on Sky Sports Box Office, over 12 rounds.
And the 34-year-old former British and Commonwealth champion and world title challenger at light-heavyweight has earmarked the clash against Bermondsey’s Haye (28-2, 26 KOs), 36, as potentially one of his last.
“I’m edging towards the end of this crazy game,” he told the Fight Disciples podcast.
“Hopefully this could be my last year in the game –– more likely in the next 12 months.
“I just think these could be the last [fights].
“I’ve always been adamant that I will retire from boxing, boxing will not retire me. I’ve always believed that. Don’t overstay your welcome.”
They say boxers have one Hollywood moment in their career, whatever that may be, but ‘Bomber’ has already had more than one.
Not only has the Scouse scrapper won the world title in his beloved Everton Football Club’s Goodison Park stadium against feared puncher Ilunga Makabu last May, he has also featured in a Rocky movie –– Creed –– alongside fellow fighter Andre Ward.
“For someone like me you’ve got to look at it like this: if you’re playing a video game, I’ve clocked the game,” he continued. “I’m trying to get the bonus things out of the game now. I’ve exceeded my expectations in this business. Now the only thing left to do is secure my kids’ future.
“If [the fight with Makabu] had have made me financially secure, you wouldn’t have seen in a boxing ring again, but it didn’t.”
Bellew admitted when in the Radio City Talk studio alongside hosts Nick Peet and Adam Catterall that the Sky Sports Box Office revenue from the Haye fight should go some way towards fulfilling the aim he has of ensuring his three children have a good life.
“I had to give in to a lot of diva-ish demands from Mariah Haye,” he laughed. “It was unbelievable. I thought I was going to have to give him a piggy back into the ring!
“I must be seated at the press conference until he sits down was one of the rules, I must be seated in the blue corner, I must be this, I must be that. He soon found out when we sat down at that first press conference last November I’m not a man who plays by the rules.
“I said: ‘Listen, let’s just cut a long story short, can I pick my own shorts, can I pick my own gloves? Yes, yes. You can have everything else.’
“All I care about is fighting.”
You can watch the Facebook Live feature, which was first broadcast on Wednesday, at http://bit.ly/2l93cZL.About
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05-25-13-BB-0070.jpgKjula flygbas
Kjulabasen var tidigare en utav försvarsmaktens alla flygbaser som låg avskiljt ute i skogarna. Basen utgjorde en del av det nya Bas90-systemet som var toppmodernt när det togs i bruk.Under årens gång moderniserades flygbasen och två nya kortbanor anlades tillsammans med huvudbanan. Under en kort period testades även civilflyg från basen och idag har den helt andra arbetsuppgifter.
Flygbasen har tidigare varit helt skymd undan. Idag kan ett vaksamt öga se delar av huvudbanan från motorvägen som går en bit ifrån. Längs med landsvägen som slingrar sig förbi Kjulabasen finns klargöringsfickor kvar från en svunnen tid som idag inte har något större användningsområde än parkering åt friluftsmänniskor. Här ligger skogen fortfarande tät och området påminner fortfarande om att det tidigare varit militär aktivitet.
En bit in i skogen kan man från landsvägen skymta en underlig konstruktion, något taget från en Sci-fi film. Med öppningar på både fram och baksida skulle faktiskt stridsplanen starta sina motorer härinne och stå klara för att agera. Men mer om detta längre ner i texten. Vi fortsätter våran färd längs taxivägen och förbi klargöringsskyddet för att närma oss själva flygbasområdet. Eftersom att man nu bygger så extremt mycket på området så får vi nu lov att korsa en stor öppen grusyta för att sedan återkoppla med den väg vi började på. Här kommer det troligtvis byggas stora lager och förrådslokaler i framtiden och ha anslutning till den nya järnväg som byggts på området.
Längre ner på denna taxiväg invid en korsning finns ytterligare ett klargöringsskydd i form av en stor hjälm, som skyddas av en bom och skylten som förbjuder tillträde. Även detta kommer det mer text längre ner. Invid denna korsning börjar även staketet som omger flygbasens område och en bit längre ner på fältet kan man se två väderskydd som kallas för Törebodabågar vid huvudbanan som som skyddade stridsplanen under tiden dom stod vid klargöringsplatsen och skulle göras redo för start.
Några byggnader finns kvar invid väderskydden som tidigare tillhört flygbasen men även här används till andra ändamål i dagsläget. Vi fortsätter ytterligare en bit längs med huvudbanan för att då komma fram till flygledartornet och några hangarer som finns placerade mot mitten av den långa landningsbanan. Skicket på anläggningarna är bra och man tar väl hand om de byggnader som finns på området. Sedan tiden då försvarsmakten hade aktivitet på området har säkerligen stora renoveringar gjorts på diverse byggnader.
Vi far sedan ifrån flygplatsområdet för att ta oss in i skogarna i närheten. En del av förrådsbyggnaderna som användes under flygbasens aktiva tid finns kvar än idag längs de ödsliga grusvägar. Det första förrådet är väl omhändertaget och i bra skick tillsammans med sin övervakning. Fortsätter man länge in i skogen når man ytterligare några mobiliseringsförråd. Runt om flygbasen finns förråd av denna typ där materiel förvarades som tillhörde personalen vid förbanden.
Året var 1952 och kalla kriget var i full fart. Man har över hela landet påbörjat byggandet av militära installationer som skall kunna mäta sig med de kärnvapenhot som följer andra världskrigets sprängningar. Man planerar även ett stort antal militära flygbaser som ska kunna försvara luftrummet vid ett eventuellt anfall. Kjula var ett utav dom strategiskt utvalda platser där man valde att placera en bas, som fick benämning “Fält 56“.
År 1962 var arbetet klart och bastroppen kunde börja flytta över till Kjulabasen. Platsen som tidigare varit ingenting annat än skog och åkermark har nu fått ett helt nytt liv. Kom man för nära basen möttes man tidigt av förbudsskyltar som hänvisade att allmänheten inte fick fortsätta närmare, vilket är vanligt på militära installationer. Man konstruerade och utformade basen efter ett system kallat Bas60.
Bas 60
Man behövde ett nytt system som skulle kunna mäta sig med de nya tekniska utmaningar som tillkom efter andra världskriget och Bas60-systemet utformades som ett svar på detta. Efter försvarsbeslutet 1958 påbörjades 70 krigsbaser att byggas kompletterat med reservvä |
law, SB1587 would prohibit law enforcement angencies from using unmanned drones to gather evidence or other information without a warrant. It reads, in part: “A law enforcement agency may not use a drone to gather evidence or other information.”
The act does leave the door open for some drone use, but is very restrictive about what could be authorized. It’s prime exception allows for the use of drones “to counter a high risk of a terrorist attack by a specific individual or organization if the United States Secretary of Homeland Security determines that credible intelligence indicates that there is such a risk.”
In addition, the bill would permit law enforcement agencies to use drones when attempting to locate a missing person as long as that flight was “not also undertaking a criminal investigation.” And it would allow a drone to be used to review a crime scene and take traffic crash scene photography. Any information gathered by a drone would have to be destroyed within 30 days unless the information is proven to contain evidence of criminal activity or is relevant to a trial or investigation.
The Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act passed 52-1. (See the roll call HERE)
Sponsoring Sen. Daniel Biss told colleagues the “people of Illinois have a reasonable expectation for privacy.”
“The technology available to law enforcement agencies is evolving rapidly,” said Biss. “I want Illinois to take a pro-active approach — recognizing that drones can make police work more efficient and keep officers out of harm’s way, but also acknowledging the potential threat they pose to individual liberties.”
“I believe it achieves a delicate balance between security and freedom,” he said before the full Senate vote.
SB1587 has been transmitted to the state house, where its chief sponsor is Rep. Ann Williams. The bill has been referred to the Rules Committee where it’ll need a hearing and vote before the full house can concur and send the bill to the Governor’s desk.
Some activists have criticized the bill due to various exceptions allowing for limited drone use. While these exceptions do raise legitimate concerns, as things exist today, Illinois have no protections against drone.
1. The DHS can call on Illinois to use drones for any “non-emergency” situation it wants.
2. The DHS can call on Illinois to use drones for any emergency situation it wants.
3. Law enforcement in Illinois can use drones in any situation they want.
Passage of the bill would eliminate number one and most of number three, so this bill ushers in a MASSIVE improvement over the status quo.
“As it is now, law enforcement agencies in Illinois can use drones any time, anywhere with absolutely no parameters. If the Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act becomes law, drone use will be extremely limited and circumscribed. I understand the concern some activists have expressed. I share those concerns. But the thought of passing nothing and ending up with absolutely no limits on drone use would concern me a lot more,” Tenth Amendment Center national communications director Mike Maharrey said.
Without any action by the Illinois legislature, the only thing standing between the people there and a full-fledged drone surveillance state is a little funding.
And that’s coming down the pike.
At this stage in the ‘drone game,’ the feds are working hard behind the scenes to get states to operate the drones for them.
In fact, the primary engine behind the expansion of drone surveillance being carried out by states and local communities is the Federal government itself. Department of Homeland Security issues large grants to local governments so that those agencies can purchase drones. Those grants, in and of themselves, are an unconstitutional expansion of power.
The goal? Fund a network of drones around the country and put the operational burden on the states. Once the create a web over the whole country, DHS steps in with requests for ‘information sharing.’ Bills like these put a dent in this kind of long-term strategy. Without the states and local communities operating the drones today, it’s going to be nearly impossible for DHS plans to – take off.
In fact, this has been as much as confirmed by a drone industry lobbyist who testified in opposition to a similar bill in Washington State, saying that such restrictions would be extremely destructive to the drone market and industry.
While the The Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act might not be the perfect bill, it is a solid bill providing parameters for drone use. Pass the bill now and then move forward with further restrictions in the future once basic regulation is in place.
A NO vote on SB1587 is a vote in FAVOR of unlimited drone spying by everyone in Illinois.
ACTION ITEMS for Illinois
1. Call the Chair of the House Rules Committee. Politely encourage her to hold a hearing on SB1587 and to pass the legislation without weakening the restrictions in any way.
Representative Barbara Flynn Currie
(217) 782-8121
2. Call the rest of the House Rules Committee members. Strongly, but respectfully, encourage them to vote YES on SB1587
Contact info here:
http://www.ilga.gov/house/committees/members.asp?committeeID=1197
LEGISLATION AND TRACKING
If you’re outside of Illinois, please contact your own legislators regarding anti-drone legislation. If none has been introduced in your state, you can email them The Privacy Protection Act model legislation.
Track the status of drone nullification in states around the country HERE(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc’s Vikram Pandit quit as chief executive on Tuesday after months of simmering tensions with the board - an abrupt change that surprised investors and employees of the third-largest U.S. bank.
Citigroup's CEO Vikram Pandit gives an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in this June 18, 2012 file photograph. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/Files
The bank’s board of directors named Michael Corbat as Citigroup’s new CEO. Pandit told Reuters the decision to leave was his own and that he had been contemplating the move for some time.
Multiple sources within and outside the bank said Pandit’s departure followed months of tension with Chairman Michael O’Neill over a range of issues, including compensation and the role of Chief Operating Officer John Havens. On Tuesday, Havens also resigned.
Pandit has been involved in some high-profile snafus this year, including the bank’s sale of the remaining stake of its retail brokerage business to Morgan Stanley at a loss.
Senior executives were mostly stunned by Pandit’s departure. It is not clear precisely what led Pandit to quit, but the decision to swiftly name Corbat as CEO is a clear sign that O’Neill is now fully in control of the bank, according to one person familiar with Citigroup.
On a conference call with investors and analysts Tuesday night, O’Neill gave assurances that there were no other shoes to drop and that the “board remains comfortable with the strategy of the firm.”
He also said the board had considered outside candidates before choosing Corbat and that Corbat knew he was under consideration for the job for “quite some time.”
Citigroup shares rose as much as 2 percent as some investors said they were not sorry to see Pandit leave. During his tenure, he was known to have adamantly opposed any break-up of the bank, something some money managers argued would increase shareholder value. His resignation could revive that talk, particularly in light of comments by former Citi CEO Sandy Weill this summer suggesting big banks should be broken up.
The board’s relationship with Pandit was already under pressure after shareholders rejected the CEO’s pay package in an advisory vote in April. He was awarded more than $15 million in 2011 compensation, but 55 percent of shareholders voted against it. The pay issue was thought to still be a source of friction internally, though O’Neill “categorically” denied it.
O’Neill’s ascension to chairman and the addition of new board members earlier this year upended the status quo and likely set the stage for disagreements on strategic direction between the chairman and the CEO, a second person familiar with the situation said.
A third person familiar with the bank told Reuters that Pandit and O’Neill clashed because the chairman wanted the CEO “to get in line soldier-style.”
A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment on accounts of friction with the board.
Investors were taken aback by the news.
“It’s not a shock that (Pandit) is no longer there, but the surprise is this is all happening very quickly. Why is he leaving immediately?” said Mike Holland, chairman of New York-based Holland & Co, which oversees more than $4 billion of assets.
“I’m not a Citi shareholder, but if I were, I’d be disappointed that Havens is gone, in some ways more than Pandit,” Holland added.
Citigroup shares ended regular trading on Tuesday up 1.6 percent at $37.25.
HIGH-PROFILE DEFEATS
Pandit’s resignation followed a series of high-profile mishaps this year. In March, the Federal Reserve rejected the bank’s plans to return capital to shareholders; Pandit had told analysts and investors the bank had enough capital to return some to shareholders.
Last month, Pandit agreed to a low sale price for his bank’s stake in the brokerage operated by Morgan Stanley. Citigroup had to take a $4.7 billion charge in the third quarter to write down the value of that stake.
Pandit said he believes he achieved what he had set out to do when he became CEO in December 2007. Over that time the bank has been substantially restructured and has about one-third fewer employees worldwide than it did five years ago.
Related Coverage Options market sees less risk long term for Citi after CEO exit
“The bank is actually in damn good shape. When I came in to the business, we had to restore confidence and rebuild capital. I feel we have done that,” he said.
The timing of his resignation, Pandit said, made sense because the bank is planning for 2013 and he did not want to be setting a strategy that someone else would have to execute.
“I wouldn’t have done this now if I didn’t think the timing was right,” he added.
Despite Pandit’s confidence about Citi’s condition - and though Corbat said he was looking forward “to continuing what Vikram started” - analysts said it was incumbent on the new management team to show their hand quickly on strategy.
“It is just pretty clear that we have to know what the new management team is thinking about priorities for advancing the company’s performance. It has been a wait-and-see for so long,” said David Hendler, senior analyst at CreditSights. “We have to get to know (Corbat) better and see what he has to say.”
RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB?
Pandit’s departure revived questions that were asked from the day he took the job: whether he had the right experience to lead Citigroup in the first place. Those questions did not go away during the depths of the financial crisis, as regulators took a dim view of his performance.
“Citi management’s performance during the crisis had not been impressive. They had a very difficult time making decisions and then executing once the decisions were made,” Sheila Bair, the crisis-era chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, wrote in her recent book.
Born in Nagpur, India, the 55-year-old Pandit obtained two electrical engineering degrees and a doctorate in finance from Columbia University. He joined Citigroup in July 2007 when the bank acquired his hedge fund and private equity firm, Old Lane Partners LP, for $800 million. He personally made some $165 million on that sale.
But Citigroup had to shut down Old Lane the next summer - an early black mark for the executive. Critics later charged that Pandit was too cerebral to run a big consumer bank.
“He was not beloved by Wall Street. He was thrust into that position - he’s a hedge fund guy,” said Matt McCormick, banking analyst and portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor in Cincinnati.
Pandit and Havens long have been linked together in their careers, which lessened the surprise at Havens’ exit to some degree. The two worked at Morgan Stanley in the 1980s and 1990s before forming Old Lane.
To some inside Citigroup, the close bond between the men was an obstacle to working with the CEO.
Pandit’s “strength was his intelligence. His weakness was that he had a very close team, and didn’t think he needed to interact with other people,” said a fourth person familiar with the situation, who declined to discuss sensitive internal details publicly. “There was a perception that people in some divisions didn’t have access to his team. It was a Morgan Stanley team that he brought in.”
NFL DREAMS
Pandit’s successor, Corbat, has held a number of senior roles at Citigroup, including running Citi Holdings, the unit established to house businesses and assets that the company wants to shed.
Former Citi chief Weill endorsed the new chief executive.
“I know Mike Corbat very well and I applaud the decision the board has made to name him CEO. He has been a great manager for Citi in all of the important positions he has held,” he said in a statement.
Citigroup said Tuesday afternoon that Corbat will receive an annual base salary of $1.5 million.
A fixed-income salesman by training, Corbat started out at Salomon Brothers in 1983. More recently, he has been credited with successfully restructuring some of Citigroup’s consumer and credit card units.
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In a letter to Citigroup staff after he was named CEO, Corbat said he expected to make some organizational changes after a review, but that he was generally pleased with the company’s direction.
“I believe the fundamentals we have in place today are strong and that we are on the right path,” he said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.
Corbat, 52, was a standout football player at Harvard and once had aspirations to play professionally. But in a 1982 profile in the Harvard Crimson, he said he was perhaps too skinny to make it in the National Football League.Updated 5:55 p.m. ET
A federal employee who is on the verge of losing her job confronted President Obama about her status during a CBS News town hall meeting broadcast Thursday morning.
And by the end of the day, she’d heard back from the White House.
Karin Gallo, a spokeswoman for the National Zoo, told Obama that she’s four weeks away from losing her job because of budget cuts.
“Just under three years ago, I took a job with the federal government, thinking it was a secure job,” Gallo told Obama during the town hall, which was taped Wednesday afternoon at the Newseum.
Gallo, who is seven months pregnant, told Obama that she and her husband are also building a new house. (Watch video of the exchange above or here.)
“I’m stressed, I’m worried. I’m scared about what I — what my future holds. I definitely need a job. And — I just wonder what would you do, if you were me?
“Where were you working?” Obama asked her.
“The National Zoo. And — I would be non-essential employee number seven,” Gallo said.
“Workers like you, for the federal, state, and local governments are so important for our vital services,” Obama said. “And it frustrates me sometimes when people talk about ‘government jobs’ as if somehow those are worth less than private sector jobs. I — I think there’s nothing more important than — working on behalf of the American people.”
“Well, I — I thought that — I’d be more important and secure,” Gallo said, cutting him off.
“I agree with you,” he said. “I think the challenge has been that — in some of these negotiations to try to reduce the deficit I think the feeling — particularly on the part of — some folk — on the other side of the aisle has been that we want to just cut and cut and cut. And that somehow is going to create economic growth.”
Obama said that the unemployment rate remains high partly because local, state and federal agencies are laying off employees. He noted that he froze the pay of West Wing staffers when he took office and imposed a two-year federal pay freeze last year.
“The reason we did that was so we don’t have to cut as many workers — as we try to get control of our debt and our deficit,” Obama said.
Though he didn’t promise to investigate her status, Obama suggested they should speak after the town hall.
Though they didn’t speak again at the Newseum, Gallo exchanged contact information with Obama aide Reggie Love. By midday Thursday, she got a call from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco.
“The first thing she said to me is that ‘I got your information from the president and I’m calling and wanted to know how you’re doing and how can I help you,’” Gallo said Thursday.
“I totally appreciate that she did that … It’s good to know that the president is a man of his word,” she added.
Mastromonaco confirmed her conversation with Gallo, saying in an e-mail that "We had a nice talk."
Gallo attended the town hall at the invitation of CBS News and said she didn’t seek permission from her bosses.
“I didn’t go there to throw the Zoo under the bus. I had an opportunity to ask the president what’s happening with me,” she said.
Gallo and six other Zoo employees are slated to lose their jobs at the beginning of June because of a $500,000 operating deficit, according to Carol Fiertz, the zoo’s associate director of finance and administration. The layoffs are necessary because personnel costs have climbed in recent years without sufficient budget increases, she said.
“Clearly everyone is trying to achieve a targeted savings in fiscal year 2012,” Fiertz said. “We’re one federal unit trying to live within our means.”
Fiertz couldn’t say whether there’s any chance of Gallo and her six colleagues keeping their jobs now that Obama is aware of the situation.
“What we would hope that somehow magic happens for all of the seven people in all of the seven positions,” she said.
At the beginning of fiscal 2011, the Zoo employed 228 federal employees and 36 workers whose salaries are paid by trusts and contracts funded by outside donors, according to Fiertz. Dozens of maintenance staffers and zoo police officers who also work at the zoo are paid out of the Smithsonian Institution’s budget.
Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Here’s a transcript of Gallo’s exchange with Obama:
KARIN GALLO: About three years ago, just under three years ago, I took a job with the federal government, thinking it was a secure job. Recently I’ve been told I’m being laid off as of June 4th. And it is not an opportune time for me, I am seven months pregnant in a high-risk pregnancy, my first pregnancy. My husband and I are in the middle of building a house. We’re not sure if we’re going to be completely approved. I’m not exactly in a position to waltz right in and -- and do great on interviews, based on my timing with the birth. And -- so, I’m stressed, I’m worried. I’m scared about what I -- what my future holds. I definitely need a job. And -- I just wonder what would you do, if you were me? (LAUGH)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, Karin -- first of all -- I think you’ll do great on interviews, just based on -- the way you asked the question. And congratulations on --
KARIN GALLO: Thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: -- on the new one coming.
KARIN GALLO: Thank you.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Where were you working?
KARIN GALLO: The National Zoo. And -- I would be non-essential employee number seven. (LAUGH)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well -- look, I -- let me -- let me just first of all say that -- workers like you for the federal, state, and local governments are so important for our vital services. And in -- and it frustrates me sometimes when people talk about “government jobs” as if somehow those are worth less than private sector jobs. I -- I think there’s nothing more important than -- working on behalf of the American people. And --
KARIN GALLO: Well, I -- I thought that -- I’d be more important and secure.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I -- I agree with you. I think the challenge has been that -- in some of these negotiations to try to reduce the deficit I think the feeling -- particularly on the part of -- some folks -- on the other side of the aisle has been that we want to just cut and cut and cut. And that somehow is going to create economic growth. Now, the truth of the matter is, our biggest problem when it comes to jobs right now is not in the private sector. We’ve been creating a lot of private sector jobs.
The reason the unemployment rate is still as high as it is, in part, is because there have been huge layoffs of government workers at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level. Teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers -- they have really taken it -- in the chin over the last several months. And so, what we’re trying to do is to see if we can stabilize the budget.
For awhile, for example -- people were a little frustrated with me when I said, “We needed to freeze federal pay.” Now, we already freezed pay over in the White House, as my aides can testify, they haven’t gotten a raise since they came in. But we imposed the federal freeze and some folks were upset. The reason we did that was so we don’t have to cut as many workers -- as we try to get control of our debt and our deficit.
But -- my main message to you is that the work you’ve done -- at the National Zoo’s important. Every child that you see who comes by and is amazed by those animals, you know, they’re benefiting from your work. I don’t want to sort of -- find out more details in front of everybody about what your status is. But -- we can have a conversation may -- maybe afterwards.
I do want to make a larger point to people, though, that folks like Karin provide vital services. And so, when we have discussions about how to cut our debt and our deficit in an intelligent way, we have to make sure that the -- we understand this is not just -- a matter of numbers, these are people --
HARRY SMITH, CBS NEWS: But in 20 --
PRESIDENT OBAMA: -- behind these decisions.
HARRY SMITH: But in 20 seconds, assume the economy -- improved dramatically. Say in the next year or two.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Right.
HARRY SMITH: Would Karin get her job back?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I would hope so. I mean --
(OVERTALK)
HARRY SMITH: But in reality?
(OVERTALK)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Because -- because part of my argument is that we’re having to make some decisions about cuts to federal programs now, but also states and local governments are making these decisions, on programs that often times are doing a lot of good. I mean, these are good things. You know? So, everybody has a tendency to think that somehow government is all waste and if we just sort of got rid of all the waste -- well, that somehow we would solve our debt and our deficit.
In fact, most of the government services that people get are ones they really like. Social Security, Veterans Affairs, our military, our -- the help we give in terms of law enforcement, preventing terrorist attacks, making sure our food is safe, making sure that our national parks and -- are functioning. I mean, those are all things that all of us appreciate and care about. Well, that’s what our government does. And so, these are not abstract questions. And -- and I think Karin -- makes it really clear that -- there are real consequences when we make these decisions.
KARIN GALLO: Yes.
Read the full transcript of Obama’s town hall here.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
ADDISON, Ill. -- Mary Bauer, 63, of Addison says the first thing she does when she gets home from work is flip on her TV.
Her signal is brought in to her home by Comcast. But it took months, Mary says, to finally get on a consistent basis. She says her cable continually kept shutting off, and she had to keep calling to get it fixed.
“I had 39 technicians here from November to April,” she said.
Someone along the way, Mary says, finally got it right, but then she says her bills stopped showing up - four months in a row.
“I was nice enough to call them to ask how much I owe,” she said. “I was little hot and a little angry because I never got good service.” But she says she didn’t swear or call them names.
It was not an usual complaint, but when Mary got her bill today…
“It says Super B---- Bauer,” she said. “This is a disgrace to me. Why are they doing this to me? I pay my bills. I do not deserve this.”
Just a couple weeks ago, a couple in Washington got a bill that was address to “A—Brown” when they tried to cancel their service.
In Mary’s case, Comcast told WGN “We are investigating this thoroughly and will reach out to our customer."More than 40 people have been caught trying to break into prisons in the last five years, highlighting a growing drug problem in the penal system, according to new government figures.
The data released by the justice secretary, Jack Straw, showed that 19 people were involved in such incidents last year alone.
The figures appeared to confirm warnings from the Prison Officer Association.
The shadow justice secretary, Nick Herbert, who requested the information, said: "Whether these are offenders trying to return to jail, as prison officers have alleged, or dealers trying to traffic drugs, it is ludicrous that supposedly secure establishments can be breached in this way."
In April, the POA assistant general secretary, Glyn Travis, said: "Drugs are coming in at a rate that's so dramatic that [they] are actually cheaper than on the outside.
"It tells me there's something wrong in society when people are breaking into jail to bring in drugs and prostitutes, but the prisoners are quite happy to stay inside."
He highlighted one break-in at Everthorpe prison, in east Yorkshire, when drug dealers and prostitutes entered the jail using ladders.
The figures said ladders were used by 13 of the 42 people who were caught trying to break into prisons since 2003. Most of the incidents involve break-in to open jails.
The Prison Service denied inmates had any opportunity to escape in the Everthorpe incident.
"The prison was aware of a security breach back in January during which drugs were being brought in at night. At no time were prisoners out of their cells or able to access any other areas of the prison," a spokesman said.
"Immediate action was taken with extra fencing, the removal of trees, extra CCTV cameras, and the transfer of the offender involved to another establishment."
Frances Crook, the director of the Howard League for Prison Reform, said: "The majority of drugs being brought into prisons come through staff, who did it for money or are intimidated by prisoners. The quantities involved could not come in from a kiss [between inmates and visitors].
She added: "People trying to bring break in to prisons to bring in drugs are the stupid ones. People break in for a range of different reasons. They could be vulnerable people – if you get released from prison after 30 years, the only family and community you have is prison, it can be terrifying to be released because of the support on the outside."
A justice department spokesman said: "Whilst trespass into open prisons, by their very nature, is more difficult to control, there has only been one identified case of a member of the public breaking into a closed prison in the last five years."
He added: "Prison is anything but soft and it is absurd to suggest otherwise."Overstock.com, Inc. is an American internet retailer headquartered in Midvale, Utah,[1] near Salt Lake City.[2] Patrick M. Byrne founded the company in 1997 and launched the company in May 1999. Overstock.com initially sold exclusively surplus and returned merchandise on an online e-commerce marketplace, liquidating the inventories of at least 18 failed dot-com companies at below-wholesale prices.[3] The company continues to sell home decor, furniture, bedding, and many other goods that are closeout merchandise,[4] however, it also sells new merchandise.[5]
In May 2002, Overstock held an IPO at a per-share price of $13, and after achieving significant growth and profits in some early quarters, achieved a profit of $7.7 million in 2009[6] and reported its first billion-dollar year in 2010. The business started rebranding in early 2011, as "O.co", to simplify and unify its international operations[7] but interrupted this effort a few months later, citing consumer confusion over the new name.[8]
Business model and management [ edit ]
Part of Overstock.com's merchandise is purchased by or manufactured specifically for the company. Among their products are handmade goods produced for Overstock by workers in developing nations.[9][10] The company also manages the inventory supply for other retailers. In addition to its direct retail sales, Overstock.com began offering online auctions on its website in 2004, known as Overstock.com Marketplace and later O.co Marketplace. This service was retired in July 2011.[11]
After initially relying solely on word-of-mouth marketing from customers,[12] the company turned to distinctive television advertisements starring German actress Sabine Ehrenfeld.[13][14] Later, they would employ other advertising spokespersons.
In July 2006, John J. Byrne, the father of Overstock's chief executive, resigned from the board of directors after a public airing of the elder Byrne's unhappiness with his son's actions against naked short-selling.[15] In August 2008, Jack Byrne said that after "much initial skepticism" he believed his son was "right all along" about the battle and lawsuits with short-sellers and analysts.[16] In 2010 the elder Byrne returned to the Overstock.com board of directors.
In early 2007, John A. Fisher and Ray Groves resigned from the Overstock board of directors over disagreement with the company's prime broker suit.[17][18]
On January 2, 2008,[19] Overstock announced that cofounder Jason Lindsey had resigned as President, COO, and as a Director of Overstock effective from December 31, 2007. Byrne said Lindsey had "played a decisive role getting [Overstock] back on track" after "I screwed it up a couple years ago".[20] Overstock stock dropped to a four-year low following the announcement,[21] which an analyst for investment bank Broadpoint Capital described as a "key loss".[22]
In 2011, revenues dropped 5 percent over a two-month penalty period imposed by Google. According to the Associated Press, Overstock set up fake websites linking back to its own site. Overstock said it was penalized in part for a practice of encouraging college and university websites to post links to Overstock pages so that students and faculty could receive discounts. As a result of the Google penalty, search results for certain products dropped in Google rankings.[23][24] During the same year, Overstock.com acquired naming rights to the former Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, renaming it Overstock.com Coliseum.[25] The Coliseum was later rebranded O.co Coliseum, in keeping with Overstock's then-rebranding as O.co (in April 2016, the name O.co Coliseum was dropped in favor of Oakland-Alameda Coliseum).
In 2013, Overstock began promoting increased immigration. Overstock president Jonathan Johnson told the Los Angeles Times that his firm had struggled to hire enough computer programmers and software developers to expand the business. "We pay more, and they are still hard to fill", he said. "We need to be more free in letting people in. That helps us solve our border problem. No one goes through the window of a house if they can ring the doorbell and come in the front door."[26]
In 2014, Overstock began developing software that would allow it to distribute corporate stock online instead of using traditional methods like the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.[27]
Overstock.com's Board of Directors on January 9, 2014, was Patrick Byrne, Jonathan E. Johnson III, Allison H. Abraham, Barclay F. Corbus, Samuel A. Mitchell, Stormy D. Simon, Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. and Dr. Kirthi Kalyanam [28]
Byrne took an indefinite leave of absence in April 2016, because of hepatitis C complications. The general counsel, Mitch Edwards, was named acting CEO.[29] In July 2016, Byrne returned as CEO.
Worldstock [ edit ]
In 2001 Overstock set up the Worldstock division, to showcase the work of artisans from around the world.[30][31] By 2006 there were approximately 6,000 producers contributing.[32][33]
Bitcoin [ edit ]
On January 9, 2014, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to start accepting bitcoin as payments for its goods.[34] In the first 22 hours, they received over 800 orders worth US $126,000 in bitcoin.[35] This represents a 4.33% increase in sales from their normal income of $3 million per day.[36]
As of March 13, 2014, Overstock bitcoin income had shrunk to under 1% of their normal daily cash intake.[37]
In a community interview with social media site Reddit on May 3, 2014, in response to a question to the Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne about the percentage of revenue and transactions paid for in bitcoin, Byrne responded that the percentage was "Tiny. <.1%".[38] In mid-2014 Overstock.com announced that bitcoin sales were averaging $300,000 per month and that the company expected bitcoin sales to add 4 cents to the company's 2014 earnings per share.[39]
On September 14, 2014, Overstock announced it would begin donating 4% of bitcoin revenue to foundations that were advocating for cryptocurrency.[40]
In August 2018, it was reported that Overstock.com shares increased 17% after a "major Chinese equity firm agreed to invest in tZERO, the blockchain subsidiary vying to reshape the investment world through a SEC-regulated alternative trading system (ATS)." tZero is an Overstock.com blockchain subsidiary.[41]
Naked short selling campaign [ edit ]
The company has received attention stemming from CEO Patrick Byrne's battle against alleged naked short selling of his company's shares. Beginning in 2005, Byrne has contended that a number of companies, including Overstock.com, have been the targets of this practice, which involves selling a stock short but without the usual step of initially borrowing or locating the shares. Byrne alleges that the practice circumvents safeguards of conventional shorting, and has been used in large schemes devised to profit from driving down the prices of companies' shares, in many cases leading to these companies' failure. With Overstock, Byrne contends that the company's longstanding appearance on the Regulation SHO Threshold Security list, an SEC-mandated list showing companies with a high number of "fails to deliver", along with high trading volumes that sometimes surpass total quantity of the company's stock, establish that it has been targeted by this practice.[42] Byrne's campaign has been controversial, including criticism in the financial press that Byrne is seeking to divert attention from Overstock's share price declines and failure to turn a profit.[43] New York Times columnist Joseph Nocera has said in 2006 that, "Except for a few fellow-traveling Web sites, where Mr. Byrne is viewed as a heroic figure, most people who understand the issue or have looked into it think it's pretty bogus."[44] Others have suggested that the problem is real, but that the SEC acts to prevent it and that it does not happen on any scale such as Byrne suggests. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox called abusive naked short selling "a fraud that the commission is bound to prevent and to punish."[45]
Overstock filed a lawsuit against the hedge fund Rocker Partners in 2005, for libel, unfair business practices and tortious interference, saying it colluded with a research firm, Gradient Analytics, in short-selling the company while paying Gradient Analytics to publish negative reports about Overstock.com and supplying pre-publication copies to Rocker. Naked short-selling was not alleged in that suit.[46] In a conference call with analysts in August 2005, a day after the suit was filed, Byrne said that "there's been a plan since we were in our teens to destroy our stock, drive it down to $6–10... and even a plan for how the company would then get whacked up." He said that the conspirators were part of a "Miscreants Ball", headed by a "Sith Lord", who he refused to identify but said "he's one of the master criminals from the 1980s." Byrne said the conspiracy included hedge funds, journalists, investigators, trial lawyers, the SEC, and Eliot Spitzer."[47] Gradient Analytics countersued, alleging Byrne waged a smear campaign.[48]
Rocker Partners, renamed Copper River Management, filed a counterclaim against Overstock in November 2007, alleging overstatement of profits, false projections, and misrepresentations about the company's ventures.[49] Copper River also alleges that Byrne tried to silence critics by suing them.[50][51][52][53] A portion of this suit was settled out of court on October 13, 2008, when Overstock.com and Gradient dropped the claims against each other after Gradient retracted allegations that Overstock's reporting methods did not comply with rules established by the FASB, stated they believed Overstock.com complied with GAAP standards, and that three directors were independent according to NASD standards, and apologized.[54][55] Byrne has said the apology and settlement "represents a great step forward in our case",[55] while Copper River's attorney stated that "If somehow this improved Overstock's case, then Gradient would admit to doing something wrong and they haven’t.", and that he expected the settlement to help Copper River's case.[56]
On December 8, 2009, it was announced that Copper River had reached an out of court settlement with Overstock. As part of the agreement, Copper River, which closed in December 2008, agreed to pay Overstock $5 million.[57] In a letter to his shareholders, Patrick Byrne said, "The good guys won". Copper River said in a statement that it continued to deny Overstock's allegations. Copper River managing general partner Marc Cohodes said "Although settlement deprives us of the ability to disprove Overstock's case and prosecute our counterclaims, we decided that the litigation costs did not justify passing up a practical way to end four-and-half years of |
as class inequality. He wrongfully portrays libertarianism having nothing to say against the class divisions that emerged throughout the capitalist era, and rationalises a shift away from libertarian principles toward high liberal ones. And insodoing looks to the state apparatus to correct the social ills that it is responsible for creating in the first place. If the rationale for incorporating high liberal principles of justice into libertarian ones is that libertarian principles offer no grounds to block the kind of economic inequality that existed and exists under capitalism, then there is no rationale for doing so.
Notes:
[1] Tomasi, J. Free Market Fairness. Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012.
[2] Ibid, p. 32.
[3] While it is important to understand how government privilege, slavery, the subjugation of women, and other injustices that continued (and continue) throughout the capitalist era shape the structure of the economy and create class division, I intend, as far as I can, avoid questions of history and of political economy to make a more philosophical point about historical injustice from the perspective of libertarian rights theory.
[4] Tomasi, op. cit., p. 32.
[5] Ibid, pp. 32-33.
[6] Ibid, pp. 33-34.
[7] Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971, p. 92.
[8] Cohen, G. A. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 92-96.
[9] Dworkin, R. Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000, pp. 65-119.
[10] A distinction between libertarian rules and a social condition upon which rules are imposed which is considered appropriate from a libertarian perspective, might pave the way toward a libertarian version of a Rawlsian “basic structure” (Rawls, J. Political Liberalism. Chichester: Columbia University Press, 1993, 257-269).
[11] Rothbard, M. N. ‘Justice and Property Rights,’ in his Egalitarianism As A Revolt Against Nature, and Other Essays, 2nd ed. Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000, p. 95.
[12] Relative to a utilitarian defender of free markets.
[13] Zwolinski, M. ‘A Libertarian Case for the Moral Limits of Markets,’ forthcoming in Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy.
[14] Tomasi, op. cit., p. 142-161.
[15] Ibid, p. 155.
[16] Hayek, F. A. von. New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas. London: Routledge, 1978, p. 74. Quoted Tomasi, op. cit., p. 155.
[17] Tomasi, op. cit., p. 152.
[18] Ibid, p. 48.
[19] Tucker, B. R. ‘State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, and Wherein The Differ,’ Liberty, March 10, 1888. Reprinted in his Instead of A Book By a Man Too Busy To Write One. New York: Adamant Media, 2005. (First published 1897.)
[20] Hodgskin, T. Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital. London: The Labour Publishing Company, 1825; Popular Political Economy. London: Charles and William Tait, 1827; The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted. London: B. Steil, 1832.
[21] See Hart, D. M. Class, Slavery and the Industrialist Theory of History in French Liberal Thought, 1914-1834: The Contribution of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer. Ph. D Thesis, King’s College, University of Cambridge, 1990.
[22] Oppenheimer, F. The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically. New York: Vanguard Press, 1926. (First published 1914.)
[23] Nock, A. J. Our Enemy, The State. New York: William Morrow & Co, 1935.
[24] Carson, K. A. Studies in Mutualist Political Economy. Fayetteville: BookSurge, 2007.
[25] Carson, K. A. Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective. Fayetteville: BookSurge, 2008.
[26] Carson, op. cit.; Johnson, C. W. ‘Markets Freed From Capitalism,’ in G. Chartier & C. W. Johnson (eds) Markets Not Capitalism New York: Minor Compositions, 2012; Chartier, G. ‘Advocates of Freed Markets Should Oppose Capitalism,’ in G. Chartier & C. W. Johnson (eds) Markets Not Capitalism. New York: Minor Compositions, 2012.
[27] Rothbard, M. N. ‘Confiscation and the Homestead Principle,’ Libertarian Forum, 1 (1969): p. 3-4; ‘How and How Not to Desocialize,’ The Review of Austrian Economics, 6 (1992): p. 65-77; The Ethics of Liberty. Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute, ch. 9-11. (First published 1998.); Stromberg, J. R. ‘The American Land Question,’ The Freeman, 59 (2009): 33-38; Hoppe, H-H. ‘De-Socialization in a United Germany,’ The Review of Austrian Economics, 5 (1991): 77-104; Democracy, The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order. London: Transaction, 2001, ch. 6; ‘Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization,’ Libertarian Papers, 3(1) (2011).
[28] Nozick, R. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford: Blackwell, 1974, pp. 230-231.
[29] ‘How To Reach The Left,’ presented at Mises Circle, Chicago, April 9, 2011, unpublished. <http://praxeology.net/RTLreachleft.pdf> 27/3/15; ‘Left-Libertarianism, Class Conflict, and Historical Theories of Distributive Justice.’ <http://praxeology.net/historical-justice.doc> 27/3/15; ‘Corporations versus the Market; or, Whip Conflation Now,’ Cato Unbound, November 10, 2008; ‘Free Market Firms: Smaller, Flatter, and More Crowded,’ Cato Unbound, November 25, 2008.
[30] Zwolinski, M. ‘Structural Exploitation,’ Social Philosophy & Policy, 29 (2012): pp. 154 – 179.
[31] On the connection between a concern for the non-aggression principle and rape-culture see Johnson, C. W. ‘Women and the Invisible Fist: How Violence Against Women Enforces the Unwritten Law of Patriarchy,’ unpublished. <http://charleswjohnson.name/essays/women-and-the-invisible-fist/women-and-the-invisible-fist-2013-0503-max.pdf> 5/6/15; Christmas, B. ‘Libertarianism and Privilege,’ presented at American Philosophical Association Eastern Division, 29 December, 2014, unpublished.
[32] Johnson, C. W. ‘Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin,’ Rad Geek People’s Daily. October 3, 2008. Reprinted in G. Chartier & C. W. Johnson (eds) Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate power, and Structural Poverty. New York: Minor Compositions, 2012; ‘Remarks on Jan Narveson’s “Libertarianism: the Thick and the Thin,”’ presented at American Philosophical Association Eastern Division, 28 December, unpublished. <http://charleswjohnson.name/remarks/2005/12/28/narveson> 8/2/15.
[33] ‘Left-Libertarianism: Its Past, Its Present, Its Prospects,’ presented at MANCEPT workshops, in Manchester, September 10, 2014, unpublished.
[34] Spooner, L. 1886. A Letter to Grover Cleveland. Reprinted in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner, vol. 5. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010, p. 20.David James Arquette (September 8, 1971) is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the late 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy. In addition to his acting career Arquette took a brief foray into professional wrestling in early 2000, competing for World Championship Wrestling (WCW). During his tenure, Arquette would become a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion; an angle which has been cited by prominent professional wrestling commentators as being pivotal to the degradation of the title and the demise of WCW.
Contents show]
Wrestling career
World Championship Wrestling
In 2000, after filming the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) produced movie Ready to Rumble, Arquette was brought into WCW storylines. He made his first appearance on the April 12 episode of Thunder, first sitting in the crowd then leaping into the ring to take part in a worked confrontation with Eric Bischoff and his New Blood stable. Afterwards he was placed into an alliance with Chris Kanyon and the reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion Diamond Dallas Page, and with their help defeated Bischoff in a singles match in the April 24 episode of WCW Monday Nitro. On the following Thunder (April 26), Arquette teamed with Page in a match against Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett with the stipulation that whichever man got the pin would take the championship. Arquette pinned Bischoff again in the match's finish, receiving the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the process.
During his time as champion, Arquette was mostly used as comic relief. He only appeared on two shows as champion, the May 1 Nitro and May 7 Slamboree pay-per-view. During the former, a vignette was shown, filmed on the set of Arquette's film 3000 Miles to Graceland, which also featured his wife, Courteney Cox, and their co-star, Kurt Russell. In the vignette, Courtney informs Russell that Arquette is the WCW Champion, causing Russell to laugh and walk off and Arquette to chase after him with a steel chair. In another portion of the show he's seen backstage wetting himself in fear and attempting to "give back" the belt. He did, however, successfully defend the belt against Tank Abbott with help from Diamond Dallas Page.
He held the championship until the May 7 Slamboree pay-per-view. During the show he was booked to defend the championship against Jarrett and Page in a Triple Cage—the same match featured in the climax of Ready to Rumble—and ended up turning on Page in the end, giving the victory to Jarrett. He made another appearance after Slamboree, cutting a promo on the May 8 Nitro explaining that his entire friendship with Page and title run was a "swerve," prompting Page to run to the ring and deliver a Diamond Cutter to him. Arquette made one final appearance with WCW at the New Blood Rising pay-per-view on August 13, when he interfered in a match between Buff Bagwell and Kanyon.
After World Wrestling Entertainment purchased WCW, Arquette's championship run was listed as the top reason for the "failure" of Nitro in a WWE Magazine list.
Return to wrestling (2018-present)
Arquette has returned to wrestling for a few indy promotions teaming with RJ City. He also faced Nick Gage in a hardcore match in a losing effort for Game Changer Wrestling's heavyweight title. He sustained face lacerations and had to be briefly hospitalized.
Notes
Arquette was vehemently against becoming the WCW World Champion, believing that fans (like himself) would detest a non-wrestler winning the title. Vince Russo, who was the head booker for WCW at the time, insisted that Arquette becoming the world champion would be good for the company and for publicity. Arquette reluctantly agreed to the angle. All the money he made during his WCW tenure was donated to the families of Owen Hart (who died in a tragic accident), Brian Pillman (who suddenly died due to complications from an undiagnosed heart condition), Brian Hildebrand (who died from stomach and bowel cancer), Bobby Duncum, Jr. (who died from an accidental overdose of painkillers) and Darren Drozdov (who became a quadriplegic after an in-ring accident).
In 2002, Arquette made an appearance on a professional wrestling show, popping up in the crowd of the February 8, 2002 episode of the World Wrestling Federation's SmackDown! holding up a sign reading "Former WCW World Champ."
In wrestling
Finishing and signature moves Spear Worm (Chop drop or an elbow drop to the opponent's chest, with "worm" dance move theatrics) CutterThis morning, a press release dropped that seemed designed to create controversy, given its title: "Guns in the home provide greater health risk than benefit." The fact that it came from a relatively obscure journal—the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine is not indexed by the PubMed system, and has no impact factor—suggests it might be an attempt at getting some publicity. Studies on this topic are also extremely challenging, as it's difficult to control for cultural and economic differences between nations and US states.
The author of the review, David Hemenway, however, specializes in this area, and works at the Harvard School of Public Health. Hemenway has been termed an "anti-gun researcher" by the NRA, and writes with a clear perspective. Nevertheless, within the limited scope of the review, his conclusions make sense: people do stupid things when angry or depressed, and the presence of a gun helps make that stupidity fatal. In contrast, successful use of a gun in self-defense is far more rare, and challenging to get right, so the public health perspective will always be skewed.
Hemenway takes a very narrow focus on public health issues related to the presence of guns in the home. "The article does not examine some of the possible benefits (e.g., the fun of target practice) or costs (e.g., loss of hearing) of gun use." It also generally avoids dealing with the consequences of what happens once the gun leaves the home. Instead, it focuses on death, injury and intimidation, and balances that against the protective value provided by guns.
When it comes to violence, nearly every figure suggests that increased presence of guns correlates with higher levels of injury and death. Homicide rates among the US population between 15 and 24 years of age are 14 times higher than those in most other industrialized nations. Children from 5 to 14 years old are 11 times more likely to be killed in an accidental shooting. Within the US, areas with high gun ownership have higher rates of these problems. And, for every accidental death, Hemenway cites research that indicates 10 more incidents are sufficient to send someone to the emergency room. Suicides are more likely to be successful when guns are involved, even though most people who survive such an attempt don't generally try a second time.
Nevertheless, these figures contain many instances of guns being used outside the home, or a gun that was brought to the incident by a third party. While most suicides with firearms do take place at home, most homicides do not, and generally the victim is not shot with their own gun. Thus, "the results have limited relevance concerning whether a gun in your own home increases or reduces your own risk of homicide," the review notes. Still, in cases where a homicide occurs in a home, the presence of a gun there is correlated with increased risk, even after controlling for things like drug use and previous arrests.
Overall, the author concludes the same thing applies to homicides and suicides: people regularly get involved in violence, and the presence of a gun is likely to elevate that to fatal levels. This is especially true for women. In a study of three metropolitan counties that is cited by the review, "Most of the women were murdered by a spouse, a lover, or a close relative, and the increased risk for homicide from having a gun in the home was attributable to these homicides." In the case of battered women, lethal assaults were 2.7 times more likely to occur if a gun was present in the house; no protective effect of the gun was found.
That's the bad news. In the limited scope of the review, the primary positive effect assigned to guns is deterrence, and, more specifically, deterrence against violence. Although, "Results suggest that self-defense gun use may be the best method for preventing property loss," this doesn't count from a public health perspective. And that's only the start of the problems; as the National Academies of Science noted in a report quoted by the author, "self-defense is an ambiguous term." As Hemenway himself puts it, "Unlike deaths or woundings, where the definitions are clear and one needs to only count the bodies, what constitutes a self-defense gun use and whether it was successful may depend on who is telling the story." If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first.
Worse still, using a gun in self-defense is extremely rare (most instances involve using a gun to defend against animals): studies place defensive gun use at about one percent in home invasions and 0.1 percent in sexual assaults. Moreover, police reports suggest a lot of these uses involved inappropriate use of the gun.
Summing matters up, Hemenway notes that a number of surveys have found that a gun kept at home is far more likely to be used in violence, an accident, or a suicide attempt than self defense. (He also goes off on a long diversion about how a poorly trained gun owner is unlikely to use one well even when self defense is involved.) As a result, from a public health perspective, there's little doubt that a gun at home is generally a negative risk factor.
And, from the author's perspective, that's probably inevitable. "Regular citizens with guns, who are sometimes tired, angry, drunk, or afraid, and who are not trained in dispute resolution, have lots of opportunities for inappropriate gun use," he wrote. "People engage in innumerable annoying and somewhat hostile interactions with each other in the course of a lifetime." In contrast, the opportunities to use guns in a context where the user isn't any of the above are probably always going to be rare.
Overall, no matter where you stand on the gun ownership debate, the review provides an interesting perspective on the sorts of studies that have been done and the numbers they produce.
American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 2011. DOI: 10.1177/1559827610396294 (About DOIs).The Alibaba earnings date is set for May 7. The company is expected to report earnings per share (EPS) of $0.43 and revenue of $2.78 billion.
But with the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) earnings date just around the corner, some investors are worrying about a recent statement from the company's founder Jack Ma.
This week, Ma said his company "has really developed too quickly." He's starting a hiring freeze that will last through 2015.
At the end 2014, Alibaba had 34,081 employees. That was a 63% gain from 2013's employee count.
The news has hit BABA stock, which has fallen nearly 3% from Monday. It closed at $82.45 Wednesday.
That pushes BABA's total 2015 decline to 21%.
Now investors who heard so much about BABA's potential leading up to the record-breaking $25 billion IPO are wondering what to do with the stock.
Here's the deal: Despite the recent hiccups, Alibaba stock is one of the best long-term buys on the market today.
In fact, Money Morning's Defense and Tech Specialist Michael Robinson says Alibaba "could be the single-greatest wealth opportunity of our lifetime."
Here are three reasons why we're long-term bulls on BABA stock…
Three Reasons to Be Bullish on Alibaba Stock Now
The first reason to be bullish on Alibaba is its home market.
In 2013, online shopping in China was a $298 billion industry. That surpassed the United States as the largest e-commerce market in the world.
The market is growing too. The management consulting firm AT Kearny estimates it will be worth $718 billion by 2017. A recent study by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) determined the number of Internet users in the country will hit 800 million by 2016 or sooner.
"Alibaba is gaining traction in its home market in China just as that country's people are truly joining the Internet revolution," Robinson said. "And the development of easy-to-use mobile commerce is giving Alibaba a strong tailwind."
The second reason to be bullish is Alibaba's mobile push.(Image via YouTube)
For all his faults, Donald Trump is not committing acts of violence — unlike the contemptible goons who have descended on his rallies in recent months.
That’s worth keeping in mind after Thursday’s bloody evening in San Jose, during which Trump supporters were pelted with eggs, vegetables, and bottles; had their “Make America Great Again” hats stolen and in some cases burned; and were punched or beaten. San Jose is the latest in a series not of anti-Trump “protests” but of riots — the distinction seems to be lost on these courageous opponents of “hatred” and on their defenders in the media and elsewhere. San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Sam Liccardo, suggested that it was “irresponsible” of Trump even to come to the city — or, put another way, Trump was wearing a short skirt, ergo... Apparently, any means justify anti-Trump ends.
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For those in need of a First Amendment refresher course, the distinction between protests and riots is simple: To object to candidates with words of political dissent (i.e., not incitement to violence), and to peaceably assemble in order to propagate those words, are constitutionally protected rights; to destroy property and commit assault are not. Those are crimes, which should be prosecuted vigorously.
More important than their short-term aims, though, is that these “demonstrators,” like their counterparts in Ferguson and Baltimore, are demonstrating nothing so much as their contempt for the institutions and disciplines that make self-government possible. The ability to speak freely is one such institution, and the ability to listen to it without responding violently is one such discipline.
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This is the predictable result of, among other things, a society beholden to the notion of “safe spaces” and “violent rhetoric,” academic nonsense that seeks to erase the bright, bold line between talking about throwing a punch and actually throwing one. The confusion of hostile speech with literal violence threatens our ability to engage thoughtfully and humanely with each other in pursuit of common goals. It threatens the entire business of republican politics.
Trump is not Hitler, and America is not on the threshold of a Reich. His opponents still have at their disposal all the tools of democratic persuasion, if they are so inclined to use them.An apology to our readers; we neglected to send a reporter to Smash Mouth’s Saturday night performance at the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival in Urbana, Illinois. By the sound of it, the set rivaled last year’s appearance at Taste of Fort Collins street festival, during which the band’s frontman and resident Guy Fieri doppelgänger, Steve Harwell, launched into a verbal tirade and threatened to fight concert-goers after being pelted with slices of bread.
reddit user junkinthehatchback was in attendance, however, and reports back with a stunningly detailed written account that deserves immediate preservation in our country’s national archives
So, we’re watching the mendoza line of bands, live at our hick ass corn festival, and Steve Harwell, that Guy Fieri looking mofo, sits his fatass down and waves over the roadies, who then proceed to carry him off stage. The remaining band members finish, first by playing “I’m a Believer” because the crowd kept screaming “Shrek” when there was a break (which made me feel incredibly old, because I realized 90% of the crowd grew up on that movie, then they played “All Star”. The crowd went wild. No one cared that the lead singer left. Seriously. Then the show was over and a couple ambulances showed up. Overall, the show exceeded my expectations. Good show. Edit: Got his last name wrong.
Update: According to a Smash Mouth representative, Harwell is alive, doing fine, and still an all-star.
Here is Smash Mouth’s performance of “I’m a Believer” moments after Harwell was carried off stage:An unfounded report of a bomb threat on a website caused police and fire officials to respond to northwest suburban Palatine High School as school graduation was underway this afternoon, officials said.
Police went to the school at 1111 N. Rohlwing Rd. after they became aware of a threat being posted on a website, police said. The alert came at about 4 p.m., about the time the graduation program was ending. Police would not say on what website the threat was posted.
Police and fire officials were sent to the school as a precaution and a search of the school and the area did not find anything, according to police.
The graduation, which began at about 2 p.m., was ending as police became aware of the threat. Police helped people leave the school as expeditiously as possible, according to police. There was no evacuation of the building, police said.
[email protected]
Twitter: @ChicagoBreakingNew York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom and Vancouver Canucks teammates Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin are among the 35 players invited to take part in Sweden's Olympic team evaluation camp.
The camp will be held Aug. 12-14 in Stockholm.
Lundqvist, who started three of Sweden's four games at the 2010 Olympics, went 2-1 with two shutouts, a 1.34 goals-against average and.927 save percentage in three games for Sweden, which finished fifth in Vancouver.
Backstrom was the team's leading scorer in 2010, finishing with six points in four games.
Twelve players from the 2010 team were invited to try out for the 2014 Olympic team -- Lundqvist; defensemen Niklas Kronwall (Detroit Red Wings), Douglas Murray (free agent), Johnny Oduya (Chicago Blackhawks) and Henrik Tallinder (Buffalo Sabres); and forwards Backstrom, the Sedins, Loui Eriksson (Boston Bruins), Johan Franzen (Red Wings), Patric Hornqvist (Nashville Predators), and Henrik Zetterberg (Red Wings).
Joining Lundqvist in goal is Jhonas Enroth of the Buffalo Sabres, the Anaheim Ducks' Viktor Fasth and Robin Lehner of the Ottawa Senators.
Defense could be a strong suit for the Swedes, as among those invited to the camp are a group emerging NHL stars -- Erik Karlsson of the Ottawa Senators, the 2012 Norris Trophy winner; Jonas Brodin of the Minnesota Wild; Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning; and Oliver Ekman-Larsson of the Phoenix Coyotes.
The 2014 Winter Olympic men's hockey tournament will run Feb. 12-24.
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SWEDEN MEN'S NATIONAL TEAM ORIENTATION CAMP ROSTER FORWARDS Patrik Berglund, St. Louis *Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Jimmie Ericsson, Skelleftea (SHL) *Loui Eriksson, Boston *Johan Franzen, Detroit Carl Hagelin, N.Y. Rangers *Patric Hornqvist, Nashville Marcus Johansson, Washington Marcus Kruger, Chicago Gabriel Landeskog, Colorado Oscar Lindberg, N.Y. Rangers Joel Lundqvist, Frolunda (SHL) Gustav Nyquist, Detroit Niklas Persson, Rapperswil (Switzerland) *Daniel Sedin, Vancouver *Henrik Sedin, Vancouver Alexander Steen, St. Louis *Henrik Zetterberg (Detroit) DEFENSEMEN Jonas Brodin, Minnesota Alexander Edler, Vancouver Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Phoenix Jonathan Ericsson, Detroit Nicklas Grossmann, Philadelphia Erik Gustafsson, Philadelphia Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay Niklas Hjalmarsson, Chicago Erik Karlsson, Ottawa *Niklas Kronwall, Detroit *Douglas Murray, free agent *Johnny Oduya, Chicago *Henrik Tallinder, Buffalo GOALIES Jhonas Enroth, Buffalo Viktor Fasth, Anaheim Robin Lehner, Ottawa *Henrik Lundqvist, N.Y. Rangers
*- played on 2010 Olympic teamAustralia’s leading female cricketers will be the best paid of any women’s team sport in the country after Cricket Australia announced significant pay rises.
Many Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars players, who recently played off in the final of the ICC World T20 in India, will now be able to earn in excess of $100,000 a year.
CA will almost double its commitment to Australia’s elite female cricketers from $2.36 million to $4.23 million.
This will see maximum retainers for the Southern Stars rise from $49,000 to $65,000. When combined with increased maximum retainers for the Women’s Big Bash League of $15,000 the base rate for Australia’s best female players rises to $80,000. Southern Stars match payments and tour fees will ensure earnings exceed six figures.
Minimum retainers have more than doubled, rising from $19,000 to $40,000 for the Southern Stars and $3,000 to $7,000 for the WBBL.
With Women’s National Cricket League payments up from $7000 to $11,000, Australia’s best domestic female cricketers will earn $26,000 a season.
In addition to substantially increased pay Cricket Australia, in consultation with the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) is providing elite female players with:
Improved travel and accommodation benefits
An updated pregnancy policy, in consultation with female players
Restrictions on weekday hours of domestic team training to support female players working or studying
Reduced commercial restrictions for WNCL and WBBL players in relation to major sponsors.
The ACA has also committed $500,000 over two years to cover private health insurance costs for female players.
CA CEO James Sutherland said Australia’s female cricketers were some of the most successful sportswomen in the country and deserved to be rewarded accordingly.
“Cricket is a sport for all Australians and Cricket Australia will continue to invest heavily in the women’s game in the coming years,” Mr Sutherland said.
“We are determined to make cricket the sport of choice for women in Australia.
“We have worked constructively with the Australian Cricketers’ Association to reach this point and will continue to do so in our ongoing efforts to improve wages and workplace conditions for all elite female cricketers.
“The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars have achieved great success on the world stage, including making it through to the recent final of the ICC World T20 in India, and are great role models for the next generation of Australia’s aspiring female cricketers.
“The Women’s Big Bash League has created a revolution with outstanding ratings that make it the most popular women’s team sport in the country.
“Of the more than 1.2 million people of all ages currently playing cricket in Australia almost a quarter of them are women and girls.
“That number continues to grow rapidly and we will continue to support females playing the game from backyard to baggy green.”
CA Female Contracted Players for 2016-17
CA’s National Women’s Selection Panel today announced its list of contracted players for the coming season.
The players are:
State Age
Kristen Beams VIC 31
Alex Blackwell NSW 32
Nicole Bolton WA 27
Lauren Cheatle NSW 17
Sarah Coyte SA 25
Rene Farrell NSW 29
Holly Ferling QLD 20
Grace Harris QLD 22
Alyssa Healy NSW 26
Jess Jonassen QLD 23
Meg Lanning VIC 24
Beth Mooney QLD 22
Erin Osborne ACT 26
Ellyse Perry NSW 25
Megan Schutt SA 23
Elyse Villani WA 26
Chairman of the National Women’s Selection Panel Shawn Flegler said: “This core group of players have performed incredibly well in recent times, including securing the Women’s Ashes in the UK last year, and making it through to the final of the recent ICC World T20 in India.
“While there is a lot of hard work ahead to maintain those high levels of performance, we believe this group has the talent and character to do just that.”TORONTO – In a move that has caught local patrons off-guard, the Canadian Opera Company and multinational giant Unilever have agreed to a surprise, six-year partnership that will see the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts renamed the Axe Body Spray Fuck Dome.
COC chairperson Donna Weiztman assured subscribers this week that the name change would not affect the company’s robust, 2017 programming schedule, and its enviable mix of breathtaking classics and bold, avant-garde offerings. They will, however, now be able to enjoy said offerings in a fully black-lighted environment while sipping on a vintage bottle of Bud Light Lime and receiving an in-seat sleeve tattoo or tramp stamp.
Additionally, Weitzman noted, should the mood strike them, attendees will also have the option of perusing an all-new menu carefully curated by executive chef Guy Fieri.
“Nothing compliments the exquisite existential ennui of Pagliacci,” she continued, “quite like a plate of Jalepeno-infused Ass Blast Nacho Nuggets.”
Meanwhile, Axe Body Spray spokesman Joaquin “Queef” Guiterriez described the new partnership as “an exciting opportunity to show our clientele that opera isn’t just for Cucks, Prudes, and Dykes,” adding that, “We look forward to introducing our city’s stellar crew of Bros and Boss Bitches to Toronto’s diverse community of operatic talents, who embody the full splendor of human potential. No homo.”
While the COC is adamant that it’s not concerned about tensions arising between its new and existing clientele, the company did concede that it now faces the logistical hurdle of finding parking for as many as four thousand souped-up 1997 Pontiac Firebirds.America is heading for war with Russia. Some call the current situation “an increase of hostility” or “Cold War II.” There are two sides to this story. I believe that American journalists from all political persuasions are not offering critical analysis. Understanding the Russian side and taking their arguments seriously can help prevent serious consequences.
Americans believe that Russians are fed propaganda by the state-controlled media. If Russians only could hear the truth, the thinking goes, they would welcome the US position. This is not so. There are more than 300 TV stations available in Moscow. Only 6 are state-controlled. The truth is that Russians prefer hearing the news from the state rather than the Internet or other sources. This is different from almost any other country. It is not North Korea where the news is censored. Each night during the Crimea crisis, anyone could watch CNN or the BBC bash Russia.
With regard to Ukraine, Russia has drawn a red line: It will never allow Ukraine to be part of NATO. Russia sees the US as the aggressor, surrounding Russia with military bases in Eastern Europe at every opportunity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US sees Russia as the aggressor against its neighbors. A small misstep could lead to war. This time the war will not be “over there.” The Russian bombers flying off the California coast on July 4th clearly demonstrate this point. Russians understand that the US has not fought a war on its soil since the civil war. If new hostilities start, Russia will not let the war be a proxy war where the US supplies weapons and advisors and lets others do the “boots on the ground” combat. Russia will take the war to the US. How did we reach this critical point in such a short time?
Russia sees the US as the aggressor, surrounding Russia with military bases in Eastern Europe at every opportunity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US sees Russia as the aggressor against its neighbors.
First, some background. I moved to Moscow two and a half years ago. I went to Russia to build a non-government funded news channel with editorial views consistent with the Russian Orthodox Church. I have completed that task and returned to the west. I see both sides of this escalating conflict and unless there is a change in thinking, the result will be catastrophic. When I first arrived, the relationship between the US and Russia seemed normal. As an American, my ideas were welcomed, even sought after. At the time, Mr. Obama planned to attack Assad’s army in Syria for crossing the “red line” for a chemical weapon attack. Russia intervened and persuaded Syria to destroy its chemical weapons. Mr. Putin had helped Mr. Obama save face and not make a major blunder in Syria. Shortly after, Mr. Putin wrote an editorial published in the New York Times, which was generally well-received. Relations appeared to be on the right course. There was cooperation in the Middle East and Russia phobia was easing.
Explicit Photos of Female Russian Officials Create Outrage—and Ratings
Then Russia passed a law that prevented sexual propaganda to minors. This was the start of tensions. The LGBT lobby in the West saw this law as anti-gay. I did not. The law was a direct copy of English law and was intended to prevent pedophilia, not consenting relationships between adults. Gay relations in Russia are not illegal (although not accepted by the majority of the public). Regarding gay protests, they were restricted from view of children. I saw this in the same way that we in America restrict children from seeing “R” rated films. The punishment for breaking this law is a fine of less than $100. Double-parking a car in Moscow carries a heavier fine of $150. Nonetheless the |
0 (for |↑〉), where γ n = 17.23 MHz/T is the 31P nuclear gyromagnetic ratio.
During pulse ESR/NMR experiments, we normally operate the electrostatic gates in a compensated manner to keep μ SET constant while shifting μ ↑,↓ with respect to it (19) (“Pulse ESR/NMR” position in Fig. 2A). This, however, results in a limited variation of the electric field at the donor site. To induce a significant Stark shift, we adopted an uncompensated gating scheme, where both μ ↑, ↓ and μ SET are drastically lowered (“A-Gate Control” position in Fig. 2A; see section S4 for details on the exact gate configuration). The resulting change in electric field can be calculated with a finite element Poisson equation solver (TCAD) for the specific device geometry and the triangulated donor location (see sections S5 and S6 for details) (24).
We demonstrate the gate-induced shift of the ESR frequencies by performing, with conventional pulse ESR, a series of Ramsey experiments on the electron spin at different values of V A (Fig. 2B), where we define V A = 0 as the readout position. The spin is rotated from |↓〉 to the xy plane by a π/2 pulse at frequency ν MW, left to freely precess for a time τ, and then rotated by π/2 again. The accumulation of a phase shift between the spin precession at ν e (V A ) and the MW reference clock at ν MW gives rise to oscillations in the probability of finding the electron |↑〉 at the end of the sequence. The frequency of the Ramsey fringes gives a very accurate value for ν e (V A ) − ν MW.
Both ν e1 and ν e2 shift to lower frequencies upon increasing V A (Fig. 2B). This indicates that a significant Stark shift of γ e (that is, the electron g-factor) is taking place, in addition to the A-shift. Linear fits to ν e1,2 (V A ) yield slopes dν e1 /dV A = −2.27(6) MHz/V and dν e2 /dV A = −1.36(3) MHz/V. Using the expressions given in Fig. 2B, we extract the tuning parameters α A = d A /dV A = dν e2 /dV A − dν e1 /dV A = 0.91(7) MHz/V and α γe B 0 = dγ e B 0 /dV A = (dν e2 /dV A + dν e1 /dV A )/2 = –1.81(5) MHz/V, with α γe = dγ e /dV A = −1.17(3) MHz/V/T at B 0 = 1.55 T. The positive value of α A indicates that increasing V A leads to an increase in the electron probability density at the nucleus. This is because a strong electric field is already present for the purpose of forming the SET, whereas increasing V A causes an additional electric field in the opposite direction, thus an overall reduction of the hyperfine Stark shift (see finite element simulations in section S6). The absolute value of the hyperfine coupling and its tunability is in agreement with atomistic tight-binding simulations with NEMO-3D (25, 26) for the range of donor positions, electric fields, and strain expected for this device (see section S7).
An A-gate voltage V A ~300 meV results in a frequency tuning range = 400 to 700 kHz. Thanks to the use of an isotopically enriched 28Si epilayer (17), this is a factor >200 larger than the intrinsic linewidth = 1.8 kHz of the ESR transitions (22). For the same V A, the NMR frequencies can be shifted by = 125 to 150 kHz by the Stark shift of A alone, which is a factor ~250 higher than the intrinsic linewidth = 0.5 kHz (22).
Having calibrated the voltage-controlled qubit frequency shifts, we demonstrate how to use A-gate pulses to perform coherent control of the qubit states around the Bloch sphere in the presence of a continuous-wave (CW) oscillating magnetic field B 1. We demonstrate this on both the electron and the nuclear spin qubits. Figure 3A is a schematic of the electrically controlled Rabi sequence. We pulse V A to V r, the voltage needed to tune the spin transition in resonance with the MW or RF source, for a time t p, to coherently drive the spin around the x axis of the Bloch sphere, defined in the reference frame rotating at ν MW (for ESR) or ν RF (for NMR). The coherent Rabi oscillations (Fig. 3, B and C) are used to calibrate the duration of the control pulses for any desired rotation angle.
Fig. 3 Electrically controlled qubit control and coherence measurements. (A) Schematic of the sequence used to measure EC Rabi oscillations. (B and C) EC Rabi oscillations measured on the 31P electron and nucleus, respectively. (D) Schematic of the sequence used to measure EC Ramsey oscillations. (E and F) EC Ramsey oscillations measured on the 31P electron and nucleus. (G) Schematic of the sequence used to measure EC coherence times. (H and I) EC Hahn echo decay for the 31P electron and nucleus. (J and K) Extended spin coherence times T 2 for CPMG dynamical decoupling sequences on the 31P electron and nucleus.
An electrically controlled Ramsey experiment (Fig. 3D) is obtained by tuning the spin transition frequencies into resonance for the duration of a π/2 rotation, then moving them to a detuned value ν det for a wait time τ to accumulate a phase shift Φ R = τ(ν(V r ) − ν det ) with respect to the ν(V r ) reference frame, and finally tuning them back into resonance for the second π/2 rotation (Fig. 3, E and F). Qubit rotations around the y axis can be achieved by accumulating an additional Φ R = π/2 before bringing the spin into resonance. This allows for full two-axis (x and y) control of the qubits’ states on the Bloch sphere. Alternatively, we can produce a Z-gate by controlling the phase Φ R that the qubit accumulates while off-resonance.
We measure the qubits’ coherence times T 2 by performing Hahn echo and Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) dynamical decoupling sequences (Fig. 3, G to K). For these measurements, the wait times τ are chosen such that they always result in a multiple of 2π phase shift. The Hahn echo yields = 0.97(6) ms and = 5.1(3) ms for the donor electron and nuclear spins, respectively (Fig. 3, H and I). A CPMG sequence (see schematic in Fig. 3G for details) further decouples the qubits from low-frequency noise and extends the coherence times to up to =10.0(8) ms and = 98(9) ms by applying 32 and 256 π pulses, respectively (Fig. 3, J and K). The coherence times of the electrically controlled electron qubit, measured in milliseconds, can be fitted by (N) = 1.03N0.67. Conventional pulse ESR operation (black diamonds in Fig. 3J) gives nearly identical values, = 0.93N0.70 (see also section S10 for more data). The electrical control method preserves the excellent spin coherence of the qubits, because no additional coupling between the spin states and the environment has been introduced.
We apply the two-axis control to construct the complete set of 1-qubit Clifford gates, and conduct randomized benchmarking (27, 28) experiments (Fig. 4, A and B) to quantify the average gate fidelities using electrically controlled qubit manipulation (Fig. 4). The method relies upon the measurement of the probability (N) of arriving at the correct final qubit state after performing a long sequence of randomly chosen quantum gates. In the presence of gate errors, the probability decays according to the number of operations N. We then extract the average fidelity for a single Clifford gate c by fitting the equation 1to the data (28). M is a free parameter and depends on the initialization and readout fidelity. We obtain = 99.0(1)% and = 99.3(1)% for the electron and the nuclear spin, respectively. Because each Clifford gate is composed on average of 1.875 individual gate operations (28, 29), we can also quote average single-gate fidelities of = 99.4(1)% for the electron and = 99.6(1)% for the nucleus. These gate fidelities are comparable to those obtained by pulse ESR/NMR randomized benchmarking for similar microwave powers (28) and are mostly limited by the ratio of gate time to coherence time.
Fig. 4 Electrically controlled gate fidelities. (A and B) EC randomized benchmarking performed on the 31P electron and nucleus, respectively. Shaded circles are the results of individual measurements (that is, individual random sequences of gate operations), whereas the solid circles show the average state survival probability of all random sequences with the same number of gate operations.
The speed of an electrically controlled gate operation is inherently limited by the voltage tunability of the resonance frequencies. The excitation profile of the CW field (Fig. 3A) must be narrow enough to leave the qubits unperturbed while off-resonance, imposing the condition γB 1 ≪ Δν. For linearly oscillating B 1, (γB 1 )−1 is the duration of a π rotation. Therefore, Δν < 1 MHz in this 31P device requires gate times >10 μs.
The qubit control method demonstrated here is applicable to any resonantly driven qubit, where the resonance frequency ν r can be quickly and locally controlled by an electric field, and shifted by much more than the resonance linewidth. A wide variety of qubits can potentially fulfill this condition. For spins in diamond (30) and silicon carbide (31), ν r can be tuned by modifying the crystal field parameters in the spin Hamiltonian. Magnetic molecules can have tunable ν r through a hyperfine Stark effect (32) similar to the one shown here. Several types of semiconductor quantum dot qubits exhibit tunable electron spin g-factor (33, 34) through spin-orbit coupling effects, or tunable splitting through the interplay of valley-orbit and tunnel couplings (6).
Because of the high cost of vector microwave signal generators, it seems implausible that future multi-qubit experiments will resort to a dedicated source for each qubit. Time- and frequency-multiplexing qubit control is possible in proof-of-principle experiments but is impractical in large fault-tolerant quantum processors. In most error correction schemes, fault tolerance is only guaranteed if all qubits can be operated simultaneously at any time. The method of qubit control demonstrated here fulfills all the practical requirements for a large-scale quantum computer, because control gates can be applied simultaneously to arbitrarily many qubits while requiring only one CW microwave source together with inexpensive multichannel baseband pulse generators.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1/3/e1500022/DC1 Fig. S1. Frequency response. Fig. S2. Donor triangulation. Fig. S3. Electric field simulations. Fig. S4. Electric field simulations. Fig. S5. Electric field simulations. Fig. S6. Atomistic tight binding simulations of the hyperfine coupling for a donor at the location determined in section S5, for the electric fields simulated in section S6, and subject to lattice strain. Fig. S7. Electrically controlled ESR spectrum. Fig. S8. Time evolution simulations of the electrically controlled ESR spectrum. Fig. S9. Electrically controlled Rabi spectrum. Fig. S10. Electrically controlled electron Ramseys. Fig. S11. Electrically controlled nuclear Ramseys. Fig. S12. Electrically controlled electron coherence times. Fig. S13. Electrically controlled nuclear coherence times. Table S1. Relative gate capacitances used for triangulation of the donor position. References (35–54)
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
Acknowledgments: We thank S. Simmons, G. Tosi, and C. D. Hill for fruitful discussions and comments. This research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (project number CE110001027) and the U.S. Army Research Office (W911NF-13-1-0024). We acknowledge support from the Australian National Fabrication Facility and from the laboratory of R. Elliman at the Australian National University for the ion implantation facilities. The work at Keio has been supported in part by FIRST, the Core-to-Core Program by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research and Project for Developing Innovation Systems by MEXT. NCN/nanohub.org computational resources funded by the National Science Foundation under contract number EEC-1227110 were used in this work. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.While we had an inkling that Gigabyte would be fitting its latest miniature BRIX PCs with Haswell processors, we were pleasantly surprised to learn it had also built a tiny gaming computer with Iris Pro graphics on board. Indeed, the BRIX pocket gaming PC has similar internals to the recently announced Gigabyte BRIX II -- it has an HDMI port, Ethernet, four USB 3.0 slots, Bluetooth 4.0, a Mini display port, built-in WiFi and a headset jack -- but with the added benefit of Intel's latest integrated graphics and the choice of red, yellow or black aluminum housing.
We had a chance to play around with a prototype model at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, and we have to say we're impressed. We played a short round of Grid 2 and the race car looked amazing as it roared across a large 1080p TV. While the performance appeared robust enough in our brief hands-on, an Intel rep did warn us it probably won't replace a system with a dedicated high-end GPU (Ed. Note: We've heard from Intel that while Iris Pro won't replace a high-end GPU, it'll match up well with low to mid-range graphics cards). The box itself is an adorable little thing that we felt was compact and light enough to bring to our next gaming party without taking up too much space in the trunk.Mr Johnson, on a six-day trip to the country to promote business links with London, said to simply rely on India's history with the UK "simply didn't cut the mustard".
He said: "The objective is to build up what is a new partnership between London, the UK and India.
"We can't rely on sentiment. Everybody knows this. All this stuff about links and language doesn't cut the mustard any more.
"It's all about what London has - the brands we can offer, the opportunities we can offer to Indian business."
Mr Johnson is today visiting Akshardham Hindu temple, which has links with Neasden temple, before heading to India Gate.
The mayor is a known critic of the Government's decision to restrict the number of student visas, adding that he was concerned many young Indian people often decided to study in America.
Mr Johnson added: "On the way in to Delhi I saw a Jaguar car driving in from the airport which had been made in Coventry and now owned by an Indian company.
"Imagine if a million were driving Jaguar cars, you can see where the opportunities are.
"The worry is that young Indians are already orientated towards America. They think about higher education in America, we do much better with young Chinese for example.
"Visas is a point but it's not the only point. It's the mood music, so what I want to do is explain how welcoming London is."
The mayor said Transport for London was already looking at offering consultancy advice on how to run an underground system as Delhi has a brand new metro network.
At his hotel some Indian locals mistook Mr Johnson for the King of England. Others thought he was Wimbledon legend Boris Becker as he toured the Akshardhan temple in Delhi while one American businessman who had his photo taken with the mayor at his hotel just referred to him as "that guy on the zip line" - a reference to when Boris got stuck as he traversed Victoria Park during the Olympics.
Akash Bharadia, 18, is spending his gap year volunteering at the temple.
He said: "One of the locals shouted out it was Boris Becker while some people asked whether he was the King of England. They know it's Boris, that's the main thing."
Mr Johnson is seeking to capitalise on the rise in London's international profile following the Olympic games with trade trips to India, Brazil, India and China as well as some of the smaller Asian nations with fast-growing economies.Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard is poised to see his playing time reduced during the expanded-roster period of September, and he's not especially pleased about that.
Here's what Howard had to say about Pete Mackanin's decision to give prospect Tommy Joseph some additional reps (via Bob Ford of the Philadelphia Inquirer):
"You're talking about an evaluation process of where you've gotten to see players this year play. And you'll have another opportunity to see those same players play again next year and I won't be here. So, for me, I just want to play. I don't necessarily think it's right or fair, considering this is my last month here, but it is interesting."
Howard's frustration is understandable in at least once sense. He's a highly competitive athlete, and he's been a fixture in the Philly lineup for more than a decade.
It's also not incumbent upon Howard to have a clear-eyed view of his current skill level. That's management's job, and that's in part why this shift is happening. You see, Howard is batting.195/.249/.440 in this, his age-36 season. While he's still capable of running into one on occasion, an OPS+ of 80 is well south of acceptable for a defensively-challenged first baseman. His 2016 struggles also occur in a larger, and unsurprising, pattern of age-related decline for Howard.
That brings us to the matter of his expiring contract. The five-year, $125 million contract extension that Howard signed in April of 2010 and then didn't kick in until the 2012 season is finally coming to an end. The Phillies will pay the $10 million buyout on his $23 million option for 2017, and at that point one of the worst contracts of the modern era will draw to a close.
The Phillies paid a big price for Ryan Howard's extension. USATSI
Howard's had a darn good career: 377 homers, 125 OPS+, strong postseason numbers. He deserves to be remembered fondly by Phillies fans for being a core member of those great teams of the 2007-11 period.
The contract, however, was a boondoggle from the team standpoint. Over the years covered by the extension, Howard put up a 95 OPS+ and a cumulative WAR of minus-4.1. Most Phillies fans gnash their teeth when they ponder the terms of the Howard deal, and that's a justifiable response. However, if you're a fan of the game as a whole, then you should be perfectly fine with the fact that the Phillies were forced to pay this much for a diminishing asset.
In MLB (and the NBA, for instance), long-term contracts are guaranteed, which means teams must pay the full terms of a player contract. NFL teams, on the other hand, guarantee only a negotiable percentage of the contract's overall value, which allows them to back out of the deal in the event that it turns bad for them. The player, though, is obligated to fulfill the terms of the agreement, barring successful holdouts and the like.
In baseball, this is a good thing, and I'm talking about notions of fairness. The Phillies, even though Howard was two years shy of having enough service time for free agency, signed him to an extension that seemed to include no "hometown" discount whatsoever. It was also a contract that would cover the mid-30s of a big-bodied first baseman whose value flowed from his power. In other words, it was a contract that looked bound to turn out poorly for the team, and that was obvious pretty much to anyone except those in the Phillies front office.
The Phillies, then, made a serious mistake in signing Howard to such a huge deal, and no hindsight is necessary to call it a serious mistake. Mistakes should have consequences in the competitive cauldron of sports. For the Phillies, they had to devote a high percentage of their payroll to an impossible-to-trade contract, even as they entered a rebuilding phase.
Good, I say. If a team makes a poor decision on a massive scale, then said poor decision should hamper them moving forward. So it was with the Howard contract.
So long as Howard wasn't derelict in the baseline obligations of his contract -- and he wasn't -- then it's perfectly just that the Phillies should take such a hit. We like to thunder about accountability when it comes to struggling players, but we lose sight of the fact that guaranteed contracts serve to hold teams to account for their personnel decisions. We shouldn't.
When you hand out infamous deals like, say, the ones bestowed upon Jason Schmidt, Mo Vaughn, Carl Pavano, Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton, Barry Zito, Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle, etc. (add Albert Pujols and Pablo Sandoval to the list soon enough, probably), you should absolutely suffer for it.
So before you hold forth with any bad-contract lamentations, let's remember that those deals provide the teams with sound incentives to do better next time.Morning Dew, Alligator-> Drums-> Alligator, Hard To Handle, Good Morning Little School Girl, Dark Star, Saint Stephen-> The Eleven-> Turn On Your Love Light
This is a SBD from a bootleg CD with unknown generations. There is a significant hiss and no noise reduction was performed. The songs were retracked before shn encoding. Deadbase lists Morning Dew and Alligator before Hard to Handle, though this information is uncertain. There is a splice near the beginning of The Eleven.
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Reviewer: clementinescaboose - favorite favorite favorite favorite - October 13, 2011
Subject: Whats wrong with this? Sure, this ain't got nothin' on the Fillmore run, but that doesn't mean it's not worth having. Very interesting Dark Star, nice Eleven and Lovelight too. But the first ever Hard To Handle is indeed a mess... - October 13, 2011Whats wrong with this?
Reviewer: Cliff Hucker - favorite favorite favorite - March 15, 2009
Subject: Beware the ides of March! This is a train wreck, save your hard drive space. (88 pts) - March 15, 2009Beware the ides of March!
Reviewer: oh_uh_um_ah - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - December 27, 2008
Subject: The GRATEFUL DEAD "Live" March 15, 1969 at the Hilton Hotel, San Francisco, California U.S.A. (
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#############_Smokin'_1969_GRATEFUL_DEAD_Show
I highly recommend this show for your 1969 GRATEFUL DEAD Collection. "A Must Have" show.
5 Star mix
4 Star recording
5 Star performance
I recommend using your equalizer for almost all the "live" shows of the GRATEFUL DEAD on the Internet Archive, including this one.
This is a "MUST HAVE" DARK STAR. Garcia's sound is alive. From PP to FF (very soft to very loud)this arrangement is one of a kind. Jerry is playing his Gibson SG, from "LIVE DEAD".
"LIVE DEAD" Set list/arrangement, DARK STAR into ST. STEPHEN into THE ELEVEN into TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT.
Get it while you can, get it while it's free, get it now or you will be sorry.
Eat, Drink, be Merry and Listen to the GRATEFUL DEAD.
Thanks for the Love from the B&W Ball. - December 27, 2008The GRATEFUL DEAD "Live" March 15, 1969 at the Hilton Hotel, San Francisco, California U.S.A.
Reviewer: roseth - favorite favorite favorite - July 25, 2005
Subject: B&W Ball The Black & White Ball ( http://www.bwball.com ) is a fundraiser for the San Francisco Symphony. It is, as the name implies, a "white tie and black dress" affair. So yes, it is a "high society" event. It is now held biennially, but may have been an annual event previously. I had heard that the Dead had played a B&W Ball, and seem to remember reading a short newspaper article about it, but hadn't seen anything of the show before this. - July 25, 2005B&W Ball
Reviewer: Katman - favorite favorite favorite - April 30, 2005
Subject: Black & White Ball I was a little too young at the time... but if memory serves me well, the BW Ball was a high society (no pun intended) series of events that took place on an annual basis. There were multiple concerts around SF, focusing on opera, symphony, etc. but they began to include some rock and roll acts also. I don't think the Dead ever got invited back... - April 30, 2005Black & White Ball
Reviewer: spleenboy - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - March 17, 2005
Subject: Black & White Ball, Indeed. According to Vol III of Deadbase, this was the Black & White Ball. Anyone know what that was supposed to be about? And yes, first Hard to Handle.
According to Deadbase, first set is only partially represented here, missing Dew > Gator > drums > gator before Hard to Handle. But what is here is really hard to complain about. - March 17, 2005Black & White Ball, Indeed.
Reviewer: N2Muzik - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - February 8, 2005
Subject: Thank You! Great show. It is always a real pleasure to hear a set or part of a set with these tunes. And it is equally enjoyable to hear Pig Pen on vocals and organ.
Thank you for taking the time to convert this recording to an Internet media! - February 8, 2005Thank You!
Reviewer: benjata - favorite favorite favorite - February 8, 2005
Subject: B&W Ball Was this the Black and White Ball? - February 8, 2005B&W Ball
Reviewer: oxthom - favorite favorite favorite - July 1, 2004
Subject: First ever... Hard to Handle - July 1, 2004First ever...The Christmas to New Year period is traditionally ‘hibernation mode’ for blogs, when page views and comment counts plummet (my hits have dropped about 70% compared to early December!).
I suppose this is a time when people find better things to do than sit in front of a computer screen (family time, good food, beach/snow [depending on hemisphere], travel, reading, new games and toys, whatever). So during this activity lull, it’s as good a time as any to announce a few little personal triumphs.
Within the last month or so I received two tokens of recognition for my work in the sustainable energy space. To explain what, I reproduce below a short write-up done by the University of Adelaide’s media office. I’ve added a few relevant hyperlinks and cites, for further information.
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International recognition for Environment Professor
The University of Adelaide’s Professor Barry Brook — an environmental scientist who holds strong pro-nuclear energy views — has received recognition from two prominent international bodies.
Professor Brook, who is Director of Climate Science at the University’s Environment Institute, has become the first Australian appointed to the international award committee of the $1.2 million Global Energy Prize.
Known as the “Nobel Prize of Energy”, this is the most prestigious international award granted for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of energy that have benefited the human race. From Wikipedia:
The Global Energy Prize is an independent award for outstanding scientific research and technological development in energy, which contribute to efficiency and environmentally friendly energy sources for the benefit of humanity. The award was established in Russia, through the non-commercial Global Energy partnership and with the support of leading Russian energy companies Gazprom, FGC UES and Surgutneftegaz. Laureates are presented with their award by the President of Russia. The Global Energy Prize promotes energy development as a science and demonstrates the importance of international energy cooperation, as well as public and private investment in energy supply, energy efficiency and energy security. It stands for the belief that advances in science and technology should serve the long-term interests of human development, improving social security and living standards of people in all countries.
Professor Brook has also been made a 2012 Senior Fellow at the California-based think tank, The Breakthrough Institute.
The Institute is dedicated to “modernizing liberal thought for the 21st Century” and creating “secure, free, prosperous, and fulfilling lives on an ecologically vibrant planet”.
Both appointments are in recognition of Professor Brook’s work on energy policy. He holds strong views on the use of nuclear energy and alternative energy systems from an economic, environmental and scientific point of view.
“I’m honoured to have been chosen for the international selection committee of the Global Energy Prize and as a fellow of The Breakthrough Institute within a short space of each other,” Professor Brook says.
“Although many environmentalists consider nuclear power to be somehow anti-environment, it’s my firm belief that nuclear energy actually offers a viable low-carbon, low-impact alternative that cannot be matched by other low-carbon solutions.
“The reality is that any of the main ‘green energy’ solutions – solar, wind, geothermal – are expensive and won’t be sufficient for displacing fossil fuels. Even if we were willing and able to pay for them, the result, without nuclear being part of the mix, would be an unacceptably unreliable energy supply system,” he says.
In addition to his extensive research, supervision and public outreach duties, Professor Brook runs a highly popular blog on climate change and energy options.
The blog – https://bravenewclimate.com/ – has already received more than three million page hits and fifty thousand comments since he established it in August 2008.
In that time, Professor Brook’s own views have shifted towards nuclear energy as a viable alternative to fossil fuels, with a particular emphasis on next-generation technologies that recycle nuclear waste, are passively safe, and provide a truly sustainable energy source.
Professor Brook blogs about scientific findings and commentary from a range of sources, including many of his colleagues who work in the fields of conservation, climate, environment and energy science.
One such colleague is University of Adelaide Adjunct Professor Tom Wigley (from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in the United States). Professor Wigley has also been made a 2012 Senior Fellow at The Breakthrough Institute.
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So, there you have it. Tom Wigley, also a 2012 BTI Senior Fellow, is a good friend and colleague of mine, and we are currently writing a couple of new papers on energy systems and global decarbonisation options in relation to climate change mitigation, which will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals next year.
Tom and I will be attending The Breakthrough Dialogue in California in June 2012, where we’ll join Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, Jesse Jenkins and many others for a stimulating brainstorming workshop on energy, policy and the environment (see here for a wrap of the 2011 event).
The Global Energy Prize for 2012 is now accepting nominations — details here. In sum:
The winner of the 2012 Prize will be selected by an International Prize Award Committee, which includes 37 internationally-based scientists and specialists, as well as representatives of international research organisations. The award will be given for outstanding achievement in the field of energy, including: — discoveries, inventions and fundamental research providing new opportunities for energy industry development; — development projects, engineering improvements and application-oriented innovations which create new ways of using energy more efficiently; — discoveries, inventions and theoretical R&D projects opening up new energy sources as well as opportunities for using them; — discoveries, inventions and research which have resulted in finding breakthrough approaches to addressing energy transmission and energy saving challenges; — discoveries, inventions and research which have materially contributed to the solution of environment protection and development problems as well as opened up new and feasible ways of using innovative energy conversion method.
I’ll be visiting Russia twice a year (St. Petersburg and Moscow) for the GEP selection deliberations and awards ceremony. As you might guess, I can’t wait!A blog post attacking a victim of white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend was shared more than 65,000 times on Facebook — but those posts are disappearing. The company said today that links to the post on the Daily Stormer website violated its community standards and would be removed automatically unless the post included a caption condemning the article or the publication, a haven for Nazis and white supremacists.
The blog post offered a series of personal attacks against Heather Heyer, who died Saturday after she was struck by a car while protesting a gathering of white supremacists. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., is being held on charges including second-degree murder; 19 other people were injured in the attack.
also if ur wondering how garbage like daily stormer is disseminated, that story has 65 THOUSAND shares on @facebook & is listed under news. pic.twitter.com/KykJOjPbq8 — susie banikarim (@banikarim) August 13, 2017
Any shares of the Daily Stormer article that don’t include a caption will be deleted, Facebook said. The company’s community operations team reviews posts with captions to determine their context, and will remove them if they do not condemn the post or the domain, Facebook said.
Facebook’s move came on the same day that the Daily Stormer lost its web host and its YouTube channel over similar terms of service violations. The step to remove all shares of an article, while unusual, is not unprecedented, the company said. Still, for a company that has taken pains to avoid making editorial judgments about the articles shared on its platform, the nearly wholesale removal of a viral post marked a noteworthy step against the spread of white supremacist propaganda on the network.Leader Of Anti-Semitic Party In Hungary Finds Out He's Jewish
One of the founders of Hungary's far-right Jobbik Party has discovered he is Jewish, and that his grandmother is an Auschwitz survivor. Now, he keeps kosher, attends synagogue and visits Israel.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Now an election story in Europe with a strange twist. As we've been reporting, in European Parliament elections this week, far-right parties did particularly well including Hungary's Jobbik party. They are known for, among other things, being anti-Semitic. It turns out their former second-in-command is Jewish. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Budapest.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVAL RECORDING)
CSANAD SZEGEDI: (Speaking foreign language).
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: Csanad Szegedi was a notorious radical who often railed against Jews, as in this speech four years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVAL RECORDING)
SZEGEDI: (Speaking foreign language).
NELSON: Like many Hungarian extremists, his radicalism evolved from a staunch hatred of communist. Szegedi helped found the now banned Hungarian Guard, whose members wore uniforms similar to that of a pro-Nazi party that ruled the country in the final months of World War II. Szegedi and other members of the Jobbik party, of which he eventually became vice chairman and represented in the European Parliament, accused Jewish Hungarians of helping Israel try to colonize their country.
But these days, the tall Hungarian calls himself Dovid and wears a black skull cap. He regularly attends synagogues, studies Hebrew and the Torah and keeps kosher. Szegedi was on a religious pilgrimage to Israel when I recently interviewed him.
SZEGEDI: (Through translator) For 30 years I lived a harmful, aggressive and radical life with extreme views. Now I'm taking the time to reconsider my life and my expectations and where to go next.
NELSON: It's a life change that he says came about two years ago with the startling revelation by his maternal grandmother. After some prodding, she told him she is actually Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor. He says he then started on the path to becoming an observant Jew with the help of a Hungarian Rabbi. Back in Budapest, Jobbik spokesmen and Hungarian Parliament member Marton Gyongyosi says their party at first embraced Szegedi's religious conversion.
MARTON GYONGYOSI: We said OK. I mean, it's not the origin and the religion that we look at but more what values Mr. Szegedi represents.
NELSON: That may have been the party line. But the groups extremist rank and file didn't buy it, says Szabolcs Pogonyi. He's an assistant professor of nationalism studies at Central European University here and describes what he read on extremist websites.
SZABOLCS POGONYI: This is what Jews do. They try to infiltrate us. This is again a confirmation that you can't trust Jews.
NELSON: Lawmaker Gyongyosi says the Jobbik party ultimately forced Szegedi out when they uncovered a recording in which he tried to bribe an opponent who threatened to reveal his Jewish heritage in 2010. Szegedi denies the claim and says he chose to leave before they could throw him out. He says he decided not to run in Sunday's European Parliament elections because there is no Hungarian political party he can identify with.
But Szegedi is having a hard time convincing many Hungarians, especially Jewish ones, that he's abandoned his radical past. They accuse him of being |
solicit funds.[112][113]
During the Ottoman period, the dilapidated state of the patriarchs' tombs was restored to a semblance of sumptuous dignity.[114] Ali Bey, one of the few foreigners to gain access, reported in 1807 that,
all the sepulchres of the patriarchs are covered with rich carpets of green silk, magnificently embroidered with gold; those of the wives are red, embroidered in like manner. The sultans of Constantinople furnish these carpets, which are renewed from time to time. Ali Bey counted nine, one over the other, upon the sepulchre of Abraham.[115]
Hebron also became known throughout the Arab world for its glass production, abetted by Bedouin trade networks which brought up minerals from the Dead Sea, and the industry is mentioned in the books of 19th century Western travelers to Palestine. For example, Ulrich Jasper Seetzen noted during his travels in Palestine in 1808–09 that 150 persons were employed in the glass industry in Hebron,[116] based on 26 kilns.[117] In 1844, Robert Sears wrote that Hebron's population of 400 Arab families "manufactured glass lamps, which are exported to Egypt. Provisions are abundant, and there is a considerable number of shops."[118] Early 19th century travellers also remarked on Hebron's flourishing agriculture. Apart from glassware, it was a major exporter of dibse, grape sugar,[119] from the famous Dabookeh grapestock characteristic of Hebron.[120]
Northern Hebron in the mid-19th century (1850s)
A Peasant Arab revolt broke out in April 1834 when Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt announced he would recruit troops from the local Muslim population.[121] Hebron, headed by its nazir Abd ar-Rahman Amr, declined to supply its quota of conscripts for the army and suffered badly from the Egyptian campaign to crush the uprising. The town was invested and when its defences fell on 4 August it was sacked by Ibrahim Pasha's army.[122][123][124] An estimated 500 Muslims from Hebron were killed in the attack and some 750 were conscripted. 120 youths were abducted and put at the disposal of Egyptian army officers. Most of the Muslim population managed to flee beforehand to the hills. Many Jews fled to Jerusalem, but during the general pillage of the town at least five were killed.[125] In 1838, the total population was estimated at 10,000.[123] When the Government of Ibrahim Pasha fell in 1841, the local clan-head Abd ar-Rahman Amr once again resumed the reins of power as the Sheik of Hebron. Due to his extortionate demands for cash from the local population, most of the Jewish population fled to Jerusalem.[126] In 1846, the Ottoman Governor-in-chief of Jerusalem (serasker), Kıbrıslı Mehmed Emin Pasha, waged a campaign to subdue rebellious sheiks in the Hebron area, and while doing so, allowed his troops to sack the town. Though it was widely rumoured that he secretly protected Abd ar-Rahman,[127] the latter was deported together with other local leaders (such as Muslih al-'Azza of Bayt Jibrin), but he managed to return to the area in 1848.[128]
Late Ottoman rule
By 1850, the Jewish population consisted of 45–60 Sephardi families, some 40 born in the town, and a 30-year-old Ashkenazi community of 50 families, mainly Polish and Russian,[129][130] the Lubavitch Hasidic movement having established a community in 1823.[131] The ascendency of Ibrahim Pasha devastated for a time the local glass industry for, aside from the loss of life, his plan to build a Mediterranean fleet led to severe logging in Hebron's forests, and firewood for the kilns grew rarer. At the same time, Egypt began importing cheap European glass, the rerouting of the hajj from Damascus through Transjordan eliminated Hebron as a staging point, and the Suez canal (1869) dispensed with caravan trade. The consequence was a steady decline in the local economy.[132]
At this time, the town was divided into four quarters: the Ancient Quarter (Harat al-Kadim) near the Cave of Machpelah; to its south, the Quarter of the Silk Merchant (Harat al-Kazaz), inhabited by Jews; the Mameluke-era Sheikh's Quarter (Harat ash Sheikh) to the north-west;and further north, the Dense Quarter (Harat al-Harbah).[133][134] In 1855, the newly appointed Ottoman pasha ("governor") of the sanjak ("district") of Jerusalem, Kamil Pasha, attempted to subdue the rebellion in the Hebron region. Kamil and his army marched towards Hebron in July 1855, with representatives from the English, French and other Western consulates as witnesses. After crushing all opposition, Kamil appointed Salama Amr, the brother and strong rival of Abd al Rachman, as nazir of the Hebron region. After this relative quiet reigned in the town for the next 4 years.[135][136] Hungarian Jews of the Karlin Hasidic court settled in another part of the city in 1866.[137] According to Nadav Shragai Arab-Jewish relations were good, and Alter Rivlin, who spoke Arabic and Syrian-Aramaic, was appointed Jewish representative to the city council.[137] Hebron suffered from a severe drought during 1869–71 and food sold for ten times the normal value.[138] From 1874 the Hebron district as part of the Sanjak of Jerusalem was administered directly from Istanbul.[139]
Late in the 19th century the production of Hebron glass declined due to competition from imported European glass-ware, however, the products of Hebron continued to be sold, particularly among the poorer populace and travelling Jewish traders from the city.[140] At the World Fair of 1873 in Vienna, Hebron was represented with glass ornaments. A report from the French consul in 1886 suggests that glass-making remained an important source of income for Hebron, with four factories earning 60,000 francs yearly.[141] While the economy of other cities in Palestine was based on solely on trade, Hebron was the only city in Palestine that combined agriculture, livestock herding and trade, including the manufacture of glassware and processing of hides. This was because the most fertile lands were situated within the city limits.[142] The city, nevertheless, was considered unproductive and had a reputation "being an asylum for the poor and the spiritual."[143] Differing in architectural style from Nablus, whose wealthy merchants built handsome houses, Hebron’s main characteristic was its semi-urban, semi-peasant dwellings.[142]
Jews in Hebron, 1921
Hebron was 'deeply Bedouin and Islamic',[144] and 'bleakly conservative' in its religious outlook,[145] with a strong tradition of hostility to Jews.[146][147] It had a reputation for religious zeal in jealously protecting its sites from Jews and Christians, but both the Jewish and Christian communities were apparently well integrated into the town's economic life.[107] As a result of its commercial decline, tax revenues diminished significantly, and the Ottoman government, avoiding meddling in complex local politics, left Hebron relatively undisturbed, to become 'one of the most autonomous regions in late Ottoman Palestine.'.[148]
The Jewish community was under French protection until 1914. The Jewish presence itself was divided between the traditional Sephardi community, Orthodox and anti-Zionist,[149] whose members spoke Arabic and adopted Arab dress, and the more recent influx of Ashkenazis. They prayed in different synagogues, sent their children to different schools, lived in different quarters and did not intermarry.[150]
British rule
British loyalty meeting in Hebron, July 1940
The British occupied Hebron on 8 December 1917. Most of Hebron was owned by old Islamic charitable endowments (waqfs), with about 60% of all the land in and around Hebron belonging to the Tamīm al-Dārī waqf.[151] In 1922, its population stood at 17,000.[152] During the 1920s, Abd al-Ḥayy al-Khaṭīb was appointed Mufti of Hebron. Before his appointment, he had been a staunch opponent of Haj Amin, supported the Muslim National Associations and had good contacts with the Zionists.[153] Later, al-Khaṭīb became one of the few loyal followers of Haj Amin in Hebron.[154] During the late Ottoman period, a new ruling elite had emerged in Palestine. They later formed the core of the growing Arab nationalist movement in the early 20th century. During the Mandate period, delegates from Hebron constituted only 1 per cent of the political leadership.[155] The Palestinian Arab decision to boycott the 1923 elections for a Legislative Council was made at the fifth Palestinian Congress, after it was reported by Murshid Shahin (an Arab pro-zionist activist) that there was intense resistance in Hebron to the elections.[156] Almost no house in Hebron remained undamaged when an earthquake struck Palestine on July 11, 1927.[157]
The Cave of the Patriarchs continued to remain officially closed to non-Muslims, and reports that entry to the site had been relaxed in 1928 were denied by the Supreme Muslim Council.[158]
At this time following attempts by the Lithuanian government to draft yeshiva students into the army, the Lithuanian Hebron Yeshiva (Knesses Yisroel) relocated to Hebron, after consultations between Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, Yechezkel Sarna and Moshe Mordechai Epstein.[159][160] and by 1929 had attracted some 265 students from Europe and the United States.[161] The majority of the Jewish population lived on the outskirts of Hebron along the roads to Be'ersheba and Jerusalem, renting homes owned by Arabs, a number of which were built for the express purpose of housing Jewish tenants, with a few dozen within the city around the synagogues.[162] During the 1929 Hebron massacre, Arab rioters slaughtered some 64 to 67 Jewish men, women and children[163][164] and wounded 60, and Jewish homes and synagogues were ransacked; 435 Jews survived by virtue of the shelter and assistance offered them by their Arab neighbours, who hid them.[165] Some Hebron Arabs, including Ahmad Rashid al-Hirbawi, president of Hebron chamber of commerce, supported the return of Jews after the massacre.[166] Two years later, 35 families moved back into the ruins of the Jewish quarter, but on the eve of the Palestinian Arab revolt (April 23, 1936) the British Government decided to move the Jewish community out of Hebron as a precautionary measure to secure its safety. The sole exception was the 8th generation Hebronite Ya'akov ben Shalom Ezra, who processed dairy products in the city, blended in well with its social landscape and resided there under the protection of friends. In November 1947, in anticipation of the UN partition vote, the Ezra family closed its shop and left the city.[167] Yossi Ezra has since tried to regain his family's property through the Israeli courts.[168]
Jordanian rule
At the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Egypt took control of Hebron. Between May and October, Egypt and Jordan tussled for dominance in Hebron and its environs. Both countries appointed military governors in the town, hoping to gain recognition from Hebron officials. The Egyptians managed to persuade the pro-Jordanian mayor to support their rule, at least superficially, but local opinion turned against them when they imposed taxes. Villagers surrounding Hebron resisted and skirmishes broke out in which some were killed.[169] By late 1948, part of the Egyptian forces from Bethlehem to Hebron had been cut off from their lines of supply and Glubb Pasha sent 350 Arab Legionnaires and an armoured car unit to Hebron to reinforce them there. When the Armistice was signed, the city thus fell under Jordanian military control. The armistice agreement between Israel with Jordan intended to allow Israeli Jewish pilgrims to visit Hebron, but, as Jews of all nationalities were forbidden by Jordan into the country, this did not occur.[170][171]
In December 1948, the Jericho Conference was convened to decide the future of the West Bank which was held by Jordan. Hebron notables, headed by mayor Muhamad 'Ali al-Ja'bari, voted in favour of becoming part of Jordan and to recognise Abdullah I of Jordan as their king. The subsequent unilateral annexation benefited the Arabs of Hebron, who during the 1950s, played a significant role in the economic development of Jordan.[172][173]
Although a significant number of people relocated to Jerusalem from Hebron during the Jordanian period,[174] Hebron itself saw a considerable increase in population with 35,000 settling in the town.[175] During this period, signs of the previous Jewish presence in Hebron were removed.[176]
Israeli occupation
Constructed in 1893, this former Jewish clinic in central Hebron now forms part of an Israeli neighbourhood.
After the Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel occupied Hebron along with the rest of the West Bank, establishing a military government to rule the area. In an attempt to reach a land for peace deal, Yigal Allon proposed that Israel annex 45% of the West Bank and return the remainder to Jordan.[177] According to the Allon Plan, the city of Hebron would lie in Jordanian territory, and in order to determine Israel's own border, Allon suggested building a Jewish settlement adjacent to Hebron.[178] David Ben-Gurion also considered that Hebron was the one sector of the conquered territories that should remain under Jewish control and be open to Jewish settlement.[179] Apart from its symbolic message to the international community that Israel's rights in Hebron were, according to Jews, inalienable,[180] settling Hebron also had theological significance in some quarters.[181] For some, the capture of Hebron by Israel had unleashed a messianic fervor.[182]
Survivors and descendants of the prior community are mixed. Some support the project of Jewish redevelopment, others commend living in peace with Hebronite Arabs, while a third group recommend a full pullout.[183] Descendants supporting the latter views have met with Palestinian leaders in Hebron.[184] In 1997 one group of descendants dissociated themselves from the settlers by calling them an obstacle to peace.[184] On May 15, 2006, a member of a group who is a direct descendant of the 1929 refugees[185] urged the government to continue its support of Jewish settlement, and allow the return of eight families evacuated the previous January from homes they set up in emptied shops near the Avraham Avinu neighborhood.[183] Beit HaShalom, established in 2007 under disputed circumstances, was under court orders permitting its forced evacuation.[186][187][188][189] All the Jewish settlers were expelled on December 3, 2008.[190]
Immediately after the 1967 war, mayor al-Ja'bari had unsuccessfully promoted the creation of an autonomous Palestinian entity in the West Bank, and by 1972, he was advocating for a confederal arrangement with Jordan instead. al-Ja'bari nevertheless consistently fostered a conciliatory policy towards Israel.[191] He was ousted by Fahad Qawasimi in the 1976 mayoral election, which marked a shift in support towards pro-PLO nationalist leaders.[192]
Supporters of Jewish settlement within Hebron see their program as the reclamation of an important heritage dating back to Biblical times, which was dispersed or, it is argued, stolen by Arabs after the massacre of 1929.[193][194] The purpose of settlement is to return to the 'land of our forefathers',[195] and the Hebron model of reclaiming sacred sites in Palestinian territories has pioneered a pattern for settlers in Bethlehem and Nablus.[196] Many reports, foreign and Israeli, are sharply critical of the behaviour of Hebronite settlers.[197][198]
Israeli soldiers patrol an open-air market.
Sheik Farid Khader heads the Ja’bari tribe, consisting of some 35,000 people, which is considered one of the most important tribes in Hebron. For years, members of the Ja'bari tribe were the mayors of Hebron. Khader regularly meets with settlers and Israeli government officials and is a strong opponent of both the concept of Palestinian State and the Palestinian Authority itself. Khader believes that Jews and Arabs must learn to coexist.[199]
Division of Hebron
[200] A net installed in the Old City to prevent garbage dropped by Israeli settlers into a Palestinian area.
Following the 1995 Oslo Agreement and subsequent 1997 Hebron Agreement, Palestinian cities were placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, with the exception of Hebron,[5] which was split into two sectors: H1 is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2 controlled by Israel.[201][202] Around 120,000 Palestinians live in H1, while around 30,000 Palestinians along with around 700 Israelis remain under Israeli military control in H2. As of 2009, a total of 86 Jewish families lived in Hebron.[203] The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) may not enter H1 unless under Palestinian escort. Palestinians cannot approach areas where settlers live without special permits from the IDF.[204] The Jewish settlement is widely considered to be illegal by the international community, although the Israeli government disputes this.[205]
The Palestinian population in H2 has greatly declined due to the impact of Israeli security measures which include extended curfews, strict restrictions on movement,[206] the closure of Palestinian commercial activities near settler areas and settler harassment.[207][208][209][210]
Palestinians are barred from using Al-Shuhada Street, a principal commercial thoroughfare.[204][211] As a result, about half the Arab shops in H2 have gone out of business since 1994.[citation needed]
TIPH twentieth anniversary report
In 2017, Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) issued a confidential report covering their 20 years of observing the situation in Hebron. The report, based in part on over 40,000 incident reports over those 20 years, found that Israel routinely violates international law in Hebron and that it is in "severe and regular breach" of the rights to non-discrimination laid out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights over the lack of freedom to movement for the Palestinian residents of Hebron. The report found that Israel is in regular violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits the deportation of civilians from occupied territory. The report also found the presence of any Israeli settlement in Hebron to violate international law.[212]
Israeli settlements
Post-1967 settlement was impelled by theological doctrines developed in the Mercaz HaRav Kook under both its founder Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, according to which the Land of Israel is holy, the people, endowed with a divine spark, are holy, and that the messianic Age of Redemption has arrived, requiring that the Land and People be united in occupying the land and fulfilling the commandments. Hebron has a particular role in the unfolding 'cosmic drama': traditions hold that Abraham purchased land there, that King David was its king, and the tomb of Abraham covers the entrance to the Garden of Eden, and is a site excavated by Adam, who, with Eve, is buried there. Redemption will occur when the feminine and masculine characteristics of God are united at the site. Settling Hebron is not only a right and duty, but is doing the world at large a favour, with the community's acts an example of the Jews of Hebron being "a light unto the nations" (Or la-Goyim) [213] and bringing about their redemption, even if this means breaching secular laws, expressed in religiously motivated violence towards Palestinians, who are widely viewed as "mendacious, vicious, self-centered, and impossible to trust". Clashes with Palestinians in the settlement project have theological significance in the Jewish Hebron community: the frictions of war were, in Kook's view, conducive to the messianic process, and 'Arabs' will have to leave. There is no kin connection between the new settlers and the traditional Old Families of Jewish Hebronites, who vigorously oppose the new settler presence in Hebron.[213] According to a ruling given by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2011, Jews have no right to properties they possessed in places like Hebron and Tel Rumeida before 1948, and have no right to compensation for their losses.[168]
First settlement, Kiryat Arba
In the spring of 1968, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, together with a group of Israelis posing as Swiss tourists, rented from its owner Faiz Qawasmeh [214] the main hotel in Hebron[215] and then refused to leave. The Labor government's survival depended on the religious Zionism-associated National Religious Party and was, under pressure of this party, reluctant to evacuate the settlers. Defence Minister Moshe Dayan ordered their evacuation but agreed to their relocation to the nearby military base on the eastern outskirts of Hebron which was to become the settlement Kiryat Arba.[216] After heavy lobbying by Levinger, the settlement gained the tacit support of Levi Eshkol and Yigal Allon, while it was opposed by Abba Eban and Pinhas Sapir.[217] After more than a year and a half, the government agreed to legitimize the settlement.[218] The settlement was later expanded with the nearby outpost Givat Ha’avot, north of the Cave of the Patriarchs.[216] Much of the Hebron-Kiryat Arba operation was planned and financed by the Movement for Greater Israel.[219]
Beit Hadassah
Originally named Hesed l'Avraham clinic, Beit Hadassah was constructed in 1893 with donations of Jewish Baghdadi families and was the only modern facility in Hebron. In 1909, it was renamed after Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America which took responsibility for the medical staff and provided free medical care to all.[220]
In 1979, a group of settlers led by Miriam Levinger moved into the Dabouia, the former Hadassah Hospital in central Hebron, then under Arab administration. They turned it into a bridgehead for Jewish resettlement inside Hebron,[221] and founded the Committee of The Jewish Community of Hebron near the Abraham Avinu Synagogue. The take-over created severe conflict with Arab shopkeepers in the same area, who appealed twice to the Israeli Supreme Court, without success.[222] With this precedent, in February of the following year, the Government legitimized residency in the city of Hebron proper.[223] The pattern of settlement followed by an outbreak of hostilities with local Palestinians was repeated later at Tel Rumeida.[224]
Beit Romano
Beit Romano was built and owned by Yisrael Avraham Romano of Constantinople and served Sephardi Jews from Turkey. In 1901, a Yeshiva was established there with a dozen teachers and up to 60 students.[220]
In 1982, Israeli authorities took over a Palestinian education office (Osama Ben Munqez School) and the adjacent bus station. The school was turned into a settlement, and the bus station into a military base against an order of the Israeli Supreme Court.[216]
Tel Rumeida
In 1807 the immigrant Sephardic Rabbi Haim Yeshua Hamitzri (Haim the Jewish Egyptian) purchased 5 dunams on the outskirts of the city and in 1811 he signed a contract for a 99-year lease on a further 800 dunams of land, which included 4 plots in Tel Rumeida. The plots were administered by his descendant Haim Bajaio after Jews left Hebron. Settlers' claims to this land are based on these precedents, but are dismissed by the rabbi's heir.[225]
In 1984, settlers established a caravan outpost there called (Ramat Yeshai). In 1998, the Government recognized it as a settlement, and in 2001 the Defence Minister approved the building of the first housing units.[216]
Avraham Avinu
Abraham Avinu Synagogue in 1925
The Abraham Avinu Synagogue was the physical and spiritual center of its neighborhood and regarded as one of the most beautiful synagogues in Palestine. It was the centre of Jewish worship in Hebron until it was burnt down in 1929. In 1948 under Jordanian rule, the remaining ruins were razed.[226]
The Avraham Avinu quarter was established next to the Vegetable and Wholesale Markets on Al-Shuhada Street in the south of the Old City. The vegetable market was closed by the Israeli military and some of the neighbouring houses were occupied by settlers and soldiers. Settlers started to take over the closed Palestinian stores, despite explicit orders of the Israeli Supreme Court that the settlers should vacate these stores and the Palestinians should be allowed to return.[216]
Further settlement activities
In 2012, Israel Defense Forces called for the immediate removal of a new settlement, because it was seen as a provocation.[227] The IDF has enforced settler demands against the flying of Palestinian flags on a Hebronite rooftop contiguous to settlements, though no rule forbids the practice.[228] In August 2016, Israel announced its intention to allow settlement building in the military compound of Plugat Hamitkanim in Hebron, which had been confiscated for military purposes in the 1990s.[229]
Demographics
In 1820, it was reported that there were about 1,000 Jews in Hebron,[230] In 1838, Hebron had an estimated 1,500 taxable Muslim households, in addition to 41 Jewish tax-payers. Taxpayers consisted here of male heads of households who owned even a very small shop or piece of land. 200 Jews and one Christian household were under 'European protections'. The total population was estimated at 10,000.[123] In 1842, it was estimated that about 400 Arab and 120 Jewish families lived in Hebron, the latter having been diminished in number following the destruction of 1834.[231]
Urban development
View of Hebron 2006
Historically, the city consisted of four densely populated quarters: the suq and Harat al-Masharqa adjacent to the Ibrahimi mosque, the silk merchant quarter (Haret Kheitun) to the south and the Sheikh quarter (Haret al-Sheikh) to the north. It is believed the basic urban structure of the city had been established by the Mamluk period, during which time the city also had Jewish, Christian and Kurdish quarters.[250]
In the mid 19th-century, Hebron was still divided into four quarters, but the Christian quarter had disappeared.[250] The sections included the ancient quarter surrounding the cave of Machpelah, the Haret Kheitun (the Jewish quarter, Haret el-Yahud), the Haret el-Sheikh and the Druze quarter.[251] As Hebron's population gradually increased, inhabitants preferred to build upwards rather than leave the safety of their neighbourhoods. By the 1880s, better security provided by the Ottoman authorities allowed the town to expand and a new commercial centre, Bab el-Zawiye, emerged.[252] As development continued, new spacious and taller structures were built to the north-west.[253] In 1918, the town consisted of dense clusters of residential dwellings along the valley, rising onto the slopes above it.[254] By the 1920s, the town was made up of seven quarters: el-Sheikh and Bab el-Zawiye to the west, el-Kazzazin, el-Akkabi and el-Haram in the centre, el-Musharika to the south and el-Kheitun in the east.[255] Urban sprawl had spread onto the surrounding hills by 1945.[254] The large population increase under Jordanian rule resulted in about 1,800 new houses being built, most of them along the Hebron-Jerusalem highway, stretching northwards for over 3 miles (5 km) at a depth of 600 ft (200m) either way. Some 500 houses were built elsewhere on surrounding rural land. There was less development to the south-east, where housing units extended along the valley for about 1 mile (1.5 km).[175]
In 1971, with the assistance of the Israeli and Jordanian governments, the Hebron University, an Islamic university, was founded.[256][257]
In an attempt to enhance the view of the Ibrahami Mosque, Jordan demolished whole blocks of ancient houses opposite its entrance, which also resulted in improved access to the historic site.[258] The Jordanians also demolished the old synagogue located in the el-Kazzazin quarter. In 1976, Israel recovered the site which had been converted into an animal pen, and by 1989, a settler courtyard had been established there.[259]
Hebron market
Today, the area along the north-south axis to the east comprises the modern town of Hebron (also called Upper Hebron, Khalil Foq). It was established towards the end of the Ottoman period, its inhabitants being upper and middle class Hebronites who from there from the crowded old city, Balde al-Qadime (also called Lower Hebron, Khalil Takht).[260] The northern part of Upper Hebron includes some up-scale residential districts and also houses the Hebron University, private hospitals and the only two hotels in the city. The main commercial artery of the city is located here, situated along the Jerusalem Road, and includes modern multi-storey shopping malls. Also in this area are villas and apartment complexes built on the krum, rural lands and vineyards, which used to function as recreation areas during the summer months until the early Jordanian period.[260] The southern part is where the working-class neighbourhoods are located, along with large industrial zones and the Hebron Polytechnic University.[260]
The main municipal and governmental buildings are located in the centre of the city. This area includes high-rise concrete and glass developments and also some distinct Ottoman era one-storey family houses, adorned with arched entrances, decorative motifs and ironwork. Hebron's domestic appliance and textile markets are located here along two parallel roads which lead to the entrance of the old city.[260] Many of these have been relocated from the old commercial centre of the city, known as the vegetable market (hesbe), which was closed down by the Israeli military during the 1990s. The vegetable market is now located in the square of Bab el-Zawiye.[260]
Shoe industry
From the 1970s to the early 1990s, a third of those who lived in the city worked in the shoe industry. According to the shoe factory owner Tareq Abu Felat, the number reached least 35,000 people and there were more than 1,000 workshops around the city.[261] Statistics from the Chamber of Commerce in Hebron put the figure at 40,000 people employed in 1,200 shoe businesses.[262] However, the 1993 Oslo Accords and 1994 Protocol on Economic Relations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) made it possible to mass import Chinese goods as the Palestinian National Authority, which was created after the Oslo Accords, did not regulate it. They later put import taxes but the Abu Felat, who also is the Palestinian Federation of Leather Industries's chairman, said more is still needed.[261] The Palestinian government decided to impose an additional tax of 35% on products from China from April 2013.[262]
90% of the shoes in Palestine are now estimated to come from China, which Palestinian industry workers say are of much lower quality but also much cheaper,[261] and the Chinese are more aesthetic. Another factor contributing to the decline of the local industry is Israeli restrictions on Palestinian exports.[262]
Today, there are less than 300 workshops in the shoe industry, who only run part-time, and they employ around 3,000–4,000 people. More than 50% of the shoes are exported to Israel, where consumers have a better economy. Less than 25% goes to the Palestinian market, with some going to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.[261]
Political status
Map of Hebron showing Palestinian controlled H1 and Israeli controlled H2.
Under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine passed by the UN in 1947, Hebron was envisaged to become part of an Arab state. While the Jewish leaders accepted the partition plan, the Arab leadership (the Arab Higher Committee in Palestine and the Arab League) rejected it, opposing any partition.[263][264] The aftermath of the 1948 war saw the city occupied and later unilaterally annexed by the kingdom of Jordan in a move supported by local Hebron officials. Following the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel occupied Hebron. In 1997, in accordance with the Hebron Agreement, Israel withdrew from 80 per cent of Hebron which was handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian police would assume responsibilities in Area H1 and Israel would retain control in Area H2.
An international unarmed observer force—the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was subsequently established to help the normalization of the situation and to maintain a buffer between the Palestinian Arab population of the city and the Jewish population residing in their enclave in the old city. The TIPH operates with the permission of the Israeli government, meeting regularly with the Israeli army and the Israeli Civil Administration, and is granted free access throughout the city. In 2018, the TIPH came under criticism in Israel due to incidents where an employee was, according to the Israeli police, filmed puncturing the tires of the car of an Israeli settler, and another instance where an observer was deported after slapped a settler boy.[212]
Intercommunal violence
Hebron was the one city excluded from the interim agreement of September 1995 to restore rule over all Palestinian West Bank cities to the Palestinian Authority.[201] Since The Oslo Agreement, violent episodes have been recurrent in the city. The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre took place on February 25, 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli physician and resident of Kiryat Arba, opened fire on Muslims at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque, killing 29, and wounding 125 before the survivors overcame and killed him.[265] Standing orders for Israeli soldiers on duty in Hebron disallowed them from firing on fellow Jews, even if they were shooting Arabs.[266] This event was condemned by the Israeli Government, and the extreme right-wing Kach party was banned as a result.[267] The Israeli government also tightened restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in H2, closed their vegetable and meat markets, and banned Palestinian cars on Al-Shuhada Street.[268] The park near the Cave of the Patriarchs for recreation and barbecues is off-limits for Arab Hebronites.[269]
Over the period of the First Intifada and Second Intifada, the Jewish community was subjected to attacks by Palestinian militants, especially during the periods of the intifadas; which saw 3 fatal stabbings and 9 fatal shootings in between the first and second Intifada (0.9% of all fatalities in Israel and the West Bank) and 17 fatal shootings (9 soldiers and 8 settlers) and 2 fatalities from a bombing during the second Intifada,[270] and thousands of rounds fired on it from the hills above the Abu-Sneina and Harat al-Sheikh neighbourhoods. 12 Israeli soldiers were killed (Hebron Brigade commander Colonel Dror Weinberg and two other officers, 6 soldiers and 3 members of the security unit of Kiryat Arba) in an ambush.[271] Two Temporary International Presence in Hebron observers were killed by Palestinian gunmen in a shooting attack on the road to Hebron[272][273][274] On March 27, 2001, a Palestinian sniper targeted and killed the Jewish baby Shalhevet Pass. The sniper was caught in 2002.[citation needed]
In the 1980s Hebron, became the center of the Kach movement, a designated terrorist organization,[275] whose first operations started there, and provided a model for similar behaviour in other settlements.[276] Hebron is one of the three West Bank towns from where the majority of suicide bombers originate. In May 2003, three students of the Hebron Polytechnic University carried out three separate suicide attacks.[277] In August 2003, in what both Islamic groups described as a retaliation, a 29-year-old preacher from Hebron, Raed Abdel-Hamed Mesk, broke a unilateral Palestinian ceasefire by killing 23 and injured over 130 in a bus bombing in Jerusalem.[278][279]
Israeli organization B'Tselem states that there have been "grave violations" of Palestinian human rights in Hebron because of the "presence of the settlers within the city." The organization cites regular incidents of "almost daily physical violence and property damage by settlers in the city", curfews and restrictions of movement that are "among the harshest in the Occupied Territories", and violence by Israeli border policemen and the IDF against Palestinians who live in the city's H2 sector.[280][281][282] According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian areas of Hebron are frequently subject to indiscriminate firing by the IDF, leading to many casualties.[283] One former IDF soldier, with experience in policing Hebron, has testified to Breaking the Silence, that on the briefing wall of his unit a sign describing their mission aim was hung that read: "To disrupt the routine of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood."[284] Hebron mayor Mustafa Abdel Nabi invited the Christian Peacemaker Teams to assist the local Palestinian community in opposition to what they describe as Israeli military occupation, collective punishment, settler harassment, home demolitions and land confiscation.[285]
Hebron Chamber of Commerce
A violent episode occurred on 2 May 1980, when 6 yeshiva students died, on the way home from Sabbath prayer at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in a grenade and firearm attack.[286] The event provided a major motivation for settlers near Hebron to join the |
you enjoyed this profile, please share it via your social network of choice.Bold school: Northeastern Illinois University moves to seize private property in North Park
Northeastern Illinois University, or NEIU, has moved to seize land from businesses and families in the Chicago neighborhood of North Park as part of its bid to construct new student dormitories – even though the university already owns plenty of land it could use without seizing anything. NEIU has filed a lawsuit to forcibly acquire...
Northeastern Illinois University, or NEIU, has moved to seize land from businesses and families in the Chicago neighborhood of North Park as part of its bid to construct new student dormitories – even though the university already owns plenty of land it could use without seizing anything.
NEIU has filed a lawsuit to forcibly acquire several small businesses and homes, including a Chinese restaurant, dentist’s office, hair salon and more. The university would then use the land to construct two multi-use dorms on Bryn Mawr Avenue that would house as many as 500 students. All of this is part of a plan to revitalize the commuter school, which, as outlined by NEIU President Sharon Hahs, has been struggling with “revenue shortfalls from enrollment declines.” The administration is betting that if it builds more housing, their school will attract more students.
But the university wouldn’t have to take land to build new dorms. In fact, the school operates on 67 acres of land, much of which is underdeveloped.
Community members argue the land grab has progressed way too quickly and violates their property rights. Late last year, NEIU solicited proposals for the university housing and retail development, but only started reaching out to local property owners in January. By May, the university had sent out offer letters to buy the property backed by the threat of eminent domain, and followed up with a lawsuit in August.
The threat of eminent domain is an increasingly profitable strategy employed by public and private universities. It strong-arms local property owners into settling, thereby avoiding a drawn-out, expensive legal battle they would risk losing.
Under eminent-domain law, a unit of government can take private property so long as it’s for “public use” and if it offers the owner “just compensation.” Because NEIU is a public university, a court may consider any land NEIU wants to take as a “public use.” This usually applies to projects with at least an arguable public benefit – the construction of highways or EL stations, for example. But dorms don’t benefit the public generally. Rather, they serve NEIU’s administration and some of its students – and no one else.
“Public use” should have a more rigorous definition than merely “something a public body wants,” especially when the project in question would destroy small businesses for a risky gamble on student enrollment.
And although eminent domain would ostensibly be exercised for the benefit of a public university, private developers stand to gain from the move as well. American Campus Communities, the largest student housing developer in the country, has been awarded a contract to construct the new space.
The right to private property is too important to be sacrificed at the whim of a public university that already owns plenty of land. This development is not only a highly questionable public policy decision, but an illegitimate exercise of government authority.But the affected businesses are fighting back. They’ve organized as the NEIU Neighbors Coalition to shed light on the university’s abuse of eminent domain and have been earning significant media attention. If you support their efforts, you can sign a petition telling NEIU administrators and local alderman Margaret Laurino to kill the land grab and respect the property rights of their neighbors.Story highlights More than 400 troops defect, are welcomed by general who defected
They say they will defend unarmed protesters, not attack them
Majority of troops were members of Republican Guards and central security forces
President addresses thousands of Republican Guards, calls defectors part of the past
More than 400 troops defected from the Yemeni military Saturday evening, saying they would no longer attack unarmed protesters.
The troops announced their defection after standing for hours in front of tens of thousands of anti-government protesters in Sanaa and vowing to support their cause with their lives.
"We will stand with the will of the people and will not kill unarmed youth. We are here to defend the people and we will do that," one soldier told CNN.
"The butcher must stand trial," the troops shouted as they marched in what has been known as Change Square Sanaa.
The organizing committee in the square announced this week that dozens of unarmed youth activists were killed by government forces over the past month. The committee says nearly 1,000 youths have been killed by the government since protests began in January.
Hours after the celebration, the defecting troops were welcomed at the military compound of Gen. Mohsen Ahmar, who defected from the government forces in March.
The majority of the troops were members of the Republican Guards and central security forces, which are headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh's eldest son and nephew.
Youth activists celebrated the defection.
"With every day that passes, this oppressive regime is weakened," Abdul Nasser al-Kulaibi, a youth protester in Sanaa, told CNN. "Saleh will soon be surprised to see the rug beneath him pulled away and he will fall without expecting it."
He added, "Change will happen and we will not stop marching against the regime. More than 1,000 of us have died. It's too late to stop now."
Earlier in the day, state media reported that Saleh and senior government officials visited thousands of Republican Guard troops and encouraged them to stand firm in defending the country.
Saleh told the troops that Yemen's leaders are "willing to sacrifice for the sake of the country, but you will stay. You will remain here even if we let go of authority, because you are the authority," according to state media.
Saleh's country has been the scene of violent protests for months as his opponents demand he leave power after 33 years in office. Government troops have responded with live fire to protests, according to medics and opposition sources.
The guards number more than 80,000 and are considered the most powerful force in the country.
Saleh blasted the opposition forces and called them "gangs that cut off roads." He said those who have defected are part of the past.
"Yemen will not collapse. Yemen is steadfast due to its people and military," Saleh said.The timeline in the new report suggests that officials were reluctant to spread the news about the first two shootings. For example, at 8:45 a.m. on the day of the shootings, the report says, “A Policy Group member e-mails a Richmond colleague saying one student is dead and another critically wounded. ‘Gunman on the loose,’ he says, adding, ‘This is not releasable yet.’ ”
And at 8:49, the report adds, “The same Policy Group member reminds his Richmond colleague, ‘Just try to make sure it doesn’t get out.’ ”
The campus community was not formally notified of the first two shootings until 9:26. The shootings at Norris Hall began at 9:40.
While conceding that university officials had a responsibility to avoid causing panic, parents of victims expressed frustration at the report’s findings.
“These were serious mistakes, and we still don’t feel like everything that should be known has been revealed,” said Lori Haas, the mother of Emily Haas, who was wounded in the shootings. “Tech officials had to be careful, but they should have acted faster.”
Another parent, Holly Sherman, whose daughter Leslie was killed, said, “It angers me that it took this long to get some answers.”
The new report said that the university president’s office was locked down about 30 minutes before a formal warning was issued to the rest of the campus and that the local police, in Blacksburg, took more than half an hour longer than was initially believed to begin looking for a suspect, a fact first reported by The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
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The report also says that at least two members of the university’s Policy Group, which was assembled to manage the crisis, let their own families know of the first two shootings, in the residence hall, more than 90 minutes before the group warned the rest of the campus.
Mark Owczarski, a spokesman for the university, said the revised report was inaccurate and lacked context.
“The revised report describes the two people who alerted their families as Policy Group members, and they were not,” Mr. Owczarski said. “It also inaccurately describes the actions of those two individuals who alerted their families as though it occurred with approval of senior officials. It did not.”
Photo
Mr. Owczarski said the two people who alerted their families were not senior officials, but lower-level staff.
One of the people who alerted family was Kim O'Rourke, the chief of staff to the university's president, Charles Steger. Ms. O'Rourke mentioned the shooting while calling her son to wake him up for class, said an official with TriData, a division of the System Planning Corporation, which coordinated the original investigation. The other person who alerted her family was then-Assistant Vice President of Administration Lisa Wilkes, who was visiting her mother when she was called by campus officials and told to get to work because there had been a shooting. Before leaving, she told her mother of the situation, the official said.
But W. Gerald Massengill, the former State Police superintendent who led the state’s investigation, rejected the contention that Policy Group members did not alert their families.
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“I remember almost with certainty the names assigned to the messages that went out, and they were officials,” Mr. Massengill said.
In pending lawsuits, the families of two slain students fault the campus police and university officials for delaying a campuswide warning that a gunman was on the loose. They argue that the campus police advised the Policy Group that the two shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall were probably the result of a “lover’s quarrel,” thereby delaying a response that might have prevented the subsequent Norris Hall shootings.
All but two of the families of those killed and injured agreed in 2008 not to sue in exchange for an $11 million state settlement. The lawsuits, on behalf of the slain students Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson, seek damages of $10 million; oral arguments are scheduled for Dec. 14.
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The report, which was released by Gov. Tim Kaine on Friday, was provided to The New York Times on Thursday night by the family of one of the victims.
Governor Kaine, a Democrat, had resisted calls from the families to reopen the investigation, but he agreed to have the report revised to include corrections requested by families of the victims.
TriData prepared the original report for the state and the recent revisions, which were provided to family members Thursday night.
Calls by victims’ families to reopen the investigation grew stronger in July, after some of Mr. Cho’s missing mental-health records were discovered in the home of the former director of the university’s counseling clinic. The discovery raised new questions about the rigor of the state’s investigation into the shootings.
But an official from the governor’s office said the new report did not alter the state’s initial findings. “While the addendum corrects and clarifies facts found in the original report,” Kate Paris, an executive assistant to the governor, said in an e-mail message to victims’ families, “the review and revision process tended to reinforce the original recommendations of the panel.”
TriData officials echoed this conclusion.
“While some of the findings have been modified slightly and one added,” TriData said in the new report, “none of the new information merited changes to any recommendations in the original report.”
In a news release on Friday, Governor Kaine said that many of the recommendations in the original report had been enacted during the 2008 General Assembly session, including restrictions on firearm access for those adjudicated mentally ill, and the investment of $41 million in the state’s mental-health operations.
The revised report said that the university had two conflicting emergency-alert policies and that it took 17 minutes for the chief of campus police to get in touch with the executive vice president after he learned of the shooting.
The report also added to the picture of Mr. Cho’s mental-health problems. Mr. Cho was interviewed several times by Virginia Tech health officials more than a year before his attack, but in each instance, he denied homicidal thoughts and was not admitted for treatment, the report says.
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Health officials on campus spoke to Mr. Cho three times in 2005, twice by phone and once in person, after concerns were raised about his behavior.The existence of the fliers, urging soldiers to give up, suggest greater Western involvement in the Libyan conflict
Marc Herman
TRIPOLI, Libya -- These two fliers were provided by a member of the neighborhood militia in Gorji, in central Tripoli. Tripoli residents say they found them on the ground starting at least two months ago.
Though certainly less lethal than bombs, the leaflets, which bear NATO insignias, are only slightly subtler. The above leaflet shows an unmanned drone and an aerial view of a tank. The text takes a position of overwhelming force, declaring, in somewhat stilted Arabic, "Warning: You are neither a match nor an equivalent to the superior weapon systems and air force of NATO. Continuing to do what you are doing will result in your death." The flip side shows the tank blown up and repeats the promise of death if they do not stop fighting.
The above translation is courtesy of Uri Horesh, former military translator and director of the Arabic Language Program at Franklin & Marshall College. "This was not written by skilled Arabic writers with good knowledge of how to write about military topics in idiomatic Arabic," Horesh added. "NATO needs some training on this front, it seems."
The second, white leaflet, pictured here, issues the following warning in legalistic language:
Dear officers and soldiers of the Libyan Army, the International Criminal Court has indicted Gaddafi for committing crimes against humanity in Libya. It is advisable that officers and soldiers of the Libyan Army refrain from carrying out Gaddafi's orders and committing any military actions against the Libyan people. Any officer or soldier who commits crimes against humanity shall be in violation of International Law. Many officers and soldiers have chosen to stand against Gaddafi's orders and refrain from fighting against innocent civilians. Do join these men for a prosperous, peaceful future for Libya.
The flip side depicts a collage of images depicting loyalist and anti-Qaddafi forces squaring off, and places Qaddafi opposite the image of Omar Muqtar, a Libyan independence hero. The text between them is a quotation attributed to Qaddafi. "He who kills another Libyan destroys Libya," is a common translation. Below the quotation a man is sobbing. It looks a bit like a page from a junior high school history book.Before getting a title shot in Combate Americas, Kyra Batara wanted to fight in Rizin 2 (Heidi Fang/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Combate Americas' atomweight contender Kyra Batara will square off with Kanako Murata at Rizin 2 in Saitama, Japan on Sept. 25th. (Heidi Fang/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Kyra Batara is taking nothing lightly about her next opponent. After all, Kanako Murata is a three-time junior Olympic wrestling medalist from Japan and is currently undefeated at 3-0 in MMA. Though Batara has had recent success at atomweight (105-lbs.), she will meet Murata at strawweight (115-lbs.) when they trade leather in the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.
Confident that she will fight for a title belt in Combate Americas soon, “Mogwai” Batara will put her three-fight winning streak on the line when she travels to Saitama, Japan to compete in Rizin 2.
A fan of the now defunct Pride Fighting Championship, Batara couldn’t resist the opportunity to fight overseas. In fact, the former president of Pride FC, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, founded Rizin.
Check out the video above.
Contact Heidi Fang at [email protected]. Follow @HeidiFang on Twitter.Share. The last son and daughter of Krypton and Earth are back. The last son and daughter of Krypton and Earth are back.
Today on IGN's Comic-Con live stream show, DC Comics co-publishers Jim Lee an Dan Didio revealed three new comics spinning out of Convergence.
Superman: Lois and Clark
At the end of DC's Convergence event, an alternate universe Superman, joined by Lois Lane and their newborn son, went back in time to help save the day. Their mini-series was one of the highlights of the entire Convergence event, so it's nice to see this thread picked up on again. Nine years after Convergence, we'll pick back up with the family trio and learn about how their lives have changed. That black Superman costume certainly looks ominous...
Here's the official synopsis:
Written by Dan Jurgens | Art by Lee Weeks | On-sale October 14
Following the epic events of CONVERGENCE, here are the adventures of the last son and daughter of Krypton and Earth as they try to survive in a world not their own. But can they keep this world from suffering the same fate as their own? Can this Superman stop the villains he once fought before they are created on this world? What is Intergang, and why does Lois’s discovery of it place everyone she loves in jeopardy? And what will happen when their nine-year-old son learns the true identity of his parents?
Telos
The initial villain of Convergence was Telos, only for him to have a change of heart by the end of the story. He'll be getting his own series by Convergence writer Jeff King. We saw that he had a much different life once, so now we'll get a chance to learn more about it. Admittedly, the lack of substance for Telos' character was a sticking point for Convergence readers, which now makes this a second chance to do right.
Written by Jeff King | Art by Carlo Pagulayan and Jason Paz | On-sale October 7
The villain of the world-shattering CONVERGENCE event stars in his own new series! Set loose from his planetary tether at the end of the best-selling CONVERGENCE, Telos finds himself free and able to traverse space and time via a sliver of Brainiac’s powers. As this epic begins, he embarks on an odyssey, journeying across time and space in search of his past.
Titans Hunt
Another look at alternate universe characters, this time the Teen Titans. Dan Abnett on anything is good news, so keep an eye out for this one.
Written by Dan Abnett | Art by Paulo Siqueira | On-sale October 21
CONVERGENCE is over, but the ripples are still being felt, especially by a young precog named Lilith. What are these visions she’s having of a Teen Titans team the world never knew? And why does she feel compelled to seek out Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, Donna Troy and an Atlantean named Garth and warn them that something dark and sinister is coming after them? Who are Mal, Gnarrk, Hank Hall and Dawn Granger, and what is their connection to the others—and to the fate of every soul on Earth? This is the Secret History of the TEEN TITANS!
Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Game of Thrones, Green Lantern, or Super Smash Bros. are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter and IGN.While other commodities are floundering or completely collapsing in this market, lithium—the critical mineral in the emerging battery gigafactory war—is poised to explode, and going forward Nevada is emerging as the front line in this pending American lithium boom.
Most of the world’s lithium comes from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Australia and China, but American resources being developed by new entrants into this market have set up the state of Nevada to become the key venue and proving ground for game-changing trade in this everyday mineral. Nevada is about to get a boost first from Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) upcoming battery gigafactory, and then from all of its rivals.
For several years, experts have been predicting a lithium revolution, and while investors were being coy at first, the reality of the battery gigafactories is now clear, and nothing has hit this home more poignantly than Tesla’s recent supply agreements with lithium providers who will be the first beneficiaries of this boom, followed by a second round of lithium brine developers that are climbing quickly to the forefront.
As Jeb Handwerger—founder of Gold Stock Trades—recently told the Resource Investor: “This is just the beginning. We’re in the early stages of a revolution in powering transportation and homes. This really is disruptive technology. Annual growth in the battery space could be around 20 percent, which means that demand could double every five years. These batteries make smartphones, laptops, tablets, electric cars and even solar energy practical.”
Related: Six Reasons Natural Gas Prices Are Staying Down
Tesla—which will require large quantities of lithium at cheaper prices–has already signed agreements to purchase lithium from Canadian Bacanora Minerals Ltd and British Rare Earth Minerals Plc. in Mexico but has indicated that it is looking closer to home, and particularly in Nevada, which is ground zero for Tesla’s battery units.
For Nevada, there can be no more significant validation than Tesla’s lithium supply agreements. Albemarle Corp. already has the producing Rockwood mine, but Tesla and other gigafactory contenders are concerned about new lithium resources.
And the newest entrant on this scene—Dajin Resources Corp – has two projects in Nevada, only a short distance from Albemarle’s Rockwood producing mine and in close proximity to Pure Energy Mineral’s lithium development project, which just signed a preliminary supply agreement with Tesla.
Focused on the exploration of energy metal projects, Dajin has strategically located targets in Nevada, including over 3,800 acres in Alkali Lake, which is only 12 kilometers from the producing Rockwood Lithium Mine. It also has the Teels Marsh project, which covers over 3,000 acres in the Mineral County desert lake basin and is about 80 kilometers away from producing mines and new exploration targets that are all on the site of a volcanic eruption that many believe could have contributed lithium.
Related: Is Russia Plotting To Bring Down OPEC?
Where future supplies are concerned, investors will be looking closely at Dajin, which is 100% self-owned and operated. If it can post similar success in terms of exploring lithium brine, it could easily pop up as a favorite stock on investors’ radar.
And the brine is the place to be, putting Nevada at the front line of the North American lithium revolution at a time when other minerals are collapsing. The lithium, found in salty water, or brines, is the most cost-effective on the market; it’s cheap and easy to extract, giving competing battery gigafactories new, affordable American lithium resources that will be a global game-changer.
At the end of the day, Nevada has enough lithium brine to earn it a place among the key global venues—a list that for now includes the “Lithium Triangle” of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, as well as China.
When it comes to lithium, “it’s all just talk if you don’t have an aquifer and a closed deep basin containing lithium,” says Dajin CEO Brian Findlay. “There aren’t many American properties out there like ours.”
Without lithium, there will be no battery gigafactories. In fact, one of these factories alone will need 15,000 tons of lithium carbonate a year just to get started—and the first is slated to come online as soon as next year.
Related: BP Spells Out What’s Wrong With Big Oil In One Chart
Construction has already started on Tesla’s battery factory, where the assembly lines are expected to churn out enough lithium-ion batteries for 500,000 electric cars, according to Fortune magazine, and it should be operating at full capacity by 2020.
And the Tesla gigafactory is just the tip of this overall iceberg.
According to a report from the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, more than one million electric vehicles will be on the road globally by the end of this year—that means a spike in lithium demand, which Roskill consulting and research predicts will more than double from 2012 to 2017.
Even more than hybrid cars, grid storage and the ‘powerwall’ will drive lithium demand through the roof. In an interview with Reuters, General Electric said it expected this sector to quadruple to $6 billion by 2020 thanks to rising demand for industrial battery systems driven by increasing reliance on intermittent energy sources, such as wind and solar power, as well as the potential to add energy to the grid quickly when power needs spike.
Now the game is all about new resources—and specifically, American resources, with all eyes on the brine. Tesla knows this, and so do its competitors. Investors who know this will get in on the game before these new entrants start producing.
By James Stafford of Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:Some of Hillary Clinton’s emails on her private server contained information so secret that senior lawmakers who oversee the State Department cannot read them without fulfilling additional security requirements, Fox News has learned.
The emails in question, as Fox News first reported earlier this week, contained intelligence classified at a level beyond “top secret.” Because of this designation, not all the lawmakers on key committees reviewing the case have high enough clearances.
A source with knowledge of the intelligence review told Fox News that senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite having high-level clearances, are among those not authorized to read the intelligence from so-called “special access programs” without taking additional security steps -- like signing new non-disclosure agreements.
These programs are highly restricted to protect intelligence community sources and methods.
As Fox News previously reported, a Jan. 14 letter from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III to senior lawmakers said an intelligence review identified "several dozen" additional classified emails -- including specific intelligence from "special access programs" (SAP).
That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the Democratic presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.
Fox News is told that the reviewers who handled the SAP intelligence identified in Clinton’s emails had to sign additional non-disclosure agreements even though they already have the highest level of clearance -- known as TS/SCI or Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented information. This detail was first reported by NBC News.
This alone seems to undercut the former secretary of state’s and other officials’ claims that the material is "innocuous."
In an interview with NPR, Clinton claimed the latest IG finding doesn’t change anything and suggested it was politically motivated.
“This seems to me to be, you know, another effort to inject this into the campaign, it's another leak,” she said. “I'm just going to leave it up to the professionals at the Justice Department because nothing that this says changes the fact that I never sent or received material marked classified.”
Despite Clinton's claims, it is the content that is classified; the markings on the documents do not affect that.
A former Justice Department official said there is another problem -- warnings from State Department IT employees and others that she should be using a government account.
“If you have a situation where someone was knowingly violating the law and that they knew that what they were doing was prohibited by federal law because other people were saying, you're violating the law, knock it off, and they disregarded that advice and they went ahead, that's a very difficult case to defend,” Thomas Dupree said.This preliminary program is subject to change.
Daniel Teichmann, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany, Wolfgang Arlt, Chair of Separation Science and Technology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany and Peter Wasserscheid, Chemical Reaction Engineering, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
This lecture describes a concept for the establishment of a competitive energy distribution network based on Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carrier (LOHC) compounds. These compounds are characterized by the fact that they can be loaded and un-loaded with considerable amounts of hydrogen in a cyclic process. This concept links the technical challenge of storing temporary and local energy over-production from regenerative sources with the vision of a sustainable, hydrogen-based mobility. The proposed LOHC compounds have many physico-chemical similarities to Diesel. Thus, LOHCs could make use of the existing energy infrastructure (e.g. tank ships, storage tanks or fueling stations) and enable a slow and step-wise replacement of the existing hydrocarbon fuels by alternative LOHC fuels. We consider LOHCs as an attractive way to provide wind and solar energy for mobility applications in the form of liquid energy carrying molecules of similar energy storage densities and manageability as today’s fossil fuels.
Extended Abstract: File UploadedGoogle Chrome may eventually hide long URLs from the address bar. That is, if a recent update to Google's experimental browser is any indication.
A recent update to Chrome's publicly available Canary browser added a feature that hides long URLs. Instead, when users view webpages, the browser only reveals the website name and domain, not the entire URL.
If this sounds familiar, this is similar to the mobile version of Safari, which already hides the full URL in iOS 7 by default. In the Safari app, the address bar only displays the website name and domain, e.g. yahoo.com, not the entire URL— regardless of where on the website you navigate to. To view or select the full URL, users must tap the address bar.
Similarly, if the new feature in Canary is enabled, users can only see the entire URL by clicking on the domain name, what's technically called the "origin chip," which brings up the full URL for users to view or edit.
With Canary's new feature enabled, only a simplified version of a URL is displayed int he browser bar. Here, only the website name appears, not the entire URL. Image: Yahoo
Canary is Google's experimental version of Chrome. The Chrome team updates it daily with new features, many of which have not been previously tested. Google often uses it to test new features and builds before even rolling them out to the Chrome Dev Channel.
Given its experimental nature, seeing this URL tweak in Canary doesn't necessarily mean this is a feature Google is considering for the full version of Chrome but should Canary's small user base react positively, it could get a full launch.Although it's not exactly shocking to hear of yet another homeland security application that seems to border on Big Brother, Lockheed Martin's High Altitude Airship could keep an elevated eye on 600 miles of US countryside at any given time, and if all goes as planned, we'll have 11 of these things floating over our everyday activities by the end of the decade. The HAA prototype is a ginormous airship that measures 17-times larger than the Goodyear rendition we're all used to seeing above sporting events, and is designed to hover 12 miles above the earth in order to keep tabs on what's happening below. The airship is slated to be solar-powered and should stay in a geocentric orbit for "up to a year," and if equipped with high-resolution cameras, a single one could cover everything "between Toledo, Ohio and New York City." While Lockheed Martin is thrilled with the $40 million project they've been awarded, it's certainly understandable to get a little worried about how these blimps will actually be used, but a company spokesperson suggested then an entire fleet could actually be used for "border surveillance" -- and hey, we need a little help down there anyway, right?
[Via Fark]CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – The Big South Conference today introduces its new brand identity that epitomizes the league’s strong commitment to its student-athletes and re-establishes the Conference’s vitality, personality and longstanding success in NCAA Division I collegiate athletics under a new mantra – “Where Winners Are Made.”
“Today marks a momentous day for the Big South Conference, as it is with tremendous pride that we share with you our new Big South brand,” said Kyle Kallander, Commissioner of the Big South Conference. “This new identity solidifies the shared commitment of our member institutions in developing student-athletes for considerable life successes. It represents and boldly declares the profound effects of hard work, premier NCAA Division I collegiate athletics opportunities, and boundless academic potential.”
New York-based SME, an award-winning national branding agency, spearheaded the complete overhaul and most comprehensive rebrand in the 33-year history of the Big South Conference. The rebrand includes a new identity featuring an adjusted color scheme, the introduction of a secondary logo and an extensive advertising campaign to enliven the Conference’s distinct values, its roots in the Southeast region of the United States and its vision for the future.
The foundation of the rebrand was built from the Conference’s Live, Love and Life pillars, which are externally expressed through the Conference’s new “Where Winners Are Made” tagline. Crafted in collaboration with Conference leadership and student-athletes, the tagline (and corresponding #BigSouthMade hashtag) embodies and affirms the Big South’s commitment to developing student-athletes for profound success through Division I collegiate athletics and transformative academics.
The essence and associated elements of the rebrand are expressed through the Conference’s new PSAs. The videos feature Big South student-athletes that exemplify the Conference’s personality and messaging, which were created in collaboration with the Conference’s student-athletes via focus groups and seminars. Moreover, administrators and presidents from all 10 full-time Big South Conference member institutions were deeply involved in building all facets of the new brand.
SME’s creative team — with extensive feedback from the Big South’s constituency — developed the new primary and secondary logos. The new brand identity system places the Conference at the center of the South. It evokes the boldness, resolve and determination of the Conference’s student-athletes. The design, while flexible to accommodate school-specific applications, features a vibrant color palette to symbolize the Big South’s assertiveness and strength. Moreover, the Big South Network trademark, plus additional Conference sub-brands, will also receive a fresh look.
The rebranding campaign was derived from the Big South’s revised Strategic Plan in 2015. It aims to achieve the Conference’s strategic goals of bolstering member institution pride, elevating awareness and recognition both regionally and nationally and positioning the Big South as a first choice for future generations of student-athletes.
To celebrate today’s launch, Big South men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes will wear t-shirts with the new logo and “Where Winners Are Made” mantra throughout warmups over the next 7 days. In addition, t-shirts will be distributed to fans in attendance at all men’s and women’s basketball games while supplies last. The launch will also be celebrated during the Big South’s television games on ASN, ESPNU and ESPN3 from Jan. 14-21, and via numerous Big South student-athlete Snapchat Takeovers.
The Big South’s main digital platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) will deliver most of the new messaging. Future activation around the new identity includes radio spots and outdoor billboards within the Big South geographical footprint for the first time, plus a new “What I’m Made Of” video series sharing the stories of the Conference’s student-athletes.
WHAT’S THE BIG SOUTH?
Founded in 1983, the Big South is an exemplary leader in college athletics, dedicated to developing student-athletes through the pursuit of excellence in the classroom, community and field of play. The league’s growing presence as an NCAA Division I athletic conference is made evident by its multitude of athletic accomplishments, innovative marketing and media partnerships, increased television packages and most importantly, its commitment to fostering the academic, personal, social, athletic and leadership development of its student-athletes. Comprised of 10 member institutions (Campbell University, Charleston Southern University, Gardner-Webb University, High Point University, Liberty University, Longwood University, Presbyterian College, Radford University, UNC Asheville and Winthrop University, plus football members Kennesaw State University, Monmouth University and the University of North Alabama) sharing a common geographic region and similar academic values and purposes, the Big South’s remarkable history of achievement is characterized by the league’s 19 championship sports and the profound academic and life successes of its more than 4,200 student-athletes. The Big South Conference: Where Winners Are Made.Ubisoft has finally lifted the lid on what this Far Cry Primal business is all about: It's a first-person "shooter" set in the Stone Age and scheduled for release in March 2016.
"Welcome to the Stone Age, a time of extreme danger and limitless adventure, when giant mammoths and saber-toothed tigers ruled the Earth, and humanity was at the bottom of the food chain," the description at FarCryGame.com states. "You will play as Takkar, a seasoned hunter and the last surviving member of your group. You have one goal: survival in a world where you are the prey. Grow your tribe and hone your skills to lead your people, conquer the land of Oros, and become the apex predator. Encounter a cast of memorable characters who can help push back the dangers of the wild. Face enemy tribes who will do anything to eradicate you and your allies."
Read more: Far Cry 5: Lost on Mars review
The reveal trailer is more of a table-setting than a meaningful look at what's in store, but Ubisoft was kind enough to also provide a "behind-the-scenes" video, playing below, that digs deeper into the game. Oros is a "savage and primitive world," filled with numerous dangers, which Takkar will arrive in alone, exhausted, and unarmed. Instead of purchasing weapons, players must craft them, first with wood and stone, and later with more and different resources, for more advanced and powerful equipment, like spears, bows, blades, and clubs. The game world will be large but "dense" with various interacting systems, some of which will be "greatly affected" by the day/night cycle.
So it's Far Cry, but with no firearms and no vehicles. That's a bold move, but one I'm looking forward to, even if it might not be as exciting (no dinosaurs) as some of yesterday's predictions. Far Cry Primal is set to come out in March 2016. Don |
of departure for the demonstrations.
In recent days, Brotherhood protests that once attracted tens of thousands of people at locations across the country have ebbed, suggesting the group's famed organisational strength may have been damaged by the arrest of its leaders. They have also been subject to a violent crackdown on the part of authorities, with at least 900 people reported killed in the last eight days, as security forces have moved to end anti-coup demonstration.
"We will remain steadfast on the road to defeating the military coup," a pro-Morsi alliance called the National
Coalition to Support Legitimacy and Reject the Coup said in a statement.BY: Follow @BillGertz
The Pentagon is bracing for a potential cutoff of its ambitious military exchange program with China next week in response to the latest congressional notification of some $1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.
Defense officials said formal notification of the arms package aimed at bolstering the island’s defenses will be sent to Congress this week. It will include offers to sell two Navy frigates and some 12 AAV-7 amphibious assault tanks. Missiles in the package will include Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin and TOW anti-tank missiles.
The major items in the package are two decommissioned guided-missile frigates, the USS Gary and the USS Taylor. Sale of the Perry-class warships was approved earlier but notification has been delayed for years.
The Obama administration, fearful of upsetting Beijing, rejected offering Taiwan new and more modern F-16 jets in the arms package. The Taiwanese military has sought the new jets for years to replace aging F-16s in its arsenal.
The notification to Congress will be the first arms sale to Taiwan in four years and comes amid growing congressional pressure on the White House to do more to assist Taiwan.
The United States is obligated under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to aid the island’s defense from a mainland attack or invasion. Taiwan split from China in 1949 during the Chinese civil war.
China reacted harshly to the January 2010 arms sale to Taiwan, which was worth $6.4 billion, by cutting off military ties with the U.S. for 10 months. In response to the September 2011 arms package worth some $5.8 billion was relatively muted. A few military exchanges were postponed after the 2011 announcement.
Chinese state-run press reports, a reflection of official views, in recent weeks offered mixed accounts of Beijing’s reaction to the new arms sale. Some official media contained threats of unspecified action. Others boasted that the latest weapons sale will be more limited than in the past, reflecting pressuring from Chinese leaders on the Obama administration to scale back arms transfers.
The Communist Party-affiliated Global Times newspaper warned that new arms sales to Taiwan will undermine U.S.-China ties. But the news outlet also said it regarded that smaller $1 billion sale this year to be a sign that less-advanced arms will be transferred.
"U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have already been surrounded by many new issues, and how the United States plays its cards on this old issue and how China counters will be a pair of moves by both countries on the overall chess board," the Global Times stated.
China’s military newspaper, the PLA Daily, reported Dec. 4 that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have decreased in both numbers and frequency and that U.S. efforts to restore a military balance across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait is impossible.
"The time when the U.S. and Taiwan can conclude arms deals as they wish without paying heed to the mainland is gone," the newspaper stated.
"China has more resources and means to game with the United States," the newspaper stated. "Every time the U.S. sells weapons to Taiwan, even if it’s just a screw for military use, China should make it pay and force it to eventually stop the sale once and for all."
The Pentagon has launched a large-scale military exchange program designed to build trust. However, critics say the exchanges provide valuable intelligence to China on U.S. warfighting capabilities.
"China will be obliged to make pro forma protests and may cancel a military delegation, but the Chinese army has always reaped more intelligence from military-to-military operations with the U.S. than it wants to sacrifice for diplomatic posturing," said John Tkacik, a former State Department official who worked on Chinese affairs.
Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis firm, stated in a recent report that military exchanges between Washington and Beijing are "speeding up" despite tensions over Chinese island-building in the South China Sea. An example was the meeting in Beijing last month between People’s Liberation Army officials and a U.S. Army delegation, in the first army-to-army dialogue.
Stratfor said the new arms sale to Taiwan will be a test for the exchange program. "This will be especially important to watch given China’s stock response to such deals under the previous two administrations: suspending U.S. military-to-military ties," the report said, noting that a suspension of the exchange program is not expected.
Taiwan-mainland ties remain stable. In October, President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan met in Singapore with President Xi Jinping of China. It was the first meeting between the two leaders. Ma pressed Xi on the nearly 2,000 Chinese missiles deployed within striking range of Taiwan and was told the missiles are not targeting the island but are part of China’s regional military strategy.
Tkacik said the "Christmas present" of the arms package for Taipei "is a sign that even the Obama administration is alarmed by China’s expanding hegemony in East Asia."
An Obama administration official said arms sales are part of a U.S. strategy toward Taiwan he described as "deter an attack, and if deterrence fails, delay until the cavalry arrives."
Discussions with Taiwanese officials in recent years on arms transfers have included possible sales of anti-ship missile, drone aircraft, sea mines and mine-clearing gear, and cooperation with U.S. special operations forces.
Larry Wortzel, a former military intelligence official, said he expected China’s leaders to issue strong rhetorical and symbolic reactions to the arms sale and accuse the United States of undermining Chinese sovereignty and promoting regional U.S. hegemony.
"In a symbolic protest, the People’s Liberation Army, for some period of time, will cancel senior officer visits or exchanges as well as some form of military contacts," Wortzel said. "Bilateral trade, however, is unlikely to be affected and Beijing will continue its campaign of cyber espionage and forced technology transfers."
Michael Pillsbury, a longtime Pentagon consultant on China, said the modest arms sale could be viewed by Beijing as Obama exercising extreme restraint and possibly reacting less harshly.
"Taiwan has requested a much larger arms package in the last few years," he said.
China may show restraint by not disrupting U.S.- China military ties as has been Beijing’s reflex response in the past.
"Our military relations with China have already for the first time been challenged by Congress," Pillsbury said. "Even the smallest disruption by China in this program plays into the hands of China many critics."
Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee last month called on President Obama to boost arms sales to Taiwan even if it disrupts ties with Beijing.
"While recent relations between Taiwan and China have been more encouraging, we remain concerned that China’s ongoing military modernization, and the threat it poses to peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, is not being adequately addressed," McCain stated in a letter co-signed by Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The senators urged approval of new weapons, including advanced F-16s.
Earlier this month, two members of Congress, Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) and Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation that would require the administration to speed up the transfers of the two Navy frigates.
The bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned in its latest annual report that the military balance across the Taiwan Strait has shifted sharply in Beijing’s favor.
"Over the past decade, the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait has shifted significantly in China’s favor; China now enjoys both a quantitative and a qualitative advantage over Taiwan and is capable of conducting a range of military campaigns against Taiwan," the report said.
China has refused to denounce the use of force to reunite the island with the mainland and has focused a major portion of its large-scale military buildup on weapons and forces needed to retake Taiwan.
A Pentagon official said one joke circulating among officials involved in Asian affairs is that the next arms sale to Taiwan will trigger widespread Chinese cyber attacks and theft of U.S. technology.
China has been engaged in a massive theft of data and technology from U.S. government and private sector networks.
A spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, which is heavily involved with the military exchange program with China, did not respond to emails seeking comment.Injury news is really beginning to come to a halt. I moved the MASH Report to just once a week and soon it may go to every other week. To keep it going more regularly, I could look at look at specific injury types and their recovery rates. I would like to run analysis on different injuries like I did with groins today. If there are any specific injury cases you want compared, please let me know in the comments. Next week, I will probably look at pitchers who recently had Tommy John surgery, but I could use other injury types as the off-season goes on.
• The big injury news of the week was Miguel Cabrera having groin surgery which altered his game at the season’s end. He basically could not lift his front leg (source):
“The doctor said he didn’t understand how I could have played with so much pain,” Cabrera told Rojas. “It hurt so much that I almost couldn’t lift my right leg, and that was the reason I couldn’t reach the outside fastballs at the end of the season.”
Cabrera looks to be rehabbing for 6-8 weeks. Froglegs Jackson asked in a MASH comment last week, what should we expect from Cabrera going forward. First, remember he will be 31-years-old with a skill set on the decline.
Second, how will the groin injury affect him. My injury database doesn’t have a ton of information on in-season surgeries and no off-season ones. I was able to put together a list of hitters who had groin surgery and/or missed 45 days or more because of a groin issue. Here are the results (average age of player at time of injury was 31-years-old)
Time frame AVG OBP SLG ISO Year Before to Year of Injury -0.018 -0.016 -0.032 -0.014 Year of Injury to Year After Injury -0.004 -0.006 -0.009 -0.005 Year Before to Year After Injury -0.012 -0.012 -0.020 -0.008 Normal Aging Factors (30 to 32) -0.006 -0.004 -0.014 -0.008
The projections during the injury season were down quite a bit. I am not surprised with these values at all. Hitters would try to play through the injury, like Cabrera did, and their game would suffer. Looking at the numbers from the season’s before and after the injury (compared to the normal aging factors), AVG seemed to be affected the most. While OBP and SLG are down, it looks to be driven by the AVG decline. The player’s ISO declined by the normal aging factor.
In all, I don’t expect the groin to be a problem for Miguel Cabrera in 2014.
• Josh Reddick had wrist surgery and expects to be back to 100% by spring training.
• A trio of Nationals, Stephen Strasburg, Adam LaRoche and Bryce Harper, all underwent successful minor surgeries. Each should be full recovered by the time spring training rolls around.
Possible Players on the DL to Start the 2014 Season
(*) 15 Day Disabled List
(**) 60 Day Disabled List
(***) 7 Day Concussion List
(****) Free Agent
Red colored entries are updates since last report.
Major League Report
Minor League ReportAddressing a group of students and government officials at an American cultural center in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, Secretary of State John Kerry called climate change perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction. (U.S. Department of State)
Addressing a group of students and government officials at an American cultural center in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, Secretary of State John Kerry called climate change perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction. (U.S. Department of State)
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, calling climate change perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction, urged developing nations on Sunday to do more to cut greenhouse-gas emissions as he derided climate-change skeptics at home and blamed big companies for hijacking the debate.
Kerry painted a picture of looming drought and famine, massive floods and deadly storms as a result of global warming, and he urged ordinary citizens in developing nations to speak out on the issue and demand more from their political leaders. He labeled those who denied the evidence of climate change as “shoddy scientists and extreme ideologues.”
He was addressing a group of students and government officials at an American cultural center in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in a country and region that he said were “on the front lines of climate change” and some of the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that the entire way of life here is at risk,” he said.
Global efforts to counter climate change have long foundered on a sharp divide between developed and developing nations. Although developing nations now account for more than half of greenhouse-gas emissions, they have been reluctant to commit to meaningful cuts as they seek a path to Western industrialization and prosperity. They argue the West caused the problem and should fix it.
But Kerry, who has spent much of his long political career calling for more action on the issue, said that every country needed to play a role in cleaner energy or the world would face a calamitous future, calling climate change “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”
“It’s absolutely true that industrialized countries have to play a leading role in reducing emissions, but that doesn’t mean other nations have the right to repeat the mistakes of the past. It’s not enough for one country or even a few countries to reduce emissions when other countries continue to fill the atmosphere with carbon pollution as they see fit,” he said.
“If even one or two major economies neglects to respond to this threat, it will counteract all of the good work that the rest of the world does. When I say we need a global solution, I mean we need a global solution.”
China and the United States are the world’s largest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, accounting for about 40 percent. Indonesia, a country of around 240 million people, is in the top 10 sources of carbon emissions globally, largely as a result of deforestation, and is also a major coal exporter. But like many developing nations, Indonesia, an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, has a lot to lose from global warming.
Kerry said scientists predicted that melting ice caps could push sea levels up by more than three feet by the end of the century, putting half of Jakarta underwater and displacing hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Changes in ocean temperatures and acidification of the seas could also reduce fish catches in Indonesia by as much as 40 percent, he said, while typhoons such as the one that struck the Philippines last year could become the norm and “wipe out entire communities.”
There was still time to act to address the problem, but the window was closing, Kerry said. The problem was not finding a scientific solution, but a lack of political resolve.
“Today, I call on all of you here in Indonesia and concerned citizens around the world to demand that resolve from your leaders. Speak out. Make climate change an issue that no public official can ignore another day. “
A similar call to arms in a speech in India last year failed to have any impact, but Kerry said he would be telling U.S. diplomats all over the world to make climate change a priority from now on.
Kerry spent a considerable portion of his speech spelling out the scientific consensus behind climate change, which he said was almost as conclusive as the gravity that caused an apple to fall from a tree or the laws of thermodynamics that meant your hand would burn when touching a hot stove. Ninety-seven percent of the world’s scientists agree that the climate was heating fast up as a result of human activity, he said, and the world needed to listen — and act.
“We simply don’t have time to let a few loud interest groups hijack the climate conversation,” he said, blaming big companies that “don’t want to change and spend a lot of money” to stop people acting to reduce the risks.
“First and foremost, we should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts,” Kerry told the audience. “Nor should we allow any room for those who think that the costs associated with doing the right thing outweigh the benefits.”
“The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand,” Kerry said. “President Obama and I both believe we don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.”
Eight of the 10 hottest years on record have all happened within the past decade, he said. “Or think about this way: All 10 of the hottest years on record have actually happened since Google went online in 1998.”
Kerry arrived in Indonesia from China, where he secured a commitment from the leadership to liaise more closely with Washington on the issue. “I’m pleased to tell you China agrees with the United States that it’s time to pursue a cleaner path forward,” he told the audience.
The United States and China have traditionally been on opposing sides of the table in global climate-change talks. The hope is that the message that the two are now talking less confrontationally about the issue will also encourage other major developing nations such as India, Indonesia and Brazil to treat the problem more seriously.
“Given China and the United States are the two biggest emitters, there is no question that continued coordination on climate change sends a strong message to the world that this an issue we need to address now,” said a senior State Department official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
But the Obama administration’s credibility, and Kerry’s own personal credibility, on the issue of climate change face a severe test in coming months, as they have to decide whether to give the go-ahead to a $5.4 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline to bring Canadian crude oil to U.S. refineries.
The State Department’s own environmental assessment of the project concluded last month that the project would not significantly add to greenhouse-gas emissions, but environmentalists disagree, and some argue that approval would shred Obama’s claim to be a global leader on climate change.Tunisia’s tennis federation ordered the country’s top player to withdraw from a match against an Israeli at a tournament in Uzbekistan.
Malek Jaziri had been scheduled to play Israel’s Amir Weintraub on Friday in the quarterfinals of an ATP Challenger tournament in Tashkent. He withdrew before the match and Weintraub advanced to the semifinals of the lower-tier event.
“Following a meeting this afternoon with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, I have the immense regret to inform you that you are ordered not to play against the Israeli player,” the federation said in an email to Jaziri.
The email was provided to Tunisia’s state news agency by Jaziri’s brother, Amir.
Sports ministry spokesman Sadok Touati confirmed to The Associated Press that the federation sent the email after consulting the ministry.
“The ministry does not interfere in the affairs of the sports federations,” he said.
The federation president could not be reached for comment.
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In an interview with a local radio station, Amir Jaziri said he and his brother were afraid the decision could harm the player’s career. He is ranked 169th in the world.
Arab countries have for the past decades observed to varying degrees boycotts against Israeli athletes in protest over the situation of the Palestinians.
Shlomo Glickstein, director of Israel’s tennis association, said in a statement it was sad such incidents still occur.
“It’s a pity for the athletes who get caught up in these situations that end up hurting their personal career,” he said.
The ATP, the ruling body of men’s tennis, said it was in touch with the International Tennis Federation.
“There’s a clear distinction between the ATP’s jurisdiction over players and the ITF’s over federations,” ATP spokesman Simon Higson said. “We are looking into the specific circumstances of the case together with the ITF and will act accordingly.”
ITF spokesman Nick Imison said his group would write to the Tunisian federation this weekend to learn about the circumstances.
“The ITF believes that sport fosters good collaboration between nations. And, as such, players should be able to compete freely on the international circuit,” Imison said. “If a federation were responsible for a player not taking part that would go against the ethos of the organization and against the ITF constitution.”
He said it was unclear what, if any, sanctions could be imposed.
“The most important thing going forward is for Tunisian players to be able to play freely against any opponents in the future,” Imison said. “That is the aim of all the tennis governing bodies.”
Israel's Amir Weintraub at the World Group play-off Davis Cup tennis in Antwerp, Belgium, Sept. 15, 2013. APon-screen and broadcasting roles will go to women
One in six of all on-screen BBC roles must go to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or disabled people by 2020, the corporation's new diversity targets state.
In a bid to deter criticism that it has been failing to reflect its audience, the BBC has pledged that LGBT and disabled people will each make up eight per cent of all on-air and on-screen roles.
The new targets follow a heated debate in the House of Commons led by David Lammy MP on the issue of the broadcaster's diversity.
The BBC's new diversity targets follow a debate in the House of Commons led by David Lammy MP (pictured) on the issue of the broadcaster's diversity
Fifty per cent of all on-screen and broadcasting roles will go to women, who already make up 48.5 per cent of the BBC's total workforce.
However, the BBC will still be able to commission shows where the main roles are more likely to be male-dominated.
Radio 2, which has a particularly male-dominated line-up of broadcasters, including DJs and presenters Chris Evans, Simon Mayo, Jeremy Vine and Bob Harris, faces an overhaul.
Last year, a review by the BBC Trust, the corporation's watchdog, found that six stations - including Radio 2 - raised concerns that they were failing ethnic minority audiences.
Radio 2, which has a particularly male-dominated line-up of broadcasters, including Chris Evans (left) and Simon Mayo (right), faces an overhaul
Radio 2 was highlighted as having particular difficulties in attracting non-white listeners.
It was said to reach an average of only 12 percent of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) adults each week, compared to 35 percent for all adults.
The BBC's target for 15 per cent of on-screen and on-air representation, including lead roles, to be people from BAME backgrounds will not be increased by 2020, as the current percentage reflects the UK's population.
Currently 13.1 per cent of the BBC's workforce is from a BAME background, with the same target of 15 per cent by 2020.
A statement from a BBC spokesperson said: 'We are making good progress in our work to make the BBC a truly diverse organisation, but there's more to do and we're always keen to improve.
'Almost half of our workforce is made up of women and the proportion of our workforce who are black, Asian and other ethnic minorities is at an all-time high.
'We'll continue doing what works but also develop new and innovative ideas to do even better, and we'll set this out in our new diversity strategy shortly.'
The BBC's royal charter, due to expire this year, is currently under Government review
In a statement on the BBC's website, Tunde Ogungbesan, head of diversity, inclusion and succession at the BBC, said: 'The BBC is a diverse organisation, whichever way you look at it.
'Almost half of our workforce is made up of women and the proportion of our black, Asian and other ethnic minorities in our workforce is at an all-time high.
'But there is more to do and we know the challenge we face so we’ll be building on this strong platform by continuing doing what works.
In a statement on the BBC's website, Tunde Ogungbesan (pictured), head of diversity, inclusion and succession at the BBC, said: 'The BBC is a diverse organisation, whichever way you look at it'
'Later this month we’ll be launching our new diversity strategy full of new and innovative ideas for our audiences, for our people and with our partner to do even better between now and 2020.'
The BBC said that by 2020 it hopes to'meet or better' other major broadcasters when it comes to representing the national population.
Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy Ed Vaizey confirmed that diversity will be prominent in the White Paper on the BBC's new charter, which will be unveiled by Culture Secretary John Whittingdale in May.CHICAGO -- Hundreds of people marched on Saturday on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue carrying crosses representing murder victims in the city, CBS Chicago reports.
"60 Minutes" investigates rising violence in Chicago and what's being done to stop it
On the crosses were the names of nearly 800 people lost to street violence in 2016.
Those carrying them -- some family members, others strangers -- stretched for about a city block. The only sound was the reading of each name.
Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Chicago priest, organized the memorial.
“The reason we’re on Michigan Avenue is because this is a Chicago problem,” Pfleger said. “And until everybody in Chicago decides it’s their problem we’re not going to end it.”
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement early on Sunday that 2016 witnessed “an unacceptable rise in violence.” There were 762 murders, 3,550 shooting incidents and 4,331 shooting victims in the year alone, the department said.
The rise in violence is similar to increases in other major cities nationwide including San Diego, Boston, San Antonio, San Jose, Austin, Memphis and Indianapolis, the department said, citing reports from the Brennan Center for Justice and the University of Chicago Crime Lab. Attacks on Chicago Police Department officers nearly doubled last year, which also reflects nationwide trends, the department said.
Officers made 10 percent more gun arrests in 2016 than in 2015, and they recovered 8,300 guns -- a 20 percent increase from the year prior, the Chicago Police Department said.
Pfleger said he hopes Saturday’s visual will put others into action to prevent violence in 2017.
“The last day of the year we will remember all of who’ve been shot and killed in 2016 (and prior),” Pfleger said in a statement. “We want to break the cycle of violence for 2017!”
Before the march, Kelly Fitzgerald Clark found a cross with the name of her late husband. She cried as her son waded into a sea of crosses and retrieved it.
“We thought nobody cared,” she said. “I lost my husband in February. Homicide. We didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
She looked over the crosses stretching into the distance and said it was “unbelievable.”
Greg Zanis, of Aurora, made the crosses, each standing about 3 feet tall and bearing a name of a person shot and killed in Chicago last year.
“I just want to tell everybody my heart’s broken for you,” Zanis said. “I don’t know what else to do but I did a little bit of work for you guys.”
After the march, the more than 760 crosses were to be placed in a vacant lot on the city’s South Side.
The rally took place as loved ones mourned the loss of Yuri Hardy, one of the latest shooting victims. He was shot Wednesday night in the Austin neighborhood while on his way home from a dance competition and died Friday morning.
Family and friends held a candlelight vigil Friday night to remember the 19-year old, who was an honor student at Urban Prep Academy and expected to graduate in June, Hardy’s sister told CBS Chicago. Hardy’s dance team also performed in his honor on Friday night.
“Yuri was an amazing kid, he died doing what he loved, dancing,” said Kenyatta Horton, Hardy’’s sister. “He was excited about going to prom, he was excited about going to college.”
Chicago police said they are investigating the shooting, but so far, no one is in custody.
Since Hardy’s death, at least one other person died in gun violence -- and more than a dozen people were wounded. One man died and 21 others were injured in shootings on New Year’s Eve and on January 1, Chicago police said, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Police said they have plans for fighting violence in 2017.
“The Chicago Police Department will be implementing a series of initiatives that aim to reduce violence, increase the capability of our police officers, and build public trust,” the department said.
The strategy involves district-based intelligence centers and emphasis on creating a culture of accountability for repeat violent offenders. Nearly 1,000 officers will also be added to the Chicago Police Department by 2018, among other measures, the department said.
“The challenge we face as a city is serious, and like other cities it is significant,” Superintendent Eddie Johnson said. “We will be adding to our police department, we are committed to partnering with residents, we will benefit from the investments being made by the Mayor, and if we come together and work together I know we can turn the tide in 2017.”Removing Economic Barriers to Harvard
This is simple: anyone can afford Harvard.
We have a long tradition of removing economic barriers for students who want to attend Harvard. Announced in 2004, The Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) is a continuation of this tradition and greatly expands financial aid to families who earn less than $80,000. And, if your family earns less than $65,000 per year, your parents pay nothing for you to attend Harvard. It is simply our effort to make sure you and your family know you can afford to attend Harvard.
There is no special application or qualification necessary—just apply for financial aid when you apply for admission. Applying for financial aid does not hinder your chances for admission.
HFAI serves as a touchstone for individuals looking to learn more about the application and financial aid process.
Want to learn more? Talk to our student coordinators.Share
Agriculture has come a long way in the past century. We produce more food than ever before — but our current model is unsustainable, and as the world’s population rapidly approaches the 8 billion mark, modern food production methods will need a radical transformation if they’re going to keep up. But luckily, there’s a range of new technologies that might make it possible. In this series, we’ll explore some of the innovative new solutions that farmers, scientists, and entrepreneurs are working on to make sure that nobody goes hungry in our increasingly crowded world.
Food is the ultimate technology.
It might not have circuits, touchscreens, or an app store, but of all the tech we’ve ever developed as humans, nothing else has had such a direct and significant impact on our progress as a species.
It was agriculture — the cultivation of edible things — that made it possible for humans to progress from nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes and develop settlements, cities, and civilization in general. Later, advances in agricultural technology — things like grain storage, steel plows, and mechanical threshers — allowed us to produce food surpluses, support larger populations, and colonize every corner of this rich, round planet. Food is undoubtedly one of our greatest technological achievements.
What changes will we need to make to ensure we don’t go hungry in the future?
It’s a double edged sword, though. Our agricultural success has brought humanity to a tipping point. The world’s population is expected to grow by over one third (roughly 2.3 billion people) between 2009 and 2050. To feed all those hungry mouths, global food production will need to scale up in a big way. In a world where oceans are already overfished, arable land is increasingly scarce, and climate change makes crop yields unstable and unpredictable, doing so will almost certainly be an uphill battle.
How do we boost production to meet the planet’s rising demand for food without exacerbating the problems modern agriculture already faces? Can we continue on our current trajectory without destroying the ecosystems and depleting the resources that sustain us? What changes will we need to make to ensure we don’t go hungry in the future?
There’s no simple answer to these questions, but as always, recent technological innovations provide a grain of hope. Just as inventions like the tractor, the sprinkler, and chemical fertilizers helped farmers meet rising demand in the past, new technologies might help us in the future. Right now scientists all over the globe are leveraging a new generation of technological tools — things like gene editing, artificial intelligence, and flying robots — to ensure that our food future is secure.
Many of the solutions we’re working on sound like they’re plucked straight from the pages of a sci-fi novel. Germany has developed a weed-killing robot that intelligently plucks individual weeds to reduce reliance on herbicides. Tokyo has a vertical farm that uses LEDs and hydroponics to produce thousands of heads of lettuce each day. In the United States, there are at least half a dozen startups racing to create lab-grown meat.
Throughout the next two weeks, Digital Trends will take you on a tour of these new technologies, and offer an inside look at some of the most innovative ideas in agriculture right now. Starting today, we’ll publish one feature per day — each of which will highlight a different technology, trend, or idea that’s reshaping the Future of Food. This series will cover everything from shrimp farming to robotic bees, and plenty in between — so you won’t want to miss it! Be sure to circle back to this page every so often, or sign up for our newsletter if you’d prefer to have articles delivered directly to your inbox. Enjoy!MILAN — Knowing Silvio's reputation, Matteo wants him to sign a prenup.
As Italy heads toward a March general election, the two major right-wing parties —Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini's Northern League — hope to join forces in a coalition to maximize their chances of winning individual constituencies, which have taken on more importance since the introduction of a new electoral law, and taking power from Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's Democratic Party (PD).
The deal is almost done, but there is one small detail stalling the negotiations: The charismatic 44-year-old leader of the Northern League fears that the rejuvenated 81-year-old Berlusconi is already eying up the PD. To avoid this scenario, Salvini wants the three-time premier to put his commitment to the coalition deal in writing — which Berlusconi has so far refused to do.
With the Italian political landscape highly fragmented, and dire predictions of ungovernability abounding, the current front-runners in the opinion polls are the anti-establishment 5Star Movement (currently polling at 29 percent) and just one point behind them — the PD, which is still run by Gentiloni's hyperactive predecessor as premier, Matteo Renzi. However, neither party appears to have a realistic chance of reaching the 40 percent level of support needed to establish a governing majority and the 5Stars have diagnosed themselves as allergic to coalitions of any sort.
That means a right-wing coalition of Forza Italia, the Northern League and some smaller partners actually have a better chance of forming the next government, if they can get their act together. The latest polls put them on 36 percent — closer to the crucial 40 percent mark.
Unhelpfully, Berlusconi's Forza Italia is quite blatant about the fact that it already has a Plan B.
“If the coalition wins, which is what we're hoping for, Salvini will have nothing to fear,” said one Forza Italia official, adding: “If we do not win, of course the natural thing would be to inquire about a coalition with others, but it's not something we're really planning.”
Runaway bride?
Berlusconi himself chose a book presentation last week to blurt out that if the election doesn't result in a clear majority for either side, keeping the popular Gentiloni as prime minister might be the best option for Italy.
That opens the door to Salvini's worst nightmare: a grande coalizione between Berlusconi and the Democrats, from which the Northern League would be inevitably excluded because it would be too extreme for the PD's tastes.
Under Salvini's leadership, the League has gained popularity by moving further to the right and is considering dropping "Northern" from its name to reflect its geographical spread. The party now occupies a roughly similar space to Marine Le Pen's National Front in France.
Salvini has often been quoted by the Italian media saying that he wants to “bring Berlusconi before a notary” (in Italy, notaries are lawyer-like figures who oversee the signing of contracts of all types) to have him ink a pact vowing not to form a grand coalition. Speaking to POLITICO, Salvini said he wants “a clear commitment from Berlusconi,” which would enable the League to push ahead with its own policy priorities such as seeking the repeal of a pension reform.
Democratic Party officials played down talk of behind-the-scenes deals with Berlusconi. “It's all fake news, people are spreading the rumor to make us look bad,” said Stefano Esposito, a senator for the PD.
Whatever wheeling-and-dealing is going on under the surface, a German-style grand coalition is not an unlikely outcome of the coming election (which is widely expected to take place on March 4), said Jacopo Iacoboni, a political analyst at the Italian daily La Stampa.
“Everyone has a backup plan, that's how things work with such political uncertainty," he said. "For Berlusconi, joining a governing coalition with the progressives [PD] would be the most reasonable option, if he doesn't succeed at the elections. The League does not have this option because they cannot join a moderate government. Their backup plan is joining the 5Star Movement.”The NAACP |
data but which pointed to warming. The IEA team stated, “Only one tenth of meteorological sites with complete temperature series are used.”
In Europe higher mountain stations were dropped and thermometers were marched toward the Mediterranean, lower elevations, and more cities. The station dropout was almost 65 percent for Europe as a whole and 50 percent for the Nordic countries.
Africa is not showing warming despite efforts to make it appear so by eliminating thermometers from cool areas like the Moroccan coast and moving them toward the Sahara.
Analyst E. Michael Smith found that most of the stations remaining in the United States are at airports. Most mountain stations of the west are gone. In California the only remaining stations are in San Francisco, Santa Maria, Los Angeles and San Diego.
As recently as 1988, temperature records for China came from over 400 stations. In 1990, only 35.
The raw temperature data show no trend in temperatures in Northern Australia in 125 years. The IPCC, however, uses “adjusted” data. NOAA makes data “adjustments” to remove “inhomogeneities” and for other reasons. The D’Aleo/Watts report says, “We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? NOAA added a huge, artificial, imaginary trend to the most recent half of the raw data.” The raw temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 C. per century. After the NOAA adjustment, the temperatures were rising 1.2 C per century.
NASA applies an “urbanization adjustment,” but Steve McIntyre reveals that NASA made the adjustment in the wrong direction, exaggerating the warming effect instead of showing what the temperatures would be without urban development. NASA is always tampering with its data. John Goetz has shown it “adjusted” 20 percent of its data sixteen times in two and a half years.
Lastly, we take note of the absurdity of recent studies and observations purporting to show that the effects of global warming are already occurring. In a cause-and-effect relationship, the effect cannot occur before the cause. You can’t have effects from global warming when there is no global warming and has been none for over 18 years—despite a massive increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Clearly carbon dioxide emissions have not caused global warming, because the actual temperature records show no warming. Those records have been falsified to justify the global warming doctrine for political purposes.
[Originally published at American Liberty]The Song of Santorum Frederick Clarkson print page Mon Jan 02, 2012 at 12:27:37 AM EST In light of late polls apparently showing Rick Santorum "surging" in Iowa, it seems like a good moment to reprise a post from March, when Santorum visited Massachusetts. Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) who is considering running for president, recently visited Boston, a major hub of Catholic politics and the biggest media market in New England. While minor appearances by non-candidates don't always make the news, Santorum's remarks to a small group of Church partisans made The Boston Globe because he not only denounced our first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy in his home town, but he attacked Kennedy's historic 1960 campaign speech in which he explained his unwavering clarity regarding the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state. Kennedy's position had served as the standard for a half century of political leaders. (See Rob Boston's excellent defense of Kennedy's views on separation.) Santorum has been trying to rebuild his political career since being unseated by Bob Casey (D-PA) in 2006. And while he may not catch fire on the campaign trail, Santorum's bombast in Boston is certainly part of an escalating war of attrition against the principle of separation -- and it may be a bellwether for what we might anticipate in the run-up to the 2012 presidential campaign. The coming battle may very well turn on the details of American history, as we shall see. But in the meantime, let's return to the beginning of our story. The Boston Globe reported "In remarks to about 50 members of the group Catholic Citizenship -- which encourages parishioners to speak out on issues of public policy -- Santorum decried what he called the growing secularization of American public life. He traced the problem to Kennedy's 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which Kennedy - then a candidate for president - sought to allay concerns about his Catholicism by declaring, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." Santorum, who is Catholic, said he was "frankly appalled" by Kennedy's remark. "That was a radical statement," Santorum said, and it did "great damage." Unsurprisingly, Santorum has been a hero to the Catholic Right. According to a 2005 profile in National Catholic Reporter: "To us, he's the preeminent Catholic politician in America," says Austin Ruse, president of the Culture of Life Foundation, a Washington-based pro-life group. The "us" Ruse refers to are conservative Catholics, loyal to the magisterium, to this pope and his predecessor. "He's a living, breathing, daily communicant who's in the Senate leadership so all of us know that the things that we care about are discussed at the highest levels of the U.S. government," says Ruse. If Santorum's Massachusetts appearance is any indication, he is positioning himself as the anti-Kennedy and the epitome of the new Catholic pol. To better appreciate how this is so, note that his remarks are rooted in a little-noticed address he gave last fall in Houston (the text of which is featured on the web site of the neo-conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.) The event was evidently positioned as an answer John F. Kennedy's historic speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in which he declared that as president he would not take orders from the Pope and that he respected the doctrine of separation. Santorum is deeply steeped in revisionist history. But let's focus on just one of his claims. The phrase "wall of separation"... comes from a letter written by a founder who didn't even attend the constitutional convention, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's famous phrase has long stood in the way of the ambitions of the theocratically inclined because the Supreme Court has found it to be useful in explaining the meaning of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. That's why the Religious Right expends so much energy attempting to invalidate it. Part of Santorum's line of attack is to undermine the significance of the phrase by highlighting the fact that Jefferson was not present when the First Amendment was written. While it is true that Jefferson was not around when the First Amendment was written, it is also true that his role as a key architect of our Constitutional approach to the relationship between religion and government is very well-supported by history. Because this is so, facts are being selectively distorted in order to sustain a counter narrative of American history favorable to key elements of the Religious Right. Here is how I addressed the 'Jefferson wasn't there' meme in my 1997 book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy: One Christian Right leader, John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, wrote an influential book, The Separation Illusion, [1977] in which he attack's Thomas Jefferson's notion of the separation of church and state as the key phrase grounding the Supreme Court's understanding of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Whitehead claims that Jefferson's views are irrelevant because Jefferson was not present when the First Amendment was written. Christian Right activist David Barton makes the same point in his book The Myth of Separation: What is the Correct Relationship Between Church and State? [1992] While it is true that Jefferson was, at the time, President Washington's Ambassador to France and was not personally present for the drafting of the Constitution and the First Amendment, his influence is generally acknowledged by historians. In fact, the preponderance of evidence demonstrates the centrality of Jefferson's views in shaping the framer's views of the proper relations between religion and government. In 1777, Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which was ultimately pushed through the Virginia legislature by his close colleague, then-Governor James Madison, in 1786. This law provided the theoretical basis for the First Amendment. Jefferson believed that it was, along with the authoring of the Declaration of Independence and founding the University of Virginia, one of his most important accomplishments. Madison, in turn, is generally credited with being the principal author of both the Constitution and the First Amendment. Historical distortions are a key ingredient in the success of the Christian Right to date. This effort to somehow discredit the historical relevance of Jefferson is part of a larger effort to revise American history to suit their contemporary religious and political objectives.... There are many deceptive propaganda ploys such as Whitehead's to fire up the prospective constituencies of the Christian Right. They are often difficult to address, not only because they can be such a tangle of lies and distortions, but because few outside of their primary intended audience pay much attention. The effect of all this is the systematic alienation of conservative Christians from mainstream society and the creation of a counterculture which believes that somehow "the truth" has been kept from them through various conspiracies. If we follow Santorum's logic, John F. Kennedy's views on separation are invalid because Jefferson's views are invalid because Jefferson was not personally present when Madison authored the Constitution and Congress passed the First Amendment. Whatever else we hear on such things from Santorum, we can reasonably expect to hear many more such things in the not to distant future from Religious Rightists and the pols who pander to them. (John McCain did it last time.)
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The Song of Santorum | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 hidden) comments (10 topical, 0 hidden)Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Natanz is Iran's main uranium enrichment site
Iran says it has shot down an Israeli drone near the Natanz nuclear enrichment site.
The Revolutionary Guards said they fired the missile as the stealth drone approached the area, 300km (185 miles) south of the capital Tehran.
The statement did not say when the drone was brought down, nor how the Guards knew it was Israeli.
World powers are currently negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme.
Tehran insists it wants to keep its nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes, but critics - including many in Israel - say this is a front for producing nuclear weapons.
In the past, Israel has frequently threatened to attack Iran's nuclear plants.
An Israeli military spokesman told the BBC there was no comment or reaction to be given about such foreign reports.
Natanz is Iran's main uranium enrichment site, and contains more than 16,000 centrifuges.
The statement from the Revolutionary Guards said the drone was on course to fly over the nuclear facility at Natanz.
If so, the fact that the drone managed to get so close raises questions about Iran's detection capabilities, says BBC Persian's Rana Rahimpour.An international code-a-thon is set to take place in April on seven continents. And in space. From April 21-23, the 48-hour International Space Apps Challenge (ISAC) will take place in tech hubs and other spaces from San Francisco to Sao Paolo, Jakarta to Antarctica—and aboard the International Space Station. Crew members of the McMurdo Station in Antarctica and the ISS will participate, depending on the days’ work demands. Those who cannot attend at one of the code-a-thon locations are able to register independently to participate online.
ISAC is sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in conjunction with the Second Muse think tank, and in cooperation with other space agencies. During the event, "citizens from around the world will work together to solve current challenges relevant to both space exploration and social need... using minimal resources and maximum brainpower to create outside-the-box solutions in response to interesting problems," according to the organizers.
Participants will form teams and tackle a set of pre-determined challenges that include creating an interface for NASA's planetary data, developing an HTLM5 tablet app for citizen scientists using earth science data from NASA's Earth Observations site, and an open data challenge that will use information from the Kepler space observatory.
One of the intriguing elements of the challenge is the goal to "(e)ngage citizens in countries with little or no investments in space exploration to contribute to space exploration through open source, open data, and code development." This is one of the reasons the challenge is being hosted by, among others, Nairobi, Kenya's iHub. Kenyans are not renowned for their space program but they are well known for their coding chops.
“We recognize that there are skilled and talented developers, makers and creators all around the world and we are excited to see what they can do together when given the data and challenges," Kirsten Painting, NASA’s Project Manager for the Challenge, told Ars.
The challenge, the ISAC leadership says, embraces the spirit of open source development and open government partnership. Part of the reason for that embrace is the sheer magnitude of the data, said Painting.
"We recognize that there is a lot of valuable data available from the space program and one of the things that we want to demonstrate through the International Space Apps Challenge is that there is a lot that can be done with that data when it is publicly available and applied to specific challenges."
The apps created during the Challenge will all be publicly available.
NASA has been engaged with citizen developers and reporters for some time, providing opportunities for live onsite tweeting and live webcasting of launches and creating an open source portal. It has also been the target of hackers, however, and politicians. NASA needs all the help it can gets, and all the partisans. This event should create more of both.Economy CNN boss flies to Nairobi to apologise over terrorism slur
President Uhuru Kenyatta. PHOTO | FILE
American television channel Cable News Network (CNN) has expressed its regret after portraying Kenya as a ‘hotbed of terror’ ahead of a visit to Nairobi by US President Barack Obama last month.
Tony Maddox, the CNN’s global executive vice president and managing director, flew to Nairobi from Atlanta to personally deliver the apology to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Mr Maddox admitted that the description of Kenya as a “hotbed of terror” was both ill fitting and undeserved.
President Kenyatta expressed his disappointment at the story not only on behalf of the government, but also because it angered the people of Kenya.
President Kenyatta reiterated that the war on terror was a global threat, not exclusive to Kenya, and that Kenya’s troops and her people have made great sacrifices and still do, to keep Kenya and the region safe.
President Kenyatta added that the American news channel's misrepresentation of Kenya was unfortunate and ill timed, since it came at a critical moment in Kenya’s history, and because it made a mockery of the sacrifices of Kenya’s men and women in uniform.
"In one stroke, CNN’s description of Kenya as a ‘hotbed of terror’ undermined the sacrifices made by our Kenyan troops, and the value of hundreds of lives lost, and relegated them to nothing. That’s why Kenyans, as expressed by those on Twitter, were so angry. Kenya is nothing like the countries that have real war. There was no reason to portray Kenya in that way,” the President said.
CNN caused a storm on social media after it showed a graphic just days to President Barack Obama’s July visit in which it described Kenya as a “hotbed of terror”.
Mr Maddox oversees CNN’s global editorial policy and manages its news content globally. In his apology Mr Maddox said: “We acknowledge there is a widespread feeling that the report annoyed many, which is why we pulled down the report as soon as we noticed.”
“It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to portray Kenya negatively, it is regrettable and we shouldn’t have done it. There is a world at a war with extremists; we know what a hotbed of terror looks like, and Kenya isn’t one,” Mr Maddox added.Gerard Deulofeu's last return to Barcelona didn't have a happy ending. Deulofeu and Rafinha both returned in 2014-15 after loan spells away from the club, but just a few weeks later, after beginning pre-season with Luis Enrique's side, the former was looking for an exit.
On that occasion, Deulofeu left on loan for Sevilla, frustrated at not getting a first team opportunity with Barça. This time the scenario is different (he has been promised a first team place) but he does not want a backup role with hardly any minutes.
Therefore, his agents have worked on the final details of his contract with the club and the objective is for an exit to be facilitated in the case he doesn't play. In other words: if doesn't get regular football under Ernesto Valverde, the club won't make a move difficult.
The winger has had offers this summer from sides who would give him a key role, but in the end he's taken a chance on returning to Barça to fulfill his dream. The Blaugrana have re-signed him for 12 million euros and he will have a contract until 2019.A screenshot from a video allegedly showing a loitering munition being used to kill Armenian "volunteers" recently. (YouTube/AZERBAIJANI ARMED FORCES Qarabag)
Azerbaijan may be using a new kind of Israeli drone that explodes on impact in its ongoing conflict with Armenia.
The Washington Post unearthed a video that appears to show an Israeli-made “loitering munition” fired by Azerbaijani forces at Armenians in the disputed region Nagorno-Karabakh.
A loitering munition is a drone with a missile attached to it. Unlike other kinds of drones, a loitering munition is a single-use machine: it basically flies directly to its target and explodes upon impact.
The one in the video appears to be a Harop model drone made by Israeli Aerospace Industries, which claims to be “the largest government owned defense and aerospace company in Israel.”
The drone targeted a bus full of Armenian volunteers, killing seven, a spokesman for Armenia's Defense Ministry told Washington Post.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region between Armenia and Azerbaijan which has been the site of a decades-long conflict between the two countries. The conflict displaced over 1 million people in the 1990s, according to the BBC.
Two countries who are on opposite sides of the war in Syria—Russia and Turkey—have been involved in the conflict. Russia has supported Armenians while Turkey the Azeris.
The region has seen an increase in violence in recent weeks, with a number of deaths on both sides.
See the video below of the drone in Nagorno-Karabakh:
Israeli Aerospace Industries’ website has some pretty crazy video of the Harop drone blowing up targets:
--Hunter StuartConsoles like the Super Nintendo and even the Sony PlayStation were out of my reach when they first landed in 1991 and 1995, respectively, largely because of my youth and lack of free cash at both times. I'm sure I wasn't the only kid to look wistfully at consoles like those through department store windows and on the pages of Best Buy and Target Sunday circulars. "The Super Nintendo is here!" they shouted. Cold comfort for any kid whose parents made it very clear that they already had a "Nintendo."
Only one year after the PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 launched in 1996 and became the first console I could afford to buy with my own cash. This week marks exactly 20 years since that system's launch in the United States, and it's a milestone I'll never forget. My initial encounter with the N64 isn't etched in memory just because it coincided with the release of one of the greatest 3D platformers of all time or because it was the first system to ship with four-player modes as a default. For me, it marked the beginning of the rest of my life.
Say "graphics" seven times fast
Before any of my other odd jobs as a teenager (such as soda jerk and record store clerk), I got a job reviewing video games. I hadn't even become an editor of my school newspaper when the Dallas Morning News agreed to pay me $25 an article to review brand-new games (and syndicated those reviews nationally).
For the backstory: in 1996, I was a fresh-faced kid who fueled his 16-bit obsession with a year of free rentals earned from my local Blockbuster's "Video Game Championships" contest in 1993. (I won my local store's contest again in 1994; unfortunately, I also lost both years' "regional" contests.) That's right around when I saw a listing in Dallas' daily newspaper for "teenaged video game critics." I thought I was imagining things. That's a thing? That's a job? For teens? Did they also need someone my age to review pizza and cargo shorts?
I put my Brother word processor to work, on which I furiously typed a cover letter and my first sample review—Earthworm Jim 2, complete with a multi-console breakdown of how it differed on Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. (I don't have the original text anymore, but I would bet serious money that I wrote the phrase "blast processing.") I mailed those to the Dallas Morning News, then got a callback from my eventual editor, who invited me to a meeting where I picked from a giant pile of games. (The pile was mostly junk, so I picked the best-looking game on the pile: the 1996 PC version of Need for Speed.)
This sufficed as a final job test of sorts. Can you meet a deadline? Can you piece together a sentence? Can you use the word "graphics" at least seven times? Presto: you're a columnist! I could send game requests, but I was expected to play whatever crap landed in my mailbox and review roughly two to three games a month.
"I have to start plotting our next few months of coverage," the editor wrote in a contributor-wide memo roughly one week later. "Who has next-gen consoles or is buying them this holiday season?"
I e-mailed him back within seconds to plant my flag: I wanted to be the paper's N64 guy.
By then, I'd worn out a copy of Next Generation magazine with a Super Mario 64 cover feature. I had dumped about a hundred bucks into a nearby burger shop's Killer Instinct cabinet ("coming soon to the Nintendo Ultra 64," it told me countless times). I was obsessed with the dazzling water effects of Wave Race 64. I was under Nintendo's 64-bit spell. I loved the spaceship-looking controller. I beamed the first time I tested the analog joystick at a Blockbuster kiosk. I stared at those bizarre C-buttons, imagining how they'd "transform" games to come. I'd even bought into Nintendo's BS about how much better cartridges would be for games than CDs.
I'm sure I mentioned at least three-fourths of that in my plea. The editor wrote me back later that day with a simple shrug of an e-mail. Like, "Whatever, kid. Let me know when you buy your precious."
What if Lee had been my clerk?
In some cities, including Dallas, the Nintendo 64 launched a full week early thanks to a retail-embargo break by the fine folks at Babbage's (a gaming retail chain where my colleague Lee Hutchinson once worked). With the console's launch looming, I had taken to refreshing the Internet's foremost N64 news resource, N64.com, roughly 12 times a day. (This was before the site succumbed to legal pressure and changed its name to IGN64.com.) I saw news of Babbage's peculiar decision, made a store phone call to confirm, and cashed in a favor from my mother to get a ride to the mall.
I had $220 to my name, a number I'd reached solely by selling some beloved Sega Genesis games to Funcoland the prior week. I would not be able to buy a game, or an extra controller, or a memory pak. Just the $199 system and its tax, please, sir.
Why my mother didn't drive at least 90MPH back to our house, I have no idea. It felt like an eternity waiting to hook my new system up to a TV. I specifically recall the anticipation and hope I had about what would happen when I plugged this system in. Maybe there'd be a fun loading screen, like on the Famicom Disk Drive, or some sort of secret mini-game that launched if the system didn't have a cartridge. Maybe my cash-strapped desperation would reveal some incredible hidden gem.
I believe I tested about 500 button combinations on the N64 controller while staring at its no-cartridge black screen. Sigh.
Ultimately, I had to wait for the console's launch day to get my N64 gaming fix, which is when Nintendo sent me a review copy of Wave Race 64. (As it turns out, the newspaper had received a free N64 console and a copy of Super Mario 64; a grownup staffer claimed those, wrote the Mario review, and never contributed to the column again.) The Dallas Morning News' online archive system is pretty awful, so my Wave Race review is apparently lost to the cosmos, but I do recall hyperbolizing about the game's "realistic" wave system. Wave Race 64 still holds up quite well in terms of recreating the feeling of bumpy-water jet-ski races, but visually, the whole thing looks like a shiny pool of endlessly bubbling gelatin.According to Haughwout, the police responded to the assault in 10 or more vehicles. They first listened to her story in which she claimed Haughwout assaulted her, that he “was taking close ups of people in bikinis” and that she had asked Haughwout to stop flying before calling the police, but he refused.
After hearing her side of the story, the police approached, clearly intending to arrest Haughwout. However, before they could place him under arrest he told the police that he recorded the entire incident. Haughwout stated, “I had video evidence that she went nuts completely unprovoked, and was the one that assaulted me.” He explained how he showed the police the video from his last flight “which proved that she lied when claiming that she asked me to stop flying before calling the police.” Haughwout provided copies of the videos to the police for their use in the case against her.Tamil Nadu Premier League: With Matthew Hayden as mascot, the league's ready to roll
In Tamil Nadu — especially Chennai — cinema and cricket are the favourite pastimes for lakhs of people.
When N Srinivasan, the former BCCI chief, and his Chennai Super Kings (CSK) were ruling the roost, there was an unprecedented craze for the game. Now that Srinivasan is no longer controlling Indian cricket and CSK has been banned from the IPL tournament, the local boys were missing big cricket action.
Srinivasan — who still controls the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) — has now started another T-20 tournament in the state: the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL). Srinivasan’s peer, the lawyer PS Raman (who also heads BCCI’s legal cell) will be the chairman of TNPL.
PS Raman told Firstpost: "Yes, it is going to be a great T-20 tournament, where we will be tapping the potential of the district players in Tamil Nadu. The state has the best league in the country. The short tournament — spanning 23 days will see eight teams competing in three venues — Chennai, Natham (near Madurai) and Tirunelveli across Tamil Nadu.”
TNPL is following the same format as IPL. Eight teams from all over the state representing various towns like Madurai Super Giants, Lyca Kovai Kings, TUTI Patriots, VB Thiruvallur Veerans, Ruby Kanchi Warriors, Chepauk Super Gillies, Dindigul Dragons and Karaikudi Kaalai will take part in the tournament. Nobody can use 'Chennai' as it is reserved for the Chennai Super Kings in IPL.
Former Australian and CSK star batsman Matthew Hayden is now the brand ambassador of TNPL. Wearing a veshti (the lungi in North India), Hayden went across Tamil Nadu key cities promoting the tournament. Hayden also watched Kabali at the popular Albert Theatre in Chennai and said he loved it!
TNPL teams have roped in popular Kollywood celebs to promote their teams. Madurai Super Giants, partly owned by Dhyanidhi Alagiri and the Chennai-based Kothari family flew down former India star batsman Virender Sehwag for a big launch. The launch had popular star Simbu, music directors Anirudh and SS Thaman taking part. All the teams are trying to rope in glamorous Kollywood stars for the three-week tournament which starts on 27 August.
Updated Date: Aug 12, 2016 18:08:42 ISTAt least one other NFL head coach not named Jason Garrett expects Dak Prescott to continue his high level of play in 2017.
"I'm not even talking or discussing sophomore slumps," Saints head coach Sean Payton said on KESN-FM in Dallas earlier this week, via ESPN.com. "I'm looking at cutups and looking at improving and inserting some new thoughts and ideas."
He added: "You shake his hand and you feel like he's a guy who's hard to get off his spot and that's going to serve him well throughout his career. I like the look in his eye. When the game starts and you're watching the game, you feel calm watching him play -- and that's a good trait because you trust him."
While Payton's observation is the type of highly unscientific generality that has come to define offseason football chatter, he's not alone. The inability to completely remove Prescott from the Cowboys' dynamic rushing offense and evaluate him independently has made him an interesting topic to discuss. People have to rely on about 100-150 throws or "moments" that they have decided make Prescott a franchise quarterback in their minds. Others, jaded by the Nick Foles, Derek Andersons, Robert Griffin IIIs, Josh Freemans, Colin Kaepernicks and Kevin Kolbs of the world, prefer a larger sample size.
While I am always a fan of a larger sample size, a Prescott "drop off" would also be dependent on a ton of other factors around him. It could be years before we get a complete picture of the quarterback he can and will be.
Prescott won this year's Rookie of the Year award after throwing for 3,667 yards, 23 touchdowns and four interceptions. In a white-knuckle NFC divisional playoff game, he was 24 of 38 for 302 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.
That alone would leave many Cowboys fans to believe there is no need to worry about the future. But if everyone was sold, we wouldn't be having this conversation about sophomore slumps in the first place.This article is over 1 year old
Australian Council on Social Service rejects ‘myth’ that there has been a significant blowout in welfare budget
The Australian Council on Social Service fears the government is preparing to make savings “on the backs of people doing it toughest” in next week’s budget.
The organisation released a social security snapshot on Wednesday, which seeks to dispel what it terms the “great myth” that welfare recipients are bludgers, or that there has been a significant blowout in the welfare budget.
The chief executive of Acoss, Cassandra Goldie, said there was currently one job for every 10 people locked out of paid work or underemployed, while inequality was the highest it had been since the 1950s.
Universities attack Coalition's plan to increase fees and speed up repayments Read more
Spending on unemployment payments makes up 10% of the government’s total social security budget, which is largely directed to the age pension.
Expenditure on cash benefits is also well below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average.
Newstart payments – about $268 per week for singles – were well below the poverty line and about $176 per week below the pension and recipients were subject to one of the more onerous compliance regimes in the OECD, Goldie said.
“The vast majority of people are doing everything they can to survive and improve their lives under extremely stressful, difficult circumstances,” she said. “We’re seeing repeated, mean-spirited attempts to vilify and demonise people who are locked out of paid work, mostly through no fault of their own.
“This appears to be a deliberate government strategy to pave the way for further budget cuts on the backs of people doing it toughest in our community.”
In recent weeks, the human services minister, Alan Tudge, has raised the prospect of a more punitive compliance regime for jobseekers who repeatedly fail to attend interviews or appointments.
Currently, the government has powers to withhold eight weeks of payments from those who fail to comply with the mutual obligation requirements but waives the penalty where a jobseeker re-engages.
The waiver system is designed to encourage welfare recipients to continue to seek jobs and stay in the system, while ensuring they are not pushed further into disadvantage.
Voters have extremely low expectations of budget, Guardian Essential poll shows Read more
Tudge has expressed concern about that waiver system, which he says is allowing people to get around their mutual obligation requirements.
“So we would like to address those and just toughen up the system, as well as identify those people who need additional support and provide additional support for them,” Tudge told Sky News this week.
On Monday, the Brotherhood of St Laurence launched its own campaign to prevent the vilification of welfare recipients.
The campaign, titled “Job hunter not dole bludger”, is focused on youth unemployment and challenges the “myths that young unemployed people are ‘job snobs’”.
The Brotherhood’s executive director, Tony Nicholson, said entry-level jobs were disappearing for school leavers, making it more difficult to find work.
“We need to concentrate efforts as a community in creating opportunity for young people and building up their capacity for work,” Nicholson said.Figures show that since 2009, 57% of discharges have hit chest area, even though Taser warns of'serious complications'
British police have fired Tasers hundreds of times at suspects' chests despite explicit warnings from the weapon's manufacturer not to do so because of the dangers of causing a cardiac arrest, the Guardian can reveal.
Following the death last Wednesday of a man in Manchester after police hit him with a Taser shot, figures obtained from 18 out of 45 UK forces show that out of a total of 884 Taser discharges since 2009 – the year when Taser International first started warning the weapon's users not to aim for the chest – 57% of all shots (518) have hit the chest area.
There is evidence that shots to the chest can induce cardiac arrest. Dr Douglas Zipes, an eminent US cardiologist and emeritus professor at Indiana University, who last year published a study that explored the dangers of chest shots, told the Guardian: "My admonition [to UK police] would be avoid the chest at all costs if you can."
He said the proportion of shots landing on the chest was huge, adding: "I think the information is overwhelming to support how a Taser shot to the chest can produce cardiac arrest."
The manufacturer's warning in its training materials is clear. It states: "When possible, avoid targeting the frontal chest area near the heart to reduce the risk of potential serious injury or death.
"Serious complications could also arise in those with impaired heart function or in those with an implanted cardiac pacemaker or defibrillator."
Firing at the back is the preferred option where practical.
Zipes said Tasers were first found to have the ability to "capture" heart rhythm in a way similar to that of a pacemaker after Taser itself commissioned a study on pigs published in 2006.
If fired close enough to the heart, the 50,000 volt weapons have the ability to interfere and take over the electrical signals in the heart in rare cases – something that can be avoided altogether by hitting other parts of the body.
Zipes, who has acted as an expert witness in Taser death cases, said his peer-reviewed paper for the Journal of the American Heart Association documented eight cases of people in the US who have died or suffered significant brain damage following a cardiac arrest linked to a Taser shot.
But, despite the apparent dangers of chest shots, a series of requests under the Freedom of Information Act suggests that police are routinely aiming Taser shots at that part of the body.
Records from Gwent police force, for example, show that 82% of 55 Taser discharges by its officers hit people in the chest. Officers from Lancashire police fired Tasers 186 times between 2009 and October 2012, with 65% of shots hitting the chest.
There have been 10 deaths since the introduction of Tasers by UK police forces in 2004. The most recent was last Wednesday evening after a 23-year-old factory worker, Jordan Begley, from Gorton, east Manchester, was said to have suffered a "medical episode" and died after police fired at him with the weapon.
The chief constable of Greater Manchester, Sir Peter Fahy, and its police and crime commissioner, Tony Lloyd, met the dead man's family and expressed their condolences.
No cause of death has been directly linked to the high-voltage charge emanating from the weapons in the UK. But two of the 10 cases, including last week's death in Manchester, continue to be investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which is responsible for Taser guidance, told the Guardian that following the 2009 warning, an independent panel of experts re-examined the threat to life from Tasers but found no substantial risk.
Simon Chesterman, deputy chief constable of West Mercia police and Acpo lead on armed policing and Taser use, said that after the 2009 Taser warning Acpo asked the medical panel whether police training needed to be changed. "The answer that came back is that as they've said all along, the risk from the electricity is very low," he said.
Chesterman said the panel had maintained that guidance to this day and it was felt there was no need for police "to adjust our point of aim".
He said: "We don't train them [officers] to go for the chest, we just train them to go for the biggest thing they can see, ie the major muscle groups.
"When you've got a violent assailant who is facing you, coming towards you and you have to make a split second decision whether to use Taser or not, the chances are that clearly you're going to aim for the torso and it may well be that one or both of the bar |
her | Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy Read more
Posting on Twitter on Tuesday, the 59-year-old actor lamented fellow users’ inability to focus on more meaningful aspects of her return to the role of Leia Organa – now a general rather than a princess – for the first time since Return of the Jedi in 1983.
“Please stop debating about whether or not I aged well,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, it hurts all three of my feelings. My body hasn’t aged as well as I have. Blow us.”
Fisher later added: “Youth and beauty are not accomplishments, they’re the temporary happy by-products of time and/or DNA. Don’t hold your breath for either.”
Carrie Fisher (@carrieffisher) Please stop debating about whetherOR not👁aged well.unfortunately it hurts all3 of my feelings.My BODY hasnt aged as well as I have.Blow us👌🏼
The actor, who has made a hugely successful career as a writer and comic in the wake of her early Star Wars fame, argued that her physical appearance should not be used to define her, adding: “My body is my brain bag, it hauls me around to those places and in front of faces where there’s something to say or see.”
Some noted that the writer and comic’s male co-stars from the original Star Wars trilogy, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, have faced fewer comments about their appearance in JJ Abrams’ critically acclaimed film. But other Twitter users fired abusive barbs – or told Fisher that as a public figure, she should be prepared for negative comments in the online arena.
Carrie Fisher: I felt pressured to lose weight for Star Wars: The Force Awakens Read more
Earlier this month, Fisher said she felt pressured to lose weight in order to reprise her role as Organa. The actor said she had felt an obligation to lose 16kg (2st 7lb), and lamented a film industry that “treats beauty like an accomplishment”. Such attitudes, she said, were “insane”.
The actor has proved one of the more colourful figures on the promotional trail for Abrams’ film, in the first new Star Wars film in a decade. She turned the air blue on the Hollywood red carpet for the world premiere of The Force Awakens on 14 December, and has warned young British star Daisy Ridley not to allow producers to exploit her sexuality.
“You should fight for your outfit,” she told the 23-year-old actor during a Q&A for Interview magazine, in reference to the gold bikini that Fisher was asked to wear in Return of the Jedi. “Don’t be a slave like I was.”
Fisher, who was just 19 when she filmed 1977’s Star Wars, also handed further advice to Ridley at the London press conference for The Force Awakens on 17 December. She told the young actor, who plays staff-wielding scavenger Rey: “Don’t go through the crew like wildfire.”
The Force Awakens remains on course to challenge Avatar’s all-time $2.78bn (£1.87bn) box-office world record, and currently stands in tenth place in the pantheon of highest grossing films with $1.16bn. In the US and Canada, it passed The Dark Knight, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and the original 1977 Star Wars to enter the all-time top five at the North American box office on Monday with receipts of $571m.
The new film, which is also tipped to be a part of the 2016 Oscars race, is expected to pass Avatar’s record $760m North American haul as early as this weekend.Running stuff when needed
devlucky Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 15, 2017
Me waiting for CI to finish
I want to introduce run-when, a CLI to run tasks based on Git diffs changes.
Scenario 🏜
Recently I have been working quite a lot in a mono-repo environment. I won’t explain here what is cool or not about it, instead, I want to go through a specific problem we faced and how we came up with a solution.
Time is money, well, time is life. When you are working in a team you want to build stuff fast and with quality. You get quality by writing tests and running them into a continuous integration environment, this ensures you don’t break existing things when you add new functionality. But in the other hand, this takes time, having to run a test-suite on every single change for every single package makes things slow.
Let’s say you have 5 packages in the mono-repo, each of them takes about 5min to pass a successful build (fetching dependencies, building app, running specs, etc). This means 5x5min=25min, not the best time, right? Now let’s say, one of those packages have integration tests, which sometimes end up taking >10min. Other package has a flaky test, which fails sometimes, things start to get even worse…
Solution 💡
Run it, when you need it
Why do you need to run tests for a package which you haven’t change? How about just running specs based on Git? That was the motivation of run-when, do a git diff and check if anything within your package has changes, then, and, run stuff:
$ run-when '["packages/component-a/**"]' 'cd packages/component-a && yarn test'
First parameter is an array of Blobs to match files against.
Second parameter is the command to run.
Programatic way:
As seen above, the library has full blob support (thanks to multimatch), asynchronous tasks, and optionally you can pass changedFiles, just in case you don’t want to use the default command:
git diff --name-only origin/master
Which by default returns a list of changed files in your branch against master.
Testing the tool 🔬
It can get tricky to test CLI tools if you haven’t thought about that when you designed the tool. In the past, I had built other tools but never really spent time thinking about how to test them properly… no this time!
What I did different this time, was to first build the tool as if it was going to be used as any other package, like import runWhen from 'run-when'. That way, I could focus on how I wanted other people to use the tool and what public api to expose. Then, the cli part becomes just a thing wrapper around that.
Unit tests: Somehow I needed to fake which files have been modified, to be able to have a good coverage. To do so, we extended the existing api in a way that the user could specify an array of modified files. That way we made the code “more testable”:
CLI/Integrations test: For this one I actually wanted to test the whole thing. To do so, I simulated some changes in an existing file and tested some globs against it. Have a look here.
Attention to the details 💅
One of the main use cases for run-when is running a testsuite when some source files have changed. This may take time… ⏰
This was the first output we were giving to the user:
Not good right? you probably want to see the progress of those specs in your CI while they are running. We achieved that piping the stdout stream into the console:
Finally, it is sad if you do all this work but don’t keep the original colors of the task. Passing FORCE_COLOR to the env, will do the trick:
Other fancy stuff 💘
One thing I love about doing open source is that you always learn new things. It gives you a new opportunity to play with something you probably can’t in the daily bases. Here is some things I learnt this time:
Node & NVM : I used Node 8 (currently LTS 🙌) for building this library, it may look a bit bleeding edge, but it all depends on your use case. Since this is a dev tool and is likely going to be run on a CI it was safe for us to target that version. You can easily enforce that by using a.nvmrc file in your project and letting $ nvm use do the rest.
: I used Node 8 (currently LTS 🙌) for building this library, it may look a bit bleeding edge, but it all depends on your use case. Since this is a dev tool and is likely going to be run on a CI it was safe for us to target that version. You can easily enforce that by using a.nvmrc file in your project and letting do the rest. Promisify: Node 8 has a new utility function: util.promisify(). It converts a callback-based function to a Promise-based one. So there is no need anymore to pull external dependencies or build custom helpers to have a nice promise oriented way of doing things:
async/await: Code becomes more readable using await all over the place, specially when used in a ternary operator or with Jest!
Flow : While I enjoy using Typescript, and is the type checker I use at work everyday, this time I wanted to play a bit Flow. It has excellent type inference and painless setup, since its just a babel plugin, you can just add it to your existing project and will work out of the box with Jest as well.
: While I enjoy using Typescript, and is the type checker I use at work everyday, this time I wanted to play a bit Flow. It has excellent type inference and painless setup, since its just a babel plugin, you can just add it to your existing project and will work out of the box with Jest as well. Jest : I was already using Jest before, but only for browser env (React + Enzyme). This time was all about Node, and I can’t fall more in love with it.
: I was already using Jest before, but only for browser env (React + Enzyme). This time was all about Node, and I can’t fall more in love with it. Destructuring: This is one of my favorite js features. This was not the first time I use it, but it was the time I had more fun time with it! In the following example, Im destructuring an array into const using the index and defaulting to some value 😵
Travis install: I discovered that by default, Travis does a shallow clone, this means that is not fetching the whole GIT history.
git clone — depth=50 — branch=master https://github.com/zzarcon/run-when.git
This is fine 99% of the times, as you don’t care about that info, but in this case you actually need an up-to-date master to compare your changes with. You can achieve that doing:
Conclusion
I hope you all enjoyed reading the article just as much as I did playing with the tool! If you have any question or improvement please feel free to reach!Windows 10 has certainly suffered from its share of controversy since its official release on July 29, 2015. Activation uncertainties and privacy concerns have led the way in creating unwelcome negativity around Microsoft’s most important Windows release, and the company has finally provided some feedback to answer the nagging questions, and clarify that it does not infringe on your privacy.
Microsoft answered some questions about Windows 10 activation the other day, outlining a new “digital entitlement” concept that drives the activation process. And just this morning, the Windows Blog provided some clarification on Windows 10 privacy, outlining their “More Personal Computing” initiative aimed at earning the trust of their various Windows constituencies.
Trust is a core pillar of our More Personal Computing vision, and we know we have to earn it. We’ve taken time to expand the documentation on our approach today with this blog, and new content we’re posting today for consumers and IT Pros, designed to complement our One Microsoft Privacy Policy. We look forward to the next round of questions and feedback on these new posts. I assure you that no other company is more committed, more transparent and listening harder to customers on this important topic than we are.
We’ve reported on Windows 10 privacy issues in the past, because frankly Microsoft generated real concerns with some unclear practices. Some of the privacy accusations that were widely reported were dubious from the very beginning, while some reflected reasonable concerns. In all cases, the kind of information provided in today’s blog post is exactly the kind of transparency that’s been needed to deflect the various concerns, real and imagined.
Microsoft asserts two privacy principles in defining how Windows 10 gathers and stores information:
1. Windows 10 collects information so the product will work better for you.
2. You are in control with the ability to determine what information is collected.
So, information is collected to make Windows 10 work better, and you’re in control of the information that’s collected. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
The devil is always in the details, however, and Microsoft has those covered as well by providing additional detail on the three specific areas where information is and, just as important, is not gathered and stored.
The first area is Safety and Reliability data, that is, the completely anonymous information on how machines are functioning that helps Microsoft identify security and reliability issues that need resolving. The company stresses that personal information, e.g., name and email address, are explicitly excluded, and they provide a cogent example of where this information comes in handy:
A great example of how this data was used effectively was just last month, when aggregate data showed us that a particular version of a graphics driver was crashing on some Windows 10 PCs, which then caused a reboot. This driver was not widely used, but still the issue was impacting customers. We immediately contacted the partner who builds the driver and worked with them to turn around a fix to Windows Insiders within 24 hours. We used the data on Insiders’ devices to confirm that the problem was resolved, and then rolled out the fix to the broad public via an update the next day – all-in-all, this data helped us find, fix and resolve a significant problem within 48 hours.
Next, Microsoft covers perhaps the most controversial information that Windows 10 gathers, specifically the kind of information that’s required to make Windows 10 a highly personal experience. In reality, of course, many users enjoy things like receiving up-to-date scores for their favorite teams and, as Microsoft points out, accurate text completion suggestions based on personal typing patterns. This kind of personalization wouldn’t be possible, obviously, if Microsoft were unable to gather information about individual users.
Choice is the real issue here, though, and Microsoft stresses that the user is in control of what information is collected. Windows 10 also makes it a point to request permission to gather information with the activation of each new feature that can make use of it.
Just as important as the information that is collected is the information that is not. Microsoft pulls no punches in making it clear that they’re unlike some other companies in terms of the information that’s examined simply to serve up ads:
Unlike some other platforms, no matter what privacy options you choose, neither Windows 10 nor any other Microsoft software scans the content of your email or other communications, or your files, in order to deliver targeted advertising to you.
Microsoft deserves some credit for working hard throughout the development of Windows 10 to gather customer feedback and actually use it to inform their design and policy decisions. The success of Windows 10 is vital to Microsoft’s future as a viable company, and they’re actively soliciting feedback to help ensure this success. As always, your input is vital to helping Microsoft better understand what you want from Windows 10 going forward. Windows Insiders can provide general feedback here, and every can provide their thoughts on privacy here.
Hopefully that information will help stem some of the tide of controversy that’s surrounded Windows 10 since its launch. At the very least, there’s good reason to believe that Microsoft has its users’ interests in mind as they implement new Windows 10 features.
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Further reading: privacyThe U.S. Chamber of Commerce has written a letter to members of the House telling them that voting for federal contractors to be more transparent about their political spending will negatively impact their legislative scorecard.“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly supports legislative proposals to ensure that political spending — or the lack thereof — continues to play no role in federal contracting decisions,” the Chamber’s R. Bruce Josten wrote in the letter sent on Wednesday.
“Therefore, the Chamber supports amendments that have been offered by Rep. Cole to several Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bills considered by the full House, and any similar amendments should they be offered to the remaining FY 2012 appropriations bills,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, more than sixty members of the House signed a letter sent to the White House by Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) which expressed strong support for a draft executive order which would require companies that get taxpayer dollars to disclose their political expenditures.
Disclosure, the letter says, “will not politicize the procurement process — it will improve it.”
“Political expenditures are already well-known to those that make them and to the officials who benefit,” the letter states. “With disclosure, the public will have access to this information as well, allowing them to judge whether contracts were awarded based on merit. A meritorious procurement system is the only responsible use of taxpayer money, making this a deficit reduction effort as much as a campaign finance reform issue.”
Both the Chamber and House Republicans have argued that the proposed executive order — first leaked in April — is a plot by the Obama administration to silence political opponents.
Supporters of the measure have said the executive order — by bringing donations out into the open — would actually discourage federal contracting officials from doing favors for contractors based on their donations to third-party political groups.Tickets for the Perth Ashes Test will belatedly go on sale at the end of July after unsuccessful efforts to have the match staged at the city's new multi-purpose stadium rather than the unpopular WACA Ground.
As recently as May, CA's chief executive James Sutherland had expressed hope that the match could be played at the new stadium located in Burswood, but cricket administrators admitted defeat after meetings with stadium management and the Western Australian government.
That left tickets to be organised for the WACA instead, which has hosted Ashes matches dating back to the ground's very first Test in 1970-71. "The Perth Test holds a special place in the summer of cricket and in an Ashes year we are expecting capacity crowds at the WACA throughout the Test," Sutherland said.
"We know that many fans, both in Western Australia and abroad, are eagerly awaiting this Test and are keen to secure their place so we are pleased to be announcing an on-sale date for tickets to the match.
"Given the strong demand we expect to see for this match we urge people to purchase their tickets early to avoid disappointment, and only purchase from the official ticket agency to ensure they obtain a valid ticket for the official ticket price."
Christina Matthews, the WACA chief executive, said the match now afforded the opportunity to celebrate the ground's Ashes history. "There is a rich history and tradition for Western Australians associated with attending the Ashes Test matches at the WACA Ground, with plenty of wonderful memories along the way," she said.
"This summer's Test represents a unique opportunity to celebrate one final Ashes Test match at the WACA Ground. We anticipate tickets will be in high demand as fans will want to secure their piece of history, so we encourage people to purchase their tickets early to avoid disappointment."
Tickets will be on sale to preregistered fans on July 31, then WACA members from August 3 and the general public from August 4.“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” ~ Bhagavad Gita
For the sake of this discussion I am going to use the ‘bisexual’ label. Though these suggestions could also apply to anyone (gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, heterosexual too), or any other who might not fit into the black and white constraints of what’s considered the societal norm sexually.
I stumbled and fell a lot during my “coming out” process, which I didn’t do when I was a teenager or a young adult but rather in my late 30s, married and a father, which you might interpret however you see fit. I made mistakes, people were hurt, and things got messy. All that because no one knows how this shit is supposed to work.
Well, I might not have it all figured out but I’d like to share a bit of what I learned along the confused path to being a more authentic me.
So, I present to you my not five rules, because rules, well, they suck, but instead—five Suggestions to Live Bi (or whatever):
5. Tell Someone, Anyone Who You Really Are
Masks keep us untouched and untouchable. Secrets eat away at us. The combination makes for feeling sad and lonely even when surrounded by people we love.
I know this because I lived with a huge secret, behind a thick and concealing mask, for most of my life. By never telling anyone the truth of my (bi)sexuality I’d created a world where I felt isolated and that isolation made me feel defective, like one of those people. I was this way only because I knew that I found both sexes attractive in a “she has a nice butt and so does her boyfriend” kind of way, in a “if I might the right guy first” kind of way and believed my life would fall apart if I ever said aloud these so-very-harmless thoughts.
As the years went on these harmless thoughts merged with shame and metastasized, eating away at my identity and self-confidence. I deflected my truth with derogatory gay jokes, the upturning of my nose at a man’s effeminate behavior, and repeated denial, most often to myself. If I’d told someone early I might’ve saved myself many years of unnecessary self-loathing.
We all have a partner, friend or friends we can divulge our truths to. Take a moment and sit down with that person and start out nice and easy, “I’ve got something to tell you.” Move at a pace you’re comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be a single conversation. It can be, as it was with my wife, a weeks’ long discussion that is entered in to slowly and lovingly.
Yes, there’s a risk in this. Not everyone can accept people who are different than they are but those of us who don’t fit the mold can’t go on living in fear of those people. Best to know who your real friends are now, determine if new friends are needed, and then go about interviewing some new candidates. It’s far better to go through the temporary hurt of letting go of a someone who doesn’t agree with your authenticity than to live in agony by trying to fit in.
Just tell someone. You’ll be happier when you’ve found the people with whom you can be yourself with. Because Lady Gaga is right, you were born this way and there’s not a thing wrong with you.
4. Ask Yourself What You Really Want
Admitting you’re bisexual (or gay or whatever) is only the beginning. What comes after that?
My greatest mistakes were born from trying figuring myself out by reacting to various situations. I’d not prepared myself for anything beforehand because I didn’t have a clue what to prepare for. Going out into the world as yourself, whatever form that may take for you, not only affects you but so too does it affect the world around you and the way you want to interact with it. It’s unfortunate that there’s not a lot of resources for coming out as bisexual (especially for married fathers).
Perhaps, in my case, if I’d started reading up on what it’s like for gays and lesbians to come out to friends and family I’d have had a start but still would’ve lacked the ever so important “and then what?” knowledge typically gleaned from those who’ve gone before.
Truth is, porn isn’t a resource for information that’ll help you figure out the big questions. You’ll want to know in advance about your levels of interest are in both genders, how you’ll feel when people try and tell you you’re confused or transitioning, and what role you want to play sexually. No, seriously, your sexuality actually is about interpersonal dynamics and…yes…sex! Just because, on occasion, you enjoy watching two men, two women, or any variation of male/male/female/female sexual entertainment doesn’t mean you’ve determined your interests in being a top, a bottom, versatile, or neither. And you’ll want to seriously consider your views on monogamy, polyamory, open marriage or any other variation of relationship dynamic in the world, even if not widely talked about, because cheating and being cheated on sucks (trust me).
And while you can’t prepare for every possible situation you can and should invest in a bit of soul searching as early on as possible all the while knowing that if you meet the right girl (or guy), but still feel a certain inclinations, that conversations can be had and/or toys can be bought. Just sayin’!
3. Stay True to Yourself
Being bisexual, despite how appealing Angelina Jolie makes it appear (and she does), is to be a minority within a minority (and if you‘re anything other than a fit, white, female you can count on having a harder time finding where you fit in). That means a serious possibility that you’ll never really feel as if you belong anywhere despite an ability to blend in everywhere.
Along the way people have made all types of assertions about me. The most common of these, spoken by both my straight and gay friends and acquaintances, to my face and behind my back, is that I am transitioning (or confused). bullshit! I call “bullshit” because, hello, I’m in here, inside my own head, and I know who and what I am. You’ve the same insight for yourself! You know yourself better than anyone else does, secrets and all. And, given that you’ve put forth a decent amount of effort into Suggestion 2 (see: above), you’re the only person on the planet who truly knows who you are and can’t be told otherwise.
Refuse to be what others want you to be; to do this is to live inside a cage others have created for you. You’ve only one life to live (or at least you should try and live as if that’s true) and you don’t want to spend whatever precious time you’ve got on this rock being what others want you to be. Deny them that power over you. No one, not your Mommy and not that random drunk guy at that gay bar that one time, can tell you anything about yourself. Ever!
2. Have Good Intentions, Do No Harm
Heterosexuality has clear behavioral guidelines, provided by popular culture, that we all know by heart, no matter how flawed they might be. You grow up, do well in school, get a good job, meet a nice guy (usually someone like Matthew McConaughey) or gal (typically portrayed by Kate Hudson), get married, have kids, buy a house, retire…and die (in some sweet yet tragic scene best played by James Garner and Gena Rowlands).
All pretty cut and dry with a lot of established morality built into the Great American West Grand Life Plan (brochures available in every movie, on sitcoms, in greeting cards and dysfunctional family gatherings). But what if you’re bi (or whatever) …?
Gay culture, of which you might consider touring (as I did) is very, very different. I recently had a conversation with a lesbian acquaintance who explained the mystery to me this way: “We bounce around a lot because we’re looking for the love we didn’t get from the people we needed it from, like our families. So we bounce around from one relationship to another using sex as a substitute for love.”
As is evidenced by phone apps or visiting the various ‘Casual Encounters’ listings on Craigslist, sex is easy to come by and is often times a replacement for something missing, most likely authenticity. And some people will lie, steal, and cheat to get it. This seems like a viable resource for countless men and women, more than anyone might even realize, who are trying to satisfy a secret need. Say what you want, sex is a need that is more often than not separate from love. So, get over your uptightness and accept that.
But this method of finding the kind of sex you want is dangerous, especially if it’s to satisfy a hidden aspect of yourself, both for its potential health risk factors and too because it can bring a great deal of pain to others that you actually do love. Not to mention, it has the possibility of devastating your self-esteem, especially if you’re the type that can’t separate the ideas sex and romance.
So, be honest, be honorable, and do what’s right no matter how hot and horny he/she might be. And be doubly so if there’s someone out there who trusts you to do the right thing by them.
Rather than play these silly games after you’re already in a relationship, which the above does suggest, why not consider your truths before making a commitment? Look beyond the initial moments of passion and sweet nothings toward the future moments that have yet to unfold and face all the multitude of possibilities. Then, with that insight, be honest about who you are and what you really want.
If you fall in love and choose to settle down, don’t think you can keep your secrets forever. All of those phone apps and craigslist posts are filled with men and women who I am willing to bet never believed they’d be hunting for someone of the same or opposite gender outside of their relationship. They went into a relationship or a marriage with a secret and now they’re clumsily causing harm to themselves and others while trying to maintain it.
But if you decide to go the route of the shamed scoundrel, at least wear a condom. K? Thanks!
1. Just do you
Look, I know a bit about this. I have loved a woman in blissful openness and a man in dismal secrecy. Yet both of these adorations came with a huge degree of shame attached. My wife, whom I’ve loved since before I ever met her, was kept at an arm’s length from me so as not to accidently let her see the truth I was ashamed of.
The man, well, he was married and unable to accept who he was let alone who I was, and this caused me great shame too. In the former instance I fought feeling vulnerability, withheld my authentic self so as not to cause myself shame. And so I felt ashamed, full-on, self-inflicted and hurtful shame.
In the latter, I was made to feel ashamed, as if the something magical that we had found was in fact wrong, deviant, and undeserving of living in the light. Sure, I landed on my feet, but neither instance had a default requirement that I live with such self-contempt.
Our world is evolving. True, there are countless voices speaking out against subjects like equality. Those voices want those whose sexuality doesn’t fit nicely into the Tea Party’s ideal of a 1950’s television show starring Ozzie and Harriet Nelson (as opposed to Ozzy and Sharon Osborne) to change, to be 100% heterosexual, get married, have kids, and do, please, go to church and pray your bi (or gay or whatever) away! Oh! And pay your taxes. Those people can’t handle the evolution of our modern thinking that is trying hard to finally shed old and useless prejudices.
But those people, adults and the children they send to school to be bullies, are still out there and are scary enough that a still unknown number of men and women remain afraid to just come out, to be themselves and live their truth. It’s sad that it was ever like that and sad still that it continues to varying degrees around the world no matter what successes we might be celebrating.
What we all need to realize, closeted or no, bi (or gay or any other color of the rainbow) or no, is that we all have to live this life for ourselves. So many lives go on unlived, are left unfulfilled, and ultimately are wasted. If that weren’t true then not a one of us would give a second thought to those quotes that keep resurfacing on social media from Bronnie Ware’s book, ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.’
For whatever reason, we deny ourselves the opportunity to feel the sun on the skin of our real face, to speak words of love with our real voice, or the opportunity to just do us. We do this with regret and not realizing the opportunities for happiness our authentic, unmasked self might bring to others.
No, it’s not easy. Not saying that it isn’t a huge challenge for some to just be themselves. But the world needs far fewer people pretending to be something they’re not and a whole lot more openly being themselves be that bisexual, gay, transgender, queer or straight.
We need to raise children in a world where they can see artists creating art, yogis practicing yoga, and people loving people, no matter their gender.
It’s time to stop living someone else’s life with painful perfection and instead living the one you’re meant to with beautiful and loving imperfection.
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Ed: Bryonie WiseThe US' decision to deploy its state-of-the-art F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to Europe is nothing more than a provocative move, according to Richard Labeviere, chief editor of the Defense magazine of the French Institute of Higher Studies of National Defense.
© AP Photo / Virginia Mayo Love is Gone: Germans Rapidly Lose Trust in NATO
Richard Labeviere, chief editor of the Defense magazine of the French Institute of Higher Studies of National Defense, has described the planned US F-22 deployment in Europe as a NATO provocation, which he said is seeking to bolster its global clout.
"There are several aspects related to this decision, which, briefly speaking, is a provocation on the part of NATO and indicates the growth in the alliance's presence in Europe and other parts of the world", Labeviere said.
According to him, Washington's decision to deploy what he referred to as the "American Rafale" was driven by commercial motives.
"The Americans are looking for a'showcase', namely, the opportunity to show this sophisticated aircraft in action so as to contribute to its exports to other countries," Labeviere said.
He added that the F-22s took part in military operations in Iraq and Syria several times, and that Washington now seeks to arouse the interest of European customers, including those in Poland.
The second aspect pertains to the geopolitical sphere, Labeviere explained, referring to relevant requests by the Baltic states, including Lithuania, which has repeatedly voiced concern about the alleged threat emanating from Russia.
Also, the F-22s are being deployed in connection with the change in the situation in eastern Ukraine after the Ukrainian army's recent aggression against Donbass forces, according to Labeviere, who specifically pointed to Washington's desire to widen its clout around the globe.
"In addition to the above-mentioned rearrangement of NATO forces in Europe, the US is increasing its presence in the Asia-Pacific [region] and the Arctic," he said.
He recalled that F-22 jets have already been deployed at Thule Air Base in Greenland, in an apparent response to the modernization of a Russian Armed Forces base in the Russian city of Murmansk.
© AP Photo / Petr David Josek No Need for Permanent NATO Base in Slovakia – Foreign Ministry
The F-22 Raptor is a twin-seat, double-engine fifth generation tactical aircraft built by Lockheed Martin. The aircraft is considered a superior fighter jet, capable of ground attack, electronic warfare and signals intelligence. There are nearly 200 F-22 Raptors in service, each carrying a price tag of $150 million.
In late June, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced plans to send dozens of tanks, Bradley armored fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers to allied countries in the Baltics and Eastern Europe; according to Carter, the goal is to retaliate against alleged actions by Russia in Ukraine's east.A Tennessee state lawmaker on Thursday claimed that HIV originated in the gay community by an airline pilot who had sex with monkey, and that it was “virtually impossible” to contract the disease through heterosexual sex.
Appearing on the Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius XM radio, State Senator Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) — author of Tennessee’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would prohibit teachers from mentioning homosexuality in kindergarten through 8th grade classrooms — also asserted that the lifespan for gays and lesbians is “very short,” telling listeners to “Google it yourself.”
“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.” “My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex… […] “What is the average lifespan of a homosexual? It’s very short … Anybody out there who’s listening – your twelve listeners on your show, you have them Google ‘average homosexual lifespan.’ It’s very short.”
Defending his remarks in an interview with WBIR-TV on Friday, Campfield said, “I’m not a historian on AIDS, but I’ve read and seen what other people have read and seen and those facts are out there.”
Dr. Jacques Pepin, author of the book “The Origin of AIDS,” called Campfield’s assertions “kind of funny,” in the sense of being strange and not fully factual, reported the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Pepin said that it is generally accepted that the initial transmission of AIDS from chimpanzees to humans occurred in Central Africa, probably 1921, when a hunter who killed a chimp contracted the virus while butchering the animal for food.
In parts of Africa, Pepin noted, about 30 percent of the population is infected with HIV, mostly through heterosexual intercourse.
Campfield has cited a 1988 advice column as the basis for his belief that HIV can not be contracted through heterosexual sex.
Campfield’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed the state Senate last year, and is now awaiting a vote in the Tennessee state House.
The bill would prohibit public elementary and middle school teachers from providing instruction, material or counseling that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality. Campfield claims the bill is necessary because homosexuality is a “learned behavior.”
This Story Filed UnderAt a confirmation hearing in front of theon Monday, Attorney General nomineewas asked a question by Senator(R-SC) about the‘s 2011 opinion that limited the scope of theto
His answer caused an immediate uproar throughout gambling Twitter.
I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling is going on in here!
The 2011 OLC opinion paved the way for states to legalize online poker, casino, and lottery within their borders.
Sessions said he was “shocked” by the DOJ memorandum, and told Graham he would revisit the “unusual” opinion. Sessions stopped just short of saying he would overturn it, although that was the general consensus from those watching the hearing.
Sessions "opposed" DOJ Wire Act memo, but * |
17, 2015
The IRA were renowned for their interrogation techniques using blindfolds and Daniel O’Donnell tracks to torture their victims into submission. ‘Dog’ is an IRA term for an informant. Go figure.
I love Geraniums. pic.twitter.com/NgNkJRZkyd
— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) June 29, 2015
After seven months deciphering this tweet, our team found Gerry Adams actually does like Geraniums.
Look what I found in back of the cofra? E Bay material? pic.twitter.com/A7oqTK6gFC
— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) August 4, 2015
This is a direct reference to the IRA’s busiest period, 1990, where the group made 400 attacks which killed 30 soldiers and police and injured 340. Lovely hurling.
In bed with UB40. Red Red Wine xoxzzzz
— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) August 9, 2015
UB40 was actually a card issued to the unemployed from the UK government’s Department of Health and Social. This is Adams confirming his connections with the British Secret service. ‘Red Red Wine’ indicating the blood spilled by both sides.An interesting anecdote at MinimalMac about television being broken. The author’s young daughter, who is growing up in a Netflix/Hulu/iTunes/etc. household, was confronted with actual TV for the first time, and wonders why she can’t pick what to watch, why the shows are being interrupted all the time, and so on. Clearly – TV is broken.
And let’s face it – it is. In The Netherlands, we don’t have as many commercial breaks as they do in the US, but when watching US shows, we are still reminded of the many, many commercial breaks on the other side of the Atlantic – random fade-to-blacks every 10 minutes or so. Over here, you get zero commercial breaks when watching our variant of the BBC (only in between programs), or about two breaks per hour on commercial channels (excluding breaks in between programs).
We do, however, also suffer from the horrible volume differences, intruding branding for other shows on the networks (those banners that pop up and such), and the various other annoyances. Worse yet, we don’t have Hulu. We don’t have Netflix. We don’t have Amazon. We don’t have iTunes (well, we do, but without any content – just music). And, to make matters worse, we have to wait months and months – often years – before we get most popular American shows. And often only in stereo and standard definition.
It’s no wonder, then, that Dutch people download so much stuff. I certainly do.
I have a Windows 7 machine hooked up to my TV running XBMC, which I use to watch all those TV series (and a few films, too). It’s infinitely easier and less horrible than watching these series on TV – if that is even possible. I fire up a torrent, and due to my 120MB connection, have the entire first season of Game Of Thrones on my hard drive before the coffee’s done (thanks to The Oatmeal for getting me interested in Game Of Thrones). In 720p, Dolby Digital. Flawless quality, and thanks to XBMC, presented with all the metadata and beautiful box art you could possibly want.
I have no other option. I can’t buy the DVD or Blu-Ray box set – it won’t come out until late April. Starting this month, my cable provider/ISP is offering HBO’s channels, but only in a monthly package of all three channels combined for a whopping €15 per month. To put that into perspective – my combined digital HDTV/120MB internet/phone line (all over cable) only costs €65.
I’m obviously not going to subscribe to three channels for €15/month because I want to find out if I would like Game Of Thrones. I’m also not going wait to buy a €40 Blu-Ray set if I don’t even know if I will like it.
Torrent sites simply offer a far better user experience, and often, they’re the only ones offering the product people want in the first place. In The Netherlands, downloading is legal too (hence why I’m not calling it piracy or illegal).
Give me a Steam-like service for TV series and films, without any silly region and/or device restrictions or delayed releases. HD quality in glorious Dolby Digital. Allow the downloaded files to integrate with our own preferred multimedia solutions (XBMC in my case), have interesting sales, and keep the prices acceptable (€1 per episode is more than enough). For new shows, offer the first episode for free as a sample.
To get major bonus brownie points: allow local TV networks to hook into the platform, so I can buy/download local content as well.
Anybody who can pull that off will be a millionaire within months. Steam has shown the way. All the industry needs to do is follow.Matt Kinnear
Wednesday August 9th, 2017
The NCAA Rules Committee is meeting in Indianapolis this week. "The Dive" has historically been a hot topic, and discussion on it ramped up at the end of the NCAA Semifinal between Denver and Maryland. The feature below is in the forthcoming September issue of Inside Lacrosse Magazine.
Alex Krawec heard a snap and a pop, and then he fell to the ground.
The last thing he remembers was looking down and seeing his right leg bent all the way to the left. He picked it up and dropped it back down; it was completely limp.
A player had come up from X and rolled inside. He leapt into the crease, and the defenseman — attempting to guard against “The Dive” — gave him a push, sending him out of control and further into the crease. He landed on Krawec, his full body weight focused on the goalie’s leg.
Krawec was rushed from Denver Outlaws training camp to the hospital for emergency surgery. He suffered a broken tibia, fibula and a fractured ankle.
His MLL career was likely over before it ever really started.
Weeks later, after a pair of controversial crease/push calls highlighted the end of Maryland’s 9-8 NCAA Semifinal win over Denver. Pioneer coach Bill Tierney said postgame: “We need to let the dive be back in the game.”
His proclamation was met with media attention as well as adulation from most lacrosse fans, who have been outspoken in their quest to “bring back the dive” since it was outlawed from the college game in the summer of 1998. It has been legal at the MLL level since the league’s inception, and it is a fixture in the indoor game.
Krawec, however, seethed upon hearing Tierney’s charge. He’s dealing with the physical pain from his injury as well as the emotional toll of knowing his MLL career is likely done, and that his career working in the sport has taken a serious hit.
“The crease is there for a reason,” he says. “The crease is a sacred place for the goalie.”
Krawec was a two-time Goalie of the Year and national champion at DII Le Moyne. He graduated in 2016 and was selected by the Outlaws in the 2017 Supplemental Draft. Doctors said it will be at least 12-18 months before he could play lacrosse again, but there are many factors that could complicate that prognosis.
“It’s still a touchy subject for me,” he says. “Rehab is slow, and I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to play the game I love again.”
His goal now is getting healthy enough to play at Lake Placid each summer and in his local summer league, as well as to get well enough to continue his career in the sport. Krawec had begun a coaching career on the staff at Emerson, and he had lined up camps and training sessions all summer through his Goalie Factory.
That is all on hold because of his injury, so he took a job in sales in the Boston area.
“I plan on getting back into personalized goalie training once I’m more healed up. I’m pretty passionate about it. I want to give back to the game and get back there on my feet,” he says.
The dive is romanticized as the sport’s most exciting move. “Bring back the dive” is a rallying cry that’s been on T-shirts. It’s a throwback to a fondly-remembered era in which lacrosse was bursting out of its niche into the mainstream but still had its grassroots edge.
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In 2008, Inside Lacrosse produced a segment on ESPN about the dive. “It’s the ultimate attacking move, combining sheer athleticism, perfect timing and the will to sacrifice your body,” the intro said.
Gary Gait’s “Air Gait” broke the barrier of the crease in 1988, but it was Virginia’s Doug Knight and Michael Watson who took the dive to the limit in the mid-’90s, showcasing a high-flying, acrobatic style with reckless abandon.
Citing safety concerns, the dive was outlawed in the summer after the 1998 season by the NCAA DI Lacrosse committee. In that July’s issue of Inside Lacrosse Magazine, Quint Kessenich wrote: “I have never felt threatened in the cage. And in the past six or seven years, I can’t think of a single guy that’s gotten hurt. If anything, I liked it because I knew that I’d get to be able to take a shot at the attackmen if he tried to come in on me.”
Dom Starsia was on that NCAA rules committee, which was chaired by then-Butler athletic director John Parry. Player safely, specifically for goalies, was the issue, Starsia recalls. He and Parry remembered the committee did not rely on data in the decision, but a consensus from coaches.
“The goalies were vulnerable. Guys much less talented and instinctive than Doug and Michael would come barreling down the GLE headed straight for the cage,” Starsia says.
Get rid of the dive in the MLL before someone gets seriously injured. — Ryan Flanagan (@RyanFlanagan24) May 22, 2016
Ryan Flanagan tweeted in May of 2016: “Get rid of the dive in the MLL before someone gets seriously injured.”
It turned out to be prophetic. Two months later, Michael Bocklet dove and Flanagan was hedging toward him. They collided, and Flanagan tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus and missed the rest of the season.
“The reality is, when diving, you kind of have an idea where you’re going, but you don’t really know. You don’t know who’s going to hit you. You’re probably getting pushed into a goalie whose job is to make a save. It’s throwback NFL football. You have to save guys from themselves. They’re trained to do a job, and if they don’t do that, then they’re going to lose their jobs,” Flanagan says.
As part of the league’s Players Council and member of the Rules Committee, Flanagan has unique perspective and has consistently been a voice opposing the dive. He says that the Rules Committee proposed eliminating the dive from the rulebook ahead of the 2017 season. General managers supported the move, but it was vetoed by the league’s owners, Flanagan says.
The proposal was not based on hard data, but anecdotal evidence of injuries, including Flanagan’s, and other less serious injuries from offensive players like John Haus and Andrew Hodgson that occurred during dives. Flanagan said the league agreed to track injuries around the crease in the 2017 season.
“In reality, my career is going to be shorter because of the injury I suffered. … When you’re putting a player at that risk, that’s not a play that belongs in our game,” he says.
Krawec says he was against the dive as long as he can remember, but it wasn’t a problem that affected him personally because it was illegal at most levels, from youth to high school and into college. He has played box lacrosse, so he’s used to dealing with contact, but notes that box goalies wear full pads.
“If you’re shooting a ball 100 mph and shooting from 10 yards out, how much closer do you need to get?” he says. “If you can’t score from there, maybe you should try something else.”
Ironically, Krawec is a lifelong Buffalo Sabres fan, and their 1999 Stanley Cup loss hinged on a botched crease call in triple-overtime.
Flanagan says defending the dive changes the way a player has been trained his whole playing career. Through college, defenders have the habit of turning the attackman into GLE, driving him toward the crease because traditionally that’s been “another defender.” More are getting into the habit of turning them up the field, he says, but oftentimes they panic and push them further into the netminder.
Proponents say injuries are a byproduct of a contact sport, and that the rules have eliminated one of the plays most exciting games. But there are detractors who think the famed play has no place in the sport.
“I don’t buy the argument that it’s more exciting. The MLL has it, and more people are watching college lacrosse,” says Flanagan.
“In the game of lacrosse, there are a lot of other ways to create faster play. Whether it’s a shot clock or some of the other things the committee has talked about that really speed up the game. There’s other directions they can take besides the dive,” says Krawec.When it arrives this fall, the 2018 Ford Expedition will offer a completely new design featuring weight-saving aluminum panels, more powerful engines and the latest safety technology. The full-size SUV will also gain an FX4 variant boasting new off-road capabilities.
However, the latest order guides reveal that the wide range of improvements won't be coming without a rather sizable increase in price. Based on our analysis, the updated vehicle family will see increases worth up to $8,650 with prices reaching nearly $80,000.
So how much will the Expedition cost? Which versions will end up getting a price increase? And how much will the new FX4 model cost?
Here's what you need to know.
New Model, New Price
The 2018 Expedition XLT will start at $52,890 including destination, or $4,570 more than the outgoing generation. The new Expedition MAX, which replaces the larger EL model, will start $4,550 higher than before at $55,580. All-wheel drive adds approximately $3,000 depending on the trim you choose.
Further up the line, the well-equipped Expedition Limited has been priced from $63,780, or $66,465 in the case of the MAX. These equate to price increases worth $6,540 and $6,575, respectively. But that's not all. Based on our analysis, the largest increases will be happening at the top of the range.
The redesigned Platinum has been priced from $73,905, or $8,505 more than the outgoing generation. The MAX will start from $76,595, or $8,540 higher than before. The most significant increase comes with the Platinum grade MAX 4x4, which will start from $79,740, $8,650 more than it did before.
A Ford spokesperson confirmed the changes today for CarsDirect. Although the changes are greater than we're accustomed to seeing even for a redesign, Ford appears to be hoping that the vehicle will be a hit with shoppers who can benefit from its spacious design, increased capability and updated technology.
Recently announced specs show a substantial boost in output under the hood worth up to 35 hp and 60 lb-ft of torque depending on trim from the vehicle's 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6. The largest improvement is on the Platinum, which boasts 400 hp and 480 lb-ft, while other versions offer 375 hp with 470 lb-ft.
FX4 Pricing
The all-new FX4 model has been priced from $63,155 and will only be available on 4x4 versions of the XLT. To get to that price, you'll need to add Equipment Group 202A ($5,605) as well as the optional FX4 Package ($1,650).
The FX4 offers a more rugged alternative compared to what Expedition shoppers may be used to. It features specially tuned shocks, extensive underbody skid plates, a limited-slip rear differential, adjustable drive modes and much more.
Ford says it will be the most off-road capable Expedition ever.
Our Analysis
Next to a Chevy Suburban, the new Expedition appears to be priced competitively, at least at the entry level. A 2017 Suburban LS starts at $51,210, $1,680 less than the new Expedition XLT.
Higher up, a Suburban Premier 4x4 tops out at $69,135, well below the nearly $80,000 price of a Platinum grade MAX. At that point, Ford treads into the territory of the Cadillac Escalade, which starts at $74,590 for the standard model and $77,590 for the more spacious ESV.
So will the new prices put off Expedition shoppers? Probably not. Ford isn't alone in catering to buyers drawn to well-equipped variants. It's also worth noting that the King Ranch edition is no longer available, which could result in more people being drawn to the Limited and Platinum.
If you aren't keen on paying the premium, there's some good news. Special offers on the outgoing generation have hit a new high this month with up to $7,500 in factory rebates. We're even seeing potential to see prices dip below $40,000 with dealer discounts.Sen. Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.80 from its present level of $7.25. Polls are showing many voters in favor, though they are confused about what it would mean for the job market. The truth is that a move would be good for a slow economy and have a positive impact on the job crisis. Naturally, this has led to the usual cries of opposition, largely based on the notion that raising the minimum wage hurts the very people it is supposed to help. Typical of this view is a letter to the New York Times from Michael Saltsman, a fellow at the Employment Policies Institute, a business-backed nonprofit research group (surprise!).
Saltsman trots out the old canards against the minimum wage, claiming that research indicates that a minimum wage increase "simply doesn’t help the poor — in fact, it hurts them." He cites studies which showed that states with their minimum wages between 2003 and 2007 found no associated decline in state poverty rates. Saltsman gives three reasons for this:
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A majority of working-age individuals who live in poverty don’t work and thus cannot benefit from the raise. A clear majority of those who do earn the minimum wage live in households that aren’t in poverty. Less skilled and less experienced employees lose employment opportunities when the cost to hire and train them rises as a result of a minimum-wage increase.
Let’s take these arguments in turn. Implicit in the first point is that a majority of working-age individuals don’t work because they choose not to (that is, they are lazy scroungers), or because unemployment is caused by laziness or lack of training. The argument they often use is that “I can get a job; therefore all the unemployed could get jobs if only they tried harder or got better education and training.”
The way I go about demonstrating that fallacy is a dogs-and-bones example. Say we have 10 dogs and we bury nine bones in the backyard. We send the dogs out to find bones. At least one dog will come back without a bone.
We decide that the problem is lack of training. We put that dog through rigorous training in the latest bone-finding techniques. We bury nine bones and send the 10 dogs out again. The trained dog ends up with a bone, but some other dog comes back without a bone (empty-mouthed, so to speak).
The problem is that there are not enough bones and jobs to go around. <!--The “bones” in the jobs discussion are insufficient spending power in the economy.--> It is certainly true that a well-trained and highly motivated job seeker can usually find a job. But that is no evidence that aggregate unemployment is caused by laziness or lack of training. And besides, we could easily determine how much unemployment is truly voluntary. The government could serve as the “employer of last resort” under a job guarantee program modeled on the WPA (the Works Progress Administration, in existence from 1935 to 1943) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942). The program would offer a job to any American who was ready and willing to work at the federal minimum wage, plus legislated benefits. No time limits. No means testing. No minimum education or skill requirements.
It's hard to believe that reducing or even eliminating the minimum wage (which is the corollary of Saltsman’s point), would enhance employment, when the problem is a basic lack of demand. Business will not hire more workers until it has more sales. Consumers will not spend more until they’ve got more jobs. A private-sector recovery requires 300,000 new jobs every month. But the private sector doesn’t need 300,000 new workers per month until there exists sufficient spending power in the economy to induce them to hire those workers. How is retaining a static, or reduced minimum wage, going to achieve this?
Higher wages means higher income and thus higher consumption spending, which induces firms to employ more labor. So the truth is that economic theory does not tell us that raising the minimum wage will lead to more unemployment; indeed, theory tells us it can go the other way — raising the minimum wage could increase employment. That’s one of the reasons Henry Ford believed in paying his workers a decent wage: so that they could buy his product.
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To be sure, even an increase in the minimum wage to $12 or $15 an hour is not going to provide the means to purchase a Ford (or GM) today. And so what if, as Saltsman argues, the workers earning this minimum wage are not living in poverty? Does that mean they wouldn’t spend the money derived from an increased minimum wage? I wonder if Saltsman would also argue that tax cuts across the board are unnecessary because most of the people who receive them are not living in poverty?
That argument is a red herring. The truth is, if you earn your money through wages (unlike many of the 1 percent, who earn through things like investments and a tax system biased in favor of capital gains over income) then a higher wage, minimum or otherwise, would mean that you'd spend the additional dollars, creating jobs for other workers. You'd pay down your mortgages and car loans, getting yourself out of debt. You’d pay more taxes — on sales and property, mostly — thereby relieving the fiscal crises of states and localities. More teachers, police and firefighters would keep their jobs. America would get a virtuous cycle toward higher employment and, more importantly, the cycle would be based on a policy that creates higher incomes, not higher debt via credit expansion.
Then there's the common belief that minimum wages cause unemployment, which relates to Saltman’s third point – namely that less skilled and less experienced employees lose employment opportunities when the cost to hire and train them rises as a result of a minimum-wage increase. It is at least partly true that for an individual firm, higher wages reduce the number of workers hired. But we cannot extrapolate that to the economy as a whole. The issue of eroding wage competitiveness, which allegedly follows from a higher minimum wage, doesn’t really apply to jobs that offer the minimum wage. It might apply to areas such as manufactured goods and traded services like insurance and banking. But these are sectors in which most people already earn far more than the minimum wage.
As far as the minimum wage goes, the jobs we’re talking about are in non-traded services like checkout clerks, hair cutters, domestic help and food-service workers. When checkout clerks and cooks earn more in wages, then businesses start getting the sales required to induce them to hire more workers. And if sales are robust enough, then guess what? Even more workers will be hired, or wages will be increased.
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The point is that wages are a source of demand, as well as a cost input. Reduce wages and demand plummets, which more than overrides any cost savings derived from paying less to workers (especially given today's paltry minimum wage, which is hardly a living wage for any American).
Let's be clear: Americans have never embraced welfare. For better or worse, our nation has always preferred a more libertarian path: self-help, personal responsibility, individual initiative. As a result, our welfare programs have always been stingy, temporary and purposely demeaning. But maintaining the minimum wage at today’s ridiculously depressed level does not enhance anybody’s employment prospects. In fact, it makes things worse, because it sucks demand out of the economy and minimizes the chances of those now receiving unemployment benefits or other assistance to quickly get back into the workforce, to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps," as conservatives like to say. They cannot do that when our politicians continue to focus on policies that merely enhance the incomes of the top 1 percent.A blogger was hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers in Bangladesh on Tuesday, the third killing of a critic of religious extremism in the Muslim-majority nation in less than three months.
Ananta Bijoy Das, a blogger who advocated secularism, was attacked by four assailants in the northeastern district of Sylhet on Tuesday morning, senior police official Mohammad Rahamatullah said.
Rahamatullah said Das was a 33-year-old banker.
Das wrote for 'Mukto Mona', or free mind, a website propagating rationalism and opposing fundamentalism that was founded by U.S.-based blogger Avijit Roy.
Roy himself was hacked to death in February while returning with his wife from a Dhaka book fair.
His widow, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, suffered head injuries and lost a finger. In an interview with Reuters in the United States published on Monday, Ahmed called her husband's killing "a global act of terrorism".
Religious militants have targeted secularist writers in Bangladesh in recent years, while the government has tried to crack down on hardline Islamist groups seeking to make the South Asian nation of 160 million a sharia-based state.
On March 30, Washiqur Rahman, another secular blogger who aired his outrage over Roy's death on social media, was killed in similar fashion on a busy street in the capital, Dhaka.
Their deaths followed the similar killing in 2013 of Ahmed Rajib Haider, who backed calls to impose the death penalty on Islamist leaders accused of atrocities in Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence.
Read | Widow of slain US-Bangladeshi blogger lashes out at Dhaka
First Published: May 12, 2015 10:57 ISTShawn Barber set two goals for himself this season: clear six metres and win an Olympic medal. The Canadian pole vaulter has knocked off one goal already.
Canada's Shawn Barber, who won the pole vault at the 2015 world championships, cleared six metres at an indoor event in Reno, Nev., Friday night. ( Ian Walton / GETTY IMAGES )
The 21-year-old reigning world champion cleared 6.00 metres to win the Pole Vault Summit on Friday night in Reno, Nev., shattering his previous Canadian indoor record of 5.92. “Those are the two things that I’m really aiming for, and to cross one out so early in the year is a great feeling,” Barber said in a phone interview. “I was looking at doing six metres this year, that was my big goal, and to get that out of the way so early, it really gives me hope going into the outdoor season and going into Rio, because I feel like I have a much better chance of doing something really special outdoors.” Barber’s Canadian outdoor record is 5.93, set at the London Grand Prix last July.
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Like Canadian sprint star Andre De Grasse, Barber opted to turn pro this season and forgo his final year of NCAA eligibility with the University of Akron. He said Friday night’s result was validation he made the right decision. “Absolutely, I was worried that I wouldn’t perform this year,” he said. “Everybody has that fear of going pro, and then not performing, and so this kind of solidified my decision to go pro.” Barber is the youngest jumper to ever clear 6.00 indoors. Barber, who grew up in the U.S. but has dual citizenship and lists Toronto as his hometown, attempted six metres at several meets last season. He missed all three attempts at that height at the world championships in Beijing, but his height of 5.90 was good enough for gold. “Pretty much any time I jumped above 5.85, I gave (6.00) a good effort,” he said. “The idea is to be consistent above a certain mark, so you give yourself more chances at those high marks.”
Friday night, he cleared every height on his first attempt until he reached 5.94. He needed three attempts to clear 5.94, then moved the bar to 6.00, which he cleared on his first try. He was already celebrating before he landed in the pit. “I’m sure there’s photos, they might not be flattering, but I’m sure there’s photos,” Barber said laughing. “As soon as I was over I knew that it was going to stay.”
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Reigning Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie of France tweeted: “Welcome to 6m club @vaultbarber See you in Rouen.” Barber will fly to Europe on Wednesday for a series of meets, and will face Lavillenie, who won bronze at the world championships behind Barber, in Rouen, France, next Saturday. Barber will showcase his sport in Canada next June when he competes in a street event — similar to the event he won last summer inside Zurich’s main train station — at Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas Square. “I participate in events like this in Europe, but I’m really excited to put on a show for Toronto before heading to Rio,” Barber said. “Going into Rio, I really think we can do something special, and draw a big crowd.”Share. From Star Wars to Westeros, Shadow of War is pulling inspiration from the best of pop culture. From Star Wars to Westeros, Shadow of War is pulling inspiration from the best of pop culture.
For the entire month of April, our IGN First is diving deep into Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the hugely ambitious sequel to 2014's Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
As part of that ongoing coverage, we sat down to ask the Vice President of Creative at Monolith Productions and the man behind the story, Michael de Plater, everything we could about the game. How does it fit between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? What's up with those Nazgul? How hard is Shadow of War going to be? All that and so, so much more. The little footage we've seen so far has already generated a number of questions, so let's start unpacking them right now.
And for more, be sure to check out all of our Shadow of War - IGN First coverage so far!
Exit Theatre Mode
How accessible will Shadow of War be to people that aren’t familiar with Tolkien, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, or Shadow of Mordor?
Mike: It's really important for us that this is a point of entry. This is sort of the bigger blockbuster version of the game, so if you haven't played Shadow and you start playing this one, it should be pretty easy to get into. Even if you don't have prior knowledge of the movies.
For those that do, how does Shadow of War fit into the timeline between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings?
Mike: One of the things the films do, and we do, all the events are real and from the book, but they're either compressed in time or moved around a little bit in time. So if we're watching The Hobbit, they put a lot of emphasis on Sauron being driven out of Dol Guldur and returning to Mordor, and that's where we begin our story as well.
“ We have this 60 year period, which is a long time. That's like from the end of World War 2 to the present today.
Then we have this 60 year period, which is a long time. That's like from the end of World War 2 to the present today. A lot can go on. I think we look at that like, ‘Can we tell a story where the stakes are big enough to explain why Sauron actually take that long to build up?’
It could have been 10 years or 20 years. He could have marched out of Mordor far earlier and swept over things. So a big part of getting in there behind enemy lines and sowing this chaos, this civil war, keeping Mordor at war with itself is actually achieving this goal of keeping Mordor in this state of perpetual war that actually delays Sauron's ability to come out and attack the rest of Middle Earth. And then of course contribute to why it's surprising when he does.
There are a lot of ways you can directly reference the other movies with our story, but the Rogue One analogy is actually really close to what we want to achieve.
“ The Rogue One analogy is actually really close to what we want to achieve.
We want you to be able to play this game through to the end, and then go and read The Lord of the Rings, or watch The Lord of the Rings, and have this flow into the film or the book. And not only have that really make sense but really illuminate some elements of The Lord of the Rings in kind of a new way. Especially in regards to the villains.
Why is Sauron trapped as the flaming eye on Barad-dur? Who are the Nazgul and what's up with them as characters?
Does moving the fall of Minas Ithil in the Tolkien timeline cause issues with that universe?
Mike: We try to be very true to the events as they're known. In some ways, it's almost historical fiction. And we'd already done that as well in Shadow of Mordor. The fall of the Black Gates and Talion’s initial death was also moved in terms of the timeline in order to accommodate that story.
“ We also get to explore what happened to the king of Gondor, and why is Denethor the steward?
So we try to be very accurate to the events and the things that took place, and their connections to each other, but we also really want to tell these stories, these big iconic stories within our story as well. So the particular example that touches on our story, that we also get to explore a bit, is the notion of what happened to the king of Gondor, and why is Denethor the steward, and also what's the political and military structure in Minas Ithil and how does that relate to Minas Tirith. Then we see the fall. So everything is touching on events that we know and things we've seen very accurately but we've sort of moved that story within this timeline.
Exit Theatre Mode
How do you know what you can alter, or move, and what can’t be touched?
Mike: A big thing we try to do is explain some of the things that are in Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in a way that is coherent. For example, in the Hobbit, Bilbo takes the One Ring and goes walking right through Mirkwood straight under Sauron's nose while he's there in Dol Guldur. The reason that happened is because when Tolkien wrote the Hobbit, he didn't know the importance of that ring or the relationship to Sauron. It was a different story.
“ When Tolkien wrote the Hobbit, he didn't know the importance of that ring or the relationship to Sauron. It was a different story.
So we've taken that slight inconsistency that's in the original and said the reason for that is because Celebrimbor, who we know worked with Sauron on the forging of the Rings, was also forced to work on the forging of the One Ring, and his perfection of that ring is what gave it a life or a mind of its own, separate from Sauron that allows it to go under Sauron's nose in this case. So we can try and draw connective tissue and fill things in. Really make our story fit in a way that connects to everything else.
And again the movies made the same kind of compromises to some extent. They had the Nazgul reawaken with Sauron in the Hobbit versus just having them back in Mordor at the same time. Compressing those events and fitting them for the same timeline, we sort of fit it within that.
What’s more enjoyable? Creating new stories in the universe or using what’s already there?
I think it's a combination of both. So I think it's really important to pull from the things that people love about these stories. It's the characters, stakes, villains, world. So you have to try really hard to be true to that.
“ If we don't tell an original story, we're not being faithful to the point of what the whole genre or fiction is about.
I think one of the most important things about being true to the original is that you have to tell an original high stakes story which involves discovering new things. There's no time when you're reading or watching Lord of the Rings that you're not discovering new amazing things in every chapter, that you're not journeying to new places every chapter. Generally the whole thing with fantasy is it has to be about discovery and wonder and things you haven't seen before.
If we don't tell an original story, we're not being faithful to the point of what the whole genre or fiction is about. But there are absolutely certain tropes, or archetypes, or values, or themes, ideas in The Lord of the Rings that we have to be really true to. That's why I think it's so fun exploring this idea of power and the rings of power.
Exit Theatre Mode
Our inspiration at the beginning is very much about how Boromir wanted the One Ring. What would have happened if he had gotten that? Or Galadriel, where she’s dark Galadriel. You wouldn't have a Dark Lord but a Dark Queen, so that was really the seed of thinking who's Talion? Who's Celebrimbor? And when Sam and Frodo go into Mordor and Cirith Ungol with the ring, that fortress just turns on itself and the orcs slaughter each other |
partners hosted an Imagine Delaware forum focusing on child abuse and what can be done to stop it.
The event was sponsored by the newspaper, Christiana Care Health System and Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children at the Cab Calloway School of the Arts in Wilmington.
THE STORY: On the front lines of child abuse in Delaware
BACKGROUND: What the numbers say about the state's efforts to fight child abuse
Buy Photo Members of the public receive information from Kind to Kids before the start of an Imagine Delaware forum on child abuse prevention at Cab Calloway School of the Arts in Wilmington on Friday. (Photo: DANIEL SATO/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
Before the panel discussion, more than 20 community groups and nonprofits hosted exhibits and handed out information about the services to families they provide. Anyone struggling with related issues – financial, medical or housing – was able to hold a private conversation with a professional.
The News Journal's executive editor, David Ledford, moderated a panel discussion featuring local, regional and national experts. Panelists included:
Josette DelleDonne Manning, secretary of the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families, which coordinates services for youth who have faced abuse or neglect.
, secretary of the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families, which coordinates services for youth who have faced abuse or neglect. Teri Lawler, a school psychologist at Stanton Middle School with 28 years' experience.
a school psychologist at Stanton Middle School with 28 years' experience. David Paul, a practicing neonatologist, who is chair of Christiana Care's pediatrics department.
a practicing neonatologist, who is chair of Christiana Care's pediatrics department. Kellie Turner, program director for Prevent Child Abuse Delaware.
program director for Prevent Child Abuse Delaware. Lyndon Haviland, an international expert in children's issues and human rights who has worked for the United Nations and World Health Organization, among other agencies.
RELATED:Solving child abuse means abandoning 'what's wrong with you'
RELATED:After culture changes, no data to suggest better response to child abuse
RELATED:In Delaware, addiction turns grandparents into caregivers
On Saturday, the Red Clay Consolidated School District, Prevent Child Abuse Delaware and the Beau Biden Foundation will offer public education and professional session concerning child abuse. They will include training on how to spot child abuse, manage difficult behavior in kids, protect children in the digital age and have tough conversations with your children.
CLOSE School nurses are on the front line of spotting child abuse and child advocates discuss the lack of resources to back up the claims. Jennifer Corbett/The News Journal
That event will be held from 7:30 a.m. to noon. It also will be free and open to the public, though some workshops require registration — to sign up, go to www.rcchildabuseprevention2017.com.
In advance of the forum, The News Journal has published in-depth stories explaining the scope of child abuse in Delaware and how the state is approaching the problem.
The News Journal's previous Imagine Delaware forums have drawn crowds of hundreds and have covered topics such as diabetes, the heroin epidemic, poverty in education, job growth in Delaware and the state's aging population.
Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected], (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/2nS8wVSThis comic has essentially nothing to do with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World but I’ve been wanting to draw Josh’s “Rogue’s Gallery of Exes” for a while now. So there you go. If you are wondering where “Goldie Locks” is, I know Josh dated at least one girl in highschool before his gay-wakening so let’s just assume she’s already been defeated… by life and the choices she’s made.
NEW SHIRT! NEW SHIRT! THE BEST SHIRT I’VE EVER MADE!!!
Science Fiction TV-Movie Title Generator T-Shirt @Topatoco!!!
There is also a PRINT of this design too!
The title of the comic should not be confused with “Pilgrim’s Pride” which is a maker of fine poultry products. Actually that’s more suiting since neither titles have anything to do with the comic and one of them is about chicken. Let’s go with that one.
NEWS!
There is a new Fancy Bastard Facebook Fan Page (FBFBFP?)!!! The HE forum is basically dead and the old HE Facebook group is roughly the same. Twitter and the site comments seemed to have really taken the place of the previous FB online meeting places, but I think with this fan page I can give you guys a place to talk about non-HE related things and not force you do have an additional social network identity to keep up with. We’ll see how it goes. Feel free to check it out, start discussion, make posts, add photos, etc etc. For those interested I will keep the forum up and running for now (archive anything you want to save forever), but the old Facebook group will be deleted soon.British pop-rock artist
This article is about the Coldplay musician. For other people with the same name, see Chris Martin (disambiguation)
Christopher Anthony John Martin[1] (born 2 March 1977) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and philanthropist. He is the lead singer and co-founder of the rock band Coldplay. Born in Exeter in Devon, Martin went to University College London where he formed a rock band with Jonny Buckland in 1996 called Pectoralz, which was eventually renamed Coldplay in 1998.
Martin, along with the other Coldplay members, achieved worldwide fame with the release of the band's single "Yellow" in 2000, a song that also earned the band their first Grammy Award nomination in the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. The band also garnered critical acclaim and several accolades for their subsequent albums including A Rush of Blood to the Head and Viva la Vida, winning a Grammy Award for both and a Brit Award for the former. Coldplay has sold over 90 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. One of the highest profile musicians in British popular culture, Martin appeared on Debrett's 2017 list of the most influential people in the United Kingdom.[2]
Early life and education [ edit ]
Christopher Anthony John Martin was born on 2 March 1977 in Exeter, Devon, England, and is the oldest of five children. His father, Anthony John Martin, of Whitestone House, Exeter,[3] is a retired accountant, and his mother, Alison Martin, is a music teacher. His family's caravan and motorhome sales business, Martins of Exeter, was founded by his grandfather John Besley Martin, C.B.E. (a High Sheriff- also Mayor in 1968- of Exeter), in 1929, sold by his father to a former employee in 1999.[4][5][6][7][8] William Willett, the man who campaigned for and made daylight saving time a recognised practice, was Martin's great-great-grandfather.[9] Martin's paternal aunt Elisabeth Jane (daughter of John Besley Martin) married Hon. Julian George Winston Sandys, son of Conservative politician Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys by his wife Diana Churchill, daughter of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[4][5] The Conservative politician David Martin is his father's brother.[5]
Martin was educated at the pre-preparatory Hylton School and the preparatory Exeter Cathedral School where he found his passion for music.[10][not in citation given] After Exeter Cathedral School, Martin boarded at Sherborne School in Dorset, where he met future Coldplay manager Phil Harvey.[11]
Martin continued his studies at University College London (UCL), staying at Ramsay Hall, where he read Ancient World Studies and graduated with first-class honours in Greek and Latin.[8] At UCL, Martin met his future Coldplay bandmates Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion.[12]
Recording career [ edit ]
Coldplay [ edit ]
While studying at University College London, Martin met Jonny Buckland with whom he decided to form a band—Martin as lead singer and Buckland as lead guitarist. They were joined by Guy Berryman as their bass player and Will Champion, as their drummer. In 1996, they formed the rock band Coldplay, originally known as Pectoralz, later changed to Starfish temporarily until finally they were offered the name Coldplay by another band who did not want the name anymore.
Since the release of their debut album Parachutes in 2000, the band has had internationally recognised fame and success. Their song Yellow from Parachutes instantly entered the charts at Number 4, the hit carried Coldplay to their aforementioned fame.[13] To date, they have released seven studio albums in total including Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, X&Y, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Mylo Xyloto, Ghost Stories, and A Head Full of Dreams. They also released several EP's at the beginning of their creation including Safety and The Blue Room.
Solo work [ edit ]
Martin at Music Midtown (Piemont Park) in Atlanta, GA on 24 September 2011
As a solo artist, Martin has written songs for a variety of acts including Embrace ("Gravity") and Jamelia ("See It in a Boy's Eyes", co-written with Coldplay producer Rik Simpson). Martin has also collaborated with Ron Sexsmith, Faultline, the Streets, and Ian McCulloch. He also sang a part of the vocals for the Band Aid 20 single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at the end of 2004. In 2005, Martin collaborated with Nelly Furtado on the track "All Good Things (Come to an End)", for her 2006 album, Loose. The two were once rumoured to be a couple, after they both performed at Glastonbury in 2002. Nelly Furtado joked about it, saying, "Yeah, he's my boyfriend—he just doesn't know it yet".[14]
Martin's fascination with hip hop was shown in mid-2006 when he collaborated with rapper Jay-Z for the rapper's comeback album Kingdom Come after the two met earlier in the year.[15] Martin put some chords together for a song known as "Beach Chair" and sent them to Jay-Z who enlisted the help of hip-hop producer Dr. Dre to mix it. Coldplay producer Rik Simpson conceived and performed the drum beats. The song was performed on 27 September 2006 by the two during Jay-Z's European tour at Royal Albert Hall. Martin has also worked on a solo collaboration with Kanye West, with whom he shared an impromptu jam session during a 2006 concert at Abbey Road Studios.[16] He performed the chorus of "Homecoming", from Kanye West's album Graduation.
In 2015, Martin collaborated with producer and DJ Avicii to work on two new tracks for his album, Stories. Their first collaboration is officially named "Heaven". Martin wrote the lyrics, Avicii did the production, and Simon Aldred of Cherry Ghost was the vocalist.[17] He also provided the vocals for Avicii's True Believer, also in his Stories album.
In September 2016, the Chainsmokers shared two short clips of an upcoming song featuring vocals from Martin.[18] The song, "Something Just Like This", was released on 22 February 2017, and has reached number 3 peak on the US Billboard Hot 100.
In February 2017, Martin performed A Different Corner on the Brit Awards in honor to George Michael
A song he co-wrote called "Homesick" appears on Dua Lipa's self-titled debut album, which was released in June 2017.[19]
Influences and favourite musicians [ edit ]
The main influence on Martin and Coldplay is the Scottish rock band Travis, with Martin crediting the band for the creation of his own band.[20]
The Irish rock band U2 is another important influence on Martin both musically and politically.[21] Martin wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" on the band,[22] saying: "I don't buy weekend tickets to Ireland and hang out in front of their gates, but U2 are the only band whose entire catalogue I know by heart. The first song on The Unforgettable Fire, "A Sort of Homecoming", I know backward and forward—it's so rousing, brilliant, and beautiful. It's one of the first songs I played to my unborn baby." Martin also comments on Bono's effect on his own charity and political involvement he is even known to joke with friends referring to himself as "Crono".[21]
Martin and Coldplay were also greatly influenced by the English rock band Radiohead. Speaking to Rolling Stone Magazine, Martin said of Radiohead: "Sometimes I feel like they cleared a path with a machete, and we came afterward and put up a strip mall... I would still give my left ball to write anything as good as OK Computer."[23]
Martin is very vocal about his love for Norwegian new wave/Synthpop band a-ha. In 2005 he stated the following in an interview: "I found myself in Amsterdam the other day and I put a-ha's first record on. I just remembered how much I loved it. It's incredible songwriting. Everyone asks what inspired us, what we've been trying to steal from and what we listened to as we were growing up—the first band I ever loved was a-ha."[24] Martin has also performed live together with Magne Furuholmen of a-ha, introducing him as "the best keyboard player in the world".[25] In November 2011, he stated that "back when we didn't have any hits of our own we used to play a-ha songs."[26]
Martin is also known to be a fan of the English rock bands Oasis and Muse,[27] Irish pop group Westlife,[28] English-Irish girl group Girls Aloud,[29][30] English pop group Take That,[31] and Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire. In 2014, Martin inducted Peter Gabriel into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his solo career, and performed live with the former Genesis lead singer.[32] Martin is also close friends with the musical couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé.
Coldplay performed R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming" with Michael Stipe during their Austin City Limits performance in 2005, as a part of the Twisted Logic Tour. Martin went on to call "Nightswimming" "the greatest song ever written".[33] He has called Richard Ashcroft, formerly of the Verve, "the best singer in the world".[34] He also admires the lyrics of Morrissey.[35]
Martin was quoted as calling Coldplay's song "Shiver" a rip-off Jeff Buckley influenced by Buckley's song "Grace".
In 2008, Coldplay released an alternate music video for Viva la Vida directed by Anton Corbijn as a tribute to the Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence", one, directed by Corbijn himself in 1990. It shows Martin dressed as a king like Dave Gahan did in the original video. The band stated: "This is our attempt at a video cover version, made out of love for Depeche Mode and the genius of Anton Corbijn".
Other endeavours [ edit ]
Martin and Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland made cameo appearances in the film Shaun of the Dead as supporters of the fictional charity ZombAid,[36] with Martin having a second cameo in the film as a Zombie.[36] In 2006 Martin had a cameo role in the second series, episode four, of the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created comedy Extras. He also appears singing in the closing credits of the 2009 Sacha Baron Cohen film Brüno; along with Bono, Sting, Slash, Snoop Dogg, and Elton John.[37]
In March 2015, Martin attended the televised launch of music streaming service Tidal via a video link, and revealed himself, along with other notable artists, as a shareholder in the company.[38] In June 2015, Martin performed "Til Kingdom Come" at the funeral Mass of Beau Biden, son of United States Vice-President Joe Biden, after learning that Biden was a fan of his.[39] In August 2017, Martin performed a live solo piano rendition of "Crawling" by Linkin Park. The performance was a tribute to Linkin Park's lead singer Chester Bennington, who died by suicide the previous month.[40]
Politics [ edit ]
Martin has been particularly outspoken on issues of fair trade and has campaigned for Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign. He travelled to Ghana and Haiti to meet farmers and view the effects of unfair trade practices.[41] When performing he usually has variations of "Make Trade Fair", "MTF" or an equal sign written on the back of his left hand and the letters "MTF" can be seen emblazoned on his piano.[42] He was a vocal critic of US President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. During the Teenage Cancer Trust show at London's Royal Albert Hall on 24 March 2003, he encouraged the sell-out crowd to "sing against war".[43] He was a strong supporter of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, most notably during his acceptance speech for the 2004 Grammy Awards Record of the Year, accepting for "Clocks". He supported Obama for President in 2008, giving a shout-out at the end of a performance of "Yellow" on 25 October 2008 episode of Saturday Night Live.[44]
Martin playing " Trouble " on his piano during a concert in Brazil, February 2007
On 1 April 2006 The Guardian reported that Martin was backing the British Conservative Party leader David Cameron, and had written a new theme song for the party titled "Talk to David".[45][46] This was later revealed to be an April Fool's joke. While touring Australia in March 2009, Martin and the rest of Coldplay were the opening act at the Sound Relief benefit concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Sydney, for the victims of bushfires and floods in Victoria and Queensland.[47] Martin appeared in a video for the "Robin Hood Tax" campaign, which proposes a tax on stock trades in the United States.[48] This tax is aimed at levelling the field between the so-called "1% and 99%". In June 2016, Martin supported Vote Remain in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[49]
Philanthropy [ edit ]
On 12 December 2012, Martin performed as a part of the "12 12 12 Concert" which was held as a fundraiser for Hurricane Sandy relief. He performed "Viva La Vida", the R.E.M. song "Losing My Religion" with former R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe, and "Us Against the World". Other performers in the show included Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Alicia Keys, the Who, Kanye West, Billy Joel and Paul McCartney.[50] On 15 November 2014, Martin joined charity group Band Aid 30, performing alongside British and Irish pop acts on the latest version of the track "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, to raise money for the 2014 Ebola crisis in Western Africa—this was the second time Martin has contributed to a Band Aid recording having performed in the 2004 version.[51]
Martin became the creative director of the newly established Global Citizen Festival in 2015, a role he will fulfill for a period of 15 years.[52] The festival was created in 2015 to mark the establishment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a "to-do list" of 17 tasks to end extreme global poverty by the year 2030; with Martin consulting Band Aid founder Bob Geldof on the role.[52] The 2015 festival, was held on Central Park's Great Lawn in New York on 26 September, and featured performances by Martin's band Coldplay, Beyoncé, Pearl Jam and Ed Sheeran, and was broadcast on NBC in the US on 27 September, and the BBC in the UK on 28 September.[53] It was reported that Martin became the Innocence Project's Artists' Committee as an Innocence Ambassador on 5 February 2016.[54]
Even with a £94 million net worth to his name, the rockstar still continues a habit that his mother instilled on him at a young age – sharing. “My mum gives me £3 a week but I only get £2.70,” Martin said on an interview with Australia’s Today show.[55] He explained that ever since the release of their first album Parachutes in 2000, the band has been donating ten percent of their earnings to 28 different charities including 21st Century Leaders, Amnesty International, Mercy Corps, Make Fair Trade, Red Cross, War Child, and many more. [56] Along with performing with Coldplay at charity concerts and promoting humanitarian organizations while on tour, Martin’s philanthropic efforts extend beyond monetary donations. Ever since the early 2000s, he has been an active supporter of the fair trade movement; he’s made multiple trips accompanying Oxfam to Ghana, Haiti, and Mexico in efforts to speak with local farmers about pushing for fair trade policies. [57] Forbes also reported that in 2015, Martin agreed to team up with Global Citizen, an international humanitarian organization fighting to end extreme poverty in the 21st century, for 15 years as a curator for international festivals. [58] Most recently, in a report by The Guardian, Coldplay has also agreed to support Moas, a charity that focuses on helping refugees and migrants escape from war and persecution in the middle east, by starring in their fundraising film. [59]
Personal life [ edit ]
Martin forces himself to drink vodka with cranberry juice when he behaves "like an idiot".[60][61] PETA named him the World's Sexiest Vegetarian in 2005.[62] However, he began eating meat again after his split with Gwyneth Paltrow.[63] Martin is a supporter of Arsenal Football Club. According to an article released by Quartz in May 2018, Martin has an estimated wealth of £94 million.[64]
Relationships [ edit ]
Martin and American actress Gwyneth Paltrow married on 5 December 2003,[65] in a quiet ceremony in the presence of their friends and family. Their daughter was born in May 2004 in London.[66] Martin and the band released a song "I am your baby's daddy" under the name "the Nappies" in anticipation of her birth. The band's song "Speed of Sound" was also inspired by Martin's experience and awe at becoming a father. Their second child, a son, was born in April 2006 in New York City.[67] Moses' name was inspired by a song that Martin wrote for Paltrow. Simon Pegg and Martin's bandmate Jonny Buckland are his daughter’s godfathers, and Martin is godfather to Pegg's daughter.[68]
Martin and Paltrow announced their separation as a "conscious uncoupling" in March 2014, after ten years of marriage.[69] Paltrow filed for divorce in April 2015.[70] A judge finalised it on 14 July 2016.[71]
Religion [ edit ]
In a 2005 Rolling Stone Magazine interview, Martin, who was raised believing in a Christian God, said of his religious views: "I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be overwhelmed by the miraculousness of it?"[72] In the same interview as well, he spoke of going through a period of spiritual confusion, stating, "I went through a weird patch, starting when I was about sixteen to twenty-two, of getting God, religion, superstition, judgement all confused".[72] In a 2008 interview, he said, "I'm always trying to work out what 'He' or 'She' is. I don't know if it's Allah or Jesus or Mohammed or Zeus. But I'd go for Zeus."[73] Following the interview, he announced that he was an Omnist, releasing a text message declaring himself an "all-theist", a word of his invention meaning that he believes in "everything".[73]
Filmography [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Films [ edit ]
Discography [ edit ]
Solo [ edit ]
With Coldplay [ edit ]Turkey, US pledge to improve ties in Yıldırım, Pence meeting
Murat Yetkin - NEW YORK
Ankara and Washington have pledged a new era in mutual ties following the meeting of Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, amid a number of rifts between the two NATO allies.
“The leaders expressed hope that their meeting would help to usher in a new chapter in U.S.-Turkey relations and agreed on the need for constructive dialogue, as friends and Allies, on bilateral challenges,” the White House said in a statement following the Washington meeting on Nov. 9.
The meeting, which lasted nearly an hour-and-a-half longer than scheduled, was “very fruitful,” said Yıldırım, adding that the two parties decided to “maintain dialogue.”
“We talked over our problems sincerely and honestly,” Yıldırım told reporters following the meeting.
“We have decided to maintain dialogue. We agreed to try to resolve problems with instant touches via telephone. I observed that the vice president has a positive look toward Turkey,” he said.
Close watch on YPG guns
One of the key matters between the two allies is the U.S. support to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers a terrorist group for its links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The U.S. backs the YPG in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“We spoke bluntly on the YPG issue,” Yıldırım said, adding that the U.S. understands Turkey’s sensitivity on the matter.
He again said it was time for the U.S. to put an end to the support to the YPG now that ISIL has almost completely been defeated. He reiterated Turkey’s concerns that arms sent to the YPG end up in the hands of the PKK, as Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli also stressed to U.S. Defense Minister Jim Mattis earlier in the day.
Pence said cooperation with the YPG would “only be short term” and Washington will closely track its weapons, according to Yıldırım.
Visa crisis
Ahead of Yıldırım’s visit to the U.S., the two countries mutually decided to ease a visa crisis that emerged after the arrest of two Turkish-citizen employees of the U.S. Istanbul Consulate.
Yıldırım downplayed the crisis, saying the issue was “returning to normal.”
The suspension came after the arrest of U.S. staffer Metin Topuz, accused by police of having ties to the network of Fethullah Gülen, the top suspect in the cases into the July 2016 coup attempt.
Turkey ‘did not violate Iran sanctions’
Meanwhile, Yıldırım also touched on the ongoing case against Iranian-origin Turkish citizen Reza Zarrab and a Turkish public bank official, Hakan Attila, on charges of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, as well as the arrest warrant against former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan.
“We said in the meeting that these cases are poisoning the Turkey-U.S. ties,” Yıldırım said, referring to “judicial processes in two sovereign countries.”
Yıldırım said he told Pence that evidence in the case of Zarrab was “unlawfully collected” and several members of judicial cadre who collected the evidence in Turkey are now facing charges over links to Gülen.
“In addition, we said this case should not be regarded as a violation of the U.S. sanctions on Iran,” he added.
Turkey demands the extradition of Gülen and Yıldırım said he told Pence that Ankara wants to see “concrete steps” on the issue, adding that “we want the U.S. to restrict their activities.”
On the U.S. side, Washington demands the release of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who was arrested in Turkey over alleged links to the Gülen network.
Yıldırım told journalists Pence raised U.S. concerns about the trial.
“We noted that the principles of a state of law rules in both the U.S. and Turkey,” Yıldırım said.
US ‘should back Baghdad’
Pence praised Turkey for its “strong will” in the problems that emerged after the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) independence referendum in late September, a bid that the autonomous administration has already stepped back from following international reaction and a strong Baghdad response.
Both Ankara and Washington had declared their opposition to the KRG leader Massoud Barzani’s failed bid.
In response to Pence, Yıldırım said Ankara demanded further support to the central Iraqi government under Haidar al-Abadi.
The two countries will fight against ISIL, he also said, adding that Turkey called on the U.S. to take a “more active role in Syria and in deeper cooperation with Turkey.”
Yıldırım and Pence “highlighted the United States’ and Turkey’s mutual interest in stability and security in the Middle East and agreed to further intergovernmental consultations toward that end,” read the White House statement.
Pence thanked Yıldırım for Turkey’s contributions to global security and the fight to defeat ISIL, and he underscored the U.S. commitment to stand with Turkey against the PKK and other terrorist threats.
“The Vice President expressed deep concern over the arrests of American citizens, Mission Turkey local staff, journalists, and members of civil society under the state of emergency and urged transparency and due process in the resolution of their cases,” the statement said.Tuesday is the pop quiz you never expect. It’s the sidewalk you’ve tripped over enough times to know better. It’s hidden fees and your local cash-only bar. It sucks, and you should see it coming — but it still gets you every time.
So when NOLA challenged us to grab some comfortable shoes and experience a New Orleans Tuesday for 24 straight hours, we immediately packed our bags. Were we ready to shake things up and break up the monotony of Tuesdays as we knew them? Absolutely.
Priya: By 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, I’ve assigned all my hopes and dreams for the week to 234 tabs and have already run out of unique ways to ask people about their weekend. Yes, New Orleans, you’re right. I do hate Tuesday. So I’m totally ready for you to show me what you got. Jana: I think it's clear how I feel about Tuesdays:
Every Tuesday is a marathon you haven't trained for.
So when NOLA challenged us to Make Tuesdays Great Again, I was skeptical. I was also cranky because I’m an anxious, 30-year-old piece of garbage. Being active for 24 hours sounded like a lot of work, especially on a Tuesday. What was I getting myself into?
Jana: Our producer, Jason, made us wake up to catch the sunrise — which in my world is way too early. I put on my best black T-shirt (the one I’d found on the floor while packing) and headed out into the day. The four of us — Priya; Jason; our photographer, Sarah; and me — rounded the corner into Jackson Square. The sun was rising over the water. Suddenly this seemed like it might not be so bad after all. It was, in fact, beautiful? Priya looked great, I looked OK, and here we were, doing it. Priya: There are very few times in life when I’m willing to give up an hour of sleep to see something that isn’t Beyoncé. Living in New York, soaking up the beauty of nature is something that I’ve learned to forgo. But there I was feeling spiritually awakened in the glow of the rising sun over the Mississippi River at 6 a.m. I felt like I was in a Disney movie, getting swept up in a ray of sunshine and spiraling slow-motion into the sky while shimmering and transforming into something else: a better person.
Priya: There are two types of people in this world: people who eat breakfast and people who don’t. I don’t care how much I oversleep or how early my flight is, I always make time for breakfast. I will risk being late to work and suffer the consequences. I will not pass go, I will not collect $200, but I definitely won’t skip out on breakfast. Jana: Post-sunrise, I was feeling very...something. Very full of life, you might say, and hopped up on pink sky. In general, I try to avoid doughnuts (or, at least, that’s what I tell people), but this morning at District Donuts, I didn't even care. The doughnuts were beautiful. They were delicious — otherworldly, even. One of them tasted like a kind of brownie batter I never knew existed and now couldn’t live without. I was happy...and full.
Jana: After doughnuts, we headed straight to yoga at The Cabildo. I wasn’t so sure about this sequence of events, but I pulled my leggings over my doughnut food belly and headed for the Cabildo. As we came into our final resting pose, the street performers outside in Jackson Square started singing “I’ll Fly Away.” Sun and music poured through the windows, and I felt like I was floating.
Priya: The Louisiana Purchase was signed in this very building, and the room itself was drenched in sunlight and filled with the sound of singing from Jackson Square. Scrolling through inspiring quotes on Instagram on the subway has got nothing on this. THIS is the way to start your day off right. Maybe don’t eat doughnuts right before doing yoga, though.
"As we came into our final resting pose, the street performers outside in Jackson Square started singing 'I’ll Fly Away.' Sun and music poured through the windows, and I felt like I was floating."
Jana: Ever since childhood, I’ve feared the future and definitely had no interest in hearing about it before it happened — who needs extra anxiety when the present moment is so stressful as it is? — so you can imagine that I approached the palm readers in Jackson Square with trepidation...and a bit of an attitude. Still, I held out my hand, gritted my teeth, and kept my damn sunglasses on. It turned out to be OK! A few takeaways: I will live to nursing-home age, I will have three kids, and either my partner or myself will own a business. All things I could live with! Especially because I’ve always planned to eventually open a knickknack shop called “Jana’s Funky Cottage” (and maybe I’ll do it right here in NOLA!).
Priya: You know when you’re walking down the street listening to your new favorite song on full volume and feeling alive? Exploring the French Quarter felt a bit like that, except you’re not just waltzing down the street lost in your own imagination, because everyone around you can hear the music too.
Priya: There are certain times when calories don’t count. Scientifically speaking, whenever you’re in an airport, during that time of the month, or if you find yourself in New Orleans. I told myself this as I ate another spoonful of warm pecan cake with dark rum reduction and butterscotch sauce with vanilla bean ice cream and spiced candied BACON. But in addition to butterscotch sauce, Brennan’s was soaked in tradition, and the walls of every room bursted with a story to tell. I made a promise to myself never to have a desk lunch again. I had tasted the good life, and nothing would ever be the same.
"You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning." —NOLA waitstaff
Jana: We waltzed into Brennan’s hungry and were seated right away. The room was sunny and a beautiful, bright peach color, and our waiter was the most charming. We ate shrimp on spoons and the best fried oysters I have ever had or ever will have. I helped myself to the last one like a real jerk (#sorrynotsorry). I’m still dreaming about them tbh.
As we sat there eating fancy food fancily, a waiter came over and gently tapped my shoulder. “Did something fall out of your bag?” I glanced down to see the dirty sports bra that I’d worn during yoga casually hanging out under my chair. Even here in this beautiful restaurant, I was garbage. I held my head high, picked up the bra, and thanked the waiter like an adult. It was mortifying.
Jana: DAT MASK. It was only noon, and suddenly I was a person who thought she looked great in a costume mask? NOLA is a special place after all! Priya: I bought a tin of traditional New Orleans chicory coffee after drinking multiple refills at Brennan’s. Seeing as how it was going to be a while before anyone flambéed anything for me, this was the closest I was going to get to a New Orleans breakfast back home. As an adult, relaxation is being buried under pounds of thick sweatpants and eating takeout Thai food. As a kid, though, relaxation is bikes. Hopping on a hot three-wheeler, my hair flowing-ish, I felt like a 6-year-old again.
Jana: As an adult, relaxation is being buried under pounds of thick sweatpants and eating takeout Thai food. As a kid, though, relaxation is bikes. Hopping on a hot three-wheeler, my hair flowing-ish, I felt like a 6-year-old again.
Priya: I felt gangsta AF lowriding with the wind in my hair... It felt like I was in a music video, so I made one.
Around 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, I’m usually on my third coffee and ignoring “storage is low” warnings on my inbox. Yet there I was, drifting out in the water, thinking about stuff in the sunshine, and definitely not pedaling. I was starting to realize that in NOLA, every day is approached like a Saturday afternoon.
Jana: All I’ll say is that I was really good at steering a paddleboat. Surprisingly good, given my issues with bikes and my general aversion to movement.
Priya: After stepping into Avery Perfume Gallery, I decided that I wanted |
be in such a hurry. Dismissing the thought, she continued toward the elevator that would take her to her office. Jaune trailed her, looking as impressive as he always did in his armor. He'd grown so much since that day, becoming the model Huntsman that many of the students idolized. But he was still just that boy from before; when they were alone he'd make his reports before reverting back to stammering conversation. Pyrrha had so many duties that his company was always welcomed.
Riding the elevator upward, she glanced over at him with a small smile. "It's good to be back home. And we might finally have a chance to rest now that we've gotten rid of those people."
Jaune stood stock still, not looking over or even shifting in his boots. Pyrrha couldn't help but be concerned, that maybe he'd been pushed too hard in the last few months. She'd relied on him to carry out so many missions for the kingdom. His skill as a tactician had only grown stronger in the years, and his skills with the third blade he'd forged, Saveur Solitaire, had begun to match even her own. Still, they'd gotten along well, and Pyrrha still considered him her leader. And hopefully one day something more.
Letting the ride pass in silence, Pyrrha watched as the elevator slowed and the doors slid open. Before her lay the scene of an office kept in check only by meticulous housekeeping and diligent task management. And in front of that cleanly office stood an older woman, stout and short for someone of Vale. She had the looks of a veteran, the survivor of many mishaps in life. Yet there were no scars or even the sinewy strength of someone accustomed to fighting. The woman walked straight up to the exiting Pyrrha and stood her ground before the Huntress.
"Alright missy, let me get a good look at you. My aren't you the tall one, and well built to boot. Would make sense why you're running this whole operation." She continued to examine Pyrrha with an eye that seemed able to suss out any imperfection, any fallacy of character. "So what do you say are your finest traits miss... Nikos?"
Pyrrha stood there dumbfounded at the woman's bluntness, feeling quite uncomfortable in her cloak and armor. "Well, I've always striven to do what was right. For everyone."
"And for Jaune, what have you done for him?"
Despite her face burning at the directness of the question she stood her ground. "Well, I've tried to be the best friend that I could be for him. And to lead as well as I could in my station."
"And?" The woman bored straight to her soul with those steely eyes.
"I... I also love him with every part of my being. And I'd want to spend the rest of my life with him in more peaceful times."
Her opponent stood staring deep into her eyes, searching for a hint of doubt in those words. Seemingly satisfied with Pyrrha's response she walked back to the desk and took a seat facing the pair. "Well, alright boy. She passed my test, now get on with what you wanted to do. And good luck to the two of you."
Jaune coughed behind Pyrrha, and she turned to find him holding his hands and slowly shuffling up to her. He knelt down before her and looked directly into the eyes he'd always been so enamored with. "Pyrrha, um, would you... would you..."
That had been several months ago, and she couldn't help but stare at the simple silver band around her finger. Today was to be their day, the moment she'd hoped for for so long. Jaune was off getting the same treatment she was, being fretted over by a handful of attendants to look his best for the ceremony. Glancing over at his mother once more she couldn't help but feel a warm kinship to the old woman. Her own mother was sick back in Mistral, and it pained her to carry on with the day despite it all. Pain is all that the illusion destroys.
She waited in that room for what felt like ages, fighting off butterflies in the pit of her stomach time and again. Finally the attendants called Jaune's mother over to give the final verdict. The short woman walked up and glared at her dress with all the fury of their first meeting, taking the various frills and tassels in hand. After a moments inspection the woman stepped back and looked upward into Pyrrha's face with tears in her eyes. She smiled back at her soon-to-be mother before turning to look in the mirror.
It was gorgeous, a long flowing gown of gold. Various frills flowed down her backside ending in tasseled trailers. She could just imagine the look on Jaune's face walking toward him in the Hall. Blushing at the thought that the time had finally arrived Pyrrha turned to walk out of the dressing room. Already music was playing at her destination. The slowly rising horns signaling her approach and telling her that Jaune waited at the podium for her. His mother walked beside her, escorting the bride to her groom.
Walking through the halls she'd known for so long as a student, and now for even longer as a leader, Pyrrha finally felt like things had gone right. That all her sacrifice and hardship would yield fruit on this day. Coming up to the final door she stopped as the music swelled and died down toward the march. Opening the door, the Hall of the Huntsman stood filled to the brim with people known and unknown. Stepping in to the tune of the Fallen's March, she began making her way up the aisle. In front of her stood Jaune, clad in a deep, dark red suit and smiling like a schoolboy at her.
Head held high, she strode in time to her music. As she walked, the faces all rolled through her mind. The comrades she'd rebuilt the academy with, the friends who'd stood by her while she recovered, even the people who opposed her ascension to her post. Pyrrha had been touched by them all, and had touched them in turn. Even the black haired face who she couldn't place had been an important figure to her life. The last thing you remember.
Finally arriving at the podium, she stood side by side with her love. An elderly gentleman stood at the podium before them, warmly smiling at the soon-to-be newlyweds. The ceremony was a simple one for someone of her status, being held here of all places. Pyrrha thought of the chances her fate had taken, that she could be here again under entirely different circumstances. The Fallen March reached its crescendo, dying off in the dirge of horns that characterized a Huntsman's last rite and passage beyond. The Hall was silent as a lone note signaled the beginning of the ceremony, Pyrrha stood before the speaker as he began the rites.
It was a simple yet eloquent speech, praising the triumphs that had allowed them to be there and honoring the dead with our joy in living. The speaker paused to catch his breath before continuing on to the part concerning her wedding. How two souls had put aside their own needs to honor the dead by living together in marriage. Pyrrha knew it would have been different had she not been a Huntress, or if Jaune wasn't a Huntsman. But it was because two people with so much danger in their lives were here that the occasion reflected it.
The speech came to a close and the speaker gave each of his charges a knowing look. Facing Jaune he asked if the man would take this Huntress to be his partner through the end of days and in the dark of night. Pyrrha watched as Jaune stood firm against the bleak promises and finally nodded in concession to the question. Satisfied, the speaker turned his gaze outward and intoned the rite of acceptance. And then he turned his gaze to Pyrrha.
"Do you take this Huntsman to be your partner throughout time eternal, even in the blackest night and darkest hour? Do you take him to be with you beyond the grave into the morning time?"
She couldn't answer. It was wrong, the words weren't the same as she knew them to be. The speaker looked anxiously at the wizened Huntress, expecting a response to those words that rang so wrong. Pyrrha just looked pleadingly into Jaunes eyes, seeing the same person who'd been there for all those years. But then, all those years seemed to blend together, a menagerie of sights and sounds that screamed out as a farce. This wasn't the world she'd known for so long now, but one that felt unreal and hollow.
"In deception you'll find happiness. So why not be happy?" The voice pierced over her racing thoughts, forcing Pyrrha to look out over the crowd. Her eyes came to a rest on that familiar face she could just now remember. Cinder Fall, whole and unscathed, stood before her in the crowd.
"You can't be here, someone would have stopped you!" Her blood was boiling at the thought of this witch being here on her long awaited day. "And your arm? How do you still have it?"
The black-haired snake strolled out into the aisle, the people around her only mildly interested in the disturbance. "Only so much power in this world," she cooed at Pyrrha, "yet you don't have enough to stop someone like me. A shame really."
"You're wrong! I did stop you, we're standing on that triumph now." Something nagged at Pyrrha, a pull that she'd been ignoring for three long years now. "No matter how you are here or how you are unharmed, I'll stop you. We will..." We. There wasn't a we. She'd been all alone the entire time, trapped in the fate she'd sewn for herself. A destiny she'd sought out since before she could truly fight for it, before everything and everyone had meant so much to her. Pyrrha buckled at the thought, leaning on Jaune for support. If only he were really here.
"Pyrrha? Is something the matter?" his voice drifted lazily into her mind. She looked into those soft blue eyes, fighting the fear that she'd lose them once more.
"So you get it now? What you've wrought for yourself?" Cinder's words fell on numb ears as Pyrrha struggled with her new reality, the one that forced itself into her fantasy. "You never did stand a chance, that destiny you so believed in being nothing more than another fantasy."
She couldn't feel her legs anymore, falling to knees that wanted to give way and fall apart. There wasn't any use in denying it anymore. She was dead, living a lie through whatever forces ruled this strange place. So what use was it trying to combat this woman here and now, to refute her accusations? She'd fought and lost once before, for whatever reasons she'd had at the time, and now she couldn't muster up the courage to stare her down again. Destiny had led her here. To this place without time and hope. But, she still lived here, and her thoughts were still her own.
"No," the word resounded in the Hall as she stood up, taking her weight off of Jaune and back to herself. "This is no fantasy. Merely another test, another step on my way." She began to walk toward her foe, the one who'd plotted death and destruction for no greater purpose than power. "I once fought you and fell. And here I fought you and stood proud. But above it all I asked, do you trust your destiny?"
The woman balked at Pyrrha's advance, the wedding dress gone as she closed the gap. Pyrrha Nikos, the prodigal student, had returned to stand once more against darkness. "I only trust the power that I can take for myself," Cinder barked, sinking back before the Huntress' advance. Still, Pyrrha marched onward to close the distance between them, to confront the enemy once more. With no more ground between them, Cinder straightened and gave a condescending smile to Pyrrha, daring her to make her move.
"You and I, we've been seeking something for so long. Trying to make a place for ourselves in this world." Staring into Cinder's eyes, Pyrrha could see the past as it was. How she'd fallen to the woman, and how she'd come to this place in a blaze of fire. "And even though you have so much power, you can't come to terms with the one thing guiding it all." She could see the doubt once more flooding the woman's face as those words from so long ago came flooding back. "I trust my destiny, to lead me down the path of virtue and to ultimately triumph over this darkness."
Cinder simply stared at her, still smiling in the way only the truly deranged could. There were no more words to be had, and the woman before her nothing more than an obstacle. Pyrrha turned back, noting that the Hall was devoid of people and decoration. Except for Jaune, still standing at the podium in his suit. She walked back up to him, seeing the man as she'd always seen him. A boy who would lead her and her team through the gravest of battles. A man who would comfort her in every way she wanted.
"Pyrrha? Are you ok?" His words stung her heart with their simplicity.
"I'm ok. And... I have to tell you. That I can't stay with you."
"But, we could be happy," he pleaded, the fake eyes welling up with tears, "you've done so much for everyone. It's time that they let you be happy."
"Jaune. In another time, or another place I would gladly give everything I am to you. There wouldn't be a day that goes by that I wouldn't be happy beyond words."
He looked away, the tears streaming freely down toward the ground. "It isn't fair, they've taken so much. And now they want more."
Pyrrha felt the words being stripped from her heart, feeling that she was arguing not with Jaune but herself. "Maybe, but it's what I need to do. No matter what, I am who I've always been."
Jaune looked back at her, the strong leader she'd known for so long back. He gave her a quick nod and she knew it was time to go. Turning toward the entrance, the Hall was devoid of life and fully barren in the way only this place could create. She felt relief that Cinder had gone as well, feeling that it was for the best to no longer fantasize about the inevitable confrontation. Slowly making her way to the door, thoughts of the future roamed in her mind. Pyrrha trusted her destiny, and knew she only had to strive for her goals to realize it.
Stopping at the door, Pyrrha turned to look back at where she'd almost let it all go. Jaune stood, keeping a vigilant eye on her as she prepared for the next step in her journey. She could still stop, go back and be happy in the last dream she'd ever have. The temptation grew with each passing heartbeat, the will to carry on held back by her own desires. It wasn't the real Jaune, so why did she want to stay with him despite this?
Then she smiled. You always said I could overcome any challenge. Jaune smiled back, seemingly accepting her choice. But it was Pyrrha who'd accepted that choice. She wouldn't know peace in this life, just as her last had been so filled with strife. Turning toward the door, she opened it to stare into the black void stretched out before her. Stepping out, the Huntress walked beyond the threshold toward her destiny, head held high and pride flowing from her in waves. Jaune stood behind her, silently wishing her a safe journey.
And in passing she had achieved immortality. Those that had known her knew this was the choice she would make. The choice to place her life before her friends, her family, even her own happiness. It was in this act that we survived, to fight another day. Only one man could claim he knew her true heart. And he carried that knowledge with him throughout this tumultuous period.
-Noreen Ren, scholar of the Free EraOur medium vintage leather men's satchel is a stylish, sturdy, multi-purpose, perfectly aged bag with vintage leather exteriors. Inspired by the classic iconic vintage brown leather school satchel, our versatile retro leather men's satchel has sturdy construction - strong double stitching and tough canvas lining – is a great bag for all your day-to-day stuff and everything you may need to take to work.
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If you dropped into our presidential campaign last weekend knowing nothing about it, you probably would have been puzzled at why everyone was making such a big deal out of the fact that one of our major party nominees got light-headed one day — the result, we later learned, of pneumonia and probably dehydration, conditions that are easy to treat. What exactly was so momentous about this event, that it should have the news media so worked up? The answer is just about everything that's wrong with the way the 2016 campaign has been covered.
Let's not mince words here: Donald Trump — a bigot and a con man who appeals to the worst instincts of the worst people, who neither knows nor cares how government works, who encourages violence and promises to commit war crimes, who lies so often and so blatantly that it's positively pathological, who has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's the most loathsome human being to have been nominated by a major party in living memory — Donald freaking Trump stands a reasonably good chance of being elected president of the United States and thus becoming the most powerful human being on Earth, and news outlets are running pieces on "Hydrated Hillary: 9 times Clinton quenched her thirst."
Let's stipulate that Hillary Clinton should before now have given us more information on her medical history (though she had already given more than Trump). But consider that at around the same time, some people were trying to call more attention to the topic of the Trump Foundation, an extraordinary story of deception, possible illegal contributions, and tax evasion, and morally despicable double-dealing. And yet The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold is almost the only reporter assigned to that story on an ongoing basis. But when Clinton gets faint at a memorial service, news organizations mobilize like it's D-Day, assigning multiple reporters to investigate every aspect of the story. Tuesday's New York Times, for instance, included four separate stories in the news section about this momentous event, two of which were on the front page. The liberal group Media Matters for America reported that on that day, the three cable networks spent a combined 51 minutes and 51 seconds talking about the Trump Foundation, but over 13.5 hours talking about Clinton's fainting and pneumonia.
What was the cause of this journalistic feeding frenzy? The facts seem rather mundane. Clinton had pneumonia, a temporary condition which doesn't bear on her fitness to be president, and hoped it would pass. If it had been a year from now when we found out that she got treated for it during the campaign but it didn't affect her ability to continue, no one would think she had somehow betrayed everyone's trust by not rushing to tell reporters about it. And when she got light-headed, her campaign explained what the likely cause was. All in all, it hardly seems like an Earth-shattering turn of events.
Ah, but commentators explained, the story "plays into a narrative," one in which Clinton is secretive, deceptive, skulking around with some hidden agenda.
Here's a tip: When you hear a journalist or commentator say that some story "plays into a narrative," what they're saying is that the facts in the case either don't support the narrative or even suggest exactly the opposite of the narrative, but they'd like to keep that narrative going nonetheless.
In this case, had Clinton decided to take a few days off when she got the pneumonia diagnosis, then the press should have been informed why. But when she made the decision to just keep working, it became much less important to do so, because (she thought) the pneumonia wasn't going to stop her from her normal activities. Once it did affect her, she had to say what it was, and she did (even if reporters griped that her campaign waited a few hours). She wasn't being unusually secretive or misleading; she's not obligated to tell reporters about every last thing that goes on with her body if it doesn't affect her work. If Donald Trump suffers from a bout of constipation next week, it doesn't really matter and we don't have to be told about it.
In contrast, when a candidate does something that genuinely reinforces a narrative that has been established over months or years, nobody has to say that it "plays into the narrative." When Trump said that the judge in his Trump University fraud case can't be objective because "He's a Mexican" (reminder: The judge is actually an American), nobody had to say, "This matters because it plays into a narrative of Trump being a bigot" to provide an excuse for why it was being covered. That's because it was much more straightforward to just say, "That was an incredibly bigoted thing to say."
That isn't to say that there's a "pro-Trump" bias in the news media, because it isn't so simple as the press favoring one candidate over the other. Trump gets plenty of criticism in the media, but much of it is transient. His latest appalling statement or absurd lie gets covered, and then most of the press moves on, because within a day or two he will have found a new way to shock.
When it comes to Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, the narratives media have constructed about her are far more persistent and are used against her even when they're utterly irrelevant. She can say something false, or even something that's literally true but misleading, and years later reporters will still drop it into their stories as a way of reminding their audience not to forget that she's dishonest. For instance, you probably remember how a couple of years ago Clinton said that when she and Bill left the White House they were "dead broke," right? Her point was that they had limited assets that added up to less than their large legal debts.
Maybe it wasn't the most politically deft way of explaining why they set about to earn as much as they could from books and speeches, but it was literally true at the time regardless of their huge potential for future earnings. But either way, it was an offhand comment, not some kind of historic lie. Yet you remember it because reporters continue to remind you of it. In an average day, Donald Trump tells half a dozen lies far more unambiguous and serious than that one, lies that either zoom by with no comment at all or are corrected in passing and then never mentioned again.
You can argue that during the campaign we spend far too much time talking about the candidates as individuals than we do about their plans and policies. That's not the real problem, though, because individuals do matter when it comes to the presidency. The problem is that so often we're talking about the wrong thing. If Hillary Clinton becomes president, two years from now are we going to look back and say, "Boy, it was a good thing we spent all that time talking about that time she got pneumonia"? I doubt it.
But a story like this one in Newsweek, which reveals the intricate web of ongoing business dealings Donald Trump has around the world, has profound and disturbing implications for American foreign policy should Trump become president. He won't talk about them at all, nor will he release his tax returns like every other party nominee since the 1970s, so we don't even know their full extent.
Now that's the kind of secretiveness that every news outlet ought to be freaking out about.April Fools Day is a growing phenomenon especially on the internet and within gaming. Each year it becomes increasingly tough to top the April Fools’ Day pranks of the previous year and fool a skeptical internet audience.
Riot does not hold back with their April Fools’ Day creations. Two years ago, the company released a stand-alone game named “Cho-gath Eats World,” which was a very well-made Rampage clone, filled with all of your favorite League of Legends champs. Fans wait in anticipation for what new twist Riot will throw at them next. Last year, they truly outdid themselves when they introduced Ultra Rapid Fire mode, or URF mode for short. The name “Urf” is a nod to League’s gone-but-not-forgotten character Urf the manatee. According to League lore, Urf was killed by Warwick but lives on through tributes like URF mode and a handful of champion skins.
URF mode basically flips league on its head by introducing these game changing mechanics:
The second I played URF I was hooked! It gave me that ignorant bliss I felt when I first started playing League. Everyone was on the same skill level, exploring each champion’s new value. People were not as hyper-critical of others’ playstyle and mistakes. Players’ rage-fueled gameplay was transformed into humor-filled strategies. Champions like Hecarim, Skarner and Urgot were the popular kids on the Rift while Lee Sin, Udyr, and other overplayed champ were the social outcasts. URF mode was the fantastic break that everyone needed from the stressful game that League of Legends can be.
URF was only available for a few weeks. Toward the end of URF’s lifespan, admittedly the fun begin to decline.Many people tried to exploit the mechanics of URF mode. “Broken” champions, far too powerful to be fair, would plague the Rift just to secure the win. People’s attitudes were slowly devolving into the toxic rage that we know all too well from our games on the Summoner’s Rift. URF mode became more about guaranteeing victory than the fresh experience Riot intended. Don’t get me wrong–people LOVED URF mode and message boards were flooded with the typical “Riot plz” post begging to keep it alive forever.
Riot heard the internet’s pleas, but the company’s stance on keeping URF temporary stood strong. The League community grieved, but seemed to move on, with the occasional “bring back URF” plea surfacing from time to time.
With fan feedback and presumably endless analytics on Riot’s end, odds are they were aware of the success of URF mode. Riot has already unveiled a handful of skins–some of the best skins I’ve seen in a while, I might add–set to come out on April 1st. There have also been a few leaks with implications that URF mode will be back under the new name “NURF,” New Ultra Rapid Fire mode. Riot teased that NURF mode will offer new buffs that seem almost the opposite of the buffs that URF mode had last year, essentially slowing down gameplay to an extreme degree. Riot claims this mode will release on March 31st, a day before April Fools’ day.
I have a suspicion that Riot will bring back old URF mode, seeing that NURF was a failure in comparison. This idea is all speculation, because it is doubtful that the slow, arduous play style of NURF mode will last for more than a day.
What does this April Fools’ Day have in store for us? If URF mode became a permanent gameplay mode, it would be a nice option to have for those of us who love League but need a break from the Summoner’s Rift. As previously mentioned, however, people quickly began to adopt the same rage-filled tendencies into URF mode that we find in regular gameplay. These toxic players ruin the fun, non-competitive mode for the rest of us.
Ultimately, Riot’s decision to remove the mode was wise, because it would be a shame for the mode to lose its charm. It is hard to replicate that the initial excitement a player gets exploring League with all of it’s aspects of gameplay. URF mode closely replicates that feeling, which is tough to do. If URF mode remained a permanent game mode, it would quickly run its course, and end up like Dominion. The beloved URF mode would just become another mode that lost its initial charm Riot wanted players to experience.
With NURF/URF mode potentially rolling out for Riot’s next April Fool’s “joke,” it leads me into my question: Should Riot keep URF around for good?
Drop a comment and let us know of what you think of URF and whether it should stay or go-!
(Article written by friend of the show, Vexxx. More to come in the future.)PoliZette Trump’s Winning Pick for VP The best choice to unite party isn't one based on identity politics
The media circus of epeculation is swirling over who will take a position beside Donald Trump as his vice presidential nominee. Much of that speculation follows the same tired logic of the last two failed Republican bids for the White House — assuming the pick should be a token gesture to a specific demographic group. A group, like Latinos and women, that the party has traditionally struggled to win.
From early in his maverick candidacy, Donald Trump indicated his simple strategy to win the presidency in a matchup with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton involved remaking the map. For Trump to defeat Clinton in November he will piece together a jigsaw of states that play to his strength with frustrated, blue-collar, largely male and largely white voters, expanding the map into Wisconsin and locking down Iowa and Ohio.
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Trump will depart from the twice-repelled swing-state strategy of the 2012 and 2008 GOP. The primary targets (after must-win Florida and Ohio) will not be Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, or Virginia, nor the higher proportions of Latino voters and non-blue-collar workers within them. In picking a running mate, Trump will want a candidate who buffets his weaknesses, foils Clinton’s pick, and contributes to the objective of running up the score with blue-collar white voters.
The Party Unity Pick — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
Disunity is a brand of weakness, and as figures in the Republican Party and conservative movement who vigorously opposed Trump now grapple with how or if to embrace him, Trump needs to offer them an outreached hand to grasp.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker fits the bill of a unification pick to heal the wounds of the primary. Walker fiercely opposed Trump throughout the primary process. In his own early exit from the race, the Wisconsin governor took the opportunity to call for candidates to rally behind stopping Trump. When the focus of the race turned to his home state, Walker locked arms with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and fought hard and successfully to prevent Trump from notching a win there.
To bring Walker into the fold would demonstrate in clear terms the ability for once-bitter rivals to come together to stop the Clintons from moving back into the White House. Walker also remains popular with the conservative grassroots wing of the party and is at least ambiguous enough on Trump’s key issues of trade and immigration to not cause a conflict — a trait not shared with Ohio Gov. John Kasich or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Walker would also be a powerful pick to double down on a blue-collar, white-voter focus. Wisconsin is a key state for Trump to target in his shifted map strategy and Badger State Republicans built the blueprint for dismantling previous Democratic dominance in the industrial Midwest.
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The Fresh Face — Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton
Cotton, a veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq,would represent a younger generational focus. At just 38 years old Cotton is the youngest senator in Congress and would serve as an important foil to the possible Clinton veep choice of 41-year-old Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.
Both Castro and Cotton are graduates of Harvard Law School. But while Castro went into private practice and then politics, Cotton enlisted in the U.S. Army. Cotton turned down an opportunity to be commissioned at the rank of Captain in the JAG Corps in favor of an enlistment and later promotion to the officer level in an infantry unit.
In an election sure to feature intense debates over the future of America’s foreign policy and tackling terrorism at home and abroad, Cotton would be a powerful complement to Trump’s resume. Aside from his military service, Cotton sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and also sits on the Select Committee for Intelligence. Cotton is a tried and tested campaigner, having defeated two-term Sen. Mark Pryor by 17 points in one of the most hotly contested Senate races of 2014.
Cotton carries his own history of wide appeal in the party. In his 2014 election, Cotton was backed by both the conservative Club for Growth PAC and the National Federation of Independent Business.
Cotton was critical of Trump’s call for a total ban on Muslims, but met with Trump privately in March. The details of the meeting were never fully reported.
The Best Pick — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
Gingrich knows how to raise money, is a prolific pontificator in the media, and would eat Julian Castro alive in a debate. Most importantly, the former speaker of the House, onetime candidate for president, and longtime GOP power player is steeped in the very policy heft that Trump is oft criticized for lacking.
Gingrich has praised Trump and his foresight on seizing populist, anti-Washington anger from the beginning of the campaign, saying yesterday that Trump would be the “most effective anti-Left leader in our lifetime.” Trump, in turn, has repeatedly said he wants a running mate who knows Washington and how to work it. The author of the Contract with America and leader of the 1994 Republican Revolution has been a Washington fixture for nearly 40 years and knows exactly how the city operates.
Gingrich earned ridicule during his 2012 campaign for suggesting the United States pursue plans to colonize the moon — but with Tesla mega-entrapreneur Elon Musk and other new-age moguls planning private Mars trips and colonization, Newt’s plan doesn’t seem quite as wacky anymore. Making NASA great again rolls quite well into the theme “Make America Great Again.”
Gingrich does also carry a long trail of personal baggage, but the Democrats will be so busy squeezing Trump’s own tabloid past into their attacks that they likely won’t get to Gingrich’s unfortunate incidents with ex-wives.
As an added bonus, the force behind President Clinton’s impeachments in 1998 knows how to tango with the Clintons.
The Others
There are of course a panoply of other veep potentials for Trump to consider — and they all have their drawbacks.
Rubio and Kasich dull Trump’s original populist, anti-Washington appeal and would openly contradict his central positions on trade and immigration. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown would bring a truck and a Red Sox hoodie but little else. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Hayley and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez are both solid but too transparently pandering picks for a candidate whose success is partially based on unpredictability. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is too New Jersey to Trump’s New York. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be a powerful asset in waging a campaign about law and order — but is also too New York.
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would have been a powerful pick to re-energize conservatives and grassroots activists and heal the wounds of the primary, but the relationship with Cruz is likely just too poisoned after weeks of brutal one on-one-combat. Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst is possible for most of the same reasons as Cotton with the added benefit of hailing from swing-state Iowa, but can be a little too canned on the stump. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is the thought leader behind Trump’s populist platform, but is soft spoken and very Southern. Sessions would be more of a great pick for Trump’s cabinet as attorney general or Department of Homeland Security secretary.
There are still others and no definitive way of knowing who the presumptive GOP nominee (who loves to be unpredictable) will ultimately choose. But the best pick will buttress the existing appeal of Trump’s candidacy rather than water it down to chase less fertile demographics.The below excerpt is from my new 2016 research primer, "Bitcoin, Ethereum, And Modern Gold Systems." (If you wish to instantly download & read the whole primer, I've temporarily reactivated the discount pricing I tweeted back in June for the benefit of my readers. Go to the tweet right here and follow either of those links for the discount!)
If modern fiat currency is simply a notionally rare token issued by central banks, and then utilized by citizens to convey and store value over time, it follows logically that the introduction of even a marginally better rare token system might be adopted by a large number of citizens, consumers, and so forth.
The maximum number of Bitcoin that will ever exist is 21 million coins, whereas the maximum number of dollars or euros or pesos that will exist in any given economy is unknown--and over enough time, effectively "unlimited."

As Satoshi Nakamoto posted back in August 2010, his last year of communication with the public, currency can be looked at as follows:
"As a thought experiment, imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold but with the following properties:
- boring grey in colour
- not a good conductor of electricity
- not particularly strong, but not ductile or easily malleable either
- not useful for any practical or ornamental purpose
and one special, magical property:
- can be transported over a communications channel
If it somehow acquired any value at all for whatever reason, then anyone wanting to transfer wealth over a long distance could buy some, transmit it, and have the recipient sell it.
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at the Arsenal de Brest and launched on 22 September 1911. The ship was completed on 2 September 1913 at a cost of F60,200,000 and visited Dunkerque, the birthplace of her namesake on 18 September. She was commissioned into the fleet on 19 November together with her sister Courbet. They were assigned to the 1st Battle Division (1ère Division de ligne) of the 1st Battle Squadron (1ère Escadre de ligne) of the 1st Naval Army (1ère Armée Navale), at Toulon in mid-November. Jean Bart steamed to Brest on 24 June 1914 to rendezvous with her sister France, who had not yet finished her trials. Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, boarded France on 16 July for a state visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia. After encountering the battlecruisers of the German I Scouting Group in the Baltic Sea en route, the ships arrived at Kronstadt on 20 July. They made a port visit to Stockholm, Sweden, on 25–26 July, but a planned visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, was cancelled due to rising tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia and the ships arrived at Dunkerque on 29 July.[9]
World War I [ edit ]
When France declared war on Germany on 2 August, the sisters were in Brest and departed for Toulon that night. They were met off Valencia, Spain, on the 6th by Courbet and the semi-dreadnoughts Condorcet and Vergniaud because Jean Bart was having problems with her 305 mm ammunition and France had yet to load any. The ships rendezvoused with a troop convoy the following day and escorted it to Toulon.[10]
When France declared war on Austria-Hungary on 12 August, Vice-Admiral (Vice-amiral) Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, commander of the Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean decided on a sortie into the Adriatic intended to force the Austro-Hungarian fleet to give battle. After rendezvousing with a small British force on the 15th, he ordered his forces to split with the battleships headed for Otranto, Italy, while the armoured cruisers patrolled off the Albanian coast. Before the two groups got very far apart, several Austro-Hungarian ships were spotted on 16 August and the Allied fleet was successful in cutting off and sinking the protected cruiser Zenta off Antivari, although the torpedo boat SMS Ulan managed to escape. The following day, Boué de Lapeyrère transferred his flag to Jean Bart. On 1 September the 1st Naval Army briefly bombarded Austro-Hungarian coastal fortifications defending the Bay of Cattaro to discharge the unfired shells remaining in the guns after sinking Zenta. Boué de Lapeyrère transferred his flag to Jean Bart's newly arrived sister Paris on 11 September Aside from several uneventful sorties into the Adriatic, the French capital ships spent most of their time cruising between the Greek and Italian coasts[11] to prevent the Austro-Hungarian fleet from attempting to break out of the Adriatic.[12]
Jean Bart posted from Malta (1915) Patriotic postcard featuringposted from Malta (1915)
Jean Bart was torpedoed on 21 December by the Austro-Hungarian submarine U-12 off Sazan Island. A single torpedo struck her in the wine store in the bow, blowing a hole through the compartment. The ship took on 400 tonnes (390 long tons) of water, but was able to reach the Greek island of Kefalonia where temporary repairs were made. She was able to steam to Malta on her own for permanent repairs that lasted from 26 December to 3 April 1915. This attack highlighted the danger of submarine attacks in the restricted waters of the Strait and forced the battleships south of it in the Ionian Sea. The declaration of war on Austria-Hungary by Italy on 23 May and the Italian decision to assume responsibility for naval operations in the Adriatic, allowed the French Navy to withdraw to either Malta or Bizerte, French Tunisia, to cover the Otranto Barrage. At some point during the year, Jean Bart's 47 mm guns were put on high-angle mountings to allow them to be used as anti-aircraft (AA) guns. They were later supplemented by a pair of 75 mm (3.0 in) Mle 1891 G guns on anti-aircraft mounts. On 27 April 1916, the French began using the port of Argostoli on the Greek island of Cephalonia as a base. Around this time many men from the battleships' crews were transferred to anti-submarine ships. At the beginning of 1917, the French began to use the Greek island of Corfu as well, but growing shortages of coal severely limited the battleships' ability to go to sea. In 1918 they were almost immobile, only leaving Corfu for maintenance and repairs. On 1 July the Naval Army was reorganised with Jean Bart, Paris and Courbet assigned to the 2nd Battle Division of the 1st Battle Squadron.[13]
Interwar years [ edit ]
After the Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire, the ship participated in the occupation of Constantinople. In early 1919, Jean Bart was transferred to the Black Sea to reinforce the French forces opposing the Bolsheviks. A few days after bombarding Bolshevik troops advancing on Sevastopol on 16 April and forcing them to retreat, her war-weary crew briefly mutinied on 19 April, inspired by socialist and revolutionary sympathisers. Jean Bart's captain was able to restore order aboard his ship the following day and mustered a landing party to patrol the city. France's crew was still mutinous, so Vice-Admiral Jean-Françoise-Charles Amet, commander of the ships in the Black Sea, hoped to reduce tensions by meeting the mutineers' demands for leave by letting crewmen with a history of good behaviour ashore. The sailors mingled with a pro-Bolshevik demonstration and the mixed group was challenged by a company of Greek infantry which opened fire. The demonstrators fled and encountered Jean Bart's landing party, which also fired upon them. A total of about 15 people were wounded, included six sailors, one of whom later died of his wounds. Delegates from the other mutinous crews were not allowed aboard and the mutiny collapsed when Amet agreed to meet their main demand to take the ships home. Three crewmen were sentenced to prison terms upon her return, although the sentences were commuted in 1922 as part of a bargain between Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré and the parties of the Left.[14]
The ship returned to Toulon by 1 July and was placed in reserve. On 10 February 1920, the 1st Naval Army was disbanded and replaced by the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (Escadre de la Méditerranée orientale) and its Western counterpart (Escadre de la Méditerranée occidentale); all of the Courbets assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the latter unit, with Courbet, Jean Bart and Paris in the 1st Battle Division and France in the 2nd Battle Division. Charlier commanded both the 1st Division and the Western Mediterranean Squadron at this time. The two squadrons were combined into the Mediterranean Squadron (Escadre de la Méditerranée) on 20 July 1921. In June 1923, the 1st Battle Division, including Jean Bart, was cruising off the coast of North Africa when Courbet had a boiler-room fire.[15]
Jean Bart received the first of her two refits between 12 October 1923 and 29 January 1925. This included replacing one set of four boilers with oil-fired du Temple boilers and trunking together her two forward funnels. The maximum elevation of the main armament was increased from 12° to 23° which increased their maximum range to 26,000 metres (28,000 yd). Her existing AA guns were replaced with four 75 mm Modèle 1918 AA guns and 1.5-metre (4 ft 11 in) and 1-metre (3 ft 3 in) stereoscopic rangefinders were installed for the AA guns. A new tripod foremast with a fire-control position at its top was fitted and her bow armour was removed to make her more seaworthy. Barr & Stroud 2-metre (6 ft 7 in) FT coincidence rangefinders were installed for the 14 cm guns in October 1925.[16]
In mid-1925, the ship participated in manoeuvres in the Atlantic Ocean with Courbet and Paris and then made port visits to Saint-Malo, Cherbourg and numerous ports along the Atlantic coast of France before returning to Toulon on 12 August. Jean Bart was briefly refitted between 12 August and 1 September 1927 and was then decommissioned on 15 August 1928 in preparation for her extensive modernisation that began on 7 August 1929. This was much more extensive than her earlier refit as all of her boilers were replaced or overhauled and six of her original coal-fired boilers were replaced by oil-fired du Temple boilers. Her turbines were overhauled and her direct-drive cruising turbines were replaced by geared turbines. Jean Bart's fire-control systems were comprehensively upgraded with the installation of a Saint-Chamond-Granat system in a director-control tower (DCT) on the top of the tripod mast and all of her original rangefinders were replaced with the exception of the Barr & Stroud FT rangefinders in the main-gun turrets. The DCT was fitted with a Barr & Stroud 4.57-metre (15 ft) modèle 1912 coincidence rangefinder and a Zeiss 3-metre (9 ft 10 in) stereoscopic rangefinder was added to the DCT to measure the distance between the target and shell splashes. Additional mle 1912 4.57-metre rangefinders were added in a duplex mounting atop the conning tower and another at the base of the mainmast. A traversable Zeiss 8.2-metre (26 ft 11 in) rangefinder was fitted to the roof of the forward superfiring turret in lieu of its FT model rangefinder and FTs were installed in the new gunnery directors for the secondary armament. The ship's Mle 1918 AA guns were exchanged for seven Canon de 75 mm modèle 1922 guns and they were provided with a pair of high-angle OPL modèle 1926 3-metre (9 ft 10 in) stereoscopic rangefinders, one on top of the duplex unit on the roof of the conning tower and one in the aft superstructure.[17]
The modernisation was completed on 29 September 1931 and Jean Bart recommissioned on 1 October as the flagship of the 2nd Battle Division commanded by Rear Admiral Hervé. Her machinery trials lasted until 13 February 1932 and she then made port visits to Bizerte, Suda Bay, Crete, Port Said, Egypt, Beirut, French Lebanon, Corfu, and Phalerum, Greece in April and May. Rear Admiral Jean-Pierre Esteva relieved Hervé on 1 August and the ship was refitted from 10 October to 24 November after which she spent five days in Ajaccio, Corsica. Jean Bart exercised with the Mediterranean Squadron in the first half of 1933 and made port visits in French North Africa, Majorca, Spain and Casablanca, French Morocco.[18] After a collision on 6 August with the destroyer Le Fortuné in Toulon harbour that damaged the latter's stern,[19] the battleship was under repair from 8 to 15 August. From 20 April to 29 June 1934, the Mediterranean Squadron conducted its usual manoeuvres and port visits. The 2nd Battle Division was disbanded on 1 August and Jean Bart briefly served as the squadron flagship. The ship was assigned to the Training Division on 1 November and served as a school for stokers and signalmen. She made her last sea voyage on 15 June 1935.[20]
Océan in Toulon, circa 1939 in Toulon, circa 1939
Her condition was poor enough by that time that she was not thought to be worth the expense of a third refit like those her sisters received.[21] Jean Bart was hulked and disarmed in Toulon beginning on 15 August for service as an accommodation ship for the naval schools in Toulon. She was renamed Océan on 1 January 1937 to free her name for use by the new Richelieu-class battleship Jean Bart then under construction. The ship was captured intact by the Germans on 27 November 1942 when they occupied Vichy France.[22] The Germans used her for experiments in late 1943 with shaped-charge warheads intended to be delivered by Mistel composite aircraft. The 8,000-pound (3,600 kg) warhead was positioned in front of the main-gun turrets, the closest one of which had its armour reinforced by an additional 100-millimetre (3.9 in) plate. The high-velocity jet formed by the shaped charge penetrated though the additional armour, the 300-millimetre (11.8 in) turret-face armour, the 360-millimetre (14.2 in) rear armour and the front and rear of the aft turret, and into the superstructure to a total depth of 28 metres (92 ft).[23] She was sunk by Allied aircraft in 1944[4] and later raised for scrapping beginning on 14 December 1945.[24]
^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 139–140 ^ Dumas, p. 223 ^ Jordan & Caresse, p. 143 a b c Whitley, p. 36 ^ Dumas, p. 224 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 143, 150, 156–158 ^ Jordan & Caresse, p. 142 ^ Silverstone, p. 101 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 142, 243–244 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 244, 254 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 244, 254–257 ^ Halpern, p. 19 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 258, 260, 274–275, 277, 280, 283 ^ Masson, pp. 88–92, 96–97, 99 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 288–290 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 298–299, 302–303 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 299–303 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 291, 293 ^ Jordan & Moulin, p. 221 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 293–294 ^ Dumas, p. 229 ^ Jordan & Caresse, pp. 294, 320 ^ Forsyth, pp. 80–81 ^ Dumas, p. 231
Bibliography [ edit ]
Dumas, Robert (1985). "The French Dreadnoughts: The 23,500 ton Courbet Class". In John Roberts. Warship. IX. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 154–164, 223–231. ISBN 0-87021-984-7. OCLC 26058427.
Forsyth, Robert (2001). Mistel: German Composite Aircraft and Operations, 1942–1945. Crowborough, UK: Classic Publications. ISBN 1-903223-09-1.
Halpern, Paul G. (2004). The Battle of the Otranto Straits. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34379-6.
Jordan, John & Caresse, Philippe (2017). French Battleships of World War One. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59114-639-1.
Jordan, John & Moulin, Jean (2015). French Destroyers: Torpilleurs d'Escadre & Contre-Torpilleurs 1922–1956. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-198-4.
Masson, Philippe (2003). "The French Naval Mutinies, 1919". In Bell, Christopher M. & Elleman, Bruce A. Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective. Cass Series: Naval Policy and History. 19. London: Frank Cass. pp. 106–122. ISBN 978-0-7146-5456-0.
Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.
Whitley, M. J. (1998). Battleships of World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-184-4.
Further reading [ edit ]Keith Ellison is running to become the new chair of the Democratic National Committee and progressives generally believe he'll take a combative approach towards the Trump Administration. Naturally, journalists approve.
Michelle Goldberg at Slate exults:
Ellison, who announced his candidacy Monday, is the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He was the first Muslim elected to Congress, as well as the first black congressman from Minnesota. Ellison was the second sitting congressman to endorse [Bernie] Sanders but became an indefatigable Clinton surrogate as soon as the primary ended. He is uniquely positioned to unite progressives, carrying the passion of the Sanders movement into the party while representing the racial and religious minorities endangered in the Trump era... The people who are terrified by Trump’s victory—not white working class Trump voters—need Democrats to represent them. They need politicians who will see them, acknowledge their horror, and fight to muster whatever still exists of our democratic institutions on their behalf. The job of progressive leaders is to say no to Trump, not search for areas of cooperation. [Why the Democrats Need Keith Ellison, November 15, 2016]
Of course, Ellison is never been a fan of "cooperation" with white working class voters, not even to the point of being in the same country. Writing under the name Keith E. Hakim while at the University of Minnesota law school, Hakim endorsed a separate country for blacks.
In 1990, after calling for reparations, "Hakim" wrote on the need for even more extensive measures:
“Finally, blacks would have the option of choosing their own land base or remaining in the United States. Since black people toiled most diligently in the southeastern section of the United States, this land, quite naturally, would be most suitable. That means Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Blacks, of course, would not be compelled to move to the black state, and, of course, peaceful whites would not be compelled to move away. [Keith Ellison Once Proposed Making A Separate Country for Blacks, by Justin Caruso, Daily Caller, November 26, 2016]
Interestingly, Ellison, er, "Hakim," says both groups would be happy because whites would no longer have to deal with welfare payments and white guilt and blacks would have real country over their own destiny. There's implied praise of freedom of association, with Ellison saying interactions between whites and blacks would now be voluntary rather than compelled. He also cuttingly mocks white liberals, who would be opposed to the plan, he says, "they justify their existence by championing so-called lost causes."
At a time when Steve Bannon of Breitbart and future Senior Adviser to the President is habitually called a "white nationalist" based on no evidence, one would think the explicit endorsement of a black ethnostate by the future head of the DNC could be of some interest to the Main Stream Media. Naturally, it has received far less coverage than, say, the implications of a reporter receiving a message containing a cartoon frog on Twitter.
Even more interesting, none of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus are backing away from Ellison's call for black independence. Indeed, even now, some of them seem to endorse it or admit they endorsed it in the past.
Congressman Hank Johnson said:
“I don’t see anything really objectionable. What he apparently proposed was a partitioning of the United States into a southeastern section.” When asked if what Rep. Ellison proposed was black nationalism, Johnson said, “I don’t know what to call it. It seems to have been born out of academia, a thoughtful discussion on possibilities.” “These are not ideas that have not been discussed by black folks throughout history,” Johnson added. The Georgia congressman said that while he is not in support of the ideas now “there was a time when I would have been.” Johnson told TheDC that time was when he is college. [Exclusive: Black Congressmen Refuse to Condemn Ellison's Past Proposal for a 'Black State,' by Alex Pfeiffer, Daily Caller, November 30, 2016]
No other members of the Black Congressional Caucus condemned the proposal.
A college student openly endorsing a white ethnostate (let alone endorsing one at age 26, like Ellison) would have a hard time getting an office job anywhere in the country, let alone becoming a congressman, let alone becoming the head of one of America's two major parties. But politics is about who, not what.
There's not a double standard. There's just The Standard. Whites are uniquely evil, they do not deserve to exist, and we must pursue policies which ensure they die out. In contrast, racial nationalism for other groups is healthy and should be supported.It's far too late to keep expectations low, Connor McDavid.
This week, the top five prospects listed on NHL Central Scouting's midterm rankings were surveyed by NHL.com. The questioning was standard. They were asked about their assets, areas of need and, of course, the current NHL player they will draw comparisons to.
Drew Doughty, Jeff Carter and Pekka Rinne, three players worthy of a lottery selection, were among the replies, but the far-and-away clear-cut choice to go No. 1 chose to set the bar a touch lower.
"Tyler Bozak," McDavid said, "because he is a good skater and is more of a pass-first type of guy."
In all fairness, you can't really blame McDavid for choosing the top center - who may possess some similar skills - playing in the city to which he hails. In fact, fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs may be honored by the fact McDavid has the blue and while resting in his subconscious.
But you don't have multiple teams throwing away a season for a 20 percent chance at Tyler Bozak.Apple is launching a new Mac Pro Repair Extension Program to address complaints of video related issues with select models of its latest high-end desktop offering, 9to5Mac has learned. We obtained the notice (pictured below) that Apple this week sent out to its authorized service providers detailing the new program and those eligible for repairs or replacements.
The best 4K & 5K displays for Mac
In the notice, Apple notes that Mac Pros manufactured between February 8, 2015 and April 11, 2015 are eligible for repairs due to issues with the machine’s graphics cards that “may cause distorted video, no video, system instability, freezing, restarts, shut downs, or may prevent system start up.”
Apple goes into a bit more detail about the symptoms eligible for repair:
Distorted or scrambled video on the external display
No video on the external display even though the computer is on
Computer freezes or restarts unexpectedly
Computer will not start up
Apple has instructed staff and authorized service providers to fix eligible Mac Pros showing signs of graphics issues at no charge to the customer. The repair will consist of Apple swapping out the graphics card and on average will take 3-5 days.
And here’s a look at Apple’s internal notice to employees and service providers:
Apple hasn’t publicly announced the program, and it’s unclear if it might do so at a later point or leave it to retail staff and authorized service providers to inform customers on a case by case basis. A search on Apple’s support forums does show lengthy threads with a number of users complaining of similar problems with the Mac Pro including both machines that fall within Apple’s guidelines for eligibility and some that don’t.
While this is the first repair program launched for the Mac Pro (Late 2013), Apple in February of last year launched a repair extension program for MacBook Pros manufactured between 2011 and 2013 due to similar graphics related issues.The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the nation’s largest police union and an organization that calls itself the “voice of our nation’s law enforcement officers,” recently released its list of asks for the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency and they’re pretty expansive in their awfulness.
The FOP estimates its total membership at more than 325,000 officers across 2100 local chapters. The organization stated mission is to improve the working conditions of law enforcement officers and the safety of those we serve, but the group regularly wades into politics (they endorsed Donald Trump for president in September) and its wish list for the Trump administration is an example of the FOP’s mixed agenda.
The FOP outlined 15 actions it would like Donald Trump to take as president through executive order. The list isn’t long but the actions it proposes are significant. Essentially, the FOP is calling for Trump to increase funding for police departments, give them more power to profile citizens and restore their access to military weapons and vehicles.
The FOP, oddly, also seems to have an interest in immigration policy, asking for an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and the deportation of noncitizens who were brought to the U.S. as children. In addition, the FOP is asking for expansion of the Immigration and Nationality Act section 287(g), which essentially allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deputize state and local law enforcement agencies to police immigration. It also wants an end to federal aid for “sanctuary cities.”
POST CONTINUES BELOW
Not stopping there, The FOP requested that the Trump administration again freeze the United States' thawing relations with Cuba until the island nation returns “copkillers” (SIC) “harbored” there (they’re gunning for Assata Shakur.) It’s also asking for the federal government to reverse its decision to end its use of private prisons, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and ban immigration from “terrorist-prone” areas.
In a twist, the FOP also wants more federal research into medical marijuana and for “Federal law enforcement agencies to not pursue violations of Federal drug laws."
So, there you have it. If the police have their way, the next four years will see militarized police departments going after people they expect to be immigrants, more private prisons, but lots of weed everywhere.Results for init system coupling
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Results for init system coupling
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 00:02:05 +0000
Message-id: <[🔎] [email protected]>
Reply-to: [email protected]
Greetings, This message is an automated, unofficial publication of vote results. Official results shall follow, sent in by the vote taker, namely Debian Project Secretary This email is just a convenience for the impatient. I remain, gentle folks, Your humble servant, Devotee (on behalf of Debian Project Secretary) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Starting results calculation at Wed Nov 19 00:02:03 2014 Option 1 "Packages may not (in general) require a specific init system" Option 2 "Support for other init systems is recommended, but not mandatory" Option 3 "Packages may require specific init systems if maintainers decide" Option 4 "General Resolution is not required" Option 5 "Further Discussion" In the following table, tally[row x][col y] represents the votes that option x received over option y. Option 1 2 3 4 5 === === === === === Option 1 133 183 147 241 Option 2 313 251 180 366 Option 3 263 172 135 286 Option 4 323 280 308 358 Option 5 212 99 166 95 Looking at row 2, column 1, Support for other init systems is recommended, but not mandatory received 313 votes over Packages may not (in general) require a specific init system Looking at row 1, column 2, Packages may not (in general) require a specific init system received 133 votes over Support for other init systems is recommended, but not mandatory. Option 1 Reached quorum: 241 > 47.5762545814611 Option 2 Reached quorum: 366 > 47.5762545814611 Option 3 Reached quorum: 286 > 47.5762545814611 Option 4 Reached quorum: 358 > 47.5762545814611 Option 1 passes Majority. 1.137 (241/212) >= 1 Option 2 passes Majority. 3.697 (366/99) >= 1 Option 3 passes Majority. 1.723 (286/166) >= 1 Option 4 passes Majority. 3.768 (358/95) >= 1 Option 2 defeats Option 1 by ( 313 - 133) = 180 votes. Option 3 defeats Option 1 by ( 263 - 183) = 80 votes. Option 4 defeats Option 1 by ( 323 - 147) = 176 votes. Option 1 defeats Option 5 by ( 241 - 212) = 29 votes. Option 2 defeats Option 3 by ( 251 - 172) = 79 votes. Option 4 defeats Option 2 by ( 280 - 180) = 100 votes. Option 2 defeats Option 5 by ( 366 - 99) = 267 votes. Option 4 defeats Option 3 by ( 308 - 135) = 173 votes. Option 3 defeats Option 5 by ( 286 - 166) = 120 votes. Option 4 defeats Option 5 by ( 358 - 95) = 263 votes. The Schwartz Set contains: Option 4 "General Resolution is not required" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The winners are: Option 4 "General Resolution is not required" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -- The voters have spoken, the bastards... --unknown DEbian VOTe EnginE
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Attachment: pgpA7wWnCkuW6.pgp
Description: PGP signatureWASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes that significant further economic progress in Pakistan is within reach.
Real GDP is expected to grow by more than 4 per cent during this and next fiscal year. The fiscal deficit will further decline to 4.3pc of GDP in 2015-16.
Macroeconomic stabilisation in the country is well under way and the threat of a crisis has significantly receded.
The IMF report, released on Thursday, notes that Pakistan plans to undertake adequate further fiscal consolidation while structural reform efforts are continuing.
Possible potholes
The report on the seventh review under the extended arrangement and modification of performance criteria, however, also points out possible potholes that can derail the progress. “Much remains to be done to achieve a sustainable economic transformation,” it warns.
According to the report, Pakistan still lags behind other emerging market countries in key macroeconomic and business climate indicators. Economic growth remains below the 5-7pc annual rate needed to absorb new entrants into the labour market and achieve improvements in living standards for wide segments of society.
Public debt is still high and the tax-to-GDP ratio remains among the lowest in the world.
Significant reforms are needed to boost private investment, broaden the tax base, improve tax administration, ease growth bottlenecks, and enhance the economy’s productivity and competitiveness.
Private investment, including FDI and exports are still much below desired outcomes.
Electricity outages continue to be an important restraining factor for competitiveness and growth.
In addition, the appreciation of the rupee in real effective terms has been eroding Pakistan’s competitiveness.
Prudent monetary policy
The overall assessment, however, remains positive, noting that headline inflation has continued to decline, and advises Pakistan to maintain a prudent monetary policy stance to keep inflation expectations well anchored.
Pakistani authorities have made significant progress in addressing fiscal and balance-of-payments imbalances. Foreign exchange reserves are recovering fast, helped by decisive foreign exchange purchases in the context of tailwinds from lower oil prices.
Fiscal consolidation is on track, the government has reduced borrowing from the SBP, and efforts continue to diversify financing sources and lengthen debt maturities.
“The authorities should be commended for attaining all performance criteria and structural benchmarks under the programme for the seventh review, despite significant political and security challenges,” says the report.
Tax collection to rise
Tax revenues are slated to increase by an additional 1pc of GDP and energy subsidies will be further reduced, while continuing to protect the poor through lifeline tariffs.
Public investment spending will grow in line with projected nominal GDP growth, and social protection through the BISP will be further expanded.
Pakistan has also adopted a new comprehensive strategy to fix the still ailing power sector.
Other important structural reforms are underway in tax administration, central bank operations, the trade regime, and the transformation and privatisation of public sector enterprises (PSEs).
Reform priorities for the remainder of the programme include reinforcing the gains in economic stabilisation and addressing long-standing barriers to sustainable, strong, and inclusive growth.
Cheap oil to help energy sector
The report notes that low international oil prices have created an opportunity for Pakistan to address energy sector problems and boost reserves buffers.
“Despite some negative tax implications, the positive shock to energy prices can also be used to accelerate the reduction in electricity subsidies and to tackle the persistent problem of payments arrears in the sector,” it says.
The IMF also welcomes Pakistan’s decision to accelerate the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, and says that continuing on this track will be important to further strengthen Pakistan’s financial resilience.
The Fund also welcomes Pakistan’s new plan to fix the power sector. It points out that further reducing untargeted subsidies that disproportionately benefit wealthy segments of society will free resources for priority spending.
Forcefully addressing arrears in the power sector will unlock existing idle generation capacity and reduce the potential drain on public resources.
The IMF advises Pakistan to continue implementing these reforms to achieve a successful outcome. “With ongoing legal challenges to power surcharges posing potential risks to the budget and efforts to fix the power sector, the authorities’ contingency plans are welcome as they mitigate these risks,” the report says.
The report notes that maintaining the momentum of other structural reforms will also be critical.
The IMF urges Pakistan to continue multi-year efforts to strengthen the tax administration and improve revenue collection.
It reminds Pakistan’s planners that strong systems for the evaluation, prioritisation, and implementation of public investment projects will be important.
Passage of the proposed legal amendments to strengthen the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) independence will already address some important shortcomings, but further changes will be needed to bolster the SBP’s governance structure and autonomy.
Privatise, privatise
Privatisation should continue, building on recent successes, and the authorities’ commitment to improve or privatise ailing PSEs is particularly important.
The report also emphasises the need to continue efforts to reform the gas sector, and urges the government to focus on price rationalisation and improvements in domestic production.
On the basis of Pakistan’s performance under the extended arrangement, the IMF staff |
fear' after Gupta resignation
The petition is the latest move in the ongoing turmoil following former UBC president Arvind Gupta's sudden resignation last summer.
Dr. Arvind Gupta resigned suddenly last summer as president of the University of B.C., one year into his five-year term. (UBC)
In October, a report found the university failed to protect the academic freedom of a professor who suggested Gupta might have lost a "masculinity contest" with UBC's leadership.
"I was very concerned to see board members exercising their power and influence in an attempt to get faculty members to stop speaking about what happened," said Ichikawa on Tuesday.
Following that report, chair John Montalbano resigned from the board of governors, but Ichikawa said there remains a "culture of fear" at UBC — something he observed while circulating the petition for the no confidence motion.
"I spoke myself to many faculty members who were afraid to sign it publicly, so some people signed i t anonymously, some people weren't willing to sign it at all because they were afraid,"he said.
"It's clear to me that we have an academic freedom problem at the University of British Columbia."
The university said any claim that academics could suffer professional consequences for speaking out is not true.
"Categorically, there is no such culture and there's no such actions," said Steenkamp.
"We have an active duty to protect and promote people's academic freedom so if people are feeling harassed or bullied or silenced, that is something we need to pay attention to," he said — on both sides of the debate.
Time to'move on,' says one prof
Steenkamp pointed to an op-ed written by Sauder School of Business professor James Tansey, imploring faculty to "move on" and describing the petition as part of a campaign by friends of Gupta.
Ichikawa said he wasn't motivated by Gupta leaving, but by the board of governors more generally.
"There is a widespread perception that the board of governors is treating the university as if it were a corporation, instead of being something like a public institution that's dedicated to education and research." he said.
UBC continues to search for a new president that it hopes to name by June 30, which is "the most important task at hand," said Steenkamp. Former president Martha Piper is serving in the interim.
"There was a failed presidency last year... obviously an unfortunate event but what which you have to deal with and then move on," he said.
He said the university intends to learn from the past and improve governance in the process.
"The university is a very big place. This in some ways is a bit of a tempest in a teacup, but it's important and it's significant and we have to deal with it."A bomb exploded Sunday in a crowded Cairo market frequented by tourists, wounding at least 14 people, including foreigners, said police and medical sources.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
The injured included French and German tourists, said a security official who did not have an exact breakdown of the wounded.
The blast took place in the famed Khan el-Khalili market in medieval Cairo, frequented by tourists and locals alike. Blood could be seen, on the marble paving stones in front of the historic Hussein mosque.
A police colonel at the scene said the small bomb went off outside a cafe near the mosque kicking up stone and marble fragments, which wounded the passersby.
Riot police cordoned off the area and sniffer dogs could be seen as worshippers were being evacuated. A security official said police were attempting to defuse a second bomb. Fire engines were also on the scene.
Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they was not authorized to speak to the press.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowDecember 18, 2014
While I was preparing for an interview with Hack Reactor I received an email that listed several concepts that I should be comfortable with before interviewing. Some of the topics listed included: callback functions, higher order-functions, and how and when to use anonymous functions. Another topic that was given to me as suggested reading material was an article on Javascript Closures. Because of my inexperience I assumed that the concept of closures was something very complicated that only advanced engineers would understand. It didn’t help that each time I googled for help I consistently came across explanations of closure that would contradict each other.
Here is the simplest explanation of closure that I can manage:
A function’s scope remains intact even if it is called after its parent function and scope have closed.
Here’s an example:
var foo = function(){ var x = "Hello World!"; return function() { alert(x); } }; var bar = foo(); bar(); //alerts "Hello World"
The important thing to note about the above function is that the function “foo” has finished executing. The function foo finishes executing and returns an anonymous function. Despite the fact that foo is finished, the anonymous function being returned still retains access to the variable “x”. This means that you have greater flexibility with how you write your functions. You don’t have to worry about any of your functions losing access to variables over the course of your program. Your functions will behave the way that they appear at the time of writing.
105 KudosATHENS, Ga. -- Scour the locker rooms at Georgia and Clemson and it might be difficult to find a player who knows much about their historic rivalry.
“You know me, I don’t know much about Georgia’s history from before I got here,” Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray chuckled in one such response about the longtime rivalry between schools separated by only about 70 miles.
Murray is far from alone in that regard. The 22-year-old Floridian was 13 the last time Georgia and Clemson met, in 2003, and was not even alive when the annual 1980s meetings between the Bulldogs and Tigers often carried national-title implications.
Fans of a certain age might harken back to those days on Saturday, however, when the rivalry resumes -- ending the longest gap between games since the series started in 1897 -- and No. 5 Georgia visits No. 8 Clemson in Death Valley.
Coach Danny Ford and Clemson beat Georgia 13-3 in 1981 and went on to win the national championship. AP Photo/Kathy Willens
“Georgia was really good every year, so it meant that doggone it, somebody was going to get a lot of publicity and a lot of press, whoever won that football game,” said former Tigers coach Danny Ford, who will be enshrined in Clemson’s Ring of Honor on Saturday. “You could still be a good football team if you lost that game, but it just put a cramp in everything and it was so early in the year -- the first or second game or third game every year -- and you kind of knew what kind of football team [you had].
“It was kind of like a Wednesday where the kids in school call it Hump Day, you know? You’re in the middle of the week, get your classes over with and you’re about halfway to the weekend. That was the same kind of a hump game, where if you get off and win that football game, you’ve got a great chance to have a good year.”
Back then, your season could be more than good if you slipped away with a win. Thanks to a 67-yard punt return touchdown by Scott Woerner and a 98-yard Woerner interception return that set up another score, Georgia edged Clemson 20-16 in 1980 despite failing to register a single first down in the opening half.
“At the end, they’re back down there and Jeff Hipp makes an interception on about the 1-yard line right at the end of the game,” recalled former Georgia coach Vince Dooley, who posted a 15-6-1 record against Clemson in his 25 seasons as the Bulldogs’ coach. “But statistic-wise, they just knocked us all over the place.”
The 10th-ranked Bulldogs went on to win the national title that season after barely surviving the Tigers’ upset bid. And Clemson returned the favor the following year, generating nine turnovers to beat Herschel Walker and No. 4 Georgia 13-3 en route to a national title of its own.
Clemson’s 1981 win marked the only time that Georgia lost in the regular season during Walker’s three seasons on campus.
“They’re the only team that he played more than once in his college career and didn’t score a touchdown against,” said UGA grad Kyle King, whose new book detailing the Georgia-Clemson series history, “Fighting Like Cats and Dogs,” was published, oddly enough, by the Clemson University Digital Press. “So they really were the ones who -- to the extent anyone had Herschel’s number -- they’re the ones who had his number.”
In 25 years as coach at Georgia, Vince Dooley posted a 15-6-1 record against Clemson. Dale Zanine/US Presswire for ESPN.com
Just how close were the two teams in their respective pursuits of the national title? Georgia scored exactly 316 points during the 1980 regular season before beating Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl to claim its first national title since 1942. The following year, Clemson matched that scoring total to the number, notching the very same 316 points in the regular season before beating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl to claim the school’s first national championship.
The series continued to produce memorable outcomes on an annual basis throughout the 1980s. Take 1982, for example, when No. 7 Georgia hosted No. 11 Clemson in the first night game in decades at Sanford Stadium. Much like Saturday’s game at Clemson, the 1982 game aired before a prime-time national TV audience on ABC -- that year on Labor Day evening.
Bulldogs defenders picked off four passes by Clemson quarterback and Athens native Homer Jordan en route to a 13-7 win and another undefeated regular season. Once again, the Georgia-Clemson winner played in the game that would determine the national champion, although the Bulldogs lost this time, 27-23 to Penn State in the Sugar Bowl.
Nonetheless, those first three games set the standard for one of the nastiest rivalries of the 1980s -- one where defense, big special-teams plays and general hard-nosed aggression became trademarks.
“I remember it was always a tough game for Georgia. It was a tough game, period,” said Georgia running backs coach Bryan McClendon, who appeared in the series’ last two games, in 2002 and 2003, and whose father Willie preceded him as a Georgia player and coach. “It was always one of the biggest games out there in the country and it’s a lot like this year, to be honest with you. You never knew who was going to come out on top. Both teams always had high expectations going into each year, let alone that game. It was always a hard-fought war out there on the field.”
There was the 1984 game where Georgia beat No. 2 Clemson 26-23 on a 60-yard Kevin Butler field goal -- a play that produced what King called Bulldogs announcer Larry Munson’s most memorable call from a home game, when he estimated that Butler would “try to kick one 100,000 miles” and then proclaimed that “the stadium is worse than bonkers” once the kick cleared the uprights.
Clemson enjoyed its own kicking-game heroics in 1986 and 1987, when David Treadwell booted game-winning field goals at the end of the Tigers’ respective 31-28 and 21-20 victories.
“We were so evenly matched, and so many came down to a field goal or a touchdown, and we were so evenly matched that all of them kind of run together in my thoughts,” Ford recalled. “They’d win one and we’d win one.”
That proved true throughout Ford’s 11-year tenure at Clemson. A rivalry that Georgia once dominated -- the Bulldogs are 41-17-4 all-time against the Tigers and went 11-1-1 against Frank Howard, the winningest coach in Clemson history -- was extremely even in the 1980s.
Ford went 4-4-1 against Georgia while at Clemson. The scoring differential during that period? Georgia 153, Clemson 152.
“It was more about respectability for us because Georgia had the upper hand for so long back when Coach Howard [was here],” Ford said. “I tell the story all the time that Coach Howard would have to play Georgia and Georgia Tech, who was in the SEC back then, Alabama and Auburn and lose four games to have enough money to make his budget and then win the ACC conference. But back then he had to do that and he couldn’t hardly ever get them to come play at our place. It was just a thing of respectability I think, more so for us in the '80s."
Respectability is no longer a problem for either of the programs who will renew their longtime rivalry on Saturday in Death Valley. Georgia’s Mark Richt led his team within an eyelash of playing for the BCS title last year, and the Bulldogs enter Saturday’s game with their highest preseason ranking since opening the 2008 campaign in the No. 1 spot. Clemson’s Dabo Swinney has led the Tigers to a 21-6 record over the last two seasons and, blessed with a Heisman Trophy contender in quarterback Tajh Boyd, should boast one of the nation’s most explosive offenses.
The programs no longer resemble the Ford- and Dooley-era squads that relied on defense and the kicking game to win low-scoring games, but considering the standing the Georgia-Clemson game once held in the national championship race, it seems fitting that Saturday’s reunion occupies a marquee spot in college football’s opening weekend.
“I grew up with this game being played pretty much every year, and it was at a time that Georgia beat Florida every year, and Georgia beat Georgia Tech every year, so Clemson and Auburn were really the two games that you went into the year thinking, ‘Boy, I hope we can get out of that one with a W,’ ” King said. “I didn’t want to lose that, and that was really what ultimately inspired me to go back and write this book.
“We’re going into a season where it looks like you have two top-10 teams, two frontrunners in their conferences, two top-drawer quarterbacks going up against one another,” he added. “I think it’s important to remind fans that this isn’t a new thing. We butted heads with these guys in big games before, and hopefully we’ll get the chance to keep doing it in the future.”Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, listens to Russian navy deputy commander Mikhail Zakharenko while visiting military exercises in the Russia's Arctic North on board nuclear missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great), August 17, 2005. REUTERS/ITAR-TASS Despite suffering economic sanctions and the falling price of oil, Vladimir Putin is pushing forward with an estimated 20 trillion ruble ($351 billion) program to modernize the Russian military by 2020.
But the Russian defense sector is struggling to meet its goals.
"The objective reasons for the failure to meet state defense procurement orders include restrictions on the supply of imported parts and materials in connection with sanctions, discontinuation of production and the loss of an array of technologies, insufficient production facilities," Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said in videoconference with Putin on Thursday, according to The Moscow Times.
Borisov said that navy guard ships, 200 amphibious aircraft, antitank missiles, radio equipment for surface-to-air missiles, and launchers for Tupolev-160 bombers are behind schedule.
Putin was not happy.
"I will especially emphasize that those who are delaying production and supplies of military technologies, who are letting down related industries, must within a short term... correct the situation," Putin reportedly said.
"And if that does not happen, the appropriate conclusions need to be made, including, if necessary, technological, organizational, and personnel [changes]," Putin added.
The extravagant plans for military spending were drawn up before the ruble crashed and oil prices bottomed out, back when the government was expecting 6% GDP growth annually.
Nevertheless, Russia has continued with their hike in military spending, which is estimated to reach $29.5 billion in 2015, with around $4.4 billion to $4.7 billion going towards research and development alone.
Elena Holodny / Business Insider
The Moscow Times notes that Putin is looking to defense spending to bolster employment, investment, and technological development.
As he said on his call-in show in March, "without a doubt, this program will be fulfilled," adding that, "Our goal is to make sure that by that time, by 2020, the amount of new weapons and military technologies in our armed forces reached no less than 70%."
Given that Russia's troubles will likely continue — sanctions will likely remain in place as fighting in eastern Ukraine continues and oil may drop as Iranian oil hits the market — Putin's big push may meet a harsh reality sooner than later.
"Russia has already spent more than half of its total military budget for 2015," Russian economist and former rector of the New Economic School in Moscow Sergei Guriev wrote in May. "At this rate, its reserve fund will be emptied before the end of the year."
On Thursday, Deputy Defense Minister Borisov said that 38% of Moscow's defense purchases planned for this year have been completed.
Michael B. Kelley contributed to this post.Lewis Hamilton, the greatest race-car driver of this generation, has big plans for 2017: Recapture a Formula One title he lost under bitter circumstances. And help his sport catch fire in America
By Sean Gregory
Piercing screams swallow up Lewis Hamilton as he enters an amphitheater at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in Austin on a warm evening in late October. Hundreds of fans have been waiting for hours, pressed against a gate, in hopes of getting something, anything, autographed by the fastest driver on the planet. They shove hats, programs, posters, even cell phones in his direction. One clever devotee places a cap on the tip of his selfie stick, like bait on a rod, and stretches it over the throng. Another name-drops Hamilton’s pet bulldog: “Sign this for Coco!” he shouts. “I love your f-cking dog! You’re my f-cking hero!” Hamilton smiles and signs the hat. Fittingly, Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” blares over the loudspeakers. Here, the British-born race-car driver is as big as a pop star.
More than 400 million people around the globe watch Formula One races on TV, transfixed by the high-tech cars that resemble sleek fighter jets shooting across the track at more than 200 m.p.h. And Hamilton is the sport’s biggest name, a three-time champ with a raft of famous friends who is swarmed by fans at races from Australia to Azerbaijan, from Monaco to Malaysia.
Photograph by Thomas Prior for TIME
In the U.S., however, such recognition is rare. Formula One comprises 11 teams with two drivers each, backed by brands like Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari. Over some 20 races spread across eight months and five continents, the teams fight for the Constructors’ championship, while each driver vies for the individual title. America hosts just one race per year, the fall Grand Prix in Texas, and Formula One lags in popularity behind homegrown racing circuits like NASCAR, not to mention the NFL, NBA and many other pro and college sports. “So many people I meet in America ask me, ‘What’s Formula One?’” Hamilton says before walking out to his autograph session a day before the Austin race. “What, do you live in a shoe box? Haven’t you at least heard of it?”
For years the American market has vexed Formula One, even as it grew into one of the most popular sports elsewhere in the world. The races are often televised at odd hours and rarely on broadcast networks, making it particularly tough to lure casual viewers. But that may be changing. In September, Liberty Media, the U.S.-based conglomerate controlled by billionaire John Malone, bought Formula One in a deal valued at $8 billion. The purchase has stoked optimism that a domestic ownership group with a range of technology and entertainment businesses in its portfolio will figure out how to make Formula One work in the States. “The U.S. market is important,” says Chase Carey, the former Rupert Murdoch lieutenant whom Liberty installed as Formula One’s new chairman in September. “It’s an area of opportunity for us.”
Hamilton will be critical to the effort. The son of mixed-race parents, he became the first black driver in Formula One after growing up in public housing north of London, rather than being groomed in the gilded garages that typically breed championship drivers. Since winning his first title in 2008 at just 23, Hamilton has become as much of a celebrity off the track, a Fashion Week regular whose Instagram feed is filled with shots of him hanging out with Rihanna and Justin Bieber. He’s recorded hip-hop songs and had a role in the latest Call of Duty. “He’s an ambassador for Formula One,” says Christian Horner, head of the rival Red Bull Racing Team. “He takes it to places where you wouldn’t normally see it, particularly in the U.S.”
For an ambassador, Hamilton is not exactly known for diplomacy. The 2016 season played out as a high-stakes rivalry between Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, with Hamilton repeatedly citing engine trouble for races he lost. On Nov. 27, in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton defied team orders, slowing the pace in an attempt to thwart Rosberg and keep his own title hopes alive. Hamilton won the race, but Rosberg still beat him out for the world championship––and then announced his surprise retirement. The hyper-competitive Hamilton was not a model of grace in defeat. “Lewis is Marmite,” says Horner. “People either love him or hate him.”
ANTHONY WALLACE—AFP/Getty Images
The loss is fuel for Hamilton, who wants to reclaim a world title in 2017 that he feels he lost in spite of his driving. “It’s been quite a painful couple of weeks,” he tells TIME in a December telephone interview from his home in Monaco. “This is really a time of year when you’re turning, trying to leave the negative behind and take the positive forward. But of course, it will build. The yearning for next year will build.”
Hamilton’s path to the top of auto racing began at age 6, when he started entering––and dominating––remote-control-car races on weekends. His talent landed him on the British children’s show Blue Peter, where he won a race against the host and a bunch of bigger kids. (A YouTube clip shows him raising a tiny, triumphant right arm in victory.) He quickly graduated to go-karts. Hamilton says that the first time he puttered around in a kart, he picked up the braking technique––hit them late around the corners to maximize speed––that he still uses today. “I remember that day,” he recalls, “feeling vrrrrrrrrrrrrm.”
Hamilton’s parents split when he was 2. His father Anthony managed his racing career while holding down multiple jobs. They stood out in the U.K.’s all-white karting scene. “We were the scruffy black family,” says Hamilton, whose paternal grandparents are from Grenada. “We had the sh-t equipment, sh-t car and a sh-t trailer.”
Still, Hamilton kept winning, roiling others on the youth racing circuit. “I had parents come up to me and say, ‘You’re not good enough, you should probably quit,’” says Hamilton. “But I just beat your son. What are you talking about?” He recalls racist taunts at the track and says he was picked on at school, where he was one of a handful of black children.
About 5 ft. 9 in. and 150 lb. today, Hamilton was never imposing. But at one point, he decided it was time to fight back. “I remember being in the back of the car with my dad. I took my seat belt off, and was like, ‘Can I do karate?’” Hamilton says. “I was 6 years old. I was being bullied and hated it. So I went and did karate and learned how to defend myself.”
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At an auto-sports award show in 1995, the 10-year-old Hamilton met Ron Dennis, head of the McLaren racing team, and told him that he wanted to race one of his cars one day. Dennis signed him to McLaren’s young-drivers program, and he flourished. By the age of 21 Hamilton had secured a spot in Formula One, where he turned in one of the greatest rookie seasons ever, losing the championship by a single point.
Hamilton’s instincts and tenacity were evident from the start. Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer for the Sahara Force India racing team, recalls watching Hamilton tail McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso, the defending two-time world champ, at the street race in Monaco, whose narrow course makes passing especially difficult. Hamilton finished second behind Alonso, but not before applying heavy pressure. “Someone else in that same situation would say, ‘I have no chance at passing here—it’s Monaco, I’m a rookie, he’s the world champ—just take your second place,’” says Szafnauer. “Not Lewis. That’s what makes him special.”
He won the title in 2008. Two years later, after finishing fifth, Hamilton fired his father as his manager. “It was a pivotal moment, and still the toughest thing I’ve really ever gone through,” he says. “Growing up so close to someone and looking up to someone, and having them move heaven and earth for you every single day, and one day you say, ‘I don’t want you to be a part of it anymore.’”
The following two seasons were rough, with Hamilton matching his career-worst fifth-place finish in 2011. But he says the move was worth the personal fallout. “It was necessary and a very positive thing in terms of moving forward,” Hamilton says. “I’m almost 32 now. I’m not squandering my money. I don’t do drugs. I still have the values on which I was raised.” He switched teams, from McLaren to Mercedes, for the 2013 season before taking the ’14 and ’15 world titles and finishing a close second this season. His net worth, meanwhile, is estimated to be more than $200 million. But the damage remains. Hamilton calls his current relationship with his father “still a work in progress.”
The brash confidence that has enabled Hamilton’s heroics on the track has rubbed many people the wrong way. “There are so many haters, it’s kind of crazy,” says Lindsey Vonn, an Olympic champion skier and a close friend. “When I first met him, I had heard the rumors that he was really arrogant. He’s not even remotely arrogant.” Vonn was part of a small group of boldface pals—including tennis icon Venus Williams, broadcaster Gayle King, actor Christoph Waltz and NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon—who were on hand at the race in Austin. Hamilton often hopscotches the globe between races, appearing at exclusive events with his famous friends. Though he is single now, his longtime relationship with pop star Nicole Scherzinger provided a steady stream of tabloid fodder.
The hobnobbing has riled some members of Formula One’s old guard. “If he was at McLaren,” Dennis, his former boss and mentor, said in 2015, “he wouldn’t be behaving the way he is, because he wouldn’t be allowed to.” Hamilton’s response is the equivalent of pointing to the scoreboard: three titles and 10 race wins this season, including the last four of the year. Besides, he says, his interests in music and fashion prevent him from burning out on the track. “There’s very little that can distract me, really,” Hamilton says. “I’m very much a person of energy, and when you meet someone you naturally feel an energy, good or bad, you know?”
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His current boss has no objections. “People out there try to put other people into boxes,” says Toto Wolff, head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport. “‘This is how you should be, this is how you should behave, this is how you should concentrate on this sport.’ It’s all wrong. If it works for Lewis to fly around the world and go from one fashion show to another, hang out with his friends and do a gig, if that works fine, we should just accept it. We’re much too judgmental.”
From his perch in his company’s swank luxury suite, Heineken marketing executive Gianluca Di Tondo waves to the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders entertaining the crowd before the Austin race. Fighter jets fly over. The University of Texas marching band blares its horns. Di Tondo is betting on this sort of Americana to turbocharge Formula One here. In June, Heineken became a global partner of the circuit, joining brands like Rolex and Emirates. “We are emotionally very attached to this market,” Di Tondo says of the U.S. The pitch is much different here from in Europe, where even nonfans have at least a passing familiarity with the top drivers. “Americans either love it or don’t give a sh-t,” says Di Tondo. Looking out onto a grass hill overlooking the track, he sees room to grow. “That’s where we need the second-tier fans.”
Since Hamilton’s rookie season in 2007, Formula One’s annual global revenue has risen 53%, to $1.83 billion as of July 31, 2016. North and South America combined account for only 10.6% of the haul. But there are signs of growth. Races broadcast on NBCN, a cable sports network, averaged 429,000 viewers this season, the most in 21 years for a single U.S. cable channel showing Formula One. The Austin race, which debuted in 2012, set an attendance record in 2016: almost 270,000 over three days. The number was surely inflated by a Taylor Swift show at the track the night before the race and an Usher concert after––but many, including Hamilton, think that’s just what Formula One needs.
“The way Formula One is run is not good enough at the moment,” Hamilton says. “The Super Bowl, the events Americans do, the show they put on is so much, so much better. So if you were to mix in a little bit of that template through there, I think we’d be more inviting to the fans.”
Expect Liberty to energize the American efforts. “Given how small Formula One is in the States, it’s a low bar to clear to have some sort of impact,” says Robert Routh, an equities analyst at FBN Securities. Liberty gets a profitable business––the circuit earned $318 million in operating income in 2015––while Formula One joins a company that can leverage existing assets to help it grow: Liberty’s QVC network can push Formula One merchandise; SiriusXM can provide Formula One programming; Live Nation can produce entertainment around Formula One events. “We have an enormous opportunity to take this sport to the next level,” says Carey, who helped launch Fox News and Fox Sports before becoming Formula One’s chairman. “In a world where there are more and more choices, there are fewer really distinguishing events.”
Carey sees the chance to brand Formula One as an upscale alternative to other racing circuits. “NASCAR is sort of T-shirts and beer,” he says. “This is the sport of stars and celebrity. It’s champagne.” If so, Hamilton is Dom Pérignon. “We need six of him,” says F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone, the circuit’s 86-year-old grand poo-bah.
Hamilton calls his tumultuous 2016 season “one of the heaviest on my heart.” He suffered three engine failures, while the cars of his teammate Rosberg rode clean. And then there was the spiteful final race, in which the front-running Hamilton slowed the pace to let other cars catch up to Rosberg in the hopes they would knock him to fourth place––and allow Hamilton to win the championship. Rosberg salvaged second, and Hamilton was called out for going his own way. “Anarchy doesn’t work within any team or any company,” Mercedes’ Wolff said afterward.
Weeks later, Hamilton says he has no regrets, especially since he remains convinced that his title hopes were felled by his engine. “The team’s job is to provide both drivers with equal opportunity,” he says. “And unfortunately, I didn’t have equal opportunity, because I had failures on our side of the garage. The other side didn’t. So that puts more stress on the importance of myself sucking every ounce of opportunity. At the end, that’s all I could have done. I didn’t do anything dangerous. I didn’t put anyone in harm’s way. I’d do it again. You’re out there to fight.”
Hamilton says he wanted the three-peat “with every blood cell in my body.” After falling just short, he’s desperate to win in 2017. “I’m in a good head space,” he says. “I have a process that I need to take into next year. When I lost the championship, the motivation to want to take it back next year became twofold. I now have twice the desire.” The question is whether America will come along for the ride.
Dec. 20, 20161. FC Köln earned another point in a 1-1 (1-1) draw against a strong RB Leipzig side on Matchday 5. The guests’ youngster Oliver Burke snatched the early lead (5'), which was then equalized by Yuya Osako (25').
After 1. FC Köln's stunning performance at Schalke new arrival Marco Höger was out of play. As a result, Jonas Hector teamed up with captain Lehmann in central midfield and Kocka Rausch defended on the left. Moreover, Peter Stöger went for Simon Zoller instead of Milos Jojic on the left wing.
Flying start for Leipzig
The match started with a 15-minute delay. Only 4 minutes into the match, Sabitzer passed the ball well into the penalty area, where Oliver Burke finished clinically into the bottom right corner.
Osako in fine form
Despite the early setback, FC pushed forward. The first opportunity was a wide-range effort by right-back Sorensen (18'). But 7 minutes later Rausch crossed a good ball in to find Osako. The Japanese striker turned his defender in the box and took the shot from an acute angle with his left foot to hammer it home into the top left corner (25'). FC had opportunities to add a second but they were not to be as the two sides were level at the break.
FC earn a point
Resulting from Cologne's higher commitment in the opening minutes, the second half started with a Risse shot from range, which went just over the bar (50'). From this point on RB Leipzig had a much higher possession. For quite a while, the match only took part in Cologne's half of the pitch. As a consequence, Stöger reacted and brought on several fresh players (Rudnevs, Mladenovic, Guirassy) but this did not have a real impact on the eventless second half, which ended in a 1-1 draw in front of 48,500 fans at the RheinEnerdieSTADION.
Bayern up next
Next week 1. FC Köln will try to continue their impressive run of 10 straight unbeaten Bundesliga matches on the road against FC Bayern at the AllianzArena of Munich on Saturday, 1 October 2016 (15:30).
Match Details
1. FC Köln: Horn – Sorensen, Heintz, Mavraj, Rausch (83' Mladenovic) – M. Lehmann, Hector – Risse, Zoller – Modeste (85' Guirassy), Osako (72' Rudnevs)
RB Leipzig: Gulacsi – B. Schmitz, Orban (46' Bernardo), Compper, Halstenberg – Ilsanker, Keita – Kaiser, Burke (82' Ti. Werner), Sabitzer – Selke (63' Y. Poulsen)
Goals: 0-1 Burke (5', Sabitzer), 1-1 Osako (25', Rausch)
Yellow cards: Osako (54') | Orban (39'), Bernardo (90')
Referee: Benjamin Cortus (Röthenbach)
Attendance: 48,500An IHOP waitress was arrested Friday morning for allegedly pulling a steak knife on a New York family after an argument over poor service.
Police said the waitress, Rhonda Kelly, pulled the knife on a family-of-four, including two special needs children, both under the age of four.
The mother said she and her family received poor service at the pancake house on Sunrise Highway in Massapequa, according to NBC 4.
They asked to speak to the manager and the manager asked them to leave, the mother said.
When the family got up to leave, they overheard another waitress comment about their kids’ disabilities and turned back around, according to NBC.
The wait staff allegedly surrounded the family and an argument ensued.
According to the mother, Kelly who had been serving the family grabbed a steak knife and threatened the parents and kids.
No one was injured after another IHOP employee snatched the knife from Kelly.
The mother of the family, who have not been identified, said they were shaken up after she, her husband and their children were surrounded by the pancake restaurant’s wait staff.
A statement released by the franchise owner, Camile Gnolfo, says the business is cooperating with a police investigation.
Gnolfo said in the statement that the company wishes the ‘outcome had been different’, but several ’employees reacted to what they viewed as an immediate threat to their personal safety’
Authorities said Kelly was arrested on a charge of menacing, and is due in court later this month.
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Original Article
Share ThisIt’s about preventing choice, not abortion
A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan struck down |
kind of voluntary segregation has re-emerged, with like sticking by like.
“There is not a lot of mixing,” said Nokwanda Khanyile, 21, a business student from Durban. “The coloreds stick to themselves. The whites, too.”
Like many young black people, Ms. Khanyile would not consider remaining in Cape Town to pursue a career in business.
“Cape Town is racist,” she said. “Everybody knows that.”Almost six years ago, I was the editor of a single-topic issue on energy for Scientific American that included an article by Princeton University's Robert Socolow that set out a well-reasoned plan for how to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below a planet-livable threshold of 560 ppm. The issue came replete with technical solutions that ranged from a hydrogen economy to space-based solar.
If I had it to do over, I’d approach the issue planning differently, my fellow editors permitting. I would scale back on the nuclear fusion and clean coal, instead devoting at least half of the available space for feature articles on psychology, sociology, economics and political science. Since doing that issue, I’ve come to the conclusion that the technical details are the easy part. It’s the social engineering that’s the killer. Moon shots and Manhattan Projects are child’s play compared to needed changes in the way we behave.
A policy article authored by several dozen scientists appeared online March 15 in Science to acknowledge this point: “Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change. This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.”
The report summarized 10 years of research evaluating the capability of international institutions to deal with climate and other environmental issues, an assessment that found existing capabilities to effect change sorely lacking. The authors called for a "constitutional moment” at the upcoming 2012 U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in June to reform world politics and government. Among the proposals: a call to replace the largely ineffective U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development with a council that reports to the U.N. General Assembly, at attempt to better handle emerging issues related to water, climate, energy and food security. The report advocates a similar revamping of other international environmental institutions.
Unfortunately, far more is needed. To be effective, a new set of institutions would have to be imbued with heavy-handed, transnational enforcement powers. There would have to be consideration of some way of embracing head-in-the-cloud answers to social problems that are usually dismissed by policymakers as academic naivete. In principle, species-wide alteration in basic human behaviors would be a sine qua non, but that kind of pronouncement also profoundly strains credibility in the chaos of the political sphere. Some of the things that would need to be contemplated: How do we overcome our hard-wired tendency to “discount” the future: valuing what we have today more than what we might receive tomorrow? Would any institution be capable of instilling a permanent crisis mentality lasting decades, if not centuries? How do we create new institutions with enforcement powers way beyond the current mandate of the U.N.? Could we ensure against a malevolent dictator who might abuse the power of such organizations?
Behavioral economics and other forward-looking disciplines in the social sciences try to grapple with weighty questions. But they have never taken on a challenge of this scale, recruiting all seven billion of us to act in unison. The ability to sustain change globally across the entire human population over periods far beyond anything ever attempted would appear to push the relevant objectives well beyond the realm of the attainable. If we are ever to cope with climate change in any fundamental way, radical solutions on the social side are where we must focus, though. The relative efficiency of the next generation of solar cells is trivial by comparison.
Image credit: NASAIf you’re looking for examples of legislative nonsense (and who isn’t?), looking at a list of “resolutions” will always pay off. Because resolutions aren’t binding, legislators feel free to use them for everything from declaring a position on some irrelevant world event to honoring a local sports team. You could argue that this practice is bad because it wastes time they could otherwise devote to actual legislation, or that it’s good because it wastes time they could otherwise devote to actual legislation. There are even some examples of resolutions that are actually funny (on purpose), and I’m a fan of those only partly because it’s an excuse to mention the book I wrote that has a few of those in it.
This isn’t as good as the Boston Strangler resolution (also Texas) or the New Mexico Wizard Bill (both in that book, coincidentally), but seemed worth noting.
Not being Texan, I had not previously pondered the similarities between the Texas and Chilean flags, but they are in fact very similar. And Rep. Tom Oliverson (R.-Austin) would like to make sure Texans don’t confuse them when selecting emojis.
Both flags are red, white, and blue, obviously, and feature a lone star. The red and blue are different shades, it appears, but the only other difference is that the Texas flag has its lone star in a blue square:
while on the Chilean flag the whole left border is blue:
No, wait, it’s the other way around. Chile has the blue square, and Texas has the full blue field on the left. Sorry! Just remember everything’s bigger in Texas, and you can keep them straight that way. Although Chile is actually bigger than Texas (291,933 square miles v. 268,597), and that could be confusing if you were to get that extraneous fact stuck in your brain.
Apparently, Chile had its flag first, or at least it adopted the basic design in 1817. The Republic of Texas adopted its flag in 1839, and it became the state flag when Texas joined the Union (temporarily at first) in 1845. It’s not clear who designed the Texas flag, and there’s no reason to think it was modeled on Chile’s. As is usually the case, there were lots of other designs out there, actual or proposed; I have to say I find it kind of hilarious that according to this article, Texas might have had a flag with a rainbow on it, had a meeting about flag designs not “hastily adjourned” in 1836 because the Mexican Army was on the way.
Anyway, the flags are in fact similar, and so their flag emojis of course are similar, and similarly confused. Oliverson’s resolution (right) aims to do something about that.
According to HCR 75, “most major electronic messaging applications” include an emoji for Chile’s flag but not Texas’s. “All too often,” it claims, the Chilean flag is used as a substitute, which will not do. The colors and symbols stand for different things, the resolution says, and so on and so forth. Therefore, by adopting the resolution, the legislature would
reject the notion that the Chilean flag, although it is a nice flag, can in any way compare to or be substituted for the official state flag of Texas and [would] urge all Texans not to use the Republic of Chile flag emoji in digital forums when referring to the Lone Star Flag of the great State of Texas.
So far there has been no further action on the resolution, but it was just filed on February 16. In the meantime, consider yourselves only informally urged.Headline News
Kyuss To Reunite for European Tour Without Founding Guitarist Josh Homme
Three former members of the legendary stoner rock band Kyuss, vocalist John Garcia, bass player Nick Oliveri and drummer Brant Bjork, will be embarking on a tour of Europe next year. Founding guitarist Josh Homme will not be taking part in the tour, which is expected to be because of his commitment to Queens Of The Stone Age, the band in which he performs vocal and guitar duties. Replacing him on the trek will be guitarist Bruno Fevery. This is the closest the band has come to a reunion since they called it a day in 1995.
The tour dates are as follows:
March 11 - Bergen, Norway - Rökeriet
March 12 - Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller
March 13 - Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser Medis
March 15 - Hamburg,., Germany - Docks
March 16 - Berlin, Germany - Columbia Halle
March 17 - Saarbrücken, Germany - Garage
March 18 - Basel, Switzerland - Z7
March 19 - München, Bayern, Germany - Backstage Werk
March 20 - Budapest, Hungary - Gödör
March 22 - Vienna, Austria - Arena
March 23 - Milan, Italy, - Live Club
March 24 - Frankfurt, Germany - Hugenottenhalle
March 25 - Paris, France - Elysee Montmartre
March 26 - Athens, Greece - Fuss Club
March 27 - Brussels, Belgium - AB
March 28 - Cologne, Germany - Live Music Hall
March 29 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
March 31 - Nottingham,., United Kingdom - Rock City
April 1 - Wolverhampton, United Kingdom - Wulfrun Hall
April 2 - London, United Kingdom - The ForumA 33-year-old Hillsboro man faces several charges after he was arrested for allegedly assaulting three people with two blue lightsabers at Toys R Us on Hayden Island.
A 9-1-1 caller reported the attack at 9:50 p.m. Wednesday and said the man, David Allen Canterbury, was swinging the "Star Wars"-style weapons at customers inside the store at 1800 Jantzen Beach Center, said Portland police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson.
Though police initially reported Canterbury struck the customers with one lightsaber, Simpson said Thursday he had one saber in each hand.
While the caller was still on the phone, Canterbury walked out of the store — lightsabers in hand — toward the parking lot, police said.
Officers tried to arrest Canterbury, but he kept swinging the lightsabers at them, Simpson said. One officer tried to use his Taser but the device didn't work.
Another officer used his Taser, but Canterbury knocked one of the wires away with a lightsaber.
Police eventually wrestled Canterbury to the ground and arrested him, Simpson said. He was taken to an area hospital for a mental evaluation. He faces allegations of disorderly conduct, theft, assault, resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer.
None of the people attacked with the lightsabers needed medical attention, Simpson said.
-- Kate MatherThis summer, a group called the Center for Medical Progress began to release a series of videos from an undercover “investigation” which it claimed showed that Planned Parenthood “sells aborted baby parts” for profit.
Since then, those claims have been roundly debunked, but the stir created by CMP’s videos has led to votes on defunding Planned Parenthood in the House and Senate and in several states, multiple House hearings (including one happening right now) and the threat of a government shutdown, and even contributed to the resignation of the speaker of the House.
Although little was known at first about who the Center for Medical Progress was, researchers and journalists quickly traced its ties to a number of radical anti-choice groups, and especially to Operation Rescue, which has existed for decades on the radical fringe of the anti-choice movement.
In a new report released today, People For the American Way explores the ties between CMP and its founder, David Daleiden, and Operation Rescue, placing Daleiden’s project in the history of the “direct action” anti-choice movement’s attempts to harass and intimidate abortion providers and patients.
In a radio interview first reported in the PFAW report, Operation Rescue’s second-in-command, Cheryl Sullenger, who spent time in federal prison in the 1980s for attempting to bomb an abortion clinic, explained that Daleiden approached her organization because he “shared our vision” for bringing “an end to the abortion industry in America” through attacking Planned Parenthood.
The “direct action” movement that Operation Rescue and CMP represent originated with dissidents from the National Right to Life Committee, which after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was the main organization working to overturn the decision and outlaw abortion through legislation. Early “direct action” protesters abandoned this legislative strategy and instead focuses on attacking legal abortion at its source, harassing abortion providers and patients and sometimes physically preventing women from entering abortion clinics in what became known as “rescue” missions.
As part of this strategy, Operation Rescue now advises activists to use a wide range of methods, including covert ones such as the “sting” operation Daleiden carried out, to gather information on abortion providers (and sometimes patients) in order to harass them at their homes and workplaces or to make their clinics expensive to operate.
One strategy later perfected by Mark Crutcher, who runs a group called Life Dynamics, used sham “investigations” to infiltrate and unnerve abortion providers. One of Crutcher’s investigations attacked the legal practice of fetal tissue donation for medical research; Daleiden has admitted that Crutcher gave him the idea for CMP’s project. The purpose of Crutcher’s investigations was not to shed light on hidden truths, but instead to intimidate abortion providers in order to stop them from offering their services, with the goal of building Crutcher once called “an America where abortion may indeed be perfectly legal, but no one can get one.”
Although Daleiden calls himself an “investigative journalist,” he actually comes out of this tradition of intimidation and harassment disguised as investigation.
PFAW’s full report, “Operation Rescue’s Big Break: How an Organization Rooted in the Radical Fringes of the Anti-Choice Movement Is Threatening to Shut Down the Government,” is available here.(YouTube/DARPA) Justin Sanchez, a neuroscientist and programme manager in DARPA's Biological Technologies Office, imagines a world where neurotechnologies could enable users to interact with their environment and other people by thought alone.
How exactly will the world look like 30 years from now?
Nobody could possibly know the answer to this question. However, top scientists from the United States Department of Defense' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the same group of people who pioneered the Internet and global positioning system—have interesting predictions, based on the projects they are currently working on.
The scientists from various fields, ranging from biology to aerospace engineering, think the world will be dominated by mind-controlled, more intelligent machines come 2045.
Neuroscientist Justin Sanchez, programme manager in DARPA's Biological Technologies Office, believes human beings will be able to control technologies and even communicate amongst themselves by simply using their minds.
"Imagine a world where you could just use your thoughts to control your environment. Think about controlling different aspects of your home just using your brain signals, or maybe communicating with your friends and your family just using neural activity from your brain," Sanchez said in a video series published by DARPA called "Forward to the Future: Visions of 2045."
He said DARPA is taking steps towards this direction, including the development of brain implants that will be able to control prosthetic arms.
Aerospace engineer and former astronaut Pam Melroy, deputy director of DARPA's Tactical Technologies Office, meanwhile sees simpler interactions between human beings and machines, because of intelligent technologies that will be able to recognise voices and commands composed only of a few words.
"I think in 2045, I think we're going to find that we will have a very different relationship with the machines around us. That includes the platforms that we use: cars, ships, planes and even space craft," Melroy said in the same video series.
The DARPA official explained that now, planes have to perform several commands in the correct order to be able to land. In the future, these can all be accomplished with just the command "Prepare for landing."
"Our world will be full of those kinds of examples where we can communicate directly our intent and have very complex outcomes by working together," she said.The worker-ownership movement is growing, and its supporters believe it could help address inequality and improve productivity in the US
Kim Jordan, the co-founder of the New Belgium Brewing Company, had big news to deliver to the Colorado brewery’s 450 employees at their 2013 winter retreat. She told them that the company had been sold, and asked them to open the envelopes placed on their chairs to learn the identity of the new owner. Inside each envelope was a mirror.
Can this job initiative help young people with autism beat unemployment? Read more
That was her way of saying that New Belgium would now be 100% owned by its workers. Christine Perich, a veteran of the company, who became its CEO last year, says of the moment: “It’s hard to put into words what that [it] was like. It was so emotional and so powerful.” Perich now works on behalf of her 700 or so fellow employees.
Best known for its Fat Tire beer, New Belgium is one of a small but growing number of worker-owned US companies. Others include Publix Supermarkets, which operates more than 1,100 grocery stores in the southeast; CH2M Hill, a big engineering and construction firm; and WL Gore, a manufacturer of cables and medical devices best known for its Gore-Tex fabric.
Worker ownership can help deal with inequality in the US, says Phillip Henderson, president of the New York-based Surdna Foundation, which recently published a report called Ours to Share: How Worker-Ownership Can Change the American Economy. When workers become owners, the wealth generated by their “ingenuity, efficiency, and productivity also accrues to them,” Henderson says.
Surdna is getting behind worker ownership with grants and advocacy, and Henderson urges other foundations to do so. “It’s a simple idea, but as we work to curb inequality, there may be few solutions that could so directly, tangibly and quickly help those hurt by the wealth gap,” he wrote recently in The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Melissa Hoover, the executive director of the nonprofit Democracy at Work Institute, says worker ownership can help improve job quality and give low and moderate-income workers opportunities to build wealth. “We have an economy that today doesn’t serve the workforce,” Hoover says.
Worker ownership isn’t a new idea. Robert Owen, a 19th century British businessman and socialist, created worker cooperatives in Scotland and in New Harmony, Indiana, with mixed results. Meanwhile, Karl Marx predicted that workers would someday seize the means of production and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Today, worker ownership in the US lives inside the capitalist economy and takes two forms. The main mechanism for employee ownership in the US is the Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or Esop, a retirement plan that holds company stock for its employees and is governed by a trustee. About 13 million US workers participate in Esops, according to the National Center for Employee Ownership. There’s no legal requirement giving these worker-owners control over their companies, although some firms, such as New Belgium, choose to share power with workers.
Some company owners give employees a partial stake, as Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of the yogurt company Chobani, did just last month. He unexpectedly distributed 10% of the firm, which has about $1bn in sales, to its workforce of about 2,000 people. “We built something,” Ulukaya said. “Now we’re sharing it.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Earlier this year, Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Greek yogurt giant Chobani, informed his 2,000 employees that they will each receive shares in the billion-dollar-plus yogurt company if it goes public or is sold. Photograph: Drew Nash/AP
Only about 7,000 workers are part of an estimated 300-400 worker co-operatives, which, unlike Esops, require that workers govern as well as own the business by electing the board of directors. Worker democracy is “hard-baked into a co-op”, says Hoover. Examples include the Evergreen group of co-operatives in Cleveland, which include a laundry, a small energy company and a greenhouse, and Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), a home care agency based in the Bronx, New York, which started with 12 home health aides and now employs more than 2,000 people.
So how do worker-owned businesses reduce inequality? Not necessarily with higher wages, experts say. “We pay market rates,” says Perich, New Belgium’s CEO. At CHCA, wages depend on government reimbursement rates.
Instead, Esops enable workers to build wealth and enjoy retirement security. The stock plan at Publix Supermarkets, which is the largest employee-owned company in the world, has been a “powerful wealth creator” for loyal employees, who also get quarterly profit-sharing checks, reports Fortune magazine.
Worker co-ops also give their employee-owners the opportunity upgrade their skills and rise through the ranks of management. Hoover, of the Democracy at Work Institute, began working in a co-operative bakery in San Francisco, then helped start other co-ops and now leads a Washington DC thinktank.
Jose Garcia, a program officer with the Surdna Foundation, says the foundation intends to build awareness of both Esops and worker co-ops among workers, business owners and policy makers. Governments can create legal structures to make it easier to start worker co-ops or convert existing businesses.
American CEOs often survive environmental controversies unscathed Read more
Foundations and governments could also provide financing for startups or conversions, Garcis says: “You’re going to see the baby boomer generation retiring from their businesses.” Some could choose to sell their companies to their workers, as Kim Jordan did at New Belgium.
Before Jordan sold her family’s stake, the company had practiced what is called open-book management, sharing its financial information with employees, and committed to reducing its water usage, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. She didn’t want to sell to an outsider who might undo that groundwork, and wanted to show that a worker-owned company could thrive. “I believe that one of the biggest threats we face in our world is the widening gap between the wealthiest part of the population and everyone else,” she told Forbes last year.
Perich, who succeeded her as CEO, says New Belgium workers don’t set the company’s strategy but they are fully briefed about what’s going on, and why, and are encouraged to take responsibility for operations.
“Empowerment is an overused word, but [ownership] certainly empowers people to show up in a different way, hold themselves accountable and hold one another accountable. This is a group of 700 people who care tremendously about this company.”View full size
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A teenage drug suspect learned a valuable lesson when he tried to escape from U.S. Park Police in Miller Field Wednesday — you can't outpace a horse.
The 16-year-old suspect, whose name was not released because of his age, was carrying a mayonnaise jar with 11 bags of pot inside, said U.S. Park Police Lt. Bryan Waite.
The bust happened about 11 a.m., when two mounted officers on patrol spotted a group of teens from nearby New Dorp High School congregating in an out-of-the way part of the park, Waite said.
The 16-year-old was believed to be dealing to the other teens, but the officers didn’t witness any drugs or money change hands, Waite said.
When the officers approached, the group scattered, and the 16-year-old bolted toward the nearby Swamp White Oak Forest.
“He tried to run. You’re not going to outrun a horse,” Waite said.
The teen was ultimately issued a summons for unlawful marijuana possession, Waite said, and later released.
Officer Robert O’Brien is credited with the arrest, Waite said.This knife was one of my first forays into Kershaws and it ended up leading to 7 other purchases and about 10 wish list future purchases. After this purchase I ended up buying two other knives from the Kershaw Ken Onion series; the Chive (smallest in the series) and the Scallion (the one between the Leek and the Chive). I love the blade shape of both the Chive and the Scallion as they both have a little bit of a belly towards the front that gives the blade a nice solid, robust feel. If the Leek had the same blade shape, I think it would be one of the best budget-esque EDC knives.Pros:*Made in the US & Blade Steel. Most knives at this price range are either made in China or have inferior blade steel or both. I am still extremely surprised that this made here in the US. Additionally, this Sandvik steel has held up beautifully; I've had this knife for a bit over two years now and, although I have not abused this knife (no batoning, heavy prying, etc.), I have only need to resharpen the knife a couple times. The steel holds an edge extremely well and does not dull quickly.*Blade is rock solid in ever position. In one of my pictures you can see that the blade is perfectly centered when folded. It locks up perfectly and has no play in any direction. The thumb stub locks against the back of the frame when the liner lock engages and there is no slop.*Durability. In the two years I have had this I have dropped this knife numerous times on dirt, concrete, asphalt and rocks and it still works as smoothly and as well as day one. One of the drops ended up breaking the blade safety (as it is made of plastic) but a quick email to Kershaw and they mailed me 3 replacements free of charge. I included a video of the blade opening to show that it still opens just as easily and smoothly and locks up every time.Cons:*My biggest gripe with this knife is the blade shape. I really do not like how thin it gets at the tip. I love how sleek and slim this knife is and I know that the blade needs to be thin as well to work with this shape of the knife, but I can't help wishing that they just added a little more meat at the tip. One of my buddies has this knife as well and his tip has bent at a 45 degree angle with some hard use. I know Kershaw has an amazing warranty and you can get the blade replaced fairly easy, but it just seems like a design flaw to me. Especially when every other knife in this series (the Chive, Scallion & Shallot) has a blade that has a little bit of a wave with a belly towards the front.*The only other issue I have with this knife is the pocket clip. Because of it's design, it causes the knife to ride really high in your pocket. Most people like to carry a knife "tip up" in the pocket; if you flip the pocket clip around on this knife to carry it tip up, the knife sticks out about an inch out of your pocket. I have found people that make a "deep carry" pocket clip that you can buy to replace the factory one, but most of them are almost as much as the knife itself, and many of them block the blade lock "safety"*The clip can only be installed on one side.In conclusion, this knife would be my favorite knife to carry if the blade shape was just a little different. It has so many things going for it; made in the US, the blade steel is much nicer than what you'd typically find in this price range and it is extremely durable. The reason I did not give it five stars is due to the pocket clip and blade shape.SCP-1447
Still of SCP-1447-1 during Containment Breach 1447-02
Item #: SCP-1447
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1447-1's current containment unit comprises an airtight 2.5m x 2.5m x 2.5m concrete container, reinforced with 6cm ablative steel plating and suspended within Bay 4. The cell exterior is to be inspected daily and any damage reported immediately. Dented or otherwise structurally compromised plating is to be patched; a reserve of replacement steel plate of the appropriate gauge is to be maintained at 30 square metres. Discovery of any hole or crack in the plating should be considered a breach of containment and SCP-1447-2's quarters are to be immediately secured.
SCP-1447-2 is confined to his quarters, the location of which relative to SCP-1447-1's containment unit has been selected to minimise possible interaction between SCP-1447-1 and other Euclid and Keter-class SCPs as well as incorporating blast-proof screens and chokepoints to be employed in the event of a breach. Reasonable requests from SCP-1447-2 may be granted with the exception of any item which could facilitate external communication. SCP-1447-2 may be consulted by maintenance staff on issues relevant to his primary area of expertise - however, following Containment Breach 1447-01, SCP-1447-2 is no longer granted freedom of the facility.
SCP-1447-2 is to spend at least 4 hours a day meditating on the following topics: 'SCP-1447-1 is getting weaker', 'SCP-1447-1 is dying', 'SCP-1447-1 is unable to maintain physical form'. Any qualified practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism on-site are instructed to participate in these sessions. Topics which could imply a containment breach such as 'SCP-1447-1 is going away', 'SCP-1447-1 is being reabsorbed into my mind' or similar are not to be employed. Failure by SCP-1447-2 to comply with this procedure is punishable by removal of requested items and privileges.
Description: Although current containment measures and the speeds at which SCP-1447-1 typically move make close observation impossible, initial recovery and SCP-1447-1's numerous breach attempts have substantiated eyewitness reports of its appearance. SCP-1447-1 is a quasi-physical humanoid entity resembling an Asian male in traditional Tibetan Buddhist monastic garb; its face is visually distorted and indistinct, even when viewed on high-speed footage.
SCP-1447-1 typically remains in constant motion - frequently in excess of 200kph - for approximately 20 hours a day, which time is chiefly spent attacking the interior of its cell. Reinforcing SCP-1447-1's containment unit with hardened steel plating has been successful in reducing the incidence of breaches but has not proven totally immune to SCP-1447-1's efforts. SCP-1447-1 is very capable of exploiting small breaches in its containment unit and is able to insert itself through apertures as small as 200µm in diameter.
SCP-1447-1 is largely resistant to standard-issue sidearms - higher caliber munitions appear to temporarily disrupt SCP-1447-1's physical form, causing it distress, and have been effective at forcing it back into containment. High explosives have proven effective at completely dissipating SCP-1447-1; however, when attacked in this manner SCP-1447-1 has shown the capacity to rematerialise anywhere in the immediate vicinity, ignoring any intervening barriers. Furthermore, during Breach 1447-05 SCP-1447-1 apparently goaded security personnel into employing explosives near the containment area of SCP-████, resulting in an additional breach event.
Attempts at communication with the entity to determine sentience remain inconclusive - although SCP-1447-1 responds to questions its vocalisations are largely unintelligible; analysis has revealed them to be garbled versions of mantras in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, repeated hundreds of times a second. SCP-1447-1 is not implacably hostile to human life and remains focused on reaching and killing SCP-1447-2. However, Foundation personnel who attempt to impede its progress are subject to attack and if frustrated in its efforts it has been observed to become indiscriminately violent.
SCP-1447-2 is a 5█-year-old Caucasian male who claims to be ███████ ████, a computer hardware and software entrepreneur of some note. SCP-1447-2 has been unable to explain the continued activity in the public eye of his namesake, a figure who shares SCP-1447-2's alleged identity and life history, but has speculated that he may be an imposter hired by his business associates. His counterpart is to be kept under surveillance by Foundation personnel as another possibility is that either SCP-1447-2 or his counterpart is an entity similar to SCP-1447-1.
Recovery Log 1447
SCP-1447-2 claims that a lamasery allegedly located in Qinghai province, China provided him with the location of Site-73 and arrived there on ██/██/████ seeking sanctuary from what he described as a 'tulpa' (see Interview 1447-21). Two days later Site-73 came under repeated attack by SCP-1447-1, resulting in the deaths of two Agents. SCP-1447-2 was evacuated via plane and the attacks immediately ceased.
SCP-1447-2 was transported to London and subsequently moved to Site-60 - SCP-1447-1 took under three weeks to locate the site, again attempting to breach its security and gain access to SCP-1447-2. On-site personnel were ultimately able to funnel the entity into an early version of its current containment unit at significant cost in terms of expended human and material resources.
Addendum 1447-01
SCP-1447-2 has been informed of the death of his counterpart; he requested a full medical checkup, which was granted. Tissue and hair samples taken from SCP-1447-2 show no anomalous characteristics.
SCP-1447-2 remains convinced that he will be successful in the destruction of SCP-1447-1 through the application of methods of concentration and meditative practice. Successive breaches have indicated no change in the capabilities of SCP-1447-1 to date. However, it is noteworthy that the entity's activity within its containment unit is severely curtailed during periods in which SCP-1447-2 engages in focused meditation on the abolition of the tulpa. Thermal imaging reveals that SCP-1447-1 is almost completely still during these periods, adopting the vajra meditation position. Foundation consultants versed in the Tibetan Buddhist faith have posited that SCP-1447-1 may be sufficiently sentient to be able to meditate on its own existence, thus reasserting itself.
Addendum 1447-02
Proposals are under consideration to incorporate means of disrupting SCP-1447-1's meditation into its containment unit - the incorporation of a hydrochloric acid bath similar to that employed in the containment of other Keter-class SCPs is presently considered too likely to lead to a breach via the delivery mechanism; other possibilities include microwave emitters to heat the interior of the unit and high-volume sonics proven to inhibit concentration.
Current theories indicate that the death of SCP-1447-2, at the hands of SCP-1447-1 or otherwise, is unlikely to result in the destruction of the tulpa given its current level of autonomy; controlled infliction of pain on SCP-1447-2 shows no corresponding change in behaviour on the part of SCP-1447-1. However, SCP-1447-1 is currently containable largely by virtue of the fact that it consistently seeks out and attempts to kill SCP-1447-2; freed from this compulsion the entity would become completely unpredictable. For the foreseeable future containment efforts must focus on further reducing the incidence of breach attempts and minimising the exposure of other Foundation assets to SCP-1447-1.The recent attack by a Muslim immigrant upon police in Paris that left one officer dead has focused Sunday’s presidential election in France upon immigration and security, CNN reports:
The three main candidates canceled campaign events and instead made televised statements in which they competed to talk tough on security and vowed a crackdown on ISIS. …The far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, demanded the closure of all Islamist mosques. Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve accused her of trying to capitalize on the attack. …Center-right candidate François Fillon, Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron canceled planned campaign events after the shooting. Under French election rules, Friday was due to be the final day of campaigning before Sunday’s first round of voting. It was unclear whether the attack would tip the balance of the vote in favor of Le Pen, who has vowed to take a tough line on “Islamic terrorism.” At a televised news conference Friday, Le Pen called for the closure of all “Islamist” mosques in France, the expulsion of hate preachers and the reinstatement of French borders. People on the French security services’ watch list for radicalization should also be expelled from France and have their French citizenship revoked, she said.
Aljazeera reports that National Front leader Le Pen is deeply unpopular in the non-White suburbs of Paris, home to large numbers of Arab and Black immigrants:
Sevran, with its 50,000 residents, is one of the poorest areas in France, and suffers from high levels of youth unemployment and educational attainment. Much of its population descends from France’s former colonies in North Africa, West Africa, and Haiti. Many are also Muslims, perhaps explaining the unpopularity of Le Pen.
Thankfully, the article goes on to state that “voter indifference remains high in the area. We can only hope that Arab and African immigrants do not turn out in large numbers, swaying the election for the Left-wing candidates.
US President Donald Trump essentially endorsed Le Pen, saying in a recent interview that “She’s the strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France…. Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election.”
Le Pen has re-focused her campaign in the final week on immigration and security, appealing to the National Front base ahead of the first round of voting on Sunday.Mice sensitized in the skin in the presence of TSLP develop aggravated asthma-like airway inflammation upon challenge
Epidemiological studies have shown that children with AD, especially those with severe disease, are likely to also develop asthma, demonstrating a link between these two conditions.2 Given its purported role in these allergic diseases, TSLP was a likely candidate as the factor that links AD and asthma. Our laboratory has found that mice with a skin-specific inducible TSLP transgene develop an AD-like disease, as well as pulmonary inflammation (see ref. 13 and Supplementary Figure S1 online). However, we also observed inflammatory infiltrates in a wide variety of organs including liver, gastrointestinal tract, and spleen (Supplementary Figure S1 online) perhaps because of elevated systemic levels of TSLP. We therefore sought to develop a mouse model that recapitulates human atopic disease and determine whether TSLP plays a role in this phenomenon. To test this, we modified a protocol from Jessup et al.20 for TSLP-mediated skin inflammation. Wild-type BALB/c mice were treated with TSLP and the antigen OVA intradermally (four times over |
to end a Klinefelter pregnancy. If Verinata’s test is widely applied, many more women will have to decide whether to make that choice.
Dennis Lo believes that as fetal DNA sequencing advances, test makers should restrict themselves to reporting just the 20 or so most common serious diseases. “We are going to face the challenge of what do you look for and how do you counsel women,” he says. “I think we must use the technology in an ethical fashion and should refrain from analyzing things that are not life-threatening. Like predisposition to diabetes when someone is 40 years old. We don’t even know what medicine would be in 40 years, so why worry the mother about that?”
Morris Foster, an anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma who heads a panel of ethics advisors that Illumina has hired, says he and Flatley have discussed whole-genome sequencing of the unborn. “It’s clearly something that is on the horizon,” he says. “My advice to Illumina is, ‘You are a lab receiving a physician order. You don’t second-guess the physician.’ The ethical advice I would give to a physician is much more complex and nuanced.”
Medical groups are still struggling to formulate rules for handling genomic data for adults. And Foster says prenatal tests would make the legal and ethical obligations facing a doctor that much more complicated. For one thing, he says, while adults can decide whether to undergo genome sequencing, an unborn child can’t consent to knowing its genes. And that knowledge could affect a person’s entire life. “The whole sequence invariably tells you more information than you can act on,” he says. “Yet because you can generate that data, it’s likely that we will. Instead of stopping people from knowing things about themselves, you’d want to use it in a way that doesn’t create anxiety or strain families and medical resources.”
Foster fears that, if anything, people will put too much stock in genes. “I think the greatest risk is the overinterpretation of genetic findings. That doctors will think a variant associated with diabetes means you are going to get diabetes. Or that the absence of it means you are not,” he says. For parents, such probabilities might seem like certainties, even if they aren’t really. “If they bring a child to term with a genetic-based risk, would it cause the parents to treat the child otherwise?”
Right now, Illumina’s medical genome lab takes orders only for adult DNA data, or for sick children. And its new subsidiary Verinata carries out only an improved version of fetal chromosome tests that are familiar to doctors. Even so, given the quick advance of prenatal DNA technology in the lab, Flatley thinks society may need some new laws. “What would help a lot is legislation that says you can’t do certain things,” he says. Partly, that argument is self-serving: a messy social debate is going to slow down genome sequencing. On the wall of the company cafeteria, next to a towering row of framed patents Illumina has won, hangs a newspaper article from 2009, in which Flatley is quoted as predicting that all newborns will have their genomes sequenced by 2019, six years from now. In it, the CEO struck a by now familiar note. The limits to the technology of DNA sequencing, and to his company’s prospects, “are sociological,” he said. The only constraints are “when and where people think it can be applied.”Guardian undercover reporters find world where staff are searched daily, harangued via tannoy to hit targets and can be sacked in a ‘six strikes and you’re out’ regime
Temporary workers at Sports Direct, the booming retail chain controlled by the billionaire Mike Ashley, are receiving effective hourly rates of pay below the minimum wage, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.
Warehouse staff at the group, which is controlled by Britain’s 22nd richest man, are required to go through searches at the end of each shift, for which their time is unpaid, while they also suffer harsh deductions from their wage packets for clocking in for a shift just one minute late.
A day at 'the gulag': what it's like to work at Sports Direct's warehouse Read more
The practices contribute to many staff being paid an effective rate of about £6.50 an hour against the statutory rate of £6.70 – potentially saving the FTSE 100 firm millions of pounds a year at the expense of some of the poorest workers in the UK.
The discovery of the low pay being received by Sports Direct workers comes on top of a string of criticisms of the working conditions within the retailer’s warehouse in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, where more than 80% of staff are on zero hours contracts. Workers are also:
Harangued by tannoy for not working fast enough.
Warned they will be sacked if they receive six black marks – or “strikes” (see document below) – over a six-month period for offences including a “period of reported sickness”; “errors”; “excessive/long toilet breaks”; “time wasting”; “excessive chatting”; “horseplay”; and “using a mobile phone in the warehouse”.
Banned from wearing 802 separate clothing brands at work.
Have to go through rigorous searches – down to the last layer of clothing, asked to roll up trouser legs and show top of underwear – which typically takes 15 minutes, because management is so concerned about potential theft.
Meanwhile:
Local primary schoolteachers have told the Guardian that pupils can remain in school while ill – and return home to empty houses – as parents working at Sports Direct are too frightened to take time off work.
Union officers say the strict culture in the warehouse has resulted in workers being afraid to speak out over low pay and conditions as they fear immediately losing their jobs.
The criticisms of Sports Direct – which have also included questions about whether its pricing policies are misleading, as well as the influence Ashley has on a company whose shares are held by many UK pension funds – come as the public company continues to dominate the UK sports retailing market and its trading performance flourishes.
The retailer is expected to announce more positive results to the City on Thursday – part of a financial success story that is almost entirely credited to the unconventional retailing nous of Ashley, a self-made man whose fortune amounts to £3.5bn, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Transline rules for Sports Direct workers.
By placing two undercover reporters inside Sports Direct’s warehouse, as well as interviewing former employees and speaking with workers about their roles while the journalists were employed on the site, the Guardian has established that many workers are in effect receiving less than the minimum wage per hour, over the total time they are required to spend in the warehouse and after financial penalties.
All warehouse workers are kept onsite at the end of each shift in order to undergo a compulsory search by Sports Direct security staff, with the experience of the Guardian reporters suggesting this typically adds another hour and 15 minutes to the working week – which is unpaid.
The discovery raises questions of whether such practices are within the law relating to the minimum wage. Lawyers said that paying workers for going through compulsory security checks had never been specifically tested under European law, but they added that a recent ruling by the European court of justice on the working time directive, which related to technicians travelling to customers’ premises to install equipment, appeared applicable to the policies employed in Sports Direct’s warehouse.
That ruling stated that as the workers’ travelling time could “neither be shortened nor used freely by the technicians for their own interests” then they were “at the disposal” of their employer. Therefore, their time is covered by the directive and counts as working time.
Mike Ashley: the ins and outs of Sports Direct tycoon's empire Read more
Zoe Lagadec, a solicitor at Mulberry’s Employment Law Solicitors, said: “Given that the employees are not free to leave their place of work until and unless the security check has been completed, this time should be considered ‘working time’ and therefore paid in accordance with the national minimum wage provisions.”
Furthermore, Sports Direct workers are docked 15 minutes of pay for clocking in as little as one minute late – even if they have arrived on the site on time. Conversely, staff are not paid extra for clocking out late, even when they have been finishing a job.
Literature handed to one of the reporters by The Best Connection employment agency, used by Sports Direct, said: “If you do not clock in by your shift start time then you will be recorded as LATE for that day and your hours and pay will be reduced by a minimum of 15 minutes.”
Lagadec added that docking 15 minutes of pay for clocking in slightly late is “arguably a breach of the national minimum wage, which carries both criminal and civil sanctions”.
The legal basis of her views was also confirmed to the Guardian by an employment law barrister at one of London’s top legal chambers.
The Guardian’s undercover reporters were employed during November by the two main agencies used by Sports Direct to supply temporary warehouse staff – Transline Group and The Best Connection.
The Best Connection worker was docked 15 minutes’ pay after arriving at the warehouse on time, but clocking in about five minutes late. Meanwhile, the Transline worker was not paid extra after clocking off five minutes later than the official end of the shift, when he had been finishing a job.
Sports Direct staff scared to take time off with sick children, teachers claim Read more
Overall, the reporters’ pay was 3% lower than it would have been without the penalty and including the time spent on the retailer’s compulsory searches. It averaged about £6.50 an hour over all the shifts the reporters worked in November.
Other workers also confirmed that these practices were longstanding and commonplace. If calculated over the whole workforce, the savings would amount to millions of pounds on the annual wage bill of a warehouse, where up to 5,000 workers are thought to report for work each day. At busy times, wages have hit £1m a week within the facility, which is currently being almost doubled in size.
A Transline spokesperson said: “We do not breach national minimum wage legislation. Like many other retail warehouse operations throughout the UK, Shirebrook also has a policy of searches for all warehouse employees, office staff, senior management, directors and visitors. As with all policies, these are constantly under review. The searches are conducted in accordance with employment contracts and are completed as quickly as possible.”
He added that docking 15 minutes’ pay for being one minute late was “not standard procedure”.
Sports Direct said the Guardian’s findings contained “inaccuracies” but declined to comment further. The Best Connection agency declined to comment.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Unite union members dressed as Dickensian workers protest against zero-hours contracts outside Sports Direct. Photograph: Matthew Taylor/Rex Shutterstock
Luke Primarolo, regional officer at the union Unite, said: “HMRC needs to urgently investigate what looks like a breach of the minimum wage. The majority of these workers are on precarious agency contracts, which while not illegal, make it virtually impossible for them to challenge unfair treatment for fear of losing their job. The culture of fear at Sport Direct’s Shirebrook depot is more akin to a workhouse than a FTSE 100 company. It needs to change with agency workers being given permanent contracts by Sports Direct and paid a decent wage.”
The findings that Sports Direct workers are receiving less than the minimum wage follows recent controversy over redundancies at one of Sports Direct’s fashion chains, USC.
In October, Sports Direct’s chief executive, David Forsey, pleaded not guilty to a criminal charge of failing to give 30 days’ notice for redundancies at the subsidiary. The case’s next hearing is scheduled for the spring.
Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said: “It will surprise no one that Sports Direct is hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons again. All workers should be paid at least the minimum wage for every minute they are required to be on company premises. If the allegations against Sports Direct are found to be true, the government must make sure all their staff receive the full pay they are entitled to.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Business Innovation and Skills said: “We are determined that everyone who is entitled to the national minimum wage receives it. HMRC investigates every complaint made to the Acas helpline. In addition, HMRC conducts risk-based enforcement in sectors or areas where there is a higher risk of workers not getting paid the legal minimum wage.”Privdog is a privacy protection software that is available as a standalone product for the Google Chrome Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox web browser and bundled with select Comodo products including Comodo Dragon and Internet Security.
According to Comodo's website it ships with the company's Internet browser and Internet Security products. The company did not bundle the standalone version of PrivDog with its products though.
A user on Hacker News noted that the Superfish test would return a hit even though Superfish itself was not installed on the system. After some analysis it appeared that the privacy software Privdog was the culprit in this case.
Note: I installed the latest version of Comodo Dragon on a test system and it shipped with Privdog. It did not install a root certificate on the other hand.
Privdog has been designed to block certain trackers and advertisement from showing up while you browse the Internet. It blocks all advertisement that is not hosted directly on the domain you are visiting and replaces it with AdTrustMedia advertisement.
What's worse however is the fact that it installs a certificate on the system as well. While it does not share the same key on all installations, it has an arguably even bigger flaw than that: it intercepts all certificates and replaces them with one signed by its own root key.
All in this regard means valid and invalid certificates which in turn means that the browser you are using accepts any certificate regardless of whether it is valid or not.
That's bad on many levels and means basically that you are not secure while Privdog's certificate is installed on the system.
It is therefore highly suggested to remove the software from the system and make sure that its root certificate is gone too after the removal. If it is not, you need to remove it manually from your system which you can do in the following way:
Tap on the Windows-key, type mmc.exe and hit enter.
Go to File -> Add/Remove Snap-in
Pick Certificates, click Add
Pick Computer Account, click Next
Pick Local Computer, click Finish
Click OK
Look under Trusted Root Certification Authorities -> Certificates
In case you are wondering what the connection between Comodo and PrivDog is: the CEO and founder of Comodo seems to be behind Privdog as well.
So why is this Superfish all over again? Both products add a root certificate to the user's computer and both make the user's computer insecure in the process and are used to earn revenue for the parent company. While they don't work the same, Privdog is arguably worse in terms of security than Superfish, they have been designed for the same purpose.
Summary Article Name Privdog is Superfish all over again Description Find out why Privdog is as bad as Superfish when it comes to Internet Security and what you should do about it. Author Martin Brinkmann
AdvertisementMore than 70 people have been rescued in north Lancashire as heavy rain caused widespread flooding and travel disruption across north-west England and North Wales.
A number of roads were closed in the area and 27 residents were evacuated from their homes in the village of Galgate, near Lancaster, before sheltering in local pubs overnight.
Lancashire Constabulary said emergency services, the Environment Agency and Lancaster City Council had received more than 500 flood-related calls, and attended over 100 incidents.
A temperature slide in the next 8-days, nothing too drastic but certainly colder #ukweather pic.twitter.com/RpGvxQWasx — Farmers Weather (@FarmersWeather) A temperature slide in the next 8-days, nothing too drastic but certainly colder #ukweather pic.twitter.com/RpGvxQWasx — Farmers Weather (@FarmersWeather) November 23, 2017
In Scotland, wintry showers are forecast to bring 0.7in to 2in (1.8cm-5cm) of snow to many parts of Scotland and up to 7.9in (20cm) on the highest ground, the Met Office said.
Snow was beginning to accumulate on high ground on Thursday morning, with 1.7in (4.3cm) on Aviemore and 1.2in (3cm) in Altnaharra.
A yellow "be aware" weather warning for snow kicked in just after midnight for the Scottish Highlands, Western Isles, Grampian, Strathclyde and Central, Tayside and Fife regions.
The warning, which covers the morning rush hour and is valid until 1pm on Thursday, warns that some roads and railways are likely to be affected, with possible longer journey times for road, bus and train services.The Carolina RailHawks found the back of the net four times in the opening half en route to a victory over Jacksonville Armada FC
Just before kickoff, a group of Carolina RailHawks fans who made the more than 400-mile journey south held up a banner in their corner of Community First Park. Playing off a “Battleship” theme, the banner showed a ship with four red pegs stuck into it, which, in the board game would leave it sunk.
That banner proved prophetic, as Jacksonville Armada FC was sunk by halftime.
Carolina’s four first-half goals propelled them to a 4-0 victory Saturday night, spoiling the Armada FC’s first ever sellout (8,573 fans), snapping their perfect home record, and ending their slim hopes of a Spring Season title.
Now, their chances of making the league playoffs hinge on either winning the Fall Season or finishing with one of the top-two best overall records among the rest of the field.
But that seems a long way off now. With two games remaining before the summer break — including one against the league-leading New York Cosmos — the focus is just to stop leaking goals.
Between Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup loss to the Richmond Kickers and Saturday’s defeat, the Armada FC have been outscored 7-0 in their last two games.
That mid-week loss surely left Jacksonville a bit below full strength, and they were also without injured star striker Alhassane Keita, but the RailHawks were in the same boat having also played Wednesday and with co-leading scorer Nacho Novo on the bench.
The visitors didn’t look any worse for wear, even after the Armada FC controlled the opening minutes.
Early on, Jacksonville struggled to convert possession and slick passing into clear scoring chances. Shots from distance were blocked or off target, and winning corner kick after corner kick held little threat against the RailHawks center back pairing of Connor Tobin (6-foot-1) and Futty Danso (6-foot-3).
When Carolina countered in the ninth minute, Armada FC right back Matt Bahner went sprinting after it in hopes of clearing out for a throw-in. His hustle drew deserved applause, as he went sliding off the field into an advertising board, but the ensuing corner silenced the crowd.
Carolina midfielder Nazmi Albadawi came forward to take a pass from the corner at the edge of the penalty area. When five Armada FC players rushed out to meet him, he cleverly chipped a pass over the top that the captain, Tobin, buried for a 1-0 lead.
The next 24 minutes were marked by the Armada FC reasserting control of possession and hunting for an equalizer, but the tone of the match took a drastic turn in the 33rd minute.
Jacksonville holding midfielder Lucas Scaglia fouled Albadawi, earning a yellow card and sending the injured RailHawks midfielder to the locker room. Three minutes later, Neil Hlavaty picked up a loose ball at the top of the box and coolly curled it into the top right corner to double the lead.
That opened the flood gates.
In the 40th minute, center back Fabricio Ortiz picked up a yellow card and gave up a free kick just outside the penalty area that Leo Osaki bent around the wall into the goal.
The Armada FC barely had time to breathe before the RailHawks were on the attack again, as 'keeper Miguel Gallardo came out for a one-on-one save. But on the ensuing play, center back Lucas Trejo was called for a foul in the box, and Mark Anderson — who had just subbed on for Albadawi — put away the penalty kick to make it 4-0.
In all, it was three goals in eight minutes, a devastating end to the half that turned the match into little more than waiting for the clock to reach 90:00.
That didn’t mean there weren’t some bright spots in the second half, though.
Akeil Barrett came off the bench in the 52nd minute and very nearly had a goal minutes later, but his run was a yard short of meeting Pascal Millien’s ground cross in front of goal.
In the 60th minute, midfielder Jaime Castrillon — who looked sharp in his third game back from injury — was unlucky to have a close-range volley saved by Carolina 'keeper Akira Fitzgerald.
But that will be little consolation to the Armada FC, who must now right the ship before their Spring Season is sunk.
They’ll take the field next on Sunday, June 7, hosting the Ottawa Fury at 4 p.m.Player Departures
Friday 23 May 2014 16:00
The Club would like to thank those players whose contracts expire this summer.
Damien Duff departs the Club after five years of service in SW6, during which time he was involved in some of our most memorable years.
He joined Fulham in 2009 and his debut season saw him play an influential role as Fulham reached the Final of the UEFA Europa League. He subsequently helped the Whites to consecutive top-10 finishes in the Barclays Premier League and departs Craven Cottage having played 173 matches, scoring 22 times in the process.
During his time at the Club, Duff won his 100th, and final, cap for the Republic of Ireland at the European Championships in 2012. Injuries limited his impact in the 2013/14 season and his last Fulham game came in the FA Cup defeat to Sheffield United in February.
Another long serving player to leave the Club is midfielder Steve Sidwell, who scored 17 times in 113 Fulham games.
Brought to the Club, initially on loan, from Aston Villa in January 2011, the ‘Ginger Iniesta’ became a firm crowd favourite courtesy of his work rate and knack for popping up with important goals. His final season at Fulham saw him finish as top goalscorer.
Popular midfielders Giorgos Karagounis and Mahamadou Diarra are also on the released list. The evergreen Karagounis enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the Fulham faithful, playing with brilliant passion in each of his 47 appearances, while Diarra brought power, quality and high-level experience when anchoring the midfield during his two spells at the Club.
John Arne Riise’s final appearance for Fulham at Stoke City was his 100th for the Club, while Derek Boateng also leaves for pastures new following a solitary season in SW6.
Matthew Briggs will be leaving the Club after making 28 appearances, during which time he scored once; a fantastic long range strike against Crusaders in the Europa League. He remains the Premier League's youngest ever player, following his appearance against Middlesbrough at the end of the 2006/07 season.
John Heitinga impressed during his 14-game stay at the Club after signing on a short-term deal from Everton in January, with the tenacious defender proving to be one of our most consistent performers in our ultimately unsuccessful battle to avoid relegation.
Goalkeeper Neil Etheridge is the final player to depart who has played First Team football for Fulham – his sole appearance coming in a 2-2 draw with Odense in the Europa League Group Stage.
The Club would also like to thank the following youngsters for their contributions during their time at Fulham: Alex Brister, Charles Banya, Dino Islamovic, Ronny Minkwitz, Max Oberschmidt and Josh Pritchard.
We, of course, wish all these players the best in their future careers.Analyzing the Unrestricted Free Agents
Believe it or not, the NBA off-season is right around the corner, and with the finals about to wrap up, fans are looking towards the draft and free agency. As far as the Grizzlies go, free agency is going to be a huge part of their off-season. Signing some of the players available might require some pieces to be moved or contracts to be altered. The Z-Bo situation also needs to be figured out, and there are some glaring holes that need patching as well.
Top 10 free agents for Memphis
1. Luol Deng-He’ll be pricey, but he would be a perfect fit with this current roster. A long, defensive small forward that can shoot the three is exactly what this lineup needs. Conley/Allen/Deng/Randolph/Gasol would push the Grizzlies into contender territory. Randolph would have to take a reduced contract and other pieces would have to be moved for this deal to work.
2. Pau Gasol-Pau is one of the more interesting players on the board. He returns to Memphis to play along his brother Marc, but where does that leave Zach Randolph? It would be hard to see one of the three coming off the bench, but who knows. Gasol would be a great fit alongside his brother with his mid-range game and passing abilities.
3. Gordon Hayward-Gordon will command a pretty sizable payday, but he certainly has proved he’s earned it. Hayward’s three point percentages are trending in an “off year-on year” pattern. His rookie and third seasons he shot about 44% combined. His second and fourth he shot around 32% combined. But hey, if we got him it would be on an odd year, so we could expect him to shoot lights out from three. Overall Hayward is strong on offense and average on D, but he would certainly help move the ball and add some much needed scoring.
4. Trevor Ariza-This past season Ariza decided it was time to start nailing threes, and he did so at a clip of about 40%. Ariza is a great defender, younger than Deng, and fits the Grizzlies need at small forward especially with Tayshaun Prince’s contract up at the end of next year.
5. Danny Granger-He would have to come at a bargain for this deal to make sense. He played poorly coming off of his injury last year, but if he can return anywhere close to his old form, he would be a solid pickup. Granger can shoot, defend well, and even play a little PF in a pinch.
6. Kirk Hinrich-I love Hinrich at the backup guard spot. He can play the one or the two and can still defend both pretty well even though he’s aging. His shooting and scoring have dipped a bit, but as a backup he wouldn’t need to provide an overwhelming amount of points.
7. C.J. Miles-Miles’ play flew under the radar while playing on a bad Cavs squad, but he quietly put up 10 ppg while shooting 40% from three. He wouldn’t be too expensive and would provide some scoring off the bench.
8. Shawn Marion-There’s one problem with Marion: He’s old. He might only have a year or two left, but he can still do everything you’d want out of him. A small forward-power forward combo that can shoot the three (very oddly), defend, and rebound. Sign him, find a time machine, and we’re set.
9. Jordan Hill-Hill would be a good forward-center combo off the bench. He’s a very good rebounder and energy guy who could backup both Z-Bo and Gasol. Although, he might get a bigger contract than he’s worth, so the Grizz would have to make sure that they don’t overbid.
10. P.J. Tucker-He is 29 and has only played 3 (more like 2.5) years in the league. Had a great season last year at small forward for Phoenix while averaging 9 points and 6.5 boards. He shot the three at 39% and is a great rebounder for the position. Would be a nice backup at SF depending on price.
Free Agents Recap
Most any of these players would fit well with this current Grizzlies roster. The only problem is how much money Memphis will end up having to spend. Finding some players that can hit the three efficiently and defend (amongst other things) will be key this off-season, and there are free agents out there that could give the Grizz the boost they need. It’s just a matter of making the right offers while still keeping the majority of this roster intact.Right now, a grandma in Hungary is watching Gangnam style for the very first time. Her introduction to Psy has been made possible by a partnership between YouTube (S GOOG) and the local cable TV provider UPC Hungary, which added a YouTube app to its cable boxes a few weeks ago.
YouTube isn’t the only online video service flirting with cable these days. Netflix (S NFLX) has struck agreements with a number of cable companies to add its service to their devices. However, these agreements have so far been limited in scope due to hardware constraints. UPC Hungary on the other hand is bringing YouTube to every single customer, thanks to clever use of the cloud that could soon bring online video services to many millions of additional eyeballs.
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Like OnLive for TV apps and content
At the center of UPC Hungary’s YouTube roll-out is a technology called CloudTV that’s been developed by the San Jose-based cloud video technology specialist ActiveVideo. CloudTV is essentially an OnLive-like service for TV apps and content. This means that the YouTube app isn’t actually installed on the set-top boxes that UPC’s Hungarian customers have in their living rooms.
Instead, it is rendered in the cloud and delivered as a personalized video stream to each and every box. And whenever a viewer presses a button on their cable box remote control to jump from one YouTube clip to the next, the cable box sends a control command to the cloud, where the stream is changed on the fly, with a latency of 500 milliseconds or less.
The big advantage for UPC is that it doesn’t need to ship new hardware in order to deliver YouTube and other apps to its customers. That makes this cloud-based approach not only cheaper, but also a whole lot faster than transitioning each and every customer to new devices.
The cable provider launched an app store on its HD set-top boxes in May, which offers access to more than 20 apps, including YouTube, Flickr (S YHOO) and Google Maps. The company now expects to deliver the same service to all of its 1.5 million customers, even the ones that still have a standard-definition set-top box connected to their TVs, by the end of the year. “The reason for doing this is to add value to the existing TV product, to bring a whole new content offer to our customer base,” said a UPC spokesperson.
Swapping out set-top boxes could take 5 years
Other attempts to bring online video services to cable boxes are considerably slower. Netflix struck agreements with Virgin TV in the U.K. as well as a few smaller U.S. cable providers including RCN and Suddenlink, but these deals are for now limited to TiVo DVRs distributed by those providers, and upgrading customers to these devices has been a slow process. Virgin started to lease TiVo boxes to its customers in 2010. By the end of 2013, it had only transitioned 50 percent of its customer base to TiVo-based devices.
“It typically takes a 5-year upgrade cycle” for a pay TV provider to transition an entire customer base to a new generation of devices, explained ActiveVideo CMO Murali Nemani. And once that’s done, that hardware may already be obsolete again, or incompatible with the latest generation of online video services. What makes matters worse is that delivering video streams to cable devices puts a burden on online services that tend to use different DRM systems and codecs than the ones used in the pay TV world. “It’s not a scalable model,” Nemani said.
Small operators are ready, bigger ones are still skeptical
In addition to those technical issues, there is a whole range of business concerns that have prevented cable providers from wholeheartedly embracing online video services. Netflix’s licensing contracts with Hollywood, for example, made it initially impossible for the company to bring its app to any device that is leased by a TV provider. Netflix has since renegotiated these deals, but that hasn’t changed everyone’s mind.
Comcast, (S CMCSK) which operates the nation’s largest pay TV service with 22.6 million subscribers, has been particularly slow to embrace Netflix and other online video services. The company is currently transitioning its customer base to its new X-1 set-top box, which would theoretically be capable of running apps like Netflix and YouTube, but Comcast executives have gone on the record to say that striking partnerships with these companies isn’t a very high priority for them right now. Instead, Comcast is getting ready to test its own online video service, which is scheduled to deliver niche content to some of its customers by the end of the year.
But while Comcast may have the size to ignore Netflix & Co. for the time being, others are starting to warm up to the service. Smaller and mid-sized TV operators, which are increasingly getting squeezed by the ever-rising costs to carry hundreds of traditional TV networks, are increasingly open to carry online services. Netflix has struck deals with four U.S. TV providers, and YouTube is working with a total of nine cable companies. However, all of these deals are thus far only for TiVo’s hardware; based on recent financial filings, TiVo distributed at most 1.4 million devices through all of its U.S. cable industry partners — a drop in the bucket when compared to the total of 93 million pay TV households in the U.S..
YouTube and Netflix want to be “on TV”
Netflix and YouTube would love nothing more than expand their reach in the pay TV space, because it would like to reach new customers, and engage them on platforms where they already spend hours every day watching TV. Granted, there are YouTube and Netflix apps on every Blu-ray player and game console these days, and dedicated streaming devices like Chromecast and Roku are gaining millions of users.
However, these devices generally still require users to make an effort, switch the HDMI input of their TV and seek out certain content. The cable box on the other hand has traditionally been the default viewing source, and is synonymous with “what’s on TV right now.” Netflix and YouTube also want to be “on TV,” and become an equal choice next to and as easy to find as traditional TV networks. “The pay TV environment is seen as the last major frontier” amongst online video services, Nemani said when I asked him about the impact partnerships like the one between UPC and YouTube are having on the industry.
Speaking of which: Nemani wasn’t able to tell me which other pay TV operators are planning to use ActiveVideo’s tech to bring YouTube and other services to their set-top boxes, and UPC’s corporate parent Liberty Global was equally tight-lipped about its plans for online video services. A YouTube spokesperson wasn’t able to comment at all on the partnership, which hasn’t previously been reported, save for a few mentions in Hungarian news outlets.
Next up: UPC Europe, or even Charter?
It’s possible that this silence has something to do with much bigger ambitions. Liberty has 24.5 million cable TV subscribers in 12 European countries as well as the U.S. Many of these could theoretically get YouTube and other apps with a little help from the cloud as well.
And then there is Charter, the third-biggest cable company in the U.S.. There is a lot of chatter in the industry that Charter is looking to open up its set-top box and become more of an aggregator of content sources that include both traditional TV and online video. Charter also teamed up with ActiveVideo to deliver a cloud-based UI to its set-top boxes. And coincidentally, Liberty Global is holding a significant stake in Charter.
This means that UPC’s YouTube roll-out in Hungary could be a sign of much bigger things to come — and that YouTube could soon get in front of millions of additional eyeballs, on the biggest screen in the house. Or in other words: it will be “on TV.”To get rid of dark circles, enlarged pores, dry skin, or sensitive skin use e.l.f. Cosmetics range of premium skin care products, all designed to take care of your every skin care need. Our special skin care sets are curated to hydrate and protect during the day or night and we even have kits that brighten, moisturize or cleanse away makeup. Choose the skin care products that fit into your skin care routine.
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For as little as $6, you can buy our skin care products online and give your skin the professional care it needs to maintain a healthy, youthful look.BISMARCK, N.D. — Donald Trump entered the room and before facing the assemblage of reporters, he shook hands with the 21 formerly unbound North Dakota delegates who had hours earlier committed to putting him past the 1,237 threshold needed to clinch the GOP’s presidential nomination.
“The folks behind me got us right over the top. North Dakota made a very big statement,” Trump said. “We will not forget it.”
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That, however, was where the humility stopped. Almost immediately, Trump turned back to his blustery, bragging and unapologetic self.
In a 30-minute news conference and the policy speech delivered afterward to a cheering crowd of more than 6,000 people, Trump answered attacks from President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren by insulting them in return. Rather than disputing the Democrats’ characterization of him as a greedy businessman who doesn’t much care about the rest of the world, Trump practically embraced it, emphasizing that he really only does care about America and that he plans to make it great by making it rich.
Laying out an “America First” energy plan weeks after sketching an “America First” foreign policy in another speech, Trump scoffed at Obama’s claim Thursday that world leaders are “rattled” by the new GOP standard |
it's only two games in. At this point last year, Orlando was experiencing struggles early on and that was with the full starting XI and a healthy Kaká. Mateos should be back by April 3, which is the game after NYCFC, and that should give a better reading into how the defense works with everyone healthy. It's way too early to write off Bendik or Hines and say how Earl Edwards Jr. or Collin should be playing over them. If it comes down to early or late May and issues continue to arise, then by all means make a change if you're Adrian Heath.
But again, and let me repeat this for emphasis: we're only two games in. There are still 32 games left this season for Orlando City -- eight months of soccer to be played. Just be patient with this team and see how everything develops. At the end of the day, have faith that the team and Heath can make adjustments to get on the winning track, and we'll see what happens in New York on Friday.On May 9th, a huge team of scientists led by Lee Berger formally confirmed two rumors that had been circulating in the paleoanthropology community. First, more Homo naledi remains have been found in another cave site. Second, and even more dramatically, they have completed the dating effort from the original fossil find and the fossils are much younger than previously thought, a mere few hundred thousand years old.
The results are released in three papers in the journal eLife, published by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which was also the venue for the first publication of Homo naledi in 2015. Both of these announcements have astounding and far-reaching implications. I spoke with Lee Berger about what this all means.
The Second Cave
The second cavern, called the Lesedi chamber, is a mere 80 lateral meters from the now-famous Dinaledi chamber, which housed the treasure trove of fossils announced in the fall of 2015. That find remains the largest hominin discovery in history with over 1500 fossils in total, originating from at least 15 individuals and providing almost the entire skeleton. Both the Dinaledi and Lesedi chambers are within the Rising Star cave system in the Cradle of Humanity UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Lesedi chamber contains fewer fossils than were in Dinaledi. However, while the Dinaledi fossils were all mixed in together, Lesedi harbored partial skeletons corresponding to three distinct individuals, two adults and an infant. One skeleton, called Neo, is nearly as complete as the “Lucy” skeleton, possibly the most famous ancient skeleton in the world and the type specimen of Australopithecus afarensis.
The remarkably complete skull of Neo adds additional information about the anterior skull and face. For example, we now know that the nose and maxillary area of H. naledi is flatter than previously thought. As Berger told me, “Hopefully this puts the argument that this is Homo erectus to rest!”
Both chambers are in the same cave system and both are incredibly difficult to access. All assumptions are that the hominins in both chambers were contemporaries, but the age of the new fossils is not yet known. Dating will require that some fossils be destroyed in the process and Berger wants to publish the fossils first and get them out to the community via Morphosource before any of the samples are consumed for the dating efforts. As I wrote in Skeptic Magazine, the H. naledi team has displayed an unprecedented commitment to transparency and the democratization of science, believing that fossils belong to no one and should be shared freely and widely.
The surprising young age
When H. naledi was first announced, many assumed that the fossils were between two and three millions years old. The unique and surprising combination of primitive and advanced features places this species at or near the base of the Homo family tree. The tiny brain and curved fingers, for example, are primitive characteristics within the hominin lineage, but the heel, proximal femur, and shoulders are clearly derived features for the Homo clade.
Based on the anatomy, most agree that H. naledi is an early species of the Homo genus, so the tender young age of 300,000 years is quite a surprise. While there are several possibilities, what seems most likely is that H. naledi was a long-persisting species. It evolved somewhere in Africa, possibly from a common ancestor of H. habilis or even from H. habilis itself.
For comparison, H. erectus was also a long-persisting species, but it was more advanced than H. naledi, was spread throughout Asia but not much in Africa except its earliest beginnings, and showed a gradual increase in brain size over the life of the species. H. naledi seems to be more in the style of H. floresiensis, the “hobbits,” who maintained a primitive hominin form until surprisingly recent times. The hobbits had the benefit of isolation on a Pacific island, however, while H. naledi lived in the aptly named cradle of humanity amidst several lineages of hominins, including our own.
Whether or not naledi was long-persisting or evolved more recently from some ancestor waiting to be discovered, this adds yet another lineage of hominins roaming through the Southern half of Africa during the Pleistocene and late Pliocene epochs.
The importance of the body skeleton
Hardly a new lesson, but one of the most important lessons gleaned from the bones of Homo naledi is that attempts to infer ancestry from isolated bones, fragments, or dentition simply cannot hold much weight. The history of paleoanthropology is filled with rich tales woven from the fragments of a mandible, a single tooth, or a piece of skull. As Donald Prothero told me when we were discussing one of his books two years ago, “That would never fly in any other field of Paleontology, but when it comes to the hominin fossil record, it’s us that we’re talking about, so the rules get bent a little bit in our desperate desire to understand our origins.”
With these two big discoveries of H. naledi and other recent finds including H. floresiensis from Indonesia, the Dmanisi skulls from Georgia, and the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain, paleoanthropology has a lot more material on which to base our still-murky understanding of our evolutionary origins. As Berger told me, “We used to joke that paleoanthropology had more practitioners than fossils, but finally that’s not true anymore.” The power of having so many H. naledi fossils cannot be overstated. We now have an essentially complete skeleton which harbors an interesting but confusing mosaic of primitive and derived characteristics.
As Berger told me, “The phylogeny works out very differently based on which anatomy you consider.” Looking only at the skull, naledi looks primitive indeed and this is why having the postcranial skeleton is so important. In addition, by having so many individuals, we also have a sense of the interpersonal variation in their anatomy. From even just the first cave, we now have more fossils of H. naledi than we do of any other extinct hominin except Neanderthal and erectus.
Big implications for archaeology
When I inquired as to the largest impact that might not be immediately obvious, Berger replied, “The field that will be most impacted by the young age of naledi may actually be archaeology!” This is because, previously, any stone tools that were found anywhere in Southern Africa dating to the middle or late Pleistocene were attributed to the coastal populations of archaic Homo sapiens. By the last half-million years, there were no other hominins in Southern Africa except our lineage. Or so we thought.
It is not known whether H. naledi crafted tools. When asked if any artifacts had been found in the caves, Berger demurred but did not issue a definitive “no.” While the small brain of H. naledi might make it seem unlikely to be a stone tool-maker, recall that two million-year old Homo habilis remains are associated with simple stone tools and their brains were only slightly bigger than those of naledi. It is also worth noting that the long fingers of H. naledi are ideal for fine handiwork.
In addition, analysis of the naledi skull have provided evidence that their brains may have undergone substantial organization and specialization like the brains of our immediate ancestors did. Size is only a crude measure of the power of a brain. After all, our own brains have shrunk by 10% since the last ice age. Because of how energy-hungry brains are, adaptations that allow greater efficiency and computing power without growing larger would be heavily favored. With this in mind, it is wise not to underestimate the brain power of the diminutive H. naledi.
More evidence for deliberate body disposal
Perhaps the most controversial and interesting feature of the H. naledi discovery is the manner in which the remains have been found. The two caves contain homogeneous collections of this single species. The only other fossilized remains are those of an owl and a few small scavenger mammals that found their way into the caves. Such mono-specific collections of remains is most unusual, even unheard of, in paleontology, except in the case of a sudden catastrophe like a volcanic eruption. In these two caves, there are many individuals of the same species, with no other species present, collected in a tight space that is extremely inaccessible. This is remarkable and calls out for an explanation.
From the first announcement of the dinaledi chamber in 2015, the possibility of intentional body disposal has hung in the air. On the one hand, the evidence is all circumstantial and it may be impossible to ever know for sure. On the other hand, no strong alternative explanations supported by evidence have emerged in the last eighteen months, and surely not from lack of attention. “It’s getting harder and harder to deny that the only reason we have a hard time accepting [the notion of intentional body disposal] is because we just don’t want to,” says Berger. Indeed, the idea that an otherwise primitive hominin might have developed enough social complexity to care about disposing of their dead is jarring, to say the least.
Even among those who agree that deliberate disposal is the most likely explanation, there is disagreement about whether this implies great social complexity. If a population was firmly rooted to a specific location, disposal of decomposing bodies could have become a simple “housekeeping” behavior to keep the area tidy. One problem with this idea is that sedentary homesteading is not a lifestyle found in any primates (except fully modern humans).
Further, the chambers are very far from the cave opening. Even if simply tossing a dead body down a hole doesn’t require much intelligence or social complexity, that’s not what occurred with these H. naledi collections. To reach either of the caves, one must traverse 60-70 lateral meters and descend almost as many vertical meters of treacherous terrain, in complete darkness. Both caves require passage through gauntlets, extremely narrow passages of 18cm and 25cm, respectively, at their narrowest point. Most humans cannot fit through these passages and Berger himself got stuck for some time in 2014. Geologists are quite confident that the caves were no more accessible 300,000 years ago than they are today. Whoever put those naledi bodies in those caves went to great lengths to do so. This makes little sense if the only goal was getting rid of a rotting corpse.
Fire lighting the way
While most attention understandably focuses on the body disposal itself, not to be forgotten is that both chambers were well into the “dark zone” where whoever deposited those H. naledi bodies was working in the complete absence of light. This suggests, though indirectly, that Homo naledi had mastered the use of fire. How else but with torches could they have navigated the twists, turns, drops, and climbs of the rising star caves?
Acknowledging this, Berger confirmed that scientists are scouring the cave for signs of fire use and any other artifacts that might give clues as to how and why these remains ended up in the chambers.
Something tells me that the rising star caves haven’t given up all of their secrets yet.
-NHL
AdvertisementsEeeee.. Just a few more days of Vegan Month of food to go.. then life will hopefully go back to normal.. or so me thinks.
Till then, lets make more wraps.
The black beans get a smoke-over with smoked paprika and liquid smoke. I added some Zucchini that was sitting sadly in the refrigerator. Use any other squash, raw or roasted. Some crunchy red bell pepper, baby spinach and a good load of flat leaf Parsley Chimichurri, complete the wrap. My mom would call the chimichurri hari chutney(all green dips are hari chutneys). So you can as well use cilantro mint chutney:)
Did ya know that West Hollywood has now banned Fur. As of this week, West Hollywood is the first city in the US to ban fur. Stores can no longer sell, trade, or distribute it. Super Awesomeness!
Also, in other news, check out Ashlee dishing out fall Vegan fashion on Good Day Chicago tv show.
Yay for cruelty-free clothing.
Missed them wraps on the blog?
Here are a few favorites. The Tempeh Scramble, Jalapeno Popper dip wrap and the Gobi Aloo wrap.
Most of the burgers and some pizzas on the blog can also be easily converted into wraps..
How about a Buffalo Millet and creamy Ranch wrap, or a Quinoa sloppy Joe and Jalapeno Aioli Wrap! or a Roasted Red Pepper hummus, roasted cauliflower, sweet Potato wrap.🙂 Now that would be awesome.
Steps:
Make them beans.
In a pan, heat oil, add onions, bell pepper, chili and garlic. Cook until translucent.
Add spices and mix.
Add black beans, zucchini, tomato and salt. Mix and cook for 10 minutes.
Blend up the chimichurri.
Warm the tortilla. Spread some chimichurri.
Top with black beans then cheddar or other non dairy cheese of choice.
Top with thinly sliced red bell pepper and spinach and more chimichurri.
Wrap and serve.
Smoky Black Beans, Parsley Chimichurri, Spinach Wraps.
Allergy Information: free of dairy, egg, corn, soy, yeast, nut. Can be made gluten-free with gf wraps or use a large Spinach or collard leaf.
Makes 3-4 wraps
Ingredients:
Smoky Black beans:
2 teaspoons oil
1 can black beans – 15 oz
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon chipotle chili pepper powder or to taste
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
3/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 medium tomato, chopped
1/2 a Zucchini chopped small or other quick cooking squash
a generous dash of liquid smoke(optional)
Parsley chimichurri:
I made a half batch of this recipe with a Tablespoon of olive oil, and apple cider vinegar.
Tortillas
Baby Spinach
Red bell pepper thinly sliced
Daiya Cheddar or pepper jack shreds
Method:
Smoky Black Beans:
In a pan, add oil and heat on medium. Add onion, garlic, bell pepper and cook for 6-8 minutes until onion is translucent. Add the spices, black beans, zucchini, tomato, salt, liquid smoke. Mix well. Cover and cook on low-medium heat for 8-10 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and spice.
Wrap:
Warm the tortilla. Spread a generous amount of parsley chimichurri on it. Add the warm Smoky black beans, then some daiya cheddar. Top with thinly sliced Red bell pepper, baby spinach. Sprinkle salt, pepper and some more chimichurri. Wrap and serve.
These wraps are being shared at Allergy Free Wednesdays, Slightly Indugent Tuesdays, Rickis wellness weekend.
Whats even more fun is the amount of protein in these black beans! Now, where do we get our protein…
Infographic by Peta.The NFC West has some very talented signal callers boasting two former #1 overall selections (and Heisman Trophy winners) as well as two rising young stars. Bragging rights as the divisions best QB should be a heavily debated topic for years to come. Of course the success of any QB is going to be tied closely to the success of his team and therefore the QB who wins the NFC West will instantly have the upper hand in the debate. Through 5 games this season the NFC West has 3 teams above.500 with only the St. Louis Rams below the line at 2-3. The division leading Seattle Seahawks have largely been lead to their 4-1 start by a powerful running game and an impressive defense. The San Francisco 49ers have earned their 3-2 mark in a similar fashion, finding success on the ground while limiting opposing offenses with their stout defense. The Arizona Cardinals have earned their 3-2 record almost entirely by virtue of dominant defensive performances as their offense just hasn’t seemed to click yet this season. The Rams on the other hand have been inconsistent in all 3 phases of the game with only Johnny Hekker (Punter) and Greg Zeurlein (Kicker) performing consistently up to expectations so far this season. The fact that the Rams sit in the cellar of the NFC West paired with the Rams offensive struggles in weeks 3 and 4 would lead the average fan to assume Bradford is having the worst season of all the QBs. While writing the weekly article Sam Bradford A Closer Look (look for it Tuesdays) it struck me that Bradford had actually been performing fairly well. In fact Bradford is easily off to the best start of his career in spite of most of his supporting cast playing below expectations. This got me to thinking about how Bradford and his statistics stack against his NFC West peers. Below you will see a chart with each NFC West QBs statistics through the first 5 weeks, all statistics were taken from ESPN’s statistics page except for the statistic for Team Drops which was taken from sportingcharts.com.
Player
Passing Yards (NFL Rank)
C omp %
TD (NFL Rank)
INT
QB Rating (NFL Rank)
Team Drops % (NFL Rank)
Bradford
1315 (13)
58.33
10 (T-5)
3
85.7 (14)
8.37 (31)
Wilson
997 (23)
58.26
8 (T-9)
4
91.2 (12)
3.76 (9)
Kaepernick
969 (25)
56.06
6 (T-17)
4
81.9 (21)
4.62 (19)
Palmer
1185 (T-20)
58.88
5 (T-22)
9
67.0 (30)
3.98 (13)
I am a firm believer that statistics do not tell the entire story, and clearly the fact that Wilson leads the division in QB rating through 5 weeks has to suggest there is something more than what the raw statistics can show. While I am familiar with QB rating I have no idea how they generate the numbers and quite frankly I am not interested in finding out, I am assuming Wilson’s higher QB rating is tied to his higher yards per attempt(YPA) number. I didn’t include the YPA statistic because each player can only run the plays that have been called, and with the Seahawks and 49ers running games the play action pass should give Wilson and Kaepernick a huge advantage in that area. When you look at the raw statistics it is pretty clear that Bradford is enjoying a much higher level of production than his peers, even while his receivers suffer from the leagues second worst drop rate percentage. I know that a huge knock on Bradford is that he doesn’t elevate the play of those around him, but honestly when those players cannot secure the football what do you expect? Tom Brady and Peyton Manning don’t make their wide receivers better, they give them better opportunities to make something happen after the catch. This is an area that Bradford also excels at, and a majority of the drops in the passing game this season have come on perfectly placed balls while the intended target was thinking about all the open field in front of them.
I am not going to argue who is the best QB in the division because obviously each fan base is going to have their own opinion. I have also watched every single offensive snap from the Rams this season, more than once actually, and I have not done that for the other teams in the division so I can’t make a fair comparison. I can say that from the film Bradford’s play has been even better than his statistics would suggest. Yes he has room for improvement, and he has been fortunate in a couple of instances where defenders have dropped passes. However the 3 INTs that he does have on his record could all go down as phenomenal defensive plays and not poor decisions by Bradford (some poor throws but not poor decisions). If the Rams offense can continue to maintain some balance through the rest of the season you could see Bradford pick up the already impressive statistical pace that he is on. The young receivers will continue to drop passes, but I anticipate that even that will likely taper off a little as they all become more comfortable in the offense. National media members and Rams fans alike seem to be clamoring for improvement from Bradford and/or his replacement, to me the numbers and film show a guy playing on the cusp of top 10 QB level (drops are killing the Rams) but not being recognized for it. If you still believe that Sam Bradford is the problem you clearly aren’t paying attention. For a final thought lets see where Bradford’s current pace would rank him among 2012 QBs: 4,200 yards would have been 9th, 32TDs would be tied for 5th, and 9 INTs would have been better than all but four regular full-time starters (Brady, Rodgers, RGIII, Roethlisberger). Thanks for reading and as always Go Rams!!!Those campers who are out to defend their sexuality from being stolen from them by kissing-conducive sleeping arrangements are far from crazy! All kinds of things can turn you gay at a moment’s notice! Here’s a short list of things guaranteed to turn you gay instantly and irreversibly.
♥ Getting bitten by a radioactive gay person.
♥ Getting caught in a nuclear reactor with a gay person.
♥ Getting caught in a belt of cosmic gay radiation.
♥ Testing a teleporter on yourself, realizing all-too-late that there is a gay person trapped in there with you, and having your DNA all jumbled up so that you slowly turn into a gay person which ruins your relationship with Geena Davis.
♥ Being born gay.
♥ Gay serum.
So watch out, clearly the world is out to turn you gay against your will, and if you’re not careful how close your buddy’s face gets to your face, you might just end up suddenly and inexplicably having a different sexual preference!
TIf you’re an up-and-coming road racer in Europe, one of the most important names to know is Nicolas Todt, son of FIA President Jean Todt, and one of the top managers for young drivers.
The younger Todt created the All Road Academy in 2013 to assist drivers in their goal of reaching the top level of motorsport.
USF2000 points leader Nico Jamin, from Rouen, France, recently signed an agreement with the academy and became, at 19, the only open-wheel racer evolving in North American, to join the prestigious All Road Academy.
Jamin swept the weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for his third and fourth wins of the season, and second and third in a row.
“I am pleased that Nico Jamin has joined the All Road Academy, and that we can accompany him all along his 2015 racing season,” Nicolas Todt said in a release. “His season started really well. After eight races he is currently leading the USF2000 championship with four wins to his credit.
“Nico combines talent and determination and I am certain that he can aim to the top of his sport. The advices and tools brought by All Road Academy are here to assist him to reach his goal.”
Said Jamin of the opportunity, “I’m very proud to announce that I’m taking part in the All Road Academy program. It’s a huge opportunity for me, and I’m confident that we can build something big with Nicolas Todt and his team. They have done a great job with all of their drivers, and it’s an honor for me to be a part of it now, especially because I am their only driver racing in the U.S.A. I’m very lucky, and I’m more motivated than ever.”
The signing is important because of Todt’s pull and reach. Some of his clients include Felipe Massa (Williams F1), Pastor Maldonado (Lotus F1) and José-Maria Lopez (Citroen WTCC).
Follow @TonyDiZinnoRonald J. Mann, a law professor at Columbia University and a credit expert, describes credit industry practices as intended to enslave borrowers in a “sweat box.” He recommends a Chapter 7 bankruptcy that wipes out most credit card debt.
Many consumers, however, are loath to file for bankruptcy protection, said Mark S. Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer in Indianapolis. And others may find that they cannot qualify for a Chapter 7.
Then there is debt settlement, when a debtor and creditor agree that payment of a negotiated, reduced balance will be payment in full. Debt settlement generally works best when consumers can offer a lump sum, the experts said. But consumers may face taxes on the amount the creditor has forgiven.
“Done correctly, it can absolutely help people,” said Cyndi Geerdes, an associate professor at the University of Illinois law school who also runs a consumer debt clinic.
Consumers can arrange debt settlement themselves, and many Web sites offer advice. Consumers can also hire a lawyer or use debt settlement companies, many of which advertise online and on television. The experts agree, however, that “buyer beware” is the best advice when considering debt settlement companies.
A thousand such companies exist nationwide, up from about 300 a couple of years ago, estimated David Leuthold, vice president of the Association of Settlement Companies, which has 70 members and is based in Madison, Wis.
Deanne Loonin, a senior lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, has investigated them. “It’s possible there are honest ones,” she said, “but I assume they aren’t until proven otherwise.”
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Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America in Washington, said distressed borrowers who cannot produce lump sums to settle with creditors were the most vulnerable to dishonest companies. In some cases, these companies tell consumers to stop paying monthly minimums, explaining that they will negotiate a settlement when borrowers have saved enough. Meanwhile, they take hefty monthly fees directly from clients’ bank accounts.
Creditors will not negotiate reduced balances with consumers who are still making monthly payments. But when they stop paying, total balances swell with fees and interest rates. And depending on the law in states where debtors live, creditors can attach wages and property to satisfy the new total owed.
“Many debt settlement companies never explain these risks clearly,” said Joseph A. Mullaney, a consumer affairs lawyer in Voorhees, N.J.
Photo
According to Ms. Geerdes, whether a creditor takes legal steps depends on its analysis of each debtor.
Mr. Leuthold said his association’s members served consumers who had already stopped making payments and had no better options. And his members must pledge to inform clients of risks and spell them out in contracts, he said.
David Johnson, senior vice president of ByDesign Financial Solutions, a nonprofit charity in Commerce, Calif., says he advises consumers to avoid companies that charge large fees upfront or through payments.
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“It certainly would seem likely that there would be less incentive to push to settle quickly,” Mr. Johnson wrote in an e-mail message. He recommended that consumers look for services that charge after settlement, about 20 percent of the amount of the negotiated reduction in balance.
Desperate consumers may turn to debt settlement, Mr. Mullaney says, because “they usually want to pay their debt” but are also “intrigued with the proposition of getting out of it without the dishonor of declaring bankruptcy and with the prospect of compromising the actual principal that they owe.”
And company employees can be smooth talkers, said Susan Block-Lieb, a law professor at Fordham University and a consumer affairs expert. “You’ve got these really convincing, calm people with a really complicated formula, who are saying, ‘Don’t worry.’ ”
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Katherine Taylor, the maiden name of a white-collar worker in Austin, Tex., who did not want to be further identified because she is a supervisor, said she realized last summer that she and her husband would soon be unable to make monthly minimums on their $59,000 in credit card debt. After seeing a television advertisement, Ms. Taylor said she typed “Christian debt settlement” into her computer. “I wanted an agency with high ethics,” she explained.
On the first phone call with one based in Austin, she agreed to let the company take $676 from her bank account for five months, then $416 for the next 13. “I was told that if I stopped making payments and saved up almost $24,000 on my own, in 48 months I would be free and clear and my credit score would improve,” Ms. Taylor said.
Late last year, unable to reach the settlement company by phone and getting constant calls from collectors, Ms. Taylor contacted a local Better Business Bureau office. She was advised to close her bank account immediately and file a complaint.
Offered a partial refund by the service, she is considering her options.
Mr. Mullaney himself was a victim of a debt settlement company. He was determined, he said, to avoid bankruptcy, a black mark for lawyers. But after starting practice in 2003, he said he realized that he would not be able to afford both student loan payments and the minimums on his $33,500 in credit card debt. He searched online for a debt settlement company run by a lawyer, and by phone closely questioned one based in Anaheim, Calif.
As instructed, Mr. Mullaney stopped paying his credit cards, started paying monthly fees and saved aggressively, he recalled. But without warning, three of Mr. Mullaney’s four creditors took legal action. “Finally, the cloud of irrational belief in the concept disappeared, and I realized the scam I’d fallen for,” he said.
On Oct. 17, 2005, the last day before changes in federal bankruptcy law made it harder to obtain a Chapter 7, Mr. Mullaney filed for bankruptcy protection and eliminated his credit card debt. “I’ve found redemption, through using my legal degree and what I’ve gone through, in counseling others who sit before me ashamed and in tears,” he said.
Marc S. Stern, a bankruptcy lawyer in Seattle, said most consumers should not negotiate for themselves. “It’s too emotional, and a lawyer can say things about clients that they never will, like he’s a deadbeat and you’re never going to get any more from him,” Mr. Stern said.
Experts agreed that deals may be struck with many original creditors for 50 to 80 cents on the dollar, while debt buyers, who paid 20 cents or less on the dollar, may settle for a lower amount.
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Debt settlement companies are regulated by state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission, but they are rarely prosecuted. To improve regulation of this interstate business, the Uniform Law Commission, sponsored by state governments and based in Chicago, is promoting a model law that covers credit counseling and debt management companies. It was in force in four states last year, and an estimated five state legislatures will vote on it this year, said Michael Kerr, the commission’s legislative director.
Mr. Leuthold says his association welcomes regulation but has reservations about the model law, including its volume. “Some say it is long and complicated, 80 pages, and a lot of states don’t want that level of detail,” he said.
Until the states or Congress act, credit card holders are “naked in the world,” said Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard and a bankruptcy expert. “Unscrupulous debt counselors have built their business models around taking advantage of desperate people.”Man, 73, shot in St. Helens neighborhood dispute Copyright by KOIN - All rights reserved A 73-year-old man was shot in this St. Helens neighborhood, March 27, 2015 (KOIN 6 News) [ + - ] Video
Chris Woodard and KOIN 6 News Staff - ST. HELENS, Ore. (KOIN) -- A neighborhood dispute escalated between two men in St. Helens, leaving one man wounded by gunshot and in surgery.
Friday afternoon a dispute between teens arose in the 35000 block of Oakwood Drive. Two older men, 73 and 69, somehow got involved.
The 69-year-old man then allegedly shot the 73-year-old man, and police believe he went inside to get another gun. But police arrived and he surrendered without incident.
The 73-year-old man was rushed to a nearby hospital and was taken to surgery.
Police said there is no indication of a history of problems between the men.
"We know this started out as a neighborhood dispute a little earlier involving some teenagers," said St. Helens Police Chief Terry Moss. "I'm not exactly sure how our suspect and the victim became involved in it but nevertheless they did."
Moss said shootings in the community are rare, and this one was very unusual.
"It's middle of the day, residential neighborhood, there are people out and about, kids are out in the street playing when this whole thing happened," he said.
Neighbors were also very stunned.
Barbara Vance, who lives across the street, moved in around 2004 and said each man has been here about that long.
"They're both quiet, nice people, we say hi, they wave," she said. "They have their little dogs. There has never ever been any problems."
She heard what she now knows was a shot but thought it was a car backfiring. Vance described the suspect as "really quiet," and the victim as a man "with a little tiny black and white dog, his wife is in a wheelchair, really nice people."
"I'm kind of in shock you know, in disbelief that has to happen over something so silly. I don't even know what their argument was about."
Nick Novak lives down the street and learned about the shooting by text and Facebook.
"I had my grandmother watching my kids for the day and when you call up and can't get a hold of anyone, they're not answering the phone and people are saying the guy is not in custody, you don't know what is going on," Novak said.
"I'm glad the guy is in custody," he said.
The suspect's name has not been released.New Delhi: Government sources on Sunday denied reports of China building a bridge in Ladakh.
Earlier a report said on Sunday China was building a bridge in the no man's land in Ladakh.
"The report that China is building a bridge in Ladakh is wrong," a government source said.
The source also denied any fresh aggression from China.
Amid a stand-off in Doka La, close to the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction, India has reinforced troops along the eastern border.
At Doka La, the point of the stand-off, there are around 350 troops on the Indian side and around the same number of soldiers on the other side of the border.
There have been no increase in troops or any movement on the Chinese side that may indicate a possible conflict.
The soldiers have been asked to be on high alert, and artillery guns have been moved to different points. Army officials in New Delhi have refused to comment on the situation.
The standoff close to the tri-junction of India-China-Bhutan started on 16 June, after a construction party from China's People's Liberation Army entered the Doka La area and attempted to construct a road.
A Royal Bhutan Army patrol attempted to dissuade them and the ambassador of Bhutan publicly stated that it lodged a protest with the Chinese government through their embassy in New Delhi on 20 June.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.It’s hard to be a whiskey-swilling, cigar-smoking, beard-loving man in Lebanon these days, because full-bodied facial hair is the surest way to be mistaken for a jihadi. Seems like everyone in Beirut’s flannel-wearing crowd has had a run-in with the police, if the stories they told NPR are to be believed.
“My beard is like my girlfriend,” remarked bartender Mazen Hariz. He cares for her selflessly, wasting 30 minutes each morning just on making sure she looks healthy and shiny. But now Hariz is thinking of shaving because not a day goes by that he’s not interrogated by police about his presumed extremist views. Nearby, another guy told NPR that he’s been threatened by gun-wielding cops over his beard but he still loves it. “It’s me,” he said.
Sure, Lebanon’s colorful political and religious scene means the country has weirdos of all stripes. But aspiring craft-brewers may find it easier to convince authorities that the only thing they hate is conventionalism if they carry a flask or a pack of cigarettes on them at all times — both, of course, anathema to true jihadis.Nine-times married Hollywood star who attained cult figure status starring in 1950s B-movies has passed away at her home
The actor and celebrity Zsa Zsa Gabor has died aged 99.
The Hollywood star, arguably more famous for her larger than life personality and string of marriages than for her films, passed away at her home in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Her husband, Frederic von Anhalt, said she died of a heart attack.
“We tried everything, but her heart just stopped and that was it,” he said. “Even the ambulance tried very hard to get her back, but there was no way.”
Gabor suffered a series of illnesses in recent years and had to have her leg partially amputated in January due to poor circulation. She suffered a stroke in 2005, three years |
VC-Turbo). This boosted 2.0-liter four-cylinder, the product of two decades of research and 300 patents, will first power the next Infiniti QX50 crossover, due in early 2018, before surely spreading across the lineup.
Venturing well beyond the simpler Atkinson-cycle approach, VC-T has four multilink mechanisms inside its crankcase to offer computer control over each cylinder’s compression ratio. The key enabler (labeled “Multi-link” in the illustration above) is a diamond-shaped component that replaces the connecting rod’s big end. When the electronically controlled harmonic drive mechanism rotates, the actuator arm, control shaft, lower link, and finally the multilink all move to vary the piston’s stroke within the cylinder bore. While many automakers have experimented with compound connecting-rod and moving-cylinder mechanisms, Infiniti appears to be the first to solve the durability issues associated with a crankcase stuffed with links and levers, along with three times the typical number of bearings.
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Infiniti claims VC-T is capable of providing any desired compression ratio between 8.0:1 and 14.0:1 and that it can switch between those extremes in as quickly as 1.5 seconds. In addition to both port and direct fuel-injection systems, this engine is equipped with individual cylinder ignition timing, variable intake- and exhaust-valve timing, and electronic boost control. It runs on the Atkinson cycle at times. To save weight and cost, the exhaust manifold is integral with the cylinder head, and both the block and head are made of aluminum, but Renault-Nissan global vice president of powertrain and EV engineering, Alain Raposo, admits that this variable-compression 2.0-liter turbo will be roughly 25 pounds heavier than its fixed-compression peers.
Bumping the compression ratio to 14.0:1 during light-throttle cruising maximizes fuel efficiency. Then, when the driver dips into the throttle for passing, the compression ratio can be dropped as turbo boost rises, avoiding detonation while providing the desired performance. Fixed-compression-ratio 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engines, which have become the go-to powerplants across wide swaths of today’s automotive landscape, generally have a compression ratio in the 9.5:1-to-11.0:1 range, so Infiniti’s VC-T is much higher on the high end and much lower on the low end (lower even than the 8.6:1 compression ratio of the high-performance, 375-hp, 350-lb-ft 2.0-liter turbo four from the Mercedes-AMG CLA45 and GLA45).
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Despite that range of adjustability, however, Infiniti is projecting rather modest peak output figures of 268 horsepower and 288 lb-ft of torque. That puts it at the high end of the class, but not at the top, as the 2.0-liter turbo found in Cadillac’s ATS makes 272 horsepower and 295 lb-ft, although we hope the VC-T engine will be less peaky and more refined than the ATS’s.
Speaking of refinement, Infiniti claims that the new engine produces just a third of an inline-four’s typical level of vibration, which means the VC-T doesn’t require the addition of balance shafts. This increase in smoothness is achieved by the fact that the VC-T’s connecting rods remain more upright throughout their stroke, due to the new and optimized geometry created by the arrangement of the extra compression-ratio-adjusting pieces. This reduction in side-to-side motion of the connecting rod also contributes to a substantial decrease in the friction between the piston and the cylinder wall, so much so that it, along with the removal of balance shafts, more than compensates for the added friction from all of the VC-T’s extra moving parts, according to chief engineer Shinichi Kiga.
Efficiency should be one of the most impressive things about this breakthrough engine, but Infiniti has yet to release any mileage figures; Kiga says the target efficiency gain is 10 percent better than today’s 2.0T. His boss, Raposo, adds that this engine “is the first baby of a very large family.” When we speculate about future VC-T engines with more cylinders, he slowly answers “maybe” after flashing a large smirk. But he spoke more openly about the fact that Infiniti is working to integrate additional technologies into the VC-T engine, such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion. The ability to vary compression ratio helps to manage that finicky-but-efficient strategy where, as with a diesel, the fuel is ignited by the rising pressure in the cylinder during the compression stroke, rather than by a spark plug, but the fuel remains equally mixed throughout the combusting air, as with a traditional gasoline engine.
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Thanks to timely breakthroughs—electronic controls 60 years ago, variable valve timing in the 1980s, and now Infiniti’s combination of electronics and mechanics to vary the compression ratio—there’s no apparent end in sight for the internal-combustion engine."The Blaze" commentator Tomi Lahren told Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" Tuesday that many liberal Americans "fail to understand that Donald Trump will be our 45th president, that he will be inaugurated on January 20."
Lahren was reacting to reports that a number of performers fear a backlash from left-wing fans if they perform at Trump's inauguration next month. After opera singer Andrea Bocelli met with the president-elect on Friday, some fans started a "Boycott Bocelli" campaign on social media.
'BOYCOTT BOCELLI': FANS REACT TO POSSIBILITY OF ITALIAN TENOR PERFORMING AT INAUGURATION
"It's... the same thing that we saw in the election," Lahren told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. "‘Oh, you’re a Trump supporter? You must be a racist. You must be a bigot. You must be in a basket of deplorables.’ We saw that, we’re still seeing it."
Lahren also compared the reaction to Bocelli to criticism from the "unloving and intolerant left" of rapper Kanye West, who also met with Trump last week.
KANYE WEST TWEETS DETAILS OF HIS MEETING WITH DONALD TRUMP
"The tolerance is really one-sided," Lahren said, "because they seem to be pretty accepting when their narrative is pushed, but as soon as Kanye West ventures over to the other side, that’s somehow unacceptable."
"Time and time again, we see this and [it's] not just meeting with Donald Trump, mind you," Lahren added, "it’s meeting with anyone... that’s got a conservative worldview. They don’t like that, they don’t want theirs to be mixing with ours. It's amazing."Last week’s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) report on Joshua Brown’s fatal Autopilot accident does a lot more than exonerate Tesla. It’s a stamp of approval for Tesla’s entire ecosystem and rollout strategy, from Autopilot to data gathering to wireless updates.
Legacy auto makers should be terrified.
As futurist Brad Templeton points out, NHTSA’s report is so favorable to Tesla, it’s hard to believe it was written by the same government agency whose letter to George Hotz compelled him to cancel the Comma One, the only other semi-autonomous driving technology to approach Tesla’s as of 2016.
NHTSA investigator Kareem Habib dismantles every argument critics and competitors have been firing at Tesla since Autopilot was released in October of 2015. The report is explicit: the Tesla crash rate declined 40% after Autopilot’s release. Tesla’s safety technologies are not defective. Tesla is clear about driver responsibility. Tesla provides clear engagement and disengagement alerts.
Tesla should hire Habib. So should Faraday. This guy knows his way around defending autonomy.
Any hopes the legacy automakers might have had that regulators would throttle or halt Tesla’s progress are now shattered. What appeared to be Tesla’s headlong rush toward autonomy is now a three year head start. Why? Because the old guard were so skeptical of self-driving cars—and so terrified of being the first one to have a fatality with a car even temporarily in control—that they ceded the first round of the autonomy wars to Tesla without a fight.
Get into the best BMW, Audi or Mercedes as of January 2017 and what do you find? ADAS—or an Advanced Driver Assistance System—which is right below what NHTSA calls Level 2 automation. Comprised of Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Active Cruise Control and basic Lane Keeping Assistance (LKAS), ADAS is the coward’s Level 2, the functional limit of companies with some of the technology but none of the ambition or legal courage of Musk.
While the CEOs in Germany, Detroit and Japan heeded their engineers and lawyers, Musk decided to push to real Level 2 by enabling Autosteer sixteen months ago. Autosteer—the LKAS component of the Tesla’s Autopilot—was the first such system to allow for hands-off operation for more than thirty seconds.
In good conditions, it would function a LOT longer. It wasn’t fully autonomous. That’s Level 4. You still had to be ready to take over any time. But it sure felt like a self-driving car, even if only for a couple of minutes.
Most importantly, Autopilot didn’t meander across lanes. It worked, or it didn’t. That confidence ushered in the popularity of autonomous driving, even if the technology is only semi-autonomous for now. Owners want to use it. Many people buy Teslas specifically because of it.
You want to know fear? Try Mercedes’ Drivepilot. There’s a reason competitors bury talk of their semi-autonomous technology.
What was the industry thinking? They assumed anything between ADAS and Level 4 was too difficult to develop and too dangerous to deploy. They assumed Tesla would prove them right, and take the entire electric/autonomous/direct-sales model down with it. And they were wrong.
While the old guard were testing small fleets of self-driving cars in fake towns hoping to jump to Level 4 someday, Tesla was gathering billions of miles of data in the real world and marching up the autonomy ladder the hard way.
Take a look at the top of the NHTSA report under “population”. It refers to 43,781 Teslas manufactured between 2014 and 2016, which is only a subset of the 135,000+ Teslas on the road today with Autopilot hardware. That first generation hardware consisted of merely one radar unit, one camera, and an array of ultrasonic sensors.
That hardware is already commoditized, and a new E-class has more of it, but in a Tesla it’s weaponized. Combine it with wireless updates and you have what Tesla calls Fleet Learning. Every Tesla is gathering data, sharing it back to Tesla’s cloud, and being wirelessly updated as quickly as Tesla can process and validate it.
Why aren’t traditional automakers doing this? They’re talking about it. They claim they will. But the same excuses always come back. Security. Hacking. Dealer franchise agreements. Privacy. And yet somehow Musk has made wireless updates work. Does it really take a rocket scientist to figure this out? Even the NHTSA report acknowledges the power and superiority of wireless updates, highlighting Tesla’s 8.0 update that shortened the hands-off interval and improved disengagement alerts.
While competitors dither, Tesla has successfully shattered not only the electric car and direct sales models, but the traditional recall and safety models. Even if Tesla Autopilot had been defective, what would be the point of recalling cars whose software is several generations past the alleged flaw?
The traditional recall model is unconscionable. Even if Mercedes had data identical to Tesla’s, if one has to go to a dealer for an update, some minority of people won’t get the letter, or understand the importance of the letter, or bother to go. If less than 100% of recalled cars are updated, the system is broken.
When hardware is commoditized, software is everything. But a successful software implementation isn’t solely based on the code. Software exists in a system. Without updates, maintenance and a consistent supply of good input, it’s dead weight and dead code. Garbage in, garbage out. Cars need to be connected, if only for the safety of autonomy.
How long can Tesla maintain their lead? As long as it takes for the industry to realize that self-driving cars aren’t everything. It may take decades for Level 4 cars to become ubiquitous, even in major urban areas. In the meantime, semi-autonomous tech like Tesla Autopilot will make human driving safer while Level 4 percolates.
All of this requires data. Mountains of data. Tesla and Waymo are far in the lead. Following Tesla requires doing what Tesla did, the hard way, in a bigger way, starting now. Install sensors. Gather data. Bypass sclerotic models. Process. Catch up. You don’t need to be Stephen Hawking to know that if Tesla’s got 135,000+ Autopilot-equipped cars on the road as of January 24th, 2017, it will take X number of years to sell Y cars and catch up. Every day lost is a day’s advantage given to Tesla, who claim they will have Level 4 by 2018. The industry is saying 2021 or later. Even if Musk is late, he’ll be first.
Or maybe the old guard can cut a deal with Waymo, the only company besides Tesla to take data gathering seriously. They're even building self-driving hardware, a nice one-stop shop for anyone falling behind. Of course, CEO John Krafcik may seem nice, but he wants to own that data. No legacy manufacturer is going to like that.
But that’s another story.
Alex Roy is Editor-at-Large for The Drive, author of The Driver, and set the 2007 Transcontinental “Cannonball Run” Record in 31 hours & 4 minutes. You may follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.1 Shares 0
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Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that his country is not suitable for Muslims and that he did not want to have 'tens of thousands of Muslims' in Slovakia.
Anti-refugee PM's controversial remarks were made in an interview with a local press agency published on Wednesday. Fico claimed that Slovakia is not suitable for Muslims, as it takes years for Muslims to change their traditions.
The Slovak PM has previously made similar remarks on incoming refugees, saying he would prefer to accept only Christian refugees.
There are some 5,000 Muslims living in a population of 5.4 million but Islam is not officially registered as a religion in Slovakia and there are no official mosques.
Slovakia, a Eurozone member of 5.4 million people, has filed a lawsuit against the EU-proposed quota system for distributing refugees across the continent, just like neighboring Hungary.
Earlier in the year, Fico called the resettlement program a 'ritual suicide'.
"I feel that we in the EU are now committing ritual suicide and we're just looking on," the 51-year-old left-winger known for his anti-immigrant rhetoric told Czech newspaper Pravo.
/AgenciesSecurity camera photo of Burgess from previous break-in
The burglar killed in a gunfight that also claimed a sheriff’s deputy last week has been identified as the prime suspect in the killing of a young couple in Canada 27 years ago.
However his death leaves unresolved a possible link to the 2004 murder of another young couple, this time in California, leaving the father of one of the victims still waiting for justice.
New Mexico State Police said the Jemez Mountain burglar known for years only as the Cookie Bandit was Joseph Henry Burgess. He’d been wanted since Canadian investigators tied him to the 1972 murders of a young couple camping near Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
“We were quite surprised,” New Mexico State Police Lt. Eric Garcia said. “No one knew.”
Burgess, 62, died early Thursday morning in a shootout with Sgt. Joseph Harris and Deputy Teresa Moriarty in a cabin in La Cueva. Harris was fatally wounded in the femoral artery during the skirmish while Moriarty was not injured.
The two Sandoval County Sheriff’s Department officers had staked out the cabin hoping to capture the mysterious burglar known for breaking into local cabins to get food, clothing and occasionally liquor.
Burgess was identified through his fingerprints. They were in a national database from the 1972 murder case. Investigators said they found his prints on the Leif Carlsson and Ann Durrant’s belongings.
Burgess has been described as religious fanatic who often ended his phrases in, “Amen.” Canadian investigators suspected he may have become outraged because Carlsson and Durrant were sharing a tent but weren’t married.
His name also surfaced in the similar killings of a young couple camped out on a northern California beach in 2004…
Until now many who knew of Burgess thought he was hiding out in Canada or the Pacific Northwest.
Joe Harris never thought of this creep as a cutesy Cookie thief. He always suspected the crook they were tracking, the thief they lay in wait for – was dangerous. He was correct.
I tire of amateurs who always think every Mountain Man is a romantic, heroic figure. They are as likely to be disturbed and dangerous as any other misfit.
I can say that with a smile after all my years of railing against conformity. The question doesn’t have to do with non-conformity, it’s what you refuse to conform to that matters. In this case, it was a fanatic whose religious belief said it was OK to kill people having non-marital sex.Over the past nine seasons, while working as an interpretative ranger at both Antietam and Gettysburg, I have met dozens —if not, hundreds—of visitors whose ancestors fought in the Civil War. Usually it is a great-great-great grandfather or great-great-great uncle, but on at least half a dozen occasions, I have had the great pleasure of meeting folks whose grandfathers served in the war. This happened most recently during the Sesquicentennial Anniversary weekend in September 2012 at Antietam when an elderly gentleman inquired of the location of the 9th New York/Hawkins’s Zouaves Monument. He was looking for it because, as he said, he wanted to stand upon the same ground where his grandfather had fought 150 years earlier. Talking further with this gentleman, I discovered that his grandfather was born in 1840 and that he had passed away at the age of 95 in 1935. The soldier’s grandson, who in September 2012 stood before me at the desk at Antietam, told me that he was ten years old when his grandfather died. Curios, I asked if his grandfather had ever discussed the war with him when he was a young child. The man simply shook his head no and said that it was something they just didn’t talk about.
To be able to point out and physically connect a visitor to a particular part of a battlefield where their ancestor—or at least their ancestor’s regiment—served, is a great and satisfying feeling and one that I have had the privilege of doing countless times over the years. Many times the visitor’s face will light up when I circle on a map where their ancestor served; other times, their eyes swell with tears knowing that they would be able to stand where their ancestor fought and where, on some occasions, their ancestor fell. Usually after doing this, I am myself asked if any of my ancestors served in the war. It is a question I have been asked many, many times over the past nine years. And the answer is a simple no. Indeed, as far as I’ve been able to discover, none of my direct ancestors were even in the United States during the 1860s. They were, instead, many thousands of miles away, scattered across Eastern Europe, and another five or six decades would pass even before any of my ancestors finally made the long journey to America.
I, thus, may not have any direct, ancestral ties to the Civil War but there are still many personal connections I can make to the war’s great battlefields. During my years at Antietam, for example, I had a strong connection to the southern end of the battlefield, to the famed Burnside’s Bridge and to the ground where the 9th Corps made the final Union attack on that bloody Wednesday, September 17, 1862. It was there where the 48th Pennsylvania served and where they lost some 60 men. The 48th Pennsylvania was recruited from my hometown, from my native Schuylkill County, in the east-central portion of the Commonwealth. Growing up, studying the Civil War, I focused in on this particular regiment. I studied its service, its experiences, and the soldiers who composed its ranks. I frequently visited their graves. Indeed, in my hometown of Orwigsburg, a small community of just 2,500 or so people, lies buried the remains of Corporal Lewis Focht while only a few miles away, in Cressona, lies the remains of Private George Dentzter. Across Route 61 from Cressona is Schuylkill Haven and there is buried Corporal Daniel Moser while only a few miles further north, in Port Carbon, is the grave Lieutenant William Cullen. All of these soldiers were members of the 48th Pennsylvania, and all gave their lives at Antietam. For me, finding something of a personal connection to Antietam was thus not that difficult. But Gettysburg would be a little bit harder, for the 48th Pennsylvania—and the entire 9th Corps for that matter—was simply not there, not present during the battle. I would thus have to dig just a little deeper to find those personal connections.
Of course, by the time I began working with the NPS at Gettysburg, the place was already very—very—familiar to me. As a young kid, growing up only two hours away, I came to the fields of Gettysburg countless times on family vacations or on simple day-trips, and in 2004, my wife and I moved here, years before my first season began in the Gray and Green at Gettysburg. So, there has always been a connection for me to Gettysburg—but it was a deeper connection I was seeking and, during my first season here, I found it. I found it while developing an interpretative program on the National Cemetery when I came across the name—and the story—of William Beaumont and his brothers.
The story of the Beaumont brothers really struck a chord with me because of its connection to my native Schuylkill County and its connection to my own family’s history. As alluded to previously, it was not until the early 1900s before any of my own ancestors arrived on America’s shores, with the hopes of carving out a new life for themselves and for their families. On both my paternal and maternal sides, it was my great-grandparents who made the journey, settling ultimately in Schuylkill County where my great-grandfathers immediately went to work in the coal mines. It would be an occupation followed by their sons as well, including my maternal grandfather—my mom’s dad—Nicholas Mitsock.
Nick Mitsock was born in Schuylkill County in April 1927 and raised in a coal patch near Minersville. He went to the local schools before service called him away to Europe. He served in Germany during the waning days of World War II, a truck mechanic, or so I have been told. Following his discharge from the army, Nick Mitsock returned to Schuylkill County and once more took up the pick and shovel of the coal miner. He met my grandmother. Soon after they were married and five children followed as a result. Their first—my mom—was born in 1951 and was thus only six years of age when her dad—my grandfather—left home one late May morning in 1957 and never came back. Nick Mitsock was only thirty-years old when he was killed in a mine collapse, leaving my grandmother a widow, my mom fatherless and forcing her to help raise her four young siblings. After several days, his body was recovered and his remains laid to rest in the town of St. Clair.
So, what, then, does this have to do with the Battle of Gettysburg and the story of the Beaumont brothers?
Some eighty or so years before my great-grandparents immigrated to America and found a home in Schuylkill County, a Mr. William Beaumont arrived. Born in England in 1811, William Beaumont immigrated to America, presumably in the late 1820s or early 1830s. He found a home in St. Clair and went immediately to work in the coal mines. He met a young lady named Mary and the couple had six children. Their eldest son, George, was born in 1834. Their second son, William, arrived six years later. In 1842, John was born and their youngest son, Charles, was born two years after John, in 1844. As the boys got older, they followed in their father’s footsteps, finding work in the coal mines near St. Clair. Then the war began, and all four sons made the decision to leave their picks and shovels behind and take up the weapons of a soldier, fighting in defense of their father’s adopted country.
George, William, and John Beaumont volunteered their services first, soon after the outbreak of hostilities, when all three enlisted into the ranks of Company A, 88th Pennsylvania Infantry. As the youngest of the Beaumont boys, Charles was only 17 when the war began and thus could not officially enlist until the following year. He did so, joining up first with the 129th Pennsylvania Infantry in the summer of 1862 and later with the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry, seeing considerable service in the war’s Western Theater before returning safely home in 1865.
Having offered their services, it was not long before George, William, and John Beaumont became good soldiers. Fighting side-by-side, the three brothers made it unscathed through the Seven Days’ Battles, 2nd Manassas, and Antietam, where the 88th sustained heavy losses in the infamous Cornfield. By the summer of 1863, they were battle-hardened, experienced soldiers fighting in a well-seasoned, veteran regiment, which, by the onset of the Gettysburg Campaign, had been whittled down to fewer than 300 soldiers remaining in its ranks.
At Gettysburg, the 88th Pennsylvania formed part of General Henry Baxter’s Brigade of General John Robinson’s Second Division, First Corps. The regiment arrived on the field sometime before noon on July 1, 1861 and was initially assigned to a reserve position near the Lutheran Seminary. As a defensive measure, the men, including the Beaumont brothers, immediately began throwing up fence rails, erecting make-shift barricades. But when Robert Rodes’s Confederate division arrived on Oak Hill, further to the north, General Abner Doubleday—who had taken command of the First Corps following the death of John Reynolds—needed troops to meet this new and developing threat. Robinson got the nod and Robinson, in turn, called upon Baxter and sometime after noon, Baxter’s men—the 88th included—raced their way northward along Seminary Ridge, across the railroad cut to Oak Ridge, where they settled into position behind a stone wall. It would not be long before they became heavily engaged. After helping to turn back several Confederate attacks, the soldiers of the 88th Pennsylvania ran low on ammunition and their spot on the front would be taken up by soldiers of Robinson’s Second Brigade under Gabriel Paul. Relentless pressure from Rodes’s Division, however, simply became too much for Robinson’s men to bear and sometimes around 4:00 p.m. orders from Doubleday arrived to retreat. Driven from the field and back through the labyrinthine streets of Gettysburg, Robinson’s men ultimately rallied on Cemetery Hill.
In its action that day, the 88th Pennsylvania lost more than a third of its men, killed, wounded, captured, and missing. Panting, exhausted, George Beaumont made it safely back to Cemetery Hill. As he looked around through the wreckage—through what was left of the 88th—he could not locate his two younger brothers, for both William and John Beaumont were among the regiment’s casualties that bloody Wednesday. At some point during the battle on Oak Ridge, William was shot through the neck, while John was captured in the streets of town. Carried south with the Army of Northern Virginia in the aftermath of the battle, John Beaumont remained in captivity for just three weeks before being exchanged. He would return to the ranks of Company A, 88th PA, but brother William would not be so fortunate. His wound proved mortal, and he passed away on July 13. Later that year, William Beaumont’s remains were interred in the newly-established Soldiers’ National Cemetery, in the Pennsylvania plot, Row B, Grave #73.
It is not known whether William Beaumont’s grave had been dug by the time Lincoln arrived in mid-November to deliver his “few appropriate remarks” but his words, when they heard or read them, surely resonated with brothers George and John, still in the ranks of the 88th PA. Lincoln admonished the people of the nation—including those on the home front and those on the battle front—to rededicate themselves to the great task remaining before them, to see the war through to its conclusion, for there was still hard work ahead. In the winter of 1863-1864, both Beaumont brothers still in the 88th decided to reenlist for another three-year term of service and in a February 1864 letter to the editor of Schuylkill County’s leading newspaper best summarized the reason why when he wrote: “I have been in the service of my country two years and six months, but I am not tired of it....I entered the service when the rebellion first began, and I am determined to see it ended.”
Sadly, John Beaumont would not live to see the end of the war. On June 18, 1864, four months after writing this letter, John was killed in action at Petersburg.
Next year, the war, at last, came to an end. George Beaumont was the only one of the three brothers who served in the 88th Pennsylvania to make it back home. He returned to St. Clair and to his family. He was married by then and may have had at least one child. He also returned to the mines. He sought, as best he could, to return to normal. But tragedy still hovered over the Beaumont brothers and on November 30, 1868—just three-and-a-half years after Appomattox—George Beaumont was at work in the mines when a large lump of coal fell down a 500-foot shaft that George just happened to be standing under. The coal struck George and he was instantly killed. A few days later, George Beaumont’s remains were laid to rest in St. Clair.
Some four score and nine years later, in 1957, my grandfather—Nicholas Mitsock—who like George Beaumont had been killed in a coal mine accident shortly after returning from war, leaving a widow and a young family behind—was also laid to rest, in St. Clair, very near the grave of George Beaumont.
It is important for all of us to find our connections—physical, emotional, or both—to the past and to its places, such as Gettysburg. You can find them if you look hard enough, even if you believe there are none to be found. Many visitors to Gettysburg have a direct, ancestral connection to the battlefields here; many do not. None of my ancestors fought at Gettysburg; indeed, none even served in the war. But there are still strong connections. I am reminded of this every time I walk past the grave of William Beaumont in the Pennsylvania section of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Seeing his name inscribed upon his granite footstone, immediately makes me think his brother George and of my mom’s dad—my grandfather—Nicholas Mitsock whom I never had the privilege of knowing; who, in fact, died long before I was even born.
John Hoptak, Park Ranger
AdvertisementsThe United States Supreme Court banned the rebroadcast of previously free, over-the-air television today in a 6-3 ruling. This ruling will basically kill Aereo—a company that sends those broadcasts from a remote antenna to computers and set top boxes—and make it almost impossible for a startup to compete with telecommunications giants like Comcast.
In American Broadcasting Companies Vs. Aereo Inc., the startup argued it was merely selling a different, better antenna. Traditional TV antennas no longer receive TV broadcasts from stations like Fox and ABC, since the government reassigned and resold over-the-air TV spectrum for other means over the last decade. The court disagreed, calling it a performance, and saying the public doesn't have a right to it.
Here's the problem: Under law, the public is legally required to receive free, over-the-air TV by "any means necessary."
The 1934 Communications Act, signed by Franklin Roosevelt, calls for an FCC that is "regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."
The act was amended in 1984 to exclude cable TV, but the amendment notes the act still applies to over-the-air television stations—the stations that Aereo carries.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 leaves that language untouched and reaffirms the idea of competition. "The goal of this new law is to let anyone enter any communications business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other," according to an FCC statement.
The court, however, never once mentions the Communications Act or the Telecommunications Act in its decision.
Instead, the telecom oligopoly—a $5 trillion industry in 2013—was able to join together in the courtroom to swiftly kill any competition.
American cable companies and TV networks—a banded-together Comcast, Fox, ABC and others—have won again, and they've swallowed innovation in the process. Comcast will further shield its cable business, which made $17 billion in revenues last quarter and will gain 11 million subscribers if it is allowed to merge with its largest competition, Time Warner Cable, by the end of the year.
"Today's decision by the United States Supreme Court is a massive setback for the American consumer," said a spokesperson for Aereo.
Alki David, who runs a business similar to Aereo called FilmOn, said the ruling made for an anti-competitive media landscape in America, when reached in a statement.
"This huge blow to net neutrality and consumer rights proves my mistrust of the courts is well founded and that the policies and agencies that are supposed to protect the public interest have failed," said David. "They are indeed mere tools of a handful of corporations intent on keeping the people in a stranglehold of bad cable service at extortionist fees. The effects on values the U.S. supposedly takes pride in—from innovation to free markets to freedom of speech itself—are truly scary."
Supreme Court justices also didn't seem to understand the basic points of the case. Justice Antonin Scalia "did not know that users couldn't receive HBO using an over-the-air antenna." But when in doubt, Alki says, the win goes to the status quo, the established entity or the deeper pockets—and that's when it becomes a speech, according to David.
"If Aereo doesn't win this, it eats away at the rights of the innovator. It eats away at the rights of speech," FilmOn's David told Esquire last month. "It eats away at the First Amendment."
The Supreme Court acknowledged that the ruling is a narrow one, and that any precedent that this sets might stunt innovation.
"We cannot now answer more precisely how the Transmit Clause or other provisions of the Copyright Act will apply to technologies not before us. We agree with the Solicitor General that '[q]uestions involving cloud computing, [remote storage] DVRs, and other novel issues not before the Court, as to which 'Congress has not plainly marked [the] course,' should await a case in which they are squarely presented,'" the ruling states.
The court opted to rule that Aereo's service illegal anyway. The court is for innovation—unless it gets in the way of the profits of a megacorporation.Don't call bonds boring anymore.
Despite a reputation for being a slow-growing alternative to stocks for the risk-averse, bonds just passed stocks' long-term performance over the past 30 years.
The fact bonds have topped stocks over such a long period shakes up preconceived notions and further insults stock investors, who have endured historic volatility as they got lower returns.
"No one thought the tortoise could catch up, and it just did," says Ken Winans of Winans International.
Given the rally in bonds in 2011, it might not be surprising that the Ibbotson Associates SBBI bonds index, a broad bond measure, returned 28% last year, crushing the 2.1% return of the Standard & Poor's 500 including dividends. The bond index also topped stocks for the past 10 and 20 years.
What's more surprising, though, since it contradicts the widespread belief that stocks beat bonds, is that the Ibbotson Associates SBBI bond index has returned 11.03% a year on average over the past 30 years, edging out the 10.98% return of stocks.
Bonds' impressive run is being powered by several factors, including:
•Distrust of the stock market's future. An entire class of investors is rattled by a dismal decade for stocks, including double-digit losses in four separate years since 2000, says Bill Larkin of Cabot Money Management. "People are looking at the (stock market) and seeing the casino component," he says. "They've taken big hits."
•Search for investment income. Aging Americans nearing or in retirement are deciding they crave steady income and don't have the stomach for stocks' higher volatility, Winans says.
•Historic declines in interest rates and inflation. The continual movement down in interest rates and inflation the past 30 years has been a boon for bonds, which rise in price as interest rates fall, says Charles Crane of Douglass Winthrop Advisors.
It would be a mistake to assume that bonds' strong run over the 30 years is destined to repeat, says Mark Hebner of Index Funds Advisors. Bonds have had stock-be |
in the U.S. solar industry,” said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of SEIA. “With costs continuing to come down and new financing options, solar energy is affordable today for more families, businesses, utilities, and the military. Thanks to smart long-term policy, the solar industry is growing to meet the challenge of putting Americans back to work and helping to grow both our nation’s economy and our clean energy portfolio.”
System prices for PV projects in the U.S. continued their downward trajectory in the third quarter of 2012. Average residential system prices dropped quarter-over-quarter from $5.45 per watt to $5.21 per watt nationally, while average non-residential prices declined 15 cents per watt, falling to $4.18. Utility system prices, which are currently at $2.40 per watt, continue to see the greatest reduction in prices of the three market segments covered, falling by 30 percent since the third quarter of last year.
For more information on this quarter's U.S. Solar Market Insight report and to download the free Executive Summary, visit www.greentechmedia.com/research/ussmi.The purpose of this manual is to help trainers run well-designed workshops to prepare citizens in effective nonviolent methods of defending their governments and their institutions against coup d’états.The phrase "coup d’état" is from the French, "blow against the state.” It refers to the sudden, forcible overthrow of a government by a group plotting against it. Governments have been shaken or forcibly brought down since time immemorial. Our era is no exception.The good news is that powerful nonviolent means of resisting coups are available. In significant instances, supporters of democracy have used nonviolent methods effectively to resist attempted take-overs by usurpers. This manual attempts to learn from this important experience and pass it on to others.This is the 2011 edition of Dick Taylor's book published by Nonviolence International, with a new introduction by Hardy Merriman.Image caption Thai police said they found forged passports from several countries
Police in Thailand and Australia have arrested six people believed to be part of a human trafficking network, following a year-long investigation.
An Iraqi man and a Thai woman, reportedly his wife, were detained in Thailand on passport forgery charges.
In Australia, four people were arrested for allegedly smuggling people to the country through South East Asia.
Authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia were also involved in the operation, but made no arrests.
The arrests on Tuesday were part of "Operation Arapaima" - a cross-border effort to crackdown on a trafficking network spanning the region, said a Thai police spokesman.
Thai police said they found 16 forged passports for the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Iran, and machines for producing fake passports in a raid on a house owned by the arrested woman.
Police in Australia arrested two men, aged 37 and 32 in Sydney, and two other men, aged 42 and 19, in Melbourne.
The Australian Federal Police said ina statementthat the four, alleged to be the ''key organisers and facilitators'' of the human trafficking syndicate, had been charged with people-smuggling offences.
"The organisers of these ventures are taking advantage of vulnerable people and are putting their lives at risk," said police commander Jennifer Hurst.
It is believed that the fake passports - which Thai police said cost $400 (£250) each - are sold to people, mostly from the Middle East.
The buyers would use Iranian or Iraqi passports to travel to Thailand, authorities said, and then use the UAE passports to travel to Australia by plane or boat.
Australia has long been a popular destination for refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants entering the country illegally.We learn so much from reading public testimonials, especially ones that seek to rehabilitate someone’s character. We don’t learn very much about the people being rhapsodized, but a good deal about the values our culture holds in high estimation.
Take the recent New York Times piece, “‘W.’ and the Art of Redemption” by Mimi Swartz, about the portrait-painting practice of former President George W. Bush. The piece, among other things, reports the landing of the book of his paintings, Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors, on the New York Times best seller list. It’s part reputation rehab, part art review, part commendation, and part audition for the job of Bush’s headstone writer. We might one day see, etched in marble, something like: “Here lays the former president who found his true calling only after serving the highest office in the land.” And verily there will be tears.
The piece begins with a cursory reference to his defining debacle: “America’s post-Sept. 11 wars — otherwise known as Mr. Bush’s disastrous venture in the Middle East.” Swartz then turns to the arc of character development, attempting to convince us that the president was a victim of his circumstances. Bush was socialized as a “rich kid” in the Texas Midlands, where he would have apparently been subject to nothing short of physical punishment for displaying any art historical knowledge. “But Mr. Bush himself worked overtime to make sure no one could mistake him for a pointy-headed intellectual. He painted himself into a corner.” The piece veers upward from there, lifted by the imprimatur of key art critics Jerry Saltz and Peter Schjeldahl, who use terms like “innocent,” “sincere,” “earnest,” and “honestly observed” to describe Bush’s portraits.
Swartz continues her transformation of the feckless leader into a sensitive and empathetic artist by tracing his tutelage under several art teachers: Gail Norfleet, Roger Winter, Jim Woodson, and Sedrick Huckaby. She makes Bush out to be a student, willingly learning from others, instead of the leader and “decider” he once touted himself to be. We are led to believe that all of this learning, nurturing, and patient working in obscurity, outside of the “swamp” that is Washington, DC, have now turned him a perceptive human being. Swartz tells us that “the proceeds from sales [of the book] will go to a nonprofit organization that helps veterans and their families recover,” and the George W. Bush Presidential Center website confirms this. (The hardcover edition costs $35, while the deluxe, signed and personalized edition costs $350.) But Swartz doesn’t ever acknowledge that it was Bush and his employees who started the Iraq war and put these very same people in harm’s way in the first place.
To be clear, this is the same man who, as president, pursued a war that was illegal and declared that coalition partners were “either with us or against us in the fight against terror” — terror only as he and his administration defined it. Even his press secretary, Scott McClellan, later admitted that a sophisticated propaganda campaign sold the war to the public. Bush manipulated and strong-armed the media into supporting his reprehensible war, and this is what we lost in it: 134,000 Iraqi civilians, though Reuters notes that the conflict “may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number”; “$1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans,” according to Reuters, referencing the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies; and $33 billion in “U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war,” according to the initial Costs of War report in 2011, with that number rising to $134.7 billion just two years later.
What’s insidious about the Times piece is that it puts readers in the position of feeling the need to forgive Bush and recognize his current artistic work as somehow redemptive; otherwise we seem mean-spirited or, perhaps worse, unfairly unable to evaluate another person beyond stereotype. Swartz writes: “Mr. Bush discovered what many who paint discover: that as he worked on their portraits, he came to understand his sitters, and their pain, as well as their love for one another.” But art of this nature is not redemptive — it never is unless you shut your eyes, put your fingers in your ears, and yell nonsense. Art does not restore a soldier’s arms or eyesight, or provide them with physical therapy in order to learn to walk on prostheses. It does not heal their PTSD or bring back innocent Iraqi civilians from the dead.
Swartz either believes too much in the transformative power of art or wants to embrace the fantasy of the fool who becomes the wise and affectionate sage, the philistine who becomes the aesthete, just several years too late. But we need to expand our imaginative faculties to viewing people in terms other than the ecclesiastical story of fall and redemption. Sometimes when you lose, you truly lose. And we lost that war, lost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars and a dwindling supply of international credibility and respect. George W. Bush may be a good painter and a caring friend to soldiers, but he’s also the man who callously put those soldiers in harmful situations, and has now reduced them to characters within a feel-good narrative that he can tell to friends, family, and the rest of the world.Bernie Sanders swings through Central Coast
MONTEREY, Calif. - Bernie Sanders supporters cheered as the presidential hopeful took the stage outside Colton Hall in Monterey, Tuesday.
"I think it's the first time that I truly, truly want somebody to win," said Lulu Arauz of Monterey.
Organizers said about 7,800 people showed up to see Sanders.
"Look at all the happy people here. There's no hate, there's no violence and he all about making things happen for people," said Lonnieta McCallum of Monterey.
"He seems like a candidate that's more in tune with what's really happening with the Latino culture," said Felipe Gutierrez of Salinas.
Gutierrez said Sanders has his vote because of his stance on immigration.
"This campaign is listening to the Latino community," said Sanders. "I believe that congress must move toward comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship."
With many students in the crowd, Sanders also spoke about education and the economy.
"A weak economy is when people in Vermont and California are forced to work two or three jobs to earn enough income and health care benefits to take care of their families," said Sanders.
Sanders also assured the crowd he will win California. We'll see next Tuesday in the presidential primary election on June 7.Getty Images
With Chris Carson likely out for the remainder of the season. the Seahawks are turning back to Thomas Rawls to lead their backfield rotation moving forward.
Rawls was inactive for Sunday night’s game against the Indianapolis Colts as Seattle went with Carson, Eddie Lacy and J.D. McKissic instead. However, Rawls is the best suited of the group to take over as the lead back moving into the coming weeks.
“We haven’t seen him in a while,” head coach Pete Carroll said of Rawls on Wednesday. “We haven’t had a chance to see him on a regular basis, so this is a chance for him to re-enter. I’m really excited for him. He’s in good shape, he has worked out hard. There was no reason why he couldn’t play, we just played Chris a lot, and you saw us flip it around with Eddie a couple of weeks ago. But now he and Eddie are going to take the load. We’re so fortunate to have Thomas coming into the lineup. He’s all fired up about it. He’s healthy and he’s real anxious, I can’t wait to get him out there.”
Rawls has just four yards on five carries this season for the Seahawks, all coming against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 2. Rawls missed some time during the preseason due to a high-ankle sprain. While he had 161 yards and a touchdown in a playoff game against the Detroit Lions in January, he had been unable to unseat Carson for playing time.
“It’s a part of the game,” Rawls said. “The only thing you can do is control what you can do — that’s come out and work hard, practice hard, and continue to be a leader. And whenever you get these opportunities, they’re so valuable, because you never know how long you’ll play this game. I know I’m grateful for that just to be here and have this opportunity.”
The Seahawks shuffled through 12 different running backs last season trying to find capable ball carriers as Rawls and C.J. Prosise dealt with significant injuries. Seattle feels they’re better positioned this season in the wake of Carson’s injury.
“I just feel fortunate with the guys that we have. That was one of the positions that we felt was a position of strength for us,” offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said.Iowa Medical Marijuana Bill Dies in Committee Committee chairman, Rep. Clel Baulder (R-Greenfield), a retired Iowa State Patrol officer, made it clear from the beginning of the meeting that the bill had no chance at advancing.
DES MOINES, IA — A bill that would have allowed Iowa residents with debilitating medical conditions to obtain and use marijuana without fear of arrest was rejected Thursday by a subcommittee in the Iowa House. The bill was introduced earlier this month by Rep. Bruce Hunter (D-Des Moines).
A three member panel of the House Public Safety Committee held a 40-minute public hearing on House File 22, which would have allowed patients with certain qualifying conditions who have received recommendations from their physicians to privately possess limited amounts of marijuana and grow up to six marijuana plants in their homes.
Committee chairman, Rep. Clel Baulder (R-Greenfield), a retired Iowa State Patrol officer, made it clear from the beginning of the meeting that the bill had no chance at advancing.
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He was holding a hearing, he said, only because the public had challenged him to do so, calling the medical marijuana bill “asinine.”
“I’ve watched state government function since 1962 and doing any bill, let alone this one, that would legalize marijuana would be at the top one or two of three stupidest bills that have been passed by this organization, in my opinion,” Baudler said.
Mike Niday, a Marine Corps veteran from Des Moines who suffers from post-traumatic stress, urged legislators to allow the medical marijuana bill to progress to the full House Public Safety Committee for further consideration.
“I just hope that you listen to Iowans’ voices and you vote for what we want,” he testified before the committee, “because you’re representing us.”
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A February 2010 Seltzer & Co. poll found that 64% of Iowans think the state should enact a law allowing seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana if their doctors recommend it. That same month, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy voted unanimously to recognize marijuana’s medical value.
“Iowans clearly want our state policy to be sensible and rooted in evidence, that’s why I’m introducing this medical marijuana legislation,” said Rep. Hunter, the bill’s sponsor. “At this point, there’s no denying that marijuana helps alleviate the symptoms of a host of terrible diseases, many of which are notoriously difficult to treat.”
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia allow patients with qualifying conditions to use medical marijuana with recommendations from their physicians. At least 10 more states are expected to consider similar legislation this year, and such bills have already been introduced in Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, and New York.
Tags: HF22Parking is causing major headaches for those living on residential streets in Toronto’s downtown core.
“There’s a huge lack of parking and a lot of it is occupied by people who don’t even live here,” Johnny Difruscia tells CityNews.
Difruscia is just one of many on Seaton Street who say drivers are also leaving their vehicles park longer than the free one hour parking between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
A stretch of construction on Shuter Street has sent more drivers to seek parking elsewhere, and Difruscia says it’s putting a strain on permit holders who are left defenseless.
“It’s really just a lack of parking designated for residents,” Disfruscia explains. “And lack of enforcement for one hour parking for three hour parking on the street.”
The Toronto Police Parking Enforcement Unit confirms to CityNews it has increased enforcement in the neighbourhood after it was made aware of the issue. The officer adds the area supervisor is in touch with Councillor Pam McConnell’s office, on how the city can best address this growing concern, that’s also affecting other streets throughout the downtown core.
“We need to just give more of a priority to residents who live on the street,” Difruscia said.
“Most of the houses are pretty old, they don’t have driveways, and if someone takes my spot, I’d be pretty upset about it,” Joshua Cordeiro says, as he struggled to park his vehicle on Tecumseth, near King Street West.
Councillor Mike Layton tells CityNews his office regularly gets complaints about parking on residential streets in Ward 19, adding that they are looking at how to best address residents’ concerns. He says two options for non-permit holders include changing the parking hours or implementing a meter system.
“That also discourages people from staying the whole day for free, because they’re more likely to get a ticket,” Councillor Layton explained.
On Friday, Councillor Pam McConnell’s office sent the following email statement to CityNews:
“Permit parking areas in the downtown are often abused by commuters looking for free parking which strains the ability of residents who have lawfully purchased their permits to find spaces. Parking Enforcement attempts to patrol and enforce on streets and in neighbourhoods that are experiencing this. This particular problem shifts over time, and they direct their enforcement based on complaints received from residents or from feedback that our office receives.”
The Councillor’s office adds that they were told by residents that there was an increase in illegal parking on Seaton Street in the last few days, requesting additional enforcement.
“There are additional tools that Council has at its disposal, such as adjusting the time in which non-permit parking can occur (such as moving from an 8:00 AM start to a 10:00 AM start), adjusting the number of hours that a car can park (from the standard 3 hours to 1 hour – as has already happened on Seaton), or implementation of pay and display parking. These solutions are explored only after consultation with local residents. That conversation will occur on Seaton Street and with the local Resident’s Association to see if changes beyond heightened enforcement are required,” the statement reads.NEW DELHI: After proposing to bring down the drinking age in Delhi, tourism minister Kapil Mishra on Tuesday said he was in support of restaurants remaining open beyond the current deadline of 1am. He was responding to recommendations by the National Restaurant Association of India NRAI ) to improve tourism in the capital, which included a revival of the night bazaar in Chandni Chowk.“NRAI came to me with this proposal and I am waiting to get it in writing to act on it. However, on the face of it, I believe that extending operating hours will not just benefit the industry but is also essential in the city with several people getting free from work at late hours,” said Mishra. “It will also secure the streets which, right now, are completely desolate at night. We will look into the viability of this recommendation and see how it can be implemented.”The proposal by NRAI is to extend operating hours of restaurants from 1am to 2.30am on weekends on a trial basis for the first three months.“The excise licence allows us to serve alcohol till 1am while the police licence also allows us to remain open till 1am. It means that at 1am, the restaurant should be locked with no staff inside. Because of this we are forced to start winding up much sooner,” said Prakul Kumar, secretary general of NRAI. “We have suggested that at least on weekends, we can experiment with this. The agencies concerned can monitor the situation, including law and order, during this time and then make it more permanent.”The government is also in support of reviving the night bazaar in Chandni Chowk. “I have received representation from shopkeepers that they would like to keep food stalls and small shops open till after market hours. When we say night life, people think clubs and pubs. However, we would also like to encourage the traditional aspect of Old Delhi. We will take a decision on this issue shortly,” said Mishra.Slamming Mishra’s remarks, BJP vowed to oppose the recommendations. “BJP will never allow lowering of drinking age and promotion of night life in Delhi. Night life will mean freedom to criminals,” BJP MLA Vijender Gupta said.“The minister wants to promote drinking in Delhi. The effort to bring down drinking age from 25 years to 21 years is a step in this direction. The opening of pubs, dance clubs, bars, restaurants etc till late night will lead to law and order problems. It will only benefit the liquor lobby,” he added.One of the most contentious aspects of the tax policy debate in the United States today is the proper level of taxation of the rich. In the current presidential election contest, Hillary Clinton proposes to increase taxes on the rich while Donald Trump proposes to cut taxes on the rich. This policy decision is particularly important because the concentration of income at the top is extremely high. The share of total pre-tax income earned by the top 1 percent of families has more than doubled from 8.9 percent in 1975 to 22 percent in 2015.
Progressive taxation historically is the most powerful tool to reduce income concentration. The classic counter argument is that higher top tax rates might discourage economic activity among the rich. In a recent paper, I analyze the effects of the 2013 federal income tax increase on the behavior of top income earners to cast light on this issue.
In 2013, a surtax on high earners was levied to help pay for the Affordable Care Act at the same time as the 2001 tax cuts for high-income earners that were signed into law by President George W. Bush expired. The 2013 tax increase on high earners was the largest since the 1950s, and larger than the previous increase of the top tax rate by the Clinton administration in 1993. The 2013 tax increase is concentrated among the top 1 percent of income earners. The Congressional Budget Office statistics show that the average federal tax rate—comprised of all federal taxes (individual, corporate, and payroll)—on the top 1 percent of income earners rose by 5 points, from 29 percent before 2013 to 34 percent in 2013.
Besides this direct increase in their tax burden, how did the 2013 tax increase affect the behavior of the rich and the pre-tax incomes they reported on their tax returns? The relevant concept for behavioral responses to taxation is the marginal tax rate, which measures how much you have to pay in taxes on an extra dollar of earnings. At a marginal tax rate of 40 percent, for example, you would have to pay $40 extra in taxes if you earn $100 or more. The 2013 tax increase raised the top marginal tax rate on capital income (including realized capital gains, dividends, and other forms of taxable capital income) by about 9 points, and on labor income (wages and salaries, and self-employment income) by about 6 points. The accompanying chart, which depicts the top 1 percent’s share of pre-tax income since 1975, answers two important tax policy questions about the effects of the 2013 tax increase on pre-tax incomes reported by the rich in the short term and the medium term. (See Figure 1.)
First, in the short-term, there is a clear surge in reported top incomes in 2012 in anticipation of the 2013 tax increase. The top 1 percent’s income share increases sharply, from 19.6 percent in 2011 to 22.8 percent in 2012—the largest year-to-year increase over the past 25 years—before falling sharply back to 20 percent in 2013. The stock market booms of the late 1990s and mid-2000s, and economic downturns of the early 2000s and late 2000s, produced large fluctuations in the top 1 percent’s share of national income. But this cannot be the explanation for the 2012-2013 pattern, as the U.S. economy was growing at a modest but regular pace between 2011 to 2015 and stock prices were increasing steadily during all of these years.
That unusual pattern in those two years is due to behavioral responses to taxation, in the form of income retiming. After President Obama was re-elected in early November 2012, it was virtually certain that top income tax rates would go up in 2013. For the rich, shifting $100 of income from 2013 to 2012 saves $9 in taxes for capital income (and $6 for labor income), which means the rich had strong incentives to accelerate their incomes into 2012 to benefit from the lower 2012 tax rates and avoid the higher 2013 tax rates.
Consistent with this explanation, further analysis shows that the spike in 2012 is due primarily to realized capital gains, which taxpayers can retime easily. But there is also retiming for other income categories, notably dividend income and to a lesser extent wages and salaries and business profits. This retiming response is large—income earners in the top 1 percent shifted about 10 percent of their income from 2013 into 2012. Lost government tax revenues, however, were modest as income shifted into 2012 still were taxed at the 2012 rates, which were about three-quarters of the 2013 tax rate. I estimate that, combining 2012 and 2013 federal individual income tax revenue, the government lost only about 20 percent of the projected revenue increase for 2013 due to these retiming responses.
What happened to top incomes in the medium-term? Figure 1 shows that the share of national income going to the top 1 percent income resumed its upward trend after 2013. By 2015, that share is back up to 22 percent. This means the 2013 tax increase depressed pre-tax top incomes only temporarily in 2013. This finding presents two important consequences. First, it means that raising taxes on the rich is an efficient way to raise additional revenue, as the rich do not respond much to the higher tax rates in the medium term. I estimate that only about 20 percent of the projected revenue increase from the 2013 tax hike is lost due to the behavioral responses over the medium term. Second, by itself, the 2013 tax increase will not be sufficient to curb the extraordinarily high level of pre-tax income concentration in the United States.
These findings echo the findings of earlier work analyzing the 1993 Clinton era tax increase, which also generated short-term retiming of top incomes into 1992 but did not prevent top income shares from surging in the mid-to-late 1990s. It is also striking that the best growth experience for the bottom 99 percent of income earners over the past 25 years took place in the mid-to-late 1990s and between 2013 and 2015—after tax increases on the rich. This suggests that taxing the rich more does not have detrimental effects on the broader economy; quite the contrary.
—Emmanuel Saez in a professor of economics at the University of California-Berkeley and a member of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s steering committeeCarlo Allegri / Reuters Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Florida on Wednesday.
Donald Trump on Wednesday gave one of his most off-the-wall press conferences to date. In addition to encouraging Russia to engage in cyberwarfare against the United States, the Republican nominee appeared to confuse Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D), with a one-time governor of New Jersey who left office more than 20 years ago.
Speaking at his Doral, Florida, resort, Trump also bragged about how many “Hispanics” he has working at the golf club. Then, as if to add insult to injury, he said President Barack Obama was “ignorant” and described how his foreign policy “just doesn’t jive.”
Trump may be taking more heat for his comments about Russia than he is for his jabs and insults against other people and groups, but these recent comments say a lot about the candidate. For anyone still hoping Trump might pivot into a more presidential mode after securing the GOP’s nomination: Good luck with that. On the contrary, it seems that winning the primary has only served to expand the range of targets for Trump’s attacks, anger and petulance.
Below are some of the hidden gems from Wednesday’s presser.
Trump tried a little Hispanic outreach.
“Doral is great,” he said. “I think I have over 1,000 Hispanics working at Doral, and they’re doing a great job.”
Never change, Donald.
He appeared not to know who Tim Kaine is. Or where Kaine comes from.
Trump: [Clinton’s] running mate, Tim Kaine, who by the way did a terrible job in New Jersey, the first act he did in New Jersey was ask for a $4 billion tax increase, and he was not very popular in New Jersey and he still isn’t. What? Reporter: You mean Virginia? Trump: I mean Virginia. The first thing he did, the first thing Tim Kaine did, he asked for a $4 billion tax increase. And he’s not very popular there. So let me just tell you. And I went all over Virginia, and I was there the other day, and I thought he’d be popular ― he’s not popular because he asked for tax increases.
Kaine is a senator ― and former governor ― from Virginia. New Jersey had a governor named Tom Kean a few decades ago, so there’s that?
OH MY GOD. @realDonaldTrump thinks Hillary chose Tom Kean for VP. https://t.co/MtAJSPq10j — Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) July 27, 2016
Trump told a female reporter to “be quiet.”
“Be quiet, I know you want to, you know, save her,” Trump told NBC News reporter Katy Tur, a snide suggestion that Tur supports Clinton.
It wasn’t the first time Trump had insulted Tur, a veteran foreign correspondent who has been embedded for months with the Trump campaign. Trump claimed in June that Tur “knows nothing about my campaign.... We don’t even let her in. We don’t talk to her, we don’t let people talk to her because she’s not a very good reporter.”
.@realDonaldTrump to reporter asking about #HillaryClinton: “Be quiet. I know you want to save her.” pic.twitter.com/2STy53l3V9 — Fox News (@FoxNews) July 27, 2016
It’s so hard to believe he’s not doing well with the women.
He said a Baltimore prosecutor should prosecute herself over her handling of the Freddie Gray case.
“I do have a reaction to the prosecutor in Baltimore who indicted those police officers, I do,” Trump said. “I think she ought to prosecute herself. OK, that’s my reaction. I think it was disgraceful what she did, and the way she did it, and the news conference that she had where they were guilty before anybody even knew the facts.”
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced on Wednesday that her office was dropping charges against the three remaining officers awaiting trial for their alleged role in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a fatal injury in police custody.
Prosecutors typically tend to act like they’re indicting defendants because those people are guilty. Some might say that is their job. But it’s clear that Trump doesn’t know much about the legal system.
Trump, a man who called for the Central Park Five to be put to death years before the group was exonerated, is one to caution about getting out the pitchforks.
Trump wasn’t quite sure who tried to kill Ronald Reagan.
“By the way, David Hinckley should not have been freed, OK?” he said. “David Hinckley was just released. John Hinckley. I think that John Hinckley, excuse me, John Hinckley should not have been freed. I just heard about it.”
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that John Hinckley Jr. could be released into his mother’s custody, 35 years after an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan wounded the then-president and three others.
Maybe Trump got him confused with David Brinkley, an OG of the liberal lamestream media.
At least Trump didn't say David Brinkley — jasoncherkis (@jasoncherkis) July 27, 2016
He also came out against email.
“I’m not an email person. I’m not an email person myself,” Trump said. “I don’t believe in it, because I think it can be hacked for one thing. But when I send an email I mean, if I send one ― I send one almost never, I’m just not a believer in email. A lot of people have taught me that, including Hillary. But honestly, it could be, maybe it’s hacked. Who knows?”
He clearly does not feel this way about Twitter.
Trump insulted Obama with this not-at-all loaded line.
“I think President Obama has been the most ignorant president in our history,” he said. “His views of the world, as he says, don’t jive.”
.@realDonaldTrump: "I think President Obama has been the most ignorant president in our history" pic.twitter.com/VYbhj2w1jc — BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) July 27, 2016
Yikes.
Trump just called Obama "the most ignorant president in our history" and the my ears are now bleeding from the dog whistle — Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) July 27, 2016
He accused Putin of using the “n-word” to describe Obama.
“Putin has said things over the last year that are really bad things, OK? He mentioned the n-word one time. I was shocked to hear him mention the n-word. You know what the n-word is, right? He mentioned it, I was shocked,” Trump said.
The “n-word” that has been most frequently associated with Putin and Obama’s relationship is “nuclear,” which certainly doesn’t seem to be what Trump was referring to.
Trump took credit for Clinton’s flip on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“She lied about TPP,” Trump said. “She was for TPP, she saw me on television knocking the hell out of it because it’s a horror show, it’s going to kill all our jobs, it’s going to be almost as bad as NAFTA, maybe worse which her husband signed, by the way, which destroyed this country, destroyed manufacturing in the United States.”
“She also saw me talking about TPP and currency manipulation and currency devaluation,” he added. “And she heard it and she said wow, she can’t win that subject in a debate.”
While serving as secretary of state, Clinton said the TPP “sets the gold standard” for trade deals. Last year, amid a heated primary campaign against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who ardently opposes the trade deal, Clinton said a closer inspection of the then-recently negotiated terms “didn’t meet [her] standards.”
Virginia governor and longtime Clinton confidante Terry McAuliffe said on Tuesday that the Democratic nominee would sign an altered version of the TPP if elected president. The Clinton campaign has denied this suggestion, and a spokesperson for McAuliffe later said that he was simply expressing what he wants Clinton to do.Deaf shelter dog needs our help
[frame src=”http://www.thatmutt.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Help-Sponsor-Paige.jpg” target=”_self” width=”585″ height=”357″ alt=”Help sponsor Paige” align=”center” prettyphoto=”false”]
Help sponsor Paige’s adoption fee and win great prizes from Spring Naturals and PoochPax!
*UPDATE: Paige’s and Buffy’s full adoption fees have been covered by a generous redditor. I am still collecting general donations to the Escondido Humane Society, and the next two people to donate $25 or more will receive great prizes from Spring Naturals and PoochPax.
Paige is my featured shelter dog for the month of May.
She is a 14-year-old pitbull/sharpei mix for adoption with Escondido (Calif.) Humane Society.
This senior lady is deaf and has been at the shelter since August.
I’m told she has a very fun attitude and just loves to cuddle. Look at that smile!
Her total adoption fee is now $0 thanks to a generous donor.
Sponsoring a dog’s adoption fee helps draw more attention to that particular dog. It also allows an approved adopter to take the dog home for little or no cost. In this case, I’m even hoping a blog reader in the area might adopt Paige!
How to donate to Paige’s adoption fee
The money to cover Pagie’s adoption fee has been raised, as well as the money to cover a second senior dog named Buffy. You can still donate any amount to the Escondido Humane Society using the PayPal button below, and 100 percent of the money will go to the shelter.
The next two people to donate $25 or more will receive some prizes. More info on the prizes below.
Raised so far: $110
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Prizes from Spring Naturals & PoochPax!
The next two people to donate $25 or more will receive a bag of treats from Spring Naturals and a coupon code to order a free box of goodies from PoochPax. (Must live in the United States to receive these prizes).
Spring Naturals treats are made with whole grains, real meat and fruits, according to its web site. Grain-free treats are also available. PoochPax is a monthly subscription box for dogs, and each box includes at least four toys and treats, according to the company.
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Quick stats about Paige
Breed: Pitbull/sharpei mix
Location: Escondido (Calif.) Humane Society (view her profile here)
Status: Available for adoption!
Amount of adoption fee sponsored: $55/$55
So, let’s spread the word about Paige! Nine months is a heck of a long time for any dog to spend in a shelter.
Do you know anyone who has adopted a senior dog?
View updates on my past sponsored shelter dogs:
Gemini has been adopted! / Mindy has been adopted! / Otis has been adopted!
Get That Mutt’s weekly news digest in your inbox:On Friday, after hearing from witnesses, including the old |
2000. “Reggie continued to take great interest in the club along with his wife Roberta. Results, fixtures, tables, etc were sent to Reggie via Roberta on a regular basis,” says the club’s defunct website. “Ashfield 95 will always be grateful for Reggie’s help when it was needed most.”
Long-running sponsorships
“I’m watching the Milan derby and it occurred to me that Inter have been sponsored by Pirelli for as long as I can remember,” writes Terence Davidson. “Is this the longest running active shirt sponsor? If not who is, and which company/club holds the all time record?”
“Inter have been sponsored by Pirelli since the 1995-96 season,” writes Dirk Maas. “As far as I know there are three teams that have a longer running active shirt sponsorship. VfL Wolfsburg have been sponsored by Volkswagen since the 1991-92 season (one of three logos on the shirt alongside VAG Bank and Audi, before becoming sole sponsor in 1993-94 – although ‘VAG’ stands for ‘Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft’, AG is the German equivalent of a public limited company, and that was the shirt sponsor in the 1988-89 season) and the kits of Gamba Osaka have had Panasonic on the front of the shirt since 1991. But, VW aside, the honour of longest-running active shirt sponsor would seem to go to Stranraer FC. The Scottish team have a partnership with Stena Line that goes to back to the 1988-89 season.”
Footballers with the shirt numbers to match their names | The Knowledge Read more
“McBurney Transport have been sponsoring Ballymena United shirts (in Northern Ireland’s top division) since January 1988 without break,” offers Neil Coleman. “This sponsorship was marked in unique style in 2012 (25th anniversary) with a specially commissioned lorry featuring artwork depicting some of the club’s best players.”
“If this question was asked last season, I’m quite sure the answer would have been: PSV Eindhoven,” states Stephan Wijnen. “‘PSV’ stands for ‘Philips Sport Vereniging’, founded by Philips in 1913 for its employees. Since the moment shirt sponsoring was allowed in The Netherlands, in 1982, Philips’ name has been on PSV’s shirts, until last summer when EnergieDirect.nl took over. So that’s 34 years. But Philips is therefore not the longest running active shirt sponsor …”
“I might have an answer,” mails Alan Gomes. “Revigrés began sponsoring FC Porto in 1983 – they were the first company to appear on the shirt of a Portuguese club. Porto’s shirt had no other sponsor for 20 years. Eventually the club’s European success made it too big for a small tiling company and, in 2004, Porto got a new main sponsor, a major telecoms company. However, in recognition of Revigrés’s role in the club’s expansion, Porto kept using the Revigrés logo on its shirts for some cup competitions for a few years more. This would bring the shirt sponsorship all the way to 29 years, which would beat the Inter-Pirelli connection by quite a bit.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Deco and Benni McCarthy wearing their Revigrés-sponsored Porto shirts in 2004. Photograph: Guilherme Venancio/AP
Knowledge archive
“This week Danish tennis world No1 Caroline Wozniacki – a Liverpool fan – warmed up in her Liverpool shirt before beating Nadia Petrova in Doha,” wrote Mikkel Andreas Beck in 2011. “Could the good readers of The Knowledge give more examples of other high-profile athletes who in similar ways have shown support for a football team?”
Wozniacki was far from the first sports star to show her colours on the court. Chris Chan notes that the fun-loving Jensen brothers, Luke and Murphy,wore USA jerseys in the 1994 US Open men’s doubles. “It’s World Cup year,” said Luke at the time. “I wanted to wear an Alexi Lalas jersey with the name and number, the whole thing and, of course, they wouldn’t allow us to wear the names and numbers on the back, but it was cool.” And Ian Poulter wore an Arsenal shirt during his third round at the 2006 Abu Dhabi Championship. “I just wanted to spice it up a bit and would be very disappointed if I was fined,” said Poulter. “I suppose if everyone turned up in the football shirt of the team they support, all hell would break loose. But it was just a bit of fun and I didn’t mean to upset anybody.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ian Poulter wears an Arsenal shirt during the first round of the Dubai Desert Classic in February 2006. Photograph: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.
Can you help?
“Does anyone know the first game in the UK when there was a minute’s applause?” asks William Paterson. “I have a vague inkling that it might have been at a match in tribute to George Best, to reflect his status as an entertainer, but am not sure if I’ve made this up.”
“While on holiday I was watching the Hull v Arsenal game at an Egyptian hotel,” reports Rob Smith. “After Theo Walcott scored for Arsenal, in perfect English the commentator declared: ‘God save the Queen.’ As far as I remember this was the only English quoted during the match. Was there any particular reason to quote the national anthem in this way, is this quoted often or was it likely to be a one-off? Are there any other phrases used by commentators when a particular player/nationality of player is involved?”
Which were the first football club to have an official website? | The Knowledge Read more
“Rugby was being played at Rugby Park on Saturday, which is unusual, as it’s the home ground of Kilmarnock FC,” notes John Spooner. “That led me to wonder if there are any other football grounds past or present which are named after other sports. All I could come up with were the Baseball Ground, the Racecourse Ground, and the Stade Vélodrome. I’m sure there must be more.”
“With Moise Kean of Juventus appearing and being the first top-flight player to be born in 2000, I was wondering who the last players to play in the Premier League to be born in the 50s, 60s and 70s were?” wonders Tom Worsley.
“As a slight variation on the most headed goals research … I was present at the 1963 Amateur Cup final (Wimbledon 4-2 Sutton United) when all four of Wimbledon’s goals were headed home by centre forward Eddie Reynolds,” writes Keith Whitmee. “Are there any examples greater than four of one player scoring all of his team’s goals in one match with his head?”
Send your questions and answers to [email protected] or tweet @TheKnowledge_GU.Divers found the oldest known fixed fish traps in northern Europe off the coast of southern Sweden six years ago. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have been working hard since then, uncovering a Stone Age site that is exceptionally well preserved. They have now concluded that the site was a lagoon environment where Mesolithic humans lived during parts of the year.
Anton Hansson, PhD student in Quaternary geology at Lund University explained that as geologists, they wanted to recreate the area and understand how it looked. One spectacular find made at the site is a pickaxe made out of elk antlers that is 9,000 years old. The find indicates that this was a semi-permanent settlement as mass fishing was likely done.
The findings were preserved deep below the surface of Hanö Bay in the Baltic Sea due to changes in the sea level. The team has drilled into the seabed and the core extracted was radiocarbon dated. They have also examined diatoms and pollen, and have revealed depth variations by producing a bathymetrical map.
Hansson explains that although these sites have been known before, it was only through scattered finds. The technology for more detailed interpretations of the landscape has only recently become available.
In order to understand how humans dispersed from Africa fully, all their settlements have to be found. Humans have always preferred coastal sites, and as the sea level is higher today than during the last glaciation, numerous of these settlements are now under water.This animated sequence of images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows northern terrain on the sunlit side of dwarf planet Ceres. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is now closing in on its first science-collecting orbit of Ceres, the uncharted dwarf planet that sits in our solar system's asteroid belt. It has spent a month on the dark side of the planet since entering its orbit, and just days ago it released its first images since March. The animation above represents the last batch of photos taken for the purpose of navigating Dawn into its closer orbit. In a few days, the spacecraft will be close enough to start collecting data and taking even better photos of the planet.
[NASA’s Dawn sends back stunning new picture of Ceres after a month on the dark side]
The shots were taken on April 14 and 15 from 14,000 miles above Ceres's northern hemisphere. In the last few frames of the animation, you can catch the bright feature known as "spot 5." It actually turned out to be two spots -- two highly reflective areas located inside a large crater -- but scientists still have no idea what the features are. These are by far the brightest spots we've seen on Ceres, but similar spots seem quite common on the planet's surface.
[That spooky white spot on Ceres? New photos show two of them.]
When the spacecraft enters its first science orbit on April 23, it will be just 8,400 miles above the surface -- hopefully close enough for NASA scientists to identify what the spots are, or at least close enough that they'll have more clues. But if that's not close enough, one of Dawn's subsequent lower orbits may do the trick.
Want more space? Give these a click:
Spacecraft Dawn has arrived at Ceres, one of solar system’s last unexplored planets
NASA’s Messenger spacecraft is about to crash into Mercury
NASA’s New Horizons sends back its first color image of Pluto and Charon
Scientists are creating the first maps of the universe’s dark matterDetroit's city-owned art collection is worth between $452 million and $866 million, far less than most expected, according to a preliminary estimate by Christie's auction house.
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr hired Christie's in August, noting then that the appraisal of the work was necessary as part of bankruptcy proceedings although there were no set plans to sell the art.
A possible art sale to help the city close its huge fiscal gap has been a flashpoint in Detroit's bankruptcy, which a judge ruled could proceed despite challenges from creditors.
On Wednesday, Christie's said it had reviewed nearly 2,800 works that were either purchased entirely or partially with city funds. That represents a fraction of the 66,000 pieces in the Detroit Institute of Arts collection.
Christie's added that 75% of the city-owned art's value came from 11 pieces currently on display in the museum.
The auction house said it would release a full report to Orr and the public the week of Dec. 16.
"The purpose for which Christie's was retained was to get a fair market valuation of the city-purchased works that are part of the city's collection," an Orr spokesman said Wednesday. "We have that now and it will be used in determining how best to monetize the value of the city's asset."
Related: Detroit can proceed with bankruptcy
Christie's added that it had determined five possible ways the art could be used to help the city pay its bills without selling it, details of which will be in its full report.
In a statement, the Detroit Institute of Arts reiterated its position that "the museum collection is a cultural resource, not a municipal asset."
Orr has proposed cutting $11.5 billion of the city's $18 billion debt to $2 billion. That could mean deep cuts in pension and retiree health care benefits promised to current and former city employees and slashed payments due to holders of city bonds.Merit is too often trumped by political considerations in judicial appointments, leaders in the legal community say in calling for the federal government to overhaul the process.
Among the simpler proposals: Putting ordinary Canadians on the committees that screen future judges, and restoring the right of these committees to say which ones they "highly recommend." They are now limited to recommend or not recommend.
Some legal observers say the importance of politics in appointments could be further reduced by adopting models like Ontario's, or Britain's, in which independent committees give short lists of candidates from which the government must choose. Still, other critics like the current model, but say the justice minister needs to act as an impartial leader in the legal system, taking less direction from the prime minister.
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The Conservative government has appointed about 600 of the country's 840 full-time federally appointed judges, on provincial courts of appeal, superior courts and the Federal Court. The Globe reported this weekend, based on extensive interviews with participants in the closed-door appointment process, that the government has tried to reshape the judiciary by looking for cautious, technically minded judges it believes will be less inclined to challenge its tough crime laws and defend individual rights. The judges can remain on the bench until the age of 75, and form an important legacy for Prime Minister Stephen Harper as they continue to issue judgments even if other parties form government.
"Merit in judicial appointments has given way to ideology. Some legacy!" Toronto lawyer Ron Atkey, a former Progressive Conservative MP and cabinet minister who has been involved in the appointments of judges, said by e-mail.
J.J. Camp, a Vancouver lawyer and former president of the Canadian Bar Association, which represents 37,000 lawyers, said in an interview he is fearful that "we are not getting the best and the brightest anymore. I think it's driven in part by a government agenda that is concerned about activist judges."
Under the current system, judicial advisory committees composed of legal and judicial experts make recommendations to the government on whom to appoint. Of the 300 judges recommended by screening committees across the country in 2013-14, the government appointed 65, after a process involving recommendations from cabinet ministers serving as scouts in each region, scrutiny by the justice minister and the Prime Minister's Office, and a decision by cabinet.
"Judicial appointments are a matter for the executive and will continue to be," the Justice Minister's office said in a statement.
"All judges are appointed based on merit and legal excellence and on recommendations made by the 17 Judicial Advisory Committees across Canada."
The system's chief weakness, according to Michele Hollins, the Canadian Bar Association's current president, is that what happens after the judicial advisory committees make their recommendations is a mystery.
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"What happens after that is particularly difficult to decipher. It is shrouded in secrecy and I think leaves too much room for people to imagine what's going on."
The screening committees were established by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in 1988 to be a neutral, independent voice in the process. That came after a Canadian Bar Association report in 1985 found that appointments were "overly dominated by political considerations." The committees had representatives of law societies, bar associations, provincial governments, a chief justice or other judge and federal representatives. To that, Mr. Harper's Conservatives, in the first year they came to office, added a police representative and took away the judge's vote – giving federal appointees a majority vote. They also took away the "highly recommended" category. In 2013-14, there were 75 "highly recommended" judges, or about enough to fill all positions.
The screening committee "is the most politically neutral part of the process. It seems to me that you'd want the very best intelligence from that level," Ms. Hollins said in an interview, calling for the "highly recommended" category to be restored.
Among the bar association's wide-ranging proposals for change, she would like to see non-lawyers on the committees. "If you're talking about Canadians having confidence in the process, I don't know why you wouldn't consider that."
Archie Kaiser, a law professor at Dalhousie University's Schulich law school, called for the creation of an all-party committee to study the best models in Canada and abroad for judicial appointments. He said the system "routinely betrays the principle that the public deserves the best qualified judges, for indefensible reasons."
William Trudell, chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, was a member of Ontario's judicial screening committee for five years. "It was probably one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. There was no politics in that room."
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Mr. Atkey said that people close to the process have told him that under the current system, "Everything is run out of the PMO [Prime Minister's Office]. I think the Minister of Justice is just a figurehead and if the Minister of Justice wanted to appoint somebody that was unacceptable to the PMO he wouldn't. And the converse is true. If the PMO wants somebody and the Minister of Justice doesn't get particularly good vibes or reports, too bad."Dragon Ball FighterZ Producer On Creating A Core Fighting Game And Character Variety
By Al Yang. June 23, 2017. 1:00pm
Bandai Namco and Guilty Gear developer Arc System Works are teaming up to make Dragon Ball FighterZ. While other Dragon Ball games like the Xenoverse series were designed for a broader audience, Dragon Ball FighterZ is designed as a competitive fighting game. Siliconera spoke with Tomoko Hiroki from Bandai Namco about the game’s 3-on-3 combat system and how they turning the Z-Warriors into fighting game characters.
Previously, Dragon Ball games like the Budokai series and Xenoverse were 3D and casual fighting games while Dragon Ball FighterZ is designed to be a hardcore 3v3 fighter. What was the reason behind this change?
Tomoko Hiroki, Producer: We know the previous game Dragon Ball Xenoverse was even a challenge for us and through that challenge we were able to bring in new fans. Now that we have a broad audience, thanks to Dragon Ball Xenoverse, we thought it would be the right time to make this game since there are a lot of fans who say 2D fighting is the root of Dragon Ball and we think so too as well.
One of our goals for Dragon Ball FighterZ is to aim for the core fighting game audience and eventually we would like to make those casual Dragon Ball fans into core fighting gamers. Since eSports is very huge and within the fighting genre it’s quite large too and combining that with a beloved franchise all over the world would be a great fit.
Are there plans on the eSports side to create tournaments or bring the game to EVO?
We are strongly considering it, but we would like to listen to user feedback first.
How did you build the combat system with Arc System Works? Was it taking the Guilty Gear series to the next level or was the system built from the ground up?
We were thinking from building the game from scratch. There are systems from the Guilty Gear series. For example, Guilty Gear and this game as well have high speed battles even compared to other fighting games. That kind of DNA comes from the developers.
When we are looking at the current roster shown at E3, the characters feel quite similar since everyone has a rush attack with the Dragon Rush and fireball attacks. Are there plans to have characters that are different from the line up?
When you think about a fighting game with original characters, the developers think about how the characters should move or fight then create the character based on that design. But for a franchise that already exists like Dragon Ball everyone knows what a character is like ahead of time. It was difficult to bring that into a fighting game since people have an idea of how those characters fight already.
What we did is we went even deeper in the Dragon Ball anime and gathered small details that we haven’t been able to reproduce in previous Dragon Ball games and we believe by doing that we have been able to create something new. Even though we are trying our best to create each character so they are individual and different from one other we believe that with the combinations in the 3v3 system we can make the battle system even deeper. Depending on what the opponent is using we can change our character to turn the tables on them.
For the six characters we have shown so far, maybe Majin Boo is unique, but the other characters are similar. Although we want to say who the new characters are we can promise they are very unique and not standard at all. Please look forward to that.
Does Dragon Ball FighterZ take a character’s power level into account? For example, could Yamcha actually beat Goku in this game?
We’re trying to balance that out with the 3v3 aspect. There may be characters that are better at assisting or supporting than fighting. It could destroy the image of Dragon Ball if, for example, a weak character could destroy Goku. Thanks to the 3v3 feature we can balance that out with the Dragon Ball universe.
Does that mean there are some characters with supportive assists that can buff another character or heal a character instead of fighting?
There aren’t characters that are only specific for assisting, but basically each of the characters have different supporting skills. We can’t go into the details because we can’t reveal the entire roster. We can tell you it isn’t just coming out and dealing attacks and it is very different across the characters.
Out of all of the new features in Dragon Ball FighterZ, what do you think will affect casual players and hardcore players the most?
First for casual users, we can imagine the hurdle of a fighting game can be quite high. We made it so the controls aren’t too complicated this way you can feel you’re controlling the anime with your hands. While this may not be a feature, this may be one of the big things that catch the hearts of Dragon Ball fans.
For the core audience, we believe the fit of a 3v3 fighting game and Dragon Ball is a good match. One thing we have heard is there is no time to do a ki charge. Since it’s a high speed battle we agree there is limited time to do this even if you want to charge up your gauge. Since this is a 3v3 fighting game you can use an assist attack to connect your combo or have the assist character go between you and your opponent so you can back up and charge your ki gauge. I believe the assist system will be interesting for core gamers.
Do you have any assists that change depending on your team make up, like using the Father-Son Kamehameha?
We don’t have specific cut scenes and unfortunately we couldn’t have this in the build today, but the characters have actions when they tag in and out. For example, if Gohan comes out Goku screams his name. If Vegeta tags out Goku, he says Kakarot instead of Goku. We want to make rich interactions like this, but we don’t have specific character team ups since that could change the balance of which characters you use.
When playing the game I noticed two characters can clash and then break apart. How does that happen in the game?
That happens when you do the Dragon Rush at the same time. The Dragon Rush kind of plays a role of a throw when you both throw at the same time that even occurs.
Sparking kind of reminds me of the X-Factor from Marvel vs. Capcom 3. This triggers health regeneration does it have other abilities?
You can use this ability one time per battle with all three characters. In addition to recovering health you also power up characters, but we are still working on balancing that. Since you can only use this once the timing of when you use it is really important.
In the casual Dragon Ball games there is story content where characters can grow and get stronger. Are there plans to include deep single player story content or is the focus on player vs. player?
It’s true we are focusing on combat. That is why we are not putting in a level up or customization system so you can win with your gameplay skills. We will have a rich single player mode so it won’t be difficult for fans to go in, but we can’t go into details right now. We were kind of greedy, but we want to appeal to casual Dragon Ball fans and hardcore fans as well. We have been working on the balance for both audiences.
Will there be content from Dragon Ball Super in the game?
This is just the first announcement so we can’t reveal that yet. But, we can say we are choosing characters so a broad generation of fans will be satisfied. Please look forward to future announcements.
Who is your favorite character?
Gohan. I recently had a daughter and she is two years old. As I watch her grow up it reminds me of Gohan. He’s smart and strong, maybe not as strong in the recent episodes, but he’s tough.
What is your favorite Dragon Ball arc in the story?
My favorite, because of love Gohan, is the Cell arc from Dragon Ball Z and when he started going to high school as Super Saiyaman.
Can you tell us one character that definitely won’t be in the game?
[Laughs] One that defiantly won’t be in the game… we’re not going to have Taopaipai in the game.The little health clinic in the town of Tanauan, on the rural island of Leyte, is often so full of patients that some have to wait outside.
Ryan Almirez is one of only two doctors steadily working his way through the crowds.
Technically, he is still a trainee and due to qualify next year. But he's already seen as an essential member of the team.
The people of Tanauan are lucky to have Ryan.
Most of us come from poor families. We wouldn't have become health professionals if it were not for the school Dean of the school Salvador Destura
Most Philippine doctors prefer to work in the cities, where they can supplement their government incomes by taking on private patients.
Still others - at least 11,000 since 2000 - have retrained as nurses and gone abroad, earning four or five times as much as they would as a doctor back at home.
But Ryan is not a typical medical student, and neither will he become a typical doctor.
Community spirit
He is enrolled in the University of the Philippines' School of Health Sciences, which is based down the road from Tanauan.
Image caption Ryan's clinic is popular
The school has a very different approach from a traditional medical course. Students come from rural areas, train in rural areas and the vast majority, an estimated 98%, work in rural areas after they have qualified.
"Students are sent, or nominated, by their communities," explained Dr Meredith del Pilar, who teaches at the school.
"There's an agreement between the school, the student and the community that after the programme the student will go back to serve in their community."
There's another major difference too - the school has what it calls a stepladder curriculum.
Midwives
Students entering the school first do a midwifery course. When they've passed that, they can carry on to a nursing programme if both they and their community agrees. In the same way, after qualifying as nurses, they can move up to the medical programme.
"We have some students who go straight up to medicine. But most of the time the students are called back to the community to serve as midwives or nurses first, before they go into the medical programme," said Dr Del Pilar.
Everything is based on what each community needs, and according to one of the best-known alumni of the school, its new dean Salvador Destura, this affects the whole ethos of the programme.
"As soon as we arrived it was made clear to us that we were entering the school not because of us, but we carry our communities with us," he said.
Image caption New dean Salvador Destura has high hopes
"Most of us come from poor families. We wouldn't have become health professionals if it were not for the school."
When a community nominates a student, it pays for at least part of their tuition.
For students like Jec Pane, from a small remote island in the impoverished south, this was a major financial undertaking for everyone in his village.
"We talked in our community… about their obligations. You need to have at least 75% of the households, you need to gain their signature. I was able to do that," he said proudly.
Jec, like Ryan, will finally become a doctor later this year, but it has taken him more than 10 years to get this far. He's already worked as a nurse in his community, and also taken time out to help in his father's farm.
Other countries
It might be an unconventional education, but Dean Destura believes that other countries might also benefit from the scheme.
"It needs to be adjusted to the culture of each country, but the basic concept of the government recruiting students to become health professionals so they will go back and help their communities - I think that concept is very applicable in many places," he said.
Groups in Guam, East Timor and Australia's Aboriginal community have already contacted, expressing interest.
The ultimate test of the school's success, though, is what the patients think.
Image caption Mother Lorna is grateful to have somebody in the community who is medically trained
While visiting Ryan Almirez in Tanauan, I saw him treat five-year-old Lyka-Mae Redonia, who was suffering from a fever and a bad cough.
Later in the day we went to visit Lyka-Mae and her mother Lorna, in their simple wooden and corrugated iron house.
Lyka-Mae was already looking better, and Lorna was grateful for Ryan's medical skills.
"It's good to have these doctors," she said. "They're good at helping us identify our health problems. And they live near us - they see us around - they know us."Dozens of pieces have been donated by the bank to a local cancer research institute and a handful of non-profits. But the majority, hundreds of art works, can be found at Dana Tillou Fine Arts, an ornate 19th-century brick house that has sold mostly antique art for decades.
For most Buffalonians, that sculpture is the final artistic remains of Marine Midland Bank, a local institution founded in 1850 that grew to become a national brand with billions in assets. But now that HSBC, which acquired the company in 1980, has moved out of the skyline-dominating tower that once bore its name, a vast collection of art has unexpectedly fallen into the hands of local collectors and non-profits.
In the windy, desolate public plaza surrounding Buffalo's tallest building is an imposing minimalist art piece called (quite fittingly) " Vroom, Shhh." It's a reminder of America's mid-century corporate tastes - modernism that often translated better into museum pieces than cityscapes.
The roots of the collection (mostly assembled between 1920 and 1980) can be traced back to the bank's days under Seymour Knox II, an art aficionado who almost single-handedly turned the city's art museum into a critical modern art institution. He donated more than 160 works there, including pieces by Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol (whose portrait of Knox can be found there as well). In his honor, the Albright Art Gallery changed its name to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1962.
Knox's love for contemporary art was also reflected in the halls of Marine Midland Center (a 40-floor late modernist tower built in 1972) and its branches around upstate New York. Works by Richard Anuszkiewicz, Ellsworth Kelly, Hugo Scheiber and Alfred Jensen, once only visible to bank employees, now fill Tillou's small gallery from floor to ceiling. Everything can be purchased; pieces by Sol LeWitt and Victor Vasarely have already sold.
A recent Saturday around the nearly vacant office tower HSBC called home in Buffalo for 41 years. It moved out two weeks ago..
Though its former office tower is almost entirely empty, HSBC hasn't abandoned Buffalo altogether. The bank has consolidated its local workforce into a small, glass structure down the street and an even smaller brick building in the suburbs; a devolution that puts the international banking giant's Buffalo presence on par with other back-office operations of out-of-town companies.
The art collection, slowly spreading to homes and offices around the city, feels like a bittersweet glimpse of a version of Buffalo that hardly exists today. And it's a reminder that, one time, a corporate titan thought his workers, from teller to accountant, should experience international, modern art every day at the office on the chairman's dime.“Yes, I’m serious,” she flatly replied.
I launched, predictably, into a lecture about what prosecutors would do to people if they actually tried to stand up for their rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including the right to be informed of charges against them, to an impartial, fair and speedy jury trial, to cross-examine witnesses and to the assistance of counsel.
But in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical. More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.
“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. In other words: the system is rigged.
In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors.
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The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
No wonder, then, that most people waive their rights. Take the case of Erma Faye Stewart, a single African-American mother of two who was arrested at age 30 in a drug sweep in Hearne, Tex., in 2000. In jail, with no one to care for her two young children, she began to panic. Though she maintained her innocence, her court-appointed lawyer told her to plead guilty, since the prosecutor offered probation. Ms. Stewart spent a month in jail, and then relented to a plea. She was sentenced to 10 years’ probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. Then her real punishment began: upon her release, Ms. Stewart was saddled with a felony record; she was destitute, barred from food stamps and evicted from public housing. Once they were homeless, Ms. Stewart’s children were taken away and placed in foster care. In the end, she lost everything even though she took the deal.
On the phone, Susan said she knew exactly what was involved in asking people who have been charged with crimes to reject plea bargains, and press for trial. “Believe me, I know. I’m asking what we can do. Can we crash the system just by exercising our rights?”
The answer is yes. The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, “if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos.”
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Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat). Either action would create a crisis and the system would crash — it could no longer function as it had before. Mass protest would force a public conversation that, to date, we have been content to avoid.
In telling Susan that she was right, I found myself uneasy. “As a mother myself, I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t plead guilty to if a prosecutor told me that accepting a plea was the only way to get home to my children,” I said. “I truly can’t imagine risking life imprisonment, so how can I urge others to take that risk — even if it would send shock waves through a fundamentally immoral and unjust system?”
Susan, silent for a while, replied: “I’m not saying we should do it. I’m saying we ought to know that it’s an option. People should understand that simply exercising their rights would shake the foundations of our justice system which works only so long as we accept its terms. As you know, another brutal system of racial and social control once prevailed in this country, and it never would have ended if some people weren’t willing to risk their lives. It would be nice if reasoned argument would do, but as we’ve seen that’s just not the case. So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives.”In football these days, it is growing exceedingly difficult for a youngster who joined a club’s academy as a child to go on and make a first team appearance for the same club. Many teams are transferring their youths, looking to grab the next big thing. But there are some times that a player is so special that very early on they grab a club’s attention and do not let go. Jorge Resurecciòn Merodio, aka Koke, is one such player.
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Koke, a native born resident of Madrid, joined Atletico Madrid’s youth ranks at the age of 8. In 2008, when K |
make sure you deliver for the people of Illinois.”
Duckworth said she thinks Kirk is “perfectly capable of doing his job.” He interrupted with a joke.
“I would say we both agree on one key point: that we both agree the next senator of Illinois should use a wheelchair,” Kirk said.
Kirk gave no clarity during the debate on whom he will support for president, other than to reiterate that he revoked his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in June. Kirk said Wednesday he didn’t know who he was voting for.
Duckworth said she already cast an early ballot for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
According to HuffPost Pollster, which aggregates publicly available polls, Duckworth leads Kirk by nearly 9 points.
UPDATE: Oct. 28 ― Kirk apologized to Duckworth on Twitter on Friday afternoon, more than 12 hours after he made the remark.
Sincere apologies to an American hero, Tammy Duckworth, and gratitude for her family's service. #ilsen — Mark Kirk (@MarkKirk) October 28, 2016
On Friday afternoon, Duckworth thanked Kirk for the apology.By: Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 06/01/2012 04:01 PM EDT on LiveScience
The percentage of Americans who believe God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years is about the same as it was 30 years ago, a new survey indicates.
Today, 46 percent of Americans accept this creationist explanation for human existence, a negligible change from the 44 percent who said they agreed with it in 1982, according to Gallup polls.
In the most recent poll, conducted by phone in May, 15 percent of Americans fell on the other end of the spectrum, saying they believed God played no part in human evolution, a process that had taken millions of years. Nearly all of the rest of the respondents, 32 percent, choose the third option, saying they believed humans had evolved, but that God had guided the process, a belief called "theistic evolution."
Beginning in 1982, Gallup has asked Americans which of these three explanations of human origins they believe. With respect to the original numbers, a slight shift showed up this year with regard to those who agreed that humans evolved without God, which was above the 30-year average, and the theistic evolution explanation, which was below the average.
Not surprisingly, the poll found that Americans who attend church regularly, particularly those who attended on a weekly basis, were much more likely to hold creationist views.
Republicans are also the most strongly creationist, but this belief was also the most prevalent among Independents and Democrats compared with other beliefs held by the two groups.
People with postgraduate degrees stood out because they favored evolution (29 percent) over creationism (25 percent), although most (42 percent) said they believed God guided human evolution. More than half of people with a high school education or less said they believed God created humans.
The USA Today/Gallup phone survey was conducted using a random sample of 1,012 adults, living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
You can follow LiveScience writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.An outbreak of bitter recrimination has erupted among politicians and delegates following the drawing up of the Copenhagen accord for tackling climate change.
The deal, finally hammered out early yesterday, had been expected to commit countries to deep cuts in carbon emissions. In the end, it fell short of this goal after China fought hard against strong US pressure to submit to a regime of international monitoring.
The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, walked out of the conference at one point, and sent a lowly protocol officer to negotiate with Barack Obama. In the end, a draft agreement put forward by China – and backed by Brazil, India and African nations – commits the world to the broad ambition of preventing global temperatures from rising above 2C. Crucially, however, it does not force any nation to make specific cuts.
"For the Chinese, this was our sovereignty and our national interest," said Xie Zhenhua, head of China's delegation.
Last night, some delegates were openly critical of China for its intransigence. Asked by the Observer who was to blame for blocking the introduction of controlled emissions, the director general of the Swedish environment protection agency, Lars-Erik Liljelund, replied: "China. China doesn't like numbers." At the same time, others have criticised the Americans for pushing China too hard.
"President Obama's speech blaming China didn't help," says John Prescott, writing in today's Observer.
The accord was formally recognised after a dramatic all-night plenary session, during which the Danish chairman was forced to step aside, a Venezuelan delegate cut her hand, and Britain's climate and energy secretary, Ed Miliband, salvaged the deal just as it appeared on the verge of being rejected.
The tumultuous events concluded a fortnight of fraught and sometimes machiavellian negotiations that saw a resurgent China link forces with India, Brazil and African states to thwart efforts by rich nations to steamroller through a binding treaty that would suit their interests.
Although hailed by Obama, the deal has been condemned by activists and NGOs, while the European commission's president, José Manuel Barroso, admitted he was disappointed after EU attempts to introduce long-term targets for reducing global emissions by 50% by 2050 were blocked.
Last night Miliband was being credited with helping to rescue the summit from disaster. He had been preparing to go to bed at 4am, after the main accord had been agreed, only to be called by officials and warned that several countries were threatening to veto its signature.
Miliband returned to the conference centre in time to hear Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping comparing the proposed agreement to the Holocaust. He said the deal "asked Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries". A furious Miliband intervened and dismissed Di-Aping's claims as "disgusting".
This was "a moment of profound crisis", Miliband told delegates. The proposed deal was by no means perfect, and would have many problems, he admitted. "But it is a document that in substantive ways will make the lives of people around this planet better because it puts into effect fast-start finance of $30bn; it puts into effect a plan for $100bn of long-term public and private finance." The deal was then agreed by delegates.
The accord makes reference to the need to keep temperature rises to no more than 2C, and says rich countries will commit to cutting greenhouse gases, and developing nations will take steps to limit the growth of their emissions. Countries will be able to set out their pledges for action in an appendix. In addition, there are provisions for short-term finance of up to $10bn a year over three years to help poorer countries fight climate change, and a long-term funding package worth $100bn a year by 2020.
However, the original plan was for the Copenhagen talks to deliver a comprehensive, legally binding international deal to tackle climate change. This has not materialised and last night leaders of NGOs united in condemning the limited nature of the deal.
"This accord is not legally binding, it's a political statement," said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International. "This is a disaster for the poor nations – the urgency of climate change was not really considered."
Dame Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's chief executive, agreed. "World leaders in Copenhagen seem to have forgotten that they were not negotiating numbers, they were negotiating lives," she said.In this year’s NHL Entry Draft, the New York Islanders selected highly touted forward prospect Joshua Ho-Sang with the 28th pick. In this past season, his second with the Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League, he tallied 53 assists and 85 points in 67 games, and tied for the team lead with 32 goals. While those numbers may jump out at most scouts and high ranking NHL officials, it is sometimes Ho-Sang’s attitude off the rink which gets him into hot water.
Ho-Sang, as talented as he may be, gets into trouble sometimes from using his mouth more than his actions on the ice. He is cocky, he is aggressive, and he is also 18 years old. Ho-Sang’s draft stock may have fell a bit due to his antics, as many NHL teams felt that a player with his personality was not needed in their locker room. But what you cannot take away is the immense talent Ho-Sang is displaying at such a young age. He has already impressed the Islanders top brass with what he has been able to do at prospect camps and the organization is excited for his future.
When Ho-Sang was snubbed from being invited to Hockey Canada’s camp, many saw it as the death blow for his future in hockey. But what is also made many realize is that hockey needs to change, and that a player of Ho-Sang’s talent and personality can breathe life into a sport that has battles to be big in North America.
Yet, if Ho-Sang has any hopes of becoming an NHL mainstay one day, he must change his attitude. In a League full of athletes where humble is a common characteristic among them all, it certainly raises eyebrows when a player of not only Ho-Sang’s skill but personality comes along. Would a player who is not afraid to speak his mind be welcome in the NHL, or would too much be a detriment to a career? When looking at Montreal Canadiens star defenseman P.K. Subban, comparisons can be drawn between Subban and Ho-Sang, and their journey to the NHL.
When Subban was a highly sought after prospect, he was outspoken and confident in his playing ability. Many felt this would not work in today’s NHL. However, since he has joined the Canadiens, he has not only become a fan favorite and elite defenseman in the league, but the Canadiens organization has put enough faith in him to be the future leader and star of the team, recently signing him to a 8 year, $72 million contract.
Some can even draw comparisons to a little player from the past called Maurice Richard. Richard was another player not afraid to speak his mind, and even personally took on the league at some points in his career and attacked top NHL officials such as then commissioner Clarence Campbell. Yet the love Habs fans felt for Richard knew no limits. They only cared about what he did on the ice.
Ho-Sang represents a new guard of NHL players coming into the league, and that may scare some. Going from players of humble beginnings to players who are not afraid to shoot the puck, and their mouths off, are out of the norm of what is expected from an NHL player, both on and off the ice. But the game must change if it has any hopes of competing with the big, untouchable markets of the NFL, NBA, and even MLB.
But where is the fear for Ho-Sang and his personality coming from? He has been nothing but impressive in his time in the OHL, and going into the draft many fans felt he could be the next big star for their teams. However, Ho-Sang was seen as a black mark among many clubs, and was listed on many do not draft lists. Now, a history of problems such as drugs or alcohol would solidify this, but he has a clean sheet in terms of those issues. Ho-Sang’s only problem seemingly is that he is outspoken and sometimes does too much on the ice. That is not enough of a reason for a professional club or even a prestigious organization as Hockey Canada to not pick a player that can help them.
You want to know who also did things too much at times but was never ostracized for it? Bobby Orr, and that’s all that needs to be said about that. Subban brings an exciting level of passion and skill to the game. At points he wants to take over games, and that is not a bad thing, but it must come at the right time. Joshua Ho-Sang is similar in that regard, and should be given his chance to prove himself. A player of his talent and personality can breathe life into the NHL and make it more exciting for not only the casual hockey fan, but the diehards as well.#BREAKING | Sukma district in Chhattisgarh state, India. (Source: Google Maps)
Seven personnel of Chhattisgarh’s elite Special Task Force were killed and 10 injured in a Maoist ambush Saturday morning in Sukma in south Bastar, in the biggest attack on security forces this year in the state.
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The bodies had not been recovered until Saturday night. The spot of the ambush, in forests near Pidmel village, is about 11 km from the Kankerlanka police camp.
This is the STF’s single-biggest casualty in a day in several years. The men, numbering around 60, were attacked between 9 am and 10 am by cadres suspected to belong to the CPI (Maoist)’s South Bastar battalion, headed by Hidma.
List showing names of dead.
The STF personnel were forced to retreat, leaving the dead behind. Maoists also looted several quality weapons and ammunition.
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A massive contingent of forces is now being deployed to retrieve the bodies, but the exercise will have to wait until Sunday morning, almost 24 hours after the encounter.
[related-post]
Among the deceased was STF Platoon Commander Shankar Rao, called ‘Fighter Rao’ by his colleagues. “He was extremely courageous. We lost a brave personnel,” said R K Vij, ADG (Naxal Ops).
The others killed were Head Constables Rohit Sori, Mohan Uike and Manoj Baghel, and Constables Rajman Tekam, Kiran Deshmukh and Rajkumar Markam.
Rao had left the Polampalli police camp with his team around 2.30 am Saturday, and headed into interior forests. While some police officers said the Platoon Commander was acting on a specific intelligence input, others questioned the wisdom of going into the forest at that time of the night with just 60 men.
After the first encounter in which most deaths happened, the STF men tried to retreat but continued to face Maoist fire for nearly an hour more. A couple of more men died in these encounters.
Injured cops reach a police camp in Sukma.
The injured personnel reached Kankerlanka in the afternoon, and were airlifted to Raipur hours later. They have been admitted to a private hospital.
“Sahab (Rao) was killed in the first burst of fire. They surrounded us from all sides and fired,” said an injured Constable.
STF personnel are handpicked and then receive special anti-Naxal training. Of late, it has undertaken a series of operations in interior areas.
The encounter will come as a blow at a time when the force is facing a severe shortage of officers. It has two battalions but only ADG Vij, who also looks after Naxal operations and the Special Intelligence Branch, and a DIG and two SPs to head them.
It was in the same area, Sukma, that the CRPF had lost 14 personnel last December, while in 2010, Naxals had killed 76 security personnel there in their biggest ever attack.
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Chief Minister Raman Singh got a call from Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the encounter and held a high-level meeting with senior officers in the evening. “Extra CRPF teams have been rushed to the spot,” Rajnath Singh tweeted.
Major Maoist attacks in Sukma earlier
1. April 2010: 76 personnel killed
2. April 2012: Collector Alex Paul Menon abducted
3. March 2014: 15 state police and CRPF men were killed
4. Dec 2014: 14 CRPF personnel killed
5. April 2015: 7 STF men killedOn Tuesday’s “CNN Tonight with Don Lemon,” Paul Nehlen, the primary challenger of House Speaker Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), said Ryan “owns” Trade Promotion Authority and “should be reporting in-kind contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign” as the “mercenary champion for working against Donald Trump every opportunity he gets.”
Nehlen said Ryan has “never worked as hard for Wisconsin or American workers as he has for his corporate donors.” And “I’ve been focused on trade deals, bad trade deals that Paul Ryan’s pushing and immigration policies, enforcing existing immigration law. … I’m knocking doors and talking to residents here about creating jobs. I’ve run Fortune 500 businesses all over the globe. I’ve brought manufacturing back from Mexico. I brought manufacturing back from Canada. I’ve closed businesses and brought those jobs back to the United States. Paul Ryan keeps ducking me on having a debate here. He’s on a break right now, he’s been in the district, and he’s ducking me on a debate. Paul Ryan wants to talk about anything other than his policies. We need to have a debate here in Wisconsin in front of Wisconsinites on this trade deal. It’s a terrible trade deal. I can quote it chapter and verse. Paul Ryan whipped the votes for fast track Trade Promotion Authority and that is going to kill the living wage, that is going to kill the family wage, that’s going to kill the middle class. Paul Ryan owns that.”
Nehlen added, “[W]hen did Speaker Ryan ever attack Mr. Obama or Hillary Clinton on any of her policies the way he’s attacking Donald Trump right now? He should be trying to unify this party. That is his role. He is the top elected Republican in the country right now. Shouldn’t he be focused on supporting Mr. Trump, and figuring out how he can partner with him? He’s trying to tear him down right now. He should be reporting in-kind contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for God sakes.”
He further said Ryan was the “mercenary champion for working against Donald Trump every opportunity he gets. I think the rest of the party is unified. I’m unified.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchettIt should surprise no one that the life of the lie that so many Americans continue to live was manifested in all its glory last Friday, on Veterans Day.
Here is just one example, from an editorial in the Gainesville Sun:
… our nation must always appreciate those who stood ready and honorably to give their lives in defense of our liberties.
This life-of-the-lie mantra was undoubtedly repeated in editorials and op-eds in the mainstream press all across America, as well as in churches, football games, and other public events over the weekend.
I will guarantee you one thing about this life of the lie: Not one person who spoke or wrote the mantra explained how exactly it was that veterans have defended or are defending our liberties.
There is a simple reason for that: They can’t do it because their mantra is a lie. Not one single U.S. veteran has given his life or killed others defending the liberties of the American people.
How do we know this?
It’s easy. None of the millions of people U.S. forces have killed in foreign lands, has ever has ever tried to take away the liberties of the American people.
There is something important to note about those millions of people that U.S. forces have killed (and injured or maimed) since World War II: Not one single one of them ever attacked the United States or threatened to take away the liberties of the American people. In every single instance in which U.S. forces have killed, injured, and maimed people, they were the initiators of the violence against their intended victims.
What about the 9/11 attacks? They were retaliation for U.S. forces killing people in the Middle East, including the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children that the U.S. government killed with the cruel and brutal embargo that U.S. forces enforced for more than 10 years? The 9/11 attackers were retaliating, not trying to take away the liberties of the American people.
What about World War II? The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which was intentionally provoked by President Roosevelt to get the United States embroiled in World War II, was designed to prevent the U.S. Naval fleet from interfering with Japanese attempts to secure oil in the Dutch East Indies. The attack had nothing to do with trying to take away the liberties of the American people.
The same holds true for Nazi Germany. Its aims were to establish dominance on the European continent, especially by moving eastward against the communist menace in the Soviet Union, which, ironically, would also become America’s sworn enemy in the post-WWII era. Hitler’s forces couldn’t even cross the English Channel to invade England. There was never a German attempt to take away the liberties of the American people.
The same with respect to World War I. German forces never attacked the United States and never threatened to take away the liberties of the American people. U.S. forces were sent to intervene in that war in an attempt to make the world safe for democracy and in an attempt to end all wars. Both aims failed, with U.S. forces killing and dying for nothing.
Korea? Nothing but a civil war. North Korea never attacked the United States or threatened to take away our liberties.
Vietnam? Nothing but a U.S. continuation of the French Empire’s colonization and control over Vietnam. Neither the North Vietnamese nor the Viet Cong ever tried to take away the liberties of the American people.
Grenada? Panama? Nicaragua? Cuba? None of the people killed by U.S. forces in those countries ever tried to take away our liberties.
The Spanish American War in 1898? The Spanish Empire never threatened to take away the liberties of the American people. After the war was over, U.S. forces killed, injured, maimed, and tortured millions of Filipinos, none of whom ever attacked the United States or tried to take away our liberties.
So, what then have U.S. soldiers killed for and died for in all those foreign wars and escapades?
Hegemony. Dominance. Control. Empire.
That’s it. That’s what U.S. forces have killed and died for. Not “defending our liberties” but instead to establish, maintain, and expand the foreign hegemony, dominance, control, and imperialism of the U.S. government.
So, why don’t all those editorial and 0p-ed writers, church ministers, and sports announcers say that instead of falsely claiming that veterans have defended our liberties?
Because deep down, they know that those things aren’t worth killing and dying for. And so they instead choose to live the life of the lie, hoping that in the process no one exposes it.| by Andrew Johnson |
Over the past 20 years, the shoulder areas of Toronto's downtown have seen a tremendous amount of development. In the 2000s, the west side of downtown went from former rail lands to high density communities within the span of only a few years. In the 2010s, the east side of downtown has seen neighbourhoods like the West Don Lands transform empty brownfield lands into the Athletes Village for the 2015 PanAm Games, and then a new neighbourhood for the city.
But just across the (hopefully soon-to-be naturalized) Don River, there is a proposed development that will radically transform the land use and the transit patterns of the area: East Harbour. According to developer First Gulf, East Harbour will feature 11 million square feet of office space, enough for 50,000 workers, on 60 acres. From a transit perspective, it will act as the major transit hub for the eastern edge of downtown, with at least 2 GO Train lines, a streetcar line, and the future Relief Line Subway all intersecting at this location.
Aerial Rendering of East Harbour, courtesy the Planning Rationale submission to the City of Toronto
The proposed transit hub is a remarkable structure, featuring a high ceilinged glass arch over both the GO Train platforms and the future extension of Broadview Ave, on which the streetcar is located. The soaring arches evoke a sense of grandness, emphasizing the space in a fashion common to many European central rail stations. Underneath the GO and streetcar interchange, the Relief Line subway platform would be located under Eastern Ave. The design of both the transit hub and the subway station are barely more than conceptual at this point, but as you can see in the drawing below, a direct connection between the three different rail modes is envisioned.
Isometric Drawing of the East Harbour Transit Hub, courtesy the Planning Rationale submission to the City of Toronto
Sweeping Arches of the Transit Hub as seen from Broadview Ave, courtesy the Planning Rationale submission to the City of Toronto
This transit hub is valuable to the City on two different levels. On a neighbourhood level, this hub provides significantly improved transit access not only for the development site itself, but also for the surrounding South Riverdale neighbourhood. With express access to the Union Station area using GO, the CBD using the Relief Line, and local destinations using an extended Broadview streetcar, the East Harbour transit hub will make this area one of the best connected neighbourhoods in the entire GTA. The proposal also significantly improves the active transportation options in the area, including new cycling paths along the Don River. The transit hub itself also acts a bridge over the Don River, and includes a ramp on the southwest end of the station to access Corktown Common, as seen in the first image below.
Site Plan depicting the site's integration with the surrounding neighbourhood, courtesy the Planning Rationale submission
Cross Section of the Transit Hub, courtesy the Planning Rationale submission to the City of Toronto
On a network level, the East Harbour transit hub represents a critical interchange location outside of the downtown. The different types of services that intersect there represent a transfer point for downtown-bound commuters that has the potential to relieve crowded or overcrowded existing transit infrastructure, most notably Union Station.
By offering a transfer point for inbound GO passengers before Union, East Harbour could siphon away transfers before they even reach the Union Station complex. For example, a commuter who lives in Pickering and works at Queen & Bay can take the Lakeshore East GO line to East Harbour, transfer to the Relief Line Subway, and exit at Queen Station. Currently, this trip pattern would involve getting off at Union and transferring to a crowded Yonge line, or making a fairly long walk up Bay St. The combination of East Harbour station and the Relief Line could impact thousands of similar trip patterns.
Rendering of East Harbour depicting the Transit Hub, courtesy the Planning Rationale submission to the City of Toronto
The lack of integration between land use and transportation planning has been one of the biggest laments with the plethora of development that has taken place in the west-of-downtown area in the past 20 years or so. Projects like the King Streetcar Priority pilot project and Queen's Quay West reconstruction are two examples of the transit planning playing catch-up to the results of the land use planning. With East Harbour however, those two planning elements are proceeding in tandem, with the result hopefully being a new employment hub, anchored by a new transit hub, opening simultaneously.
Rendering of the transit and active transportation connections over the Don River, courtesy the Planning Rationale submissions
As the project makes its way through the approvals process, more details and plan refinements should emerge. In the meantime, the fact that transportation and development appear to be in sync at East Harbour is cause for optimism.Along with a team of explorers, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean a few months ago to resurrect what he suspected were Apollo 11's lost F-1 engines.
Problem was, the ocean didn't care that it was home to priceless artifacts and wielded its corrosive power against the engines for more than 40 years. So when Bezos' team finally resurrected the F-1s, experts were unsure they would ever be able to positively identify the worn engines, as their serial numbers had succumbed to long-term exposure.
They were wrong. The ocean left behind some secrets — they just required some digging.
SEE ALSO: 7 Oddball Things Found on the Space Station
After months of poring over the artifacts, one of the conservators spotted a fateful set of numbers while using a black light and special filter. Just four digits — 2044 — confirmed the team had indeed found one of the most important artifacts in space exploration history.
In a blog post Friday, on the eve of the 44th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon, Bezos explained the importance those numbers hold for his exploration team:
2044 is the Rocketdyne serial number that correlates to NASA number 6044, which is the serial number for F-1 Engine #5 from Apollo 11. The intrepid conservator kept digging for more evidence, and after removing more corrosion at the base of the same thrust chamber, he found it – "Unit No 2044" – stamped into the metal surface.
The F-1 engines supplied 1.5 million pounds of thrust to Apollo 11, helping power the astronauts to the moon. As planned, they submerged to the bottom of the ocean shortly after liftoff, where they remained for decades.
While Bezos' mission was 100% privately funded, he will turn over the engines to NASA, which will claim full ownership. Bezos will work closely with NASA to restore the engines for future public display.
Instagram Photos of First Moon Landing
Image: Bezos ExpeditionsThe Miller Brewing Company is an American beer brewing company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that was owned until October 11, 2016 by the MillerCoors division of the SABMiller–Molson Coors joint venture. The company has brewing facilities in Albany, Georgia; Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; Fort Worth, Texas; Irwindale, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Trenton, Ohio. On July 1, 2008, Miller formed MillerCoors, a joint venture with rival Molson Coors to consolidate the production and distribution of its products in the United States, with each parent company's corporate operations and international operations to remain separate and independent of the joint venture.
The joint venture ended after the SABMiller operation was acquired by Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) on October 10, 2016. The new company is called Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev).[1] On October 11, 2016, the company sold the Miller brand portfolio outside the US and Puerto Rico to Molson Coors, which also retained "the rights to all of the brands currently in the MillerCoors portfolio for the U.S. and Puerto Rico".[2]
Molson Coors is the sole owner of Miller Brewing Company and plans to keep the MillerCoors name and the Chicago headquarters and to operate the company in much the same manner as before October 11, 2016.[3] For the consumer, and for employees, the change to 100 percent ownership (from the previous 42 percent) by Molson Coors will not be apparent in the U.S., according to Jon Stern, MillerCoors' director of media relations. "The good news is that none of this impacts Milwaukee or Wisconsin. It'll be business as usual. Miller Lite, Coors Light, Miller High Life and Leinenkugel's – and frankly all the rest of our brands will continue to be brewed by us."[4]
History [ edit ]
Miller Valley contains the Miller Brewing Company in Wisconsin.
Miller Brewing Company was founded in 1855 by Frederick Miller after his emigration from Hohenzollern, Germany in 1854 with a unique brewer's yeast. Initially, he purchased the small Plank Road Brewery in Milwaukee for $2300 ($66,736 in 2018).[5] The brewery's location in the Miller Valley in Milwaukee provided easy access to raw materials produced on nearby farms. In 1855, Miller changed its name to Miller Brewing Company, Inc.[6] The enterprise remained in the family until 1966.
In 1966, the conglomerate W. R. Grace and Company bought Miller from Mrs. Lorraine John Mulberger (Frederick Miller's granddaughter, who objected to alcohol) and her family. In 1969, Philip Morris (now Altria) bought Miller from W. R. Grace for $130 million, outbidding PepsiCo. In 2002, South African Breweries bought Miller from Philip Morris for $3.6 billion worth of stock and $2 billion in debt to form SABMiller, with Philip Morris retaining a 36% ownership share and 24.99% voting rights.
In 2006, Miller Brewing purchased Sparks and Steel Reserve brands from McKenzie River Corporation for $215 million cash.[7] Miller had been producing both brands prior to this purchase.[8]
In 2007, SABMiller and Molson Coors combined their U.S. operations in a joint venture called MillerCoors. SABMiller owned 58% of the unit, which operated in the United States but not in Canada, where Molson Coors is strongest. Molson Coors owned the rest of the joint venture, but the companies had equal voting power.[9][10]
Sole ownership by Molson Coors [ edit ]
In September 2015, Anheuser-Busch Inbev announced that it had reached a full agreement to acquire SABMiller for $107 Billion dollars, As part of the agreement with U.S. regulators for acquiring SABMiller, AB-Inbev agreed to sell its 58 percent interest in MillerCoors to Molson Coors for 12 billion dollars.[11] The merger was completed on October 10, 2016.[12]
In order to obtain approval for the merger from the U.S. Justice Department, SABMiller agreed to divest itself of the Miller brands in the US and Puerto Rico by selling its stake in MillerCoors to Molson Coors Brewing Company.[13]
Consequently, on October 11, 2016, SABMiller in the U.S. sold its interests in MillerCoors to Molson Coors who had been its partner in the joint venture, for around US$12 billion. Molson Coors gained full ownership of the Miller brand portfolio outside the US and Puerto Rico, and retained the rights to all of the brands that were in the MillerCoors portfolio for the U.S. and Puerto Rico.[14][15]
In Canada, Molson Coors regained the right (from SABMiller) to make and market Miller Genuine Draft and Miller Lite.[16] However, in the U.S., the change in ownership of MillerCoors/Miller Brewing Company will not be apparent to consumers or to employees.[4]
Hamm's beers [ edit ]
The Miller Brewery complex in Milwaukee
Miller bought the rights to the Hamm's Brewery brands.
Hamm's Beer : Winner of the 2007 Gold Medal for American-Style Lager and the 2010 Gold Medal for American-Style Specialty Lager or Cream Ale or Lager at the Great American Beer Festival
: Winner of the 2007 Gold Medal for American-Style Lager and the 2010 Gold Medal for American-Style Specialty Lager or Cream Ale or Lager at the Great American Beer Festival Hamm's Golden Draft
Hamm's Special Light
Plank Road Brewery beers [ edit ]
This division is named for the 19th-century name for west State Street in Milwaukee (formerly known for its full length outside Milwaukee as the Watertown Plank Road), where the main Miller brewery has been located since its founding.
Icehouse : Icehouse is an ice lager. At 5.5% alcohol by volume, it was the winner of the 2003 and 2007 Gold Medals for American-Style Specialty Lager at the Great American Beer Festival, and also won the American-style Ice Lager Gold Cup of the 1996 and 1998 World Beer Cup competitions. [17]
: Icehouse is an ice lager. At 5.5% alcohol by volume, it was the winner of the 2003 and 2007 Gold Medals for American-Style Specialty Lager at the Great American Beer Festival, and also won the American-style Ice Lager Gold Cup of the 1996 and 1998 World Beer Cup competitions. Icehouse EDGE : Icehouse EDGE is an ice lager/malt liquor (8.0% alcohol by volume) and was introduced in June 2012.
: Icehouse EDGE is an ice lager/malt liquor (8.0% alcohol by volume) and was introduced in June 2012. Red Dog: Although popular during the mid- to late-1990s, Red Dog faded into near obscurity near the start of the 21st century. However, since 2005 it has been returning to stores.[ citation needed ]
Miller has been a large motorsport sponsor since the 1980s. In the CART World Series, the company has sponsored drivers such as Al Unser (1984), Danny Sullivan (1985–1989, 1991), Roberto Guerrero (1990), Bobby Rahal (1992–1998) and Kenny Bräck (2003). It also sponsored the Miller 200 race at Mid-Ohio.
In NASCAR Cup Series, Miller has sponsored Bobby Allison from 1983 to 1988, Dick Trickle in 1989, Rusty Wallace from 1990 to 2005, Kurt Busch from 2006 to 2010, and Brad Keselowski since 2011. Allison won the 1983 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, and Keselowski won the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The company has sponsored the Miller High Life 500, Miller 500, Miller High Life 400, Miller 400, Miller 300, Miller 200, and Miller 150 races.
In NHRA, Miller sponsored Larry Dixon for 11 years, ending their relationship in 2007.[18]
See also [ edit ]Julie Chen just announced the addition of Celebrity Big Brother to the Big Brother franchise. With the new show’s premiere coming soon, they are wasting no time finding celebrities to overstuff the house with.
Celebrity Big Brother has not released details so we don’t know yet the dates of the season. Once we have that, we can figure out how many houseguests will need to be cast for the first season. It may be a little shorter than the summer show. Today we can share with you who the first six are, however.
According to Celebrity Dirty Laundry, here are your first six Celebrity Big Brother players.
Drita D’avanzo, from Mob Wives. Tiffany Pollard (aka New York), from VH1’s Flavor of Love. Bradtheladlong, a controversial YouTuber. Lance Bass, record label owner and pop singer with NSYNC. Natalie Nunn, Bad Girls Club Season 4. Dog the Bounty Hunter, from the series of the same name.
For |
to say whatever you want.
Abdul Kanneh
HB | OTT
Born in London, England, it should come as no surprise that Abdul went from football to … football. As an eight-year-old, Abdul played soccer until his coach, noting just how physical he was on “the pitch” (field), suggested to his mother that he switch over to the North American version of football.
Considering back in 2014 Kanneh had this to say about his style of play — “I love to hit people, I always have. I’m a head crusher. Any time I have a chance to lay a hit down, I’ll do it. I don’t shy away from it. That’s the point of the game” — I think we can all agree his soccer coach knew what he was talking about.
Judging by his Twitter feed, Kanneh is paying close attention to free agency as he is constantly retweeting articles about free agents like Solomon Elimimian and Adarius Bowman re-signing with their respective teams.
Ernest Jackson
REC | OTT
And the award winner for the player who was part of the craziest football background joining the CFL goes to Ernest Jackson, who wins for being involved with something called the Southern Indoor Football League and then with the Ultimate Indoor Football League. I had no idea that either league ever existed and naturally neither league exists anymore. I have no idea what to do with my Ernest Jackson Erie Explosion or Chicago Slaughter game worn jerseys!
Jackson goes by many different nicknames but my favourite is “Slim Jim Jack.” Not only does that sound awesome but apparently its origin comes from when he used to dress up like Nino Brown, which was Wesley Snipes’ character from ‘New Jack City’. This piece of information has led to so many more questions for me.
The REDBLACKS’ roster is littered with players under 30; how does anyone on that team not named Henry Burris even remember a movie from 1991? Also, how do you go from “Nino Brown” to “Slim Jim Jack”? Dammit, this article was supposed to give you some insight about your favourite players, but I’m just left needing more information. At the very least, go check out Slim Jim Jack interview some of his teammates.
Well, I hope everyone gets what they want for Valentine’s Day, whether it be a pass protecting offensive lineman, a dozen roses or a 1,000-yard receiver who isn’t afraid to mix it up in the running game.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland Browns receiver Kenny Britt told ESPN's Pat McManamon that he "hated everything" about playing in London last year while a member of the Los Angeles Rams.
On and on, Britt spewed venom about the Browns trip to London to face the Minnesota Vikings.
I know how the Browns can solve that problem.
Leave him home.
In fact, I wanted to cut the veteran receiver earlier in the week after his recent transgressions.
The guy has been a disaster, on or off the field.
Waive him. Write off the $10 million.
I can't recall the last time I pushed the Browns to cut a player in the middle of a season. So I don't write this simply for attention.
Britt has caught 10 passes. He has two official drops. He has grumbled and complained almost from the moment he arrived here.
The team is 0-7. What role is he serving other than making things worse?
Goodbye.
In fact, I'd call a team meeting after cutting Britt. I'd tell the rest of the players, "You guys virtually all are millionaires, or soon will be. The NFL is your dream job. Don't complain about flying to London in a private jet and staying in a first-class hotel. You should be thankful."
ABOUT THE GAME
The Vikings probably will be without starting quarterback Sam Bradford (knee), so it will be Case Keenum, who is a respectable backup.
Keenum is 4-2 as a starter this season, including victories in his last three games. He's thrown five TD passes compared to two interceptions. He's a by-the-numbers quarterback, making sure the plays are run right and everyone is lined up correctly.
That will be good enough to beat the Browns.
Who are the Browns two best players? Joe Thomas and Myles Garrett.
Who won't be playing in London? Joe Thomas and Myles Garrett.
Future Hall of Fame left tackle Thomas is out for the season with triceps surgery.
Hello Spencer Drango, a second year pro. He started some games at guard last season for the Browns. He was a left tackle at Baylor.
No one has started at left tackle for the Browns other than Thomas since the final game of the 2006 season.
Who was that man? Kevin Shaffer.
So there you go.
Garrett is out with a concussion.
WHO WILL WIN?
There are still some questions about Britt (knee), Jamie Collins (shoulder) and Jabrill Peppers (toe).
As far as I know, Britt is still with the team.
The Browns defense was strong in the 12-9 loss to Tennessee in overtime. They gave up four field goals. The Browns offense turned the ball over three times, making their life harder.
DeShone Kizer is back at quarterback after being pulled from the game in his last two starts because of turnovers.
I can't imagine he'll have much success against the Minnesota defense, which is ranked No. 4.
The Vikings are giving up only 17 points per game.
I doubt the Browns will score even that many.
The average margin of victory for the first three games played in London this year is 30 points!
Here's the good news: The Browns won't lose by 30.
Final score: Minnesota 20, Browns 10.Your Adobe Flash Player has to be updated now for your own good.
According to the BBC a new update has been released for Adobe Flash Player after “a serious vulnerability” was found. Adobe has “urged people to update their software immediately,” the BBC said.
Computer Business Review says the flaw in the older Adobe Flash Player version allows hackers to gain control over a computer system.
Cyber-criminals using Angler and Magnitude, two tool kits that can deliver any virus, malware, spyware, and ransomware to host computers, can exploit the Flash Player defect to ruin your computer in any way they want to.
Cyber-security firm FireEye recently reported that Chinese hacking group APT3 has been exploiting the Flash Player defect by sending phishing email (emails sent with the intention to acquire sensitive data belonging to the recipient) to organizations in the aerospace, defense, construction, engineering, high tech, telecommunications, and transportation industries.
FireEye said the phishing emails “were extremely generic in nature, almost appearing to be spam.”
Adobe responded to the reports about the flaw by releasing an update to its Flash Player.
“Adobe has released security updates for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux,” it said in its Adobe Security Bulletin.
The bulletin mentioned that those who use its Adobe Flash Player Desktop Runtime for Windows and Macintosh should update to version 18.0.0.194, users of Adobe Flash Player Extended Support Release should update to version 13.0.0.296, and Adobe Flash Player users for Linux are to update to 11.2.202.468.
It also stated that the Adobe Flash Player installed with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer on Windows 8.x “will automatically update to version 18.0.0.194.” You should still check to make sure that the update actually does go through for your own computer’s security.
Many people have been annoyed, however, by the constant need to update their Adobe Flash Player.
One Twitter user, who goes by the name of Tom Jamieson, expressed his frustration with the need to update Flash Player in a rather comical but pessimistic tone.
null
Dippy Blonder criticized “Adobe Flash Player Engineers” for the frequency by which users are required to update the software.
null
New York’s DJ Geespin also asked Adobe why they send out an update “every other day.”
null
German journalist Sebastian Standke decided to delay the thought of updating his Adobe Flash Player.
null
Others, including Taran Van Hemert, voiced their anger at being tricked into downloading software they don’t want while updating Adobe Flash Player.
null
What’s your take? Is the never-ending need to update Adobe Flash Player really worth it?
[Image is a screenshot of the publicly accessible website of the Adobe Flash Player Download]The DFINITY Main Round: Preconditions & Our “Don’t be Evil” Rules
Dominic Williams Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 20, 2017
Many people have been asking when DFINITY’s pending “Main” fundraising round will run. This will collect donations for DFINITY Stiftung, the not-for-profit foundation based in Zug that disburses funds to support development of DFINITY technology and will help launch a new blockchain computer network. This will host a giant virtual mainframe that provides the world with “decentralized cloud” functionality.
Originally we expected to push ahead with the Main fundraising round not too long after we ran the public “Seed” fundraising round back in February. However I am glad to report that rising ETH prices afforded us more flexibility than expected. Even though our strategy involves scaling out the organization aggressively, we have substantial runway before Main if we want to use it. Given this absence of pressure, we decided three demanding goals should be met first (of course, we will also consider whether timing is opportune).
Our goals reflect our philosophy:
Execution
DFINITY Stiftung must demonstrate outstanding progress scaling its operations to create one of the best teams in crypto (view progress here). Technology
Selected game-changing novel crypto technologies introduced by DFINITY must be demonstrated in a network setting. Adoption
There must be emerging enterprise support for the project, since DFINITY is not just an exercise in theory.
I’m pleased to report to Seed participants that our pursuit of these goals has been going tremendously well. In fact it has been going so well that Main might run late summer or early fall. Please follow my Twitter or blog, or the DFINITY Twitter, blog or Slack to stay up-to-date.
Our approach towards Main and fundraising generally is substantially different. You might have noticed that we haven’t been soliciting press. Indeed, such is the quiet we are also usually omitted from prominent lists of projects. There are also a bunch of other reasons for that, including industry politics, fear of disruption (“Hear No Evil, See No Evil”) and of course, more than anything, we simply don’t play games that involve distributing tokens to people in exchange for speaking slots, articles, shout-outs and other pumps. None of this will harm us of course because so many informed people already know about DFINITY… the project is already happening!
Just for lulz I’d like to relay some important principles we bring to our fundraising. They take the form of what we will not do. You can draw your own conclusions about where we draw inspiration:
Robbery
Decide to award millions of dollars from any funds raised directly to founders as a bonus, “earn-out” or other such nonsense — we believe founders should stand with participants, not cash out before they’ve proven anything with their works. Deception
Quietly sell deeply discounted tokens to venture capitalists in a pre-round, then have them pump the forthcoming fundraising by publicly and loudly declaring their participation in the press without carefully disclosing to readers what has happened. Fakery
Create a team page on our website full of people from some different organization who have nothing to do with crypto with the purpose of creating a misleading impression of how many people are actually working on the project full time (we always strive to make working relationships clear and transparent, and indeed compose our team from real engineers and scientists working on a full time basis). Lipstick
Decorate a team page with “magic circle” advisors who are really just there to collect tokens in exchange for providing social proof and — in practice — don’t really add much and mainly function to inflate the expertise that appears to be dedicated to the project. Bad captain
Neglect to tie in founders and key technical personnel with vesting incentive packages where tokens are released slowly over years contingent upon continued contributions being made. Founders should not be able to cash out early, walk away and start working on competitive projects. Snake oil
Post wild, unjustifiable and factually incorrect technical claims about how this or that exotic technology will make it possible to easily surmount fundamental design challenges faced — rather than actually innovating and coming up with new math.
This is the DFINITY version of “don’t be evil”.
If you want to see something better hold on to your hat. Progress at DFINITY is accelerating. There will be more news soon.In the custom world, there are few more challenging builds than designing a motorcycle around a car engine. They’re heavy and torque focused, and trying to physically fit one into a production bike frame is easier said than done.
But what if your starting point is a car engine and you build everything around it? That’s what New Zealander Marcel van Hooijdonk did to create this incredible ‘Madboxer’ custom.
The Madboxer, as good a name as any for this machine, has been ‘in the build’ for over five years. A toolmaker by trade, Marcel is more than a dab hand behind a set of tools, so when a friend sent him an email with a photo issuing a challenge, he leapt at the chance to put his skills towards something a little different.
“It all started off as a bit of a challenge from a mate in Aussie, Harry, who came across an artist’s impression of a Subaru-powered motorcycle concept—with the comment “something for you to knock up in the shed, mate,” says Marcel.
The car engine was obviously the key to this build, and Marcel had a few options to choose from. The most readily available Subaru engine in NZ is the long-lived EJ series, with capacities ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 liters, and found in most Subarus since 1989.
Marcel passed over the ever-popular 2-liter mill, and instead went with a turbocharged EJ25 out of a second generation WRX.
To start the project off, Marcel checked to see if it was even possible to make the Madboxer a reality.
“I got a motor case and some tires, spaced it out, stepped back and grabbed a beer,” he says. After eyeballing it and putting together the mental plan on just how to proceed, the decision was made. “Yes, it’s doable.”
Now committed, Marcel had to lay the groundwork for his build with some serious screen time. Like most serious builders, he started with a computer, put together a CAD drawing, and got signoff from the regulatory body that covers all modified vehicles in New Zealand—the Low Volume Vehicle Technical Association (LVVTA).
“Once I had the motor block and wheels in place I started in AutoCAD, making drawings of the center steer hub, swing arms and the main chassis sides, he says. The drawings were also used for programming the CNC milling center and lathe, which carved out the individual pieces of the bike ready for assembly.
It wasn’t a straightforward job however, and took a few tries to get everything just right. Marcel also had to work out a steering system that met with the approval of the certification panel.
The bike slowly took shape, with a Kawasaki fuel tank, wheels sourced off the NZ eBay equivalent TradeMe, and a smaller twin-turbo unit from a Subaru Legacy replacing the big WRX turbo.
The result is an engine that runs very smoothly, even though it has no real flywheel as such. Marcel opted for a modified Japanese 2-speed automatic transmission, using a chain drive to get power to the rear wheel.
Like other “automatic” motorcycles, there’s no gear lever on the foot pegs—just a button on the handlebars to change gears. Braking is just like a scooter, with a bar-mounted lever for the Buell-sourced brakes.
After all the engineering work, it would be a shame if Madboxer became a trailer queen. But thankfully Marcel fought it out with the LVVTA certifiers and won the day.
“Being able to ride it was the aim right from the get-go,” Marcel explains. “So that did impact on the final design. The system here in NZ is not too bad; you forward your design at the beginning and a panel goes over it. Once you have approval you can start, but with inspections along the way.”
“You always think of something you would like to change, which has to then go back to the panel. At times it’s hair pulling—but now it’s all done and 100 per cent road legal, I must say it wasn’t too bad.”
The Madboxer is a thing of strange beauty. Tipping the scales at 313.5kg, it’s heavy by motorbike standards—but with a boxer engine, the bike holds the majority of its weight down low in the chassis.
With torque levels most bikes can only dream of, Madboxer is sure to fly down the road when ridden. And that’s just what Marcel plans for its future.
Words By Mathieu Day-Gillett of Bike Rider Magazine | Images Lindsay GibbA local court dealt a humiliating blow to the mayor of the German city of Augsburg after overruling his attempt to ban the leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD) from giving a speech, thus ensuring maximum publicity for the event.
Kurt Gribl, a member of Angela Merkel’s sister-party the Christian Social Union, tried to ban Frauke Petry from speaking at the city’s town hall after she said border guards should be allowed to use firearms against illegal migrants as a last resort.
Mrs Petry said last month that a border police offer “must stop illegal border crossings, and also make use of his firearm if necessary,” before clarifying: “No policeman wants to fire on a refugee and I don’t want that either”.
However, Mr Gribl decided the comments were “unconstitutional” and earlier this week announced he was banning Mrs Petry from the building.
Now, in a reversal of fortune, Augsburg’s Administrative Court has ruled Mr Gribl’s ban is in fact unconstitutional.
The liberal-left Süddeutsche Zeitung reports through gritted teeth that the decision is an “embarrassing defeat” for the city’s mayor.
“The remarks by AfD chief Frauke Petry about using firearms against refugees were politically groundless and morally reprehensible,” the paper says. “Nevertheless, Petry’s comments are covered by the right to free speech.”
“Gribl’s approach,” it adds, “was not only undemocratic but also inept: Petry is now the winner…”
AfD supporters will now feel vindicated in their belief the political establishment is trying to silence them, the paper says, before concluding: “The political damage [Gribl] has done is great.”
Despite receiving almost universally negative headlines in the mainstream press, AfD continues to surge in opinion polls, with one poll even suggesting the party will hold the balance of power in at least one German state after next month’s local elections.All this weekend: Special Offers on a titanic selection of Big Finish books and audiobooks!
Until Monday morning, we're slashing prices across our whole range of Big Finish books, allowing you to pick up some brilliant titles at major savings.
What's more, all of these amazing offers are available in special Book Bonanza bundles, offering free UK postage and reduced postage for international orders!
Big Finish's first lady Bernice Summerfield leads the pack, with up to 80% off selected titles. Early releases Bernice Summerfield: The Doomsday Manuscript and The Gods of the Underworld are just £2 each, with the rest of the range already available for £3 each. In-depth guide Bernice Summerfield – The Inside Story is also available for only £10! And for more adventures in the same universe, The Coming of the Queen and Project: Valhalla hardback novels can also be yours for £3 each.
Meanwhile, the crew of the Liberator blaze into battle! You can also pick up the e-book version of Blake's 7: Warship for £2.99, with the audiobook versions of Blake's 7: Lucifer and Lucifer: Revelation reduced to £15 each on both CD and download. Blake's 7: Lucifer - Genesis and Blake's 7: Criminal Intent are both reduced to just £5, alongside the other five Blake's 7 novels already at that price. Author and Avon actor Paul Darrow's autobiography Paul Darrow – You're Him, Aren't You? is also available for £5.
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Robert Shearman's intriguing collections of plays and short stories Love Songs for the Shy & Cynical, Caustic Comedies and Everyones's Just So So Special are reduced as well: leatherbound special editions are £10 each, hardcover versions £6 and paperback versions £3 per volume. The audiobook version of Love Songs is also available at £10! Find all the editions here.
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All these amazing offers must end at noon, Monday 3rd of August, so order now!
And don't forget; our special offers on Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Box-Set, Destiny of the Doctor and the Short Trips CDs are still available throughout the weekend! Click here for more details!Nuland (pictured above) apologized on Friday for the comments allegedly made during a private phone conversation with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, the US State Department said.
The audio, posted this week on YouTube, identifies Nuland as using colorful language to vent her frustration at stalled international efforts to end Ukraine's three-month political standoff.
In the recording, a female voice can be heard saying, "So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it, and, you know..." Then a graphic four-letter word was used when referring to the EU.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Nuland "has been in contact with her EU counterparts and, of course, has apologized."
While declining to confirm the recording's contents, Psaki did not dispute its authenticity.
"I did not say it was not authentic," Psaki said.
Nuland, who was in Ukraine on Thursday, has been involved in US attempts to mediate between Ukraine's government and opposition since anti-government protests erupted in November.
The audio appears to show Nuland and Pyatt weighing in on the future makeup of Ukraine's government. They discuss the qualities of opposition leaders, including boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Kitschko, former Ukrainian economy minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and far-right leader Oleh Tyahnybok.
"So I don't think Klitsch [Klitschko] should go into the government," Nuland is reported to have said. "I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea."
"I think [Yatsenyuk] is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. What he needs is [Klitschko] and [Tyahnybok] on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week."
US points the finger at Russia
While it remains unclear how the telephone conversation was recorded, US officials have indicated that Russia may have played a role.
Psaki noted that the YouTube post was first cited through tweets emanating from aide to Russian deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin.
"Certainly we think this is a new low in Russian tradecraft," Psaki said. "Obviously they were the first ones to post on Twitter about it, which is an indication."
Analysts suggest Russia could be seeking to bolster claims that Washington is manipulating the Ukrainian opposition, something Psaki denied.
"Absolutely not," she said. "It should be no surprise that US officials talk about issues around the world. Of course we do. That's what diplomats do."
The White House was more direct in pointing the finger at Russia.
"You know... the video was first noted and tweeted out by the Russian government. I think it says something about Russia's role," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
The video, entitled "Marionettes of Maidan," was first posted on February 4 and is subtitled in Russian. It is believed to have been recorded in late January.
Maidan refers to the name of the main square in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, which has become the center of opposition protests, triggered by President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to pull out of a long-awaited free trade deal with the EU in favor of improving ties with Russia.
At least four people have been killed in clashes with security forces since protests turned violent last month.
ccp/lw (AFP, Reuters, AP, dpa)RALEIGH, NC - Ron Francis, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has activated goaltender Eddie Lack from injured reserve, and assigned him to the Charlotte Checkers of the American Hockey League (AHL) for a conditioning stint. The Hurricanes have also assigned goaltender Michael Leighton to the Checkers.
Lack, 29, has missed 26 of the last 30 games due to a concussion. The Norrtälje, Sweden, native is 1-2-1 with a 3.78 goals-against average in five games for the Hurricanes this season. Lack has appeared in 121 career NHL games with Vancouver and Carolina, going 47-46-16 with a 2.59 goals-against average and.910 save percentage.
Leighton, 35, is 2-2-0 with a 3.43 goals-against average for the Hurricanes this season, and will participate in the AHL's All-Star Classic in Allentown, PA, this weekend. The Petrolia, Ont., native ranks tied for 11th among AHL goaltenders this season in goals-against average (2.32) and 12th in save percentage (.918), earning an 8-6-3 record for Charlotte. In 110 career NHL regular-season games, Leighton (6'3", 186 lbs.) has compiled a 37-43-14 record, a 2.98 goals-against average and a.900 save percentage with Chicago, Nashville, Philadelphia and Carolina.Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons In a recent news story published by Nature.com (the same company that produces the well-known science journal of the same name), Michael Lubell, the director of public affairs for the American Physical Society, called Donald Trump "the first anti-science president."
The story, which included public reactions from scientists around the world gathered from places like Twitter, featured more input from other researchers who appeared to share Lubell's concern.
"This is terrifying for science, research, education, and the future of our planet," tweeted María Escudero Escribano, a postdoc studying electrochemistry and and sustainable energy conversation at Stanford University in California. "I guess it's time for me to go back to Europe."
Trump has never explicitly said that he wants to reduce funding for science in the US. However, his lack of policy and planning for the scientific community — paired with his apparently ridiculous budgeting— could be a worry in itself.
Another concern that people in the research community have is Trump's apparent distain for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the federal agency that shells out billions for biomedical research. There's a famously quoted interview with Michael Savage on a conservative radio show last year where Trump said: "I hear so much about the NIH, and it's terrible."
"I do breast cancer research for my PhD," tweeted Sarah Hengel, a graduate student at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. "Scared not only for my future but for the future of research and next years @NIH budget."
Without federal money, labs would crumble, because there simply aren't enough private donors to make up that amount of funding.
Also, with private donors, they can often expect to see something ground-breaking very quickly, and unfortunately science very seldom relies on eureka moments. It's more like building blocks, with every small step getting a little bit closer to understanding a disease or metabolic function. That's where cures and treatments come from.
It's more about what Trump hasn't said than what he has.
Trump has pledged to cut federal spending, but he hasn't offered much information about how this could affect technological and scientific advancement, or exactly how he plans to balance lowered taxes with more innovation.
Trump has said that the US "must have programs such as a viable space program and institutional research that serve as incubators to innovation and the advancement of science and engineering in a number of fields," but has also suggested that the massive tax cuts he has planned will reduce the amount of money available that funds these things.
He told ScienceDebate.org that while "there are increasing demands to curtail spending and to balance the federal budget, we must make the commitment to invest in science, engineering, healthcare and other areas that will make the lives of Americans better, safer and more prosperous," offering no way of balancing the two issues.
Still, what Trump says and does are two different things.
But just because Trump has said these things, it doesn't necessarily mean that he'll stop funding scientific research. As Jennifer Zeitzer, the director of legislative relations at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology told The Verge, he has remained a bit of a black box on the issue.
"The good news is we don't know what it means for public funding," she said. "And the bad news is we don't know what it means for public funding."
Trump hasn't exactly been a conventional candidate since his campaign began, so it's hard to predict what his moves will be in terms of research. In previous presidencies, Republicans have generally spent more on the NIH and National Science Foundation, while Democratic leaders have increased spending on NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation.
However, this definitely doesn't mean Trump will follow suit. He could be swayed by Republicans around him, such as Mike Pence who doesn't believe in stem cell research or that evolution exists, and who has said in the past that he doesn't believe smoking causes cancer.
Trump could lean more towards the House Freedom Caucus, who are a populist group of Republican lawmakers who want to decrease federal spending everywhere, or he could take advice from people like Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander who has called for more funding for research.
The reality is that no-one really knows, and until Trump makes some announcements about what his presidency will mean for the future of American science funding, researchers will be left in the dark.About
Hillaryous Ramen Set is crafted from high quality ceramic. Its a collector's item made specially for Ramen enthusiasts.This ramen set contains a Ramen Cup,a Soup Bowl and a spoon.
Art work on this ceramic set highlights a funny twist on some of the most famous quotes of Hillary Clinton.
2016 presidential election is like no other election in america's history and there is a great possibility of america electing her first woman president.
We thoroughly enjoyed creating this masterpiece.It's a great conversation starter at work and outside.It will be a humorous gift to all of your Democrat, Republican, and Independent friends.
So pledge today and help us make this project a reality!
For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter's fundraising model, it is based on an 'all or nothing' fulfillment model, which means no funding is awarded the creators until the initial goal is met. Your credit card will not be charged until the campaign is over and the funding goal has been achieved.
Prototype and Perk Details
After working so many days and nights we managed to produce our first set.Here is the picture of actual prototype.
This top quality ceramic set is microwave safe and dishwasher safe, it is sturdy enough for daily use and beautiful enough to be displayed in your ceramicware show case.
You can cook some great instant noodles or soup and enjoy watching Hillary Clinton debate and destroy fellow presidential candidates and opponents.
For every pledge of $65 and more you will receive collectible ramen set as described in the pledge.
Art Work Details
We took some of the most famous quotes of Hillary Clinton and Ramen-ized them.These funny quotes and art work on the ceramic will be memorable for years to come. Take a look..
Our Story
Hillaryous Ramen set is our first project on kickstarter.
Like many of you when we watched Republican and Democratic primary debates, we realized that debates can quickly go from discussion to dogfights and finding the next president is not uplifting experience but more of a depressing process.
Being designers who love ramen, We decided to create a light hearted and funny product to enjoy the debates and the ramen.
Our next project will be a ceramic set dedicated to some one in Republican Party.please vote here and help us select a candidate.
What Social Influencers are saying
"Its Ramen set for the 21st century! " -Marco Rudio
"I like this! There is Ramen coming out of my eyes or wherever!" -Donald Dump
"What Washington needs is good Ramen" -Derek Obama
"Ronald Raven would love this Ramen! Oops." -Dick Perry
PR questions
Please send an email to [email protected] Men's Land: When Women Won't Date Bisexual Guys
A while back, I was casually scrolling through Twitter on my company-mandated 10-minute break at my second job. While I was sitting there, minding my own business, just trying to see what was new with Kerry Washington, I came across some disturbing statistics.
A tweet from my pal Nicole Kristal over at #StillBisexual, told me that Glamour Magazine recently conducted a sex survey with their readers, with one result sticking out in particular:
Upon first sight, I was shocked and saddened by this information. However, after composing the perfect response to send to Nicole, I thought more about it and realized something pretty terrible -- I wasn't surprised. Not at all, in fact.
This idea is one we've all heard before, right? It goes along with that strange belief that somehow it's more acceptable for women to be sexually fluid than men.
Seething, and with my protective instincts raised for my bisexual brethren, I went back to work and asked my best work friend, (a straight woman) if she would date a bisexual man. I phrased the question like the answer was obvious: "You'd totally date a bi guy, right? Like, if you met a guy who was awesome and you really liked him, finding out he's bi wouldn't change anything, right?"
Imagine my surprise when she said "Well, I don't know. Maybe. That's a tough one."
A "tough one"? Seriously? Here I am pitching this idea that the perfect man could come along and offer her the life and relationship she's always dreamed of, and she's saying she might turn it down if it also happens that he likes having sex with people who are not cis women like her?
I quickly changed the topic so as to not have a fight about sex and relationships loudly where customers could hear, and I put the conversation out of my mind until my drive home later that night.
Once safely in my car, I began to have an epiphany; a sad, disillusioning epiphany, but an epiphany nonetheless.
I realized that there were only a few possible explanations here.
Explanation one: Society is steeped in internalized homophobia and masculine ideals, and we create rules for ourselves and the people in our lives accordingly. We admit that a woman being with another woman is fine, but get weirded out by a man being with another man. Why? Because of the twisted belief that a man being with another man is somehow -- hilariously -- "unmanly."
And since we've all heard insane rules about what it is to "be a man," how boys need to "man up," and how straight/bi women should only want "real, manly men" or "guys' guys," anything that is considered "unmanly" is a huge no-no.
Fun tidbit: This is why when bisexuals are asked who is faced with more challenges and stigma, bisexual men or bisexual women, a lot of us will say bisexual men. (Examples: 1, 2)
Explanation two: The false and tired belief that being with someone who is bi/pansexual/omnisexual means that they will cheat on you or that you have more competition.
Explanation three: Hypocrisy and Biphobia
When I got home from work, I looked up the very article Nicole was referencing and saw that the study also found that 47% of women surveyed admitted to being attracted to another woman at some point, and that 31% say they've had a sexual experience with another woman.
Ritch C. Savin-Williams, Ph.D., director of the Sex & Gender Lab at Cornell University was quoted in the article as saying that the report of women not wanting to have sex with a man who'd been with other men suggested "that these women hold on to the view that while women occupy a wide spectrum of sexuality, men are either gay or straight."
So women are allowed to be bisexual, or at least more sexually fluid, but men are not? It would appear that there's a common idea that a man who has sex with another man is gay, and therefore a woman shouldn't want to be with him because it's a waste of time. He's gay, so why bother, right?
Wrong.
To any woman who has had/does have feelings for a man who has had sex with other men: Turning down someone because of perfectly valid sexual preferences and/or behaviors is ridiculous. Your man having past involvement with other men does not mean he is any less manly or that he is on the "down low."
All it means is that in addition to being with you, he also happens to like having sex with men. And hey, there's something you have in common. Congratulations.CHATSWORTH (CBSLA.com) — Comedian Cedric The Entertainer is suing the Southern California Gas Co. and its parent company, Sempra, over the Aliso Canyon gas leak, according to reports.
Known formally as Cedric Kyles, the “Barbershop” star and his wife, Lorna, filed a lawsuit alleging their family continues to suffer illness and their property value has dropped because of |
my bathroom were made by either Colgate-Palmolive or Procter & Gamble, and most of the stuff in my kitchen was made by Kraft, Nestle, or Hershey. It became obvious pretty early that finding 100 products around my house with 100 different addresses wasn't going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. I needed to change my plan a bit... My Modified Goal By about the "60 address" mark, I fell into a slump. I had exhausted every product in my house. I was amazed at how many different products were made by only a small handful of companies. I realized that if I wanted to get 100 company addresses, I was going to have to think outside of my house. So, I broadened my scope and starting pulling addresses of other companies — fast food joints, hotels, car rental companies, auto manufacturers... that sort of stuff. I figured, "Hey, a freebie's a freebie." I'm not a fast food lover, but this experiment was less about getting free stuff and more about seeing which companies would actually send me free stuff. The Finished Product About ten hours (over the course of two days) and exactly two bloodshot eyes later, it was complete. I had 100 letters to 100 different companies — stuffed, sealed, stamped, and ready to go. I put all 100 letters into the mail on Friday, February 24, 2006 at 9 AM. Now all that was left to do was sit back and wait for a response (or two?) Random Conclusions Once I had all 100 letters, I reviewed my work and came to a few random conclusions: A surprising number of companies (mostly big companies) have no mention of their company address anywhere — not on their products, not on their websites, nowhere... I guess big companies don't use snail mail these days.
Of the products which did have company addresses on them, most were either products from small companies — or pet products. Almost every bag of dog treats that I looked at had a company address on it, whereas not one human snack product that I looked at did... I guess they're not afraid of dogs writing in and complaining to them.
The majority of "cosmetic" products (soaps, detergents, toothpastes, cosmetics, cleaning products, etc.) that I looked at were made by one of only three or four companies. I plan to start using shampoo as mouthwash and shaving cream, being that they all come from the same general place.
Some company addresses were so difficult to find, it almost seemed intentional. In a few cases, I had to resort to a consumer advocacy site like my3cents.com or a site like CNN Money to find a company address. The List It was at about this point when I decided that it would be fun to put this experiment online for others to check out. Below, you'll find all 100 actual letters that I sent out to the 100 different companies I'd selected. You'll notice that I "tested the waters" a bit in some of the letters — some of them are simple and to the point, while others are way more off-the-wall. I think as I went along, I started to get a little more "ballsy", and I started to have more fun writing the letters. I'm curious to find out which "style" of letter does better, in terms of actually bringing in free product. As any responses or free product come in, this list will be updated. Company Product Response? My Letter Reynolds (#1) Aluminum foil UNEVENTFUL Sent me a recipe brochure containing a few incidental coupons Dear Sir or Madam:
I have been using Reynolds foil religiously for more than ten years. In fact, I cook with it everyday! Whether I'm wrapping something in it to steam or putting something messy on top of it to bake, I just love the stuff. Would you happen to have any free product or samples that you could send me? I'd definitely appreciate it! Thanks a bunch!
Tom Locke, Reynolds foil enthusiast Gatorade (#2) Propel fitness water YES! Three 60-cent coupons for Propel Dear Sir or Madam:
I love the many flavors of your Propel drink. It seems that you're coming out with new flavors all the time, which is great! Please send me a bottle of your favorite flavor of Propel. I can't decide on my favorite, so I'd like to try yours. Thanks!
Tom Locke, natural flavor enthusiast Fellowes (#3) Compressed air in a can YES! Four free cans of compressed air Dear Sir or Madam:
I can't begin to tell you how much I love your Air Duster product. I use it for things way beyond what I bet it was intended for. Sure, I dust my keyboard with it – but I dust my furniture and my dog with it, too! Yes, my dog! I have a Husky, and he sheds like crazy, and your Air Duster works great for removing excess fur from him. (his name is Rufus Huxtable, by the way.) Anyway, can you send me a free can (or two?) of your Air Duster? Whatever you can do would be great. Thanks!
Tom Locke, canned air enthusiast Pfizer (#4) Purell hand sanitizer YES! Three 50-cent coupons for Purell Dear Sir or Madam:
I am in love with your Purell hand sanitizer. Never before have I thought that a product composed primarily of alcohol could actually moisturize my hands. Your hand sanitizer does just that. Do you have any free samples of this product that I could have? In fact, I am a free sample "addict", and I'd like free samples of any/every product you have. Thank you.
Tom Locke, hygiene enthusiast Trader Joe's (#5) Unique grocery items REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I love your monthly product flyers (they're quite witty). I also love your products. I always turn to Trader Joe's for specialty sauces and exotic and foreign oddities. The store by my house is always giving away free samples of coffee and/or juice, and it's always good stuff! Do you have any free product samples that you could send me? Nothing easily perishable, of course. But maybe something like that good anti-Ox-idant berry and nut trail mix? Or something else? I just love surprises! Thank you.
Tom Locke, gourmet food enthusiast Wrigley's (#6) Gum REJECTED! Told me to buy my own gum — and where to buy it! Dear Sir or Madam:
I am a gum addict. I have tried every flavor of gum made, and nothing compares to your Eclipse "Cherry Ice". Did you stop making that flavor? I've heard people say that it tastes like a cough drop to them – but I love the flavor. Please send me free samples of any and every single gum flavor you have and can send me. I love gum more than I can put into words. Remember that girl from Willy Wonka, always chewing gum? I put that girl to shame. Thank you.
Tom Locke, gum enthusiast Kraft (#7) Various food products REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
Please send me a free sample of every Kraft product made. If you are hesitant to send highly perishable items like cheese, I fully understand. I'll take whatever you have. Thank you.
Tom Locke, food enthusiast Target (#8) Rubber bands REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I bought a bag of rubber bands from a Target store a few days back, and I must say – I'm very pleased with them. They were made by "work.org". Please send me a free bag of these rubber bands, so that I may share them with my friends. Thank you.
Tom Locke, life enthusiast Celestial Seasonings (#9) Tea YES! Three teabags and three coupons for free and discounted tea Dear Sir or Madam:
I love tea, and I especially love your tea. Do you make an English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, or Earl Grey flavor? These are flavors I've not seen made by Celestial Seasonings. Also, would you please be so kind as to send me samples of some of your best teas? I've had many, but certainly not all! Thank you very much!
Tom Locke, tea enthusiast Burt's Bees (#10) Lip balm YES! A free stick of Burt's Bees Dear Sir or Madam:
My wife uses your Burt's Bees stick like it's going out of style. You think I could get a free stick of it? Thanks in advance,
Tom Locke, general enthusiast Annie Chun's (#11) Soup No Dear Annie Chun:
Do you have any free samples of your soups that you could please send to me? I've had only the Miso variety, and I loved it! It was umami! Thank you very, very much!
Tom Locke, soup enthusiast Frito-Lay (#12) Chips YES! Two 55-cent coupons Dear Sir or Madam:
I love your chips. Potato chips, corn chips, baked chips, fried chips. I love them all. I don't know exactly what it is. I think you guys could stick a whole potato in a bag and stick your name on it, and it would taste good. Anyway, would it be possible for you to send me a few free samples of your newest chips? I like to try all of the newest flavors, but I don't get out much. Thanks for anything you can send over.
Tom Locke, chip enthusiast Carma Labs (#13) Carmex lip balm YES! A free jar of Carmex Dear Sir or Madam:
I know people claim that Carmex is addictive, and I know that you claim it's not. Either way, I love it. I slather virtually half of my face with it prior to bed each night (I don't wear it during the day, because I don't like feeling the least bit greasy). Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I love Carmex. I once forgot to bring my Carmex with me on business trip, and I was stuck buying an over-priced ChapStick in a hotel lobby. And boy, is that stuff junk. It felt like I was spreading old cheese on my lips. Anyway, can I have a free jar of Carmex? I'm not poor or anything, I just like freebies. Thanks in advance,
Tom Locke, Carmex enthusiast Gillette (#14) Razors No Dear Sir or Madam:
I need your help. I am terribly indecisive, and when shopping for a new razor, I am inundated by the number of choices you offer. Mach 2, Mach 3, Turbo, Sensor, Sensor XL, the list goes on and on. Can you send me a free sample of each type of razor you produce? If that's not feasible, perhaps you can send me what you personally consider the best Gilette razor? Right now, I shave my face with my wife's brand of leg razors. You know, those "50 for a dollar" pink junk things that only remove hair as a side effect of removing a layer of your skin with it. Those razors aren't very good. Thanks for your help,
Tom Locke, shaving enthusiast Safeway (#15) Wholesale grocer (Costco) OOPS! Kindly told me that I wrote to the wrong company Dear Sir or Madam:
A while back, I purchased a two-pack of frozen vegetable lasagna from Costco. It was fabulous! During my recent trip back to Costco, I found that no vegetable lasagnas were in stock, and nobody had information as to when they'd return. Would you please send me a tray of this vegetable lasagna? If you're leery about sending a frozen lasagna through the mail, I understand. Costco also has a bag of dried Shitake mushrooms that I love. I'll take some of those, instead. I used them in a homemade mushroom bisque. It was heavenly. Thank you for your consideration,
Tom Locke, Costco enthusiast Subway (#16) Sandwiches REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I'm just writing to you to tell you that I hate Quiznos, and I hate that freaky sock puppet they used to have singing on their commercials. Just what I want – an ugly, mentally disturbed corporate mascot. Anyway, I eat Subway for lunch all the time. I love the roast chicken breast. Can I get some freebies? Free subs? Free chips? Free anything? If you're feeling generous, I'll take a free party sub. I don't have a ton of friends, but that won't stop me from eating it! Thanks for everything!
Tom Locke, Subway enthusiast Quiznos (#17) Sandwiches No Dear Sir or Madam:
I'm just writing to you to tell you that I hate Subway. I hate Jared. He annoys me. So some fat guy lost a bunch of weight. Who cares? Doesn't make their nasty, flavorless subs taste any different. Anyway, I love your Classic Italian. I put banana peppers on it to top it off. I usually get that chicken corn chowder soup, a mini chocolate bundt cake, and a bottle of water to finish the meal. Your food quite simply rocks. Can I get something free? Sandwiches, soups, coupons, shirts? Whatever you got. I love the freebies! Thanks for everything!
Tom Locke, Quiznos enthusiast Jimmy John's (#18) Sandwiches No Dear Jimmy John:
I love your sandwiches. Your bread is great. I love the Gargantuan. I can rip that sandwich a new one! Man, that's a lot of meat! mmmmm, meat! Anyway. I just wanted to tell you how much I dig your food. And, oh, yeah, the link to your menu on your Website is broke. Can I get something free for pointing that out? Like a sandwich, or some BBQ chips, or a shirt? I love the signs you got hanging in your joints. Can I get one of those? Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, sandwich enthusiast Max and Erma's (#19) Sit-down restaurant YES! A free hat, travel cup, and fake tattoos Dear Sir or Madam:
I love your food! Your pot pie and your Caribbean chicken are my usual choices. Can I get any freebies? Like a gift card, or a shirt, or something else cool? It's not like I'm going to stop eating at Max and Erma's if you don't send me anything – I just think it would be fun to get a surprise in the mail. Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, home cookin' enthusiast T.G.I. Friday's (#20) Sit-down restaurant REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I love your food! Your pulled pork sandwich is my usual choice. Can I get any freebies? Like a gift card, or a shirt, or something else cool? It's not like I'm going to stop eating at Friday's if you don't send me anything – I just think it would be fun to get something cool in the mail from you! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, BBQ enthusiast Sanford (#21) Pens YES! Four free pens Dear Sir or Madam:
My wife is an English teacher, and she raves about your "Uni-ball" pens. She goes through those things like they were made out of cake. Any chance you could send over some free samples of those (or other) pens? That would be great! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, consumer product enthusiast S.C. Johnson (#22) Various cleaning products & cosmetic items YES! A coupon for free Skintimate shaving gel Dear Sir or Madam:
I have a house full of your products, and I'd like to ask you to send me free samples of some of your newer, exciting products that I may not have seen. My wife has a seemingly endless rainbow of your "Skintimate" shaving products, which she likes. Whatever you can send me would be great. I just love free samples! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, free sample enthusiast Airborne (#23) Cold remedy product YES! A free tube of Airborne Dear Sir or Madam:
I'd say that Airborne is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I tell you – sliced bread doesn't even come close! I take Airborne religiously at the first hint of a cold, and I feel like Jack Lalanne afterwards every time (except for that whole boat chained to my legs thing he had going on). Anyway, any chance I could get a free sample or something else cool and exciting? Whatever you got, I'll take! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, health and wellness enthusiast Biore (#24) Nose strips REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I love Biore! I never squeeze pimples or blackheads anymore. I even get blackheads on my back and shoulders, and I just slap a Biore strip onto them. No more picking, no more popping, no more red battle scars from obsessive squeezing. What do you have in the way of free samples? I am a free sample addict, and I will take whatever you can send me. I love trying out new products! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, cosmetic enthusiast Nylabone (#25) Pet products YES! A "minty fresh" dog chew toy Dear Sir or Madam:
My dog (a random mutt) loves your "Healthy Edibles" bones. I wanted to name the dog "Bonecrusher", but my wife ended up naming him "Rudy Huxtable". What a stupid name for a dog. Anyway, your bones are the only thing that stops this dog from molesting my leg while I'm working on the computer. Any chance you could send over some free samples? My dog – and my leg – would greatly appreciate it! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, "keeping my dog off of my leg" enthusiast Galderma (#26) Facial cleanser No Dear Sir or Madam:
I use your Cetaphil cleanser daily to wash my nasty face. Do you have a travel size or free samples of Cetaphil that you could send to me? The bottle that I have is much too large to fit into a travel bag when I go on business trips. Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, miniature product enthusiast Sausages By Amy (#27) Sausages No Dear Amy:
I absolutely love your "chicken gouda" sausages. I buy the big packs from Costco, and I eat them daily. I usually cook up two fried eggs, and two sausages. I feel like a new man after eating. It's like they're brain food, or something! Better yet, my dog, Dirty Nelly (a shar-pei), is a fussy, fussy eater, and he loves your sausages! Any chance of getting a free sample or something? If you're hesitant about sending sausages in the mail, I'll take shirts, mugs, coupons, or whatever else you have. Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, sausage enthusiast Kim and Scott's (#28) Pretzels REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Kim and/or Scott:
I had one of your pretzels at a Border's bookstore, and I must say – it was great! It was a stuffed pizza one. Anyway, please send me any samples you can of your other pretzel flavors. I have a problem with commitment, so before I buy anything (yes, even food!), I like to try it out. Whatever you can do would be most appreciated! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, pretzel enthusiast Lush Cosmetics (#29) Bath products No Dear Sir or Madam:
I love your bath bombs! I really love the "Black Pearl", with that little bit-o-wisdom stuffed inside of it. The last one I got was "slip seven times, get up eight times". I like that! Anyway, can you send me some free samples? You have so much to choose from, I can't make up my mind! Whatever you can do would be most appreciated! Thanks well in advance,
Tom Locke, bath enthusiast Quaker (#30) Various food products REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I have a house full of Quaker products. I love your granola bars – especially those chewy ones. Please send me free samples of any new and exciting products that you think I might enjoy. I am always interested in new and exciting experiences for my taste buds. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, food enthusiast McDonald's (#31) Fast food REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
You may love to see me smile, but I, however, love to see me eat. Please send me coupons for free McDonald's product, so that I may continue to eat (and smile). Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, eating enthusiast PowerBar (#32) Healthfood bars No Dear Sir or Madam:
I am a tall, skinny, lanky, pasty white, beanpole of a man. I am on a quest to turn my skinny self into a chiseled god-like creature. Please, please, send me a free PowerBar or two, so that I can meet my goals. Please don't send too many, however; in my current state of fitness-less, I doubt I'd be able to lift the box. Thank you for your support,
Tom Locke, fitness enthusiast Dairy Queen (#33) Ice cream YES! Three $1 gift certificates Dear Sir or Madam:
With my birthday rapidly approaching (in August), I was wondering if you'd be so kind as to send me a coupon for a free Dairy Queen treat. Nothing cools me down in the summer quite like a frozen D.Q. Blizzard. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, cold food enthusiast Nestle (#34) Various food products YES! Two coupons for Nestle candy Dear Sir or Madam:
I love Nestle, and I love free stuff, so I thought writing this letter was the perfect idea. As I scanned the products in my house, I noticed that Nestle makes a lot of them. With that said, please send me samples of other interesting products – especially those which you think may surprise me when I learn that they are made by Nestle. And I'm sorry, but I can't find out how to make that mark over the "e", so I just have to say "Nestle". Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, "free stuff" enthusiast Energizer (#35) Batteries YES! Three $1 coupons Dear Sir or Madam:
My wife watches so much television, I sometimes forget that she's not physically and permanently attached to my couch. Anyway. It came to my attention yesterday that I own eleven – yes eleven – remote controls. Absurd, I know. I was wondering if you'd be able to help me, by sending me some free batteries – AA in size. If I can't un-glue my wife from the television, at least maybe I can cut down on the cost of keeping her around by getting a few free batteries to keep the eleven remote controls operative. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, television anti-enthusiast Hormel (#36) Spam, chili REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me chili recipes instead Dear Sir or Madam:
I love your products. Well, I'm actually not too crazy about Spam. The meat is a little too... can-shaped... for my taste. It's a little creepy. Anyway. I am writing to you because I am a chili connoisseur, and I love your chili. Please send me all of the free chili samples you can, without getting yourself into trouble for giving away too much free chili to a guy like me. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, chili enthusiast Stash (#37) Tea YES! Nine free tea samples and a tea catalog Dear Sir or Madam:
I love tea, and I especially love your tea. Do you make an English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast flavor? These are flavors I've not seen made by Stash. Also, would you please be so kind as to send me samples of some of your best teas? I've had most of them, but certainly not all of them! Thank you very much!
Tom Locke, tea enthusiast Chicken of the Sea (#38) Canned tuna YES! Coupons for free and discounted tuna Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you make products other than canned tuna? I love oysters and clams, too. Do you have any free samples of canned oysters or clams that you could send me? I like tuna, too, though, so if that's all you have, I'd like a free can of that, too. Thank you very much!
Tom Locke, canned seafood enthusiast Stacy's Pita Chips (#39) Pita chips No Dear Stacy:
What MilkBone is to dogs, Stacy's Pita Chips is to humans, and I mean that in a good way! When I eat your pita chips with my lunch, my teeth feel clean! No other wimpy chip does that. It must be all of those rough, abrasive, micro pita molecules bashing the slime off of my teeth. Anyway, do you have a free sample or two you could send my way? I've only had your original flavor, but I'm sure you have others, and I'm dying to try them. Thank you very much!
Tom Locke, clean teeth enthusiast Smuckers (#40) Jams & jellies REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you know what my favorite breakfast is? I'll tell you. It's half of a brick of Philadelphia cream cheese, covered with Smuckers raspberry jelly. Refreshing and delicious. I got hungry just typing this. Please send me some free jelly or jam. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, jelly and jam enthusiast Wyeth (#41) ChapStick YES! Three ChapSticks and coupons Dear Sir or Madam:
I hate the way that the harsh winters make my lips crack like a caffeinated mobster under a heat lamp. Please send me a free stick of your most powerful ChapStick, as I have yet to find anything that soothes my sore, aching lips. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, smooth lip enthusiast Wallace's Old Fashion Skins (#42) Pork skins No Dear Wallace:
I'm a big city boy, but nothing satisfies my hunger (and dissatisfies my cardiologist) more than a good old bag of pork skins. I recently came across your company online, and I want to try your pork skins. So, gimme some skin! No, seriously. Let me try a bag. Thanks! Sooeeeeee! (that's my pig call)
Tom Locke, pig, hog, and pork skin enthusiast Industrial Tool & Die (#43) Nail clippers No Dear Sir or Madam:
I recently read online that you folks make the best fingernail clipper available. I currently use a nasty old rusty pair of clippers that I'm surprised hasn't given me tetanus by now. Do you think that you could send me a pair of those clippers? I tell ya, I really, really need 'em. Thanks in advance,
Tom Locke, nail care enthusiast Colgate-Palmolive (#44) Various cleaning products & cosmetic items YES! 10 coupons worth a total of $6 Dear Sir or Madam:
I love personal care products, and I love free samples. Please send me every free sample you have available. Toothpastes, soaps, everything. I greatly appreciate this. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, personal care enthusiast Durex (#45) Condoms No Dear Sir or Madam:
I currently use Trojan Magnum XL condoms, and while they are the proper size, they don't offer me the sensation that Durex condoms do. Does Durex have an extra large condom available, comparable to the Trojan Magnum XL? Please send me a few samples if such a condom exists. I need that Durex sensation without unnecessarily strangling my member in a smaller-sized condom. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, intercourse enthusiast Hershey (#46) Chocolate REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I love Hershey chocolate. I cannot fully articulate my passion for chocolate. I particularly enjoy dark, dark chocolate. Please send me samples of the darkest chocolates you have available, so that I may experience new taste sensations. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, chocolate enthusiast Popcorn Palace (#47) Popcorn No Dear Sir or Madam:
I was recently given a bag of your Popcorn Palace popcorn, covered in chocolate (the popcorn was covered in chocolate, not the bag). Anyway. This popcorn was by far the best popcorn I've ever had. Please send me a free bag of this popcorn – or if you're feeling exceptionally generous, please send me a bag of each flavor so that I may live a life of variety. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, popcorn enthusiast Brownberry (#48) Bread YES! Three $1 coupons Dear Sir or Madam:
The other day, I made a sandwich using your Brownberry oatnut bread. While I was enjoying my sandwich, I realized that I forgot to put anything on it. I was, indeed, eating a slice of bread, atop another slice of bread – with nothing more than air between the slices. And you know something? It was still excellent! Please send me a free loaf of this oatnut bread, or something comparable. I love that bread. It's good without meat or cheese. It's just good, good bread. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, bread enthusiast Republic of Tea (#49) Tea No Dear Tea Minister:
I regularly drink your Ginger Peach tea and your Earl Greyer (bag form). I do, however, own more than ten other flavors. I was wondering if you could send me a Republic of Tea "sampler". You have so many flavors, that I'd like to sample them all. I appreciate it very much. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, tea enthusiast Eight in One Pet Products (#50) Pet Products YES! $25 worth of free dog snacks Dear Sir or Madam:
I own a Rottweiler named Sir Shagwell. I am writing to you on both Shagwell's behalf, as well as my own. Before I feed Shagwell any type of pet snacks, I personally sample them to assess their quality and flavor. After all, if I think they taste bad, what is Shagwell expected to think? I just wanted to let you know that your "Dingoroo" dog treats taste excellent, and Sir Shagwell agrees with me. I would like to request free samples of any similar treats you may have available. I appreciate the quality that obviously goes into making your products. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, pet product enthusiast Del Monte Pet Products (#51) Pet Products YES! Five coupons for free and discounted dog snacks Dear Sir or Madam:
I own a Boston Terrier named Lil' Brudder. I am writing to you on both Lil' Brudder's behalf, as well as my own. Before I feed Lil' Brudder any type of pet snacks, I personally sample them to assess their quality and flavor. After all, if I think they taste bad, what is Lil' Brudder expected to think? I just wanted to let you know that your "Canine Carry Outs" dog treats taste excellent, and Lil' Brudder agrees with me. I would like to request free samples of any similar treats you may have available. I appreciate the quality that obviously goes into making your products. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, pet product enthusiast World Variety Produce (#52) Produce No Dear Sir or Madam:
I recently made a lobster bisque using your "Melissa's Shallots", and they were the finest shallots I've ever used. The flavor was exquisite. Do you have samples of any other fine produce which you could send to me for my culinary exploration? Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, produce enthusiast Vitners (#53) Potato chips No Dear Sir or Madam:
I love Vitner chips. Best. Chips. Around. Period. Hands-down. I love them so much, in fact, that I'd like to ask you to send me a bag of every flavor you have so that I can decide on my single favorite. If this equates to too many bags of chips, I'll take whatever you have and can send my way. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, chip enthusiast Riceland (#54) Rice YES! Three coupons for free and discounted rice Dear Sir or Madam:
I'm getting bored with plain old "white rice". Please send me a bag of the wildest, most exotic, kicked-up rice variety you have. My mouth needs some excitement. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, rice enthusiast Eden Foods (#55) Soy products YES! Pasta, tea, and soymilk Dear Sir or Madam:
I love soybeans. I love soymilk. Please send me samples of other exciting soy products which you think that I may enjoy. Thank you well in advance,
Tom Locke, soy enthusiast General Mills (#56) Cereal REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I often eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am a cereal aficionado. Please send me a free sample of every General Mills cereal made. I want to be only person amongst my group of friends who can claim to have eaten every kind of cereal you make! Thank you kindly,
Tom Locke, cereal enthusiast Coca-Cola (#57) Coke No Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you have any free samples that you want to send me? I love Coke, and I love free samples. Mini bottles of Coke? Coke flavored gum? Mints? Candy? Anything else that the Coca-Cola company makes? Collectable shirts, mugs, hats, mouse pads? I'll take anything you got! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, cola enthusiast Pepsi (#58) Pepsi YES! A Pepsi pen, pencil, stickers, and gift catalog Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you have any free samples that you can send me? I love Pepsi, and I love free samples. Miniature or travel-size bottles of Pepsi? Pepsi flavored gum? Mints? Candy? Anything else that the Pepsi company makes? Collectable shirts, mugs, hats, mouse pads? I'll take anything you have! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, cola enthusiast Office Max (#59) Office supplies REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
I recently started my own small business, and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to provide me with free samples of office supplies that I may need to help me get started. Rubber bands, paper clips, pens, staplers, staples. Anything that you think would help a budding entrepreneur to make it through the busy days! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, business enthusiast Staples (#60) Office supplies No Dear Sir or Madam:
I recently started my own small business, and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to provide me with free samples of office supplies that I may need to help me get started. Rubber bands, paper clips, pens, staplers, staples. Anything that you think would help a budding entrepreneur to make it through the busy days! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, business enthusiast Biotene (#61) Mouthwash YES! A few samples of gum, toothpaste, and mouthwash Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you have any free samples or travel sizes of your Biotene mouthwash that you can send me? I had several canker sores last year the size of nickels, and they were brutal. Your Biotene product is the only thing I've found that doesn't destroy my oral mucosa. Thank you!
Tom Locke, oral hygiene enthusiast Fisher Nuts (#62) Nuts No Dear Sir or Madam:
I love nuts! Do you have any free samples of your nuts that I could try? I love raw nuts, in particular. While I'm quite partial to raw cashews and almonds, I'll gladly try anything that you're willing to send me. Thank you kindly,
Tom Locke, raw nut enthusiast Church & Dwight (#63) Arm & Hammer baking soda products UNEVENTFUL Sent me a baking soda brochure which contained a few incidental coupons Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you have any samples of your cleaning products that you could send me? I use Arm & Hammer baking soda for everything around the house, but I'd love to try any other new and exciting products that you may have. I once cleaned every toilet in my home with nothing more than baking soda and a toothbrush. My wife thought I was insane, and my dog (Uncle Jeepers) was a tad upset that he couldn't drink from the toilet for the day, but the results were worth it! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, home cleanliness enthusiast Clorox (#64) Bleach REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you have any free product samples that you could send my way? I love your Clorox Wipes, and your "splash less" bleach. I'll admit it. I lead a pretty boring, uneventful life, but I do enjoy cleaning my house. With that said, any freebies you can send my way will ensure that even if my days aren't bright, at least my toilets and sinks will be! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, home cleanliness enthusiast Procter and Gamble (#65) Various cleaning products REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
Do you have any free product samples that you could send my way? I'd love samples of laundry soaps, especially those fragrance-free soaps. I really love those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers you make, too. Those things really are magic. Basically, anything that you have and you think I'd like, I'll take! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, free sample enthusiast Chiquita (#66) Fruit No Dear Sir or Madam:
I love fruit. I love bananas! Do you have any samples or trial sizes of fruit that you could send me? Not like, miniature fruits, but like, trial size packages. I understand that shipping bananas via standard postal mail could prove fruitless (no pun intended), but if you have samples of dried fruits – especially dried bananas – I'd love them! Thank you in advance,
Tom Locke, fruit enthusiast Barilla (#67) Pasta REJECTED! Told me "no" — sent me nothing Dear Sir or Madam:
Please send me free samples of your pasta. I've heard that it's the best pasta around, and I've not as of yet tried it. I heard that your |
that a giant solar storm is suddenly back on the table as a reasonable explanation.
Furthermore, observations by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have found that Sun-like stars are capable of generating superstorms of this type every few hundred to 1,000 years. This doesn’t mean the Sun does the same, “but it suggests it’s reasonable”, Melott says.
Other possible explanations for the spike seem unlikely. Radiation from a supernova explosion has enough power, but the supernova would have to have been within about 100 light years, Melott says. “Such an event would have been blindingly bright in the sky, much brighter than a full Moon. It would have been bright like that for months and could not have failed to be noted by every civilization on Earth.”
Another possibility is a gamma-ray burst from a more distant supernova. But such bursts are rare and produce searchlight-like beams of radiation unlikely to hit us. “I don’t think it’s likely,” Melott says.
If the 774–75 event was indeed a flare, it’s a disturbing find. Such a flare would be about 60 times more powerful than the 1989 solar storm that knocked out power to much of Quebec for nine hours on a cold winter night. Multiply that by 60 and add two decades of increased technological vulnerability, and the effects might be disastrous. “A lot of people could die,” Melott says. “You could have power out for months or longer — no refrigerated food, no food being transported to all the people who live in big cities.”We're not even going to bury the lede on this one, you guys: The new Arby's Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich is kind of friggin' awesome. What may be most impressive here, though, is not just that Arby's has managed to assemble a sandwich that is actually delicious and tastes at least somewhat like food, but the way in which the D-list chain seems to be successfully reinventing its entire menu, one item at a time. Let's back up for just a moment.
Arby's was built on a simple foundation: quick-service hot roast beef sandwiches, piled impossibly high and artfully in the corporate menu photography. But not roast beef like you might "buy in a store" or "cut off a cow's body." Instead, Arby's roast beef was like something that had been grown in vats of green liquid from the future: weirdly gray, wet and too smooth, bearing no resemblance to anything that might have ever been alive.
The dining public seemed to agree; the last major expansion of Arby's was in the 1970s, when the chain opened new restaurants at the rate of 50 per year. Now, many people's most familiar image of an Arby's is one of a restaurant going out of business, the windows boarded up, the Horsey Sauce hosed out and the jaunty lasso hat sign taken down. It was getting increasingly tricky to see how Arby's could continue to fit in with the modern-day fast food landscape, where non-hamburger options are getting fewer and farther between. Until now.From Herbal Outfitters LLC to Dazed Dog Gardens, there's no shortage of creative and pun-laden business names in the nearly 200 marijuana business licenses that are currently working through the state system, which were released Tuesday.
The public can now see all the in-progress marijuana business applications on the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office's website. For businesses that are far enough along in their applications, a public notice is also linked in the spreadsheet that provides the name of the owner and the exact location of the business, according to Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office Director Cynthia Franklin.
Alaskans have chosen a wide range of names to represent their potential cannabis businesses. Some are obvious plays off of marijuana or its effects: names like Calm n Collective, Leafy Enterprise LLC and Cannaceuticals.
Others are not so obviously cannabis-related, like Permafrost Distributors, Alaska Precision and Wolverine LLC.
Babette Miller, co-owner of Doobie Depot, said her husband Louis Miller came up with their business name while they were brainstorming one day. "I didn't like it at first and then it grew on me and now I really like it."
Although they applied on the very first day, Miller said she and her husband would likely not be going through with a retail license in Anchorage after all.
Between the additional regulations and fees put in place in the municipality, and federal taxes, the business venture just didn't pencil out, Miller said Tuesday.
If the couple does decide to open a marijuana business, it would be a cultivation facility farther north, in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, where there are fewer regulations and fees in place. Even then, Miller said, the business could be "a wash," but they would at least get their foot in the door as the industry starts.
In the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Green Degree owner Kerby Coman is moving forward with his plans to open a retail store and limited cultivation facility.
"We plan on being ready and opening doors, I believe September the 9th," Coman said from Wasilla Tuesday.
"I ran through a lot of names with my fiancee … Green Degree just stuck," Coman said of the business name. They wanted a name with "green" in it, and Green Degree could have different meanings, giving them options when working out a logo, Coman said.
On Tuesday, Coman was working on renovations to a building he has leased just outside of Wasilla city limits.
The borough will vote in October whether to ban commercial marijuana, but Coman is moving forward regardless. It's "something to consider, but I'm not worried about it," he said.
Statewide, a total of 195 licenses are in process, with none completed so far, the list shows. Some businesses are applying for multiple license types. A few of the businesses have two applications in for the same license type.
Alaskans can apply for four different license types: Cultivation, retail, testing and manufacturing. There are subcategories within cultivation and manufacturing licenses -- for instance, one can apply for either a standard cultivation license, with unlimited growing space, or a limited license, with 500 feet or less of growing space.
So far, applications for standard cultivation licenses are the most common. Testing facilities are the least common, with only three applications in as of Tuesday morning. Going forward, the state will update the list every two weeks, Franklin wrote in an email.
The Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office began accepting marijuana license applications on Feb. 24. The office reported that 68 licenses were started on the first day.
Once completed, all licenses must be approved by the Marijuana Control Board. Cultivation and testing facilities will be approved first, likely at the board's early June meeting, according to an updated timeline released last month. Retail and manufacturing stores are slated to be approved in September, with the rationale being that the state's first legal commercial crops must be grown before consumers can actually purchase marijuana.Share Pinterest
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The possibility that Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone could face criminal charges carrying a lengthy prison sentence has been raised. The development came in the trial of German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky, which resumed in Munich this week.
For the first time, the former risk manager of the BayernLB bank in the Bavarian city admitted in court that he had taken millions of dollars from the CEO of the Formula One group—payments he said he regarded as bribes.
Sewarion Kirkitadze, a German legal consultant, told the Bild newspaper, “Bernie Ecclestone should expect the [the state prosecutor] to prepare an international arrest warrant and an extradition request. Ultimately he could face a prison sentence of up to 10 years.”
Gribkowsky has been held in the Stadelheim prison in Munich for the past 18 months, and the trial began in October. He is charged with receiving corrupt payments, tax evasion, and breach of trust against his employer when BayernLB's stake in the Formula One holding company was sold in 2006 to the present controlling shareholder, CVC Capital Partners.
Gribkowsky made the statement as part of a deal with prosecutors aimed at shortening the trial, and minimizing his sentence. Consequently the closing arguments in the case will be heard next week, and Gribkowsky will be sentenced shortly afterwards. In view of his confession, the judges informally agreed that Gribkowsky would get a prison term of between seven years and 10 months, and nine years, stated Peter Noll, the presiding judge.
Gribkowsky told the court, “I allowed myself to be bribed. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with what I did and to admit even to myself—yes, it was bribery, and yes, I should have paid tax. Even today I have troubles accepting this as reality. With hindsight, I know now that I should have said no to [Ecclestone's] demands.”
Gribkowsky was tasked by BayernLB with selling its Formula One shares. He said that when, during the Bahraini Grand Prix in 2006, Ecclestone asked him to “give him numbers,” he asked for $50 million, but did not expect to get anything like that amount. “$10 million would have been more normal,” he added.
The actual payments from Ecclestone and Bambino Holdings (his family offshore trust) amounted to $44 million, and were channeled from offshore accounts to companies in Austria controlled by the banker.
The indictment states that this money was a bribe to ensure that Gribkowsky sold BayernLB's shareholding to CVC, which had agreed to retain Ecclestone as the CEO if and when it gained control of F1. The prosecutors also allege that Gribkowsky set up a scam to cover most of the cost of the alleged bribe, signing a contract that committed BayernLB to paying Ecclestone a commission of $41.4 million for facilitating the sale.
There is also an allegation that says Gribkowsky undervalued the shares deliberately so that the sale did not trigger a profit-sharing payment to their former owner, EM.TV & Merchandising, a German media company.
EM.TV used its Formula One shares as collateral for loans from BayernLB and two other banks, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase.
When the three banks in 2002 assumed ownership of the shares when EM.TV went into receivership, EM.TV's administrator secured a clause in that transaction stipulating that it would receive a percentage if any future sale of the stake was valued at more than $1 billion. In a separate, civil case in the London High Court, EM.TV (now known as Constantin Medien) is suing Gribkowsky, Bambino, Ecclestone and Stephen Mullins (Ecclestone's former lawyer) for undervaluing the shares in such a way that it was cut out of the deal. Constantin is claiming approximately $175 million in damages. The Munich prosecutors have stated only that the shares were sold “without being properly evaluated”.
Ecclestone, now 82, admitted during testimony in November 2011 that he had made the payments to Gribkowsky. However, he continues to assert that they did not constitute a bribe. Instead, he claims that the money was a payoff to Gribkowsky, who was threatening to make a false claim to the British authorities to the effect that Ecclestone was controlling the Bambino trust, in violation of tax law. Ecclestone maintains that an investigation by the U.K.'s tax office would have caused him a lot of unjustified hassle, and potentially even more expense.
Ecclestone told the Bloomberg news agency, “I don't know what [the prosecutors] would charge me for. It's not the bribery, it's the tax evasion and [Gribkowsky's] duty to the bank that are the most important issues. If they were going to charge me, they would have done it at the same time [as Gribkowsky].
“I have always said that we gave him money, but it was not for what he said. He was shaking me down a bit and saying I had control of a family trust, which was not true. The reason I paid him was that he was going to say something that wasn't true. I was a bit stupid. Normally I would have told him to get lost.”
As to Gribkowsky's testimony this week, Ecclestone added, “He was offered a deal. He took the deal. I don't blame him for trying to get his sentence reduced. He could have got 12 to 14 years.”
The public prosecutors in Munich are not expected to make any statement about their position on Ecclestone until Gribkowsky has been sentenced. Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, a spokesman for the state, commented, “An investigation of Bernie Ecclestone has been underway since 2011. For now, we are waiting for the court's verdict in the trial of Gerhard Gribkowsky.”
Ecclestone lawyer, Sven Thomas, is clear that it does not automatically follow from Gribkowsky's new testimony that Ecclestone will be charged with paying a bribe.
“Dr. Gribkowsky's trial and the result of it are neither binding for the investigation into Mr. Ecclestone, nor is the evidence established in this case useable against him,” he said in a prepared statement. “Mr. Ecclestone's defense has not taken part in the ongoing trial; it could not exert any influence, and presented no evidence. This is particularly applicable to disproving the recent views [expressed] in the court about alleged agreements between Dr. Gribkowsky and Mr. Ecclestone.”
The statement also suggests that the plea-bargain nature of Gribkowski's “confession” throws its veracity into doubt.
“The defense in the investigation into Mr. Ecclestone will certainly have to deal not only with the motives and the events, but also with the substance of [Gribkowsky's] declaration,” it continued. “Its main features are contradictions as well as a lot of testimony to the contrary from Dr. Gribkowsky at the beginning of the proceedings. In various cases in recent years, third parties have been incriminated in 'confessions' which later—in subsequent proceedings—prove to be groundless.”This is the English translation of Sun-woong Park's web comic from his blog, "Between the Pannels"
박선웅 작가님의 블로그, "칸과 칸 사이"에 게시되었던 웹툰의 영문 번역입니다.
A Story of A Comfort Woman - Tattoo (어느 일본군 위안부 할머니의 이야기 - 문신)
Note:
This story depicts details that may be disturbing. Please view with discretion.
잔인한 내용이 포함되어 있으니, 보실때 주의하시기 바랍니다.
This version was modified from the original version to make the narrative flow better. If you wish to see the original, unedited version, please visit the artist's blog (Korean)
이야기의 흐름을 좀 더 매끄럽게 하기 위해 원작자의 동의를 얻어 구성을 좀 바꿔 놓았음을 알려 드립니다. 원본은 작가님의 블로그에서 보실 수 있습니다.
If you find any errors in the translation, please e-mail me.
번역상 오류나 매끄럽지 않은 부분이 있으면 메일로 알려 주시기 바랍니다.In the all-out battlefield that is today's Springfield, the winner likely will be the one that makes the fewest mistakes. Each side wants to come across as being on the side of the people, not out for itself, whatever the underlying reality.
If you act to the contrary, if you make one of those mistakes, you can bet it will come out.
Which leads to the tale of how state Rep. Lou Lang—Skokie Democrat, harsh critic of GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, deputy majority leader in Speaker Mike Madigan's House—happened to hit up that very same governor for a job for his daughter. Or, more accurately, a renewal of the part-time post she picked up in the final months of the Pat Quinn administration.
I'm not going to name the daughter. She's a civilian who, best as I can determine, is no longer on any public payroll.
But the tale sure does tell you something about the mindset down there in the Capitol.
Here's the story:
According to employment records I obtained under the state's Freedom of Information Act and her LinkedIn page, the younger Lang graduated from Northwestern University in June 2013 with a theater degree. She did a bit of acting, but hey, there are a lot more actors paying dues than making big bucks in Chicago. So in October 2013 she ended up as an intake specialist and later as a marketing and communications consultant at the Illinois Housing Development Authority, earning $42,000 a year. IHDA is a state agency whose leadership is selected by the governor.
The young Lang then spent a few months working as a sales associate at a tanning parlor—more dues-paying, I guess—before popping up on the payroll of the Illinois Film Office beginning in September 2014. That office is a unit of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
'I DON'T PLAY THOSE GAMES'
Former Quinn administration officials who would know how she got the job didn't return my calls. Rep. Lang says: "There was an opening in the film office. She applied for it." Did he make a call or two on her behalf? "Not that I recall. But I don't play those games."
Regardless, the "executive 2" job had been vacant for a number of years, according to state employment records, and called for the younger Lang "to update promotional videos used on the DCEO web site and at trade shows for the purpose of encouraging motion picture, commercial and television production in Illinois."
Also, the position was explicitly temporary, intended to last only until March 16. And it was only a couple of days a week, so over the six months, the younger Lang earned only $9,956.34, including Social Security and retirement payments. But 10 grand is 10 grand.
Anyhow, by March, Quinn no longer was governor. Bruce Rauner was. And something else happened: Rep. Lang called a Rauner administration official who was in a position to help, and asked if the governor could find another job for his daughter. Or extend the Film Office gig.
"I had a conversation with a state employee, that they ought to consider keeping her," Lang told me in a phone call yesterday, saying that on occasion he will push the credentials of worthy job candidates. He declined to name the employee he spoke with, but said it was "someone representing the governor." Lang added, "I had one conversation with him, that I recall."
MORE TO THE STORY?
But the Rauner folks say there was considerably more to it.
According to an administration official who asked not to be named, there were "at least three" phone calls from Lang in February and March. And, that source says, Lang waved both a carrot and a stick.
"He was very pushy, insisting on something, suggesting that we could find a creative way" to continue to pay her. "He said he wanted to have a good relationship with the governor, and that, if we could find a way to help this happen, we'd be happy. He said it would be unfortunate if we didn't."
The official doesn't recall if Lang specifically used the word "unfortunate," but said that, at a minimum, Lang used words to that effect.
Another Rauner official heard one of the conversations, because the two were driving to Springfield when Lang called and the driver put the call on the car speakerphone.
Either way, the Rauner folks, interestingly, didn't totally blow Lang off. They say he was told that the Film Office job should have been posted and offered to others under the state's union contracts, but they'd look for something else that might fit her credentials. They never found anything, and, my sources say, Lang eventually quit calling.
The state rep vehemently disputes that account.
"It's not true," he told me. "I don't threaten people. I do my job."
"Is this (the) Rauner people's way of hitting me because I have told the truth about them?" he asked. "It's nonsense."
TRUTH TRAIL
"Told the truth" is a reference to Lang's repeated and rather strong attacks on Rauner administration policies. Like the time he referred to GOP lawmakers as Rauner's "minions." Or the Twitter war that Lang and a Rauner press aide got into earlier this year.
Or the testy exchange he had with the new DCEO chief, Jim Schultz, a few weeks ago over Rauner's plan to partly privatize the agency. "I believe I've asked and answered the questions," Schultz said at one point during a hearing on the matter. "I believe you've answered the question, but you haven't answered the question," Lang shot back.
Anyhow, as a top Madigan lieutenant, I wouldn't expect Lang to be sending verbal bonbons to the governor's crew. He's never been known as a shrinking violet. But neither would I be expecting him to ask a governor that Madigan says is pushing extreme policies for a personal family favor.
Interesting place, Springfield, isn't it? Maybe they could make a movie about it.If you were to walk through O’Donnell High School in Texas as recently as last month, you would have seen this giant mural of the Ten Commandments.
In the same area, there’s also a mention of Isaiah 40:31, which talks about what will happen to those “who hope in the Lord.”
It led the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Sam Grover to send a letter to O’Donnell ISD Superintendent Dr. Cathy Amonett. He called out the illegal promotion of Christianity and gave the District a choice: Remove the mural or face a lawsuit.
Until that decision could be made, Amonett had an American flag placed over the Christian list. It’s a move that infuriated some students, who clearly haven’t been paying any attention in their government classes.
“I made the decision to cover it up until I made a more informed decision about what I should do, because I don’t want to harm the district or cause any controversy or anything,” Dr. Amonett said. … But the students have taken that frustration and turned it into a movement. “Students have put verses on sticky notes just around the hallways and stuff. So two verses and commandments they’ve been complaining about turned into 70 verses,” junior Sebastian Pedroza said.
That’s… perfectly fine. FFRF doesn’t care what students do on their own. Their letter and request wasn’t an anti-Christian move; it was about making sure the District was following the law.
Students still protested, something they would never do it verses from the Qur’an were painted on the walls instead. The entire mural sent a clear message to students: If you’re not Christian, you’re not welcome here.
“After consultation with legal counsel, community members and students, I have decided as the Superintendent of O’Donnell ISD that the Ten Commandment mural will no longer be on display beginning Sept. 16, 2016. Although the District’s students and community members strongly support the preservation of the mural as it is, I have decided that its continued display in the commons area of the school is not in the District’s best legal interests.” “I am so very proud of the students at O’Donnell ISD for taking a stand for what they believe in and for demonstrating extremely mature conduct in the expression of those beliefs. They have shown themselves to the world to be strong, intelligent and passionate students who deserve to be respected. The current state of American constitutional jurisprudence, however, does not permit the District to continue its display of the mural,” wrote Dr. Amonett in a press release.
It took a few weeks, but Amonett finally made the right decision. She announced yesterday that the entire mural would be painted over
That’s an interesting way of spinning it: I appreciate the students who are fighting for what they believe in… but what they believe in is illegal, and there’s no way in hell we’re going to waste taxpayer money fighting a lawsuit we’re invariably going to lose. Nice work, kids!
That’s all right. Amonett doesn’t want to upset the locals, and that’s a smart way to do it: I wish we could keep the painting, but the law says we can’t!
At the end of the day, FFRF was right, the students were wrong, and the school is no longer violating the law. Maybe the teachers there can turn this into a lesson so that the teenagers understand why they were on the wrong side of this decision.
(Screenshot via KCBD. Thanks to Brian for the link)Town police are revisiting the Regina Brown missing person case, seeking new clues in trying to learn what happened to the 35-year-old American Airlines flight attendant, who went missing from her Whippoorwill Hill Road home in 1987.
Starting on May 31, police stationed themselves at the end of that dead-end street, which extends from Mt Pleasant Road, in seeking clues at an undeveloped overgrown tract of rolling terrain lying generally north and west of that road.
Police had cadaver search dogs on hand on the morning of June 2. The German shepherds have been trained to focus their very sensitive sense of small on detecting the buried remains of humans.
Town public works department staffers stood nearby with heavy equipment designed to cut brush and remove trees, if required, for the search.
In a statement on the police activity off Whippoorwill Hill Road, Police Chief James Viadero on June 2 said, "The only thing that we can elaborate on is that we are diligently working on the case. The search on Whippoorwill (Hill Road) is in conjunction with the (Brown) case, and we will be searching the area for evidence for several more days.
"The case is active and remains a priority with this agency. Due to the fact it is an open investigation and sensitive in nature we cannot elaborate further," the chief added.
"We will share any new developments that change the status of the case, as soon as it is practical to do so," he said.
Ms Brown lived at 18 Whippoorwill Hill Road. On March 30, 1987, she failed to show up for work on a scheduled flight.
In 1995, Ms Brown was declared legally dead by probate court, but her body has never been found.
The Disappearance
Ms Brown, the mother of three young children, was last seen on March 26, 1987.
"Regina Brown was involved in a divorce, and had dropped off her daughter and babysitter at LaGuardia Airport. She was then supposed to have returned home to Newtown," ÃÂ according to a police summary of her disappearance.
When Ms Brown missed work on another flight, on April 3, 1987, the airline contacted her estranged husband Willis Brown, Jr, then 53, an American Airlines pilot who was then living in Queens, N.Y. He called the Newtown police later that day to file a missing person report.
At the time of Ms Brown's disappearance, the Browns were going through a contentious divorce and child custody battle. They had been married for less than five years, living all of that time in Newtown.
After Ms Brown disappeared, Newtown police and state police searched the Brown residence on Whippoorwill Hill Road and also searched the grounds of surrounding properties, including a nearby large undeveloped tract, but found no evidence of foul play.
Ms Brown's 1980 Honda was found on April 6, 1987, in New York City with the keys still in the ignition. The vehicle had several parking violation tags on the windshield. Police transported the Honda back to Connecticut for forensic testing, but it yielded no significant evidence.
The police questioned Mr Brown when they learned that he had come to Newtown from Queens on March 26 for a dental appointment. He told police that he went to his Queens apartment immediately after the appointment.
Mr Brown agreed to take a polygraph test - provided that it was administered after the divorce proceedings were concluded - but he later changed his mind and refused.
Mr Brown now lives out of state.
After Regina Brown disappeared, police and news reports noted similarities between her case and that of another Newtown flight attendant, Helle Crafts, 39, who had disappeared several months earlier, in November 1986.
Both woman were flight attendants, married to airline pilots, and were going through divorce proceedings. In each case, relatives and friends insisted the women would not have willingly abandoned their children.
While the Brown case remains unsolved, Ms Crafts' husband, Richard, was convicted of killing his wife, cutting up her body with a chainsaw, and then disposing of the parts with a rented woodchipper.
He is serving a 50-year sentence on a murder conviction. On June 3, Mr Crafts, 78, was being held at a state prison in Suffield.It looks a cross between a helicopter and a hovercraft and can take off and land vertically: AirMule is a giant drone that can pick up and drop off supplies or people.
It can operate inside villages and cities, land on the sidewalk, or in rough terrain, on a path, in a clearing in a forest
Built by Israeli firm Urban Aeronautics, It is meant to be used in areas too dangerous for other aircraft.
Rafi Yoeli, chief executive officer of Urban Aeronautics, explained how it works: “It can operate inside villages and cities, land on the sidewalk, or in rough terrain, on a path, in a clearing in a forest, and it doesn’t have overhead rotor and tail rotors which are characteristic of helicopters and which cause so many accidents.
“It does all of that automatically, it can fly very low close to terrain, it has various sensors to enable it to do this mission without any supervision.”
The drone is capable of carrying 500 kilograms, can be manned or remotely controlled and carry out a variety of tasks, especially in emergency situations.
Yoeli added: “Imagine a dirty bomb in a city, with a lot of radiation, or chemical material, or something that is evolving inside a city centre with no humans being able to get into that area, and no helicopter being able, especially if its an unmanned helicopter, being able to go into that confined area without hitting something on the way.”
The Airmule could deliver field supplies for an army or fly injured soldiers from a battlefield.
It can reach speeds of 115 mph at an altitude of 18,000 ft or 5,500 metres. But for now it is still undergoing tests to prove it does not pose a threat to other aircraft or people living under its flight path.
The firm hopes the AirMule will be in the field within the next two years.When your job search isn't going as well as you expected, it can make good sense to get help with it. A professional career counselor or coach can help you expedite your job search and focus on the best resources to help you get hired fast. But, if money is an issue, you can also find free or low-cost job search help.
How to Find Free or Low-Cost Job Search Help
There may be a wealth of local and Internet resources that you have not yet tapped, including career counselors in private practice. These tips, from a professional college career counselor, Donna Marino, are designed to help college graduates and other job seekers identify free, or inexpensive, resources in their geographic areas.
Contact Career Services
If you are a college graduate, be sure to contact the career services office at your own alma mater(s). Many institutions offer lifetime career development services for alumni. Others offer limited services; still, others offer services at extremely reasonable rates. And much of what is offered may be available long-distance.
One of the most important services to request will be access to your alma mater's version of a Career Advisor Network (alumni who have volunteered to speak with you, respond to your career-related questions, and advise you on your job search).
You may be able to request telephone appointments with the career development professionals at your alma mater(s) for services such as resume reviews and advising sessions on job search strategies or interviewing techniques.
You'll also want to get any required passwords for access to your alma mater's online job listing databases. And it never hurts to ask if your alma mater(s) have existing reciprocity agreements with institutions in your geographic area (allowing you to access the services of the local college's career services office). But be prepared to hear that your access may be limited to non-password-protected job listings (no counselor contact).
How to Get Job Search Help at the Library
In addition to providing job search and career-related books, public libraries offer many other resources for job seekers. Libraries are a good resource for unemployed workers and job changers, especially for those who can use hands-on help.
To find out how your library can help, visit the library's website. You'll find information on library resources, programs, classes, tools, and events that can help you with your job search.
Computer Training Classes
Many public libraries offer free computer training courses including classes on how to use your computer and software programs, basic computer and laptop skills, using eReaders and iPads, setting up and using email, using Google, blogging, file storage, internet safety, and other computer and internet classes.
Even though these classes aren't specifically focused on job searching, they will help you learn how to use your computer and the internet effectively and efficiently.
Computers and Wi-Fi
When you don't have access to a computer or wi-fi, most libraries have computers available for patrons to use. You may be able to reserve time to use the computer or they may be available on a first-come, first served basis.
You can use library computers to check and send an email (get a free Gmail or Yahoo email account), write resumes and letters, and apply for jobs (save a copy of your resume and cover letters online using Google Docs).
University and library printers are available, so you can print copies of your resume, cover letters, and references. Libraries also offer free wi-fi that you can connect to with your laptop or tablet.
Job Search Workshops
Job search workshops provide hands-on assistance with your job search and may include advice on online job searching, resume and cover letter writing, how to apply for jobs, and how to network.
Job Clubs
Job clubs are designed to provide job seekers with job search help, support, and advice. Check to see if your library offers a formal job club moderated by a career expert or meeting space for an informal job club you can join.
Career Transitions
Career Transitions is an online job search and career exploration tool that job seekers can access for free through local public libraries. To find out if your library provides access to the site call the library or your local library's website to see if they have purchased Career Transitions.
English Language Classes
When English isn't your first language, it can make your job search even more of a challenge. Your library can help with ESL classes, workshops, and practice sessions.
Stress Relief
Job searching can be really stressful and you may be able to find some stress relief at the library. Some libraries offer meditation workshops, yoga classes, and other health and fitness classes.
Find More Free Job Search Help
Here are some other ideas that are helpful to all job seekers, whether they've graduated from college or not.
Check with your local Chamber of Commerce to ask about career/job fairs that may be planned for the near future.
Tap resources and services available through your state Department of Labor office. You will find both online resources as well as in-person options.
Consider Hiring a Career CounselorSide-stepping a shifty exemption for fracking pollution known as the "Halliburton loophole," the Environmental Protection Agency is fining the world's largest natural gas company for dirtying West Virginia's waterways.
The EPA, the Justice Department, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) on Monday charged XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, $2.3 million for violating the Clean Water Act for fracking-related activities in West Virginia. The company will also have to pay an additional $3 million to restore eight sites damaged by the unauthorized discharge of fill material into streams and wetlands.
And while a $2.3 million fine is "a very small drop in a very large bucket" for XTO Energy, as Clean Technica reporter Tina Casey points out, this charge is noteworthy because the EPA managed to skirt a loophole that largely exempts oil and gas drilling by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, from the Safe Drinking Water Act or Clean Water Act.
"The EPA has been carefully pussyfooting around the fracking issue for years because its hands are tied by an enormous pollution loophole engineered during the Bush Administration by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who left his post as CEO of the drilling industry services company Halliburton to run for office in 2000," Casey writes.
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To avoid that loophole, Casey explains, "Instead of making straight for the drilling operation itself, EPA went after XTO/ExxonMobil for ordinary construction-related damage."
The EPA statement charges, "the company impacted streams and discharged sand, dirt, rocks and other fill material into streams and wetlands without a federal permit in order to construct well pads, road crossings, freshwater pits, and other facilities related to natural gas extraction."
According to the EPA, the fracking-related activities were in violation of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, which prohibits the filling or damming of wetlands, rivers, streams, and other waters of the United States without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
This is the second time the EPA has levied roundabout charges against fracking polluters. Last year, Chesapeake Energy was fined $6.5 million on identical grounds.Announced in a blog post on March 9th, ether.camp has produced a hybrid Ethereum and Bitcoin ATM. Located in San Mateo California, you will find it offering its services to the Ethereum community looking to convert fiat currency directly to Ether.
Based on the Lamassu Bitcoin ATM, this model has been modified to provide the option of purchasing Ether or Bitcoins. Originally designed and built in Portugal by Lamassu, the software of the Lamassu model ATMs is open-source code, making it straightforward to reprogram for this project.
While traditional Bitcoin ATMs are designed to convert fiat currency into digital Bitcoins, the Ethereum ATM can do that and more. In addition to acting strictly as an ATM to deposit money, future uses of the Ethereum ATM include the ability to interact with smart contracts and other programmable items on the Ethereum block chain. As the blog points out, “imagine you could pay a dollar to buy an unowned tile in Etheria, |
counters clicked * value of last counter clicked'
}
});
Could you imagine doing this with generators and middleware? I can’t.
Behind the scenes, redux-operations modifies your action and hands you a results meta object that contains the oldState and state of each previous operation. That means you don’t have to sit and cry when marketing tells you “if the old counter value changed by 5 and the number of clicks is now 10, then pop up a modal with a coupon”. You can whip it up in 5 minutes and dare them to stump you again (because they live for that stuff, right?).
Asynchronous actions, right where you want ‘em
Learning how to do async actions in redux has a learning curve. First, you gotta add some middleware to handle thunks or promises, then you gotta call a second action, which is usually in the action creator of the first action. Ultimately, that action creator gets pretty large since it also has to handle the fetched data & make a decision on what action to call next. Instead, we move it into the operation:
INCREMENT_ASYNC: {
resolve: (state, action)=> {
setTimeout(()=> {
const {dispatch, locationInState} = action.meta.operations;
const inc = bindOperationToActionCreators(...);
dispatch(inc());
}, 1000);
return state;
}
}
As seen, the state is returned synchronously, but the async trigger is also dispatched thanks to redux-operations handing dispatch to the action metadata. It works just as easily with promises, too.
Note: For the purists in the crowd, you might argue that an operation is written inside a resolve function which is inside a “reducer”, and redux principle #3 stipulates that reducers must be pure functions, ergo we’re condoning heresy. To those fine folks, I’d say this ain’t your momma’s reducer… or even a reducer at all, since it doesn’t even reduce; we just kept the name “reducer” because it’s what people know. In other words, if the reducer is a bag of Skittles, redux-operations tears it open, grabs the candy, throws the “reducer” wrapper away, and then picks out all the red ones and eats them together (Honestly, if colors are actions and skittles are operations, the analogy is scary accurate).
Closing Remarks
After using this for about a month, I have yet to find a state-wrangling challenge that I couldn’t solve easily with redux-operations. And maybe I’m biased, but it makes my code really concise and easy to reason through. To see how it compares to other advanced solutions, check out the latest challenge at scalable-frontend-with-elm-or-redux. Even if you’re not on a big team and you don’t use redux for anything tricky, that visual API is such a treat for debugging that it’ll leave a big stupid grin on your face. And after all, if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.When it comes to crap like welfare liberals don’t care what the cost is, but when it comes to honoring vets suddenly they’re deficit hawks. It’s absolutely pathetic.
You can email this piece of shit, Bill McClellan, here: [email protected]
Bill McClellan: One last call to service – end military funeral honors — St.Louis Post-Dispatch
... According to the program’s website, it is funded by the federal government and the Missouri National Guard Trust Fund.
Both the federal government and the state government are broke. So why are we providing military funeral honors for all veterans? It is a nice gesture we can’t afford.
Certainly, men and women killed in combat deserve full military honors. It’s a way for the country to say, “We honor the memory of those who died in our service.” These military honors — and the thought behind them — are intended to provide some solace for the families of the fallen.
But what about the guy who spends a couple of years in the military and then gets on with his life? Bear in mind that most veterans did nothing heroic. They served, and that’s laudable, but it hardly seems necessary to provide them all with military honors after they have died. In fact, it seems generous enough to provide veterans and their spouses with free space and headstones at a national cemetery.
Why not let the veterans organizations provide military honors at the funerals of their members? If a person gets out of the Marine Corps and wants to stay connected, he can join the Marine Corps League. I’m sure the 101st Airborne has an association. In a more general vein, we have the American Legion and the VFW.
Providing military honor funerals for their members would be a boon to these organizations. Membership would presumably climb, and veterans who want the military funerals could still get them.
Everybody knows government needs to cut costs.
This is exactly how you do it.The money was supposed to go toward feeding the most vulnerable children in Arkansas: Kids in low-income areas who relied on after-school programs for dinner or visited community centers during the summer because they might not get to eat otherwise.
Instead, authorities say a small group deliberately defrauded the system and pocketed at least $10 million in federal funds intended to feed at-risk youths in a place with one of the highest rates of child hunger in the United States.
The scheme unfolded over about 2½ years, and officials considered it “to be the equivalent of taking food directly from children,” said Chris Givens, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman.
At least 12 people in Arkansas have been charged with crimes including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering in an ongoing investigation of misused funds related to federal feeding programs, according to government prosecutors.
Moreover, investigators said they could trace all of the corrupt activity back to internal sources, which state officials called a troubling and “extremely disappointing” matter. Of those charged, three were employees of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, the state agency that oversees the distribution of such funds from the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The unraveling of what turned out to be a staggering level of fraud began in mid-2013, when the state DHS received what it considered a suspicious claim from Jacqueline Mills, the sponsor of meal sites in rural eastern Arkansas. The site in question was in Helena-West Helena, a small city with a low population density; the claim amount was high enough to raise a red flag.
“The amount was almost a million dollars,” said Tonya Williams, a state DHS division director. “It was just like, ‘Wait a minute — that just doesn’t seem right.’ ”
The stage agency reported it to the USDA inspector general’s office. Soon the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and other federal agencies joined the investigation.
What they found shocked the Arkansas DHS. More than a year after the investigation began, Mills was arrested on fraud and bribery charges, and so were two longtime DHS employees — Gladys King and Tonique Hatton.
“I was pretty mortified,” Williams said.
[She was the tops at ordering tows in D.C. And she was on the take.]
Investigators found that Hatton had accepted bribes — some directly, others made through payments to her relatives — in exchange for approving the maximum number of children who would be fed at Mills’s site in eastern Arkansas.
Mills, in turn, allegedly submitted inflated claims for reimbursement to the state DHS.
Because her sites had already been approved for a certain number of children, the DHS approved and paid out the claims. Authorities estimate Mills’s sites received more than $2.5 million in federal funds through the state agency.
Investigators said that in exchange for bribes, King approved other sites knowing their administrators would submit similarly inflated claims.
King had worked at the DHS since 2009 and most recently served as a special nutrition-unit program coordinator; she voluntarily left the agency in December 2013, after the investigation began. Hatton began working at the agency in 2001 and was still employed there at the time of her arrest. The DHS fired her immediately.
“It’s extremely disappointing to learn that people were reportedly cheating a program that feeds hungry children, especially in a state that has one of the highest rates of childhood hunger in the country,” then-DHS Director John Selig said in a statement released the morning of the first arrests, in 2014. “We appreciate all the work to help us root out the bad actors so other providers can continue to ensure kids have adequate food when they aren’t in school.”
Over the following year, the investigation continued to turn up sobering discoveries of fraud and bribery.
In one case, a provider named Christopher Nichols submitted a claim to open two meal sites through an organization called “A Vision for Success.” Both locations were approved by King, his aunt.
One site was discovered to be an auto repair shop in North Little Rock owned by Nichols’s uncle Anthony Waits. The other address was nonexistent.
According to authorities, Waits was married to King.
In February, DHS administrator Mark Speight told KARK News that it was not unheard of for a feeding program to be run from an auto shop.
“When you’re feeding children, you might find some places you would never think would be a feeding site,” Speight told the station. “If there were children and there was an apartment complex right next to it and it had facilities to be able to serve, it could possibly happen.”
[Ex-Commerce Dept. IT specialist accused of bribery, funneling cash through chicken restaurants]
In March, another defendant, Reuben Nims, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. According to the Justice Department, Nims admitted he was recruited by Waits to sponsor a meal program through an organization called “Blessed Thru Success.”
Nims had one approved site in Little Rock that he claimed fed up to 300 children per day.
It was all a lie, investigators found.
“No children were ever actually fed there,” the Justice Department said after Nims’s guilty plea.
In all, 12 people have been charged. This week, Hatton became the ninth person to plead guilty to crimes surrounding theft of federal feeding-program funds.
Three defendants have pleaded not guilty; their trials begin Oct. 17.
Only one defendant has been sentenced. In March, Kattie Jordan was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison. A judge also ordered her to pay joint restitution of $3.6 million.
The defendants face a maximum of 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine for the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The punishment for accepting bribes is up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum fine.
“Regardless of these statutory penalties, we feel these are very serious crimes,” said Givens, the U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman.
[‘They’ll kill for it’: Ramen has become the black-market currency in American prisons]
It is unclear how many children in Arkansas rely on free or reduced meals outside of school, but nearly 289,000 of the state’s students (about 61 percent) qualified for free or reduced school lunches in the 2015-2016 academic year.
A 2010 Feeding America report said Arkansas had the highest level of child food insecurity in the country, at 24.4 percent.
“There’s hungry kids all over Arkansas,” Givens said. He added that it is unclear whether any children in Arkansas were not fed as a result of the fraud.
But based on USDA reimbursement rates — about $3.07 to $3.69 per lunch — the $10 million that was siphoned off from the programs in Arkansas could have meant anywhere from 2.7 million to 3.2 million meals for children, according to a USDA spokeswoman.
The stolen funds came through two USDA programs: the Summer Food Service Program, which feeds low-income children when school is out, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
The Arkansas DHS receives about $70 million per year through the programs, an official said. With the funds, the agency served nearly 35 million meals and snacks to needy Arkansans in 2015.
“All of the defendants are connected through the DHS employees in some way, although not all defendants know each other,” Givens said in an email. “Tonique Hatton began her scheme, and the others at DHS followed. It could be considered the same fraud ring, in a sense, because the fraud was made possible through the same means, that is, with the help of the DHS employees.”
One way or another, most of the defendants took advantage of a relatively basic system: In Arkansas, local sponsors who want to participate in the feeding programs must get training and then submit an application to the state DHS.
Once approved, they can provide meals to qualifying children in the community, then submit claims for reimbursement based on the number of eligible meals they serve. An approved site also appears on the state agency’s website for participants in the Arkansas Special Nutrition Program.
Until recently, a single state DHS employee could be the one approving, visiting and reimbursing sites, said Williams, the division director.
“We have restructured completely, as you can imagine,” she said.
The agency has compartmentalized duties so that no one employee is responsible for approving and reimbursing sites “from beginning to end,” Williams said.
Moreover, Williams said, she uses the findings of fraud as a cautionary tale.
“It’s just part of training now,” she said, noting that she tells DHS employees, “You do not want to be on the front page.”
“When I do new-employee orientation,” she said, “it’s like: ‘You’re going to read about it. We’re not going to hide this elephant.’ ”
Read more:
Postal Service scandal: Feds uncover stolen meds, embezzled funds — and 48,288 hoarded letters
Patent-office workers bilked the government of millions by playing hooky, watchdog finds
Navy admiral pleads guilty in ‘Fat Leonard’ corruption scandalThe 40-Year-Old Virgin actor Shelley Malil testified Thursday he stabbed his girlfriend 20 times when he wrongly thought that she was somebody else going after him in the dark.
“I’m sorry,” Malil, 45, said in a Vista, Calif., courtroom. “I had no idea. I saw the pictures (of her wounds) for the first time, I was stunned. When I look at those pictures, I still can’t believe the knife I was holding was responsible for all those injuries.”
Taking the stand in his own defense, the actor insisted he never intended to kill or hurt Kendra Beebe, 38, at her San Diego County house one night in August 2008. But then “chaos” broke out, some of which he says he still can’t remember clearly.
Malil, who played one of Steve Carell’s electronics store coworkers in the movie, pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and residential burglary. He could get 21 years to life in prison if convicted. Beebe survived the attack and testified against him.
Malil told the jury that when he arrived at Beebe’s house, he found her sipping wine with her pal David Maldonado. Malil says he felt threatened because he thought Maldonado was about to come after him.
“I heard the chair behind me backing up,” he recalls. “I reach for the knife. … I grab half the handle and he’s pulling my arm, and I’m pulling away from him.”
After a tumble, Malil says he realized Maldonado no longer had the knife. “I assume he’s going for something else,” he says. “I follow him to the kitchen.”
Shelley Malil in The 40-Year-Old Virgin
But on the way, Malil says Maldonado was headed to his car. “I’m almost positive this guy’s got a gun and coming after me,” he says. “I come around the corner. It’s eerily quiet. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I get hit from the back on the side of the head. It felt like cold granite countertop.”
That’s when Malil, still carrying a knife at this point, started slashing out in defense in the dark. “It was going crazy,” he says. “It seemed like it was going for a minute.”
It wasn’t until hearing Beebe shout, “Call 911!” that Malil realized she was the one he was stabbing.
“That’s the first time I look and see it’s Kendra I’m fighting with,” he says.
The trial will continue with cross-examination Monday, and closing statements are expected Tuesday.(New York Public Library Digital Collection)
New York City has a not-so-little secret: About 300 years ago, as the first Dutch settlers docked on the shores of what would later become a metropolis, they brought with them enslaved men and women.
At the foot of the city, in what would later become Wall Street, New York operated its first slave market to buy, sell and trade human beings.
Soon, there will be a permanent reminder of that little-known history.
The New York City Council approved the creation of a historical marker acknowledging for the first time the contributions of slaves to the creation of early New York and its economy. It will be erected later this year, just a block from where the market once stood.
“The slaves of that time and place helped build City Hall,” City Council member Jumaane Williams, the principal sponsor of the bill that established the marker, told WNYC. “Their lives should be celebrated and their deaths should be mourned.”
[Slavery is a tough role, hard sell at Colonial Williamsburg]
By 1711, there were hundreds of slaves at work in New York — learning trades, farming crops, working in homes and on the docks, and building the foundation of what would eventually become a great American city. According to Columbia University, about 40 percent of white homes owned slaves at the time.
But if you travel to Lower Manhattan today, you almost wouldn’t know that slavery was ever present in the city.
“In Lower Manhattan, with the exception of the African burial ground memorial, there are no reminders of the slave market and the incredible injustices that happened there and have been unrecognized by our city,” James G. Van Bramer, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs, said at a hearing last year. “We must never forget what happened, and it is important that native New Yorkers, tourists and everyone alike be reminded of what happened there. And that we mark the contributions of enslaved Africans who built our city, including our City Hall and the wall that would give the name to Wall Street.”
[Black towns, established by freed slaves after the Civil War, are dying out]
Initially, the buying, selling and trading of slaves was conducted privately, according to Columbia University. Some slaves were even sent out on their own to find work. But in 1711, in response to anxieties of white, middle-class New Yorkers who feared that the presence of so many black slaves looking for work on the streets might raise the risks of an insurrection, the market was erected.
“All Negro and Indian slaves that are let out to hired” would be “hired at the Market house at the Wall Street Slip…” the City Council declared.
It was more than 50 years later, in 1762, when the market was finally taken down. But historians have noted that New York has a long history of support for the institution of slavery, even though it later became known for its role in helping abolitionists dismantle it.
New York would become an economic and cultural powerhouse. But rarely is slavery or segregation talked about in the re-telling of those events. And the places that played a key role in the events of that time are just as difficult to identify.
Newsweek’s Alexander Nazaryan went searching for the city’s hidden history of slavery and segregation and found a rich, if somewhat obscured, past:
That era seems almost too complex for us to remember, eluding the easy narratives of triumph and redemption while calling into question New York’s liberal self-image. Kenneth T. Jackson, a Columbia University professor widely regarded as the preeminent historian of New York City, points out that while Southern cities like Charleston, South Carolina, unequivocally supported slavery and New England ones like Boston thoroughly opposed it, New York was probably the most ideologically conflicted urban center in the nation. Jackson surmised that New York’s complicity in the slave trade remains an “unpleasant topic” to this day. It is not the kind of conversation we can conduct with a well-meaning Starbucks barista. But we will have to have it sooner or later. “There is no future,” Jackson warns, “in denying the past.”
According to WNYC, the marker is expected to be finished soon and may be unveiled on June 19 — or Juneteenth, which is commemorated as the day slaves in the South were emancipated.
MORE READING: Nearly 550 modern-day slaves were rescued from Indonesia’s fish trade. And that’s just the beginning.
150 years after Appomattox, a startling discovery#INFO
In potentially the most pivotal shows of the year, New Japan Pro Wrestling presents a two-night extravaganza, as the “G1 Special in USA” emanate LIVE from the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center in Long Beach, California – and your chance to purchase tickets is right around the corner!
On Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 8am PST(Pacific)/11am EST(Eastern), you will be able to purchase your official “G1 Special in USA” for both Saturday July 1, 2017 & Sunday July, 2, 2017!
In addition to securing a seat for the best professional wrestling promotion on the planet, you will have the chance to get up close and personal with the superstars of New Japan Pro Wrestling in the exclusive G1 Special in USA Meet & Greet, for only an additional $10 on your ticket price! Space in the Meet & Greet is limited, so make sure to get your spot early!
The price range will be as follows:
Front row : $150
Rows 2-5 : $100
Rows 6-9 : $80
Rows 10-13 : $60
Rows 14-17 : $30
There is also a G1 Special in USA Meet & Greet ticket, which you can combine with any ticket for an additional charge of $10*.
The Meet & Greet portion of our event is limited both days due to space restrictions. With your individual Meet & Greet ticket you will be able to get your picture and secure an autograph from your favorite New Japan Pro Wrestling Superstar.
G1 Special in USA Meet & Greet will be 12pm-2pm on both Saturday, July 1, 2017 & Sunday July 2, 2017.
*Meet & Greet tickets are sold individually. Everyone attending the meet & greet must have their own individual ticket to enter.
G1 Special in USA Day 1 Meet & Greet
Time & Date 12pm-2pm PST, Saturday July 1, 2017
Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center Hall B
300 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach CA 90802
* Main doors are accessible off Pine Avenue/ Bay Street. Use the Prom Lobby entrance
G1 Special in USA Day 1
Doors Open at 3:30pm PST Saturday July 1, 2017
Starts at 5:00pm PST Saturday July 1, 2017
Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center Hall B
300 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach CA 90802
* Main doors are accessible off Pine Avenue/ Bay Street. Use the Prom Lobby entrance
G1 Special in USA Day 2 Meet & Greet
Time & Date 12pm-2pm PST, Sunday July 2, 2017
Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center Hall B
300 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach CA 90802
* Main doors are accessible off Pine Avenue/ Bay Street. Use the Prom Lobby entrance
G1 Special in USA Day 2
Doors Open at 3:30pm PST Sunday July 2, 2017
Starts at 5:00pm PST Sunday July 2, 2017
Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center Hall B
300 E. Ocean Blvd, Long Beach CA 90802
* Main doors are accessible off Pine Avenue/ Bay Street. Use the Prom Lobby entrance
* Tickets of “G1 Special in USA” will go on sale on Saturday, April 1st on Ticketmaster!
https://www.njpw1972.com/g1special/Ukraine, particularly the capital Kiev, continues to be tormented with clashes between protesters and the police.These protests started after Ukraine's government decided to reject an agreement with the EU and instead seek closer ties with Russia.In most Western media outlets, this is portrayed as a struggle between the people and a dictator allied with Vladimir Putin. However, what they forget is that while, President Yanukovich somewhat authoritarian, he is supported by a large part of the population.More specifically, Yanukovich is very popular in the eastern and southern parts of the country, but very unpopular in the western and north central parts of Ukraine. This geographic divide is illustrated by this map showing his support in different parts of Ukraine (for a larger version of the image click on it) in the latest presidential election.Yanukovich is supported by a majority in blue areas, and the darker the blue color is the larger the majority is while his opponent was supported by a majority in yellow and red areas, with the strongest majority being in the dark red areas.The pro-Yanukovich areas are essentially the pro-Russian parts of Ukraine. Here the Russian language is largely prevalent with a significant part of the population considered to be "ethnic Russian". These regions also have strong trade ties with Russia.The anti-Yanukovich areas are thus more or less anti-Russian. They speak only the Ukrainan language and have little or no ties with Russia-and wants to keep it that way,If Yanukovich prevails, the pro-Russian parts of Ukraine will be pleased and the anti-Russian will feel oppressed. If the protesters wins, the anti-Russian parts will be pleased and the pro-Russian parts will feel oppressed.The only sensible solution for this dilemma is to divide Ukraine. The western and north central parts will then be able to create a Western oriented state which is linguistically entirely Ukrainian while the southern and eastern parts can either merge with Russia or create a linguistically Russian state allied with Russia.This solution isn't entirely unproblematic as there are areas which are themselves divided between anti- and pro-Russian supporters and as many Ukrainian nationalists insists that the country shouldn't be divided. But the current structure which will leave one half of the country feeling oppressed by the other half will continue to be a disaster.A lot of shoulder injuries result from raw (no bench shirt) lifters trying to emulate the style of geared lifters.
Raw lifting and geared lifting are two different lifts and need to be treated as such.
Using the ultra-wide grip used by geared lifters can lead to stagnation and possible injury.
Optimizing your grip for a raw press will not only lead to a greater press, it'll keep you on the bench and off the therapy table.
Simply measure the distance from the outside edge of both acromial processes. Then multiply by 1.5. This is how far apart your hands should be on the bar.
At 1.5 times biacromial width, shoulders are placed at the ideal 45-degree angle of abduction.
Stop Copying Geared Lifters!
All iron athletes, be they bodybuilders or powerlifters, agree that performance is paramount and that the quickest way to decrease bench press performance and limit gains is a shoulder injury.
Where do those shoulder injuries come from? Often from raw (no bench shirt) lifters trying to emulate the style of geared lifters.
Raw lifters see the tucked chin and the ultra-wide grip that geared lifters use and assume that it's the way to go, when in reality it leads to stagnation and possible injury. However, optimizing your grip for a raw press will not only lead to a greater press, it'll keep you on the bench and off the therapy table.
If you set up wide while raw, it'll result in a loss of power. Setting up too narrow will develop some killer triceps but limit full muscle recruitment. Luckily, there's a simple, straightforward way of determining your proper grip. The answer lies in the golden number, 1.5.
Finding Your Biacromial Distance
Simply measure the distance from the outside edge of both acromial processes. Then multiply this number by 1.5. This is how far apart you should place your hands on the bar. Grip width is taken from the inside edge of your index finger on both sides.
In my case, the biacromial distance is 25.5 inches (17 inches x 1.5 = 25.5 inches):
Numbers Don't Lie
Hand position on the bench press directly correlates with external rotation of the shoulder. There are certain positions that cause excessive stress on your glenohumeral joint. When your arm is externally rotated and abducted 90° from your body, this is an "at risk" position for shoulder injury.
When gripping the bar with a distance of 2 times biacromial width or greater, the shoulder is forced to abduct over 75 degrees. However, at 1.5 or less, shoulders are placed at the ideal 45-degree angle of abduction.
Why ideal? EMG analysis has shown that it's the angle that allows the greatest amount of force to be transferred into the bar. A lot of geared lifters adopt the ultra-wide 2 times biacromial-width (or even more) grip to shorten the bar path and to get even more help from the shirt.
However, this isn't something a raw lifter should ever do. The shirt helps protect the lifter's shoulder whereas a raw lifter's tendons and ligaments have to fend for themselves.
You've got to accept that the geared lift is a different style of pressing and isn't suitable for a raw lift! Raw lifters attempting to mimic this style, even with a severe elbow tuck, are approaching the "at risk" position and its consequences.
Wide Grip Means Wide Chest?
The argument often gets made that a wider grip activates more pectoral muscles without decreasing triceps lockout strength. Unless you're in a shirt, this isn't the case.
Research has demonstrated in a one-rep max bench press test that there's no difference in the pectoralis muscle recruitment with a wide-bench press grip.
Additionally, research showed a large difference in the amount of triceps activation with the 1.5 biacromial distance grip, so not only is a wide grip an injury risk, but it's a performance reducer.
Raw lifting and geared lifting are two different lifts and need to be treated as such. Stealing hand and arm positions from geared lifters sets the stage for decreased performance and possible injury.
Final Recommendations
The potential for injury is far too high on the bench press. Grabbing the bar and pressing away in a bad position is killing your joints and your gains. Skip mimicking shirted movements and master your raw press. Find your biacromial distance and find your appropriate grip distance.
Now lower the bar with your forearms perpendicular to the floor and arm abducted 45° from your body. Maintain your upper back tightness and press the bar back up.
Press safely, maintain tightness, and use your grip, not someone else's.
Related: More on bad habits picked up from geared liftersIt was the perfect way to emphasise the point. With 12 minutes left of the 1972 European Cup final and Ajax winning 1-0, Johan Cruyff rose above the Inter Milan defence to seal both the trophy and the treble. If that achievement was rare enough, so was the manner in which it was secured. The player that had transfixed the continent with his feet surprisingly settled its finest competition with his head.
"I had a lot of qualities," Cruyff said with a smile years later, "but heading wasn't the best. It confirmed our football was maybe a level above."
It also underlined the extent of Ajax's supremacy. For a player of historically high quality to win a game of such high stakes with the one element missing from his game was an act that symbolically brought the season to completion.
That, of course, also reflects the true meaning of a treble: the sense of totality, the elusive notion of leaving nothing else to do or win, utter domination.
As Bayern Munich stand on the verge of an equally fulfilling victory, chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had his own way of putting it: "This team has already entered the history books, but they can make themselves immortal now."
Bill Shankly used the same term to Jock Stein on the night in 1967 when his Celtic side became the first in Europe to complete a treble. It was all the more impressive because the Scottish side made it a quadruple by winning the League Cup. "Jock," the Liverpool boss said with his typical bombast. "You're immortal now."
Should Bayern beat Stuttgart in the DFB-Pokal on Saturday, they will become just the seventh side in history to win that wondrous combination of domestic league, cup and Champions League in one season.
Given that the German club has been a defeated opponent for three of those sides -- Manchester United 1999, Barcelona 2009 and Inter 2010 -- and was twice denied the feat near the death, it would deepen the sense of a journey's end. The stats, however, further illustrate that Bayern might just be striking out on their own.
Below are the records of the six previous treble winners as well as the 2013 Champions League winners. For the purposes of comparison, only matches from the European Cup, league and main domestic cup are included. The ratios from those records provide an even more relevant comparison. As can be seen from the figures, it would be fitting for Bayern to finally claim this feat, because few sides have enjoyed a season as close to perfection as this. Only one previous treble winner has a greater win percentage than the Germans, only two have a better scoring ratio and none have a better defensive record.
All of this does raise questions about their exact quality. Would a treble put Bayern on the top level of Europe's historic pantheon? Does their record do so already? Surely something that near to perfection is extremely persuasive?
Not necessarily. For a start, there is a difference between a team's defined fundamental quality and developing the right rhythm for a propitious period of time. As a consequence of factors like momentum, an existing lead and opposition sides falling away because of all that, teams can get into positions and runs that exaggerate their exact level. That was arguably the case with Manchester United and Barcelona this season, who both talked giddily of trebles at different points. It's possible that may have happened in the Bundesliga this year too.
As much as an entire season supposedly evens out the variables of fortune, a single campaign is still prone to its specific conditions that skew things. As Teddy Sheringham said about United's 1999 treble: "We had a little rub of the green at the right time, and we dug deep at the right time as well."
In a broader context, PSV Eindhoven were fortunate to find such form in 1988, at a point just after the dominant English clubs had been banned from European football and just before Arrigo Sacchi's Milan initiated such a quantum leap in Italy. Similarly, Bayern Munich probably benefited from encountering Barca in this season's semifinals at a time when the Catalans' various problems had built to a peak. Otherwise, the victory may not have been so emphatic or even a victory at all.
It is one of the curiosities to Bayern's campaign. While they are an obviously excellent team, there is still the odd feeling that their quality isn't quite as compelling as their records and that they have significant room for improvement. Should they manage that, though, they will have proved that this season's achievements have so much more to them. That is the key point.
A statement from Pep Guardiola after Barcelona's 2009 treble somewhat summed this up: "We're not the best team in Barca history, but we've had the best season." The Catalan boss was trying to be humble and pay heed to the Cruyff team of 1992, but it was his own side that would prove him right. Although the evolved Barca outfit of 2011 would win one fewer trophy, they were -- ironically -- a much more complete team.
Further illustrating how the total domination of a treble can swing on unpredictable single moments, superior sides such as Real Madrid 1953-60 and Liverpool 1976-85 never won one.
They instead won many more trophies over a longer period of time, as did Ajax of the early '70s. For Cruyff's team, completing the treble was not down to a twist of fate but a natural consequence of Total Football.
Having adopted a similar approach, Bayern must now replicate that. Of course, they must start by actually winning the treble. Even if they fail, though, recent history suggests they will get a chance to do so again.
It is no coincidence that, after 43 years of European Cup history in which only three trebles were won and all of them in smaller leagues, we are now on the verge of a third treble in five seasons in one of the major competitions.
Previously, the likes of the Bundesliga or Serie A would simply have had too many quality teams for any one side to be so commanding. Now, as has been argued on this site in the past week, we are seeing the rise of the superclubs that tower over everyone else to a disproportionate degree. Such records are a reflection of their resources.
Either way, one of those superclubs now stands on the brink of a truly supreme achievement. For Bayern, history awaits. Perfection may follow.Two Civil Air Patrol members, one from the National Capital Wing and the other from the national Congressional Squadron, were killed late Saturday when their plane crashed after experiencing engine failure in southern Illinois.
Majs. Louis R. Cantilena, who was flying the private plane, and Paul F. Schuda died after Cantilena’s Cessna crashed in woods about 9 p.m. near Oldenburg, Indiana, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati, according to an Associated Press report. Cantilena’s daughter was also killed, as was one of two dogs in the plane, Indiana State Police said.
According to The Associated Press, State Police Sgt. Wheeles said the Cessna had taken off from an airport outside Columbus, Indiana, while en route from Kansas City, Missouri, to Frederick, Maryland.
Schuda was the National Capital Wing’s standardization/evaluation officer and assistant director of operations. He also served as an instructor at CAP’s Col. Roland Butler Powered Flight Academy at Blackstone, Virginia. He previously served as the Congressional Squadron’s chief of staff from 2006-2012. He joined CAP in March 1998, transferring from the Congressional Squadron to the National Capital Wing in July 2012.
Schuda was director of the National |
then managing editor; former editor Andy Coulson and then editor Colin Myler; and Tom Crone, then its senior lawyer.
"Our inquiry is not going to end on Tuesday," said Paul Farrelly, a Labour MP on the committee. "We are going to ask James Murdoch which of the people who have come in front of us, as far as he knows, told us the truth or not."
Farrelly said the committee would recall witnesses in the light of Murdoch's statement. "We couldn't believe what he said when he closed the News of the World," Farrelly said. "He must have realised he would be summoned."To a self-righteous set of foreign-policy observers, Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is the height of irresponsibility. From real American allies like Britain’s Theresa May to fake ones, like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Trump’s move has been met with trepidation. Once again, we are told, an American president is sacrificing the credibility of the United States by going it alone, thereby abandoning the country’s singular role as global leader.This is, of course, a load of nonsense.
Hours after Trump’s announcement, the Czech Republic announced its recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Israeli media reported that Hungary and the Philippines will soon follow suit and begin the process of relocating their embassies to Jerusalem.
Trump’s decision to recognize an on-the-ground reality in Israel was made possible, in part, by the tectonic geopolitical shifts in the region—notably, a sub rosa Sunni-Israeli thaw led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That rapprochement took place with America on the sidelines under Barack Obama, but that changed after Trump lifted an Obama-era arms embargo on Riyadh. Trump’s critics characterized this, too, as the end of American leadership. You see, the Saudis have engaged in a brutal war in Yemen against the region’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, for which the Obama administration thought it deserved to be punished. And yet, minutes after Trump recognized Israel’s capital as Israel’s capital, he also publicly asked Saudi Arabia to lift an embargo of Yemeni ports to allow in some humanitarian aid—a request with which Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House has reason to believe the Saudis are complying.
If the last 24 hours is indicative of the end of American leadership abroad, we’re going to have to define what “leadership” truly means. For many observers, “leadership” is defined as the word’s literal antonym: adhering to international consensus.
Barack Obama recently lamented the “temporary absence of American leadership” resulting from Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accords. Unsurprisingly, the pundit class largely agreed with the former president. The accords did not, however, result in any kind of measurable commitment to meaningful greenhouse-gas emissions reductions on the part of conferees. Instead, member states submitted voluntary pledges on an individual basis ahead of the 2015 Paris summit; these were ratified without scrutiny. And what did conferees determine should happen to a signatory nation if it violated its pledge? Nothing at all. That’s not leadership. It’s complacency.
Likewise, Trump’s refusal to recertify the Iran nuclear accords, kicking the issue back to Congress where it will likely survive a “review process,” was depicted by his critics as a dereliction of the leader of the free world’s responsibilities. “Playing politics with core strategic foreign-policy interests will only erode the president’s credibility, his relationship with allies, and U.S. leadership on the global stage,” Brookings Institution visiting fellow Célia Belin warned. These sentiments were echoed by no less a figure than Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who cautioned Trump that America’s credibility was on the line. Indeed. Had the U.S. recertified a deal with which the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated Iran was not complying to maintain a pleasant (and lucrative) fiction, the authority and integrity of the United States truly would have been diminished.
Donald Trump’s impractical and oftentimes blinkered rhetorical commitment to populist isolationism does present a threat to America’s role as geopolitical trendsetter. The president’s skepticism of America’s traditional alliance structures, his antipathy toward international free trade, and his outright hostility toward accepted standards of diplomatic conduct (and the diplomats who abide by them) merits concern. But Trump’s bombastic flourishes have not, so far, resulted in any truly dangerous shifts in America’s posture toward either its adversaries or its allies. That fact has not stopped the president’s critics from dialing their consternation all the way up to 11 at the slightest provocation. Nor have Trump’s critics taken stock of the fact that some of his actions, such as reimposing sanctions on Iran and re-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terror, restore consistency to America’s often contradictory approach to foreign affairs. A policy that favors global consensus for consensus’s sake would have proscribed these welcome courses of action.
Foreign-policy observers who are supposedly overcome with anxiety over the loss of America’s leadership in the world are aware of what a real abdication of leadership looks like. They watched as America spent the last eight years retreating from the world stage.
Obama and his administration are adamant that no one in the White House actually said the words “leading from behind” to describe the U.S. role in the 2011 Libyan intervention (the reporter who published that quote disagrees), but the rhetoric is beside the point. The Obama administration outsourced that intervention to Europe and, as a result, had no contingency in place in the event that the regime in Tripoli collapsed.
It was the Obama administration that withdrew impetuously from Iraq only to sheepishly and belatedly return when the mass murder and ethnic cleansing was days away from becoming a genocide. It was the Obama administration who subcontracted superpower status to Russia to avoid intervention in Syria, only to intervene anyway when the situation became untenable. And yet, despite the existing American military presence in and over Syria, there was no effort to stave off a preventable humanitarian crisis in places like Homs and Aleppo. It was Donald Trump who finally made good on Barack Obama’s “red line” for action if the Syrian regime deployed chemical munitions against civilians—an atrocity that has not been repeated since.
“American leadership” is too often defined by its self-appointed custodians as a synonym for taking the path of least resistance prescribed by European bureaucrats. Those who believe that crediting the president for his achievements provides him with cover to trespass civic norms or sow discord have it precisely backward. Objectivity sharpens those criticisms and exposes them to a wider audience. On the world stage, Donald Trump is not abdicating America’s role in the world, and his critics should acknowledge that. At least for now, the president’s approach to foreign affairs isn’t only familiar; it’s effective.Abstract
Some individuals report problems during and after Internet sex engagement, such as missing sleep and forgetting appointments, which are associated with negative life consequences. One mechanism potentially leading to these kinds of problems is that sexual arousal during Internet sex might interfere with working memory (WM) capacity, resulting in a neglect of relevant environmental information and therefore disadvantageous decision making. In this study, 28 healthy individuals performed 4 experimental manipulations of a pictorial 4-back WM task with neutral, negative, positive, or pornographic stimuli. Participants also rated 100 pornographic pictures with respect to sexual arousal and indicated masturbation urges previous to and following pornographic picture presentation. Results revealed worse WM performance in the pornographic picture condition of the 4-back task compared with the three remaining picture conditions. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis indicated an explanation of variance of the sensitivity in the pornographic picture condition by the subjective rating of the pornographic pictures as well as by a moderation effect of masturbation urges. Results contribute to the view that indicators of sexual arousal due to pornographic picture processing interfere with WM performance. Findings are discussed with respect to Internet sex addiction because WM interference by addiction-related cues is well known from substance dependencies.Journalistic Ethics
Andrew Sullivan is all over the news after announcing he’s going solo, parting ways with Tina Brown shortly after she put a pillow over Newsweek’s face.
But in all the media excitement over Sullivan’s decision to rely on the much-maligned subscription model for his revenues ("bold experiment!"... "A thrill!"... "a flag of hope for every writer!"... "a dramatic stand!"...) no one raised the most obvious question of all: Why would subscribers pay to support one of the most colossal serial-failures in American journalism of the past two decades?
Reports claim that Sullivan has already raised $400,000 from his readers. If Sullivan really has raised this much money, and if his subscription model genuinely succeeds thanks to tens of thousands of subscribers supporting his work, it means we’re witnessing something new and deeply disturbing: "mutualised" unaccountability (to use one of their idiotic neologisms); the democratization of rewarding media failure and fraud.
Sullivan is getting away with it and profiting from failure thanks to two key elements to his media business model: Blogger cronyism, providing a network of media suckups all too eager to offer free PR to Sullivan’s business in the hope that "Sully" will logroll back at them some day; and the American public’s amnesia.
I happen to know just how rotten Sullivan is because over at the S.H.A.M.E. Project, we just published a profile on one of the most rancid political figures of our time, Charles Murray — a vicious right-wing sociopath and racial eugenicist who got his start as a counter-insurgency expert during the Vietnam War, using starvation and crop destruction as a means of "behavior control" on restive Thai villages.
Murray’s fraudulent racial eugenics theories "proving" that blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior gained a foothold in mainstream discourse, thanks to Andrew Sullivan. What’s more disturbing is that even as Sullivan has disavowed some of his far-right causes of the past — like smearing critics of America’s wars as traitors, denouncing "decadent" coastal America, denouncing what he called the "libidinal pathology" of gay sexual culture, smearing anyone not with the Likkud program as anti-Semitic, and so on — the one far-right belief he won’t let go of is racial intelligence, "human biodiversity" and the whole range of rancid Nazi eugenics revived in 1994 by Charles Murray’s discredited book, The Bell Curve.
The horrible irony is that thanks to our collective amnesia, most people today mistakenly identify Andrew Sullivan’s punditry with intellectual courage — that he turned against Bush’s war earlier than most of his fellow neocon pundits, supposedly at great risk to his reputation and "brand" because he turned on the very same bloodthirsty war mob he'd been organizing and firing up for years — lending him contrarian credibility... despite his record of viciously attacking critics of Bush’s war as traitors, collaborators with terrorism and evil, at a time when being targeted as a national traitor by a major media figure like Sullivan was genuinely dangerous to a critic’s career.
People are already forgetting the ugly explosion of McCarthyism in this country around the invasion of Iraq and the months afterwards, just as they’ve forgotten the attack dog role that Andrew Sullivan played in all of that, before his allegedly "brave" turn away from Bush and towards a safer weathervane politics of libertarianism and Obama-boosterism.
* *
By any standard involving "merit" Andrew Sullivan should have been driven out of the journalism world decades ago, almost as soon as his "meteoric rise" began. In 1991, Marty Peretz apparently grew frustrated with his editors — Hendrik Hertzberg, Michael Kinsley, Morton Kondracke, all Beltway fixtures in the 80s liberal establishment — so he hired an outsider with almost no experience, a 28-year-old Thatcherite named Andrew Sullivan, to run the New Republic and take the nearly century-old liberal institution hard-rightward, and downward.
Almost immediately, Sullivan proudly took credit for running one of the most damaging right-wing hit jobs against genuine investigative journalism of the past few decades: A New Republic cover story fraudulently "debunking" the October Surprise story. Briefly: In 1991, PBS’ Frontline ran an investigation making a strong case that top Reagan officials cut a secret deal with Ayatollah Khomeini’s agents during the 1980 election campaign, in which the Iranians promised to help Reagan defeat Carter by holding on to the American hostages until after the elections, and in return, the Reagan Administration would arrange secret arms shipments to Khomeini for his war with Iraq. Carter was unable to work out a deal with Iran; Reagan won the election; and the hostages were freed during his inauguration ceremony; and the secret arms shipments to Khomeini became the Iran-Contra Scandal.
By late 1991, the evidence of an October Surprise was so great that a Congressional committee was formed to investigate. That’s when 28-year-old Andrew Sullivan hired Steve Emerson — recently named one of America's five most influential promoters of Islamophobic hate propaganda, cited twice by Anders Breivak in his manifesto — to "debunk" the reporting on the October Surprise with a cover story headlined "What October Surprise?" that relied on invented evidence later exposed as fake and disowned even by Emerson.
Despite the fact that Emerson’s hit piece was later exposed as based on fraud — or, as Emerson claimed, a mistake he blamed on his research assistant — nevertheless, Emerson's hit-piece remained out on the market long enough to succeed in its goal of smearing one of the great journalism scoops of the past few decades, scaring away everyone from Congressmen to journalists from seriously pursuing it any further. As media watchdog FAIR wrote back in 1993:
Sadly, such tactics have had their intended effect on the conventional wisdom. The October Surprise is now a laughable non-story, and a deep chill blows over any press investigation of recent covert history. Washington Monthly editor Jon Meacham summed it up in a recent unrelated story (7-8/93), when he dismissed a persistent media factoid as "like the October Surprise: enduring yet wrong." Ironically, in media circles, it is Steve Emerson's dismissal of the October Surprise that turned out to be enduring--even though much of his evidence turned out to be wrong.
The result, as Frontline investigative journalist Bob Parry wrote, "scared the Senate into backing away from a full-scale October Surprise investigation and the House acted as if it would only go through the motions before clearing Reagan and Bush."
And Sullivan was just getting started. In 1992, he blamed the Los Angeles riots on social welfare programs and African-Americans’ "culture of idleness"— parroting the far-right racial eugenics theories Charles Murray:
"If we are to break through this culture of idleness, poverty, illegitimacy, and crime, we have to cut off its lifeline" — welfare, replacing "all payments to the able-bodied poor" with "a government-provided job."
But it was in 1994 that Andrew Sullivan’s recklessness and media fraud went berserk. First, he published a devastating three-part series destroying President Clinton’s universal health care legislation, articles that are generally considered the reason why "Hillarycare" failed to pass. The author, a Republican operative from the rightwing Manhattan Institute named Betsy McCaughey, had secretly prepared her articles in cooperation with Philip Morris (much of Hillarycare coverage was to be funded by hiking tobacco taxes). McCaughey's article, "No Exit," won for The New Republic that year’s National Magazine Award. However, her articles were complete frauds; not journalism, but the very opposite of journalism: Tobacco industry propaganda designed to kill off health care for Americans in order to protect big tobacco profits.
A secret 1994 memo from a Philip Morris executive outlining the tobacco giant's role in crafting McCaughey's articles reveals just how grotesquely corrupt journalism under Andrew Sullivan's editorship had become:
"Worked off-the-record with Manhattan [Institute] and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. The first part detailed specifics of the plan. The second part, to be published imminently, will focus on the impact the Clinton bill will have on cities. She will explore why medical education will decline, why teaching hospitals will be driven out of business, why regional health alliances will shift the cost of caring for the poor off the federal budget onto the backs of urban workers and their employers, and why discontinuing Medicaid and enrolling the disadvantaged in HMO's will fail. Betsy is also working on a comparison of the other proposals, what an "ideal" bill should include, and what kind of reform Congress is likely to give us."
The articles were so full of obvious lies and embarrassing flaws that in 2006, The New Republic publicly recanted. But as with the October Surprise smear, the damage was done — health care reform was dead for another 15 years. When you consider that a recent study estimated 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care coverage, and you multiply that by the nearly two decades since Andrew Sullivan helped kill Clinton's health care reform, you start to understand who the real terrorist is.
But that's no sweat off Sully's whiskers: The pattern, set early, proves that no matter how hard he fails, no matter how disastrous the consequences for journalism or his adopted country, Sullivan's career advancement is guaranteed to keep rising. Journalism, schmournalism: He's a proven reliable waterboy for the tobacco lobby and the Republican Right, what value can journalism have that can possibly compete with that?
The same goes for Betsy McCaughey, who reappeared again in 2009 to sabotage any Obama health care reform — it was McCaughey who invented the "death panel" lie, and it almost worked a second time (my old friend Dylan Ratigan helped bring McCaughey down on his show).
Even after his own magazine recanted the article, in 2007, Sullivan, while admitting "I was aware of the piece’s flaws but nonetheless was comfortable running it as a provocation," defended his failure, and the catastrophic consequences to millions of Americans, with all the aggressive conviction of a sociopath:
I think the magazine's refusal to be mau-maued by the Clintons at the time - and Hillary was threatening blue murder against anyone who so much as dared to criticize her - is a feather in the magazine's cap. We weren't "out to get the Clintons." Some of us - well, two of us - were merely worried that America's excellent private healthcare system would be hobbled by too much government regulation. I am glad we helped head off the Clinton-Magaziner behemoth. Proud, actually.
That same year, another Manhattan Institute alumnus named Charles Murray published a book "proving" that blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior to other races in intelligence. The racial eugenics in The Bell Curve has since been thoroughly debunked as "academic fraud" and worse — as ABC News, FAIR and others reported, a large portion of the evidence used to support the The Bell Curve came from research funded by a notorious white supremacist foundation called "The Pioneer Fund." That fund’s first president, Harry Laughlin, helped craft the 1920s laws restricting Jewish immigration, after Laughlin testified before Congress that 83% of Jewish immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were born "feeble-minded."
Murray’s Bell Curve also acknowledged its debt to a modern-day neo-Nazi eugenicist named Richard Lynn, who has written:
"What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples...Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent...Who can doubt that the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids are the only two races that have made any significant contributions to civilization?"
The notes of The Bell Curve are a house of horrors packed with eugenics freaks like Richard Lynn — you can find more in our SHAME profile on Charles Murray — but the point is this: Thanks to editor Andrew Sullivan’s decision in 1994 to publish an entire reworked chapter of The Bell Curve, 10,000 words of reanimated Nazi race theory, in The New Republic, using the liberal establishment credentials of the magazine to launder and legitimize rancid pre-war racial science used to justify genocide, The Bell Curve entered establishment discourse, making racist quackery respectable again. Seeing that in The New Republic encouraged a saggy old pus-bag like the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen, who some people label a "liberal," to embrace Charles Murray’s Nazi science:
"Murray [and his co-author] have been called racists...Their findings, though, have been accepted by most others in their field, and it would be wrong—both intellectually and politically—to suppress them."
As with Betsy McCaughey’s and Steve Emerson’s articles, The Bell Curve has since been thoroughly discredited as intellectual fraud of the rankest sort. Most of Bell Curve's early boosters of the Richard Cohen variety long ago realized that it was the wrong bandwagon to ride on, and probably wished no one remembered how much they'd sung its praises. And yet despite that, Andrew Sullivan proudly stands by Charles Murray's book and racial eugenics.
In 2005, after Sullivan’s much-ballyhooed reversal on Iraq, he still had this to say about The Bell Curve:
One of my proudest moments in journalism was publishing an expanded extract of a chapter from "The Bell Curve" in the New Republic before anyone else dared touch it... The fact of human inequality and the subtle and complex differences between various manifestations of being human - gay, straight, male, female, black, Asian - is a subject worth exploring, period."
It’s a theme Sullivan can’t get over — in fact, biological human inequality is pretty much the only thing Andrew Sullivan believes, and his only defense of it seems to be that he’s a principled martyr to liberal Big Brother censorship when he’s denounced for peddling fraudulent Nazi science.
That, by the way, was the same damage-control strategy used by Sullivan's hero, Charles Murray: when ABC News questioned Murray about his reliance on so many neo-Nazi quacks to back up The Bell Curve, Murray "accused [ABC] of being on an intellectual witch hunt that would have a pernicious effect on research."
Indeed. First, they came for the Nazi eugenicists...
It still goes on. As late as November 21, 2011, Sullivan published this blog post that, I have to admit, even now still shocks me. If you ever researched the smelly word of racial eugenics quacks, you’d recognize the name Sullivan proudly drops here:
[The study of intelligence] has been strangled by p.c. egalitarianism. The reason is the resilience of racial differences in IQ in the data, perhaps most definitively proven by UC Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen... The right response to unsettling data is to probe, experiment and attempt to disprove them - not to run away in racial panic. But the deeper problem is that the racial aspects of IQ have prevented non-racial research into intelligence, and how best to encourage, study and understand it.
In other words, Sully’s concerned about that ol’ pernicious effect on racial eugenics again. As for Sullivan’s hero, Arthur Jensen — he received over $1 million in funding grants from the neo-Nazi Pioneer Fund, and he’s not coy at all about his support for practicing actual real Nazi eugenics on "lower" races:
"Eugenics isn't a crime," Jensen has said (Newsday, 11/9/94). "Which is worse, to deprive someone of having a child, or to deprive the child of having a decent set of parents?" Elsewhere, Jensen has worried "that current welfare policies, unaided by genetic foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of a substantial portion of our population."
* *
Most people in Sullivan’s position would’ve had a hard time following up a performance like his in 1994 — but not Sully.
In 1995, still serving as editor-in-chief of the New Republic, Andrew Sullivan brought in Stephen Glass as an intern, then as his personal assistant. Vanity Fair’s brief description:
After about a year [Glass] became an intern at The New Republic, working as an assistant to Andrew Sullivan, who preceded Michael Kelly as the editor. It was not a particularly stimulating job, involving administrative tasks such as answering the phone, answering correspondence, and an occasional personal errand for Sullivan. Glass did little actual writing under Sullivan, but did complete assignments on disputes over governmental subsidies for cheese and on presidential candidate Bob Dole’s handlers.
Sullivan, by the way, also nurtured fellow neocon Michael Kelly’s disastrous rise, paving the way for Kelly to take over as editor-in-chief after Sullivan left. Kelly proved worthy of carrying on the Sullivan tradition of journalistic failure and fraud, but on a level for the history books. It was Michael Kelly whose name is forever associated with Stephen Glass, with Kelly as the dupe who couldn't see a blatant fraud if it screamed "fake" in his face. (A few years later, Michael Kelly became the first American journalist killed in the Iraq invasion.)
But I digress — I was talking about Andrew Sullivan’s big last year, 1995. He not only brought Stephen Glass into The New Republic as a kind of time-delay WMD, but he also was responsible for what would have been The New Republic’s most shameful episode in journalism fraud had Glass not topped her a few years later: Ruth Shalit.
As with Stephen Glass, all the signs that Ruth Shalit had a problem with basic journalism ethics were smeared all over the proverbial wall, Manson-family style. A few months before Shalit’s big career-ending journalism fraud, she was the subject of a handful of curiosity stories, including this one in The Washington Post dated July 18, 1995, headlined "A Writer’s Repetitive Stress; New Republic Admits Phrases Were Copied":
For the second time in less than a year, the New Republic has admitted that one of its most prominent young writers copied material previously printed in another publication. The weekly political magazine said that in both instances, Ruth Shalit confused other writers' material with her own after transferring their stories into her computer. In an item headlined "Oops" in the July 31 issue of the New Republic, the magazine wrote: "In Ruth Shalit's article on [potential Republican presidential candidate] Steve Forbes, several phrases were inadvertently reproduced from an article by Paul Starobin in the National Journal, June 3." The apology reprints three sentences from Starobin's piece along with three from Shalit's. In one, Starobin said Forbes was "an affable optimist in the mold of Kemp and Reagan." Shalit called Forbes "an affable capitalist optimist in the mold of Kemp or Reagan." "I thought [the apology] was kind of lame," Starobin said Friday. "The 'Oops' thing makes it sound like they slipped on a bar of soap." Last September, the New Republic published an editor's note saying "some information" in a Shalit story in July had been "drawn from an article by Dan Klaidman that appeared in Legal Times on April 12." New Republic Editor Andrew Sullivan said Friday, "Inside the magazine, we have taken this very seriously," though he did not say if disciplinary action would be taken.
You can probably guess by now how seriously Andrew Sullivan took (and takes) journalism fraud, but I have to admit, what happens next is not just brazen or bold or aggressive, it’s completely psychotic.
Basically, Sullivan decided that the best defense here was a psychotic offense. So he sent Ruth Shalit, his early prototype for the Stephen Glass model, to write a giant lie-packed, fraudulent, easy-to-debunk "exposé" on an alleged civil war brewing inside The Washington Post due to resentments caused by reverse-discrimination and affirmative action. Shalit claimed that African-American hirees were unqualified and resentful, that whites were victims of "post-affirmative action racism" and resentful, and that blacks were essentially inferior and their criminal records ignored or overlooked, even when Shalit had to invent those criminal records out of thin air.
The Post responded to the smear. In a published response, they discovered about 40 factual errors in Shalit’s piece, beyond the countless unsourced and anonymous innuendos and accusations that couldn’t be fact-checked (i.e. "a white editor complained blacks unqualified" / "a black editor charged racism pervasive"). Shalit even plagiarized a passage from a book and put it, word for word, into her article.
But the worst failures were Shalit’s race-baiting inventions. For example, a black WaPo reporter named Nathan McCall had just published a memoir about his path from crime to journalism, including a three year stint in prison. In his memoir, McCall recounted how the first time he tried getting a job with The Washington Post, he was rejected because he’d tried hiding from them the three "missing" years spent in prison. After building up his credentials with a local paper in Atlanta, McCall returned for more follow-up interviews with the Post, no longer trying to hide his prison past. Instead of hiding it, he faced up and spent his efforts on trying to convince the WaPo editors that he’d genuinely transformed himself, that he was reliable and serious about his commitment to journalism. After a long rigorous process, McCall was finally hired.
Yet here is how Ruth Shalit rewrote that same story about the hiring of Nathan McCall in her 13,000 word smear for Andrew Sullivan and The New Republic:
Nathan McCall, author of the 1994 autobiography Makes Me Wanna Holler, is a Post reporter currently on leave from the paper. In 1987, when the Post tried to hire McCall from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, editors at the paper inquired about a three-year gap in his resume. He told them he had spent the time traveling and "finding himself." In fact, he'd been serving a prison sentence for holding up a McDonald's at gunpoint. Post editors upbraided him for being less than honest but hired him anyway. Despite this kid-glove treatment, McCall, too, claims his career at the Post has been marred by racism. "Because of the myths, I could never seem to settle down and relax and write with flair the way I knew I could under normal circumstances," he wrote. "Nobody makes allowances for black folks anywhere."
One commenter pointed out that, to understand just how vile and misleading Shalit's smear was, in 1978, when McCall was in prison, only 4 percent of reporters were black; in 1993, a year before his book was published, just 4.3 percent of reporters were black. The backlash Shalit hyped and Sullivan promoted as fact was nothing but literary fraud, James Frey under the guise of mainstream journalism in the liberal institution, The New Republic.
To prove that "racial sensitivity" was ruining the Post’s reporting, Shalit claimed that the Post intentionally censored news that a black "crony" of Mayor Marion Barry named Roy Littlejohn had "served time for corruption."
Subsequently, Sullivan had to issue a correction:
Ruth Shalit's October 2 article, "Race in the Newsroom," erroneously reported that Marion Barry supporter Roy Littlejohn "served time for... corruption." Mr. Littlejohn was neither indicted nor imprisoned. The New Republic regrets the error and apologizes to Mr. Littlejohn.
Publishing lies like these didn’t take balls, nor was it mere eccentric contrarianism — this is just hate, a weird, bug-like sociopathic hate.
I looked up Ruth Shalit— I want to know, who are these hissing 28 Days Later freaks who ransacked America’s media, and left the whole fucking industry in ruins — in the sorry state I found American journalism in back in the summer of 2008, after the Kremlin ran me out of Russia?
Turns out Ruth Shalit, like Betsy McCaughey, like Charles Murray, and like Andrew Sullivan, was another right-wing movement mole. An article called "The Sisters Shalit" published in Forward described both sisters as radical-right Jews whose father, Sol Shalit, emigrated from Israel to study economics at the University of Chicago, home to Milton Friedman and the birthplace of libertarian/neoliberal economics. Ruth’s sister, Wendy Shalit, led a crusade against her college’s co-ed bathrooms, and against women who wear skirts above their knees, and against the student campus Passover celebration, which she complained had been "bastardized to celebrate lesbianism." Sister Wendy spent her college summers interning for Bill Kristol (back when Kristol was known as "Quayle’s Brain"), and Dinesh D’Souza.
Ruth worked for the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1988, and graduated cum laude from Princeton. She was put out to pasture after the WaPo debacle, writing book reviews and the like (Sullivan either left on his own or was pushed out). A couple of years later, in 1998, when the Stephen Glass delayed-fuse WMD finally exploded in The New Republic newsroom, Shalit was canned. And just like that, Shalit was back on her feet in a new profession, working at an advertising agency called Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
* *
No account of Andrew Sullivan’s journalism record can be complete without recalling his role as one of the most vicious and cowardly henchmen policing critics of Bush’s wars after September 11, at the peak of the terror hysteria, beginning in late 2001, through the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. When it counted most, and when baiting critics had a frightening, deadly power to it, Andrew Sullivan took advantage of that weapon like no one in the blogosphere. It was only later, after the Iraq invasion and after the damage had worked its way through the domestic cultural veins, and after tens of thousands of lives were gone — and more importantly for Sully’s calculations, after the Bush wars started going bad, and his ability to plausibly persecute "decadent left" critics vanished, replaced by a desperate need to defend the war cause rather than offend its critics — that the new, libertarian Andrew Sullivan war critic emerged.
I want to give some examples here, for the permanent record.
Like a lot of imbeciles, Andrew Sullivan reacted to September 11 as if it was a test of Andrew Sullivan's mettle, starring Andrew Sullivan as the protagonist in an epic battle between good and evil, with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance: Red Dawn meets Revelations by way of [NAME OF TOM CLANCY BOOK POPULAR AMONG BELTWAY WAFFENDWEEBS]... Lots of pompous cliches, and flapping flags in the wind... Writing in The New York Times (his new home after he lay waste to The New Republic), just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Sullivan declared:
This coming conflict is indeed as momentous and as grave as the last major conflicts against Nazism and Communism...The difference is that this conflict is against a more formidable enemy than Nazism or Communism.
Over the next couple of years, between the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Sullivan filled op-ed pages with screeds denouncing leftists as traitors:
"The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column." "...the enemy within the West itself—a paralyzing, pseudo-clever, morally nihilist fifth column that will surely ramp up its hatred in the days and months ahead."
Sullivan took so much glee in attacking war critics, he invented a neologism in the blogger world, "fisking," which describes what happens when a pro-war pundit savages a feeble liberal critic of war, to commemorate what happened when Sullivan savaged leftwing war correspondent Robert Fisk.
As mob leader, Sullivan found ripe targets everywhere. He attacked Susan Sontag and Salon.com founder David Talbot for not showing sufficient enthusiasm for Dubya’s stuttering speeches:
"These pampered journalists who have never seen a moment of real censorship in their lives, and who have marginalized conservative voices for their entire careers in their own organs and field of influence, take the occasion of the massacre of thousands of their fellow citizens to worry about themselves — and preen self-righteously at the same time."
I assume by "real censorship" Sullivan is referring to the liberals’ failure to warmly embrace the Nazi eugenics science that he peddles to this day... and by "marginalized conservative voices" he must be referring to the tragic struggles of an Oxford Tory like Sully, forced to wait till he was all of 28 before being handed an American media institution, The New Republic...or the other unfair marginalization that happened after his umpteenth plagiarism scandal destroyed his magazine, forcing this persecuted conservative maverick into the lonely margins of The New York Times magazine ghetto, a ghetto he was banished to after leaving Michael Kelly and Stephen Glass to man what remained of The New Republic after Sullivan was through with it...
And here we are in 2013, more than two decades after Andrew Sullivan burrowed into this country's journalism world, or what's left of it anyway. Today, 22 years after Sullivan was handed the keys to his first car, what's left of my profession has one collective groveling question for him: "Is Andrew Sullivan the future of journalism?"
Look, Sullivan’s been the future of this ruined profession for more years than anyone can remember anymore. Nothing seems to change; the same stagnation and rot, the same names, the same failures. How long can this scam run?
I have a whole list of Andrew Sullivan’s forgotten attacks on liberals "complicit" in Saddam’s "evil" and a series of infuriating quotes of his. I think they're worth remembering, and storing here in a corner of the permanent record. In case anyone should give a shit. Too many people seem determined to forget. Read these sample Sully gems, you'll see what I mean –
"We will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I have no doubt about that. I initially supported this war for hard-nosed geopolitical reasons, and I stick with that judgement...The removal of that evil was a good in itself, worth some damage to our alliances, worth even some destabilization in an already unstable region."
"[Al Gore]'ll say whatever he thinks will get him power or attention or votes. How else to explain his sudden U-turn on Iraq? Two years ago, he was demanding that Saddam must go. Seven months ago, he was calling for a 'final |
emporary forerunners" of the movement and neoreactionaries are also said to draw influence from philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola.[6] Writing in Taki's Magazine, Nicholas James Pell notes that besides American computer scientist Curtis Yarvin and English author and philosopher Nick Land, other prominent NRx voices include "monarchist transhumanist Michael Anissimov, Catholic anarchist Bryce Laliberte, post-libertarian escape artist Jim, and the snarky satirists of Radish".[7]
The Dark Enlightenment has been described as an early school of thought in the alt-right.[8][9] Some critics have also labeled the movement as "neo-fascist."[2][10][8] A 2016 New York Magazine piece notes: "Neoreaction has a number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government".[11] Yarvin, for example, argues that a libertarian democracy is "simply an engineering contradiction, like a flying whale or a water-powered car."[12]
Summary of core ideas [ edit ]
Some of the impetus for the neoreactionary movement comes from libertarians like Peter Thiel as indicated by Nick Land's essay "The Dark Enlightenment", which noted how libertarian thinkers at an April 2009 Cato Unbound discussion expressed skepticism about the compatibility of freedom and democracy.[13]
Yarvin's preferred system—named neocameralism after Frederick William I of Prussia's system of Prussian cameralism[14]—is a system in which a business owns the country,[3] which is structured as a joint stock corporation divvied up into shares and run by a CEO to maximize profit.[15]
Peter Thiel and Patri Friedman have backed the Seasteading Institute as one possible way of building fiefdoms free of outside regulation and law.[1]
Neoreactionary Michael Perilloux proposes that President Donald Trump seize more power by canceling the United States Constitution, declaring martial law and replacing the government with The Trump Organization.[9] Similarly, Google engineer Justine Tunney circulated a petition to appoint Google chairman Eric Schmidt as CEO of America.[1]
Some neoreactionary futurists focus more on the use of technology to defeat the state, for example, through transhumanist accelerationism in which the select few free themselves from the bonds of the state by evolving into superintelligent human-computer hybrids.[12] One proponent of such ideas is Michael Anissimov, an advocate of eugenics,[16] who in the words of Mark O'Connell "has in recent years basically cornered the white-supremacy–singularity crossover market" and become "something of a pariah from the transhumanist movement." Rejecting the notion that all humans are created equal, Anissimov believes that there are already disparities in intelligence between existing races and that transhuman technologies will create further disparities in power.[17] He claims that aristocratic systems are more financially stable and less wasteful than democratic or communist systems.[6]
History and etymology [ edit ]
Dylan Matthews argues that neoreaction draws on the racialist, traditionalist and isolationist arguments of paleoconservatism as well as paleoconservatives' belief that the mainstream is trying to crush them. Differences between the two movements are that paleoconservatives are more religious and have more faith in the United States Constitution and republican ideals generally.[9] Rick Searle draws parallels between neoreactionaries and late 19th century figures like Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Charles Maurras, and Vilfredo Pareto.[18] George Orwell also used the term "neo-reactionary" in an As I Please column for Tribune in 1943[19] — although not in the sense of the present-day subculture.
In 2007 and 2008, Curtis Yarvin—writing under the pen name Mencius Moldbug—articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were later the subject of Nick Land, who first coined the term "Dark Enlightenment" in his essay of the same name.[13] The term "Dark Enlightenment" is a play-on-words for the knowledge supposedly gained in the Enlightenment.[2][5][6][20] According to Land: "Where the progressive enlightenment sees political ideals, the dark enlightenment sees appetites"[13]—on the view that the tendency of sovereign power (in democracies) is to devour society.
Yarvin had originally called his ideology formalism (a term inspired from legal formalism),[21] but Arnold Kling used the term "The Neo-Reactionaries" as a noun in July 2010 to describe Yarvin and his followers and the term was quickly adopted by the subculture.[6][22] According to Adam Riggio, the embryo of the neoreactionary movement lived in the community pages of LessWrong.[23] Social Matter is a major online publication and thought machine for neoreaction.[24]
Neoreactionaries have often declined reporters' requests for interviews, explaining that journalists—as manufacturers of consent—are their mortal enemy. When The Atlantic political affairs reporter Rosie Gray attempted to interview neoreactionary leaders, Yarvin suggested she instead "speak directly to my WH cutout / cell leader"—a sarcastic reference to widely reported yet unsubstantiated rumors that Yarvin had ties to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon—while Nick B. Steves told her she was ill-suited to write about neo-reaction because "115 IQ people are not generally well equipped to summarize 160 IQ people".[3]
Neoreactionary writings, particularly those by Yarvin[25][26] and Land, are sometimes viewed as so verbose, dense, discursive, detached and "edgy"[3] as to be inaccessible and self-marginalizing.[27][28]
Ryan Summers wrote that neoreactionary imagery is often infused with hyper-masculine ideas of men, such as tanks, spacecraft, Greek Gods and soldiers with guns.[24]
Relation to other movements [ edit ]
Relation to the alt-right [ edit ]
Some consider the Dark Enlightenment as an early school of thought in the alt-right,[8][28] or as its most theoretically minded branch.[9] In particular, one philosopher with Landian ideas, Jason Reza Jorjani, co-founded AltRight.com and spoke at the 2016 National Policy Institute conference led by Richard Spencer.[29] Some critics have also labeled the Dark Enlightenment as "neo-fascist"[2][10] or as "an acceleration of capitalism to a fascist point", although Land argues this is inaccurate because fascism "is a mass anti-capitalist movement".[29] Land states:[3]
NRx doesn't think the Alt-Right (in America) is very serious. It's an essentially Anti-Anglo-American philosophy, in its (Duginist) core, which puts a firm ceiling on its potential. But then, the NRx analysis is that the age of the masses is virtually over. Riled-up populist movements are part of what is passing, rather than of what is slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.
James Kirchick notes that although neoreactionary thinkers disdain the masses and claim to despise populism and people more generally, what ties them to the rest of the alt-right is their unapologetically racist element, their shared misanthropy and their resentment of mismanagement by the ruling elites.[12] Duesterberg observes: "As a rule the alt right is scattered, anonymous and obscure—thriving, as the curious metaphor has it, in the 'dark corners of the internet.' By contrast, neoreaction is centralized and public: darkness enlightened".[30]
Criticism [ edit ]
A criticism of neoreaction is that its pessimistic appraisal of progressivism's results dismisses many advances that have been made, including greater freedom for women, racial minorities and homosexuals; increased security for the elderly and unemployed; greater access to health care by the poor; steep declines in world poverty;[31] improved air quality; greater religious tolerance and racial integration; lower crime rates; and an absence of world wars since 1945. They also point to the culture of London, whose population is 40 percent nonwhite; and the high standard of living and continental peace in the European Union. Another criticism is that global manufacturing patterns limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another.[32]
Some of the critics who felt the Dark Enlightenment's pessimistic assessment was unsupported by economic data formed the Grey Enlightenment.[33]
Ryan T. Summers observes: "For the most part, neoreactionaries do not emphasize anti-Semitic views as other alt-right counterparts".[24]
See also [ edit ]FBI documents sought after in Freedom of Information Act requests for the last year are now available, thanks to a leak to the Intercept. They lay out secret rules for collecting phone records of journalists, bypassing normal judicial processes.
The documents, published Thursday, outline how FBI agents would utilize National Security Letters in obtaining journalists’ phone records. They date back to 2013, the same year the agency’s overseer, the US Department of Justice, amended its standards for subpoenaing for such records.
However, the newly leaked papers are marked “last updated October 2011,” and they seem to conflict with DOJ policy as well as reveal information that many say never should have been secret in the first place.
#FBI can collect home IP addresses without warrant when probing websites – court https://t.co/8Y9slNrGfupic.twitter.com/Db98zSI60Z — RT America (@RT_America) June 25, 2016
The FBI’s National Security Letters, or NSLs, are used like search warrants, but unlike a normal warrant, they are not signed off on by any judge or court. They are approved in-house without even a requirement to notify the target. For the purposes of these documents, that means not even the news organization employing the journalist would necessarily be informed. Furthermore, they nearly always come with some form of a gag order, preventing the target from talking about their NSL case.
Getting an NSL authorized typically requires the signatures of the FBI’s general counsel and its National Security Branch’s executive assistant director as well as other chain of command OK’s following the agent making the request, the Intercept reported. That is, as long as the NSL is deemed “relevant” to an investigation pertaining to national security.
Except in investigations over a leak, such as how these FBI documents came to be available, when the purpose of an NSL is “to identify confidential news media sources,” according to the documents, the general counsel and executive assistant director defer to the DOJ National Security Division’s assistant attorney general. To identify a leaker, however, the DOJ is not needed for NSL approval.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation sued the DOJ for a more complete release of these rules, since they had previously been divulged under ample redaction in 2011, along with the rest of the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, or DIOG.
FBI, Cleveland police ‘door knock’ activists expected to protest RNChttps://t.co/vg03TvMgoepic.twitter.com/MGtIwt463Z — RT America (@RT_America) June 24, 2016
“These supposed rules are incredibly weak and almost nonexistent — as long as they have that second sign-off they’re basically good to go,” Trevor Timm, the executive director of the media advocacy group told the Intercept. “The FBI is entirely able to go after journalists and with only one extra hoop they have to jump through.”
FBI spokesman Christopher Allen gave little comment to the Intercept, only to say the agency was “very clear” that “the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Press advocates have criticized President Obama’s administration harshly, as it has pursued more cases, including under the Espionage Act, against publishers, leakers and reporters than prior administrations.
In 2013, in response to backlash over its seizing the phone lines of the Associated Press and keeping tabs on Fox News’s James Rosen, the DOJ released new “Media Guidelines” that conveyed a tightening up of the practices. The information just leaked to the Intercept, though, “makes a mockery” of those guidelines, the Freedom of the Press Foundation wrote Thursday.
It is important to note that NSLs are covered by rules wholly separate from the DOJ’s media guidelines.
Efforts on Capitol Hill to loosen restrictions on NSLs have failed recently, but only by slim margins, and the fight does not seem to be letting up. An amendment to a Senate criminal justice funding bill failed last week by just two votes, while this past Monday, a similar amendment allowing the FBI to demand email header information, web browser history, social media account access and other metadata was blocked by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Reuters reported.She spoke from the witness stand on Wednesday before a jury and Judge H. Chester Horn Jr. in the Santa Monica division of Los Angeles County Superior Court. Ms. Adaya was occasionally flustered when fumbling for details, but she was emphatic in denying the central charge: that she had ordered the Jews to close their prearranged event, for fear that her family, who are Muslims, would cut off her financing.
“I did not, how could I?” she said at one point. “My family knows I have so many Jewish friends.”
Other testimony through the week painted a different picture of Ms. Adaya’s behavior when she showed up at one of the hotel’s poolside cabanas that Sunday to watch on television as Spain played the Netherlands in a World Cup soccer final match.
“Oh, my God,” she supposedly said on discovering the gathering, complete with a banner or two and some promotional leaflets, according to the deposition testimony of a former employee, which was read in court on Thursday.
The employee, Nathan Codrey, was not present. Lawyers for both sides and Judge Horn agreed to substitute portions of the deposition for live testimony because, they said, Mr. Codrey was out of the state and could not be served with a subpoena.
Mr. Codrey’s deposition described Ms. Adaya as repeatedly using profanity as she ordered the event — which had been arranged through a promoter, Platinum Events, with executives associated with the hotel’s food and beverage operator — to close. (She eventually agreed to let the group stay once the banners and leaflets were removed.)
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“She was Muslim, her parents or family were Muslim,” Mr. Codrey, who had been an assistant manager, testified in words that were read by a stand-in. “If my parents find out there’s a Jewish event here, they’re going to pull money from me immediately,” he recalled Ms. Adaya saying, though he noted that she might have said “family,” as her father is dead.
Ms. Adaya inherited control of the hotel from her father, Ahmad Adaya, after he died in 2006. Since it was built in 1939, the Shangri-La has been closely associated with Hollywood celebrity. The rooftop tango in the middle of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” music video took place at the Shangri-La. In 2010, L.A. Weekly said the Shangri-La was the region’s “Best Glamourpuss Posh Hotel.” That was a rare distinction in a place full of glamourpuss posh hotels.
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But Ms. Adaya and her backers spent $30 million on a renovation overseen by Marc Smith, who helped make the Shangri-La and its lounges as hip as his club Vynyl in Hollywood or his reborn Golden Gopher bar in downtown Los Angeles.
Though anti-Semitic storms have been known to erupt in the entertainment industry — the incendiary remark by Mel Gibson comes to mind — Santa Monica has experienced few controversies involving Jews in recent years.
Perhaps the most vibrant one occurred last year, when it briefly seemed that a proposal to ban circumcision in the city would appear on a ballot. But the measure was quickly dropped.
Carl Arvilla, a security director for the Shangri-La, testified on Wednesday afternoon that the hotel was simply enforcing standing policies that ban leaflets and limit the use of its pool to guests.
Ms. Adaya clearly did not regard the claims — which could lead not only to monetary damages, but also a lasting blot on her hotel — as routine.
Born in Pakistan but raised from an early age in the United States, Ms. Adaya said she had experienced life as a minority member during her time in the Santa Monica public schools and later at a private girls’ school. “I was the only one,” she said when asked if there had been other Muslims in a heavily Jewish school she once attended.
“I would never do that,” she said of the charge that she had singled out the supporters of Israel for eviction.When deputies went to serve a search warrant Thursday at the home of a LaPlace man accused of pulling out an assault rifle at a food stamp site Tuesday, they were met with a trailer full of snakes, some 7 to 8 feet long, says St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Mike Tregre. Mark Knight, 46, of 131 Johnny Court in LaPlace, was arrested around 8 p.m. Tuesday at the New Wine Christian Fellowship Hall in LaPlace, which was being used as a Disaster Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program location for residents affected by Hurricane Isaac.
Authorities say a worker at the center alerted security officers after Knight became irate when his claim was denied. The worker told officers she had seen Knight go to his truck parked outside and begin removing a rifle from the vehicle, authorities say.
Authorities say state troopers and St. John sheriff's deputies at the site quickly subdued Knight, who had a fully loaded AR-15 assault rifle. Several loaded ammunition magazines were found inside the truck, authorities said.
Knight was booked with aggravated assault and terrorizing and remained in the St. John parish jail with bond set at $20,000.
Tregre said deputies and troopers executing a search warrant on Knight's small travel trailer Thursday afternoon encountered 13 pythons slithering loose inside, as well as live rabbits.
Deputies also found a note affixed to the refrigerator that Tregre described as a "last will and testament."
"It was a detail of where he wanted his things to go," Tregre said. "He went there with the intent to kill. The gun was loaded with the safety off and a bullet in the chamber."
Tregre said the worker who dealt with Knight, a woman from outside the area who wishes to remain anonymous, was concerned by Knight's demeanor after he was rejected for food stamps.
"Just his tone, his body language, the fact that he was mumbling under his breath to himself," Tregre said. "Then the way he pushed the door open to go outside, it kind of alerted her to him, that something was different. She had been there dealing with people all week. She certainly helped avert a catastrophe. I'm trying to recognize her, but she wants to stay just a regular citizen."
Tregre said there is nothing to indicate that Knight, who is originally from Utah and has been in the area for about two years, has any connection to the Sovereign Citizens or the group of seven individuals who were arrested after two St. John deputies were killed and two others wounded in another LaPlace trailer park last month.
Deputies Jeremy Triche and Brandon Nielsen were killed and Deputies Mike Scott Boyington and Jason Triche were seriously wounded in the shootings.
Terry Smith, who was arrested and is the father of two of the suspects arrested, is believed to have ties to the Sovereign Citizens group, which rejects most law enforcement authority.
Just weeks later, the area was hard hit by tidal flooding caused by Hurricane Isaac, displacing thousands of residents from their homes.
"We've had some things happen in St. John Parish in a short period of time that some agencies don't see happen in 20 years," Tregre said.
Friday marked his 76th day in office, he said.
Lori Lyons can be reached at [email protected] or 985.652.0959.Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant just can’t get along, and there’s a team in Brooklyn that might be waiting to pick up the pieces.
A league source told the Daily News that the Lakers stars got into a heated exchange following a New Year’s Day loss to the 76ers, and Bryant went for a low blow – referencing and agreeing with Shaquille O’Neal’s criticisms of Howard being soft.
Howard was restrained from going at his teammate, according to the source, and there have been rumblings from the center’s camp that he’s been unhappy with Bryant since earlier in the season.
Three days after the altercation, following a disheartening loss to the Clippers, Howard complained about the lack of chemistry on the Lakers. It was a comment seemingly directed at Bryant, who is averaging a league-high 22 shots despite playing with three potential Hall of Famers.
The Mike D’Antoni-coached Lakers fell to 15-18 after losing at home to the Denver Nuggets, 112-105, Sunday night despite Howard’s 26 rebounds. Bryant led L.A. with 29 points but took 26 shots.
“Look at the difference between our team and (the Clippers),” Howard said. “They just play together. They share the ball. Everybody’s excited when something happens.”
Howard again hinted at the disconnect on Saturday. There were always concerns over whether Bryant, a no-nonsense veteran, and Howard, a playful man-child, could co-exist.
Jason Szenes/EPA Could Deron Williams (l.) and new Nets coach P.J. Carlesimo be welcoming in Dwight Howard?
“(Chemistry) is something we have to do to get better,” Howard told reporters in L.A. “We have to play like we like each other. Even if we don’t want to be friends off the court, whatever that may be, when we step in between the lines or we step in the locker room or the gym, we have to respect each other and what we bring to the table.”
Howard, a pending free agent, has not committed to Los Angeles beyond this season.
If the Lakers decide Howard won’t re-sign, they risk losing him for nothing and it becomes more likely they trade the six-time All-Star.
The Nets spent all of last year trying to acquire Howard, who admitted in October that Brooklyn was his preferred destination.
The Nets are in a position to put together an enticing package if they know Howard would sign long-term to play with Deron Williams. The Nets’ previous proposals to the Magic centered around Brook Lopez, who is having a breakthrough season coming off foot surgery.
Lopez can’t be traded until Jan. 15 because he signed a four-year, $61 million deal in the summer. He is averaging 18.9 points and 7.4 rebounds, while Howard – who is coming off back surgery – is on pace for his worst statistical campaign (17.4 points, 12.0 rebounds) since his second season.
Prior to the trade that sent Howard to Los Angeles, Bryant reportedly told Howard he’d be the third offensive option if traded to the Lakers. Following the New Year’s Day loss to the 76ers, Bryant was ticked off at Howard and ticked off in front of the media.
“Cause we’re old as s---,” the 34-year-old told reporters, explaining the Lakers’ struggles. “What do you want? We just got to figure out how to play when we don’t have that energy.”
– With Frank Isola
Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing!World Magazine editor Marvin Olasky writes about how an independent press has its roots in the Reformation. Modern journalism began, he says, with an unusually skillful writer named Martin Luther.
From WORLD | The Reformation roots of an independent press | Marvin Olasky | June 7, 2014. Read it all, but here are some excerpts:
Modern journalism began in 1517 as the German prince Frederick the Wise was putting the finishing touches on his life’s work of building up Wittenberg’s sacred relic collection. Through purchase and trade he was able to claim a “genuine” thorn from Christ’s crown, a tooth of St. Jerome, four hairs from the Virgin Mary, seven pieces from the shroud sprinkled with Christ’s blood, a wisp of straw from the place where Jesus was born, one piece of gold brought by the Wise Men, a strand of Jesus’ beard, one of the nails driven into Christ’s hands, one piece of bread eaten at the Last Supper, one twig of Moses’ burning bush, and nearly 20,000 holy bones.
Announcements of relic collection highlights were made regularly through proclamations and assorted announcements, the typical journalistic products of the time. Few people could read—most were discouraged from even trying, for reading could lead to theological and political rebellion—but town criers and local priests passed on official story messages promoting the goals of governmental authorities and the official, state-allied religion. In 1517 Wittenberg residents were told that all of Frederick’s treasures would be displayed on All Saints Day, and that those who viewed them and made appropriate donations could receive papal indulgences allowing for a substantial decrease of time spent in purgatory, either for the viewer/contributor or someone he would designate. Total time saved could equal 1,902,202 years and 270 days.
Quiet criticism of the indulgence system was coming from Professor Martin Luther, who stated that the Bible gave no basis for belief in indulgences and argued that the practice interfered with true contrition and confession. But, despite Luther’s lectures, indulgence-buying continued as champion salesman Tetzel offered altruism at bargain prices....
The pitch was strong, but Luther decided to oppose it head-on by making his ideas of protest accessible to all, not just a few. The 95 theses he hammered to the cathedral door in 1517 were not academic sentences but clear, vivid statements....
Luther then gave printers permission to set the theses in type—and they spread throughout Europe within a month.
The effect of Luther’s theses and his subsequent publications is well known but what often is missed is that Luther’s primary impact was not as a producer of treatises, but as a very popular writer of vigorous prose that concerned not only theological issues but their social and political ramifications. Between 1517 and 1530 Luther’s 30 publications probably sold well over 300,000 copies, an astounding total at a time when illiteracy was rampant and printing still an infant....
Luther and other Reformation leaders, however, emphasized the importance of Bible reading; Christians were to find out for themselves what God was saying. Literacy rates soared everywhere the Reformation took root, and remained low wherever it was fought off. Luther not only praised translation into the vernacular languages but made a masterful one himself. In preparing his German translation Luther so understood the need for specific detail to attract readers that when he wanted to picture the precious stones and coins mentioned in the Bible, he first examined German court jewels and numismatic collections. Similarly, when Luther needed to describe Old Testament sacrifices he visited slaughterhouses and gained information from butchers. He was a vivid reporter as well as a tenacious theologian....
Luther also made journalism significant by arguing that the path to progress is through change in ideas and beliefs, rather than through forced social revolution or reaction.[8] In Luther’s thought the most significant warfare was ideological, not material, so he emphasized dissemination of ideas through publication and opposed attempts to destroy opposing ideas through burning either books or authors. “Heretics,” he said, “should be vanquished with books, not with burnings.” Luther wanted an exchange of views, not sword thrusts. He described printing as “God’s highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospel is driven forward.”
[Keep reading....]Joe Romm has some fun with the Texas Attorney General, who declares himself opposed to regulation of CO2 on the grounds that
It is almost the height of insanity of bureaucracy to have the EPA regulating something that is emitted by all living things.
As Joe points out, this argument says that we should adopt an equally laissez-faire attitude toward sewage.
But hey, there was a time when conservatives did, in fact, argue for doing nothing about effluent of any kind. In the years leading up to the Great Stink of 1858, which finally got the British to build a London sewer system, The Economist editorialized against any such foolish notion (pdf):
suffering and evil are nature’s admonitions—they cannot be got rid of.
Or, to put it (almost) in the modern vernacular, stuff happens.
And given the way we’re heading — with politicians arguing that the federal government has no right to ban child labor — don’t be surprised to see the anti-sewer movement making a comeback, and to see elected representatives, even if they know better, holding their noses and going along.
Update: Please consider all jokes about the effluent society, etc., already made. And I know it’s hard given the topic, but Times rules on what words you can use still apply.Isopods are crustaceans (like lobsters). Some isopods are parasitic (like the one staring back at you in the picture up top). If you're having trouble making out what, exactly, this isopod has parasitized, the answer is: a fish. This little monster wriggled its way in through the gills of its host, implanted itself inside the fish's mouth, and gorged itself on its victim's tongue — which it has now effectively replaced. Permanently.
Researchers have known about these stomach-turning parasites for decades, but there's still much that we don't know about them. Only recently, for example, did we learn that fish with parasites in their mouths tend to have lower blood counts than those that are non-parasitized, suggesting that these isopods do more than just eat their hosts' tongues — they actually behave like "blood-drinking mouth leeches." (A description I'm borrowing from Carl Zimmer, because it made my hair stand on end when I read it.)
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Now, a new study published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society has shown that these tongue parasites are rampant among a species of Mediterranean fish known as striped sea bream. In protected, unfished waters, the scientists found that 30 percent of the bream were harboring tongue-eating, blood-drinking mouth leeches. But it gets worse. In a second, heavily fished population, the percentage of bream with parasitic mouth demons jumped from 30 all the way to 47. "Fishing pressure," conclude the researchers, "can exacerbate the effects of parasitism."
You all know what that means, right? It means we have to stop fishing. (For the record, no, these parasites do not attach to human tongues, nor do parasite-harboring fish cause human disease. Oddly, I've found that knowing these things has offered me very little comfort, and will probably not make getting to sleep tonight any easier.)
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[Biological Journal of the Linnean Society via The Loom]
Top image via; second image by Maria Sala-Bozano viaA vast majority of EVE players come from societies which were shaped significantly by the three Abrahamic religions, so when we think of faith, the Amarr Empire is usually our first association within the universe of EVE Online. Most of us immediately recognise many aspects of the Amarr religion from our own lives. That does not mean however, that the other societies of New Eden do not have their own very deep and strongly influential belief systems which play a major role in how they see themselves as individuals and collectively as a people.
In this two-part article I will examine the religious, metaphysical and spiritual sides of the different societies in EVE’s backstory and compare them with similar views we might encounter on our own small world. I will have to preface this with a disclaimer though: The subjects I am going to discuss can fill whole floors of sociological, anthropological and theological libraries. They also touch upon very profound convictions many of us have. If I treat any subject with undue brevity then I do not do so dismissively or out of disrespect, but because in a medium like this it is difficult, if not impossible, to provide more than a short abstract. It is still going to be a two part series because otherwise I would really do the subject matter injustice.
What Is This About?
Before I begin with the actual elaboration, let me establish a few terms which will return a lot in this series. To avoid confusion, I want to make sure that you as a reader understand what I mean when I am using them. Let’s start with the two in the title:
Faith: With this word I describe the belief or trust that adherence to a particular moral code, tenets, ideals or even a strategy will lead to the best possible outcome due to consistency of behaviour.
Spirituality: With this I want to express the belief that there is something greater than ourselves. That could be a multitude of divine beings, a single all-encompassing one or a completely abstract force. It sometimes overlaps with …
Animism: In my text this word will stand for the idea that physical reality itself is imbued with archetypical supernatural powers. Rocks, plants, the sea, the weather, each one of those aspects in our physical reality have a metaphysical self.
Numina: Originally this term describes the manifestation of a divine quality, but in modern social science it is often used as a term for an experience that leaves us awestruck – something deeply impressive that we can not explain. It describes a psycho-emotional condition much more than a metaphysical concept these days. Other than …
Transcendence: The rough english translation of this word is “traverse”, but it has also been used as meaning “to overcome a boundary”. I will be using the word in both senses to describe something that moves our understanding of the world from one frame of reference to another, and the adjective “transcendent” shall describe a state of being that exists on a higher level than our earthly existence.
Religion: I use this word to describe the organised form of a belief system including any number of the aspects described above
Now with this out of the way let’s look at the different societies in New Eden
The Amarr—Ancient Monotheism
From the timeline of EVE’s fictional history we know that the Amarr homeworld was first settled by Christians of the Unified Catholic Church, and when we look at today’s Amarr Empire it appears as if their legacy endured throughout the ages. The Amarr religion is not simply Christian, though. Their belief system, which developed over the millennia following the collapse of the EVE Gate, includes aspects of several monotheistic faiths.
The conviction that the Amarr have a higher calling from God—for example—is strongly related to the Jewish tenet of a covenant with God. The virtual and arguably even literal obligation to proselytise is something found in Christianity and Islam, and together with the belief that the Amarr are God’s chosen, this forms the basis for the Reclaiming. When Amash-Akura founded the Amarr Empire, he merged church and state. By this decree, secular law, the founding principles of the Empire and religious doctrine became synonymous with each other. That idea of nation and religion as one-and-the-same can be found both in Judaism and Islam. As far as the Christian component of the Amarr religion is concerned, it is not even purely derived from Catholicism. From their developments in philosophy, science and technology—Amarr were the first to rediscover space travel after the dark ages—we can conclude that the Amarr consider the diligent study of creation and scripture a way to understand God. This is a tenet they share with Protestantism and Islam alike.
In some ways, the Amarr religion goes even further back in monotheistic tradition, notably to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his religious reform which introduced a monotheistic religion but retained the divinity of the ruler as a concept. Similarly to the Egyptian Pharaohs and the Japanese Emperor, the historical ruler Zaragram II claimed to be be a worldly avatar of the divine. However, since the moral reforms of Heideran V, this claim has not been made directly, and the role of the Emperor became more comparable to the Catholic Pope. In today’s Amarr Empire, the Emperor is considered God’s emissary and worldly steward. The highest religious and secular authority at the same time.
Contrary to what people might have taken from the movie 300, Persia’s Xerxes was not a god king, but the faith of ancient Persia also reappears as part of the Amarr religion. Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest monotheistic belief systems still existing in our time and it is based firmly on a dualistic view of the world in terms of good and evil, truth and falsehood, order and chaos. The Amarr conviction that theirs is the one True Faith and should be kept clean of all impurities strongly correlates with Zoroastrian doctrine. A similarly strict view can also be found in Christian Gnosticism that views worldly existence as the dominion of evil which can only be escaped through redemption and transcendence into the divine realm. Particularly the Order of St. Tetrimon appear to be very similar to Gnostics in their pure interpretation of the scripture and rejection of any notion that the Emperor has a claim on divinity. That is most evident from the fact that the order originally formed during a campaign to cleanse the faith of Zaragram’s hubris after that Emperor declared himself devine. Naturally such a puritanical interpretation of the faith made them antagonists of the imperial power structure, much like the historical Gnostics of Europe gained the enmity of the Catholic Church.
One final aspect that should be mentioned is that the Amarr scripture is a living document which undergoes constant revision and expansion. Those additions can be theological, spiritual, legalistic or even scientific in nature. That particular aspect of the Amarr religion is its most unique feature when compared to all monotheistic faiths we know from our own world, and it has undoubtedly contributed to the endurance of the Amarr religion. (Thanks to Samira Kernher for reminding me of this)
All those aspects of the Amarr |
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In a daze, residents tried somehow to digest the growing toll: The Hidden Valley Satellite Elementary School — burned down. Willi’s Wine Bar and Cricklewood Restaurant on Old Redwood Highway — destroyed. Classrooms and offices at Cardinal Newman High School — burned to the ground. So was Fountaingrove’s historic Round Barn, built in 1899.
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The east end of the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts was scorched, as was part of the Keysight technology park, where a BMW and Audi in the parking lot were burned out, but like so many bizarre scenes from a wind-fueled fire storm, a bright red Porsche Targa two rows over was spared. So was the Charles Schulz Museum on the west side of Highway 101.
Residents of this city of 175,000 fled in the middle of the night, with nothing but their pets — and many without them — and returned Monday to nothing but ruins.
In the rubble of the Coffey Park neighborhood, Patsy and Heinz Streckfuss found nothing but a brick fireplace.
“Oh God. That’s our house,” said Patsy, 76, as she came upon the wreckage. The couple had just replaced all of the wooden floors and built a gazebo out back. “The whole block is gone.”
In fact, every block as far as she could see was gone.
And so was her calico cat, Rosie, who had bolted into hiding the night before.
“Rosie, Rosie!” she called out. “Rosie!”
The couple were awakened at about 1:30 a.m. Monday when a gust of wind blew through the house and slammed a door closed inside. Heinz said that’s when a neighbor pounded on the door.
“I opened the door in my skivvies,” Heinz said.
“You better get your clothes on and get out of here,” his neighbor said.
They could see flames at the end of the block. They quickly dressed and jumped in the car to drive away — with nothing but his phone and her purse. They spent the night in a Raley’s supermarket parking lot across town.
This fire, which started in Calistoga, is being compared with the Valley Fire in 2015 in neighboring Lake County, which was considered one of the hottest and fastest in memory.
“We had 20,000 acres in 12 hours,” said Cal Fire Capt. Richard Cordova on Monday afternoon of the Tubbs fire. “It’s pretty much unheard of.”
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As the sun set Monday night, severed natural gas lines flared throughout the city, fire trucks tore through the streets and the residents of Santa Rosa were only beginning to comprehend their loss.
“Now, what do I do?” Heinz Streckfuss said. “Now, what do I do?”A high-earning HR consultant is fighting for £4.2m in damages after she fractured her wrist tripping over a rope outside one of London's best-known gastropubs.
Carmen Mazo, 43, was hurt when she stumbled over a low-lying beer garden marker rope at Notting Hill's The Westbourne, which is run by the artist Sebastian Boyle.
She says the August 2009 injury destroyed her career and that her wrist scars have left her fearing being branded a self-harmer. She is claiming the damages payout in a case now set to go before three senior judges.
"The fact that I have been left with major scarring on my wrist, which to an unsympathetic observer might look like I am prone to self-harm, is very distressing for me"
"The fact that I have been left with major scarring on my wrist, which to an unsympathetic observer might look like I am prone to self-harm, is very distressing for me" Carmen Mazo
In a statement, Ms Mazo said the accident and the post-traumatic arthritis which followed had robbed her of everything she had built up during her working life.
She would have expected to be earning £700-a-day by now, she said, but would have to go back to the "bottom of the ladder" and retrain in another career.
However, it had also had a devastating impact on her mental health and social life, she claims.
"I have been left with what I consider to be horrendous scars on my wrist from the surgery, which I am extremely conscious of," she said.
"The fact that I have been left with major scarring on my wrist, which to an unsympathetic observer might look like I am prone to self-harm, is very distressing for me."
Photo: Alamy
She added: "My career has always been my refuge to block away unpleasant circumstances in my personal life, but now I am finding that because of a bartender's irresponsibility I could end up with no career or purpose in life.
"My mood changes are like a rollercoaster, changing from anger to sadness in seconds. I am easily irritated and I lose my temper very easily, then end up breaking into tears when I realise that I was never like that before.
"The accident has totally destroyed my work and social life, changing me such that I do not think that I will ever be my old self again."
Following the accident, Ms Mazo was off work for months, but returned, only to leave for good three years later.
"Her wrist was badly injured, she made a remarkable recovery. The issue is what happens next" Peter Sefton QC
She sued the pub's operators and, after they admitted liability for the accident, was awarded £156,871 at Central London County Court in 2013.
Judge Heather Baucher rejected her claim to more than £4.2m after finding Ms Mazo's injury was not bad enough to justify her giving up her work.
However, she has now been granted permission to take her multi-million pound claim further after a top judge said it was arguable that Judge Baucher was wrong.
Her barrister Peter Sefton QC argued: "Her wrist was badly injured, she made a remarkable recovery. The issue is what happens next."
Granting permission to take the loss-of-career point to the Appeal Court, Lord Justice Laws said: "It seems to me that she is entitled to have the matter examined in this court."
No date was set for the hearing.Sprint Nextel today agreed to a merger with SoftBank of Japan which will give Softbank a majority stake in the US carrier in exchange for $20.1 billion. $12.1 billion of that will be distributed to Sprint stockholders, and the other $8 billion will be used "to enhance [Sprint's] mobile network and strengthen its balance sheet," according to the announcement.
SoftBank is the third-largest mobile carrier in Japan, just as Sprint is third-largest in the US behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T. SoftBank will receive a 70 percent stake in Sprint while Sprint shareholders will own the other 30 percent.
Sprint said the acquisition will allow it to improve operating scale and rely on SoftBank's experience in deploying LTE services as Sprint continues rolling out 4G in the US. "SoftBank’s cash contribution, deep expertise in the deployment of next-generation wireless networks, and track record of success in taking share in mature markets from larger telecommunications competitors are expected to create a stronger, more competitive New Sprint that will deliver significant benefits to US consumers," Sprint said. SoftBank's subsidiary in the US will be named "New Sprint," but Sprint headquarters will still be located in Overland Park, Kansas.
The boards of both companies approved the deal. After going through the regulatory process, they expect to close the merger in mid-2013. The announcement said Sprint will not be required to make any changes to its partnership with Clearwire.
It's a busy time for consolidation in the cellular industry. T-Mobile, which itself was nearly acquired by AT&T in a deal scuttled by antitrust concerns last year, agreed to merge with MetroPCS earlier this month.Over the past four years, we've watched the Charm City Folk and Bluegrass Festival evolve from bands in a parking lot to an all-day festival in Druid Hill Park. And on April 30, 2016, that evolution continues with a stellar lineup and brand-new festival programs.
Festival organizers have announced that the 2016 lineup will feature bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder; one-man jam band Keller Williams; first family of bluegrass The Travelin' McCoury's; Grammy-winning North Carolina band Steep Canyon Rangers; and mandolin player Sierra Hull.
Last year's festival took place on April 25, 2015, which happened to coincide with the evening of unrest near Camden Yards and the catalyst for uprising around the city. Organizers say they hope the festival can shed a positive light on the city.
"Going into this year, we knew we needed to deliver an amazing lineup to our fans and the incredible Baltimore music community," says festival co-founder Phil Chorney. "Music has such a power to heal and unite, and we feel that our continued support of the park and community is paramount to showing how amazing Baltimore is."
Of course, another way the festival will highlight the local community is by featuring regional acts like Baltimore-based guitarist and singer-songwriter Cris Jacobs, and Pennsylvania bluegrass bands Cabinet, Colebrook Road, and Man About a Horse. Additionally, the winner of a battle-of-the-bands contest will open the festival.
A new addition to the festival is a program they're calling Bluegrass Academy, where performers will give short lessons and discuss their music with fans all for free in a dedicated tent.
"It will be a chance for fans to learn some basics and maybe jam with their favorite artists on the instruments they play," Chorney explains. "So you could learn mandolin techniques from Sierra Hull or banjo from Rob McCoury. Our goal is to get more casual fans playing music while providing them with an amazing experience."
General admission and VIP tickets are currently available and, for each ticket sold, the festival will donate $2 to the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory & Botanic Gardens to support horticulture education programs. In addition, there will be beer provided by Union Craft Brewing and a raffle will take place that benefits Believe in Music, a nonprofit aiming to give inner city students a music education.
"Both Travelin' McCourys and Sierra Hull have former Kentucky Thunder members, so I have a good feeling we will see some amazing jams and collaborations on stage," Chorney says. "And that's really what bluegrass music is all about."Get the biggest Sport stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
LEIGH GRIFFITHS reckons only his mum calls him a BRAT - and that Malmo’s silly trash-talk is a sign they are scared.
The Celtic striker and his team-mates have been shocked at the venom which has eminated from Malmo ahead of tonight’s Champions League decider in Sweden.
Griffiths was among those singled-out for individual abuse, with goalkeeper Johan Wiland ending his pig rant after the first-leg in Glasgow by accusing the striker of acting like a child.
The Hoops hitman shrugged off the personal insult as he arrived in Sweden last night.
(Image: Daily Record)
Griffiths said: “The only person who has called me a brat is my mum.
“They can say what they want about me or anybody else in the side, but we have got a job to do and we will go and do it.
“He was saying I was tugging his shirt, but there was nothing in it. I didn’t touch him once.
“He was the one pushing and pulling. I spoke to the ref and asked him to keep an eye on it.
“The assistant behind the goal also made it clear that if he saw him pushing me again he’d give a penalty for it, so I don’t know where their keeper was coming from with what he said.”
Griffiths has a theory that Malmo’s mouthing may be down to their own self doubts.
(Image: SNS Group)
The Swedish outfit have confidently predicted success tonight while dishing out their jibes.
Asked if the cocky comments could be a defence mechanism against a fear of failure, Griffiths nodded and said: “They know how good side we are. We proved that.
“We’ll go over there looking to punish them with anything that comes our way.
“They are just trying to wind us up a bit. But we are looking to win the game.
“They are just trying to play games with us. We aren’t going to fall for it. Teams will do that all the time. We have got to rise above it.
“The comments in the paper have just been silly. We know what we are. We are a good footballing side and hopefully we will go and prove that.
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“Teams will always try to manipulate you and try and do stuff to get you wound up, but the manager will be cool, will be calm and he’ll have that instilled in us by the time we go out for kick-off.
“We knew because we won the game that they would come out and say stuff about us, but we know we’ve got a job to do and we will look to do that.”
The striker’s purple patch for club has been rewarded at national level after he called into Gordon Strachan’s squad for next month’s Euro qualifiers against Georgia and Germany.Written by Mara M. Mannella
Photo credit: Life Is Beautiful
A lot can happen in 5 years. In 2013 when Life Is Beautiful took over the streets of downtown Las Vegas for the first time no one knew what a dog filter was, people were spontaneously Harlem shaking and James Franco took spring break to a whole ‘nother level. The local energy was electric when word got out Las Vegas was doubling down on the festival craze by unveiling an event that would not only feature red hot headliners like The Killers and Pretty Lights, but also the coolest in art, food and learning. Now here we are in 2017, and the 5th annual Life Is Beautiful is in the books, an event that sold out in record time and brought together legends like Gorillaz and Blink 182 while also booking innovative crowd-pleasers like Kaskade and Chance the Rapper.
Perhaps abiding by the motto “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, Life Is Beautiful seems to have truly hit their stride, greeting attendees with effortless entry lines and ‘gram-worthy scenery at every turn. The festival’s promise of music, art, taste and ideas delivers on all accounts. The transformation of a few city blocks never ceases to amaze, and proud locals get to enjoy the fruits of Life Is Beautiful’s labor long after the festival gates are disassembled; each year the event leaves behind new murals and installations for enjoyment all year long.
Musically, each stage offered its own flavor and most are positioned in a way that it’s very doable to split sets and get the most beats for your buck. Some highlights included Pretty Lights’ melodic journey through space and time, the stylings of viral rap star gone platinum Lil Dicky and the feel-good sound of Big Gigantic. 2 Chainz rolled onto the stage on 2 wheels, a broken leg confining the gritty rapper to a wheelchair, but that didn’t stop him from delivering the hits. In the throwback category, Sean Paul drew a surprisingly large crowd, considering a good chunk of festival goers may have been around 10 years old when his first hit climbed the charts. The energy was high throughout the feel-good set and yes, everyone happily sang Beyonce’s part of Baby Boy. A major enhancement to the musical offerings at Life Is Beautiful are the art car takeovers. Comparable to EDC Vegas, the art cars were taken over by an assortment of imprints and local event companies. Attendees had a whole menu of genres to choose from, like getting filthy at Trollphace thanks to powerhouse promoters Ravealation, vibing out with Dr. Fresch courtesy of house experts Collective Zoo and heading to the underground with techno connoisseurs MNTRA, the masterminds behind Techno Taco Tuesday. A second art car featured a dynamic roster from L.A. based Space Yacht and a trip backwards in time piloted by Emo Nite who filled the air with tracks from Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco to name a few.
As the masses filtered out of the Life Is Beautiful festival grounds Sunday night, no one would could have imagined the horrific events that would play out on the Las Vegas Strip just 2 weeks later. A music festival like the one we had all just attended was held hostage and turned into a place of fear and misery. It didn’t seem real or fair or possible, as many attendees looked back at their own festival memories that were filled with joy and celebration. The events of October 1 changed many lives forever. The evil of that evening remains incomprehensible. The events also uncovered a side of Las Vegas that doesn’t usually make headlines. That Las Vegas is a place to call home, not just a getaway. The community came together in a matter of minutes and continues to support one another not just monetarily but also emotionally. There were and continue to be walks of remembrance and heartfelt construction of memorials. Fittingly, the local music community banded together, organizing concerts and shows benefitting those affected by the tragedy, a true testament to the healing power of music.
Life Is Beautiful, while at its core is just another music festival, is a source of pride for Las Vegans. Like-minded people from all over the country flock to our little footprint in the desert to hit pause on the worries and responsibilities of home. While the tragedy of October 1 will forever weigh heavily on our hearts, hopefully the love and unity that a music festival can provide will continue to outweigh the ills of the real world.Day-night Test cricket is yet another change in Test cricket - one in many over the years. It does not amount to standing the game on its head, as some might suggest
The pink ball is just the latest example of Test cricket adapting to its era © Getty Images
Last month, Adam Voges was asked if statistics for day-night Tests should be kept distinct from other Tests. "I don't think that's the silliest idea, to be honest," Voges said. He was right. The silliest idea, at least of those floated in recent weeks, was James Sutherland's suggestion of beach cricket at the Olympics. But different stats for pink-ball Tests? That runs a close second.
This is not to have a dig at Voges, who is a thoughtful, experienced cricketer, a man whose opinions on the game are always worth hearing. He was thrown the question by a reporter and answered with a gut reaction. And he is not alone in having questions over day-night Test cricket. "Test cricket is all about history and tradition, as far as I'm concerned," Ricky Ponting said recently.
Such sentiments are admirable. They reveal a love of Test cricket and a desire to protect it. But the fact that the Australia-New Zealand matches in Perth and Adelaide will both be called Tests is not a case of comparing apples with oranges, rather judging a Red Delicious against a Pink Lady. And for 138 years, all sorts of different cultivars have made up the format known as Test cricket.
Most cricket fans - indeed most modern cricketers - would probably argue that the red ball is one of the defining features of Test cricket. But then, most would also say the same of its five-day duration. In fact, the length of Test matches has varied wildly over the years. Six-day Tests have been scheduled, and four-day Tests, and three-day Tests. And, of course, Tests without time limit.
The term "timeless Test" is most often applied to the 1939 Durban marathon, when England and South Africa played ten days and called it a draw only because England had to catch their ship home. But timeless Tests were common before World War II. Don Bradman played in 52 Tests and exactly half were timeless. Only in his last series did he finally play Tests scheduled for five days.
Len Hutton's monumental 364 at The Oval in 1938, for 20 years the world-record Test score, was made in a timeless Test. That the match only lasted four days is immaterial; that it was timeless affected the way it was played. England batted first and had no compulsion to declare early, so they batted for 335.2 overs and amassed 903. Hutton faced - wait for it - 847 deliveries!
The question is how successful it will be, and the answer is not straightforward. More viewers will undoubtedly be watching, but if they see dull cricket will they just switch off again?
If pink-ball statistics are to be kept separate, then surely the records from timeless Tests must also be expunged. Of course, such a suggestion is facetious. Neither of these things should happen. A pink ball and floodlights would have appeared far-fetched to cricketers of the 1930s, while the idea of a timeless Test these days seems as implausible as Willy Wonka's everlasting gobstopper.
The point is simply this: Test cricket evolves. It reflects its era, and over 138 years that means a lot of changes. In the early decades of Test cricket some bowlers still operated underarm. Take a look at the photo on George Simpson-Hayward's profile page. You'd think he was playing bocce, not cricket. He was one of Test cricket's last "lobsters", taking 23 wickets in five Tests in 1910.
And what about the concept of an over? Six balls is now standard, but four was used in the earliest Tests, then five, then six, then eight. And what of the new ball? Captains can take it after 80 overs, but in the past the time frame has varied - it was 55 overs during Australia's 1948 tour of England - and before that a new ball was generally only taken after the score had reached 200 runs.
Few changes have had greater effect than the move to covered pitches. Imagine playing on a surface that remained uncovered even in the heaviest of rain. That is what faced Test cricketers until well after World War II. It poured rain in 1956 at Old Trafford, where Jim Laker took his 19 wickets on an uncovered pitch. It was, in the words of Australian batsman Colin McDonald, "a mud-heap" after the rain came.
All of these evolutions have changed the way the game is played, either subtly or significantly. So too developments in bat-making technology, the introduction of helmets, boundary ropes, neutral umpires, third umpires, umpire reviews, field restrictions, the 15-degree no-ball rule, front-foot no-balls, bigger stumps, lbw rule changes, the list goes on.
The covering of pitches was possibly the most radical change among those that directly affected the way cricket has been played © AFP
You could argue that these changes are peripheral to cricket's fundamental battle between bat and ball. Specifically, a red ball that swings, seams and spins. But Test cricket balls are all different anyway. Dukes in England and West Indies, SG in India, Kookaburra elsewhere - these brands have subtle but distinct variations in behaviour, in how and when they swing and how they deteriorate.
It is into this ever-changing landscape that the pink ball will appear at Adelaide Oval this week, another example of Test cricket adapting to its era. The aim is to gain more viewers, at the ground but more especially on television, with the day-night Test to air in prime time in Australia's eastern states. More dollars, yes, but also more eyes fixing their sights on Test cricket.
The question is how successful it will be, and the answer is not straightforward. During Sheffield Shield trials, players have noted that the pink ball goes soft quickly, and stops swinging early, both of which lead to a holding pattern in which runs are scored slowly and few wickets taken. More viewers will undoubtedly be watching, but if they see dull cricket will they just switch off again?
Perhaps a return to the "old" new-ball rules would help, with a new pink ball taken after something like 55 overs. If it was good enough for red balls during the 1948 Invincibles tour, why not now? Anyway, the style of cricket will become clearer after the Adelaide Test, though Australia are already considering another day-night Test next summer, against Pakistan.
But not every Test will be day-night, just as not every Test used to be timeless. It is evolution, not revolution. And while it may turn out there are good reasons not to persist with the pink ball and day-night Tests, tradition is not one of them.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @brydoncoverdale
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.State Reps. Todd Courser, R-Lapeer, Cindy Gamrat, R-Plainwell (Photo: Courser, Gamrat offices)
LANSING — The Business Office for the House of Representatives has found both misconduct and misuse of taxpayer resources by state Reps. Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, two lawmakers caught up in a sex scandal and clumsy attempt at a coverup.
House Business Office director Tim Bowlin said he's turned over the report to an outside counsel for an independent review.
"Asking an outside counsel to review the report is a normal process to protect the privacy and confidentiality of affected individuals and ensure compliance with Human Resources regulations. The findings will be made public once the legal review has been completed," Bowlin said in a statement.
Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant, who received a copy of the report Monday morning, said: "there is troubling evidence of misconduct. I am directing my legal counsel to review the preliminary findings for the purposes of any further disciplinary actions."
Contents of the report aren't expected to be released for a few days.
Gamrat said in a statement released late Monday that she hasn't seen the report yet and is still considering her options.
"This job is a privilege and a duty and I owe it to the people in my life and in the 80th house district to review the report and study my options. I will talk it over with my family before making any decisions on what steps might be next," she said. "As of this time, I have not ruled out any options and I am still listening carefully to input from the people of the 80th district because they are, after all, who I serve in this position."
Courser didn't return phone calls from the Free Press for comment. And while he usually takes to social media to respond to allegations, he has stayed off Facebook since Friday.
Courser, R-Lapeer, and Gamrat, R-Plainwell, are being investigated after an audio recording surfaced revealing that Courser said he sent an anonymous false e-mail around Lansing accuring himself of paying for gay sex to make it seem like he was the victim of a smear campaign and make the long-rumored affair between the two lawmakers pale by comparison. Both Courser and Gamrat, two of the most conservative members of the Legislature, are married with children.
Courser has since said that he was being blackmailed by an unknown person who wanted him to resign or risk the public release of evidence of the affair between Courser and Gamrat. In an audio e-mail widely distributed and posted on his Facebook page, Courser blamed his former staffers, Ben Graham, Josh Cline and Keith Allard, for colluding with the Lansing "mafia" establishment to bring him down.
The affair and e-mail were revealed earlier this month in an audio tape made public by Graham, who — along with Allard — was fired by Courser in July. Cline quit the office in April, saying the relationship between the two lawmakers had become so uncomfortable to witness that it became akin to a hostile work environment.
Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor, said the two could be charged with a felony common law charge of misconduct in office that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.
"It doesn't happen very often, but it does get charged," he said. "If you violate the requirements of your office, you can be charged in the state and it can rise to a felony. It could give a prosecutor quite a bit of leverage."
If suspected illegal activity is found, the Business office could refer the matter to law enforcement or another state agency, such as the Attorney General's Office, for further action. The office examined computer servers, electronic and paper documents and interviewed current and former staffers, as well as Courser and Gamrat.
The House of Representatives also approved a resolution last week, creating a special Select Committee to look into the controversy, taking the first step toward a possible expulsion, reprimand, censure or nothing at all against the two lawmakers. An expulsion vote would need two-thirds support from the 110-member House.
The standards are much lower for the Legislature to expel one of their own members, Henning said.
"They determine their own qualifications for office and the courts stay out of it," Henning said.
Cotter acknowledged last week that any potential action taken against the lawmakers will be a subjective determination by individual members of the House.
"Disciplinary options that exist are very subjective. Look at the constitution. There's a single sentence that says the body can police itself. There is no standard that must be met to result in any disciplinary action," he said. "Some may decide that criminal behavior is needed to go to explusion. Some may say that inappropriate uses of state resources is enough. Others may say that the irrepairable harm that has been caused to this body exists and will only improve if disciplinary matters are pursued."
The report has been turned over to the Dickinson Wright law firm to review.
Contact Kathleen Gray: 517-372-8661, [email protected] or on Twitter @michpoligal.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1JgKo1vDonald Trump’s Presidential election shook a large portion of America and people in communities across the country are coming together to learn what they can do to oppose his administration. But protesters are not content to stop with opposition. They intend to fight for progressive causes at the local level, as well.
Trump Wakes a Sleeping Giant
In Pennsylvania, one such grassroots effort began with the simple concept that a constituent should be able to meet with a political representative to talk about policy. What should have been an easy task in a representative government has proven more difficult than anticipated.
According to a group of Philadelphia activists who call their campaign #TuesdaysWithToomey, a micro-movement started when one activist’s effort to speak with Senator Pat Toomey was rebuffed by a disgruntled staffer. The staffer’s response prompted the activist to plan a personal visit to Sen. Toomey’s Philadelphia office.
She posted a message on her Facebook page to see whether anybody else wanted to join her in delivering letters to the Senator. “On that fateful Tuesday,” the group’s website says, “seven others joined in, and a progressive citizen movement was born.” What began as a small Philadelphia gathering has mushroomed to over 100 citizen protesters within a few short weeks — and the number of protesters continues to grow as long as Toomey refuses to hear them out.
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Using the same core organizational model employed by the Philadelphia activists, additional TuesdaysWithToomey sister organizations have formed across the state in Scranton, Johnstown, Allentown, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg. Each group works in tandem, meeting outside of Senator Toomey’s offices every Tuesday. And each group is determined their voices will be heard — at times, employing megaphones and mobile speaker systems.
The method is simple and straightforward. Every Tuesday, a call to action is posted to the group’s Facebook Page, centered around a pertinent local issue or current event. TuesdaysWithToomey’s Twitter Account then boosts the call to action among their 2.7k followers. Though the topic or general action may change from week to week, the activists’ persistence does not. That persistence, combined with Toomey’s continued audacity and refusal to meet with his constituents, seems key to the movement’s growth and success.
Toomey: Wanted for Questioning
You don’t have to look far to see why an anti-Toomey movement has spread so quickly in Philadelphia. His progressive constituents are looking for answers to some very serious questions. They’d like to know why, most recently, Toomey voted to confirm Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominee, Betsy DeVos, as Secretary of Education.
On a broader scale, Toomey’s policies are directly opposed to the progressive agenda (a major exception being background checks for gun sales). A quick look at Toomey’s record shows he has supported increased school choice and charter schools, voted against the Clean Power Plan, opposed carbon taxes, voted against ending the 2013 government shutdown, advocated to “end Sanctuary City policies,”and generally supported deregulating the financial sector, going so far as to help write the devastating resolution which led to the repeal of parts of Glass-Steagall. Toomey also opposes a woman’s right to reproductive freedom, is against same-sex marriage, and opposes the Affordable Care Act. His record is not even close to palatable, as far as progressives are concerned.
TuesdaysWithToomey Template for Resistance
Grassroots progressive groups in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, and Washington are meeting with some level of success utilizing this method of confronting local officials to hold them accountable for their votes. Activists, now aware of local City Council meeting times and locations, have grown savvy, arriving in large enough numbers to consume the public comments session and argue in favor of progressive policies.
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Protesters’ weekly approach of letting elected officials know they exist and where they stand on issues can move change regardless of who’s in office. As TuesdaysWithToomey has shown, visibly growing weekly actions heighten public awareness, educate the electorate, and encourage voters to become actively involved and empowered to effect local level change — even if their representatives refuse to listen.
If you’d like to get involved with TuesdaysWithToomey protesters, sign up on their website at TuesdaysWithToomey.com and watch this space for next Tuesday’s Agenda.Marx Is Dead, Long Live Marx’s Ideas Marx Is Dead, Long Live Marx’s Ideas Jonathan Sperber is right to portray Marx as a product of his times. But he goes astray in limiting the application and relevance of Marx’s ideas to the relatively brief time—from 1840 to 1880—in which he wrote. If a thinker discerns deeper trends within the history of his time, he may produce ideas that are relevant well beyond his passing. Karl Marx's grave in Highgate Cemetery, London (John Armagh / Wikimedia Commons)
Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life
by Jonathan Sperber
Liveright, 2013, 672 pp.
I have worked as a journalist for forty years, largely for left-wing and liberal publications, and in the last few decades, or until very recently, I may have heard Marx cited five or six times by people actively engaged in politics or shaping public opinion. I don’t know anyone under sixty who has read the first volume of Capital, let alone the second or third. I am sure there are professional historians or political scientists, even economists, who have done so, but that’s not my point. Until a recent burst of interest among young radicals in the wake of the Great Recession, Marx had become an irrelevant curiosity.
Jonathan Sperber’s new biography reinforces this dim view of Marx. Aptly subtitled “A Nineteenth-Century Life,” it is a portrayal of Marx, as well as his ideas, as the product of his time rather than ours. That means, Sperber writes, “remembering that what Marx meant by ‘capitalism’ was not the contemporary version of it, that the bourgeoisie Marx critically dissected was not today’s class of global capitalists, that Marx’s understanding of science and scholarship... had connotations different from contemporary usage.”
Sperber is right to portray Marx as a product of his times. Marx himself would approve of this approach. But Sperber goes astray in limiting the application and relevance of Marx’s ideas to the relatively brief time—from 1840 to 1880—in which he wrote. If a thinker discerns deeper trends within the history of his time, he may produce ideas that are relevant well beyond his passing; that is, I believe, the case with Marx. Substantial parts of Marx’s thought—and I am thinking primarily of the Marx of CapitaI rather than of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts—remain highly relevant to understanding the present.
Sperber is at his best when narrating what was so nineteenth-century about Marx’s life. He is particularly good in describing Marx’s religious background. Two years after Marx’s birth, his father, Heinrich, converted from Judaism to Protestantism so that he could serve as a lawyer in the Prussian-controlled town of Trier. He chose to become a Protestant rather than a Catholic—the most common religion in Trier—out of sympathy with the French Enlightenment, which he identified with Protestantism. This identification with the Enlightenment was passed onto the young Marx, who, at least in this way, was not in a state of rebellion against his father but following his lead. Sperber also reminds us that Marx began his career in journalism as a champion of bourgeois rights (notably, freedom of the press) rather than of socialism. In 1842 Marx, who was then editor of the Rhineland News, warned that “the intellectual implementation” of communist ideas would present a “genuine danger.”
By situating Marx’s politics in the debates of the time, Sperber explains where certain staples of twentieth-century socialist politics first originated. He shows how, after the disappointment of the 1848 revolutions, Marx turned to the idea that a socialist revolution would be born out of increasingly severe economic crises. Sperber writes that according to Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of Marx’s disciples and a founder of the German Social Democratic Party, “Marx’s constant expectation of an economic crisis became a standing joke among his London friends and associates.” This joke was to have a long half-life. During my days as a socialist activist, we used to yearn for a new Great Depression, and several political groups specialized in predicting its imminence.
Sperber is adept at showing that, as a political activist and journalist, Marx was not infallible. He had a conspiracy-laden view of Tsarist Russia. He actually believed that Whig prime minister Lord Palmerston was a paid agent of the Tsar—a notion similar to American right-wingers’ daffy view in the 1950s that Dwight Eisenhower was a secret |
you," he said.
"If you start talking four or five metres; it will suffocate you within a matter of minutes if you're not careful."
As with all of the snakes he captures, Mr Walton said the five-metre scrub python that so nearly ate the cat was returned to more natural surroundings in nearby bushland.
"We've got to find an appropriate place to relocate it... not too far that it's out of its element, but far enough away that it doesn't repeat offend," he said.
To view more pictures of the five-metre scrub python caught in Cairns this week, head to ABC Far North's Facebook page.The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
In Octodad: Dadliest Catch, players inhabit a well-dressed octopus who tries to fool his human family (and society at large) into thinking that he is an ordinary man. The controls are as silly as the premise, requiring the player to pick up Octodad’s limbs and thrust them around to wriggle his body across the room.
My name is Kevin Zuhn, and I was the creative director on Octodad: Dadliest Catch, as well as the project lead on the student game Octodad. I’d like to talk about the design of Dadliest Catch. In particular, the design decisions we made, why we made them, and the impact they had on our development. I want to be detailed, so I apologize if this post-mortem analysis goes long.
Because Octodad was a tangled, difficult, but wildly interesting project to work on, I find it hard to break it down into simple ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ decisions. Given that, I’m just going to walk through the project in a rough chronological order. I’ll start with the controls.
1. Enhancing Movement Mechanics
The student game Octodad had glitchy, unresponsive controls and faulty physics. Our very first task was to overhaul Octodad’s body physics (which I’m not qualified to talk about) and smoothing out the controls. We needed them to be awkward without being frustrating. The key here was giving the player relatively tight control of Octodad’s foot, increasing its speed and reducing its weightiness. As long as the rest of Octodad’s body had follow-through, it could do the business of being a physics destruction engine every time the player moved the foot. The arms got a similar treatment.
Even with tighter controls, Octodad’s body physics would get him and the player into a lot of trouble. It was easy for Octodad to get a leg stuck in a crack between two tables or to catch his foot going up stairs. We created invisible helper forces to get around this, a little boost to push him back on track. There are forces that help him get over stairs, forces that help him throw objects farther, etc. As designers, we could pepper force volumes throughout the level anywhere Octodad needed it.
If there was a downside to our work on controls, it was our dedication to locking all controls to the mouse. We ran into awkward situations, as we had only three-ish buttons and loads of limbs. We created ‘mode switching’ to change whether you were controlling Octodad’s arms or his legs, making the mouse buttons contextual. Mode switching had its own awkward problems, as players would forget which mode they were in. It wasn’t until late in the project, when designing controller input, that we hit on a system that recognized which mode you wanted to be in and switched it for you automatically. Octodad is a smoother, more pleasant game as a result, but it’s a shame we never figured out a version that worked with the mouse.
2. Building a Tutorial
We decided to build the tutorial first, because we needed to get players used to Octodad’s unusual movement mechanics as soon as possible. We knew that whichever level we started with would ultimately get the most iteration and polish overall. Octodad’s wedding was our first idea and we stuck with it. It’s a funny scenario, a small location, and it clearly introduces us to Octodad and Scarlet together.
Initially, the tutorial had distractions such as mini games and explorable secret areas, but they were all cut. Linearity turned out to be necessary in the teaching environment of the tutorial, as players had a rough enough time just walking in a straight line. We took the time to introduce the players to the mechanics of Octodad one by one (starting with simply moving the arm left and right). As time went on, we noticed that players would forget how to raise their arms, so we introduced a gate and other contrivances to remind them how to do it.
The idea that players needed to get used to Octodad was a troublesome one. We attempted, after the tutorial, to build some more challenging levels set in the middle portions of the game, but just the tutorial was not enough to prepare players to play well. We chose then to develop the levels in linear order so that they could be tested at the players’ relative skill level. This had some very, very far reaching consequences that I will get to later.
3. Suspicion and Character Behavior
As we worked on the house and the grocery stores levels, places more dangerous to Octodad than the tutorial, we needed to solve the question of suspicion. The student Octodad included a suspicion bar as a stand-in for a health mechanic. The premise dictates that people become suspicious of Octodad when he acts inhuman. That’s a pretty fuzzy definition, and in the student game the rules for when Octodad received suspicion were specific to each level and essentially arbitrary. Our goal in designing the suspicion system of Dadliest Catch was to clearly define and communicate how and why a player got suspicion.
We decided to tie suspicion to AI characters. If Octodad is unobserved by an AI, he gains no suspicion. Suspicious activities were simplified to breaking things, hitting people, and enduring things a human can’t (such as fire). The problem then became how to communicate when an AI was watching Octodad. We determined that we did not want a visible vision cone as it looked ugly and intrusive in 3d. We tried to use the UI to communicate visibility, but players were not likely to notice it and we had no desire to make the UI distracting.
We were inspired by classic cartoons to use a dotted line to represent sight. Dotted lines were attention-getting without being overwhelming and had the added benefit of leading back to the source of the sighting. When the player actually gained suspicion, we added a purple splatter which floated into the suspicion bar, so that the player could tell which object was the source. The major drawback of the dotted line is that the player has no indication when they are about to be seen. More specifically, they don’t know how close they can be to an AI before they are seen. This wasn’t so much a problem in early levels, where the player was still safe as long as they weren’t making a mess, but this uncertainty caused issues in more difficult levels.
4. Designing Cameras
The camera system in Dadliest Catch caused us an endless stream of headaches. In part we resisted full camera control because it wouldn’t work in our mouse-only control scheme. Mostly we resisted because a rotating camera did not look good in indoor environments, least of all hallways, and Dadliest Catch took place primarily indoors. We decided fairly early on that we would build the game with designed cameras and maybe work in camera control later.
Designed cameras had plenty of advantages; they worked wonderfully at directing players where to go, and showing off the best views of our levels. But in testing, even up to the end of the project, players were always reaching for WASD hoping to push the cameras. When players were having difficulty controlling Octodad, they wanted to change their perspective. Despite this, we feared the amount of work and ugliness that would come with player-controlled cameras, so we continued to avoid them.
Designed cameras were a large source of bugs, issues, and tweaks during the development process. Players would always find new crevices that the cameras couldn’t see, so more cameras would be added in to patch it. We initially thought that designed cameras might allow us to avoid decorating some walls in the game, but players wanted to go everywhere and see where they were going, so that idea swiftly became moot.
5. Stubbornly Iterating The Aquarium
Early on, the story of Dadliest Catch led Octodad and his family to the aquarium. It was a thematically relevant place; fun for the family and terrifying/nostalgic for Octodad. We took a company trip to the Shedd Aquarium of Chicago to get ideas. Unfortunately, an aquarium is a place where the primary activity is looking at fish. There aren’t that many silly activities one can naturally do there. What’s worse, we had decided to make more than one segment of the aquarium, so that Octodad could have time alone with the members of his family. We tried building the deep sea and kelp themed levels right after the tutorial. Our early stab included pedestal puzzles, labyrinths, quizzes, and giant robot boss battles.
We scrapped those first try levels, but we blamed their issues on our own inexperience. We gave kelp and the deep sea a second try after the house and grocery store were finished. Our second versions were scrapped entirely as well, for the same reasons. At this point, we began to understand the scope of our project, and began consolidating. Later level ideas and plot threads were cut before they could be prototyped. This would have been an opportunity to cut the aquarium levels that we were having such a difficult time with, but we stuck with them.
There was an element of sunk cost there, given we had spent months on the aquarium already. But we also had notions that the aquarium would be a time saving option. It would require less cutscenes since we didn’t need to explain how Octodad got from place to place. It might have reusable elements and assets. Choosing which level to go to from the hub would make the game feel less linear. While we didn’t make cutscenes for the aquarium levels, we also didn’t reuse any assets since their themes were so different. In essence they were as much work as any other given level if not more.
Our third iterations took inspiration from the Museum of Science and Industry, incorporating large interactive set pieces. The amazon section of the aquarium was built as an arcade. In essence the levels became more of a fish-themed museum. Despite our semi-successful battering of the levels into usable shape, by that time our scope consolidation meant that half the game took place in that aquarium. If we were to do it all over again, we’d let the aquarium be one or two levels and free up space for levels with more diverse concepts.
6. Swimming Mechanics
We decided very early on that we wanted a segment in the game where Octodad returns to being an octopus and swims around the aquarium tanks. To contrast with the complicated flailing of Octodad on land, his controls in the water would be as simple as possible. But however simple we wanted to make it, creating a swimming segment with new mechanics took new animations and tools and environments, and we didn’t have time to commit to making it until late in the project.
For the months of work that went into it, the swimming section was five minutes long and only occurred once. We had many opportunities to cut it from the game, but every time we kept it because we felt it was a very unique and important moment.
Based on fan reaction, the swimming section was not the big impactful moment we hoped it would be (though the cutscene at the end of it is still our favorite). Given how important it felt to us and to the story, we should have committed to it at the start of the project. We might have had time to build it into something more whimsical and flowing, to give it the time to sink in.
7. Stealth Mechanics
Octodad is, in part, a stealth game. The health mechanics revolve around whether or not Octodad can be seen, and his character motivations are all about deception and hiding himself. Thematically, it made sense for us to incorporate stealth more directly into the latter portions of the game when the plot had become more dangerous for Octodad. We turned the second-to-last level into a stealthy revisit to the aquarium hub level.
We created a new enemy type called the Marine Biologist which gave suspicion to Octodad any time he was in sight. Unfortunately, because our dotted-line sight system doesn’t indicate when Octodad is about to enter an NPC’s sight radius, players would only know once it had already happened. They would have to scramble to get back out of sight, and requiring that kind of quick-but-precise movement was just too difficult. Because suspicion rarely went down, players could also wind up in situations where they had no choice but to jump out of cover and lose.
Octodad was critically lambasted for including stealth sections like those in the boat and hub levels. However, as I’ve said, stealth is actually present throughout Dadliest Catch. For instance, Octodad needs to steal cereal from a woman in the grocery store when she’s not looking. We made a mistake using stealth for precise and punishing gameplay challenge instead of for comedy setups. We were breaking the expectations of our players.
8. Difficulty Curve/The Full Game Test
Punishing difficulty wasn’t just limited to stealthy gameplay. The final third of Dadliest Catch was significantly harder, requiring more precision challenges and timed sequences. We were two years into production, and we were experts at our own game. We built segments that felt challenging to us, and that was a critical mistake.
It was only a few months before launch that we were able to run tests where players could play the entirety of Octodad: Dadliest Catch start to finish. In isolated tests, we would often excuse difficulty issues by saying that players weren’t at the right skill level yet, that they would be trained sufficiently through playing the rest of the game. Our full game test showed that we were wrong. We ignored and mitigated the results, because we were afraid that fixing the difficulty would take more time than we had.
I say difficulty, but in truth we had a problem with punishment. Plenty of segments in the game were difficult (such as the octopus playground) but did not punish the player with game loss or try to hurry them when they took too long. Failure in Octodad was supposed to be funny, and we lost sight of that. Even as we iterated the middle levels to get rid of Zelda dungeon design, our later levels did not have enough iteration time to slap us into sense.
9. Cooperative Play
Late in development, we got to work adding more features and modes to extend playtime and player satisfaction. Adding multiplayer seemed like it would give players a reason to play again, and we thought it would be especially popular with Let’s Players who work in groups and families (we were right!) We thought of doing a competitive mode with multiple Octodads or other sea-themed dads, but that was high in scope and likely to cause lag.
Co-operative play was easier to do and more in line with the themes of Octodad. Instead of multiple Octodads, we concentrated multiplayer on one Octodad by separating control of his limbs like a floppy Voltron. Working as one Octodad made the game awkward and silly again even for master players like us.
As a hidden benefit, multiplayer opened new avenues for testing and iteration. Multiplayer was part of the reason we revised our controller scheme. It forced us to reconsider how and when cameras work. Splitting arms from legs also gave us an easy way to evaluate the balance between arm challenges and leg challenges in levels. We needed to make sure there was a good variety, so that all limb players could be engaged.
10. Epilogue: Post-Launch Reconstruction
After launch, it was easy to feel depressed and paralyzed. Critical feedback Octodad received was often unkind, and as you’ve read, we made a lot of mistakes. However, with the launch date come and gone there was no longer a reason to fear running out of time. We decided to go back and fix our most egregious problems, focusing on the final three levels.
The boat and stealth levels received the biggest makeovers, with entirely new challenges based on comedy instead of challenge or punishment. A section where Octodad hid from the chef became a section where he dances a jig. A section where he snuck past biologists under a box became about gathering materials to create a scientist disguise. We didn’t eliminate stealth or difficulty entirely, but they took a backseat to slapstick and goofing around.
After that, we worked on the DLC Octodad Shorts levels. We used all of the mistakes and lessons we had learned to build better Octodad levels from the ground up, and then we released them for free.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch was a strange, difficult, and rewarding project to design. We struggled against traditional game design, we sometimes ran in circles, and in the years it took to make we often lost sight of what was good about it. But we also made something new, something that we’re proud of, something that a lot of players can enjoy together. As we go into building our next project, we intend to keep focus on its heart, and to never again steer ourselves away from what is good about it.
You can learn more about Young Horses and Octodad via our website and by following us on Twitter.On September 15, at sunset in Arizona, a crowd gathered at the corner of a Chevron gas station called the Mesa Star. Like every year since 2002, Rana Sodhi hosted a memorial here for his brother, Balbir Singh Sodhi. Balbir was shot while planting flowers in front of his store on September 15, 2001 — four days after the 9/11 attacks.
On this night every year, the station is transformed into sacred space, where we listen to prayers, hold candles and place red roses on the cool marble where Balbir died. I took my seat on the ground next to his widow, family and neighbors on white sheets spread over the concrete, lit by the flood lights attached to the gas pumps behind us.
Sodhi was the first of dozens of people killed in hate crimes against Sikhs and Muslims after 9/11. His murder turned a generation of young people like me into activists. I made a film about Balbir’s murder and began a life helping communities organize against racism and violence. Over the years, these memorials blur together.
“It feels like nothing has changed,” Rana told me. The cycle of violence feels endless: an act of terrorism followed by a wave of hate violence, profiling, surveillance, detentions, deportations, bigoted rhetoric and use of force abroad. Then followed by another terrorist attack and more hate and violence.
So that night a little over a week ago, Rana and I did something that was previously unthinkable: We decided to call his brother’s murderer.
Frank Roque is in an Arizona prison a few miles from the Mesa Star, serving out a life sentence. We did not know anything about his mental state or whether he had any remorse for what he'd done. We only knew what came out in his trial.
On September 11, 2001, Roque told a waiter at Applebee’s: “I’m going to go out and shoot some towel heads,” and “We should kill their children, too, because they’ll grow up to be like their parents.”
Four days later, he drove up to the station where Balbir was planting crates of flowers in front of his store. Roque shot him five times in the back before continuing his shooting rampage at another gas station, where his bullet narrowly missed a Lebanese American clerk. He then drove to his previous home, which had been sold to an Arab family, and fired shots several times.
When police arrested him the next day, he yelled, “I am a patriot!” and “I stand for America!” He was sentenced to death — a sentence that was later reduced to life in prison. He told the court then that voices told him to “kill the devils.”
A few months later, Rana’s other older brother, Sukhpal, was shot and killed in a separate crime while driving his cab in San Francisco. Rana has been telling his brothers’ stories for the last 15 years. He has gone everywhere he can — school auditoriums, interfaith conferences and churches — calling on Americans to combat hate with love. Since 9/11, Sikh and Muslim American activists have amplified this message, made films, published books, marched in the street, filed lawsuits, created organizations, and launched justice campaigns. But 15 years of activism has not made our communities safer.
I asked Rana, “If you had a chance to talk to Frank Roque, in the spirit of reconciliation, would you?”
“Yes, I would,” he said.
So the morning after the memorial, we huddled together around my cell phone, and called Roque. It was the one thing we had not yet done. To test our own ability to love, even someone who hurt us. At first, I thought it was a disaster.
I introduced myself and Rana and asked Roque why he agreed to speak to us. He said he had always told the truth: that the 9/11 attacks broke him down as a man and resulted in a mental breakdown. He did not act out of his own free will, he repeated. He lost his job and wife and was sorry for “what happened.”
He spoke in passive voice, and all I could hear was a man who refused to take responsibility for murdering another person. When I pressed him, he said that he was sorry for what happened to Balbir, and that we must also be sorry for the thousands who died on 9/11.
I began to think that calling him was a mistake.
Then Rana, who had been listening, began to speak calmly: “Frank, I’m so thankful for what you say. This is the first time I’m hearing from you that you feel sorry.”
Rana told him that a few years ago, he recognized Roque’s daughter and wife at Costco while buying flowers for his brother’s memorial and invited them to dinner. Frank remembered his daughter telling him the story and was deeply moved that Rana showed compassion to his daughter. That’s when the conversation shifted and opened up.
“I want you to know from my heart, I’m sorry for what I did to your brother,” Frank said. “One day, when I go to heaven to be judged by God, I will ask to see your brother, and I will hug him, and I will ask him for forgiveness.”
“We already forgave you,” Rana replied. He had never wanted Roque put to death, because it foreclosed the possibility of remorse.
“If I had the power to take you out from prison, I would do it right now,” Rana said. “If one day you come out, we can both go to the world and tell the story.”
Roque responded, “I know I can’t give you back what I wish I could, which is your brother, but I hope you find some comfort in knowing that I’m very sorry for what happened to your brother and your whole family and his wife and everyone.”
They agreed to speak again.
At the end of the call, Rana sat in silence for a few minutes. He had spent so many years traveling the country with a message of love and compassion. But he had never before faced his brother’s murderer, heard remorse and forgiven him. We looked at each other, amazed.
And yet, we were also left unsatisfied.
True reconciliation requires accountability, and Roque insisted that he did not kill intentionally. He could not talk about the murder without also talking about the damage it caused him and his family.
There are many questions left: Why did Roque choose Balbir Sodhi? Does he grasp the full extent of the pain and grief he caused the Sodhi family and the Sikh community? Will forgiveness lead us toward justice?
While I heard both sides reaching for reconciliation, the moment itself eluded us. The meeting was not an end but a beginning: It opens the door to reconciliation, and a new chapter in our story.
Family members of those killed hold a American flag as mourners attend a candlelight vigil on the one-year anniversary of a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin August 5, 2013. Gunman Wade Michael Page killed six members of the Sikh temple in 2012 before shooting himself. Credit: Darren Hauck/Reuters
The Sunday after the 2012 mass shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Sikhs prayed for the soul of the gunman. Last year, Christian families forgave Dylann Roof, who murdered their loved ones in a historic black church in Charleston. And this year, Rana offered forgiveness directly to the man who killed his brother.
In an era when our nation is gripped by cycles of violence, these stories may offer a way forward.
On the night of Balbir’s memorial, a Navajo family spontaneously performed a water prayer. They poured water into the ground beneath a plant at the site of Balbir’s death, so that our prayers for revolutionary love would flow down into the soil, through the roots and spread all over the Earth.
Rana and I will continue to talk to Roque. And I hope we too will find truth and reconciliation that can spread around the world.
Valarie Kaur and Rana Sodhi will be sharing this story as part of the in the "Together Tour" in October in Los Angeles and Denver. Find out more here. And to learn more about "revolutionary love" and see Valarie's film, visit the Revolutionary Love Project.HOUSTON, TX – The man behind the largest heist in Texas history is now in custody.
That man, who authorities now know by the name of Brock Osweiler, allegedly moved to the city of Houston earlier this year. Police then say somehow, someway with apparently little planning at all, robbed the Houston Texans of $72 million dollars.
After six weeks from when the crime was first reported by the team, Osweiler was spotted by a Denver area resident watching America’s Most Wanted from his living room television on Monday night. The Houston Police Department quickly notified Denver authorities which found Osweiler hiding out at Mile High Stadium.
“We saw him, ran after him and sacked him for a loss,” officers Rick Barnes of Denver PD told reporters. “The guy was relatively easy to intercept. Couldn’t really scramble away, it was odd for someone who made off with that amount in Houston.”
“We brought him for questioning and he could only produce 9 valid points and fumbled around with his answers.”
The department also noted that Osweiler did seems vaguely familiar, but they had no concrete leads within their district. “Maybe from Twilight,” one officer noted.
It’s likely Osweiler will face up to 4 years is prison (not to be mistaken with being on the Texans).To Catch. Catch (transitive verb).
To capture or seize especially after pursuit.
To Catch. The Incurable. Contagion.
Contagion (noun).
A disease-producing agent.
A virus.
(HIV/AIDS)
To Catch. Catch (verb). To grasp and hold on to.
Something in motion.
To Catch. The Holy Ghost.
Contagion. An influence that spreads rapidly.
To Feel. The Spirit.
A shout. A groove. A motion.
Emotion In motion.
To be. Transformed again.
And again.
The body succumbs.
To(o) something else...
- Kai M. Green with some help from Merriam-Webster.com
Ishmael Reed calls it Jes Grew in his 1972 novel, "Mumbo Jumbo:"
We got reports from down here that people were doing'stupid sensual things,' were in a state of 'uncontrollable frenzy,' were wriggling like fish, doing something called 'Eagle Rock' and the 'Sassy Bump'; were cutting a mean'mooche,' and 'lusting after relevance.' We decoded this coon mumbo jumbo. We knew that something was Jes Grewing...
Don't you understand if this Jes Grew becomes pandemic it will mean the end of civilization, as we know it?
...You see, it's not 1 of those germs that break and bleed suck gnaw or devour. It's nothing we can bring into focus or categorize; once we call it one thing it forms into something else.
...Jes Grew was an anti-plague. Some plagues cause the body to waste away; Jes Grew enlivened the host...terrible plagues were due to the wrath of god; but Jes Grew is the delight of the gods.
...Jes Grew is seeking its words. Its texts.
In Reed's novel, the Jes Grew virus is a personification of ragtime, jazz, and physical freedom. The initial virus carriers were Black artists in the 1920s, but it infects more than just Black bodies. The virus or the spirit is a separate entity that sought to be caught so that it might manifest itself as text via the body.
In the novel, the Jes Grew virus of the 1920s is eventually suppressed. The novel closes in the 1970s. Main character, Professor Papa LaBas gives his annual Jes Grew lecture at the University at this time. Jes Grew of the 1920s is history now, but Professor Papa Labas posits to his students that this 1970s moment is much like that former moment in the 1920s and perhaps Jes Grew will once again seek and catch bodies so that its texts might be manifest. In order for the virus to take, it needs bodies to move with music or as music.
The 1970s is a decade popularly imagined in the U.S. as a bell-bottom funk, disco soul trainin', free lovin', psychedelic drug induced state of being, that occurred in lava lamp lit living rooms or outside. Living out loud and out of the closet. These were the disco years and how fitting that Reed's novel would suggest the 1970s as the decade for Jes Grew's return.
The power of Black music and sound to ignite spirit-shifts and movement, both physically and psychically has been documented in numerous popular and academic works. This is especially true when it comes to the study of gospel music. Gospel sound seeps into other genres like funk, R&B and disco, and usually it is because the artists has in someway come from out of the Black Protestant church and carried that sound with them.
Archbishop Carl Bean founded Unity Fellowship Church in 1982, a Black LGBT affirming church, located in South Los Angeles, on Jefferson just west of La Brea. In 1985, Archbishop Bean and members of Unity Fellowship Church founded the Minority Aids Project, the first community based HIV/AIDS organization established and managed by people of color in the United States.
Archbishop Bean is a prime example of an artist with gospel music roots who transitions into a new genre, disco, yet carries that sound into the new. Archbishop Bean came to California in the 1970s after having spent years in New York and Chicago as a professional gospel singer. During those years, he sang with the "Gospel Chimes" and the "Gospel Wonders," and the Alex Bradford Singers. He also had a theatrical career where he performed in plays like Langston Hughes', "Black Nativity."
Archbishop Bean left Chicago and the Alex Bradford Singers in order to pursue a solo career. He was working in a department store in Los Angeles and singing lead in the group Universal Love, which was signed to ABC Records. After hearing Archbishop Bean sing on the "Gotta Be Some Change" album (Carl Bean and Universal Love, ABC Records, 1974.), producers at Motown reached out to him to record "I Was Born This Way," which reached number 14 on the Billboard disco charts. "I Was Born This Way" was first recorded by Black gay disco singer, Valentino, 1975. It was then re-recorded and re-released by Carl Bean in 1977. Both artists recorded on the Motown label. The song was written by Chris Spierer and Bunny Jones.
In my interview with Archbishop Bean he spoke about the relationship between disco and gospel. He says, "If you really listen to the back beat of disco, it is the rhythm of the Black shout... Most of us that were successful... Most of us were recruited out of Black gospel music."
Disco music became a site of convergence. It was where the sacred and the secular met. It was also a space of reconciliation for many Black queers who experienced the Christian church as a site of violence and alienation. The church was a place where Black queers might be at once be damned to hell and embraced as vital members of the congregation, often times serving as leaders in musical and other administrative positions.
Some Black queer disco singers like Archbishop Carl Bean and the popular Sylvester left the church and its homophobia, but they carried with them the music -- that gospel spirit -- and the ability to use music to facilitate movement. They may have changed genres, but that gospel funk -- the shout, that body-moving elixir -- would not be left behind, only transformed.
Black queer studies scholar, E. Patrick Johnson, examines the ways in which Black gay communities reconcile and challenge the imagined distance between the sacred and the secular in his essay, "Feeling the Spirit in the Dark." He writes:
Indeed, in the 'place' of the church, the heterosexual members maintain a hierarchy intent in hiding their own sins of the flesh, creating not a sacred'space' -- a site that 'invites multiple acts of interpretations' -- but a sacred 'place' -- a site prescripted and 'narrativized in advance.' Again, African-American gay critics and writers observe the limitations of the church performance place through personal testimonies, memoirs, poems, novels, and short stories. In particular, these writers depict a place in which heterosexual members treat gayness as an illness. As with other forms of'sinsickness,' the church's answer to homosexuality is exorcism. (E. Patrick Johnson. "Feeling the Spirit in the Dark: Expanding Notions of the Sacred in the African-American Gay Community.")
When the infected, and infected refers here to Black queers who are members of churches that do not affirm LGBTQ identities, refuse to acknowledge their homosexuality as illness, exorcism may take place in multiple ways. There are people, church clergy and lay members, who literally attempt to rid the person of the "sinsickness" through prayer and a command to "come out!" If removing the demon from the body doesn't work, sometimes the response is denial and silence. Another response to a gay demon that refuses to leave the body may be exorcism that materializes as a literal removal of the queer body from the church.
Mural that decorates the church building of Unity Fellowship Church in Los Angeles
Many like Archbishop Bean left the church because of homophobia. Later, of course, he would open the doors of Unity Fellowship Church in order to create a safe space for Black and other LGBT people of color. This place of worship was affirming while also maintaining a culturally Black Pentecostal style of worship. Here was a place where a Black queer person could bring their whole selves without fear of exorcism of a spirit within the body or fear excommunication from a whole church community.
Like Archbishop Bean, disco icon Sylvester was raised in Black Pentecostal church, Palm Lane Church of God and Christ in Los Angeles. He was a popular gospel performer in California, but left the church in order to pursue performance of another kind. He first began performing with the drag trope the Cocketts in 1970, but he would eventually leave the group to begin his solo career.
Slyvester with Cocketts
Sylvester went on to produce disco hits like "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "Dance (Disco Heat)" (1978) with his two back up singers Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes, also known as The Two Tons O' Fun.
Sylvester was not only known for his blatant embrace of homosexuality, but also his gender transgression. Sylvester as a solo artist, never saw himself as doing drag. According to Alice Echol's book, "Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture," "When the guest host Joan Rivers of 'The Tonight Show' asked him if he wasn't in fact a drag queen, he replied, 'Joan, honey, I'm not a drag queen. I'm Sylvester!'" He was simply being Sylvester. His androgynous-to-effeminate stylings -- what he wore and also his choice to sing in higher keys usually designated for women -- were challenges to normative notions of Black masculinity in sight and in sound. His being Sylvester was also a challenge to what Echol defines as "The Gay Macho," which has the ability to mask homosexuality in its adherence to heteronormative performances of masculinity.
Listen to Sylvester's 1978 hit You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) and it will give you a sense of the ways in which the gospel shout was evoked in disco music performance.
Did you catch that?
Contagion
Contagion works in multiple ways, illuminating the spirit that can move or be moved. Contagion can imply an illness or a virus that has the ability to harm populations of people. At the same time, what one group may think of as a virus, as in the Jes Grew virus from Reed's novel, another group may believe it to be the source of liberation, just waiting for someone to catch it and spread it.
BLK magazine is one of the sites I examine in my dissertation, "Into the Darkness: Black Queer Los Angeles (Re)Membered" in order to better understand the ways in which Black LGBT folk created and continue to create and struggle over Black and simultaneously queer space and place making projects in Los Angeles, 1972-present.
In January 1989, the second issue of BLK magazine (tag line: where the news is colored on purpose) was published. BLK was a Black lesbian and gay magazine created and edited by Los Angeles native, Alan Bell.The first issues of BLK magazine always made it a point to highlight the deaths of Black lesbian and gay persons. Eventually this kind of memorial would have it's own section in the magazine called, Black Veil. The second issue's cover story was entitled, "Remembering Sylvester: The Icon of a Whole Generation of Gay Men Passed Away December 16th, 1988." Bell writes:
Funny thing about Sylvester. Everybody liked his music. Even the Lords of macho whose newspaper ads reject 'fats, fems, and blacks.' The more political among us would prefer to think it was because he was open about his sexuality, and that's likely part of it. But most of it was probably his ability to make us loose [sic] it |
for your Adult Opal card. The minimum top up amounts available online have reduced:
from $40 to $10 for Adult Opal cards
from $20 to $5 for Child/Youth and Concession cards
from $10 to $5 for Gold Opal cards.
This also applies to the auto top up value, so you can set your Opal account to to automatically add $10 (for Adult Opal cards) or $5 (for Child/Youth, Concession or Gold Opal cards) when the balance gets too low.
You can also tap on with your new balance in as little as 15 minutes for trains, ferries and light rail. Allow up to 60 minutes for buses.
What changes?
Opal fares have increased 2.4 per cent, in line with consumer price index (CPI).
The estimated impact on an average commuter’s trip is an extra 50 cents a week.
The fare adjustments will also impact daily and weekly caps.
To plan your trip and calculate your approximate Opal fare, you can use the Trip Planner.
Find out more about Opal fares.
What Opal benefits stay the same?
$2 discount for Adult Opal card holders for every transfer between modes (train, ferry, bus or light rail) as part of one trip ($1 for Child/Youth and Concession card holders)
$2.50 unlimited all day travel within the Opal network for Gold Senior/Pensioner Opal card holders
Half price travel after eight paid trips in a week
Off-peak train fare savings of 30 per cent
Fares capped daily, weekly and on Sundays
The option of auto top-up, so you're always ready to travel.
Find out more about Opal benefits.If you love Kreons, those awesome little bots that come with Hasbro’s KRE-O building sets, you’re in luck! Hasbro is releasing 30 Kreon figures from Season 2 of the G1 line as a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive set, featuring several figures fans never thought they’d see get the Kreon treatment.
The set of 30 Kreon figures will be priced at $60 at the San Diego Comic-Con (booth #3213). Quantities will also be available online at HasbroToyShop.com.
The 30 bots in the new set include Transformer fan favorites like Grimlock, completely out of scale versions of Devastator and Omega Supreme, Jetfire, and Astrotrain. And like last year’s 1984 version, the Class of 1985 all come in a cool ‘80s-era yearbook-looking box which includes accessories appropriate to every character. In case you were worried, Jetfire does come with his signature boosters.
Check out Toyland’s full article HERE or browse the images in our mirrored gallery below, then head into our discussion on these guys HERE in the Allspark Forums. Don’t have an Allspark account? Click Here to make one!
Like this: Like Loading...Lionsgate Home Entertainment has released their first two Blu-ray releases from their new Vestron Video Collector’s Series with Chopping Mall and Blood Diner, which will be the focus of this review.
The Movie (3/5)
Blood Diner threw me for a bit of a loop. I had never seen this movie before heading into the review, and I was expecting some cheesy horror movie about a couple of cannibalistic diner owners. Boy was I wrong. Right from the start, Blood Diner establishes its tone, and it never relents. It is violent, sexual, extremely cheesy, disturbing, and at times, funny. Blood Diner is actually even more ridiculous than I could have imagined, and actually a bit more violent than I thought.
The story follows two brothers who, at a young age, saw their crazed and murderous uncle killed by the police in front of their home after he went on a violent killing spree. The brothers pledge to never forget their uncle, and 20 years into the future, we are reintroduced to the brothers while they dig up their uncle’s grave and remove his brain. Before you say, “Well that’s not possible!”, I didn’t think it was either, so I Googled it, and apparently a brain can remain solid without decomposition for decades after a body is buried inside a coffin. Props to the filmmakers and the fact-checking team on Blood Diner for that one.
The rest of the film follows the two brothers and their talking, brain of an uncle, as they try to collect various severed body parts to summon the Goddess Sheetar. There are plenty of great kills, dismemberment, and just bloody, bloody fun. Blood Diner is unrated, but probably would have pushed the limits of the MPAA’s “R” rating with its content. I really enjoyed my time with Blood Diner, and even though it went in a different direction that I thought, I can see why it has achieved such a cult status over the years, as it is a lot of fun.
The Video (3.5/5)
Lionsgate fully restored Blood Diner from its original source materials, in a fully uncut HD remaster for this Collector’s Series release. I imagine that the source materials were very rough, but this Blu-ray transfer is actually pretty nice, especially considering the way Blood Diner has looked on previous home media releases. The image is grainy, but not distracting, and although the colors are muted, the HD presentation is pretty smooth.
There were a limited amount of artifacts in the transfer, with very few bubbles, scratches, or tears in the source. Honestly, I expected this to look a lot worse, but Blood Diner actually looks about as good as any other horror movie from its era. Props to Lionsgate for the work they put into this HD restoration; you will not find a nicer looking version of Blood Diner anywhere, so this is a must-have for fans of cult horror movies.
The Audio (2/5)
Blood Diner features a simple DTS-HD Master Audio Mono Track, but compared to various other Mono Tracks I have experienced, this one was lacking. The volume was extremely inconsistent, and at times, it seemed as if the person speaking was actually recorded over in post-production. This very well may be the case (judging by the production value of the rest of the film, it wouldn’t surprise me) but it is distracting and adds to the volume inconsistencies.
My Prime Center speaker from SVS performed as well as it could, but the audio track simply was not good enough for a single speaker. I may recommend playing with your receiver to get the Mono track to play simultaneously over the left and right speakers, as that may help with the quiet volume and inconsistencies. As nice as the picture was, the audio simply did not get the same level of attention, and it struggled. Source materials were probably rough, so I do not blame Lionsgate for the issues, but it is a fact that the audio here is not very good.
Special Features/Packaging (3.5/5)
The Vestron Video Collector’s Series comes in decent packaging, although in comparison to its closest competitor, the Scream Factory Collector’s Edition, it falls behind. Blood Diner has a nice slipcover, with the classic Vestron Video logo on the top, and a spine number, which is nice for completionists. However, the slipcover is glossy and a bit lightweight, which was disappointing. In fact, my copy came dinged up. The Blu-ray case is a single disc eco-case, with no reversible artwork and featuring the same art as the slipcover, so it is not quite as nice as most of the Scream Factory releases. For the high price tag on these Vestron Collector’s Series titles, I expected more.
The special features are great, right on par with a premium “Collector’s Series” release like this one. This bodes well for future Vestron Video releases from Lionsgate, and it will surely make horror fans very happy to have another competitor to Scream Factory, and another distributor bringing little-known horror movies to Blu-ray. The special features are as follows.
Audio Commentary with Director Jackie Kong
Featurettes: “Queen Kong” “The Cook, The Uncle, and The Detective” “Open for Business” “Scoring for Sheetar!” “You Are What They Eat” - Archival Interview with Project Consultant Eric Caidin Theatrical Trailer TV Spots Still Gallery
Technical Specs (click for technical FAQs)
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio Original Mono
Subtitles
English SDH
Runtime: 88 minutes
Overall (3/5)
My first impressions of this new Vestron Video Collector’s Series were positive ones, and I really enjoyed Blood Diner. The packaging could use some work, especially if Lionsgate wants to continue chargings upwards of $25 for these releases, but the visual elements were very well-done in an impressive HD restoration. The audio struggled, although I place the blame for that on the source materials, and the special features were excellent. Horror fans need to check these releases out, and Blood Diner is an excellent place to start. I recommend a purchase, for the right collector. Blood Diner isn’t for anyone, but if you think you might have an interest and know your tastes, this is a great release. You can grab Blood Diner from Amazon or various other retailers, including my favorite, Bull Moose, which also happens to have the best price around. Check them out!Git commit sins
I work at Vinco Orbis, a software development studio in Mexico City. We recently overhauled our website and set up a Github repo for further development and maintenance. We are pretty proud, you should check it out.
However, amidst the creative enthusiasm we fell into some bad committing practices, much of them coming from members of the staff that were contributing from Github's web interface and are less used to version control in their day to day job. I thought it would be cool to share them here so we all keep them in mind in the future.
This is a commit — Commit messages that don’t convey intent
Github's default commit message for when you edit a file in the web interface is Updated <filename>, which is not helpful at all. The title of a commit message should convey the intent of the change, which is going to be useful when exploring the repository's history. Other information can be left for the body of the message, and of course the diff already contains the filenames and locations of changes, so just restating them in the title is not very useful.
For deeper advice on writing good commit messages you should read Tim Pope's classic blog post about it.
Pay no attention to those lines of code behind the curtain — Commenting stuff out just in case you need it later
Commenting stuff out is confusing for future readers of your code, ugly because you keep code around that is not doing anything and dangerous because you are keeping that code outside of your normal testing and QA processes, so you don't know what evils you will unleash upon the world if you uncomment it later.
On the other hand, the whole point of version control is to keep old versions of your source code in case you need them later. You can just delete those lines, because you can always find them later, together with the change set in which they occurred and, if you write good commit messages, a meaningful description of how they came about.
You should take me with a grain of salt — A commit doing something, followed by a commit doing the opposite
This usually comes from people that are used to SVN, where the history of the repository was shared and immutable. However, with Git other people don't really need to know that you screwed up and had to recant later: you can use git rebase to get your local history clean and understandable before sharing it with the world.
If you want to make that easier, check out this post by Elliot Cable about a Git workflow that enables a clean history without abandoning the virtual Ctrl+S of frequent committing.
Shooting from the hip — Pushing directly to master
At Vinco Orbis we grant push permissions to a project's repo to the people in charge of reviewing and accepting contributions from the team, which come in the form of pull requests. This is not meant to be authorization for committing directly to master, bypassing our normal process; there is a lot of value in having changes reviewed by somebody else, and we have found that it's easier to fix bugs or improve the code when potential improvements are identified earlier.
Even with small projects with only one contributor, it's useful to run things by our Jenkins job pull request builder, and taking a look at the diff one last time has saved me much pain in more than one occasion.
Tweak, break the site for everybody, repeat — Using the production site as a testing ground
Lastly, and related to having commit privileges, it's really irritating when someone triggers a deployment just to see the effect of their changes. We try to eliminate that need by clearly describing the set-up process of the development environment in our README files, and making said process very simple by using tools like Vagrant. Our goal is that anyone that wants to make a contribution can experiment at leisure on their machines before sending their changes upstream.
Even people without commit privileges sometimes make changes without checking they work at all. Although this can be spotted by the reviewer of their pull requests, we also have Jenkins run unit tests and publishing the result as a comment, which helps catch regressions. Still, it is better that people run their changes at least once to see if they are working, and absolutely wonderful if they write tests even for "small" fixes.
In any case, the reviewer can checkout the pull request locally and check them manually. I do that frequently with changes that impact user experience.
¿What are good and bad committing practices in your organization?
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DisqusMario Serves Up Portable Tennis Fun in 3D
In Mario Tennis Open, Mario and his Mushroom Kingdom friends return to the court for a flurry of intense tennis action, from engaging singles and doubles matches to skill-building Special Games and online play. Using the built-in wireless features of the Nintendo 3DS system, up to four people can play together in local* or online** multiplayer modes and exchange player information via StreetPass. Players can choose between intuitive Touch Screen and gyro sensor controls or strategic button-based gameplay that delivers an even deeper experience. Players can also choose from a variety of playable characters or use their own personalized Mii character as they serve, volley and smash their way up the leaderboards.
FEATURES:
As many as four players can connect online with their friends for singles or doubles matches. Additionally, Open Match mode can automatically pair players of comparable skill levels. Nintendo 3DS owners who are near each other can also face off via a local wireless connection, even if only one player has a Mario Tennis Open game card.
Strategy is key as players execute lobs and drop shots or unleash powerful topspin to outlast their opponents in intense rallies. When Chance Areas appear on the court during a match, players can run to them to execute a supercharged Chance Shot. Intuitive Touch Screen controls allow players to easily and skillfully perform different swings. Players can also choose to use the motion controls of the Nintendo 3DS system to precisely shoot to the left or the right in order to ace their opponents.
Using the Nintendo 3DS system’s StreetPass feature, Mario Tennis Open players can exchange and show off their customized Mii characters and incorporate them into Special Games or competitive singles matches.
* Additional Nintendo 3DS systems are required for local multiplayer mode.
** Broadband Internet access is required for online play.Doctors of the World McCann London The nativity scene gets a modern-day update.
A U.K. charity is flipping the script on the traditional nativity scene that graces the covers of many Christmas cards this time of year.
The cards feature idyllic images of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and animals. Layered over these illustrations are chilling reminders of what some people in war-torn parts of the Middle East wake up to every day ― bombed-out buildings, drones, and missiles.
One card features the Three Wise Men, who according to tradition, followed the Star of Bethlehem to the manger where Jesus was born. But in this image, the star has been replaced by a drone.
Doctors of the World McCann London The Three Wise Men look up in the sky at a drone.
“Every Christmas a romanticized picture is presented of the holy land of the past, featuring peaceful pastoral images that are shared in homes, churches and high streets across the country,” Leigh Daynes, the charity’s Executive Director, said in a statement. “This is completely at odds with the humanitarian crisis that the region faces today.”
The advertising agency McCann London designed these cards pro bono. They feature modern-day images taken by the Press Association over the last year. A spokesperson for Doctors of the World told The Huffington Post that they’ve sold over 3,200 cards since launching the project on November 26.
Doctors of the World McCann London Mary and Joseph search for a place to stay.
Doctors of the World has about 15 offices around the world, including two in Jordan and Lebanon. The charity reports that it provided over 580,000 people with medical care and delivered over 8,560 mental health consultations in Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq in 2015.
If those numbers break your heart, as Doctors of the World suggests, “’Tis the season to give a damn.’”
A pack of four limited edition cards cost $12.65 and can be purchased from the Doctors of the World website.
Doctors of the World McCann London A missile flares above the traditional nativity scene.The Legacy of Kain vampire action series returns. Kind of.
Square Enix and Psyonix today revealed Nosgoth, a free-to-play third-person shooter set in the world of Kain and Raziel coming to Steam. The team-based online title lets players don the armor of humans armed with bows and blunderbusses, or use the unnatural abilities of vampires to kill and consume mortal flesh.
Nosgoth's combat is meant to be fast-paced and asymmetric: humans can use traps and ranged weapons to kill from afar, whereas vampires can leap, climb, and even fly to catch their prey by surprise.
Series creator Crystal Dynamics is not involved with Nosgoth or any other Legacy of Kain title at the moment, Square Enix told CVG in June. The game is currently accepting applications for its closed PC alpha and beta here.R.A. Dickey, it would seem, is nearly on his way out of Queens and headed to Canada, or perhaps Baltimore, or maybe Texas. Regardless, it's about time. R.A. Dickey may be a fine pitcher, but God knows the Mets have had to put up with a lot from him over the past year.
There was his attention-grabbing hike up Mount Kilimanjaro, which could have resulted in a career-altering injury or death. Then he published his self-serving memoir, making all of us feel kind of gross with its revelations he had been molested as a child. None of us wanted to read about that. Then he put up one of the best seasons in recent Mets memory, winning 20 games and being worth somewhere around five or six wins above replacement, so that the Mets would have to debate whether to extend such a singular pitcher.
At every turn, Dickey has been incredibly selfish, wanting to use the one moment of leverage he has had in his professional career to take care of his family and make up for more than a decade of riding buses instead of thinking about how an extension that probably still leaves him underpaid relative to his performance and his peers is going to affect the bottom line for Fred Wilpon and the cash-poor Mets. He even used a Mets-sponsored holiday party to point out that, if he's not extended, "I feel like it would be unfortunate, because it probably is going to mean I'm not going to be back [in 2014]." The holidays are no time for reality checks, obviously, and it's clear that Dickey's "off-the-field endeavors could impact his on-field results or his standing in the clubhouse if the perception is that he has become too absorbed with his new celebrity," as one Mets official told Mike Puma, despite the fact that those distractions seemed to have had absolutely no effect (or perhaps even benefited him) in 2012.
The foregoing crimes against the Mets represent only what has leaked to the media. The Mets have a much longer list of reasons to feel disappointed, hurt, flummoxed, betrayed, and exasperated by their soon-to-be-former ace. Chiefly:
Dickey likes to give away tickets to underprivileged kids, who never buy as much food, drink, and merch as the poor privileged kids that Dickey just tends to ignore. Or their fathers who guzzle down Citi Field's beer supply. Instead of using his off-day to gently relax his arm and ankle in a whirlpool, or building camaraderie by golfing with his buddies on the team, Dickey went to a candlelight vigil and Take Back the Night March to raise awareness for victims of sexual abuse. A devoted family man, Dickey doesn't spend nearly as much time chasing tail with his teammates on the road, creating a leadership void in which nobody takes the time to show the rookies how it's done. Even with a hard knuckleball, Dickey's pitches are really hard for Josh Thole to catch, and Thole already has enough problems trying to hit without worrying about this, too. He once violated team policy by nodding hello to Jason Bay, thereby acknowledging his existence and lending crucial support at a time when Mets brass were trying to undermine his sense of self-worth and cause a total and complete mental breakdown so insurance would cover his salary, or better yet, he'd retire and become a hermit, convinced no one else could see or hear him. Dickey told David Wright to follow his heart and sign Sandy Alderson's extension offer, thereby tying the Mets into another long-term commitment they probably can't afford and will almost certainly end up regretting. He went on The Daily Show and talked with professional funnyman Jon Stewart, who makes jokes at the Mets' expense sometimes. R.A. sent flowers to the Mets' traveling secretary on Secretary's Day, thoughtlessly failing to remember that Wilpon was probably going to forget; he thereby simultaneously made the boss look bad and raised expectations of future gifts. Thinking of his daughters, on June 2nd Dickey gave the baseball from the final out to a little girl as he walked off the field after his complete-game shutout over the Cardinals. BASEBALLS COST MONEY, R.A.! Worried about his precious reputation as nice guy, friend to all, and upstanding citizen more than his team's pride, Dickey steadfastly refuses to throw at Carlos Beltran's head in every at-bat. Because he doesn't know how to win, Dickey gave up eight runs to Atlanta on April 18. Some people just lack that killer instinct. Dickey has already reserved two full pages of ad space in every single New York paper, including The Village Voice, to thank Mets fans for their support over the last three years, proving he already has one foot out the door. #Trader!
As you can see, the Mets have been putting up with a lot. and that's not even the half of it. You should see how much of the Wilpons' hard-earned money Dickey just GIVES AWAY to orphans and widows and veterans groups and firefighters. Obviously, it's time to let go, before Dickey does anything more to destroy the Mets' brand. And hey, maybe acquiring Anthony Gose will bring back fond memories of D.J. Dozier.
Michael Bates is one of SBN's Designated Columnists and one of the minds behind The Platoon Advantage. Follow him at @commnman.The first issue of Dark Horse’s new series, Lara Croft and the Frozen Omen, is finally out and it seems to be off to a great start so far.
This five-part series by Invisible Republic writer Corinna Bechko follows the adventures of “Classic” Lara Croft and fellow archaeologist Carter Bell as they race against time to stop cultists from getting their hands on some ancient ivory artefacts and using them for their nefarious purposes.
Will the intrepid duo save the world from destruction? I guess we’ll find out over the course of the next few months! For now, here’s what I have to say about Lara Croft and the Frozen Omen #1.
The following review contains plot spoilers, so if you’re planning to buy and read the comic yourself (UK readers click here), feel free to scroll down to the last section for a spoiler-free summary. 😉
The Story (So Far)
Issue 1 opens with the scene featured in last month’s preview, with Lara risking life and limb to rescue her colleague and friend Carter Bell’s injured pet sparrow hawk in Turkey’s Antalya Province. We learn that Bell has taken up falconry since we last saw him in Temple of Osiris and is currently working in Istanbul, where he’s studying ancient ivory miniatures. I feel like I should nitpick a little here as Antalya and Istanbul are not only quite far from each other but the harbour the two archaeologists sail into doesn’t really look like Istanbul. “Istanbul isn’t what I expected”? You’re spot on there, Lara. But I digress…
The story then cuts to the British Museum – Lara’s new workplace – where we find out that a priceless artefact carved from mammoth ivory has vanished under mysterious circumstances. A quick review of the CCTV footage and questioning by museum security ends up raising more questions than answers so Lara decides to take matters into her own hands and stalks the lead suspect, her colleague Jon. Alerted to Lara’s presence, the suspected thief flees towards a nearby taxi, prompting our heroine to follow suit and ultimately end up at Heathrow Airport.
At this point, the action cuts to a cave in Croatia, where a horned man named Mr Green (most likely the series’ chief antagonist) humiliates his lackey and stands around a fireplace muttering the ominous (but hilarious) “Soon. Very soon”. No, I have no idea what will be happening soon. Perhaps we’ll find out in the next issue.
Back to Lara, who is now in sunny Belize and still hot on the trail of her wayward colleague. Uncertain of Jon’s motive for stealing the artefact, Ms Croft eventually finds an abandoned Jeep and footprints that lead her to a wooden hut in the middle of the Belizean rainforest. Ignoring a phone call from Carter, she goes looking for Jon and finds him dazed and delirious on the floor of the hut, babbling about how the ivory piece had wanted to come here and whatnot.
But before Lara’s able to get any sensible answers from her colleague, she’s attacked by some creepy vines. To be continued…
OK, first of all, it’s clear from the get-go that Frozen Omen isn’t going to be dealing with any delicate issues such as Lara’s mental state following her ordeal on Yamatai (this series is based in the Lara Croft universe, after all). Her banter with Carter Bell at the start of this issue, the mystery theft at the museum, and the sinister horned Big Bad all point in the direction of good ol’ pulp adventure. So you may want to suspend your disbelief if you don’t want to ruin the comic for yourself. Just roll with it.
Storywise, I think Bechko does a good job of setting things in motion and her cliffhanger ending certainly helps build up the suspense for the next issue. The plot (thin as it may be) develops at a steady pace but I felt that the issue ended somewhat abruptly and just as Lara was beginning to make sense of the situation.
As for the opening scene in Turkey, the question of whether this scene was really necessary is a matter of personal preference. Some reviewers felt it served no real purpose and could easily have been left out but I beg to differ. Not only does it introduce (or re-introduce) the reader to Carter Bell; this scene also helps cement the two archaeologists’ friendship and working relationship and hints that Bell’s expertise will come in handy as the series progresses. This scene might not be absolutely vital to the plot but I have no particular objections to its presence either. It did have a hawk, after all…
The Artwork
When Dark Horse first announced this series, I was pleased to see veteran Tomb Raider comic artist Randy Green was attached to this project. While he’s not my favourite Tomb Raider comic artist (Andy Park has that honour), his work on the Top Cow series in the late 90s-early 00s gave me faith that Dark Horse had chosen the right man for the job. No offence to either Nicolás Daniel Selma or Derliz Santacruz. Their work suited the tone of the main Tomb Raider series but would have looked out of place here. Frozen Omen pays homage to the light-hearted escapades of Lara’s Top Cow days and this is reflected perfectly in the comic art. Green’s work has matured over the years but it’s still recognizably his and, well, it’s just lovely to see our old Lara back in comic form after so many years. It’s been too long.
That said, Green’s work on this issue is not without its flaws. Lara’s facial features appear to change, sometimes significantly, from page to page (this is most notable in the first half of the issue) and there’s the occasional unusual angle, e.g. Lara’s weird mid-run pose in the British Museum. Some people have criticized Green’s penchant for drawing Lara in needlessly provocative poses – a holdover from his Top Cow days, perhaps – but the worst offence in this issue is the final scene. Sure, there’s a hentai joke to be made here somewhere but the real problem is Lara’s face. That expression truly is the stuff of nightmares. *shudders*
But, hey, we’re all allowed an off-day once in a while, right?
I feel I should also mention Jean-Sébastien Rossbach’s stunning cover art, which is the artistic highlight of this issue. His Lara, like that of Temple of Osiris, seems to be a pleasing mix of old and new, combining the more realistic physique of Reboot Lara with the shorts, acrobatics, and dual pistols of her predecessor. If this cover art were available in poster form, I’d snap it up in a heartbeat…
Character (Re)Development
One of the things I really enjoyed about this issue was the aforementioned opening scene. Not only does it set the tone for the series, it also gives us a little insight into the world of Carter Bell, the rival archaeologist (and later friend) first introduced to us in Temple of Osiris. Granted, he only gets a few pages of story time in this issue but we soon learn that he’s studying ancient ivory artefacts in Istanbul (expertise that will no doubt come in handy later in this series) and that he’s an apprentice falconer. As someone who has a soft spot for birds of prey, I felt this was a nice touch.
With regards to our leading lady, anyone who’s hoping to find the hardened Yamatai survivor of the 2013 game in this series will be sorely disappointed. We’re back to the good ol’ days, where our heroine could climb cliffs without any specialist climbing gear, crack witty remarks even on the brink of certain death, and…stroll through museums and international airports with guns attached to her thighs? Hmm. Let’s just say the realism has been toned down a notch for this series.
Lara’s back-story isn’t touched upon at all in this issue, which is both a plus and minus. On the one hand, it allows us to see her as either the Lara from the Core Design games or the one from the earlier Crystal Dynamics games…or simply as that Lara from Guardian and Temple. In this sense, she can be anything the reader wants her to be. On the other hand, anyone who’s unfamiliar with the Tomb Raider games may be left wondering who this woman is or why her fellow archaeologist Carter Bell holds her in such high regard.
One interesting development is that Lara now works for the British Museum, although it’s not exactly clear what her role there is or how this world-class institution came to recruit someone with such a low regard for archaeological ethics. Either someone lied on her CV or the museum’s standards have slipped considerably. Maybe it’s best to file this under “willing suspension of disbelief”…
A Tale of Two Franchises
As an aside, I’d like to raise the point that the Tomb Raider/Lara Croft franchise divide is still causing a great deal of confusion, especially amongst those who are either casual fans of the series or whose knowledge of the series is limited to the 2013 reboot. This confusion was apparent in some of the reviews I read, particularly in this one where the reviewer describes the comic as a “bizarre late ’90s relic”, where none of Lara’s new identity (presumably the reboot one) is translated over, and points to the lack of “Tomb Raider” in the comic’s title as proof that Frozen Omen has no place in the series.
But who could blame them? The reboot was meant to reinvent the franchise and back in December 2010, Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher asked the gaming public to “Forget everything [they] knew about Tomb Raider“. And while most of us die-hard fans are well aware that “Classic Lara” has been relegated to her own new (and surprisingly decent) spin-off franchise, it’s not hard to see why some people may be flummoxed by the ongoing adventures of the shorts-wearing, dual pistol-wielding Lara of yesteryear when her younger, less fantastical counterpart is doing the rounds and being hailed as an example of a franchise reboot done well.
All I can say is, as a fan of the older games and films, I’m just glad there’s enough room in this world for two Lara Crofts and that fans have the freedom to enjoy one Croft or the other. Or both. Long live parallel universes and their ability to confuse the general public!
And Here’s the Spoiler-Free Summary…
All in all, Frozen Omen #1 is a solid start to the new series and Bechko, Green and co deserve praise for their efforts. The art is sound (for the most part), the dialogue wouldn’t seem out of place in any of the older games (or in the more recent Lara Croft spin-off games), and the story is full of the wonderful archaeo-nonsense that many of us loved in the Indiana Jones films or older TR games.
The only major let-down, in my opinion, is that the issue ends abruptly and just as the main story was gaining momentum. Some reviewers argue that the opening scene with Carter Bell could have been shorter (or cut all together) and, in a way, I can see their point. The last few pages seemed a little rushed in comparison. But, then again, the cliff-hanger ending is commonplace in comics so I can’t really fault the writer for employing this age-old tactic. It’s a sure-fire way to get readers hyped up for the next issue.
Would the comic appeal to non-fans? Well, to be honest, I don’t really think it would as there is no real attempt to introduce Lara to a new audience. Bechko spends more time fleshing out Carter Bell in the first few pages than she does on Lara so it seems that the reader is expected to already know who Ms Croft is and be familiar with her many quirks.
Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As with many tie-in comic series, this one was written with Tomb Raider fans in mind and it’s clear from the get-go that they are the intended audience. And Bechko definitely delivers. But this does mean that non-fans may find the series a little hard to get into and, at worst, be left with the impression that Lara is little more than a two-dimensional, stereotypical adventurer-archaeologist who likes to climb things and strike sassy poses.
As a long-time fan, however, I found Frozen Omen a refreshing return to the days of Classic Croft. A huge suspension of disbelief may be required on your part but it’s well worth it.
Let’s see how this latest adventure develops in the next issue…
Lara Croft & the Frozen Omen #1 is now available for purchase on Amazon and Amazon UK.
Related Articles:(Newser) – A Pennsylvania woman died Sunday after getting her arm caught in a clothing donation bin, PennLive reports. Judith Permar, 56, is believed to have arrived at the clothing drop-off box around 2am and stood on a stepstool to reach her arm inside. According to Philly.com, police say she was pulling bags out of the bin when her stool collapsed and her arm got stuck inside with her feet dangling off the ground. Permar's body was found around 8:30am with her black Hummer still running nearby. She died from blunt force trauma—she had a broken arm and wrist—and had hypothermia. Her death was ruled an accident, WNEP reports.
"She was fishing bags out and the ladder she was standing on gave way, and she couldn't get her hand loose," says Mount Carmel Police Chief Brian Hollenbush. He adds that he knew Permar and wouldn't expect her to be stealing clothes from a donation bin. However, bags from inside the bin were found on the ground, and police received a report of a woman in a black Hummer taking clothes from the same drop-off box back in November. Her son, meanwhile, says his mother donated to such clothing bins frequently. In a message to family and friends, Permar's daughter remembered her as a "fun-loving person." (Bumble Bee pleaded guilty in a worker's death inside a giant oven.)by Al Billings
When I first arrived in Austin, in 1986, I found myself doing a lot of pickup work, gardening, painting kitchen walls, whatever helped to pay the bills.
I lived with a roommate who had gotten involved with another man’s wife, and they were having a lot of problems. I avoided them whenever I could, and refused to take sides.
Bob, the cuckold, would run into me from time to time, and one day he asked me to help him with a small construction project. I guessed that he was just trying to get next to me because he wanted to bitch about my roommate running off with his wife, but he held his mud and didn’t complain, and neither did I, because I needed the money. I’m not sure that he even understood why he’d hired me. Bob was, in fact, a walking time bomb, and I could smell the anger bubbling below the surface of his rigid, artificial grin. And to make life more complicated, he and his wife had a young son who was plagued with both emotional and physical disabilities.
Bob picked me up one Saturday morning, and we headed out to Granite Shoals, |
have become warmer since the early 1900s, and extremely warm days have become warmer since the early 1960s. In recent decades, extreme cold waves have become less common while extreme heat waves have become more common.... The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation and extreme heat events are increasing in most regions of the world. These trends are consistent with expected physical responses to a warming climate and with climate model studies, although models tend to underestimate the observed trends. The frequency and intensity of such extreme events will very likely continue to rise in the future.... The increase in extreme weather that accompany global climate change are having significant, direct effects on the United States and the global economy and society.
SAUL LOEB via Getty Images Scott Pruitt sued the EPA over a dozen times before becoming its administrator in February.
Scott Pruitt, Head of the Environmental Protection Agency
“Measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do. And there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the climate change.” (March 2017)
What the science actually shows: There’s virtually zero disagreement among federal climate scientists that human activity is not only a factor, but also the “dominant cause” driving the relatively recent and dramatic acceleration of global warming. This finding is repeated throughout the report.
From the report:
Human activities are now the dominant cause of the observed changes in climate.... The global climate continues to change rapidly compared to the pace of the natural changes in climate that have occurred throughout Earth’s history.... Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible for the observed climate changes in the industrial era. There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate.
Mark Wilson via Getty Images Interior Secretary Ryank Zinke incorrectly claimed in June that glaciers have been consistently melting since "right after the end of the Ice Age."
Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior:
Glaciers in Montana started melting “right after the end of the Ice Age” and it’s been “a consistent melt.” (June 2017)
What the science actually shows: Scientists have already debunked Zinke’s claim that Glacier National Park’s namesake feature has been melting consistently since “right after the end of the Ice Age.” Glaciers have generally retreated since about 1850, the end of the Little Ice Age, but global warming has caused the rate of retreat to increase in recent decades.
The draft report further suggests that man-made global warming is accelerating the melting of mountain glaciers, snow cover and sea ice worldwide.
From the report:
Observations continue to show that Arctic sea ice extent and thickness, Northern Hemisphere snow cover, and the volume of mountain glaciers and continental ice sheets are all decreasing. In many cases, evidence suggests that the net loss of mass from the global cryosphere is accelerating.... The annually averaged ice mass from global reference glaciers has decreased every year since 1984, and the rate of global glacier melt is accelerating. This mountain glacier melt is contributing to sea level rise and will continue to contribute through the 21st Century.
Zinke again:
“The evidence strongly suggests that humans have had an influence on higher CO2. However, the evidence is equally as strong that there are other factors, such as rising ocean temperatures, that have a greater influence.” (August 2014)
What the science actually suggests: As we should all know by now, carbon emissions released by human activity are the “dominant cause” of accelerated global warming. Ocean temperatures are rising, but that’s because humans are emitting more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
From the report:
The world’s oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat caused by greenhouse warming since the mid 20th Century, making them warmer and altering global and regional circulation patterns and climate feedbacks. Surface oceans have warmed by about 0.45°F (0.25°C) globally since the 1970s.... The world’s oceans are currently absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually from human activities, making them more acidic with potential detrimental impacts to marine ecosystems. The rate of acidification is unparalleled in at least the past 66 million years.
ALFREDO ESTRELLA via Getty Images Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in June that he doesn't believe carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change.
Rick Perry, Secretary of Energy
“Most likely the primary control knob [for the temperature of the Earth and for climate] is the ocean waters and this environment that we live in.” (June 2017)
What the science actually shows: Like Zinke, Perry downplayed humans’ role in global warming and blamed “ocean waters” instead. Perry also appeared to suggest that the environment is responsible for changes in the environment, which is somewhat challenging to make sense of.
It’s possible he was referring to previously natural variability, such as El Niño and La Niña, though the draft report found such phenomena have “limited influences” on long-term climate change. Some studies have suggested man-made global warming may “greatly increase the frequency of very strong” El Niño or La Niña events.
From the report:
Since the industrial era, human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and other greenhouse gases now overwhelm the influence of natural drivers on the external forcing of the Earth’s climate... For this reason, projections of changes in Earth’s climate over this century and beyond focus primarily on its response to emissions of greenhouse gases, particulates, and other radiatively-active species from human activities.... Natural variability, including El Niño events and other recurring patterns of ocean−atmosphere interactions, have important, but limited influences on global and regional climate over timescales ranging from months to decades.Last year, there were a relatively small number of people and investors who took the chance to try trading money, products, and services using Bitcoin and Ethereum. Today, celebrity endorsers, mainstream athletes and celebrities like Floyd Mayweather and Paris Hilton have been seen in various ICO advertisements.
In fact, in May 2017 a huge, unconventional advertising billboard was seen by the public. It was dark and mysterious, with a glitch-like animation and the rotating wireframe logo of EOS.
It was during that same month that Block.one announced the EOS, a platform for decentralized software, in New York.
Targeting ordinary people
While Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer said that the advertisement was targeted at developers who want to attend the EOS Conference in June, it seems like it also attracted the curiosity of the wider public. Further, Blumer said that the advert did not mean to canvass investment.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency advertisements are also seen across different cities in the West. These ads are targeting ordinary people, persuading them to invest. More and more financial institutions, as well as trading platforms, are trying out Bitcoin and Ethereum for the first time.
Trend is both a giant bubble and genuine breakthrough?
Due to the number of advertisements and endorsements of cryptocurrency, not to mention the growing number of investors, detractors argue whether the world is in a giant bubble or a technological revolution.
Simon Taylor, co-founder of 11: FS, a fintech consultancy in London, saidReuters The French balked at a deal with Iran over concerns about the Arak plutonium reactor, which may give Tehran a quicker path to nuclear weapons than enriched uranium.
In the end, John Kerry put it best. "It takes time to build confidence between countries that have really been at odds with each other for a long time now," said the U.S. Secretary of State. A deal between the West and Iran over its nuclear program is still possible--talks resume on Nov. 20--but the breakdown of talks in Geneva made a tough challenge even more difficult.
In diplomacy, transparency is often the enemy of progress. Negotiations are best conducted secretly until there is an agreement. When carried out in full public view, the process simply allows opponents to attack every concession made to one side, paying little attention to the concessions to the other. Even imagined concessions get attacked. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu furiously protested against the proposed deal with Iran even though, as Kerry suggested, he didn't actually know what was in it. Ironically, it is to prevent just this problem that Netanyahu has insisted that talks between Israel and the Palestinians take place in strict secrecy.
One party that did know what was in the proposed agreement was France. The French took the unusual step of breaking ranks with their Western colleagues to publicly denounce the deal on the table. This has led some to wonder whether France's strategy was to demonstrate its hard-line credentials to the most anti-Iranian states in the Middle East--Saudi Arabia, in particular--and thus gain favor. (Paris has signed a multibillion-dollar defense deal with Riyadh in recent months.) And of course, being anti-American comes naturally to a French President, especially one from the Socialist Party, like François Hollande.
But whatever France's motives, its concerns have merit. They seem to center on Iran's nuclear reactor in Arak, which is under construction and if completed would produce plutonium rather than uranium. If one fears that Iran is seeking a path to nuclear weapons and not just nuclear energy, a plutonium reactor is a red flag. It could easily produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for one or two bombs every year. And once fully operational, it is largely invulnerable because a military strike against it would release radioactive toxins into the atmosphere. Thus the West has demanded that Iran stop work on this reactor, and this appears to have been one of the key points of disagreement in Geneva.
There are solutions. The danger of an operational plutonium reactor is not immediate. Iran is well behind schedule on the Arak facility. Olli Heinonen, former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has recently suggested that the reactor would be able to generate usable plutonium only in 2016. Remember, the deal proposed in Geneva allowed Arak to continue functioning but only for six months, during which time both sides were going to try to negotiate a final and comprehensive deal. If that fell apart, in the spring of 2014, Arak would still be nonoperational.
While France's objections can be assuaged, those of some of the other opponents cannot. Netanyahu wants Iran to have no enrichment capacity at all; that, for Iran, is a "red line." It's not entirely clear whether Netanyahu's demand is a bargaining position or whether he will denounce any deal that allows the Iranians to enrich uranium.Another day, another I’ll-have-what-she’s-having elixir. And yet, in the midst of activated-charcoal tonics, slow-simmered bone broths, and nut milks spiked with turmeric, the most compelling health brew of the moment isn’t exactly new. Tea, naturally rich in antioxidants and low in sugar, is experiencing a major fashion and wellness renaissance—and if a quick look around is any indication, it may be poised to become the next green juice.
In recent seasons, models have declared allegiance to energy-boosting herbal blends backstage, with Kendall Jenner professing her love for Kusmi Tea’s BB Detox, a mix of green tea, maté, and guarana, among other ingredients. Meanwhile, matcha—the powdered bright-green tea that appeals to purists and the whole of Instagram—has given rise to cafés like Chalait, a jewel box in Manhattan’s West Village; you can also find it on the menu at the nearby Equinox (virtuous) and in a new custard pie at Brooklyn’s Four & Twenty Blackbirds (deliciously less so). And among those shaping how we think about beauty today—from Reiki-practicing facialists to herb-focused shopkeepers committed to impeccable sourcing—it’s increasingly top of mind.
“Beauty tea is the next wave,” says Jessica Richards, owner of Brooklyn boutique Shen, known for its curated mix of natural-focused skin care and in-house facials. For a glowing complexion, she says, “It goes back to what you eat”—and drink. Richards regularly brews Egyptian licorice tea, citing its anti-inflammatory properties, and starting this week, she’s stocking the new Sleepy Cow tea from the U.K. brand (and Soho House favorite) Cowshed. The elegantly packaged lemon-chamomile blend, developed with the London-based Joe’s Tea Co., will be on offer post-treatment at Shen this fall for an extra dose of calm.
In the meantime, why not try facialist Negin Niknejad’s Love Potion? Inspired by her cosmically connected client, jewelry designer Pamela Love, the tea—made with heirloom roses, violet, nettle, cardamom, and other poetically charged ingredients—is one of four variations available as part of her JustBe skin-care line. Niknejad, in the midst of a three-year apprenticeship with an herbalist, also creates custom blends to support immune health and aid sleep. According to Niknejad, technique is everything: “I always recommend to steep your teas overnight,” she says of combining boiling water and herbs in a large Mason jar before refrigerating it the next morning. “Once you make an infusion”—as opposed to a quick-brewed cup—“that’s when it’s actually medicinal.” Ritual is essential to this new wave of tea-drinkers, from Niknejad, who recently hosted a full-moon tea gathering at her New York City studio, to Baelyn Elspeth, a Los Angeles native who leads Taoist-inspired tea ceremonies in dreamy locales (Venice Beach, cedar forests), where flower crowns and drums occasionally make an appearance.
At New York’s CAP Beauty, a wellness boutique in the West Village, the sensorial aspects of tea extend to its facials, which often incorporate chamomile and green tea infusions. Later this fall, the company will launch a private-label organic matcha, which entails its own meditative ritual. Expect in-store tastings, along with handsome teacups by local ceramist Romy Northover. It follows that cleanse diehards have moved on to “teatoxing,” which makes some occasionally questionable weight-loss claims. “I don’t know about teatoxes,” says Frank Lipman, M.D., the New York integrative medicine expert who is no stranger to cleanses (his two-week version is a recurring topic of conversation in the Vogue offices), but he stands behind tea’s numerous benefits. “You get slightly different antioxidants and catechins and polyphenols” in different types, says Lipman, who drinks his way through the spectrum: black and green tea by day; rooibos by night. “In South Africa, we all grew up with rooibos tea,” says the Johannesburg-born doctor. “[It] was, in a way, like a catch-all remedy.” And it’s once again having a major moment, popping up in Aloha’s new Beauty Tea (along with sea buckthorn berry and hibiscus flower), in Sakara’s Detox Tea (with rose petals and stomach-soothing linden flowers), and in the free-radical fighting Cocoa Rooibos blend from L.A. boutique Chay, developed with the medicinal tea atelier Wilwand.
Of course, there may be some logic to tea’s moderating effects on mood and late-afternoon cravings. “You start drinking a tea a day, and maybe you don’t need that second cup of coffee,” says CAP Beauty co-founder Cindy DiPrima. It’s certainly well worth clearing some space on your desk for The Office Blend, from the artisanal herb company Daphnis and Chloe, featuring irresistibly chic packaging by Nathalie Du Pasquier, the Milan-based artist and Memphis Group cofounder. Made with rosehip, Greek mountain tea, thyme flowers, and peppermint, it’s designed to enhance alertness—and weaning off cold brew has never tasted (or looked) so good.RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Olympics organizers battled an array of persistent problems as the Games entered its second week on Saturday, from a lurid green diving pool to competitors taken to the wrong venue, and a long-distance swimming pontoon swept away by the waves.
A general view of the Olympic diving pool and the pool for the waterpolo and synchronized swimming. The water in the Olympic diving pool appeared to turn a bright green hue on Tuesday, causing puzzlement among divers and audiences as the women's 10 meter platform final progressed, contrasting sharply against the still-blue color of another pool beside it. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic
The refusal of the Olympic diving pool to return to a more appealing blue hue has baffled technicians and competitors alike after it was pumped full of chemicals since turning a cloudy green color on Tuesday.
The color and acrid smell of the pool have prompted jokes on the Internet and complaints from competitors and have become a symbol of the organizational problems dogging South America’s first Games, which come as Brazil struggles with deep recession and political upheaval.
On Saturday, Olympics organizers finally concluded the strange color was due to a mix-up over pool chemicals. A contractor dumped 80 liters of hydrogen peroxide into the water on the opening day of the Games, without informing them.
The chemical, which is used to keep pools clean, neutralized the chlorine that organizers were using to keep the pool blue, allowing algae to flourish, they said.
Organizers said on Saturday they would spend 10 hours draining and replacing the water in the waterpolo pool, which has gone from green to a cloudy blue. The same pool is needed on Sunday for the start of synchronized swimming where competitors need to see each other under water.
“Of course, it’s an embarrassment,” said Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada, who originally said the problem would be fixed on Wednesday. “This was probably the only issue that we were unable to solve quickly,” he told reporters.
The organizers will not drain the diving pool and instead continue with chemical treatment, as the discoloration did not seem to concern competitors in that sport as much. The diving competition will run throughout the second week of the Games.
By Saturday afternoon, the diving pool remained a murky green.
“If the pool doesn’t change, we do!” wrote German diver Stephan Feck on his Facebook page above a photo of he and his teammates, colored green.
SPORTING FEATS
As the Games reach their midway point, the list of sporting achievements in Rio is growing, from a slew of world bests by the all-conquering U.S. swimmers to the performance of the first-ever refugee team at the Games, and successes in the velodrome dubbed a ‘world record factory’ by organizers.
The sporting excitement has gone some way to turning the page on a doping controversy that led to scores of Russian competitors from several sports being banned from the Games.
Russian track and field suffered a final humiliation on Saturday when the sport’s governing body suspended long jumper Darya Klishina, removing from competition its only competitor to have survived the athletics blanket ban.
Poor attendance at many Olympic venues and concern over booing by Brazilian fans more accustomed to soccer have raised eyebrows.
Organizers expect that when Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt takes to the track for the 100 meters final on Sunday, fans will pack the 60,000-capacity stadium.
Yet in addition to thin crowds, security concerns fed by a spate of robberies of fans and competitors as well as organizational glitches with transportation around Rio have stirred frustration.
Organizers’ decision to spread the Games across a number of sites around Rio de Janeiro, a city of more than 12 million people, in an effort to share the infrastructure benefits of the Games has been criticized by competitors and fans for the long distances and hours spent in traffic.
Andrada said a group of swimmers had risked missing their races after a bus driver meant to have taken them to the Olympic pool misheard the acronym used for the site and drove them instead to the athletics stadium on the other side of town.
FINA made changes to the schedule so the swimmers could compete and Andrada said bus drivers had been instructed to use the full name of the site to avoid confusion in future.
Related Coverage Green pools caused by hydrogen peroxide dump: Rio organizers
He added that there was an “unprecedented” last-minute change to the schedule of the women’s swimming competition on Friday, made in consultation with FINA, broadcasters and technical experts. But he did not give a reason, and it was unclear if this was connected to the transport mix-up.
Organizers said they had a standby pontoon for the 10-km marathon swimming after the original pontoon was swept away amid big waves and broke up on Copacabana beach. The men’s and women’s races are due to take place on Monday and Tuesday.
“It was an act of God and nature, but we were prepared for that, and the replacement will be easy,” Andrada said.1. Two Sides of the Same Street
If you’ve read a review of any novel by Tom McCarthy anytime in the last 10 years, you know that you don’t have to look very far to find the term avant-garde, and equally as often, the consensus that McCarthy is the new standard bearer of the avant-garde in contemporary fiction. While the claim is no less true despite the ease with which it is repeatedly made, the framing of what this mantle means is less frequently explored, and has somewhat problematic origins. The stone in the pond here belongs to Zadie Smith, who in 2009 contrived a binary between Joseph O’Neill’s bestselling novel Netherland and McCarthy’s debut work, Remainder, announcing the latter as an “assassination” of an exalted brand of realism, and an “alternate road down which the novel, might, with difficulty, travel forward.” The philosophical templates behind this antagonism were well sketched, if muddled somewhat is Smith’s distillation; on the one hand — epiphany, redemption, coherency of language and memory, and the ontological superiority of subjective experience over the world; on the other — method, process, simulacra, hard materialism, and false transcendence.
Simple enough, yes? If there was a charm to the proposal it was in its sincere, if not somewhat mannered frustration about a long-standing though largely non-threatening conflict with traditional literary realism (in Smith’s words: “lyrical realism,” an equally slippery designation.) And though the blemishes of Smith’s argument lie precisely in wind-up prescriptions like the kind mentioned above, it is also a part of her success and influence as a critic –– and lo, in the years since the publication of “Two Paths For the Novel” in The New York Review of Books, the contention that McCarthy is the inheritor of a much needed literary iconoclasm has been almost universally adopted and disputed only by a few. The underlying assumption that both its affirmers and detractors leave largely unexplored however, is the question of what exactly the avant-garde means to contemporary literature, where it is to be found, what defines it, and whether or not it is even possible.
Smith herself can hardly be blamed; her essay –– another addition to an ever-expanding catalogue of literary manifestos –– is merely one person’s testimony in a waiting room full of patients claiming the same malady. The real, albeit incidental insight that emerged in the aftermath of the essay, was that its proposed solutions betrayed a genuine need born out of something endemic, something we are all actually desperate for –– a coherent framing of contemporary literary conflict and an authentic mode of resistance to a increasingly corporate literary monoculture.
Today, manifestos are a cheap commodity, as easy to pen as they are to rally behind, and must, it seems, in order to maintain their integrity, announce this fact; (Lars Iyer’s “Nude In Your Hot Tub, Facing the Abyss (A Literary Manifesto After The End of Literature and Manifestos”) comes to mind.) But while its authors aren’t able to escape this debilitating self-awareness, it is precisely in this irony that the manifesto reveals its necessary value. As co-founder and chairman of the International Necronautical Society –– an organization with an foundational manifesto of inauthenticity and a self-proclaimed penchant for death, failure, and false-redemption –– McCarthy seems playfully complicit in the genre’s comic real estate, as well as in the idea that the avant-garde does not inherently represent an obliteration of artistic or intellectual tradition, but is rather a renewable resource. Consequently, McCarthy has found himself enlisted in an argument that he not only didn’t start, but seems to have been working actively to deflate for two decades now.
It would be myopic to view Remainder as an assassination of a lyrical trend the likes of which Joseph O’Neill’s novel represented, since both novels are mutually loyal progeny to their literary ancestors, with Remainder owing as much to Alain Robbe-Grillet and J.G. Ballard as Netherland does to Gustave Flaubert and Vladimir Nabokov. Even though this posture feels affected and outmoded only six years later –– with several critics pointing out how the argument dissolves when taken to its logical terminus –– the attitude of the “Two Paths” model still has currency, though less in its clarion calls than in the subtle and insidious brand of market logic it represents; its inheritors seeking to establish their camps based on the successes and failures of recent novels instead of challenging what the avant-garde means in an increasingly monolithic industry where favored aesthetics are bred based on what brings in the highest profits. McCarthy’s new novel tackles this question head on and in a way that frees itself from the kind of pigeonholing his first novel was susceptible to. If Remainder represented the abandonment of the pure and sacred self against the apparatus of a long held tradition of realism, then Satin Island seeks to reveal how such distinctions are ultimately meaningless.
2. Explain Everything!
Satin Island takes on a lot within the space of its covers. Indeed, for a novel that is fewer than 200 pages, it is remarkably dense and polysemous –– at times it seems to accomplish more in this space than many much larger novels achieve in triple the length. This time McCarthy concerns himself directly with manifestos, and the manifesto here is on perhaps the greatest subject of all: The Contemporary –– which is to say, the Postmodern (whatever that means.) Indeed, this is precisely the joke that surrounds our protagonist –– a “Corporate Anthropologist” (a sort of liberal arts student-cum-corporate cog) –– throughout the novel. Like Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon before him, McCarthy maintains an interest in hidden networks and bottomless bureaucracies that baffle common sense and intuition. As usual, McCarthy remains comically oblique about the presumed details of plot and character, though our protagonist, known only as U. (there’s Kafka again) is certainly not without psychology or ambition. Of “The Company” that employs him in Present Tense Anthropology™ he says only:
“…[it] advised other companies how to contextualize and nuance their services and products. It advised cities how to brand and re-brand themselves; regions how to elaborate and frame regenerative strategies; governments how to narrate their policy agendas –– to the press, the public and, not least, themselves. We dealt, as Peyman liked to say, in narratives.”
This can be read as the mission statement of modern brand marketing: the total dissemination of an idea, not a product –– less concerned with things than with the narrative between things. The “Great Report” for the “Koob-Sassen Project,” for which our protagonist inherits the role of “architect,” is never clearly explained, though it is suggested that it’s a kind of master narrative that explains everything and is everywhere all the time: “It will have had direct effects on you; in fact, there’s probably not a single area of your daily life that it hasn’t, in some way or other, touched on, penetrated, changed…” U. discusses the Project in circumambulatory fashion, (assuming some non-disclosure clause) and only ever describes it in relation to his visions of a titanic, desert-bound work site:
I saw towers rising in the desert — splendid, ornate constructions, part modern skyscraper, part sultan’s palace lifted from Arabian Nights: steel and glass columns segueing into vaulted cupolas and stilted arches, tiled muqarnas, dwindling minarets that seemed, at their cloud-laced peaks, to shed their own materiality, turn into vapor. Below them, hordes of people — thousands, tens of thousands — labored, moving around like ants, their circuits forming patterns on the sand; patterns that, in their amalgam, coalesced into one larger, more coherent pattern, just as the meandering, bowing, divagating stretches of a river delta do when seen from high enough above.
In addition to many others, this vision belongs to U.’s private bank of revisited images –– including footage of oil spills, hydraulic machines stretching taffy, and a possible murder mystery surrounding the death of a sky diver.
When collected, they reveal how the corporate superstructure (or supra-structure) can become a lattice through which one can view all human activity, and diagram that activity into a single coherent narrative. After all, anthropology, in its most ambitious form, is essentially totalitarian, seeking to explain all human behavior –– not simply to diagnose what prompts that behavior, but to find a grid through which it can be connected and codified. In short, everything that appears distinct and separate is actually a different version of the same thing. In The Gift, Marcel Mauss was convinced that however foreign and irrational the trade practices of primitive societies appeared to westerners, the most sophisticated and advanced industrial economies rested on the same integral logic of exchange. That everything can be explained with a narrative that allows all features to co-exist in apparent disharmony is the dream of the structural anthropologist, the father of which, Claude Lévi-Strauss, U. tells us, is his hero. This is also the dream of the modern corporation, is it not?: to assimilate all culture into a single, interchangeable narrative, which continues to succeed despite internal variance and transition. If this is the dream, than the Koob-Sassen Project is its manifesto.
Historically the novel and the manifesto have been the two delivery systems for the avant-garde. While the latter hopes to goad the former into existence by commanding a switch in consciousness, the novel creates consciousness on its own terms and for its own sake. Manifestos are inherently arrogant and utopian by nature, seeking to explain the whole of their time and replace the miserable, vulgar past with an exalted vision of the future. Often bound to hard ideologies, like fascism and communism, it is no surprise that the early 20th century was the heyday of the form (F.T. Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism and the 1918 Manifesto I of the De Stijl group are perhaps the best examples of this.)
To regard the manifesto as something that serves an art form is to slightly misunderstand its usefulness. As a genre it is essentially self-satisfying, always benefitting its loyal disciples more than the form as a whole. McCarthy, of course, is all too aware of this, having described the manifesto in a conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist as “macho” and “inherently ridiculous,” and indeed he seems to have laid this attitude into the marrow of Satin Island’s satirical bones. So, if the ambition of the avant-garde is essentially constructive, seeking to establish a kind of new world order, than McCarthy’s novelistic treatment of this idea seems to be one of negation and dismantlement.
A high ideal of the avant-garde would be a Heideggerian one –– to erupt a new form of consciousness out of a kind of nothingness, and to hurl ourselves through that consciousness which we are scarcely prepared for and desperate to understand, ahead of which only oblivion lies. This certainly appears in the pious avant-gardism of the modernists, vis-à-vis Marinetti’s sleek futuristic visions and Ezra Pound’s refrain “make it new.” In this sense, the challenge that faces new novelists is always epistemic –– an attempt at “new knowledge,” which is ultimately what lies at the heart of U.’s work with the Great Report.
McCarthy himself has spoken about the reusable, or recreational avant-garde –– the kind of experimentalism that beats ahead by reaching back into tradition and appropriating old forms to the standard of our time, sometimes subverting that tradition, sometimes disrupting it violently, sometimes remaining faithful to its origins. This is the avant-garde of Guy Debord and the Situationist International, whom U. seems to hint at when he imagines, “…cells of clandestine new-ethnographic operators doing strange things in deliberate, strategic ways, like those conceptual artists from the sixties who made careers out of following strangers.” In a sense, all appropriations of existing narratives are a form of the avant-garde, from Don Quixote’s demented and bathetic recreations of chivalric romance to the plays of William Shakespeare. This seems to be the avant-garde that McCarthy is most interested in both disrupting and verifying, and providing a fictional framework in which both its braggadocio and its necessity can co-exist.
In Satin Island, the battleground of this vision of the avant-garde is the modern bureaucracy, that node of systemic knowledge, that endless vista of departments, branches, and research. Through this, the novel immerses itself in the vertiginous and ever-expanding matrix of networked human experience. In other words, McCarthy doesn’t seem to subscribe to the redemptive power of the avant-garde novel within a monolithic industry, but sees the form rather as an endless discursive palliative to a circuitous conflict that only ends with failure and stunted-epiphany. Some authors chose to abandon the novel’s most immediate and natural resources in order to achieve a similar dismantling effect, mainly character and coherency of language as a means of apprehending the World. Jorge Luis Borges sought it through metaphysical abstraction and speculation; writers like Thomas Bernhard and Lázló Krasznahorkai through exhaustive language; theorists like Maurice Blanchot and Robbe-Grillet –– who seemed to regard the novel’s natural resources as ultimately inadequate –– were more willing to saddle their fiction with a philosophical treatment at the expense of things like character and plot.
Blanchot and Robbe-Grillet are obvious influences on McCarthy, but McCarthy himself seems to work more out of the left brain, or perhaps more appropriately, the gut. More often than not, Satin Island operates in the open and imaginative spaces that one would sooner associate with Kafka. Indeed, for all his continental headiness, McCarthy thinks like a novelist better than pretty much anyone, with an acute sense of irony and negative capability thoroughly worked into his characters and not just his theoretical schemas. But where his post-war ancestors believed that form, language, and other aesthetic techniques could be used as tools to overthrow existing orders, McCarthy has seen (if only by virtue of hindsight) that the mainstream coopted this hope of the avant-garde long ago.
3. The Long Last Stop
Nostalgic for eras that have yet to begin, the other side of the avant-garde is equally concerned with the end of institutions. Postmodernism, as Frederick Jameson reminds us, is concerned with the end of things: “the end of art,” “the end of philosophy,” etc. –– an old Hegelian an idea that regained traction in the 1960s when the prospect of a cultural-wide revolution seemed imminent, and continued on through Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of the “end of history,” after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. At the end of Weekend (1967) Jean-Luc Godard announced that the film was “the end of cinema,” intuiting some kind of upheaval that would destroy the cultural patrimony and make art as it had previously been thought of no longer possible. As both McCarthy and Iyer seem to understand, this is the reality in which the manifesto, and its literary counterpart, the avant-garde novel, has to exist, if it is to exist at all.
Jameson most notably described the Postmodern “not as a style but rather as a cultural dominant: a conception which allows for the presence and coexistence of a range of very different, yet subordinate, features.” (This is the best definition of Postmodernism I know of, and the only one that has ever made any sense to me.) It could also be the thesis statement for the Koob-Sassen Project. For today, this “cultural dominant” is the modern corporation. Think about it. It explains how The Beatles’ “Revolution” (actually a counterrevolutionary song) can be the soundtrack for a Nike commercial, or how Walt Whitman’s “O Pioneers!” can be used as a narrative to hawk Levi’s jeans. The corporation is at the forefront of the avant-garde, the central engine of appropriation, which is to say, that if the modern avant-garde exists in any form, it is in appropriation, only in what can be hijacked and redeployed. This is precisely what I believe is at the heart of McCarthy’s novel. At one point U., in describing his intellectual style within the company, relates how he stole Gilles Deleuze’s idea of “folds” (or le pli) as a way of explaining various levels of meaning found in the stitching patterns and creases of Levi’s jeans. Here, the engine appropriation appears in disquietingly familiar terms:
“This pretty much set up the protocol or MO I’d deploy in my work for the Company: feeding in vanguard theory, almost always from the left side of the spectrum, back into the corporate machine. The machine could swallow everything, incorporate it seamlessly, like a giant loom that reweaves all fabric, no matter how recalcitrant and jarring its raw form, into what my hero [Lévi-Strauss] would have called a master-pattern — or, if not that, then maybe just the pattern of the master.”
(“…always from the left side of the spectrum.” This is one of many iconoclastic sentiments woven into the protagonist’s noble vision of his profession. On another occasion, in one of U.’s scripted fantasies, he describes the cleanup processes of a massive oil spill as “a putsch, a coup d’état.”)
But, if the Postmodern can only be defined by negation, as a kind of everything and nothing, then its very definition as an aesthetic under which artists might choose to band together or writhe in discontent is essentially meaningless. If we are living in an age beyond epochs, beyond movements or era –– one of perpetual transition and integration in which disparate and often mutually contradictory ideas are swallowed into a larger pattern that ironizes them into co-existence –– can one make a rallying call like Zadie Smith’s with any kind of honesty, without seeming like a mere reactionary? Consider the grim concession of Iyer’s essay –– we can only entertain the illusion that true resistance is possible anymore. Can one eschew popular trends in favor of niche cultures, like the American hipster, without also being a slave |
ings.
317. LACTIC ACID GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in apple juice, beef, beer, bread, cocoa, coffee, wheat bread, cherry, grape, guava, mango, milk, papaya, dry salami, sherry, tomato; used in cheese, candy, chewing gum, baked goods.
318. LAURIC ACID GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in apple, beer, blue cheese, banana, beef, blackberry, brandy, wheat bread, butter, heated butter, cantaloupe, cashew nuts; used in baked goods, candy, ice cream.
319. LAURIC ALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in apples, beef, beer, wheat bread, carrots, celery, cheddar cheese, blackberry, butter, cabbage, caviar, chicken; used in chewing gum, baked goods, candy.
320. LAVANDIN OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in lavender plant; used in baked goods, candy, chewing gum.
321. LAVENDER OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in lavender flowers; used in soft candy, baked goods, gelatin and puddings.
322. LEMON OIL AND EXTRACT GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in lemons; used in candy, breakfast cereals, frozen dairy products.
323. LEMONGRASS OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in lemongrass; used in chewing gum, ice cream, baked goods.
324. l-LEUCINE; FEMA GRAS
found in proteins; essential amino acid; used in soups, baked goods, breakfast cereals.
325. LEVULINIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in wheat bread, papaya; used in reconstituted vegetables, ice cream, baked goods.
326. LICORICE ROOT, FLUID EXTRACT AND POWDER GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in glycyrrhizia; used in candy, baked goods, meat products.
327. LIME OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in lime; used in frozen dairy goods, candy.
328. LINALOOL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in banana, beer, blackberry, beans, blueberry, apple, apricot, arctice bramble, artichoke, grape brandy, plum brandy; used in meat products.
329. LINALOOL OXIDE; FEMA GRAS
found in oranges, apricot, coffee; used in ice cream, baked goods, candy.
330. LINALYL ACETATE GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in bergamot, clary sage, lemon oil, pepper, tomato, lavender; used in baked goods, dairy products, candy.
331. LINDEN FLOWERS GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in linden flowers; used in non-alcoholic beverages.
332. LOVAGE OIL AND EXTRACT; FEMA GRAS
found in levisticum; used in sweet sauce, alcoholic beverages, ice cream.
333. l-LYSINE
amino acid, natural constituent of plant and animal proteins; used in meat products, breakfast cereals.
334. MACE POWDER, EXTRACT AND OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in mace; used in alcoholic beverages, candy, frozen dairy products.
335. MAGNESIUM CARBONATE GRAS
used in flour, baked goods, frozen dairy products.
336. MALIC ACID GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in celery, cocoa, orange juice, grape brandy, sour cherry, gin, grapefruit juice, honey, hops, kiwi fruit, mango, mushroom; used in frozen dairy goods, candy, baked goods.
337. MALT AND MALT EXTRACT GRAS
found in barley; used in beer, frozen dairy products, baked goods.
338. MALTODEXTRIN GRAS
used in baked goods, candy, frozen dairy.
339. MALTOL; FEMA GRAS
found in barley, cocoa, coffee, beef, wheat bread, butter, hazelnut, licorice, malt, milk, peanut; used in frozen dairy goods, jellies, baked goods.
340. MALTYL ISOBUTYRATE - FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods, soft candy, gelatin and puddings, jam and jelly.
341. MANDARIN OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in tangerines, mandarin oranges; used in candy, frozen dairy products.
342. MAPLE SYRUP AND CONCENTRATE
common food item.
343. MATE LEAF, ABSOLUTE, AND OIL GRAS
found in mate leaves; used in flour, meat, poultry.
344. para-MENTHA-8-THIOL-3-ONE - FEMA GRAS
used in frozen dairy, soft candy, gelatin and puddings, baked goods.
345. MENTHOL; FEMA GRAS
found in peppermint plant, honey, mint, rum, cocoa, eggs, guava, raspberry, rice, spearmint; used in candy, mouthwash.
346. MENTHONE; FEMA GRAS
found in celery, clams, cocoa, peppermint, raspberries, rice, spearmint; used in baked goods, candy.
347. MENTHYL ACETATE - FEMA GRAS
found in peppermint oil, orange juice, raspberries; used in baked goods, frozen dairy, soft candy, gelatin and pudding.
348. dl-METHIONINE; FEMA GRAS
natural constituent of protein in plants and animals; used in breakfast cereals, meat products, condiment relish, soups.
349. METHOPRENE
EPA approved pesticide for use on tobacco; allowed by FDA to be used in raisins, prunes, peaches, oat cereals; also approved by EPA for eggs, milk, poultry.
350. 2-METHOXY-4-METHYLPHENOL; FEMA GRAS
found in cocoa, sausage, banana, beer, coffee; used in baked goods, meat products.
351. 2-METHOXY-4-VINYLPHENOL; FEMA GRAS
found in bean, coffee, sherry, whiskey, banana, beer, cocoa, cured ham, malt; used in meat products, ice cream, baked goods.
352. para-METHOXYBENZALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in coffee, tea, tomato, beer, krill; used in baked goods, candy, dairy products.
353. 1-(para-METHOXYPHENYL)-1-PENTEN-3-ONE; FEMA GRAS
found in jasmine, Ylang Ylang; used in soft candy, sweet sauce, baked goods.
354. 4-(para-METHOXYPHENYL)-2-BUTANONE; FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, beer, brandy, grapes, cantaloupe, cranberry, honey, melon, peppermint, plum, raspberry, salami; used in candy, baked goods.
355. 1-(para-METHOXYPHENYL)-2-PROPANONE; FEMA GRAS
found in chervil; used in baked goods, frozen dairy, soft candy, gelatin and puddings.
356. METHOXYPYRAZINE - FEMA GRAS
found in beef, cocoa; used in meat products, soups, gravies, baked goods.
357. METHYL 2-FUROATE - FEMA GRAS
found in almond, cocoa, coffee, peanut, wine; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, candy, baked goods.
358. METHYL 2-OCTYNOATE; FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods, frozen dairy products, gelatin and puddings.
359. METHYL 2-PYRROLYL KETONE - FEMA GRAS
found in apple juice, cocoa, coffee, onion, peanut; used in baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings, meat products.
360. METHYL ANISATE; FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, frozen dairy, baked goods, soft candy, gelatin and puddings.
361. METHYL ANTHRANILATE GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in cocoa, grape, tea, wine, coffee, strawberry; used in baked goods, candy, frozen dairy products.
362. METHYL BENZOATE; FEMA GRAS
found in banana, cherry, coffee, brandy, butter, cashew apple; used in chewing gum, ice cream, candy.
363. METHYL CINNAMATE; FEMA GRAS
found in guava, strawberry, cranberry, pineapple, plum; used in baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings.
364. METHYL DIHYDROJASMONATE - FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, baked goods, candy.
365. METHYL ESTER OF ROSIN, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED
used in baked goods, candy.
366. METHYL ISOVALERATE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, peach, pineapple, banana, blackberry, parmesan cheese, coffee, honey, nectarine, olives, peas, strawberries; used in candy, baked goods.
367. METHYL LINOLEATE (48%) METHYL LINOLENATE (52%) MIXTURE; FEMA GRAS
found in banana, grape, grapefruit juice, melon, strawberries; used in ice cream, baked goods, candy.
368. METHYL NAPHTHYL KETONE; FEMA GRAS
found in beef (heated); used in chewing gum.
369. METHYL NICOTINATE - FEMA GRAS
found in coffee, nuts, strawberry, beef, beer, guava, hazelnuts, peanut, plum; used in baked goods, candy, ice cream.
370. METHYL PHENYLACETATE; FEMA GRAS
found in coffee, cocoa; used in candy, syrups, baked goods.
371. METHYL SALICYLATE; FEMA GRAS
found in blackberry, broccoli, butter, cherry cake, coffee; used in candy, ice cream, syrups.
372. METHYL SULFIDE; FEMA GRAS
found in asparagus, bean, beef, beer, white bread, brussels sprouts, butter, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, broccoli; used in meat products, candy, ice cream.
373. 3-METHYL-1-CYCLOPENTADECANONE - FEMA GRAS
found in grape brandy, lamb/muttonm potato; used in baked goods.
374. 4-METHYL-1-PHENYL-2-PENTANONE; FEMA GRAS
used in gelatin pudding.
375. 5-METHYL-2-PHENYL-2-HEXENAL - FEMA GRAS
found in romano cheese, potato chips; used in soft candy.
376. 5-METHYL-2-THIOPHENECARBOXALDEHYDE - FEMA GRAS
found in coffee, roasted peanut, popcorn, cooked beef; used in baked goods, meats, soups, candy, gelatin and puddings, chewing gum, dairy products, condiments.
377. 6-METHYL-3,5-HEPTADIEN-2-ONE; FEMA GRAS
found in almonds, asparagus, beef, beer, wheat bread, cashew nuts, chicken; used in snack foods.
378. 2-METHYL-3-(para-ISOPROPYLPHENYL) PROPIONALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in almond, beans, beef, beer, wheat bread, chicken, cocoa, coffee, guava, macadamia nut; used in gelatin pudding.
379. 5-METHYL-3-HEXEN-2-ONE - FEMA GRAS found in roasted filbert; used in baked goods, cereals, candy, gelatin and puddings, dairy products.
380. 1-METHYL-3-METHOXY-4-ISOPROPYLBENZENE - FEMA GRAS
found in tangerine peel, thyme; used in non-alcoholic beverages, baked goods, meat, candy, condiments.
381. 4-METHYL-3-PENTENE-2-ONE - FEMA GRAS
found in rye bread, coffee, tea, peanut; used in non-alcoholic beverages, baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings, dairy products.
382. 2-METHYL-4-PHENYLBUTYRALDEHYDE - FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, candy, gelatin and puddings.
383. 6-METHYL-5-HEPTEN-2-ONE; FEMA GRAS found in guava, mango, potato, rum; used in gravies, candy, baked goods.
384. 4-METHYL-5-THIAZOLEETHANOL - FEMA GRAS
found in cocoa, malt, peanuts roasted; used in meat products.
385. 4-METHYL-5-VINYLTHIAZOLE - FEMA GRAS
found in cocoa, nuts, passion fruit; used in Ice cream, baked goods, meat sauce, candy, chewing gum.
386. METHYL-alpha-IONONE; FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods.
387. METHYL-trans-2-BUTENOIC ACID - FEMA GRAS
found in celery oil, orange juice crystals, coffee, strawberry; used in baked goods, meat products, soups.
388. 4-METHYLACETOPHENONE; FEMA GRAS
found in hop oil, cocoa powder, black currant; used in chewing gum.
389. para-METHYLANISOLE; FEMA GRAS
found in cocoa, malt, peanut, pork, potato chips, sesame seeds; used in baked goods.
390. alpha-METHYLBENZYL ACETATE; FEMA GRAS
found in grape brandy, rice, tea, tomato, tomato paste; used in chewing gum.
391. alpha-METHYLBENZYL ALCOHOL - FEMA GRAS
found in mushroom, hops, grapes, endive, cranberry; used in baked goods.
392. 2-METHYLBUTYRALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in beef, apple, cheddar cheese, coffee, cranberry, eggs, fish, lettuce, olive, onion, peas, tomato; used in gelatin pudding.
393. 3-METHYLBUTYRALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, bread, tomato, rice, blackberry; used in baked goods.
394. 2-METHYLBUTYRIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, apricot, avocado, beef, beer, blackberry, brandy, butter, cantaloupes, carrots; used in cheese, ice cream, candy.
395. alpha-METHYLCINNAMALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in blackberry, cauliflower, cherry, cocoa, endive, guava, honey, peach; used in candy.
396. METHYLCYCLOPENTENOLONE; FEMA GRAS
found in carambola (starfruit), cheese, tomato; used in breakfast cereals, baked goods, candy.
397. 2-METHYLHEPTANOIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in gardenia flower oil, almonds, cocoa, coffee, soy sauce, onions; used in baked goods, ice cream, candy.
398. 2-METHYLHEXANOIC ACID - FEMA GRAS
found in apple, avocado, banana, barley, beans, beef, beer, blackberry, blue cheese, wheat bread, butter; used in baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings.
399. 3-METHYLPENTANOIC ACID - FEMA GRAS
found in apple, apricot, beer, blackberry, blueberry, wheat bread, romano cheese, chicken; used in baked goods.
400. 4-METHYLPENTANOIC ACID - FEMA GRAS
found in apple, grapes, cocoa, strawberry, tomato; used in condiment relish.
401. 2-METHYLPYRAZINE - FEMA GRAS
found in peppermint oil, tomato, popcorn; used in milk products, baked goods, candy.
402. 5-METHYLQUINOXALINE - FEMA GRAS
found in roasted almonds, coffee; used in frozen dairy, beverages, candy, gelatins.
403. 2-METHYLTETRAHYDROFURAN-3-ONE - FEMA GRAS
found in coffee; used in gravies.
404. (METHYLTHIO)METHYLPYRAZINE (MIXTURE OF ISOMERS); FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods, candy.
405. 3-METHYLTHIOPROPIONALDEHYDE - FEMA GRAS
found in bean, bread, cheese, cocoa bean, roasted nuts, milk, soy sauce, tomato; used in ice cream, ices, baked goods, diary products, fats/oils.
406. METHYL 3-METHYLTHIOPROPIONATE; FEMA GRAS
found in cantaloupe, pineapple; used in candy, baked goods, beverages, syrups.
407. 2-METHYLVALERIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in almond, barley, wheat bread, cocoa, coffee, hazelnut, licorice, malt, peanut, soy sauce, lamb/mutton; used in frozen dairy products, candy.
408. MIMOSA ABSOLUTE AND EXTRACT; FEMA GRAS
found in Mimosa flowers; used in frozen dairy products.
409. MOLASSES EXTRACT AND TINCTURE GRAS
found in refined sugars; common food item.
410. MOUNTAIN MAPLE SOLID EXTRACT; FEMA GRAS
found in mountain maple tree sap; used in baked goods.
411. MULLEIN FLOWER
natural flavor.
412. MYRISTALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, cucumber; used in frozen dairy products, beverages, baked goods, gelatin.
413. MYRISTIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, beef, beer, blackberry, brandy grape, butter, cantaloupe, cashew nuts, cheese (blue, cheddar); used in non-alcoholic beverages, candy, baked goods.
414. MYRRH OIL; FEMA GRAS
found in myrrh; used in alcoholic beverages.
415. beta-NAPTHYL ETHYL ETHER - FEMA GRAS
used in soft candy.
416. NEROL; FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, beer, blackberry, blueberry, brandy grape, cranberry, gin, grape, grapefruit juice, honey, hops, wine; used in frozen dairy products.
417. NEROLI BIGARDE OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in oranges; used in baked goods, candy.
418. NEROLIDOL; FEMA GRAS
found in grapefruit, hops, lime, grapefruit oil; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, candy, baked goods.
419. NONA-2-trans,6-cis-DIENAL - FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, beef, beer, blue cheese, cheddar cheese, brandy plum; used in frozen dairy goods.
420. 2,6-NONADIEN-1-OL;FEMA GRAS
found in cucumber, frozen pea, whole soybean, tomato; used in baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings, gravies.
421. gamma-NONALACTONE; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, wheat bread, capers, cherry, chicken, clam; used in candy, baked goods, ice cream.
422. NONANAL; FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, asparagus, beef, blackberry, wheat bread, cantaloupe, cocoa; used in baked goods.
423. NONANOIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, apricot, artichoke, avocado, banana, beef, beer, wheat bread; used in baked goods, candy, meat products.
424. 2-NONANONE; FEMA GRAS
found in strawberry; used in dairy products, condiments.
425. trans-2-NONEN-1-OL - FEMA GRAS
found in asparagus, brandy grape, cucumber, melon, nectarine, plum, prickly pear, wine; used in baked goods.
426. 2-NONENAL - FEMA GRAS
found in asparagus, carrot, cherry, cucumber, egg, endive, olives, peach, peas, tomato, watermelon; used in meat products.
427. NONYL ACETATE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, beer, cantaloupe, grape, grapefruit juice, honeydew melon, milk, used in frozen dairy products.
428. NUTMEG POWDER AND OIL GRAS FEMA
GRAS found in nutmeg; used in condiments, baked goods.
429. OAK CHIPS EXTRACT AND OIL; FEMA GRAS
found in oak tree wood chips; used in baked goods.
430. OAK MOSS ABSOLUTE; FEMA GRAS
found in essential oil of lichen, oak moss; used in meat products, candy, ice cream.
431. 9,12-OCTADECADIENOIC ACID (48%) AND 9,12,15-OCTADECATRIENOIC ACID (52%); FDA GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in potato, tomato, apple, beer, cheese, country ham; used in preserves, spreads, candy, gelatin and puddings.
432. delta-OCTALACTONE - FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, beef, blackberry, butter, cheese (blue, cheddar, parmesan), cranberry, cream, coconut; used in candy, margarine, baked goods.
433. gamma-OCTALACTONE; FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, asparagus, beef, beer, blackberry, blue cheese, brandy grape, cantaloupe, cherry, chicken, cranberry; used in baked goods, candy, ice cream.
434. OCTANAL; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, apricot, artichoke, avocado, beef, beer, blackberry, brandy, wheat bread, butter; used in frozen dairy products, beverages, baked goods, candy.
435. OCTANOIC ACID GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, beef, blackberry, plum brandy, wheat butter, beer, blue cheese; used in snack foods, baked goods, candy.
436. 1-OCTANOL; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, apricot, blueberry, cantaloupe, celery, cherry, fish, grape, mushroom, pear, peas, strawberry; used in chewing gum, beverages, ice cream, baked goods, candy.
437. 2-OCTANONE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, beef, cheese, coffee, cocoa, milk, peanut, tea, wine; used in baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings, dairy products.
438. 3-OCTEN-2-ONE - FEMA GRAS
found in roasted filbert, mushroom, dried pea, tea; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, baked goods, condiments, candy, dairy products.
439. 1-OCTEN-3-OL; FEMA GRAS
found in mushroom, peppermint, spearmint; used in processed vegetables.
440. 1-OCTEN-3-YL ACETATE; FEMA GRAS
found in asparagus, avocado, beef, wheat bread, cabbage, capers, caviar, butter; used in snack foods.
441. 2-OCTENAL - FEMA GRAS
found in asparagus, beer, banana, beans, blue cheese, butter, cantaloupe, capers, chicken; used in snack foods, baked goods, diary products.
442. OCTYL ISOBUTYRATE; FEMA GRAS
found in hops, plum; used in baked goods, beverages, ice cream, candy.
443. OLEIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, grape, ginger, potato, strawberry, tomato; used in condiment relish, citrus fruit, yeast, sugar beets.
444. OLIBANUM OIL; FEMA GRAS
found in gum resin exudate; used in Non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, candy, baked goods.
445. OPOPONAX OIL AND GUM
found in opoponax, opoponas; natural flavor; used in alcoholic beverages.
446. ORANGE BLOSSOMS WATER, ABSOLUTE AND LEAF ABSOLUTE GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in oranges; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, candy, baked goods.
447. ORANGE OIL AND EXTRACT GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in oranges; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, baked goods, condiments, candy, gelatin and puddings, chewing gum.
448. ORIGANUM OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in origanum flowers; used in soups.
449. ORRIS CONCRETE OIL AND ROOT EXTRACT; FEMA GRAS
found in orris roots; used in gelatin pudding, alcoholic beverages.
450. PALMAROSA OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in geranium; used in baked goods.
451. PALMITIC ACID - FEMA GRAS
found in apple, beer, celery, cheddar cheese, milk, potato, tomato; used in meat products, baked goods.
452. PARSLEY SEED OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in parsley; used in soups.
453. PATCHOULI OIL; FEMA GRAS
found in dried leaves of Pogostemon cablin Benth.; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, baked goods, candy, chewing gum.
454. omega-PENTADECALACTONE; FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods; ice cream, candy.
455. 2,3-PENTANEDIONE; FEMA GRAS
found in nuts, beef, beer, bread, chicken, cocoa, coffee, tomato, yogurt; used in baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings.
456. 2-PENTANONE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple juice, banana, beef, cheese, chicken, grape, ham, honey, peanut; used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, candy, baked goods.
457. 4-PENTENOIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
used in soft candy, beverages, baked goods, margarine.
458. 2-PENTYLPYRIDINE - FEMA GRAS
found in cooked meat, peppers, hazel nut, roasted peanuts; used in candy, baked goods, ice cream.
459. PEPPER OIL, BLACK AND WHITE GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in pepper corns; used in condiments, ice cream, baked goods.
460. PEPPERMINT OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in peppermint; used in chewing gum, meat products, ice cream, baked goods.
461. PERUVIAN (BOIS DE ROSE) OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods, candy, chewing gum.
462. PETITGRAIN ABSOLUTE, MANDARIN OIL AND TERPENELESS OIL; FDA GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in bitter orange tree, leaves, and twigs, oranges; used in baked goods, condiments, candy.
463. alpha-PHELLANDRENE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, gin, hops, mango, nectarine, papaya, paprika, parsley, beans, carrots; used in milk products, baked goods, candy.
464. 2-PHENETHYL ACETATE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, banana, beer, brandy, raspberry, wheat bread, butter, cantaloupe; used in candy, ice cream, baked goods.
465. PHENETHYL ALCOHOL; FEMA GRAS
found in apple juice, banana, beef, beer, blackberry, blueberry, apple, apricot, asparagus; used in chewing gum, ice cream, baked goods.
466. PHENETHYL BUTYRATE; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, banana, apple brandy, grape, strawberry, wine; used in baked goods, candy, ice cream.
467. PHENETHYL CINNAMATE - FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings.
468. PHENETHYL ISOBUTYRATE; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, brandy, grape, olive, rum; used in chewing gum, baked goods, candy.
469. PHENETHYL ISOVALERATE; FEMA GRAS
found in peppermint, spearmint, banana, beer, brandy, grape; used in chewing gum, candy, frozen dairy products.
470. PHENETHYL PHENYLACETATE; FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods, candy, cheese.
471. PHENETHYL SALICYLATE; FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, frozen dairy, baked goods, soft candy, gelatin and puddings.
472. 1-PHENYL-1-PROPANOL; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, chicken broth, grape brandy, cocoa, guava, honey, lamb/mutton, mushroom; used in chewing gum, candy, baked goods.
473. 3-PHENYL-1-PROPANOL; FEMA GRAS
found in cinnamon, honey, tea; used in frozen dairy, baked goods, soft candy, gelatin and puddings, chewing gum.
474. 2-PHENYL-2-BUTENAL - FEMA GRAS
found in beer, chicken, tomato, almonds, asparagus, cocoa, tea, hazelnuts; used in gelatin and puddings, candy, ice cream.
475. 4-PHENYL-3-BUTEN-2-OL; FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, frozen dairy, baked goods, soft candy, gelatin and puddings.
476. 4-PHENYL-3-BUTEN-2-ONE; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, grape brandy, grape, guava, licorice, mango, nushroom, papaya, raspberry, strawberry, whiskey, wine; used in baked goods, candy.
477. PHENYLACETALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in chicken, strawberry; used in baked goods, ice cream, candy.
478. PHENYLACETIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in almond, asparagus, cocoa, coffee, mushroom, peanut, pork, potato chips, sesame seed, tea; used in sweet sauce, baked goods, candy.
479. l-PHENYLALANINE; FEMA GRAS
found in meats, eggs, breads, cereals, milk, cheese, fish, corn, beans, potatoes, asparagus, peas; used in frozen dairy, baked goods, candy, condiments, meat products.
480. 3-PHENYLPROPIONALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, chicken, tomato; used in baked goods, candy, condiments.
481. 3-PHENYLPROPIONIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in beef, beer, blue cheese, grape brandy, wheat bread, broccoli, apricot, artichoke, asparagus, banana, beans; used in baked goods, candy.
482. 3-PHENYLPROPYL ACETATE; FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, baked goods, candy, chewing gum, condiments.
483. 3-PHENYLPROPYL CINNAMATE; FEMA GRAS
found in American storax, Peru balsam; used in non-alcoholic beverages, frozen dairy, baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings.
484. 2-(3-PHENYLPROPYL)TETRAHYDROFURAN; FEMA GRAS
used in baked goods, soft candy, gelatin and puddings, chewing gum.
485. PHOSPHORIC ACID - FEMA GRAS
component of living organisms; used in cheese, baked goods, candy, gelatin and puddings, meat products.
486. PIMENTA LEAF OIL
used in non-alcoholic beverages, ice cream, ices, candy, condiments, chewing gum, meat products.
487. PINE NEEDLE OIL; FEMA GRAS
found in pine tree needles; used in candy, baked goods, ice cream.
488. PINE OIL, SCOTCH; FEMA GRAS
found in pine trees; used in candy, baked goods, non-alcoholic beverages.
489. PINEAPPLE JUICE CONCENTRATE
Found in pineapple; defined as a fruit juice under FDA Standards of Identity.
490. alpha-PINENE; FEMA GRAS
found in apple, blueberry, plum brandy, carrots, celery, cheddar cheese, chicken; used in condiments, candy, meat products.
491. beta-PINENE; FEMA GRAS
found in apricot, plum brandy, butter, cantaloupe, carrots, celery, cheddar cheese, cocoa, cranberry; used in baked goods, candy, meat products.
492. D-PIPERITONE; FEMA GRAS
found in blackberry, celery, raspberry; used in soft candy, baked goods, dairy products.
493. PIPERONAL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in cantaloupe, capers, melon, sherry; used in candy, baked goods.
494. PIPSISSEWA LEAF EXTRACT GRAS FEMA GRAS
used in non-alcoholic beverages, candy.
495. PLUM JUICE
Found in plum.
496. POTASSIUM SORBATE GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in mountain ash berries; used in cheese.
497. l-PROLINE; FEMA GRAS
essential amino acid, found in proteins, plants and animals; used in breakfast cereals, baked goods.
498. PROPENYLGUAETHOL; FEMA GRAS
used in sweet sauce, baked goods, candy.
499. PROPIONIC ACID GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in apple, apple juice, beef, beer, blueberry juice, bread, cheese, coffee, grape juice, maple syrup, orange juice, raspberry, rum; used in fruit, candy, gelatin and puddings, dairy products.
500. PROPYL ACETATE; FEMA GRAS
found in banana, grape, apple juice, beer, wheat bread, cantaloupe, capers, cocoa, guava, honey, fig, honeydew melon, heated corn oil; used in beverages, ice cream, baked goods.
501. PROPYL para-HYDROXYBENZOATE; FEMA GRAS
found in licorice; used in processed vegetables.
502. PROPYLENE GLYCOL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in sesame seed, mushroom ; used in confection frostings, cheese, candy.
503. 3-PROPYLIDENEPHTHALIDE; FEMA GRAS
found in lovage; used in frozen dairy products, baked goods, candy.
504. PRUNE JUICE AND CONCENTRATE
Common food item.
505. PYRIDINE; FEMA GRAS
found in bean, bread, cheese, cocoa, coffee, fish, onion, peanut and pecan, popcorn, potato, rum, tea, tomato; used in ice cream, baked goods, condiments, meat products.
506. PYROLIGNEOUS ACID AND EXTRACT; FEMA GRAS
found in Birch tree; used in alcoholic beverages, baked goods, meat products.
507. PYRROLE - FEMA GRAS
found in wheat bread, beer, beef, chicken, steamed clams, cocoa, coffee; used in meat products, candy, baked goods.
508. PYRUVIC ACID; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, wheat bread, celery, asparagus, milk, onion, Sake; used in frozen dairy, products, baked goods, candy.
509. RAISIN JUICE CONCENTRATE
common food item; found in raisin; used in baked goods.
510. RHODINOL; FEMA GRAS
found in geranium flowers; used in chewing gum, baked goods, ice cream.
511. ROSE ABSOLUTE AND OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in roses; used in chewing gum, ice cream, baked goods.
512. ROSEMARY OIL GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in rosemary; used in condiments, meat products, baked goods.
513. RUM.
Alcoholic beverages; natural flavor.
514. RUM ETHER; FEMA GRAS
found in rum; used in non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, frozen dairy, baked goods, candy.
515. RYE EXTRACT
found in rye; common food item.
516. SAGE, SAGE OIL, AND SAGE OLEORESIN GRAS FEMA GRAS
found in sage; used in baked goods, condiments, meat products.
517. SALICYLALDEHYDE; FEMA GRAS
found in beer, butter, chicken, coffee, cranberry, grape, potato, rum, sherry, tea, tomato, whiskey; used in baked goods, condiments, candy.
518. SANDALWOOD OIL, YELLOW; FEMA GRAS
found in sandalwood; used in candy, baked goods, ice cream.
519. SCLAREOLIDE - FEMA GRAS
found in clary sage; used in milk products, baked goods, candy, meat products, breakfast cereals.
520. SKATOLE; FEMA GRAS
found in cheese, egg, fish, tea; used in frozen dairy, soft candy, gelatin and puddings, baked goods.
521. SMOKE FLAVOR
Found in hickory-wood smoke distillate; used in baked goods, cheese, meats.
522. SNAKEROOT OIL; FEMA GRAS
found in wild ginger; used in beverages, ice cream, candy, condiments.
523. SODIUM ACETATE GRAS FEMA |
retaliation rose from all political quarters.
At Trepashkin's request, our first meeting took place at a crowded coffee shop in central Moscow. One of his aides showed up first, and then twenty minutes later Trepashkin arrived in the company of his bodyguard of sorts, a muscular young man with a crewcut and an opaque stare.
Trepashkin, while short, was powerfully built—a testament to his lifelong practice of a variety of martial arts—and still very handsome at 51. His most arresting feature, though, was a perpetual amused grin. It gave him an aura of instant likability, friendliness, although I could imagine that anyone who sat across an interrogation table from him back in his KGB days might have found it unnerving.
For a few minutes, we chatted about everyday things—the unusually cold weather in Moscow just then, the changes I'd noticed since my last visit—and I sensed Trepashkin was trying to figure me out, deciding how much to say.
Then he began to tell me about his career at the KGB. He'd spent most of his years as a criminal investigator who specialized in antiques smuggling. He was, in those days, an absolute loyalist to the Soviet state—and most especially the KGB. Trepashkin was such a dedicated Soviet that he even supported a group that attempted to thwart the ascent of Boris Yeltsin in favor of preserving the Soviet system.
"I could see that this was going to be the end of the Soviet Union," Trepashkin explained in the coffee shop. "But even more than that, what would happen to the KGB, to all of us who had made it our lives? I saw only disaster coming."
And that disaster came. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia plunged into economic and social chaos. One particularly destructive aspect of that chaos stemmed from the vast legions of Russian KGB officers who suddenly entered the private sector. Some went into business for themselves or joined on with the mafiyas they had once been detailed to combat. Still others signed on as "advisers" or muscle for the new oligarchs or the old Communist Party bosses who were frantically grabbing up anything of value in Russia, even as they paid obeisance to the "democratic reforms" of President Boris Yeltsin.
Of all this, Trepashkin had an intimate view. Kept on with the FSB, the Russian successor to the KGB, the investigator found it increasingly difficult to differentiate criminality from governmental policy.
"In case after case," he said, "there was this blending. You would find mafiyas working with terrorist groups, but then the trail would lead to a business group or maybe to a state ministry. So then, was this still a criminal case, or some kind of officially sanctioned black operation? And just what did 'officially sanctioned' actually mean anymore, because who was really in charge?"
Finally, in the summer of 1995, Mikhail Trepashkin began work on a case that would change him forever, one that placed him on a collision course with the senior most commanders of the FSB and, Trepashkin says, would lead at least one of them to plot his assassination. As with so many other incidents that exposed the malevolent rot in post-Soviet Russia, this one centered on events in the breakaway southern republic of Chechnya.
By December 1995, rebels fighting for the independence of Chechnya had fought the Russian army to a bloody and humiliating stalemate after a full year of war. The Chechens' success was not as simple as mere force of arms, however. Even during the Soviet era, Chechen mafiyas had controlled much of the Russian criminal underworld, so when Russian society itself became criminalized it played beautifully to the Chechen rebels' advantage. For their steady supply of sophisticated weapons with which to fight the Russian army, the rebels often had only to turn to corrupt Russian army officers who had access to such weaponry, with the funds for such "purchases" supplied by the Chechen crime syndicates operating throughout the nation.
Just how high up did this cozy arrangement go? Mikhail Trepashkin got his answer on the night of December 1, when a team of FSB officers stormed a Moscow branch of Bank Soldi with guns drawn.
The raid that night was the culmination of an elaborate sting operation, one that Trepashkin had helped supervise, designed to finally bring down a notorious bank-extortion team linked to a Chechen rebel leader named Salman Raduyev. It was a huge success: Caught up in the Soldi dragnet were some two dozen conspirators, including two FSB officers and a Russian-military general.
"I thought that if the president knew what was happening," Trepashkin said, "then he would do something about it. This was a mistake on my part."
But inside the bank, the FSB men found something else. To ensure they weren't walking into a trap, the conspirators had planted electronic bugs throughout the building, and those were linked to an eavesdropping van parked outside. While their precautions obviously needed some fine-tuning, it begged the question of how the gang got their hands on bugging equipment.
"All these sorts of devices have serial numbers," Trepashkin explained in the Moscow coffee shop, "and so we traced the numbers back. We discovered that it had all come from either the FSB or the Ministry of Defense."
The implication of this was staggering, for access to such equipment was severely restricted. It suggested that high-ranking security and military officers had colluded not only with a criminal gang but with one whose express purpose was to raise funds for a war against Russia. By the standards of any country, that wasn't just corruption, it was treason.
Yet no sooner had Trepashkin started down that investigative trail than he was removed from the Bank Soldi case by Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the FSB's internal-security department. What's more, he says, no charges were brought against any of the Russian officers implicated, and nearly all of those caught in the initial dragnet were soon quietly released. Instead, Patrushev ordered an investigation of Trepashkin. That investigation lasted nearly two years, at the end of which Trepashkin had reached his personal breaking point. In May 1997, he wrote an open letter to President Yeltsin detailing his involvement in the case and charging much of the senior FSB leadership with a host of crimes, including forming alliances with mafiyas and even recruiting their members into FSB ranks.
"I thought that if the president knew what was happening," Trepashkin said, "then he would do something about it. This was a mistake on my part."
Indeed. Boris Yeltsin, it turned out, was fabulously corrupt himself, and the letter alerted the FSB that they now had a serious malcontent on their hands. The very next month, Trepashkin resigned from the FSB, burn out, he says, but the harassment he'd been subjected to. But that didn't mean Trepashkin was going to go quietly into the night. That summer he brought a lawsuit against the FSB leadership and began filing complaints that extended all the way to the FSB director himself. It was as if, even at this late date, the investigator imagined that the honor of the Kontora (Bureau) could still be redeemed, that some as yet invisible reformer might step forward. Instead, his persistence apparently convinced some senior FSB officials that it was time for a permanent solution to their Trepashkin problem. One of the first people they turned to was Alexander Litvinenko.
On paper, Litvinenko looked just the man for the job. Having just returned to Moscow from a stint on the brutal Chechen battlefield as a counterterrorism operative, he had been transferred into a new and highly secretive of the FSB called the Office for the Analysis of Criminal Organizations, or URPO. While Litvinenko didn't know it at the time, it seemed the URPO had been formed to serve as a death squad. As reported in the book Death of a Dissident, by Alex Goldfarb and Litvinenko's widow, Marina, Litvinenko learned of this when he was summoned by the URPO commander in October 1997. "There is this guy, Mikhail Trepashkin," the commander allegedly told Litvinenko. "He is your new object. Go get his file and make yourself familiar with it."
When he did, Litvinenko learned of the criminal investigator's involvement with the Bank Solid case, as well as his lawsuit against the FSB leadership; it left him puzzled as to just what he was supposed to do with Trepashkin.
"Well, it's a delicate situation," Litvinenko quoted his commander as saying. "You know, he is taking the director to court and giving interviews. We should shut him up, director's personal request."
Shortly after, Litvinenko claimed his target list expanded to include Boris Berezovsky, an oligarch and Kremlin insider whom apparently someone powerful now wanted dead. Litvinenko stalled for a time, making continual excuses for his inability to carry out the assassination orders.
According to Trepashkin, at least two attempts were made on his life during this period: a failed ambush on a deserted stretch of Moscow highway, and a rooftop sniper who couldn't get off a clean shot. On other occasions, he says, he was tipped off by friends still in the Kontora.
In November, the alleged FSB plot against Trepashkin and Berezovsky was exposed in dramatic fashion when Litvinenko and four of his URPO colleagues appeared at a Moscow news conference to detail the kill orders they'd been given. Also in attendance was Mikhail Trepashkin.
And there, somewhat anticlimactically, the matter seemed to end. Litvinenko, the ringleader of the dissident officers, was summarily dismissed but otherwise suffered no immediate retribution. As for Trepashkin, after improbably winning his lawsuit against the FSB, he married for a second time and settled into his new job with the Russian tax police, determined, he says, to quietly serve out his term until he was eligible for retirement.
But then, in September 1999, the apartment-building bombings would shake Russia's political foundations to their core. Those attacks would also propel Trepashkin and Litvinenko back into the shadow world, this time with a common purpose.
Amid the near hysteria that gripped Moscow after the Guryanova Street bombing, early on the morning of September 13, 1999, authorities were called to check on reports of suspicious activity at an apartment building on the city's southern outskirts. Finding nothing untoward, security personnel completed their search of 6/3 Kashirskoye at about 2 A.M. and left. At 5:03 A.M., the nine-story building was collapsed by a massive bomb, leaving 121 civilians dead.
Three days later, the target was an apartment building in Volgodonsk, a city south of Moscow. This time it was a truck bomb, and it left another seventeen dead.
In the Moscow coffee shop, Trepashkin grew uncharacteristically somber, staring into the distance for a long moment.
"It just seemed incredible," he said finally. "That was my first thought. The country is in an uproar, vigilantes are stopping strangers on the streets, there are police roadblocks everywhere. So how is it possible that these bombers are moving about so freely, that they have all this time to set up and carry out these sophisticated bombings? It seemed impossible."
Another aspect that Trepashkin had a problem with was the question of motive.
"Usually, this is quite easy to find," he explained, "it is money or hatred or jealousy, but for these bombings, what was the Chechens' motive? Very few people thought about this."
On one level, this was perhaps understandable. Antipathy for Chechens is deeply ingrained into Russian society, and it had grown much worse during their secessionist war in the '90s. Unspeakable atrocities were committed by both sides in that conflict, and the Chechen rebels had shown no compunction against taking their fight into Russia proper or targeting civilians. Except that war had ended in 1997, with Boris Yeltsin signing a peace agreement recognizing Chechnya's autonomy.
"So why?" Trepashkin continued. "Why would the Chechens want to provoke the Russian government when they already had everything they had fought for?"
And there was something else that gave the former criminal investigator pause: the composition of the new Russian government.
In early August 1999, just weeks before the first bombing on Buynaksk, President Yeltsin had appointed his third prime minister in less than three months. He was a slight, humorless main, virtually unknown to the Russian public, named Vladimir Putin.
The chief reason he was so little known was that, until a few years earlier, Putin had been just one more midlevel KGB/FSB officer toiling away in obscurity. In 1996, Putin was given a position in the presidential-property-management department, a crucial office in the Yeltsin patronage machine that gave Putin leverage to grant or withhold favors to Kremlin insiders. He apparently put his time there to good use; over the next three years, Putin was promoted to deputy chief of the presidential staff, then to director of the FSB, and now to prime minister.
But though Putin was still obscure to the general public in September 1999, Mikhail Trepashkin already had a pretty good sense of the man. Putin had been the FSB director at the time the URPO scandal went public and had personally dismissed Alexander Litvinenko for provoking it. "I fired Litvinenko," he had told a reporter, "because FSB officers shouldn't hold press conferences... and they shouldn't make internal scandals public."
There the matter may well have ended, except that same night two of the suspects in Ryazan were apprehended. To the local authorities' astonishment, both produced FSB identification cards.
But equally alarming to Trepashkin was who had been chosen to be Putin's successor as FSB director, Nikolai Patrushev. As head of the FSB internal-security department, it was Patrushev who had removed Trepashkin from the Bank Soldi case and who was now among those government officials most vehemently claiming a Chechen connection to the apartment-building bombings.
"So what you saw was this dynamic building," Trepashkin said, "and it was the government promoting it. 'The Chechens are behind this, so now we must take care of the Chechens.'"
But then something very strange happened. It happened in the sleepy provincial city of Ryazan, some 120 miles southeast of Moscow.
Amid the state of hypervigilance that had seized the nation, several residents of 14/16 Novosyolov Street in Ryazan took notice when a white Zhiguli sedan pulled up to park beside their apartment building on the evening of September 22. They became downright panicked when they observed two men removing several large sacks from the car's trunk and carrying them into the basement before speeding away. Residents called the police.
Discovered in the basement were three 110-pound white sacks wired to a detonator and explosive timer. As police quickly evacuated the building, the local FSB explosives expert was called in to defuse the detonator; he determined that the sacks contained RDX, a explosive powerful enough to have brought the entire apartment building down. In the meantime, roadblocks were established on all roads out of Ryazan, and a massive manhunt for the Zhiguli and its occupants got underway.
By the following afternoon, word of the incident in Ryazan had spread across Russia. Prime Minister Putin congratulated the residents on their vigilance, while the interior minister lauded recent improvements by the security forces, "such as the foiling of the attempt to blowup the apartment building in Ryazan."
There the matter may well have ended, except that same night two of the suspects in Ryazan were apprehended. To the local authorities' astonishment, both produced FSB identification cards. A short time later, a call came down from FSB headquarters in Moscow that the two were to be released.
The following morning, FSB director Patrushev appeared on television to report a wholly new version of events in Ryazan. Rather than an aborted terrorist attack, he explained, the incident at 14/16 Novosyolov Street had actually been an FSB "training exercise" to test the public's alertness. Further, he said, the sacks in the basement had contained not explosives, but rather common household sugar.
Contradictions in the FSB's account were manifold. How to reconcile FSB headquarters' sacks-of-sugar claim with the local FSB's chemical analysis that had found RDX? If this truly had been a training exercise, how was it that the local FSB branch wasn't informed ahead of time, or that Patrushev himself didn't see fit to make mention of it for a day and a half after the terrorist alert was raised? For that matter, why did the apartment-building-bombing spree suddenly stop after Ryazan? If the attacks were truly the handiwork of Chechen terrorists, surely the public-relations black eye the FSB had received over the Ryazan affair would spur them to carry out more.
But the time for such questions had already passed. Even as Prime Minister Putin gave his speech on the night of September 23 praising the residents of Ryazan for their vigilance, Russian warplanes began launching massive air strikes on Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Within a few more days, Russian armored battalions that had been massed on the border for months crossed into Chechnya, marking the start of the Second Chechen War.
Events moved very quickly after that. On New Year's Eve 1999, Boris Yeltsin stunned the nation by announcing that he was stepping down from the presidency effective immediately, which made Vladimir Putin acting president until new elections could be held. And instead of holding them sometime in the summer, as originally scheduled, those elections would now occur in just ten weeks' time, leaving Putin's many competitors for the position little time to prepare.
In a presidential poll taken in August 1999, Putin had garnered less than 2 percent support. By March 2000, however, riding a wave of popularity for his total-war policy in Chechnya, he swept into office with 53 percent of the vote. The reign of Vladimir Putin had begun, and Russia would never be the same.
For our next meeting, Trepashkin invited me into his apartment. I was a bit surprised by this—I'd been told that, for security reasons, Trepashkin rarely brought visitors to his home—but I guess he figured all his enemies knew where he lived, anyway.
It was a pleasant enough place, if a bit on the spartan side, on the ground floor of a high-rise tower surrounded by other high-rise towers in southern Moscow. Trepashkin gave me a quick tour, and I noticed that the only space with even a hint of clutter was the tiny, paper-filled room—a converted walk-in closet, really—he used as his office. One of his daughters was home, and she brought us tea as we settled in the sitting room.
With a vaguely embarrassed smile, Trepashkin offered that there was actually another reason he rarely had work-related meetings at his home: his wife. "She wants me to stop all this political stuff, but since she is away this morning..." His smile eased away. "Well, it's because of the raids. You know, they came charging in here"—he waved toward the front door—"with their guns, shouting orders; the children were terrified. It really affected my wife, and she is always worried it will happen again."
The first of those raids had occurred in January 2002. Late one night, a squad of FSB agents burst in and proceeded to take the apartment apart. Trepashkin maintains they found nothing but instead planted enough evidence—some classified documents from the FSB archives, a handful of bullets—to enable prosecutors to hang three "pending" charges over his head.
"It was their way of putting me on notice," he explained. "Of letting me know they would come after me if I didn't straighten up."
Trepashkin had a good idea of what had sparked the FSB's attention: Just days before the raid, he had started getting telephone calls from the man regarded by the Putin regime as one of Russia's greatest traitors, Alexander Litvinenko.
Lieutenant Colonel Litvinenko's fall from grace had been swift. After his 1998 press conference alleging the URPO assassination plots, he'd spent nine months in prison on an "abuse of authority" charge and had then fled Russia as prosecutors prepared to move against him again. With the help of the now exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, Litvinenko and his family settled in England, where he joined forces with Berezovsky to expose to the world what they claimed were the crimes of the Putin regime. A primary focus of that campaign was getting to the truth of the apartment-building bombings.
"So this is why he was calling," Trepashkin explained. "Litvinenko couldn't come back to Russia, obviously, so they needed someone here to help with the investigation."
Easier said than done, for by January 2002, Russia had become a very different place. In the two years since Putin had been elected president, the once-thriving independent media had all but disappeared, while the political opposition was being steadily marginalized to the point of insignificance.
Whereas, for example, the Americans had spent six months sifting through the remnants of the World Trade Center after September 11, regarding it as an active crime scene, Russian authorities had razed 19 Guryanova street just days after the blast and hauled everything away to a municipal dump.
One indication of this chilling effect was the revisions performed on the shakiest aspect of the government's bombing story, the FSB "training exercise" in Ryazan. By 2002 the Ryazan FSB commander who had overseen the manhunt for "the terrorists" now supported the training-exercise explanation. The local FSB explosives expert who had insisted before television cameras that the Ryazan sacks contained explosives suddenly went silent on the whole matter and disappeared from sight. Even some of the residents of 14/16 Novosyolov Street who had appeared in a television documentary six months after the incident to angrily deride the FSB's account and insist the bomb was real now refused to talk with anyone beyond allowing that perhaps they'd been mistaken after all.
"I told Litvinenko that the only way I could become involved was in some kind of official capacity," Trepashkin explained in his sitting room. "If I just went out on my own, the authorities would move against me immediately."
That official capacity was fashioned at a meeting held in Boris Berezovsky's London office in early March 2002. one of those in attendance, a Russian member of Parliament named Sergei Yushenkov, would organize a blue-ribbon committee of inquiry into the bombings and make Trepashkin one of his investigators. Another attendee was Tatiana Morozova, a 31-year-old Russian émigré living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Morozova's mother had been killed in the Guryanova Street blast, and under Russian law that gave her the right to review the government's records on the case; since Trepashkin had recently obtained his license to practice law, Morozova would appoint him as her attorney and petition the courts for access to the FSB's Guryanova Street files.
"So I agreed to both of these ideas," Trepashkin said, "but the question was where to look first. So many of the reports were unreliable, and so many people had changed their stories, that my first goal was to get access to the actual forensic evidence."
Also easier said than done, for a hallmark of the government's response to the bombings had been a peculiar haste in clearing away the ruins. Whereas, for example, the Americans had spent six months sifting through the remnants of the World Trade Center after September 11, regarding it as an active crime scene, Russian authorities had razed 19 Guryanova street just days after the blast and hauled everything away to a municipal dump. Whatever forensic evidence had been preserved—and it wasn't clear that any had—was presumably locked away in FSB storehouses.
While what he discovered didn't pertain to the specifics of the bombings, Trepashkin did soon manage to come up with something quite interesting.
One of the odder footnotes to the whole affair was a statement that Gennady Seleznyov, the Speaker of the Duma, had made on the floor of Parliament on the morning of September 13, 1999. "I have just received a report," he had announced to legislators. "An apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night."
While Seleznyov got the basics right—an apartment building had indeed just been blown up—he had the wrong city; the blast that morning had been at 6/3 Kashirskoye Highway in Moscow. Which put the Speaker in kind of an awkward spot when an apartment building in Volgodonsk was blown up three days later. At least one Duma member found that puzzling.
"Mr. Speaker, please explain," he had asked Seleznyov on the Parliament floor, "how come you told us on Monday about the blast that occurred on Thursday?"
In lieu of an answer, the questioner had his microphone quickly cut off.
To many observers, it suggested that someone in the FSB chain of command had screwed up the order in which the bombings were to take place and had given the "news" to Seleznyov in reverse.
Searching around nearly three years after the fact, Trepashkin says he determined that Seleznyov had been given the erroneous report by an FSB officer, though he won't say how he knows.
But with progress also came the potential for danger to Trepashkin. One of those who had attended the London meeting, human-rights activist and Berezovsky lieutenant Alex Goldfarb, became concerned enough about Trepashkin's welfare that he arranged a meeting with him in Ukraine in early 2003. The two had never met before, and Goldfarb found it an odd encounter.
"He was one of the stranger people I've ever met," Goldfarb recounted. "He had no interest in the philosophical or political implications of what he was doing. To him, this was all just a criminal case. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, 'Is this guy crazy? Doesn't he appreciate what he's up against?' but I finally concluded he was this kind of supercop—you know, a Serpico figure. He was determined to do the right thing because it was the right thing to do; it was just that simple." Still, Goldfarb felt it his duty to at least alert Trepashkin to the deepening peril, the very little that could be done if the authorities decided to go after him. The more he pressed on this, though, the more Trepashkin seemed to bristle.
"He didn't care about any of that," Goldfarb remembered. "I think he still believed he was fighting to reform the system, rather than that he was up against the system itself."
But as it turned out, the hammer first fell elsewhere. In April 2003, Sergei Yushenkov, the Duma member who had hired Trepashkin for his committee of inquiry, was murdered in front of his Moscow home, shot down in broad daylight. Three months later, another committee member died under mysterious circumstances. The two deaths effectively ended the independent inquiry—which also meant that Trepashkin was now essentially on his own. Still, acting as Tatiana Morozova's attorney, he soldiered on—and in July 2003, he finally hit pay dirt. It hinged on another loose end in the case, one that no amount of cleaning up after the fact could quite tie off.
In the hours just before the Guryanova Street bombing, the FSB had released a composite sketch of a suspect based on information provided by a building manager. But soon after and with no explanation, that sketch had been withdrawn and replaced with that of a completely different man. This second man had long since been identified as one Achemez Gochiyayev, a small-time businessman from the region of Cherkessia, who had immediately gone into hiding. In the spring of 2002, Alexander Litvinenko had tracked Gochiyayev to a remote area of Georgia where, through an intermediary, the businessman steadfastly insisted that he had been framed by the FSB and had only run because he was sure they would kill him.
It made Trepashkin very curious to learn the identity of the man in the first sketch, even more so when, going through the voluminous FSB files on Guryanova Street, he discovered there wasn't a copy of it to be found anywhere. As a last resort, he started sifting through newspaper archives to see if any had run that sketch before the FSB had pulled it from circulation. And there it was.
It depicted a square-jawed man in his mid-30s, with dark hair and glasses. Trepashkin was convinced he knew the man, that in fact he had arrested him eight years before. He believed it was a sketch of Vladimir Romanovich, the FSB agent who had manned the electronic-surveillance van for the Raduyev gang during the robbery of Bank Soldi.
Trepashkin's first thought was to find Romanovich and try to compel him to reveal his role in the apartment bombings. Not likely. As far as Trepashkin could determine, shortly after the bombings, Romanovich had left Russia for Cyprus and died there in the summer of 2000, killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Trepashkin then tracked down the original source of the sketch, the Guryanova Street building manager.
"I showed him the sketch of Romanovich," Trepashkin said in his sitting room. "And he told me that was the accurate one, the one he had given to the police. But then they had taken him to Lubyakna [FSB headquarters], where they showed him the Gochiyayev sketch and insisted that was the man he saw."
With his bombshell, Trepashkin planned a little surprise for the authorities. The FSB had long since released the names of nine men they claimed were responsible for the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings. Ironically, considering that the bombings had been the chief pretext for embarking on the Second Chechen War, none of these suspects were Chechen. By the summer of 2003, five of those men were reportedly dead, and two others remained at large, but the trial for the two in custody was slated to begin that October. As attorney for Tatiana Morozova, Trepashkin intended to attend the trial and introduce the Romanovich sketch as evidence for the defense.
He took an added precaution. Shortly before the trial's start, he met with Igor Korolkov, a journalist with the independent magazine Moskovskiye Novosti, and described the Romanovich connection in detail.
"He said, 'If they get me, at least everyone will know why,'" Korolkov explained. "He was apprehensive, tense, because I think he already knew they were coming for him."
Sure enough, shortly after meeting with Korolkov, Trepashkin was picked up by authorities. While he was being held, the FSB conducted another raid on his apartment, this one involving a whole busload of agents.
"I understand it was very exciting for the neighbors," Trepashkin said with a laugh, "the biggest thing to happen around here in a long time."
They brought him up on an old FSB standby—possession of an unlicensed gun—but the judge, apparently familiar with that tired cliché, immediately dismissed the charge. Prosecutors then turned to the charges they still had pending on Trepashkin from the raid two years earlier and the classified he maintains were planted. It wasn't much, but it was enough; tried in a closed court, Trepashkin received a four-year sentence for "improper handling of classified material" and was shipped off to a prison camp in the Ural Mountains.
In his absence, the two men tried for the apartment bombings were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Declaring the matter officially closed, the government then ordered all FSB investigative files on the case to be sealed for the next seventy-five years.
My last question to Mikhail Trepashkin was something of a throwaway.
We were standing on the sidewalk outside his apartment building, and I asked him if, in looking over the trajectory of his life for the past fifteen years, he would have done things any differently.
It was a throwaway because people in Trepashkin's position, those who have waged battle against power and been crushed, almost invariably say no: In the pursuit of justice or liberty or a better society, they explain, they'd do it all again and in just the same way. It's what such people tell themselves to give their suffering meaning.
Instead, Trepashkin gave a quick laugh, his face creasing into his trademark grin.
"Yes," he said, "I would have done things very differently. I see now that one of my flaws is that I am too trusting. I always thought the problems were with just a few bad people, not with the system itself. Even when I was in prison, I never believed that Putin could actually be behind it. I always believed that once he knew, I would be released immediately." Trepashkin's grin eased away; he gave a slow shrug of his powerful shoulders. "So a certain naïveté, I guess, that led to mistakes."
I wasn't wholly convinced of this. More than naïveté, I suspected his "flaw" was actually rooted in a kind of old-fashioned—if not downright medieval—sense of loyalty. At our first meeting, Trepashkin had given me a copy of his official résumé, a document that ran to sixteen pages, and the first thing that struck me was the prominence he'd given to the many awards and commendations he had received over his lifetime of service to the state: as a navy specialist, as a KGB officer, as an FSB investigator. As bizarre or as quaint as it might seem, he was still a true believer. How else to explain the years he had spent being the dutiful investigator, meticulously building cases against organized-crime syndicates or corrupt government officials, while stubbornly refusing to accept that, in the new Russia, it was the thieves themselves who ran the show?
Of course, it was also this abiding sense of loyalty that rather paralyzed Trepashkin and prevented him from learning from his past "mistakes," from living his life any differently in order to get out of harm's way. For that matter, even the change of venue of our meeting from his apartment to the sidewalk outside was kind of a testament to Trepashkin's obduracy; his wife, returning home earlier than expected, had been so incensed at finding him meeting with a Western journalist that she'd promptly kicked both of us out of the house.
"Well, what can you do?" Trepashkin had whispered as we'd fled, as if he really had no control over the matter.
But perhaps his wife's edginess that day—September 25—was rooted in something else. That afternoon, Trepashkin was headed downtown to meet with a handful of his supporters, and then at 6 P.M. they would hold a demonstration in Pushkin Square to demand a new investigation into the bombings. "You should come by," he said with his usual grin. "It could be interesting."
In the five years since Trepashkin had first gone off to prison, there'd been a lot of changes in Russia—but none of them particularly auspicious for a man like him. In March 2004, Vladimir Putin had been reelected with 71 percent of the vote, and he'd use the mandate to even more forcefully restrict political and press freedoms. In October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, Russia's leading investigative journalist and someone who had written extensively on the murky connections between the FSB and Chechen "terrorists," had been shot to death in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. The following month, it had been Alexander Litvinenko's turn to be eliminated.
Trepashkin may also be propelling himself ever closer to the answers that will destroy him. So long as those behind the bombings are confident that they have won or that they have at least sufficiently buried the past, he remains relatively safe.
But perhaps most dispiriting, it appeared the Russian public saw very little cause for worry in all this. Instead, with their economy booming on a flood of petrodollars, most seemed rather pleased with Putin's tough-guy image and his increasingly belligerent posture to the outside world, the whiff of superpower redux it conveyed. This image was fittingly captured in May 2008 when Putin, constitutionally barred from a third term as president (although he remained on as prime minister), officially handed the reins of state over to his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev. For the occasion, the two men donned matching black jackets with Medvedev in jeans, looking less like co-heads of state than a pair of gangsters as they strutted about Red Square. Even Russia's ferocious intervention in Georgia in August 2008, an act roundly denounced in the West, spawned a new burst of Russian national pride, a new spike in Putin's popularity.
Perhaps not surprising, then, the rally in Pushkin Square was a rather pitiful showing. Other than Trepashkin and his closest aides, perhaps thirty demonstrators showed up. Many of them were elderly people who had lost relatives in the bombings, and they stood mutely on the sidewalk holding up posters or faded photographs of their dead. The small band was watched over by eight uniformed policemen—and presumably a number of others in plainclothes—but it seemed quite unnecessary. Of the vast throngs passing on the sidewalk at rush hour, very few gave the protestors a second glance, and fewer still took the leaflet proffered them.
Watching Trepashkin that evening, it seemed there might be another way to understand why someone like him was still alive while people like LItvinenko and Politkovskaya were dead. Part of it, no doubt, is that Trepashkin has always shied away from pointing an accusatory finger directly at Putin or anyone else in connection with the apartment bombings. This fits with his criminal investigator's mind-set: that you only make accusations based on facts, on what is knowable and certain.
But surely another part of it is his single-minded focus on getting to the bottom of the apartment bombings, his bringing the same level of |
Canada’s three coasts.
The report found that for species with diminishing populations, the average loss was 83% of their population. “That’s a really striking number,” said Snider.
The report – billed by the conservation group as the most comprehensive synthesis of Canadian wildlife population trends to date – was compiled using more than 400 sources of data on species population.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Beluga whales swim in Arctic waters. Despite being listed as threatened, their habitats was not legally protected until 2016. Photograph: Andrey Nekasov/Ecoscene/Barcroft
Scientists looked at more than 3,700 populations of vertebrates, including 106 specials of mammals, hundreds of fish and bird species and dozens of 46 amphibians and reptiles, during a period that stretched from 1970 to 2014.
Wide gaps remain in regions such as the Arctic, where a lack of historical information prevented researchers from drawing conclusive results. It’s a critical omission, said Snider.
“Climate change is being witnessed in the Arctic at a rate really not seen elsewhere in the world. We need to be effectively monitoring today the status of wildlife populations so that we can understand the impacts of climate change on a lot of really unique and important species in the Canadian north.”
Climate change is being witnessed in the Arctic at a rate really not seen elsewhere in the world
Of the 903 monitored species – representing about half of the known vertebrates in Canada – 407 species showed an increase in population, while 45 remained stable.
Success stories included the once struggling raptors – such as Cooper’s hawks and peregrine falcons – whose species have seen their numbers swell an average of 88% in recent decades, thanks to the reduced use and outright bans of pesticides such as DDT. Their rebound hints at the turnaround that is possible, said Snider. “So when we as society decide to take action and elevate the concern of wildlife, we are able to make real change.”
Researchers, however, found that federal legislation – one of the country’s primary tools aimed at protecting wildlife at risk – had failed to stem the decline of many species. The report looked at 64 species protected by federal legislation and found their populations diminished by an average of 2.7% per year since 2002, when federal legislation was adopted to protect species at risk, as compared to an annual decline of 1.7% between 1970 and 2002.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A peregrine falcon in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. With its rebounding population, the bird is one of Canada’s success stories. Photograph: Mircea Costina / Rex Features
“According to researchers, the federal Species at Risk Act (Sara) has faltered in its mission to protect Canada’s most beleaguered wildlife,” the report noted.
A number of peer-reviewed journal articles have documented shortcomings in the federal government’s efforts to curb the loss of wildlife, from delays in recognising critical habitat to the years-long process of creating recovery strategies.
Why do endangered right whales keep dying off the coast of Canada? Read more
Snider pointed to the beluga whale population in the St Lawrence estuary off Quebec as a potent example of these issues. After the population was listed as threatened in 2005, the creation of a recovery strategy dragged on for seven years.
It took until 2016 for the beluga’s habitat to be legally protected – more than a decade after the species was initially listed as threatened. The delays were not without consequence, as this year saw the status of the St Lawrence beluga upgraded to endangered.
“This is a clear message that we need to be doing more to prevent the decline of wildlife,” said Snider. “If the rate of decline of wildlife continues as it is today, I do think we face the risk of beginning to lose species from Canada.”The National Enquirer's publishing company paid a Playboy model $150,000 for her story about having an affair with Donald Trump - but never ran it, sources have said.
Karen McDougal, the 1998 Playmate of the year, claimed she had a consensual relationship with Trump over several months beginning in 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
But the National Enquirer didn't publish anything about McDougal's allegations, despite paying six figures for the information, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
Trump married Melania, his third wife, in January 2005.
Playboy model Karen McDougal (pictured) claimed she had a consensual relationship with Donald Trump over several months beginning in 2006, sources told the Wall Street Journal
McDougal and American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, agreed to the transaction in early August, the Wall Street Journal reported.
American Media Inc. said in a statement the $150,000 was payment for exclusive life rights to any story related to a relationship McDougal may have had with a married man - and for fitness columns written by her.
The contract, according to the Wall Street Journal, kept McDougal from disclosing her story on other outlets and established damages of at least $150,000 if she shared her account elsewhere.
But American Media Inc. didn't plan on publishing the story, even though McDougal expected it to run, people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal.
The National Enquirer's publishing company paid McDougal $150,000 for her story about having an affair with Trump (left) while he was married to his wife Melania (right) - but never ran it, sources told the Wall Street Journal.
'AMI has not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr Trump,' the company said in the statement.
The National Enquirer has supported Trump throughout the presidential campaign.
American Media Inc CEO David Pecker told the Wall Street Journal in a statement it was known that he and Trump are friends.
But he used the National Enquirer's coverage of Trump's affair with Marla Maples when he was married to his first wife Ivana was a proof of the publication's independence.
McDougal told several friends that she had a relationship with Trump lasting about 10 months, people familiar with her account said.Even the greatest clubs in the World can play to empty stadiums if they are not marketed or sold the right way to the public. One perfect example of the magic of marketing are the Seattle Sounders. Their fans can tell you day in and day out that they have been following the team since before the USL-Pro days, but the truth of the matter is, the majority of them are lying. The Sounders used to play in front of a couple of thousand people on a good day before joining Major League Soccer. However, as soon as they joined MLS, they were playing in front of tens of thousands and became the team to be imitated off the field. This did not happen by circumstance and was a planned phenomenon. Before the Sounders made the leap to MLS, the club spent thousands of dollars in guerrilla marketing. They hung scarves throughout the city, and planted a simple question into the minds of the public, who are the Sounders? In blunt terms, they marketed themselves as a major league team with history before they even played a single game. This was done with such a great amount of success, that their inaugural season saw average attendance of over 30,000 fans per game. For comparison, the league average that year was closer to 16,000.
On the other side of the spectrum, Chivas USA was the perfect example of a marketing campaign gone bad. The team fought tooth and nail to market itself as two things, an alternative the LA Galaxy, and a club that the Hispanic population should follow. This only caused the team to be labeled as second-tier. They were not seen as a club competing to be on the same level as the Galaxy in their market.
When it came to battling for the Hispanic population, it was competing against every single team in Latin America that had already won the hearts of that population. Many of these fans already had a team to follow in Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina, or elsewhere, and in soccer it is often times seen as sacrilegious to follow two teams. Yet again, Chivas USA was seen as second-tier club by a certain constituency. Even the name itself, “Chivas USA”, labeled it as a spin-off of an already existing team from Mexico, Chivas de Guadalajara. It should come as no surprise that it became the first MLS team of the 2000’s to fold.
Now, you may be asking yourself, how does this affect the Houston Dynamo? Well, the simple answer is that these lessons in marketing should be something every team should keep in mind. Marketing is about to become a huge part of the Houston Dynamo. The club recently hired Amber Cox as the Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. The Vice President title is something set aside for a different article. The chief marketing officer part of the title is more important to this discussion. Amber Cox will have the distinct honor of being the chief marketing officer for not only the Houston Dynamo but also the Houston Dash.
For those of you that may not know, the Dash are the National Women’s Soccer League team that is run by the Houston Dynamo. They both play at BBVA Compass Stadium and train at Houston Sports Park. This is important because Cox will not only have to think of marketing strategies for a single portion of the soccer population in Houston but for two of them. Both teams are facing different issues at the moment.
When it comes to the Dynamo, Cox will have to capitalize on one of the best off-seasons the team has ever recorded. The Houston Dynamo not only made one of the biggest signing in the league by obtaining Erick “Cubo” Torres, but may have finally gotten a player that is capable of reaching the Hispanic population that may have in the past been hesitant in attending Dynamo games. The team has also revamped their coaching staff by getting rid of Dominic Kinnear, the coach they have had since the founding of the club in 2006, and replacing him with Owen Coyle. Coyle has coached multiple teams in the English Premier League, and coaching at such a high level has surrounded him with a buzz before he even partakes in a single training. Cox will have to capitalize on these earthshattering moves while also worrying about finding a channel to broadcast Houston Dynamo games.
Cox may be the right person at the just the right time. During her tenure with the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, she was an important part of team obtaining a jersey sponsorship. This made the team the first in the history of the WNBA to secure such sponsorship. If she can work some of that magic to secure a television home for the Dynamo, and one that actually brings revenue to the club, then her tenure will quickly be on the road to be labeled a success.
On the other side of the spectrum there lies the Houston Dash. The Dash also had an amazing off-season, but sadly due to the way the team has been marketed, the amount of people that have noticed has been quite small. While the Houston Dynamo have averaged home attendance of around 19,000 per game. The Houston Dash, in the same stadium and being run by the same owners, have averaged a less impressive 4,600. While this number is impressive and enough for second best in the NWSL, the fact that the team is using the same facilities and marketing team as a club that’s averaging 19,000 makes it less than stellar.
Sadly, getting these numbers more in line with Dynamo figures is going to be an uphill battle. That is due to in large part with the stigma that women’s sports holds in the United States. Women sports are often times seen as imitations of their male counterparts. There’s a reason why the NBA can fill arenas while the WNBA has teams folding every other season. This is where our heroine Amber Cox comes into play. Cox has previous experience when it comes to marketing a women’s team, and she did it by removing the stigma present within the game itself.
The Phoenis marketing strategy involved getting rid of underlying sexism within the fan base by marketing the team as just another basketball team, instead of a women’s basketball team. Cox ran a marketing campaign that ran the tagline, “Basketball is Basketball”. She forced people into the realization that if they followed men’s basketball, then following women’s basketball is still following the same exact sport. This was met with some success since the average attendance for the Phoenix Mercury has stayed above the average for the league itself. If Amber Cox can run a similar campaign using soccer in Houston, then with some luck, some of those 19,000 fans that attend Dynamo games may start attending Dash games. Since in the end soccer is soccer.
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Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands at r/football.Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found a novel way to engineer key cells of the immune system so they remain resistant to infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
A new study describes the use of a kind of molecular scissors to cut and paste a series of HIV-resistant genes into T cells, specialized immune cells targeted by the AIDS virus. The genome editing was made in a gene that the virus uses to gain entry into the cell. By inactivating a receptor gene and inserting additional anti-HIV genes, the virus was blocked from entering the cells, thus preventing it from destroying the immune system, said Matthew Porteus, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford and a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
“We inactivated one of the receptors that HIV uses to gain entry and added new genes to protect against HIV, so we have multiple layers of protection — what we call stacking,” said Porteus, the study’s principal investigator. “We can use this strategy to make cells that are resistant to both major types of HIV.”
He said the new approach, a form of tailored gene therapy, could ultimately replace drug treatment, in which patients have to take multiple medications daily to keep the virus in check and prevent the potentially fatal infections wrought by AIDS. The work was done in the laboratory, and clinical trials would still be needed to determine whether the approach would work as a therapy.
“Providing an infected person with resistant T cells would not cure their viral infection,” said Sara Sawyer, PhD, assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Texas-Austin and a co-author of the study. “However, it would provide them with a protected set of T cells that would ward off the immune collapse that typically gives rise to AIDS.”
The study will be published in the Jan. 22 issue of Molecular Therapy.
One of the big challenges in treating AIDS is that the virus is notorious for mutating, so patients must be treated with a cocktail of drugs — known as highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART — which hit it at various stages of the replication process. The researchers were able to get around that problem with a new, multi-pronged genetic attack that blocks HIV on several fronts. Essentially, they hope to mimic HAART through genetic manipulation.
The technique hinges on the fact that the virus typically enters T cells by latching onto one of two surface proteins known as CCR5 and CXCR4. Some of the latest drugs now used in treatment work by interfering with these receptors’ activity. A small number of people carry a mutation in CCR5 that makes them naturally resistant to HIV. One AIDS patient with leukemia, now famously known as the Berlin patient, was cured of HIV when he received a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had the resistant CCR5 gene.
Scientists at Sangamo BioSciences in Richmond, Calif., have developed a technique using a protein that recognizes and binds to the CCR5 receptor gene, genetically modifying it to mimic the naturally resistant version. The technique uses a zinc finger nuclease, a protein that can break up pieces of DNA, to effectively inactivate the receptor gene. The company is now testing its CCR5-resistant genes in phase-1 and -2 trials with AIDS patients at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Stanford scientists used a similar approach but with an added twist. They used the same nuclease to zero in on an undamaged section of the CCR5 receptor’s DNA. They created a break in the sequence and, in a feat of genetic editing, pasted in three genes known to confer resistance to HIV, Porteus said. This technique of placing several useful genes at a particular site is known as “stacking.”
Incorporating the three resistant genes helped shield the cells from HIV entry via both the CCR5 and CXCR4 receptors. The disabling of the CCR5 gene by the nuclease, as well as the addition of the anti-HIV genes, created multiple layers of protection.
Blocking HIV infection through both the CCR5 and CXCR4 receptors is important, Porteus said, as it hasn’t been achieved before by genome editing. To test the T cells’ protective abilities, the scientists created versions in which they inserted one, two and all three of the genes and then exposed the T cells to HIV.
Though the T cells with the single- and double-gene modifications were somewhat protected against an onslaught of HIV, the triplets were by far the most resistant to infection. These triplet cells had more than 1,200-fold protection against HIV carrying the CCR5 receptor and more than 1,700-fold protection against those with the CXCR4 receptor, the researchers reported. The T cells that hadn’t been altered succumbed to infection with 25 days.
Porteus said he views the work as an important step forward in developing a gene therapy for HIV.
“I’m very excited about what’s happened already,” he said. “This is a significant improvement in that first-generation application.”
He said a potential drawback of the strategy is that while the nuclease is designed to create a break in one spot, it could possibly cause a break elsewhere, leading to cancer or other cell aberration. He said it’s also possible the cells may not tolerate the genetic change.
“It’s possible the cells won’t like the proteins they’re asked to express, so they won’t grow,” he said.
But he said he believes both problems are technically surmountable. He said the researchers’ next step is to test the strategy in T cells taken from AIDS patients, and then move on to animal testing. He said he hopes to begin clinical trials within three to five years.
Though the method is labor-intensive, requiring a tailored approach for each patient, it would save patients from a lifelong dependence on antiretroviral drugs, which have adverse side effects, Porteus noted.
He said he also hopes to adapt these techniques for use against other diseases, such as sickle cell anemia, one of his areas of interest. Porteus works with patients in the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant service at Packard Children’s.
In addition to Sawyer, he collaborated with Richard Voit, a former Stanford graduate student who is now an MD/PhD candidate at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and Moira McMahon, PhD, a former postdoctoral scholar at Stanford who is now at the University of California-San Diego.Roger Goodell is not a man who likes to admit defeat. Just ask Tom Brady. And yet, the intensely stubborn, wildly unpopular commissioner of the NFL might as well have unfurled a giant white flag and personally run it out of the tunnel when he sent a memo to NFL owners on Tuesday.
The subject was the mass kneeling for the National Anthem protest that many NFL players, coaches, and executives have undertaken, and which President Donald Trump has criticized, mocked, and vilified.
“We believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem. It is an important moment in our game. We want to honor our flag and our country, and our fans expect that of us,” the commissioner wrote.
While Goodell made many nods to the social justice concerns players have voiced, he argued all of those involved in the NFL need to “come together on a path forward” that will “protect the game, and preserve our relationship with fans throughout the country” and that, above all, will “move past this controversy,” pronto.
In the 430-word memo, Goodell mentioned “fans” four times for a reason. The team owners — his bosses — are terrified of losing them. And rightly so. Last year’s slight slump in NFL television ratings is turning into a nosedive this year. Some teams are having a hard time getting enough warm bodies in the bleachers on game day. And among those that show up, a few, like Vice President Mike Pence, are walking out in disgust.
In fact, according to a recent survey by the Winston Group, the controversy has turned pro-football from America’s most popular large sport to its least popular, practically overnight. Its approval rating has fallen from 73 to 42 percent and could fall further.
Approval plummeted among every demographic you could reasonably slice up. Men, women, young, old, middle aged: they all hate the great football kneel-in and are increasingly expressing that pique by exercising their right of exit. Expect the NFL to cobble together a new regulation requiring players to stand at attention to stanch the flow.
Trump’s rout of the NFL on this issue is in many ways the mirror image of his 2016 primary performance, when he caught so many opponents flatfooted. Republicans were badly out of touch with their base. Trump knew it and exploited the gap. And now he’s proven the same was true of the leadership of America’s dominant sport, to their great chagrin.
I write these words not to trumpet Trump or to issue any kind of an I-told-you-so. The results are simply stunning. The results are also an important marketing warning that needs to be made to most businesses and other organizations.
Are you still in touch with your audience, or have you perhaps “evolved” and left your audience behind? You might want to give that question some serious thought and not dismiss it too quickly. I mean, if huge brands like the GOP and the NFL can lose touch with their audience and make strategic blunders this large, any business can.
Patrick Hynes is the President of Hynes Communications. He is a consultant who lives in New Hampshire.Roadshows
"Verheugd kondigen wij vandaag de lancering van onze beursgang aan", zegt bestuursvoorzitter Gerrit Zalm. De bank houdt nog wel een kleine slag om de arm over de eerste dag van notering. Als het beursklimaat bijvoorbeeld omslaat, kan de beursgang alsnog worden uitgesteld.
Het prospectus van de beursgang, de 'folder' die bij de beursgang hoort, is 729 pagina's dik en bevat een uitvoerige doorlichting van de bank, met de risico's en met de prijs van het aandeel. Vanaf vandaag tot en met donderdag 19 november kunnen investeerders en beleggers intekenen op het aandeel.
De bank start vandaag met de roadshows, een soort tournee langs de financiële centra zoals Londen, New York, Frankfurt, Parijs en Amsterdam. Vijf mannen uit de top van de bank, onder wie bestuursvoorzitter Gerrit Zalm en financieel directeur Kees van Dijkhuizen, geven korte presentaties en voeren één-op-één gesprekken met beleggers, pensioenfondsen en investeerders om het aandeel aan de man te brengen.
Klap
Aan de hand van de belangstelling wordt de donderdagavond de definitieve prijs vastgesteld en de aandelen verdeeld. Met een klap op de beursgong gaat de handel op 20 november van start.
De bank wordt niet in een keer naar de beurs gebracht, maar in stukken. Van de 940 miljoen aandelen worden er in eerste instantie 188 miljoen aandelen verkocht. De Staat trekt voor de hele verkoop een tot twee jaar uit. De eerste pluk is 20 procent groot.
De begeleidende banken kunnen echter 15 procent extra aandelen inzetten als er veel vraag is of als de koers moet worden ondersteund. Als dat gebeurt, ligt de opbrengst tussen 3,5 miljard en 4,32 miljard euro.Story highlights Obama called for "common sense gun safety laws" in the wake of the shooting
"We should never think that this is just something that just happens," Obama said
Washington (CNN) President Barack Obama reiterated his call for more gun control reforms to make mass shootings in the U.S. "rare as opposed to normal" in the wake of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
Speaking to CBS News moments after news broke of the shooting, Obama called for "common sense gun safety laws" and urged lawmakers to pass a law to prevent individuals on the "No Fly List" who are barred from boarding commercial flights from legally purchasing firearms.
"We don't yet know what the motives of the shooters are but what we do know is that there are steps we can take to make Americans safer," Obama said in the interview. "We should never think that this is just something that just happens in the ordinary course of events because it doesn't happen with the same frequency in other countries."
Obama said the pattern of U.S. mass shootings "has no parallel anywhere else in the world."
The shooting occurred at the Inland Regional Center, a facility for people with developmental disabilities in San Bernardino, California.
Emergency personnel responded late Wednesday morning to reports of a shooting that killed or injured as more than 20 people, according to law enforcement.
Read MoreToday while casually browsing the internet, I popped onto a small video clip in which a comedian Joe Lycett tells a story of how he got off the parking fine by using British Humour:
Several comments claimed, that “Only Briton could avoid paying parking ticket by being perfectly polite and at the same time ridicule the opponent”. If that’s so, I have to be British. To prove it, I will tell you a little story from my own life as about five years ago I managed to get myself out from even more complicated situation. But let’s start from the beginning:
1. On one summer Saturday afternoon I was moving to a new flat. There was “no parking” lines in front of my new building, but loading was allowed, so I left my car there and started to run up and down the stairs with boxes of my belongings. After last heavy box landed on the floor of my new flat, I really needed a drink, so I started to rummage the boxes looking for a glass or a cup. One thing led to another and when at 2 am I finished unpacking, I went to bed for a well deserved sleep.
2. My building had two entry doors, so it was only Tuesday morning when I used the same doors again and bumped on my car parked right in front of them. “Damn, I forgot to move my car after I emptied it of my boxes, let’s hope I did not get a ticket” – I thought. There was nothig on my windscreen, no letter came to me over next couple of weeks, so I just sighed in relief and forgot about all this.
3. Few months later a strange letter came. Glasgow City Coucil informed me that I haven’t paid some fine and that if I don’t pay it now, I will have to pay 50% extra. I had no idea what it is about, so truthfully I answered by asking what is it all about as I can’t recall any unpaid tickets.
4. In the next letter they have informed me, that the ticket is for parking my car on double yellow line. I answered, again truthfully, that I don’t park on double yellow lines, as as a former trucker I am aware how annoying it is for drivers of bigger vehicles, not to mention that I would like a fire engine to get to my place in case there is a fire. They answered that they have a proof. I then politely asked them to show me that proof.
6. In the next letter there was a picture of my car clearly parked on double yellow lines. I instantly recalled the situation described in points 1. and 2. I’ve seen no reason to play fool if I was clearly in the wrong, so since there was a copy of the ticket attached to the picture, I’ve decided to pay the fine instantly. It was written on the ticket that if I pay within 28 days from receiving the ticket (not: from the day of it’s issue), then I only need to pay 30 pounds. I wrote a letter apologizing for my behaviour, explaining that it was a genuine oversight, but since I was in the wrong, I am to pay a ticket, so I attached a cheque for 30 pounds.
7. The cheque was cashed, yet some weeks later I’ve received yet another letter demanding to pay 60 pounds. It claimed that since I failed to pay and it is now more than three months, I have now to pay 50% extra. I answered that I paid within 28 days from the moment I saw the ticket for the first time, I got a 50% discount and that they’ve already cashed a cheque so it is surely some mistake.
8. They answered again that they count this 30 pounds towards the total of 90, so I still have 60 pounds to pay. I answered again, that I paid within 28 days from the date the ticket was first delivered to me, so we should be square.
9. I was lectured that if the ticket is put behind the winscreen wiper, it is considered to be delivered properly. I expressed my doubts, pointing out that if it was delivered properly, I would be aware of it’s existence. I pointed out that a ticket that is placed behind a windscreen of the parked car can be removed by anyone so this is hardly safe and reliable method of delivering important documents.
10. The answer explained matter to me in details: the ticket, that was placed behind a windscreen wiper of the car registered to me can be considered as a ticked delivered to me, as removing such ticket is an offence, so I can’t expect them to act on the basis of assumption that such ticket would be removed. In my answer I politely thanked for this knowledge, admitting that it is new to me. I also informed them that I’ve put a cheque for 60 pounds into envelope and I placed it behind a windscreen wiper of the bin lorry.
11. This time it took them longer to respond. Response can be summed up very shortly “WTF? What bin lorry?” I was happy to explain. I quoted their previous letter and pointed out that since this bin lorry was registered to Glasgow city council and putting important documents behind a windscreen wiper of a vehicle belonging to the recipent is considered to be a proper way of delivering them, I consider the cheque to be delivered properly and hope that this will help to bring matter to its end.
12. Next answer arrived much quicker. It is probably due to this rush that was slightly below the standards expected from the official letter send to a taxpayer by a city council. To sum it up, the letter stated that one should not place important document behind the windscreen wiper of a vehicle, as it can be easily stolen. There were also some doubt risen about my sanity.
I was happy to ensure them, that I feel perfectly well both on the grounds of my body and my psyche. I reminded them that stealing is a crime, and therefore we should not act on the basis of assumption that someone would steal their cheque from under the windscreen wiper of the bin lorry.
13. I guess they were no longer amused. The next letter contained PLENTY OF GIANT, RED LETTERS and informed me, that the matter will be now dealt with by Sheriff Officers and Messengers in Arms. But if I don’t like it, I can always appeal to a Parking Tribunal in Edinburgh. Of course I did not liked it, so I appealed to a Parking Tribunal in Edinburgh.
14. The Parking Tribunal in Edinburgh was innitialy unable to understand the issue: I paid my ticket, I agree that my car was parked on double yellow lines and I still want to appeal? I then explained to them that I am not willing to contradict the ticket itself, but I am not happy with the fact that I am charged extra money even despite the fact, that I paid a fine within 28 days from receiving a ticket. They finally agreed to consider the case and set a date during one of their sittings in Glasgow, thus sparing me the trouble of travelling to Edinburgh.
15. About a week before set date, I’ve received a letter from Glasgow City Council. It said that my ticket was cancelled. Now, that’s a different story. I rushed to write a letter in which i pointed out that if the ticket had to be cancelled, then I assumed it was issued wrongly and therefore I paid money I should not paid. I demanded my 30 pounds to be returned to me.
16. I never got any more letters regarding this matter. But on one sunny summer Sunday I logged into my internet banking to discover a payment of 30 pounds from Glasgow City Council.
So if I was able to fight the beast of beaurocracy in a way, that allegedly only a Briton would be able to, does it mean that I am British already? But how, as when humbly and politely keeping in line with the law and wisdom poured down on me by officials, I was inspired by one of my favourite character of the classic European literature -Jaroslav Hašek’s good soldier Švejk. Does it mean that he was British as well?
Photo by Magnus D., CC 2.0 via Flickr
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commentsThe 37,800 strong Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has given Jeremy Corbyn a boost by re-affiliating with Labour after the left-winger's election to the party leadership. Matt Wrack, the union's general secretary, said the Islington North MP had reinvigorated the party by winning in September.
He said union representatives overwhelmingly voted at a special conference in Blackpool to reunite with Labour after splitting from the party 11 years ago. "Firefighters recognise that the Labour party has changed for the better since the election of Corbyn, who has given our members and supporters hope that we can shift the political debate in favour of working people," Wrack said.
"We have a Labour Party leader and shadow chancellor who are vehemently opposed to austerity, who are ready to fight for a fair alternative that doesn't attack the living standards, livelihoods and the hard-won rights of working people."
Corbyn welcomed the decision and described the result as: "A milestone in the building of our new politics and our labour movement. I thank the FBU for this vote of confidence in our new politics which believes investing in our public services is a matter of national pride.
"Our National Executive Committee will now deal with the formalities, but to those FBU members who are now in a Labour-affiliating union for the first time, I look forward to extending a warm welcome."
The vote comes as Corbyn faces a row over Labour's stance on UK air strikes on Syria. The former Stop the War Coalition chair wrote to his MPs after Prime Minister David Cameron made his case for a British intervention against the Islamic State (Isis) in the Middle Eastern nation.
Corbyn said he was unconvinced by Cameron's plan but his shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn argued that there was a compelling case for air strikes on Syria. Some former Labour ministers even called for the 66-year-old to step down. However, a spokesman for the Labour leader told IBTimes UK that he would not respond to the comments.It is well known that white nationalists/Alt Right are some of the worst organizers on the planet. In general, just successfully getting a meme or poster into the public is considered a win for them, while their left wing opponents are carrying out complex organizing campaigns with thousands of participants.
The Daily Shoah, and its website The Right Stuff, is not calling for an “agit prop” attempt at propaganda the weekend after the election. Following Alt Right posterings at the University of Michigan and the Iowa State University, who most assume the Daily Shoah was behind even though they persist they were not, they are calling for posters to be put up at major universities after the election. If Trump is to win, then it will gloat, if he does not, then it will scale up the revolutionary call for “white identity.”
Mike Enoch and Seventh Son (Sven) from the Daily Shoah cite the multi-million dollar to commitment the University of Michigan made after the Alt Right posters showed up as a victory. In response to the racialist content they university extended a huge investment in diversity training and inclusionary policy developments, something that the Alt Right is claiming victory on even though anti-racist organizers have been campaigning for it for years. Since, statistically, these diversity trainings actually lower community feelings of bigotry, equalize educational outcomes, and generally work against white nationalist interests, we are going to allow them to continue their “victorious campaign” by inspiring more universities to confront racism.
What is likely to occur is many college-aged Daily Shoah insiders are going to go on campus with these posters during that weekend, attempting to get them up in the cover of night. The Daily Shoah has worked hard to develop a community around their message boards, and that is spilling out into actual community groups like the Houston Goylers in Houston, Texas, the New York Forum, in New York City, and groups in Dallas, Portland, Oregon, Detroit, and other cities. They have given the Alt Right a huge organizational boon, and they seem to have a great deal of crossover with Identity Europa.
Many of the flyers that will be used are found on Alt Right and Right Stuff commentator Reactionary Tree’s, A.K.A. Charles Lyons, website. Here he has been putting up some racially charged propaganda.
For those who want to confront this behavior on campuses, then groups of students and anti-fascist supporters could do late night campus patrols looking to capture these people on camera. Since they thrive on anonymity for their racism, exposure will shut down their attempts at organizing. This is likely to take place on campuses that have seen this behavior before, especially where Identity Europa propaganda posters have appeared.
Some potential schools are (Based on where Alt Right and Identity Europa materials have recently appeared.):
Iowa State University
Portland State University
University of Michigan –Ann Arbor
California State University – Stanislaus
California State University – Berkeley
Charlotte, North Carolina area schools
University of Colorado at Denver
Houston, Texas area schools
Utah State University
Colorado Mountain College
Los Angeles, California area schools
University of Washington
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E.C. Row back onto Huron Church. Traffic coming from the bridge will now have the option of getting off Huron Church, onto the parkway and Highway 401 just south of the expressway.
Those connections will remain in place as an option even after the new Gordie Howe bridge is opened.
While the new highway has appeared finished for several weeks with road markings and signs in place, testing has been needed to ensure all emergency personnel have had a chance to visit the site and co-ordinate response routes and test equipment.
The final pedestrian bridges were also put in place and noise walls installed.
Even with the new highway finally opening, there remains construction work to be done.
Drivers, at times, will be forced to get on the new highway in various sections in the upcoming weeks to allow for repaving of Highway 3.
Drivers on Highway 3 and Huron Church Road may also see brief lane closures and traffic restrictions as final work is completed on the parkway. More information on the temporary closures will be shared over the next week, parkway officials said.
“We are in the home stretch and all of these closures required over the summer will help us to complete the parkway this year,” Prince said.
Long-awaited completion of work on Ojibway Parkway — that has remain delayed for months has also restarted — is not expected to be done for several more weeks.
Drivers can anticipate traffic shifts in that area near the intersection of E.C. Row to allow lane paving to be fully completed.
“We are expecting two full closures of the north leg of Ojibway Parkway from E.C. Row Expressway,” said a parkway official. “These closures are still being scheduled and are weather dependent. That work will be reconstructing the intersection and finalizing curbing, drainage and electrical. We expect traffic to be detoured at Broadway.”
Parkway officials also said Tuesday everyone must remain off parts of the parkway still under construction, including the trails and natural areas, until construction is fully completed.
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[pn_facebook_like /]A US federal court has granted Hawaiian lawmakers permission to slash benefits for residents whose families formerly lived on a string of Pacific islands that the US military used as a nuclear test site in the decades after World War II.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit removed an injunction Tuesday that prevented the state from reducing the health benefits paid out to residents of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands, where a number of people claim they are still suffering from health problems caused by the military tests.
In the years between 1946 and 1958, at least 67 nuclear weapons tests were conducted on the small group of atolls located north of Australia and just east of the Philippines. Over 7,200 Hiroshima-sized bombs were dropped on the Marshall Islands alone. The “Bravo Test” of 1954 dropped a bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb used to decimate the Japanese city.
Not long after, families in Micronesia and other Pacific islands began birthing stillborn babies and children with birth defects. Others suffered the early onset of cancer, sterility, and illnesses they likely could have avoided had radiation not permeated the mostly isolated region.
Decades later, US lawmakers signed the 1986 Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. In exchange for influence over the thousands of small atolls, the US began permitting residents from both of the aforementioned countries and Palau to freely enter and exit the US as they pleased.
While not American citizens, residents admitted to the US under the COFA parameters were required to pay US taxes and allowed to work and receive medical care in the US, among other legal rights. Their Medicaid benefits were cut in 1996 under the federal Welfare Reform Act. The state of Hawaii then pledged its support in 2010, giving the islanders up to 10 days of hospital care each year, 12 annual outpatient visits, six mental health visits, and no more than four medication prescriptions each month, according to Courthouse News.
Critics of the state’s new health program, dubbed Basic Health Hawaii (BHH), have asserted that islanders visiting their longtime doctors for dialysis, cancer, and the like were suddenly told they had lost that essential healthcare.
Tony Korab, one of the residents representing the islanders in a class-action suit against Hawaii, told the Ninth Circuit court that because the islanders are taxpayers, the BHH program violates the equal-protection clause of the US Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court disagreed, with the majority of the divided justices ruling that Hawaii had simply acted where Congress did not.
“The basic flaw in the proposition is that Korab is excluded from the more comprehensive Medicaid benefits, which included federal funds, as a consequence of congressional action,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote in the majority opinion on Tuesday.
“Congress has plenary power to regulate immigration and the conditions on which aliens remain in the United states, and Congress has authorized states to do exactly what Hawaii has done here – determine the eligibility for, and the terms of, state benefits for aliens in the narrow third category, with regard to whom Congress expressly gave states limited discretion. Hawaii has no constitutional obligation to fill the gap left by Congress’s withdrawal of federal funding for COFA residents,” she wrote.
The issue has divided the Hawaiian population, with migrants claiming their health has not only been complicated by a generation of radiation victims, but also by dietary and cultural disruptions that have come with adapting to a new environment.
Those complaints, in many cases, have fallen on deaf ears. For example, it is not rare, according to Jon Letman of Al-Jazeera, for anti-immigrant graffiti to be scrawled across islander-owned homes or businesses. COFA children are frequently singled out and bullied in school, sources said, despite their having no choice in where they live.
“Money has become more valuable than our culture,” COFA resident Sound-Kikku told Letman. “One of our elders said, ‘We used to be masters of the currents of the Pacific but today we are slaves to the currency of the United States.’”
Civil rights advocates have publicly asked frustrated Hawaiians to empathize with the various COFA populations. William Hoshijo, executive director of the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, appeared in a Japanese American Citizens League-produced documentary about the simmering conflict.
“Hawaii residents from COFA nations have been scapegoated and described negatively as a burden and drain on resources,” he said, as quoted by Al Jazeera, “but for those who care about fairness and justice in Hawaii, it’s our responsibility to speak out to support our brothers and sisters in their struggle against discrimination.”Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Chicago is on fire. It’s America’s mass shooting capital. Its deadliest neighborhoods are gang territories prowled by thousands of killers with some of the highest murder rates in the world.
So far, 442 people have been shot and killed in Chicago this year. 2,540 were shot and wounded. 2,982 were shot. Fewer Americans died fighting Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War than in a year in Chicago.
On Christmas Day, two people were killed and 10 wounded. Chicago has tens of thousands of gang members and someone usually gets shot every 3 hours.
Or at least beaten up.
On Sunday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s African-American Deputy Chief of Staff was assaulted at a prayer vigil for a police shooting by an attacker shouting anti-Semitic slurs. Rapper King Louie, who coined “Chiraq” was released from the hospital after being shot seven times.
He blamed the devil. "The devil's working overtime. That's what's going on in Chicago."
But in Chiraq, the devil is a Democrat. Chicago Democrats are closely entangled with its 68,000 gang members who deliver the votes and the money. There are more gang members in Chicago than people of English ancestry. That makes them a powerful voting bloc. And Democrats bow to their wishes.
A Latin Kings member described how the vote organizing worked. “Every chapter had to vote for that guy… That was a direct order. That means you can’t say no.” Under the Dems, that’s Chicago democracy.
Chicago Democrats ritualistically demand gun control, but carefully avoid cracking down on their own political base. Obama calls for “common sense solutions” after every shooting, but like a good Chicago Democrat he voted against a 1999 bill to try anyone carrying out a shooting in school as an adult. Under Obama, Federal gun-crime prosecutions in Chicago have became as rare as honest Chicago Democrats.
His former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, whose only qualifications for the job were his ties to the Democratic political machine, has failed in every possible way. In his second year in office, the murder rate had climbed to levels it hadn’t seen in a decade and a thousand more people were robbed.
This year the murder rate will probably hit 500 again. And Emanuel is just 69 corpses short of racking up 2,000 kills on his watch. But he’ll never top the Daley clan who boast a combined total of 25,000.
Rahm Emanuel has rolled out a plan for handing out tasers to cops after rushing back from his Cuba vacation. That probably won’t help any of the 67 people who were shot in the face this year.
The only good news for Chicago is that it’s aging fast. The number of children and even young people has been dropping sharply. In forty years, the gang bangers may be too old to shoot each other.
Chicago is a dead city. It was shot and killed generations ago. Now it’s just lying in a gutter and waiting to die. As in Detroit, Baltimore and so many other once promising cities, the killers were Democrats.
Rahm’s public school chief, whom he called “the best and the brightest”, pleaded guilty in a corruption scheme for accepting kickbacks while writing in an email that she needed money because she had “casinos to visit”. That was convenient because Rahm had been pushing for a city-owned casino to fund schools. But under Democratic Party corruption, school corruption funds casinos instead.
Rahm Emanuel had a simple job. In true Chicago style, his job was a con job.
The con was attracting enough prosperous young people to slow down the rate at which Chicago will go bankrupt. Chicago has a $63 billion debt. It will be paying off bonds from 1993 in 2039 for public housing that was already torn down. It’s no wonder that its bonds were downgraded to junk this year.
But the rich, young people who were supposed to bail out Chicago didn’t show up. Instead they left. Their top reasons for getting the hell out of Chicago included high taxes and lots of shootings.
So Rahm Emanuel piled on even more taxes on top of taxes. He taxed cable, hotels, cigarettes, parking in garages (it’s 22 percent on weekdays) cloud-computing services and Netflix. Water and sewer rates nearly doubled. And more companies left. Many of them blamed the rising taxes.
The latest Democrat to run Chicago into the ground is out of tricks and out of options. Rahm was unable to fix Chicago’s finances. His tax hikes gave the left what it wanted in the short term while destroying the city’s future in the long term. Chicagoans are fleeing the city as if it had come down with Ebola.
But his attempts at technocratic progressive tinkering with school reform at the expense of the powerful and greedy Chicago Teachers Union (the organization called a strike demanding a 30% raise) made the organization and its crazed head, Karen Lewis, into his enemies. Rahm Emanuel had also done such politically incorrect things as trying to lure companies to move to Chicago which earned him a 1% label.
Rahm barely survived the last election even before the latest wave of anti-police protests. He had controversially mentioned the Ferguson Effect under which police officers stop fighting crime to avoid being put on trial, a reality that #BlackLivesMatter supporters from the White House on down respond to like vampires to sunlight. And so his time has come.
Firing his police chief, another best and brightest hire, hasn’t brought Rahm any time. And yet the one thing that everyone knows is that his replacement will be even worse.
Rahm’s last opponent, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, was caught posing with Latin Kings gang leaders who had been arrested after working on a political campaign. His son was arrested for threatening police officers as a member of the Two Six gang. Garcia’s protégé, Ricardo Muñoz, benefited from an election in which the Latin Kings turned out to vote for him on pain of being beaten up by other gang members.
Garcia was the “progressive” choice in that election. His plan was to raise more taxes including income taxes and sales taxes, along with a mysterious proposal for “something bold, something that we’ve never considered before in terms of figuring out the revenue side of things.”
Considering that he was running against a man who had tried to tax Netflix, there was no telling what unexplored taxation territory he wanted to exploit. And Garcia won 34 percent of the vote.
No matter what happens, Chicago is screwed.
The last Republican mayor of Chicago was born shortly after the Civil War. In his last year in office, the population of Chicago stood at around 3.4 million. A few years ago, the population fell to levels not seen in a century as the escape from Chicago continued.
Chicago’s population has been falling since the 50s. 200,000 fled between 2000 and 2010. Tens of thousands of homes stand vacant. In some neighborhoods 1 in 6 homes are empty. And with an underwater mortgage rate that hovers around 20 percent, they’ll soon have plenty of company.
Democrats killed Chicago’s future. All that’s left is a skeleton for the aldermen to pick apart, for the political machine to bankrupt and for activists to run against. It’s the same familiar cycle of Democratic rule that shrank the city, destroyed its economy, stole its jobs and drove away its families.
Chicago Democrats have two visions for the city’s future. The Rahm Emanuel vision is to try and lure new companies and workers to rob. The Lewis/Garcia vision is to double down on taxes for the political machine without even bothering to figure out who is going to pay for them.
Chicago’s bonds are already junk. If the radical wing of the welfare party gets its way, they’ll be toilet paper. If the moderate wing stays in power, they’ll still be toilet paper, but it’ll take longer.
If Rahm loses, he’ll join the flood of emigrants from Chicago. And if he needs a farewell speech, he can always borrow one from a more famous Chicago boss.
“I’m sick of the job. It’s a thankless one and full of grief. I’ve been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor,” Al Capone complained. “Public service is my motto.”
Capone’s public service is also the motto of Chicago Democrats. That’s why Chicago is the way it is.Steve Harvey is facing a number of allegations leveled against him by his ex-wife, Mary L. Vaughn, in a lawsuit filed against the host on Wednesday, yet another legal dispute following the couple's bitter divorce more than a decade ago.
Vaughn, Harvey's second wife, is suing the TV personality for $60 million, claiming that during their marriage, which lasted from 1996 until their contentious divorce in 2005, she was allegedly subjected to "prolonged torture with the infliction of severe mental pain and suffering," according to court documents obtained by ET.
WATCH: Steve Harvey 'Tearful' in Production Meeting After Leaked Memo, Did Not Attend Wrap Party
The documents also claim that Vaughn "attempted suicide by self-medicating [in] an effort to stop the pain," and allege that Harvey and his attorney caused "severe emotional distress" that led to a litany of medical conditions for Vaughn and her immediate family over the last 15 years.
Additionally, Vaughn is suing for alleged child endangerment, torture, kidnapping, breach of contract, conspiracy against rights, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and "soul murdering." The lawsuit also makes further claims of harassment, brainwashing and theft by deception.
Vaughn's suit was filed by Essie Berry, a civil rights activist and not an attorney. The documents were filed "In Pro Per," which means the plaintiff would be representing themselves, and Berry is acting as Vaughn's power of attorney. TMZ first reported news of the lawsuit.
WATCH: 7 Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces
ET has reached out to Harvey's reps for comment.
Harvey and Vaughn had one child together, Wynton Harvey, born in July 1997. Vaughn has previously aired her various grievances with her ex-husband on YouTube and was jailed for 30 days in 2013 for contempt of court after violating the terms of a gag order in the couple's divorce.
Prior to his relationship with Vaughn, Harvey was married to Marcia Harvey for 14 years. They share three children -- daughters Brandi and Karli and son Broderick.
After Harvey and Vaughn's tumultuous divorce was settled in 2005, the Family Feud host struck up a relationship with his current wife, Marjorie Elaine Harvey, whom he married in 2007.
WATCH: Hollywood's Most Nuclear Divorces
Related ArticlesSurface of a concrete pillar with crack pattern of alkali–silica reaction
Alkali–aggregate reaction is a term mainly referring to a reaction which occurs over time in concrete between the highly alkaline cement paste and non-crystalline silicon dioxide, which is found in many common aggregates. This reaction can cause expansion of the altered aggregate, leading to spalling and loss of strength of the concrete.
More accurate terminology [ edit ]
The alkali–aggregate reaction is a general, but relatively vague, expression which can lead to confusion. More precise definitions include the following:
The alkali–silica reaction is the most common form of alkali–aggregate reaction.
Two other types are:
the alkali–silicate reaction, in which layer silicate minerals (clay minerals), sometimes present as impurities, are attacked, and ;
the alkali–carbonate reaction, which is an uncommon attack on certain argillaceous dolomitic limestones, likely involving the expansion of the mineral Brucite (Mg(OH) 2.
The Pozzolanic reaction which occurs in the setting of the mixture of slaked lime and pozzolanic materials has also features similar to the alkali–silica reaction, mainly the formation of calcium silicate hydrate (CSH).
See also [ edit ]
en:Alkali–aggregate reactionIt’s NBA and NHL playoff season, and excitement is running through our veins. Last night, to our surprise, the City of Brampton announced that Garden Square would not show the Leafs’ Playoff Game #1:
For those asking – Tonight’s playoff game will NOT be on the screen in #GardenSq. You can watch it at local bars and restaurants — City of Brampton (@CityBrampton) April 13, 2017
This begs the question — where are Brampton’s liveliest bars and restaurants to watch the Leafs and Raptors games? We visited and called around to almost every bar in Brampton to find out their playoff details. Here are our guaranteed picks for playoff parties — think projector screens, extra TVs, giveaways and a whole lot of beer and wings — and in no particular order:
Both Leafs and Raptors, preference to Leafs
It’s a sports bar from a hockey star. Would you expect otherwise? Keep note: the screens will change from the Raptors playoff games to the Leafs playoff games if the games overrun, ie Saturday, April 15.
36 Main St. North
Both Leafs and Raptors, preference to Raptors
32 screens. You’re bound to find a good seat in the house. This location is especially great for the Raptors games — you may win a prize if you’re drinking a Coors Light tallboy. Grab some wings, sit back and cheer on the boys!
10886 Hurontario St.
Both Leafs and Raptors
Think big projectors. How else can you watch the game? Come early — Magnum’s is notorious for being a lively party during playoffs, and always turns into standing room for the latecomers.
21 McMurchy Ave N.
Both Leafs and Raptors
One 80 inch, a few 60 inches and at least 2 projectors. It’s a sports-themed restaurant with an extensive menu, an even better sharing menu for groups, and a great crowd to cheer with. Get there early to get a seat, or you’ll be squished like a sardine.
30A Kennedy Rd S.
Both Leafs and Raptors
One large screen and 9 flat screens means you will get to see the game from every angle. It does get busy and they have extra staff working during playoff games so expect good service despite the crowd.We recommend the wings and pulled pork poutine.
456 Vodden St E.
Both Leafs and Raptors
TVs at every angle, and the restaurant is made to look like a stadium. Traditionally the place you’d check out for UFC fights, but since it’s playoff season, it’s NBA and NFL everywhere.
70 Maritime Ontario Blvd
Both Leafs and Raptors
At least 16 screens and a big one in between. Rejeanne’s lives and breathes sports and the restaurant goes all out during playoff season. This year, they’re giving away Leafs t-shirts throughout the playoffs and a jersey at the end of the season, and they’re still deciding their Raptors giveaways.
700 Balmoral Dr.
Both Leafs and Raptors
One big screen and 12 smaller screens. Come early to grab a seat because it gets packed. During the Leafs games, Oscar’s also gives out ballots for prizes and take home cups if you make Molson Canadian your beer of choice.
1785 Queen St E.
Both Leafs and Raptors
The Queen & 410 location always gets packed during playoffs. I found out the hard way a few years ago. Get there early or make a reservation. It’s a chain restaurant, but the atmosphere is insane.
154 West Dr.
Mark your calendars — here are the playoff schedules:
Raptors
Game 1: Saturday, April 15; Bucks @ Raptors, 5:30 pm
Game 2: Tuesday, April 18; Bucks @ Raptors, 7:00 pm
Game 3: Thursday, April 20; Raptors @ Bucks, 8:00 pm
Game 4: Saturday, April 22; Raptors @ Bucks, 3:00 pm
Game 5: Monday, April 24; Bucks @ Raptors, 7:00 pm
Game 6: TBA
Game 7: TBA
Leafs
Game 1: Thursday April 13, Capitals won 3-2
Game 2: Saturday, April 15; Leafs @ Capitals, 7:00 pm
Game 3: Monday, April 17; Capitals @ Leafs, 7:00 pm
Game 4: Wednesday, April 19; Capitals @ Leafs, 7:00 pm
Game 5: Friday, April 21, Leafs @ Capitals, TBA
Game 6: Sunday, April 23, Capitals @ Leafs, TBA
Game 7: Tuesday, April 25, Leafs @ Capitals, TBA
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commentsAccording to Dave Eminian of the Peoria Journal Star, the practice field at the University of South Florida used by Pittsburgh Steelers ahead of Super Bowl XLIII needed some emergency work done on it by the groundskeepers thanks to vandals painting a large penis on it.
“The Steelers were to practice for the first time in the morning, but the night before, a group somehow scaled the fences and walls, got into the stadium, and painted a large, well, male body part, at midfield,” said Mike Reno, who was part of that Super Bowl grounds crew.
“We discovered it in the morning and the only thing we could think of to do with it was create a Steelers logo there and blend it in. No one ever knew.”
Reno also added that the field was in bad shape even prior to that as there were patches of dirt everywhere.
The vandals may have had their fun and probably snapped a few pictures to preserve the memory, but the Steelers wound up having the last laugh as they beat the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 to capture their sixth Lombardi trophy.It bears a resemblance to an intergalactic alien spaceship instead of a farm, but this futuristic spiky plastic pod could soon be keeping the human race fed with crickets.
Designed by New York-based non-profit organisation Terreform ONE, this space-age cricket shelter could help solve the forthcoming food crisis that faces the world as populations continue to grow. The designers strongly believe that consuming a bunch of protein-rich and nutritious crickets could be the solution.
The shelters are adaptable and can be used independently or piled together to form a line of bug-farming caves. When the farm is up and running the insects can be gathered as and when they're needed, before they are dried and ground into flour which incredibly contains up to three times the protein of steak.
The designer commented: 'In an advanced economic setting, this farm can introduce a sophisticated and ultra-sanitary method of locally harvesting insects for the production of cricket flour in fine cuisine recipes.'
The farm includes several wind spikes on top of the shelter for ventilation, but they also help increase the cricket's chirps as they rub their legs together in song. The units have a ventilation screen and a malleable insect sack with removable feeding pots that lock into place.
It would seem the largest problem may be convincing people that eating insects is a good idea but in terms of design, the futuristic Cricket Shelter is not a bad start.
Images and video provided by Terreform ONEAndy Yung, a prekindergarten teacher at PS 244 in Flushing, said he believes children in his class learn better through play than through strict academics.
Yung said that is why he’s made it his mission to secure a new set of foam building blocks for the schoolchildren, so they can unlock their creativeness during recess.
“The kids will be getting to use their imagination by doing this on their own,” Yung said. “I find through group play they open up more.”
The set of building blocks, called the Imaginary Playground, allows children to create various shapes and structures.
After the children are done using the blocks, they’re then stored in a small wooden shed.
The cost for the blocks and the shed is about $6,000, Yung said.
To help purchase the materials, Yung has started a fundraising campaign at gofundme.com, asking parents, fellow teachers and even complete strangers to donate to the cause.
“I’ve been trying to get the word out through online forums,” Yung said about the self-started fundraiser.
At press time, Yung had raised about $2,900 for the project, almost half of the complete cost for the shed and foam building blocks.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Yung said of the donations to the project.
And while many donations have come from people who have a connection to the school, which teaches children in pre-K through third grade, Yung said he’s received large donations from generous donors who have no connection to the school.
“One person donated $1,000 and another two people donated $500 each,” he said.
He said he received the blessing of the school’s principal, Bob Groff, to launch and oversee the online fundraiser.
“[Groff’s] really into it,” Yung said.
Yung said one of his next steps is to get the schoolchildren’s parents involved in promoting the fundraiser.
He said a previous attempt to promote the cause to parents did not work because the school is mostly made up of children whose immigrant parents often do not speak English.
The school will now try to use pamphlets and other materials printed in different languages to spread the word.
Yung said he plans on speaking with parents about the proposed project at upcoming meetings of the school’s Parent Teacher Association.
For more information on the project, visit gofundme.com/imaginetales.“The mind has questions.
The heart has answers.”
~ Eleanor Tara
There are a lot of spiritual teachers who offer answers to life’s mysteries.
Personally, I find it more helpful when they teach me how to ask better questions, so that I can connect with the truth that my heart already knows, deep down.
There are five questions that have been central to my inquiry into the mystery of life that I’ll share with you here. They have shed an immense amount of light into my being and I hope they do the same for you.
Here they are, in a very specific order:
1) What is my karma?
The word “karma” is often misused. After thousands of years of describing of how life works, karma now has a bad reputation as a vengeful device that ensures we can “even the score” with anyone who has wronged us.
However, the law of karma, according to Hinduism and Buddhism, is essentially that every action has an appropriate result, whether in this lifetime or a future one. (For anyone who doesn’t believe in reincarnation, this could apply to your ancestral lineage where the results are carried by your children and grandchildren).
Karma can be both good and bad. We often hear about the bad examples, but what about the good ones?
If we look at Bill Gates’ astrological chart, or even his bank account, it is evident that he had some pretty fixed karma to become a billionaire in this lifetime. And with all the philanthropic work and giving back he does, he might just find himself in the same situation in his next lifetime.
That celebrity who was destined to be rich at a young age and has squandered his fortune on drugs and partying? It could be the end of the road for his good fortune.
This is why when navigating our lives it’s so useful to know what our karma is.
If we have “bad” karma, we probably want to create better karma, and if we have “good” karma, we might want to think about how to cultivate it so that we can continue to enjoy the benefits in future lifetimes—by giving back, for example. (And if we’re a serious yogi, which is relatively rare, we want to eliminate our karma by doing special practices for many hours a day…)
Our personal karma manifests as all the patterning and automated things we do whenever we aren’t meditating, which is why most enlightened beings recommend we spend as much time as possible on our zafu.
Karma gets created by the repeated actions and thoughts we have throughout our lifetimes—for better or for worse. These turn into deeply embedded, subconscious memories and lead to experiences that give us an opportunity to liberate ourselves from our nest of unconscious behaviour, or to reinforce the patterns and create more karma.
Which brings us to our next question…
2) How can I create better karma?
The funny thing about karma is that we can’t really avoid its effects, even if we don’t remember what we did to create it.
That’s why karma is actually predictable through devices like our Vedic Astrological chart, for example. Our birth chart shows the most deeply rooted patterns we are playing out in this lifetime, the ones that probably haven’t changed much, even during the past few decades.
By having a reading that reveals our karma, we can finally see what’s been hidden from us and begin to bring awareness to our most unconscious ways of being.
In some cases, when the pattern is not completely entrenched, we can experience an instant shift just by seeing what we’re doing, which is a miraculously rapid way to transform ourselves.
In the most difficult cases, however, it can take a really long time for these patterns to shift. These patterns took many lifetimes to create and it will likely take many lifetimes to break them down and create new ones that are equally habitual but more constructive.
It’s a good idea to start working on them now, but what if we have thousands of lifetimes of karma to resolve but want nothing more than to be a better person…right now?
Lucky for us, there’s Grace.
3) What is Grace?
When we’re faced with the truth of how we are and how we’ve been, and we can’t see a reasonable way out of experiencing the unpleasant results in this lifetime, and we realize we’re completely screwed, we can either grin and bear it with excruciating patience (which is not easy to do without extreme suffering), try to escape off of the nearest tall bridge (it won’t work because we’ll just be reborn into a situation that brings us a similar experience) or… pray for a miracle (aha!).
Where do miracles come from? Some people might say that they come from Grace, at least that is what I’ve come to understand over time.
And what is Grace? According to many religious traditions, it is God’s gift of salvation. For anyone who doesn’t believe in God, or isn’t into religion’s God, consider Grace an unfathomably generous gift from the Universe that can’t be earned or deserved.
With an endless storehouse of karma, and a funny habit of losing our awareness and having to regain it every time you are reborn, Grace may ultimately be our only way out of an endless cycle.
Somehow, no matter what we’ve done, who we are, or how bad things seem, this magical, saving Grace always presents the possibility that things can get better, soon.
So if we can’t earn Grace, how do we get it?
Jesus once said, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Matthew 21:22)
It seems to me that he was talking about how to create miracles using prayer to invoke Grace. (When I worked this out for myself it was like little light bulbs turning on in my head: So that’s how prayer works…)
If we want a miracle, all we need to do is ask for it.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve asked (prayed) for plenty of things I’ve never gotten, which got me wondering… how does it work?
This brings us to the next question…
4) What can I pray for?
When I pray to get a great parking space, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not convinced that all of my prayers for a parking space in downtown San Francisco are being answered.
I know that Jesus said we would get anything we pray for as long as we believe we will get it, including the miracle of free parking, but I think there is an embedded caveat in there, which is that only the prayers that are most aligned with the ones made by our Self with a capital “S” will be answered.
When my egoic lowercase “s” self wants a parking spot so I can go numb out challenging emotions at a movie theatre, it probably isn’t going to happen (in fact, I’ll probably get stuck behind a big mess of construction, circle the block 50 times, and get there too late).
But when I’m en route to do important volunteer work and I’m running late because I spent extra time that morning helping a friend in need, you can bet I’ll hit all the green lights and park right in front of the door…especially if I’ve asked for some Divine intervention.
I use my intuition to differentiate my S/selves and to know which one is making the prayer. It works differently for everyone, but for me it shows up as a feeling in the pit of my stomach. My Self likes to let me know if I’m on track by having me feel good about whatever I’m asking for if it’s aligned with my bigger prayers, and feel very uneasy about it if it’s not, by creating uncomfortable tummy pangs that are impossible to ignore.
I can’t say for sure how this all works—for instance, if there is a law of karma, how on earth can a prayer change it?
My theory is that big prayers travel outside of time and space and therefore outside of the laws of karma. When we invoke these prayers by aligning with our intention and humbly begging for them to manifest, a more powerful, truer force begins to guide our life instead of karma…and that’s Grace.
Of course, it’s not possible to prove any of what I’m sharing here—it’s all a mystery. Only each individual can know the power of Grace and prayer by seeing for themselves if it truly works.
That’s why I highly recommending testing it out, to experience the gift of having faith.
5) Why have faith?
Simply put, faith means “to trust completely.” So what are we trusting when we have faith?
We could trust the Law of Karma… but somehow this does not inspire feelings of loving devotion in me…
We could elevate that trust in karmic cause-and-effect to mean that there is a higher order and some sort of magic amid the apparent chaos… which I find somewhat more inspiring.
Or we could trust that Grace will deliver miracles whenever they are aligned for us and carry us to the fulfillment of the most high, Divine purpose of our soul… Get me to the nearest place of worship! I’m ready to sing!
Through my own trial and error, I’ve learned that faith can be cultivated in at least two ways:
1) Through experience. Once we witness something repeatedly, we will begin to trust that it exists. It only takes a couple of miracles before we can’t help but have faith in the power of Grace.
2) By realizing that the other option sucks. How do we feel when we don’t trust a situation (or life in general?) Do we feel awesome? Empowered? Inspired? No. We feel a false sense of control and a sinking feeling of doom. (I have spent plenty of time with this option and know it well).
How about when we approach something with full trust? Do we ever regret that? Even if something didn’t work out the way we wanted it to, isn’t our experience a zillion times better because we had faith that the outcome was for the best?
I have found balance in a combination of both methods—I trust Grace just because I can and it feels better, but then I back that up by looking for evidence of miracles, and I start to notice them everywhere.
I’ve found that as I ask myself these five questions, they birth all sorts of other little questions and soon I discover that I know even less than before I started!
These questions don’t lead us to more intellectual knowledge but they may have a huge impact on that deep sense of knowing in our hearts.
And that will definitely rock our spiritual world.
Love elephant and want to go steady?
Author: Eleanor Tara
Editor: Emily Bartran
Photo: PhotobucketGoogle may be preparing to lay off thousands of workers, if a Silicon Valley information service is to be believed. WebGuild cites anonymous inside sources as saying up to 10,000 Google jobs could be on the way out, with smaller scale layoffs already underway.
Quiet Cutbacks
"Hundreds" of employees have been let go in the past few months, the company's sources claim -- and, they |
levels simultaneously? Or rising from one to the other? Or perhaps she is just in the standard Voynich “walking pose” and she’s supposed to be seen as entirely on the “yellow” level. All these options are still open, but for now I will classify these cases based on their supporting leg.
Now that we have established the color codes, I can show at a glance why the degree of visibility of the nymphs might be significant. This is the “march” folio, the first one in the Zodiac section. Remember, the redder the figure, the more of it is hidden.
The figures are mostly in “barrels” here, so this is a very red folio. An important note here: in the inner circle, the figures look like bendy ghosts emerging from pipes. It is not always easy to make a call based on their anatomy.
These are the other “barrel” folios:
As expected, mostly reds and oranges here, since the figures are sitting in barrels. However, interestingly, in the final example – the second may folio – there is a clear transition to standing figures. There are some orange barrels in the inner ring, but the outer ring contains orange, yellow and even blue walkers.
There isn’t a clear pattern yet, only perhaps that colors tend to form some clusters, much more so than one would expect in a random distribution. As seen below, this pattern continues into the “all walkers” folios.
We see that yellow is always represented well on the non-tub folios, but the amount of blue and orange nymphs varies. Orange is common but blue remains relatively rare. The crossbowman folio for example is very orange-heavy and contains no blue nymphs. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the feline folio, with no less than six blue nymphs but no clear orange examples.
Gemini, Leo and Libra are relatively blue. Cancer, Scorpio and Sagittarius are on the orange end. Virgo is somewhat in between, with four blues but a large orange cluster as well.
Three additional notes on this section:
(1) On three folios, there are some nymphs standing on top of the outer circle. Their patterns are (L=standing Low, H=standing High):
H-L-L-L-H
H-L-H-L
H-L-L-H
At this point it is impossible to say whether or not this has any meaning.
(2) Four figures are standing on an object, effectively raising their height level one above blue: they stand one step higher than on the top line. An example found to the right of the Virgo figure:
I must admit that I had never payed attention to this figure, but looking at it from the height color code perspective, it suddenly sticks out.
(3) Finally, and this might help us in the long run, all “queen” figures, the ones with the unique crowns, are blue, i.e. completely visible and standing on the line.
I’ll cut the post here for now, the other sections will be discussed in part 2.
EDIT: part 2 now online.
NOTES
[1] Voynich forum member VViews was kind enough to perform a complete count of all human figures in the manuscript, reaching a total of 498.
EDIT: Rene Z. pointed out that the total number is 557. I have edited the numbers in this post to reflect this.An excerpt from Charles Krauthammer’s new book, Things That Matter
I’m often asked: “How do you go from Walter Mondale to Fox News?” To which the short answer is: “I was young once.” The long answer begins by noting that this is hardly a novel passage. The path is well trodden, most famously by Ronald Reagan, himself once a New Deal Democrat, and more recently by a generation of neoconservatives, led by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. Every story has its idiosyncrasies. These are mine.
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I’d been a lifelong Democrat, and in my youth a Great Society liberal. But I had always identified with the party’s Cold War liberals, uncompromising Truman-Kennedy anti-Communists led by the likes of Henry Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, and Pat Moynihan. Given my social-democratic political orientation, it was natural for me to work for Democrats, handing out leaflets for Henry Jackson in the 1976 Massachusetts Democratic primary (Jackson won; I handed out a lot of leaflets) and working for Mondale four years later.
After Reagan took office in 1981, however, Democratic foreign policy changed dramatically. Some, of course, had begun their slide toward isolationism years earlier with George McGovern’s “Come Home America” campaign. But the responsibility of governance imposes discipline. When the Soviets provocatively moved intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) into Eastern Europe, President Carter and German chancellor Helmut Schmidt got NATO to approve the counter deployment of American INFs in Western Europe.
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However, as soon as they lost power in 1981, the Democrats did an about-face. They fell in the thrall of the “nuclear freeze,” an idea of unmatched strategic vacuity, which would have canceled the American INF deployment while freezing the Soviet force in place. The result would have been a major strategic setback, undermining the nuclear guarantee that underwrote the NATO alliance.
Years later, leading European social democrats repented their youthful part in the anti-nuclear movement of the early ’80s. But the Democratic party never did. It went even further left. It reflexively opposed every element of the Reagan foreign policy that ultimately brought total victory in the Cold War: the defense buildup, the resistance to Soviet gains in Central America, and the blunt “evil empire” rhetoric that gave hope and succor to dissidents in the gulag. Democrats denounced such talk as provocative and naïve — the pronouncements of “an amiable dunce,” to quote Clark Clifford’s famous phrase disdaining Reagan.
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And most relevant now, Democrats became implacable foes of missile defense, in large part because the idea originated with Reagan. The resistance was militant and nearly theological. It lasted 30 years — until, well, today, when a Democratic administration, facing North Korean nuclear threats, frantically puts in place (on Guam, in Alaska, in California, and off the Korean coast) the few missile-defense systems that had survived decades of Democratic opposition and defunding.
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I wrote most of The New Republic editorials opposing the Democratic party’s foreign policy of retreat, drawing fierce resistance from and occasioning public debate with my more traditionally liberal TNR colleagues. My attack on the nuclear freeze, announced the publisher rather ruefully at the next editorial meeting, produced more canceled subscriptions than any other article in the magazine’s history. At that time, I still saw myself as trying to save the soul of the Democratic party, which to me meant keeping alive the activist anti-Communist tradition of Truman and Kennedy. But few other Democrats followed. By the mid 1980s, Humphrey and Jackson were dead and Moynihan had declined to pick up their mantle. The Cold War contingent of the Democratic party essentially disappeared. As someone who had never had any illusions about either Communism or Soviet power, I gave up on the Democrats.
On foreign policy, as the cliché goes, I didn’t leave the Democratic party. It left me.
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Not so on domestic policy. The Democratic party remained true to itself. I changed. The origin of that evolution is simple: I’m open to empirical evidence. The results of the Great Society experiments started coming in and began showing that, for all its good intentions, the War on Poverty was causing irreparable damage to the very communities it was designed to help. Charles Murray’s Losing Ground was one turning point. Another, more theoretical but equally powerful, was Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations, which opened my eyes to the inexorable “institutional sclerosis” that corrodes and corrupts the ever-enlarging welfare state. The ’80s and ’90s saw the further accumulation of a vast body of social-science evidence — produced by two generations of critics from James Q. Wilson to Heather Mac Donald, writing in The Public Interest, City Journal, and elsewhere — on the limits and failures of the ever-expanding Leviathan state.
As I became convinced of the practical and theoretical defects of the social-democratic tendencies of my youth, it was but a short distance to a philosophy of restrained, free-market governance that gave more space and place to the individual and to the civil society that stands between citizen and state. In a kind of full-circle return, I found my eventual political home in a vision of limited government that, while providing for the helpless, is committed above all to guaranteeing individual liberty and the pursuit of one’s own Millian “ends of life.”
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Such has been my trajectory. Given my checkered past, I’ve offered this brief personal history for those interested in what forces, internal and external, led me to change direction both vocationally and ideologically. I’ve elaborated it here because I believe that while everyone has the right to change views, one does at least owe others an explanation. The above is mine. This book represents the product of that journey.
— Reprinted from the book Things that Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics. Copyright 2013 by Charles Krauthammer. Published by Crown Forum, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company.A council leader in Swindon has come under pressure after the town failed in efforts to offer free public wi-fi. So why doesn't the UK have more free wireless internet?
Sitting on a high street, you suddenly realise you need to log on to read an urgent email. You flip open your laptop and you're happily greeted by a long list of available wireless networks.
Then the hoop-jumping begins.
Enter a password, input an access code, purchase a card, buy a latte - it all becomes a massive hassle and you realise a truly free open network is as rare as hens' teeth.
These days, city centres are flooded with hurried business people anxious to access email and make important deals en route to their next meeting.
Then there are tourists, students and a host of other people, all of them eager to get maps, buy things and carry out other myriad tasks.
You don't have to have a Cadillac service with all the bells and whistles but it's a basic requirement these days Sam Churchill, Tech blogger
When it comes to wi-fi access overall, the UK is at the front of the global pack.
A recent study by the Office for National Statistics showed that 4.9 million people connected through hotspots such as hotels, cafes and airports over the last year in the UK, up from 0.7 million in 2007.
But there's a catch. These hotspots usually either come with a charge or require you to be a customer - buying a superfluous sandwich or grudgingly grabbing a grapefruit juice in order to get your internet hit.
Wi-fi provider The Cloud serves many cafes and restaurants, including Pizza Express, Eat and Pret A Manger - but users must be ready to eat.
And BT recently announced a partnership with Heineken pubs where wi-fi is on the house - starting with 100 pubs in London and expanding to 300 throughout the UK by 2012. But again, you have to be a customer.
Many councils have realised the potential benefits of community wireless access and tried to launch free wi-fi schemes. Many have failed.
London's Islington Council installed a "wireless mile", an area through the borough equipped with free public wi-fi, but access ended as cuts set in.
Probably the most trumpeted example was in Swindon, which aimed to have free wi-fi emanating from the top of lampposts for the whole town by April 2010. A loan was made to a private provider, but the money ran out and private sponsors were hard to come by, the council says.
Wi-facts The commonly-seen "Free Public WiFi" option is actually a rogue Windows XP quirk that spreads similarly to a virus
The UK has the most registered wi-fi hotspots in the world, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance
London Mayor Boris Johnson has pledged to have city-wide wi-fi in time for the 2012 Olympics
Sunnyvale, California was the US first city to offer free city-wide wi-fi
Now only one small section of the town is covered.
But while councils and other bodies have struggled in the UK, there are many successful free wireless internet projects around the world.
Many US cities - including Denver, Raleigh and Seattle - have free access in some areas, usually the centre. Bologna in Italy has a similar set-up.
Taipei in Taiwan currently has major public sites covered, but much of the city will be covered by October.
The whole of the city of Oulu in Finland is covered, in a partnership with a number of local universities. Its backers say not only does it improve communication, but it is a useful tool for Oulu's online government services.
NYCwireless is a non-profit organisation that builds free public wireless networks in parks and open spaces in New York City, including a newly announced outdoor space covering the area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.
"We thought: 'What if we can bring the internet to the beautiful spaces in New York City'," says Dana Spiegel, the organisation's executive director. "We bring wireless to everyone and keep people from being chained to their desks."
There is some progress in the UK.
Image caption Free public wireless internet is an amenity in many New York City parks
Bristol has a free and open network in much of the city centre. The council says this is done at minimal cost because decades ago they purchased old cable ducts allowing them to create their own broadband network.
In 2007, the City of London initiated "free" wireless access, touting its importance for traders, bankers and brokers to access data on the move - but only the first 15 minutes are actually free.
Virgin Media plans to roll out free public wi-fi in London to compete with BT's Openzone - the catch being that customers must subscribe to Virgin's broadband service at home to access the fastest speeds at no cost.
Of course, there would be many people who would question the need for free public wi-fi, even in city centres. We don't expect free electricity or free public transport, so why should people get free internet?
But the advocates see it as a move that could stimulate business and provide a boost to quality of life.
"You don't have to have a Cadillac service with all the bells and whistles," says Dailywireless.org tech blogger Sam Churchill. "But it's a basic requirement these days, just like water and power in a civilised society, that helps people communicate and keep informed."
But the powers-that-be can't seem to agree on whether funding of any sort should go to free wi-fi, particularly in these straitened times.
In Islington's case, spending cuts led to funds being targeted on core services like adult social care, and the free wi-fi scheme stopped working in March 2011.
"Wi-fi is not something we would put money into," says Kulveer Ranger, an adviser to the London mayor on all things digital. "We put money into things with a direct application to public service, like transport."
And this attitude is why some people say the private sector is a more viable route.
"Enabling the private sector to accomplish this goal is preferable to taxpayer funded efforts," Churchill says. "Make it free for everyone."
For now, most Britons will have to brace themselves for the occasional wi-fi rigmarole.Famed hackers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek are joining Cruise after leaving Didi and Uber Miller left Didi after just four months.
Noted security experts Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek — famed for remotely hacking a Jeep — are joining Cruise, GM’s self-driving car company.
The two had separated briefly when Miller left Uber to join rival Didi’s new self-driving lab in California.
Miller announced today that he was leaving Didi after just four months.
Valasek is leaving Uber, where he heads up security technology for the ride-hail player’s self-driving cars, sources familiar with the matter told Recode.
Uber confirmed his departure.
“We thank Chris for his contributions to Uber and wish him all the best in his next endeavor,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
The duo joined Uber in August 2015, mere months after the ride-hail company poached a slew of top engineers from Carnegie Mellon University.
Valasek tweeted that he and Miller will be heading up Cruise’s security team.
“One of the best ways to build secure systems is to bring on the people who are best at defeating them, and Charlie and Chris are some of the best in the world,” Cruise said in a statement. “Protecting the safety and security of our customers is of utmost importance."
Update: This story was updated to include a comment from Cruise.
recode_logomark Subscribe to the Recode newsletter Sign up for our Recode Daily newsletter to get the top tech and business news stories delivered to your inbox. Your email Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and European users agree to the data transfer policy. Your subscription has been confirmed. You've been added to our list and will hear from us soon. {{error_msg}}As Ryan becomes the latest punching bag for his party's presidential nominee, the Wisconsin Republican has made the calculation that he faces little political upside in engaging in a back-and-forth with Trump.
So he has gone underground, avoiding questions at all costs about Trump and trying to focus instead on preserving congressional majorities. His strategy is an implicit recognition that the Wisconsin Republican finds himself in a lose-lose situation over his party's nominee.
If he attacks Trump, he's only bound to provoke even more conservative furor, something that could come back to haunt him if he finds himself searching for votes in the new Congress to preserve his speakership. Yet if he stands by Trump, he'll be accused of backing off his decision to avoid defending the GOP nominee.
So the best strategy, according to several of his allies, boils down to this: Pretend Trump doesn't exist.
"Ryan is focused on what he can control -- raising funds and bringing attention and enthusiasm to our congressional races by talking about these candidates and the GOP agenda the House crafted," said a source familiar with Ryan's thinking.
In short, Ryan is trying to avoid staying out of the drama. But there's one problem: Trump won't let up.
Ryan, his friends say, is someone who doesn't like to be in a political drama -- something the speaker himself acknowledged in a private call with donors last week when discussing his feud with Trump, something he said he didn't intend to start.
But Trump is keeping Ryan in the news. As Trump campaigned in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Monday evening, some Trump supporters weren't shy about their disdain for the GOP speaker, yelling anti-Ryan statements.
"I don't want to be knocking Paul Ryan... I think he could be more supportive to the Republican nominee," Trump told ABC News about the chanting.
Asked if Ryan wants him to win in November, Trump suggests the speaker may have his eye on the White House himself, telling ABC, "maybe not, because maybe he wants to run in four years or maybe he doesn't know how to win. Maybe just doesn't know how to win."
Trump, speaking to Fox News, said Monday evening that while he is trying to unite the party, "every once in a while, Paul will stand up and say he disagrees with this or that."
Brad Courtney, chairman of the Wisconsin GOP said in a statement following Trump's rally that the party is "incredibly proud and fully supportive of Speaker Paul Ryan and the work he does for the conservative movement here in Wisconsin and across this great nation."
Since Ryan privately told colleagues last week in a conference call that he would no longer defend Trump, the House speaker has not said anything publicly about Trump. In his first public appearance last week since making those remarks, Ryan abruptly scrapped a planned 30-minute question-and-answer session with business leaders in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
The next day, anticipation was building that Ryan would answer questions about Trump with college Republicans at the University of Wisconsin. But Ryan, whose office helped pre-select the questions, wasn't asked about his party's nominee. And speaking to a friendly Wisconsin radio host later in the afternoon, he wasn't asked about Trump, either.
This week, Ryan is stumping for House GOP candidates but he's saying little publicly, including at a Wednesday campaign event with vulnerable Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo where officials said the lawmakers wouldn't take questions from the media.
Since last week, Trump has continued his barrage against Ryan, including calling the House speaker "very weak and ineffective," berating him to focus on the budget and saying the congressman has done "zilch" to push back against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Ryan's response: Nothing.
The mum position showcases the difficult political spot Ryan finds himself in just three weeks before Election Day -- especially as conservative voters unleash their fury at what they see as a political establishment slinging against Trump. For the last few months, Ryan touted Trump's candidacy, but pushed back at times, including over Trump's attacks on a Mexican-American judge.
But in recent days, Ryan has tread even more carefully when he felt the need to push back. A spokeswoman over the weekend rebuked Trump for his claims that the election is "rigged," but the speaker himself has yet to speak out.
On Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid lashed out at Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for not doing more to push back on Trump.
"When a major party's nominee riles up his supporters and repeats the lie that the election is 'rigged,' the failure of Speaker Ryan and Sen. McConnell to affirm the fairness of our democratic process and condemn Donald Trump's comments is complicity," the Democratic leaders said.
Ryan is a precarious spot. Roughly a week after the presidential election, Ryan faces an internal vote by the House GOP conference on another term as speaker. And the blowback for his posture on Trump could factor in that secret ballot contest.
So far one House conservative, Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine, threatened to pull his support for the speaker because of his reluctance to stand up for Trump in the final stretch before the election. No other House Republican has said they will challenge Ryan for the gavel, but the landscape could change dramatically if his majority shrinks, and conservatives on the right have even more power.
It's a remarkable shift from four years ago. Then-Speaker John Boehner hosted a major rally in his district in Ohio -- a key battleground state -- for Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee, and set off on a multi-day bus tour to campaign for the entire ticket.
Ryan, who was Romney's running mate, disinvited Trump from the one public event they were scheduled to do together earlier this month in his district in Wisconsin after video tapes showed the billionaire businessman making sexually aggressive and vulgar remarks about women.
Last week, Ryan didn't mention Trump's name but instead gave an entire speech focused on attacking Clinton and what he described as the threat of a progressive agenda in Washington.
But his aides say the speaker wants to focus on his main mission: Preserving the House majority. Last week Ryan's office announced he raised over $15 million in the third quarter for House Republican candidates, bringing his total haul during the 2016 cycle to $48 million.
While the final presidential debate takes center stage in Las Vegas this week, Ryan will be campaigning for House candidates in Florida after a swing through Texas.
One person he won't be appearing with: Trump.February 27 1870 – Japan adopts its current national flag, to designate merchant ships Rate this post Rate this post
The national flag of Japan, officially known as the Nisshoki or the Sun–mark flag was adopted on February 27, 1870. At the time, however, it was meant to be the flag to identify the Japanese nationality of the merchant ships and not the flag that represents the nation itself.
Japan’s association with the Hinomaru or the Sun Disc is a very ancient one. Japan is called “the land of the rising sun”, perhaps due to its location in the Far East. Not surprisingly, the Imperial family of Japan is believed to have descended from Amaterasu, the sun goddess. The Hinomaru motif seems to have been associated with the country’s regent even as far back as the 7th century. Various forms of the sun disc were carried by samurais in the 12th century. In the next century, Nichiren Daishonin, the Buddhist monk who lived during the Kamakura period and is the famed teacher of the Lotus Sutra, is believed to have presented the ensign to a shogun. In the 16th century, each Daimyo feudal lord fashioned out his own ensign to be carried into battle. By the 19th century, during the dominance of the Tokugawa shogunate, it was decreed that a unification of some sort is necessary, especially to identify Japanese ships at sea. …(Read more)After weeks of literally protesting Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street has realized that billionaire CEOs actually don't live in lower Manhattan. So they're headed uptown! To help them, here's a map of where the richest of New York's rich live.
By camping out on Wall Street, the NYC residents that protesters have probably most inconvenienced are the small business owners whose bathrooms they've been befouling. Sure, there are rich people in the apartments surrounding Zuccotti Park, but no self-respecting billionaire CEO would live in the Financial District.
But today, protesters took a "millionaire's march," protesting outside the homes of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch, billionaire republican David Koch, and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Strangely the protests are occurring during the day when all these billionaires are probably out of the house, busy stuffing wads of $100 bills into burlap sacks.
Click here or on the image on the right for a map of where the most notable New York City 1%ers—including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and a bunch of Wall Street billionaires—live, for your protesting needs.The most important story not being told
Imagine if Muslims in Europe were being arrested for nothing more than peacefully practicing their religion. Imagine if Muslims in South America were being sentenced to death for “insulting” Jesus. Imagine if mosques were being bombed and burned by terrorists in a growing list of Christian-majority countries.
Now here’s what you don’t need to imagine because it is all too real: In recent days, Christian churches have been bombed in Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, and the Philippines. In Indonesia a mob of 1,000 Muslims burned down two Christian churches because, according to one commentator, local Islamic authorities determined there were “too many faithful and too many prayers.” In Iran, scores of Christians have been arrested. In Pakistan, a Christian woman received the death penalty for the “crime” of insulting Islam; the governor of Punjab promised to pardon her — and was then assassinated for the “crime” of blasphemy.
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#ad#I could provide dozens more examples of the persecution and, in many cases, “cleansing” of Christians in what we have come to call the Muslim world. If the situation were reversed, if such a war were being waged against Muslims, it would be the top story in every newspaper, the most urgent item at the U.N., the highest priority of all the big-league human-rights groups.
What we have instead is denial. I cited some of the above examples on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Power and Politics program last week. In response, Prof. Janice Stein of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto insisted that these dots do not connect. The assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, she said, should be viewed as the consequence of Pakistan’s “terrible distribution of wealth.” Class conflict, not religious extremism, she added, is the correct explanation for the tragedy.
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I noted that 500 Pakistani religious scholars not only justified the killing of Taseer; they praised his killer’s “courage” and religious zeal, and said he had made Muslims proud around the world. They warned that anyone attending Taseer’s funeral, praying for him, or expressing grief over his death would deserve the same fate he suffered.
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The assailant who gunned down Taseer — Mumtaz Qadri, one of his own bodyguards — exulted afterward: “I have killed a blasphemer!” He did not say: “I have killed a member of the bourgeoisie!”
Professor Stein spoke, too, of the “conflict” between Muslims and Christians in Egypt as though both were equally to blame when, in fact, it is clearly Egypt’s ancient but diminishing Coptic community that is under siege with little means to defend itself, much less to wage a campaign of reciprocal oppression.
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I offered a similar analysis on Sean Hannity’s program on Fox last week, prompting Media Matters and several other left-wing blogs to accuse me of attempting to start a religious war. These bloggers failed to mention that those attacking Christians call themselves “jihadis” — meaning warriors who fight for Islam. The crowds that gathered in front of the destroyed Egyptian church shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — “Allah is greatest!” Is this message really so hard to interpret?
Apparently so. Investor’s Business Daily recently quoted James Zogby, head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee: “The guy who gets up on the plane and says ‘Allah!’ or whatever and then blows the plane up is not making a statement about his faith,” Zogby told congressional staffers. He added that it’s like a Christian hitting his thumb with a hammer and exclaiming “Jesus Christ.” Commented IBD: “The comparison is absurd. Muslims say ‘Allah is greatest’ to exalt their God. When Christians mutter ‘Jesus Christ,’ they in contrast are taking their Lord’s name in vain. There’s no corresponding ‘Jesus Christ is greatest!’”
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Zogby is an intelligent man. He must be aware that hateful, oppressive, and terrorist religious ideologies have sprouted like weeds in the broader Middle East and that their seeds have now spread from Europe to Africa to the Americas. I suspect he fears that acknowledging that fact will lead to prejudice against all Muslims and Arabs.
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He’s wrong: It is not lost on me and others that Salman Taseer was himself a Muslim and that other Pakistani Muslims defied the extremists by attending the governor’s funeral — though few of Pakistan’s political leaders were bold enough to take that risk.
There is abundant evidence to suggest that most Muslims do not want to live under al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah, or Hamas rulers. They do not want to live under a mullahocracy. I remain convinced that most Muslims do not want to be at war with the West — with Christians, Jews, Hindus, and others.
Which leads to this question: How do moderate and tolerant Muslims fight the tyrants within their community? How do they avoid being killed if they dare speak up in defense of their own freedom and rights — much less in defense of religious minorities, ethnic minorities, and women?
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We cannot possibly come up with an adequate answer so long as we refuse to look reality in the eye. And the reality is this: Within the Muslim world today are regimes, movements, and individuals convinced that their religion justifies — and benefits from — the most heinous atrocities. They are determined, ruthless, and lethal — as Christians and other minorities across a broad swath of the world have been finding out.
If we in the West fail even to speak up for them, can we really expect moderate Muslims to do more?
— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism.Top Ten Stan Lee Quotes
Excelsior! To celebrate the great man’s 91st birthday, Mysterious Times is pleased to present a selection of his wit and wisdom. So, in no particular order, here are ten great quotes from the Marvel that is Stan Lee.
1. “I’m a frustrated actor. My … goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I’m going to try to break his record.” (Interview 2006)
2. “With great power there must also come – Great Responsibility!” (The actual words used in the first Spider-Man story in ‘Amazing Fantasy #15’ August 1962)
3. “What did Doctor Doom really want? He wanted to rule the world. Now, think about this. You could walk across the street against a traffic light and get a summons for jaywalking, but you could walk up to a police officer and say “I want to rule the world,” and there’s nothing he can do about it, that is not a crime. Anybody can want to rule the world. So, even though he was the Fantastic Four’s greatest menace, in my mind, he was never a criminal!” (from Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe (2006) by Roy Thomas)
4. “I don’t really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.” (2006 Interview)
5. (On why he keeps returning to Comic Con) “I think I keep coming back mainly because I’m an idiot”.
6. “The movie made a fortune but it could have made twice as much if I had a speaking line” (on the X-Men film)
7. “Someone wants to do a movie of my life now and he’s writing a script, and I said to him, “What the hell could you do? I’ve never been arrested, I haven’t taken drugs, I’ve had the same wife for 54 years – where’s anything of interest to people?” (Interview 2002)
8. “Some people will say, “Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it’s showing you.” The only answer I can give is, “You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn’t want to see it on the stage?” ( Denver Post Online, 2013)
9. (When asked what he would like to see in the next Spider-Man films) “Me, with a bigger cameo.”
AND…Involvement in lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) sport groups makes gay and lesbian athletes feel better about their sexual identity and helps them come out in their everyday lives, according to research from the University of Waterloo.
“Contrary to what some people are saying during the Olympic Games in Russia, sexuality is part of sport because it’s part of life,” says Steven Mock, assistant professor in Waterloo’s Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies.
“My research shows that sport is very important for people - socially and emotionally - and it really gives them an important forum to express their identity and get support,” he said.
Sports heal effects of discrimination
Mock’s research team surveyed adults before and after they had participated in sports leagues organized for the LGBT community. The research, conducted through the Sexual Minority Sport Group Project, shows that LGBT sport group participation helps people feel better about themselves as gays and lesbians and affirms their sexual identity.
“The research shows that LGBT-focused sports involvement is especially helpful for people who have had very negative experiences related to homophobia, harassment and discrimination,” adds Mock. “It helps them come to terms with their identity and increases the likelihood of them disclosing their sexual minority identity in their everyday life.”
Organizations that serve LGBT amateur athletes have been around for decades. While they are open to heterosexual individuals, their mandate is to support the LGBT community. Most of the respondents from Mock’s research were involved in OUTSPORT Toronto, although there are leagues in smaller communities.
Is a kiss just a kiss?
Mock says sexual orientation is part of sport and is embedded in the Olympic experience. A good example, he points out, is the moment when Canadian speed skater Charles Hamelin rushed to kiss his girlfriend, speed skater Marianne St-Gelais, after winning the gold medal in Sochi.
“What would have happened if that was a same-sex kiss?” asks Mock. “Sexual orientation is part of sports. The Olympics is the pinnacle of athletic achievement. It’s ridiculous to cancel out part of a person’s identity.”
Mock has presented his findings at national and international conferences. The research is supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC.)Manga Mavericks EP. 27 – “Black Clover (feat. Annaliese Christman)” Share:
Alternatively titled: Dr. Stockholm, Or: How I Learned To Stop Hating and Love Black Clover.
^ I was thinking of making that the episode title but I thought it would be too long. But yes, today’s episode is all about the up-and-coming Shonen Jump hit, Black Clover, to celebrate it surpassing 100 chapters, two years of serialization, and an upcoming anime. Colton never continued with Black Clover past the first chapter, but since the start of the year, he’s been working his way through the series in preparation of doing this very podcast. It was a tumultuous journey, full of ups and downs as Colton struggled to decide whether he enjoys or hates the series. And now, three months later, he finally has his answer. I won’t spoil his position, but to quote a certain letterer, “Hooray for stockholm syndrome!”
Who is this “certain letterer” I’m referring to, you ask? Why, she’s only our special guest for this episode, the one and only Annaliese Christman, the official english letter for Black Clover and World Trigger in Viz’s Weekly Shonen Jump, not to mention a ton of other Viz titles including Terraformars and Goodnight Punpun! In the face of Annaliese’s excited cries of “BLACK CLOVER!” even the cynical, cold-hearted Colton couldn’t help but warm up to the series. But just in case, we had another backup prepared in the form of good friend and frequent guest Maxy Barnard of Friendship! Effort! Victory!, whose favorite currently-running Shonen Jump manga happens to be, you guessed it, Black Clover. Poor Colton. He never stood a chance…
But seriously, talking with Annaliese was an absolute delight, as she dived into her experiences as a letterer and the challenges of the profession. Not to mention delving into details and factoids about manga publishing not often talked about, including insight regarding Black Clover‘s translator “HC Language Solutions Inc.” (which in retrospect we could’ve easily researched, but still!). She also shares interesting anecdotes about her experiences meeting with Tabata-sensei and Katayama-san at Jump Festa, and helps us answer questions regarding the Black Clover light novel everyone’s curious about! Not to mention providing a ton of fun observations and passionate discussion on Black Clover itself! If you’re a fan of Black Clover, our nearly two and a half hour discourse on the series is surely not to be missed!
But, to quote Asta |
. This religious connection is reinforced by the presence of recesses in the walls of Room 5 and ritual pottery vessels in the adjoining corridor. Even more convincing evidence that the figures are giving an offering of fish is that both figures are walking in the direction of the north-west corner of the room precisely where an offering table was found by archaeologists. (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).
The Ladies Fresco
This fresco is in fact two separate pieces, each depicting a woman, and they come from Room 2 of the House of the Ladies and were positioned in the other half of the room in which there was also the Papyrus Fresco (see below). The women are wearing coloured Minoan robes with kilts and jackets which leaves the breasts exposed in typical Minoan fashion. The women each wear earrings and a necklace and they both have long hair and wear makeup. All of these details suggest women of high status involved in some sort of religious activity or festival. Above the women is a representation of a starry sky. There is a third woman, next to the stooping figure who may be helping her dress but only fragments of an arm and dress survive. (Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini).
The Lilies Fresco
This fresco, also known as the Spring Fresco, comes from three walls of Room 2, a ground floor room from Building Delta, and depicts either papyrus or lilies growing amongst colourful volcanic rocks with swallows flying between the flowers. The lilies seem to be swaying in a gentle breeze and the flowers are depicted in various stages of growth from bud to full bloom. The fresco ignores the three plains of the walls to create a convincing surround effect which captures the vibrancy and regeneration of springtime. (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).
The Monkey Fresco
This fresco depicting blue monkeys survives only in fragments and comes from Room B6. In the scene the monkeys are climbing rocks in an effort to escape the two dogs chasing them. Monkeys appear elsewhere in Theran and Minoan art, and they are often depicted as attendants to priestesses or near sacred altars. A fossilized monkey skull has been found on the island suggesting the possibility that they were present on Thera. (Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini).
The Papyrus Fresco
This fresco comes from the Room of the Ladies from the house of the same name. The papyrus flowers are shown in groups of three and cover three walls. They are not accurate in their depiction, perhaps deliberately so, but the iconography is Egyptian in style and, in any case, papyrus was not indigenous to Thera. Beneath the plants may be a river, a common association in both Minoan and Egyptian art. The discovery of ritual vessels within four sealed containers under the floor of the room suggests that it was used as a shrine. (Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Santorini).
The Ship Fresco
This 6 metre fresco of a procession or escort of ships in miniature is from the south-west wall of Room 5 in the West House. Eight large ships and three smaller vessels, all powered by oarsmen, travel from one port to another with centre stage taken by the flagship of the fleet. The town on the right is more sophisticated (both in architecture and the inhabitants' clothes) and is identified by Marinatos as Akrotiri, whilst the flora and fauna of the town on the left identify it as Aegean, possibly another, more provincial town, on the island. In addition, the propulsion of the ships using oars suggests the two towns were not far apart. The scene may be a representation of a seasonal maritime festival or even a scene from a lost epic poem. The ships are decorated with flowers, butterflies, swallows, and symbols of nature which all suggest a religious festival as more likely. Dolphins very similar to those from Knossos leap between the ships and the buildings; flora and fauna in each port are drawn in great detail, as are the long robes of the ship passengers, which suggest they are of high social status and, once again, participating in an important religious festival. (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).As this election winds down to the last few weeks, politicos and television personalities have become obsessed with polls. Some have been conducted accurately, some inaccurately — but none have been worse and more far off than the USA Today/Rock the Vote survey of millennial voters.
Polls don’t exist in isolation; most serious political analysts don’t create an opinion about an election because of one poll. The aggregate a broad cross-section of several polls to make out how people and specific demographics will be voting any given election year.
The USA Today/Rock the Vote poll has been totally off the map from all other polling data.
According to that survey, Hillary Clinton has the largest lead among young voters than any candidate since Lyndon Johnson. They claim that Clinton has a bigger lead than even President Obama had in 2008.
No other poll reflects this, and there isn’t a political analyst worth their salt who believes it. The Red Alert Politics Millennial Polling Average has with Clinton 47 percent, Trump 24 percent, Johnson 13 percent, and Stein 6 percent. The USA Today/Rock the Vote put the Democratic nominee 21 points higher at 68 percent.
If these numbers were even remotely true, the Clinton campaign wouldn’t be scrambling to win over what the press has called “reluctant millennials.”
Millennial turnout is critical for Democrats to have any chance in some swing states including Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana, which may be the reason why the Clinton campaign is trailing in all three.
The thing about polling is sometimes it’s dead on, as it was in the 2012 election, and sometimes it’s totally off, like in the 2014 midterm elections and some state polls in 2016. Even Nate Silver gets it wrong based on bad polling; he said that Hillary Clinton had more than a 99 percent chance of winning the Democratic primary in Michigan, a state she lost. He also said Trump was the odds-on-favorite to win Iowa; he didn’t.
All polls should be taken with some level of skepticism, but when one is off from all the rest by 20 percent or more — chances are it’s garbage, just like the USA Today/Rock the Vote poll.
Latest VideosNEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The days of cheap gas are retreating into the rearview mirror, as prices continue to flirt with the $2-per-gallon mark.
The national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline edged down 0.1 cent to $1.965 Monday, according to the motorist group AAA. This is bad news for the growing ranks of jobless Americans, who are pinching pennies and looking for ways to cut costs.
The current price would have been welcomed by summertime drivers, because it's less than half the all-time high of $4.114 per gallon, achieved last July 17.
But since gas prices slumped to a low of $1.616 per gallon on Dec. 30, they've jumped more than 20%. At their current rate, prices could easily eclipse $2 per gallon.
This is occurring as crude oil prices are trading well below $40 a barrel.
"I think what you're seeing now is a backlash of a period, from the end of the summer until the end of the year, when refiners were selling gas into the consumer market at a discount to crude oil," said Ben Brockwell, director of data pricing for OPUS.
Brockwell said refineries lost money last year, despite the surge in gas prices. The refineries in the latter half of 2008 were paying top dollar for oil, and then producing gasoline in a low-demand economy, he said. Now, refineries are producing less, driving up prices in even this low-demand economy, while stockpiling discount oil, he said.
It's hard to tell how this impacts Americans, who have been cutting back on driving since last year, and who have avoided the gas-guzzling larger vehicles, said Moody's chief economist John Lonski.
"You'd rather see energy prices lower, but it doesn't serve right now as one of the primary worries that affects consumer spending," said Lonski. "I would think that of the list of things to worry about, it does not yet rank as high as it did this spring or early summer, when gas prices were at stratospheric levels."
Robert Sinclair, spokesman for AAA in New York, one of 16 states where the price of unleaded averages more than $2 a gallon, said, "Driving levels are already pretty low, with the downturn on the economy and people holding onto their pennies and worrying about the future."
But gas prices will probably keep going up, as they often do in late winter and early spring, when refineries traditionally conduct annual maintenance on their facilities, said Peter Beutel of energy risk firm Cameron Hanover.
The silver lining for consumers is that, because of lower demand, prices are unlikely to return to their sky-high levels from last year, according to Beutel.
"I think this market is going to have a very tough time getting over $2.35 [per gallon of unleaded by Memorial Day] just because there are so many people out of work and the economy is having such as difficult time going forward," he said.Well, another BronyCon is in the books. As it turns out this was the penultimate chapter with the announcement that next year will be the Con's finale. With that in mind I am making a two-fold announcement. First, when BronyCon closes up shop so will I. That con has been the only event I vend and it is time for me to try something else. This does not mean I am no longer sewing after August of 2019, but I am slowing down to only commissions and whatever I feel like making. I finally have the perfect excuse to cease production.I have been blessed to make ponies for people to enjoy for over six years and I have a gallery of smiling faces holding their ponies to prove it. That wall of photos is my inspiration to continue sewing ponies and I wouldn't trade that away for anything. I have met a lot of cool people in the process and watched a few fans grow up and mature as the years pass. This sewing thing was just a way to help sustain a living while I worked toward earning my PhD. Now that I have a full time job corrupting the youth in college classrooms I no longer need this to maintain my rock n' roll lifestyle.Sewing has always been a fun side hustle over finding a real part-time job and I was so fortunate to find people who really enjoyed my work and crazy enough to pay me for it. Every time I sell a pony I am eternally grateful to the person who bought them because I still can't believe people love my plushies. I will always be thankful because everyone who ever bought a pony supported me as I worked toward my real goal of earning a terminal degree without starving to death. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.Secondly, since this will be the last year of BronyCon I am going to go all out and make more ponies than ever before. I have a list of ponies I will have available for 2019. If there is any pony I should make leave a comment below and if I see enough requests I will probably make at least one for this last roundup.Twilight Sparkle w/ removable wingsRarityPinkie PieApplejackFluttershyRainbow DashStarlight GlimmerPrincess LunaShadow TempestDerpySoarinFleetfootSpitfireApplebloom w/capeApplebloom w/cutie markSweetie Belle w/capeSweetie Belle w/cutie markScootaloo w/capeScootaloo w/cutie markNurse RedheartMagic Duel TrixieSunset ShimmerSnipsSnailsParty FavorDouble DiamondNight GliderSugar BelleMoon DancerVapor TrailSky StingerVinyl ScratchOctaviaMaudBig MacBright MacPear ButterSandbarDr WhoovesBerry PunchRoseluckSonata DuskLyraBon BonBabs Seed w/capeColgateCoco PommelThunderlaneShining ArmorPipsqueakSleeping Twilight w/wingsSleeping RaritySleeping Pinkie PieSleeping ApplejackSleeping FluttershySleeping Rainbow DashSleeping ApplebloomSleeping Sweetie BelleSleeping ScootalooSleeping DerpySleeping LyraSleeping Bon BonSleeping TrixieSleeping Sunset ShimmerUpdate: Mr. Nemo's answer helped solve the problem! The code below contains the fix! See the nb False and nb True calls below.
There is also a new Haskell package called splice (, which has OS-specific and portable implementations of best known socket to socket data transfer loops).
I have the following (Haskell) code:
#ifdef LINUX_SPLICE #include <fcntl.h> {-# LANGUAGE CPP #-} {-# LANGUAGE ForeignFunctionInterface #-} #endif module Network.Socket.Splice ( Length, zeroCopy, splice #ifdef LINUX_SPLICE, c_splice #endif ) where import Data.Word import Foreign.Ptr import Network.Socket import Control.Monad import Control.Exception import System.Posix.Types import System.Posix.IO #ifdef LINUX_SPLICE import Data.Int import Data.Bits import Unsafe.Coerce import Foreign.C.Types import Foreign.C.Error import System.Posix.Internals #else import System.IO import Foreign.Marshal.Alloc #endif zeroCopy :: Bool zeroCopy = #ifdef LINUX_SPLICE True #else False #endif type Length = #ifdef LINUX_SPLICE (#type size_t) #else Int #endif -- | The'splice' function pipes data from -- one socket to another in a loop. -- On Linux this happens in kernel space with -- zero copying between kernel and user spaces. -- On other operating systems, a portable -- implementation utilizes a user space buffer -- allocated with'mallocBytes'; 'hGetBufSome' -- and 'hPut' are then used to avoid repeated -- tiny allocations as would happen with'recv' --'sendAll' calls from the 'bytestring' package. splice :: Length -> Socket -> Socket -> IO () splice l (MkSocket x _ _ _ _) (MkSocket y _ _ _ _) = do let e = error "splice ended" #ifdef LINUX_SPLICE (r,w) <- createPipe print ('+',r,w) let s = Fd x -- source let t = Fd y -- target let c = throwErrnoIfMinus1 "Network.Socket.Splice.splice" let u = unsafeCoerce :: (#type ssize_t) -> (#type size_t) let fs = sPLICE_F_MOVE.|. sPLICE_F_MORE let nb v = do setNonBlockingFD x v setNonBlockingFD y v nb False finally (forever $ do b <- c $ c_splice s nullPtr w nullPtr l fs if b > 0 then c_splice r nullPtr t nullPtr (u b) fs) else e (do closeFd r closeFd w nb True print ('-',r,w)) #else --.. #endif #ifdef LINUX_SPLICE -- SPLICE -- fcntl.h -- ssize_t splice( -- int fd_in, -- loff_t* off_in, -- int fd_out, -- loff_t* off_out, -- size_t len, -- unsigned int flags -- ); foreign import ccall "splice" c_splice :: Fd -> Ptr (#type loff_t) -> Fd -> Ptr (#type loff_t) -> (#type size_t) -> Word -> IO (#type ssize_t) sPLICE_F_MOVE :: Word sPLICE_F_MOVE = (#const "SPLICE_F_MOVE") sPLICE_F_MORE :: Word sPLICE_F_MORE = (#const "SPLICE_F_MORE") #endif
Note: The code above now just works! Below is no longer valid thanks to Nemo!
I call splice as defined above with two open and connected sockets (which are already used to transmit minimal amount of handshake data using either the sockets API send and recv calls or converted to handles and used with hGetLine and hPut ) and I keep getting:
Network.Socket.Splice.splice: resource exhausted (Resource temporarily unavailable)
at the first c_splice call site: c_splice returns -1 and sets some errno to a value (probably EAGAIN ) that reads resource exhausted | resource temporarily unavailable when looked up.One of San Diego’s most venerable beer bars, O'Brien's Pub is celebrating 20 years of serving craft beer. To help commemorate this milestone, we'll release bottled PRIDE OF cHOPS on August 26th at 5pm. This marvelously hoppy and aromatic India pale ale is hopped with a blend of Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin, and Mosaic.As one of the original craft beer bars in the country, O’Brein’s Pub laid the foundation for many great craft beer bars that followed. The limited edition PRIDE OF cHOPS label features the legendary profile and side burn “chops” of O’Brien’s owner Tom Nickel and is also named after the pub’s magnanimous lion!PRIDE OF cHOPS India Pale AleBrewed & bottled by Beachwood Brewing in Long Beach, CA7.1% ABVDRINK FRESH, DO NOT AGE! Store refrigerated at all times.Retail Price: $8/22oz bottleOne of the big issues that attracted many to Trump’s side has suffered the same fate as pretty much every positions Trump takes.
Mass deportation has been something many Trump supporters have been looking forward to for some time, but Trump’s latest comments may make them take their red MAGA hats off.
“President Obama has mass deported vast numbers of people — the most ever, and it’s never reported. I think people are going to find that I have not only the best policies, but I will have the biggest heart of anybody,” said Trump in an interview with Bloomberg.
“We’re going to do it in a very humane fashion. Believe me. I have a bigger heart than you do. We’re going to do it in a very human fashion,” he said.
When pressed further on his mass deportation stances, he responded with “No, I would not call it mass deportations.”
Trump’s hard stance on immigration was one of his key selling points. His no nonsense talk about Mexican immigrants, prohibiting immigration from countries, and even building a “deportation force” that would rid this country of the illegal element. A promise he said he could accomplish in under two years.
Trump never came up with a plan on how he would accomplish this, but experts did work some numbers and find out that it would cost us $400 billion, along with a $1 trillion reduction in U.S. GDP.
However, as Trump has stated before, all of his promises are merely suggestions. Everything he promises can, and likely will be changed at some point during his campaign. That doesn’t speak well for his restrictions on immigration from “terrorist countries,” which he stands by…for now.
“I want terrorists out. I want people that have bad thoughts out,” said Trump. I would limit specific terrorist countries and we know who those terrorist countries are.”
It should be remembered that Trump at one point flip-flopped on his promise to ban all Muslims not long ago. So there’s no telling where his immigration plan actually stands.Chronic pain affects more than 70 million Americans, which makes it more widespread than heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. It costs the economy more than $100 billion per year. So why don’t more doctors and researchers take it seriously?
That is the challenge raised by a new report from the Mayday Fund, a nonprofit group that studies pain treatment. The report, which been endorsed by an array of medical groups, advocates a revolution in the training of doctors, the financing of research and the education of law-enforcement officials.
“The fact is that people aren’t getting competent and cost-effective treatment for chronic pain,” said Dr. Russell Portenoy, one of the co-chairmen of the panel that prepared the report.
Dr. Portenoy, the chairman of the department of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center, was one of the pain experts who supported William Hurwitz, the Virginia doctor who was imprisoned for prescribing opioid painkillers to patients who resold them. (Dr. Hurwitz’s sentence was reduced after a retrial in which Dr. Portenoy and other experts testified on his behalf.)
At a news conference Wednesday, Dr. Portenoy and the other co-chairman of the Mayday panel, Dr. Lonnie Zeltzer of the University of California, Los Angeles, said patients’ needs had to be better balanced against the concerns of law-enforcement officials, whose prosecutions of Dr. Hurtwitz and other doctors have made physicians reluctant to prescribe opioids. Dr. Zeltzer said doctors were especially reluctant to prescribe such painkillers to young people, and she cited the example of a teenager who had been incapacitated for six months until finding a doctor willing to prescribe opioids.
“Don’t assume that your doctor knows what to do to treat your pain,” Dr. Zeltzer advised patients.
She and the other members of the panel urged better pain-management training in medical schools and more money for pain research, which, according to the report, receives 1 percent of the budget of the National Institutes of Health.
The panel also urged the federal Department of Health and Human Services to reform the way doctors are reimbursed for treating pain. Dr. Portenoy said that the current system had “misaligned incentives” encouraging doctors to preform procedures like injections and surgery and that doctors who performed those procedures could make 10 times as much per hour as doctors who treated pain in other ways.
Distorted incentives and inadequate treatment are hurting patients at the same time they are driving up health costs, according to the report:
Instead of receiving effective relief, patients with persistent pain often find themselves in an endless cycle, seeing multiple health care providers, including many specialists in areas other than pain, who are not prepared to respond effectively. They often endure repeated tests and inadequate or unproven treatments. This may include unnecessary surgeries, injections or procedures that have no long-term impact on comfort and function. Patients with chronic pain have more hospital admissions, longer hospital stays and unnecessary trips to the emergency department. Such inefficient and even wasteful treatment for pain is contributing to the rapid rise in health care costs in the United States.
You can read the rest of the Mayday report and its recommendations here. Do you have any recommendations on what should be done, and any guess as to the likelihood of reforms in the treatment of chronic pain?Meet 33-year-old Xu who was pulled over by Shenzhen City police for allegedly drinking and driving. Xu is no one’s fool, so he decided to pull a fast one on the cops by only pretending to blow into the breathalyzer. This led to multiple attempts—all caught on video—of the police painstakingly trying to get a proper reading. Now you don’t need to speak Chinese to understand that Xu is absolutely refusing to follow the officer’s orders. He’s sly as a fox. Why hasn’t anyone else ever thought of this clever ruse? Drunks.
Xu’s face gets more and more exaggerated every time he blows into the breathalyzer. It’s pretty hilarious.
After 4 to 5 times of a failed breathalyzer reading…
Xu finally blew into the breathalyser, with the result showing 191 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milligrams of blood, higher than the country’s legal limit.
After that, the police detained Xu. Apparently he’s going to have to pay a steep fine.
via ArbroathNearly everyone has heard the old saying that cameras—particularly TV cameras—"add ten pounds" to their subjects. Some people use it as a convenient excuse for those (real) ten extra pounds, but others believe that this claim has actual technical merit. There's a lot of confusion over how to explain this phenomenon, and whether it even exists in the first place, so I set out to investigate. Do modern cameras still make us look fatter?
Pixel myths
I went into this story based on something I was taught as an undergraduate—that video is what adds 10 pounds, not still photos, because of the type of pixels involved. Photographs are shot in square pixels and usually displayed on square pixel screens (your computer monitor, or occasionally printed out in square pixels), so they're not susceptible to this mysterious fattening phenomenon.
Video meant for the TV screen, however, isn't shot in the same way. Both NTSC and PAL pixels are rectangular (or non-square), and I was told that this is the reason why people look wider on TV. After all, if their images are being stretched horizontally, why wouldn't they? After digging around a bit, I learned that I wasn't the only one taught this at some point in my life.
It turns out that there are a number of reasons why this is wrong, at least on the NTSC side (NTSC is what we use here in the US). Yes, NTSC pixels are non-square, but they're not oriented horizontally—they're taller than they are wide. Additionally, the video is typically shot and displayed in NTSC, meaning that most of the time, there's opportunity to "stretch" the image in either direction—what you see is pretty much what you get.
PAL pixels, on the other hand, display at an aspect ratio of 1.066:1, meaning that they are wider than they are tall. Still though, if a video is shot in PAL and displayed in PAL, there should be no stretching. If it's shot in square pixels for whatever reason, though, and then converted into PAL, there could be some potential for those ten TV pounds to show up.
Optical illusions
More realistically, the explanation for the 10 extra pounds lies behind our eyes. For one, cameras have varying focal lengths, and most consumer cameras will slightly distort people in an image depending on where they are standing and how the photographer is holding the camera. As pointed out by Slate in 2007, wide-angle lenses have a short focal length that make the person in the center look both taller and wider, while those on the edges get the short end of the stick and just look wider. Cameras can also easily flatten a three-dimensional object into an unflattering two-dimensional space, tricking your eyes into thinking that a subject is spreading out by reducing depth while maintaining width.
When it comes to video, though, even professionally produced videos can play tricks on the eyes from time to time. Video professional and Ars reader Mike Watson entertained my barrage of questions on this topic, telling me that much of the video shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio doesn't show you the world the way you're used to seeing it. "Your eyes are placed on your face horizontally, so you get a 'widescreen' view of the world," he said. "TV—specifically, NTSC—is nearly square (4:3), so you are significantly modifying your view of the world, not just by 'zooming in' and isolating the TV in your view, but also by changing your entire perspective." Watson said that it's not hard to see how your brain might try to compensate for this by stretching things out a little, therefore making people look wider.
(Of course, this explanation doesn't really take into account the proliferation of widescreen TVs and, subsequently, widescreen-formatted HD video.)
In the end, though, most video pros ascribe the visual 10 pounds to bad lighting and bad angles. Light projected straight onto the subject (like, say, with a camera flash or some other amateurish lighting set up) will only help the camera flatten—and fatten—someone's image. Touching up photos to emphasize shadows can help, but better lighting from the get-go will do much more to flatter subjects.
Or, they could just lose 10 pounds and come out even.Sheffield: Happy (Picture: Getty)
Sheffield is the happiest city in the UK, according to a new survey.
Here are ten reasons why the steel city beat off competition from Edinburgh, Brighton and Cardiff to take the crown.
10. It’s a sweet city
Bertie Bassett: Happy (Picture: File)
The Bassett’s confectionery mascot may be in semi-retirement, but the fact remains he is a man made entirely from Liquorice Allsorts. Who wears a top hat. And he’s from Sheffield.
9. It hits the right notes
Joe Elliot: Happy (Picture: Reuters)
A city that birthed Def Leppard, the Arctic Monkeys, two Cockers (Joe and Jarvis), not to mention Pulp, can rest easy in that its musical heritage is assured.
8. It has an amazing theatre
Ronnie O’Sullivan: Happy (Picture: Getty)
As well as playing host to the most important event in professional snooker, the Crucible, which seats just 980 people, is a local treasure due to its intimate setting. If anyone knows whether Arthur Miller’s play of the same name has been performed here, let us know.
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7. It isn’t Chesterfield
Chesterfield: Not Sheffield (Picture: File)
Sheffield, you know what we’re talking about (sorry Chesterfield; so do you).
6. ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. And monkeys do too… if they have a gun. ‘
Eddie Izzard: Happy (Picture: Getty)
It was at the city’s university that Eddie Izzard decided to jack in the accountancy and try his hand at a bit of comedy. Good call, as they say.
5. You may know that Sean Bean is from there
Sean Bean: Winter is… happy (Picture: AP)
And here’s why he’s on the list.
4. Robin Hood
Robin Hood: Happy (Picture: File)
You may associate the man who stole from the rich to give to the poor with Nottingham, but Robin of Loxley actually hails from Sheffield. This same spirit still holds true, with 72 per cent of people from Sheffield getting that warm glow from doing good deeds for others.
3. Getting better with age
Michael Palin: Happy (Picture: EPA)
More people in Sheffield feel good about themselves at the age of 55-plus than anybody else. Which we salute.
2. Point in question
The Fully Monty: Very happy (Picture: File)
How many other UK cities can say they have an undying link to the feelgood movie of 1997?
1. Jessica Ennis
Jessica Ennis: Happy (Picture: Reuters)
Last summer may feel an age away already, but the entire world still remember the exploits of Sheffield-born Olympic heroine Jessica Ennis CBE.
Check out more top 10 lists like this
At number one we have Sheffield: Jessica Ennis, Heptathlete of Great Britain during a photoshoot at Sheffield Forgemasters on June 17, 2009 in Sheffield, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images) At number 2 its the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. Tourists from China pose for photographers while wearing kilts before the New Year Hogmanay celebrations in Princes Street in Edinburgh, Scotland December 31, 2010. REUTERS/David Moir Brighton comes in at number 3. Youths pose for the photographer as they jump into the sea in Brighton, southern England May 26, 2012. REUTERS/Paul Hackett Cardiff, capital of Wales is at number 4. A Guards regimental band marches through ticker tape during a parade on Armed Forces Day in Cardiff, Wales June 26, 2010. REUTERS/Derek Booth/MoD/Crown Copyright Liverpool, famous for Beatles and football comes in at number 5. Competitors dressed as Santa Claus take part in the annual five kilometre Santa Dash in Liverpool, northern England December 4, 2011. REUTERS/Phil Noble Party town Leeds is at number 6. Young women pose for the camera during a night out in Leeds, northern England April 20, 2009. REUTERS/Nigel Roddis Capital of England is only at number 7. A protestor dressed as a clown stands beside a police officer at the Camp for Climate Action near to Heathrow Airport in west London, August 18, 2007. Security remains high as the week-long enviromental protest camp near the airport plan a day of ‘mass action’ on Sunday. REUTERS/Stephen Hird Belfast is at number 8. Southampton is at 9. Fireworks explode to mark the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary 2, the largest cruise liner ever built, as it departs from Southampton, southern England, Janury 12, 2004. The 150,000 tonne Cunard liner left Southampton on Monday evening bound for Fort Lauderdale, Florida on its first passenger voyage. REUTERS/Toby Melville Plymouth concludes the top 10 happiest cities in the UK. Captain Andrew Betton (R), of Torpoint, embraces his son George, 5, after he was the first to disembark from the Royal Navy helicopter carrier HMS Ocean at Devonport naval base in Plymouth, southwest England December 9, 2011. The ship returned in time for Christmas after a seven and a half month deployment. REUTERS/Chris HelgrenCelebrating the 30 year anniversary of the Wax Trax! release “Big Sexy Land”, several ex-Revolting Cocks members will reunite under the The Cocks flag to start a very short tour through 6 US-cities. The Cocks are Front 242’s Richard 23, Luc Van Acker, Chris Connelly and Paul Barker. Barker played bass, keyboards and did programming for Revolting Cocks between 1987 and 1993.
“Big Sexy Land” was originally released in 1986 and was the band’s first major release. At that time Revolting Cocks were Luc Van Acker, Richard 23 and Alain Jorgensen. Make sure to check these other Revolting Cocks related releases.
The band will play the following 6 dates in the USA:
September 16 New York – Stimulate
September 17 Houston – Numbers
September 18 San Fran – DNA
September 20 Tampa – Orpheum
September 21 Baltimore – Ottobar
September 24 Chicago – Metro/CWV
Revolting Cocks was founded by Richard 23 and Luc Van Acker with Al Jourgensen as their producer. Their first release was “No Devotion” on Wax Trax records in 1985. The single was quickly followed by an album, “Big Sexy Land” (1986), featuring a mix of Wax Trax-industrial, hard rock, and EBM with dominating sampling and strong synthesized beats. Richard 23 quit in 1986 due to creative differences, but joined the band on stage on April 17 2011 during the “Wax Trax! Records Retrospectacle: 33 1/3 Year Anniversary”.
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Migrant labourers work at a construction site at the Aspire Zone in Doha, Qatar, March 26, 2016. REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
Qatar is home to 630,000 Indian nationals, the single largest group of migrants in the country of 2 million. Many work in low paid construction jobs, building stadiums and other infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup.
Rights groups accuse Qatar of abusive labor laws and forcing migrants to work under poor safety conditions. Unions and labor protests are banned, and authorities penalize dissent with jail or deportation.
A joint government statement said Modi met with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani on Sunday and discussed the plight of Indian migrants.
“The Qatari side briefed the Indian side on the reform in labor laws which would protect the interest of skilled and unskilled labor in Qatar,” said the statement issued by the prime minister’s office.
Modi thanked the Qatari leadership for “hosting the Indian community and for ensuring their continued welfare and safety.”
Qatar is an important partner for India, with bilateral trade in 2014/15 exceeding $15 billion, according to the Indian government. It is also one of India’s key sources of crude oil.
During a two-day visit to the Gulf nation, Modi addressed a gathering of Indian laborers in Doha, assuring them he would present their concerns to Qatari authorities.
“I am aware of the issues you are facing. I will talk about it when I meet the authorities,” Modi told them on Saturday.
“If you have some issues on changing some laws and regulations, I can assure you that I will work with you all to bring about these changes.”
Modi’s comments come amid growing scrutiny of Qatar over the plight of migrants from countries such as Nepal, India and Bangladesh employed to build infrastructure as Qatar gears up to host the world’s largest sporting event.
Amnesty International in March said migrants faced abuses that in some cases amounted to forced labor. Workers reported squalid living conditions, having their salaries withheld for months and their passports confiscated by employers.
Qatar’s kafala sponsorship system - under which migrant workers cannot change jobs or leave the country without their employer’s permission - is at the heart of threats to make people work, Amnesty said.
The International Labour Organization said Qatar is making progress toward ending forced labor and improving migrant worker conditions, but added the real test will be whether it enforces new legislation from December.
The new Qatari law abolishes the kafala sponsorship system and removes all curbs on worker movements. Migrants will no longer be forced to continue a job if there is abuse or exploitation, but domestic workers are excluded from this law.
Modi said he believed Qatar would respond positively to challenges faced by the Indian community in the country.
“I have been given a long list of all the problems that you face. I have studied it in detail and will address them over the next two days,” Modi told the Indian laborers.
“Despite these issues, the people here are very fond of Indians, they trust Indians, and I am sure that when |
s only, he would have a minimum of 30 (seizures) up to 100 or 150 each day,” said Amy. “We have a long road to go especially as we wean him off the pharmaceutical drugs. We had a game plan going into this and we’re sticking with it.”
Austin enjoyed a “day of clarity” and his speech was “incredible” the first time the THCA oils were administered, his mother said.
“The reduction in seizures is huge, but what a lot of people don’t understand is the length and severity and how that makes him feel afterwards,” she said.
Austin’s speech has improved and he’s more “in tune” with his surroundings, according to a Facebook post from Dec. 15.
“Austin is doing amazing today – no seizures, no lethargy, no drooling. He is definitely more in tune with the things that are out there. Last night, looking at the clear Colorado sky and watching the stars, he said ‘Mom, look, stars.’ So I pointed to the moon and said ‘what’s that Austin?’ He said, ‘Mom, look, the moon,’” Amy wrote on the social media site.
Austin’s neurologist in Colorado will begin cannabidiol oil treatments along with the THCA after the youngster is completely off his pharmaceutical drugs.
“We’ve fed him all the pills they (doctors) told us to,” Amy said. “CBD oils from plants are helping kids get better. Why wouldn’t they (Oklahoma officials) let us use a plant? It’s the craziest thing I’ve been through in my life. It doesn’t make sense in 2014 when the science is there.”
Early days
Austin began experiencing seizures the day after his 1-year-old immunization shots, Amy said. Soon, the seizures were not confined to a particular time of the day. They occurred when he was awake and asleep and could last as long as five minutes, leaving the boy with extreme physical fatigue.
In an attempt to confirm a doctor’s diagnosis, genetic testing revealed Austin suffered from Dravet Syndrome. During the past 12 years, the boy was placed on life support seven times and the level of medications far exceeds the normal dosage. On two occasions, Austin’s organs shut down because of the medications he was taking.
As the seizures increased, so did the family’s financial strain. Jason and Amy had to decide who would work and who would be Austin’s caregiver. As a single-income family with numerous medical expenses, life got tough and decisions had to be made.
“We learned to live on one income, which in most years was around $18,000,” Amy said. “That was with two other younger children at home and a ton of medical bills. This has devastated us. We had to fundraise and people have given us money just to get to Colorado.”
Now in Colorado, Amy and Austin are trying to make ends meet since Oklahoma’s Sooner Care insurance no longer covers any of the treatments or oils.
“We have to pay for everything out of pocket,” she said.
Still, the Hilterbran family finds itself in a situation that’s not unique to them.
“There is a mass exodus of parents from Oklahoma and other states who are trying to save their children,” Amy said. “I’ve been in contact with dozens of families who are moving to Colorado from all over the country.”
Amy and Justin are hopeful their son will respond favorably to the new treatments on a long-term basis provided the financial resources allow it.
“Most parents in Colorado who haven’t had success couldn’t afford to stay to try different dosages and the different CBD strains,” she said. “It costs $2,000 to $3,000 just for the medicine per month.”
That amount could drop to about $1,000 a month if Austin’s application for assistance is accepted by the Flowering Hope Foundation.
“But that’s just for the medicine. That doesn’t cover doctor’s visits,” Amy said.
Creative financing comes into play for parents who take their children to Colorado for these uninsured treatments.
“Consistency of treatment falls on the parents,” Amy said. “People can afford it for a while, but then it gets expensive and you try something from a head shop and you can’t do that.”
Austin is one of an estimated 11 children in Oklahoma who suffer from Dravet Syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of intractable epilepsy that begins in infancy. Initial seizures are most often prolonged events. In the second year of life, other seizure types begin to emerge. Associated conditions include behavioral and developmental delays, movement and balance issues, delayed language and speech problems, sleeping difficulties and chronic infections.
Children with Dravet Syndrome do not outgrow the disorder, which impacts every aspect of their lives, health professionals acknowledge.
The impact, however, isn’t limited just to the patient, Amy said.
“When someone in a family has seizures, it affects everyone. I’ve missed important moments in our other children’s lives. It almost makes you choose between living and sort of living,” she said. “There are so many things we missed out on but it was a sacrifice we had to endure because there was no other choice.”
By no means are Austin’s parents bitter, but the reality is sometimes difficult to accept. At one point in her life, Amy was scheduled to work for the United Nations in Africa, and it wasn’t long after that Austin was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, leaving Amy with unfulfilled dreams.
“We have all suffered, especially his brothers and sisters,” Amy said. “Still, in many ways, we’ve become more compassionate and more aware and advocate for the legalization of marijuana and medical marijuana. Either one of us, as parents, is going to help our son.”
Oklahoma clinical trials
In August, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said she would support medical trials exploring the use of cannabidiol oils for treating disorders that cause seizures and strokes in young children.
However, Fallin was far from supporting a comprehensive medical marijuana proposal. In fact, the governor said she would not support CBD oils for other medical uses. She also opposes legalization and decriminalization of marijuana.
Ten states, including Alabama, Kentucky and Mississippi, legalized some form of CBD this year. States that have legalized medical marijuana are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Although marijuana of any kind is illegal according to U.S. law, the federal budget approved by the U.S. House earlier this month restricts the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration from using its funds to undermine state laws that have legalized medical marijuana.
In Oklahoma, a citizen-led effort to place medical marijuana on the November ballot failed because of stringent requirements that require an estimated 160,000 petition signatures in 90 days. That process has frustrates people like Amy Hilterbran.
“The system is set up to take the power away from the people,” she said. “We don’t get to vote on our issues. It’s set up for failure.”I have a similar, albeit shorter, list of questions I like to ask when analyzing public policy proposals.
In the 1985 edition of his Baseball Abstract, Bill James published his Keltner List, a series of 15 questions designed to evaluate a baseball player's worthiness for the Hall of Fame.
1. What is the policy?
We need to know what we're talking about.
2. What is the policy meant to accomplish?
Very straightforward. Is the policy meant to reduce unemployment? Increase productivity? Reduce hospital wait times?
This question weeds out the policy-for-policy-sake type proposals: "Let's build a high-speed train from Saskatoon to Regina. Trains are cool!"
3. Will the policy accomplish what it intends to accomplish?
In other words: Will it work?
4. What will the policy cost?
Where cost can be used in a broad opportunity cost sense.
5. Does the policy have any unintended consequences (either positive or negative)?
What side-effects does the policy have? How important are those side effects? Are they positive and negative?
6. Is this the best policy for the job?
Are there other policies that would accomplish the same thing (or better) at a lower cost and/or with less negative side-effects?
Those are my six questions. You can add others. I did not add any questions about political feasibility. Partly because I do not feel particularly qualified to answer those questions and partly because my position on political feasibility has always been I understand but I don't care.
Let's apply this Keltner List to a recent proposal - Belinda Stronach's term limit proposal:
1. What is the policy?
In her words:
My proposal would be to limit the number of consecutive terms that an MP could serve to two, and have a roster by lottery, to ensure a turnover of 50 per cent of members in each election cycle.
I'm curiously if this would apply only to majority terms. Otherwise you may have a generation of politicians with very short careers.
2. What is the policy meant to accomplish?
Reducing partisanship. At least, I think that's what it's for:
The role of parliamentarians should be to work for the best interests of the country in a constant and postpartisan search for solutions. In the way our current electoral system is structured, the focus is almost entirely on the mechanics of getting re-elected once elected, and the time horizon for assessing the impact of decisions tends to be the immediate electoral cycle rather than what’s good for future generations of Canadians. The emphasis must be on public service where politics isn’t seen as a career but rather as a tour of duty. Terms limits could encourage this fundamental shift.
3. Will the policy accomplish what it intends to accomplish?
I personally do not see how. Presumably many of these politicians would want to have jobs with their parties (party brass, pundit, consultant, etc.) after office, so they would still want to be seen as 'team' players.
4. What will the policy cost?
As far as a monetary cost? Very little:
For example, to help cope with the challenge of having higher-than-normal turnover and numbers of new members, much better orientation, training and mentoring programs for new MPs could be put in place.
Direct costs seem to be quite low with this proposal, so that is one thing it has going for it.
5. Does the policy have any unintended consequences (either positive or negative)?
A raft load. From scaring good people out of politics (why enter if you know you can only stay for a maximum of 8 years?) to having a host of unaccountable politicians in their 2nd terms. I would want to see these issues addressed in a systematic way before even considering such a proposal.
6. Is this the best policy for the job?
Hard to analyze given that we don't know all the unintended consequences of the proposal. I suspect Mark Jarvis could come up with a number of proposals that would have far fewer unintended consequences. I would want to know what the alternatives are before implementing this proposal. (Edited to add: Mark kindly pointed me to his Macleans.ca piece - The House: Three Part Reform)
I hope you find this way of thinking helpful. I find it clarifies issues for me if I think about them systematically.Low oxygen levels cause a big problem for aquatic ecosystems. When oxygen falls below two milligrams per liter, the area is classed as “hypoxic,” a condition that can be driven by pollution such as agricultural runoff. Hypoxia has an effect on marine life that’s pretty relevant to fisheries: low oxygen in the environment slows down the growth of individual animals, meaning that populations are made up of smaller creatures.
Research published in PNAS this week, led by Martin D. Smith at Duke University, uses a new method that takes a big step toward being able to quantify the economic impacts of the pollution that causes hypoxia. The approach could give policymakers a better tool to understand the costs and benefits of various pollution controls. Their technique could also help researchers to observe the effects of marine disturbances in other areas.
Smith and his colleagues looked at data from the Gulf of Mexico, which has the world’s largest area of seasonal hypoxia, peaking in the summer. The area is home to an important brown shrimp fishery, which should show the effects of hypoxia—but it’s not quite so simple to detect this.
“Although studies demonstrate ecological effects of hypoxia, economic consequences have not been determined in this fishery,” the authors write. Determining these economic consequences is a vital step in informing policy decision. It’s expensive to control pollution upstream of hypoxic areas, so knowing the economic effects of hypoxia help to determine whether the costs are worth it on a purely economic basis.
To get a clear picture of the causal effects of hypoxia, what you really need is a natural experiment: one area that becomes hypoxic, where you can trace the impact on fisheries over time; and another area that isn’t hypoxic to act as a control or baseline. The problem is that ships aren’t static—if one area is producing better harvests, people will just move there. That makes it impossible to clearly compare the hauls from hypoxic areas to non-hypoxic areas.
Where you can expect to see a difference is in the prices of shrimp. If the populations of shrimp in hypoxic areas have smaller individuals and fewer large ones, that should make larger shrimp more scarce, which in turn makes them more expensive. Smaller shrimp will be more abundant, driving their price down. Conveniently, shrimp are generally sold by size, making this relatively easy to track, but not entirely easy: local shortages can be quickly overcome by imports, which means that any price fluctuations will be short-lived.
To see whether our expectations actually appeared in the data, Smith and his colleagues looked at seasonal hypoxia, tracking shrimp prices on a month-by-month basis from 1990 to 2010. They found a strong relationship between prices and hypoxia: when hypoxia peaked, so did the prices of large shrimp, while the prices of smaller categories of shrimp dipped.
This finding is wider-reaching than just the prices of shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico. The method that Smith and his colleagues have developed could be used in other fisheries to determine the impacts not just of hypoxia, but also other environmental disturbances—assuming the right kinds of data can be found. Because environmental impacts on fisheries run a lot deeper than just shrimp and just hypoxia, the cumulative economic impacts could slowly be revealed by multiple analyses.
If the goal is to provide evidence that there’s an economic incentive to do something about hypoxia, there’s a lot more information to gather. “An ideal claim for policy analysis would be something like “reducing nutrient runoff X percent leads to economic benefits for shrimp (and other fisheries) of $Y,” the authors write. For the moment, there isn’t enough data to make a claim like this.
PNAS, 2016. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1617948114 (About DOIs).From almost anywhere in La Rinconada, you look up and you see her: La Bella Durmiente, Sleeping Beauty, an enormous glacier beetling above the town. “Look, there are her eyes, her face, her arm, her hip, there,” Josmell Ilasaca said, his hand drawing and caressing the glacier’s snowy features against a deep-blue sky. We were standing at the precipice of a trail, known as the Second Compuerta, that tumbles into a narrow valley north of town. Yes, now I could see the feminine outline, a mile long, possibly two. It was magnificent. And when the snow melts, exposing more rock, I said, the glacier turns into a skinny old hag called Awicha. Ilasaca gave me a look, slightly surprised, unimpressed. He grunted something that I took to be Quechua, or Aymara, for “Where the hell did you hear that?” I’d heard it from a sociologist in Puno, down on the Peruvian altiplano. Really, I was just trying to buy time. I was out of breath, and the steep trail below us was full of miners, descending and ascending. I doubted my ability to join the traffic flow and keep up—down slippery rocks, through icy mud, between frozen piles of garbage. But the gold mines I had said I wanted to see were all down this trail, in the valley between town and glacier. “Vamos,” Ilasaca said. He set off, hands in pockets. La Rinconada, population roughly fifty thousand, is a ramshackle pueblo clinging to a mountainside at the end of a long, bad road in southeastern Peru. The town is seventeen thousand feet above sea level—the highest-elevation human settlement in the world. (The next highest is in Tibet.) Above it rises the Cordillera Apolobamba, an ice-capped Andean range that runs southeast into Bolivia. The Incas mined gold in these mountains, as did many people before them, and the Spanish after them. Gold-bearing quartz veins—quijo, in Quechua—were first exposed by Pleistocene glaciation, and signs of ancient hard-rock gold mining have been revealed by the retreat of the glaciers. “When I first came to work here, this was all ice and snow,” Ilasaca said. We had reached the bottom of the Compuerta, I was sucking wind, and he was indicating the south wall of the upper valley, which is now bare rock pierced by mine shafts and pocked by slopes of scree. “In fifty years, all this may be gone, too.” He meant La Bella Durmiente, and the whole network of tropical glaciers above it. Ilasaca, who is thirty, was twelve when he began working in the mines, alongside his father. Like almost everyone in La Rinconada, they came from somewhere else—in their case, Azángaro, an altiplano farm town to the southwest. When the price of gold is high, people flock to La Rinconada from every corner of Peru and beyond. Between 2001 and 2012, the world gold price increased sixfold, and the town’s population boomed with it. Both have dropped slightly in the past two or three years, but the town still fizzes with gold fever and the constant churn of new arrivals determined to try their luck—if not in the mines, then in the gaudy constellation of businesses that service the tens of thousands of miners. Many mining towns are company towns. La Rinconada is the opposite. Nearly all the mines and miners here are “informal,” a term that critics consider a euphemism for illegal. Ilasaca prefers “artisanal.” The mines, whatever you call them, are small, numerous, unregulated, and, as a rule, grossly unsafe. Most don’t pay salaries, let alone benefits, but run on an ancient labor system called cachorreo. This system is usually described as thirty days of unpaid work followed by a single frantic day in which workers get to keep whatever gold they can haul out for themselves. I found so many variants of the scheme, however—and so many miners passionately attached to their variant—that the traditional description of cachorreo seems to me inadequate. It’s a lottery, but, because of pilfering, it runs every day, not once a month. “This way.” I followed Ilasaca past many tiny huts of shiny corrugated tin—dirt-floored worker housing in a bare-bones encampment known as Barrio Rit’ipata. The dark mouths of mines now hove into view, in all sizes and states of dilapidation. Some were big enough to drive a truck into, with guard shacks and fat electrical cables and compressed-air hoses. Others were smaller than I am, crumbling, trash-strewn. All looked forbidding. One had a few multicolored balloons strung across it. “Carnaval,” Ilasaca said. He pointed out, above us, the blue mouth of a shaft in the lowest wall of the glacier. “They dug through fifty metres of ice before they hit rock,” he said. Clouds and mist had swallowed La Bella Durmiente. The sky began to spit little snow pellets. From where we stood, thick black hoses ran like wiring up across a snowfield, snaking in the distance over makeshift supports. The hoses carried water from the glacier down to La Rinconada. Like nearly everything here, they were a private, unregulated business. Some, Ilasaca said, went to wells high enough on the glacier that the water they carried was clean. Others didn’t go high enough, and their water was contaminated with mercury. Mercury is the main element used to process gold in La Rinconada. The ground, air, water, and snow in town, along with pretty much anything immediately downstream, are all said to be contaminated. Mercury poisoning can affect the central nervous system, causing tremors, excitability, insomnia, and a grim range of psychotic reactions. Crime and violence in La Rinconada are often attributed, on no medical basis, to mercury poisoning. “You still want to go inside a mine?” I did. “Just once I’d like to be accepted for who I’m not.” Ilasaca studied the possibilities. His face was boyish, small-featured, serious. Given the weather, he was lightly dressed—sweatpants, sneakers, a toffee-colored sweater, a blue Nike watch cap. The miners trudging past us all wore mamelucos (black thermal coveralls with reflective stripes); many had on ski masks. One group greeted Ilasaca. They called him Chino—Chinaman. It’s a common nickname in Peru, given to practically anyone with an epicanthic fold to his eyes. Ilasaca and I had met in a gold buyer’s shop. He had brought in a nugget the size of a thumbnail. We watched the shop owner burn off the mercury in a gas-fired oven, the toxic vapors running up a chimney and into a busy lane outside the shop. We joked about politics—Peru has elections in 2016, and the parties are already campaigning. I liked the way Ilasaca’s face changed when he was amused. His jaw seemed to widen in a big sneaky smile. If circumstances warranted, he had a great bark of a laugh. I was full of questions about how one came to own a gold nugget in La Rinconada, and so Ilasaca, having pocketed forty-odd dollars for his, had led me out to the Second Compuerta. We made our way downslope, to an abandoned mine. The tunnel entrance was twenty feet wide, maybe ten feet high. Ilasaca produced two hard hats and a miner’s lamp from a backpack, and we headed in. “I used to work in here,” he said. “There’s enough oxygen, from old shafts that go to the surface.” He gestured toward the depths of the mountain. As the tunnel narrowed, the air got musty and the darkness, within fifty yards of the entrance, was absolute. Ilasaca was careful to light my way. He showed me mineralized veins in the walls, glittering between rough slabs of black Ordovician slate. When the quijo angled upward, he said, so would the tunnel, and it did. This had all been dug with hand tools and dynamite, he said. “Maybe two metres a day.” Back then, the lamps had been carbide, he said, burning acetylene gas. These nice bright electric headlamps we had, with battery packs that attached to your belt, were relatively new. He stopped to listen to my breathing, which was getting ragged. The tunnel ceiling had been dropping, obliging me to crouch. My thighs were burning from the effort. I was O.K., I said, just altitude weary. More coca, Ilasaca said. I had bought coca leaves that morning, from an old woman on the street in La Rinconada. Everybody here chewed them, I was told, to stave off exhaustion and hunger. I stuffed a wad in my cheek. The leaves were stiff and bitter. Ilasaca also took a wad. The quartz vein in the tunnel wall turned downward, the tunnel followed it, and at a certain depth we found our progress halted by an icy-looking pond. Ilasaca studied the vein, tapping it with his fingertips. I wondered what he saw in its fissures and glints. On the hike back to the surface, he pointed out a little shrine I had missed. Tucked under an overhang were two upright black rocks—they looked like primitive tombstones, and they were wreathed with frayed rope, dead flowers, rotting fabric. “Awicha,” Ilasaca said, pointing to one. The other: “Chinchilico.” Mountain deities. These were gods who could keep a miner safe—from cave-ins, from asphyxiation. Gods who could lead a true believer to gold. Piled around the stones were liquor bottles, old candles, a dusty Carnival mask, a dank mound of unreadable pleas and offerings. La Rinconada had many brujos, soothsayers who advised miners on what prayers and payments they could make to the mountain gods to help them find gold and come home alive. The desperation of the miners felt suffocatingly close in here.
The Peruvian government has been trying to “formalize” small-scale mining for at least a decade. In La Rinconada, I met old-timers who remember the Army, sent in by the authoritarian government of Alberto Fujimori, coming to rout the miners in the early nineteen-nineties. That obviously didn’t work. Fujimori, who is now in prison, was primarily interested in attracting foreign investment for large-scale mining. Minerals are Peru’s leading export, mining its main source of foreign exchange. Most of the big multinationals, including Rio Tinto, Anglo American, Glencore, and Barrick Gold, have operations in Peru, extracting copper, gold, silver, zinc. Nobody knows the true size of the illegal-mining sector, but the Peruvian mining researcher Miguel Santillana calculates that there are roughly four hundred thousand informal gold miners today. Although Peru is among the world’s leading producers of cocaine, black-market gold has reportedly surpassed it as the country’s biggest illegal export. Recently, with new laws and a wave of raids, the government has been cracking down on informal gold mining. The raids have been concentrated not on hard-rock mines in the mountains, however, but on alluvial operations in the rivers and rain forest of the Amazon Basin—only a hundred miles north of La Rinconada, but another universe. The river mining in the lowlands has escalated from low-impact panning to extraction by large machinery, including dredges, pumps, and bulldozers, and it is devastating tens of thousands of acres, attracting the attention of national and international environmentalists. There is little evidence that the raids are discouraging illegal mining. In La Rinconada, I found tepid support for la formalización, or, at least, for some of its features, such as improved mine safety, but a general view that its implementation is unlikely. The Peruvian state has almost no presence in the town. A shopkeeper near the Compuerta told me, with a shrug, “If government inspectors came up here and ordered a mine closed, the inspectors would leave by nightfall, and the next day the mine would be open again.” La Rinconada residents deplore the state’s absence. They’ve protested en masse, blocking highways in the altiplano, and demanded that the government start providing basic services. Electricity came, finally, in 2002. They’re still waiting for clean water, a sewage system, garbage collection, a hospital. But their political leverage is limited. Most residents, if they’re registered to vote, are registered in their home towns, not in La Rinconada. Besides that, hardly anyone seems to pay taxes. Most of the gold that comes out of the mountain goes straight onto the black market. Nobody knows how many mines there are, or what they produce, or how many people really live in La Rinconada. Politically, then, it’s a standoff—leaving intact an operatically harsh, hard-to-measure, oxygen-deprived experiment in frontier capitalism, social dislocation, raw exploitation, and millenarian endurance. Certainly almost none of the money being made shows up in the town’s housing stock. I kept expecting to stumble on a successful miner’s new house or a night-club owner’s comfortable, heated apartment. That would not happen, I kept hearing, and indeed it didn’t. Every penny goes back either into mining, people said, or down the mountain to more livable towns and cities. Juliaca, a busy commercial center on the altiplano, is the nearest big city to La Rinconada, and it owes much of its prosperity, from all accounts, to the gold mines. Successful miners have nice houses there. I saw a street-dance troupe in Juliaca celebrating the relationship. The dancers were dressed as miners, in coveralls and hard hats and steel-toed boots, and they were rhythmically swinging small sledgehammers—martillos—against chisels known in the mines as cuñas, while a brass orchestra rocked the avenida. My unheated hotel room in La Rinconada overlooked a muddy corner where long-distance minibuses arrived and departed, and all night long the touts shouted, “Juliaca! Juliaca! Juliaca!” Josmell Ilasaca began mining at twelve. “The mine is a killer,” he said. “A doctor told me I’ve spent too many years here already.” Miners send money to their families. That’s the primary cash flow. It’s the reason Josmell Ilasaca, like many thousands of others, is in La Rinconada—because there is more to be made here, they believe, than elsewhere in Peru, which has seen economic growth in recent years but still has a rural poverty rate close to fifty per cent. La Rinconada has no bank, but it has many storefront fund-transfer agencies, which Ilasaca uses to send money to his mother, in Azángaro, and to his daughter, who is three and lives with her mother in a town, farther west, called Abancay. “What is hard about the cachorreo is its uncertainty,” he told me. “It’s not like a salary. You don’t know what you’re going to make, or when. You need luck. La suerte is everything here.” We were eating dinner in a tiny, freezing second-floor restaurant in La Rinconada. I was having the Cuban plate—rice and a hot dog and a fried banana—and hot, sweet yerba-maté tea. Ilasaca, just off work, was eating more heartily, but I, after a sobering encounter with alpaca-tripe soup, had stopped simply following the dining lead of whomever I was with in La Rinconada. I asked about his best day in the mines. Eight thousand dollars in a month, he told me, proudly but quietly. His best day? He calculated a moment. About three thousand, he said. “The price was high then.” So had he found a single great chunk of gold, or a rare mass of flakes, on his one day a month of working for himself? Ilasaca shook his head. No. It was an ordinary day. He had pocketed a likely-looking rock, taken it to a traditional mill known as a quimbalete, and come away with a nugget that turned out to contain nearly a hundred grams of gold—more than three ounces. Did the mineowner not claim the gold as his own? Ilasaca shook his head. The owner didn’t know about it. He probably heard about it later, but he could hardly begrudge one of his best workers his stroke of luck. “Es mi suerte.” I had heard similar things from other miners, and from a gold-shop owner who seemed nonplussed that I assumed he saw his customers only once a month. No, they came in when they found something, he said, which was often several times a week. Miners put good-looking rocks in their pockets every day. That was a part of the cachorreo that you didn’t read about. Some people called it huachaca—it was simply understood, among indigenous Andean miners, as a type of natural right. If you found it in the mountain, particularly after payments to Awicha or Chinchilico or a Quechua spirit called Apu, it was yours. On the payment day of your cachorreo—under Ilasaca’s present contract, this comes once every twenty-five days—you were allowed to haul fifty-kilogram sacks of rock out of the mine on your back, as many as you could carry. These were the same yellow sacks that miners carried out of the earth every day, all day, except on payment day the rock didn’t go onto the contractor’s lode but straight to a mill, as the property of the miner. The rest of the month, the miner could discreetly carry out a sack, perhaps, at the end of a shift. Certainly a promising rock or two. That was it—but it was not unimportant. When cachorreo was threatened as part of the government’s formalization proposals, miners poured into the streets in the thousands. This reform was out of the question. Mining for a miserable Peruvian salary was unthinkable. Without la suerte in the equation, the job was not worth doing. I asked Ilasaca if he made payments to Awicha. “Of course,” he said. Nothing extravagant. Just tragos of liquor—he meant little airline bottles of booze that are sold from stands along the paths to the mines. Without paying something, Ilasaca said, you could expect nothing. I had heard of miners making extravagant offerings to the mountain gods—blood sacrifices—but Ilasaca said he knew nothing about that. Maybe it happened in the old days. A lot had changed even since he first came to La Rinconada. Electricity, high-pressure power tools. You rarely, if ever, saw children in the mines now. “We were little goblins,” he said, his wide grin sneaking across his face. “Little Chinchilicos.” He laughed. Chinchilico is usually depicted as a short, grouchy fellow who accosts miners deep in the earth, demanding liquor and cigarettes. People call him “the owner of the gold.” He likes to punch terrified miners in the face. At times, Ilasaca sounded nostalgic for the days of child labor. He worked during his school vacations, three months a year, until he finished high school and moved full time to La Rinconada. He remembers watching outdoor screenings of “Rambo” with his dad. “Now everybody has their own TV,” he said. A TV on the wall in the restaurant was playing a game show. Every TV in town seemed to play this same game show at all hours. Ripped young men in wifebeaters and equally buff young women in bikinis grappled with softball questions (“What is the capital of Russia?”) and physical challenges and celebrated their triumphs with high fives and passionate kisses among puffs of bright-pink smoke. Miners in the ice-cold, no-frills eateries of La Rinconada would look up from steaming bowls of goat soup to watch the revelry. I wondered what they saw. The young people on TV were nearly all white. I had yet to see a white person in La Rinconada. Ilasaca’s father left La Rinconada eight years ago. “But he worked too long,” Ilasaca said. “His health was destroyed.” He looked at me evenly. “The mine is a killer.”
Where the rough dirt road from the lowlands enters La Rinconada, a rudimentary health clinic—one of the government’s very few local outposts—sits between a graveyard and a row of undertakers. A ponytailed young doctor named Fredy Rios was running the clinic when I stopped by. He didn’t have a working X-ray machine, which was bad, he said, because he saw a lot of broken arms from accidents in the mines. It was bad, too, because X-rays help diagnose lung diseases, such as silicosis, which is associated with gold mining. (Quartz veins are rich with silica.) According to Rios, mine accidents—caused by explosives, ceiling collapses, asphyxiation—kill about thirty people a year in La Rinconada. (Three had died in a collapse a few weeks before I got to town.) Seventy more die from shootings, stabbings, stranglings—the results of bar fights and robberies, mainly. Martín Ccari, an undertaker from across the street, told me that some mine deaths could be blamed on slow response to cave-ins and other accidents. There were no emergency services in La Rinconada, and injured miners often died en route to help. Ccari could bury people locally—not in the cemetery behind the clinic, which was now full, but in a new field, outside town. He could also arrange the transfer of bodies to the miners’ home towns. “I have more underneath.” The mine kills both quickly and slowly. There was one working X-ray machine in town. It was in a private clinic, attached to a well-stocked pharmacy. The doctor there, Nestor Condori, told me that he sees plenty of silicosis, which grows both more readily and faster at high altitude than elsewhere. Living at very high altitude raises one’s hemoglobin level, and many residents of La Rinconada develop polycythemia—elevated red-blood-cell production, described by Condori as “dense blood”—which interacts badly with silicosis, frequently causing, for instance, pulmonary fibrosis, a potentially fatal condition. Silicosis is also associated with tuberculosis. The only real treatment for polycythemia, Condori said, involves moving to sea level, which he often recommends, to little effect, to his patients in La Rinconada. Rios, at the public clinic, said that he saw an unusual number of urinary infections in women, which he attributed to the absence of a sewage system. At home, people improvise chamber pots, and the town has an abundance of public lavatories, but these are actually private, charging customers a small fee, and they’re never pleasant to enter. (They empty directly into simple pits or seemingly, in some cases, into the next alley.) Men routinely relieve themselves in the streets. Women who are out working or running errands, and not near home, also try to avoid the public lavatories but are more modest. According to Rios, they often pee only once a day, which accounts, he thought, for the high rate of infections. The only reason that the town’s appalling sanitary situation doesn’t cause an epidemic of gastrointestinal infections and parasites is the brutal year-round cold, he said. (In the summer month |
‘So, how Jewish are you?”
That’s what he asked, leaning in provocatively while I sipped my gin and tonic. It was our second non-date. He had asked what my background was. I had proudly told him my mix.
I said, “well… I’m like Jew-lite.”
He nodded, pursed his lips and ordered another drink. He was intrigued, which made me all the more put off and embarrassed for having just called myself that.
I have both the blessing and curse of being from an interracial/interfaith household. My mother is Mexican/Catholic, and my father is an Italian Jew. My dad calls us “Jew-lite” or “convenient Jews,” the kind that celebrate major holidays and their status as an excuse to cut off the Jehovah’s Witnesses mid-speech when they come knocking.
When I was a little girl, it occurred to me that not everyone was so lucky to celebrate two facets of religious opinions or cultures. It also occurred to me that while everyone else knew exactly what they “were,” I was torn between which “side” best represented me.
I often wear both my crucifix and Star of David together on a delicate white gold chain my mom gave me. It draws attention and questions like “Are you confused? Because you’re wearing conflicting religious symbols…” or “How can you be both?” I know that religion is passed down through the mother, but I refuse to consider myself a shiksa. I grew up acknowledging both sides equally and I claim them both — to not do so would be disrespectful to my parents and denying a piece of myself.
Neither of my parents is particularly staunchly religious but they did name me in the synagogue — Peninah Shoshana. When I was growing up, the general consensus in our household was that my sister and I would be educated about both religions, and we could either choose which one suited us best or find a mutual blending point.
My sister (aka: Super Jew) from an early age firmly identified herself as Jewish. She has a beautiful traditional name (Sarah), big curly hair, and a prominent nose — she fits every stereotype. She also has excellent Jew-dar, as we call it, and can spot a fellow Tribe-member from a mile away. She has never doubted or waivered in her conviction that she is Jewish. The Catholic side never once fazed her.
I don’t quite look the same. I have a classic, nondescript name. (“Audrey” doesn’t immediately ring bells of Italian or Jewish or Mexican). I have straight hair, a round nose, and the classic curvy Latina look. I look enough like either side to blend in but not enough to be immediately distinguishable. Unlike my sister, growing up, I had a deep fascination with attending Catholic Mass in Spanish with my grandmother. I thought it was majestic and beautiful. I felt like I fit in, and looked like everyone else. I wear my mantilla (a Spanish chapel veil) with pride and humility.
But this particular night, the date night, I felt a bit defensive. I felt like I was being judged for being “too Jewish” merely due to the fact that “Jewish” was a word I had used to describe myself. Mr. Catholic wanted to be with another Catholic. How ironic: Having grown up thinking I wasn’t “Jewish enough,” here I was being made to feel “too Jewish.” So I kept drinking. The Tanqueray took the edge off, the sexual tension sucked me in.
The week of that date was Rosh Hashanah. I celebrated with my girl-friend at The Edison in downtown LA. We raised a toast being Jewish, to being young and beautiful, and to my budding new relationship — the one I said “was The One.”
Fast forward four months: We’re engaged and planning our late summer wedding. After sitting with his priest and discussing how we intend to raise our future children in the faith, I made an offhand comment about how much I was looking forward to our future children getting to enjoy dual sets of holidays, the way I had growing up. I was gushing over how we might decorate our Hanukkah bush (aka Christmas tree), when he stopped me in my tracks:
Our children will be Catholic! There will be NO Jewish décor or Jewish holidays in our home!
I was stunned.
“But I’m Jewish,” I said.
“No,” he said. “Your father is Jewish, you are Catholic, and we will not have this in our home.”
I recall my heart breaking a little bit. Here I had lived in this fantasy world that I was embarking — like my parents — on a blended marriage of understanding and acceptance, when suddenly I felt judged and “less than.” What broke my heart more was that I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight back. I thought this is what couples do — they compromise — and I thought my compromise was to give up a piece of me, my Peninah Shoshana.
As you might guess, that relationship fizzled. In ended up compromising too much about myself — and it still was never enough.
This year, with Rosh Hashanah once again upon us, my promise for the new year is to remind myself, that my Jewish is Jewish enough. The honor I show myself, my parents, and my heritage by keeping a fusion household is just right. This year, I raise a toast to being older and wiser, and to knowing myself better than I did three years ago when I thought I deserved less. This year I raise a toast to being true to myself (and maybe to the prospect of a nice Jewish boy, just like the one my mother always wanted me to bring home).The Edmonton Oilers better win the whole show next year… or else a “kick-ass sporty” lady might just make them pay.
READ MORE: Oilers vs. Ducks: Edmonton’s adventures in Anaheim for NHL playoffs
An Edmonton woman remembered in a witty obituary Monday wanted her team to win Stanley Cup so badly, her family says she’s “not above haunting Rogers Place” if they don’t.
The humorous tribute to Loretta Workun was shared in the obituary section of Monday’s edition of the Edmonton Journal.
The 85-year-old was born Feb. 6, 1932 and passed away on May 30.
READ MORE: Edmonton Oilers make playoffs for 1st time since 2006: What’s changed in the last 11 years?
Her obituary reads: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our kick-ass sporty mom. She was grumpy and fiery till the end.
“Somehow she was survived by two fat kids and one grumpy old kid. In passing she joins her husband and son, both of whom she can now tell again to: ‘go soak your heads!’
“No service, but she warns the Oilers that they better win next year because she’s not above haunting Rogers Place.”
This year, the Edmonton Oilers made it to the playoffs for the first time in 11 years. The team beat the San Jose Sharks in the first round but lost to the Anaheim Ducks in the second.The Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional. Here's what you need to know. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)
That sigh of relief you heard following the Supreme Court's ruling Friday legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide wasn't just from LGBT activists; it also came from savvy Republicans who had been quietly rooting for just that decision for a very long time.
Publicly, of course, most Republicans, and particularly those running for president, disagreed with the ruling to one degree or another. There was the angry denunciation — “Marriage between a man and a woman was established by God, and no earthly court can alter that,” said Bobby Jindal — and the careful line-walking — “I believe in traditional marriage. … I also believe that we should love our neighbor and respect others, including those making lifetime commitments,” said Jeb Bush.
But, the simple political reality is that the fight over gay marriage has long been over. Public opinion has surged in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to marry over the last decade, and young people (even Republican young people) are far more tolerant of allowing gays to marry than are those 65 years and older.
The problem for Republicans, who have long acknowledged that reality, is that their party's base remains quite socially conservative and opposed to gay marriage. As long as there was a fight — in the states or in the judiciary — they were forced to fight in order to preserve their credibility within a critical voting bloc of their party. And by so doing, they were positioning themselves increasingly outside the center of political thought on the issue, complicating any effort to court independent or Democratic-leaning voters in the process.
[How Republicans dodged a bullet by losing the Obamacare case]
The court's ruling now gives Republicans a very clear way to both satisfy their base while also not alienating the rest of the country. I don't agree with what the court said, you can hear a Republican running for president saying, but it is now the law of the land and I will respect it.
Don't believe me? Check out this statement from the decidedly conservative Ben Carson: “While I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision, their ruling is now the law of the land.”
And here’s GOP strategist Matt David, who worked for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is also running for president, echoed Carson’s comments and then made the case for letting sleeping dogs lie about as well as anyone could.
“ … Given the quickly changing tide of public opinion on this issue, I do not believe that an attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution could possibly gain the support of three-fourths of the states or a supermajority in the U.S. Congress,” Graham said. “Rather than pursing a divisive effort that would be doomed to fail, I am committing myself to ensuring the protection of religious liberties of all Americans.”
What this ruling does then is take same-sex marriage off the table as a major talking point, debate issue or differentiator between the candidates during the coming Republican primary. Yes, Jindal, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — to name three — will talk about this ruling as part of a broader indictment of the increasingly liberal culture. But for the likes of Bush, Marco Rubio and others, they will no longer have to walk a political minefield when responding. The I disagree but it's the law of the land line is difficult to argue against; it's the line most establishment Republican candidates now use when abortion is brought up as an issue in a Republican primary.
The truth of the matter is this: Given where public opinion is heading (and has already headed) on gay marriage, the less said about it, the better when it comes to Republicans’ chances of winning back the White House in 2016 and beyond. It had become abundantly clear over the last decade that the GOP's position in opposition to gay marriage was increasingly a minority view. And the worst thing in politics is to stay on a boat that is sinking — faster and faster.
The court just threw Republican candidates a life preserver. They would do well to grab it.The Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864) involved a series of battles and wars in Circassia, the northwestern part of the Caucasus, in the course of the Russian Empire's conquest of the Caucasus. Fighting lasted approximately 101 years, starting in the reign of Empress Catherine the Great and finishing in 1864. Although the Russian conquest of the Caucasus started at least as early as the Russo-Persian Wars, the term Caucasian War commonly refers only to the period 1817–1864. Those who use the term Russian–Circassian War take its starting date as 1763, when the Russians began establishing forts, including at Mozdok, to be used as springboards for conquest.[5]
The Caucasian War ended with the signing of loyalty oaths by Circassian leaders on 2 June [O.S. 21 May] 1864. Afterwards, the Ottoman Empire offered to harbour the Circassians who did not wish to accept the rule of a Christian monarch, and many emigrated to Anatolia, the heart of the Ottoman territory[5][6] and ended up in modern Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Kosovo. Different smaller numbers ended up in neighbouring Persia. Various Russian, Caucasus, and Western historians agree on the figure of ca. 500,000 inhabitants of the highland Caucasus being deported by Russia in the 1860s.[3] A large fraction of them died in transit from disease. Some of those that remained loyal to Russia were settled into the lowlands, the left-bank of the Kuban River.
Early relations between Russia and Circassians [ edit ]
A map of Circassia about 1700
For background see Russian conquest of the Caucasus. Around 1560 Russia interacted with Kabardia but thereafter left the region alone except for the Caspian coast. In 1800 Russia annexed eastern Georgia and by 1806 held Transcaucasia from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Since Russia also claimed the steppes north of the mountains its claims were divided by the free mountaineers of the Caucasus. Russia had to hold the Georgian Military Highway in the center so the war against the mountaineers was divided into eastern and western parts.
Circassia (Cherkessia in Russian) refers to a region the majority of whose inhabitants before the 1860s were the Adygey (Adyghey, Adyghe) ethnic group, known to the West as Circassians. This region consisted for the most part of the region between the westward flowing Kuban River to the north and the Caucasus mountain range to the south, although the Kuban River constituted only part of the northern boundary. The Circassians were never politically united for a long period. The western bulk of Circassia, they belonged to any of about ten tribes, living in communities headed by chieftains. In the east of Circassia were two feudal polities, Greater Kabardá and Lesser Kabardá. In the late 1550s, the ruler of one of the Kabardás, Temryuk (or Temriuk), struck a politico-military alliance with Tsar Ivan IV of Russia ("Ivan the Terrible"), for mutual assistance against expansionist attacks by the Persian and Ottoman Empires.[citation needed] In this period of history, the Circassians were Christians; Islam did not begin to penetrate Circassia until the following century.[7] In the 1560s Ivan and Temryuk directed forts to be constructed, including Tumnev at the western end of Circassian lands and at Sunzha Ostrog at the mouth of the Sunzha river, at the eastern end of Circassian lands.
War [ edit ]
Circassia is the northwest bulge of the Caucasus Mountains. Most of it is west-northwest of the snow-covered area in this image
The Russo-Circassian War was the western phase of the Caucasus War during which Russia gained control of the free mountaineers of the Caucasus mountains. The eastern phase was the Murid War. For background see Russian conquest of the Caucasus. There does not appear to be a proper history of this war in any language. The best in English are Richmond and Henze (see references).
Fighting: There were no great battles or campaigns. The war consisted of hundreds of small raids and counter-raids. Both sides would drive away livestock and steal what they could. The Russians specialized in burning villages. In many cases a tribe or faction would make a nominal submission and then return to fighting when they chose. Groups of Circassians would fight each other, individuals would desert to the other side and there was much trading with the enemy.
Most Circassians lived south and west of Kuban River. The Russians held a siege line here from about 1792 until they began pushing inward in the 1840s.
Russian expansion to the Kuban: The war did not have a clear beginning. Instead fighting slowly increased as more and more Russians moved south. From about 1777 the Russians built a line of forts from Mozdok northwest to Azov. Before 1800 the main Russian pressure was on the Kabardians near the southeast end of this diagonal. The first forts appeared along the western Kuban in 1778. The presence of Cossacks in former grazing lands slowly converted traditional raiding from a kind of ritualized sport into a serious military struggle. In 1785 Sheikh Mansur appeared in Chechnya preaching holy war against the invaders. He moved west to Circassia where he was captured when Anapa fell in 1791. During the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792) the Russians made three attempts to take Anapa by crossing Circassian territory. The second attempt was a disaster when the Circassians harassed the Russians going and coming. The Kuban Line took its basic form in 1792/93. Black Sea Cossacks (former Zaporozians) were settled north of the lower Kuban in 1792/93 and Don Cossacks on the Kuban bend in 1794.
Kabardia: The Russian conquest of Kabardia was almost a separate conflict from the conquest of Circassia proper. It both began and ended before the main conflict along the Kuban. Kabardia extended across the central third of the north Caucasus piedmont from east of Circassia proper to the Chechen country. Mozdok on the western Terek was founded in Kabardian territory and a line of forts was run down the Terek to Kizlyar. In 1771 the Russians defeated the Kabardians on the Malka River and subjugated some of Lesser Kabardia. In 1777/78 the line was extended from Mozdok northwest to Azov. In 1779 the Kabardians were defeated, losing 50 princes and 350 nobles and a frontier was established along the Malka and Terek. The establishment of the Georgian Military Road (Mozdok-Vladikavkaz-Tiflis) effectively cut off Lesser Kabardia. About 1805 a major plague struck the north Caucasus and carried away a large part of the Kabardian population. (One source[8] says the Kabardians were reduced from 350,000 'before the war' to 50,000 in 1818. Another[9] says has 200,000 in 1790 and 30,000 in 1830.) In 1805 Glazenap burned eighty villages. In 1810 about 200 villages were burned. In 1817 the frontier was pushed to the Sunzha River and in 1822 a line of forts was built from Vladikavkaz northwest through Nalchik to the Pyatigorsk area. After 1825 fighting subsided.
Freedom and the state: It might seem that the Circassians should have formed an organized state to resist the Russians, but the fact remains that the disorganized Circassians held out longer than the organized Murids. The Turks had a Wali at Anapa or Sujuk-Kale who tried to unite some of the tribes under Ottoman control. Sheik Mansur tried something similar at about the same time. Richmond[10] says that in 1791 the Natukhai commoners peacefully took power from the aristocrats. A similar attempt among the Shapsugs led to a civil war which the commons won in 1803. Jaimoukha[11] says that in 1770–1790 there was a class war among the Abadzeks that resulted in the extermination of the princes and the banishment of most of the nobility. Henceforth the three west-central 'democratic' tribes, Natukhai, Shapsugs and Abedzeks, who were probably the majority of the Circassians, managed their affairs through assemblies with only informal powers. This made things difficult for the Russians since there were no chiefs who might lead their followers into submission. Sefer-Bei, the three Naibs and the English adventurers (below) all tried to organize the Circassians with limited success. About 1860 the Ubyks, Shapsugs and Abadzeks briefly formed a national assembly at Sochi.
Black Sea Coast: Velyaminov described the Caucasus War as a great siege. The Russians had a line of forts along the Kuban River to the north and east, but the Black Sea coast was open. After they lost Crimea the Turks held fortified ports along the coast: Anapa, Sujuk-Kale (Novorossisk) Gelendzhik, Pitsunda, Sukhum-Kale and possibly others. Anapa was the most important since the others were backed by mountains. Russia captured Anapa in 1790 and 1807 but returned it for diplomatic reasons. In the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829) it was taken and kept. The fate of the other ports is not clear. Turkey now had no bases on the northeast Black Sea, renounced its claim to the Circassian coast, but the diplomatic status of inland Circassia was unclear. About this time Russia began a rather ineffectual blockade of the coast, but some 120–150 boats regularly traded between Turkey and the Circassian coast. In 1836 the Russians captured a British gun-runner (Mission of the Vixen) and for the next few years there were several British adventurers in Circassia. Their exact relation to the British government is uncertain. The Russians strengthened the blockade by building forts along the coast which evolved into the Black Sea Defensive Line. Among these were Gelendzhik (1831), Adler (1837), Novorossisk, Tuapse and Sochi (all 1838) and others. Soldiers stationed in them did not dare to venture far beyond the walls. In 1840 and 1841 several were captured by the mountaineers. During the Crimean War they were all abandoned and later re-established.
Sefer-Bei and the three Naibs: In November 1830 the Natukhais and Shapsugs sent a delegation to Turkey under Sefer-Bei Zanoko. The delegation returned with a few weapons and Sefer-Bei remained in Istanbul.
It seems obvious that the Circassians and Chechen-Dagestanis should have united or at least cooperated against the Russians, but this did not happen. Shamyl sent three naibs (deputies) to work with the Circassians, but his authoritarian Islam did not fit well with Circassian freedom and his rather egalitarian theocracy did not suit the Circassian nobility. The first Naib was Haji-Mohammad (1842–1844) who reached Circassia in May 1842. His plan was to build an Islamic state and not attack the Russians prematurely. By October he was accepted as leader by the Shapsugs and some of the Natukhais. Next February he moved south to Ubyk country but failed because he took sides in a civil conflict. By late 1843 he had the alliegance of the Natukhais, Shapsugs and the Beslanys and sent raiding parties as far as Stavropol. In the spring of 1844 he was defeated by the Russians, withdrew into the mountains and died there in May. The second naib was Suleiman Efendi (1845) who arrived among the Abadzeks in February 1845. His main goal was to rise a Circassian force and lead it back to Chechnya, but the Circassians did not want to lose their best fighters. After twice failing lead his recruits through the Russian lines he returned to Shamyl in August and ultimately joined the Russians. In the spring of 1846 Shamyl invaded Kabardia. The Kabardians failed to rise and he withdrew. The third naib, Muhammad Amin (1849–1859), arrived in spring of 1849 and was much more successful. He created a standing army, started the manufacture of gunpowder and built the first jails. By mid-1851 he was greatly weakened but by the spring of 1853 he had regained control. The Crimean War began in October 1853 and in the following spring Sefer-Bei (1854–1859) returned from Istanbul to Sukhum-Kale. Meeting no success he moved to Anapa where the Natukhais accepted him as leader. Amin went to Istanbul to sort things out. Receiving no support he returned to Circassia and the two would-be leaders began to fight, the Natukhais supporting Sefer-Bei and the Abadzeks and Bzhedugs supporting Amin. When the allies asked Sefer-Bei to turn over Anapa he replied that it was sovereign Circassian territory, thereby breaking with his protectors. When the Crimean War ended in 1856 Russia had a free hand in Circassia and the two leaders continued to fight both the Russians and each other. They agreed that the Porte should appoint a single leader, Amin went to Istanbul, but Sefer-Bei stayed and worked against him. Amin returned, went again to Istanbul, was arrested at the request of the Russian ambassador, was sent to Syria, escaped and returned to Circassia by the end of 1857. On 20 November 1859, following the defeat of Shamyl, Amin submitted. He stayed in Shapsug country for a while and emigrated to Istanbul. Sefir-Bei died in December of that year. His son Karabatyr took over but our sources do not say what happened to him.
The last holdout: Haji Kirantukh Berzeg
Defeat: Before 1830 Russia basically maintained a siege line along the Kuban River. There was constant raiding by both sides but no change in borders. In the late 1830s Russia gained increasing control of the coast. After 1845 Vorontsov may have eased the pressure on Circassia to concentrate on Shamyl. The Crimean War drew away resources but its end in 1856 and the defeat of Shamyl in 1859 allowed the shift of troops to the Circassian front. By 1860 the Russians had seventy thousand soldiers in the northwest Caucasus, but we do not seem to have figures for the earlier period. Cossack stanitsas appeared around Anapa from 1836. About 1838 an unsuccessful attempt was made to run a line from the Kuban to Gelendzhik. From 1841 Cossack settlements were pushed west to the Laba River and by 1860 its valley was full of Cossack stanitsas. Maikop was founded in 1857. By 1859 the Russians had pushed about a third of the way south from the Kuban. The last battle of the war occurred at Qbaada Meadow near Sochi on 27 May 1864 when the Russians defeated a group of Ubyks. On 2 June Evdokimov declared the war over and held a victory parade. In 1869 the place was settled by Russians and named Krasnaya Polyana.
Expulsion: The Circassian expulsion seems to have been first proposed by Miliutin in 1857. The decision was made at a meeting in Vladikazkaz in October 1860. The motion was proposed by Yevdokimov and supported by Baryatinsky and Miliutin, only Filipson objecting. The plan was approved by Alexander II in May 1862. The tribes were to be given to choice of emigrating to the Ottoman Empire or settling north to the Kuban. In practice most were simply driven to the coast. Over 100,000 Crimean Tatars had previously left Crimea. 30,000 Nogais left in 1858–59, some wealthy Circassians in 1860 and 10,000 Kabardians in 1861.[12] The drives seem to have started in 1861–62. In April 1862 15,000 Temirgois were driven to the coast and in May the pacified Natukhais. In May 1862 a commission was formed to organize the deportation. Each deported family was to be given 10 rubles. The number of people expelled was several hundred thousand with a large percent dying on the march, waiting on the beach, on overloaded boats or of plague after arrival on the Turkish shore. The future Kuban Oblast lost 94 percent of its population. Richmond estimates population changes in the northwest Caucasus as follows: (1835 and 1882, in thousands) Circassians: at least 571 to 36; Kabardians: 15 to 15;[13] Abazas: 70 to 10; Karachais: 24 to 17; Russians and Ukrainians: 110 to 926. The surviving Circassians were south of Krasnodar, inside the Laba bend and on the west side of the upper Kuban and some Shapsugs around on the Black Sea coast.
Consequences of the conflict [ edit ]
Civilian casualties [ edit ]
In response to persistent Circassian (and other Caucasian) resistance and the failure of their previous policy of building forts, the Russian military began using (first in the East, then later in the West) a strategy of disproportionate retribution for raids. With the goal of imposing stability and authority beyond their current line of control and over the whole Caucasus, Russian troops retaliated by destroying villages or any place that resistance fighters were thought to hide, as well as employing assassinations and executions of whole families.[14] Understanding that the resistance was reliant on being fed by sympathetic villages, the Russian military also systematically destroyed crops and livestock.[15] These tactics further enraged natives and intensify resistance to Russian rule. The Russians began to counter this by modifying the terrain, in both the environment and the demographics. They cleared forests by roads, destroyed native villages, and often settled new farming communities of Russians or pro-Russian Caucasian peoples. In this increasingly bloody situation, the wholesale destruction became a standard action by the Russian army and Cossack units, and was adopted by Circassians and other highland groups against Russian or pro-Russian villages.[16]
Nevertheless, the Circassian resistance continued. Villages that had previously accepted Russian rule were found resisting again, much to the ire of Russian commanders. Furthermore, the Circassian cause began to arouse sympathies in the West, especially Britain, Russia's imperial rival, and in the Crimean War they cooperated with Britain.[17]
In 1857, Dmitry Milyutin first published the idea of mass expulsions of Circassian natives.[18] Miliutin argued that the goal was not to simply move them so that their land could be settled by productive farmers, but rather that "eliminating the Circassians was to be an end in itself—to cleanse the land of hostile elements".[18][19] Tsar Alexander II endorsed the plans,[18] and Milyutin later would become the minister of war in 1861, and from the early 1860s expulsions began occurring in the Caucasus (first in the Northeast and then in the Northwest).[18][19]
Toward the end of the conflict, the Russian General Yevdokimov was tasked with driving the remaining Circassian inhabitants out of the region, primarily into the Ottoman Empire. This policy was enforced by mobile columns of Russian riflemen and Cossack cavalry.[20][21][22] "In a series of sweeping military campaigns lasting from 1860 to 1864... the northwest Caucasus and the Black Sea coast were virtually emptied of Muslim villagers. Columns of the displaced were marched either to the Kuban [River] plains or toward the coast for transport to the Ottoman Empire.... One after another, entire Circassian tribal groups were dispersed, resettled, or killed en masse"[22] Such tactics had been in use for a number of years. Count Leo Tolstoy, the future author of War and Peace, saw action in the war in 1850–51. He described how "It had been the custom to rush the auls [mountain villages] by night, when, taken by surprise, the women and children had no time to escape, and the horrors that ensued under the cover of darkness when the Russian soldiers made their way by twos and threes into the houses were such as no official narrator dared describe"[23] Similar atrocities committed in the final campaign of 1859–1864 were recorded by contemporary Russian observers and British consuls.[22] A consul Dickson recounted in an 1864 dispatch: "A Russian detachment having captured the village of Toobah on the Soobashi river, inhabited by about a hundred Abadzekh [a tribe of Circassians], and after these had surrendered themselves prisoners, they were all massacred by the Russian Troops. Among the victims were two women in an advanced state of pregnancy and five children. The detachment in question belongs to Count Evdokimoff's Army, and is said to have advanced from the Pshish valley. As the Russian troops gain ground on the [Black Sea] Coast, the natives are not allowed to remain there on any terms, but are compelled either to transfer themselves to the plains of the Kouban or emigrate to Turkey".[24]
This expulsion, along with the actions of the Russian military in acquiring Circassian land,[6] has given rise to a movement among descendants of the expelled ethnicities for international recognition that genocide was perpetrated.[25] In 1840, Karl Friedrich Neumann estimated the Circassian casualties to be around one and a half million.[26] Some sources state that hundreds of thousands of others died during the exodus.[6] Several historians use the term 'Circassian massacres'[27] for the consequences of Russian actions in the region.[28]
Circassian historians cite casualty figures that lie near the four million mark, while official Russian figures are near 300,000. The Russian census of 1897 records only 150,000 Circassians, one tenth of the original number, still remaining in the now conquered region.[29] In reference to the actions of the Russian army during the conflict, Russian President Boris Yeltsin stated in May 1994 that resistance to the tsarist forces was legitimate; however, he did not recognize "the guilt of the tsarist government for the genocide."[30]
Circassians have attempted to attract global media attention to the Circassian Genocide and its relation to the city of Sochi (where the Olympics were held in 2014, on the official anniversary of the genocide) by holding mass protests in Vancouver, Istanbul and New York during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.[31][32]
On October 2006, the Adyghe (Circassian) organizations of many countries in North America, Europe and the Middle East sent the president of the European Parliament a letter requesting recognition of the genocide.[25][30]
On 20 March 2010, a Circassian Genocide Congress was held in Tbilisi, Georgia.[33][34] The congress passed a resolution, urging Georgia to recognize the Circassian Genocide.[34]
Expulsion and Migration [ edit ]
Some sources state that three million Circassians were evicted from Circassia in a period lasting until 1911.[35] Other sources cite upwards of two million Circassian refugees fleeing Circassia by 1914 and entering nations and regions such as the Balkans, Turkey, what was the Ottoman Empire in what was known as the Muhajir, Iran, the Qajar dynasty also as Muhajir, Syria, Lebanon, what is now Jordan, Kosovo, Egypt (Circassians had been part of the Mamluk armies since the Middle Ages), Israel (in the villages of Kfar Kama and Rikhaniya, since 1880) and as far afield as upstate New York and New Jersey.
Some 90 percent of people with Circassian descent now live in other countries, primarily in Turkey, Jordan and other countries of the Middle East, with only 300,000–400,000 remaining in what is now Russia.[6] The depopulated Circassian lands were resettled by numerous ethnic groups, including Russians, Ukrainians and Georgians.[6] Friction developed between the latter group and the remaining indigenous people in Abkhazia, a factor later contributing to friction between the two ethnic groups and the resulting War in Abkhazia.[6]
See also [ edit ]
Citations and notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Henze, Paul B. 1992. "Circassian resistance to Russia." In Marie Bennigsen Broxup, ed., The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance Towards The Muslim World. London: C Hurst & Co, 266 pp. (Also New York: St. Martin's Press, 252 pp.) Part of it can be found here. Retrieved 11 March 2007.
. London: C Hurst & Co, 266 pp. (Also New York: St. Martin's Press, 252 pp.) Part of it can be found here. Retrieved 11 March 2007. Richmond, Walter (2008). The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-77615-8. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007: Chapter 4 (excerpt)
Tsutsiev, Arthur, Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus, 2014New Venezuelan decree claims ownership over Guyana’s continental shelf
By Odeen Ishmael
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro on May 27 issued a decree creating the “Atlantic coast of Venezuela”
which now includes sovereignty over Guyana’s territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean off the Essequibo region.
A map, issued to coincide with this decree, indicates that Venezuela is now claiming all the territorial waters within the 200 miles range and blocking Guyana’s access to its resources in this area of the Atlantic Ocean.
This new extension of Venezuela’s claim to Guyanese territorial waters was made official in the presidential decree, No. 1787, and published in the Ordinary Official Gazette No. 40,669, dated May 27, 2015. It is the second decree expressing a claim to Guyana’s territorial waters; the first, issued by President Raul Leoni forty-seven years ago in July 1968, purportedly claimed “sovereignty” over a twelve-mile strip of Guyana’s continental shelf along the Essequibo coast.
The Maduro decree is set amid Venezuela’s objection over oil exploration and concessions granted by Guyana to the US oil company, ExxonMobil, to explore 23,000 square kilometres of the Stabroek Block located within the area into which the new territorial |
in March, he said the Manus detention centre was “a problem” that had “done a lot of damage” and that his country did not have the resources to resettle all the refugees held there.
Australia’s entire offshore regime has been under unprecedented pressure since the Guardian’s publication of the Nauru files last week.
The publication the files – more than 2,000 leaked incident reports detailing systemic physical and sexual abuses, humiliating treatment and harsh conditions, and widespread self-harm and suicide attempts – has refocused public attention on conditions in detention, sparked calls for a royal commission, and led Labor and the Greens to promise a new Senate inquiry into offshore detention.
The Manus Island detention centre has had a troubled existence since being reopened in 2012. In 2014 three days of unrest and an invasion of the detention centre by PNG police and others led to more than 60 asylum seekers being seriously injured. One man was shot, another had his throat slit and 23-year-old Reza Barati was murdered by guards who beat him with a nail studded piece of wood, and kicked and dropped a rock on his head.
PNG’s supreme court heard up to 15 expatriate and local guards killed Barati. Two local men were convicted of his murder this year.
The detention centre has also been plagued by consistent allegations of abuse and privation. Rape, physical and sexual assault and drug abuse are common, the centre’s water supply has failed, and detainees are fed expired food. Suicide attempts and acts of self-harm are common and some men have alleged they have been beaten and tortured in solitary confinement.
It is Australian government policy that all asylum seekers who arrive by boat are mandatorily detained offshore, and that none will ever be settled in Australia.
Human Rights Watch’s Australia director, Elaine Pearson, said the move to close the Manus detention centre was welcome but “long overdue”.
“These men should immediately be moved to Australia or a safe third country, not simply shunted down the road to a transit centre or moved to Nauru or Cambodia. Nearly a thousand men on Manus have already lost three or more years of their lives locked up in limbo for no good reason. They’ve endured dirty, cramped conditions, inadequate medical care and violence. Finally, it is time to let them move on with their lives in safety and dignity.”
A spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, said he was concerned the PNG and Australian governments were seeking to pre-empt the upcoming supreme court hearing by suggesting the centre was slated for imminent closure.
“At Monday’s hearing, lawyers for the Manus asylum seekers and refugees will be seeking orders for the unconditional release of all detainee and the return of all of them to Australia. Anything less than the unconditional release and return to Australia will be a denial of justice.”
He said the men should be brought to Australia. “It is sheer bloody-mindedness by the Australian government that has kept these people in detention.”
Efforts to resettle refugees in PNG have foundered. Barely a handful have been resettled outside the centre and almost all have been forced to return to detention after being assaulted, robbed and, in one case, left homeless in other parts of the country.GameInformer magazine featured an exclusive reveal of the new Disney Infinity 3.0, marking a month long slow roll out of exclusive content and news.
The first big news is the trailer for 3.0 featuring interviews with the Disney Interactive team as they share their excitement about the new project.
Here is the official announcement by Game Informer.
Some interesting info from the article:ÂÂ
Start Packs price now lowered to $64.99
Power Discs no longer in blind packs.
New structured Toy Box games are coming including a Kart Racer.
Figure & Art Work Gallery
Here is a quick gallery we’ve put together featuring the figures and art from the trailer!
 3.0 Character List
Starwars:
Anakin
Ashoka
Obi Wan
Yoda
Darth Maul
Darth Vader
Princess Leia
Luke Skywalker
Han Solo
Chewbacca
Disney Orginals:
Mickey Mouse
Minnie Mouse
Olaf
Sam
Quorra
Joy
Sadness
Disgust
Fear
Mulan
Marvel:
Hulkbuster
Ultron
Star Wars 3.0 Official Release Trailer
Game Informer Exclusive Trailer
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Check Out The Best Disney Infinity Deals This Week! Click Here!A popular personal trainer who apparently had been fired from his job earlier in the day fatally shot one of his former co-workers and critically wounded another at the Equinox fitness center in Coral Gables on Saturday afternoon before killing himself.
The 12:55 p.m. shooting shut down the upscale Shops at Merrick Park mall and scattered scores of scared shoppers and Equinox members onto the surrounding streets, many of them clad in exercise clothes and holding nothing but their workout towels.
Read more: Before shooting, Equinox gunman was fired ‘due to work place violence,’ police say
Witnesses identified the shooter as Abeku Wilson, a 33-year-old bodybuilder who had worked at Equinox for years but, according to two employees, had been let go shortly before he returned to the gym with a handgun, took aim and opened fire.
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“Five gunshots,” said Ovi Viera, 41, a nurse from Coconut Grove who was washing his hands in the men’s locker room when he heard the bangs. “It was too loud for it to have been a weight dropping. Within two seconds, people just started running out.”
Wilson shot Janine Ackerman, 35, the gym’s general manager, and Marios Hortis, 42, a fitness manager, witnesses said. One person who declined to be identified said Ackerman had been shot in the head. Hortis was conscious and asking for help but bleeding heavily, the witness said.
A rescue helicopter landed at Coral Gables Senior High School, across the street from the mall, and took the victims to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where Ackerman later died, a police source told the Miami Herald. A few of her friends and family gathered at the hospital Saturday evening but declined to speak to reporters.
SHARE COPY LINK One dead, two wounded after gunman opens fire at Shops at Merrick Park on Saturday, April 8, 2017.
Ackerman, who was originally from New Jersey, lived in Coconut Grove, public records show. Hortis graduated from St. John’s University in Minnesota, according to his LinkedIn profile, and appeared on a Miami Beach modeling registry website as Mario Hortis.
Read more: Victim of Merrick Park shooting remembered as ‘the greatest person ever’
In a news conference, police declined to identify the shooter or his victims, or to confirm if it was the shooter who had initially died. They also would not confirm Wilson’s suicide, saying only that the shooter targeted the victims over an employee-manager dispute. Police sources told the Herald that Wilson turned the gun on himself.
One witness said she saw the shooter, dressed in the personal-trainer uniform of black shorts and black shirt, walk into Equinox through the main entrance holding a handgun. He assumed a shooting stance and targeted a man behind the check-in counter, the witness said.
Two weeks out!!!.... Gotta give it all I got and let my hard work these last few months do the rest on stage!.. Good workout with my Brother @iamdelafuente #FinishStrong #EMMDI #Equinox #NpcNationals2016 A post shared by Abeku Wilson (@abeku21) on Nov 4, 2016 at 5:39pm PDT
“He was very serious,” said the witness, Benedicte, 48, of Coral Gables, who declined to give her last name. “He was not smiling.”
She mimicked him holding the gun with both hands and taking aim — “just really good position” to shoot, she said.
She and her husband, Bruno, 55, heard five shots — first two, then three.
Another man who was at the gym when the gunfire rang out and knew the shooter said Wilson was a “nice guy, quiet. He’s not a crazy guy. This wasn’t someone who decided to kill a bunch of people.”
“There was a dance class of 40 people if he wanted to do that,” the man said, referring to a cardio dance class under way during the shooting. “This was personal.”
He said the shooter appeared fine moments before it all began, “although he was agitated earlier in the day after meeting with management.”
Through a corporate spokesman, Equinox declined to offer details on the incident.
“We are working with all of the relevant authorities as they investigate the situation,” Chris Martinelli said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families impacted by this terrible tragedy. Out of respect for them and our entire Equinox family, we will refrain from commenting further until it is appropriate to do so.”
A biography of Wilson posted on a modeling website said he was born in Boston and graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in business administration. He lived in Kendall, according to public records, and frequently posted photographs of his chiseled physique on Facebook and Instagram.
Read more: Trainer who opened fire at Coral Gables gym was popular with clients
“Abeku is God-fearing, outgoing, charismatic, versatile, ambitious, kind hearted, and has a youthful and loving sense of humor,” the biography said. “He has a positive attitude and appreciates and enjoys the simple things in life.”
The bio also said Wilson had modeled in various print ads, including for Lucky Brand.
Wilson was well known to Equinox regulars, including celebrities, politicians and former politicians who frequent the high-end gym. Former Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who trained with Wilson for about two years, said he bumped into Wilson and another trainer while they were working on a machine Saturday morning.
“He said: ‘Sorry. I’m just off balance this morning,’ ” Sarnoff said. “Which was strange. The way he said it, he almost slurred his words.”
“He did his job very professionally,” said Freddy Balsera, the owner of a Coral Gables public-affairs firm and another Equinox regular. “He always had a clipboard, measuring the work his clients were doing.”
Former state Rep. Erik Fresen, who exercises at the gym almost every morning and last saw Wilson on Wednesday, called Wilson “docile — not a meat head, even though he was a big guy.”
“He was honestly one of the sweetest guys there,” said Fresen, who heard of the shooting while on vacation from fellow Equinox members. “I worked out there at least two campaign cycles. I remember he would always be like, ‘Come, look: You’re on TV!’ when my commercials would air.”
Wilson’s steady stable of clients included model and TV actor Cristián de la Fuente and Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas.
The shooting forced Merrick Park stores to go on lockdown as police patrols surrounded the mall and closed adjacent streets. Over loudspeakers, a recorded alert told customers over and over again: “Emergency! Evacuate or seek shelter.” Coral Gables police said they secured the scene — that is, they were certain no mass shooter was on the loose — by 1:45 p.m.
“People rushed inside here,” said Tim Hartog, general manager of the Yard House sports bar, who said about 100 people were having lunch at the restaurant’s outdoor patio when the shooting began. “People were hiding under the tables. It was just crazy.”
Lauren DeCanio, a 21-year-old Florida International University student, was on her way to work at the yoga apparel store Lululemon when she noticed the commotion.
“I saw men with towels around their waists,” she said. “Then a man reached out and grabbed my arm, rather forcefully, and said, ‘You can’t go there. There has been a shooting.’ ”
A police officer told her and others at the mall to take shelter inside shops. She went into the Chico’s store on the second floor. “I went all the way to the back of the store and just sat there with a group of women,” DeCanio said.
The mall remained closed for the rest of the day. Equinox members who had run out leaving most of their belongings inside called friends and family for rides home.ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains wiped out a village in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 33 people, a government official said on Friday.
Rescue officials were looking for survivors after at least 63 people went missing when heavy rains on Wednesday night caused a river to burst its banks in the remote Kohistan district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“We have recovered 33 bodies and the search is on for the remaining missing persons,” the area’s top administrator Imtiaz Hussain Shah told Reuters.
“It is just one area in the whole district that has been hit by sudden strong torrents after heavy downpour lashed the area and swept away some 25 to 30 houses scattered over the village.”
Last year, monsoon rains caused the worst floods in Pakistan’s history, with the country’s northwestern areas among the worst hit.
About 2,000 people, mostly in the northwest, were killed and 18 million affected by the floods, with some 11 million left homeless.
More than a year later, over 800,000 families remain without permanent shelter, according to aid group Oxfam, and more than a million people need food assistance.
There is no sign of a repeat of flooding on last year’s scale, with the rainy monsoon season about to end in a few weeks.It's been a few months since the #MetalocalypseNow campaign to get the animated death metal show another season and things have been pretty quiet. We haven't heard from any of the show runners about the possibility of a new season, but we may be getting some news soon.
Over the weekend, creator Brendon Small posted the following photo:
Now, it's hard to see exactly what Brendon is working on. The only thing not blurred out is "The Next Record" and the initials "A.D.S."
A fan in the comments points out that "A.D.S." likely stands for "Army of the Doomstar," signaling that this may in fact be the next Dethklok album. The Dethklok Wikia notes that "Army of the Doomstar" is likely the title of the next installment of the show. So the pieces of the puzzle are there.
When I interviewed Brendon last year about the campaign to bring the show back, he offered a few hints as to where the series might go:
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Small has been keeping a relatively low profile as of late, but he did poke his head out to appear in a new Rocksmith ad:
No joke – check out our new commercial featuring Brendon Small and Steve Agee! Posted by Rocksmith on Friday, April 1, 2016
Related PostsThrough an autopsy of an ancient Scandinavian mountain chain, a team of Texas Tech University geologists found that carbon dioxide can create explosive eruptions when magma encounters calcium carbonate-based rocks.
This discovery overturns a longtime belief by geologists, who thought that carbon dioxide was incapable of dissolving in magma, said Calvin Barnes, professor of geosciences and lead investigator.
Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, Barnes, Aaron Yoshinobu, associate professor of geosciences, and doctoral student Yujia Li, discovered that carbon dioxide is released when magma interacts with rocks such as limestone and marble. The carbon dioxide, when combined with the magma, can create more powerful eruptions.
“The main topic of our research involves magma’s interaction with rocks that release carbon dioxide,” he said. “Hot magma melts the calcium carbonate-rich rock, and it mixes with magma much like adding an ingredient to something you are cooking to change the consistency or flavor. This forms bubbles and increases the volume of the magma. In turn, it must be pushed out through an eruption in a manner similar to modern explosive volcanoes in Italy, including Mount Vesuvius.”
The Texas Tech geologists’ research is in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Trondheim, the Geological Survey of Norway, and the University of Wyoming. So far their research has yielded three papers in journals such as the Norwegian Journal of Geology and Lithos. Several more are pending.
Because searing hot temperatures prevent scientists from observing these reactions directly, Barnes studied samples from the ancient Caledonian fold belt in Norway – Scandinavia’s equivalent of the Appalachian Mountains of North America.
Erosion has exposed the layers of magma that solidified within earth’s crust when the Caledonian fold belt was formed, Barnes said. Through chemical analysis, he and Li confirmed that carbon dioxide not only is released when magma encounters calcium carbonated-based rocks, but also that a great deal of calcium dissolves in the magma and equal amounts of carbon dioxide are released. Just as carbon dioxide causes a soft drink to fizz, this caused the magma to bubble and expand until it reached the point of eruption.
Barnes’ research coupled with new experiments done by researchers in France and Italy has shown that the contamination of magma by carbonate not only is possible, but also it is capable of explaining many of the unusual characteristics of modern volcanoes such as Vesuvius, an active volcano located east of Naples, Italy, and the Alban Hills, located southeast of Rome.
He said that both the Alban Hills and Vesuvius produce unusually high amounts of carbon dioxide during eruptions because the crust beneath these volcanoes contains calcium carbonate-based limestone rocks.
Through their research, they can better understand eruptions and calculate the amounts of carbon dioxide released during volcanic activity. Understanding these concepts is important from a public safety standpoint since cities and towns are close by active volcanoes.
“It’s useful because a volcanic eruption gives you a snapshot of what is happening beneath Earth’s surface,” Barnes said.Is there a Santa Claus? - a physicist view
Consider the following:1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical).This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight.On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine.We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second.Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.> In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.(NOTE: This appeared in the SPY Magazine (January, 1990))Leon Trotsky
My Life
CHAPTER XXXI
NEGOTIATIONS
AT BREST-LITOVSK
The decree that announced our willingness to make peace was passed by the Congress of Soviets on October 26, when only Petrograd was in our hands. On November 7, I sent an appeal by radio to the Allied countries and to the Central Powers, inviting them to conclude a general peace. Through their agents, the Allied governments replied to General Dukhonin, the Russian Commander-in-chief, that any further steps in the direction of separate negotiations would entail “the gravest consequences.” I replied to this threat with an appeal to all workers, soldiers and peasants. It was a categorical appeal: When we overthrew our bourgeoisie, it was not to make our army shed its blood at the order of a foreign bourgeoisie.
On November 22, we signed an agreement for a truce along the entire front, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Once more we invited the Allies to join us in the peace negotiations. No reply was forthcoming, but neither were any more threats; the Allied governments seemed to have learned something. The peace negotiations began on December 9, six weeks after the adoption of the decree of peace, which left the countries of the Entente sufficient time to determine their attitude on this question. At the outset, our delegation made a formal declaration stating the principles of democratic peace.
The opposing side demanded an adjournment. The resumption of the conference was put off time and again. The delegations of the quadruple alliance had to cope with all kinds of internal difficulties in framing their reply to us, finally given on December 25. The governments of the quadruple alliance “subscribed” to the democratic formula of peace – no annexations, no indemnities, and self-determination for the peoples. On December 28, a huge demonstration was held in Petrograd, in honor of democratic peace. Though the masses mistrusted the German reply, they accepted it as a great moral victory for the revolution. The next morning, our delegation returned from Brest-Litovsk, bringing with it the monstrous demands that Kühlmann had submitted on behalf of the Central Powers.
“To delay negotiations, there must be someone to do the delaying,” said Lenin. At his insistence, I set off for Brest-Litovsk. I confess I felt as if I were being led to the torture chamber. Being with strange and alien people always had aroused my fears; it did especially on this occasion. I absolutely cannot understand revolutionaries who willingly accept posts as ambassadors and feel like fish in water in their new surroundings.
At Brest-Litovsk, the first Soviet delegation, headed by Joffe, was treated in a most ingratiating way by the Germans. Prince Leopold of Bavaria received them as his “guests.” All the delegations had dinner and supper together. General Hoffmann must have observed with considerable interest the woman delegate Vitzenko, who had assassinated General Sakharov. The Germans took their seats between our men, and tried to worm out of them whatever information they wanted. The first delegation included a worker, a peasant, and a soldier. They were delegates by mere accident, and they were little prepared for that sort of trickery. The peasant, an old man, was even encouraged to drink more wine than was good for him.
General Hoffmann’s staff was publishing a paper called Russky Vyestnik (The Russian Messenger) for the benefit of the Russian prisoners; in its early phases it always spoke of the Bolsheviks with the most touching sympathy. “Our readers ask us who Trotsky is,” Hoffmann informed his Russian prisoners in his paper, and with admiring affection told them of my struggle against Czarism, and of my German book Russland in der Revolution. “The whole revolutionary world was thrilled by his successful escape.” And farther on: “When Czarism was overthrown, its secret friends threw Trotsky into prison soon after he had returned from a long exile.” In a word, there were no more ardent revolutionaries than Leopold of Bavaria and Hoffmann of Prussia.
But this idyl did not last long. At the meeting of the Brest-Litovsk conference of February 7, which bore the least possible resemblance to an idyll, I remarked, referring to the past: “We are inclined to regret the premature compliments paid us by the official German and Austro-Hungarian press. This was quite unnecessary for the successful progress of peace negotiations.”
In this affair, the Social Democracy was again no more than the shadow of the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg governments. Scheidemann, Ebert and others tried at first to slap us patronizingly on the back. The Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung wrote eloquently on December 15 that “the duel between Trotsky and Buchanan is the symbol of the great struggle of our day, the struggle of the proletariat against capital.” In the days when Kühlmann and Czernin were trying to strangle the Russian revolution at Brest-Litovsk, the Austrian Marxists were able to see nothing but a “duel” between Trotsky and – Buchanan! Even to-day one views such hypocrisy only with disgust.
“Trotsky,” wrote the Hapsburg Marxists, “is the authorized representative of the peaceful will of the Russian working class that is trying to break the iron-gold chain with which it has been bound by English capital.” The leaders of the Social Democracy voluntarily chained themselves to Austro-German capital, and were helping their governments forcibly to chain the Russian revolution. At the most difficult stages of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, when Lenin or I would come across a copy of the Berlin Vorwärts, or the Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung, we would silently point out to each other the lines underscored with a colored pencil, lift our eyes to one another for a moment, and then turn away with an inordinate sense of shame for the men who, only the day before, had been our comrades in the International. Every one who consciously passed through this stage realized forever that, whatever the fluctuations of the political situation, the Social Democracy was historically dead.
To end this improper masquerade, I asked in our own papers if the German staff would not be so good as to tell the German soldiers something about Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. We published a special leaflet on the subject for the German soldiers, and the Vyestnik of General Hoffmann bit its tongue. Immediately after my arrival at Brest-Litovsk, Hoffmann protested against our propaganda among the troops. I refused to discuss the matter, and suggested that the General continue his own propaganda among the Russian troops – the conditions were the same, the only difference being in the kind of propaganda. I also reminded him that the dissimilarity of our views on certain rather important questions had long been known, and had even been certified to by one of the German courts – the one that during the war had sentenced me in contumacy to prison. This indecorous reminder created a great sensation. Many of the titled gentlemen almost gasped. Turning to Hoffmann, Kühlmann asked, “Would you like to reply?” To which Hoffmann retorted, “No, that’s enough.”
As chairman of the Soviet delegation, I decided to put an immediate stop to the familiarity that had quite imperceptibly been established during the early stages. Through our military representatives, I made it known that I had no desire to be presented to the Prince of Bavaria. This was noted. I next demanded separate dinners and suppers, under the pretext that we had to hold conferences during the intervals. This was also accepted in silence. In his diary for January 7, Czernin wrote: “All the Russians, under the leadership of Trotsky, arrived before dinner-time. They immediately asked to be excused if, in the future, they did not join in the meals in common. And they generally kept out of sight; this time it seems that quite a different wind is blowing than on the last occasion.” The feigned friendliness of relations gave way to an official formality. This was all the more opportune since we had to pass from academic preliminaries to the concrete questions of a peace treaty.
Kühlmann was head and shoulders above Czernin, and probably above all the rest of the diplomats whom I met in the years after the war. He impressed me as a man of character, with a practical mind far above the average, and with malice enough to cover not only us – here he met his match – but his dear allies as well. During the discussion of the question of occupied territories, Kühlmann, stretching himself to his full height and raising his voice, said: “Our German territory, thank God, is not being held by foreign troops anywhere!” whereupon Czernin’s face went green and his figure shrank. Kühlmann was deliberately aiming at him. Their relationship was far from that of a serene friendship. Later, when the discussion turned to Persia, which was occupied on both sides by foreign armies, I remarked that since Persia, unlike Austria-Hungary, was not in alliance with anyone, it did not cause any of us pious rejoicing that it was Persia’s territory, and not ours, that was occupied. At this, Czernin almost jumped as he exclaimed, “Unerhtört!” (“unheard of”). Ostensibly, this exclamation was addressed to me, although it was really for Kühlmann. Episodes like this were frequent.
Like a good chess-player who for a long time has met weaker players, and who has lost some of his skill, Kühlmann, having met only his Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, Bulgarian and neutral diplomatic vassals during the war, was inclined to underestimate his revolutionary opponents and play his game in a slovenly manner. He often astonished me, especially at the outset, by the primitiveness of his methods and by his lack of understanding of his opponent’s psychology
I was considerably and quite unpleasantly agitated when I went to my first meeting with the diplomats. When I was hanging up my coat in the hall, I came face to face with Kühlmann. I did not know him by sight. He introduced himself and immediately added that he was “very pleased” at my coming, since it was better to deal directly with the master than with his emissary. His face bore witness to his satisfaction with this “fine” move, so calculated to impress an upstart. This made me feel exactly as if I had stepped on something unclean. I even started back, involuntarily. Kühlmann realized his blunder, put himself on his guard, and his tone became instantly more formal. But that did not prevent him from following the same method, in my presence, with the head of the Turkish delegation, an old court diplomatist. As he was introducing his colleagues to me, Kühlmann waited until the Turkish delegate walked a step away and then said to me in a confidential stage whisper, certain that the other would hear him: “He is the best diplomatist in Europe.” When I told this to Joffe, he answered laughing: “At my first meeting with Kühlmann he did exactly the same thing.” It looked very much as if Kühlmann was giving the “best diplomatist” a platonic compensation for certain unplatonic extortions. It is also possible that he was trying to kill two birds with one stone, by making it known to Czernin that he did not consider him the best diplomatist – next to himself. On December 28, Kühlmann said to Czernin, according to the latter’s account: “The emperor is the only intelligent man in all Germany.” One imagines that these words were not intended so much for Czernin’s ears as for those of the emperor himself. In transmitting flatteries to their destination, the diplomatists no doubt were helping each other. Flattez, flattez, il en restera toujours quelque chose!
This was the first time that I had come face to face with this social circle. Of course, even before, I had never had any illusions about it. I had a fairly strong suspicion that “pots were not baked by gods.” But I must admit that I had thought the general level much higher. My impressions of that first meeting were something like this: men rate others cheaply, and rate themselves not much dearer.
In this connection the following episode may be of some interest. At Victor Adler’s instigation – Adler tried in those days to show his personal sympathy for me in every possible way – Count Czernin suggested casually that my library, which had been left in Vienna at the beginning of the war, be sent to Moscow. The library was of considerable interest, for during the long years of foreign exile I had gathered together a large collection of Russian revolutionary literature. I had hardly had time to express my thanks, with a little reserve, before the diplomat was asking me to inquire into the case of two Austrian prisoners who, he alleged, were being badly treated. This direct and underscored transition from the library to the prisoners, who were of course not privates but officers from the circles closest to Count Czernin, seemed altogether too brazen. I answered succinctly that if Czernin’s information should prove correct, it would of course be my duty to do everything necessary, but that this matter had nothing to do with my library. In his memoirs Czernin gives a fairly exact account of this incident, without denying that he had tried to connect the business of the prisoners with that of the library. On the contrary, he seems to consider this quite natural. He ends his story with the ambiguous phrase: “He obviously wants to have the library.” I might add that immediately after receiving the library I handed it over to one of the learned institutions in Moscow.
The circumstances of history willed that the delegates of the most revolutionary régime ever known to humanity should sit at the same diplomatic table with the representatives of the most reactionary caste among all the ruling classes. How greatly our opponents feared the explosive power of their negotiations with the Bolsheviks was shown by their readiness to break off the negotiations rather than transfer them to a neutral country. In his memoirs Czernin says quite plainly that in a neutral country, with the help of their international friends, the Bolsheviks would have taken the reins in their own hands. Officially, he used the excuse that in a neutral country England and France would immediately have launched their intrigues, “both openly and behind the scenes.” I retorted that our political practice had no use for anything behind the scenes, because this weapon of the old diplomacy had been eradicated by the Russian people, together with many other things, in the victorious uprising of October 25. But we had to bow to an ultimatum, and so we remained at Brest-Litovsk.
Barring a few buildings that stood apart from the old town and were occupied by the German staff, Brest-Litovsk strictly speaking no longer existed. The town had been burned to the ground in impotent rage by the Czar’s troops during their retreat. Hoffmann must have chosen this place for his staff because he knew that he could keep its members within his grasp. The furnishings, like the food, were of the simplest, and German soldiers acted as attendants. For them we were messengers of peace, and they looked to us with hope. A high, barbed-wire fence surrounded the staff buildings. On my morning walks I kept running into notices: “Any Russian found in this place will be shot.” This referred to prisoners, of course, but I would ask myself if it did not apply also to us, who were semi-prisoners here, and would turn back again. There was a fine, strategic road running through the town of Brest-Litovsk. During the first days of our stay there, we went out for drives in the staff automobiles, and, as a result, a conflict developed one day between one of the members of our delegation and a German sergeant. Hoffmann sent a formal complaint to me; I answered that we declined, with thanks, to make any further use of the automobiles placed at our disposal. The negotiations dragged on. All of us had to communicate with our respective governments by direct wires, and frequently these wires did not work. Whether this was actually due to physical causes or whether the breakdown was feigned to enable our opponents to gain time, we were unable to say. At any rate, the intervals between meetings were frequent, and sometimes lasted as long as several days. During one of these, I made a trip to Warsaw. The city was living under the rule of the German bayonet. The inhabitants evinced a great interest in the Soviet diplomatists, but expressed it very cautiously, because no one knew how it was all going to end.
The delay in negotiations was to our interest. That was my real object in going to Brest-Litovsk. But I can claim no credit for myself on this score; my partners helped me as best they could. “Time is plentiful here,” Czernin writes melancholically in his diary. “Now it is the Turks who are not ready, now it is the Bulgarians, and now the Russians – and |
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Dragon Hunter Pet 350 350 Preview This fiery dragon will accompany you on your journeys. Dragon Hunter Pet This fiery dragon will accompany you on your journeys. Pets can be placed in your personal Hideout or assigned to follow your character around. 350 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Dragon Hunter Weapon Effect 190 190 Preview Imbues a weapon with the Dragon Hunter Weapon Effect. Dragon Hunter Weapon Effect Imbues a weapon with the Dragon Hunter Weapon Effect. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 190 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Dragon Hunter Longsword 165 165 Preview Replaces the appearance of a two-handed sword, axe or mace with the Dragon Hunter Longsword. Dragon Hunter Longsword Replaces the appearance of a two-handed sword, axe or mace with the Dragon Hunter Longsword. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 165 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Dragon Hunter Sword 165 165 Preview Replaces the appearance of a one-handed sword, mace, sceptre or axe with the Dragon Hunter Sword. Dragon Hunter Sword Replaces the appearance of a one-handed sword, mace, sceptre or axe with the Dragon Hunter Sword. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 165 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demon Parasite Armour Pack 420 420 Preview Contains the Demon Parasite Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). Demon Parasite Armour Pack Contains the Demon Parasite Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). 1x Demon Parasite Body Armour 250 1x Demon Parasite Boots 80 1x Demon Parasite Gloves 80 1x Demon Parasite Helmet 130 You save: 120 420 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. You save 120 Loading...
Demon Parasite Helmet 130 130 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Demon Parasite Helmet. Demon Parasite Helmet Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Demon Parasite Helmet. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 130 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demon Parasite Boots 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Demon Parasite Boots. Demon Parasite Boots Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Demon Parasite Boots. Boots effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any boots you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demon Parasite Gloves 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Demon Parasite Gloves. Demon Parasite Gloves Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Demon Parasite Gloves. Gloves effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They replace the appearance of any gloves you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demon Parasite Body Armour 250 250 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Demon Parasite Body Armour. Demon Parasite Body Armour Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Demon Parasite Body Armour. Body Armour effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any body armours you equip. 250 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demon Parasite Back Attachment 250 250 Preview Adds the Demon Parasite Back Attachment to your body armour. Demon Parasite Back Attachment Adds the Demon Parasite Back Attachment to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 250 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Iron Maiden Ancestral Warchief 115 115 Preview Replaces the standard effect on an Ancestral Warchief gem with an iron maiden version. Iron Maiden Ancestral Warchief Replaces the standard effect on an Ancestral Warchief gem with an iron maiden version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 115 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Seraph Battle Wings 335 335 Preview Adds the Seraph Battle Wings to your body armour. Seraph Battle Wings Adds the Seraph Battle Wings to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 335 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Invisible Buff Effect 50 50 Preview Removes the visual effects on the player from arctic armour, tempest shield, blood rage, molten shell, phase run, any aura, any blasphemied curse, or any herald skill gem. Invisible Buff Effect Removes the visual effects on the player from arctic armour, tempest shield, blood rage, molten shell, phase run, any aura, any blasphemied curse, or any herald skill gem. Item Skins can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 50 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Sawblade Blade Vortex 120 120 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Blade Vortex gem with a sawblade version. Sawblade Blade Vortex Replaces the standard effect on a Blade Vortex gem with a sawblade version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 120 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Gothic Horror Ghost Child Pet 160 160 Preview This gothic child will travel alongside you on your journeys. Gothic Horror Ghost Child Pet This gothic child will travel alongside you on your journeys. Pets can be placed in your personal Hideout or assigned to follow your character around. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demonic Storm Call Effect 115 115 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Storm Call gem with a demonic version. Demonic Storm Call Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Storm Call gem with a demonic version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 115 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demonic Spectral Throw Effect 95 95 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Spectral Throw gem with a demonic version. Demonic Spectral Throw Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Spectral Throw gem with a demonic version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 95 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Demonic Flicker Strike Effect 90 90 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Flicker Strike skill gem with a bloody mist. Demonic Flicker Strike Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Flicker Strike skill gem with a bloody mist. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 90 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Dragon Portal Effect 160 160 Preview Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Dragon Portal Effect. Dragon Portal Effect Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Dragon Portal Effect. A custom portal effect can be applied to any or all of your characters. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Dragon Cloak 175 175 Preview Adds the Dragon Cloak to your body armour. Dragon Cloak Adds the Dragon Cloak to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 175 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Divine Storm Call 80 80 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Storm Call gem with a divine version. Divine Storm Call Replaces the standard effect on a Storm Call gem with a divine version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. Was: 110 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Arcane Footprints Effect 80 80 Preview Imbues a pair of boots with the Arcane Footprints Effect. Arcane Footprints Effect Imbues a pair of boots with the Arcane Footprints Effect. Footprint effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Plague Scribe Staff 180 180 Preview Replaces the appearance of a staff with the Plague Scribe Staff. Plague Scribe Staff Replaces the appearance of a staff with the Plague Scribe Staff. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Seraph Grace Wings 320 320 Preview Adds the Seraph Grace Wings to your body armour. Seraph Grace Wings Adds the Seraph Grace Wings to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 320 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Stygian Molten Strike Effect 110 110 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Molten Strike gem with a stygian version. Stygian Molten Strike Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Molten Strike gem with a stygian version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 110 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Azurite Footprints Effect 80 80 Preview Imbues a pair of boots with the Azurite Footprints Effect. Azurite Footprints Effect Imbues a pair of boots with the Azurite Footprints Effect. Footprint effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Harbinger Righteous Fire Effect 100 100 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Righteous Fire gem with a harbinger version. Harbinger Righteous Fire Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Righteous Fire gem with a harbinger version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 100 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Harbinger Convocation Effect 85 85 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Convocation gem with a harbinger version. Harbinger Convocation Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Convocation gem with a harbinger version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 85 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Harbinger Storm Call Effect 90 90 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Storm Call gem with a harbinger version. Harbinger Storm Call Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Storm Call gem with a harbinger version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 90 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Harbinger Flameblast Effect 80 80 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Flameblast gem with a harbinger version. Harbinger Flameblast Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Flameblast gem with a harbinger version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Night Lotus Toxic Rain Effect 130 130 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Toxic Rain gem with a night lotus version. Night Lotus Toxic Rain Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Toxic Rain gem with a night lotus version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 130 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Beam Decoration 50 50 Preview Adds an Automaton Beam decoration to your personal Hideout. Automaton Beam Decoration Adds an Automaton Beam decoration to your personal Hideout. Hideout Decorations can be placed in your personal Hideout and can be reclaimed and used again for free. 50 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Campsite Decoration 50 50 Preview Adds a Wasteland Campsite decoration to your personal Hideout. Wasteland Campsite Decoration Adds a Wasteland Campsite decoration to your personal Hideout. Hideout Decorations can be placed in your personal Hideout and can be reclaimed and used again for free. 50 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Decor 60 60 Preview Adds a piece of Automaton Decor to your personal Hideout. Automaton Decor Adds a piece of Automaton Decor to your personal Hideout. Hideout Decorations can be placed in your personal Hideout and can be reclaimed and used again for free. 60 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Barricade Decoration 60 60 Preview Adds a Wasteland Barricade decoration to your personal Hideout. Wasteland Barricade Decoration Adds a Wasteland Barricade decoration to your personal Hideout. Hideout Decorations can be placed in your personal Hideout and can be reclaimed and used again for free. 60 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Lightning Decoration 40 40 Preview Adds an Automaton Lightning decoration to your personal Hideout. Automaton Lightning Decoration Adds an Automaton Lightning decoration to your personal Hideout. Hideout Decorations can be placed in your personal Hideout and can be reclaimed and used again for free. 40 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Sandstorm Decoration 40 40 Preview Adds a Wasteland Sandstorm decoration to your personal Hideout. Wasteland Sandstorm Decoration Adds a Wasteland Sandstorm decoration to your personal Hideout. Hideout Decorations can be placed in your personal Hideout and can be reclaimed and used again for free. 40 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Footprints Effect 160 160 Preview Imbues a pair of boots with the Apocalypse Footprints Effect. Apocalypse Footprints Effect Imbues a pair of boots with the Apocalypse Footprints Effect. Footprint effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Footprints Effect 80 80 Preview Imbues a pair of boots with the Automaton Footprints Effect. Automaton Footprints Effect Imbues a pair of boots with the Automaton Footprints Effect. Footprint effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Footprints Effect 80 80 Preview Imbues a pair of boots with the Wasteland Footprints Effect. Wasteland Footprints Effect Imbues a pair of boots with the Wasteland Footprints Effect. Footprint effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Helmet Attachment 200 200 Preview Imbues a piece of headgear with the Apocalypse Helmet Attachment. Apocalypse Helmet Attachment Imbues a piece of headgear with the Apocalypse Helmet Attachment. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 200 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Halo Attachment 100 100 Preview Imbues a piece of headgear with the Automaton Halo. Automaton Halo Attachment Imbues a piece of headgear with the Automaton Halo. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 100 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Horns Attachment 100 100 Preview Imbues a piece of headgear with the Wasteland Horns. Wasteland Horns Attachment Imbues a piece of headgear with the Wasteland Horns. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 100 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Lightning Warp Effect 110 110 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Lightning Warp gem with an automaton version. Automaton Lightning Warp Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Lightning Warp gem with an automaton version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 110 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Flame Dash Effect 110 110 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Flame Dash gem with a wasteland version. Wasteland Flame Dash Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Flame Dash gem with a wasteland version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 110 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Scorpion Pet 30 30 Preview This mechanical scorpion will journey alongside you on your travels. Automaton Scorpion Pet This mechanical scorpion will journey alongside you on your travels. Pets can be placed in your personal Hideout or assigned to follow your character around. 30 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Tumbleweed Pet 30 30 Preview This tenacious tumbleweed will journey alongside you on your travels. Wasteland Tumbleweed Pet This tenacious tumbleweed will journey alongside you on your travels. Pets can be placed in your personal Hideout or assigned to follow your character around. 30 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Pet 160 160 Preview This autonomous machine will float alongside you on your travels. Automaton Pet This autonomous machine will float alongside you on your travels. Pets can be placed in your personal Hideout or assigned to follow your character around. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Raptor Pet 160 160 Preview This rambunctious raptor will journey alongside you on your travels. Wasteland Raptor Pet This rambunctious raptor will journey alongside you on your travels. Pets can be placed in your personal Hideout or assigned to follow your character around. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Longsword 180 180 Preview Replaces the appearance of a two-handed sword, axe or mace with the Automaton Longsword. Automaton Longsword Replaces the appearance of a two-handed sword, axe or mace with the Automaton Longsword. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Longsword 180 180 Preview Replaces the appearance of a two-handed sword, axe or mace with the Wasteland Longsword. Wasteland Longsword Replaces the appearance of a two-handed sword, axe or mace with the Wasteland Longsword. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Sword 180 180 Preview Replaces the appearance of a one-handed sword, mace, sceptre or axe with the Automaton Sword. Automaton Sword Replaces the appearance of a one-handed sword, mace, sceptre or axe with the Automaton Sword. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Sword 180 180 Preview Replaces the appearance of a one-handed sword, mace, sceptre or axe with the Wasteland Sword. Wasteland Sword Replaces the appearance of a one-handed sword, mace, sceptre or axe with the Wasteland Sword. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Herald Effect 125 125 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Herald of Ash, Thunder or Ice gem with an automaton version. Automaton Herald Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Herald of Ash, Thunder or Ice gem with an automaton version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 125 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Herald Effect 125 125 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Herald of Ash, Thunder or Ice gem with a wasteland version. Wasteland Herald Effect Replaces the standard effect on a Herald of Ash, Thunder or Ice gem with a wasteland version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 125 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Character Effect 210 210 Preview Adds the Automaton Character Effect to your belt. Automaton Character Effect Adds the Automaton Character Effect to your belt. Belt effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 210 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Character Effect 210 210 Preview Adds the Wasteland Character Effect to your belt. Wasteland Character Effect Adds the Wasteland Character Effect to your belt. Belt effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 210 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Portal Effect 300 300 Preview Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Apocalypse Portal Effect. Apocalypse Portal Effect Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Apocalypse Portal Effect. A custom portal effect can be applied to any or all of your characters. 300 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Portal Effect 150 150 Preview Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Automaton Portal Effect. Automaton Portal Effect Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Automaton Portal Effect. A custom portal effect can be applied to any or all of your characters. 150 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Portal Effect 150 150 Preview Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Wasteland Portal Effect. Wasteland Portal Effect Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Wasteland Portal Effect. A custom portal effect can be applied to any or all of your characters. 150 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Weapon Effect 180 180 Preview Imbues a weapon with the Automaton Weapon Effect. Automaton Weapon Effect Imbues a weapon with the Automaton Weapon Effect. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Weapon Effect 180 180 Preview Imbues a weapon with the Wasteland Weapon Effect. Wasteland Weapon Effect Imbues a weapon with the Wasteland Weapon Effect. Weapon effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any weapons you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Cloak 460 460 Preview Adds the Apocalypse Cloak to your body armour. Apocalypse Cloak Adds the Apocalypse Cloak to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 460 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Cloak 230 230 Preview Adds the Automaton Cloak to your body armour. Automaton Cloak Adds the Automaton Cloak to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 230 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Cloak 230 230 Preview Adds the Wasteland Cloak to your body armour. Wasteland Cloak Adds the Wasteland Cloak to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 230 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Wings 640 640 Preview Adds the Apocalypse Wings to your body armour. Apocalypse Wings Adds the Apocalypse Wings to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 640 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Wings 320 320 Preview Adds the Automaton Wings to your body armour. Automaton Wings Adds the Automaton Wings to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 320 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Wings 320 320 Preview Adds the Wasteland Wings to your body armour. Wasteland Wings Adds the Wasteland Wings to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 320 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Armour Pack 840 840 Preview Contains the Apocalypse Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). Apocalypse Armour Pack Contains the Apocalypse Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). 1x Apocalypse Body Armour 500 1x Apocalypse Boots 160 1x Apocalypse Gloves 160 1x Apocalypse Helmet 260 You save: 240 840 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. You save 240 Loading...
Apocalypse Helmet 260 260 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Apocalypse Helmet. Apocalypse Helmet Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Apocalypse Helmet. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 260 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Boots 160 160 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Apocalypse Boots. Apocalypse Boots Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Apocalypse Boots. Boots effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any boots you equip. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Gloves 160 160 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Apocalypse Gloves. Apocalypse Gloves Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Apocalypse Gloves. Gloves effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They replace the appearance of any gloves you equip. 160 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Apocalypse Body Armour 500 500 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Apocalypse Body Armour. Apocalypse Body Armour Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Apocalypse Body Armour. Body Armour effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any body armours you equip. 500 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Armour Pack 420 420 Preview Contains the Automaton Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). Automaton Armour Pack Contains the Automaton Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). 1x Automaton Body Armour 250 1x Automaton Boots 80 1x Automaton Gloves 80 1x Automaton Helmet 130 You save: 120 420 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. You save 120 Loading...
Automaton Helmet 130 130 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Automaton Helmet. Automaton Helmet Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Automaton Helmet. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 130 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Boots 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Automaton Boots. Automaton Boots Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Automaton Boots. Boots effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any boots you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Gloves 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Automaton Gloves. Automaton Gloves Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Automaton Gloves. Gloves effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They replace the appearance of any gloves you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Automaton Body Armour 250 250 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Automaton Body Armour. Automaton Body Armour Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Automaton Body Armour. Body Armour effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any body armours you equip. 250 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Armour Pack 420 420 Preview Contains the Wasteland Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). Wasteland Armour Pack Contains the Wasteland Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). 1x Wasteland Body Armour 250 1x Wasteland Boots 80 1x Wasteland Gloves 80 1x Wasteland Helmet 130 You save: 120 420 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. You save 120 Loading...
Wasteland Helmet 130 130 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Wasteland Helmet. Wasteland Helmet Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Wasteland Helmet. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 130 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Boots 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Wasteland Boots. Wasteland Boots Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Wasteland Boots. Boots effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any boots you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Gloves 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Wasteland Gloves. Wasteland Gloves Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Wasteland Gloves. Gloves effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They replace the appearance of any gloves you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Wasteland Body Armour 250 250 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Wasteland Body Armour. Wasteland Body Armour Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Wasteland Body Armour. Body Armour effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any body armours you equip. 250 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Sphinx Armour Pack 420 420 Preview Contains the Sphinx Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). Sphinx Armour Pack Contains the Sphinx Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). 1x Sphinx Body Armour 250 1x Sphinx Boots 80 1x Sphinx Gloves 80 1x Sphinx Helmet 130 You save: 120 420 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. You save 120 Loading...
Sphinx Helmet 130 130 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Sphinx Helmet. Sphinx Helmet Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Sphinx Helmet. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 130 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Sphinx Boots 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Sphinx Boots. Sphinx Boots Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Sphinx Boots. Boots effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any boots you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Sphinx Gloves 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Sphinx Gloves. Sphinx Gloves Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Sphinx Gloves. Gloves effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They replace the appearance of any gloves you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Sphinx Body Armour 250 250 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Sphinx Body Armour. Sphinx Body Armour Replaces the appearance of a piece of body armour with the Sphinx Body Armour. Body Armour effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any body armours you equip. 250 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Necrotic Wings 300 300 Preview Adds the Necrotic Wings to your body armour. Necrotic Wings Adds the Necrotic Wings to your body armour. Back attachments can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. 300 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Celestial Caustic Arrow 125 125 Preview Replaces the standard effect on a Caustic Arrow gem with a celestial version. Celestial Caustic Arrow Replaces the standard effect on a Caustic Arrow gem with a celestial version. Skill effects can only be applied to one gem at a time but can be reclaimed and moved between gems for free. 125 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Seraph Portal Effect 150 150 Preview Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Seraph Portal Effect. Seraph Portal Effect Replaces the standard effect on portals you create with the Seraph Portal Effect. A custom portal effect can be applied to any or all of your characters. 150 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Pure Light Shield 180 180 Preview Replaces the appearance of a shield with the Pure Light Shield. Pure Light Shield Replaces the appearance of a shield with the Pure Light Shield. Shield effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They replace the appearance of any shields you equip. 180 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Pyre Knight Armour Pack 420 420 Preview Contains the Pyre Knight Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). Pyre Knight Armour Pack Contains the Pyre Knight Body Armour, Helmet, Boots and Gloves armour skins (at a discounted price). 1x Pyre Knight Body Armour 250 1x Pyre Knight Boots 80 1x Pyre Knight Gloves 80 1x Pyre Knight Helmet 130 You save: 120 420 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. You save 120 Loading...
Pyre Knight Helmet 130 130 Preview Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Pyre Knight Helmet. Pyre Knight Helmet Replaces the appearance of a piece of headgear with the Pyre Knight Helmet. Helmet effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any helmets you equip. 130 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Pyre Knight Boots 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Pyre Knight Boots. Pyre Knight Boots Replaces the appearance of a pair of boots with the Pyre Knight Boots. Boots effects can be applied in the Cosmetics tab of your Inventory. They apply to any boots you equip. 80 Purchasing... Purchase complete. Failed to purchase. Loading...
Pyre Knight Gloves 80 80 Preview Replaces the appearance of a pair of gloves with the Pyre |
2 sec
Danger Radius – 20 yds
Variable number per rifleman 3: PISTOLE (PISTOL) Cal –.35
Semi-Automatic
Carried by personnel who do not carry rifle or submachine gun 4: MASCHINENPISTOLE (SUB MACHINE GUN) Cal –.35 – Automatic
Eff Range – to 200 yds
Used by small unit leaders and company commander 5: GEWEHR 98K (RIFLE) Cal –.31
Eff Range – 400 yds
Six per squad 6: LEICHTES MASCHINENGEWEHR 34 (LIGHT MACHINE GUN) Cal –.31
Eff Range – 800 yds
Rate of Fire – 100/150 rpm
One per squad
(Model 42 now being manufactured) 7: LEICHTER GRANATWERFER (50-mm MORTAR) Eff Range – 350 yds
Rate of Fire – 6 rds in 9 sec
Danger Radius – 25 yds
One per platoon 8: PANZERBUCHSE 39 (AT RIFLE) Cal –.31
Eff Range – 200 yds
Rate of Fire – 6/8 rpm
Three per rifle company 9: SCHWERES MASCHINENGEWEHR 34 (HEAVY MACHINE GUN) Cal –.31
Eff Range – 1,500 yds
Rate of Fire – 350 rpm
Twelve per MG Co
(Same as LMG except for mount) 10: SCHWERER GRANATWERFER (81-mm MORTAR) Eff Range – 1,200 yds
Rate of Fire – 20/25 rpm
Danger Radius 35 yds
Six per MG Company 11: 3.7 cm PAK (37-mm AT GUN) Eff Range – 800 yds
Rate of Fire – 15 rpm
Twelve per AT Co in Infantry Regiment 12: 5 cm PAK (50-mm AT GUN) Eff Range – 1,000 yds
Rate of Fire – 16 rpm
Eighteen per AT
Battalion in Infantry Division 13: 7.5 cm LEICHTES INF GESCHUTZ (75-mm INF HOWITZER) Max Range – 3,900 yds
Rate of Fire – 10/20 rpm
Six per Howitzer Company in Infantry Regiment 14: 15 cm SCHWERES INF GESCHUTZ (150-mm INF HOWITZER) Max Range – 6,000 yds
Rate of Fire – 5 rpm
Two per Howitzer Company in Infantry Regiment 15: 10.5 cm LEICHTE FELDHAUBITZE (105-mm GUN HOWITZER) Max Range – 12,000 yds
Twelve per light battalion in Division Artillery 16: 15 cm SCHWERE FELDHAUBITZE (150-mm HOWITZER) Max Range – 10,500 yds
Eight per medium battalion in Division Artillery 17: 10 cm KANONE (105-mm GUN) Max Range – 20,000 yds
Four per medium battalion in Division Artillery
Related posts:Design your work space with the Bush Business Furniture Series C Elite Executive Desk with Return and Storage. This attractive and functional combination is the perfect way to plan and utilize your home or office. Desk comes with all you need in one convenient package. Thermally fused laminate construction delivers strength and durability for an exceptional value. Return attaches to desk so you can spread out and work comfortably. Organize office supplies and files in the 3 drawer pedestal and 2 drawer pedestal with top two box drawers, while drawers below conveniently accommodate letter, legal, and A4 size files. File drawers glide smoothly on durable full-extension ball-bearing slides, allowing easy access to all contents. Both pedestals feature front lock for added security and privacy. Durable construction resists to scratches and stains with a beautiful rich surface and brushed nickel finish drawer pulls. Meets ANSI/BIFMA standards for safety and performance.
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File drawers glide on full-extension ball-bearing slides for ease of access to all contents
Return must be attached to another work surface
2 Box drawers hold supplies and utilize 0.75 extension ball-bearing slides for smooth operation
File drawer accommodates letter, legal and A4 file sizes
Attractive brushed nickel finish drawer pulls
Made in the USAFinal Fantasy is widely known for exceptional characters, superb storytelling, and memorable music. The music is so loved that many groups have adapted it for live concerts, including five distinct tours over the past decade. Today, the team of electronic dance musicians at GameChops have released “Triple Triad,” a twelve-track remix album playing tribute to Final Fantasy and the music of series composer Nobuo Uematsu.
Spearheaded by UK producer Mykah, Triple Triad takes inspiration from three classic games in the Final Fantasy series, VI, VII, and VIII. To many, these games were an introduction into the series. To others, these games serve as a fond memory of when story, mood and music took precedent over graphics, hardware and spectacle.
Triple Triad contains a multitude of genres and styles to fit any electronic appetite; styles range from latin dancehall to drum ‘n bass to house and dubstep. Mykah shows his versatility as a producer, while the compositions of Mr. Uematsu are proven, yet again, to be powerful in any context. Whether you’re a long-time fan of the series or a casual listener of electronic music, Triple Triad is something special.
Listen and download it today from GameChops.
Follow Mykah: Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter
GameChops is a record label started by Dj CUTMAN that produces electronic cover songs of video game music. GameChops acquires mechanical licenses to the compositions contained within their albums. Music is available on GameChops.com, Loudr.FM, iTunes, and other major marketplaces.
Like this: Like Loading...One of the coolest features in vSphere 6.5 is the vCenter High Availability. This solution provides automated failover from active to passive vCenter node with expected RTO < 5 mins. The mechanism uses synchronous replication so there is no data loss and it operates in an Active/Passive configuration with a Witness node. vCenter High Availability feature is only available on the vCenter Server Appliance.
Requirements for vCenter High Availability
At least 3 ESXi version 5.5 or later
DRS anti-affinity rules are strongly recommended
Requires 2 network adapters on the vCenter Server, one for the “public” network and one for the “private” network.
Dedicated subnet, separate from the management network and an IP address for the “private” network for each node.
Latency between the nodes must be less than 10 ms.
Deployment can use an embedded or external PSC. See this link for more information about setting vCenter High Availability with different PSC topologies.
Enable vCenter High Availability
When you click the Configure button you will be presented with 2 options:
Basic : automatic configuration, nodes will be cloned and configured automatically
: automatic configuration, nodes will be cloned and configured automatically Advanced: manual configuration, nodes will be cloned and configured manually
Before you continue, I assume you have created a dedicated, private portgroup for vCenter High Availability. Also, SSH must be enabled on the vCenter Server Appliance.
Login to the vCenter Server Appliance with the administrator account. From Home, go to Hosts and Clusters. Make sure the vCenter Server object is selected on the left pane. Click the Configure tab and under Settings, select vCenter HA. Click the Configure. For sake of simplicity, select Basic as the configuration option and click Next. Provide the IP address, subnet mask and select the vCenter HA network. Next, enter the IP address for the Passive and the Witness node. Note that you can change some additional settings like DNS etc. after the failover when you click the Advanced button. Select the location, network and storage for each node. Click Next. Review the configuration and click Finish to start the deployment process.
Cloning the passive and witness nodes, configuring the vCenter HA cluster will take some time.
The next step is configuring the anti-affinity rules. Make sure that all nodes are separated and running on a separate ESXi host. Enforce this setting with the DRS VM/Host rule.
Test vCenter High Availability
If you want to simulate a host failure, you can use this blog post that I wrote some time ago. It is used to test the dump collector but the test procedure remains the same.
Cheers!
– Marek.ZWhat happens when you strap a Canadian soldier to his American counterpart and tell them to charge in opposite directions?
The dirt, literally, flies. To the victor? National pride.
And to the loser, the soil.
That's exactly what happened this week at Camp Atterbury -- a joint military training centre in Indiana -- when the men from the 31 Canadian Brigade Group came across U.S. troops grunting it out with harnesses attached to their backs.
Intrepid Master Corporal John Celestino stepped up and challenged the hometown crowd. A hardy contender from the U.S. National Guard accepted the challenge. Then they got down to business. Way down.
Cue the harnesses. And let the grunts commence.
According to the video's description on YouTube, "this version of the game builds esprit de corps and really works the leg muscles.. just ask Master Corporal Celestino!"
So, who won this battle of inches?
Check the clip, shot by Captain Tristan Hatfield of the 31CBG, to find out!
Oh yeah, that's the U.S. on the right side of your screen. Canada's left.
Also on HuffPostPresident Barack Obama walks past an honor guard during the arrival ceremony at King Khalid International airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Friday, March 28, 2014. President Barack Obama is in Saudi Arabia to reassure the key Gulf ally that his commitment to the Arab world isn't wavering. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The Obama administration is considering allowing shipments of new air defense systems to Syrian rebels, a U.S. official said Friday.
President Barack Obama's possible shift would likely be welcomed by Saudi Arabia, which has been pressing the White House to allow the man-portable air-defense systems, known as "manpads," into Syria. Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday evening for meetings with King Abdullah.
Allowing manpads to be delivered to Syrian rebels would mark a shift in strategy for the U.S., which until this point has limited its lethal assistance to small weapons and ammunition, as well as humanitarian aid. The U.S. has been grappling for ways to boost the rebels, who have lost ground in recent months, allowing Syrian President Bashar Assad to regain a tighter grip on the war-torn nation.
The actual manpad shipments could come from the Saudis, who have so far held off sending in the equipment because of U.S. opposition.
The president is not expected to announce a final decision on the matter during his overnight trip to the Gulf kingdom. U.S. and Saudi intelligence officials have been discussing the possibility of injecting manpads into the crisis for some time, including during a meeting in Washington earlier this year.
As recently as February, the administration had said Obama remained opposed to any shipments of manpads to the Syrian opposition. The U.S. has been concerned that the weaponry could fall into the wrong hands and possibly be used to shoot down a commercial airliner.
Among the reasons for Obama's shift in thinking is the greater understanding the U.S. now has about the composition of the Syrian rebels, the official said. However, the official added, the president continues to have concerns about escalating the fire power on the ground in Syria, which has been torn apart by more than three years of civil war.
The official wasn't authorized to discuss the internal deliberations by name and insisted on anonymity.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDCThe group American Atheists is blasting an Alabama university official for sending out a fear-mongering anti-atheist video to students this week.
American Atheists reported that Troy University Chancellor Jack Hawkins sent a mass email to faculty and staff on Tuesday containing a link to a YouTube video in which Harvard Business School’s Prof. Clay Christensen disparaged atheists and non-religious people as a menace to American society.
“As we approach a New Year I am reminded of the blessings we enjoy within a democracy which is the envy of the world,” Hawkins wrote in his email.
“For your pleasure — and as a reminder — I am sharing with you a 90 second video which speaks to America’s greatness and its vulnerability,” he said, enclosing a link to the video embedded below.
In the clip, Christensen — a well-known management guru and author of the book The Innovator’s Dilemma — spoke about an encounter with “a Marxist economist from China.”
The economist purportedly told Christensen that the biggest surprise he received in the U.S. was to learn how critically “important religion is to the functioning of democracy.”
The visiting economist, said Christensen, contended that the reasons American follow the law is because “most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week and they were taught there by people who they respected.”
Americans, Christensen said, follow the law “because they had come to believe that they weren’t just accountable to society, they were accountable to God.”
Christensen went on to say that he is beset by a “vague nagging feeling that as religion loses its influence in the lives of Americans, what will happen to our democracy? Where are the institutions that are going to teach the next generation of Americans that they, too, need to voluntarily choose to obey the laws?”
“Because if you take away religion,” Christensen said, “you can’t hire enough police.”
American Atheists president David Silverman addressed a letter to Hawkins on the topic of the video. Silverman demanded an apology from Hawkins for disseminating the video and sending a message of intolerance to students of Troy University — a publicly funded state college — who follow non-Judeo-Christian or atheist beliefs.
Silverman informed Hawkins that he was contacting the university on behalf of an atheist student who was offended and alarmed to receive the video message.
“Atheists are not a trivial minority,” wrote Silverman. “In Alabama alone, we represent 11 percent of the population, and statistically even higher numbers in universities and among college-aged residents; as many as 32 percent of people under age 30 are not religious.”
Silverman said, “On behalf of the student who contacted us, the Alabama members of American Atheists, the thousands of atheists at Troy University, and the hundreds of millions of atheists worldwide who live productive, law-abiding lives without religion, we demand an apology from you for using the public university email system and your publicly funded position to disparage atheists and minority religious groups as well as perpetuating the discrimination and anti-patriotic sentiment against atheists in the United States.”
The facts, said Silverman, run directly counter to Christensen’s assertion that less religion means more chaos and the collapse of civil society.
“In fact, in the United States, in states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most-religious states, the murder rate is higher than average,” he said.
“Further, on average and generally speaking, atheists have fewer divorces, abortions, and STDs, and lower poverty rates, homicide rates, overall crime rates, and teen pregnancy rates. As a demographic, atheists have higher IQs, incomes, education rates, and literacy rates, and more Nobel Prizes and university professorships,” Silverman continued.
Silverman ended by saying, “We ask for a public apology to the student, and other atheists whom you have disparaged with the video you included in your email.”
Watch video about this story, embedded below:I love my country and strive to be the best citizen I can be. While I may not agree with everything our government does, I abide by its laws nonetheless. That’s part of living in a democracy. But I grow frustrated when our elected officials fail to issue clear-cut rules on matters critically important to my life. Why, for example, have they not yet reached a consensus on who should be killed and who I’m allowed to have sex with?
In my opinion, it’s high time our government decided which people fall into which of these two categories. Because when I’m out and about I want to be able to look at an individual, ask his or her name, check some sort of government-issued list, and say either “Oh, it says here I’m allowed to have sex with you,” or “Oh, it says here I’m allowed to murder you. Put your hands behind your head.”
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Look, I don’t really care how the government finally gets this done, or even who’s on what list for that matter, just as long as the directory finally gets made and this uncertainty finally ends. Why are they dragging their feet on this?
For example, there is a woman who works at Boston Market named Amber Benson. Am I allowed to kill her? Am I allowed to have sex with her? I don’t know. The leaders I voted for haven’t told me yet. If I just knew who was fair game for killing, I’d be the first to grab my gun and start blowing people’s heads off. And after a hard day of killing, hey, maybe I want to have some sex. So the government could help me in a big way by creating a comprehensive database of names and addresses of permissible partners.
But instead, here I am living in no-man’s land wondering if Amber Benson can be killed or copulated with. How is that even right? Look, I’m not a lawbreaker by any stretch of the imagination. I know good and well that I can’t go around by myself marking people for death and/or sex—that would be anarchy. We have a social contract in this country, and it’s the job of our leaders to sort out such matters. I’m also not naive. I know these are hard decisions for the government to make, and I’m sure there’s room for debate in many cases. That makes total sense. But could I at least get a preliminary list of people they’re definite on? Both for death and sex? It would sure make things a heck of a lot easier.
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You could post the names on WhiteHouse.gov or wherever. Maybe you could also do something where I enter my zip code so that I know all the people in my immediate vicinity who I can kill or have sex with. Maybe there’s an email address on WhiteHouse.gov so we can notify the proper officials as to when a person has been killed, i.e., “I killed Ben Thompson today; please remove him from the people-we’re-allowed-to-kill list.” I’m just saying it would be pretty annoying for me if I showed up at the house of someone I’m allowed to kill only to find out that another person has already killed him. That’s a wasted trip. Unless there is another person close by who I know can kill or have sex with.
But you know what? All of these “maybes” are moot if the government can’t even figure out who should be on the list in the first place. How long is it going to take you guys? I’ve been waiting for 15-20 years at least.
I’ll give you another name: Pablo Guerrero, this guy who works at the muffler shop. Good guy. Is it okay to kill him? And regardless of the first answer, can I have sex with him? I don’t even know that I’d want to have sex with him, but I certainly don’t want to waste time thinking about it when the answer might be no. And on top of that, I definitely need to know if he, or anyone else, is on both lists. I certainly don’t want a killer coming after Pablo while I’m having sex with him.
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Now, I would be lying if there weren’t some selfish motivations here. The truth is, I don’t want to be 90 years old and finally hear, “Okay, here’s who you can kill and here’s who you can have sex with,” when most likely I won’t be able to do either anymore! That would just be devastating, especially for a guy like me. I’m the type of person who is up every morning at the crack of dawn, ready to take lives and have sex, but it’s all for nothing until I get some marching orders.
Of course, I’ll be pretty sad if I’m ultimately on the list of people the government decides should be killed, but if that’s what happens, so be it. At least that means there is finally a list, for crying out loud! And if I’m one of the people who others are allowed to have sex with, great. It could certainly get tiring and possibly painful, but there are worse things in life.
At this point, I just want answers. And a government that can actually get things done.Denmark's ambassador to Canada says despite media reports, there's still no agreement over Hans Island.
Canada and Denmark have been at odds for years over who owns the tiny island between Greenland and Ellesmere Island. Both countries claim sovereignty over the 1.3 square kilometre piece of barren rock.
Danish ambassador Erik Lorenzen said he saw the media reports of a rumoured agreement to split the island down the middle, giving Canada a land border with the European Union.
But Lorenzen says there's no solution yet.
"For a while we've agreed to disagree, and negotiations are taking place and once we've solved some of the very technical issues … then we will have the solution," he said. "But it does take some time to do these very technical considerations."
Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs also deflected questions about an imminent agreement over Hans Island. A spokesperson said the two countries are still looking for a way forward.
In 2005, Canada and Denmark agreed to work together to settle the simmering territorial dispute.After having worked with Java (and earlier C++) for a number of years, I have been working with Python for the last few months. Since I came to Python from Java, I thought it might be useful to share my experiences, which might be of interest to many programmers. This is not intended to be a language or feature comparison or something that contrasts the various advantages or disadvantages, but is intended to reflect on the softer aspects of how it feels to write Python programs. Hence I have refrained from including code snippets and other programming constructs in this post, but if you believe I am unclear in some of the comments I am making, do let me know and I shall be glad to update the post or write a new one as required.
Programming is Easier and Enjoyable
I think the most dominant impression from the last few months is that python does make programming feel a lot more easier and often more enjoyable. The feeling is not very different between riding a bicycle without gears then riding one with gears. In the latter case one just feels one can cover a lot more distance much more easily though any physicist will tell you the actual effort is not particularly different. It just feels like one has a much bigger toolbox (ie a wider assortment of tools) to work with and therefore the task seems simpler. Why do I think that way? I believe the following features of python do help (in no particular order) :
Concise Coding style : The code typically is much more concise, with much lesser verbosity
Dynamic typing : You really do not need to worry about declaring data types and making sure the inheritance hierarchies especially for all the interfaces and implementations well laid out. The various objects do not even need to be in the same inheritance hierarchy - so long as they can respond to the method, you can call it. This is a double edge sword, but that doesn't take away the fact that programming under dynamic types environment does seem a lot easier.
Easier runtime reflection : Java seems to have all the reflection capabilities but I think these are just way too painful to use as compared to python. In python the entire set of constructs (classes, sequences etc.) are available for easy reflection. In case you need to use metaprogramming constructs, python really rocks.
More built in language capabilities : Items such a list comprehensions, ability to deal with functions as first class objects etc. give you a broader vocabulary to work with.
Clean indentation requirement : It took me about 2-3 days to get over it but, it seems that python code is much easier to read since if you do not indent it correctly it will be rejected.
Need to spend time on understanding how to write code in Python
One of the statements I have heard in different contexts is that Java programmers when they start using python write it as if they are writing a java program using python syntax (unpythonic in python parlance). This actually took me a fair amount of time to understand. I did look at a lot of other python code to attempt to understand this in greater detail. I realised that python offers many more capabilities than java and that as a person who had written java code earlier, I was able to be immediately productive using the constructs in python which mapped onto the equivalent constructs in java easily. However it did take a long time to be able to start using the other constructs. One of the exercises that did help was to get away from the problem at hand and try to work on something entirely different (especially a program which had a strong algorithms element to it with complex data structures), and slowly review each line with how it might be better done in python.I realised it is easy to start coding in python but it takes some effort and time to start using the entire python toolbox effectively. While I reviewed other programs written in python, I did think there was one area where the prior exposure to java helped. Class design. I am not sure if this was an issue with the programs I read and thus there was an issue with the sample references I used. However while these helped me understand how to write code in python differently, I have a strong feeling that the programs I wrote were much stronger in terms of class design. There are many situations especially given the fact that python supports both function oriented programming and object oriented programming, where one wonders what is a better way to design the logic in a particular context. I thought it generally made sense to use proper class based design and use the functional constructs in situations which started getting a little loopy or algorithmic.
No Compile Cycle
Another thing I really enjoy about python is - no compile cycle (its implicit). So while in the middle of my editor, I could exit to the shell prompt, run the source immediately without trying to deal with an ant script in between which compiles java code and then recycles the web application. This has boosted my net productivity quite a bit.
Productivity
So are the statements that one can be 5 to 10 times more productive in python supported by my experience. While I haven't gotten through the full life-cycle yet, prima facie I do believe 5 times does seem like a good number. However I would introduce the following caveats. It will not happen for your first project.. more like your second project onwards, primarily since it does require a lot of effort to start understand how to write pythonic code and that does take away a lot of those benefits initially. Secondly it does not factor in refactoring. Point refactoring is much much easier in python, but bulk refactoring is much much more difficult since automatic refactoring is tough. Thus when I am refactoring, I sometimes feel I was able to get it done faster in python, but in many other cases I thought I ended up taking a lot more time.
Switched to python completely?
Not really. But I feel happy I have more options available to me. One thing that really sucks is the poor refactoring capabilities. This is unlikely to be an issue with python alone and is likely to be an issue with all dynamically typed languages. However if you want to use dynamic languages, be prepared to spend some more effort during refactoring since many of the automatic refactoring capabilities you may have gotten used to, may not be available. The other issue is performance. Java wins hands down on performance by a big margin. If I have to ever get back to another project where performance was particularly important and the primary constraint in performance was not network or disk IO but was likely to be the CPU, and it would be acceptable to substantially reduce development productivity in order to get the performance gains, I shall be found to be writing Java code for certain. The next project I work on, I am likely to "first" evaluate whether python fits the bill and switch to other languages if I do not find it appropriate enough.How this sub differs from other TI subs. No mobbing and no "boots on the ground."
Wikis
Search by topic and bring up posts that Reddit removed from the front page of this subreddit.
Please adopt a wiki to update!
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Introduction and Definitions of Terms
Submission Guidelines
The spam filter is set on 'all.' Posts and comments by nonapproved submitters await moderator approval. The spam filter does not notify mods. If on the third day, your post or comment is not on the front page, notify mods via modmail.
Targeted Individual topics are divided into two subs
Directed energy weapons, ultrasound weapons and sonic weapons.
Electronic torture from increased dirty electricity, increased wifi and increased SAR from smartphones
Scanning and removal of implants
Mind control and subliminal messages
Brain zapping, Transcranial stimulation V2K
Government medical experiments
CIA Pojects
Geo-stalking, satellite surveillance, facial and voice recognition and privacy
How to elude and relocate
Shielding and metering of V2K and ultrasound hearing. Shielding and metering of electronic torture (increased dirty electricity and increased SAR emitted by smartphones and wifi devices) are to be posted in /r/electromagnetics
Biological effects of electromagnetic fields.
Radio wave sickness (RWS) diagnosis and treatment
Biomarkers of RWS and brain zapping
Diagnosis and treatment for brain zapping
Microwave auditory effect
Meter reviews. How to use meters.
Shielding
earthing, etc.
mobile phone addiction, internet addiction, social media addiction and internet gaming addiction.
Rules
1) No personal attacks, ad hominems, trolling, swearing, bullying or doxxing. No discrediting OPs unless they wrote the research. Reddiquette applies.
2) No bullying of /r/targetedenergyweapons, its mods, TIs or other redditors sick from electronic torture, directed energyweapons and/or electromagnetic fields (EMF) in this sub or in other subs.
3) No thread-jacking. Focus on the topic of the post. Submit a new post if you want to discuss a different topic. Reddit's search engine does not search comments. Using Reddit's search engine, subscribers won't find your off topic questions and answers or your off topic debate and rebuttals to your debate. Posts, not comments, are searchable by subject tag in the wikis.
4) When discussing redditors, use their full usernames starting with '/u/'. Only using full usernames will notify redditors they have been discussed if in account preferences they ticked the box 'notify me when people say my username"
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/r/subredditcancer, 6) Commenting or crossposting in other subs, such as /r/topmindsofreddit /r/cancer. etc, linking to posts or comments here is subject to a ban, depending on context.
7) Impersonating a mod or subscriber by creating an almost identical username or masquerading as an alt account of a mod or subscriber in this sub or other subs is prohibited.
8) No witch-hunts or collecting information on redditors, organizing brigades of other subreddits, or labeling redditors as "shills" or "infiltrators". Stay on topic and try to be civil even if you disagree with another redditor. Similar to Rule 1 and 7. 8) OK that you are not a targeted individual (TI). Obviously fake TIs will be banned.Description:
This application claims priority to co-pending U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/033,765 filed on Mar. 4, 2008, which provisional application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
FIELD
This invention is related to transformations and animations of objects in web-based content.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a well-known stylesheet language used to describe presentation of a document written in a markup language, such as HTML, XML, and XHTML, for example. CSS may be designed primarily to separate document content (typically written in a markup language) from document presentation (written in CSS). This separation between the document content and the document's presentation can allow for improved content accessibility, more flexibility and control in the specification and presentation characteristics, and reduced complexity and repetition in structural content. CSS standardized specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
To parse documents including CSS, HTML, and other technologies, a document rendering model, or layout engine may be needed. These layout engines parse the document content and document presentation to be displayed to the user. One such layout engine may be Apple's WebKit, which may be an open source application framework that parses CSS, HTML, and other technologies quickly and efficiently.
Increasingly, CSS documents must be able to provide users a richer, dynamic, and interactive experience on and off the Internet. As such, various technologies have emerged to provide simple animations and transforms of various objects within a given document's content. One prevalent technology today is Adobe Systems' Flash technology, which may be used by content creators to provide a rich and vivid experience on the Internet. In creating Flash-based content, content creators often have to develop the Flash-based content in a separate program, and then embed the Flash-based content in the document. This developmental separation between the Flash-based content and the document content itself often means that two developmental platforms are needed to create document content for a single document in order to provide simple animation and transforms. With improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in web browsers, web developers have been able to make use of CSS to control presentation of documents written in hypertext markup language (HTML) independently of its content. Each content element within a web page may be assigned a set of stylistic rules that dictates presentation of that element. In this manner, markup pages can be presented in different styles. CSS further provides priority schemes that determine which style rules are applied if more than one rule matches a particular content element. This behavior may be referred to as cascade and makes use of weights that are calculated and assigned to rules to provide predictable outcomes. CSS styles can be provided in separate documents or embedded in markup documents. Style sheets can be imported and alternative style sheets specified for user selection. CSS provides various facilities to control both the appearance of single elements on web pages, for example their size and background color, and how various different elements on pages may be presented visually with respect to each other. For example, properties may be provided that control back-to-front ordering of different elements, and whether elements “clip” elements inside of it. These rendering behaviors may be described by Cascading Style Sheets specifications.
In order to create a single cohesive platform to provide static and animated objects within a given document, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) has been developed. SVG may be an XML specification and file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics. Using SVG allows content developers to provide an interactive and animated experience for a user using a single authoritative platform in which to create both the document content and document presentation when used in conjunction with XML/XHTML and often CSS. However, SVG-based content typically relies on a document content to be written in XML or XHTML, or some combination thereof, in order for the content to be displayed properly to a user. Thus, many old and new document contents that rely on HTML and CSS need to be completely rewritten in order to display SVG-based content.
Other limitations exist for both platforms. Flash-based content suffers from not being truly three-dimensional. Flash often uses the notion of perceived three-dimensional content to create animations and perspective. Using SVG also has the downfall of not being fully supported by many document rendering models despite being an open standard by the W3C. In not being fully supported by many document-rendering models, a document's content may not even be displayed to a user. A simply empty void space with a red “x” may just mark the spot where the SVG content should have been displayed. Furthermore, Flash may be generally very computer processor intensive in nature and may reduce battery life on mobile devices significantly.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1A is a block diagram of a software and hardware level to render a web application.
FIG. 1B shows an exemplary block diagram of the layout engine with a software development kit.
FIG. 2A is an exemplary graph of a scaling in the x-y Cartesian coordinate system.
FIG. 2B is an exemplary graph of a scaling in the x-direction in the Cartesian coordinate system.
FIG. 2C is an exemplary graph of a scaling in the y-direction in the Cartesian coordinate system.
FIG. 3A is an exemplary rotation of a CSS created figure rotated 30 degrees about its center.
FIG. 3B is an exemplary rotation of a CSS created figure rotated 90 degrees about its center.
FIG. 4 shows several exemplary translations of a CSS created figure.
FIG. 5 is an exemplary CSS created figure.
FIG. 6 shows an exemplary CSS created figure about to be rotated in a direction shown.
FIG. 7 is an exemplary perspective transform of a CSS created figure.
FIG. 8A is an exemplary transform of a CSS created figure about a user-defined origin.
FIG. 8B is another exemplary transform of a CSS created figure about a user-defined origin.
FIG. 9 is an exemplary example of transforming a figure in a nested structure.
FIG. 10A is an exemplary web application rotated around to control aspects of the application.
FIG. 10B is an exemplary example of opaque values in a backface transform.
FIG. 10C is an exemplary example of using six individual CSS figures to create a virtual world.
FIG. 11 is an exemplary example of animating opacity values of a CSS created figure.
FIG. 12 is an exemplary example of using Bézier curves to model CSS animations.
FIGS. 13A-13D illustrate an exemplary animation of a CSS created figure.
FIG. 14A illustrates an |
Cloak to mitigate damage.
3) Don’t be afraid to just sit on the enemies highest dps and constantly interrupt them with your interrupt as well as hard stuns. Also, try to taunt them on cool down to reduce their damage by 30% on any target that isn’t you.
4) Learn to use the Focus Target and Acquire Focus Target’s Target hot keys, as well as Acquire Target’s Target hot key. This will help you pick up which of your teammates is being focused and get your guard switches off quicker.
5) Use the “Focus Target Modifier” hotkey. What this does is make it so that when you press the key, you can use abilities on your focus target, all while having a different person targeted. This is great for Focus targeting healers and targeting dps. You will be able to taunt the dps you have targeted while simultaneously interrupting and stunning a healer to prevent their casts from getting off.
5) Maps
This section will show you key locations on each map to use for line of sight, various locations to drop your Phase Walk offensively and defensively, as well as locations where you want to force fights to happen.
5.1) Orbital Station http://i.imgur.com/THxodje.jpg
This map is one of the best for a Shadow/Assassin player. Use the red marks for offensive Phase Walks, green for defensive. Try to initiate the fight by getting a stealth knockdown on as many enemies as possible. Force the fight up on the catwalk and use your knock back to force imbalanced fights for the enemy. If you set your PW up top and have focus fire on you, jump down. If the enemy chases you, PW back up and you have now forced a 3v4 in favor of your team.
5.2) Makeb Mesa Arena http://i.imgur.com/z4tHtaW.jpg
The green circles indicate places you want to place your Phase Walk to ensure that you do not get popped out of stealth if you decide to Phase Walk and use Force Cloak to heal to full. The red circles indicate common locations that a ranged or even melee class will run to kite you or to escape being focused by your team. If you place your Phase Walk in these locations, you can often teleport behind your enemy when they go to run or escape.
An amazing trick that is severely underused is setting your Phase Walk on the top bridge and jumping down when you're focused. I will make a video showing this mechanic, as it will make more sense when it is seen. Essentially, if you are being focused, you will want to jump down off of the bridge to the ground level. If you jump at the appropriate time (about 50-60% HP range) you enemy will 8 times out of 10 attempt to chase you down for the kill. This is when you will use Phase Walk to teleport you back on top of the bridge. This creates an extremely favorable position for your team, as you have now secluded 1 or more of the enemy team on the ground level, forcing their team to fight a 3v4 or even 2v4 if more than one person chases you down.
You will want to communicate with your team that you want to force the fight on the bridge. The reason is that you were a superstar and decided to take Force Wave/Overload root. When the fight is just starting, the enemy will more than likely do 1 of 2 things. 1) Huddle together around the base of the bridge, near the LoS rock. Or 2) Rush the bridge to claim the high ground. This is your time to shine, you will use stealth as your gap closer and use Blackout to increase your stealth level so you can get in undetected. Initiate the fight by properly timing your knock back to knock as many off of the bridge as possible, creating an imbalanced fight for the enemy team, and giving you the advantage as now, whoever was knocked down will have to use movement increasing effects to try to re-engage into the fight, effectively wasting their time and reducing the overall damage your team will take. If you can help it, always try to force the fight up top. The only exception to this is in Tank/Heal/2Dps matches, as attempting to fight up is just a waste of time. In Heal/3Dps matches, you will still want to fight on the bridge, even more so, because if you can knock the healer down, you put yourself at a very large advantage towards winning the round.
5.3) Corellia Square http://i.imgur.com/2a50IBH.jpg
Green squares indicate places to place your Phase Walk defensively. Red squares indicate offensive positions to potentially cut off a running enemy. This map plain sucks for Shadow/Assassin players. It is the most wide open of the 4 maps, and as such, is terrible to play on when we are facing a multitude of ranged dps classes because it makes it difficult to Line of Sight. There are a few LoS objects, but they are situated in such a way that you will not be able to always continue to dps while LoS'ing. The best thing you can do in a map such as this is to wait for the enemy team to engage on your terms, by simply waiting around a LoS object and attempting to attack from behind it. This strategy actually works well if the enemy team has at least 1 melee dps, as they will be forced into the center of your team, allowing you to both dps the Melee enemy while simultaneously LoS'ing the ranged dps. With practice, this becomes easier.
5.4) Tatooine Canyon http://i.imgur.com/ggxJNz9.jpg
The red indicates places to place your Phase Walk offensively, to catch someone kiting potentially. The green indicates locations that are generally safe to heal to full from. This map is really good for Serenity/Hatred players. The small size of the map forces fights to be in one centralized location, which is optimal for DoT spreading. There are also a large sum of LoS objects for kiting purposes. A small trick that many don't utilize is using the outer edge of the pit to LoS players who are on the top of the ledge of the pit. The angle is just slight enough that players will be unable to see you if you hug the wall inside of the pit, effectively allowing you to LoS ranged classes with ease. Knock back root is best utilized here by rooting someone behind one of the 4 inner pillars, or knocking them into the pit when the fight is happening on the top level. Make sure that as a melee dps, you do not find yourself Dpsing your target with your back to the pit, as you will inevitably be knocked in, which is a hassle considering there is only 1 focal way to escape the pit and get back to the fight, depending on which side of the arena you are playing on.
6) Consumables (Working as of Patch 3.2)
6.1) Czerka VX-736 Injector
http://i.imgur.com/3a025GD.jpg
This gives a buff that increases your out of combat health regeneration by 10%. While it does state that isn’t usable in PvP, it actually means that you simply cannot click it to activate it in PvP. I have tested it, and the health regeneration does work in PvP if you activate it outside of an Arena match. In a regular warzone however, I believe the buff is removed, so this only works for Ranked Arenas at the time of writing this guide.
6.2) Bantha Steak
http://i.imgur.com/r2Eg5ng.jpg
Same with the Czerka Injector, this is an out-of-combat health regen item. It increases out of combat regen by 90, which is small, but sometimes you win with very little health left, and in a Ranked Warzone, you want to increase your chances to win by any means necessary.
6.3) Grenades
Each grenade has its uses. Some are more beneficial than others, but I like to have all 4 in my inventory and which I use is dependent upon the enemy team composition.
6.3.1) Electro-Stun Grenade
http://i.imgur.com/tbkJZy4.jpg
This stuns 3 targets for a total of 2-3 seconds. This grenade is very situational, but is more useful than a Seismic Grenade when playing Serenity/Hatred, because in an ideal situation, all enemy players will have your DoTs rolling on them, which will negate the effect of the Seismic Grenade.
6.3.2) Seismic Grenade
http://i.imgur.com/2GaYDGr.jpg
This is extremely useful as Infiltration/Deception and Kinetic Combat/Darkness as you can get the full duration out of it because there is little AoE in Infiltration/Deception, and controllable AoE in the tank trees. In Serenity/Hatred, you will not get the full effect of this grenade, so it is recommended to use this only to interrupt a channeled ability or to prevent short term movement abilities, such as Force Speed.
6.3.3) Cartel Waste Grenade
http://i.imgur.com/5tNuIT1.jpg
This grenade is useful in all specs, as a 70% slow for 9 seconds is a decent anti-kiting tool. Unfortunately, a lot of classes have movement impairing immunities on various abilities, which makes this grenade somewhat redundant.
6.3.4) Pyro Grenade
http://i.imgur.com/fA6kHqS.jpg
This grenade is extremely underused and is extremely powerful for Serenity/Hatred players. While it is more or less a one-time use DoT, it is a stronger DoT than Sever Force/Creeping Terror, doing 1k more damage, but is weaker than Force Breach/Discharge by 900 damage. If you apply this to a group of 4 in an arena, in conjunction with your regular DoTs, you will be doing 20k damage with your DoTs alone, before mitigation. Once again, for optimal Dps, I highly recommend this grenade in arenas. Its use is more limited to games without healers, however, so it is not the end all, be all of grenades.
7) 1v1 Section
This is aimed at showing you how to beat various other Advanced Classes as well as how much difficulty you will encounter when facing said advanced class. While arenas are not based on 1v1s, more often than not you will come down to a 1v1 which will determine whether you win or lose the round or match. Difficulty ratings are as follows 1 being not difficult at all, 10 being extremely difficult.
7.1) As a Shadow/Assassin
I will denote the difficulty based on which spec you are. DoT = Serenity/Hatred. Burst = Infiltration/Deception.
7.1.1) Guardian/Juggernaut
Difficulty – DoT 8/10, Burst 6/10
As DoT spec, this is a very hard fight for the sole reason that your DoTs will inevitably heal the Guard/Jugg to full from Enraged Defense. The best way to fight this class as DoT spec is to use your DoTs to your advantage, they will continue to deal damage while you LoS and kite the Guard/Jugg. This is a fight based on patience, as Guardian/Juggernauts have the most effective defensive cool downs in the game. As burst spec, it is easier in that you can completely ignore their heal to full mechanic, and have enough Crowd Control and burst as well as defensive cool downs to both survive their burst as well as damage them from 10 meter range, dancing in to 4m range to Shadow Strike/Maul as needed. Playing burst spec well vs a Guard/Jugg is like perfecting the Tango. You have to know when to dance into 4m range and when to use your 10m abilities at close to max range.
7.1.2) Sentinel/Marauder
Difficulty – DoT 4/10, Burst 7/10
Simply put, as DoT spec, this fight is pretty easy. You can kite marauders pretty well and your DoTs will eat away at their health. Don’t underestimate them though with Cloak of Pain active with 50% uptime, they have a lot more damage reduction than you would think. As burst spec, this fight is hard, marauders can simply out-burst you, and have more overall damage reduction than you do as well. They also some of the hardest hitting abilities in the game of both Force and Melee damage because of Gore windows. Be wary of their defensive cool downs, it’s best to just instalift them when they pop Saber ward and Low Slash them during Undying Rage.
7.1.3) Shadow/Assassin
Difficulty – Skill based
This is a mirror class fight, it comes down to skill. While some people will argue that burst spec is the superior dueling spec, much experience has taught me otherwise. A well-played DoT spec can beat burst spec and the reverse is also true. Just try to make your enemy use their defensive cool downs first, generally speaking, if they have to pop DCDs first, they are more likely to lose.
7.1.4) Sage/Sorcerer
Difficulty – DoT 6/10, Burst 7/10
I have fought some very good sage/sorcs and the difficulty ultimately comes down to how well the player is, but for the most part, this is an easy fight. It’s a little harder for burst spec because of how easily they are kited, and sage/sorcs are the kings of kiting. Combine their superior kiting with their very strong self healing abilities, and this fight becomes slightly challenging. I have never really had any issues as DoT spec against a sorc, they can kite you but your dots hurt, you have the most powerful DoTs in the game and any good sage/sorc will respect that. Not to mention you also have decent burst and good sustained damage, this fight is kind of easy as DoT spec.
7.1.5) Vanguard/Powertech
Difficulty – DoT 6/10, Burst 4/10
This fight is easy. Vg/PT burst is both predictable as well as easy to mitigate. DoT spec has a harder time because they can’t kite as effectively because of Super Sonic Hydrolic Overrides, and the main advantage of Serenity/Hatred is the ability to kite. Still, Force Shroud/Resilience is your friend, and will mitigate 80% of this classes predictable damage, all while you eat away at their health. In my opinion, burst spec has an easier time, because you can cc them through Hydrolic Overrides and you have a lot more burst, so the fight will end faster than it would if you were DoT spec. Still, don’t let them catch you with your DCDs down, as they can burst very hard.
7.1.6) Commando/Mercenary
Difficulty – DoT 3/10, Burst 4/10
This is a pretty easy fight. It is well-known that this class has amongst the worst DCDs in the game, and you simply have to exploit that to your advantage. No matter which spec you are, once they pop Energy Shield, just cloak out and mez them. You can keep them from healing this way as well as wait out the entirety of their best DCD. Kolto Overload is pretty weak in its current iteration in that it can be bursted through. Their new Chaff Flare buff is annoying, but more so to burst spec than it is DoT spec, as Infi/Decep’s burst is tied into Force Potency/Recklessness buffed force abilities. It’s best to just cc them when they pop this, as crowd control works, but they will not take the damage from the ability if it is Force based damage.
7.1.7) Gunslinger/Sniper
Difficulty – DoT 2/10, Burst 7/10
This fight sucks if you’re burst spec. The main reason being, most Slinger/Snipers are Sharpshooter/Marksman, and outside of Deflection, you have absolutely nothing to mitigate their damage, while they on the other hand have very good, under rated DCDs. Being burst spec, you are forced to be within line of sight, and they simply tear you apart, as well as kite you, which burst spec has trouble with. With that being said, in order to win, you simply have to cloak out when they use entrench. Patience is your biggest weapon here, as without entrench, you have superior CC, and can interrupt most of their long casts with Low Slash, Electrocute, Instalift, Knockback, etc. As DoT spec, this fight is pretty easy. You can just pump out dots and LoS them, this will force them to constantly reposition, leaving cover and giving you windows to cc them, even when Entrench is active, since they will be out of cover. This fight can be fought 100% on your terms, just don’t fight them in an open environment, use Line of Sight. If they use ballistic shield, LoS them so they have to move out of it. If they pop shield probe, it can be taken down with 1 hard hitting ability. This is an easy fight for DoT spec.
7.1.8) Scoundrel/Operative
Difficulty – DoT 10/10, Burst 9/10
If the scoundrel/operative is concealment, you will not win this fight as DoT spec unless your enemy is playing without a mouse and keyboard. They will cleanse your dots with evasion, and when you reapply your dots, it will only reduce the cool down of their evasion even more. They can roll majority of your Vanquish/Demolish damage and the worst part is that they have self heal abilities. This is worse than a sorc/sages’s because while a sorc/sage has stronger off-heals, the op/scoun has the tools to live long enough for their HoTs to add up. The only way you will stand a chance at winning is as burst spec. As burst spec, this fight is still very difficult because a good scound/op will know when to time their rolls, not to mention that they also have MUCH more burst than you have and insane critical rating due to passive buffs in their tree. You have to really know how to use your cc effectively, allowing them to roll even one Low Slash will make it that much harder for you to win. The real only way to win this fight is to hope that RNG works in your favor, as when you crit on all of you heavy hitters, they will melt. They are also very weak to roots, as this prevents them from rolling, so don’t be afraid to use knockback root even when they’re white barred, as while they won’t take the knock back from the ability, they will still be rooted, preventing them from rolling.
8) Teamwork!
8.1) Peeling
Use Force Wave/Overload knockback root to peel for your team mates. Same goes with grenades, pick the appropriate grenade for your spec and if your team needs it, use them to help your teammates gain some breathing room. 80% of Arenas is teamwork and if you don’t peel for your team or communicate, then you will have a hard time winning.
8.2) Crowd Control
Know when and where to place your cc. If you are infiltration/deception, you have much more cc than your DoT spec counterpart, and can control the flow of the fight much better. Even as DoT spec, knowing when it is appropriate to hard cast Force Lift/Whirlwind is vital.
8.3)Taunting
As a sin, you have access to taunts, which reduce your enemies’ damage by 30% when they aren’t focusing you. The best part of playing this class is that for the most part, you are focused last. Your taunt, specifically your single target one, should ALWAYS be on cool down, there is no excuse to not taunt, period.
8.4) Damage
The more damage you do, the quicker your enemies die, and the better chance you have at winning the arena. If there are two targets, one is focusing you, one focusing your teammate, focus the one attacking your teammate. With enough pressure, they will be forced to retreat, and as a Shadow/Sin you have 2 different escape abilities to evade focus fire. Use that to your advantage. The more people targeting you, the better, as that means less damage taken by your teammates, which leads to more damage taken for the enemy team. You can also just stealth out and PW away and heal to full, literally making all the damage the enemy team did to you a waste.
9) Closing, Credits, Cookies!
I just want to thank all of the people who helped me out, both when I was a total scrub and now, as I can always improve. I would also like to thank my viewers! You guys who watch my stream consistently are the ones who urged me to make a guide of this type in the first place. I’m really lazy, so your constant encouragement paid off, as the guide is now made! I also want to thank Mosh and Lycaeon for showing me optimal DoT spread mechanics as well as some of my guildies from Clickers of The Bastion for showing me optimal kiting methods. In closing, I will continue to update this guide as I discover more information. Also, if there is something you see that I’ve missed or a mistake I’ve made, or if you even have a simple question for me, I am more than willing to go over my thoughts with you and amend my guide as needed. Thanks for reading! Hey guys, Kre’a here! Have you just now finished leveling a brand new Assassin or Shadow and decided to give Ranked PvP a try? Or perhaps you have already been playing the class and want a few tips? Or, better yet, are you frustrated with fighting Assassins and Shadows and need a good guide to find some tips on how to beat them? If any of the above statements are true, you’re in the right place! In this guide, I will disclose all of the knowledge that I have acquired throughout my three or so years of playing the Shadow/Assassin class. I will give information on how to both DPS and Tank on a Shadow/Assassin as well as show a detailed breakdown of how to both beat individual classes as a Shadow/Assassin as well as how to beat a Shadow/Assassin as each individual class. I will highlight both strengths and weakness of each spec, how I personally gear for each spec, how to utilize optimal damage per second rotations as well as various tips and tricks for how to be successful in Solo Ranked as well as Group ranked.Hey guys, I’m Kre’a, and I main Shadow/Assassin. A little about my history, I have been playing this class for a little over 2 years now and I absolutely love it. In all of the MMO’s I’ve played (Lineage 2, Tera Online, Shaiya), I have always played a stealthy rogue type class and love to be “in the shadows”, so to speak. In swtor, I started playing PvP competitively in Season 3, and I did terribly to say the least. After a couple hundred games (800 or so I believe), I only managed to win 100 or so and ended the season with 850 Elo. But that didn’t stop me, so I transferred servers a few times and got the advice of various players who I perceived to be doing well in Solo Ranked and Group Ranked and dueled them various times until I became more knowledgeable about both the class as well as how to perform in Ranked PvP. I put this knowledge to use in Season 4, where I ended the season with 2877 Elo, with a top Elo achieved of 2930, placing me as the highest rated Shadow/Assassin for solo queue and the second highest rated player of Season 4 in solo queue.You will want to play this class if you enjoy playing a stealth class that has access to one of the most powerful DoT based damage in the game for endgame PvP as of Patch 3.2 as well as a pretty good burst spec and a more than viable tank spec for both Solo and Group Ranked. If those points interest you, by all means, read onward!These are the utilities I take when I play this spec, as well as a brief explanation of why.– Reduces the cool down of Mind Snap/Jolt by 2 seconds, Force of Will/Unbreakable Will by 30 seconds and Force Speed by 5 seconds.– Reduces damage taken while stunned by 30%.– Force Wave/Overload unbalances its targets, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends this effect prematurely.Reason: I take these utilities for multiple reasons. I find that you don’t really need the movement speed in this spec because of the fact that majority of your damage comes abilities and DoTs that can be placed at 10 meter range or more. While there are melee abilities that need to be used, having a rotational root on a 9 second internal cool down more than helps to keep you stuck to your target. Reduced damage taken while stunned by 30% is an amazing utility that can be stacked with your AoE taunt for a total of 60% less damage taken while stunned, and further, can also be stacked with your Warzone Adrenal, assuming you can pop it before you get stunned, and most stuns are predictable, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. Force Wave/Overload root comes in handy for grouping up enemies and keeping them rooted so you can spread your DoTs, as well as for peeling. Lastly, Avoidance/Celerity is mainly taken to reduce the cool down of force speed by 5 seconds, which is a 25% reduction in the overall cool down of your biggest gap closer.– Increases the durations of Resilience/Force Shroud by 2 seconds and Force Speed by 0.5 seconds.– Force Speed grants Egress/Emersion, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration.Reason: Egress/Emersion is a must have, there is nothing that will be more valuable in this tier of utilities than this one. This will not only break any and all roots/slows but also prevent you from being rooted/slowed for the duration of force speed. I take Mind over Matter/Disjunction for 2 reasons. The first being that not only does it increase your Resilience/Force Shroud by 2 seconds, making it last for 5 seconds total, but it also increases the duration of the shroud on your force cloak (Heroic Utility, explained below) by 2 seconds, giving you an additional 4 second shroud attached to Force Cloak. This Is is very powerful, as it will give you 9 seconds of shroud, or 6 Global Cool downs of immunity to all hard Crowd Control and immunity to Force/Tech damage. An extra bonus is that you have.5 seconds added to your Force Speed, meaning that if a Sorcerer speeds away, you can catch them and still have an extra.5 seconds of 150% movement speed while their Force speed has already ended.– Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Resilience/Force Shroud.– While Deflection is active, you are immune to stun, sleep, lift, and incapacitating effects.Reason: Having a Resilience/Force Shroud attached to your combat break is very useful so that you can not only break combat effectively, but also to allow you to mitigate incoming Force/Tech attacks as well. CC immunity on Deflection is one of the major reasons for this class being considered OP by the majority. Deflection lasts 12 seconds, so you can effectively be unstoppable while you pump out massive damage. This also helps against Sorcerers, because usually, Deflection does nothing against this class, as this class has no white damage. This helps a bit in that it prevents them from hard stunning you as well as lifting your with Whirlwind/Force Lift.These are the stats that I have when I run Serenity/Hatred spec. There are many ways to achieve these stats, but here is the cheapest and easiest way to achieve these stats.*Note* I have all Strength/Willpower/Endurance Datacrons for maximum bonuses: This spec benefits from Alacrity because it not only decreases your cool downs and internal cool downs, but also speeds up your DoTs, which is a direct Dps increase as opposed to having 5 or 6% more Surge. I run 0 crit because of personal preference, I find that I do more damage with full power in this spec than with crit, and to compensate for my low crit, I use Main stat augments to increase my crit rating by about 1.5%.For optimal damage per second in Ranked, you will want to wait for the opportunity to spread your DoTs to as many targets as possible. This can be by either forcing a single target to retreat into their team, or by utilizing overload to knock a target or multiple targets into a large group for optimal DoT spread. Your initial rotation will be the following:Sever Force/Creeping terror > Force Breach/Discharge > Lacerate/Whirling Blow as many targets as possible. After you spread your dots with Lacerate/Whirling Blow, your options are as follows:If you’re able to hit 2 or more targets, use Whirling Blow/Lacerate again. If you can only hit 1 target, use Double Strike/Thrash.You will only use Serenity strike/Leeching strike on a target if they have the Force Breach/Discharge dot on them, as this will proc an instant cast and free Vanquish/Demolish. Use Spinning strike whenever you gain a proc for it. You can use Death Field on cooldown now since it no longer spreads DoTs but still gives a buff to your dots.1) Try to force an opponent into their team for maximum DoT uptime on as many targets as possible2) Delay your FiB/Death Field if you know your enemy is running into the rest of their team. Waiting a few seconds can sometimes increase your Dps if you can hit more than one target with FiB/Death Field.3) Utilize the fact that this spec has 10m range abilities. Using this to your advantage, you can mitigate a lot of damage by simply throwing out DoTs and line of sighting enemies.4) Phase Walk can be used while stunned or otherwise controlled. Use this to your advantage!5) If you come down to a 1v1 situation in Ranked, you can use the Force Cloak > Mind Maze trick to break combat, mez your enemy and heal up with your class Regeneration skill.6) Sometimes it is better to use Force Cloak offensively, by using it for the 4 second shroud to mitigate damage, or to use Spinning kick/Spike on an enemy who is about to fall into the execution range, so that they cannot use a Defensive cool down or escape.7) Sometimes a situation calls for heavy kiting, and in these situations, a good way to keep up your damage is to maintain 30 meter range while spamming Sever Force/Creeping terror. It applies damage on activation, and while it is minor damage, it is dealing more damage to your enemy than you will be taking if the enemy cannot reach you.8) Cloaking with dots out will still take you out of combat (click me!) – Reduces the cool down of Mind Snap/Jolt by 2 seconds, Force of Will/Unbreakable Will by 30 seconds and Force Speed by 5 seconds.– Increases your movement speed by 15% and your effective stealth level by 5.– Force Wave/Overload unbalances its targets, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends this effect prematurely.Reason: Infiltration/Deception has issues with being kited, which is slightly mitigated by having access to a 30 meter Low Slash as well as 30 meter instant Force Lift/Whirlwind. For this reason, I like to take the increased movement speed while in combat, because this spec has no rotational slows in its optimal dps rotation, so you need all the sticking power you can get. Force Wave/Overload root helps with peeling for team mates, as well as on various maps, which I will detail later in this guide. Lastly, Avoidance/Celerity is mainly taken to reduce the cool down of force speed by 5 seconds, which is a 25% reduction in the overall cool down of your biggest gap closer.– Reduces the cool down of Force Wave/Overload by 2.5 seconds and Force Potency/Recklessness grants 1 additional charge when activated.– Force Speed grants Egress/Emersion, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration.Reason: Egress/Emersion is a must have, there is nothing that will be more valuable in this tier of utilities than this one. This will not only break any and all roots/slows but also prevent you from being rooted/slowed for the duration of force speed. Deception needs this more than the other specs because of how susceptible it is to being kited. Force Harmonics/Audacity is a straight up Dps increase for this spec, more so than for Serenity/Hatred. This spec is all about burst, and having the extra charge will help to increase your opening burst window, which is less important for Serenity/Hatred, as that spec is more about sustained damage.– Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Resilience/Force Shroud.– If your Force Lift/Whirlwind breaks early from damage, the target is stunned for 2 seconds. In addition, Force Lift/Whirlwind activates instantly.Reason: Having a Resilience/Force Shroud attached to your combat break is very useful so that you can not only break combat effectively, but also to allow you to mitigate incoming Force/Tech attacks as well. I take insta-lift over Deflection immunity because this spec has a really hard time sticking on a target, and for that reason, it helps to have an additional ability that can be used outside of 10 meters to catch back up to a target. Deflection immunity will do nothing for you if your target roots you or slows you and creates a gap while your Force Speed or Low Slash are on cool down, so having this really helps to play “catch up.”These are the stats that I have when I run Infiltration/Deception spec. There are many ways to achieve these stats, but here is the cheapest and easiest way to achieve these stats.*Note* I have all Strength/Willpower/Endurance Datacrons for maximum bonuses.There is a lot of controversy over whether to use Accuracy up to 5% or full Surge. I personally use Full surge, as this spec is a burst spec, and doesn’t put out as much burst damage as some of the other burst specs in the game at the moment, so to compensate, I increase my Surge to as high as I can take it. Accuracy to 5% does help to mitigate the 5% base defense chance that all classes get (except consular/inquisitor who get 10% due to low armor), but I find that in the end 5% extra surge is worth more than 5% less chance to miss on an attack, but like I said, this is personal preference. To further boost the burst this spec can put out, I run overkill augments to increase my bonus damage. I do run a small amount of crit, 25%, so that I can have *slightly* better burst outside of my Force Potency/Recklessness windows, however, this is not necessary, and a full power/surge build works just as well. This spec has a lot more flexibility in its build path for PvP, which is both good and sometimes confusing.I will preface with saying, this spec is not friendly to novice players in Ranked PvP, especially Group Ranked. Because of how easy it is to kite this spec, you will have to be skilled in the art of target swapping to the appropriate target at the appropriate time. Sometimes it is better to just swap targets to an enemy who is still close to you as opposed to chasing down that pesky sorc who Force Sped away. With that being said…1) Open with Force Potency/Recklessness buffed Spinning Kick/Spike > Force Breach/Discharge > Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning.2) Open with Force Potency/Recklessness > Force Breach/Discharge > Psychokinetic Blast > Maul (if proc'd)From here, you are going on a priority based system. If you didn’t proc Infiltration Tactics/Duplicity, then you will use Clairvoyant Strike/Voltaic Slash or Whirling Blow/Lacerate (depending on how many targets are near you) to build stacks of Clarivoyance/Voltage which will both lower the cost of Psych Blast/Ball Lightning as well as increase the chance of Pysch Blast/Ball lightning to give you a stack of Shadow Technique/Surging Charge by 50% per stack. Ideally, you want to keep this buff at 2 stacks so that your Psych Blast/Ball lightning will always give you a stack of Shadow Technique/Surging charge. You always want to use Force Breach/Discharge before you use Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning no matter which opener is used, because it adds a debuff to the target, increasing all force damage taken by 5% for 45 seconds.A good use of Low Slash for optimal burst is to Low Slash your target, hard cast Weaken Mind/Crushing Darkness, and immediately use a proc'd Shadow Strike/Maul, 3 stack Force Breach/Discharge, or Psychokinetic Blast/Ball Lightning. This is because Low slash will give you enough time to get off this DoT and immediately follow it up with burst, and if done correctly, the enemy will take both the initial ability damage of Weaken Mind/Crushing Darkness at the same time as the heavy burst from one of the 3 abilities I listed to follow it up with. This is invaluable in a duel, but also works well in a 4v4 environment if you aren't being focused.1) Only use Force Breach/Discharge at 3 stacks, anything less is a Dps loss.2) Sometimes, I will use Phase walk in this spec as a gap closer, by placing it around a Line of Sight object that I’m sure an enemy will run to in order to kite me. This will let me teleport to my |
help every interpreter." But they gave me nothing. No papers, no recommendation letters. I was alone in Afghanistan. I don't know where they are. I don't have any contact with those soldiers. So I couldn't apply for a visa. They promised all of the interpreters, not just me — everyone working inside the American bases. American soldiers promised these people, "After you leave your jobs, we'll support you to leave Afghanistan, to go to different countries to save your life." But now I know, they didn't give help to those people.
I joined with the Americans. That's my mistake. But I would request to other Afghan people, please do not help the Americans. Don't work with them, or the British, because they all lie. They promise anything to any Afghan, but then they don't help you. If you help the Americans, you'll end up the same as me, sleeping in parks with nothing, no food and no money. Don't break your future in this place.
Courtesy of Matt Ziller
Washington, DCJanis Shinwari is probably the most famous of the interpreters who made it to the States. He was only granted a visa after a US Army veteran and former CIA officer, Matt Zeller, spent years campaigning for him. Janis had saved Matt's life in Ghazni, a heavily contested province in eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban have a strong presence, and Matt had promised Janis he would do everything he could if Janis ever needed anything. The two of them now live a short drive away from each other in Virginia, where Janis is struggling to find work. He was allowed to bring his wife and two kids to America, but not his parents. Unlike their Iraqi counterparts, Afghans can only bring their spouses and any children under the age of 21 with them. Like many conditions of the Special Immigrant Visa program, no one has any idea why this is the case, especially not when parents and brothers of interpreters have already been killed in retribution for the work the interpreters did.
I spent a day with Matt and Janis. They told me how they had met and how hard it had been to get Janis out, despite the obvious service he had performed and the threat he had faced.
Janis: The biggest thing was, for us, that when I landed in the United States, I said, "I'm safe." No more fear. No more fights. And we can go everywhere.
Matt: Yeah, you could see the sigh of relief on his face. You could just… it was palpable. I mean, it was just right there.
Matt took us to lunch at his favorite restaurant, a BBQ place on the ground floor of his apartment building. Matt said he had a "never-ending quest" to get Janis to love American food. He pointed out the dishes Janis had to avoid because they contained pork and insisted he try the burnt ends in beef dishes.
Matt: I met Janis the first week I got to Afghanistan, in April 2008. We'd gotten down to our base, FOB Vulcan in Ghazni. I only met him briefly in passing. They basically brought all the interpreters on the base and introduced us. I just said, "Hey, I'm Matt. I look forward to working with you." And that was it. I didn't realize that a week later he'd be saving my life.
We were in this horrible firefight. We were pinned down, surrounded by 45 members of the Taliban versus 15 of our guys. I was one of those 15. We were running out of bullets. I was out of grenades. This firefight had been going on for about an hour. I had already been almost blown up three or four times, with rounds landing right next to me, and this mortar hit about two or three meters away from me. It sent me flying into this ditch.
I thought, Okay, that's it. That last one was way too close. I'm going to die now. And literally, you couldn't have scripted it better, in terms of a Hollywood movie. At the absolute moment of total despair, somebody yelled out, "Zeller, don't shoot to your six, friendlies to your rear." And I turned to see these three armored Hummers tearing up like bats out of hell coming to save us. The lead vehicle got there and it was driven by this US Army sergeant, who threw open his door and goes, "Aye sir! I heard you're in a pickle. I brought an MK-19 grenade launcher. Where you want it?"
I pointed up at this ridgeline and said, "Kill everything that moves up there." They went for it, but I started taking fire again. So I'm starting to return fire, when all of a sudden I feel somebody land right next to me. And before I can turn to see who it is, I hear the unmistakable sound of an AK-47 being shot right next to my head. I turn and it's Janis who has just shot and killed these two Taliban fighters who were creeping up from behind me to get me. And if he hadn't been there, I'd be dead. Hands down, they either would have shot me in the back or dragged me away and killed me on the spot. Had it not been for him, I would not be sitting here.
And from that point on, I made sure that he and I were connected at the hip for the rest of my deployment. He became my personal interpreter. We ate every meal together. We basically went everywhere together. I almost never let him out of my sight. And so my tour ends around Christmas 2008. He had saved my life in April. They had us all gathered, waiting for our flight home. We're no longer on this small outpost. And he'd come to the front gate to say our goodbyes, and I looked at him and said, "Brother, I promise you I'm going to do whatever it takes to repay this debt. I'm going to get you to America. I don't know what it's going to take, but I promise I will not stop until I've gotten you to safety." And he said, "Okay, thank you. We will see."
I flew home and we spoke every day, either via Skype or Facebook. In 2009, he got transferred to Kabul because his name had been added to the Taliban kill list for having saved my life and others. He was told, "It's too dangerous to stay, they know who you are. They're hunting you."
So I called him up and I said, "You know, there's this visa process, do you want to apply?" And he says, "No, I love Afghanistan. I'm safe here in Kabul. Things are good now. I think it'll be okay."
Then two years go by and finally, in 2011, a US officer I was working with said, "Look, I know you're real close with Janis. We have to let you know he's basically under a ton of threats now and I'm going to be helping him apply for his visa, but he'd like you to be his sponsor."
I said, "Sure, not a problem."
I thought it would take a couple of months at the most. But much to our absolute dismay, two years later, it's the summer of 2013, and we're still waiting. We haven't heard a thing. The State Department had interviewed Janis, made him do the medical screening. But then, nothing. It was just like his case had disappeared into a void, never to be heard from again. And so for the time being we were just in this weird sort of holding pattern. The threats had gotten so bad that he had to actually live on the US base. He couldn't go home anymore. He hadn't seen his family for almost two years because it was too dangerous to go and see them.
And then in July 2013, I was sitting on my computer when he sends me a Facebook message and he says, "Brother, I just got word they're going to lay off all the interpreters on the base because the US unit we are supporting is leaving and there's no replacement unit coming after them, which means we're all going to lose our jobs. We all have to move off the base and we're all going to be exposed. It's only a matter of time before the Taliban catch us and kill us. You have until October to save my life." So I went into overdrive. I started calling up all my friends in the State Department asking for help. They basically said, "We're powerless. You need to get some Congressional action and maybe some media attention."
So I started a petition and within a couple of weeks we had a couple thousand signatures. Yahoo News heard about it, we did an interview and they made it their front-page story. Within 72 hours, we had over 100,000 signatures and several members of Congress asking how can they help. There was a lot of media attention. And then much to our absolute joy, within a day or two of hitting more than 100,000 signatures, the State Department called up Janis and told him his visa had been approved. We were all overjoyed. We were celebrating and making plans for his arrival in the US.
They told him he could only come with one suitcase per family member. So he had to sell his house, quit his job, get rid of all his things, and consolidate his life into one suitcase per family member. And he does all this, just as they instruct him to. He sold his home, was living out of a relative's place, changing locations every night because he's afraid the Taliban might come and find him, and the State Department sent him a message. I'll never forget this.
It was two in the morning here in the US, and he sends me another Facebook message just as I'm about ready to go to bed. He says, "The embassy just called me and says there's a problem with my visa and I need to bring my passports to the embassy. This happened to my cousin. When he went there they actually took away his visa and said, 'Your visa's been revoked; you're never going to the US.' I'm terrified. Do you think I should just spend all of my life's savings and buy plane tickets now?"
I called up his lawyers and they said that if he gets on a plane there's no way they're going to let him into the country, that visa's likely been turned off even though he physically holds it. They said I had to get them to turn it back on, but they've never heard of anyone having their visa reinstated. That's what I was up against.
So I called the embassy and they forwarded me to a mailbox that nobody answered, a voice mailbox. Finally I got ahold of an actual American who tells me that they can't help me, that there's no way to appeal this, that Janis has the email address which he should send all correspondence to. And I've been emailing this email address. They'd said that for reasons of national security, we had to make a different decision. And that's the end of it. His visa was revoked.
I call every press person that had been a part of this, told them what had happened and that Janis was now on his way to an early death in Afghanistan because we're screwing up. So they made this big media story.
I found out from some friends of mine in the State Department that the Taliban had followed his story. They saw that Janis had been given his visa and they knew that their only chance to kill him was to keep him in Afghanistan. So they used the tip line at the US embassy, for Afghans to call in anonymous tips about potential attacks. They used that tip line and called it up and said, "Janis Shinwari is actually a member of the Taliban working for us all these years. And he's going to kill Americans." That triggered a knee-jerk reaction.
Forget the fact that he has been fighting for us for seven years and saved my life and the lives of four other soldiers. Forget the fact he has been the personal interpreter for 12 US senators. That apparently isn't good enough. They'd spent three years investigating him. The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, you name it, and they found nothing. And yet one anonymous, bogus tip comes in and suddenly all of that investigation just gets tossed out? And he's now screwed. He's now going to die a horrific death in Afghanistan?
I started arranging meetings with members of Congress, talking to anyone in the press who would listen, just anything I could think of. Ultimately I made such a political stink about it that the State Department knew they couldn't just toss this guy back into the wind. I emailed the former ambassador, the current ambassador, General Joseph Dunford, anyone who would listen. I was not going to let this die. Eventually the CIA came in and polygraphed Janis twice, and he passed with flying colors. That was enough for them to say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was not a bad guy. They turned his visa back on a couple of weeks later and by the end of October, he was in America.
It had taken three years. Three years of sitting around waiting with no response whatsoever other than, "We're still looking into it." That was it. Three years of absolute silence.
More importantly, no one should have to go to this level of an effort to honor, to ultimately honor our nation's promise and commitment. But we'd done it. I thought, Okay, this is great. I got my last member, my buddy, out. But because we got all this press coverage, Janis and I have become the people that Afghans, and other American veterans who want to save Afghans, come to for help. And the scariest part about this is, it isn't repeatable. This is the one time that I'm ever going to be able to do something like this. It's not news anymore.
So all the other interpreters are now in what's called the administrative review process, where they have the US intelligence community investigate their background. And they just languish. They sit there for years, untouched. No one is coordinating the process. And sometimes the easiest thing for these people to do is have a mindset where they don't want to let these people in. The easiest thing for them to do is to just not make any decision at all. And just say, "Well, it's still being investigated." And the effect is still the same. The interpreters are still trapped and stuck in Afghanistan.
One Marine came to us for help. His interpreter just got here last month. While he was waiting for his visa to be approved, his father was killed and his younger brother was kidnapped, just because the Taliban were trying to get to him.
There was another interpreter who applied for a visa. While he was waiting, he went to meet his parents. When he got there, the Taliban killed him in front of his family. They decapitated him.
That's the fate that awaits these people, our allies. And if these were US soldiers, or American citizens, we would move heaven and Earth to save them. There would be no expense spared.
One of the interpreters Matt and Janis are now trying to rescue is called Qadeer, whom they had both worked alongside in Afghanistan. I had interviewed him in Kabul. It was his house that was shot up by the Taliban, and his father who had agreed to look after his wife and kids should he decide to get smuggled out of Afghanistan.
After several failed attempts, Qadeer finally appeared on Skype, where the weak signal meant that his image kept freezing and only the light from his laptop screen lit his face, giving him a ghostly appearance. He explained that they didn't have electricity and only had tiny battery-powered flashlights for light. Matt told him that a petition to get his case reviewed (he had been approved for, then denied a visa) had attracted more than 10,000 signatures. But Qadeer didn't seem to take any hope from this.
Qadeer: Last night I just received a call and an email that were very hopeless. A captain I worked with said President Karzai just released many, many of the prisoners from Bagram that me and Janis arrested. All those leaders, they were released from jail. We arrested them in Ghazni and Bagram and other places, and they know us because we sneaked into their houses and a couple times we attacked them. They were all released. The situation here in Afghanistan, day by day, is going to be worse. We could actually lose everything. My case is actually blocked and nobody knows who to ask about my problem. I went to the Ministry of Interior but they said they could not do anything. They told me that if I want someone to be responsible for me, then it is America who should be responsible.
He then announced that his wife had just given birth the night before, to their third daughter. Matt and Janis congratulated him and for the first time since we'd started talking, if only for a minute or two, they were both smiling broadly.
Qadeer: We didn't name her yet. We have to wait for my father. He's a little sick. He went to the hospital, but when he comes back he will pick the name.
He then went straight back to talking about his case.
Qadeer: The problem is, I don't know why I am stuck. I helped the Americans. I told those guys I helped them, but who cares? I helped the Americans and I did a service for this country. I did very honest work but there is no place for me and I cannot appeal. I'm so disappointed that sometimes I talk to myself and I swear. I ask myself, Why did I work with Americans? Why?
Every night there is a very bad situation going on outside, in the streets. There's no government, no security, no nothing. We are stuck and we don't know what will happen. Why am I stuck? Why won't they re-interview me?
Matt winced with each sentence.
Matt: I can only say on behalf of my country and everybody you ever worked with, I'm sorry. We're… you're absolutely right. What we're doing is entirely wrong. It's reprehensible. It's a disgrace. It's an embarrassment and it's something that I am profoundly, profoundly upset about. And I promise you I am not going to stop fighting for you until we get this resolved. All right? I'm deeply… I am so sorry. We owe you. You've done so much for our country. You deserve to be sitting here with Janis and I as an American. I'm sorry we are not holding up our end of the bargain. I'm sorry, I really am. And I'm not… I'm not going to forget about you, brother. All right? You just got to hang in there.
Qadeer thanked Matt for all his efforts but had more startling news.
Qadeer: Sometimes now I go outside for work. I have been hiding for too long at home. There is no income, sir. Day by day my economic situation is going down and down. For that reason I had to go outside and start working as a taxi driver. You don't know, but the money I saved before, I have spent. Everything is very expensive, so I cannot just hide at home anymore. We will see what will happen. I cannot stay at home because there is no income. I have a big family. I have three daughters. They need food and many things. So I go out, driving a taxi and I make, like, five or eight dollars a day. I do it just to bring a few things home, some food. I need it now. I need to work.
The Skype connection was lost again, and Matt and Janis digested what Qadeer had just told them.
Matt: These people are going to get killed. And for people who make policy, it's an abstract concept, these are people they've never met before. But for a guy like me who was on the front lines, it's like these are my brothers that I'm thinking about.
Janis: The situation is getting worse. I'm talking to many people. Many people, they are sending me emails and messages to help them. They are cases just like Qadeer's where there is no cooperation. If the situation changes just a little bit, these people are the first targets. And the ones who got released from the jail? They're not like the thousands of other Taliban, they are the commanders, the ones making decisions, big commanders ordering the other Taliban to go attack and kill people.
Matt: They remember, and they're going to exact their revenge. They told you just that. The first people they are going to kill are those who collaborated with the Americans.
And now Qadeer is not just visible, he's remarkably visible. It'd be one thing if, you know, he'd be working in a back room somewhere stocking shelves or working as a day laborer. But he is driving around picking people up.
Janis: Yeah, he's an easy target for the Taliban. But he has to do something because he just got a baby. The kids need clothes. They need food. It's winter, they need boots.
I asked Matt and Janis if they were nervous every time they switched on their computers or checked Facebook. They both said they were.
Janis: I'm getting a lot of messages, even from the Americans who are here now, because we were in the news. They say, "I need Matt's number, I need to talk to him to help my interpreter because he's stuck in Afghanistan." And interpreters are sending me messages and emails: "Please Janis, help us, talk to Matt, can you talk to the press or the media because we are stuck in Afghanistan?"
After we were on Voice of America [the channel in Afghanistan], people said I was a CIA agent. They said I saved an American life and killed my own countrymen. So this has a very bad image in Afghanistan. They think I killed some civilian and I saved an American life. They didn't mention that I killed Taliban and I saved my brother's life, my friend's life. And that message, even in our area, even in our village, everyone told my family, my father-in-law, and my in-laws' family that I killed some Afghans and saved American lives. So normal people, not the Taliban, people in my village, they think I am a special person for the United States government. They think that I was working as a spy for the CIA. Every day I am getting messages accusing me of this.
Matt: And we get two or three a day asking for help. Two or three a day from Afghans I've never met before. They ask Janis, "Do you know this person?" And I get two or three a day from American soldiers. They find me on Twitter or Facebook. They start looking into this problem. They Google "SIV" and my name comes up. The coverage comes up. They say, "You seem to have more success than anybody else, how do I do this?" And I usually spend like the next hour with them on the phone, walking them through all the steps that they have to take.
I asked what impact it had on veterans when they couldn't get their interpreters out. Matt sighed.
Matt: I mean, I can only imagine if it was the way it was with me and Janis. Sleepless nights just totally drumming up all this stuff that you have to work through and just constantly… I mean… PTSD happens, you end up having panic attacks. I remember the night when they took away his visa, I couldn't sleep for two days and was just an emotional wreck, and I remember calling my mom in tears and I said, "Mom," I said, "I've killed my best friend." It was catch 22. To get the State Department to do the right thing, I had to go to the press and sort of embarrass them into action, but by doing that I exposed the fact that he got his visa and now he's going to die and it's my fault. I didn't know how I was supposed to live with this. I still can't even put it into words. You can see it freaks me out just thinking about what would happen to him.
We all think that the State Department has absolutely no idea what's going on, on the ground, they don't understand these men and women and none of us can understand how they can possibly claim that these people don't deserve a place here, after what they've done for us. I've yet to encounter an American veteran who was like, "You know, my translator was kind of useless."
I think there's a prevailing attitude at the State Department. I think it drives every single decision that these people are making. The average length of tour for, like, a consulate affairs officer is six months; they don't get outside the massively guarded embassy compound in Kabul, they're having salsa nights, they've got fast food. They're not living and working with these people on a daily basis, and they're told that they're the front line of defense. They're the first check to make sure that somebody doesn't get into this country that doesn't belong here, and so their attitude is, all of these people are potentially the next Bin Laden and they're looking for a reason to say no.
If you're the State Department, consulate affairs guy, and you've got Qadeer's visa packet, this is a person you've never met, who you'll never see again, and you'll likely never hear what happened to him. It's out of sight, out of mind. If for some reason you accidentally said yes when you should have said no, you're going to be in front of Congress, and you're going to be yelled at or fired… so it's easier to say no.
They need to realize that this monolithic idea that all Afghans are the enemy is not true, it's absurd. It's the exact opposite. That's why the effort that I'm putting in is the exact same effort I would put in for any American. The only difference is that there are times that I feel like I'm fighting this all by myself. If this were an American, I'd have every available means. I wouldn't be leading this, it'd be someone much more senior. I'm doing this as a private citizen. I mean that's what's terrifying.
Janis showed me another message that had just arrived. Another American veteran was asking for their help.
Matt: This is why we ended up starting a nonprofit. We call it No One Left Behind because that's our mission, that's our goal. We don't want to leave a single person behind. We were getting inundated with so many requests that we had to start an organization to formally help these men and women and establish a process and get it going.
I mean, to me personally, the Army has certain values, right? The very first one is loyalty. How are we remaining loyal to those who have been loyal to us if we're not fulfilling our promise? This was an inherent promise we made to these men and women to do right by them. And as an officer of this country, as someone who still wears a uniform, I will do anything I can to fulfill that promise and I'll gladly go back into combat if it's necessary. But if you're going to ask me to fight alongside people who support us and become our allies, people like Janis and Qadeer, and if you're telling me that I can say to them, "Hey, because of your service and support, we're going to bring you to America if necessary," then allow me to fulfill that promise. Because if you don't, then my word is worthless and why should anybody ever trust me again?
I've been to Afghanistan 12 times since 2007, when it had become clear that the Taliban were far from defeated. During those early trips, there were plenty of people who believed the intervention could succeed. But over the last few years, and especially after the withdrawal began, I've failed to find anyone who still believes that any of our stated goals — defeating the Taliban; training the Afghan security forces; leaving a lawful, competent, and representative government in Kabul; or even removing al Qaeda — will be achieved. What we are actually leaving behind is a spectacularly corrupt government whose security forces often prey on the population they are supposed to be protecting. It is no longer a surprise to be told by Afghan villagers that for security and justice, they prefer to live under the Taliban, who are in control of more territory now than they have been since losing power in 2001.
Considering this is the situation, it feels like a sick joke to demand that interpreters like Qadeer and Janis must prove that they face a serious and ongoing threat. I'd love to hear someone from the State Department explain how any single interpreter could not now be facing a serious and ongoing threat. I asked how it felt to be asked to prove something that seemed so obvious.
Matt: It totally pissed me off. My word isn't good enough? He's got to provide evidence? I'm an officer of this country. I have a top-secret security clearance. You're telling me my word isn't good enough, my report, and my eyewitness account aren't good enough?
You pay me to be an intelligence officer of this country. My whole job was to make sure that these aren't bad people, that they should be working with us. For me, it'd be like if I came home and somebody says, "Well, prove that you got blown up." Are you kidding me? Do you want to see the x-rays of my lungs and all the scar tissue from the massive fireball that I breathed in? Do you want to see, basically, the fact that I have no cartilage in my right knee anymore? Or the nightmares I have every night? Do you want to talk to my ex-wife about how I used to wake up screaming for two years every single night? I mean that would piss me the fuck off. That's what they're doing to these people and these are combat veterans. You're telling them that they actually have something to prove when they could easily be the next person that the Taliban are going to catch and kill?
And then after you make them prove that, you tell them, "Thank you very much, we're not going to tell you whether or not we believe you this time, we'll get back to you." I mean, we wouldn't stand for this in this country, and I don't think any other country would stand for this treatment, so why are we asking our friends to?
Janis: When the Americans first came to Afghanistan, they showed me a video of President Bush. He said, "We will fight until we eradicate or destroy al Qaeda from Afghanistan." And everyone was hoping that, yes, this will happen and we will get rid of bad people. I thought I would work for America for maybe months or even years. After that, the US will leave and Afghanistan will be a peaceful country. We can join the government and we can have a good life. But we saw this fight for almost 13 years and still the situation is getting worse. More people are dying every day. And now in this bad situation, the Americans say they are withdrawing. If it happens, I guarantee the Taliban will attack and they will get Afghanistan in a couple of days.
Matt: A couple of days after that firefight, we were all coming to terms with what we'd just gone through. I sat Janis down and I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to understand who he was, where he was coming from, and why he did this. And never once did he say, "I'm doing it to come to America." I asked him, "Why are you fighting for us?" And he said, "Because I love my country and I hate the Taliban, and this is my country and they've got to go."
We had a vision of what we'd achieve in Afghanistan. If that's not going to be the result, and if the interpreters are going to end up being killed because they worked with us to try to achieve that vision, they should be coming home with us as well. If it's all going to fall apart after we go, which it's looking like it's going to, then we need to do everything we possibly can to save them. I said it time and time again: Janis and Qadeer were members of my unit. They are still working. They are still deployed, still at war. As an officer, as their officer, it's my job to bring them back home.
While we were driving into DC after lunch, Matt and Janis got a phone call. Another interpreter, called Ajmal, had just arrived in DC. He'd been granted a visa, and had to wait for seats on an official International Organization of Migration (IMO) flight. But the Taliban heard he had been approved and sent him night letters (letters left on his doorstep during the night) promising they would not let him leave the country alive. He scraped together what money he could and bought tickets on the next flight out, to Dubai and then to DC. He had arrived with his wife but they had nowhere to stay and just a few dollars for food. He sent messages to everyone he knew and an American soldier offered his dining room floor as a temporary home. Some other interpreters heard about him, and they were outside his building by the time we arrived.
Ajmal: I have been here six days now. We were alone on the streets, now we are sleeping on an air mattress.
When I received my visa, I was going to wait to catch the arranged flight. But then I received the night letter and seven or eight threatening calls and I thought with myself, If I'm gonna wait for the approved flight, I'll be dead. I barely had any money so I borrowed money, sold my car, and bought my own tickets. I got in touch with my previous supervisor from the US Navy who picked us up from the airport and brought us here, to his dining room.
I sent the State Department an email the next morning explaining my situation. I told them that we have no place to live and no money at all. I didn't receive any response, only an auto reply. We also went to the Office of Refugees and Resettlement. I asked for the benefits we were promised and a Social Security number. The only thing they gave us was $313 in food stamps and $300 in cash. And I can't continue my life with this money. So I became very serious and sent another email stating, "Well, sir, I would have been better off dying in Afghanistan because there's no — I mean, housing or nothing more here."
The trouble is that when they arrange your flight, it can take four or five months. So because of the night letters I couldn't wait. Once I borrowed the money, I didn't even tell my relatives that I was coming here because I can't trust them. So we came directly here and we thank my previous supervisor for our lives, because he gave us a temporary place to live in order to find work. I need to work if there are no benefits for me. I cannot rent a place with $300. But I cannot stay in this man's dining room. He is eating here so it means I am causing a disturbance for him. I will be an intruder if I'm going to spend more nights here.
One of the other interpreters told him that he could move in with him, saying, "Hey, brother, you are welcome. My house is your house." Matt promised they would raise some money for them and promised he would "fight my ass off to get your benefits back."
Ajmal had to pay for his medical certificates twice because the first one had expired. Added to the $2,600 he had to spend on getting the first flight out of Afghanistan, he was now broke.
Ajmal said that all he needed was a mattress and a blanket, which Matt and the interpreters promised they could get. Matt was ashamed to see someone he held in such high regard humiliated like this.
Matt: You shouldn't have to come here like this, it's wrong, and I'm really sorry. But you're here now and we're gonna take care of you. All right? You took care of us when we were in your country so I'm more than happy to return the favor, brother. All right?
Ajmal: Thank you sir.
Matt: You're not alone, okay? You got brothers now who are gonna take care of you. You're part of our family now. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy but we'll take this one day at a time and at least we can get you things. You're here now. You're safe. That's the best part. You should have been brought over on a nice plane, sat down and told, "This is your house and welcome to America, thank you for serving our country." But what's good is that you're here now and you're safe and that's the most important thing. You're safe, and you and your wife are alive and you're good now. And you have a bunch of new friends.
Ajmal thanked him again, and was struggling not to weep. He'd obviously been keeping himself together for days as he tried to navigate a way out of this crisis for himself and his wife, who was ill. Now that the worst of his problems might be over, he looked as if he was about to collapse. On the verge of sobbing, he told the rest of his story.
Ajmal: I had no money. Zero. So my family, my friends, they borrowed some money and I borrowed it from them. And now they're asking for the money back, but I don't have enough to send them. My father and my mother, they are about to sell their own house and be homeless in order to pay my money. These are the problems we have and we would like to ask the US government to find a solution for these kinds of problems.
We worked in Afghanistan. We were helping our army and our country, but we were also helping the American Army, standing side by side with the Americans.
I've been more than 10 times, 20 times, 50 times under attack. Rocket attack, RPG attack, different attacks. We were all working together, me and thousands and thousands of other interpreters. We could be hunted at any time.
He had even heard about Janis, and the struggle he had to get out.
Ajmal: Believe me, that day that I heard that your visa was revoked, I started to cry. I swear that I cried when I heard that. You faced a very bad situation in Afghanistan. I spoke with my family about it and said that I was really, really sorry for this guy whose life was in danger. I read all the stories that were written about you and tears came in my eyes.
Ajmal looked at his phone and read a message that startled him. He had received an email from the State Department, a reply to his message about |
ist operations until the business is compliant, according to the CFTC press release. Coinflip was operating an online platform known as Derivabit, offering bitcoin derivatives to its clientele. The startup offered opportunities to purchase bitcoin option contracts, but were not compliant with CFTC regulations.
However, the founder of Deravabits operations, Francisco Riordan said the CFTC was “fair,” adding that customers’ funds were refunded prior to this ruling. Now the company must file an application with the commission before reopening. There's been no mention of any other businesses operating without permission.
Recently the derivative exchange and clearinghouse LedgerX was granted temporary status with its registration for a Swap Execution Facility (SEF). The company has complied with previous commodity regulations by applying for SEF as a Derivative Clearing Organization on September 29, 2014.
LedgerX founders believe that the temporary status will help them get their business off the ground and hope to be the first regulated clearing exchange within the institutional market. With the temporary status the startup will continue forward with the CFTC application over the next coming months.
With LedgerX’s forward movement going well however, it should be noted the company is not the only exchange offering derivative options. Although, the company is different because it offers physical bitcoin contracts, TeraExchange is the first derivative exchange to work with U.S. regulators, offering products settled in dollars as opposed to bitcoin.“She could quite easily take the field, muster a great army, and wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother Isabella ever wages in Spain”. – Henry VIII
Some readers may question why I have decided to include Katherine of Aragon in this blog series on prominent Queen Mothers, possibly because she never actually lived to see her only-surviving child, Mary, ascend to the throne. Some may also believe that as Katherine and Mary were separated for much of Mary’s youth, which occurred during the break-up of the parents’ marriage and the rise of Anne Boleyn at court, it must simply be impossible for a mother to have any effect upon her young daughter. However, in recent years, research into Mary I’s childhood has unearthed some fascinating evidence which suggests that she was actually highly influenced by her mother, and continued to be for years after her death. In this blog, we shall discover the ways in which Katherine meticulously planned her daughter’s education from a young age and how this close relationship between mother and daughter stayed with Mary and influenced the way in which she ruled when she ascended to the throne in 1553.
Katherine, a Spanish princess who married Henry VIII in 1509, proved to be both popular with the English public and a competent Queen Consort, especially when she became regent during Henry’s campaign in France in 1512. Contemporary accounts note that the King and Queen lived quite contently during the first decade or so of their marriage. Although the first few years as Queen were successful for Katherine from a political standpoint, her personal life was not so lucky. Katherine experienced six pregnancies where she miscarried and suffered stillborn births, leaving only one surviving child; Mary (b. 1516).
Katherine may have been aware of the possibility that she may not give birth to a son and heir, and so focused on the upbringing of her only daughter. Having had a comprehensive education led by her own mother, Isabella of Castile, which many contemporaries such as Erasmus praised her for, Katherine was conscious of the benefits of giving her daughter a complete education. Although Mary’s education had elements to them that were typical for female members of the royal family at the time, such as learning the importance of preserving chastity, morals and the role of becoming a potential queen consort, the princess also gained an education in areas that were unconventional for a female at the time. After becoming involved in a circle of leading European humanists, Katherine felt it beneficial for her daughter to learn skills that were more suited to male heirs to the throne. An example of this is when under the tutoring of Juan Luis Vives, Mary became skilled at writing Latin quickly, rather than neatly. This was believed to be a talent that the sons of Kings were expected to hone in order to develop their administration skills before they succeeded the throne, and not something that a royal princess would be expected to do. Although Mary was not confirmed as Henry VIII’s successor, Katherine clearly saw this as an opportunity to educate Mary as a potential heir and possibly make a point to Henry that their daughter had the same capabilities to rule as any male.
When the Chamberlain and Chief Justice of South Wales, Sir Rhys ap Thomas, died in 1525 Henry VIII was in need of a form of royal representation in the Welsh Marches and he found this in his nine year-old daughter. This position was traditionally filled by the heir to the throne (The Prince of Wales), and although Henry may have refused to acknowledge his daughter as ‘heir-presumptive’ in the last hope that Katherine may still produce a son, Katherine certainly did not doubt her daughter’s new position. Although Mary may never have received the title of ‘Princess of Wales’, and therefore confirmed her position as Henry’s heir, Katherine and the people of the Welsh Marches most certainly did see this nine-year-old girl as their future Queen Regnant. Katherine may have been sad to have been separated from her only daughter, but she supported Mary’s new position and requested that her tutors wrote to the King and Queen at least once a month in order to give them updates of Mary’s progress with her education.
Mary was recalled to court from her position in the Welsh Marches in 1528, marking the beginning of the break-up of her parents’ marriage. With this in mind, we must dismiss any arguments of twentieth century Tudor historians who claimed that Katherine was bereft of political skill, weak and submissive to those of higher authority during this time. Throughout Henry’s pursue for a divorce from his wife of over twenty years, Katherine was a symbol of defiance and determination, who strove to preserve her daughter and her marriage’s legitimacy. Mary, being in her teens at this point, was fully aware of the consequences that would occur and go against her if her parents’ divorce were to go through, and with this in mind she most certainly learned from her mother’s defiance during this time. Just as her mother defended her innocence and legitimacy, Mary displayed the same characteristics throughout the 1530s. Even with encouragement (and then force) from Henry VIII and Cromwell, Mary never refrained from referring to herself as ‘princess’. In one candid letter to her own father she stated that she would on no occasion recognise her parents’ divorce and never refer to herself as the inferior title of ‘The Lady Mary’.
(It was only after the implementation of the Treasons Act, and the consequential deaths of the likes of John Fisher and Thomas More who stood firmly against Henry’s separation from the Roman Catholic Church, that Mary reluctantly had to sign away her title of ‘princess’ and her legitimacy in order to protect herself.)
It was during this time that Henry refused to allow Katherine and Mary to see each other. Even when Mary became very ill in February 1535, Henry denied Katherine to visit her daughter and professed his ex-wife to be a “proud, stubborn woman of high courage”. Reflecting upon her strong political following, Henry also stated: “If she took it into her head to take her daughter’s part, she could quite easily take the field, muster a great army, and wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother Isabella ever wages in Spain”. We can only imagine what would have happened if Katherine had gone ahead with such an idea…
During Katherine and Mary’s separation both remained in contact with Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador and their close confident. He acted as a go-between for the mother and daughter with their extended family members in Europe, most prominently Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and Katherine’s nephew. Mary learnt from her mother that some of her strongest supporters were those not in England, but in other areas of Europe, and she used these connections to her benefit both before and after she gained the throne in 1553.
On 7th January 1536 Katherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton Castle. Owing to Henry VIII’s demands, she had not seen her daughter in four years at the time of her death. Mary was naturally devastated and Charles V wrote to his wife fearing that Mary would “die of grief”. Katherine was buried as a princess dowager and not as a Queen, much to the objection of her daughter and loyal supporters, and Henry refused to allow Mary to attend the funeral at Peterborough Cathedral. However, Katherine’s death did not mark the end of her influence upon her young daughter. Although Mary’s position at court and her relationship with her father seemed to improve somewhat during the late 1530s, the memory of her mother did not fade.
Skip forward to 1553 and the imminent death of Mary’s half-brother, King Edward VI. Whilst the Duke of Northumberland was grooming Lady Jane Grey to succeed to the throne after the King’s death, albeit against the terms of Henry VIII’s last will and the Succession Act of 1544, Mary on the other hand was reinforcing her legitimacy and promoting her position as the true heir in order to gain followers and rightly take the throne from Northumberland’s hands. Mary and her band of loyal followers believed strongly in the validity of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon’s marriage, therefore rejecting any right that Jane had to the throne. Mary’s success in gaining the throne against the odds in 1553 was from a number of factors, but the memory of her mother, Katherine’s popularity with the public and her legitimacy were notable factors in this fight for the throne.
During Mary’s short reign, Katherine’s influence continued in some ways. Mary used her Spanish ancestry from her mother’s side to forge alliances with the Habsburgs and sort out a Spanish marriage to Charles V’s son, Philip, who became King of Spain in 1556. Having learned the importance of political alliances between countries from her education and time at court from a young age, Mary now understood, that by being a female ruler of a small Kingdom, making an alliance with a leading European power was essential.
Although we cannot say whether the events that took place in Mary’s reign were at all influenced by the memory of her mother, we can be sure that the Queen continued to stress the validity of her parents’ marriage and her legitimacy to anyone who may have doubted her position. Some may argue that Mary was ‘too Spanish’ in her ways, her dress and her alliances, especially as she seemed to favour the company and advice of the Spanish ambassador and her husband rather than her English courtiers. Yet we cannot say this was solely down to Katherine’s influence.
What must be admired is the loyalty that Katherine and Mary shared for one another, and how this alliance continued even years after she had passed away. Upon her death, Mary had requested that “some honourable tombs or decent memory” be made for her and her mother in order for them to be buried near each other, but sadly this dying request was ignored. One cannot doubt that such a request would be made by Mary if she did not have a dear connection with her mother.
Overall, it must be argued that Katherine played a key part in Mary’s education and upbringing, in order to prepare her daughter for the possibility of succeeding to the throne. During the last years of her life, it may have seemed unlikely to Katherine that Mary would ever succeed to the throne, most notably because of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn and the news of the new Queen’s pregnancies. And yet Katherine’s princely education plan and the upbringing of her daughter did not go to waste when Mary rallied for the throne in 1553 and illustrated her capabilities as a Queen Regnant and legitimate monarch. Katherine was most certainly a defiant woman, who fought for her cause and did not allow her husband to simply bully her to submit to his will. She battled to preserve her innocence, the legitimacy of her marriage and her daughter’s position in line to the throne. Katherine may have not been able to witness her child’s accession or coronation like other Queen Mothers in this blog series, but she certainly prepared her daughter for the crown and influenced her more than we may have first thought.
Photo credit: lisby1 via photopin ccThe Plantronics UKDota.net Invitational Matchups
The Plantronics UKDota.net Invitational starts in just a day! With the biggest prize pool UKDota.net has ever been able to offer online and the cream of the UK scene invited, this is sure to be massive. This weekend we’ll see the round of eight play out across four games and not wanting you to miss out on any of the action, they’ll be played one by one, every single match streamed live and commented by Blakadder and durka on the Multiplay stream. Here’s a quick roundup of the round of eight matches:
Saturday's Games:
Versus
21/09 16:00 BST
Naix on a Plane Smackdown Syndrome
SdS have proved their worth lately in both the Insomnia qualifiers and the event itself, valiant appearance in the longest game of the LAN versus Karnage eSports, but Naix’s players have a history of playing aggressive line-ups - will they take Smackdown Syndrome apart before they really have a chance to get going? Stephen11’s drafting always brings something to the game.
Versus
21/09 19:00 BST
TmF Gaming Wat A Stack
TmF took epic.ELEVEN by storm, not even needing sleep to take the top spot but Wat A Stack have a more recent win under their belt at Campus Party. Solid teamplay on both sides means that this battle of LAN winners is going to come down to individual player skill. TmF’s support crew can really shake up the field when they get roaming.
Sunday's Games:
Versus
22/09 16:00 BST
rOtK Team Infused
rOtK aren’t a team that we’ve seen a lot of this Summer, while Infused (formerly BBQ Chicken eSports) have become stars of the scene, finding their way into Pyrion and durka’s casting booth at Insomnia 49 and taking 2nd place at Campus Party. This is the first time we’ll see them wearing the red and black jerseys, so you can be sure they’ll be working hard to impress their brand new sponsor. Keep an eye out for Cook’s invoker, or more likely, what gets into the draft as a result of invoker getting banned out early!
Versus
22/09 19:00 BST
Reason Gaming Fullstop
Reason Gaming are coming off an incredible performance at Insomnia 49, brought down only by against All authority, while Fullstop are the newest team to arrive on the UK scene. Don’t write them off just yet, though: there’s a lot of individual experience here and they’re sure to put up a fight. With Ichigo on the field, mid lane will be the one to watch.
We hope you all tune in this weekend, for what we're sure to be an action packed series of games.Over the weekend, we learned indirectly via the DirecTV listings for VH1 Classic that the station would be once again celebrating Rush Hashanah with a 24-hour marathon of Rush programming beginning on September 28th. And earlier this week the Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland CD press release confirmed that the station would be airing an edited 2-hour version of the concert as part of the celebration. Now here's the official Rush Hashanah press release from VH1 Classic which I received this morning:
VH1 Classic Celebrates 24-hours of "RUSH Hashanah"
Wednesday, September 28 at 7PM ET/PT
World Premiere of �Rush: Time Machine� Wednesday, September 28 at 8 PM ET/PT
NEW YORK, NY � September 22, 2011 � VH1 Classic is once again ringing in the Jewish New Year with a 24-hour marathon of Canada�s greatest music export, Rush. "Rush Hashanah" begins Wednesday, September 28 at 7PM* and features the world premiere of "Rush: Time Machine." Live from Cleveland, "Rush: Time Machine" delivers the first live performance of the entire "Moving Pictures" album and other fan favorites from their many celebrated albums. The Rush extravaganza will include unforgettable concerts, performances and a behind-the-scenes look into the phenomenal 40-year career.
Beginning Wednesday, September 28 at 7 PM* and ending on Thursday, September 29 at 7PM* the Rush takeover on VH1 Classic will give viewers the opportunity to immerse themselves in all things Rush. With a glimpse into the renowned band's life with the award-winning VH1 Rock Doc "Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage" and Classic Albums "2112" and "Moving Pictures," there is no portion of Rush's legacy that will go unseen. Relive throwback hits with memorable concerts including the world premiere of "Rush: Time Machine" and other hit concerts including "Rush in Rio" and "R30." Additional information for "Rush Hashanah" below:
Classic Albums: Rush "2112" & "Moving Pictures" premieres Wednesday, September 28 at 7PM ET/PT
The story of the making of two of Rush's greatest albums.
"Rush: Time Machine" premieres Wednesday, September 28 at 8PM ET/PT
Filmed in Cleveland in April 2011, the "Time Machine" tour was an evening with Rush, where the band performed new songs, classic hits and, for the first time ever, performed the "Moving Pictures" album in its entirety.
"Rock Doc: Rush- Beyond The Lighted Stage" premieres Wednesday, September 28 at 10:30PM ET/PT
Rock Doc: Rush � Beyond The Lighted Stage - Regarded as the world's biggest cult band, Beyond the Lighted Stage explores the phenomenon behind the forty-year career of the legendary rock group Rush. Features never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with the band.
Classic in Concert: Rush: R30 premieres Thursday, September 29 at 1AM ET/PT
Rush performs live on September 24, 2004 in Frankfurt, Germany.
Classic in Concert: Rush In Rio premieres Thursday, September 29 at 12PM ET/PT
Taped in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the final night of Rush�s 2002 Vapor Trails Tour.My newest book – Cryptozoologicon Volume I, co-authored with John Conway and C. M. "Memo" Kosemen – is now available (alternatively, it can be ordered here from amazon) (Conway et al. 2013) [an ebook version is also available]. The launch event happens this Friday (December 6th) at Conway Hall, London: it will feature talks from all three of us, and tickets are still available should you wish to book and attend.
The basic premise of the Cryptozoologicon will be familiar if you’re a regular Tet Zoo reader. Inspired by the numerous exercises in speculative zoology that have long been typical of the cryptozoological literature, we’ve taken a bunch of mystery creatures (some reasonable, some silly, some ridiculous and disproven) and have devised our own visions of them; our own speculations on their evolutionary history, ecology and biology. The overall take is sceptical (god, how I so hate the fact that some cryptozoologists regard this as a bad thing…): we provide a historical review and evaluation of the mystery creature concerned (there's a lot more text here than in All Yesterdays) (Conway et al. 2013).
What sort of things do we feature? Much as I’d like to give away a whole load of juicy details, I’ll try and contain my excitement since, duh, I want you to buy the book. But I will say that the cryptids covered include Gambo, the Row, De Loy’s ape, the Beast of Gévaudan, Mbielu-Mbielu-Mbielu, Dingonek, Buru, Ahool, Con Rit and Mngwa. Remember: we’re coming up with our own speculative interpretations of these creatures, and some of our ideas might surprise you. Some won’t, since (in places) our speculations are consistent with the general ideas discussed elsewhere in the cryptozoology literature. It’s difficult to reasonably argue, for example, that Yeti and Bigfoot are anything but hominids. By the way, if they are hominids, could they be pongines that might have a major impact on our views about the evolution of terrestriality and bipedalism? Ha ha, all is revealed… err, in the book.
As with All Yesterdays, the volume is picture-led: beautiful, full-colour illustrations by John and Memo lead each entry. If you’ve enjoyed the material produced by John [go here] and Memo [go here] before, you’ll love this book. A few of my own illustrations appear throughout as well, but they’re not quite as eye-catching.
While the main part of the book is devoted to discussion of specific cryptids, a lengthy Introduction discusses the history of cryptozoology, the role and contribution of Heuvelmans and other key cryptozoologists, the rise and fall of the ISC, and the interplay between science, scepticism and speculation. As has been stated before in other critical overviews of cryptozoological research (Meurger & Gagnon 1988, Magin 1996, Naish 2000, 2001, Loxton & Prothero 2013), many of the ideas of the cryptozoology literature – promoted by Heuvelmans, Ivan Sanderson, Roy Mackal and other prominent authors in the field – are inherently illogical, poorly founded, erroneous and weak: I’m afraid that these individuals were not exactly shining beacons of brilliant scholarship, but guilty of sloppy research, of coming up with ridiculous ideas, and of being very much out of date with respect to the things they wrote about.
However, as I’ve said on previous occasions, the main takehome about sceptical approaches to cryptozoology is that scepticism does not demand a rubbishing or dismissal of cryptozoology: if, as many of us think, cryptozoology is as much about culture, folklore, psychology, eyewitness behaviour and so on as it is about ‘mystery creatures’, an interest in cryptozoology does not demand an acceptance of the actual existence of cryptids. I like animals, but the cultural and psychological dimensions to cryptozoology are still fascinating and very much worthy of investigation.
2013 has already seen the appearance of a very important volume on cryptozoology: Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero’s also sceptical Abominable Science! (Loxton & Prothero 2013)*. Of course, we have no real idea yet how Cryptozoologicon Volume I will be received (though a few very positive reviews are already online), but here’s hoping. If you like it and have read it or looked at it, please consider posting a brief review at amazon. And, yes, Volume II is on the way real soon. Until then, I’m sure the launch event will be fun – speaking of which, yikes… back to preparation.
* A book that I have now read and want to review as soon as time allows.
I will likely have more to say about the book in the near future, but that’ll do for now.
For previous articles on the Cryptozoologicon and its contents, see...
Refs - -
Conway, J., Kosemen, C. M. & Naish, D. 2013. Cryptozoologicon Volume I. Irregular Books.
Loxton, D. & Prothero, D. R. 2013. Abominable Science! Columbia University Press, New York.
Magin, U. 1996. St George without a dragon: Bernard Heuvelmans and the sea serpent. In Moore, S. (ed) Fortean Studies Volume 3. John Brown Publishing (London), pp. 223-234.
Meurger, M. & Gagnon, C. 1988. Lake Monster Traditions: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. Fortean Times, London.
Naish, D. 2000. Where be monsters? Fortean Times 132, 40-44.
-. 2001. Sea serpents, seals and coelacanths: an attempt at a holistic approach to the identity of large aquatic cryptids. In Simmons, I. & Quin, M. (eds) Fortean Studies Volume 7. John Brown Publishing (London), pp. 75-94.Even before she was famous, Frances Farmer had a bad girl reputation. In high school, she won a writing contest for her essay, “God Dies”, and was awarded a trip abroad to the Soviet Union in college, which she earned by selling subscriptions for a left-wing paper. She was a force to be reckoned with, heading straight for Hollywood…
When Frances was discovered by an agent and signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures at the age of 22, she became an immediate hit. But as quickly as she rose to fame, she began to resent the “star sculpting” process employed by all the big studios, including Paramount Pictures. They began to run her life, dictating which photo-shoots she did, what parties she visited, whom she associated with. Some even say that Paramount Pictures arranged the marriage between Frances and her first husband, another actor for Paramount Pictures, Leif Erikson.
Frances’s playing card in a Paramount Pictures’ celebrity board game.
In one of her big commercial successes, Frances played alongside Bing Crosby in Rhythm on the Range. And Paramount Pictures “loaned (her) out for the Howard Hawks film Come and Get It (1936). Hawks called her ‘the greatest actress I have ever worked with.'”
Feeling somewhat empowered by her Hollywood success in those two highly visible roles, Frances began to reject more and more the role of Paramount Picture’s beautiful puppet.
Things started to go south quickly, including her marriage to Leif and her affair with one of her married stage directors, Clifford Odets. She had expected Clifford to leave his wife for her, but instead he cut off his affair with Frances. Over the course of the next five years, things only got worse.
Frances’ once-so-promising film career stalled. She developed addictions to alcohol and Benzedrine, probably not helped by the fact that Paramount had encouraged her to use prescription amphetamines to regulate her weight.
“At the time, the drug was widely available and often recommended by doctors as an appetite suppressant. Not until the 1970s was it discovered that amphetamines are highly addictive, have unpredictable side effects, and — taken in sufficient quantities — can produce symptoms similar to those of schizophrenia.”¹
One night in the early fall, the police stopped her for driving with her brights on inside a blackout zone during wartime when everything was supposed to be dark. Being the contrarian she was, Frances wouldn’t oblige without a fight, and she landed in jail.
She was arrested a second time when she socked her hairdresser in the jaw. When police came to apprehend her, she was found at the Knickerbocker hotel and had to be dragged out.
Once arrived at the station, upon being asked her profession, she responded, “cocksucker.”
In court, she didn’t even try to hide her contempt for the system…
Police Judge Marshall Hickson: Miss Farmer, were you fighting at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Tuesday night?
Farmer: (calmly, sarcastically) Yes. I was. I was fighting for my country and for myself.
Light laughter in the courtroom.
Hickson: Control your mouth, Miss Farmer. Have you driven a car since you were put on probation?
Farmer: No I haven’t. But only because I couldn’t get my hands on one.
Sounds in the press gallery of pencils scratching on pads.
Hickson: Since you appeared in this court October 24th, have you had anything to drink?
Farmer: (loudly) I drank everything I could get, including Benzedrine.
Hickson: (raising voice) You were advised that if you took one drink of liquor or failed to be a law-abiding citizen —
Farmer: (louder) Listen, I get liquor in my milk. I get liquor in my coffee and in my orange juice. What do you expect me to do, starve to death?
Hickson: (standing, shouting) 180-day sentence to be served in the Los Angeles County jail! Immediately!
Farmer: Fine!
Hickson: (beet-red, leaving the bench) Take her to jail.
Farmer: But I haven’t any lawyer.
(no answer)
Farmer: (louder) What I want to know is, do I have any civil rights?
(no answer)
Farmer: (turning to the cop next to her) I want my phone call.
COP: Nope.
After this interaction, the police had to, again, take her away yelling and screaming. This time she called out, “Have you ever had a broken heart?”
Soon after, she wound up being transferred at the doing of family members to Kimball Sanitarium in La Cresenta, CA. Although this was meant to help her, it may have actually just sent her further down her downward spiral. The doctors there said she had paranoid schizophrenia. In line with the times, she endured insulin shock therapy as a “treatment.” Eventually, Frances’ mother, with whom she had a miserable relationship, obtained legal guardianship over her daughter, who was 30 years old at this point.
Her mother checked her into Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, Washington where Frances endured electro-convulsive therapy. This time, she was let out after only three months.
Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, Washington, where Frances Farmer was a patient, had numerous complaints about patient neglect, brutal abuse and poor living conditions. It was abandoned in 1965. Image (c) Tom Carmony
Frances wound up being arrested later in CA for “vagrancy” after running away from the ranch of her aunt in Nevada. It broadcasted all over the media as per usual and Farmer was recommitted to Western State Hospital, her third incarceration, where she stayed for five years.
“Her stay in Western State Hospital was “unbearable terror”, says Farmer in Will There Really Be A Morning, “I was raped by orderlies, gnawed by rats and poisoned by tainted food. I was chained in padded cells, strapped into straight jackets and half-drowned in ice baths”. It was claimed in a biography called Shadowland that Farmer had undergone a brain lobotomy at the hospital, but this was later revealed to have been fictionalised.
After her release, Frances “took a job in the laundry department at Olympic Hotel in Seattle. Ironically, this was the same hotel where Farmer had been honored at the world premiere of her film Come and Get It back in 1936. “²
In an interview with Modern Screen magazine, Frances said, “I blame nobody for my fall … I think I’ve won the right to control myself”.”
She then had a second career burst of success in entertainment on a daytime television show, hosting the show Frances Farmer Presents. She received mostly good attention from the community this time, for once in her life but when she showed up drunk one morning and slurred her speech on air, her time on TV was up. By this time she was living in Indianapolis.
She finished up her acting career as resident actress at Purdue University, where she took a role portraying the character of the richest woman in the world, who also happened to be crippled with a wooden leg and ivory hand.
Frances was arrested one last time for driving while intoxicated, but this time gave quite the performance for her arresting officers and took on the character from her play, acting as the rich crippled woman, reciting lines from the play. The story was all over the media, again. Farmer was deeply embarrassed, but the next night, the play was sold out.
“[T]here was a long silent pause as I stood there, followed by the most thunderous applause of my career,” wrote Frances in her autobiography. “[The audience] swept the scandal under the rug with their ovation.” It was “my finest and final performance. I knew I would never need to act onstage again. I felt satisfied and rewarded.”
Frances never acted again. Instead, she focused on writing her autobiography and contrary to her anti-religious stance in her youth, joined the Catholic faith… and a Catholic bowling team.
Frances Farmer was diagnosed with throat cancer and died at the age of 56, in 1970. She lived a brave and melancholy life, and she endured things that, for many, would have been unendurable.
Regarded as the poster child of fallen Hollywood starlets, there are currently three books and three films about the life of Frances Farmer, one starring the fantastically cast Jessica Lang in Frances (1982). In the 1990s, Farmer became somewhat of a muse for the grunge movement when Kurt Cobain was inspired by the actress and likened himself to her in his song, “Frances Farmer will Have Her Revenge on Seattle.”
In this footage, Kurt Cobain talks about her tragic story…
She might have been Hollywood’s first wild child or the first bad girl of the silver screen, but she certainly wouldn’t be the last…
About this Contributor
Wallace Kalkin is currently a student at Barnard College, Columbia University in New York City, but escapes to Paris any chance she can get. She loves exploring, reading, and people watching. Her mother still has to tell her to stop staring.
You can contact her through email: [email protected] you're either an Amsterdam-dwelling pothead or an inexplicably-massive fan of 17th-century Dutch maritime history, Admiral Michiel de Ruyter is probably the greatest naval commander you've never heard of. Sure, I know what you're thinking, what's so badass about clogs and windmills, but stick a sock in it – this dude is one of the toughest motherfuckers to ever come out of the Low Countries, and one of the most amazing seaborne murder-machines to ever pound his enemies to death with his massive (cannon) balls. In nearly 60 years sailing on the high seas during the Golden Age of Dutch Badassery, this Netherlandian (Netherlanderthal?) aquatic destruction-monger served in seven wars, led warships into combat in over forty engagements, and fought more than fifteen massive full-scale naval battles against the toughest sailors Earth has ever seen. He swordfought Muslim corsairs on the Barbary Coast, traded broadsides with French frigates in the Bay of Biscay, ballknocked scurvy pirate vessels in the Caribbean, invented the concept of the Marine Corps, and once sailed a fleet of warships up the Thames River into the heart of England, burned half their fleet while it was still in port, and then stole the fucking flagship of the English Navy – and you can be pretty damned sure that it ain't all that easy to roll up against the most fearsome navy in the world and somehow gank an 80-gun, 130-foot-long warship out from under their noses… especially when that ship is named after the reigning King of England.
So that's something.
Michiel de Ruyter was born in the Netherlands province of Zeeland in 1607, the 4th of 11 kids born in a port town to a humble guy who worked as basically a 17th century beer keg delivery man. Eager for something a little more exciting than a life of carting casks of hootch around town for a bunch of rich assholes, Michiel joined on with as a cabin boy with a local whaling crew at the age of 11, where he'd sail the high seas, harpoon gigantic whales on the high seas of the North Atlantic Moby-Dick style, then try to somehow get back home alive before a Spanish warship or an English pirate could board his vessel, kill the entire crew, and rob them of their hard-earned paychecks.
And this was the easy part.
By the time he was just 15 de Ruyter was already a Hoogbootsmansjongen, which is the Dutch word for "petty officer", and I only even include it here because Dutch is one of the most amazing written languages ever and I fully intend to include as many Dutch words as possible in the writing of this article. Well around this time the Spanish military was besieging the Dutch fortress at Bergen-op-Zoom during one of those seemingly-infinite inter-European wars of the Early Modern Era, so de Ruyter's whaling ship was loaded up with cannons and conscripted to help break the siege. De Ruyter got his first taste of battle during this engagement, when he served as a deck gunner and hammered the Spanish troops with something called chain shot, which is basically two cannonballs tied together by a barbed chain. Think of them like cannonball nunchucks that are fired at you at incredibly high velocities, and the chain is strong enough to cut a man in half through the pelvis.
With terrifying weapons like that at his disposal De Ruyter helped break the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, but then a few months later his whaling ship was attacked and captured by Spanish pirates and the young Hoobootsmansjongen was wounded in the head by shrapnel and subsequently taken prisoner. As you'd expect, he escaped his captors, swam to shore despite, you know, having been shot in the head with a cannon, and then hitched his way through Spain, across the Pyrenees, through France, and back to the Netherlands. Thanks in no small part to his familiarity with badass pirate shit, de Ruyter was then promoted to First Mate, then Captain, and finally recruited by the guys who owned his ship to hunt out a group of pirates known in Dutch as the "Duinkerker Kapers" who were operating off the coast of Dunkirk. De Ruyter didn't blink – he took on this pirate caper by sailing straight into their turf, greasing up the deck of his vessel with rancid butter, and then having his men wear special socks that would give them better grip on the surface. When the pirates eventually boarded him, they were sliding all over the place like dumbasses, giving his pirate-hunting Dutchmen plenty of opportunity to walk over there and cap them in the face at point-blank range.
Dramatization.
De Ruyter's exploits were already so badass that he was given command of his own Dutch Navy warship, and by 1641 the 34 year-old was already a Rear Admiral and third in command of the entire Navy. He fought against the Spanish at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, but when that |
) Takuya Yamashiro
Takuya might have spent most of his Spider-career on TV as the star of Toei’s Spider-Man TV show in Japan, but his crowning moment of awesome as the emissary of hell itself came in his comic book debut during Spider-Verse, in which he brings in his giant robot Leopardon to aid his Spider-allies. He is an all time Spider-Man great. Also, he’s basically responsible for the Megazord in Power Rangers. How cool is that!?
8) Spider-Boy
Pete Ross—the DC/Marvel hybrid of Spider-Man and Superboy in the Amalgam universe—may have an atrociously ‘90s design, but his comics in the legendarily bizarre crossover event actually were actually really fun pastiches of superhero comic nonsense like reboots, time-travel, and even the very sort of crossover event it was part of.
7) Otto Octavius, the Superior Spider-Man
How is one of Peter’s most infamous villains on this list? Because he actually spent a while being the Superior Spider-Man. Although the backlash to the story that saw Peter and Otto’s consciousness’ swapped (and Peter’s seemingly lost forever) was great, the series that came out of it, that cast Otto/Peter as a darker, ruthlessly logical hero of science and technology, was actually pretty damn good.
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6) Peter Parker of Earth-18119
The Peter of Renew Your Vows—pretty much the only way to get a married Pete in the comics for the foreseeable future—has one thing practically every other Spider-Man doesn’t: he’s actually got a stable, happy private life outside of being a webslinger (which itself has become a family activity with his wife MJ and daughter Annie). As you can see from the entries above and below, that’s a pretty damn rare thing.
5) Spider-Man 2099
If Spider-Man Unlimited was the Spidey take on Batman Beyond done horribly wrong, Spider-Man 2099 is it done oh so right. Not only does the future Miguel O’Hara come from an interesting and lovingly-explored world that’s more than just an aesthetic to hang over familiar Spidey stories, Miguel himself is a great take on the timeless core of Spider-Man, playing with the legacy and destiny of Peter Parker instead of simply being an alternate version of him.
4) Ben Reilly
Sure, the story that gave us Ben Reilly—the infamous Clone Saga—is often held up as one of the worst excesses of comic book “event” nonsense, but the masked clone’s stint in Peter’s stead as Spider-Man was at the least a reinvigorating reminder of some of the more optimistic and witty sides to Spidey that had been left at the wayside as Peter went through more and more grim experiences in the ‘80s and ‘90s. At a time when writers struggled to make Peter Parker sparkle again, Ben provided a refreshing alternative, albeit a temporary one.
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3) Ultimate Spider-Man
The hero that helped kick off Marvel’s ultimate universe, and for many, still one of the greatest versions of Spider-Man in the comics, even if he’s been killed off, replaced, resurrected, and then erased from existence again since his heyday (it’s a long story). A modernized take on the classic Spider-Man values, Ultimate Peter was pretty much the core of what people have loved about Spider-Man as a character for decades, distilled and refocused into a tighter level of continuity.
2) Peter Parker
The original, and for many—still the only. He’s been through an awful lot over the years, from demonic pacts to erase his marriage to his current role as a Tony Stark-esque billionaire business leader, he’s lost and gained loved ones, allies, and enemies aplenty, but even through all the madness Peter Parker’s gone through, he’s still the wise-cracking, idealistic hero that endured people to him decades and decades ago, still the everyman balancing great power and great responsibility.
1) Miles Morales
We’re well aware this is going to be a controversial choice. Peter Parker is an adult now, with responsibilities and experiences and ties that have propelled him far beyond his origin as a relatable, good-hearted teen who was trying to use his great powers to do what’s right; he already knows the lesson at the heart of the Spider-Man identity.
Miles Morales—Peter’s replacement in Ultimate Spider-Man and now occasional ally in the main Marvel Universe—is still learning to be Spider-Man, in a world far more complex than the one his predecessor faced, and thus embodies the original concept of Spider-Man more than Peter himself (as evidenced by the fact virtually all Spidey TV show and movie adaptations take Peter back to youthful, innocent origin that Miles exemplifies).
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Miles isn’t just a fantastic character still full of promise, he’s a character that can tackle the legacy of what it means to be Spider-Man while also being a modern reflection of the world he lives in. Peter Parker may represent Spider-Man’s legacy, but Miles Morales is the future of one of the greatest superheroes of all time.A mentally ill former inmate at Ottawa’s jail has filed a lawsuit alleging he was thrown in a segregation cell following a beating by correctional officers that the jail’s own superintendent acknowledged was excessive.
Michael Wiwczaruk alleges he spent 12 days in the dirty segregation cell after as many as 10 correctional officers repeatedly choked, kicked and hit him after he spat at a correctional officer and refused to follow orders at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre in May 2014.
Before being placed in the segregation cell, Wiwczaruk said he was handcuffed and then dragged to one of the jail’s now infamous shower cells where a nurse applied alcohol swabs to lacerations he suffered during the beating.
According to Wiwczaruk’s statement of claim, the jail’s then-superintendent, Maureen Harvey, sent him a pair of letters in September 2014 after he complained to the province’s ombudsman about his treatment. The first letter advised him the ministry had completed its investigation into his allegations, and determined that his claims had not been substantiated.
However, five days later Harvey issued a new memo: “I am writing to you to inform you that the investigation has been completed and the findings of excessive force have been substantiated,” it read.
Harvey was dismissed from her job earlier this year after this newspaper reported about the jail’s continued use of shower cells, just days after the then-minister of corrections Yasir Naqvi ordered their use to permanently end.
None of the allegations in the lawsuit has been proven in court and the ministry has yet to file a statement of defence. A ministry spokesman said it would be inappropriate to comment on both a civil case that was still before the court and internal personnel matters on whether any correctional officers were disciplined for the alleged use of excessive force.
The use of excessive force allegedly occurred after the 28-year-old Wiwczaruk was in a confrontation with the correctional officers. The statement of claim said he showed one the middle finger and swore at him when the officer ignored his request to let him have an extended visit with his mother.
The correctional officer allegedly called Wiwczaruk a “punk,” according to the statement of claim. About 10 correctional officers then came to Wiwczaruk’s unit and challenged him about his conduct, allegedly asking him if he wanted to “start trouble” and be “thrown in the hole.”
“Go for it,” Wiwczaruk’s statement of claim said he told them.
Wiwczaruk admitted in his statement of claim that he refused an order to get on his knees because he felt the request was “improper and demoralizing.” He then spat at a correctional officer who called him derogatory names and was standing so close and yelling so forcefully at him that the officer’s saliva sprayed his face.
Wiwczaruk’s lawyer said just because an inmate is “provocative” doesn’t mean correctional officers should provoke an altercation that leads to the use of force.
“That is not a license to beat a prisoner,” said lawyer Paul Champ. “It’s about de-escalation, not escalation.”
The statement of claim said Wiwczaruk has spent time in juvenile detention centres and rotated in and out of both provincial and federal correctional facilities as an adult. (He’s currently still serving a sentence in another provincial jail and won’t be released until September, according to his lawyer.)
Wiwczaruk suffers from a psychiatric disorder, antisocial personality disorder and ADHD and has spent time at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and a specialized jail for offenders with mental health issues, according to the statement of claim.
The statement of claim also paints an unpleasant picture of his time in segregation.
Wiwczaruk said the segregation cell he was placed in was unlike any “regular” segregation cell he had seen before. It was located behind the other segregation cells and far dirtier, with floors and walls covered in feces and urine, he alleged.
Wiwczaruk said he was given nothing more than a bare mattress to sleep on at night; during the day, he alleged the mattress would be taken away and he’d sit on the cold, dirty, concrete floor.
Wiwczaruk alleged he was denied food for the first two days in segregation. Correctional officers would allegedly taunt him, including on one occasion when a female correctional officer asked if he was hungry, only to slam the cell’s food slot and tell him there would be no food for him. When he did get food, correctional officers would talk loudly about spitting in it, the statement of claim alleges.
It was four days before he got any toilet paper.
During his 12-day stay, Wiwczaruk claimed he was deprived access to privileges other inmates would receive such as access to the yard and telephone. That included requests to contact his lawyer, his family and the Ontario ombudsman, he alleged.
According to the statement of claim, Wiwczaruk was “locked in his cell 24/7” except for a couple of occasions when he was allowed out to shower near the end of his stay.
Wiwczaruk also alleges he was asked to sign a release that he wouldn’t pursue any criminal charges for assault against the correctional officers. He refused to sign it, he said. The lawsuit alleges Wiwczaruk has received no further updates on the investigation, and the ministry wouldn’t say Thursday whether any of the officers involved had been disciplined.
Wiwczaruk is suing for $700,000 in general and punitive damages, accusing the Ontario government and the unknown correctional officers of assault and battery, negligence and violations of his Charter rights.
[email protected]
Twitter.com/andrew_seymourThere was no starting gun, but the federal election has begun. Between now and October, there will be another budget, a high-profile trial, a summer of touring and glad-handing, and five party leaders fighting for their political lives.
The prospects for an early election are slim. The prime minister is comfortable governing. If this governing is unhindered by the opposition, it is also free of any pretence for forcing an early election. Further, the prime minister has likely reasoned that he is better going into the next election with the budget balanced (or near balance) and with a new suite of tax cuts than he is with the mere promise of these things.
There is reason for this confidence. Stephen Harper’s polling numbers have been slowly but steadily rising. According to Three-Hundred Eight, the PM has nearly pulled even with Trudeau’s Liberals. If this seems unremarkable, consider that the gap between these parties reached 12 points at the end of the summer. This increase is neither ephemeral or happenstance. IPSOS, who have polled most extensively and consistently, show that Harper’s comeback occurred before the attacks in Ottawa, though these surely increased voters’ estimation. Instead, questions about alternatives have steadily (if slowly) accumulated, and Harper worked through substantial challenges.
For Harper, two challenges remain. First, the decline in oil prices signals both short-term and long-term problems. Substantial shortfalls in federal revenues (and provincial royalty revenues in Alberta) can measurably change short-term revenue outlooks. The budget can be balanced, but the task is now more difficult. The longer-term challenges of capitalizing on the oil sands will remain whoever wins the next election.
Second, the trial of Mike Duffy will pose problems for the prime minister. To be sure, Harper’s position appears stronger than a year ago. There are no charges for Nigel Wright. But whatever the facts of the case, shifted focus to this episode sullies all involved. There will surely be new questions for Harper to answer.
For Tom Mulcair, the first challenge is purely strategic. Mulcair and Harper share an interest that the next election be framed as a choice between experience and inexperience. But experience easily looks like careerism, and voters can rightfully prefer new faces to old ones. Add to this the difficulty of esteeming Harper’s experience while condemning the results of his experience. How do Mulcair and Harper praise each other’s attributes while criticizing their policies? It is possible, but it is not easy.
The second challenge is purely organizational. The last election might give pause to those who suggest that on-the-ground organization is required to win elections. The New Democrats showed that on-the-ground candidates are not even a necessity. But this trick is not easily repeated, and the New Democrats have substantial work to do in organizing their party across the country. Mulcair’s discipline is in not in question, but that of his larger party is, most certainly.
Justin Trudeau’s party has shown impressive organization, nominations are underway, and strong candidates are winning the nods. His own industry is much to be admired, though he is far from displaying the rhetorical discipline required in a campaign. Most importantly, it is not yet clear that his party has found a way to at once occupy a centrist position and present distinct policy alternatives. A grab-bag of policies will not do. Remember the last Liberal campaign offering, called the “Family Pack”? No? You’re not alone.
Mulcair and Trudeau will, from now to October, be asked to explain what they would do in the event of a Tory minority. Would they form a coalition to replace the Conservative government? Or would they allow it to govern, likely with the New Democrats supporting the government issue by issue? Coalitions are entirely constitutional and defensible. But this does not mean that voters have to like or support coalition governments or that parties can avoid answering questions about these arrangements.
There is ample time for Trudeau to stake out his positions, for Mulcair to organize his party, and for the prime minister to take his last stand. There is also ample time for voters to ask questions and have them answered.
Peter Loewen is an assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Twitter.com/peejloewenThere’s been a lot of loss throughout season three of The Flash and now it appears it’s claimed one more victim, executive producer Aaron Helbing.
Helbing has officially announced that he will not return for season four of The CW superhero series. He’s been with the show since its first season.
Aaron and his brother Todd have been co-showrunners for seasons two and three. Todd will stay on with The Flash.
Speculation on Aaron’s exit began when his name was left off the season four synopsis during The CW’s upfronts presentation.
Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) lived a normal life as a perpetually tardy C.S.I. in the Central City Police Department. Barry’s life changed forever when the S.T.A.R. Labs Particle Accelerator exploded, creating a dark-matter lightning storm that struck Barry, bestowing him with super-speed and making him the fastest man alive — The Flash. But when Barry used his extraordinary abilities to travel back in time and save his mother’s life, he inadvertently created an alternate timeline known as Flashpoint; a phenomenon that gave birth to the villainous speed god known as Savitar, and changed the lives of Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Wally West (Keiyan Lonsdale) forever. With the help of his adoptive father, Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), his lifelong best friend and love interest Iris West (Candice Patton), and his friends at S.T.A.R. Labs — Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes), C.S.I Julian Albert (Tom Felton), and an Earth-19 novelist named H.R. Wells (Tom Cavanaugh) — Barry continues to protect the people of Central City from the meta-humans that threaten it. Based on the characters from DC, The Flash is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television, with executive producers Greg Berlanti (Arrow, Supergirl), Andrew Kreisberg (Arrow, The Flash), Sarah Schechter (Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) and Todd Helbing (Black Sails).
The season three finale Finish Line airs Tuesday, May 23 at 8 pm on The CW.
New episodes of The Flash return to The CW in the fall.
Source: comicbook.comTop 45 Best Comments In Source Code I Ever Encountered
In computer programming, a comment is a programmer-readable explanation or annotation in the source code of a computer program.
They are added with the purpose of making the source code easier for humans to understand, and are generally ignored by compilers and interpreters.
The syntax of comments in various programming languages varies considerably.
Comments are sometimes processed in various ways to generate software documentation external to the source code itself by documentation generators.
They can also be used for integration with source code management systems and other kinds of external programming tools.
Related: Top 15 Best Coursera Courses & Specializations To Take in 2018
In my life as a developer, here are some of the 45 funniest source code comments I encountered.
Have fun and feel free to add yours in the comments section.
1.
/* * Dear Maintainer * * Once you are done trying to ‘optimize’ this routine, * and you have realized what a terrible mistake that was, * please increment the following counter as a warning * to the next guy. * * total_hours_wasted_here = 73 * * undeclared variable, error on line 0 * */
2.
// Autogenerated, do NOT edit. All changes will be undone.
3.
Exception up = new Exception("Something is really wrong."); throw up; //ha ha
4.
//When I wrote this, only God and I understood what I was doing //Now, God only knows
5.
stop(); // Hammertime!
6.
// sometimes I believe compiler ignores all my comments
7.
// I dedicate all this code, all my work, to my wife, Darlene, who will // have to support me and our three children and the dog once it gets // released into the public.
8.
// somedev1 - 6/7/02 Adding temporary tracking of Login screen // somedev2 - 5/22/07 Temporary my ass
9.
// drunk, fix later
10.
// Magic. Do not touch.
11.
#define TRUE FALSE
12.
//Happy debugging suckers
13.
// I'm sorry.
14.
return 1; # returns 1
15.
Catch (Exception e) { //who cares? }
16.
/* * You may think you know what the following code does. * But you dont. Trust me. * Fiddle with it, and youll spend many a sleepless * night cursing the moment you thought youd be clever * enough to "optimize" the code below. * Now close this file and go play with something else. */
17.
try { } finally { // should never happen }
18.
const int TEN=10; // As if the value of 10 will fluctuate...
19.
//This code sucks, you know it and I know it.
20.
//Move on and call me an idiot later.
21.
double penetration; // ouch
22.
/////////////////////////////////////// this is a well commented line
23.
// I don't know why I need this, but it stops the people being upside-down x = -x;
24.
// I am not sure if we need this, but too scared to delete.
25.
doRun.run(); //... "a doo run run".
26.
# To understand recursion, see the bottom of this file At the bottom of the file: # To understand recursion, see the top of this file
27.
// I am not responsible of this code.
28.
// They made me write it, against my will.
29.
/* I did this the other way */
30.
/* Please work */
31.
// no comments for you
32.
// it was hard to write // so it should be hard to read
33.
options.BatchSize = 300; //Madness? THIS IS SPARTA!
34.
// I have to find a better job
35.
# code below replaces code above - any problems? # yeah, it doesn't fucking work.
36.
class Act //That's me!!! {... }
37.
public boolean isDirty() { //Why do you always go out and return dirty; }
38.
Repeat... Until (JesusChristsReturn)'Not sure
39.
// Catching exceptions is for communists
40.
// If this code works, it was written by Paul DiLascia. If not, I don't know // who wrote it
41.
//Peter wrote this, nobody knows what it does, don't change it!
42.
// Comment this later
43.
/** Logger */ private Logger logger = Logger.getLogger();
44.
# This is becoz you messed with me the other day if current_admin.name == "#{my_x_employer}" sleep(1000 * 3600) end
45.
# Linux Sex $ date ; unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; umount ; sleep
Did you like this list of source code comments?
Please share.The owners of popular brunch spot the Bongo Room have wanted to open a location on the Far North Side for about a year. After a couple of deals fell through the duo, John Latino and Derrick Robles, have finally opened their third spot, this one at 5022 N. Clark. Bongo Room officially opened its doors this morning at 8 a.m. and will be open seven days a week for breakfast and lunch.
The 73-seat restaurant has a sleek and modern aesthetic with aqua-colored walls, maple wood throughout, ash table tops, metal bar stools and chairs and hardwood floors. The space is bright and welcoming with a small bar up front, the kitchen in the middle of the space and the open dining room in the back; it'll serve the same menu as its other locations.
Bongo Room will eventually add a full bar to this location (pending the liquor license) and a 30-seat patio out back sometime this summer; the patio furniture is currently on back order. And why here? "We just like the neighborhood," Latino said. "It's a perfect fit and I love the vibe up here."
· The Bongo Room [website, menus]In our Catch it while you can series we look at the cars that are currently undervalued in the market but are set to appreciate in the near future. Interested in being ahead of the curve? This is the feature for you!
This week we take a look at the iconic Aston Martin DB7, a cult legend and highly sought after car that the market has all but forgotten about. If recent auction trends are anything to go by then now is the time to go and buy one of Aston’s most loved motorcars.
The Aston Martin DB7 was the first of the Ford era Astons and presented a leap forward in quality, reliability but also desirability for the brand. Production ran between 1994 – 2004 and the car soon established itself as one of the most in demand Astons and maintaining the brand’s cool yet emotive ethos.
During its 10-year life cycle 7,000 DB7’s were produced making it Aston’s highest volume production car at the time. The DB7 was offered with two engine options: a 3.2L supercharged inline 6 or a 5.9L NA V12.
In recent times DB7 prices have waned with the introduction of the DB9 and the market has shied away from the model due to the often-berated Automatic gearbox. Styling wise the car has aged fantastically with its lines and angles settling into the current design landscape with an elegance that only an Aston could possess.
Flash back to 2010 and a DB7 was looking like a very attainable proposition, with auction prices hovering around the £15,000 – £20,000 mark. With the DB9 and DBS receiving rave reviews and selling well plus the V8 Vantage establishing itself in the ‘Sports car’ sector there was very little love for the old Ford era Aston. From 2010 auction prices began to creep up as the V12 Vantage version became seen as a very cheap route to the heritage brand.
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From the graph we can see that as soon as prices started rising it was the V12 car that was trading significantly above its jaguar engined counterpart. Reasons for the disparity in engine preference were numerous; firstly buyers would forego the Supercharged I6 as it had known reliability issues and moving parts were prone to failure. Secondly buyers were willing to ignore the V12’s reduced efficiency for the added value of owning a V12 Aston with obvious power gains over an inline 6. Plus, choosing an Aston Martin with an inline 6 over a V12 is almost sacrilegious.
Over the past six years values of the DB7 have been steadily rising, the average price almost doubling since our records began in 2010. In the classifieds the DB7 is selling for between £35,000 – £40,000 and are rising steadily. The auction room is the age-old place to find a bargain and in the case of the DB7 this definitely shows. From the graph there is no doubt as to how positive the market currently is for the millennial Aston. With values rising the way they are now seems the perfect time to buy into the brand at the DB7 level.
Top Tip: go for the V12 if you want to enjoy your car and watch it appreciate.Skip to comments.
(St Louis) Tax Day Tea Party Site Hit By Denial of Service Attack
St. Louis Tea Party ^ | March 29, 2009 | Staff
Posted on by abb
The coalition responsible for the February 27 and April 15 Tea Parties has been under an orchestrated, coordinated distributed denial of service (ddos) attack since Friday, March 27. Efforts to thwart the attack continue.
The attacks prevent the public from reaching the organizations main site and prevent administrators and volunteers from updating information on the site.
While the attacking IP addresses indicate locations in Russia, China, and other European and Asian locations, the attack is most likely being conducted by a United States citizen or political group opposed to the Tea Party concepts of smaller government, lower taxes, strict adherence to the rule of Constitutional law, and fiscal responsibility.
The major coalition partnersTop Conservatives on Twitter, Dont Go Movement, and Smart Girl Politicsare working to establish a permanent solution.
This attack is an example of the criminal lenghts our opponents will stoop to. This attack appears to have been timed to blunt the effects of Sean Hannitys commitment to the movement, which he announced on his Fox News Channel program on Friday, March 27.
The organizers are compiling information required to file a formal criminal complain with the FBI. In recent years, the FBI has improved its ability to invstigate and prosecute denial of service attacks.
TOPICS:
Activism/Chapters
Extended News
News/Current Events
US: Missouri
KEYWORDS:
dosattack
taxes
taxrevolt
teaparty
usefacebook
We must be scaring them a bit...
To: 2ndDivisionVet; 3D-JOY; 444Flyer; 4everontheRight; 4Speed; A Mississippian; A.A. Cunningham;...
ping
by 2 posted onby abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
To: abb
Acorn
To: abb
A LOT!
by 4 posted onby freedumb2003 (Communism comes to America: 1/20/2009. Keep your powder dry, folks.)
To: abb
DDOS attacks are a high priority for the FBI, which takes them very seriously. As in “National Security” serious. So if the person or organization can be identified, they are looking at 10 years in a federal penitentiary.
To: abb
Hmmmm.... this is interesting. We must be making them nervous. Communists know better than anyone the power of mass agitation. They lost the Soviet Union because of conservative grass roots actions. America and the world are used to seeing Leftists protesting everything under the sun. They have no real effect anymore because Leftist protests are old hat. But, get the "Silent Majority" worked up and it changes politics. Remember the Reagan elections? Remember the night republicans destroyed the Democratic Party and Newt took Control with his contract WITH America? The pressure is building and 2010 will be a blowout for the GOP and against the Democrats (now, we only have to convince the GOP to field candidates!) People are very upset and the momentum to throw these bums out is building. If dramatic change happens too fast the people rebel and that is exactly what is happening now. Be thankful the people are only carrying tea bags at the moment!
by 6 posted onby April Lexington (Study the constitution so you know what they are taking away!)
To: abb
Obama’s digital brownshirts at work? Seems like something the FBI should be looking into.
by 7 posted onby BenLurkin (And oh, Hey! I've been travelin' on this road too long)
To: abb
Communists shutting down free political speech. Now that’s a first.
To: abb
I noticed that taxdayteaparty.com took me FOREVER to get on the other day. I was wondering if they were being attacked.
To: BenLurkin
Unless they ARE part of the FBI....how'd yah think the Clintons got those 900 files? Sounds like the same folks at work, here, too...OR...someone would want to make a name for themselves doing the right thing, and we WOULD have heard about it. Never look at WHAT is being done, but rather WHY/MOTIVES and all the answers unfold.
by 10 posted onby NordP (CONSERVATIVE AGAIN IN 2010..... Now, is it 2012 yet???)
To: BenLurkin
What if the attacks were launched by the FBI at Obama’s request?
To: abb
You need to have an alternate address for people to communicate and get info. Just a suggestion.
To: WKB; wardaddy; Downsouth55; Michael Knight; ejonesie22; bkwells; DogwoodSouth; WileyPink; jmax;...
by 13 posted onby Islander7 (If you want to anger conservatives, lie to them. If you want to anger liberals, tell them the truth.)
To: abb
...the attack is most likely being conducted by a United States citizen or political group opposed to the Tea Party concepts of smaller government, lower taxes, strict adherence to the rule of Constitutional law, and fiscal responsibility. Look for the union label..?
by 14 posted onby mewzilla (In politics the middle way is none at all. John Adams)
To: abb
They would probably more scared if they were called Secessionist Parties....I’m just sayin’
by 15 posted onby central_va (Co. C, 15th Va., Patrick Henry Rifles-The boys of Hanover Co.)
To: ProtectOurFreedom
That sounds a little far-fetched to me.
by 16 posted onby BenLurkin (And oh, Hey! I've been travelin' on this road too long)
To: ProtectOurFreedom
Putin’s henchmen did something like this at the time of the attack on the Republic of Georgia last summer. I would think that American Bolsheviks would be more motivated to do this in the present case rather than their foreign counterparts.
To: abb
Could have been a bunch of /b/-dwellers. Who knows.
To: April Lexington
But, get the "Silent Majority" worked up and it changes politics. Yes it does, and I think we are seeing it begin to happen. They are also not oblivious to the fact that 6,000 people showed up for a book signing by a conservative radio personality. All of our high profile people had best be very careful. These people are ruthless.
To: abb
How bout’ a little retaliation:bump this poll grading ozero over at MSLSD: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093
by 20 posted onby rodguy911 (HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE--GO SARAHCUDA!!)
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FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John RobinsonAbout
Fifty-two LEDs in two million colors add up to infinite possibilities of pattern and animation. With a powerful computer and WiFi connectivity, there’s no end to the ways the Light by Moore’sCloud can work for you. It’s the light you’ll live your life by.
Beneath its stylish exterior beats a smart heart - an embedded Linux computer. Light by Moore’sCloud is more than just a lamp - it’s a lamp with a LAMP stack! With the full Internet connectivity and power of Linux behind it, all sorts of amazing applications become possible.
The Light by Moore’sCloud can respond to commands from a local smartphone, a tablet - and anything else with an HTML5-compliant browser, or respond to a computer on the other |
the island run by Planned Parenthood, a group loathed by many anti-abortion Republicans.
In addition to the limits on Planned Parenthood, the bill would temporarily lift Clean Water Act permitting requirements on pesticide spraying for municipalities and other large-scale users.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Cyndi Lauper Remembers Friend Prince
Prince gave Cyndi Lauper friendship, advice on how to navigate the music business, and one of the songs on her first album. She spoke with NPR's Rachel Martin about his art and legacy.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It is a small club, this group of one-named musicians who have the power to make this kind of artistic explosion. This past week, we lost one. Prince died at his home in Minneapolis Thursday. The day before, I'd been talking with '80s pop icon Cyndi Lauper. I was interviewing her about her newest album. We'll bring you that conversation next Sunday. But when the news broke about Prince, we called her back. She said she got a phone call with the bad news while she was working on a new project.
CYNDI LAUPER: It kind of just threw me for a loop because he didn't really drink and certainly didn't party - that's for sure. You know, he wasn't that kind of guy, you know?
MARTIN: Lauper went on to tell me about the ways Prince supported her over the years - coming to her shows, giving her business advice. She recorded her version of his song "When You Were Mine" for her breakout album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN YOU WERE MINE")
CYNDI LAUPER: (Singing) When you were mine I gave you all of my money.
MARTIN: The other memory that was front and center for her involved one of Prince's shows. She had gone to watch him, and they ended up performing together unexpectedly.
CYNDI LAUPER: I just remember jumping on stage one time. I went to go see him at the Garden. It was kind of a treat to actually go out to see a concert. And of course, if you're going to go out to see a concert, you might as well go see Prince because he's fantastic. And he was on stage singing. And then - I was in the VIP section - he says, OK, everybody should go on stage and sing now. And they had this strange thing where you lined up, and he would sing, and you would answer. And I was in line. And he sand, and I sang back to him. And he opened his eyes, and he said, Cindi? And I said, yeah, they told me to come - you know? It was kind of great.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN YOU WERE MINE")
PRINCE: (Singing) Oh, girl, when you were mine I used to let you wear all of my clothes. You were so fine. Maybe that's the reason that it hurt me so. I know.
MARTIN: Do you have a favorite Prince song, or a song that you find yourself going back to right now?
CYNDI LAUPER: Well, "Purple Rain" - that one was just awesome. I think "Purple Rain" because when I saw him do the Super Bowl, and it rained like that, and he just - he looked like he put his ring up to the sky and God came and worked the heavens. And he worked the music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SUPER BOWL XLI)
PRINCE: Don't it feel good?
CYNDI LAUPER: And it was so inspiring. Nothing compares to that. Well, I guess nothing compares to him.
(SOUNDBITE OF SUPER BOWL XLI)
PRINCE: (Playing guitar).
CYNDI LAUPER: He was a great, great artist - one of the great artists of our time. And I'm so grateful to have known him and to have been in the music business and come up around the same time because it was magical.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LITTLE RED CORVETTE")
PRINCE: (Singing) I guess I should've known by the way you parked your car sideways that it wouldn't last. See, you're the kind of person that believes in making out once - love them and leave them fast. I guess I must be dumb 'cause you had a pocket full of horses.
MARTIN: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.
Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.The cave so huge it has its own weather system: Explorers discover a lost world with thick cloud and fogs trapped inside
The cave system was discovered in the Chongquing province of China by a team of cavers and photographers
Caver Robbie Shone, from Manchester, said a few of the caves had previously been used by nitrate miners but had not been properly explored
The network, which includes 'cloud Ladder Hall' measuring around 51,000 metres squared, has water sources and vegetation of the floor
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Adventurers have stumbled across a cave so enormous that it has its own weather system, complete with wispy clouds and lingering fog inside vast caverns.
A team of expert cavers and photographers have been exploring the vast cave system in the
Chongquing province of China and have taken the first-ever photographs of the natural wonder.
They were amazed to discover the entrance to the hidden Er Wang Dong cave system and were stunned when they managed to climb inside to see a space so large that it can contain a cloud.
Scroll down for video
The view from a small window in the wall of the vast Niubizi Tian Keng in the Er Wang Dong cave system, where clouds form inside the huge spaces. Three tiny explorers can be seen negotiating the heavily vegetated floor
An intrepid cave explorer ascends a rope hanging from the Niubizi Tian Keng. This photograph is one of the first-ever images taken of one of a cave so large it has its own weather system
Photographer and caver Robbie Shone, from Manchester, was part of a team of 15 explorers on a month-long expedition that discovered the hidden system.
'A few of the caves had previously been used by nitrate miners, at the areas close to the entrance, but had never been properly explored before,'he said.
'All the major passageways were deep underground and had never seen light before.
Explorer Duncan Collis (pictured) climbs a thin rope up to a small ledge overlooking the vast floor surface of Niubizi Tian Keng in the Er Wang Dong cave system. A team of expert cavers have been exploring the caves in the Chongquing province of China
The tranquil rural village of Ranjiagou falls nearby the hidden natural wonder is pictured left, while an intrepid caver stands on the central ridge overlooking the cathedral-like Cloud Ladder Hall, where fog conceals the roof hundreds of metres above (right)
American speleologist Erin Lynch struggles to pull her way across a raging torrent of white water, which is the main river in Quankou Dong. One of the explorers said they had to be aware of high water levels inside the caves, especially when it rained heavily on the surface
'It is always very special, knowing that you are the first to step foot into a cave or somewhere where nobody had previously seen, not knowing what you might find and discover.
'Where else on Earth can still hold secrets and mysteries of discovery? That's what I love so much about exploring.
Mr Shones was particularly excited about the cave network's interior weather system.
The spectacular beddings in the roof of Quankou. Photographer and caver Robbie Shone, from Manchester, was part of a team of 15 explorers on a month-long expedition who stumbled across the natural wonder
The underground camp in Sang Wang Dong is cosy and warm, according to the cavers. Hot food and drink recharge weary and tired explorers who sleep in either suspended hammocks or on roll mats on the floor, before venturing out into the vast surroundings
American speleologist Erin Lynch peers down over her shoulder into a giant void of cloud.The floor is over 240m below and although it cant be seen due to the thick cloud that lingers around her, the echo that reverberates several seconds later reminds her of the volume of empty space and her lofty location
'I had never seen anything quite like the inside cloud ladder before,' he said.
'Thick cloud and fogs hangs in the upper half of the cave, where it gets trapped and unable to escape through the small passage in the roof, 250m above the ground.
'It reminded me of being in an abandoned slate quarrying North Wales in bad weather.
The cave system discovered is not the only one with clouds inside, as humidity rises inside the caverns into colder air to form clouds inside the giant, enclosed spaces.
Large stalagmites at the foot of a giant ascending ramp to another level of development in San Wang Dong create a spectacle mid-way through a section of cave called Crusty Duvets
A giant calcite stalactite boss, dwarfs team member Matt Ryan as he looks up at the giant geological feature
The network, includes 'Cloud Ladder Hall' which itself measures around 51,000 metres squared, while there are rivers and vegetation on the floor of some of its huge caverns.
'Most caves are either accessed by large walking entrance, some require a long deep swim, other may be very vertical in nature where you need ropes to abseil down the walls deep into the caves.
'We had to be aware of high water levels inside the caves, especially when it rained heavily on the surface.
'The drainage catchment to these caves is massive and soon the caves can be extremely dangerous and impassable,' he added.
Duncan Collis and Erin Lynch walk through a section of cave in San Wang Dong called The Sea of Tranquility. Here remains of old Nitrate mining cover the floor in forms of harths - pits and unwanted spoil. One team member said it reminded him of being in an abandoned slate quarrying North Wales in bad weather
An explorer scales the rope up a vertical section of cave known as a pit in Xinu AtticUnless you've been pulling a Rip Van Winkle for the past few years, you know that your state is more busted than Larry Craig in an airport toilet. The only possible exception is the state of Denial, and it closed its borders to new arrivals sometime in late 2008.
One of the main drivers of this sorry state of affairs is the massive disparity between public-sector and private-sector compensation, especially when it comes to benefits such as pensions. Various studies have found anywhere between a 70 percent and a 34 percent differential in total compensation, with public-sector employees getting not just more pay and benefits but near-absolute job security and early retirement. Consider California:
A bipartisan bill...passed virtually without debate unleashed the odious “3 percent at 50” retirement plan in 1999. Under this plan, at age 50 many categories of public employees are eligible for 3 percent of their final year’s pay multiplied by the number of years they’ve worked. So if a police officer starts working at age 20, he can retire at 50 with 90 percent of his final salary until he dies, and then his spouse receives that money for the rest of her life. Even during the economic crisis, “3 percent at 50” and the forces behind it have only become more entrenched. In the midst of California’s 2008–09 fiscal meltdown, with the impact of deluxe public pensions making daily headlines, the city of Fullerton nevertheless sought to retroactively increase the defined-benefit retirement plan for its city employees by a jaw-dropping 25 percent. What’s more, the Fullerton City Council negotiated the increase in closed session, outside public view.
More on that here.
Unfunded state pension liabilities run in the neighborhood of $1 trillion. To understand just how this sorry state of affairs came about, read this report from ALEC.
There is a solution to this mess, the same solution that has been adopted by the private sector over the past several decades: switching from defined-benefit retirement plans to 401(k)-style defined-contribution plans. In a state such as Ohio, which is facing a $8 billion budget deficit and where state and local employees earn about 34 percent more in total compensation than their private-sector counterparts, bringing public-sector compensation into line with the private sector would cut the state's deficit by about 28 percent.
The alternative? Well, there isn't really one, other than destroying your state's economy. The politics of cutting public compensation are never easy but they have also never been more critical.
Reason on pensions.
Video produced by Josh Swain.
Subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel and receive automatic notification when new material goes live.
Go to Reason.tv for HD, iPod, and audio versions of all our videos.Two doses of bad news for the world's coral reefs came in the last week. First, Australia's government confirmed that the Great Barrier Reef is in the midst of a second consecutive year of mass bleaching. It's the first time the reef has experienced back-to-back events, and it seems to be weakening many of the corals.
Then on Wednesday, leading scientists published a new study about last year's bleaching—the worst to date—suggesting that when the seas are hot enough for long enough, nothing can protect coral reefs. Their only hope is that we rapidly slow climate change.
The research, published in the journal Nature, looked at data from three bleaching events along the 1,400 mile-long Australian reef system dating back to 1998. By looking at factors including water temperature, water quality and fishing protections, the authors determined that last year's bleaching was linked almost exclusively to ocean warming.
Conservationists have long hoped that protecting corals from other threats, such as pollution and overfishing, might help shield at least some of them from bleaching, too. While the new paper doesn't entirely deflate that hope—such protections likely help reefs recover—it shows that such work provides little if any relief from severe bleaching.
"At the level of heat stress that was seen during this event, it just didn't matter," said C. Mark Eakin, coordinator of the Coral Reef Watch program at NOAA and a co-author of the paper.
Ilsa B. Kuffner, a marine biologist with the United States Geological Survey who was not involved in the research, said the new paper supports a solid body of evidence suggesting that disease and bleaching are driving coral mortality, while other factors play a more important role in the recovery from those threats. "It's a distinction that, while it's subtle, is also very important when you talk about what's actually causing coral reef decline," she said.
The paper also found that a reef's history made little difference. Some studies have suggested that previous bleaching may make reefs more resilient if they are given time to recover, perhaps by killing off weaker corals or driving some adaptive response.
Warmer-than-average temperatures can cause coral to expel the symbiotic algae that live on its surface, turning the reef white. Such bleaching stresses coral and can make it more susceptible to disease and death.
The world's reefs are in the midst of what scientists consider to be a single, mass bleaching event dating back to 2014. Climate models project that most of the world's reefs could experience annual bleaching by 2050 without rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
While coral can survive even extreme bleaching, surveys conducted this month along the Great Barrier Reef are showing evidence that successive hits take a toll. Eakin said the level of heat stress—a measurement of how hot the waters are for how long—is lower than last year, and yet the bleaching appears to be just as widespread.
"They haven't bounced back yet, so when you hit them with another event a year later, you can see more bleaching at a lower level of heat stress," he said. "A lot of the corals that have survived last year really are not ready for another event."
The bleaching has also spread to areas of the reef that escaped last year's event, according to the recent surveys.
Successive bleaching also appears to be reshaping the makeup of the reef system. Reefs are composed of a rich diversity of coral species, with some particularly sensitive to bleaching and some that recover much more quickly than others. With consecutive years of bleaching, and after four events over 20 years, the new paper said the composition of the reef is changing in areas that have seen recurrent bleaching, perhaps irreversibly.
"The good news is you've got some tough corals that are surviving," Eakin said. "The bad news is, one of the most important things about coral reefs is their diversity, and you're cutting out some of that diversity."
The paper's authors believe that protecting reefs from pollution and overfishing will help them recover from bleaching. But the most important action, they said, lies elsewhere.
"Securing a future for coral reefs, including intensively managed ones such as the Great Barrier Reef," they wrote, "ultimately requires urgent and rapid action to reduce global warming."article
Updated
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Coal stocks were on fire Tuesday in response to President Donald Trumpâs move to unwind an Obama-era environmental plan that targeted coal-fired power plants.
Trump signed an executive order to roll back multiple climate actions taken by former President Barack Obamaâs EPA. The main subject of the order is the Clean Power Plan, which was put on hold by an ongoing court battle. Critics have argued that the Clean Power Plan would spell the end for hundreds of power plants that would be unable to meet its stringent emissions rules.
âThe action Iâm taking today will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow our companies and our workers to thrive, compete and succeed on a level playing field,â Trump said.
With the president moving to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, miners are breathing a sigh of relief.
âTune into the End of the War on Coal,â the American Coal Council wrote in a tweet ahead of Tuesdayâs announcement.
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Similarly, Vice President Mike Pence declared, âThe war on coal is over.â
Tune into the End of the War on Coal Today at 2 pm EDT.https://t.co/Mz9nYRmLJY — ACC (@AmericanCoal) March 28, 2017
The wide-ranging executive order, which Trump signed at the Environmental Protection Agency, also reverses a ban on leasing federal land to coal companies.
Ramaco Resources, a producer of metallurgical coal with mines in West Virginia, Virginia and Pennsylvania, surged 10.6% following the announcement. Cloud Peak Energy (NYSE:CLD), CONSOL Energy (NYSE:CNX) and bankrupt Peabody Energy (OTC:BTUUQ) also posted strong gains.
âAmerican energy resources give us a competitive advantage in the global economy, and the presidentâs effort to capitalize on those resources is vital to stimulating economic growth,â U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue said in a statement. âThe U.S. Chamber has long argued that EPAâs power plant regulations are not only unlawful, they are a bad deal for American families and businesses.âOpenOffice or LibreOffice?
OpenOffice and LibreOffice are the main open-source office suites, the opensource equivalent to Microsoft Office, to create text document, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings.
LibreOffice was a fork of OpenOffice.org (when OpenOffice went under Oracle’s umbrella) and is built on the original OpenOffice.org code base.
Both are equivalent, but the usual advise is to use LibreOffice (see the differences) since it is the project of the volunteers from the open-source community and has been developping more quickly.
I’ll speak about LibreOffice now, but the same is true for OpenOffice.
Download Libreoffice
and in the menu bar LibreOffice > Preferences, enable macros
I would recommend you to set Macro security to Medium which will not block nor allow macros but alert you to choose if you trust the editor of the document :
Which language choice for writing your LibreOffice macros?
Macros are scripting for the office suite.
Many languages are accepted by the LibreOffice API, thanks to the Universal Network Objects (UNO). Among them are : Visual Basic, Java, C/C++, Javascript, Python.
The API is interface-oriented, meaning your code communicate with the controller of the interface and the document has to be open. Many other Python libraries are not interface-oriented, creating directly the file in the Open Document format and saving it to disk with the correct extension
.odt for text files
for text files.ods for spreadsheets
for spreadsheets.odp for presentations
for presentations.odg for drawings
For the choice of the language, I would first insist on the multi-platform requirement, which means it’s better if the macro / script can be executed on different platforms such as Windows, Mac OS or Linux, because LibreOffice is also multi-platform and documents will be shared between users from which we cannot expect a particular platform. Visual Basic is not multi-platform and would require significant changes from one plateform to another (Visual Basic, Real Basic, AppleScript…).
Java and C/C++ require compilation, are much more complex and verbose.
For a scripting need, I would advise Javascript or Python. Both are very present in script development world wide and are standards de facto. Many tools have been built for task automation on Javascript, such as Cordova (the multi-platform mobile app framework) or Grunt. Many other tools are using Python as well, such as AWS CLI for example.
I would advise to write most of your code logic outside the interface-orientated architecture, following a standard code architecture, with your common NodeJS dependencies or Python libraries.
But, Javascript could be not precise enough to work nicely in your spreadsheets (even though there exists very nice libraries for numeric computation) and could be disconcerting for your Office users due to rounding errors ( 0.1 + 0.2 does not equals 0.3 in Javascript).
On the contrary, Python has been used extensively for numeric computation, with famous libraries such as Numpy, Numexpr … which make it perfect for spreadsheet macros.
Python has also numerous available libraries for other purposes, due to its success and support from big digital companies, such as Excel reading or writing libraries which make it the perfect choice for macro development.
Even though Python 2.7 still remains very used, and Python 3 introduced differences, the latest version of LibreOffice comes with Python 3.3, so the use of Python 3.3 is advised for durability.
/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/python --version #Python 3.3.5
First play with the Python shell to get familiar
Before creating your own macro, let’s play with the Python shell and interact with a document, let’s say a spreadsheet.
First launch LibreOffice Calc (Calc for spreadsheet open documents) with an open socket to communicate with from the shell on your Mac OS :
/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --calc \ --accept = "socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager"
(for the Windows command : "C:\\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 5\program\soffice.exe" --calc --accept="socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;" but if any trouble, have a look the proposed workarounds).
and launch the Python shell
/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/python
(for the Windows command : "C:\\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 5\program\python.exe" ).
Python-Uno, the library to communicate via Uno, is already in the LibreOffice Python’s path.
To initialize your context, type the following lines in your python shell :
import socket # only needed on win32-OOo3.0.0 import uno # get the uno component context from the PyUNO runtime localContext = uno. getComponentContext () # create the UnoUrlResolver resolver = localContext. ServiceManager. createInstanceWithContext ( "com.sun.star.bridge.UnoUrlResolver", localContext ) # connect to the running office ctx = resolver. resolve ( "uno:socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ComponentContext" ) smgr = ctx. ServiceManager # get the central desktop object desktop = smgr. createInstanceWithContext ( "com.sun.star.frame.Desktop", ctx ) # access the current writer document model = desktop. getCurrentComponent ()
These lines are common for every documents (Text, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Drawing).
Now you can interact with the document.
Since we launched LibreOffice with --calc option, let’s try the spreadsheet interactions :
# access the active sheet active_sheet = model. CurrentController. ActiveSheet # access cell C4 cell1 = active_sheet. getCellRangeByName ( "C4" ) # set text inside cell1. String = "Hello world" # other example with a value cell2 = active_sheet. getCellRangeByName ( "E6" ) cell2. Value = cell2. Value + 1
If you open a text document and access it with a new document writer, you can try the following interactions :
# access the document's text property text = model. Text # create a cursor cursor = text. createTextCursor () # insert the text into the document text. insertString ( cursor, "Hello World", 0 )
Here is a schema for what we’ve just done : the shell communicates with the LibreOffice runtime to command actions inside the current document.
Create your first macro
It is the other mode, the macro is called from inside the Libreoffice program :
OpenOffice.org does not offer a way to edit Python scripts. You have to use your own text editor (such as Sublim, Atom…) and your own commands.
There are 3 places where you can put your code. The first way is to add it as a library for LibreOffice in one of the directories in the PYTHONPATH
import sys for i in sys. path : print ( i )
which gives
/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Resources /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/Versions/3.3/lib/python3.3 /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/Versions/3.3/lib/python3.3/lib-dynload /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/Versions/3.3/lib/python3.3/lib-tk /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/Versions/3.3/lib/python3.3/site-packages /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/lib/python33.zip /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/lib/python3.3 /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/lib/python3.3/plat-darwin /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Frameworks/LibreOfficePython.framework/lib/python3.3/lib-dynload
But this is only useful to be used in other macros.
The 2 other ways are to insert your script
either globally on your computer, in your local LibreOffice installation,
or inside the document, so that when shared another computer (by email, or whatever means), the document has still functional macros.
Let’s see how to install it in the LibreOffice install first, I’ll show you the document-inside install in the next section.
You can find and call your Macro scripts from the LibreOffice menu for macros Tools > Macros > Organize Macros.
choosing Python :
If you get a “Java SE 6 Error message” such as bellow
download the Java SE 6 version here.
Let’s edit a first macro script file myscript.py that will print the Python version, creating a method PythonVersion :
import sys def PythonVersion ( * args ): """Prints the Python version into the current document""" #get the doc from the scripting context which is made available to all scripts desktop = XSCRIPTCONTEXT. getDesktop () model = desktop. getCurrentComponent () #check whether there's already an opened document. Otherwise, create a new one if not hasattr ( model, "Text" ): model = desktop. loadComponentFromURL ( "private:factory/swriter", "_blank", 0, () ) #get the XText interface text = model. Text #create an XTextRange at the end of the document tRange = text. End #and set the string tRange. String = "The Python version is % s. % s. % s" % sys. version_info [: 3 ] + " and the executable path is " + sys. executable return None
and copy it to the Macro directory for LibreOffice :
cp myscript.py /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/python/
(under Windows it is C:\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 5\share\Scripts\python directory).
Open a new text document and run it from the menu :
In case there are multiple methods, all of them will be exported, but we can also specify which one to export with the following statement at the end of the file :
g_exportedScripts = PythonVersion,
Its spreadsheet counterpart would be :
import sys def PythonVersion ( * args ): """Prints the Python version into the current document""" #get the doc from the scripting context which is made available to all scripts desktop = XSCRIPTCONTEXT. getDesktop () model = desktop. getCurrentComponent () #check whether there's already an opened document. Otherwise, create a new one if not hasattr ( model, "Sheets" ): model = desktop. loadComponentFromURL ( "private:factory/scalc", "_blank", 0, () ) #get the XText interface sheet = model. Sheets. getByIndex ( 0 ) #create an XTextRange at the end of the document tRange = sheet. getCellRangeByName ( "C4" ) #and set the string tRange. String = "The Python version is % s. % s. % s" % sys. version_info [: 3 ] #do the same for the python executable path tRange = sheet. getCellRangeByName ( "C5" ) tRange. String = sys. executable return None
For distribution of code, OXT format acts as containers of code that will be installed by the Extension Manager or with the command line /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/unopkg.
A tutorial under Ubuntu
Other examples
Pack your script inside the document : the OpenDocument format
OpenDocument files are zipped directories.
You can have a look at inside by creating and saving a opendocument spreadsheet document with LibreOffice and then unzipping it :
unzip Documents/test.ods -d test
You’ll get the following list of files and subdirectories in your extracted file :
├── Configurations2 │ ├── accelerator │ │ └── current.xml │ ├── floater │ ├── images │ │ └── Bitmaps │ ├── menubar │ ├── popupmenu │ ├── progressbar │ ├── statusbar │ ├── toolbar │ └── toolpanel ├── META-INF │ └── manifest.xml ├── Thumbnails │ └── thumbnail.png ├── content.xml ├── manifest.rdf ├── meta.xml ├── mimetype ├── settings.xml └── styles.xml
You can directly append your script to the file with the zipfile library. Let’s create include_macro.py :
import zipfile import shutil import os import sys print ( "Delete and create directory with_macro" ) shutil. rmtree ( "with_macro", True ) os. mkdir ( "with_macro" ) filename = "with_macro/" + sys. argv [ 1 ] print ( "Open file " + sys. argv [ 1 ]) shutil. copyfile ( sys. argv [ 1 ], filename ) doc = zipfile. ZipFile ( filename, 'a' ) doc. write ( "myscript.py", "Scripts/python/myscript.py" ) manifest = [] for line in doc. open ( 'META-INF/manifest.xml' ): if '</manifest:manifest>' in line. decode ( 'utf-8' ): for path in [ 'Scripts/', 'Scripts/python/', 'Scripts/python/myscript.py' ]: manifest. append ('<manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="application/binary" manifest:full-path=" % s"/>' % path ) manifest. append ( line. decode ( 'utf-8' )) doc. writestr ( 'META-INF/manifest.xml', ''. join ( manifest )) doc. close () print ( "File created: " + filename )
such that to include your Python macro inside document.ods, just type command
python include_macro.py document.ods
After enabling macros,
you should be able to run your macro
Add a button control to launch your macro
Show the form control toolbar in the menu View > Toolbars > Form Controls, activate Design mode (first red arrow) and add a button (second red arrow) :
Right click on the button to open the control properties and link with your macro :
Toggle design mode to OFF, close your toolbars. Your document is ready.
You can download my example here. This document can be used to check everything works as espected on the LibreOffice version of your customer.
You can also add the button programmatically :
sheet = model. Sheets. getByIndex ( 0 ) LShape = model. createInstance ( "com.sun.star.drawing.ControlShape" ) aPoint = uno. createUnoStruct ( 'com.sun.star.awt.Point' ) aSize = uno. createUnoStruct ( 'com.sun.star.awt.Size' ) aPoint. X = 500 aPoint. Y = 1000 aSize. Width = 5000 aSize. Height = 1000 LShape. setPosition ( aPoint ) LShape. setSize ( aSize ) oButtonModel = smgr. createInstanceWithContext ( "com.sun.star.form.component.CommandButton", ctx ) oButtonModel. Name = "Click" oButtonModel. Label = "Python Version" LShape. setControl ( oButtonModel ) oDrawPage = sheet. DrawPage oDrawPage. add ( LShape )
and add a listener
aEvent = uno. createUnoStruct ( "com.sun.star.script.ScriptEventDescriptor" ) aEvent. AddListenerParam = "" aEvent. EventMethod = "actionPerformed" aEvent. ListenerType = "XActionListener" aEvent. ScriptCode = "myscript.py$PythonVersion (document, Python)" aEvent. ScriptType = "Script" oForm = oDrawPage. getForms (). getByIndex ( 0 ) oForm. getCount () oForm. registerScriptEvent ( 0, aEvent )
or
import unohelper from com.sun.star.awt import XActionListener class MyActionListener ( unohelper. Base, XActionListener ): def __init__ ( self ): print ( "ok1" ) def actionPerformed ( self, actionEvent ): print ( "ok2" ) doc = model. getCurrentController () doc. getControl ( oButtonModel ) doc. getControl ( oButtonModel ). addActionListener ( MyActionListener ())
Start a macro when document starts / opens / is loaded
In the toolbar Tools > Customize, add the macro :
You have the choice to save the preference
either in the document itself, in this case the macro will be executed whenever the document is opened on any computer
or in the LibreOffice install on your local computer, in this case the macro will be executed for every opened document.
Add a listener when the cell content changes
import uno, unohelper from com.sun.star.util import XModifyListener doc = XSCRIPTCONTEXT. getDocument () #get your sheet and cell cell =.. class myChange ( XModifyListener, unohelper. Base ): def __init__ ( self,): self. doc = None def setDocument ( self, doc ): self. doc = doc def modified ( self, oEvent ): yourFunction () def disposing ( self, oEvent ): pass def AddMyListener : m = myChange () m. setDocument ( doc ) cell. addModifyListener ( m ) g_ImplementationHelper = unohelper. ImplementationHelper () g_ImplementationHelper. addImplementation ( myChange, 'com.sun.star.util.XModifyListener',() ) g_exportedScripts = AddMyListener,
Spreadsheet methods
Get a sheet
sheet = model.Sheets.getByName(sheet_name)
sheet = model.Sheets.getByIndex(0)
model.getCurrentController.setActiveSheet(sheet) set the sheet active
Protect / unprotect a sheet
sheet.protect(password)
sheet.unprotect(password)
sheet.isProtected()
Get a cell
sheet.getCellByPosition(col, row)
sheet.getCellRangeByName(“C4”)
Get cell range
sheet.getCellRangeByName(“C4:10”)
sheet.getCellRangeByName(“C4:D10”)
Get cell value
cell.getType() cell type (in from com.sun.star.table.CellContentType import TEXT, EMPTY, VALUE, FORMULA)
cell.getValue() or cell.Value
cell.getString() or cell.String
cell.getFormula() or cell.Formula
You can also have a look at number formats, dates, …
Set cell value
cell.setValue(value) or cell.Value=value
cell.setString(string) or cell.String=string
cell.setFormula(formula) or cell.Formula=formula (example : cell.setFormula(“=A1”))
Cell background color (hexadecimal)
cell.CellBackColor=-1 (no color)
cell.CellBackColor=0 (black)
cell.CellBackColor=255 (blue)
cell.CellBackColor=0xFF0000 (red)
Get range value as an array
range.getDataArray()
Document Path
model.URL
import os if os. name == "nt" : directory = os. path. dirname ( unohelper. fileUrlToSystemPath ( model. URL )) else : directory = os. path. dirname ( model. URL )[ 7 :]
Named Ranges
Named ranges are like “alias” or shortcuts defining ranges in the document :
Set a named range :
oCellAddress = active_sheet. getCellRangeByName ( "C4" ). getCellAddress () model. NamedRanges. addNewByName ( "Test Name", "C4", oCellAddress, 0 )
Get named range :
model.NamedRanges.getByName(“Test Name”)
List named ranges :
model.NamedRanges.getElement |
actions that directly harmed their own customers and public health as a whole,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, in a statement.Marcus taking a selfie on my work PC.
The two-week delay to play Watch Dogs 2 on the PC has been worth it. As I suspected in my hands-on impressions of the PC version earlier this month, it runs well, has a ton of graphical options, and comes with a complete set of quality-of-life adjustments for mouse and keyboard players.
I played the game for a total 15 hours on three different PCs to get a feel for how it runs on different hardware, and overall it’s a pretty picture.
Overlooking San Francisco on the LPC
Home
GPU: AMD R9 Nano
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k
RAM: 16GB DDR4
My home PC can’t push Watch Dogs 2 to the max, with the anti-aliasing as the primary framerate culprit. Even so, it still looks nice, and I can run it on a custom arrangement of high to ultra settings at a constant 60 fps in 1920x1080.
Work
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti
CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X
RAM: 32GB DDR4
My work PC does a fine job as well, though my monitor’s higher 2560x1440 resolution means every graphical setting requires a bit more juice. On a mix of high to ultra settings, I’m able to run the game at around 60 fps (plus or minus 10 or so frames depending on weather effects and draw distance). Again, anti-aliasing is the biggest resource hog. Anything above 2x FXAA knocks takes me down to 45 fps or so, and I’m not happy using mouselook with anything less than 60 fps.
Sailing on the LPC
LPC
GPU: Nvidia Titan X (2)
CPU: Intel Core i7-6950X
RAM: 128GB DDR4
At 4K (3840x2178) with the LPC, our absurdly powerful computer, I could turn up everything and get a solid 40 fps. I know that 40 fps isn’t ideal for PC gaming, but at 4K and with as many bells and whistles as Watch Dogs 2 has, it’s pretty impressive. For a third time, anti-aliasing proved the biggest frame hog, and turning it down helps a ton—the 4K resolution makes it less important, anyway.
Graphics settings
If you’re curious, here’s a look at all the graphics settings. Good news, there’s an FOV slider even though it’s a third-person action game. It’s not really necessary, but there anyway. Shadow and reflection options are broken down into several sections each, a few with some fairly advanced tech. One option makes shadows blur the further they are from their casting source—a small flourish that won’t make or break the illusion one way or the other, but a welcome one anyway. There’s even an option to turn San Francisco’s signature fog on and off. Since I live in a section of the city that’s always in a cloud, I was tempted to keep it off, but that wouldn’t be faithful.
It won’t run like butter with everything turned up, even on the best PCs out there, especially if you’re pushing resolutions above 1920x1080. But that isn't an indication of poor optimization. It's an indication of how scalable Watch Dogs 2's PC options are. If you want to run it on a PC with a few years under its belt, chances are you can without sacrificing too much fidelity. If you want a PC game to push your $10,000 custom build to its limits, Watch Dogs 2 has enough high-end graphical options to give it a run for its money.
Control options
Having spent about 15 hours playing Watch Dogs 2 with a mouse and keyboard, it's easily a superior option to using a gamepad, at least in terms of accuracy and convenience. Controlling Marcus is as natural and quick as an FPS with mouselook since his animations have been sped up to accommodate jerky movements. Vehicles feel nice too, despite the typically awkward on-off analog control of key presses. You can tweak everything from steering sensitivity to how quickly the car camera auto-centers to face forward when you're making a turn. Every key for every control method—Marcus, vehicles, drones—can be reassigned. There's a lot to play with, more than we're used to with the majority of PC ports these days.
Look for our Watch Dogs 2 review later this week.Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported it, headlining “NSA infected 50,000 computer networks with malicious software.”
It cited leaked Edward Snowden information. His revelations are the gift that keeps on giving. Activists representing him keep important information coming.
It’s vital. Everyone needs to know. Unchecked NSA spying threatens fundamental freedoms. They’re fast disappearing.
Their on the chopping block for elimination. Police state lawlessness runs America. It’s too great a threat to ignore.
According to NRC, NSA hacked over 50,000 computer networks. It installed malware. It facilitates surveillance.
It’s “designed to steal sensitive information.” Snowden provided documents prove it. A 2012 management presentation showed NSA uses “Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) in more than 50,000 locations.”
It secretly infiltrates computer systems through malware. Belgian telecom provider Belgacom was hacked.
Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) installed malware in its network. It did so to gain access to its customers’ telephone and data traffic.
It did it through a false Linkedin page. It was done through unwitting company employees.
NSA has a “special department.” It has over 1,000 military and civilian hackers, intelligence analysts, targeting specialists, computer hardware and software designers, and electrical engineers.
It’s top secret. It’s called the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO). It identifies computer systems and supporting telecommunications networks to attack.
It successfully penetrated Chinese computer and telecom systems for around 15 years. It does the same thing globally.
Most NSA employees and officials know little or nothing about TAO. Its operations are extraordinarily sensitive. Only those needing to know are kept informed.
Special security clearances are required to gain access to its top secret work spaces. Armed guards keep others out.
Entering requires a correct six digit code. Retinal scanner checks are used. TAO targets foreign computer systems.
It collects intelligence by hacking, cracking passwords, compromising computer security systems, stealing hard drive data, and copying all subsequent emails and text messages.
NSA calls doing so Computer Network Exploitation (CNE). In October 2012, Obama issued a secret presidential directive. It selected overseas targets for cyber attacks.
His Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) claimed to “offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging.”
Washington “identif(ies) potential targets of national importance where OCEO can offer a favorable balance of effectiveness and risk as compared with other instruments of national power.”
It operates domestically the same way. NSA director Keith Alexander heads US Cyber Command (Cybercom). He’s waging global cyberwar.
US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) has full operational control. It’s a cyber hit squad. It’s part of the US Strategic Command.
Rules of engagement are classified. Anything goes is policy. Cyber-warriors are freewheeling. They operate globally. Cyber-preemption reflects greater police state power.
TAO personnel penetrate, steal, damage, destroy or otherwise compromise targeted sites. It’s perhaps the most important component of NSA’s Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) Directorate.
NRC said TAO operations installed about 20,000 “implants” by early 2008. By mid-2012, they “more than doubled to 50,000.”
NSA prioritizes cyber operations. “Computer hacks are relatively inexpensive.” They give NSA information otherwise not available.
Malware “can remain active for years without” detection. ” ‘Sleeper cells’ can be controlled remotely and be turned on and off at will.”
Implants are digital sleeper cells. A “push of a button” activates them. NSA has been conducting these type operations since the late 1990s.
Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD “displayed interest in hacking.” In early 2013, a Joint Cyber Unit (JSCU) was created.
It’s an inter-agency operation. It uses experts with a range of IT skills. It doesn’t go as far as NSA. Dutch law prohibits it. For how long remains to be seen.
Last August, the Washington Post headlined “The NSA has its own team of elite hackers.” It discussed TAO operations.
It may “have had something to do with (developing) Stuxnet and Flame malware program.” Washington and Israel were involved.
In spring 2010, Iranian intelligence discovered Stuxnet malware contamination. It infected its Bushehr nuclear facility. At the time, operations were halted indefinitely.
Israel was blamed. So was Washington. Had the facility gone online infected, Iran’s entire electrical power grid could have been shut down.
Flame is a more destructive virus. Internet security experts say it’s 20 times more harmful than Stuxnet. Iran’s military-industrial complex is targeted.
So is its nuclear program. Maximum disruption is intended. Whether plans to do so continue remains to be seen. Iran is alerted to the possibility.
Leaksource calls itself the “#1 source for leaks around the world.” Last August, it headlined “Codename GENIE: NSA to Control 85,000 ‘Implants’ in Strategically Chosen Machines Around the World by Year End,” saying:
According to “top secret documents” the Washington Post obtained, “US intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011.”
Doing so represents “the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war.”
Snowden leaked information revealed it. GENIE involves using computer specialists. They break into foreign networks. They do so to “put (them) under surreptitious US control.”
“Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed ‘covert implants,’ sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions,” said Leaksource.
GENIE’s next phase involves an automated online system code-named “TURBINE.” It’s able to potentially manage “millions of implants.”
It elevates intelligence gathering to a higher level. It lets it engage in widespread “active attack(s).”
Teams of FBI, CIA, and Cyber Command operatives work at NSA’s Remote Operations Center (ROC).
Their missions overlap. So does NSA’s National Threat Operations Center. It focuses on cyberdefense.
Snowden was involved as a Booz Allen Hamilton contractor. He learned NSA’s best hacking techniques.
The agency designs most of its implants. It spends millions of dollars annually on “additional covert” “software vulnerabilities” purchases.
It gets them from “private malware vendors.” They represent a growing source. They’re largely European based.
China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are called the “most challenging targets” to penetrate.
Other prioritized countries include so-called terrorist safe havens. They include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and Somalia.
NSA’s goal is sweeping. It wants to revolutionize data gathering. It wants to access “anyone, anywhere, anytime.”
It intends to “identify new access, collection and exploitation methods by leveraging global business trends in data and communication services.”
It wants total information control worldwide. It wants to go where no previous spy agency went before. It wants no operational restraints. It intends to keep doing whatever it wants.
Congress is a willing facilitator. Fake fix legislation facilitates NSA lawlessness. It codifies collecting phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans.
It permits the same thing online. It’s already out of committee. It’s heading for Senate passage.
Obama will sign into law whatever Congress sends him. He supports mass surveillance.
He’s waging war on fundamental freedoms. Police state lawlessness is official US policy. Obama is its leading exponent.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
http://www.dailycensored.com/nsa-infects-50000-computer-systems-worldwide/http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/i-got-myself-arrested-so-i-could-look-inside-the-justice-system/282360/ Ten years ago, when I started my career as an assistant district attorney in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, I viewed the American criminal justice system as a vital institution that protected society from dangerous people. I once prosecuted a man for brutally attacking his wife with a flashlight, and another for sexually assaulting a waitress at a nightclub. I believed in the system for good reason.
But in between the important cases, I found myself spending most of my time prosecuting people of color for things we white kids did with impunity growing up in the suburbs. As our office handed down arrest records and probation terms for riding dirt bikes in the street, cutting through a neighbor's yard, hosting loud parties, fighting, or smoking weed - shenanigans that had rarely earned my own classmates anything more than raised eyebrows and scoldings - I often wondered if there was a side of the justice system that we never saw in the suburbs. Last year, I got myself arrested in New York City and found out.
On April 29, 2012, I put on a suit and tie and took the No. 3 subway line to the Junius Avenue stop in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brownsville. At the time, the blocks around this stop were a well-known battleground in the stop-and-frisk wars: Police had stopped 14,000 residents 52,000 times in four years. I figured this frequency would increase my chances of getting to see the system in action, but I faced a significant hurdle: Though I've spent years living and working in neighborhoods like Brownsville, as a white professional, the police have never eyed me suspiciously or stopped me for routine questioning. I would have to do something creative to get their attention.
As I walked around that day, I held a chipboard graffiti stencil the size of a piece of poster board and two cans of spray paint. Simply carrying those items qualified as a class B misdemeanor pursuant to New York Penal Law 145.65. If police officers were doing their jobs, they would have no choice but to stop and question me.
I kept walking and reached a bodega near the Rockaway Avenue subway station. Suddenly, a young black man started yelling at me to get out of Brownsville, presumably concluding from my skin color and my suit that I did not belong there. Three police officers heard the commotion and came running down the stairs. They reached me and stopped.
"What's going on?" one asked.
"Nothing," I told them.
"What does that say?" the officer interrupted me, incredulously, as the other two gathered around. I held the stencil up for them to read.
"What are you, some kind of asshole?" he asked.
I stood quietly, wondering whether they would arrest me or write a summons. The officers grumbled a few choice curse words and then ran down the stairs in pursuit of the young man. Though I was the one clearly breaking a law, they went after him.
I continued west, through Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and then north through Fort Greene, carrying the stencil, talking to residents. I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and arrived at City Hall. I walked around the building a few times, and then went down Broadway to the Wall Street Bull. From Brownsville to downtown Manhattan, I would estimate that I passed more than 200 police officers, some from a distance, some close enough to touch. Though I was conspicuously casing high-profile public targets while holding graffiti instruments, not one of them stopped, frisked, searched, detained, summonsed, or arrested me. I would have to go further.
I walked up to the east entrance of City Hall and tagged the words "N.Y.P.D. Get Your Hands Off Me" on a gatepost in red paint. The surveillance video shows me doing this, 20 feet from the police officer manning the gate. I moved closer, within 10 feet of him, and tagged it again. I could see him inside watching video monitors that corresponded to the different cameras.
Although carrying items in plain sight that constituted a misdemeanor, police didn't stop Constantino. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images As I moved the can back and forth, a police officer in an Interceptor go-cart saw me, slammed on his brakes, and pulled up to the curb behind me. I looked over my shoulder, made eye contact with him, and resumed. As I waited for him to jump out, grab me, or Tase me, he sped away and hung a left, leaving me standing there alone. I've watched the video a dozen times and it's still hard to believe.
I woke up the next morning and Fox News was reporting that unknown suspects had vandalized City Hall. I went back to the entrance and handed the guard my driver's license and a letter explaining what I'd done. Several police officers were speaking in hushed tones near the gates, which had been washed clean. I was expecting them to recognize me from eyewitness descriptions and the still shots taken from the surveillance cameras and immediately take me into custody. Instead, the guard politely handed me back my license, explained that I didn't have an appointment, and turned me away.
I went home and blogged about the incident, publicizing what I'd done and posting pictures, before returning to the guard tower the next day, and the next, to hand over my license and letter. Each time, the guards saw a young professional in a suit, not the suspect they had in mind, and each time they handed me back my license and turned me away. On my fifth day of trying, a reporter from Courthouse News Service tagged along. At first skeptical, he watched in disbelief as the officer took my license, made a phone call, and sent me on my way.
On Friday May 4, 2012, I turned myself in at Manhattan Criminal Court. Two Intelligence Unit detectives arrived and testily walked me outside to a waiting unmarked police car. Court papers show that they'd staked out my apartment to arrest me, and that I unwittingly kept eluding them. In one dramatic instance, two officers had tailed me as I walked down Eastern Parkway. I'd entered the subway station at the Brooklyn Museum, unaware that I was being followed. One of the officers had followed me through the turnstiles while another guarded the exit. The report states that the officers then inexplicably lost contact with me.
Now, we drove west on Canal Street during rush hour, inching across Manhattan to the West Side before turning around and crawling back to a precinct in the East Village. Eight hours later, around midnight, the officers drove me to central booking, in the basement of the courthouse where I had surrendered. "The judge just left, man, your timing sucks," one of my cellmates told me as the iron door clanged shut.
The cell was approximately 20 feet by 30 feet, and a large metal toilet platform occupied a quarter of the room. I stepped over several men lying on the floor and took the open seat adjacent to the platform. The toilet over me had no door and no partition, and the entire room had a view of sitting users. Feces and urine were caked onto the metal and smeared on the concrete next to me, which is why the seat was vacant.
Over the next 24 hours, I watched as men and women came and went, many with cuts, bruises, and welts. I asked several of them how they'd been injured, and they described fierce struggles with the police. One young man cradled what he reported was a broken wrist. Another pulled up his shirt and revealed three Taser burns. Yet another removed his fitted cap and pointed to a swollen knot on his head. I exchanged uncomfortable glances with the few other white men in the cellblock.
"Did they treat you like that?" I whispered.
"No, you?"
"No." We held out our wrists to compare.
"I'm trying man, but they won't listen to me," another man implored through the phone, "Hold on—"
"When will you let me see my attorney? He's been upstairs waiting to see me for two hours!" another man called out in the direction of a group of corrections officers sitting and talking out of view.
Some time later, around 2:00 a.m., an older man started calling out, pressing himself against the bars.
"CO, I'm diabetic. I need my sugar pills," he pleaded.
Nothing.
"CO, please," he begged another CO with thin-rimmed glasses walking by.
"CO, I'm diabetic, I need my sugar—"
"Sir, can't you see I'm busy here?" he interrupted, without stopping.
Some time later the door swung open and a CO led three more men into our cell. Eighteen men were now sitting and lying feet to head, or feet to feet, along the length of the bench and floor.
"Sir, do you think this is the right way to treat people, piling them on top of one another, when you have an empty cell open all night?" I said indignantly, when morning came, pointing at a vacant cell across the hall.
"I've been doing this 22 years," the officer replied. "So yeah, I do."
Around midnight, after 34 hours in custody, I was led to a courtroom upstairs to be arraigned. The district attorney's office, responsible for prosecuting offenders, asked the judge to dismiss my case with three days of community service. This is standard practice for first-time, nonviolent misdemeanor offenders. The judge read through the paperwork and agreed, though he raised the number of community service days to five.
I accepted the sentence and the clerk began reading it into the record.
"Your honor, wait!" the assistant state attorney interrupted. Startled by the outburst, the judge looked up and scowled as the attorney read something written on her file. She blushed and continued, "I'm sorry, I have to withdraw my offer." As the judge shook his head and set a date to return, I felt an odd pang of empathy for her. Once, as a rookie prosecutor, a judge had humiliated me in open court for being evasive about a file that had an ominous yellow "do not dismiss" sticky note on it.
Constantino tagged New York City Hall five days in a row. Flickr/vtveen Two months later I arrived at Manhattan Criminal Court at 9:00 a.m. and stood in a line of people that stretched out to the street. I found my way to the courtroom and watched cases being called until around noon, when my attorney beckoned me into the hallway and confirmed what had been written on the assistant state attorney's file at arraignment. "The district attorney's office is playing hardball. They are seeking a guilty plea against you and requesting jail time if you don't take it."
"But it's a first-time misdemeanor, that ridiculous—"
"I know, but they aren't budging. Your only chance at avoiding the consequences of a guilty conviction is going to trial."
Seven subsequent months of visits offered snaking lines, courtrooms packed with misdemeanor offenders, assistant state attorneys threatening jail time, and the steady issuing of fees, fines, and surcharges.
In the end I was found guilty of nine criminal charges. The prosecutor asked for 15 days of community service as punishment. My attorney requested time served. The judge—in an unusual move that showed how much the case bothered him—went over the prosecutor's head and ordered three years of probation, a $1000 fine, a $250 surcharge, a $50 surcharge, 30 days of community service, and a special condition allowing police and probation officers to enter and search my residence anytime without a warrant.
At my group probation orientation, the officer handed each of us a packet and explained that we are not allowed to travel, work, or visit outside New York City.
"Wait, what?" I blurted out. "This is true even for nonviolent misdemeanors?"
"Yes, for everyone. You have to get permission."
After the orientation, I went straight to my probation officer and requested permission to spend Christmas with my family in Massachusetts. I listened in disbelief as she denied my request—I'd worked with probation departments in several states, and I knew that regular family contact has been shown to reduce recidivism. My probation officer also refused to let me go home for Easter and birthdays. After six or seven of these refusals, I complained to a supervisor, citing New York's evidence-based practices manual, and was assigned to a new probation officer.
In May, I requested permission to visit a class of third graders in my old neighborhood. The year before, when I'd set out to march from Boston to Florida to protest the handling of the Trayvon Martin case, the class had joined me for a day, calculated my route, and located places for me to sleep. After one of the students, Martin Richard, was killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, the class invited me to march with them in his memory. Though my new probation officer and I have an excellent relationship, and she has allowed me to visit my family twice, she denied this request.
I do not relate these experiences to gain sympathy. I broke the law knowing there would be consequences. I tell my story because this is the side of the system we didn't get to see where I grew up. In the wealthy suburbs of Massachusetts, our shared narrative told us that people who didn't live where we lived, or have what we had, weren't working as hard as we were. We avoided inner city streets because they were dangerous, and we relied on the police to keep people from those places out of our neighborhoods. Whatever they got, we figured they deserved. My total, unquestioning belief in this narrative was the reason I arrived in Roxbury, fresh out of law school, eager to incarcerate everything in sight.
After I was sentenced, I went across the street to scan my hand into a biometrics database. As I walked down the steps of the courthouse, I noticed that there were some words carved into the façade of the building. It was a quote from Thomas Jefferson, describing one of the "essential principles" of American democracy: "Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion."A reddish jet of gas emanates from the forming star HH-30, which is surrounded by a protoplanetary disk.
The search for water on other planetary bodies has taken agiant leap forward in recent months. In November, NASA announced that it hadfound substantial quantities of water on the Moon. Earlier this month, theCassini spacecraft obtained data about one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, that mayconfirm the presence of sub-surface liquid water.
While these missions scour our solar system for tracesof water — a necessary condition for life — a group of scientists islooking beyond, at solar systems light years away. A recent study published inthe journal Astrobiology described using infrared spectroscopy to model thedust surrounding young extrasolar stars to try to detect the presence of hydrousminerals called phyllosilicates.
One of the simplest examples of phyllosilicates is clayminerals. Water is an important part of their chemical structure.
"If you find phyllosilicates, you have most likelyfound liquid water," says lead author Melissa Morris, a visiting professorin the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Materials Science at Missouri StateUniversity and an affiliate of Arizona State University's School of Earth andSpace Exploration. "The objective was to try to determine whether we couldactually detect these wonderful signatures of hydrated minerals almost alwaysproduced by the interaction of liquid water with rock."
In order to determine whether the surface of an extrasolarplanet would contain water, scientists can look at what is called the protoplanetarydisk — a disk of gas and dust surrounding a star during its early stages ofdevelopment. Scientists think planets are born from protoplanetary disksthrough gravitational and electrostatic interactions between particles. So ifscientists can determine the elemental composition of the dusty disks thatorbit young stars, they should be able to predict what sort of planets will eventuallyform.
One school of thought suggests that the Earth acquiredits surface water from asteroids or asteroid-like bodies that were present in itsprotoplanetary disk. The authors of this study used the same assumption forpotential Earth-like planets in othersolar systems. Therefore, if phyllosilicates are found in the protoplanetarydisk of a young extrasolar star, the assumption is that water would most likelybe found on the surface of planets that are later born within the disk.?(Ofcourse, as Mercury, Venus and Mars illustrate, other conditions will affectwhether a rocky planet ultimately has water.)
The scientists hope to someday use instruments such asthe Spitzer Space Telescope and the Stratospheric Observatory for InfraredAstronomy (SOFIA) to determine the composition of exozodiacal dust inextrasolar protoplanetary disks. Before that can be done, however, scientistsmust first determine if detection of particular minerals in these distant systemsis even possible. This study helps scientists determine what signatures to lookfor in disks.
The composition of the dust is identified by studying itsemission features. A common procedure is to use infrared spectroscopy toidentify substances by the infrared wavelengths they absorb or emit. Thisprocedure is often used to detect water on planetary bodies.
Morris and her colleagues began by modeling the infraredemission features of dust that did not contain hydrated minerals, orphyllosilicates. They then changed the mineral mixture by addingphyllosilicates amounting to three percent of the total mixture.
In the paper, Morris and her co-author Steve Desch ofArizona State University claim that unique features indicative of phyllosilicatesin the mid-infrared spectra should make it possible to detect those minerals inprotoplanetary disks.
Scott Sandford, a research astrophysicist at the NASA AmesResearch Center in California who has experience conducting spectroscopy inmeteorites, disagrees. He says proving the presence of phyllosilicates in aprotoplanetary disk is a challenge.
"It is somewhat difficult to identify phyllosilicateswhen they are present in mixtures because they are relatively featureless asopposed to other minerals, which have a lot of structural features in theirspectrum," says Sandford.
Morris says the outcome of this study shows only that, basedon the computer models, it should be possible to detect the presence ofphyllosilicates in protoplanetary disks. It is only the first step in the detectionof water in other solar systems.
"My part was developing the model to determine whetherit could be done," says Morris. "What instruments are available? Of theinstruments we have, do they have the resolution?"
The next step, which Morris has already begun, is to applythis technique to actual data. Morris is now comparing the models to dataobtained from the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Sandford says that will be the real test.
"The basic idea they are espousing is a perfectly goodone," says Sandford. "I'm personally kind of skeptical that you canlocate the phyllosilicates in this disk to the level they suggest. How applicableare those models to the real world?"
Morris says this type of research is also important inunderstanding how planetary systems form in general.
"I'm a huge advocate for looking for water in our ownsolar system," says Morris, "but just to understand the process ofplanetary system formation, we need to go outsideour solar system and look at other systems as well."Wikileaks this week contacted major tech companies including Apple and Google, and required them to assent to a set of conditions before receiving leaked information about security “zero days” and other surveillance methods in the possession of the Central Intelligence Agency. The communication, reported by Motherboard, came a week after Julian Assange’s initial statement that he would help the companies close security loopholes disclosed in a set of leaked CIA documents.
Wikileaks’ demands remain largely unknown, but may include a 90-day deadline for fixing any disclosed security vulnerabilities. According to Motherboard’s sources, at least some of the involved companies are still in the process of evaluating the legal ramifications of the conditions.
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In a statement late Friday, WikiLeaks announced that some organizations, including Firefox maker Mozilla, have already decided to play ball. The statement also lays out one reason companies might be moving slowly to respond to what it calls an “industry standard responsible disclosure plan.”
The security vulnerabilities were disclosed in CIA documents likely handed to Wikileaks via intelligence contractors. They include methods for penetrating Android and iPhone smartphones, desktop operating systems, routers, and web browsers. “Zero day” refers to deployments of malware or other hacks before an update or patch is created to resolve the vulnerability. Companies involved include Microsoft, Cisco, ZTE, Huawei, and others.
But Wikileaks’ public document release did not include code or full technical details of the vulnerabilities.
Big tech companies have had a fraught relationship with intelligence agencies in recent years, with prior revelations of surveillance programs leading to efforts to reassure consumers that their devices are safe from snoops. Apple, for its part, has said many of the vulnerabilities described in the documents have already been patched. However, the CIA documents include references to more than a dozen unpatched “zero day” exploits of Apple products.There's a rather fun mangling of a George Orwell line that asks us to imagine the Green Party as "a Birkenstock stamping on a human face forever." This is quite possibly unkind as it's entirely possible that there are some party members who are just misled rather than being positively malevolent in their lust for power like O'Brien. However, it can be difficult to keep up this pose of assuming that they are all well meaning when they decide to call for Africa to remain in peasant destitution forever. But that is what they've just done.
As ever with anything to do with the European Union the genesis is a little difficult to describe. Simply, the EU itself is trying to organise the development of African agriculture. The European Greens have just been pushing something through the Parliament stating that this should not happen. Neither the support nor the actual improvement. Some are not happy about this:
There is a commonly shared neo-colonialist expression: The Europeans have the watches; the Africans have the time. Today, the European Green Party, with the support of countless environmentalist NGOs, proposed an initiative in the European Parliament to make Africa wait for at least another generation to be able to lift itself out of poverty.
The report tabled by Green MEP, Maria Heubuch, is as vile as it is selfish in its neo-colonialist demands to impose peasant agriculture on a continent trying to develop and feed itself.
Strong language indeed but quite possibly justified. Because the report itself really is insisting that Africa and Africans be stuck in absolute poverty in eternity. That report is here and here's one very telling line:
3. Promoting sustainable family farming
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change
of December 2015 both highlight the importance of developing a model of agriculture that
improves resilience and creates sustainable food systems. Family farmers and smallholders
are the main investors in African agriculture, and provide over 60% of employment in SubSaharan
Africa1
. They have demonstrated their ability to increase food production sustainably
(often through agro-ecological practices), to diversify production, to contribute to rural
development, to increase incomes and, in turn, to help reduce poverty.
Instead of supporting NAFSN’s model of ‘modern’, ‘business-oriented’ agriculture based on
large-scale industrial farming, your rapporteur, in line with recommendations of UN Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Food and the 2009 International Assessment of Agricultural
Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), calls on African governments to invest
in family farming and agroecology.
They also say elsewhere:
The rapporteur acknowledges the need of African countries to invest in agriculture. Although
the objective of NAFSN is sound, many deficiencies exist.
NAFSN aims to replicate in Africa the model of the 1960s/1970s Asian ‘Green Revolution’,
based on monoculture, mechanisation, biotechnology, dependence on fertilisers, long
distribution channels and the production of export crops. The limits of this approach are well
known, particularly the associated environmental risks.
That's the Green Revolution that banished famine and starvation from that continent then. And the Green Revolution which laid the foundation for the following economic growth. And our European Greens are quite clearly saying that his should not be allowed to happen in Africa. That is, Africa should remain in the grip of peasant agriculture and thus absolute poverty.
There's a very simple economic point behind all of this. The standard of living of people in any economy depends upon the productivity of one hour of labour. We must produce value before it can be consumed and we can only consume value that has been produced. If the average value produced by an hour of labour in an economy is say, $60 (around and about right for the US today, right order of magnitude at least) then the average worker can consume perhaps $35 to $40 of value. We've got to knock off a bit for depreciation, capital investment and so on, a bit for benefits tied to employment and then the average wage in the US (mean wage) is about $25 an hour. The average American does indeed get to consume some $25 to $35 per hour of labour performed by the average American. OK, sure, we can play around a little bit with medians and means and so on but this story is still generally true.
In a society where the average hour of labour produces 25 cents of value then the average consumption possibility from each hour of labour is something less than 25 cents, isn't it? And I'm afraid there's no way around this. We can only consume that value which is created therefore the productivity of labour is going to be the determinant of our lifestyles.
So, now, let us consider the productivity of peasant farming. Sure, they're calling it "smallholding" farming in this report but peasant is what they mean. One family, one hoe, one machete and, if they're lucky, a couple of hectares of land. Certainly not much more than that because without pesticides, fungicides and artificial fertiliser, without mechanisation of any kind |
(again following the same rules as identity of the committer). You can tag other objects than commits (but that is conceptually rather low-level operation). And the tag can be cryptographically PGP signed to verify the identity (by Git's nature of working, that signature also confirms the validity of the associated revision, its history and tree). So, let's do it:
git tag -a name svn copy http://example.com/svn/trunk http://example.com/svn/tags/name
To list tags and to show the tag message:
git tag -l
git show tag svn list http://example.com/svn/tags/
svn log --limit 1 http://example.com/svn/tags/tag
Like Subversion, Git can do branches (surprise surprise!). In Subversion, you basically copy your project to a subdirectory. In Git, you tell it, well, to create a branch.
git branch branch
git checkout branch svn copy http://example.com/svn/trunk http://example.com/svn/branches/branch
svn switch http://example.com/svn/branches/branch
The first command creates a branch, the second command switches your tree to a certain branch. You can pass an extra argument to git branch to base your new branch on a different revision than the latest one.
You can list your branches conveniently using the aforementioned git-branch command without arguments the listing of branches. The current one is denoted by an "*".
git branch svn list http://example.com/svn/branches/
To move your tree to some older revision, use:
git checkout rev
git checkout prevbranch svn update -r rev
svn update
or you could create a temporary branch. In Git you can make commits on top of the older revision and use it as another branch.
Merging
Git supports merging between branches much better than Subversion - history of both branches is preserved over the merges and repeated merges of the same branches are supported out-of-the-box. Make sure you are on one of the to-be-merged branches and merge the other one now:
git merge branch (assuming the branch was created in revision 20 and you are inside a working copy of trunk)
svn merge -r 20:HEAD http://example.com/svn/branches/branch
If changes were made on only one of the branches since the last merge, they are simply replayed on your other branch (so-called fast-forward merge). If changes were made on both branches, they are merged intelligently (so-called three-way merge): if any changes conflicted, git merge will report them and let you resolve them, updating the rest of the tree already to the result state; you can git commit when you resolve the conflicts. If no changes conflicted, a commit is made automatically with a convenient log message (or you can do git merge --no-commit branch to review the merge result and then do the commit yourself).
Aside from merging, sometimes you want to just pick one commit from a different branch. To apply the changes in revision rev and commit them to the current branch use:
git cherry-pick rev svn merge -c rev url
Going Remote
So far, we have neglected that Git is a distributed version control system. It is time for us to set the record straight - let's grab some stuff from remote sites.
If you are working on someone else's project, you usually want to clone its repository instead of starting your own. We've already mentioned that at the top of this document:
git clone url svn checkout url
Now you have the default branch (normally master ), but in addition you got all the remote branches and tags. In clone's default setup, the default local branch tracks the origin remote, which represents the default branch in the remote repository.
Remote branch, you ask? Well, so far we have worked only with local branches. Remote branches are a mirror image of branches in remote repositories and you don't ever switch to them directly or write to them. Let me repeat - you never mess with remote branches. If you want to switch to a remote branch, you need to create a corresponding local branch which will "track" the remote branch:
git checkout --track -b branch origin/branch svn switch url
You can add more remote branches to a cloned repository, as well as just an initialized one, using git remote add remote url. The command git remote lists all the remotes repositories and git remote show remote shows the branches in a remote repository.
Now, how do you get any new changes from a remote repository? You fetch them: git fetch. At this point they are in your repository and you can examine them using git log origin ( git log HEAD..origin to see just the changes you don't have in your branch), diff them, and obviously, merge them - just do git merge origin. Note that if you don't specify a branch to fetch, it will conveniently default to the tracking remote.
Since you frequently just fetch + merge the tracking remote branch, there is a command to automate that:
git pull svn update
Sharing the Work
Your local repository can be used by others to pull changes, but normally you would have a private repository and a public repository. The public repository is where everybody pulls and you... do the opposite? Push your changes? Yes! We do git push remote which will push all the local branches with a corresponding remote branch - note that this works generally only over SSH (or HTTP but with special webserver setup). It is highly recommended to setup a SSH key and an SSH agent mechanism so that you don't have to type in a password all the time.
One important thing is that you should push only to remote branches that are not currently checked out on the other side (for the same reasons you never switch to a remote branch locally)! Otherwise the working copy at the remote branch will get out of date and confusion will ensue. The best way to avoid that is to push only to remote repositories with no working copy at all - so called bare repositories which are commonly used for public access or developers' meeting point - just for exchange of history where a checked out copy would be a waste of space anyway. You can create such a repository. See Setting up a public repository for details.
Git can work with the same workflow as Subversion, with a group of developers using a single repository for exchange of their work. The only change is that their changes aren't submitted automatically but they have to push (however, you can setup a post-commit hook that will push for you every time you commit; that loses the flexibility to fix up a screwed commit, though). The developers must have either an entry in htaccess (for HTTP DAV) or a UNIX account (for SSH). You can restrict their shell account only to Git pushing/fetching by using the git-shell login shell.
You can also exchange patches by mail. Git has very good support for patches incoming by mail. You can apply them by feeding mailboxes with patch mails to git am. If you want to send patches use git format-patch and possibly git send-email. To maintain a set of patches it is best to use the StGIT tool (see the StGIT Crash Course).
If you have any questions or problems which are not obvious from the documentation, please contact us at the Git mailing list at [email protected]. We hope you enjoy using Git!Last week I introduced the Shot Quality Project and set the parameters of how the current data is collected and how I was going to improve on it.
The project merges the on-ice understanding from a goaltender’s perspective and a data-driven analysis of the sport. This is step two in the process of analyzing how shot quality effects a goaltender’s save percentage through defensive systems, and whether it is something that will dissipate over large samples.
With only a half season sample of data, you will not find any definitive conclusions yet, but there are enough interesting findings to alter the current paradigm. As I add to the database I plan to investigate coaching systems, compare and contrast goaltenders as well as apply the data to help evaluate other aspects of the game.
The current data ignores all pre-shot movement, so the focus of the SQP is to identify these shots and study the effects of this movement. Let’s start with the largest sample.
A clean shot is when one a goalie can line up while setting depth and angle using minimal lateral movement. NHL goaltenders face between 80 and 90 percent of their shots under such conditions.
Example: When faced with a clean look, goaltenders can set depth and angle maintaining a strong balance and controlling the rebound, giving them a high success rate even when the shot originates from the high-scoring slot area. A defence that can force opponents into such shots will help its goaltender maintain a high save percentage. Breakaways are included because the goaltender has the ability to adjust while maintaining visual contact with the puck.
Comparing performance: I found a level of consistency among the goaltenders I researched in regards to performance in the clean category. After 28,398 shots, the average clean save-percentage was.951 and the fluctuation was fairly light. Above I charted the results of each individual goaltender and the difference between the best and worst result was 38 goals per 1,000 shots. A significant number, but one that represents the widest gap possible based only on the outliers in the study.
Heat Charts: Looking at this data, it would be pretty simple to hypothesize that the more clean shots a goaltender faces the higher the save percentage. When you remove all the pre-shot movement the heat charts indicate that even shots faced from the highest scoring areas yield a higher save percentage, if the goaltender can set and prepare for the shot. That’s not surprising.
But by focusing on just the shot type and not the location, it became quite clear that scoring success in the NHL was predicated on movement and deception. If you remove these elements even the worst goaltender in the league begins to look like Dominik Hasek.
Clean shots account for 85 percent of a goaltender’s workload, yet only 50 percent of the goals and an average save percentage of.951. Contrast that to the.693 save percentage on transition shots and it’s pretty clear that a goaltender exposed to more transition opportunities has tougher job.
With that in mind I then studied individual games. I tracked clean shots versus save percentage on an individual game-level and found a trend downward. The more a goaltender is exposed to movement, tips or secondary opportunities, the more his average save percentage falls.
There were plenty of outlier performances thanks to the randomness of a 30- to 50-shot sample size, but when those performances were pooled together for a larger sample, the data showed that during an average start a goalie facing 90 percent or more clean shots had a much higher rate of save-percentage success than a goaltender facing fewer than 80 percent.
A transition shot is defined as one that is preceded by a lateral pass. These force goaltenders to reset depth and angle while in transition and is the most difficult shot to face.
Example: Without the ability to set, the goaltender has to anticipate, track, then laterally transition to cover as much of the net as possible. These types of saves are generally regarded as spectacular, but leave the goaltender in a poor recovery position.
Comparing performance: Charting this in the same manner as I did clean shots, the results were inconsistent. After 2,234 shots, the average save percentage on a transition shot registered as.693. The gap between the best and worst results was 230 goals per 1,000 shots—nearly 200 goals more than the clean shot data. This is likely the result of the smaller sample size and I expect that gap to close as the sample size increases. I also expect that these results will be erratic because of the differing level of talent in transition and tracking ability.
Heat Charts: Visually it’s obvious how the success rates change. It isn’t a coincidence that the majority of transition shots occur in the home plate area of the ice. When passes are completed high in the zone, goaltenders can adjust to the puck-travel distance with large shuffles or power pushes, which allow them to reset depth and angle. But this is more difficult to accomplish in the slot area. One-timers are deadly in these situations, same goes for backdoor feeds that take advantage of a goaltender’s blind spot.
A redirection shot is one that is altered from its initial path by a deflection. It does not force a lateral adjustment, but adds difficulty, as the goaltender must set for the save on a different path.
Example: A deflection is difficult because it initially presents itself as a clean shot. A goaltender sets for the initial path and plane, but when they are altered the maximum coverage becomes compromised. Strong positioning can minimize the damage, but the closer the deflection is to the net the lower the chance for goaltender success.
Comparing performance: Deflections are similar to transition in sample size and results. After 1,263 shots, the average save percentage on a deflected shot registered as.736. The gap between the best and worst results was 270 goals per 1,000 shots. It’s likely the results will normalize as the sample size increases, but I don’t think we will find the consistency of the clean sample.
Heat Charts: The scoring chance project defines a scoring chance as any shot registered inside the home plate area.
It is clear in the heat charts that almost every deflected puck results in a defined scoring chance against. One problem I noted from the HTML data is the inconsistency in marking the deflection point instead of the point of origin. Goaltender success rates in the slot rarely top an 80 percent success rate, but as the deflection approaches the net it becomes a 50-50 proposition.
A rebound shot is one that occurs 1 to 3 seconds after an initial save. These shots may force a goaltender to reset angle while in transition
Example: Any rebound into the slot is a potential scoring chance if returned towards the goal in a timely fashion.
Comparing performance: Once again we have a very erratic data set. After 1,640 shots the average save percentage on a rebound shot registered as.760. The gap between the best and worst results was 191 goals per 1,000 shots. The small sample problem arises again.
Heat Charts: Rebound shots, like deflections, occur almost exclusively in the home plate area. Although the success rate is lower than clean shots, it is higher than transition or deflection opportunities. In future studies I will isolate the success rate on rebound shots if a goaltender is square to the puck in contrast to when a re-adjustment must take place through a butterfly transition.
These early results do indicate that there is an undermined pool of data below the surface of the current research. There is a reason that even-strength save percentage is favoured over straight save percentage by the #fancystat community—it’s because shorthanded teams give up more high-quality opportunities of this nature.
I plan to use this extra layer of data to isolate why a player like Steven Stamkos can maintain a higher shooting percentage than the norm; contrast where Chris Kunitz receives the puck playing with Crosby compared to without; what type of opportunities Chara can and can’t prevent; if Tuukka Rask sees more clean shots than Ondrej Pavelec, and whether it matters; and, if the Maple Leafs have figured out a cheat code for the Fenwick close success model.
Next week: More heat charts.Final Standings
The third and final day of the Oceania International Championships is done and dusted for VGC Masters! Here are the final standings for Top 8 players. These players have gone through 2 days off Swiss, and a top 8 cut over 3 days. We would like to congratulate Zoe Lou on being your 2017 Oceania International Championship VGC Master Champion!
01. Zoe Lou
02. Nico Davide Cognetta (@DesuVGC)
*
03. Ben Kyriakou (Kyriakou)
04. Luke Curtale (@DawgPkmn)
05. Sebastian Escalante (@SebasVGC)
06. Nick Navarree (@NailsOU)
07. Tommy Cooleen (@TmanVGC)
08. Baris Akcos (@BillaVGC)
*Kartana was lost due to team sheet error.
Top 8 Usage Stats
Usage Usage % Pokémon 6 75% 5 62.5% 4 50% 3 37.5% 1 12%
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Stay tuned to PokeAus for a full event recap as well as report over the next week.Alabama Prisons Ruled 'Horrendously Inadequate,' Must Improve
Enlarge this image toggle caption Brynn Anderson/AP Brynn Anderson/AP
A federal judge is ordering Alabama to improve the way it treats mentally ill prisoners after ruling that the state fails to provide constitutionally adequate mental health care in state lockups.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of Montgomery says Alabama is putting prisoners' lives at risk with "horrendously inadequate" care and a lack of services for inmates with psychiatric problems.
The ruling comes in a class action lawsuit brought by inmates who argued the conditions violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
"This ruling means that prisoners with mental illness may finally get the treatment they have been denied for so long," says Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, which represents some of prisoners who sued.
"The suffering some of these men and women have endured is excruciating and inhumane," Morris says. "We are pleased Judge Thompson has demanded that the state of Alabama meet its constitutional obligation to provide adequate care."
Potential remedies
In a 302-page ruling, Thompson outlines "serious systemic deficiencies" in the delivery of mental health services. He says inmates are subject to serious harm and increased suicide risk in the way the state identifies, treats, houses, and disciplines mentally-ill prisoners.
Thompson writes about the severe effects of warehousing, rather than treating seriously mentally-ill prisoners. He says the impacts were crystallized when a prisoner who testified during the civil trial last year later committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell.
"Without question, [Jamie] Wallace's testimony and the tragic event that followed darkly draped all the subsequent testimony like a pall," says Thompson in the ruling.
At the time, he approved an interim settlement in which the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) agreed to 15 changes, including putting a licensed mental health worker in every state prison, and providing constant observation for inmates on suicide watch.
Thompson is now ordering court-supervised meetings between corrections officials and lawyers for the inmates to come up with a remedy.
"The court emphasizes that given the severity and urgency of the need for mental-health care explained in this opinion, the proposed relief must be both immediate and long term," he says.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey says she's committed to providing constitutionally-permissible conditions for all prisoners, and plans to meet with Corrections Commissioner Jefferson Dunn, and legislative leaders.
"All appropriate options at my disposal, including the possibility of a special session, will be considered as potential remedies to address the judge's order," Ivey says in a written statement.
Deliberate indifference
Critics say the fix should have already come. Judge Thompson finds evidence that the state has shown "deliberate indifference" to the unconstitutional conditions.
"Officials admitted on the stand that they have done little to nothing to fix problems on the ground, despite their knowledge that those problems may be putting lives at risk," Thompson says.
The problems are driven by chronic overcrowding and understaffing, acknowledged by Commissioner Dunn who testified about wrestling with the "two-headed monster" plaguing Alabama's prisons.
Law Department Of Justice Investigates Overcrowding At Alabama Prisons Department Of Justice Investigates Overcrowding At Alabama Prisons Listen · 3:53 3:53
State lockups are at nearly double capacity, with staffing levels that are half what they should be. For example, as the trial was starting last December, the state had just 21 doctors for more than 23-thousand prisoners.
"For far too long, Alabama prisons have been little more than warehouses where many people struggling with mental illness have been hidden away and abandoned by the state," says Lisa Borden, an attorney with the law firm Baker Donelson, which represents some of the inmates who sued.
"We look forward to now having the opportunity for our clients to receive real treatment for their illnesses, and to seeing them afforded the basic dignity to which any human being is entitled," Bordon says.
Dunn says the order requires a broader conversation with political leaders.
"While portions of the trial focused upon issues related to mental health care, it also highlighted many of the other challenges facing the department like our outdated facilities and our long-standing needs in the area of security," says Dunn. "We look forward to having an open and frank conversation with our state leadership about how to make meaningful investments into our department to ensure the safety of our staff, the security of our facilities and the well-being of those in our care."
Alabama's Republican-controlled legislature has passed some sentencing reforms and other measures aimed at reducing inmate populations in recent years but stopped short of approving a massive prison building program this year.
Escalating violence is also a problem for ADOC. Last year the U.S. Justice Department opened a civil rights probe into whether prisoners are safe from physical harm and sexual abuse at the hands of both other prisoners and guards. The investigation came after several inmates and guards were killed or injured in violent confrontations in state prisons.The Grelling–Nelson paradox is an antinomy, or a semantic self-referential paradox, concerning the applicability to itself of the word "heterological", meaning "inapplicable to itself". It was formulated in 1908 by Kurt Grelling and Leonard Nelson, and is sometimes mistakenly attributed to the German philosopher and mathematician Hermann Weyl.[1] It is thus occasionally called Weyl's paradox and Grelling's paradox. It is closely related to several other well-known paradoxes, in particular, the barber paradox and Russell's paradox.
The paradox [ edit ]
The first instance of the word "blue" is autological, while the second is heterological.
Suppose one interprets the adjectives "autological" and "heterological" as follows:
An adjective is autological (sometimes homological) if it describes itself. For example, the English word "English" is autological, as are "unhyphenated" and "pentasyllabic". An adjective is heterological if it does not describe itself. Hence "long" is a heterological word (because it is not a long word), as are "hyphenated" and "monosyllabic".
All adjectives, it would seem, must be either autological or heterological, for each adjective either describes itself, or it doesn't. Problems arise in a number of instances, however.
Paradoxical cases [ edit ]
The Grelling–Nelson paradox arises when we consider the adjective "heterological". One can ask: Is "heterological" a heterological word? If the answer is "no", then "heterological" is autological. This leads to a contradiction, for in this case "heterological" does not describe itself: it must be a heterological word. But if the answer is "yes", then "heterological" is heterological. This again leads to a contradiction, because if the word "heterological" describes itself, it is autological.
Is "heterological" a heterological word? no → "heterological" is autological → "heterological" describes itself → "heterological" is heterological, contradiction yes → "heterological" is heterological → "heterological" does not describe itself → "heterological" is not heterological, contradiction
The paradox can be eliminated, without changing the meaning of "heterological" where it was previously well-defined, by modifying the definition of "heterological" slightly to hold all nonautological words except "heterological". But "nonautological" is subject to the same paradox, for which this evasion is not applicable because the rules of English uniquely determine its meaning from that of "autological". A similar slight modification to the definition of "autological" (such as declaring it false of "nonautological" and its synonyms) might seem to correct that, but the paradox still obtains for synonyms of "autological" and "heterological" such as "selfdescriptive" and "nonselfdescriptive", whose meanings also would need adjusting, and the consequences of those adjustments would then need to be pursued, and so on. Freeing English of the Grelling–Nelson paradox entails considerably more modification to the language than mere refinements of the definitions of "autological" and "heterological", which need not even be in the language for the paradox to arise. The scope of these obstacles for English is comparable to that of Russell's paradox for mathematics founded on sets.
Arbitrary cases [ edit ]
One may also ask whether "autological" is autological. It can be chosen consistently to be either:
if we say that "autological" is autological and then ask whether it applies to itself, then yes, it does, and thus is autological;
if we say that "autological" is not autological and then ask whether it applies to itself, then no, it does not, and thus is not autological.
This is the opposite of the situation for heterological: while "heterological" logically cannot be autological or heterological, "autological" can be either. (It cannot be both, as the category of autological and heterological cannot overlap.)
In logical terms, the situation for "autological" is:
"autological" is autological if and only if "autological" is autological A if and only if A, a tautology
while the situation for "heterological" is:
"heterological" is heterological if and only if "heterological" is autological A if and only if not A, a contradiction.
Ambiguous cases [ edit ]
One may also ask whether "loud" is autological or heterological. If said loudly, "loud" is autological; otherwise, it is heterological. This shows that some adjectives cannot be unambiguously classified as autological or heterological. Newhard sought to eliminate this problem by taking Grelling's Paradox to deal specifically with word types as opposed to word tokens.[2]
Similarities with Russell's paradox [ edit ]
The Grelling–Nelson paradox can be translated into Bertrand Russell's famous paradox in the following way. First, one must identify each adjective with the set of objects to which that adjective applies. So, for example, the adjective "red" is equated with the set of all red objects. In this way, the adjective "pronounceable" is equated with the set of all pronounceable things, one of which is the word "pronounceable" itself. Thus, an autological word is understood as a set, one of whose elements is the set itself. The question of whether the word "heterological" is heterological becomes the question of whether the set of all sets not containing themselves contains itself as an element.[citation needed]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Das Kontinuum (1918), p. 2, mentioning it only to dismiss it. Its misattribution to him may stem from Weyl refers to it as a "well-known paradox" in(1918), p. 2, mentioning it only to dismiss it. Its misattribution to him may stem from Ramsey 1926 (attested in Peckhaus 2004 ). ^ Newhard, Jay (October 2005). "Grelling's Paradox". Philosophical Studies. 126 (1): 1–27. doi:10.1007/s11098-004-7808-z.
References [ edit ]GREENBURGH, N.Y. -- Amar'e Stoudemire played in three preseason games in four nights and said his body and surgically repaired knees felt great.
One reason might be a new red wine treatment Stoudemire has been trying. For more than six months, the Knicks big man says he has been taking baths in red wine at a spa to help his body rejuvenate.
"The red wine bath is very important to me because it allows me to create more circulation in my red blood cells," Stoudemire said after completing a three-hour practice with the Knicks on Thursday. "Plus, it's very hot, so it's like a hot tub. But it's also the red wine... just kind of soothes the body."
Carregando Recovery Day! Red Wine Bath!! #Kinging #Blessed #Hebrews Getting ready for the eighth day feast. Visualizar no Instagram
There are spas that provide vinotherapy or vinotherapie. According to the Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa in the renowned Plaza Hotel in New York City, "Grape polyphenols fight against free radicals, which cause 80 percent of skin aging.... In addition to their exceptional antioxidant power, polyphenols reinforce microcirculation, protect elastin and collagen fibers and prevent the destruction of the fundamental elements of the skin's support tissues."
Regine Berthelot, the North America treatment manager for Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa, said the Caudalie Vinotherapie spas do not recommend soaking in red wine "as the alcohol content will dehydrate the skin. At the spa, we use tracts of red vine leaf to soak in the bath to improve blood circulation and strengthen the blood capillaries.
"Drinking red wine is known to have antioxidant properties and the resveratrol is helping to boost the cellular renewal," Berthelot said. "Soaking in red vine leaf will help to strengthen the blood capillaries and improve the blood circulation."
Stoudemire, 31, said the wine baths he soaks in are mixed with water but that the majority is wine. Stoudemire, who politely did not want to disclose the name of the spa he goes to in New York City, follows up a bath treatment with a 90-minute massage. Stoudemire also moves between a variety of tubs at different temperatures.
"Also, you have the ancient tub, so you have like a salt tub and a hot tub and a cold plunge and a pool," Stoudemire said. "And you just kind of mix it all up."
When asked if he has felt a difference, Stoudemire pointed to the fact he played in the Knicks' three preseason games from Saturday to Tuesday.
"I hope so. I don't know. I haven't tasted it." Amar'e Stoudemire, on whether the wine he bathes in is of high quality
Stoudemire, who is entering his 13th season, logged 15 minutes in a win over Boston on Saturday in Connecticut. On Monday, he played 15 minutes against the Raptors at home before logging 21 minutes the next night against the 76ers in Syracuse. He had a total of 14 points and 14 rebounds in the three games.
"Well, yesterday I felt great," Stoudemire said of how he felt during the team's day off Wednesday. "And after doing that recovery day, my legs felt rejuvenated. I felt great, so I'm going to continue to do that for sure."
Coach Derek Fisher says the Knicks have a plan to manage Stoudemire's health in practices and games this season. They have rested him in a few practices in training camp.
Last season, Stoudemire played in 65 games, averaging 11.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in 22 minutes. With the Knicks monitoring his usage closely, Stoudemire came on strong at the end, averaging 16.9 points and 6.6 rebounds in March.
Stoudemire is entering the final year of his contract but has no plans to retire anytime soon.
"Amar'e is still a great athlete," Fisher said. "We often spend times comparing guys to what we consider their form that they used to be. When you consider what Amar'e has experienced and been through, to be so passionate about competing at a high level, doing all the little things necessary to try and stay healthy -- those things are not just for him, that is for his team."
Stoudemire said his wife, Alexis, told him about the wine bath treatments, and he began doing research on the subject. He did not want to disclose the name of the spa he goes to in New York City.
When asked whether the wine he bathed in was quality wine, Stoudemire laughed.
"I hope so," he said. "I don't know. I haven't tasted it."Photo
An air-conditioned data center at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., has the ambience of a Best Buy showroom, with 500 inexpensive desktop computers lined up on racks. But the PCs here are doing something special.
A small team of cybersecurity researchers have lashed the computers together to form a homebrew computing cluster. They are stacked five levels high, braced in impromptu fashion with metal girders in the event of earthquakes, and woven together with colorful Ethernet cables. They serve as a cyber-Potemkin village — a distributed software simulation that is intended to mimic the behavior of an entire city’s worth of Android smartphones.
So far, the researchers have emulated the behavior of a network of 300,000 Android phones, down to details like sending text messages and transmitting wireless data, and even the behavior of the phone’s radios or sensors.
In the future, they hope that their software, which will be freely available through an open-source license, will be used by groups designing social network applications like Foursquare, military battle planners, disaster relief workers and American hackers who are building mesh wireless networks intended to make the Internet available inside nations controlled by dictators, among others.
“We wanted to create something that would approximate the many, many phones in a real network,” said John Floren, a Sandia computer scientist who is part of the group of researchers that built the system, which is called MegaDroid.
The idea is that while such simulators have in the past been developed by the engineers of large data networks, they have not been generally accessible to small groups of designers who might be working on a some new type of distributed application.
To date, wireless smartphone networks have not suffered malicious software infections at the same rate as the standard wired network, which is now plagued by a vast array of malware. Many computer security specialists believe that this will soon change as personal computing goes mobile, much as Willie Sutton robbed banks because, as he put it, that’s where the money was.
A wireless network simulation like MegaDroid would make it possible for security researchers to gain new insights into “attack vectors,” according to the Sandia engineers. Their computing cluster is in an unclassified area of Sandia, which historically has been one of the two engineering and design centers that has built and maintained the nation’s nuclear weapons.
On a large monitor outside the data center, it appears as if the researchers have turned loose a frenetic army of virtual Charlie Sheens on the city of Livermore, Calif. (The use of the Charlie Sheen icons is apparently an inside joke among the researchers.) The scene is actually a visualization tool used by the MegaDroid simulator, which includes fake GPS data and gives the appearance of a beehive of cellular activity as the Android phone owners drive and walk around a map of the city.
The researchers stressed that simulating a wireless network is a much more complex undertaking than simulating a standard desktop-based network.
“In a desktop PC network, the biggest problem you have is someone kicking a cord out,” said David Fritz, one of the MegaDroid designers.
In contrast, modern wireless networks are composed of shifting herds of tens of thousands of smartphone users. The simulation is made even more complex by the fact that each phone contains multiple radios and sensors.
The danger of not having a deep understanding of the behavior of a computer network was made clear several decades ago at the very beginning of the Internet era. In 1988 a Cornell graduate student brought much of the Internet to a standstill — it was composed of about 50,000 computers at the time — when he unleashed a program known as a worm that was intended to live in the network as a bit of digital graffiti — in effect, the cyber-equivalent of writing “Kilroy was here.” However, because of an error in coding that caused the software to rapidly replicate, a vast number of copies spread through the network, overwhelming it.
The researchers said they were concerned about such issues of network resilience, but they also saw the possibility that MegaDroid might be used to build new kinds of distributed applications. For example, disaster workers in an earthquake zone could harness the accelerometers in their phones together to provide a digital seismograph, tracking aftershocks. Or small and inexpensive chemical and biological sensors could be added to smartphones carried by government workers, creating an early warning system in the event of terrorist attacks.
The researchers said that they were sensitive to privacy issues and that they believed the simulator could be used to build systems that provided useful data in national security situations while protecting privacy.
Right now the system models only the open-source Android operating system designed by Google, but the Sandia researchers said they hoped to add other operating sytems like Apple’s IOS. This would give a more realistic model of the wireless data world."Legend of Bigfoot"
The legends of Bigfoot go back beyond recorded history and cover the world. In North America – and particularly the Northwest – you can hear tales of seven-foot-tall hairy men stalking the woods, occasionally scaring campers, lumberjacks, hikers and the like.
Bigfoot is known by many titles with many different cultures although the name Bigfoot is generally attributed to the mountainous Western region of North America. The common name Sasquatch comes from the Salish Sasquits, while the Algonquin of the north-central region of the continent refer to a Witiko or Wendigo. Other nations tell of a large creature much like a man but imbued with special powers and characteristics. The Ojibway of the Northern Plains believed the Rugaru appeared in times of danger and other nations agreed that the hairy apparition was a messenger of warning, telling man to change his ways.
North American settlers started reporting sightings during the late 1800s and into the 1900s with the occasional finding of footprints, sporadic encounters and even a few grainy photos and videos adding to the mystery. Those who claim to have seen Bigfoot have described everything from a large, upright ape to an actual hairy human, sometimes standing over eight feet tall and described as powerfully built. The debate and research continue. Entire organizations exist to study and document Bigfoot and prove its existence and groups regularly search the Northwest woods, looking for that ultimate proof.
In one very real sense, however, Bigfoot does exist. The Western Air Defense Sector, Washington Air National Guard adopted the mascot of Bigfoot and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week monitoring the skies of nearly 73% of the United States and Canada. Just like the |
attend any of these functions. They got upset and next thing I know I’m on gate duty out in the freaking German winter arguing with Albanian plumbers who were trying to bring onto the base extra family to help with our always broken toilets, you know, so they can hold the tools for me when I am fixing, you know? You know?
I had been engaged for over a year when my fiance came over from Bragg for vacation. When he left two weeks later it turned out I was two weeks pregnant! Most everybody was happy for me. Our unit was being deactivated, everybody was planning what they were going to do after getting out (almost everyone was going to be given an early ETS). The ones not happy for me had some pretty unoriginal things to say about pregnancy out of wedlock, even though I had cashed in my unused leave to head back to the states to have a formal wedding a few weeks after we got the news.
I miss all the cool people from my unit. I worried about them like crazy when I got to Bragg to start our family. I worried they would all be gassed or blown up, all my floor buffing, ditch digging fellow interrogators. I didn’t relax until I got word they were on their way home and out of the service.
Bragg was one giant yellow ribbon. There were Reserve chaplains EVERYWHERE. Every spouse in my husband’s unit was a praying spouse. There were prayer groups at someone’s house every night. Two and a half months after my daughter was born the doctors found a weird tumor that took 6 months inpatient at Duke to deal with. People said they were praying for us, but cars don’t run on prayers and you can’t eat them either. It’s amazing I didn’t murder anyone who offered to pray with me.
Twenty years and three more children later my husband is retired, employed and we have a handy tool in our arsenal. He is our Unitarian-Universalist minister who has been running interference for us at the hospital where my oldest is being treated for cancer again. He keeps the zealous Christian hospital chaplain away from us, speaks my Humanist language, and knows how to comfort my family without religious nonsense. You can’t put a price on that kind of peace of mind. Having someone in a position of influence in your world who is on the same religious page as you is about as good as it gets.
I’m proud of you taking the heat so that future soldiers won’t have to deal with the pervasive religious quicksand in the military. You’re leading the way. After all, when we raised our hands at enlistment it was to protect and defend The Constitution, not the bible. Bullies are bullies, no matter if they say they are praying for you. You have my support and respect.
-Sister Battleaxe of ToleranceSilicon Valley fell hard for the food tech startup Soylent. The company’s meal replacements promised to boost productivity and move engineers and entrepreneurs one step closer to machine-powered efficiency. But recent reports of sick Soylent customers are a stark reminder that, no matter how hard we try, the human body will never operate as seamlessly as a robot.
Earlier this month, several customers complained on Soylent’s health forum of adverse reactions to its food bar, leading to vomiting and diarrhea. On Oct. 12, the company announced that it was halting sales of the bars “as a precautionary measure.” It has since linked sick customers to two products, its food bars and the latest version of its cornerstone product, Powder 1.6, which share similar ingredients.
The company posted an update on its website late this week. It said that all tests “came back negative for food pathogens, toxins or outside contamination,” and concluded that food intolerance—not poisoning—is what likely caused the adverse reactions. A food intolerance is typically less severe than a food allergy, and tends to involve digestive problems. The Mayo Clinic points out that people with food intolerances can sometimes consume smaller amounts of any given food without any trouble—which raises the question of whether the intolerances could have been caused by consuming too much Soylent.
The company pointed out that a small number of customers experienced sickness, while others who ate from the same batch of bars did not experience similar symptoms. Soylent went on to note that it is removing the likely ingredients that caused sickness, though it didn’t identify what those were. It plans to put the reformulated bars back on the market by the first quarter of 2017, and said that it would share its findings with the US Food and Drug Administration.
It’s unclear whether this, along with other recent setbacks, will affect the company’s cult following. Soylent temporarily ceased shipment of its Coffiest drink in September because the product didn’t have the advertised levels of vitamins A and C, and delayed shipment of its 2.0 Soylent drink earlier in late September after discovering mold in some of its bottles.
In 2015, the New York Times reported that Soylent, founded by Rob Rhinehart in 2013 with much fanfare, had already logged more than six million orders. Soylent has raised more than $20 million by convincing investors that enough Americans would prefer to consume a bland liquid over a flavorful meal—effectively choosing efficiency over epicurism.
Unless another competitor comes in with a more appealing meal replacement in short order, Soylent’s recent troubles are unlikely to dissuade its customers from their quest for superhuman productivity. If anything, those unaffected by illness may well take their good health as further confirmation of their ability to put mind over matter.
Image by Aaron Muszalski on Flickr, licensed under CC-BY-2.0.If someone is trying to sell you 4G wireless these days, don't believe them.
The truth is, neither WiMax nor LTE (Long-Term Evolution) qualify as 4G (fourth-generation) technologies, according to the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R). On Thursday, the group announced it had finished its assessment of submissions for the 4G standard, also called IMT-Advanced. Based on that group's decision, to really be selling 4G, carriers will have to get going with one of two future technologies, called LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced. The latter, also known as IEEE 802.16m, will form the basis of WiMax Release 2.
[ Get the best iPhone and iPad apps for pros with our business iPhone and iPad apps finder. | Keep up on mobile developments with InfoWorld's Mobilize newsletter and Technology: Apple newsletter. ]
However, it appears that's not going to stop service providers from advertising current and upcoming services as 4G.
For WiMax operator Clearwire, the 4G label denotes an advancement beyond 3G networks, Clearwire spokesman Mike DiGioia said. "WiMax, and the LTE products that are coming out, are all sufficiently advanced past the 3G networks to indicate that they're moving forward," he said.
"The ITU's current technical definition in no way affects our plans to launch the world's first large-scale LTE network later this year. We're all about real people using actual products and services," Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson wrote in an e-mail message.
It's no small thing to get Clearwire and Verizon to agree on something. In fact, proponents of mobile WiMax and LTE have often clashed over the question of standards and the "4G" label. Some LTE proponents have said WiMax isn't the true successor to 3G, which like LTE came about with strong backing from established cellular operators. WiMax came from the data networking world, backed enthusiastically by Intel. Now, neither one of those systems will get to be officially called 4G.
However, it's worth noting that 4G qualification doesn't mean LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced products will interoperate. They simply both meet all the criteria the ITU-R set for 4G. For research purposes, the group set 4G targets of 100Mbps downstream with high mobility and 1Gbps for low mobility.
Though they aren't on sale yet, the two future technologies are on their way. IEEE 802.16m is expected to be ratified later this year, and the WiMax Forum plans to begin certifying products under its WiMax Release 2 specification in the fourth quarter of next year. Samsung has said its tests of pre-standard 802.16m equipment achieved a downstream speed of 330Mbps. Though that was in a test setting with no other users competing for bandwidth, it still represents a big jump beyond today's WiMax, which typically gives individual users 3Mbps to 6Mbps, with bursts up to 10Mbps, according to Clearwire. Verizon has demonstrated its LTE network at 5Mbps to 12Mbps in the real world.
WiMax and LTE do mark significant advances from 3G, because they use IP (Internet Protocol) from end to end and were designed from the beginning for data, said Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall. But to standards bodies, the mark of a new technology generation typically is an order-of-magnitude increase in performance like the one coming with IMT-Advanced, he said.
"There's more likely a fundamental step in the way in which technologies are used when you go through a ten-fold increase in performance," Marshall said.
Carriers probably won't deploy the next-generation technologies until 2014 or 2015, Marshall said. But that could be good timing, because it may take until then to shift voice calling over to data networks and update billing systems and other back-end infrastructure for the new technologies, he said.Release date: July 24, 2017
by Kathryn Keighley
Start of text box
Highlights Police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), increased for the second year in a row in 2016. The CSI measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada, and has a base index value of 100 for 2006. In 2016, the national CSI increased 1% from 70.1 in 2015 to 71.0, but remained 29% lower than a decade earlier in 2006.
At 5,224 incidents per 100,000 population, the police-reported crime rate, which measures the volume of police-reported crime, was virtually unchanged in 2016. This rate was 28% lower than a decade earlier in 2006.
There were almost 1.9 million police-reported Criminal Code incidents (excluding traffic) reported by police in 2016, approximately 27,700 more incidents than in 2015.
In 2016, the overall volume and severity of violent crime, as measured by the violent CSI, was 75.3 and virtually unchanged from the previous year. In contrast, the police-reported violent crime rate, which measures the volume of violent police-reported crime, declined 1% to 1,052 per 100,000 population. That year, rates for half the violent violations decreased, with the largest decrease reported for criminal harassment (-7%).
Although the rate of police-reported violent crime declined overall, violent violations which experienced an increase in rate were: sexual violations against children (+30%), violations causing death other than homicide (+14%), offences related to the commodification of sexual activity (+11%), aggravated sexual assault (+6%), forcible confinement or kidnapping (+4%), threatening or harassing phone calls (+3%), the use of, discharge, and pointing of firearms (+3%), assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm (+1%) and aggravated assault (+1%).
The overall volume and severity of non-violent crime, as measured by the non-violent CSI rose to 69.3 in 2016, marking a 2% increase from the previous year. The increase was largely driven by increases in police-reported incidents of fraud.
After notable increases in property offences in 2015, police-reported crime rates for all types of property crimes decreased or remained the same in 2016, with the exception of theft of $5,000 or under and total fraud. The rate of total fraud, which includes general fraud (+14%), identity fraud (+16%) and identity theft (+21%), was 14% higher than in 2015. Increases in total fraud were reported by all provinces and territories except the Northwest Territories (-12%) and New Brunswick (-12%).
In 2016, seven of Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories reported decreases in their CSI and Yukon reported no change. Increases were reported by Saskatchewan (+9%), Manitoba (+8%), Newfoundland and Labrador (+6%), Nunavut (+4%) and Ontario (+4%).
In 2016, 20 of the 33 census metropolitan areas (CMAs) reported increases in their CSI values with the largest increases recorded in the CMA’s of Winnipeg and Regina (+16% and +15%, respectively).
Regina and Saskatoon continued to be the CMAs with the highest CSIs. Trois-Rivières reported the largest decline (-14%) and the fourth lowest CSI after the CMAs of Toronto, Barrie and Québec.
In 2016, police reported 611 homicides, 2 more than the previous year. Due to growth in Canada’s population, the homicide rate decreased 1% from 1.70 homicides per 100,000 population in 2015 to 1.68 homicides per 100,000 population in 2016. The relative stability in the national number of homicides is a result of notable declines in homicides in Alberta (-17 homicides), Quebec (-12) and British Columbia (-10) combined with the largest increases reported in Ontario (+32) and Saskatchewan (+10).
The rate of attempted murder decreased by 1% between 2015 and 2016, yet variations were reported across the country. While New Brunswick, Alberta, Nova Scotia and British Columbia reported notable decreases in 2016, notable increases were seen in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Police-reported rates of cannabis-related drug offences declined for the fifth consecutive year in 2016. The rate of possession of cannabis declined 12% from 2015 with all provinces and territories reporting declines, except Prince Edward Island (+15%), New Brunswick (+7%) and Quebec which reported no change.
The rate of impaired driving decreased by 3% in 2016 to 194 impaired driving incidents per 100,000 population, representing the fifth consecutive decline. In 2016, Prince Edward Island (+24%) and Manitoba (+19%) were the only provinces to report increases in their rates.
In 2016, there were 3,098 incidents of police-reported drug-impaired driving, 343 more than the previous year. Overall, the rate for drug-impaired driving increased 11%. The national increase was largely driven by increases in the rates for Ontario (+38%), British Columbia (+29%) and Quebec (+10%). The rate of drug impaired driving (8.5 per 100,000 population) remained low compared with the rate of alcohol impaired driving (186 per 100,000 population).
In 2016, the Youth Crime Severity Index (youth CSI), which measures both the volume and severity of crimes involving youth accused (both charged and not charged) declined 2%. The youth non-violent CSI also declined 8%. The rate of youth accused of drug crimes (-14%), mischief (-13%), motor vehicle theft (-13%), breaking and entering (-11%), and theft of $5000 or under (-8%) were all lower in 2016.
In 2016, the violent youth CSI increased 5% due to higher rates of police-reported youth accused of attempted murder (+115%), sexual violations against children (+38%) and robbery (+6%).
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Since 1962, Statistics Canada has collected information on all criminal incidents substantiated and reported by Canadian police services through its annual Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey.Note In addition to the UCR Survey, Statistics Canada also collects information on victims’ experiences with crime through the General Social Survey (GSS) on victimization, conducted every five years. Unlike the UCR Survey, the GSS collects data on victim’s perceptions of crime which include criminal incidents that may not have been brought to the attention of the police. These complementary surveys are the main sources of data on crime in Canada.
This Juristat article presents findings from the 2016 UCR Survey.Note In order to make comparisons across police services and over time, crime counts within the article are based on the most serious violation in a criminal incident (see “Key terminology and definitions”). This article explores trends in the volume and severity of police-reported crime at the national, provincial/territorial and census metropolitan area levels.Note In addition, the report presents more detailed information on changes in violent and non-violent criminal offences as well as impaired driving and drug offences. Finally, the article looks at trends in youth accused of crime.Note
Canada’s Crime Severity Index increased for second year in a row
The Crime Severity Index (CSI) measures both the volume and seriousness of police-reported crime in Canada and has a base index value of 100 for 2006 (see Text box 1). Canada’s CSI in 2016 was slightly higher than in the previous year, increasing 1% from 70.1 in 2015 to 71.0 in 2016, and marking the second annual increase (Table 1a). Since 1998, Canada’s CSI has steadily declined, with the exception of a 5% increase reported in 2015 and a 3% increase reported in 2003 (Chart 1). The 2016 CSI is 29% lower than a decade previously.
Data table for Chart 1 Data table for Chart 1
Table summary
This table displays the results of Data table for Chart 1. The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), Crime Severity Index and Violent Crime Severity Index, calculated using index units of measure (appearing as column headers). Year Crime Severity Index Violent Crime Severity Index index 1998 119 98 1999 111 99 2000 107 98 2001 105 97 2002 104 96 2003 107 98 2004 104 96 2005 101 99 2006 100 100 2007 95 98 2008 91 95 2009 88 94 2010 83 89 2011 78 86 2012 75 82 2013 69 74 2014 67 71 2015 70 75 2016 71 75
The slight increase in the national CSI between 2015 and 2016 was primarily driven by a continued increase in the rate of fraud (+14%). Increases in police-reported rates of administration of justice offences, sexual violations against children and child pornography were also reported. These increases were offset by fewer police-reported incidents of breaking and entering, mischief and robbery resulting in a slight increase to Canada’s CSI compared to 2015.
At 5,224 incidents per 100,000 population, the police-reported crime rate, which measures the volume of crime per 100,000 population, remained stable in 2016 (Table 1b, Chart 2). Like the CSI, Canada’s crime rate has been on a downward trend since 1998, with the exception of increases reported in 2015 and 2003 (Chart 3). Canada’s crime rate is 28% lower than a decade ago.
Data table for Chart 2 Data table for Chart 2
Table summary
This table displays the results of Data table for Chart 2. The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), Crime Severity Index and Crime rate, calculated using Crime Severity Index and rate per 1000,000 population units of measure (appearing as column headers). Year Crime Severity Index Crime rate Crime Severity Index rate per 1000,000 population 1998 119 8,092 1999 111 7,694 2000 107 7,607 2001 105 7,587 2002 104 7,512 2003 107 7,770 2004 104 7,600 2005 101 7,325 2006 100 7,245 2007 95 6,908 2008 91 6,631 2009 88 6,461 2010 83 6,159 2011 78 5,779 2012 75 5,632 2013 69 5,195 2014 67 5,046 2015 70 5,210 2016 71 5,224
Data table for Chart 3 Data table for Chart 3
Table summary
This table displays the results of Data table for Chart 3. The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), Total, Violent crimes, Property crimes and Other crimes, calculated using rate per 100,000 population units of measure (appearing as column headers). Year Total Violent crimes Property crimes Other crimes rate per 100,000 population 1962 2,771 221 1,891 659 1963 3,022 249 2,047 726 1964 3,245 284 2,146 815 1965 3,199 299 2,091 809 1966 3,511 347 2,258 907 1967 3,850 381 2,484 985 1968 4,336 423 2,826 1,087 1969 4,737 453 3,120 1,164 1970 5,212 481 3,515 1,217 1971 5,311 492 3,649 1,170 1972 5,355 497 3,634 1,224 1973 5,773 524 3,704 1,546 1974 6,388 553 4,151 1,684 1975 6,852 585 4,498 1,769 1976 6,984 584 4,533 1,867 1977 6,971 572 4,466 1,933 1978 7,154 580 4,579 1,995 1979 7,666 610 4,903 2,153 1980 8,343 636 5,444 2,263 1981 8,736 654 5,759 2,322 1982 8,773 671 5,840 2,262 1983 8,470 679 5,608 2,182 1984 8,387 701 5,501 2,185 1985 8,413 735 5,451 2,227 1986 8,727 785 5,550 2,392 1987 8,957 829 5,553 2,575 1988 8,919 868 5,439 2,613 1989 8,892 911 5,289 2,692 1990 9,485 973 5,612 2,900 1991 10,342 1,059 6,160 3,122 1992 10,040 1,084 5,904 3,052 1993 9,538 1,082 5,575 2,881 1994 9,125 1,047 5,257 2,821 1995 9,008 1,009 5,292 2,707 1996 8,932 1,002 5,274 2,656 1997 8,475 993 4,880 2,603 1998 8,093 995 4,569 2,529 1999 7,695 971 4,276 2,449 2000 7,610 996 4,081 2,534 2001 7,592 995 4,004 2,593 2002 7,516 980 3,976 2,560 2003 7,773 978 4,125 2,670 2004 7,601 957 3,976 2,668 2005 7,326 962 3,744 2,620 2006 7,246 968 3,605 2,673 2007 6,908 952 3,335 2,621 2008 6,632 938 3,096 2,598 2009 6,462 926 3,005 2,531 2010 6,160 907 2,802 2,451 2011 5,780 869 2,586 2,324 2012 5,633 842 2,521 2,270 2013 5,196 767 2,344 2,085 2014 5,047 734 2,321 1,992 2015 5,211 752 2,427 2,032 2016 5,224 748 2,466 2,011
While Canada’s crime rate remained relatively stable between 2015 and 2016, other countries, despite differences in reporting standards, have recently recorded increases. The number of offences in Australia increased for the fourth consecutive year ending in June 2016 (Commonwealth of Australia 2017). Preliminary crime data for the first 6-months of 2016 show an increase in violent crime in the United States and no change to property crimes (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2017). England and Wales also reported an annual increase in police-reported crime in 2016. However, the country attributed some of the increase to changes in reporting and recorded no statistical change in crimes against the person using victim-based reporting measures (Office for National Statistics 2017).
Canadian police services reported almost 1.9 million Criminal Code incidents (excluding traffic) in 2016, approximately 27,700 more incidents than in 2015. In addition to these incidents, there were about 123,900 Criminal Code traffic offences, 95,400 Controlled Drugs and Substances Act offences, and 27,700 other federal offences (such as the Youth Criminal Justice Act and Income Tax Act) recorded by police in 2016. In total, there were just over 2.1 million police-reported Criminal Code and other federal statute incidents in 2016, about 23,900 more than the year before.
Although the CSI and the crime rate are separate measures, with the CSI accounting not only for volume but also changes in the relative seriousness of police-reported crime (see Text box 1), both measures show similar downward trends in police-reported crime in Canada since 1998, the earliest year for which the CSI was calculated (Chart 2).
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Text box 1
Measuring police-reported crime In Canada, there are two complementary ways to measure police-reported crime: the traditional crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI). While both measures take into account the volume of police-reported crime, the CSI also accounts for the seriousness of crime. Both the traditional crime rate and the CSI measure crime based on the most serious violation in the criminal incident (see “Survey description” for more details). The most serious violation is determined by criteria in the following order of priority: violations against a person take precedence over violations not against a person; the greatest maximum penalty prescribed by law; violations causing death take precedence over other violations with the same maximum penalty; or, if the above rules do not break a tie, the police service uses discretion to determine which is the most serious violation in the incident.Note Crime rate The traditional crime rate has been used to measure police-reported crime in Canada since 1962, and is generally expressed as a rate per 100,000 population. The crime rate is calculated by summing all Criminal Code incidents reported by the police and dividing by the population. The crime rate excludes Criminal Code traffic violations, as well as other federal statute violations such as drug offences. To calculate the traditional police-reported crime rate, all offences are counted equally, regardless of their seriousness. For example, one incident of homicide is counted as equivalent to one incident of theft. As such, one limitation of the traditional crime rate is that it can easily fluctuate as a result of variations in high-volume, less serious offences, such as theft of $5,000 or under or mischief. In other words, a large decline in frequent, but less serious violations may cause the police-reported crime rate to decrease even when the number of more serious but lesser volume incidents, such as homicides or robberies, increases. In addition to the overall crime rate, rates are calculated for violent crime, property crime and other Criminal Code offences. Further, the rates of youth who have either been charged by police or dealt with through the use of extrajudicial measures are available for all crime categories. Crime Severity Index The Crime Severity Index (CSI) was developed to address the limitation of the police-reported crime rate being driven by high-volume, relatively less serious offences. The CSI not only takes into account the volume of crime, but also the relative seriousness of crime. In order to calculate the police-reported CSI, each violation is assigned a weight. CSI weights are based on the violation’s incarceration rate, as well as the average length of prison sentence handed down by criminal courts.Note The more serious the average sentence, the higher the weight assigned to the offence, meaning that the more serious offences have a greater impact on the index. Unlike the traditional crime rate, all offences, including Criminal Code traffic violations and other federal statute violations such as drug offences, are included in the CSI. To calculate the CSI, the weighted offences are summed and then divided by the population. Similar to other indexes (e.g., Consumer Price Index), to allow for ease of comparison, the CSI is then standardized to a base year of “100” (for the CSI, the base year is 2006). All CSI values are relative to the Canada-level CSI for 2006. CSI values are available back to 1998. In addition to the overall CSI, both a violent Crime Severity Index and a non-violent Crime Severity Index have been created, which like the overall CSI are available back to 1998. The violent CSI is comprised of all police-reported violent violations, and the non-violent CSI is comprised of all police-reported property violations, other Criminal Code violations, Criminal Code traffic violations, and other federal statute violations. All types of CSI measures are also available for youth who have been accused of a crime (charged and not charged). For more information on the Crime Severity Index, see “Measuring Crime in Canada: Introducing the Crime Severity Index and Improvements to the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey” (Wallace et al. 2009), “The Methodology of the Police-Reported Crime Severity Index” (Babyak et al. 2009), “Updating the Police-Reported Crime Severity Index Weights: Refinements to the Methodology” (Babyak et al. 2013) and “Measuring Crime in Canada: A detailed look at the Crime Severity Index” video.
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Seven of thirteen provinces and territories reported decreases in Crime Severity Index
Between 2015 and 2016, seven of Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories reported decreases in their Crime Severity Index (CSI), and Yukon reported no change (Table 2a). In order of magnitude, the seven provinces and territories which reported decreases were: Northwest Territories (-9%), Quebec (-3%), Prince Edward Island (-3%), Nova Scotia (-3%), New Brunswick (-2%), Alberta (-1%), and British Columbia (-1%). In the Northwest Territories, the change in CSI was driven primarily by a decrease in police-reported incidents of mischief, homicide and breaking and entering. Prince Edward Island also reported fewer incidents of breaking and entering and homicide. Breaking and entering was a major contributing factor affecting CSI for almost all provinces and territories regardless of whether an increase or decrease in CSI was reported (see Text box 2).
After reporting the largest increase in CSI in 2015, Alberta’s 1% decline in CSI in 2016 was driven by decreases in robbery, homicide and mischief. Similarly, New Brunswick also saw a decline in 2016 (-2%), following a large increase in CSI in 2015 (+11%).
The provinces and territories which reported increases were: Saskatchewan (+9%), Manitoba (+8%), Newfoundland and Labrador (+6%), Nunavut (+4%) and Ontario (+4%). In Saskatchewan, the change in CSI was driven primarily by an increase in police-reported incidents of fraud, breaking and entering and homicide. Manitoba also saw an increase in breaking and entering, but the change to CSI in Manitoba was primarily driven by a larger number of robberies reported.
Start of text box
Text box 2
Violations contributing to the change in the Crime Severity Index (CSI) between 2015 and 2016, by province and territory Text box 2
Violations contributing to the change in the Crime Severity Index (CSI) between 2015 and 2016, by province and territory
Table summary
This table displays the results of Violations contributing to the change in the Crime Severity Index (CSI) between 2015 and 2016. The information is grouped by Province and territory (appearing as row headers), Percent change in CSI from 2015 to 2016 and Violations driving the change in CSI (appearing as column headers). Province and territory Percent change in CSI from 2015 to 2016 Violations driving the change in CSI Canada +1 Fraud Newfoundland and Labrador +6 Fraud, Homicide, Breaking and entering, Robbery Prince Edward Island -3 Breaking and entering, Homicide Text box Note 1 Nova Scotia -3 Breaking and entering, Mischief, Robbery Text box Note 1 New Brunswick -2 Theft of $5,000 or under, Fraud, Breaking and entering Text box Note 2 Quebec -3 Breaking and entering, Theft of $5,000 or under, Robbery Text box Note 1 Ontario +4 Fraud, Homicide, Robbery Manitoba +8 Robbery, Breaking and entering Saskatchewan +9 Fraud, Breaking and entering, Homicide Alberta -1 Robbery, Homicide, Mischief Text box Note 1 British Columbia -1 Robbery, Breaking and entering Text box Note 3 Yukon 0s Note: value rounded to 0 (zero) where there is a meaningful distinction between true zero and the value that was rounded Not applicable Northwest Territories -9 Mischief, Homicide, Breaking and entering Nunavut +4 Sexual violations against children, Attempted murder
End of text box
Similar to previous years, CSI values and crime rates were highest in the Territories (Table 2b). In all three territories, a large part of the difference between the territorial and national CSI can be explained by relatively high numbers of incidents of mischief, which account for 35% of Criminal Code incidents (excluding traffic) in the Territories (compared to 14% nationally), as well as breaking and entering. Although the Northwest Territories recorded the largest drop in both CSI (-9%) and crime rate (-9%) between 2015 and 2016, this territory reported the highest CSI (291.7) and crime rate (40,588 incidents per 100,000 population). Following the Territories, the Western provinces reported the highest CSIs and crime rates. Among the provinces, Saskatchewan continued to report the highest overall CSI (148.8) and crime rate (11,746 incidents per 100,000 population). Prince Edward Island (48.5) reported the lowest CSI in 2016, while Quebec continued to report the lowest crime rate (3,247 per 100,000 population).
Despite some fluctuations over the years, compared with 2006, almost all provinces and territories reported lower CSIs and lower crime rates (Charts 4 to 7, Table 2b). The exceptions to the national decline were Yukon and Nunavut, which reported marginal increases in CSI of 2% each. Increases in crime rate were also only reported in Yukon (+13%) and Nunavut (+10%).
Data table for Chart 4 Data table for Chart 4
Table summary
This table displays the results of Data table for Chart 4. The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada, calculated using Crime Severity Index units of measure (appearing as column headers). Year Newfoundland and Labrador Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia New Brunswick Canada Crime Severity Index 1998 76 73 105 90 119 1999 69 79 105 90 111 2000 70 76 95 85 107 2001 69 75 93 83 105 2002 71 85 94 85 104 2003 74 91 101 88 107 2004 79 82 107 88 104 2005 79 77 102 80 101 2006 73 72 101 74 100 2007 75 64 92 71 95 2008 71 69 84 72 91 2009 71 66 84 71 88 2010 79 66 84 69 83 2011 72 67 79 66 78 2012 68 73 77 68 75 2013 68 65 70 60 69 2014 62 55 66 56 67 2015 66 50 63 63 70 2016 69 49 61 62 71
Data table for Chart 5 Data table for Chart 5
Table summary
This table displays the results of Data table for Chart 5. The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Canada, calculated using Crime Severity Index units of measure (appearing as column headers). Year Quebec Ontario British Columbia Canada Crime Severity Index 1998 113 101 167 119 1999 104 92 156 111 2000 102 89 145 107 2001 97 87 147 105 2002 94 85 148 104 2003 93 83 155 107 2004 90 78 153 104 2005 90 77 146 101 2006 91 79 140 100 2007 85 75 132 95 2008 83 71 122 91 2009 81 69 112 88 2010 76 66 104 83 2011 73 61 97 78 2012 70 59 |
2006. In addition to the day pupils, Greendale has long offered a range of night courses and adult education initiatives, facilitating up to 1,400 students at a time.
Location [ edit ]
Greendale is situated on c. 4.5 acres (18,000 m2) of land, near Kilbarrack DART suburban rail station and Greendale Shopping Centre, and its grounds include a basketball court once used by Killester Basketball club and now used by KUBS Basket Ball Club.[1]
According to the Minister for Education, the trustees of Greendale made a decision in March 2004 to close the school to new entrants in September 2004, and to close altogether in June 2007. The property will then revert to the Department of Education. A major reunion of past pupils and teachers, covered by the press and national TV, was held in mid-February 2007.
Former teachers at the school include playwright and film director Paul Mercier,[2] Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle, and Catherine Dunne, and former Dublin Football midfielder Brian Mullins. Artistic director of the Passion Machine Theatre Company Paul Mercier later stated that "Things are changing at a furious pace. But in reality things are disappearing in society that were working. And Greendale was working."[3]
The principal of the school from opening to pending closure is Anton Carroll.
There has been some controversy about the closure,[citation needed] for reasons including the pending arrival of more than 2,500 homes within 2 miles (3.2 km) of Kilbarrack (many in Balgriffin and Baldoyle), the school's widely recognised work in education in a challenging environment, and the non-closure of what some see as less-progressive, non co-educational schools nearby.[citation needed]
As of April 2007, it has been announced that the school will continue to be used for educational purposes.
References [ edit ]ALLEN PARK -- His final college season ended just four games in, and that's when the long wait began. Finally, for Jalen Reeves-Maybin, the wait is over.
The rookie linebacker out of Tennessee is months removed from surgery, but he said that not so much as a lingering pain is affecting his shoulder these days. He said he was back to normal as he was working mostly at weak-side linebacker with the Lions reserves at Wednesday's organized team activities.
That'd be good news for the Lions, who picked Reeves-Maybin with their first of two picks in the fourth round after they'd circled him as one of the 10 to 15 players they'd hoped would fall on Day 3 of the draft.
"Really good tackler, speed, athleticism -- playmaker, I'd say," general manager Bob Quinn said. "This guy's instincts at the linebacker position are very good, so that's one thing that led to him."
Reeves-Maybin fell due to concerns about his shortened season and what kind of athlete he could be without the pre-draft testing teams use to try to project. All he was able to do at the NFL Scouting Combine was measure, and he came out at 6 feet and 230 pounds, a little light for a player hoping to be a 4-3 linebacker. Questions in the scouting community centered on whether he was losing strength and mass while out injured, and since the injury was an upper-body one, he wasn't able to quell many of them for quite some time.
But now, Reeves-Maybin is working limitless in individual drills and team settings. He's looking to carve out a role that could start on special teams and evolve from there. He entered the draft with high marks from scouts on his pass coverage skills, which was a major need for the Lions last year. Linebacker play in general was as the group finished the year without a single sack, interception or forced fumble and then saw two starters walk.
The Lions signed Paul Worrilow to starter-type money and spent their first-round pick on another Southeastern Conference linebacker in Florida's Jarrad Davis. The Davis selection has forced Tahir Whitehead to find a new role, and the shuffling could create opportunities for snaps for guys down the depth chart.
Reeves-Maybin will focus on that soon, but his priority right now is learning an advanced playbook after being away from one of any kind for so long. Building back up physically is another challenge, but that's what the time surrounding organized training activities allows for.
"It's been a while since I've put my feet on the field with cleats on," Reeves-Maybin said. "Hopefully I can come in and bring a lot of wins to the city and to the organization."POPPINGTON CENTRAL II
08 - 05 - 2017
4pm - 10pm
Art, Music and Design showcase brought to you by 4th Floor and Beyond Reasoning Productions.
Over 15 artists, 3 bands, Pop-up Shops, and 4 djs
Artist : DAVE / Alex Contreras / BLOAT Collective (London,UK) (@bloatcollective) / RoseWater / Thomas Condry & Jon Condry / Taylor Aldrich (tayloraldrich.com) / Daniel Caraballo / Ale Washington / Franchesca Walker / Sam Saltzman / Luke Turner / Aretha Davalos / Edwin J Morales / Dante Chamberlin / BlackCinco / Vanessa Vargas(curator) / Chris Perez / Isaac Jimenez.
Music : Adeumazel (TJ), Lili De La Mora (LongBeach), Gabonano (WizardsOnly), Foshokyo (Space&Time), DJ Tel2Raw (4th Floor), SPLAVENDER (SanDiego), Snapghost & Ingogrigio (San Diego).
Pop-Up Shops : Coffin Standard and QwickPick VintageTENNESSEE
The Tea Party of Tennessee wants to remove incidents of slavery and genocide from American textbooks for fear they would besmirch the image of the Founding Fathers:
The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports.
As a result, the Tea Party organizations argue, there should be “no portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”
“The thing we need to focus on about the Founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” Rounds explained of his interpretation of the legacy of the Founding Fathers.
The issue of revising curriculums to teach history in a manner that encourages the glossing over of the uglier factors of the past has popped up in other states over the past year.The opinion that Samsung's Bixby voice assistant is useless is one that is pretty universal. We've seen an epic war between Samsung and developers who wanted to remap the button (seriously, here are more links), but even after Samsung "disabled" the button in the last battle, Bixby would still activate the screen when pressed. Now though, disabling it will render it virtually nonexistent (which we've all been waiting for).
The last time we heard about Bixby and its refusal to be disabled, we thought that it had been completely eliminated from our lives, but it turns out that pressing the button would actually still wake the screen. The latest Bixby updates, however, have ended that annoying tendency. SamMobile is also saying that Samsung has updated the Bixby service that analyzes saved contacts when call commands are dictated to Bixby, which might allow it to call people with oddly-spelled names.
To end the horrors that the Bixby button's horrific reign have brought on your Galaxy S8, S8 plus, or Note8, head over to Galaxy Apps and update everything with the word 'Bixby' in title there. If you can't access the updates or have disabled Galaxy Apps, you can grab the latest versions of Bixby, Bixby Home/Hello Bixby, and Bixby Service from APK Mirror.It’s back to the drawing board for Miami Beach politicians after voters Tuesday rejected a ground lease for a hotel that would have been linked to the Miami Beach Convention Center.
About 54 percent of voters favored the lease, falling short of the 60 percent threshold necessary to approve leasing public land in the convention center district.
“Over the coming weeks, I will work with my colleagues to ensure that the will of the majority of Miami Beach voters is not silenced and that the progress we’ve made with our convention center corridor continues,” Mayor Philip Levine said in a statement after the votes were counted. Levine and many Beach-area tourism officials campaigned heavily for the hotel deal, but couldn’t deliver a supermajority of votes.
The convention center is currently undergoing a $600 million renovation and expansion. The 288-ft tall hotel would have had 800 rooms to lodge the kinds of citywide conventions local tourism chiefs hope to attract. Atlanta-based developer Portman Holdings had proposed privately-financing the $400 million hotel with no public subsidy.
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Levine and other officials stumping for the hotel, including the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce and several local hotels maintained that a headquarter hotel is the linchpin to making the convention center re-do a success. In the process, an opposition arose from a few different angles, including some local preservationists and activists, along with the involvement of some mysterious political committees with unclear ties to the Beach.
Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, former mayors Matti Bower and David Dermer, the Miami Design Preservation League and others opposed the hotel deal. The main sticking points were the structure’s size, location and traffic impact. The proposed building would have gone on the corner of 17th Street and Convention Center Drive, across from Lincoln Road Mall.
Tuesday night, Rosen Gonzalez was elated with the election results. She characterized it as a vote against over-development despite the fact that the “yes” campaign spent $1 million in advertisements.
The 288-ft tall hotel would have had 800 rooms to lodge the kinds of citywide conventions local tourism chiefs hope to attract.
Saying that she is not categorically against a convention center hotel, Rosen Gonzalez was confident a deal can be struck that would garner widespread support and developers will still be interested in the project. “This is Miami Beach. This is one of the sexiest places to be in the U.S.” she said. “There will always be people bidding to build a hotel.”
Another of the hotel’s longest-standing opponents: former Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson, who in 2013 led the charge against the previous version of the convention center project. That fight resulted in the 60 percent threshold that proved to be out of reach for hotel proponents.
A few recently formed political action committees — including one that failed to file financial reports late last week and left political onlookers wondering where the money was coming from — injected some heat into what became a bitter debate.
Developer Jack Portman, who campaigned throughout the city speaking to residents about the project, said he was disappointed with the vote. Tuesday night he was unsure what comes next, if anything, regarding the developer’s interest in building a convention center hotel in the Beach.
“I love Miami Beach,” Portman said, “but I can’t think about that.”
If the they really feel they need a hotel, fine. But you don’t have to put a monstrosity in the middle of Miami Beach. Entertainment lawyer David Marc Harris
Portman and other hotel proponents emphasized that more than half the vote went in favor of the lease, a fact they will undoubtedly use to keep hopes for a headquarter hotel alive.
On Tuesday, a range of voters shared their votes with the Miami Herald.
“There’s no need for a 288-foot tall building behind the Fillmore,” entertainment lawyer David Marc Harris said.
Just after casting his vote at Nautilus Middle School, he said the city can make a better deal for a smaller hotel. “If the they really feel they need a hotel, fine. But you don’t have to put a monstrosity in the middle of Miami Beach.”
Musician Jack Nieman recently moved to the Beach from New York. He and his husband, Rick Reder, voted midday at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, a mere 100 feet away from the proposed site of the hotel.
“The 99-year lease is not a bad deal,” Nieman said.
Reder, a retired wealth management professional, said he believed the hotel would be an eyesore. “It’ll destroy the texture of the city,” he said.
Nevertheless, he voted yes because he said the city’s economy stands to benefit from big-time conventions.
Jack Nieman, left, & husband Rick Reder moved to #MiamiBeach from N.Y. in Dec. #FLPrimary is their 1st vote in FL. pic.twitter.com/FBABI48WGC — Joey Flechas (@joeflech) March 15, 2016
Event planner Hinda Adler also felt the hotel was important for conventions to bring more money to local businesses — even though she thinks it’ll create more traffic jams.
“I know it’ll bring traffic,” she said at the Nautilus polling place. “But overall, I still think it’s a good thing for the city.”
In North Beach, Sarah Hammill stopped by the Indian Creek Fire Station to vote before heading to Florida International University where she works as a librarian. She said the convention hotel would have made the city’s gridlock worse and that other local hotels could accommodate industry meetings.
And besides, with sea-level rise looming, she said, it might not matter: “It’s a 99-year lease. I mean, this will all be underwater in 99 years.”The Plundering Time (1644–1646), also known as "Claiborne and Ingle's Rebellion", was a period of civil unrest and lawlessness in the English colony of the Province of Maryland.
Causes of rebellion [ edit ]
The causes of the rebellion included William Claiborne's disputed claim with the Calverts over Kent Island, Maryland, the bitter relations between the Catholic minority elite and the Protestant majority, and the political partisanship of the English Civil War.
The dark period marked a combination of the fall of the British King and religious intolerance, which led directly to the event.
Plundering Time [ edit ]
In 1638, the first provincial Maryland governor Leonard Calvert seized a trading post on Kent Island established by Captain William Claiborne.
In 1644, William Claiborne led an uprising of Protestants and retook Kent Island. Meanwhile, privateer Captain Richard Ingle the co-commander of Claiborne seized control of St. Mary's City the capital of the Maryland colony. Catholic Governor Calvert escaped to the Virginia Colony.
The Protestant pirates began plundering the property of anyone who did not swear allegiance to the English Parliament, mainly Catholics.
End of rebellion [ edit ]
In 1647, the Rebellion was finally put down by Maryland Governor Lord Baltimore, who successfully led Maryland colonial forces against the Parliamentary privateers and regained control of the colony effectively ending the rebellion initiated by Claiborne and Ingle.
Succumbing to illness, Lord Baltimore died the following summer in 1648.
Following the end of the "Plundering Time" the Maryland colonial assembly passed the Maryland Toleration Act allowing Catholics freedom of worship in the Protestant majority colony.
Almost ten years after the "Plundering Time" hostilities erupted once again between Maryland Protestants and the Catholic minority within the colony at the Battle of the Severn, a Puritan victory now present-day Annapolis
Aftermath [ edit ]
The Maryland colonial assembly issued the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 to mollify the two factions. A Parliamentary victory in England renewed old tensions leading to the Battle of the Severn, now present-day Annapolis in 1655.
References [ edit ]The man appears to say something before launching the attack (Picture: Twitter)
Harrowing footage shows a thug punching an Asian man in the face on the London Underground, before a woman chases him down the platform.
In the suspected racist attack, the man approaches the victim, who is sitting down, as the Tube stops at Upton Park.
He then punches the man – before the woman sitting next to the victim gives chase as he flees.
The whole incident was caught on video, and was posted on Twitter by Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain.
He wrote: ‘Apparent racist attack on London Underground @BTP: hope perpetrator is found and faces justice for this despicable unprovoke assault.’
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
He punches the Asian man in the face before the woman can intervene (Picture: Twitter)
The woman then follows him down the tube platform (Picture: Twitter)
The video was largely met with anger on social media.
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However, others questioned why someone happened to be filming the encounter before it turned violent.
Police said a 33-year-old man has been arrested.
A spokesperson for British Transport Police said: ‘We are investigating an assault after a video was brought to our attention.
‘The incident happened on a tube at Upton Park tube station at around 3.40pm on 17 October 2016.
‘A 33-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of assault occasioning ABH and using threatening/abusive words/behaviour or disorderly behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He has been bailed until 14 November.
‘If anyone has any information about the incident, please call contact us via 0800405040 quoting ref 554 18/10/16.’“It’s batshit, obviously, but so lovingly executed that I was swept along regardless,” said Matt Elliott in his review of Mortal Kombat X last year—a game he seemed to enjoy overall, although “marred by a wobbly port to PC.”
Perhaps the writing was on the wall, then, when the game’s second expansion—the Kombat Pack 2 DLC—and its all-inclusive edition, Mortal Kombat XL, were rather strangely made console exclusives. Seven months on, though, and it seems the latter could be heading to PC after all.
At the end of last month, Mortal Kombat’s co-creator Ed Boon held a Twitter poll which returned over 10,000 votes—48 percent of which asked for MKXL to feature on PC. “Over 10,000 of you voted,” said Boon. “Looks like you guys really want a PC MKXL and some character love/buffs! We hear ya!”
Earlier today, Boon then tweeted this:
Maybe we should Karry eXtra Long People who Care? pic.twitter.com/rvq6spBojzAugust 22, 2016
As Andy reported at the time, NetherRealm and Warner’s move to drop PC support after launching the first Kombat Pack add-on and the base game was a strange decision. According to Steam Spy, over half a million people play Mortal Kombat X on Steam and while user reviews are mixed, a Change.org petition that asks the publisher and developer to “Give PC Mortal Kombat X a Chance” has garnered 11,723 supporters since January.
It may have taken several months, but it seems like NetherRealm and Warner might now be doing just that.Dropped out of high school at 16.
During the filming of Me, Myself & Irene (2000), he and the production crew attended a private music show of the band Phish on June 24th 1999 at the guitarist/vocalist house in Careystock, Vermont. There, he sang two songs with Phish,
At age 10, he sent his resume to Carol Burnett.
He appeared at the 20th anniversary special for The Comedy Store wearing nothing but a sock on his penis.
At one point his family lived out of their car/trailer.
At one point he and his family all worked as janitors at a factory to make a living.
Wrote himself a check for $20 million and kept it in his wallet until he earned that amount for The Cable Guy (1996).
Manager is Jimmy Miller, who is the younger brother of actor-comedian Dennis Miller.
Shares the same birthday with Andy Kaufman, who he played in Man on the Moon (1999).
December, 2001: Announces his intention to become a United States citizen.
His total of nine MTV movie awards as of 2001 is the most MTV movie awards won by any person.
As a child, he used to wear his tap shoes to bed just in case his parents needed cheering up in the middle of the night.
Insisted that his favorite band, Cannibal Corpse, play in the movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994).
Many of his characters are ordinary men whose lives are changed by supernatural or otherwise unseen forces. As in The Mask (1994) (
His characters from Dumb & Dumber (1994), The Mask (1994), Bruce Almighty (2003), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Man on the Moon (1999) and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004_ are losers who want to be recognized and be famous.NEW YORK—With the NFL Draft approaching, pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, and the NBA trade deadline drawing nearer, multiple sources are reporting that a near-limitless number of deals could be struck as soon as this week. "All 32 NFL teams, 30 MLB teams, and 30 NBA teams are in the market for at least something at this point, and in each case, every single other team in the league could theoretically fulfill that need in some manner, leading to every player being a possible player on every team," an unnamed source said Monday, adding that a third team entering the mix of any given trade would more than double the possible trade agreements that could be reached. "And that’s before you even factor in the number of NHL players who could clear waivers and still be swapped after last week’s deadline." As of press time, rampant media speculation had disrupted the chemistry of every single team in professional sports and forced all negotiations to break down.
AdvertisementThe Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) formed the 10-member committee, led by a BCIC director (technical and engineering), on August 23 and asked it to submit its findings within three days. But probe officials are now saying that they need a couple of more days to hand in their report. The probe body was asked to ascertain the accident’s reason and extent of damage, assess whether there was any risk from the three reserve tanks of the fertiliser company, and to place recommendations for averting future incidents. On Monday night, at least 52 people fell ill after toxic ammonia gas was leaked from DAP Fertiliser Company Ltd located at Rangadia area in Anwara upazila. BCIC authorities claimed that the reserve tank contained 250 tonnes of ammonia at the time of the accident. Abu Taher Bhuiyan, member secretary of the probe committee, said the investigation was still going on, and added that it was more important to tender an impartial and complete report than a hurried one. “We are only supposed to investigate and then submit the report. The BCIC authorities will decide about making the report public,” said Bhuiyan, who is also the managing director of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd (CUFL). SK Shafi Ahmed, former chief operations officer of Kafco, said they were talking to all officials and employees concerned at the fertiliser factory to pinpoint the reason. “This is highly a technical issue. However, we are hopeful of concluding the investigation within the stipulated time,” Shafi said. Despite repeated attempts, BCIC Chairman Mohammad Iqbal could not be reached on his phone. Prof Dr MAA Shoukat Choudhury, who teaches chemical engineering at Buet, confirmed the Dhaka Tribune that the investigation report was not submitted yesterday, but said it might be handed in on Sunday. It may be mentioned that the BCIC authorities formed two separate committees on Tuesday to probe into the gas leak.Swedish singer, record producer and DJ
Jonas Erik Altberg ( Swedish pronunciation: [juːnas eːrɪk al:tbærj]; born 22 December 1984 in Halmstad), better known by his stage name Basshunter (also stylised as BassHunter[1]), is a Swedish singer, record producer and DJ. He began producing music under the stage name "Basshunter" in 2001.
He recorded four studio albums: LOL (2006), Now You're Gone – The Album (2008), Bass Generation (2009) and Calling Time (2013). In addition to his own music, he has written and produced for a large number of artists. He also took part in the seventh series of Celebrity Big Brother, the Swedish Fångarna på fortet and the British Weakest Link in 2010.
He won awards such as the European Border Breakers Award, the Grammi award for Best Ringtone of the Year in 2006, and the World Music Award. He was also nominated for the BT Digital Music Awards, MTV Europe Music Awards, and Rockbjörnen. According to 2014 Extensive Music label figures, more than six million Basshunter records have been sold.[2]
Early life [ edit ]
Sturegymnasiet
Jonas Altberg was born and raised in Halmstad, Sweden, and lived with his parents, Karl Göran Altberg and Gunhild Elisabet Altberg,[3] and younger brother, Joakim,[4] near Tylösand beach.[5] His mother was a teacher and head of a secondary school.[6] His father worked in a construction company. Basshunter first went to Kattegattgymnasiet lyceum, a technical school. However, he moved to Sturegymnasiet lyceum in Halmstad to study music.[7] He also attended college but did not complete his program.[6]
In 1998,[8] he started singing in a choir run by his mother which birthed his passion for singing.[9] He also sang in a rock band[10] where he became acquainted with experimental music.[11]
Career [ edit ]
2001–2006: Beginnings [ edit ]
Altberg began producing music under the stage name "Basshunter" as a reference to his musical style in 2001,[8] after six months of using FruityLoops (currently FL Studio).[12]
His first album, The Bassmachine, was released by Alex Music on 25 August 2004.[13] In 2005, a remastered version of this album was released, with better sound quality.[14] In 2006, Basshunter re-released The Bassmachine as The Bass Machine[15] and The Old Shit through his own web site.[16] Basshunter's interest in music deepened as time went by.[5]
He published his music mainly through the Internet (among others, to chat channels and gaming websites)[17] and for several years he was a DJ in Swedish clubs.[18] His EP "Welcome to Rainbow" was released on 1 April 2006.[19] It included the single "Boten Anna", released later that May.[20] In 2006, he moved to Malmö.[7]
Basshunter signed with Insanity Artists Agency,[21] who represents DJs and artists from the music, fashion, television and radio industries.[22] He had previously signed with IFA Agency.[23] Henrik Uhlmann is his manager, who also organizes his concerts and is responsible for press contact.[24]
2006–2008: LOL [ edit ]
Basshunter initially published his song "Boten Anna" online in March 2006.[25] Within twenty-four hours, the song was downloaded 37,000 times.[17] By 8 June 2006, the song had been downloaded over 1,000,000 times.[17] With this success, Basshunter received several proposals from music labels.[9] In April 2006, he signed with Extensive Music[5] and Warner Music Sweden,[18] and on 9 May 2006, "Boten Anna" was officially released as a single. The German version of song was released as a single in 2007. The song peaked at number 1 on the Swedish singles chart,[20] was number 14 on the Best of All Time list,[26] and was certified platinum.[27] It also made it to number 1 on the Danish chart, staying on top for 14 weeks,[28] and was certified triple platinum[29] selling 61,000 copies.[30] It was also certified gold in Austria.[31]
Basshunter's debut studio album, LOL was released on 28 August 2006.[32] He worked on an album through the three and half weeks. Ali Payami helped him with three songs.[7] A red cover version was released on 1 January 2008, with the same Swedish songs from the original album, but with lyrics or just titles translated into English. The new release also included new tracks, including "Now You're Gone", "Russia Privjet", "The Beat", "Jingle Bells", "Beer in the Bar" and "DotA (Club Mix)".[33] The special version of this album released in 2008 included the German version of "Boten Anna" and three music videos.[34] The album peaked at number 5 in Sweden[35] reached number 3 on the Danish albums chart,[36] was certified double platinum,[37] and placed at number 4 on the Finnish chart.[38]
The second single "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA" was released on 13 September of the same year.[39] The single peaked at number 2 in Finland,[40] number 6 in Sweden,[39] and number 7 in Norway[41] and Denmark.[42] It was certified gold in Denmark.[29] His next single "Hallå där" was charted at number 51 on Swedish singles chart.[43] The single "Vifta med händerna" featured the duo Patrik & Lillen and peaked on the Finnish charts at number 7[44] and on the Sweden charts at number 25.[45] His fifth single, a remake of "Jingle Bells" was released on 13 November[46] and peaked at number 9 in Norway,[47] and number 13 in Sweden.[48] The single also made it onto the Dutch[49] and United Kingdom charts.[50]
On 5 November 2007, a new version of the "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA" was released under the title "DotA",[51] and charted on Germany's singles chart.[52] This was different from the 2008 version from Now You're Gone – The Album.[53]
2007–2009: Now You're Gone – The Album [ edit ]
Basshunter during Point Gamma at École Polytechnique Palaiseau, first time in France, 7 July 2008
On 29 December 2007,[54] a re-recording of "Boten Anna" entitled "Now You're Gone" was released.[5] "Now You're Gone" was made in 2006 by Bazzheadz (pseudonym of Mental Theo).[55] Basshunter wanted to translate "Boten Anna" to English but it was impossible to translate so in 2007 he made his version of "Now You're Gone" featuring Bazzheadz ( a.k.a. DJ Mental Theo's Bazzheadz).[7] It was the initial release for Hard2Beat Records' label (currently Dance Nation).[56] The single charted at number 1 in the United Kingdom, where it stayed at the top for five weeks[50] It sold an excess 667,000 copies in the United Kingdom[57] and was certified platinum.[58] It also charted on UK Top 100 Songs of the Decade.[59] "Now You're Gone" also stayed at the top for five weeks in Ireland, made it to number 2 on the Swedish chart,[60] and number 3 in New Zealand (single was certified platinum[61]).[62] On the French singles chart, "Now You're Gone" peaked at number 6,[63] selling 92,230 copies.[64] "Now You're Gone" also charted at number 4 on the European Hot 100 Singles.[65] The music video of the single was the third most viewed video on YouTube.[66]
The next single, "Please Don't Go", was a cover of the KC and the Sunshine Band song from 1979.[67] The single was released on 19 May 2008[68] and reached number 6 on the Swedish singles chart.[67] The third single "All I Ever Wanted" was released on 7 June 2008[69] and peaked at number 2 in the United Kingdom[50] where it sold 400,000 copies[70] and was certified gold.[58] It reached number 1 on the Irish singles chart.[71] His single "All I Ever Wanted" was certified gold in New Zealand[61] and charted at number 10 on the European Hot 100 Singles.[65]
Basshunter worked on Now You're Gone – The Album for two and a half weeks[72] before releasing it on 14 July 2008.[73] The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number 1.[50] Additionally, the album sold of 376,017 copies in the United Kingdom,[74] and was certified platinum.[58] It also topped in New Zealand and was certified platinum there.[61] Now You're Gone – The Album was charted at number 2 in Ireland[71] and reached number 6 on European Top 100 Albums.[75] The signle "Angel in the Night" was released on 8 September 2008[76] and charted at number 10 in Ireland[71] and number 14 in the United Kingdom.[50] It was also charted in Sweden.[77]
The fifth single from the album, "I Miss You", is a dance remake of a Westlife song and was released on 14 December 2008.[78] The single appeared on the British,[50] Swedish,[79] and German charts.[80] On 5 April 2009 the single "Walk on Water" was released[81] as well as a deluxe edition of the album featuring all the tracks from the original album in addition to remixes of "I Miss You" and "Angel in the Night" by Headhunters, along with a 7th Heaven remix of "Walk on Water" and a Ultra DJ's remix of "Please Don't Go". "I Can Walk on Water" was renamed "Walk on Water".[82]
2009: Bass Generation [ edit ]
Basshunter at the beginning of his show at Gibson Guitar Studio, London, 24 September 2009
His third studio album, Bass Generation, was released on 25 September 2009.[83] The Double Disc version includes remixes of some of his singles, such as the Swedish version of "Without Stars" and "Camilla".[84] In early September 2009, prior to the album release, the track "Numbers" was released to the public as a free download via Basshunter's official Bebo account. Bass Generation reached number 2 in New Zealand[85] and number 16 in the British[50] and Irish charts.[71] It sold 60,000 copies[70] and was certified silver in the United Kingdom.[58] The single "Every Morning" from the album was released on 18 September 2009.[86] It reached number 13 on Swedish singles chart[87] and number 14 in New Zealand.[88] It peaked at number 17 in the United Kingdom[50] and Ireland.[71] "I Promised Myself", a cover of a Nick Kamen hit[89] was released on 29 November 2009.[90]
2010–present: Calling Time and The Early Bedroom Sessions [ edit ]
The single "Saturday" was released on 5 July 2010,[91] reached number 14 on the New Zealand chart[92] and was certified gold.[61] It also charted in the United Kingdom[50] and Ireland.[71] On 20 April 2011, the next Basshunter single named "Fest i hela huset" was released. Basshunter recorded it in the Swedish Big Brother series.[93] The single charted at number 5 on the Swedish singles chart.[94] His single titled "Northern Light" was released in August 2012 and the next single, "Dream on the Dancefloor", was released on 18 November that year.[95] The first of the two planned albums,[96] The Early Bedroom Sessions, was released on 3 December 2012. It consisted of songs from The Old Shit, The Bassmachine and demo songs.[97]
On 13 May 2013, his album Calling Time was released.[98] In the version released in Ireland and in the United Kingdom, the track "Saturday" was replaced by "Open Your Eyes".[99] The album charted at number 25 on the American chart, Dance/Electronic Albums.[100] On 20 June 2013, the single "Crash & Burn" single was released.[101] The last single from the album was the title track "Calling Time", released on 27 September.[102]
On 26 June 2013 Basshunter announced that he was retiring from singing and focusing on DJing, producing, and songwriting. He met new artists and invited them to sing on his songs. He claimed that "it's so much more interesting and different when someone else is singing in a song he has written". He made the decision after his exhaustive four performances in four days.[103]
On 20 November 2013, the single "Elinor" was released. On 25 November 2014, Basshunter announced that a new album was put together.[104] In 2015, he wrote "Mange kommer hem till dig" for Mange Makers band.[105] On 19 October 2018, the single "Masterpiece" was released.[106]
Remixes [ edit ]
Basshunter has remixed songs for a number of artists. In 2007 he released remixes of singles "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" by Verka Serduchka, "Du hast den schönsten Arsch der Welt" by Alex C. (featuring Y-ass), "Ieva's Polka (Ievan Pol |
a couple PSA campaigns in my previous ad agency life, I know how the process of producing PSAs often works. 1. The ad agency, hungry for ad awards, offers to produce the ad/spot/video for free. 2. The client, hungry for good press, accepts.
What happened here, it appears, is that KIA Canada's ad agency, Innocean Worldwide, saw the press success of the Mini and VW PSAs and whipped up a generic campaign of their own for Kia.
I've emailed Innocean asking where exactly these ads are running/appearing.(Whatsupic By Michael Aydinian) -- With Syria key questions are avoided like the plague! How for instance did these'rebels' appear out of nowhere, on cue, to begin destabilizing President Assad government? Murmurings of discontent mainly among younger generations due perhaps to the internet, that people were being sold short were relatively prevalent but nothing for President Assad to seriously worry about. All of a sudden there was mayhem! Syria went from relative calm to unbridled chaos in a heartbeat! Well there's a world of difference between murmurings of discontent & a fully blown out Civil War! Yet such disapproval of autocratic rule had been far more widespread in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar & Bahrain. For years Human Rights Agencies have poured scorn over serious violations occurring in these countries yet the media never bothers to mention them!
Therefore, it goes without saying such rumblings of disapproval are hardly restricted to Syria's borders. They're prevalent throughout the world! No prizes guessing why Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar & Bahrain escape the wrath of successive US administrations & significantly the scrutiny of the mainstream media. I've often bemoaned the fact media lies are bad enough but what's so disconcerting is what the media NEGLECTS TO TELL US! Indeed uprisings in Bahrain developed into massive demonstrations where time & again people took to the streets demanding more freedom & democracy, only to be met with brutal oppression. Yet do we ever hear of it? Yes, on RT Moscow! Sadly the entire mainstream media is controlled by the same gangsters who control most US & UK politicians & therefore news of genuine uprisings are suppressed, most especially the ones where despotic rulers play ball with the West! So, while the media scandalously turn a blind eye, secretively, our leaders prop up corrupt, murderous regimes like in Bahrain by selling it all the arms it's leaders need to crush opposition!
Bear in mind Bahrain is tiny compared to Syria but did we ever see such organized levels of uprisings in Syria where 10,000's of demonstrators took to the streets? No way! However now, the great Zionist propaganda machine, the mainstream media, would spring into action! The MSM would report 'there's unrest in Syria; Assad's an autocratic ruler; the Syrian people want democracy!' Oh yeah? What, like Saudi, Kuwait & Bahrain? This barrage of propaganda continues unabated for days, weeks - who was it who said keep repeating a lie over & over again & sooner or later it becomes the truth? While gross human violations, war crimes as well as the genocide of Palestinians are ignored, the uninitiated are swamped with the same tune -'sources report unrest in Syria; Assad is a tyrant etc etc.' The tempo is then upped! The media start inventing news by accusing Assad's army of brutal oppression even though evidence is virtually non-existent! What effrontery! In Bahrain we allow, indeed encourage such oppression; in Syria we claim these crimes are occurring when they're not! Unbelievable!
Another question staring everyone in the face is HOW COME THE REBELS IN SYRIA ARE NOT BEING CRUSHED? How on earth did they acquire so much fire-power? I mean out of nowhere all hell breaks loose & instead of an uprising being quelled as it normally is, the Syrian army found themselves entrenched in a furious, prolonged, bloody battle! Have people stopped thinking? The Syrian army may not be an elite fighting unit but they're nevertheless a quite considerable force! Yet hard as they try the'rebels' manage to stand pretty much toe-to-toe with them! Isn't someone going to say 'how the hell's this possible?' Well since this is most definitely the case, the rebels have to be receiving massive external assistance. How else can major weaponry & ammunition be regularly channeled through & the entire Syrian army can do little or nothing to prevent it? As per usual, the media know when to clam up!
Now how does one define terrorism? Well the West's definition changes with the wind! One minute any outside force meddling in the affairs of another country is deemed a terrorist organization; the next minute such a force is referred to as insurgents, then upgraded to rebels & finally hailed as freedom fighters! The paymasters of the 'free Syria army' is in fact the CIA itself! But the CIA is for the best part controlled by Dual National Zionists. This is all for Israel....... after all, what earthly reason would the US & UK have for destabilizing Syria? Israel though has two major reasons. Firstly huge oil & gas deposits have been discovered in the occupied Golan Heights. Needless to say the Israelis want their greedy mitts over all of it! Secondly, control of Syria & it's air-space would open the road for an assault on Israel's main foe, Iran. As for the CIA, for years they've trained 1000's of Syrians for the sole purpose of one day using them to destabilize Syria from within. These 'Operatives' are trained in the art of urban warfare; others specialize in coercing Syrians to join them. They're given money & weapons. The exact details are unknown to me - this is mere detail. What I do know is every aspect of such an operation is covered with utmost precision. They're good at it too.......... they've been doing it for years!
One thing must be made clear - the CIA's orders may come from Capitol Hill but ultimately those who control US politicians, most especially on affairs of foreign policy are in fact Zionists whose allegiance is firmly to Israel! This is the crux of the problem. While their media bombards us with rhetoric denouncing terrorism, creating the impression terrorism is a scourge the West will do everything in its power to eradicate, we are to all intents & purposes its creators, the grand masters of the very scourge! But if one simply asks which country happens to terrorize its neighbors more than any other, Israel sticks out like a sore thumb! Terrorism is in fact a manipulative tool! While our formidable armies are used to terrorize nations & thus open the way for giant corporations & certain individuals to steal valuable resources, anyone brave enough to stand up to this unbridled tyranny is labeled a terrorist!
How can we keep turning a blind eye, especially to such outrageous double standards? What is it going to take for a journalist or news reporter to actually highlight the points I have just made? I'm fed up with hearing how ignorance, fear & apathy are tantamount to a ball & chain for we've long since past the point where people should be saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Certainly the good people of the Middle East deserve better!aCLEVELAND—As each of them looked around at the people gathered outside Quicken Loans Arena and fantasized about unholstering their weapon and taking aim directly at others, both a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun attending the Republican National Convention reportedly worked themselves into a heightened state of excitement Thursday at the thought of unloading their firearm into the crowd. “I can’t wait for a chance to open fire on these idiots and mow them all down; I’ll just take ’em right out—bang, bang, bang!” bad guy Harold Kefner reportedly thought to himself, his hand poised near his gun as he grew more and more exhilarated at the idea of emptying his entire extended clip into the group of people amassed around him. According to sources, at the very same moment just several yards away, good guy Benjamin Townes was said to be resting his hand on the grip of the semiautomatic pistol he carried openly on his hip as he exuberantly envisioned himself pumping round after round into those nearby, while reportedly thinking to himself, “I can’t wait for a chance to open fire on any idiot who tries to mow us all down; I’ll just take him right out—pow, pow, pow!” At press time, both men were said to be passing quietly by each other and, unbeknownst to one another, giddily imagining the sound and recoil of their respective firearms as they watched the other’s bullet-riddled body slump to the ground.
AdvertisementGood or bad, he's back... till he leaves again. Photo credit: LAGalaxy.com
In December 2014 a resolute 32-year-old Landon Donovan spoke vaguely of his next series of life goals, (marriage, family, college, travel), the indignation of a tumultuous year slowly washing over him. He was sure that his life as the great American soccer hero was over and he embraced the adulation and adoration of a world bidding him farewell. Yet two autumns later, he abruptly returned to the game he had a love/hate relationship with, and most of us embraced his decision, selfishly out of a greedy need for times long gone.
We all have a secret wish: to get a do-over. But we live in a world of linear rules. However there are a select few who manage to usurp those traditions, instead forging a lives where boundaries are pushed, second and third chances are permitted, where others tiptoe, fearful of shattering the glass house carefully holding those artifices together. In order to accommodate, others lives are necessarily disturbed. Everyone within that system is complicit. Athletes of immense stature are often centers of these constructed universes and their mistakes are more readily forgiven, their tantrums are forgotten and their elite talent supercedes everything. We hold these idols to a standard that is impossible for most humans to maintain. We also make it impossible for them to feel comfortable manifesting flaws. When they inevitably do, we make excuses or simply ignore it.
Donovan's tenure as the all-American face of soccer had many twists and turns, most notably when it reached its uncomfortable conclusion in 2014 as his national career officially ended on May 22nd (minus a friendly match in October) while his league career kept charging through a ceremonial goodbye tour across MLS. As awkward as it was, his complex relationship with the game he was so naturally gifted at began long before. One of his first tastes of the dark side of fame came after the deflating 2006 FIFA World Cup. Afterwards, he went through a three-year marriage, rumors of a love-child, a divorce, coped with depression, moved abroad, all the while knowing his life was viewed through a very public microscope. Upon returning to the States, he fluctuated between being one of the most intellectual players in the game and one of the most instinctive, a balance hard to attain. His hyperactive mental game was a source of both his power and his pain and his friend and mentor, Bruce Arena accomodated for the nuances of his unique player. There was a public understanding that fairly or unfairly the expectations on Donovan through his soccer career were high because he was bestowed with the talent to lead the game to a respectable level in this country. He was the reluctant face of soccer in the U.S.
A discussion of Donovan is not complete without mentioning his ongoing public battles with the current head coach of the U.S. Men's National Team, Jurgen Klinsmann. They reached a stalemate this June during the Copa América Centenario. But in 2014, Donovan's response to rejection by Klinsmann was less graceful. He transitioned from being the face of U.S. Soccer to becoming one of its loudest critics. After Donovan was left off the 2014 USMNT World Cup roster, a line was drawn in the sand and everyone took sides. You either believed Jurgen snubbed Donovan out of a personal grudge from his failure in Bundesliga and/or for taking a sabbatical, and that Donovan deserved the call up for his dedication to the sport, OR you sided with the new coach's German tactics that questioned the U.S. system and lack of soccer culture. Landon, an athlete who readily admitted to needing to live his soccer life on his own terms did not fit in with Klinsmann's style of coaching and he was certainly not at his 2010 level of play. Klinsmann's impression of Donovan was understandably affected by his self-induced absence from 2011 friendlies the USMNT right after Jurgen's tenure began. And then there was the controversial hiatus that led Donovan to Cambodia was during World Cup qualifiers that might have been the final nail in the coffin. In the coach's perspective, Donovan's self-interest was taking a more substantive role than his responsibilities to the team.
The resulting forced retirement from U.S. Soccer was probably for the best. No one truly wants a pity final World Cup that might backfire (i.e. Abby Wambach who played little part in the brilliant USWNT 2015 Women's World Cup performances). Jurgen Klinsmann was not like Bruce Arena or Bob Bradley. He was no-nonsense. Jurgen sought fresh talent and a system of accountability and seriousness. He did his job in spite of the backlash from more senior players who openly resisted such regimen. Donovan did what was left of his job too and took his path to the Galaxy's 5th MLS Cup, but it was not a professionally smooth exit. The repercussions reverberated long after his retirement. An astute wordsmith, Landon was always aware of the resonance of words spoken with proper timing. He knew when and where to strike, and he had a new platform as an analyst. He called for Klinsmann's firing in October 2015 after the Confederations Cup playoff loss to Mexico and again in March 2016. "If you can't beat Guatemala at home in a World Cup qualifier then you probably shouldn't be the coach. It's as simple as that," Donovan openly announced before continuing on to criticize Klinsmann for not using a stable lineup. The soccer world became super-saturated with an unhealthy imbalance of unproductive anti-Klinsmann rhetoric. There was an abundance of judgement but few solutions being offered, if any. Once the U.S. was able to reach the Copá America Semifinal against powerhouse Argentina, clearer heads prevailed. A truce was drawn.
"Jurgen and I had actually had a really good meeting before the Ecuador game and sat for a few hours and talked about a lot of things," Donovan said. "I’ll keep that private, but it was very good. And I think we have come to a place where we both can move on from it. It wasn’t an easy time probably for either of us, but we both realized that life goes on and that if we’re both going to be involved in this sport we should have a relationship. And so we are on good terms, and I expect it to remain that way."
Separating the man from his contributions to the game is difficult through the goggles of glory that media and fans crown him with. After all, he holds the goals, assists and now playoffs assists records in U.S. Soccer and MLS. Add on six MLS Cups and the fact that he could very well grasp a seventh, just four months after returning to LA Galaxy, and he's wrapped in an impenetrable holy soccer cloak. He's accomplished a lot in the past two months by many standards, especially for a 34-year-old athlete who was struggling to make a completed pass on September 11th. Or, consider the more likely alternative that he has been trained properly by one of the best coaching staff in MLS, incrementally being reintroduced to something his instinct is familiar with and it's a coincidence that the Galaxy are looking sharper than they have in over a month because it's playoff season and everyone's performance levels are enhanced. Since the bizarre departure of Nigel de Jong, it was natural for fans to search for an answer and a distraction. Enter Landon Donovan. More questions ensued. Who called whom first? Was it planned? The questions fell by the wayside out of convenience and more pressing issues. All of a sudden the conversation took a deferential turn towards the human tendency to find a hero. Where better than in someone who was already once given that title?
Landon Donovan in action against Seattle FC September 2016. Photo credit: LAGalaxy.com
But is it fair to shine the light away from the new generation of players and place such a burden back on Donovan again, who himself has admitted to not wanting it? The responsibility and honor of winning the MLS Cup, in their Race for Seis, should rightfully belong with the team who has been in place since the start of the season, not with a retired player that was signed so close to the cutoff date. Landon's return came at a convenient time. It shifted the focus away from a team that was struggling with leadership as a result of injuries and/or contract issues with three of their four biggest stars, Gyasi Zardes, Robbie Keane and Steven Gerrard. It must have helped bring about a surge in ticket sales and fanbase morale. Around that same time, the Galaxy's other DP and the new number 10, Giovani dos Santos, was coming into his own, netting his best ever month with 5 goals and 4 assists. How much of the spotlight was shifted off him in that time? In spite of the adulations of the MLS community, winning him a Player of the Week award, he was not voted the Player of the Month honor (that went to Chad Marshall). Other players coming through the ranks of LA's deep roster haven't gotten enough chances while the roster makes room for Donovan minutes, like last year's Los Dos goal-leader Ariel "goal puppy" Lassiter (only 3 appearances this year one of which was 1 minute), homegrown players Jose Villareal (who never really got a chance outside of Los Dos), Raul Mendiola (who played many minutes but still likely lost some as a result of Landon's return) and Bradford Jamieson IV (we haven't seen him with the first team since April). In the long run, the risk is not worth it. In the short run, maybe the playoff run will reach deep past the next round with the Colorado Rapids, and maybe part of that will be because of Landon Donovan's experiences in intense situations. Those are lessons that have to eventually be learned by the homegrown players.
At least one person is being selfish here and it's coming at the cost of others' rights to build their own careers and potential legacies. Donovan has already had his moments. To take the moments from the new team that must necessarily form is only postponing the inevitable. He will retire again and who knows for how long. In the meantime, the man he once berated with vengeance has some advice only a coach can give with such certain insight.During the 2012 Olympics, many records were broken in the pool and on the track, but there is little recognition of the other records that were broken during construction of the many venues, housing, transportation systems and park development.
At one point, the employee count in the London 2012 project peaked to 12,500. In all, 46,000 total workers worked to build the 2012 London Olympics, incurring 62 million man-hours.
London 2012 was the safest Olympic build ever, with a reported injury rate of 0.17 per 100,000 man-hours (0.34 per 100 full-time employees by the method used in the U.S.) – far below the 0.55 building industry average in the U.K. The effort lasted 4 years, and for the first time in Olympic history all projects were completed without a fatality:
1996 Barcelona construction: 1 fatality
2000 Sydney construction: 1 fatality
2004 Greece construction: 14 fatalities
2008 Beijing construction: 10 fatalities
2012 London construction: 0 fatalities
(Source: London Olympics Construction Is Safest In Recent Times)
Lagging and Leading Indicators
Based on the estimated number of man-hours and the amount of the workers that would be on-site, the United Kingdom estimated that the entire project would incur three deaths and more than 500 serious injuries, with perhaps 100 or so of those dramatically changing the workers’ lives. (Source: A Lesson On Safety From The London Olympics)
This was unacceptable for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). They took aggressive steps to ensure that no fatalities would occur and that if injuries did happen, they would not be serious or impact the employees for the rest of their lives. How would they pull this off? They knew that they would still have to use traditional safety disciplines at the site to meet regulatory requirements, but would have to deploy new tactics to reach this lofty, “unattainable” goal. After all, these traditional disciplines routinely produce fatalities and serious injuries. It was going to take out-of-the-box thinking that would later produce a formula that would prove successful. For example, read this directive:
“Build us an Olympic Park. Do it all on time – there is no opportunity for slippage. Do it all on budget – there is a limited amount of money, and it has to be spent wisely. Build it with high quality – it’s all got to work. And, oh, by the way, don’t kill anybody, and don’t cause any harm.”
Pretty straight forward. A speech that many of us have heard before yet cannot accomplish.
Let’s explore this further by going back in history…
The Golden Gate Bridge
In the 1930s, the New Deal created many construction projects that would not only put a majority of our nation back to work and out of the Great Depression, it also served as a breeding ground for some of the most revolutionary advancements in employee, consumer and public safety.
During this era, bridge builders expected to lose one worker per $1 million in construction costs. Using this benchmark, it was expected that 35 workers would lose their lives during the erection of this massive suspension bridge, mostly from falls. These statistics were unacceptable to Joseph Strauss, the chief project engineer.
His site was the first for many things considered “overboard,” “not necessary,” “going above what is required,” etc.:
“Hard Hats Required”
Use of safety nets
Use of belt harnesses
Development of sand-blast, air supplied respirator
Glare-free goggles
Mandatory use of hand and face cream to protect against the wind
Special diets to help fight dizziness
Hearing protection
During the bridge erection, 11 workers lost their lives. Although this was 11 too many, for that time, this was unprecedented. Additionally, there were 19 members of the Halfway to Hell Club, a fraternity of men whose lives were saved by the safety nets.
Perhaps Mr. Strauss was onto something? Could it be that he realized that protecting the lives of his workers was of greater value compared to other project managers at that time? Did he realize that the loss of his skilled labor force would only add to further delays in the timely completion of the project? Also, he took into account the health of his employees by recognizing a diet could affect the equilibrium of workers.
So how did London do it? How did they reach this “impossible” goal?
There are a lot of things that happened behind the scenes. But there was one definite approach that had not been used in past Olympic builds. The simple answer: employee health & safety. It merged as one mission, one process, one goal.
The Difference Maker
To any seasoned safety or health professional, the term “combining safety and health” may seem like a catch phrase. After all, a majority of both disciplines still believe that although the two terms can somewhat be connected, they will never be fully connected.
However, in the London Olympic project, these idealistic views can be questioned. And the success is not arguable. Health and safety became “health & safety,” a connected term.
The ODA took into account the HEALTH of their employees, contractors and subcontractors. They even made the bold statement that “we determined that although many more construction workers have their health damaged than are injured in accidents, it would not happen in our program.”
This caused the ODA to take a closer look at employees that worked on projects. They found that 28 percent were classified as “obese,” 41 percent were overweight and 29percent had high blood pressure. While these findings are a far cry from not using the right tool or not tying off as necessary to protect against a fall, they did represent hazards brought onto the job site. As safety and health professionals, we all are well aware of the studies conducted regarding these conditions and how it affects (and sometimes even directly contributes) to workplace injuries. It was evident that there were different risk exposures that needed to be addressed to ensure success.
One causal analysis determined that many of the employees elected to skip breakfast and consume fatty foods the night before. This affected their work performance the next day. It might seem elementary, but the employees were more concerned about when they could eat lunch and what they were going to eat instead of focusing on the job at hand. The ODA heeded these warnings and decided to offer a low-cost breakfast option (porridge) to employees showing up at their sites.
Now, porridge was not the difference maker. It was ODA’s concern with not only the “safety” of the employee on the jobsite, but the underlying factors that directly influence jobsite safety: the health and well-being of the employee. The porridge was just one proactive step to avoid a possible injury or fatality. But there were many, many more pre-emptive actions taken based on leading indicators.
Occupational Health Services Involvement
U.K. Occupational Health Services, a team of medical professionals made up of nurses, physiotherapists and occupational hygienists whose primary focus was employee health and well-being, were not only responsible for treating job related injuries on-site, but also played a crucial role in prevention by promoting healthy living.
Success? Seventy-eight percent of those working on sites confirmed that OHS interventions with service “encouraged them to make positive changes to how they worked in order to look after their health” and “73 percent of managers believed they would behave differently in the future as a result of what they learned.” (Source: Health and Safety at London 2012)
I challenge you to go the Health and Safety Executive Web site. Look at these reports. As you read them, notice how many times you see occupational health employee involvement, the frequency of the term “observations,” and how many times directives are aimed at senior level management.
What they also have is a plan to build culture. A plan to build safety culture. How many of you have a written plan to build a safety culture? Most believe it happens through osmosis from a good, well thought out written safety program. It does not. If you don’t have a good safety culture, your program will fail. And if you don’t contemplate the employee’s health into your safety program, it will be a disaster.
Mr. Strauss proved previous metrics wrong by thinking outside the box and not only embracing new tactics to make his jobsite safer, but understanding that the health of his employees was equally as important. So did the ODA and all workers at the London Olympics.
Health & Safety: It no longer is a far-fetched concept!
Eric Glass, a senior EHS advisor with UL’s Workplace Health and Safety division, has 18 years of risk management, loss control and safety experience. He is an OSHA Outreach trainer and advises companies on the design of advanced risk management and safety programs. In addition, Glass provides insight for workplace safety training and software development and contributes to UL’s Fire and Electrical Safety Audits offering for international ready-made garment factories. He also assisted with development of Florida’s first continuing education safety curriculum for service contractors in the HVAC, electrical and plumbing industries.IRELAND – A group of women are driving around Ireland to advocate for abortion rights, as many continue to oppose the country’s highly restrictive laws against the procedure. The eighth amendment of the constitution of Ireland states the right to life of the unborn is equal to that of the woman, meaning that abortion is illegal unless a woman’s life is seen to be in immediate danger. ROSA (Reproductive rights against Oppression, Sexism, and Austerity) will drive the “Bus4Repeal” between Dublin, Cork, and Galway between 6 and 8 March as part of ongoing campaigns for a referendum to repeal the eighth amendment. “We’re protesting the almost total ban on abortion in Ireland and want to make it clear that when we say we want to repeal the eighth, we do not mean replace the eighth with a less severe abortion ban which says some women’s abortions are acceptable but that some should be shamed and sent to the UK,” Rita Harrold, a ROSA spokesperson traveling on the bus told BuzzFeed News.
Here's where the @RosaWomen #BUS4REPEAL is stopping over the next three days.
An estimated 12 women per day travel from Ireland and Northern Ireland, where abortion is also illegal, to access the procedure at private clinics in Great Britain. Around three Irish women per day purchase abortion pills online, which induce miscarriage in early pregnancies. The medication is illegal in Ireland and Northern Ireland, although it is widely considered to be safe. ROSA volunteers on the bus will help connect women facing crisis pregnancies with Women on Web, an online organisation that supplies the pills required for a medical abortion to women in countries where the procedure is illegal. “We work with Women on Web because they’re an amazing group of doctors and activists who support women’s choices all around the world, even if the political establishments of their countries have not caught up with the fact that women’s healthcare has to include reproductive rights and has to include abortion,” Harrold said. “We’re linking women with Women on Web, who will do a medical consultation through the website, and women can also speak to one of their doctors through Skype or the phone if necessary.” As well as rallies at the bus’s numerous scheduled stops, which include Waterford, Limerick, and Maynooth, volunteers will also provide educational information on abortion, the distribution of which is restricted in Ireland. “I went to a Catholic school – which you don’t really get a choice in here anyway – and abortion was only talked about in our religion class where our male religion teacher told us abortion was horrible,” Niamh Plunkett, a biomedical science student at University College Dublin, where the Bus4Repeal launched on Monday, told us. “That’s the only point that it’s talked about and you can’t get the correct information.” Harrold told us she believes there is still a lot of “scaremongering” around abortion in Ireland. “The Irish media don’t necessarily fully represent the whole story, so we’re trying to put the essential information to people, to empower them to be able to take care of their own health,” she said.
This is the info about medical abortions @RosaWomen will be handing out in towns where #BUS4REPEAL stops
“We want to provide information so that even if a woman doesn’t have €1,000 to travel to England, that they still have the right to make a decision to continue a pregnancy or not, and that these pills are available if women need them. “We have some basic facts about the pills and how to use them safely. Because the reality is you, me, the government, priests, do not care more about women’s health than an individual woman does, and no matter what the law is, this is the reality and this is happening.” Julia Canney, who is studying for a master's in human rights at UCD, told us that students feel “particularly vulnerable” in the face of current abortion laws as they can’t necessarily afford to travel for the procedure. “If you have to travel you have to find the money on top of your school fees and living,” she said. Canney also feels the lack of information available on abortion makes things difficult for Irish women. “You have to figure out how to get to England for an abortion, or to procure abortion pills without really knowing what they do,” she continued. “That’s where the ROSA bus comes into play because they’re giving information on something that people don’t really know about and don’t know is an option.” Also travelling on the bus on Monday was Ruth Coppinger, a member of parliament (TD) for the Anti-Austerity Alliance. She praised ROSA’s efforts in raising awareness about abortion pills, which she believes have helped many women in poverty, who were unable to travel to England, to access abortion safely.
UCD went very well, now the #BUS4REPEAL heads onto Waterford and Cork. #dubw #Strike4Repeal #repealthe8thRemember last year when there were devastating floods in Louisiana and in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew on the east coast? Where was President Obama?
.@MZHemingway: "There were deadly floods in La. [last year], and Pres. Obama at that time made the decision to stay in Martha's Vineyard." pic.twitter.com/gGfQEZe6iG — Fox News (@FoxNews) September 3, 2017
Oh, that’s right. He was “monitoring” the situation from the golf course.
Kirstie Alley calls out Obama for lackluster response to Louisiana flooding https://t.co/v2ewwc6MMn — Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 19, 2016
President Obama continues to monitor Hurricane Matthew aftermath from the golf course https://t.co/fm1KRUFIWD — Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 10, 2016
There was very little criticism of Obama for those optics last year. Can you imagine what the reaction would have been like if Trump had said he was monitoring Harvey from the golf course?UK Met Office uses graphical tricks to hide the pause
The UK Met Office went to some effort to graph the last 160 years, from hottest calendar year to coldest.
Name the scientific reason:
1. Because the order of the calendar years is important.
The graph reveals mysterious patterns — Years ending in 3, 4, or 5 are more likely to be hotter. Years containing a six are statistically more likely to be green.
OR
2. Because climate models show a linear rise in temperatures, and no “pause”, and this graph does too. Glance at it sideways and be afraid!
The Met Office used to say one year doesn’t mean anything, only long term trends matter.
Now they graph the noise.
Thanks to Barry Woods for pointing me at this, and carefully putting the years back in their chronological order in the graph below.
See the pause? See the noise?
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please wait... Rating: 8.7/10 (98 votes cast)Stephen King Has Been On a Roll Lately
With “The Dark Tower” still playing in theaters, the release of the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s “IT” will mark the first time legendary horror writer has had two movies on the big screen at the same time.
Come September 8th, you won’t find Stephen King doing the interview rounds to promote the movie’s release. There will be no talk show circuit or surprise appearances for the man that many think is on top of the horror genre, instead, he’ll be on a book tour with his son, promoting their new book: Sleeping Beauties.
Add to this the fact that Audience has started airing their TV adaptation of Mr. Mercedes, Hulu has started working on a Castle Rock project, and his latest book The Outsider should be hitting shelves in 2018, and it’s easy to see why for a man who is going to turn 70 next month, you could say he’s been getting a lot of exposure lately.
“IT” will be a reboot of sorts of the 1990 version of the film starring Bill Skarsgard and Finn Wolfhard. Looking at a few of the other films being released that week, it looks to have a very good shot at taking top box office honors for the second week of September.
Sleeping Beauties envisions a world where every woman on the planet falls asleep and the crippling social and emotional effects it has on the other half of the population.
Not much is known about The Outsider as King and his publicist have been hesitant to talk much about the project. Speculation is building though that it won’t be a stand alone novel, but rather a sequel to either the Mr. Mercedes series or The Dark Tower series. Either way, we will probably find out more about it once his current movies are out of theaters and the book tour has wrapped up.
This has definitely been the year of Stephen KingSeries: Cinema Classics
In honor of the president’s birthday on June 14, Cinema Classics presents George Cukor's classic thriller GASLIGHT in 35mm! The Sunday screening is free for Hollywood Theatre members.GASLIGHT (1944): After the death of her aunt, a famous opera singer, Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is sent to Italy to study opera as well. There she falls in love with and marries the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The two return to London to live in the house Paula has inherited from her aunt, and Paula begins to notice strange goings-on: missing pictures, footsteps in the night, and gas lights that dim without being touched. As she fights to retain her sanity, a mysterious stranger arrives on the scene (Joseph Cotten), and her new husband's intentions come into question.
Passes Accepted: Guest Pass and Member Guest Pass.Labour MP Jim Dobbin died suddenly on a Parliamentary visit to Poland
The by-election sparked by the death of Labour MP Jim Dobbin is likely to be held on October 9.
A writ setting the date for the contest in the Heywood and Middleton constituency in Greater Manchester is to be moved by the party in the Commons today, a source said yesterday.
It is the same day as voters go to the polls in Clacton, Essex, following Douglas Carswell’s defection to Ukip from the Conservatives.
Mr Dobbin, who had represented the seat since 1997, died at the weekend at the age of 73 while on a Parliamentary trip to Poland.
At the 2010 general election, he won the seat with a majority of 5,971 over the Tory candidate.
Mr Dobbin was in the country with other MPs as part of a Council of Europe human rights trip when he died suddenly.
His wife Pat, who he married fifty years ago this year, is believed to have been with him at the time.
Labour leader Ed Miliband said at the time it was a ‘sad day for Parliament,’ adding that Mr Dobbin was a ‘dedicated public servant’.
Mr Miliband said: 'Jim's death is a sad day for parliament. He was a dedicated public servant, representing the people of Rochdale on the council and at Westminster for three decades.
'Working in the NHS for more than 30 years, Jim had a deep |
or 2 in the list, not including ones you can make up on your own! So, to help you make a choice, here are some rules and guidelines on how to properly complain about Go, depending on your previous background and experience.
For example, if you come from…
…Python
We all love Python, so the attack vector should be on the maturity and abundance of libraries. NumPy is a must have point — Go still doesn’t have a scientific library of that quality. Not sure how SpaceX is able to use Go without one, but whatever, NumPy sells well.
Try not to mention mature libraries like Twisted, Requests and various solutions for solving the 10K problem. Just don’t mention it. Instead, try to disprove relatively high memory usage in Python. For example, you can say that Python memory usage after goroutines leakage is competitive with Go. Someone from Mozilla said this, so can you.
As a bonus, mention that Go slice indexing doesn’t have convenient -1 index. “Is compiled” flaw also works here, without any explanation. Just because.
…C++
If you’re C++ developer, you are in the most vulnerable position, because Go was created as an answer to the C++ problems. Which easily can be muted or presented as powerful features.
Start by demonizing GC. Everyone knows that Garbage Collection is an evil and every CPU tact matters. Even if you write simple REST-backend in C++ and it takes 6 months of your life to accomplish it — you still have speed and no-GC blissfulness. Stick with that.
As a logical continuation — tell that Go is not good for embedded. Don’t mention that authors explicitly said that it was never meant as a language for embedded. It’s a great point anyway. And if your commenters will send you links to Embd, Gobot or gomobile, just say that it’s not True Embedded™ or just disable comments.
And, of course, all rants about how Go restricting you from shooting yourself in the foot are also great here. Go doesn’t make you feel clever than your coworker that bangs his head against the wall trying to understand your code. Why do you need such a language after all?
…Rust
Despite the fact that there aren’t many people in the wild who can claim “background in Rust”, there are still a bunch of people from C++ background who are totally in love with Rust. They didn’t try it in production or even for pet projects, but that’s not important. Pure love doesn’t need logic. So, many points valid for C++ developers will work for you also. Don’t forget “zero-cost abstraction” phrase after mentioning how evil GC is.
Cargo is considered to be a good solution for dependency management, so attack this side of Go aggressively. No chance to lose here. Also, your key points should be Go’s simple type system and lack of pattern matching. Basically, everything that differs in Go from Rust will work here. And that’s a lot, so you can write a solid longread. Or two.
…Java
After mentioning generics and exceptions, punch them in the guts and smash them by comparing Java’s IDE with Go’s IDE. Of course, there is no Go IDE, because Go is too simple to require one, but it’s bad also. Double kick. It’s “advanced” vs “primitive” and you’re a winner here.
Next, write about the lack of good debugger (integrated into IDE, of course). How can someone write even simple code without a debugger? Don’t ask if you really need debugger in Go that much as you need it in Java and why. Stay away from this subject, it’s slippery.
And the whole range of ‘features’ that you can use to make people understand why Go is bad — from lack of JVM to “lack of basic data structures”. Take your time and improvise while your IDE starts.
…Ruby
If you come from Ruby and don’t really like Go, I probably won’t help you. Go is quite popular in Ruby community and many Ruby developers, being non-arrogant and pragmatic, fall into Go pretty easily, so you’re in trouble. Even Basecamp, the guys that made Ruby on Rails, love Go and use it inside. Sorry.
…D
Without any doubts, your main argument (after generics and exceptions, of course) should be the name of Google. It’s pretty much obvious that popularity of Go is simply a result of a huge money support by Google. Of course, Google pays people a lot to write articles about Go and to organize conferences and meetups. They are so rich, that next year Go community will have 6 international conferences including one in Dubai! When D have a company that can do the same for D, the world will understand that Go’s popularity is a fake.
Also, Go is not a real system programming language. You can’t write your own memory allocator with Go. So switch to D. Please.
…Perl
Emm..
…C#
Probably the best strategy here is to attack the simplicity of Go. Simplicity equals primitivity, everyone knows in MS world. Also Go is made by Google, not by MS, so it’s doomed. There are so many good solutions for modern programming language theory you learn in the college course of C#! But poor people behind Go just are not aware of them. Don’t hesitate to teach them. You can’t do pretty much anything with a language that primitive as Go.
Also, mention the most relevant things — no Visual Studio support (Visual Studio Code’s Go plugin doesn’t count). No debugger in IDE, of course. And no DirectX support, that’s important.
…Haskell
If you come from Haskell, I shouldn’t give you any advice. You already must be a professional in mocking Go. It’s in Haskell 101 course. New Haskell books contain special chapter “How to laugh on Go”, after all.
Even if you intuitively understand that Go is way more practical than Haskell and entry barrier really matters — keep insisting that it has “objectively poor design”. Because everyone knows which language has objectively good design.
Conclusion
I hope this article will find its readers. In 2016, we need more articles with rants on Go — at least 6 to keep the trend. Some of the articles in the list above written by students and schoolboys, so if you just started CS class and don’t have any real-life experience — don’t hesitate to tell the world how bad Go is.
After all, the viral effect of the articles with criticism is well known — colleagues and managers send you the link as a prove that you shouldn’t use Go in production, without even reading or analyzing its content. The title is usually enough, so don’t be afraid.
Or… you can just write some good code in the language that works best for your case.When the first issue of Drawn & Quarterly sneaked into comics shops in April 1990, it seemed as if its 23-year-old founder, editor and janitor, Chris Oliveros, was trying to single-handedly conjure a future for the testosterone-confused medium that most of his fellow fans and creators couldn’t imagine.
First, he featured a beleaguered female cartoonist on its cover, as drawn by Anne D. Bernstein. And second, he criticized in its pages the world of comics for being “a private boys’ club” that discouraged women from reading or making comics. (One contributor to D&Q No. 1 was Alice Sebold, who later wrote “The Lovely Bones.”)
So it seems somehow fitting, in a theater season in which the musical adaptation of the alternative cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel “Fun Home” won five major Tonys, that Drawn & Quarterly is celebrating its 25th anniversary by putting out a strikingly designed 776-page book that makes clear that its rise from Montreal ’zine to well-regarded publisher of graphic novels is inextricably intertwined with the advance of women in independent comics.
“Even early on, they were publishing important women like Julie Doucet,” said Hillary L. Chute, a University of Chicago professor and a cultural critic who specializes in comics. “They’re important to what feminism and comics looks like.”BY ISN STAFF | January 21, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Catholic leaders across the country joined together to call on Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform, as tens of thousands of people of faith converge on Washington, D.C. for the Annual March for Life. Leaders joined in signing a statement which asks Catholics serving in Congress to recognize immigration as a pro-life issue and support the U.S. bishops’ efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The statement will appear as a full-page advertisement in Politico on Thursday, January 22, 2015, and was organized by Faith in Public Life.
Expressing a commitment to a culture of life, the Catholic leaders note that there are more than two dozen pro-life Catholics in the U.S. House of Representatives, many of whom will join in the March for Life through the streets of Washington. It also cites the words of Cardinal Séan O’Malley who identified immigration as “another pro-life issue” during a widely publicized mass on the US-Mexico border last April. The statement closed with expressions of frustration over the lack of action by legislators, saying, “delay and partisan bickering will only lead to more hardship, suffering and death.”
Endorsements came from many leaders in the Jesuit network, including eleven Jesuit university presidents as well as the leaders of the Jesuit Conference, Association of Jesuit Colleges and University, Jesuit Refugee Service USA, Jesuit Social Research Institute, Kino Border Initiative, and Ignatian Solidarity Network.
Jesuit institutions have played a significant role in both advocacy and action in support of undocumented persons and the call for comprehensive immigration reform. In 2010, the Jesuit provincials of the United States issued a public letter to Congressional leaders and President Obama calling for passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that included a path to citizenship for undocumented persons in the U.S. Last July of this year over 1,200 alumni of U.S. high schools and universities sent a letter to Jesuit school alumni in the U.S. House of Representative asking for them to pass humane comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Jesuit institutional leaders have shown support for undocumented immigrants and humane immigration reform by participating in fasts, public statements, and directsupport of undocumented students. In 2014, Loyola University Chicago became the first U.S. university to publicly accept undocumented medical students.
About three-in-ten members of the U.S. Congress, our Catholic according to Pew Research, with 27 % of Republicans being Catholic and 35% of Democrats. Earlier this month the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities announced that nine percent of the 114th U.S. Congress are Jesuit college and university alumni/ae, with there being 48 in total: 11 in the Senate and 37 in the House of Representatives.
##Overcrowding, substandard building contributed to $2m Docklands apartment fire, investigation finds
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Docklands fire forces apartment evacuation (ABC News)
Substandard cladding has been blamed for the rapid spread of a fire that caused more than $2 million worth of damage to a high-rise apartment building in Melbourne's Docklands in November.
It took more than 80 firefighters about 30 minutes to bring the blaze under control, which burnt from the Lacrosse Docklands tower's sixth floor to the top of the building on the 21st floor.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) found that the blaze, which caused the evacuation of 500 people, was accidentally sparked by a cigarette butt on a balcony.
The MFB said the building's external cladding did not meet building code requirements, and allowed the blaze to spread quickly up the building.
Peter Rau, chief officer at the MFB, said if the cladding had have been up to building code standard, the fire would not have spread as quickly.
"The fire spread would have been vastly different in my view... the fire went to the 21st storey," Mr Raus said.
"The view of the investigation team is that it would have continued to the height of whatever the building was so I've got great concerns with the products that were in place there."
The Victorian Building Authority (VBA) has been asked to investigate the quality of cladding being used in construction and whether stricter regulations are required.
The VBA's Jarrod Edwards said the authority would look into the conduct of the builder and building surveyor, as well as investigating whether the same material had been used in other buildings.
"The VBA has begun contacting all relevant building practitioners and will work with them to determine if non-compliant building material has been used incorrectly during the construction of other buildings in Victoria," Mr Edwards said.
The MFB also found that firefighters found "high occupancy rates" in some apartments and excessive amount of combustible storage on balconies.
"In this particular situation the factors that caused this fire to be such an extent were numerous - the discarded cigarette, the poor house-keeping and the external cladding which didn't prevent the fire from going any further," he said.
Mr Rau said 12 recommendations had been made by the report following the investigation.
"There are a number of things in the report that we're interested in trying to pursue, and we certainly will with the relevant authorities and agencies," he said.
The MFB said the sprinkler system and evacuation worked well during the fire.
Class action considered on fire
Law firm Slater and Gordon said 100 owners and residents of the building had registered their interest in launching a class action over the blaze.
Litigation lawyer at the firm Ben Hardwick told 774 ABC Melbourne that owners were asking how the building was approved for occupancy, considering the combustibility of the external cladding.
"This is an epic failure of our building surveying system," he said.
"The occupancy permit for this building was only issued in 2012, so this is not like some building product that was built 20 years ago, this is in very recent times.
"So our clients, owners and residents are really having salt rubbed into the wound.
"Not only did they have a fire in their apartment building, which was distressing and very costly and many residents have only just reoccupied the premises now - but now they find out that the whole of the external cladding of the building... needs to be removed and re-instated, which is going to be, one would expect, a hugely expensive exercise."
He said Slater and Gordon was investigating the potential for class action to recover losses from the fire.
"The critical question for our clients is - who's going to pay for all this?" he said.
"The obligations in relation to the choice of materials, will rest with a number of building practitioners, including the builder and the building surveyor and these are the questions will be seeking answers to."
Topics: fires, disasters-and-accidents, docklands-3008
First postedI thought my arms looked fat. Brian looked awesome, but I thought my makeup was off. If you looked closely, you could see my stomach sticking out too much. The dress was maybe a little too va-va-voom and my hair was curled weird on one side.
This post is for the ladies. I’m learning a hard lesson here and I want to spare you this hurt. We all play our own hardest critics. How can we possibly judge ourselves so harshly? The worst part about this picture is that this occasion really had absolutely nothing to do with how I looked, and a whole lot more to do with the bride!
Oh, I’ve said this before, but we just didn’t know. I could not have fathomed a little over a year ago at my oldest friend’s wedding what we were gearing up for. I had an invasive tumor at this point. I was already months late on an ultrasound ordered by my doctor.
The lady in that picture has cancer. Huh? Not that chick. She is dancing the night away with her favorite guy, laughing and hugging on old friends and dancing some more.
A residing theme in this journey is vanity. I think I’m almost over it. But somehow, I’m still not even close. Here is what scares me: if I’m not over it after this, then I’m terrified of the lesson to come.
Here is a secret. I still look at myself in the mirror in yoga class and notice how I’m a couple of sizes bigger than the lady in front of me. I still search for new wrinkles and I am obsessive about checking for gray hairs in my incoming crop.
I have nothing to teach us here. No lesson I’ve learned. In fact, I’m appalled at how this has not changed in me. I am hurt at myself that I can still actually mutter the words, “I feel fat,” when there are things of so much more consequence to address.
I’m not usually so conflicted in what I want to say. I think I only know how to be truthful and it would be inauthentic of me to offer advise on being kind to yourself. In the same breath and out of the same mouth I can promise you that I see so much beauty in you, and I see a beauty that I did not before in the lady in the pretty pink dress. She was so happy, and honestly, she was having a really good hair day. Her heart was shining through.
Please be easier on yourself than I was. You never know what your future holds.
This post originally appeared on the “More to Learn” Facebook page.The important work cited above lays the groundwork for a study of the factors that influence the workplace in the astronomical community and how scientists' experiences of this workplace may differ based on their gender, race, and rank. Recent work has highlighted the extent to which sexual harassment and assault, and their negative career consequences, are found in the field sciences [ Clancy et al., 2014 ]. Here we expand upon the notion that harassment and assault persist across many science disciplines with an intersectional approach that looks at the targeting that can occur among those with multiple marginality, particularly the “double jeopardy” frequently described for women of color [ Berdahl and Moore, 2006 ; Buchanan and Fitzgerald, 2008 ; Carter, 1988 ; Kabat‐Farr and Cortina, 2012 ; Williams et al., 2014 ], as well as those marginal due to their rank in a culture that can be very hierarchical [ Bargh et al., 1995 ; Clancy et al., 2014 ; Popovich and Warren, 2010 ]. To this end, we test four hypotheses in a national survey of over 400 astronomers and planetary scientists.
Within physics and astronomy, the literature suggests that women generally, and women of color specifically, are isolated and experience microaggressions—subtle, indirect, or unintentional acts of discrimination—in the workplace [ Barthelemy et al., 2015a, 2015b ]. Women of color must employ multiple navigation strategies in order to persist in physics and astronomy, using time and energy that could have increased work productivity [ Ko et al., 2014 ]. Women of color and white women are also underrepresented in the physical sciences to a far greater degree than the social or biological sciences [ NSF, 2015 ]. Small numbers may make it seem as though the total proportion of negative experiences are not high, from the view of the majority in the astronomical community. However, within each group of women of color or women generally who have been sampled thus far, a troubling picture has emerged of low support, isolation, stereotype threat (feeling at risk of conforming to stereotypes), and the need to develop strategies and expend significant mental resources to stay in their respective fields. What is more, women and people of color generally, as well as women of color specifically, have been found to experience more workplace incivilities, even when those incivilities are general rather than gender or race based [ Cortina et al., 2013 ; Kabat‐Farr and Cortina, 2012 ].
At the same time, the accessibility and inclusive atmosphere within science, including astronomy and planetary science, has been called into question. Science syllabi use gendered language that not only can show women as incompetent but also normalizes masculine behaviors, belief systems, and priorities [ Bejerano and Bartosh, 2015 ]. Several studies of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields have found implicit bias, or the bias in judgment resulting from implicit attitudes that operates below cognitive awareness, related to both gender and race limits opportunities in mentorship [ Milkman et al., 2015 ], hiring [ Moss‐Racusin et al., 2012 ], and opportunities in the classroom [ Eddy et al., 2014, 2015 ; Grunspan et al., 2016 ], as well as workplace conflict [ Williams et al., 2016 ] and experiences that map onto stereotypes of scientists' racial‐ethnic identification [ Williams et al., 2014, 2016 ]. Women of color faculty in STEM are also more likely to experience the dominant culture of their disciplines as outsiders, with their views validated less than the dominant group [ Rios and Stewart, 2015 ]. Further, the number of women of color science faculty has recently decreased, even while the number of white women science faculty has increased [ Armstrong and Jovanovic, 2015 ]. These marginalities are further compounded by power differentials, as women of color are more likely to be junior in rank compared to those with majority identities [ National Science Foundation ( NSF ), 2015 ].
Astronomy and planetary science, as the fields concerned with celestial objects and processes, help shift human attention outward. Gazing at the stars is an accessible introduction to science, one that gets many young children dreaming of being an astronaut, astronomer, or planetary scientist one day. Recent discoveries within these fields have been groundbreaking, from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational‐Wave Observatory team's detection of the first gravitational wave [ Abbott et al., 2016 ] to recent discoveries about Pluto [ Stern et al., 2015 ] learned from the New Horizons spacecraft. These important discoveries excite the public and lead to engagement through citizen science projects. For example, amateur astronomers participate in astronomical and planetary science discoveries by mapping the surfaces of the Moon and other planetary bodies [ Lehan et al., 2011 –2015] observing meteor showers and identifying extrasolar planets and observing variable stars.
Eighty‐four percent of the study sample identified as White or European American, which appears to be consistent with national data on astronomy and planetary sciences [ Norman et al., 2013 ]. However, nearly 67% of respondents identified as female, which is much higher than national samples [ NSF, 2015 ], consistent with our goal to oversample women. The sample appears in particular to overrepresent white women, which is likely related to survey recruitment occurring first among the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy where there is high white female involvement. The fact that we were unsuccessful at recruiting a greater number of people of color in the sample weakens our ability to speak to the experiences of those people of color historically underrepresented in astronomy and planetary science. Finally, in order to avoid further categorizing respondents into increasingly smaller categories, we did not analyze additional differences by sexuality, neurodiversity, or physical alter‐abilities. Future research will address these additionally underrepresented groups.
We attempted to use analysis of variance (ANOVA) methods to examine interaction effects of race and gender; however, ANOVA proved inappropriate for this data. When treating the ordinal Likert‐score variables as interval variables, assumptions are violated for linear regression (homogeneity of variance and normal distribution of residuals) and logistic regression with Poisson distribution (mean equal to variance). A zero‐inflated Poisson model fitted with binary independent variables was considered, but interpreting this more complex model does not add meaningful interpretation to our results and is potentially biased due to the low response rates of women of color and men of color and the low incidences of negative experiences and harassment by white men in our sample. By using statistical methods which are intended for count data, such as chi‐square, Fisher's exact, and log‐likelihood ratios, we are testing the hypothesis that the proportion of people who experience negative working conditions or harassment differ between groups more than expected by random chance.
The nonrandom nature of this study's survey recruitment methodology means that these data cannot provide a direct assessment of prevalence of any of the experiences noted here, and prevalence studies are exceedingly uncommon in research of this nature. However, a nonrandom sample can indicate that these experiences are present in the population. It is also possible that the extent to which negative workplace experiences happen in the astronomical community is underreported in this sample, since there is a general bias in the literature of lower response rates to surveys on these topics [ Greco et al., 2015 ]. Further, because our survey instrument used the terms “verbal harassment” and “physical harassment,” it meant that participants had to implicitly name their experience as harassment to select any option other than “no.” This raises the bar for participants selecting in the affirmative for these questions and leads us to believe our numbers in this sample are especially conservative.
In order to address the extent to which respondents experience a hostile environment in the astronomical community, and the extent to which these experiences are due to race, gender, or related to hierarchy, we performed four types of comparative analysis. We compared all women to all men; all people of color to all white people; women of color, white women, men of color, and white men to each other; and we compared across the trainee, scientist, and senior scientist ranks. Cell underpopulation did not permit intersectional analyses by rank so we were unable to run rank‐gender or rank‐race analyses.
Calculations for differences in career position and frequency of negative remarks heard at current position for male/female and white/respondents of color comparisons were performed using Fisher's exact test, as were calculations for feeling unsafe at current position (male/female and white/respondents of color). Difference in career position by intersection race/gender group (for the frequency of negative comments heard at current positions, as well as for the feeling unsafe at current position), were calculated using log‐likelihood ratio (goodness‐of‐fit) test with Williams' correction for small values. Calculations of differences in experiencing verbal and physical harassment (male/female and white/respondents of color) were performed using Fisher's exact test. To determine if there was a relationship between any kind of negative comments in current career position, any type of verbal harassment, or any type of physical harassment and the likelihood of skipping events, these events were converted to a binary never/occurred condition. Then unpaired Wilcoxon rank‐sum tests were used to test if the number of events skipped was associated with the presence or absence of negative comments, verbal harassment, or physical harassment across any identity axis. All statistical analysis was performed using RStudio with R versions 3.2.2 and 3.3.1 (packages used include reshape2, plyr, and DescTools).
Individuals from all U.S. Census Bureau races were represented. However, in order to produce a high enough sample size to be able to compare the experiences of scientists of color and white scientists, as well as women scientists of color and white women scientists, we grouped all individuals who selected at least one racial category other than White or European American were grouped into the “person of color” category. Similarly, though genderqueer and transgender identities are represented in this sample, in order to conduct quantitative, comparative analyses with a great enough sample size we limited gender comparisons to those who identified as cismale or cisfemale. We grouped undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs as “trainees” to compare trainee experiences to the scientist and senior scientist categories. Seven individuals who reported administrative career positions were removed only from the career position analysis because they did not fit within the career categories of trainee, scientist, and senior scientist which characterized the majority of our sample. Not all participants answered every question, which is why the total number of participants answering questions about race, gender, and rank are not the same. Follow‐up, qualitative analyses will draw from the respondents whose experiences may be less visible by these statistical comparisons. The demographics of the sample regarding race, gender, gender identity, and rank categories can be found in Table 1, and Table 2 shows the race, gender, and rank categories used in our analyses.
Recruitment of the study respondents was done through multiple outlets within the planetary science and astronomical sciences community. Recruitment procedures were intended to oversample women given their small numbers in astronomy and planetary sciences. The announcement of the survey was done through the Women in Astronomy Blog [ Richey, 2015b ] on 5 January 2015 and was also featured at the 225th American Astronomical Society (AAS) Meeting [ Richey et al., 2015 ]. On the same week, the announcement of the survey was released to several society and community news outlets within planetary science and the astronomical sciences, including (but not limited to) the AAS Division for Planetary Sciences [ Membership Announcement, 2015 ], The Planetary Exploration Newsletter [ Benecchi, 2015 ], and The AAS Women Newsletter [ Haggard et al., 2015 ]. The announcement on the Women in Astronomy Blog site was additionally shared on social media, including to multiple Facebook groups attached to the communities, LinkedIn groups affiliated with the communities, and Twitter. Several departments within the field communicated to their entire staff and students the information via email. On 2 March 2015, a final reminder to participate was posted on the Women in Astronomy Blog [ Richey, 2015a ] and the survey was closed on 15 March 2015. Respondents to the survey were not compensated for participation.
The personal experience questions were categorized into three sections: (1) negative language, (2) safety, and (3) responses to harassment. Respondents were asked to identify how often they hear negative language from their peers, supervisors, or others (not necessarily targeting themselves), regarding sexual orientation, race, sex, gender, femininity/masculinity, physical or mental ability, or religion. Concerning safety, respondents were asked to identify if they feel unsafe because of personal characteristics related to these same factors. Subsequently, respondents were asked if they skipped any type of activity (school or work related) because of feeling unsafe. The safety section concludes by asking respondents if they encountered verbal or physical harassment because of their personal characteristics, and if so, they were asked to identify if the harasser(s) was a peer, supervisor, or another member of their school or work community. Lastly, respondents were asked to identify if they reported a personal harassment experience. Respondents were asked to provide information regarding the resulting actions that followed their report or to provide information on why they did not report the incident.
The survey consisted of 39 questions and was administered electronically via the Survey Monkey website from 5 January to 15 March 2015. Individual participants were asked their current career position (undergraduate, graduate student, postdoc, staff scientist/research scientist/nontenured professor/equivalent, senior staff scientist/senior research scientist/tenured professor/equivalent, and others) and to respond to questions regarding personal experiences in that position. If the participant had changed their career position in the previous 5 years, then they were asked to provide answers to the same personal experience questions regarding their prior position. At the end of the survey respondents were also asked to provide demographic information, including gender, gender identity, race and ethnicity, and ability‐status. Please see the supporting information for a complete list of the survey questions.
The questions in this survey are based on a 2011 survey conducted by the American Physical Society's Forum of Graduate Student Affairs regarding the workplace climate in physics [ Long, 2012 ]. Permission was granted by the survey administrator, the LGBT + Physicists group, to adapt the survey questions to reflect concerns of the astronomical and planetary science community. Thus, while the survey was not validated per se, it contained questions already developed for a similar population in a style common across many studies of workplace climate.
A significant difference exists in the percent of individuals in each category who have felt unsafe at their current position due to gender ( p < 0.001) and race ( p < 0.001), and there is a trend toward differential experiences with feeling unsafe due to religion or lack thereof ( p = 0.069). Light blue is white men (WM), dark blue is men of color (MOC), light green is white women (WW), and dark green is women of color (WOC). Numbers at the bottom are the raw count for each category.
Women of color were the most likely to feel unsafe in their place of work due to their race (28%, p < 0.001), gender (40%, p < 0.0001), and religion, though this last comparison was not significant (13%, p = 0.069, Figure 1 ). Finally, women of color and white women both report significantly higher frequencies of skipping a class, meeting, fieldwork, or other professional event because they felt unsafe. (18% and 12%, respectively, p = 0.024, Table 7 ).
Women of color were the most likely to experience verbal harassment related to their race (35%, p < 0.001), and women of color and white women experienced verbal harassment related to gender equally (44% and 43%, respectively, p < 0.001). Among the four categories, women of color and white women were also the most likely to experience physical harassment related to gender, though this comparison was not quite significant (16% and 11%, respectively, p = 0.027).
Trainees were significantly more likely than staff or senior staff scientists to observe remarks from peers disparaging religion or a lack thereof ( p < 0.001; Table 5, see supporting information Table S3 for all analyses); no other forms of remarks were differently observed by rank. Trainees were significantly more likely than staff or senior staff scientists to report that they experienced verbal harassment because of their gender ( p = 0.025); no differences by rank were found for other forms of verbal harassment, and none were found for any form of physical harassment. Trainees (7%) were more likely than staff (2%) or senior staff scientists (3%) to report that they felt unsafe in their current position because of their race, but this finding was not statistically significant ( p = 0.066). Respondents across ranks reported similar frequencies of skipping a class, meeting, fieldwork, or other professional event because they felt unsafe.
Respondents of color were significantly more likely than white respondents to observe remarks that were racist (from peers and others, p = 0.0001 and 0.023) or homophobic (from supervisors, p < 0.0001, Table 4, see supporting information Table S2 for all analyses). Respondents of color were also significantly more likely than white respondents to report that they experienced both verbal and physical harassment because of their race. When asked if they had ever felt physically unsafe in their current position, more respondents of color reported they felt unsafe as a result of their race (24% versus 1%, p < 0.001). Respondents of color and white respondents reported similar frequencies of skipped classes, meetings, fieldwork, or other professional events per month because they felt unsafe (15% versus 9%, p = 0.08).
Women were more likely than men to observe remarks that they interpreted as racist, sexist, that one was not feminine or masculine enough, or disparaging someone's physical abilities or mental abilities (Table 3, see supporting information Table S1 for all analyses). Women were also significantly more likely than men to report that they experienced both verbal and physical harassment because of their gender. When asked if they had ever felt physically unsafe in their current position, more women than men reported that they felt unsafe as a result of their gender (30% versus 2%, p < 0.001). Finally, women were also more likely than men to report skipping at least one class, meeting, fieldwork, or other professional event per month because they felt unsafe (13% versus 3%, p = 0.01).
In our sample, 88% of respondents reported hearing negative language from peers at their current career position, 51.9% reported hearing negative language from supervisors, and 88% reported hearing negative language from others. Thirty‐nine percent of respondents report experiencing verbal harassment at their current position, and 9% report experiencing physical harassment. Twenty‐seven percent of respondents report that they have felt unsafe at their current position, and 11% report that at their current position they have skipped attending at least one professional event such as a class, meeting, conference, or fieldwork opportunity because they felt unsafe attending.
4 Discussion
4.1 Workplace Experiences Vary With Gender, Race, and Rank: Hypotheses 1–3 We assessed the extent to which survey respondents in the astronomical community experience a hostile workplace environment and tested four hypotheses on the ways in which these experiences are related to gender, race, and career rank. Our results suggest that there is not only a hostile climate in the astronomical community but that the community is experienced differently depending on one's gender and race. We hypothesized that women and trainees would both be at particular risk of harassment and assault (Hypotheses 1 and 3). Both were at least partially supported. Women were more likely than men to observe negative remarks across several categories, and trainees were more likely than scientists or senior scientists to observe negative remarks on religion or a lack thereof. Women and trainees were both significantly more likely to report experiencing verbal harassment. Women, but not trainees, reported higher rates of physical harassment. The ways in which women and trainees do report observing more negative remarks and experiencing more harassment match other recent studies of academic science [Clancy et al., 2014]. Our work also aligns with the increasingly overwhelming evidence from workplace climate literature that women and people who are more junior in the hierarchy are at greater risk for incivility, discrimination, and harassment [Chan et al., 2008; Hershcovis and Barling, 2010]. However, our results on the particular impact climate, verbal harassment, and physical harassment play on the trainee role was weaker than what has been found in other work, and in general, the supervisor role was not as responsible for making negative remarks or perpetuating harassment and assault. We consider two possibilities for this difference. First, we attribute the lower reports of supervisor abuse in part to the fact that hostility from peers is a cultural norm within astronomy and planetary science. We found that the overall proportion of negative comments witnessed was incredibly high, with remarks coming from peers observed by 96% of women of color, 91% of white women, 88% of men of color, and 75% of white men, contrasted with slightly lower findings of remarks coming from supervisors: they were reported by 62% of women of color, 55% of white women, 47% of men of color, and 35% of white men. Similar findings occurred when combining all categories of verbal and physical harassment. Second, we also consider the possibility that the sampling method of reaching out |
present, with delicate vocals and beachy guitar riffs. “Stay” is a necessary reminder to value your pals and hold them close.
Tour Dates:
5/2 – Asbury Park, NJ
5/3 – Philadelphia, PA
5/4 – Baltimore, MD
5/5 – Washington, DC
5/6 – Richmond, VA
5/7 – Durham, NC
5/8 – Asheville, NC
5/9 – Atlanta, GA
5/10 – Nashville, TN
5/11 – Norman, OK
5/12 – Dallas, TX
5/14 – Austin, TX
5/16 – Flagstaff, AZ
5/17 – Phoenix, AZ
5/18 – San Diego, CA
5/19 & 5/20 – Los Angeles, CA
5/22 & 5/23 – San Francisco, CA
5/25 & 5/26 – Portland, OR
5/27 & 5/28 – Seattle, WA
5/29 – Boise, ID
5/30 – Salt Lake City, UT
5/31 – Denver, CO
6/2 – Minneapolis, MN
6/3 & 6/4 – Chicago, IL
6/6 – Detroit, MI
6/7 – Toronto, ON
6/8 – Buffalo, NY
6/10 – Brooklyn, NY
Farnham is available now.Kieran Gibbs will be handed his first England start for almost four years against San Marino at Wembley tonight.
Arsenal left-back Gibbs has been given a chance to impress England manager Roy Hodgson, ahead of Leighton Baines, for the Euro 2016 qualifier.
Gibbs made his England debut as a substitute against Hungary in August 2010 and his first and only start until tonight followed against France in November of the same year.
A combination of injuries and the consistency of Ashley Cole and emergence of Baines meant that Gibbs has only made one more England appearance since those games, as a substitute against Germany last year.
The 25-year-old has been in good form for Arsenal this season and has established himself as the club’s first-choice left-back, ahead of Spaniard Nacho Monreal.Earlier today, the Duggar family confirmed that Josh has been locked away in a “long-term treatment center,” ostensibly for his self-described porn and sex addiction. And the most likely candidate by far is the Christian-based, North Love Baptist Church-affiliated Reformers Unanimous recovery center. A place that’s little more than a glorified, bible-based labor camp.
Should this indeed be Josh’s home for the coming months, he just paid $7,500 to study the Bible and work for free for the next six months. Not at all unlike the time he spent at the facility that supposedly “cured” him of the perversions that caused him to molest five young girls in his teens.
But if you’ve got it, Reformers Unanimous can (presumably) fix it. Just in their introduction video alone, they offer testimonies of a number of cured demons, including: drug and alcohol addiction, prescription medication, post-rape depression, eating disorders, pornography addictions.
But according to Benjamin Burks, the program’s International Director, “We must approach all problems in our lives from a spiritual standpoint if we’re ever going to have recovery from relapse.”
But—surely he must mean as part of a larger, therapy-inclusive program monitored by trained psychologists, right?
Not quite. The housing application alone makes its lack of medically licensed credentials painfully clear.
You can read the RU housing application in full below, but it does offer some key insights into what could be a long six months for Josh. After all, his daily schedule consists of early mornings, an awful lot of “work,” and very little counseling of any sort.
Once we get to page seven, there is an exhaustive list of rules regarding the bible study program. Still no mention of any sort of individualized counseling or therapy, however.
The list goes on to remind you to keep all conversations in vehicles “Christ-like.” If you’re not sure what this could possibly mean, just read on.
Notable here, of course, is the fact that they’re actively encouraging its patients to turn their peers anytime they break one of the (many, many) rules, creating a sense of both distrust and the constant fear that you might get punished for missing someone else’s illicit behavior.
Regarding the “kitchen” rules: “Negative remarks about food will not be tolerated. Prayer and fasting are a profitable substitute.”
As for the 40 hours of work the residents will be doing each week:
Or, to put it more simply: Free labor.
It’s a good thing Josh is only struggling with porn and sex. Because if he had any sort drug or alcohol addiction (as a large number of its residents ostensibly do), this would be a highly dangerous environment to send someone going through detox.
But at least the application form addresses this:
And last but not least, here is where Josh would be staying:
The most troubling part in all this, though, is that what Josh would be doing during his six months away isn’t likely to contribute to the sort of addiction recovery he’s ostensibly looking for—just like the last time he entered this sort of program. Despite the apparent lack of results, his family continues to pay to send him to uncredentialed work facilities, with the hopes that maybe this time something will stick. The problem is—at least from what these forms tell us—is that the only thing Josh could possibly walk away with is a strengthened sense of self-loathing and a few more memorized bible verses.
As always, if you have any information about Josh or Reformers Unanimous, you can email us here.
Update 5:51 p.m.: Shane Nicholson at the Rock River Times has been able to confirm for us that Josh Duggar is indeed at Reformers Unanimous.Patrick B. McGuigan
Three employees at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma, one of Oklahoma’s institutions of higher education, earn more than Governor Mary Fallin ($147,000 a year), a CapitolBeatOK analysis reveals. Four others at the school, three current employees and one retiree, are paid more than $100,000 a year.
Cynthia S. Ross, president of Cameron University, earned $261,100, with “total of all pay types” reaching $332,700. Provost John M. McArthur was paid a salary of $173,842, with total compensation at $186,600. One other Cameron employee also had taxpayer-financed pay higher than the governor: Vice President Glen P. Pinkston, at $147,870. His total compensation was $160,540.
Four other Cameron University employees (one retired) were compensated more than $100,000 in FY 2010. Reza Kamali (dean of science and technology), brought in $127,250 in pay ($138,500 total); Oris Odom (dean of business) garnered the same amount as Kamali.
Former President Don C. Davis (listed as retired personnel) had $119,753 for 2010. Ronna J. Vanderslice, dean of education, was listed at $108,917, with total pay of all types coming to $118,500.
The upper-end salaries are not typical of state government employees, the data provides useful information for the pay scales in Oklahoma state government, including Higher Education. As one example, pay for Gerald D. (“Doug”) Cole, station manager at public radio station KCCU, totaled $51,911 in Fiscal Year 2010.
Total payroll at Cameron University in 2010 was $25,008,978, according to data drawn from an interactive and searchable website, AccountAbilityOK.com. In the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education, the four-year graduation rate for Cameron University students was six percent.
In his ongoing analysis of Higher Education spending since 2003, Peter J. Rudy of OklahomaWatchdog.org found that Cameron was one of the few institutions where overall spending has decreased in any recent fiscal year.
Rudy noted the current year spending is roughly $46.8 million, a decline form last year’s $47.8 million. That is not to say Cameron has been slashing budgets in recent years. Rudy reports, “The average increase since FY 2003, even with this year’s decline, is 4.8% and FY 2012’s budget is 51% higher than the FY 2003 budget was.”
Rudy notes that, as is the case with other public universities, “Cameron is relying less on state funding now than it did 10 years ago. The revenues for FY 2003 consisted in part of 65% state funding and 30% tuition fees. For the current fiscal year, 48% of the funding is from state appropriations and 50% is from tuition and fees.”
A chart documenting the rise in Cameron spending since 2003 is available here
CapitolBeatOK’s examination of public employee salaries in Oklahoma has found that in FY 2010, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available, a total of 877 state employees were compensated at $147,000 a year (the salary earned by Gov. Mary Fallin. All but 52 of those employees are in the Higher Education system.
Expanding the examination to salaries of $100,000 or more yields a total of 2,605 people in Oklahoma state government who are paid salaries of $100,000 and up.
Of the 2,605 people being paid more than $100,000 a year, only 519 are not in the higher education system. There are 2,086 “Higher Ed” employees earning more than $100,000 in annual salaries.
Many of those in Higher Education earning high-end salaries are medical doctors at the Health Science Center in Oklahoma City. Others include coaches and prominent tenured professors.The European Ombudsman has described as ‘tragic’ the case of an Irishman in the Netherlands who cannot return to Ireland to visit his family because he has been prescribed cannabis as part of his palliative care.
Noel McCullagh, a native of Ballinasloe, lives in Amsterdam and is being treated for multiple sclerosis.
In a judgment published today, European Ombudsman P Nikiforos Diamandouros said he had been deeply touched by the case of the Irishman, but concluded he had not found a breach of European law in the matter.
However, he said there was nothing in European law which would prevent the Irish authorities exercising discretion and allowing Mr McCullagh return for a visit.
In August 2006, Mr McCullagh was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and prescribed palliative medicine, including cannabis, which is legal in the Netherlands.
The Ombudsman said that Mr McCullagh has made several attempts to get permission from the Irish authorities to visit his family in Ireland but was told on each occasion that if he arrived here, he would be arrested for possession of cannabis.
Mr McCullagh made a complaint to the European Commission that under the Schengen Agreement he should be allowed to travel but that was rejected.
He then appealed to the European Ombudsman who today published his judgment.
The Ombudsman agreed that since Ireland had not signed what is known as the Schengen acquis, there was no breach of European law.
However, Mr Diamandouros said there were no legal grounds on which the Irish authorities could not exercise discretion on humanitarian grounds.
'It is entirely in the hands of the Irish authorities to solve this case,' he said, adding that he would be contacting the Irish Ombudsman and the President of the Irish Commission on Human Rights to see if they could do anything to help Mr McCullagh.A robot vacuum cleaner sounds like a great idea. I have a Roomba, one of the most popular models, and most of the time it works great. But sometimes there are unexpected problems.
In a recent Facebook post, an Arkansas man described just how bad these problems can be. His dog had an accident on the floor, and then the Roomba started its scheduled cleaning.
"If your Roomba runs over dog poop, stop it immediately and do not let it continue the cleaning cycle," the man wrote. Unfortunately, he happened to be asleep when the Roomba ran. The result: it "spread the dog poop over every conceivable surface within its reach, resulting in a home that closely resembles a Jackson Pollock poop painting."
Silicon Valley optimists like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen have predicted that digital technology would revolutionize every facet of our lives. And of course that's been true for industries like music, news, and maps. But other tasks have proven more resistant to digital transformation.
Earlier this year, I wrote about Nest, whose popular smart thermostat made it a poster child for smart homes. But the company, which was acquired by Google in 2014, has struggled to develop new products, raising questions about whether Google overpaid for the company.
A similar story can be told about iRobot, the company behind the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. The company is hardly a failure, having sold 15 million units since it was introduced in 2002. But the Roomba remains a niche product, and iRobot hasn't come up with another hit.
These companies are struggling for similar reasons: Their products demand too much from their users while providing too little value in return.
Getting a Roomba won't change your life
Last year, iRobot sold 2.4 million Roombas. By any reasonable metric, that's a successful product. But in a nation of 320 million people (not to mention a world with more than 7 billion people), it's still a niche product. The vast majority of American households don't have a Roomba or any other robot vacuum cleaner and seem to be in no hurry to buy one.
And if you talk to Roomba owners, it's not hard to see why. "It gets stuck a lot," my Vox colleague Sarah Kliff told me. "I can't really leave it at home unsupervised."
Sarah has a table with a curved metal bottom that her Roomba finds fiendishly difficult to navigate. Often she'll come home to find that it drove up the table's leg and got stranded, the cleaning job unfinished. The Roomba also terrifies Sarah's dog.
My Roomba also has problems with getting stuck. But I've also found that it just doesn't save me that much time. I still have to tidy up the room before letting the Roomba loose. Then when it's done, I have to empty the dustbin and — often — dig out debris that got caught in the rollers. It's not as much work as using an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner, but it's not that much less work.
And then there are the times when the Roomba wreaks havoc. Asked about poop-related accidents, a spokesman for iRobot told the Guardian that "quite honestly, we see this a lot." Neither Sarah or I have experienced this particular misfortune, but we've had other, less traumatic problems with our Roombas.
"My old roommate had a Roomba that ran into my mirror," Sarah told me. "The mirror toppled over and broke."
One day, my Roomba got ahold of a spool of thread. When I got home, it had unwound the entire spool and wrapped it around the cleaning brush roll. It took several minutes to get it unwound, and I had to throw away the rat's nest of thread that was left.
I have a $399 Roomba 650. iRobot recently introduced a new high-end model, the $899 Roomba 980, which comes with a built-in camera, a longer-lasting battery, and other improvements. But as Fortune's Kif Leswing pointed out in a review last October, these improvements only get you so far. The longer battery life doesn't help if the dustbin gets full or your home has multiple levels. And the latest Roomba seems about as clumsy as its cheaper cousins — Leswing says it "beached itself on the legs of my Ikea Poang chair." And it ate one of his cat toys, damaging one of the robot's wheels.
Why it's hard for smart appliances to add value
The Roomba is by far the iRobot's most successful product. Over the years, the company has built a couple of mopping robots, a pool-cleaning robot, and a device for cleaning out your gutters. None of them have been big hits.
Other companies have tried to create internet-connected lawn sprinklers, crock pots, and lightbulbs.
A fundamental problem here is that for many tasks in the physical world, there just isn't that much room for software and complex electronics to add value.
The home appliances that have done the most to improve people's lives are the ones like dishwashers and washing machines that took a really time-consuming and tedious task and made it dramatically faster.
But in many cases, the preinternet devices in our homes are already pretty good. There isn't a ton of room for further improvement. People don't spend a lot of time adjusting their thermostats, so the better interface on a Nest Learning Thermostat doesn't add a ton of value. Smart lightbulbs or robotic gutter cleaners seem even more like a solution in search of a problem.
The preinternet devices in our homes are already pretty good
Machines add the most value when they can be operated at scale in a controlled environment — washing machines and dishwashers are useful because you can wash dozens of dishes or shirts at the same time. And because all the action happens inside the machine, there's less room for unpleasant surprises — like a stray cat toy getting into the gears, or dog poop being spread across the floor.
In contrast, home robots and connected home devices are trying to operate in the chaotic and nonstandardized environment of a modern home. It's an inherently more difficult problem to design a product that will work flawlessly in a wide variety of different home types.
And this is a reason to be skeptical that we'll see rapid progress in household robotics or smart homes in the coming years. It has proven difficult to build a robot vacuum cleaner or a smart thermostat that's a big hit with the public. And other home automation tasks — like iRobot's mopping robots — have been even less popular than that. The concept of smart homes and cleaning robots sounds appealing in theory, but making it useful in practice is surprisingly difficult.Several rural ridings should be consolidated to create three new constituencies in urban areas, where the province's population has skyrocketed since 2010, the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission says.
In its interim report released Thursday, the commission recommends Calgary and Edmonton each get one new riding, and that a new riding be created northwest of Calgary to accommodate the population growth in Airdrie and Cochrane.
The commission proposes the boundary of Fort McMurray-Conklin, currently held by Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, be redrawn to include Lac La Biche. That would bring the population of the new riding to 36,112, still 23 per cent below the provincial average.
The commission has to maintain the same number of constituencies, so it recommends consolidating ridings in areas where population growth has been below the provincial average.
Four constituencies in northeast Alberta (Lac La Biche-St. Paul-Two Hills, Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville and Bonnyville-Cold Lake) are proposed to be consolidated into three.
The commission recommends that seven ridings (Battle River-Wainwright, Drumheller-Stettler, Strathmore-Brooks, Little Bow, Cardston-Taber-Warner, Cypress-Medicine Hat and Vermilion-Lloydminister) be made into six.
Five constituencies north of Red Deer and west of Edmonton — Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, West Yellowhead, Drayton Valley-Devon, Whitecourt-Ste. Anne and Stony Plain — should become four.
The chair of the commission, Justice Myra Bielby, said Alberta's population has grown by 600,000 in the last eight years. She said the populations of constituencies vary from a low of 17,129 people to a high of 92,148. The provincial average is 46,697.
"Those 600,000 people didn't move equally into each of the 87 constituencies," she said. "They concentrated themselves on Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray. So the result has been that, while eight years ago almost all of the 87 constituencies were pretty close to the provincial average size of 40,000 people at that time, things have gotten out of sync now. Considerable variations have arisen."
Bielby noted these wide variances give people in less-populated parts of the province more say than urban residents.
"If there was a provincial election held today, a vote cast in the town of Jasper, Alberta, would have about three times the effect of a vote cast in Calgary-South East."
Minority report opposed new big city ridings
Not every member of the five-person commission agreed with the recommendations. In her minority report, Gwen Day argued against adding new ridings in Edmonton and Calgary.
She said population should not be the only factor in determining electoral boundaries, and consolidating rural constituencies can make them too large for MLAs to provide effective representation.
"Perhaps if we looked at Albertans as a family at the table, at some points in time in our family we extend extra grace for reasons," she said. "I think there are considerable reasons to work with those allowances, work with the deviations that are permitted by law."
Nathan Cooper, the Wildrose MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, agrees with Day's minority opinion.
Cooper says rural MLAs often have to travel great distances to do their jobs. For example, he says there are 14 municipalities and more than 100 elected officials in his constituency that he needs to visit.
"We see rural MLAs with significant amount of distance to travel as well as a number of communities that they are responsible to engage and liaise with, where urban MLAs will only have one municipality, one school board," he said.
"So there is a very distinct difference between rural and urban Alberta and it appears that those haven't been taken as much into consideration as much as population."
The commission will hold another round of hearings in July for the public to consider the recommendations.
The new ridings are called Edmonton-South, Calgary-Northeast and Airdrie-Cochrane.
The chair of the commission, Justice Myra Bielby, acknowledged last year's wildfire created uncertainty around the census data for Fort McMurray-Conklin, meaning the recommendation to redraw the boundary could change by the time the final report comes out.
Many of the homes destroyed or damaged in the fire were in that area, so residents may have simply moved to another part of the city while their homes are being rebuilt. Bielby urged residents to help the commission update its data.
"Some of those people may in fact still be there," she said. "And so we are asking for people who know about Fort McMurray, who have particular knowledge of the area, to give us some help in deciding whether that's a correct population figure for Fort McMurray-Conklin or whether it should be higher."
Boundaries are redrawn after every second election.
The last boundaries commission was in 2010, which resulted in the creation of four new ridings: one in Fort McMurray, one in Edmonton and two in Calgary.
According to Statistics Canada, Alberta's population grew from 3,742,800 in 2010 to 4,252,900 in 2016.
The commission held its first round of hearings across the province earlier this year.
The government is scheduled to receive the commission's final report by Oct. 31.Scientists claim to have grown human sperm in a lab, and columnists and bloggers are musing on the possibility of a world where men are no longer needed. Michael Hanlon in the Daily Mail is not looking forward to the prospect of a world that doesn't need men. But if - and it is still a big if - scientists could one day use cells from female embryos to produce sperm, or perhaps even DNA extracted from an adult's skin or cheek-lining cells, then we truly would be living in a terrifying new era.
The Daily Telegraph's Rowan Pelling says men are redundant but worth keeping for menial tasks. Yet I feel compelled - and not just as the mother of two small boys - to make a spirited defence of the weaker sex. Where would I be without my husband to read 80 pages of a car manual, in French, to find out how the back windscreen-wiper works? Who would tug the dried lumps of excrement from our cat's backside? Who would explain the rules of cricket to an American? Who would clear a blocked drain of unspeakable clotted matter? Who would take hours to demonstrate the dreadnought manoeuvres at the Battle of Jutland, armed only with salt cellars and jam jars? Without men, there would be no one to read Joseph Conrad or Norman Mailer, to remove spiders from the bath, or (important one, this) to tell women they're pretty.
The editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics John Harris says in the Independent that he sees nothing wrong with exercising choice but the real ethical issue isn't about the prospect of a world without men. Women have many ways of trying to do without men. They don't need men - they just need their sperm. Sperm is a notoriously renewable resource and it is plentiful. There is always the turkey baster option for women who want to get pregnant but do not see the need to get a man... The real ethical issue here is that we do not foreclose the beneficial possibilities of research through prejudice or fear.
The man himself, who made sperm from stem cells Emily Cook in the Daily Mirror can only think of one useful man and that's scientist Karim Nayernia, who conducted the sperm research: Women have always known that men are a bit of a waste of space Now British scientists have proved how unnecessary blokes truly are by creating the first human sperm from stem cells. And as if that's not a big enough problem for fellas everywhere, the expert behind this revolutionary move is a man.
And Blog Tactic says despite the scientific developments, men should be kept around as play-things. That means men can become redundant in the human productive cycle and the end of male infertility. But for the ladies, I think we should keep a few of them around just for fun. And for those anti-gay, it is an efficient way to cure male homosexuality: abolish men.
Karen on the Macleans.ca blog hints at how complex the politics of parenting may become by linking to the UK government's current meanings of mother and father. The definitions are more than 5,000 words long. On the same blog Last Man on Earth says: WE MUST CRUSH THIS! Take away their funding, burn all evidence, delete all records, kidnap and kill those who made the discovery and then bury this entire story under some celebrity scandal. Men can't become irrelevant!
In the Culture Watch blog Bill Muehlenberg is concerned the advances may leave men with nothing to do: what they are really about is the end of man - both as the male gender, and as humanity A number of problems come to mind, including the obvious: if scientists can now manufacture sperm, that simply makes males even more redundant than they already are. This is really parthenogenesis, or procreation by one sex alone. This might be good for amoebas, but it is not good for human beings, and certainly not good for the children who come about by such a process.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionDon't expect oil to go above $100 per barrel within the next decade.
The 12-member oil cartel OPEC has this grim forecast in a draft report presented to its staff last week that the Wall Street Journal read.
Here's the Journal's Benoît Faucon and Summer Said (emphasis added):
"The report, seen by The Wall Street Journal, predicts that oil prices will be about $76 a barrel in 2025 in its most optimistic scenario, a reflection of OPEC worries that American competitors will be able to cope with low prices and keep pumping out supplies. It also contemplates situations where crude oil costs below $40 a barrel in 2025."
This appears to be OPEC's latest admission that it has lost firm control over oil prices. Last Tuesday, influential Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al-Naimi told CNBC that the price of oil is not controlled by OPEC but is, "up to Allah."
Oil prices started collapsing from their peak last June when the market was flushed with oil produced in America's shale boom. Despite falling oil prices, OPEC agreed to maintain production at 30 million barrels per day in November, a move that sent prices even lower.
Oil below $100 is not good for OPEC members; many of them are depending on oil to balance their budgets and fund existing projects.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil was last above $100 per barrel in mid-July 2014 before beginning its rapid slide to as low as $43 per barrel. On Monday, WTI was lower at around $59.17 per barrel.
Since mid-March, we've seen a steady recovery that took WTI above $60 per barrel last week for the first time since December.
NOW WATCH: Watch these giant container ships collide near the Suez Canal
More From Business InsiderMarilyn Monroe made the character Lorelei Lee famous after her portrayal of the diamond-loving gold-digger in the 1953 Howard Hawks musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. But author Anita Loos, who was born on this day, invented the outrageous blonde in her 1925 Jazz-Age novel of the same name. Written in the form of Lorelei’s diary, spelling mistakes and all, Loos captures the character’s personality and obsession with wealth and status in the opening entry. These other fictional diaries are equally telling, revealing powerful themes and insights into each character from the very first page. It’s also fascinating to see how the diary format has often been relied upon to express the inner world of fictional women throughout literature.
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer
Filmmaker Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David Lynch, wrote The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer after the first season of Twin Peaks aired in 1990 when she was 22 years old. Written from the point of view of the troubled homecoming queen Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee in the TV series), the diary opens with a chilling excerpt that foreshadows the terrible traumas to come and goes on to chronicle Laura’s life from age 12 to her tragic death at 17.
July 22, 1984
Dear Diary,
My name is Laura Palmer, and as of just three short minutes ago, I officially turned twelve years old! It is July 22, 1984, and I have had such a good day! You were the last gift I opened and I could hardly wait to come upstairs and start to tell you all about myself and my family. You shall be the one I confide in the most. I promise to tell you everything that happens, everything I feel, everything I desire. And, every single thing I think. There are some things I can’t tell anyone. I promise to tell these things to you.
Gone Girl
Knowing the twists and turns of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl (and the movie adaptation directed by David Fincher), the opening of character Amy Dunne’s (née Elliott) diary is worth a thousand smirks. The book pushes the unreliable narrator to the extreme as we uncover the truth about Nick and Amy Dunne’s marital struggles.
AMY ELLIOTT
JANUARY 5, 2005
– Diary entry –
Tra and la! I am smiling a big adopted-orphan smile as I write this. I am embarrassed at how happy I am, like some Technicolor comic of a teenage girl talking on the phone with my hair in a ponytail, the bubble above my head saying: I met a boy!
But I did. This is a technical, empirical truth. I met a boy, a great, gorgeous dude, a funny, cool-ass guy. Let me set the scene, because it deserves setting for posterity (no, please, I’m not that far gone, posterity! feh). But still. It’s not New Year’s, but still very much the new year. It’s winter: early dark, freezing cold.
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Author Helen Fielding captures the self-loathing and bodily obsession that many women experience in the opening diary entry of 30-something Londoner Bridget Jones.
Sunday 1 January
129 lbs. (but post-Christmas), alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as 4 hours of party was on New Year’s Day), cigarettes 22, calories 5424.
Food consumed today:
2 pots Emmenthal cheese slices
14 cold new potatoes
2 Bloody Marys (count food as contain Worcester sauce and tomatoes)
1/3 Ciabatta loaf with Brie
coriander leaves — 1/2 packet
12 Milk Tray (best to get rid of all Christmas confectionery in one go and make fresh start tomorrow)
13 cocktail sticks securing cheese and pineapple
Portion Una Alconbury’s turkey curry, peas and bananas
Portion Una Alconbury’s Raspberry Surprise made with Bourbon biscuits, tinned raspberries, eight gallons of whipped cream, decorated with glacé cherries and angelica.
The Color Purple
Alice Walker won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction after writing the novel The Color Purple. Set in the rural South during the 1930s, Walker opens the book with a heartbreaking diary entry from young African-American narrator Celie, who we learn has suffered horrifying abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to care for her.
You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.
Dear God,
I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me.
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s early feminist fiction, written from the perspective of a woman who has been confined to her bedroom by her husband due to her “slight hysterical tendency,” unveils the common struggles of women during that time period who were quickly and carelessly branded as mentally ill. The narrator’s frustration with her husband’s stance is detailed in the first lines of her journal entry.
It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.
A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity — but that would be asking too much of fate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.
John is a physician, and PERHAPS — (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) — PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?
Myra Breckinridge
Gore Vidal’s 1968 novel subverts gender and sexual norms and boasts an eponymous, classic Hollywood-loving character who represents the “New Woman,” in the age of the “Woman Triumphant, of Myra Breckinridge.” Vidal once said, “From Myra’s fist appearance on the page she was a megastar” — and her opening diary entry underlines this.
I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for “why” or “because.” Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men, unmanning them in the way that King Kong was reduced to a mere simian whimper by beauteous Fay Wray whom I resemble left three-quarter profile if the key light is no more than five feet high during the close shot.
The Moth Diaries
“The Moth Diaries delves deeper into the neuroses and psyche of female adolescence than anything I’ve read,” wrote Nicola Morgan for the Guardian in her 2004 review of Rachel Klein’s novel. “It is dark and dangerous, gothic, brutally revealing, regularly shocking and perfectly controlled. We know from the preface that the main character has “borderline personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis”. We know she recovers. That foreknowledge never weakens the story’s grip.” The opening diary entry by Klein’s narrator reveals a taste of her growing obsession with roommate Lucy Blake and the twist their relationship takes while at an exclusive girls’ boarding school.
September 10
My mother dropped me off at two. Practically everyone is back. Except for Lucy. I can’t wait for her to come so that we can unpack together. I’m going to write in my journal until she’s here. After my mother left, I felt an emptiness in my stomach that spread up through my throat to the back of my eyes. I didn’t cry, even though I probably would have felt better afterward. I needed to hold on to that feeling, that pain. If Lucy had been here, she would have distracted me. I had a moment of panic when I said good-bye to my mother. I begged her not to leave me here. It’s so strange.
Nausea
The opening diary of Jean-Paul Sartre’s debut novel, written from the perspective of despondent historian Antoine Roquentin, is full of all the existential feels.
Monday, 29 January, 1932:
Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it any more. It came as an illness does, not like an ordinary certainty, not like anything evident. It came cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, a little put out, that’s all. Once established it never moved, it stayed quiet, and I was able to persuade myself that nothing was the matter with me, that it was a false alarm. And now, it’s blossoming. I don’t think the historian’s trade is much given to psychological analysis. In our work we have to do only with sentiments in the whole to which we give generic titles such as Ambition and Interest. And yet if I had even a shadow of self-knowledge, I could put it to good use now.
Diary
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14.8 million children struggle against hunger in food insecure households.”
Cruel mindset
The Trump administration is more than willing to pass massive tax cuts for the rich while at the same time refusing to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which supports over nine million children.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, meantime, has argued that tax cuts shouldn’t benefit the poor because they will just waste the money on booze and women.
So if you’re not rich, it’s because you’re lazy. Really? Tell that to the 10,000 people, some of them children, who may die each year as a result of losing their health insurance due to the proposed Senate tax bill.
Such a mindset, and statements like Grassley’s, are more than cruel, they represent a political and economic system that has abandoned any sense of moral and social responsibility.
In this view, children are undeserving of aid because offering such government support flies in the face of a ruthless neoliberal ideology that insists that the only responsibility of government is to aid the rich and powerful corporations.
If the poor are suffering and subject to harsh conditions, according to Grassley’s logic, it is because of a lack of character.
Another under-analyzed example of Trump’s war on youth can be seen his cancellation of the DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), instituted in 2012 by former president Barack Obama.
Under the program, over 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children or teens before 2007 were allowed to live, study and work in the United States without fear of deportation.
In revoking the program, Trump enacted a policy that is both cruel and racist, given that 78 per cent of DACA residents are from Mexico. These are the same immigrants Trump once labelled rapists, drug addicts and criminals.
Trump’s contempt for the lives of young people, his support for a culture of cruelty and his appetite for destruction and civic catastrophe are more than a symptom of a society ruled almost exclusively by a market-driven survival of the fittest ethos.
‘Systemic derangement’
It is about the systemic derangement of democracy and emergence of fascist politics that celebrates the toxic pleasures of the authoritarian state with no regard for its children.
Trump is the apostle of moral blindness and unchecked corruption, and he revels in a mode of governance that merges his never-ending theatrics of self-promotion with deeply authoritarian politics.
One of the most disturbing features of Trump’s fascism is his disregard for the truth and his embrace of an infantilism that demonstrates, for young people, a lack of any viable sense of critical thought, agency and commitment to social and economic justice.
What’s more, Trump has unleashed a rancid populism and racist-fuelled ultra-nationalism that mimics older forms of fascism and creates a culture of cruelty that both disparages its children and cancels out a future that makes democracy possible for them — and therefore all of us.
At the same time, Trump has embraced a merging of corporate power and politics that is characteristic of all fascist regimes, and in doing so, he has shifted wealth and resources away from vital social programs for young people into the hands of the financial elite.
There is more at work here than regressive tax policies, there is also an attempt to disable the welfare state by eliminating its funding.
Domestic terrorism
One result is what might be called the unleashing of a form of domestic terrorism — terrorism practised in one’s own country against one’s own people —in which young people are subject to state violence and relegated to forms of terminal exclusion, spheres of social abandonment and set adrift in a state of disorientation and despair.
Under this new resurgence of fascism, thinking is dangerous, public spheres that promote critical thought are considered pathological and youth are viewed as a threatening disoriented class, especially those marginalized by race, sexual orientation and class.
And so under Trump, the winds of fascism have accelerated into a hurricane and pose a haunting crisis for youth, the future and democracy itself.
That crisis of youth under the Trump regime is a political disaster of the first order and threatens every vital cultural and political ideal, principle, social formation and public sphere that makes a democracy possible. It’s best illustrated by Trump’s support for Moore, a homophobe, unabashed racist and an accused child predator, sexual harasser and sexual abuser.
Yes, fascism us making a comeback and is with us once again — yet Moore’s defeat in the deep-red state of Alabama to his Democratic challenger gives us reason to hope. Black voters, particularly black women, and young voters stood up to say “no more.”
Fascism requires those among us who value equity, fairness, justice and morality to defeat it. To stop fascism, it is crucial that we show that democracy is the only alternative, and that the grotesque elements of fascism will be challenged. Here’s hoping Alabama is just the beginning of such a struggle.
By Henry Giroux, Chaired professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.Last time we showed the different possibilities we visualized to use for our main character and as you might know we decided to go with one of the big guys. Our main character as you can see here consists only of a few basic forms and elements. The belt in the middle, a small backpack which breaks the silhouette from the side and lightend ellbows to create an iconic pattern from behind. The glass helmet is for an astronaut from our plant crucial. Nothing says it like that, that an ape shouldn’t be out there in space.
We tried to be as low poly as possible with the character and keep it very iconic and stylistic. The final model shouldn’t have a lot of detail but very well defined edges and surfaces. What material the suit is made of is left to the spectator. What technique does it use? Some sort of magical NASA-technology i guess.
For me it is a tribute to the glorious heroes of jump n’ run games: Commander Keen, Earthworm Jim, or Megaman.
We imagined the character very comical and simple. The focus is not on complex layers of clothes and armor but instead should leave space for the configuration chosen by the player. The different Noomies with their 4 colors will be represented through different tools on the character and he will be defined by those tools. It should be clear for everyone (player and opponents) which abilities (Noomies) were picked. That’s also the reason for the plain white and the pure colors that define very (very) clearly the border between the slots (shoot, melee, movement and building).
In the top of the picture you can see some different approaches of representing the unknown power of the Noomies and your suits ability to absorb them. We decided to stick with real tools, like a drill instead of claws. And in the game we sticked to abstract concepts like strength, speed, splash and range instead of armor, jelly, spikes and gumi. Or even more unfamiliar: Crab, snail, hedgehog and froggy lizard-thing… a decision we don’t regret.
But we weren’t everywhere very concistent with our own ideas. An example is the whip which stayed until now a hybrid of different ideas and technologies. A strange frogtounge-whip to grab Noomies from a far or energy from your opponent in a deathmatch. (This could be new to some of you, even if you have played with us in our alphamatches. It was poorly visualy represented and was a little bit to slow but an amazing trick if you used it succesful.)
Something similar goes with Gordos gun.
We wanted to keep it clear for the player to understand your purpose and therefore searched for a apealing look of Gordos weapons without getting into crazy stuff. A revolver is a very iconic weapon and even comes with its own style of lonesome strangers, unknown lands, unnecessary gunfights and so on. And we too, like “Cowboy Beebob” or “Earthworm Jim”, think that it mashes perfectly with science fiction. And we thought it would be really funny if the humans gave an ape a real (!) gun for the exploration of unknown planets.
Again it was important to us to keep the “tools” in the focus and making clear whats your mission: Bringing the human spirit to primitive worlds.
At first we even thought about only changing the amunition and keeping the revolver all the time, but we ended by making a slightly changed revolver for every color – which is a little bit overthought.
With the character defined by the gameplay we were coming up with an satisfying solution for both single- and multiplayer. When it came to Gordos face that gave us some headache. We tried different variations of form, mood, color, hair until we decided he should be “cool”. Once we decided on a face, we tweaked his haircut. Violett wasn’t allready reserved by any Noomie and we thought it would fit good. And we also wanted to add some beard to frame his face. Very apelike.
But here we made some really poor art. The problem with the final concept is that its not at all an ape. It reminds me of the first “Planet of the apes”. The image you can see below looks more like a human with an apemask than a real animal.
But we were all pretty satisfied with the results anyway. The character was clear and had the right amount of seriousness and still potential for some in-game-humor. Giving him this edges and background was, what kept a lot of us working on the idea.
Over the course of this iteration we came to a character that wasn’t perfect but we all liked him. We could stand behind him and during this process a world started to evolve and become more and more fantastic.
To me the things the character lacked were always backed up by my imagination for his future and past. In the game he will look like this human instrument, but deep down in him there lies a personality that will come out during his adventures in space, and how and where it all ends is not yet decided.Wrong/dangerous. Trump doesn’t have absolute rights with DOJ. But women and men there have ABSOLUTE duty to follow Constitution and rule of law - not a man. Career DOJ people have ABSOLUTE right to defy illegal orders. And they will. I know them. — Eric Holder (@EricHolder) December 29, 2017
Former Attorney General Eric Holder ripped President Trump for saying that he has the "absolute right" to do what he wants with the Department of Justice, calling the comments "wrong" and "dangerous.""Wrong/dangerous. Trump doesn’t have absolute rights with DOJ. But women and men there have ABSOLUTE duty to follow Constitution and rule of law — not a man. Career DOJ people have ABSOLUTE right to defy illegal orders. And they will. I know them," Holder wrote in a tweet on Friday.The comments from President Obama's former attorney general come after Trump told The New York Times on Thursday that he could do what he wanted with the department after he was asked if he would reopen the probe into former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's email server during her tenure as secretary of State."I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter," the president told the publication.Taliban insurgents overran an Afghan army post in the troubled southern province of Helmand in a predawn
attack, killing 10 soldiers, authorities have said.
Four soldiers were wounded and six others were missing following the attack in the province's Washir district, a senior police official, Colonel Mohammad Ismaiel Hotak, told AFP news agency.
"There was an attack on one of our posts in Washir district. Ten soldiers are dead in that attack," said Hotak, the deputy head of the regional coordinating body for the Afghan army and the US-led NATO force.
Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial administration, confirmed the incident and said the attack was an "insider" plot in which some army soldiers helped the Taliban attack the post.
"The Taliban attacked a post in Washir and killed 10 soldiers. Four other soldiers were wounded and five others have gone with the Taliban with their guns," he said. "It was an insider plot."
Separate attack in Laghman province
Hotak could not confirm Ahmadi's account but said an investigation was underway.
If it is confirmed that the attack was facilitated by soldiers, it will be the latest in a string of insider attacks on Afghan and NATO security forces.
Another such attack was reported in the eastern Laghman province, where an Afghan soldier turned his weapon on international troops, killing two. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force declined to provide further details.
"ISAF troops returned fire, killing the [Afghan National Army] soldier who committed the attack," the alliance said in a brief statement.
A total of 42 international troops, mostly Americans, have died in such attacks this year, as have more than 50 Afghan soldiers.
Taliban insurgents claim responsibility for many of the "insider" attacks, though NATO has tried to attribute most to cultural differences, stress and personal animosity between Afghan troops and international soldiers.
But last week general John Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, acknowledged that the Taliban was responsible for a greater share of the attacks than the alliance had previously acknowledged.
The Afghan government said last week it would reexamine the files of some 350,000 soldiers and police to help curb rogue shootings of NATO personnel, but accused "foreign spies" of instigating the attacks.Members of the team of Russians who secured a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner also attempted to stage a show trial of anti-Putin campaigner Bill Browder on Capitol Hill.
The trial, which would have come in the form of a congressional hearing, was scheduled for mid-June 2016 by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a long-standing Russia ally who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe. During the hearing, Rohrabacher had planned to confront Browder with a feature-length pro-Kremlin propaganda movie that viciously attacks him—as well as at least two witnesses linked to the Russian authorities, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Ultimately, the hearing was canceled when senior Republicans intervened and agreed to allow a hearing on Russia at the full committee level with a Moscow-sympathetic witness, according to multiple congressional aides.
An email reviewed by The Daily Beast shows that before that June 14 hearing, Rohrabacher’s staff received pro-Kremlin briefings against Browder, once Russia’s biggest foreign investor, and his tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky from a lawyer who was working with Veselnitskaya.
Although House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) had prohibited Rohrabacher from showing the Russian propaganda film in Congress, Rohrabacher’s Capitol Hill office still actively promoted a screening of the movie that was held at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on June 13, 2016. Veselnitskaya was one of those handling the movie’s worldwide promotion.
Invitations to attend the movie screening were sent from the subcommittee office by Catharine O’Neill, a Republican intern on Rohrabacher’s committee. Her email promised that the movie would convince viewers that Magnitsky, who was murdered in a Russian prison cell, was no hero.
The invite, reviewed by The Daily Beast, claimed that the film “explodes the common view that Mr. Magnitsky was a whistleblower” and lavishes praise on the “rebel director” Andrei Nekrasov.
“That invitation was not from our office. O’Neill was an unpaid intern on the committee staff. Paul denies asking her to send the invitations,” said Ken Grubbs, Rohrabacher’s press secretary, referring to the congressman’s staff director, Paul Behrends.
O’Neill went on to secure a job on the Trump transition team and then in the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. She did not return a call for comment.
Rohrabacher’s office was given the film by the Prosecutor General’s office in Moscow, which is run by Yuri Chaika, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin who is accused of widespread corruption, and Viktor Grin, the deputy general prosecutor who has been sanctioned by the United States as part of the Magnitsky Act.
That same Prosecutor General’s office also was listed as being behind the “very high level and sensitive information” that was offered to Donald Trump Jr. in an email prior to his now infamous meeting with Russian officials at Trump Tower on June 9—just days before the congressional hearing. Veselnitskaya attended that meeting with Trump Jr. She also happens to have worked as a prosecutor in the Moscow region and is a close personal friend of Chaika.
The Daily Beast reviewed a copy of a document that was passed to Rohrabacher in Moscow in April 2016. The document, marked “confidential,” was given to Rohrabacher and Behrends. It lays out an alternate reality in which the U.S.—and the rest of the world—has been duped by a fake $230 million scandal that resulted in sanctions being imposed on 44 Russians linked to murder, corruption, or cover-ups.
The document, which was handed over by an official from the Prosecutor General’s office to Rohrabacher along with means of viewing the Russian propaganda movie, suggested that U.S. “political situation may change the current climate” and claimed that it was the ideal moment to foment a challenge to the Western narrative on Putin’s kleptocracy. A subcommittee hearing that would re-examine the sanctions placed on Russia, the paper claimed, would be appreciated in Moscow.
“Changing attitudes to the Magnitsky story in the Congress… could have a very favorable response from the Russian side,” the document said.
What the U.S. would get in exchange for holding a subcommittee hearing was not laid out in detail. But the document promised to help iron out “key controversial issues and disagreements with the United States.”
Grubbs said Rohrabacher had accepted the document but said the conversation with officials from the Prosecutor General’s office during the congressman’s April 2016 Moscow visit was “brief and formal.”
When Rohrabacher returned to the United States, he delayed the passage of the Global Magnitsky Act by holding it up in committee and tabled an amendment to remove Magnitsky’s name from its title, citing several of the claims found in the Russian document.
Next, Rohrabacher and Behrends, with the help of Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet army veteran and lobbyist who was also present at the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, put together a subcommittee event with witnesses including Veselnitskaya and Nekrasov, the director of the movie.
When Royce, the chair of the foreign relations committee, got wind of the hearing, he nixed Rohrabacher’s plan and offered instead to hold a full committee hearing on Russia relations. House aides conceded that he did so, in part, to avoid Rohrabacher staging an event that could have embarrassed the Republican Party—and Congress.
Rohrabacher was apparently still allowed to propose a witness for the full committee hearing who shared some of his pro-Russia views. Jack Matlock, the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union who appeared, confirmed to The Daily Beast that he had been first approached by Rohrabacher.
A spokesman for Royce said that while Matlock and Rohrabacher did know each other from their days in the Ronald Reagan administration, his appearance at the hearing was ultimately cleared by the full committee’s Republican staff.
During Royce’s hearing, Rohrabacher approvingly compared Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. The congressman also submitted, for the congressional record, testimony that claimed Russia had not been behind the radioactive poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London.
Rohrabacher, Behrends, Akhmetshin, Veselnitskaya, and Matlock had dinner together later that night at the Capitol Hill Club, a private members’ establishment for Republicans. The evening was organized by Lanny Wiles, a veteran GOP operative.
The following day, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was caught on tape telling Republican colleagues: “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” When some of the lawmakers laughed, he replied: “Swear to God.”
McCarthy later said the comment was meant as a joke. A close associate told The Daily Beast that McCarthy was, indeed, referencing Rohrabacher’s well known affinity for Russia, which, over the years, has been treated as an odd spectacle by fellow lawmakers on the Hill.
Foreign Soil
Whether they should take the spectacle more soberly is another matter.
Four years prior to the hearing, Rohrabacher was taken into a quiet room in Congress and warned by FBI agents that Russian intelligence operatives were trying to recruit him as an asset.
If he took the warning seriously, it certainly didn’t stop him from spending time with figures linked closely to the Russian state apparatus.
Earlier this year, Rohrabacher, who says he once arm-wrestled Putin, met Akhmetshin in Berlin. The congressman acknowledged to CNN that he suspected the former member of a Soviet counterintelligence unit might have links to the current Russian security service.
“I would certainly not rule that out,” Rohrabacher said. “[He has] an ulterior motive.”
That meeting in Germany apparently came about through sheer happenstance.
The same cannot be said of Rohrabacher’s congressional delegation trip to Moscow in the spring of 2016.
The itinerary for that three-day trip, reviewed by The Daily Beast, shows that Rohrabacher and Behrends attended a side meeting—without the other members of the delegation—with one of Putin’s closest confidants, Vladimir Yakunin.
A former head of the Russian Railways who has been sanctioned by the U.S., Yakunin has routinely accompanied Putin on domestic and international trips over the years. He owns a dacha near the president in an exclusive enclave on the shore of Lake Komsomolskoye.
Rohrabacher said at the time that he had agreed to the meeting at the request of Sergey Kislyak. “The Russian ambassador asked me if I would meet with him in Moscow,” he told BuzzFeed.
Kislyak has since gained notoriety in the U.S. after a series of Trump campaign associates failed to disclose their conversations with a man who has been described as “a top spy and recruiter of spies.”
There were no other meetings with Russian officials scheduled for Rohrabacher and Behrends alone. But after a delegation meeting with Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of Russia’s foreign affairs committee, at the Duma the two of them were asked to stay behind.
Once the other members of the delegation had left the room, Viktor Grin, a top Chaika deputy in the Prosecutor General’s office and one of the 44 Russians enduring a travel ban and asset freezes under U.S. sanctions, appeared with the document outlining Russia’s position on the Magnitsky sanctions. Rohrabacher and Behrends were also given access to the anti-Magnitsky movie.
‘He Wants to Pursue It’
A month after returning from Moscow with the Russian document, which is just over a page long, the congressman had already delayed the Global Magnitsky Act. His spokesman told National Review at the time: “The congressman came across some information that puts the Magnitsky narrative as we know it into some question, and he wants to pursue it.”
He refused to say where this new information had suddenly come from.
Two weeks later, Rohrabacher explained to colleagues on the House Foreign Affairs Committee why he had tabled an amendment to take Magnitsky’s name off the bill.
He did not say he was using the Russian document as the basis for his argument, but he did repeat five claims from the Moscow paper. He said Magnitsky was a financial adviser, not a lawyer; that Browder may have been trying to avoid millions in taxes, and that Browder had renounced his U.S. citizenship as a tax-saving measure.
Rohrabacher also advocated for an end to sanctions against Russia as a means of ending the ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans—which Putin had put into effect in as a response to the original Magnitsky Act.
In reality, Magnitsky reported the $230 million tax fraud to the authorities in 2008 shortly before he was detained. According to an investigation ordered by the former president Dmitry Medvedev, Magnitsky was then held illegally, beaten, and left to die in his pretrial jail cell in 2009.
As Rohrabacher pitched for support in the weeks after returning from Russia, Rinat Akhmetshin set to work on lobbying House members. A U.S. congressional staffer told The Daily Beast that former California Rep. Ron Dellums (D-CA) and Akhmetshin showed up at their office without an appointment.
“They said they were lobbying on behalf of a Russian company called Prevezon and asked us to delay the Global Magnitsky Act or at least remove Magnitsky from the name,” the staffer said. “Mr. Dellums said it was a shame that this bill has made it so Russian orphans cannot be adopted by Americans.”
Prevezon’s lawyer at the time was Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was working to defend the Cyprus-based company against U.S. money laundering allegations related to the massive fraud uncovered by Magnitsky.
Several people on the Hill reported seeing Akhmetshin and Dellums being given highly unusual personal introductions to lawmakers. The man leading them around was Paul Behrends.
Ken Grubbs insisted that Behrends often escorted people around Congress.
Old Friends
Behrends first worked in Rohrabacher’s office more than 25 years ago. In 1990, when he was a foreign policy adviser, he met a disaffected former Naval Academy student named Erik Prince at a series of conservative functions. They got on well, and Prince was invited to come and work in their office as an intern.
After leaving Rohrabacher’s office, Prince joined the Navy SEALS before setting up a private military company called Blackwater in 1997. At the height of Blackwater’s notoriety—after 14 civilians were unlawfully killed in Iraq—Behrends, who was by then a lobbyist, did work for the company, for which his firm was reportedly paid $300,000 a year.
Rohrabacher also did his share of advocacy for his former intern. “Prince is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was,” he said in 2007 after a House investigation raised concerns about Blackwater’s conduct.
Behrends, who would later return to the more modestly remunerated world of public service, Prince, and Rohrabacher have remained close for years, in part because their paths continue to cross.
More recently, Prince has been described as an informal adviser to the Trump team. He was a regular guest on Stephen Bannon’s Breitbart satellite radio show before Bannon joined the White House as chief strategist to the president.
Prince also donated $250,000 in total to the Trump campaign and one of the pro-Trump super PACs. His sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s education secretary.
In April, The Washington Post reported that Prince had arranged to meet a Russian official in the Seychelles. The newspaper reported that the FBI was probing allegations that the meeting was part of an effort to establish a direct communications back channel between Trump and Moscow.
Like his old boss had done with his hearing gambit six months earlier, Prince stood accused of privately doing Russia’s bidding.
Showtime
As Rohrabacher’s plan to hold that extraordinary June hearing with strong pro-Russian views developed, Andrei Nekrasov, who directed the anti-Magnitsky movie, said Behrends reached out to him to testify. Veselnitskaya was also approached.
It was Rohrabacher who put in the call to his old friend Matlock. “He and I share a view on the importance of getting along with the other nuclear power,” Matlock told The Daily Beast. “He asked me if I was willing to come to Washington and he was going to set up hearings at his subcommittee.”
“Rohrabacher did have a number of Russians who had done a film about the case in Moscow that had inspired the Magnitsky Act in Congress, and they had found that the story that was being pervaded here by Browder and his people was not the accurate one,” Matlock added. “I don’t know who’s right about that, but I do believe it’s wrong to suppress evidence.”
Matlock didn’t need to worry. Rohrabacher’s staff promoted the movie’s screening at the Newseum, which was attended by Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya, and the congressman from California entered a detailed statement from the director into the congressional record.
For Rohrabacher’s proposed hearing to be a success, Magnitsky skeptics needed the opportunity to challenge Browder directly. And on May 27, 2016, Behrends emailed Browder inviting him to be a witness.
Two weeks earlier, Behrends had been briefed on evidence gathered by the Russian authorities to tarnish Browder’s reputation, according to an email reviewed by The Daily Beast. The email was from Mark Cymrot to Behrends, a lawyer who was working for Prevezon at the time—just like Veselnitskaya.
Prevezon was facing a money-laundering trial in New York that alleged the company’s Russian owner had profited from the fraud Magnitsky had uncovered.
The email from Cymrot refers to a telephone call the day before and includes evidence and court papers to back up the Kremlin’s story that Browder was the one breaking financial laws in Russia.
When the Royce hearing did roll around, on June 14, one of the members of Congress on the committee was appalled by the litany of Kremlin lines being repeated by Rohrabacher and his friend Ambassador Matlock.
“I thought I’d just heard a presentation from RT,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told The Daily Beast, referring to the Kremlin-funded English-language TV network.
Connolly said the rest of the committee had come to believe that evidence from a Russian source should be treated with considerable skepticism, as the country’s operatives are experts at disinformation and falsification of evidence.
He was alarmed to discover that Behrends had been taking briefings direct from Russia’s anti-Magnitsky operation.
“If that is corroborated, it is deeply disturbing,” Connolly said. “We are United States congressmen. Our job is to protect the interests of our country and our allies. It is not to collude with, excuse, dismiss, or, even worse, collaborate with a foreign adversary and its minions.”
Sam Stein contributed additional reporting.What is happening in Raqqa? It is worth bring attention to the governorate that is “ruled” by the opposition, since it is the first actual model of an alternative authority to the state. The opposition referred to here is not the Syrian Coalition or its “temporary” government, but the Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigades and the Religious Body to Support the Syrian Revolution.
Based on the reality on the ground, there is confusion on the part of the opposition, especially in the management of the agricultural, educational and service sectors. There is also a risk of defaulting on the payment of salaries for state employees, as well as news about a new dictatorship being exercised by the brigades in the name of Sharia. It also seems that reconstruction will remain pending until further notice.
Amid all of this, the regime still maintains a presence in the governorate, from which it launches military operations to restore the city of Rashid.
The decline of agriculture and the absence of civil life
The life of the residents of Raqqa did not change much after the easy fall of their governorate outside the control of the regime, unlike in any other region in Syria.
The governorate fell in the hands of the opposition brigades starting with the Tal Abyad crossing on the Turkish border, then the Euphrates river and dam, to the heart of the city, which constitutes a small part of the vast rural areas.
Raqqa has a large population, a mixture of its original residents and those displaced after the outbreak of armed confrontations.
Not much has changed in Raqqa. However, the walls of the city have been painted, and are covered with revolutionary, Islamic, and advocacy slogans bearing the signature of Jabhat al-Nusra or Ahrar ash-Sham.
In contrast, the service sectors are still functioning as before. Employees of government institutions — such as electricity and water plants and bakeries — still go to work.
The Ministry of Education in Damascus decided to approve the student exams, which have been supervised by the local council. However, the Syrian National Coalition issued a decree setting the date for the official high school examinations for August.
The main problem is with the agricultural sector, the key economic source in Raqqa. Agriculture in Syria was already suffering from drought, as well as decreased care from the government. This has triggered extensive migration of the rural population in Raqqa to the outskirts of Aleppo and Damascus.
Today, the suffering resurfaces as the wheat harvest season begins. Farmers complain of difficulty in marketing their products, not just wheat, but all kinds of crops, especially sugar beets.
Irrigation is another problem suffered by the agricultural sector. Farmers depend on rain water in the winter despite its scarcity, in addition to pumping water from the Euphrates River, which requires equipment, fuel and electricity.
Despite the promises made by several European entities to improve the irrigation systems and support agricultural production, they are hampered by the lack of an executive authority or transitional government that would exercise its functions on the ground. This information has been provided by activists who have followed the issue of the decline of agriculture in the region.
The issue of executive power has become a subject of widespread discontent among the various social segments in Raqqa. The Syrian National Coalition is preoccupied with traveling, holding meetings and delivering useless speeches, while being completely oblivious to the need to manage the region, as some believe. This is happening at a time when the primary concern of many combat brigades is to attract the masses, engage in Islamic advocacy, apply the death penalty in public squares, and arrest people.
It is noteworthy that the regime still controls several military locations from which it launches operations aimed at restoring the governorate, especially through the Tabaqa military airport (near the Euphrates Dam) or launching medium-range missiles.
Thus, the governorate seems to be anything but safe, especially since it can still be accessed through several roads from Damascus, Palmyra or Deir al-Zour.
Oil … a different story
Another tragedy, which is no less significant than the agricultural sector, involves oil. This is especially true following Western reports saying that the ruling brigades are selling Syrian oil to foreign sides. The most affected are the rural residents. Some have turned to refining oil in primitive ways to be used as fuel for irrigation, since farmers need fuel to run water pump engines. Also, there will be an increased need for heating and electricity generation in the winter.
The primitive process of refining crude oil is done through “burners,” which are cylinders that operate according to an oil filtering mechanism. Thus, some have benefited from this process, selling fuel without consideration for the risk of the spread of vapors resulting from refining, which are believed to be carcinogenic. There is also a risk of the burners exploding, which would exacerbate the tragedy. However, the most important thing for fuel refiners are the millions or billions they are able to rake in.
And, of course, traders in “black gold” do not mind forming armed battalions to protect the process of stealing oil from fields along the course of the Euphrates River, refining it and even exporting it to Turkey and selling it in dollars there. As a result, the oil lords have joined their counterparts — the warlords, arms smugglers and thugs — in the Syrian arena.
New dictatorship
Raqqa has also been witnessing another phenomenon, which has been overlooked by the media. It is the protests led by civil society activists opposing the policy of arbitrary arrests carried out by the Religious Body.
Video clips that have circulated on YouTube show demonstrations in which slogans against the militant brigades were raised, such as, “Pity, pity, you have betrayed us in the name of Islam.” The footage on YouTube showed part of what is happening in the city, which had witnessed the executions of what Jabhat al-Nusra called “regime soldiers.” Following these executions, several demonstrations were launched denouncing the new dictatorship, offset by counter-demonstrations in support of Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies.
Paradoxically, many activists in Raqqa have maintained silence and refrained from giving details about the situation, on the grounds that what has been happening is mere individual cases unworthy of casting light on. In their view, exposing these facts would compromise the unity of the city and burden the fighters, as well as distract attention from the priorities for which the revolution was launched.
Some acknowledge that the continuation of these “individual” cases may lead to graver consequences in the event that a civil authority, which the various military battalions and groups would become subject to, is not established. This seems to be a distant notion, especially since some consider themselves to be the absolute commanders as long as they possess arms.Chemistry has progressed in a way few outsiders appreciate. It underpins many other sciences; from genomics and molecular biology, food and sports science, through to cosmology and planetary science. Why hasn't the public impression of chemistry evolved too?
Chemistry is often perceived as difficult, abstract and dangerous. Chemists often use the visual spectacle of explosions and bubbling glassware to popularise the subject and as a result, the public view of chemistry has not caught up to the radical changes in the field.
In this Faraday Award prize lecture, Professor Andrea Sella argued that chemists themselves are to blame. Chemists need new ways to talk about their subject and tell a deeper story. Sella explored chemistry as an intellectual challenge, which provides not only everyday applications and spectacle, but also gives insights into some of the deepest mysteries of science like the origins of life and the enigma of biological pattern formation.
The Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize is awarded annually to the scientist or engineer whose expertise in communicating scientific ideas in lay terms is exemplary. Professor Andrea Sella was presented the award for his excellence in science communication.
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Enquiries: Contact the events teamWe live in an era where we face privacy and security-related concerns on daily basis. We know that every move we make on the internet can be watched, recorded and analyzed.
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life, with potentially far-reaching consequences for the food chain and ecosystem functions. The combination of nation-wide monitoring data on insecticide concentrations and aquatic macro-invertebrates creates a valuable instrument for the analysis of the impacts of different pesticides and the evaluation of environmental policy. Given the fact that the world-wide use of neonicotinoid insecticides is still growing, and given its high leaching potential and its high persistence in water and soil, it is important to sustain and extend chemical monitoring schemes of surface water, and further analysis of the major impacts this pollution has on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Acknowledgments This manuscript has benefitted from the discussions in the IUCN scientific Task Force on Systemic Pesticides during its plenary meetings in Bath (2011), Cambridge (2012) and Padua (2012). We are thankful to Max Rietkerk for his advice on the research design; to Ype van der Velde for carrying out the test for spatial auto correlation; to Hans Visser for his advice on how to best pair the biological and chemical data. We thank the Dutch water boards for preparing the data files we requested. We are grateful to three anonymous reviewers and to academic editor Nicolas Desneux for suggesting valuable improvements to earlier versions of this manuscript.
Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: TVD MVS JVDS. Analyzed the data: TVD MVS JVDS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: TVD MVS JVDS. Wrote the paper: TVD MVS JVDS.Magic: The Gathering kicks the year off with Aether Revolt, a new expansion of 180+ cards, forming the second half of the Kaladesh block—and we’ve got one of those new cards to show you today. Say hello to Aetherwind Basker!
Energy, a new resource introduced in Kaladesh, is back, and this giant beastie potentially fills up your reserves as soon as it hits the board. Every turn after, you can smash your opponent with an ever-growing electric lizard. If we assume those orange daubs around the rocky prominence are full-size trees, this mythical lizard is about the same size as another famous lizard-like monster first seen off the coast of southern Japan.
Seven mana may be a challenge in a Constructed format defined by a certain looter scooter, but we’d love to see this in our Sealed pool at one of the prerelease events next weekend. It’s both a generator and consumer of energy, which makes it a potent threat whether it’s combined with other energy cards or not.
Aether Revolt is released worldwide on January 20, with prerelease events the weekend before (January 14-15). The Magic store locator can help you find a store hosting an event near you.
We'll have a full review of the Aether Revolt expansion next week ahead of the prerelease weekend. If you've not played Magic: the Gathering before or you're a lapsed player from your teenage years, and you're interested in playing the game, our past coverage is a good place to start.Virtual reality company Magic Leap has been eerily quiet since it announced its $542 million fundraising round last October, with heavyweights like Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and Google all participating. Now, for the first time in months, we finally have another glimpse of what the Florida-based VR startup has been cooking up in secret.
This is the video of a real-world, first-person shooting game that Magic Leap says it was going to show at TED this week, before the company pulled out for reasons that are unclear. (Magic Leap declined to speak with the press about its absence.) It has lasers and robots and enough explosions to make Michael Bay shed a single, lens-flaring tear:
In an email sent out to the press on Thursday, Magic Leap writes, “This is a game we’re playing around the office right now.” One thing in the video worth noting is the ability to navigate through menus with a few flicks in the air, which patent filings unearthed in January seemed to hint at.
MagicLeap Concept Photo: courtesy of MagicLeap
Cool stuff? Surely. But until we get a glimpse of the actual product, it’s worth remembering that we’ve seen this kind of thing before.More progress on the tail
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I actually had a bit of time this week to assemble the laser cut pieces and solder the remote together. I'm getting closer to something I can call done. I still need to get an enclosure for the remote cut and correct a few minor issues with the laser cut pieces. I have a few new links for the spine as well, I plan to add a bit of elastic cord to help hold the tail in the air.
The remote in the bottom right is roughly the size of my thumb. I designed it with the intention that it would fit inside of a glove. The only gloves I have for testing at the moment are a pair of work gloves, but the remote deems to fit and can be operated from within the glove."Cop car" redirects here. For other uses, see Cop Car
A police car (also called a police cruiser, cop car, prowler, squad car, radio car, or radio motor patrol (RMP) ) is a ground vehicle used by police for transportation during patrols and to enable them to respond to incidents and chases. Typical uses of a police car include transporting officers so they can reach the scene of an incident quickly, transporting and temporarily detaining suspects in the back seats, as a location to use their police radio or laptop or to patrol an area, all while providing a visible deterrent to crime. Some police cars are specially adapted for certain locations (e.g. traffic duty on busy roads) or for certain operations (e.g. to transport police dogs or bomb squads). Police cars typically have rooftop flashing lights, a siren, and emblems or markings indicating that the vehicle is a police car. Some police cars may have reinforced bumpers and alley lights, for illuminating darkened alleys.
Terms for police cars include area car and patrol car. In some places, a police car may also be informally known as a cop car, a black and white, a cherry top, a gumball machine, a jam sandwich or panda car. Depending on the configuration of the emergency lights and livery, a police car may be considered a marked or unmarked unit.
History [ edit ]
Police Car, Akron, Ohio, 1899
Former Yugoslav Police Car - "Zastava" 750
The first police car was a wagon run by electricity fielded on the streets of Akron, Ohio, in 1899. The first operator of the police patrol wagon was Akron Police officer Louis Mueller, Sr. It could reach 16 mph (26 km/h) and travel 30 mi (48 km) before its battery needed to be recharged.[1] The car was built by city mechanical engineer Frank Loomis. The US$2,400 vehicle was equipped with electric lights, gongs, and a stretcher. The car's first assignment was to pick up a drunken man at the junction of Main and Exchange streets.[2]
Ford introduced the Ford flathead V-8 in its Model B, as the first mass-marketed V8 car in 1932. In the 1940s, major American car makers began to manufacture specialized police cars.[3]
Usage [ edit ]
In some areas of the world, the police car has become more widely used than police officers "walking the beat". Placing officers in vehicles also allows them to carry more equipment, such as automated external defibrillators for people in cardiac arrest or road cones for traffic obstructions, and allows for more immediate transport of suspects to holding facilities. Vehicles also allow for the transport of larger numbers of personnel, such as a SWAT team.
Decommissioned police cars are often sold to the general public, either through a police auction or a private seller, after about 3–5 years of use. Such cars are usually sold relatively cheaply due to the extremely high mileage on such cars, in some cases exceeding the 300,000-mile (480,000 km) mark. In some cases, the cars are re-purposed as a taxicab as an inexpensive way for cab companies to buy cars instead of fleet vehicle services. In all cases, the cars are stripped of their police markings as well as most internal equipment; however the engines are usually left intact, and are often larger engines than their civilian counterparts.
Functional types [ edit ]
There are several types of police car.
Patrol car [ edit ]
Patrol car in Slovenia
The car that replaces walking for the 'beat' police officer.[4] Their primary function is to convey normal police officers between their duties (such as taking statements or visiting warnings). Patrol cars are also able to respond to emergencies,[5] and as such are normally fitted with visual and audible warnings.
Response car (pursuit car) [ edit ]
A response car is similar to a patrol car, but is likely to be of a higher specification, capable of higher speeds, and will certainly be fitted with audible and visual warnings. These cars are usually only used to respond to emergency incidents, so are designed to travel fast, and may carry specialist equipment, such as assault rifles, or shotguns. In the UK, each station usually only has one, which is called an area car.[6][7][8]
Traffic car [ edit ]
Road Policing Unit BMW 330d for the Sussex Police
Traffic police cars, known in the UK as Road Policing Units, are cars designed for the job of enforcing traffic laws, and as such usually have the highest performance of any of the police vehicles, as they must be capable of catching most other vehicles on the road. They may be fitted with special bumpers designed to force vehicles off the road, and may have visual and audible warnings, with special audible warnings which can be heard from a greater distance. In some police forces, the term traffic car may refer to cars specifically equipped for traffic control in addition to enforcing traffic laws. As such, these cars may differ only slightly from a patrol car, including having radar and laser speed detection equipment, traffic cones, flares, and traffic control signs.
Multi-purpose car [ edit ]
Some police forces do not distinguish between patrol, response and traffic cars, and may use one vehicle to fulfill some or all roles even though in some cases this may not be appropriate (such as a police city vehicle in a motorway high speed pursuit chase). These cars are usually a compromise between the different functions with elements added or removed.
Sport utility vehicles (SUV) and pickup trucks [ edit ]
SUVs and Pickups are used for a variety of reasons; off-road needs, applications where a lot of equipment must be carried, K-9 units, etc.
Community liaison car [ edit ]
Community Liaison car for the New South Wales Police Force
This is a standard production car, visibly marked, but without audible and visual warning devices. It is used by community police officers to show a presence, transport them between jobs and make appearances at community events. These cars do not respond to emergencies.[9][10]
Unmarked car [ edit ]
Many forces also operate unmarked cars, in any of the roles shown above, but most frequently for the use of traffic enforcement or detectives. They have the advantage of not being immediately recognizable, and are a valuable tool in catching criminals while the crime is still taking place.[11] In the United States, unmarked cars are also used by federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and the Secret Service, but can be recognized by their U.S. government plates. However, not all unmarked police cars have government license plates. Many U.S. jurisdictions use regular civilian issued license plates on unmarked cars, especially gang suppression and vice prevention units. Also see Q-car.
There have been cases where criminals have pulled over motorists while pretending to be driving unmarked police cars, a form of police impersonation.[12][13] Some US police officers advise motorists that they do not have to pull over in a secluded location and instead can wait until they reach somewhere safer.[13] In the UK, officers must be wearing uniform in order to make traffic stops. Motorists can also ask for a police badge.[14] Motorists often have the option to call a non-emergency number (like Police 101 in the UK) or, if the country does not have one, the emergency number. This telephone call can then be used verify that the police car ( and officer(s) ) is genuine.
Dog unit [ edit ]
An Australian Federal Police dog unit van, based on a ute (pickup) chassis, in Canberra
This type of car is used to transport police dogs. In some jurisdictions, this will be a station wagon or car based van, due to the installation of cages to carry the dogs. These units may also be known as K9 units (a homophone of canine, also used to refer to the animals themselves). These cars are typically marked in order to warn people that there is a police dog on board.[15]
Surveillance car [ edit ]
Forces may operate surveillance cars. These cars can be marked or unmarked, and are there to gather evidence of any criminal offence. Overt marked cars may have CCTV cameras mounted on the roof to discourage wrongdoing, whereas unmarked cars would have them hidden inside. This type of vehicle is particularly common in the United Kingdom. In the United States, some police departments' vice, narcotics, and gang suppression units utilize vehicles that contain no identifiable police equipment (such as lights, sirens or radios) to conduct covert surveillance. Some police vehicles equipped with surveillance are Bait cars which are deployed in high volume car theft areas.
High visibility decoy car [ edit ]
Some police forces use vehicles (or sometimes fake "cut outs" of vehicles) to deter crime. They may be old vehicles retired from use, stock models restyled as police cars, or a metal sign made to look like a police car. They are placed in areas thought to be susceptible to crime in order to provide a high visibility presence without committing an officer. Examples of these can be seen on many main roads, freeways and motorways. In 2005, Virginia's (United States) legislature considered a bill which stated, in part: "Whenever any law-enforcement vehicle is permanently taken out of service... such vehicle shall be placed at a conspicuous location within a highway median in order to deter violations of motor vehicle laws at that location. Such vehicles shall... be rotated from one location to another as needed to maintain their deterrent effect.";[16] Such cars may also be used in conjunction with manned units hidden further down the road to trick speeders into speeding back up again, and being clocked by the manned car. In Chicago, Illinois a small fleet of highly visible vans are parked alongside major state and federal routes with automated speed detection and camera equipment, monitoring both for speeders and other offenders by license plate. Tickets are then mailed to the offenders or, in case of other crimes related to the licensed owner, may be served by a manned vehicle further down the road.
Rescue unit [ edit ]
In some jurisdictions, the police may operate a rescue service, and special units will be required for this.
Explosive ordnance disposal [ edit ]
In jurisdictions where the police are responsible for, or participate in, explosive ordnance disposal squads (bomb squads), dedicated vehicles transport the squads' crews and equipment.
Demonstration cars [ edit ]
Cars which are not for active duty, but simply for display. These are often high performance or modified cars, sometimes seized from criminals, used to try to get across specific messages (such as with the D.A.R.E. program), or to help break down barriers with certain groups (such as using a car with modified 'jumping' suspension as a talking point with young people).
To show the police what is new, a marked police car with the manufacturer's name (Ford, General Motors, Chrysler) can be displayed with the words "Not In Service" to show what is new with that model of car and get feedback from police departments. Companies like Whelen, Federal Signal and Code 3 also have demo cars with their names on the side and showing the police what is new in the field of emergency vehicle equipment.
Riot control vehicles [ edit ]
These vehicles could be divided into three sub-categories. Modified trucks equipped with water cannons, modified stock cars and modified APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers). Their function is to help control riots. Modified stock cars will have caged windows for protection against objects thrown at them and could include mini-buses, 4x4s or prisoner transport vans. APCs usually will not require any added protection but their modifications might include some sort of tear gas ejecting method or shields that unfold to create barriers. The water cannon vehicles are used either to break up riots or extinguish fires set by the rioters. Although plain water is usually used some variations might include tear gas or special dye (to mark the people that are present for later apprehension). Previously[when?] fire trucks were used as anti-riot vehicles of this type. As a non lethal, and effective method of clearing out protesters or rioters, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) can be used. The LRAD is a device that can send announcements, warnings, and harmful pain-inducing tones.
Equipment [ edit ]
The police car on the left is fitted with a lightbar, making it instantly recognizable as a police vehicle. The one on the right, commonly known as a'slicktop' in the US and Canada does not have a lightbar, making it less obvious, particularly when seen from the front (e.g. in a driver's rear-view mirror)
Police cars are usually passenger car models which are upgraded to the specifications required by the purchasing force. Several vehicle manufacturers, such as Ford, General Motors and Dodge, provide a "police package" option, which is built to police specifications in the factory. Police forces may add to these modifications by adding their own equipment and making their own modifications after purchasing a vehicle.[17]
Mechanical modifications [ edit ]
Modifications a police car might undergo include adjustments for higher durability, speed, high-mileage driving, and long periods of idling at a higher temperature. This is usually accomplished by heavy duty suspension, brakes, calibrated speedometer, tires, alternator, transmission, and cooling systems, and also sometimes includes slight modifications to the car's stock engine or the installation of a more powerful engine than would be standard in that model. It is also usual to upgrade the capacity of the electrical system of the car to accommodate the use of additional electronic equipment.
Safety equipment [ edit ]
Police vehicles are often outfitted with AEDs (Automated external defibrillator), first aid kits, fire extinguishers, flares, life buoys, barrier tapes, etc.
Audible and visual warnings [ edit ]
Police vehicles are often fitted with audible and visual warning systems to alert other motorists of their approach or position on the road. In many countries, use of the audible and visual warnings affords the officer a degree of exemption from road traffic laws (such as the right to exceed speed limits, or to treat red stop lights as a yield sign) and may also suggest a duty on other motorists to move out of the direction of passage of the police car or face possible prosecution.
Visual warnings on a police car can be of two types: either passive or active.
Passive visual warnings [ edit ]
Passive visual warnings are the markings on the vehicle. Police vehicle markings usually make use of bright colors or strong contrast with the base color of the vehicle. Modern police vehicles in some countries have retroreflective markings which reflect light for better visibility at night. Other police vehicles may only have painted on or non-reflective markings. Most marked police vehicles in the United Kingdom and Sweden have reflective Battenburg markings on the sides, which are large blue and yellow rectangles.[18] These markings are designed to have high contrast and be highly visible on the road, to deter crime and improve safety. Another passive visual warning of police vehicles is simply the interceptor's silhouette. This is easily observed in the United States and Canada, where the ubiquitous nature of the Ford Crown Victoria in police fleets has made the model synonymous with police vehicles.
Police vehicle marking schemes usually include the word Police or similar phrase (such as State Trooper or Highway Patrol) or the force's crest. Some police forces use unmarked vehicles, which do not have any passive visual warnings at all, and others (called stealth cars) have markings that are visible only at certain angles, such as from the rear or sides, making these cars appear unmarked when viewed from the front.[19]
Active visual warnings [ edit ]
The active visual warnings are usually in the form of flashing colored lights (also known as 'beacons' or 'lightbars'). These flash in order to attract the attention of other road users as the police car approaches, or to provide warning to motorists approaching a stopped vehicle in a dangerous position on the road. Common colours for police warning beacons are blue and red, however this often varies by force. Several types of flashing lights are used, such as rotating beacons, halogen lights, or light emitting diode strobes. Some police forces also use arrow sticks to direct traffic, or message display boards to provide short messages or instructions to motorists. The headlights of some vehicles can be made to flash, or small strobe lights can be fitted in the headlight, tail light and indicator lights of the vehicle.
Audible warnings [ edit ]
In addition to visual warnings, most police cars are also fitted with audible warnings, sometimes known as sirens, which can alert people and vehicles to the presence of an emergency vehicle before they can be seen. The first audible warnings were mechanical bells, mounted to either the front or roof of the car. A later development was the rotating air siren, which made noise when air moved past it. Most modern vehicles are now fitted with electronic sirens, which can produce a range of different noises. Police driving training often includes the use of different noises depending on traffic conditions and maneuver being performed. In North America for instance, on a clear road, approaching a junction, the "wail" setting may be used, which gives a long up and down variation, with an unbroken tone, whereas, in heavy slow traffic, a "yelp" setting may be preferred, which is a sped up version of the "wail". Some vehicles may also be fitted with airhorn audible warnings. Also in some European countries, where a hi-lo two tone siren is the only permitted siren for emergency vehicles, a "stadt" siren will be used in cities where it has loud echo that can be heard from blocks away to warn the traffic an emergency vehicle is coming, or a "land" siren will be used on highways to project its noise to the front to produce more penetration into the vehicles ahead to alert the drivers.
A development is the use of the RDS, a system of car radios, whereby the vehicle can be fitted with a short range FM transmitter, set to RDS code 31, which interrupts the radio of all cars within range, in the manner of a traffic broadcast, but in such a way that the user of the receiving radio is unable to opt out of the message (as with traffic broadcasts). This feature is built into all RDS radios for use in national emergency broadcast systems, but short range units on emergency vehicles can prove an effective means of alerting traffic to their presence, although is not able to alert pedestrians, non-RDS radio users, or drivers with their radios turned off.
A new technology has been developed and is slowly becoming more popular with police. Called the Rumbler, it is a siren that emits a low frequency sound which can be felt. Motorists that may have loud music playing in their car, for example, may not hear the audible siren of a police car behind them, but will feel the vibrations of the Rumbler. The feeling is that of standing next to a large speaker with pumped bass.[20]
Police-specific equipment [ edit ]
Australia Police vehicle with emergency warning lights and an LED message board in Canberra
Police officers' additional equipment may include:
Two-way radio Equipment consoles These are used to house two way radios, light switches, and siren switches. Some may be equipped with locking compartments for safe storage of firearms or file compartments. Suspect transport enclosures These are steel and plastic barriers which ensure that a suspect—who has been frisked, disarmed, handcuffed and seat belted, is unable to attack the driver or passenger and unable to tamper with equipment in the front seat. These may be simple bars or grilles, although they can include highly impact resistant but not bullet resistant glass. Many use expanded steel instead of plastic glazing for the upper half of the partition. Firearm lockers In certain countries, including the United States, some police vehicles are equipped with lockers or locking racks in which to store firearms. These are usually tactical firearms such as shotguns or rifles, which would not normally be carried on the person of the officer. Mobile data terminal Many police cars are fitted with mobile data terminals (or MDTs), which are connected via wireless methods to the police central computer, and enable the officer to call up information such as vehicle license details, offender records, and incident logs. Vehicle tracking system Some police vehicles, especially traffic units, may be fitted with equipment which will alert the officers to the presence nearby of a stolen vehicle fitted with a special transponder, and guide them towards it, using GPS or simpler radio triangulation. Evidence gathering CCTV Police vehicles can be fitted with video cameras used to record activity either inside or outside the car. They may also be fitted with sound recording facilities. This can then later be used in a court to prove or disprove witness statements, or act as evidence in itself (such as evidence of a traffic violation). Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) This computerised system uses cameras to observe the number plates of all vehicles passing or being passed by the police car, and alerts the driver or user to any cars which are on a 'watch list' as being stolen, used in crime, or having not paid vehicle duty. Speed recognition device Some police cars are fitted with devices to measure the speed of vehicles being followed, such as ProViDa, usually through a system of following the vehicle between two points a set distance apart. This is separate to any radar gun device which is likely to be handheld, and not attached to the vehicle. Remote rear door locking This enables officers in the front to remotely control the rear locks—usually used in conjunction with a transport enclosure.
Damage from a PIT maneuver on a Crown Victoria
PIT bumper The Pursuit Intervention Technique (PIT) bumper attaches to the front frame of a patrol car. It is designed to end vehicle pursuits by spinning the fleeing vehicle with a nudge to the rear quarter panel. Cars not fitted with a PIT Bumper can still attempt a PIT Maneuver at risk of increased front-end damage and possible disablement if the maneuver fails and the pursuit continues. Push bumper (aka nudge bars) Fitted to the chassis of the car and located to augment the front bumper, to allow the car to be used as a battering ram for simple structures or fences, or to push disabled vehicles off the road. Runlock This allows the vehicle's engine to be left running without the keys being in the ignition. This enables adequate power, without battery drain, to be supplied to the vehicle's equipment at the scene of an incident. The vehicle can only be driven off after re-inserting the keys. If the keys are not re-inserted, the engine will switch off if the handbrake is disengaged or the footbrake is activated.[21]
The installation of this equipment in a car partially transforms it into a desk. Police officers use their car to fill out different forms, print documents, type on a computer or a console, consult and read different screens, etc. Ergonomics in layout and installation of these items in the police car plays an important role in the comfort and safety of the police officers at work and preventing injuries such as back pain and musculoskeletal disorders.[22][23][24][25]
Ballistic protection [ edit ]
Some police cars can be optionally upgraded with bullet resistant armor in the car doors.[26] The armor is typically made from ceramic ballistic plates and aramid baffles. A 2016 news report said that Ford sells 5 to 10 percent of their US police vehicles with ballistic protection in the doors. In 2017 Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, announced that all NYPD patrol cars would be installed with bullet-resistant door panels and bullet-resistant window inserts.[27][28]
Use by country [ edit ]
Police cars in popular culture [ edit ]
Police chases have been dramatized in television programs and movies, and occasionally feature in television news coverage of unusual circumstances, showing footage from an airborne camera.
In fictional stories, police cars are usually portrayed as containing a team of at least two police officers so that they may converse and interact with each other while on patrol. In reality, most districts (especially rural and low population) have only one police officer per vehicle, although at night this may increase to two.
See also [ edit ]
General [ edit ]
Other types of emergency vehicles [ edit ]Lian-Li announces the PC-Q10WX Mini-PC chassis. A continuation of Lian Li's lineup of small PC cases, the PC-Q10WX is the first Q series case to feature an acrylic side wall: perfect for showing off the high-performance hardware and cooling systems this conveniently sized chassis can accommodate.
he Lian Li PC-Q10WX is very compact, weighing only 2.3kg and measuring 207mm x 277mm x 335mm. Despite its size, its clever layout still offers enough space for a 270mm VGA card, a CPU cooler up to 140mm tall, and a PSU up to 150mm long. The PC-Q10WX supports up to two 3.5" drives or three 2.5" drives. A 5.25" drive bay fits a slim optical disk drive or an additional 2.5" or 3.5" drive. It supports a standard ATX power supply for builders who do not want to sacrifice high-performance components for a small form factor. Two expansion slots provide enough room for full-sized video cards.
Myriad Cooling Options
With space for a 240mm radiator on the top panel, and 120mm on the back panel - this little case gives builders enough flexibility to install almost any kind of water or air cooling setup. The water cooling grommets allow all-in-one cooler tubes to pass from inside to out; a small touch that gives DIY enthusiasts more freedom. And with room for up to 140mm CPU air coolers, it is possible to outfit the PC-Q10WX with air or water cooling.
Solid, Beautiful Construction
Almost entirely composed of brushed aluminum and acrylic, the PC-Q10WX is robust, beautiful, and minimal. Even its power button is cut from aluminum. Aluminum pegs with rubberized feet provide clearance along the bottom panel for increased airflow. The power button, two USB 3.0 ports, and HD audio ports are available on the front panel, along with a small air vent, for convenient connectivity. The top and side panels pop open and closed securely while the glass wall uses 4 thumbscrews for easy access.
Price and Availability
The PC-Q10WX will be available for USD $119 in US in early September.
Product Highlights
Easily removable acrylic side panel
Water cooling: 240mm on top, 120mm on back
Convenient rubber grommets for all-in-one cooling
Illuminated aluminum power button
ATX type PSU
Accommodates longer VGA card - up to 270mm
Accommodates larger CPU cooler - up to 140mm
Accommodates larger PSU - up to 150mm Long
Availability in US: Early September
MSRP: USD 119
For more information here.A Presidency Stalled And Sputtering
Enlarge this image toggle caption Evan Vucci/AP Evan Vucci/AP
Since the Republican health care bill collapsed a little more than a week ago, President Trump's White House has struggled with a path forward. Trump is dealing with finger-pointing and infighting that threatens to derail his agenda, as well as nagging Russia investigations on Capitol Hill that are raising more questions than answers about his team.
And Trump has a real perception problem with the American public — he has the lowest approval rating at this point of any president in more than half a century.
This past week didn't help matters. Let's recap as well as look ahead:
1. They will never take away our freedom (caucus): There was continued GOP infighting over health care, including Trump all but declaring war on the House Freedom Caucus. Members of the Freedom Caucus weren't taking it lying down:
2. GOP in a box: Trump flirted with potentially working with Democrats ("Hello, Chuck"), only to have that undermined by House Speaker Paul Ryan.
"What I worry about," Ryan told CBS, "is if we don't do this, then he'll just go work with Democrats."
Was that Ryan really just talking to the Freedom Caucus?
Either way, Republicans are in a very tight corner – if you aren't going to work with Democrats and you're going to go to war with a group that, if it sticks together, can block anything you want to do, nothing will get done.
Something has to give.
Ryan's posture didn't sit well with one Republican senator:
3. Executive actions don't equal legislation: That lack of an ability to get much done on Capitol Hill has hobbled Trump's agenda. During the campaign, Trump made big, bold promises.
So far, he has tried to follow through on them with big, bold... executive orders. (He's on pace for 100 or more this year, which would be a higher rate than any president back to Truman.) This week, Trump sought to curtail President Obama's environmental rules and appeared to soften his harsh stance on NAFTA espoused during last year's campaign.
But here's a reality check on executive orders: they're usually something presidents resort to when they can't get legislation through. (See: Obama, Barack and immigration.) They're only so useful. They have their limits, which is why presidents still need Congress.
4. High Nunes and a Burr in the saddle: The revelation that Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, got his information on the White House grounds about communications of Trump transition officials that were incidentally scooped up by lawful U.S. surveillance, undermined the bipartisanship of the committee.
It has left the panel far less relevant, if at all anymore, especially with the buddy show put on by the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va.
"I have confidence in Richard Burr," Warner said in response to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, who asked Burr if he could swear with his hand over his heart that he could conduct an impartial investigation even though he was a Trump supporter during the campaign.
What a difference from the House committee, where the ranking Democratic member, Adam Schiff, has called on Nunes to step aside from leading the Russia investigation. House Speaker Paul Ryan, however, has said he has no problem with Nunes, who was a Trump transition official, continuing as chairman.
The Senate committee held a rare public hearing this week and is going to be interviewing Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and adviser. Time TBD. He came forward voluntarily after it was revealed he, too, had met with the Russian ambassador and the head of a Russian bank that is dealing with sanctions after Russia's annexation of Crimea.
5. Commander in tweet: Nunes wasn't the only Russia complication for the White House. By the end of the week, former national security adviser Michael Flynn was asking for immunity from the FBI and congressional committees. (So far, no takers.)
Amazingly, the president (the president!) was tweeting support for Flynn, saying he should seek immunity because this is a "witch hunt."
As NPR's Carrie Johnson has reported, Trump continues to violate lawyers' first rule for clients: keep your mouth shut.
6. Processed responses: White House press secretary Sean Spicer introduced a new talking point for diverting questions about the Russia investigations — criticizing the questions as "process," not "substance."
Questions like, who signed in Nunes onto the White House grounds, for example, were dismissed. On Wednesday, Spicer said he would look into it and other "process" questions.
But, by Thursday, he was firing back with this: "No, no, no — no, don't — please don't put words in my mouth. I never said I would provide you answers. I said we would look into it."
That is quite the distinction.
But the fact is this — Burr said the Russia investigation is one of the biggest he's seen since coming to Washington. That's 25 years. The investigation will take months, if not longer, which means the White House and the president will continue to be dogged by Russia questions, process or not, for quite some time.
7. Shake it up: Internally at the White House, there was a big departure — Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh. Walsh, who came from the Republican National Committee, was a key ally of Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
"Katie is, No. 1, not getting fired," a White House adviser told a small group of reporters, per Time.
The White House is spinning this as Walsh departing to launch a pro-Trump group America First Policies, because, in part, it didn't have "air cover" when it came to the health care effort.
But Axios reported that Walsh had become "fed up with the internal 'Game of Thrones,'" and was "treated with suspicion by some prominent West Wing colleagues."
It left some wondering about Priebus' fate (and that of those aligned with him). "Reince is not next," one senior White House official told CNN. When asked at Thursday's briefing if Walsh's departure could mean others will be let go too, Spicer's curt response before turning to another reporter: "No."
Still, any time a key member of the staff exits, it raises questions about the cohesiveness of the president's team and the confidence he has in them.
8. Going "nuclear"? The Senate appears to be on a collision course over the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. If Democrats stand in the way, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is threatening to go "nuclear" and eliminate the rule requiring 60 votes to advance a nominee.
That would still need a vote, and there are a couple of Republicans who have indicated in the past an unwillingness to go along with that. But the odds are, if McConnell wants to do it, he'll find the votes.
If it happens, it could mean a whole new world for the kinds of nominees to the highest court in the land, |
isha, who vanished in February. Relisha was believed to be with a janitor at the District homeless shelter where she lived with her mother and three younger brothers. The girl’s mother had allowed Relisha to go with the janitor.
[Read timeline of events]
Instead of finding Relisha, police stumbled on the janitor’s body. Kahlil Malik Tatum, 51, was found dead Monday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Police said it appeared that his body had been in a shed in the park for 36 hours to a few days.
That leaves open the possibility that he shot himself after police began searching the park March 27. Newsham cautioned, however, that cold weather could have preserved the body for a longer period.
Police first started searching for Relisha on March 19, after a counselor at her school inquired about her mounting absences and tried to find Tatum, who had been listed in school records as her doctor.
The next day, police found Tatum’s wife dead of a gunshot wound in a room at an Oxon Hill motel. Tatum was charged in her killing.
Get updates on your area delivered via e-mailThis weekend, teams from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa will have the opportunity to try and secure one of two remaining slots for the MSI MGA (Masters Gaming Arena) grands finals in Seattle, set to run from August the 28th to the 31st.
The story so far...
The Asian (including Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) and Chinese qualifiers came to a close last week, with the regions’ spots in the grand finals picked up by MVP Black and eStar Gaming respectively - and now it’s Europe’s turn.
Europe is currently the biggest region for Heroes of the Storm competition, and on Saturday the 27th and Sunday the 28th of June the MSI MGA’s most anticipated qualifier will pit Europe, the Middle East and Africa’s top teams against each other for those all-important grand final spots.
The qualifiers
The European qualifiers kick off on Saturday, with registered teams to battle their way through a gruelling best of three single elimination bracket. The last four teams standing at the end of the day will then proceed to the finals on Sunday, where they will be join by the region’s four invited teams, who will be seeded directly into the playoffs.
The invited Heroes of the Storm teams are as follows:
Team Liquid
Natus Vincere
Fnatic
Gamers2
Do you have what it takes?
Do you live in Europe, the Middle East or Africa and are part of a Heroes of the Storm team who you think has what it takes to challenge the pros and be one of the two to make it to the MSI MGA grand finals at PAX Prime 2015 in Seattle?
For the full qualifier schedule, prize breakdown and more for both Heroes of the Storm and StarCraft II, check out our previous post about the MSI MGA tournament series, while you can find the official event website here.
The event will be broadcast in all the following languages, so be sure to tune in!
English by Teknolink and Hoss | Chinese by NO总 and Q酱 | French by Judgehype | Polish by ESL Poland | Russian by Storm Studio
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Java EE 7 includes the new JSR 344 (JSF 2.2) standard and provides developers with new features like Resource Library Contracts, HTML5 Friendly Markup, and Faces Flows. The Liferay Faces team is hard at work at providing 1st class support for JSF 2.2 in Liferay Faces 4.x including the following new portlet demos:
JSF2 HTML5 Portlet (Source code at GitHub)
(Source code at GitHub) JSF2 Faces Flows Portlet (Source code at GitHub)
Webinar: Modern JSF Development
I recently had the privledge of showing these demos during a Liferay LIVE webinar titled Modern JSF Development. The webinar will be archived in a few weeks.
Personally I have to say that Faces Flows is my favorite feature in JSF 2.2. In fact, during the webinar one of the attendees wrote:
Wow.. Flows is a natural fit in Liferay... Excellent!
What Makes Faces Flows So Great?
Faces Flows is a standards-based Java EE feature that builds upon the lessons learned from projects like ADF Task Flows, Spring WebFlow, and Apache MyFaces CODI. It provides a way of connecting JSF views together and scoping data accordingly via the new @FlowScoped annotation and CDI.
@FlowScoped vs @ConversationScoped
The new JSF @FlowScoped annotation depends on CDI. At first glance it might seem similar to the CDI @ConversationScoped annotation, but it is a much better "fit" for JSF webapps/portlets because the developer doesn't need to make awkward programmatic calls to Conversation.begin() and Conversation.end() in a PhaseListener to make things work. Instead, beans annotated with @FlowScoped are created and destroyed automatically when the user navigates in and out of flows. In addition, developers can easily orchestrate sub-flows spawned from a parent flow and pass data between them using outbound and inbound parameters.
Let's take a closer look by examining the JSF2 Faces Flows Portlet demo...
Defining Flows
The portlet contains a main flow named "booking" and a sub-flow named "survey". The user (customer) books travel with Facelet views that are collected together in the "/booking" directory, and optionally completes a survey with Facelet views that are in the "/survey" directory.
As stated earlier, flows can pass data to each other using outbound and inbound parameters. If the customer takes the optional survey, then the customer's info is passed as an outbound parameter as defined in /booking/booking-flow.xml and received as an inbound parameter as defined in /survey/survey-flow.xml
Activating The Booking Flow
The initial view displayed by the portlet is /views/portletViewMode.xhtml
Simply clicking on the "Enter Booking Flow" button activates the "booking" flow:
<h:commandButton action=" booking " value="#{i18n['enter-booking-flow']}"> <f:ajax execute="@form" /> </h:commandButton>
Since the value of the action attribute is "booking", JSF will use convention-over-configuration to determine the target view for navigation. If it can't find a file named booking.xhtml in the same directory, it will attempt to find a directory named "/booking" and navigate to the view named /booking/booking.xhtml
Automatic Bean Scope Management by CDI
The portlet contains two model beans annotated with @FlowScoped:
When EL expressions like #{bookingFlowModelBean} or #{surveyFlowModelBean} are encountered by JSF in a Facelet view, the EL resolver chain will ask CDI to create an instance of BookingFlowModelBean.java or SurveyFlowModelBean.java respectively. Additionally, CDI will call any methods annotated with @PostConstruct such as BookingFlowModelBean.postConstruct() and SurveyFlowModelBean.postConstruct().
When the user navigates out of the "booking" flow or "survey" flow, then CDI will call any methods annotated with @PreDestroy such as BookingFlowModelBean.preDestroy() and SurveyFlowModelBean.preDestroy().
Final Thoughts
JSF portlet developers finally have a standards-based feature for creating wizard-like portlets. Gone are the integration headaches of making 3rd party flow add-ons work inside a portlet environment. The @FlowScoped annotation provides an elegant programming model and makes @ConversationScoped obsolete in many JSF use-cases. In addition, navigation between views can be fully ajaxified via f:ajax without writing any JavaScript.
All I can say is THREE CHEERS for Faces Flows!
+1 +1 +1 (pronounced Hip Hip Hooray in the olden days)The field of "mobile location analytics"—where tracking companies work with brick-and-mortar retail stores to collect insights about customer behavior based on fine-grained location information harvested from mobile phones—has taken a small step towards self-regulation with a new code of conduct published this week. The code was announced by the Future of Privacy Forum and Senator Charles Schumer, who two years ago intervened to convince a mobile location tracking company not to test its system in two American malls during the holiday shopping season.
The industry is likely hoping to calm privacy concerns that have generated public outcry and attracted the attention of legislators. Earlier this year, Senator Al Franken said that mobile location tracking companies are violating people's "fundamental right to privacy." And in 2011, Senator Schumer himself acknowledged those problems and urged the industry to develop an opt-in mechanism to get explicit consent.
The Code of Conduct
Unfortunately, the published code falls well short of that proposed standard. Instead, it establishes an opt-out system, where users must enter the unique 12-digit MAC addresses of each of their mobile device's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips into a database that tracking companies commit to honoring.
Beside the irony of asking the most privacy-conscious consumers to hand over their MAC addresses to tracking companies, the scheme seems unlikely to see much pickup. For one thing, many users may not be aware of this kind of tracking in the first place, much less whether any particular retailer is tracking them. Tracking is invasive, but surreptitious.
The code attempts to address that lack of information by establishing notice rules as its first principle, but its notice proposals are weak as well. For example, it depends on the retailers, which are not party to this agreement, to implement in-store signage providing notice of the tracking. Retailers, though, have seen customers get upset about the tracking after seeing those signs, so there's an incentive to make it less noticeable.
Further, the code proposes creating a widely adopted symbol to indicate that mobile location tracking is taking place, rather than plain language like "If you’re carrying a mobile device, this establishment may be tracking your movement and location." The most direct parallel to that symbol might be the "AdChoices" icon, which allows people to configure whether they are shown targeted online ads. That icon has been widely adopted by advertisers, but is virtually unknown among users.
How Identifiable Is a MAC, Anyway?
The code instructs that tracking companies should use hashing to "de-personalize" MAC addresses. That approach, though, has significant limitations.
For one thing, MAC addresses are, by design, fixed permanently to a single device. In practice, they can sometimes be changed in software, or "spoofed," but that software is not available for every platform and may require technical expertise to use. The privacy concern here is like that presented by biometrics: once a MAC address is correlated with an identity, it can be difficult or impossible to shake that connection.
That quality makes a MAC address attractive for tracking repeat customers, because it's unlikely to change between visits, but also rings alarm bells for privacy. Hashing the MAC address doesn't address those concerns: by definition, hashing the same value always produces the same result. In other words, hashing creates a pseudonym for the MAC address, but it is still persistent.
MAC addresses are also broadcast frequently, and it's easy to imagine advertisers or others could work to correlate them with personally identifiable information. Companies that operate paid WiFi networks, and thus collect both device networking information and account credentials, may already have that kind of database.
That's a problem because hashing MAC addresses doesn't really de-personalize them. Hashing generally make it virtually impossible to go from a hashed value to the original, but hashed MAC addresses could actually be reversed through brute computing force. That's because there are only 248 possible MAC addresses, and in practice many fewer than that, due to fixed bits and standard vendor prefixes.
Conversely, with a list of unknown hashed MAC addresses and a list of identified unhashed MAC addresses, it is simple to hash the second list and look for matches.
Finally, the code requires companies to commit to not de-personalize the data or allow downstream clients or contractors not to use it to identify particular individuals. Importantly, though, that is a policy limitation—not a technical one.
Pen Register/Trap-and-Trace Device Concerns
It’s generally illegal to record or decode "dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted" without a court order unless you're a provider of communications service and can fit into one of the statutory exceptions.
We’re unaware of any relevant case law, but capturing MAC addresses from smartphones might run into this statute. Note, however, that this law doesn’t have a private right of action, i.e., it doesn’t say that an ordinary person can sue someone under it.
What Tracking Companies Shouldn't Do
Mobile tracking companies have compared their services to online analytics options, but there are important reasons not to accept that argument at face value.
First, it creates a privacy ratchet: treating online tracking practices as uncontroversial and bringing offline tracking to the same level could undermine important steps the public has taken to unwind certain invasive online methods.
Second, offline analytics techniques for now leave less of a trail than their online counterparts. Users can monitor or block connections to and cookies from online tracking networks, but currently have no way of knowing whether an offline store was using location tech, and from which vendor. That missing information means users can't truly be making informed consent decisions.
It's encouraging to see companies in this field acknowledging the concerns and adopting regulations. But until that approach provides meaningful benefits for the users, it is not much comfort for privacy-conscious consumers.Those of you – you poor, poor people – who read the Fedora development mailing list – were treated this week to a flamefest (or, as it is classically referred to in the British press, ‘full and frank exchange of views’) regarding the change to the official GNOME audio volume control applications which will appear in Fedora 11. The debate was expertly summarized in the latest Fedora Weekly News by Oisin Feeley. However, I’m going to take advantage of my little soapbox to go over it again, myself, in what will obviously be a way more biased towards the truth (otherwise known as ‘my point of view’).
Here’s the central point of contention. In GNOME 2.26, the two programs which deal with setting the audio volume – gnome-volume-control and gnome-volume-control-applet – have been more or less rewritten. The old gnome-volume-control looked like this:
(screenshot stolen, with apologies, from Piraja in this thread, since I don’t have a copy of the old app to hand). The new gnome-volume-control looks like this:
As you can see, they’re really rather different. The old one was more or less a classic ‘big list o’ sliders’ mixer, which exposed the raw mixer elements as provided by ALSA, and let you tweak them all directly. The new application is nothing like this at all. It’s really an interface to PulseAudio’s volume control system, which does not expose the raw ALSA mixer elements to you at all. What you get is a single volume slider. Slide it up, things get louder. Slide it down, things get quieter. You don’t have to look at twenty different sliders and wonder what the hell they all do any more.
In many cases, this is great. The basic idea – that the default volume control application should not expose every little element of control available on your sound card, but make it easy to turn the sound up and down – is a good one. The Pulse-based system also enables some other neat stuff, like letting you pick which sound ‘card’ (including things like USB headsets and webcams) you want to use to play which sounds, like pavucontrol has let you do for a few releases now.
However, this extremely simplified system comes with a couple of drawbacks. The biggest one – and it’s something of a whopper – is this: you can’t pick an input channel. If you’ve got multiple sound devices in your system – say, an onboard sound card, an expansion card, a webcam, and a USB headset – you can pick which device you want input to come from. Which is nice. But you can’t pick which channel on that device you want the input to come from. In practical terms – if you want to record (or monitor) from line-in, but the default is mic-in, you’re in trouble. Ditto if you want to record or monitor from the front mic, but the default’s the rear mic. Or vice versa. If the ALSA default input channel isn’t the one you actually use, gnome-volume-control no longer provides any way for you to switch.
This isn’t some kind of braindead interface design or excessive simplification on the part of the designers. It’s just a feature that didn’t get implemented yet. Lennart wants to do it in a reasonably smart way – only expose elements which are really ‘genuine’ input channels you might actually want to select – and that’s somewhat tricky. He’d also like to implement jack sensing, for compatible hardware, so that when you plugged in a mic it’d automatically get activated. So, in future – we’re expecting around the Fedora 12 timeframe – this will get fixed. For now, though, it isn’t, and that’s a rather giant hole in the new system.
The second drawback is that Pulse’s abstraction of volume control is not yet perfect. At present, it more or less just turns the primary mixer element – the one that shows up further to the left in a traditional mixer application – up and down. On most cards, this is enough to give you a proper range of volume control without any other elements getting twiddled. If you turn it up to 100%, everything gets nice and loud; turn it down to 0%, and everything goes quiet. Great. So for most cards, the Pulse system works fine already.
However, on some cards it doesn’t. On some cards, even if the ‘primary’ element is at 100%, if another element isn’t raised, everything’s still really quiet. Or even totally inaudible. In the past, most people would notice this, fairly quickly discover that moving one of the other mixer elements sorted the problem out, and then probably forget about it. With the new design, you can’t do this. You turn it up to 100%, everything’s still really quiet, and you’re pooped. The counterpart to this case exists, too – cards where, even if you set the ‘primary’ element to 0%, you can still hear sound unless another element’s turned down to 0. There’s even more advanced cases, like a card that has a separate channel for the rear speakers and another for the subwoofer – if you turn down the ‘primary’ element, the front speakers go silent, but you still get sound coming out of the rear speakers and the subwoofer. Which is a bit disconcerting.
This kind of bug can be fixed. In some cases we just have to add an entry to the ALSA database of default mixer settings, so the secondary element that messes things up is set to a level so that adjusting the primary element does what we want. In others, Pulse can be tweaked to actually control multiple ALSA elements when you drag the single Pulse slider – so, on the card with separate elements for the surround speakers and the subwoofer, moving the new “Volume” slider adjusts all three ALSA elements, and everything just gets quieter or louder as you’d expect. However, we haven’t yet fixed all the cases we know about, and the fact that several have come to light already through Fedora 11 pre-release testing is a pretty strong indicator that there’ll be more bugs of this kind that only show up once Fedora 11 is released.
The final drawback to the new system is it simply doesn’t cover some less common use cases. Some people want to play back music from a line-in or aux-in, for instance. Aside from the input switching problem, the new gnome-volume-control also doesn’t let you set the monitor volume for input channels.
So, we have a radical new design which is genuinely simpler and more user-friendly than the old one, but causes some regressions due to features not yet being implemented, and bugs that have always existed becoming more important due to the simplification removing the ability to easily tweak the settings. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s a situation that happens often enough in software development.
What I pushed for is, simply, a fallback mixer for Fedora 11. The new mixer is great, it’ll do the job for most users in Fedora 11, and they’ll appreciate the simplicity. However, there are going to be a significant number of users who fall foul of either the input switching problem or one of the manifestations of the ‘slider doesn’t control the volume properly’ bug. Until the input switching feature is implemented in Pulse and g-v-c, and most of the volume control bugs are fixed, we really need to keep providing a graphical mixer in all default Fedora 11 installations, so those who are stuck with one of these problems can fix it without recourse to the console. This is what the flamefest was about, and – I’m happy to say – that position pretty much carried the day. Fedora 11 should ship with either gnome-alsamixer, or the old gnome-volume-control (under a different name), installed by default alongside the new gnome-volume-control. If the new mixer doesn’t do the job for you, you’ll still have a traditional graphical mixer with full access to all the ALSA elements available so you can get what you need.
If you find yourself in the position where the shiny new gnome-volume-control doesn’t give you a decent range of adjustment of your output volume – it’s too quiet at maximum, too loud at minimum, doesn’t have a wide enough range, or your card has separate mixer controls for separate speakers – please file a bug in Red Hat Bugzilla (component ‘pulseaudio’), and mark it as blocking the bug ‘AlsaVolume’. This bug has a procedure to follow to provide the information necessary for the bug to be fixed.
What does this mean for users of other distributions? Well, I looked at Ubuntu. I didn’t actually check a Jaunty (9.04) install, but according to this bug report, it shipped with the old gnome-volume-control installed by default. Apparently they don’t consider the new one ready for prime time yet. The new one is available, but not installed by default, in the package gnome-volume-control-pulse.
Mandriva 2009 Spring, as far as I can tell, is shipping with the new mixer, and no fallback installed by default. Of course, Mandriva defaults to KDE in the DVD edition and the KDE Live CD is above the GNOME Live CD in the download list, and most Mandriva users use KDE, so most MDV users won’t notice this issue (it really only affects GNOME, as KDE’s kmix has not been changed at all to the new simplifed Pulse interface). But if you’re using GNOME on Mandriva, you might want to be aware of this issue, and be ready to install gnome-alsamixer if you need it.
For any other distribution – if your distro ships GNOME 2.26 from upstream, you’ll likely get the new mixer. So be aware of the changes and the background, as discussed above. If you need access to the raw ALSA mixer elements, use gnome-alsamixer or alsamixer from the command line (you may need to use the -c and -V parameters to specify the card number you want to work on, and the ‘capture’ instead of the ‘playback’ view if you want to switch inputs: e.g. ‘alsamixer -c0 -Vcapture’).Porsche has just officially unveiled the brand new 2017 Panamera model and now we’ve come to find out that the luxury sedan has already broken records.
(Also Read: First Production Bugatti Chiron Lap Around Nurburgring, Hits 200 MPH)
In a video uploaded by Porsche, we get to see the 2017 Panamera Turbo’s lap around Nurburgring. With 550 hp worth of motivation from a biturbo V8 engine, the sedan lapped around the famous “Green Hell” in just 7 minutes and 38 seconds. For comparison purposes, thanks to NurburgringLapTimes.com, here are some cars that lapped Nurburgring at the same time or slower than the Panamera Turbo.
Lexus LFA – 7:38:00
Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio – 7:39:00
Ferrari F430 Scuderia – 7:39:00
Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SV – 7:42:00
As you can see, the Panamera Turbo sits above some pretty serious cars. Now, click play below to see the luxury sedan’s record lap.
View Panameras For SaleLast week, the U.S. and EU announced a tentative agreement to allow U.S. companies to continue sending and receiving personal information about EU residents across EU borders — everything from an online employee directory for a multinational company to a Facebook profile stored in the cloud.
An earlier agreement, known as the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, which went back 15 years and was relied on by some 4,000 companies, was declared illegal last year based on concerns, highlighted by the Edward Snowden disclosures, that compliance with surveillance requests from U.S. government agencies, notably the NSA, may have put U.S. companies into conflict with the EU’s broadly written privacy directives.
It’s entirely unclear, however, if the so-called “EU-U.S. Privacy Shield” will pass muster with EU authorities. Most of the changes add new but largely toothless restrictions, including expedited dispute resolution requirements, solely on private sector organizations. It will add layers of annual reviews and expand the privacy bureaucracies at both the Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission.
Yet the Court of Justice’s rejection of the old Safe Harbor was based entirely on potential U.S. government practices, for which there is little indication of changed policy or procedure.
Final approval for the Privacy Shield deal, reflecting the complex bureaucracy that plagues the EU, will include review by a dizzying array of governmental and quasi-governmental privacy bodies, the Commission itself, and its member states. Further legal challenges are all but guaranteed. Uncertainty will cloud internet-based companies doing business abroad for months, if not years, to come.
Meanwhile, the Privacy Shield, even if it survives its trial by fire, will likely do nothing to add even a modicum of new protection to the personal information of European citizens.
That may not have ever been the real goal. Many of the EU’s member states perform the same kinds of surveillance on their own citizens that the U.S. does (often working together with the NSA). And the privacy practices of other nations doing business with the EU are even worse, yet they haven’t been subjected to the same kinds of finger-wagging rhetoric as the U.S.
There’s more than a whiff of hypocrisy here, suggesting once again that the privacy red flag is being waved more to hamstring U.S. tech giants than to protect EU citizens. It’s all part of last year’s Digital Single Market initiative in the EU, which, despite its name, has so far been more about erecting protectionist trade barriers than solving Europe’s innovation deficit. (The EU is also ramping up wide-ranging antitrust actions against leading U.S. internet companies, for example.)
To the extent that the privacy concerns in Europe are genuine, they are a reflection of a profoundly different approach to privacy in two giant economies. U.S. privacy law, inspired by our revolutionary founding, focuses more on restrictions, such as the Fourth Amendment, that protect citizens from information collection and use by government rather than private actors. In fact, private actors are often protected from such restrictions by the First Amendment.
But in Europe, scarred by catastrophic abuses of personal information that include the Inquisition, centuries of religious wars, the Holocaust, and the surveillance states of the former Soviet bloc countries, citizens enjoy broad privacy protections from companies and each other. In Europe, the government is seen as the principal protector of personal information from abuse by non-governmental institutions — the opposite of the U.S. model.
Which is not to say that U.S. law doesn’t protect personal information. In an interview last week, FTC Commissioner Julie Brill, who participated in the Privacy Shield negotiations, noted that a wide range of specific U.S. laws strongly protect particularly sensitive data, including financial, employment, and health data and personal information about children, from private misuse.
And it’s hardly clear that the EU’s broad privacy directives translate to stronger protections. The rhetoric may be strong, but the EU’s central government is weak, leaving enforcement to member states, whose implementations and enthusiasm vary wildly. As a result, privacy law in the EU is even more disjointed than in the U.S.
Reflecting on the last two decades of interactions between the internet and its would-be regulators, it should be clear by now that regardless of where they live, digital consumers can’t hope to secure real protections for their personal information from traditional governments, domestic or foreign.
In large part, that’s because the architecture of the internet and the unique economic properties of information make it effectively impossible to control digital conduct across borders drawn during the Industrial Age. The internet was born global.
At the same time, information misuse causes real damage to the information economy. If not minimized, it can severely undermine the essential trust that is the principal fuel of the digital age. So what can business leaders do to solve the problem better than policymakers?
First, they can recognize and support the efforts of NGOs working to set standards, ensure transparency, and enforce reasonable security practices for information collection and use. Organizations such as TrustE and the Better Business Bureau, for example, offer “trust seals” to services that promise to abide by specific information practices. These relatively low-cost self-regulatory bodies have been gaining momentum and effectiveness.
Second, all businesses must recognize the growing power of consumers to vote with their clicks, rejecting products and services whose information usage profiles violate their preferences. Such behavior may sound unlikely, especially when consumers don’t always know how and by whom their personal information is being used. But even internet leaders, especially social network providers, have learned the hard way that failing to collaborate with users on privacy design can quickly sink promising new products or require frequent and hasty revisions that offer more granular information-sharing choices.
To the list of privacy-related misfires that includes Google Buzz, Facebook Beacon, and LinkedIn’s “social ads,” we can now add the failed launch (at least for now) of Google Glass. Though little more than a head-mounted smartphone, the product’s Orwellian aesthetic generated visceral discomfort, even before anyone had seen it, that the company was unable to overcome despite deploying an army of Glass-wearing goodwill ambassadors, known as “explorers.”
That visceral response, which I refer to as the “creepy factor,” suggests the third and perhaps most important principle in avoiding future privacy crises, at least the kind not generated by governments themselves. And that is simply to ride out the storm.
While survey after survey suggests consumers have growing concerns about the private use of personal information, their behavior regularly betrays their stated preferences. We say we’re uncomfortable sharing information with third parties, but when a specific choice is presented to us, consumers have proven adept at weighing the costs against the benefits.
For example, most of the web’s free content requires the user to accept tracking cookies that customize advertisements. In the EU, consumers must explicitly accept the cookies, but so what? Nearly everyone does. The consent is not a protection; it’s an annoyance.
What is true is that novel uses of information — think of the Internet of Things, wearable health and fitness trackers, autonomous vehicles and drones, big data and artificial intelligence — often generate the creepy response, but only at the beginning. If a product can survive the initial period of discomfort, and if the information exchange it offers proves a fair one, most privacy crises resolve themselves.
To minimize the damage, however, successful companies have learned to include users in information design, educate the market before a product launch, and practice rigorous transparency and self-enforcement of basic privacy principles. These practices — not more inter-governmental agreements, frameworks, empty laws, and self-interested threats — are the essential tools to solving future privacy problems.
If you don’t believe me, just watch what happens next.Another week, another set of sparring partners at Hayemaker HQ, as American Deontay Wilder and Poland's Mariusz Wach arrive in the capital ahead of sparring duties with Britain's former WBA world heavyweight champion David Haye.
The tall and talented pair, both world-class heavyweights in their own right, follow hot on the heels of Alexander Dimitrenko and Richard Towers, who will remain a go-to sparring partner in the final weeks of training.
Standing at 6'7 and 250-pounds, Wach is the current WBC international heavyweight champion and a man most famous for going the full twelve rounds with undisputed world heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in 2012. As well as being renowned for his granite chin, he holds wins over Tye Fields, Kevin McBride and Jason Gavern.
The 6'8 and 225-pound Wilder, meanwhile, is undefeated in 29 pro bouts, winning every single one of them via big knockout. Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the former 2008 Olympic bronze medallist is considered America's next great heavyweight and, naturally, one of the heaviest pound-for-pound punchers in the sport today.
“I couldn't ask for better sparring, to be honest,” said Haye. “Dimitrenko and Towers have been fantastic – both tall and awkward – and I'm looking forward to seeing what problems Wilder and Wach can present me with.
“I've followed Deontay for most of his career, ever since we first sparred in 2010 (pictured), and I've been so impressed by his progress. He seems to get better and better every time I see him fight, and just as people start expecting his knockouts to dry up, he keeps knocking opponents down. He has genuine, one-punch power, and that's an exciting thing for the heavyweight division.
“Wach is as tough as any heavyweight in the world and has a chin made of steel. I watched his brave effort against Wladimir Klitschko last year and couldn't believe the punishment he took during the fight. He was eating big right hands and left hooks without blinking, never once taking a backwards step.”In the past two posts (part I and part II), we used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to discover topics for tweets, and visualized them. In this post, we’ll investigate using LDA on an 8gb dataset of around 8 million Stack Overflow posts.
We’ll need to take a different approach; for the tweets we used a batch algorithm that worked well for the relatively small dataset of around 5000 tweets, but would likely introduce performance issues when running on massive datasets. The batch algorithm also assumed that we have the entire training set at the start of training, making the approach unviable for streaming data, which we may receive during training. It’d be nice to train the model incrementally, so that we can train on a chunk of data, then resume training if we receive more data without have to retrain on the original chunk.
In this post, we’ll look at Online LDA, a variation of ‘vanilla’ LDA that can be trained incrementally in small batches. Online LDA is a good choice for large datasets since we only need to hold a very small subset of the dataset in memory at a given time, and a good fit for streaming data since we can continually feed in new data batches as we receive them. We’re also able to save the model state at a point in training, then resume later when we want to train on more data.
First, we’ll jump into the math and look at the differences between online and batch LDA. Then we’ll use a python implementation of online LDA to discover topics for the Stack Overflow dataset. As usual, all of the associated code is available on GitHub.
Variations on Variational Bayes
For brevity this part will assume that you’ve read through the math background in the first LDA post. I’ll also only highlight major parts; for the full story check out Hoffman’s online LDA paper.
In LDA, our ultimate goal is to find the posterior distribution of latent topic variables after observing training data. However, computing this distribution is intractable, so we’re forced to approximate. One approximation approach is to use an optimization method called Variational Bayes.
In short, we approximate the true distribution by a simple distribution, and associate parameters with the original parameters respectively. Recall that gives the topic assignments for each word in each document, gives the topic composition of each document, and gives the word-topic probabilities for each word and each topic.
Specifically, we have:
Our goal is to estimate. In both batch and online LDA, we alternate between two steps:
1. E-Step: Estimate using the current value of
2. M-Step: Update, using the current value of
The core difference between batch and online LDA is in how these steps are carried out at the algorithmic level.
Starting with Batch
In batch Variational Bayes, we perform multiple passes over the entire dataset, checking each time for convergence. During each pass, the algorithm does an E-Step using the entire dataset. At a high level:
E-Step for d = 1 to numDocs initialize repeat until change in update update
Then the M-Step updates using values from every document:
M-Step update
The specific updates are:
Where is the number of occurrences of in document d.
Going Online
In online Variational Bayes, we only make a single sweep of the entire dataset, analyzing a chunk of documents at a time. A ‘chunk’ could be a single document, 42 documents, or even the entire dataset. Let’s let a ‘chunk’ be 1000 documents.
The online E-Step only uses the current chunk; instead of 8 million posts we now only have to hold 1000 in memory. The E-Step finds locally optimal values for and
E-Step initialize repeat until change in update update
In the M-Step, we first compute, which is the value of if we imagined that the entire dataset is made up of copies of the current chunk. Then is updated using a weighted sum of and
M-Step compute update
The specific updates are:
Where is the number of occurrences of in the current iteration’s chunk of documents, and is a weighting parameter.
We can see that unlike batch LDA, in online LDA we only need to hold a small chunk of the data at a time, and once we’re done analyzing it, we never need it again. As with batch, once we’ve estimated, we can find the most probable words for each topic by looking at the word probabilities in each row of.
Intuitions of the Inference
If we squint and step back, LDA consists of using simple word counts in a clever way. The |
of political power in the Political Treatise ([1675] 2002: 686).
David Hume’s account is another example of an analysis of hope as a passion, modified, however, by the specific approach he takes to human psychology. For Hume, hope is a “direct passion” that is produced when the mind considers events that have a probability between absolute certainty and absolute impossibility. Hume describes probability-beliefs as an effect of the mind entertaining contrary views—of an event or object as either existent or nonexistent—in quick succession after another. Each of these views gives rise to either joy or sorrow (when the object is something good or bad) which linger longer in the mind than the original imagination of the object’s existence or non-existence. When considering objects that are probable, but not certain, the mind is thus affected by a mixture of joy and sorrow that, depending on the predominant element, can be called hope or fear.
It is after this manner that hope and fear arise from the different mixture of these opposite passions of grief and joy, and from their imperfect union and conjunction. (Treatise, [1738] 2007: 283)
As Hume sees hope as a necessary effect of the consideration of an uncertain event, it follows that we cannot but hope for any positive outcome about which we are uncertain. The uncertainty in question can be based on the actual uncertainty of the event but also on uncertain belief.
2.4 Immanuel Kant
While hope is primarily discussed as a feature of the psychology of individual humans in the 17th and 18th century and, as a noncognitive attitude, taken to be neither essentially rational nor irrational, it is given much greater significance by Immanuel Kant who adopts a much more substantial (and complex) view of the connection between hope and reason, not only allowing for reasonable hope but even for hope as something which might be rationally demanded in certain contexts.
Kant’s definition of hope as “unexpected offering of the prospect of immeasurable good fortune” (AE 7:255) in the Anthropology still seems to remain within the traditional discourse about hope. However, Kant eventually promotes hope to occupy a central place in his philosophical system by focusing on hope as an attitude that allows human reason to relate to those questions which cannot be answered by experience. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states the question “For what may I hope?” as one of the fundamental questions of philosophy, after “What can I know?” and “What should I do?” (A805/B833). This question, as far as its answer depends on claims regarding the consequences of moral righteousness and the existence of God, is “simultaneously practical and theoretical” (A805/B833) and it is answered by religion (AE 9:25). Kant’s account of hope consequently connects his moral philosophy with his views on religion. He emphasizes the rational potential of such hope, but he also makes clear that rational hope is intimately connected to religious faith, i.e., the belief in god.
Kant considers three primary objects of hope in his writings: (1) One’s own happiness (as part of the highest good), (2) one’s own moral progress (in the Religion) and (3) the moral improvement of the human race as a whole.
(1) In the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states clearly: “all hope concerns happiness” (A805/B833). However, it is not the hope for one’s own happiness simpliciter that is at stake, but the hope for happiness that one deserves because of one’s moral conduct (A809/B837). Kant argues that there is a necessary connection between the moral law and the hope for happiness. However, this connection exists only “in the idea of pure reason”, not in nature (A809/B837). A proportionality between happiness and morality can only be thought of as necessary in an intelligible, moral world, where we abstract from all hindrances to moral conduct. In the empirical world of experience, there is no guarantee for a necessary connection between moral conduct and happiness. Thus, Kant concludes, we may reasonably hope for happiness in proportion to morality only if we introduce the additional non-empirical assumption of “a highest reason, which commands in accordance with moral laws, as […] the cause of nature” (A810/B838). This way, Kant connects morality and happiness in the object of hope and secures its possibility in a highest reason, i.e., in god. Kant calls the connection between “happiness in exact proportion with the morality of rational beings, through which they are worthy of it” the highest good (A814/B842). A peculiarity of Kant’s treatment of hope in the Canon is that hope for the highest good is apparently considered necessary for moral motivation (A813/B841)—a thesis he rejects in his later writings.
Kant’s account of hope for happiness presents hope as very closely connected to Kant’s concept of faith. This becomes obvious in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant argues that in order to believe in the possibility of the highest good—and we have to believe in this possibility, as it is prescribed by the categorical imperative—we have to believe in or postulate the existence of god and immortality of the soul. Kant himself uses both the concept of belief or faith and the concept of hope in explaining the content of the postulate of immortality: we must presuppose immortality in order to conceive of the highest good as “practically possible” and we may therefore “hope for a further uninterrupted continuance of this [moral] progress, however long his existence may last, even beyond this life” (AE 5:123). Thus, Kant can be understood as arguing in favor of a traditional religious form of hope—hope for a life after death or immortality of the soul. However, he points out that immortality is not a ‘mere’ hope (i.e., a hope for an outcome where we lack evidence for the claim that it is really possible), but that reason makes it necessary (as a consequence of the categorical imperative) to assume that immortality is possible. This claim that it is rationally necessary to assume something seems to be stronger than the claim that we may (or even must) hope for it.
Whereas some Kant interpreters do not clearly distinguish between hope and faith (Rossi 1982, Flikschuh 2010), Andrew Chignell emphasizes that hope is an attitude that is distinct from faith or belief and that Kant follows an “assert-the-stronger” policy: he asserts the strongest justified attitude towards p (justified belief), even if one holds also weaker attitudes towards p (hope) (Chignell 2013: 198). O’Neill interprets Kant as holding that hope provides a reason for religious belief: Belief in God and immortality is not “merely possible”, but a matter of “taking a hopeful view of human destiny” (O’Neill 1996: 281). According to O’Neill, the reason for faith is the hope that moral action is successful, i.e., that our moral intention can make a difference to the natural order.
Another possible interpretation is that Kant uses “hope” to describe a certain kind of belief. Such a belief would refer to an object that is theoretically possible, but in regard to which it is undecidable whether it exists and practically necessary to assume its existence. He holds that there can be practical (moral) reasons—that the highest good must be realizable—that make hope (for god’s existence and immortality) not only valuable and rational, but even rationally required.
(2) In the Religion, Kant envisages one’s own moral progress as an object of hope. He assumes that human beings have a propensity to evil, i.e., they occasionally prioritize maxims of self-love over moral ones (see AE 6:32). Consequently, our task as moral agents is to perform a “revolution of the will” by adopting the moral law as one’s fundamental maxim. This revolution is an object of hope:
Man cannot attain naturally to assurance concerning such a [moral] revolution… for the deeps of the heart (the subjective first grounds of his maxim) are inscrutable to him. Yet he must be able to hope through his own efforts to reach the road which leads hither…because he ought to become a good man. (AE 6:46, see also 6:48, translation from Kant [1793] 1960: 51)
Kant claims that this hope may include the hope for divine assistance in performing the revolution (AE 6:171). But if Kant is understood as claiming that we require assistance from God in order to become morally good (Chignell 2013: 212ff.), this claim stands in tension with Kant’s fundamental assumption that human beings are free and fully responsible for being good or evil. Chignell therefore proposes that Kant might
regard it as metaphysically possible for us to receive divine assistance in the intelligible realm while doing something for which we are fully responsible. (Chignell 2013: 216)
(3) In his political and historical writings, Kant considers another object of reasonable hope: the hope for historical progress towards a morally better, peaceful future. We find a similar relationship between rational belief and hope as with regard to God and immortality: Kant sees the moral improvement of the human race both as an object of an assumption or rational belief, which is connected to a moral duty, and an object of hope (AE 8:309). Similar to the objects of the practical postulates, God and immortality, the assumption of moral improvement of the human race cannot be proven. Nevertheless, it is rational to believe or hope for it because it is a necessary presupposition for a moral duty (the duty to help morally improve the younger generation). Kant assigns “hope for better times” an important function for moral motivation by claiming that without it, the desire to benefit the common good would “never have warmed the human heart” (AE 8:309). Viewing human history with a “confirmation bias” (Kleingeld 2012: 175), i.e., with a view on the realization of moral demands, encourages the attempt to fighting evils “instead of succumbing to despair” (ibid.).
Independently of these systematic issues regarding hope in Kant’s philosophy, it is worth summarizing some general features that Kant touches upon concerning hope. Regarding a descriptive account of what it means that a person hopes that p, one can extract two necessary conditions from Kant’s remarks that are in line with the standard account of hope: the object of hope must be uncertain, and the person must wish for it. Both conditions are can be found in the following passage from Perpetual Peace:
[R]eason is not enlightened enough to survey the entire series of predetermining causes that foretell with certainty the happy or unhappy consequences of humankind’s activities in accordance with the mechanism of nature (although it does let us hope that these will be in accord with our wishes). (AE 8:370)
In regard to the normative conditions under which hope is rational, in Theory and Practice Kant claims that a particular hope (or intention formed on the basis of hope) is not irrational as long as its object cannot be proven to be impossible (AE 8:309f.). Besides this negative criterion, the main positive reason Kant considers in favor of hope is that certain hopes are (necessarily) connected with a moral duty. Therefore, even though the third question of philosophy is “For what may I hope?”, Kant in many passages discusses for what we must hope (see O’Neill 1996: 285).
2.5 Post-Kantian Philosophy and Existentialism
In Post-Kantian philosophy, the role of hope is disputed. One can identify two more or less distinct approaches. On the one hand, there are authors like Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus who reject hope, not so much as epistemically irrational but as expression of a misguided relationship to the world that is unable to face the demands of human existence. On the other hand, authors like Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel take hope to be a means to overcome the limitations of ordinary experience.
Kierkegaard examines hope primarily as it is connected to religious faith. However, whereas Kant aims to show that our belief in god and hope for the highest good is possible within the limits of reason, Kierkegaard is keen to emphasize that (eternal) hope must transcend all understanding. As an antipode to despair, hope plays a positive role in Kierkegaard’s work, culminating in his admonition: “a person’s whole life should be the time of hope!” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 251). In Works of Love, Kierkegaard defines hope in its most general form as a relation to the possibility of the good: “To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 249).
Most interpreters of Kierkegaard emphasize a distinction between “heavenly” (or eternal) hope and “earthly” (or temporal) hope (Bernier 2015; Fremstedal 2012; McDonald 2014). In some passages, Kierkegaard indeed seems to assume that there is also “natural hope” (Kierkegaard [1851] 1990: 82) or hope “for some earthly advantage” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 261). However, strictly speaking, Kierkegaard considers this the “wrong language usage” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 261). He completes his definition as follows: “To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope, which cannot be any temporal expectancy but is an eternal hope” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 249). On Kierkegaard’s view, hope—strictly speaking—is thus always directed towards the eternal, “since hope pertains to the possibility of the good, and thereby to the eternal” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 249). This is connected to Kierkegaard’s account of time. Hope, as a form of expectation, is an attitude towards the possible. While expectation, generally speaking, relates to the possibility of both good and evil (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 249), hope relates only to the possibility of good. The possibility of the good, on Kierkegaard’s account, is a feature of the eternal (“in time, the eternal is the possible, the future”).
While the expectation of earthly goods is often disappointed—either because it is fulfilled too late or not at all (Kierkegaard [1843–1844] 1990: 215)—eternal hope cannot in principle be disappointed (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 261–3, Kierkegaard [1843–1844] 1990: 216). Eternal hope means “at every moment always to hope all things” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 249). Kierkegaard mostly equates eternal hope with Christian hope (McDonald 2014: 164).
In order to understand the relation between earthly and heavenly hope, it is helpful to consider the dialectical progression of hope that Kierkegaard presents in the Nachlaß (Malantschuk (ed.) 1978: 247). There is a kind of hope that occurs spontaneously in youth, which appears to be a pre-reflexive hope, a kind of immediate trust or confidence (Fremstedal 2012: 52). It is followed by the “supportive calculation of the understanding”, i.e., by hope involving the reflection about the probability of the hoped-for outcome. This (earthly) hope is often disappointed by the lateness or non-arrival of the expected goods. This disappointment is necessary in order to acquire eternal hope, which “is against hope, because according to that purely natural hope there was no more hope; consequently this hope is against hope” (Kierkegaard [1851] 1990: 82). Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Abraham’s story in Fear and Trembling can be understood as illustration of this kind of hope (Lippitt 2015).
Whereas earthly hope is judged by the understanding according to its probability, eternal hope exceeds the limits of understanding. It is therefore commonly judged as irrational or as “lunacy” (Kierkegaard [1851] 1990: 83). Kierkegaard does not explicitly take up the question of when hope is rational—presumably because eternal hope exceeds reason—but he frames the question of good or bad hope in terms of “honor” and “shame” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 260f.). He observes that a person who entertained an earthly hope that has not been fulfilled is very often criticized as imprudent (or “put to shame” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 260)) because this is supposed to show that she “miscalculated” (ibid.). Kierkegaard objects to this perspective of “sagacity” that judges hope only with regard to its fulfillment. Rather, we should pay attention to the value of the hoped-for ends (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 261). Eternal hope, on this account, “is never put to shame” (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 260, see also 263). Further, and in line with the Christian tradition, he argues that the value of hope depends on its relation to love: we hope for ourselves if and only if we hope for others, and only to the same degree. Love
is the middle term: without love, no hope for oneself; with love, hope for all others—and to the same degree one hopes for oneself, to the same degree one hopes for others, since to the same degree one is loving. (Kierkegaard [1847] 1995: 260)
Thus, similarly as in Kant’s account, one’s hope stands in a proportional relationship with an ethical demand. However, Kierkegaard does not see hope limited by our meeting an ethical demand.
Rather, Kierkegaard sees the proportional relation as determining whether we are in fact hoping, and the actual degree of our expectancy. Our hope for ourselves is only realizable in and through our hope for another. (Bernier 2015: 315)
As already mentioned, Schopenhauer represents the opposite approach in post-Kantian philosophy. Even though he holds that it is natural for humans to hope (Parerga and Paralipomena II, 1851: §313), he also claims that we generally ought to hope less than we are inclined to, calling hope a “folly of the heart” (ibid.). Ambivalent remarks concerning the value of hope (he interprets Pandora’s box as containing all the goods, Parerga and Paralipomena II, 1851: §200) can be found throughout his writings, but on the whole, criticism prevails. There are two aspects to his critical evaluation of hope: hope’s influence on the intellect and its role for happiness. In Schopenhauer’s dichotomy of the will and the intellect, hope is an expression of the will or, more precisely, an inclination. One reason why hope is problematic with respect to its influence on the intellect is that it presents what we wish for as probable (The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, [1818] 1958: 216, 218). Schopenhauer concedes that hope sharpens our perception insofar as it makes certain features of the world salient. But he links this thesis to the stronger claim that hope may make it (often) impossible to grasp things that are relevant. Hope thus distorts cognition in a problematic way because it hinders the intellect to grasp the truth. However, Schopenhauer also concedes the possibility of a positive effect of hope, namely as motivation and support of the intellect (The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, [1818] 1958: 221).
With regard to its contribution to personal happiness, Schopenhauer mentions a positive role of hope in his comparison of the life of animals with that of humans. He states that animals experience less pleasure than humans, because they lack hope and therefore the pleasures of anticipation. But hope can not only lead to disappointment when the hoped-for object is not realized, it can even be disappointing when it is fulfilled if the outcome does not provide as much satisfaction as to be expected (The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2 [1818] 1958: 573). Schopenhauer also criticizes Kant’s idea that we may hope for our own happiness in proportion to our moral conduct (the highest good). This conception of hope, according to Schopenhauer, leads Kant to remain implicitly committed to a form of eudaimonism (Basis of Morality II, §3, 34).
Thus, even though Schopenhauer occasionally hints at positive aspects of hope, his overall evaluation of hope is negative. This is consistent with his view that life is filled with unavoidable frustration and suffering, and that suffering can be reduced only by getting rid of one’s desires. Ideally, this amounts to the “negation of the will to life” (The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, [1818] 2010: 405). The “temptations of hope” (The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, [1818] 2010: 419) function as obstacles for the negation of the will, whereas hopelessness can help to transform one’s mind and acquire “genuine goodness and purity of mind” (The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, [1818] 2010: 420). Interestingly, Schopenhauer does have sympathies with the idea of salvation, which lies in the denial of the will (Schopenhauer [1818] 1958: 610), that is, he seems to subscribe to a kind of transcendent hope for an end of all suffering (Schulz 2002: 125). Even though he does not say so, one could characterize his view as a “hope for the end of hope”.
Nietzsche is perhaps the most famous critic of hope in the post-Kantian tradition. In the third preface to Zarathustra, he warns: “do not believe those who speak to you of extraterrestrial hopes!” (Zarathustra, [1883–85] 2006: 6) Similarly, in Beyond Good and Evil (1886) he opposes all notions of hope “in hidden harmonies, in future blessedness and justice” (Beyond Good and Evil, [1886] 2008: 562). In his interpretation of Pandora’s myth (Human, All Too Human, 1878: §71), he calls hope “the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man”. However, a closer look reveals that, outside of his criticism of religious and metaphysical hopes, he also hints at a positive perspective on hope: “that mankind be redeemed from revenge: that to me is the bridge to the highest hope and a rainbow after long thunderstorms” (Zarathustra, [1883–85] 2006: 77). Nietzsche counts hope amongst the “strong emotions” (Nietzsche [1887] 2006: 103), next to anger, fear, voluptuousness and revenge. Furthermore, he repeatedly characterizes hope using the metaphor of a rainbow: “hope is the rainbow over the cascading stream of life” [“Die Hoffnung ist der Regenbogen über den herabstürzenden jähen Bach des Lebens”] (as cited in Bidmon 2016: 188). However, the metaphor of the “rainbow” is ambivalent. On the one hand, it is connected to Nietzsches vision of the “overman”: “Do you not see it, the rainbow and the bridges of the overman?” (Zarathustra, [1883–85] 2006: 36). On the other hand, however, the rainbow is elusive and withdraws itself—Nietzsche calls it an “illusory bridge” (Zarathustra, [1883–85] 2006: 175; see also Bidmon 2016: 188f.). In Beyond Good and Evil, he finally claims that we should “fix our hopes” in “new philosophers”, “in minds strong and original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value” (Beyond Good and Evil, [1886] 2008: 600). In Human all too human, he similarly envisages change of the social order as an object of hope:
[W]e are only reasonably entitled to hope when we believe that we and our equals have more strength in heart and head than the representatives of the existing state of things. (Human All Too Human, 1878: §443)
Reasonable hope is thus grounded in a trust in one’s capacity to bring about the desired outcome. However, Nietzsche adds that usually this hope amounts to “presumption, an over-estimation” (ibid.).
Camus follows Nietzsche in declaring (religious) hope the worst of all evils (Judaken and Bernasconi 2012: 264). His critique of hope is linked to the idea that the human existence is “absurd”. The “elusive feeling of absurdity” (Camus 1955: 12) is characterized by a discrepancy: the human mind asks fundamental questions about the meaning of life, but “the world” does not provide answers. Camus’ understanding of the absurd is best captured in the image of Sisyphus, who exemplifies life’s absurdity in his “futile and hopeless labor” (Camus 1955: 119). The assumption that life is absurd goes hand in hand with the denial of religious hope for salvation. In his early writing Nuptials ([1938] 1970), Camus opposes religious ideas about the immortal soul and hope for an afterlife. In fact, “[h]ope is the error Camus wishes to avoid” (Aronson 2012). Even though Camus is often regarded as an “existentialist”, he distances himself from this movement. One reason is precisely his disagreement with the account of hope of the existentialists, Kierkegaard in particular, of which he says that “they deify what crushes them and find reason to hope in what impoverishes them. That forced hope is religious in all of them” (Camus 1955: 32).
As already mentioned, one kind of hope that Camus flatly rejects is religious hope for a life beyond death. A second kind of hope, primarily discussed in The Rebel, is the hope founded on a great cause beyond oneself, i.e., “hope of another life one must ‘deserve’” (Camus 1955: 8). The problem with hoping for social utopias, according to Camus, is that they tend to be dictatorial. A further reason to reject such hopes seems to be that they distract from the life of the senses, from the here-and-now and from appreciating the beauty of this life. We also do not need hope to cope with the hardships of life and death: instead of hoping for a life after death (or committing suicide), one should be conscious of death as “the most obvious absurdity” (Camus 1955: 59) and “die unreconciled and not of one’s own free will” (Camus 1955: 55). Sisyphus exemplifies the attitude of lucidity and consciousness that Camus recommends. Even though he does not hope for a better future,—or rather because he does not hope for a better future—“[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy” (Camus 1955: 123).
Despite his criticism of hope, Camus states that it is (nearly) impossible to live without hope, even if one wishes to be free of hope (Camus 1955: 113). Presumably this claim is only descriptive, stating a fact about human psychology. However, in a letter to his friend and poet René Char, Camus called The Rebel a “livre d’espoir” [book of hope] (Schlette 1995: 130). On that note, it has recently been suggested that Camus allows for a positive view of hope—a kind of “étrange espoir” [strange hope] that is directed towards the possibilities inherent in the present (Schlette 1995: 134) and that is characterized by humanism and solidarity with all human beings (Bidmon 2016: 233).
Whereas the positive role of hope in Camus is at best hidden, it surfaces prominently in the writings of Marcel. At the heart of Marcel’s account of hope is the distinction between “‘I hope…’, the absolute statement, and ‘I hope that…’” (Marcel [1952] 2010: 26). Marcel is mostly interested in a general, absolute hope, which he conceives as “the act by which […] temptation to despair is actively or victoriously overcome” (Marcel [1952] 2010: 30f.). One way in which Marcel characterizes the “mystery” (Marcel [1952] 2010: 29) of hope is by alluding to the connection between hope and patience (Marcel [1952] 2010: 33). Hope implies the respect for “personal rhythm” (ibid.) and “confidence in a certain process of growth and development” (Marcel [1952] 2010: 34). Marcel takes up the question of the rationality of hope in asking whether hope is an illusion that consists in taking one’s wishes for reality (Marcel [1952] 2010: 39). He answers that this objection against the value of hope applies primarily to hopes that are directed towards a particular outcome (“to hope that X”), but it does not apply when hope transcends the imagination. Because the person who hopes simpliciter does not anticipate a particular event, her hope cannot be judged with regard to whether it is likely to be fulfilled. Marcel illustrates this with the example of an invalid (Marcel [1952] 2010: 40). If this person hopes that he will be healthy at a certain point in time, there is the danger of disappointment and despair if it does not happen. However, absolute hope, Marcel explains, implies a “method of surmounting”: the patient has true hope, if he realizes that “everything is not necessarily lost if there is no cure” (Marcel [1952] 2010: 40). Being a “theistic Existentialist” (Treanor and Sweetman 2016) like Kierkegaard, Marcel ultimately connects this possibility of absolute hope to the existence of god. Absolute hope is necessarily connected to faith in God and is a “response of the creature to the infinite Being to whom it is conscious of owing everything that it has” (Marcel [1952] 2010: 41).
2.6 Pragmatism
Even though hope rarely features explicitly in pragmatist writings, it has been suggested that pragmatist accounts of hope can be found in the works of William James and John Dewey (Fishman and McCarthy 2007; Green 2008; Koopman 2006, 2009; Rorty 1999; Shade 2001). As Patrick Shade notes, the issue of hope is “implicit in most pragmatic philosophies”, as it is related to central pragmatist topics, such as meliorism and faith, and particular hopes for social progress (Shade 2001: 9f.).
Indeed, James’ concept of faith in The Will to Believe is closely linked to hope. In his essay, James aims to offer a “justification of faith, a defense of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters” (James [1897] 2015: 1). Even though his primary subject is religious faith, he points out that a structural similar justification of faith or trust can be applied to social questions. It can be rational to believe that the other is trustworthy or likes us, even though we may not be able to prove it. Three criteria have to be fulfilled for faith to be rational: the question cannot be decided scientifically, the belief may be true, and we are better off (even now) if we believe. In his argument, James draws a link to the concept of hope when claiming that the skeptic or agnostic attitude is not more rational than the attitude of faith. The skeptic holds “that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true” (James [1897] 2015: 27). James criticizes this attitude: “what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear?” (James [1897] 2015: 27).
In Dewey’s writings, the topic of hope has been connected to his account of meliorism (Shade 2001: 139). Meliorism is
the idea that at least there is a sufficient basis of goodness in life and its conditions so that by thought and earnest effort we may constantly make things better. (Dewey [1916] 1980: 294)
Dewey distinguishes meliorism from optimism: Meliorism
attacks optimism on the ground that it encourages the fatalistic contentment with things as they are; what is needed is the frank recognition of evils, not for the sake of accepting them as final, but for the sake of arousing energy to remedy them. (ibid.)
The object of hope or meliorism, for Dewey, is first and foremost democracy, which is “the simple idea that political and ethical progress hinges on nothing more than persons, their values, and their actions” (ibid.: 107).
3. The Standard Account and the Rationality of Hope
The contemporary debate about hope in analytic philosophy is primarily concerned with providing a definition of hope, explicating standards of rationality and explaining the value of hope. The debate takes as its starting point what has been called the “orthodox definition” (Martin 2013: 11) or the “standard account” (Meirav 2009: 217), which analyses hope in terms of a wish or desire for an outcome and a belief concerning the outcome’s possibility. R.S. Downie is representative of this position:
There are two criteria which are independently necessary and jointly sufficient for ‘hope that’. The first is that the object of hope must be desired by the hoper. […] The second […] is that the object of hope falls within a range of physical possibility which includes the improbable but excludes the certain and the merely logically possible. (Downie 1963: 248f.)
Similarly, J. P. Day writes:
“A hopes that p” is true iff “A wishes that p, and A thinks that p has some degree of probability, however small” is true. (Day 1969: 89)
The desire-condition captures the fact that the subject is attracted to the outcome. Concerning the belief-condition, there is general agreement that we cannot hope for what we believe to be either impossible or certain. For a descriptive account of hope, only the belief of the hoping person about the possibility of the object is relevant, independently of whether this belief is true: a person can hope for an object she believes to be possible even if the object is in fact impossible. While most accounts employ the idea that a hoping person holds a positive belief to the effect that the outcome is possible, the most minimal position would require only the absence of the belief that the outcome is impossible (or certain) (see Pettit 2004: 153 for both formulations).
Most authors implicitly assume that the hoped-for event is in the future. In ordinary usage however, people often express hopes regarding past events of which they do not have complete knowledge. An example is the hope that someone did not suffer excessively when they died. While some authors consider this use of language to be parasitic on the future-directed case (McGeer 2004: 104), others argue that these are genuine cases of hope (Martin 2013: 68).
Another question in this context concerns the concept of possibility that is at issue: It seems clear that we cannot hope for the logically impossible, but can we hope for the physically impossible, e.g., that the dead will rise tomorrow? Downie, for example, holds that logical possibility is not enough (Downie 1963: 249), whereas Chignell does not exclude the possibility of hope for something which is physically impossible (Chignell 2013: 201ff.). Whatever the answer to this question, all views (except Wheatley 1958) allow for cases of hope in which the outcome is extremely improbable; in other words, no lower bound to the probability is required for hoping (Meirav 2009: 219).
Similarly, few authors doubt that the desire and belief component to which the orthodox definition refers are necessary conditions for hope (although Segal and Textor 2015 deny this). However, convincing objections have been raised against the idea that the standard definition provides sufficient conditions for hope. Ariel Meirav (2009) and Philip Pettit (2004) raise the most important objections.
Meirav argues that the standard definition fails to distinguish hope from despair: two people can have identical desires and beliefs about the possibility of an outcome, and yet one of them may hope for the outcome while the other despairs of it. According to Meirav’s “External Factor Account” (Meirav 2009: 230), hope also involves an attitude towards an external factor (e.g., nature, fate, God) on which the realization of the hoped-for end causally depends. “If one views the external factor as good, then one hopes for the prospect. If one views it as not good, then one despairs of it” (Meirav 2009: 230). Meirav links this definition to a claim about the rationality of hope: the rationality of hope depends on the rationality of the belief in the goodness of an external factor (Meirav 2009: 233).
Another concern is that the standard account fails to explain how hope can have special motivating force in difficult circumstances, especially when the probability of the desired outcome is low (Pettit 2004; Calhoun forthcoming). This objection is based on the idea that hope is closely connected to our agency. Victoria McGeer claims that even in cases where we cannot bring anything about to promote the hoped-for end, |
King Marke and all that. And Isolde doesn’t see that at all—she reads that totally differently.”
© Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera
S TEMME'S EYES ARE LIVELY. This could be observed as long ago as 2005, in Christoph Marthaler’s production of Tristan at Bayreuth. Marthaler’s conception of the character in Act I seemed to include Isolde’s wizardly control over the lighting fixtures in her cabin on the ship. This was inscrutable—Stemme says it was supposed to have something to do with the crazy side of being in love, and with Buñuel’s film L’Age d’Or—but she enacted it with an all-out Carol Burnett kind of kookiness. The eyes are alive again when another topic is raised. Most opera fans “know” that she graduated from business school. Did the degree help her career? She becomes positively impish. The eyes lift to the ceiling. “Oh—I didn’t finish. I did write my essay, but I had a few more exams to do.” Leaving school to become a singer “was terrible to decide. Nobody really understood. And nobody really could understand either. I’m the first artist in my entire family.”
© Dario Acosta
Stemme gives a lot of credit to the after-school music instruction in Stockholm. “That’s what you did after school—you went to the music school. You didn’t think that much came out of it at the time, but afterward I realized how much it meant.” She presents every impression of being a grounded, self-sufficient musician. She no longer sees much point in singing anywhere but the largest houses. “It’s just more rewarding for me to sing in a big house. I feel that the mass, with my voice and the orchestra, that hits the audience is too much, the sheer sound of it, in a small house. I don’t feel I can give more beauty into it.” And although she was appearing in Elektra with Waltraud Meier, who reigned as Kundry for a generation, Stemme thought she probably wouldn’t ask Meier for insight into the role. “I have too much respect for an artist like that. She has done her process, so I think it’s difficult for her to speak about it or give a little advice. I would think so as an artist myself. We’re both kind of respectful.”
After her visits to the Broadway revivals of Les Misérables (“good story, good music”) and The Crucible (“Fantastic!”), Stemme had some thoughts about ways to keep live opera healthy. “We really have to work on how we receive the audience before the show, so that they can ‘land’ and sort of sink into the atmosphere. You end up sitting in a wonderful show, but with the audiences around, you end up feeling just like a packed sardine or anchovies. I think you can do just a little bit more, so that the audience gets more than they expected, not less. It’s the little things that keep artists coming back and audiences coming back. After The Crucible, fantastic applause, but the cast didn’t let us welcome them and thank them enough.”
Very few people can do what Nina Stemme does, and it is impossible to resist asking a final question: what does it feel like to stand above a hundred orchestra musicians and let loose with a high C? Sherrill Milnes once compared high notes to sex, and Stemme mentions that Nilsson was known to say something similar. “The high Cs towards the end of Turandot’s Act II, those are fun Cs. In the first monologue of Elektra, there I wish that the orchestra could just stop time for a moment, so I could stay on the C longer. I like it when I enjoy my top Cs! What happens between the orchestra and the stage, it really is a tango. It takes two to tango—it rocks. But you never have time to enjoy it, contrary to sex, because it goes on to something else—it’s not always the climax.” Signing off, she chirps into the tape recorder, “Hi, Birgit! I hope you like that I’m talking about this!”
William R. Braun is a pianist & writer based in Connecticut.From Reuters yesterday:
The rouble tumbled on Wednesday after Russia’s central bank effectively abandoned the trading corridor for the currency, halting the multi-billion dollar daily interventions that had propped it up through sanctions and plunging oil revenues.
Figure 1 shows the collapse in the rouble, even as the central bank’s overnight repo rate has been raised. The drop occurs as forex intervention is capped at $350 million/day.
Figure 1: USD/RUB exchange rate (blue, left scale), and overnight repo rate, % (red, right scale). Source: Pacific Exchange Service, Central Bank of Russia.
Figure 2 depicts the decline in foreign exchange reserves, as capital outflows have increased and the current account balance has deteriorated. October figures are not out yet. However, press reports indicate $29 billion was spent in forex intervention in October. If the private balance of payments was zero, then reserves ex.-gold would be about $280 $380 billion (indicated by the +).
Figure 2: Russian reserves ex.-gold, in billions, end-of-month (blue, left scale), and USD/RUB exchange rate, monthly averages of daily data (red, right scale). Reserves observation for October 2014 is calculated assuming $29 billion forex intervention in October [1], and private balance of payments equal zero. Exchange rate observation for November is 11/6. Source: Pacific Exchange Service, Central Bank of Russia.
The depreciation of the rouble has already had an effect (along with Russian counter-sanctions). Inflation in the year ending in October was 8.3%, while food price inflation was 11.5% through September.
For more on sanctions and the Russian economy, see this post.The GOP's fade to irrelevance in California
If you want to know why no one is talking about which way California will go in the November presidential election, the answer is simple: Mitt Romney doesn’t have a prayer.
It’s not the polls that lead to that conclusion. All you have to do is look at the state’s latest voter registration statistics.
They’re really quite stunning in what they reveal about the GOP’s fade toward irrelevance in the nation’s largest state.
There used to be a time when California regularly produced talent for GOP presidential ticket. And from 1952 through 1988, the Republican nominee carried the state in every presidential election but one.
Now, it’s nearly impossible for a Republican to get elected statewide -- so California doesn’t produce anyone with enough stature for the national GOP ticket. The massive Democratic voter registration advantage helps explain why.
According to the latest figures from the Secretary of State’s office, Democratic registration is 43.5% to 30.3% for Republicans.
The GOP actually has a majority of voters in 30 of California’s 58 counties. But that number is misleading. If you look at the list of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of Democrats, they tend to be some of the more populous in the state – places like Alameda (Oakland) Los Angeles (LA), Contra Costa (Bay area), and San Mateo (Bay area) counties.
The 10 counties with the highest percentage of Republicans tend to be among the least populous counties, all of them located inland.
The data, the trendlines and the state's demographics don’t paint a pretty picture for the GOP. But more than anything else, they signal that California’s 55 electoral votes are firmly in President Obama’s pocket.“Pokemon can be classified by following criteria: A low reproduction rate (with the offspring being in most cases of its mother’s species), supernatural abilities like extended longevity (in some cases, as seen in the so-called ‘Legendary Pokemon’, it exceeds several thousand years), the ability to control different elements, large-sized bodies, a sudden second and third mutation/maturity stage, some of which are triggered by the radiation of different ores (and a newly-discovered fourth stage, the ‘Mega-Evolution’ which is triggered by ‘Mega Stones’), and near-human/superhuman intellect, even in animals like arthropods. It was generally believed that Pokemon where a whole different act of Creation, or even extraterrestrial life-forms.
In 1850 however, when a female West-Highland Terrier gave birth to a litter of Lillipups, people began to realize that Pokemon did come, in fact, from normal animals. This caused several theories to spring up until in 1976 the young Pokemon Professor Samuel Oak discovered a virus in one of his samples. First, he believed it to be a contamination, but then curiosity got the better of him. He noted a section in the virus’ DNA he found oddly familiar. In a sample of his Charizard’s DNA, he recognized the exact same section of viral DNA. This lead to a breakthrough in Pokemon research, explaining exactly where Pokemon came from: The ‘Pokerus’ Virus affects the reproductive organs, slipping its genetic information into its hosts gametes and changing the offspring to mutate into Pokemon.”
Invertebrate Pokémon: Insects. The largest group, and for bugs, have a surprisingly high intellect.
Okay, here you have: Celebi, Paras, Parasect, Nincada, Ninjask, Shedenja, Lunatone, Bergmite, Carbink, Diancie, Mega Diancie, Megaerna, Surskit, Masquerain, Scizzor, Mega Scizzor, Formantis, Lurantis, Bonsley, Sudoowoodo, Buzzwole, Klefki, Venipede, Whirlipede, Scolipede, Tsareena, Kricketot, Kricketune, Yanma, Yanmega, Sewaddle, Swadloon, Leavanny, Caterpie, Metapod, Butterfree, Wurmple, Silcoon, Cascoon, Beautifly, Dustox, Venonat, Venomoth, Larvesta, Volcarona, Spewpa, Scatterbug, Vivillon, Burmy, Wormadam, Mothim, Kartana, Tapu Lele, Cutiefly, Ribombee, Gligar, Gliscor, Weedle, Kakuna, Beedrill, Mega Beedrill, Combee, Vespiqueen, Durant, Snorunt, Glalie, Mega Glalie, Froslass, Ledyba, Ledian, Illumise, Volbeat, Heracross, Mega Heracross, Pinsir, Mega Pinsir, Grubbin, Charjabug, Vikavolt, Karrablast, Escavalier, Pheromosa
Notes:
-Cutiefly and Ribombee are not the same. Cutiefly is related to flies, Ribombee is related to Hawkmoths. They look similar enough that there was a connection suspected, though.
-Dustox Wurmple hatch earlier in the year. As they are venomous, predators won't eat them, so the Beautifly Wurmple that hatch later in the year can profit of predators believing them to be poisonous- which they are not.
-Genesect was the result of some drunken scientists pasting a cannon on the back of a giant cockroach.
-Karbink is a Termite-like Pokémon. There is only one known colony of them, and they not only eat organic substances, but can also convert rocks. Their Queen is called Mega Diancie. The normal Diancie is some sort of Princess.
-Magearna is an artificial Pokémon that has been build in the likeness of Diancie.
-Snorunt has a strange alternation of generations. Snorunt is the small male, Glalie the female. From their eggs hatch only Froslass, which are hermaphroditic and lay eggs from which Snorunt and Glalie hatch.
PLEASE NOTE: This is how I see the Pokemon. It is fine to be of different opinion, but please tolerate mine.
See theROTTERDAM (Reuters) - A consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell beat 26 other bids for a contract to build 700 megawatts of offshore wind capacity, the Dutch government said as it announced plans for a further seven wind farms to be build in the next decade.
Contractors Eneco, Van Oord and Mitsubishi/DGE are Shell’s partners in the consortium to build in the Borssele III and IV wind areas, which promised the Netherlands’ lowest-ever strike price of 54.50 euro cents per megawatt hours.
Speaking to reporters in Rotterdam, economic affairs minister Henk Kamp said intense competition, low interest rates and high existing capacity had helped keep prices low - a state of affairs he expected continue.
“In the future, the North Sea could very well be crowded with wind turbine parks,” he told reporters after announcing the plans for further deep-water wind farm developments.
Earlier this year, the Dutch government awarded a contract to build 700 megawatts of capacity in the Borssele I and II wind areas to Denmark’s Dong Energy, offering a strike price of 72.70 euro cents.
While low, the price is not quite as keen as the 49.90 cents achieved by Denmark in a recent wind project, though that park was being constructed in technically less difficult shallower waters.
The low strike price means the government expects to pay subsidies of only 300 million euros ($319 million) for the development for seven and a half years, far less than the 5 billion it had planned for.
The precise location of the new wind park has not yet been decided.Paris - Clermont flyhalf Camille Lopez will not join up with the France squad for their upcoming tour of South Africa, instead being rested after a long season, his coach Guy Noves said on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Lopez, who has won 16 caps for his country, will feature for Clermont in Sunday's French Top 14 finale against Toulon.
He was due to join up with Les Bleus in South Africa next week, but will now not travel. And Noves will not call up a replacement, for now anyway.
"For the moment, I prefer to wait," Noves said, confirming an earlier report by sports daily L'Equipe.
The coach had already chosen not to call up two of Lopez's Clermont colleagues in centre Remi Lamerat and backrow Damien Chouly.
Lopez has become a first-choice for his country since Franois Trinh-Duc picked up an injury playing against Samoa in November, but Sunday's final will be his 31st match of the season. Seven of those matches have been for France.
France play three Test matches against the Springboks on June 10 in Pretoria, June 17 in Durban and June 24 in Johannesburg.
The Toulon trio of Xavier Chiiocci, Guilhem Guirado and Romain Taofifenua and Clermont's Arthur Iturria, Damian Penaud and Scott Spedding will join up with the France squad in South Africa after the Top 14 final.
Revised squad of 34
Squad
Forwards (19): Uini Atonio (La Rochelle), Eddy Ben Arous (Racing 92), Mohamed Boughanmi (La Rochelle), Yacouba Camara (Toulouse/Montpellier), Camille Chat (Racing 92), Xavier Chiocci (Toulon), Loann Goujon (Bordeaux-Begles), Kevin Gourdon (La Rochelle), Guilhem Guirado (Toulon), Arthur Iturria (Clermont), Anthony Jelonch (Castres), Julien Le Devedec (Brive), Bernard Le Roux (Racing 92), Yoann Maestri (Toulouse), Clement Maynadier (Bordeaux-Begles), Louis Picamoles (Northampton/ENG), Jefferson Poirot (Bordeaux-Begles), Rabah Slimani (Stade Francais/Clermont), Romain Taofifenua (Toulon)
Backs (15): Nans Ducuing (Bordeaux-Begles), Henry Chavancy (Racing 92), Jonathan Danty (Stade Francais), Jean-Marc Doussain (Toulouse), Brice Dulin (Racing 92), Antoine Dupont (Castres), Gael Fickou (Toulouse), Yoann Huget (Toulouse), Maxime Machenaud (Racing 92), Damian Penaud (Clermont), Jules Plisson (Stade Francais), Vincent Rattez (La Rochelle), Baptiste Serin (Bordeaux-Begles), Scott Spedding (Clermont), Virimi Vakatawa (FFR)Protests at O'Hare, from DKos library
In a post on Facebook, historian Heather Richardson of Boston College, brings forward her specialty of US Civil War and Reconstruction history to contextualize what our response can be to the Trump/Bannon travel bans:
www.facebook.com/...
What Bannon is doing, most dramatically with last night's ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries-- is creating what is known as a "shock event." Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.
Let us be clear: these actions represent a return to the worst American traditions of open racism and contempt for the rule of law in pursuit of that racism.
But this also represents a chance:
But because shock events destabilize a society, they can also be used positively. We do not have to respond along old fault lines. We could just as easily reorganize into a different pattern that threatens the people who sparked the event. A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines. This, for example, is how Confederate leaders railroaded the initial southern states out of the Union. If people realize they are being played, though, they can reach across old lines and reorganize to challenge the leaders who are pulling the strings. This was Lincoln's strategy when he joined together Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska voters, and nativists into the new Republican Party to stand against the Slave Power. Five years before, such a coalition would have been unimaginable.
Our Progressive values have been repeatedly betrayed by our Democratic leadership, not just the Vichy Dems who are making noises about cooperating with Trump, but over the past eight years by President Obama’s expansion of the security state and cynical, neocolonial wars in the Middle East. This is our chance to make common cause with the neoliberals, to bring them in to oppose Trump’s manifest evil, then show them (gently) how their support of lesser evils that they thought would pragmatically create prosperity lead to this.
No cooperation with white nationalism. No support of Trump. The coalition starts with that. Then, with the credibility we’ve gained, Progressives can begin helping the neoliberals begin the long journey away from mindless worship of markets and toward a human-centered approach to our national challenges.
Small Update:
This diary is meant to build on Kos’s “all-out resistance” diary:
www.dailykos.com/...I got to talking about hunting to the men installing the windows next door to our office and they showed me something I had never seen before. Mirrored hunting blinds. They had created a mirror blind out of old plexiglass mirrors off one of their installations. It occurred to me this probably was not the first mirror blind ever created, so I got to looking around online. Sure enough, there are a couple of companies out there that make them. Now you might be wondering the same thing I was; does the reflection create grass fires? Do birds fly into them? Does an angry buck see his reflection and charge the stand? The mirrors are usually built on an angle so as not to reflect directly into the sun and fires are only created through magnification. Mirrors do not magnify, which is good, no fires to deal with. Now, in regards to the birds and the angry buck, I guess we will just have to get out there and take our chances. It sure seems to me that being completely invisible increases your chances of getting “the big one”.Another week of early voting has passed and at least 1.4 million people have cast their ballots. More states are coming online, and patterns are beginning to emerge across the country that generally confirm the polling and campaign activities.
Again, my disclaimer: These are still early hints of the direction of the election. There is still much time left in the election, and these numbers can be affected by how election officials run the election, campaign strategies to mobilize voters, and voters' behaviors. We'll see a little of all three in this week's update.
That said, here's the bottom line.
In the Southern states of Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, Hillary Clinton is poised to do better than Barack Obama did in 2012. This is apparent in the polling and early voting numbers.
In the Midwestern states of Iowa and Ohio, Donald Trump is poised to do better than Mitt Romney did in 2012. This again is apparent in the polling and early voting numbers.
A time traveler from 2000 would probably be as shocked to learn that the most likely 2016 Democratic pathway to victory runs not through the Midwest, but instead through the Southeastern seaboard, as they would to learn that the Cubs would play Miami in the 2015 World Series (okay, so that didn't happen).
Gender
In two states - Georgia and North Carolina - I have individual level data that permits me to examine how early voting activity by gender has been affected by the events that unfolded following the first presidential debate on Monday, September 26. Absentee ballot requests lag events. Although some states and localities have online portals to request ballots, often requests work at the speed of the post office as request forms are mailed from voters to election officials, who then enter the request into their election management systems.
In Georgia and North Carolina, there was a surge of women requesting absentee ballots towards the end of the week of the first presidential debate. In Georgia, the surge began on Thursday and in North Carolina the surge began on Friday, and in both states it persisted through the following week. The percentage of women among those requesting absentee ballots peaked to their highest levels in the week from Monday, October 3 through Sunday, October 9. In Georgia, 59.3% of requests came from women and in North Carolina it was 59.4%.
It is not uncommon for early voting activity to rise as the election nears, yet the levels of ballot requests were higher this week than either the preceding or following week. In Georgia, there were 23,570 requests the week of the first debate, 28,842 in the following week, and 27,672 this past week. In North Carolina, there were 27,057 requests the week of the first debate, 33,011 the following week, and 28,373 this past week. (It is possible in both states that election officials have not entered all requests for the past week.)
It thus appears that women reacted to the events by exercising their right to vote. In the big scheme of things, these are small numbers relative to the total ballots that will be cast in these states. Still, I suspect that at least some of the movement towards Clinton in the polling is due to increased interest in the election among women, thus making them more often fit the profile of a likely voter. Indeed, the ABC/Washington Post poll suggests enthusiasm of Clinton and Trump supporters changed. There is still a long way to go, so we will have to see if this pattern persists.
Florida
With an assist from my University of Florida colleague, Dan Smith, we are tracking Florida election activity. In 2012 in Florida, registered Republicans had a 3.1 percentage point lead over Democrats in the 2.3 million mail ballots that were cast. Despite some misinformation floating around out there, this is not the entire early vote: Democrats led the 2012 in-person early vote and the overall mail plus early vote. They will likely lead the 2016 in-person early vote, if the past is a guide.
As of Sunday morning, Florida reported over 2.9 million mail requests (I add the unreturned ballots and the returned ballots to get this number). Although some of these requests will not result in returned ballots, I think it is safe to say that the 2016 returned mail ballots will exceed their 2012 levels. Importantly, Republicans lead these mail ballot requests by 1.5 percentage points. Republicans lead by only 1.1 points among the 477,912 returned ballots.
The cautions for Florida is that the Hurricane-ravaged Northeast coast is understandably lagging behind their ballot returns, and this is a Republican region of the state. However, it also appears Palm Beach and Miami-Dade are also lagging behind entering their mail ballot data. Also, Florida changed its law so that a voter's absentee ballot request is good for two years; some counties even allow voters to check boxes on their return envelopes that serve as a new request. In 2014, the traditional advantage Republicans enjoy in mail ballots was narrowed, and we might thus expect a similar narrowing in 2016.
Still, the Clinton campaign is pleased with the improved performance of registered Democrats from 2012, both in narrowing the Republican margin and increasing the overall volume of mail ballots. Obama won Florida by +0.9 points in 2012, and the Pollster polling average has Clinton at +3.6 points. The early vote data so far does not contradict the notion Clinton is doing better than Obama, however, it will be important it see how well Democrats perform during the crucial in-person early voting period to be certain that the mail ballots simply don't represent a shuffling of when and how people vote.
Iowa
As I've continually reported, Iowa continues to be Trump's best prospect to flip from 2012. Registered Democratic absentee ballot requests and returns have lagged badly from 2012, particularly from the critical eastern part of the state, a region of typical Democratic strength in the upper Midwest. (If the eastern Iowa weakness bleeds over to Southwest Wisconsin, this could explain why Clinton leads in Wisconsin, but only by an average of +5.2 percentage points in the Pollster average, which is less than Obama's 6.9 point 2012 victory.)
That more registered Democrats have requested ballots and returned them does not signal Democratic victory. Iowa Democrats typically do much better than they are currently doing. There has been some modest improvement for Democrats in Iowa. They were off their 2012 level by 50,024 the previous Friday, but where down only 42,397 by last Friday. However, Republicans have also improved. They were down 14,099 as of the previous Friday, but were down only 2,221 by last Friday. Since returned ballots lag requested ballots, the downward trajectory in the 2012 comparison is not surprising.
Obama won Iowa by 5.8 percentage points in 2012, and the Pollster average has a Trump lead of 2.1 points. Unless Democrats start voting in greater numbers, Trump may win a narrow victory.
Maine
There has not been much change to early voting patterns in Maine since the last update. Indeed, the state only provided a single update on Monday, so the state's data is a growing a little stale. That said, after a slow start, Democrats increased their activity such that early voting is running ahead of 2012 and there is now a similar partisan distribution both statewide and within the two congressional districts.
North Carolina
Since the start of the mail balloting on Sept. 9, registered Democrats have been running well ahead of their 2012 levels. Although Republicans have pulled ahead of the Democrats in their 2016 ballots requested and returned, Sunday's statistics show Republicans still lag behind their 2012 levels.
Romney won North Carolina by 2.0 percentage points, but the Pollster average gives Clinton a +1.6 lead. The early vote indicates Clinton will do better than Obama, but will it be enough?
Ohio
At the start of Ohio early voting period on Monday, the Secretary of State's office released a report of complete county absentee ballot request statistics for the current election. A similar release in 2012 permits an apples-to-apples comparison, and 'dem apples don't look too appetizing.
Ohio does not have party registration (the states identifies "party" from the last primary a voter participated in), so a geographic analysis is more informative of "party" in Ohio. Statewide, absentee ballot requests were down 2.6% from 2012. At first blush, Democrats look well-positioned, with 175,807 requests originating from Cuyahoga (Cleveland), which is 16.1% of all requests statewide. The problem is that this is down 16.1% from 2012. In Franklin (Columbus), requests were off 16.3% of their 2012 levels
The Democratic position has likely only gotten worse throughout the week. Cuyahoga and Franklin post their individual-level early voting data online (this includes mail and in-person activity), and Democrats are down from their 2012 levels by 18.1% in Cuyahoga and 31.9% in Franklin. In the remaining forty-nine remaining counties for which there is comparable 2012 public data, early voting levels are up 0.1%.
There could be many reasons for this. As I noted last week, Republican weakness in North Carolina is particularly acute in the urban areas. It is possible some of the weakness in Cuyahoga originates from urban Republicans. Also, in 2012, Ohio in-person early voting was underway for a longer period at this point in the cycle.
Still I believe the Ohio early voting confirms that Ohio's polling is challenging for the Democrats, a state Obama won by 3.0 percentage points. The Pollster average is a +2.3 point lead for Clinton, even as she's opened a large lead nationally. Maybe Clinton will win a slim victory, but Ohio is another Midwestern battleground state that Trump stands a reasonable chance of flipping from 2012.
Virginia
Virginia in an excuse-required state, but its excuses are fairly lenient, so it tends to have higher early voting usage than other excuse-required states, like Pennsylvania. I thus believe the early voting numbers can be informative. Virginia, like Ohio, also does not have party registration. Helpfully, the Virginia Public Access Project created a portal visualizing the 2012 to 2016 change in early voting activity by region.
Early voting activity statewide is up 22.9% over 2012, but within the Democratic stronghold of Northern Virginia it is up 55.6%. Hampton Roads (the Norfolk area) is actually down 8.2% from 2012, although this could be due to a reduction in overseas military deployments.
Stick a fork in Virginia, it's done. The early voting numbers and polling numbers are looking so bad for Trump that the campaign pulled out last week, essentially conceded the state to Clinton.
Summary
I believe early voting provides another signal along with the polling averages. When the two point in the same direction, we can have greater confidence in the polling averages than just the average alone. There have been fewer state polls than in in recent elections, so in some cases, early voting fills an important gap between quality polling.
To recap again:
In the Southern states of Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, Hillary Clinton is poised to do better than Barack Obama did in 2012. This is apparent in the polling and early voting numbers.
In the Midwestern states of Iowa and Ohio, Donald Trump is poised to do better than Mitt Romney did in 2012. This again is apparent in the polling and early voting numbers.The idea for this letter was conceived collaboratively by rape survivors. It is intended to call attention to some of the ways in which progressives in our communities persistently protect rapists, hold victims accountable, and demand carceral solutions to sexual assault that return power to the partiarchal state. Our hope is that this letter could be: a resource for other rape victims/survivors and/or literally shown to progressives doing this (who it addresses) and/or provide some general contributions to the existing discourses on rape culture. The authors believe that rape culture pervades and shapes all culture – radical subculture not exempt – but chose to address the position of the progressive both because of the current liberal “#resist” frenzy which has opened many conversations and because in our experiences progressives have been the ones standing the most in the way of mobilizing community action aimed at holding rapists accountable.
Open Letter to Progressives from Rape Victims/Survivors
We hear your disgust and outrage about trump and his cabinet of evils’ pro-rape and anti-choice comments. We are glad you are engaging in conversations about the realities of structural racism, xenophobia and misogyny. For many the brutalities of cisheteropatriarchy, state repression, deportation, and white supremacy have been pressing realities long before a trump presidency was even considered a possibility. We know and have known that these conditions will persist until support and defense are built within our communities. In this letter we take on your hitherto failure to address rape in ways that: hold rapists rather than victims/survivors accountable; demonstrate an actual position against rape culture; do not rely on state power and carceral punishment to take action against rapists; and that make victims/survivors feel safe.
“We” are some people who are victims/survivors of rape. The “we” of this letter does not speak for all rape victims/survivors. To attempt to speak for every person that has suffered through rape would entirely flatten the realities of experiential differences and conflate all racial and gender identities. The “we” of this letter refers to just some of many, many victims/survivors – some who together chose a narrative aimed at educating. While processing what we went through, it was for some of us easier to say we were sexually assaulted and difficult to say we were raped. For all of us, however, it is easy to call our assaulters rapists. In theory, we would opt for the usage of the term “rape” because nothing about this action is or should be called sexual. In praxis, we understand that not everyone is comfortable using this word to describe what they have been through and so we will alternate between terms – similarly for “victim” and/or “survivor” since we don’t strongly identify with either of those terms but know their usefulness in praxis.
We have been told by the status quo, by TV shows and movies, by police, and often even by our friends and family, that what we have experienced was is not sexual assault/rape. We have been pried for details when we have unveiled these traumas to others, revealing how our interlocutors feel they must judge for themselves what happened and that it is not enough to hear us say how it felt for us. We have been told since we were children that rapists are crazed strangers that attack women walking alone at night with brute force. Statistically and experientially, these kinds of scenarios are the exception.
Sexual assault is a nauseatingly every day occurrence. More people are raped by non-strangers and by people they are know and/or are close to than by total strangers. Rape culture means that sexual violence is the norm, not a perverse act. More people we know that are feminized (either by their own choice and/or by the culture that would ascribe femininity to them) say they have been sexually assaulted/raped than not. We wonder what more information it will take for those who seem interested in opposing the dominant paradigm to actually begin to see that rape culture is everywhere around them. To make rape no longer the norm, others must begin treating it with a gravity comparable to the totally destabilizing weight it has on so many people’s lives.
We have been told by people, organizations, and businesses in our communities that without a police report we will not be supported in holding rapists accountable or taking measures to prevent perpetrators from sexually assaulting again. What these parties seem to have no knowledge of is that, like the general public, police and courts are far from likely to come to the defense of rape victims in the majority of rape scenarios. We have been following the outrage and protesting for #JusticeForTheo regarding the rape of a young black man by four police officers with their batons and know that this horrible case is by no means exceptional or isolated.* For some, turning to police if they have been raped is not a viable option; for example going to police as an undocumented person or sex worker could put you at risk of deportation and/or arrest. Furthermore, for some of us it took days, weeks, months, years, to come to terms with something that never felt right but that we couldn’t – even for our own sake – call sexual assault or rape. Realizing one has been sexually assaulted is not always an instantaneous process that conveniently lends itself to the punctuality required for a police report (or, for that matter, a medical rape kit). But, the traumas we experienced accumulated and infiltrated our relationships with our bodies and our partners, to a point of suffering that eventually became unignorable.
We have experienced severe shame, blamed ourselves repeatedly, ignored feelings of discomfort and pain in our bodies and doubted the source of these sufferings. Many of us still have difficulty not periodically feeling responsible for the different situations in which we experienced manipulation, were taken advantage of, were forced to “give consent”, were in a physical position or state of intoxication in which giving consent was not possible, were talked into sex when we did not want to have it, were pestered to have unprotected sex, were touched and/or penetrated both when we said “no” or “stop” but also when we felt too stuck to say anything at all. It is still so extremely difficult for some of us to say aloud that the myriad scenarios in which we were sexually assaulted were not due to weaknesses on our part but rather a culture that entirely normalizes treating feminized people as sexual objects. We have to remind each other time and time again that we also internalize the brutalities of a social world built upon colonialism, enslavement, gendering, and rape and that we therefore must actively fight against the tendency to blame ourselves.
Self-blame is perpetuated by comments from peers and others that hint at victims/survivors needing to be more careful or grateful that we weren’t raped in “worse” ways. This abusive rhetoric places all accountability on the victim/survivor and we hear this from many people that think of themselves as progressive and against oppression. Rape across infinitely variable lines of addiction, citizenship, class, criminal status, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, mental illness, race, and religion, in the U.S. can manifest as |
is not allowed in our program,” Amazon wrote to Kodi.
“Please do not resubmit this app or similar apps in the future,” Amazon’s support team added.
TF spoke with XBMC Foundation board member Nathan Betzen, who was surprised to hear Amazon’s decision. In recent months the project has worked hard to distance their brand from piracy, so Amazon’s accusation is a huge disappointment.
The Kodi software itself is an entirely legal media center that doesn’t come with any infringing features or content. However, there are many third-party addons that allow users to stream pirated movies and TV-shows.
The Kodi team is actively pursuing infringing addons and sellers who abuse the brand, and is also trying to obtain a trademark so they can go after these piracy promoters more effectively.
“Most importantly, we’re working to finalize our trademark filing. Once our trademark is registered, it becomes dramatically easier to issue takedown requests with the various organizations that provide voice for these groups advertising and selling pirate boxes,” Betzen tells TF.
“We always say we don’t care what our users do with the software, and we stand by that position. But we sure do hate it when companies destroy the name of our software in order to make a profit.”
For Amazon to ban the app is “absurd” according to the Kodi team, because the company is still allowing vendors to sell boxes that are giving the software this bad reputation.
“I assume I don’t have to tell you how absurd it is that Amazon won’t let us into their appstore, but they have no problem selling the boxes that are pushing the reason they won’t let us into their app store,” Betzen says.
Removing Kodi may also hurt Amazon in the long run, according to Betzen. The application allowed many other third-party services that are currently not on Amazon, available to Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire TV Stick users.
“This is a bad decision on Amazon’s part simply because Kodi is one giant reason people buy Amazon Fire TVs and Amazon Fire TV Sticks. Compatibility with our software makes for a really simple backdoor for entering the Amazon ecosystem.”
“I personally have sideloaded Kodi onto Amazon sticks for a number of my family members, who then found themselves also using Amazon Prime and many other Amazon services,” he adds.
Coincidentally, around the same time Amazon booted Kodi from their market, Google decided to include it in the Play Store. According to the Kodi team this is yet another reason for people to leave Amazon hardware behind.
“It’s going to be extraordinarily difficult for Kodi users to justify going down the Amazon hardware path and recommending the Amazon path to others,” Betzen concludes.
People who are interested in trying out Kodi’s media player, which is available on most operating systems, can head over to the official site.
Update: Several people have pointed out that many Kodi/XBMC related apps that have “pre-loaded” piracy addons (including the popular TVMC) are still available on Amazon.
It seems likely that Amazon doesn’t take apps down proactively but that they only investigate apps after rightsholder complaints.Researchers believe Colorado River damming projects that followed the creation of the Salton Sea could be one reason why Southern California is overdue for a major earthquake.
In a new study led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, scientists found that the floodwaters that periodically flowed through faults helped trigger earthquakes in the area, including several large ones along the mighty San Andreas.
The modern Salton Sea came to life nearly a century ago when record floodwaters from the Colorado River overwhelmed barriers, and during the course of two years created the massive body of water in a desert sink. Dams and other irrigation barriers were eventually built to stop the flow of water into the sea and end the periodic flooding that had long plagued the area.
But scientists wonder whether the creation of the Salton Sea tweaked the seismic dynamics of the area, which is crisscrossed by numerous fault lines that feed into the San Andreas.
The study's lead author, Daniel Brothers, a marine geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said that in the past the weight of the flowing floodwaters bent the Earth's crust, causing some sections of the faults to bow and others to bulge. In addition, floodwaters percolated into voids in the rock, exerting an outward pressure on the faults. All this helped trigger quakes, he said.
The research offers an intriguing theory in answer to a question seismologists have been asking for decades: Why has the southern end of the San Andreas fault gone for so long without a major earthquake?
A landmark study out of the University of California, Irvine, and Arizona State University last year found that earthquakes have occurred along the San Andreas far more frequently than previously believed - as often as every 45 to 144 years. The last major earthquake on that part of the fault was in 1857.
The Scripps researchers used sound waves to probe lake bed sediment that recorded past flooding, going back thousands of years. They discovered that the smaller faults that feed into the San Andreas had ruptured as a result of historic flooding. On a few occasions, that triggered a much larger quake on the southern San Andreas.
Sediment records strongly suggest that a huge earthquake on the San Andreas in the 10th century followed flood-induced ruptures on the nearby faults. That may also be the case with a large San Andreas quake that happened between the late 13th and mid-14th centuries, Brothers said. There are older earthquake events that may also have sprung from massive flooding, but the records are incomplete, he said
The Salton Sea is a much smaller and shallower remnant of the ancient Lake Cahuilla, which dramatically ebbed and grew depending on the Colorado River. In the early 20th century, a variety of water management projects brought an end to the severe flooding.
"There's a lot of things that can alter the state of stress" on the faults, Brothers said, "and flooding is one of them."
Joann Stock, a professor of geology and geophysics at Caltech who was not involved in the study, said this would be far from the first instance in which man-made activities have influenced seismic activities. The creation and filling of reservoirs has been known to trigger mostly small earthquakes. Earlier this year, two gas companies agreed to temporarily stop injecting water into underground wells in central Arkansas after the area experienced more than 800 small earthquakes.
About eight years ago, Clear Lake in Northern California saw an increase in small quakes that some residents believe was caused by a company generating electric power from steam heated by magma underneath the area.
The San Andreas fault is considered one of the most dangerous in Southern California, partly because it is so long that its southern section is capable of producing a temblor as large as magnitude-8.1. By contrast, the destructive 1994 Northridge quake, which occurred on a different fault, was only a magnitude-6.7.
The 1857 temblor, with an estimated magnitude of 7.9, is known as the Fort Tejon quake, but that's a bit of a misnomer because it is thought to have started farther north, way up in Parkfield in Monterey County. The quake then barreled south on the San Andreas for about 200 miles, through Fort Tejon near the northern edge of what is now Los Angeles County, then east toward the Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County, near what is now the 15 Freeway. The quake was so powerful that the soil liquefied, causing trees as far away as Stockton to sink. Trees were also uprooted west of Fort Tejon.
Experts stressed that not enough is known about how the San Andreas works to say for sure what causes its active and dormant periods. Susan Hough, a seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said it makes sense that huge inflows and outflows of floodwater could affect seismic activity. But she said it's hard to know whether a lack of flooding is delaying the next "Big One" on the San Andreas.
"The one thing we know is that part of the fault is going to produce a big earthquake one day," she said.
Explore further: Scientists say the Big One could be even biggerGuess who owns the highest fWAR, bWAR, and WARP totals for position players on the St. Louis Cardinals over the past two seasons. If you didn’t read the headline of the article, you might think Matt Carpenter. Nope. It’s a guy who was traded for Jon Jay preceding the 2016 season — Jedd Gyorko. Don’t feel alone if that’s surprising to you. There is no doubt that Gyorko has been productive at the plate and in the field since coming over to the Cardinals. With that in mind, productive isn’t always synonymous with ‘most valuable redbird’. But, in this case, Gyorko matches the hype.
Randal Grichuk finds himself at a crossroads What path will the Cardinals ultimately take with their talented yet free swinging outfielder?
Last season, a good deal of Gyorko’s value came from his ability to play every infield position while being above-average at the plate. This year, it comes from extraordinary production on offense in tandem with how well he has settled into the hot corner. Through the first two months of the season, Gyorko carries a 146 wRC+ and.393 wOBA in 173 trips to the plate; both are top-20 out of all qualified National Leaguers. Clearly he is doing something right.
With his strong start in mind, there are some oddities about his season that stick out. For a guy who doesn’t have a year where he hit over.250, and owns a career.245 batting average, batting.321 is a big jump. You might say this points to what will surely be regression, as his.377 BABIP is nearly 100 points higher than his second-highest total. You might — BtBS co-managing editor Ryan Romano did at the beginning of May — but I won’t. Instead, I think the noticeable increases in batting average and BABIP point to something. Has Jedd Gyorko shed his power-only days and become a well-rounded hitter?
For much of his career, Gyorko was a guy who provided a little bit of power at the expense of contact. It makes sense that his power surge last season came on the back of a higher launch angle. That led to more fly balls, and an elevated pull rate. At its core, Gyorko did what most hitters did last season to gain power at the expense of contact. That should come as no surprise, however, as his type of hitter had been well-equipped for this all his life. A power-heavy fly ball guy during a…power-focused fly ball revolution.
“Hit the ball harder in the air and try to get it out of the park? And I don’t have to do it in Petco? I’m all in.” – Jedd Gyorko, probably.
This season, things are even better — but not for the same reason. His launch angle, fly ball rate, and pull rate are all lower than last season. In fact, those three stats now reside at their respective career levels. So Gyorko isn’t hitting the ball in the air more, and he isn’t generating power by overusing his pull field.
If that paragraph were all you knew about Jedd Gyorko this season, finding out that it coincides with a near 70-point increase in slugging from last season would appear odd. You don’t normally see a power guy improve after lowering three ways to generate power, but consider this. In 438 plate appearances last season, Gyorko recorded 40 extra base hits. 30 homers, nine doubles, and one triple. In 173 trips to the plate this season, he has recorded 20 extra base hits. 10 doubles, eight homers, and two triples.
That is right. Gyorko’s 12 non-homer extra-base hits are already more than the 10 he put together last season. Though they are just counting stats, they put the answer right in front of us. Gyorko has traded home run power for overall power. Whenever you see a doubles hitter start clearing the fence more often, people attribute it to the batter gaining power. Transitioning from a doubles hitter to a home run hitter is sometimes considered the next step in the progression of a batter. This case is interesting to me because we clearly see Gyorko going the other way. But it isn’t like he is a worse hitter for it, or that he has taken a step backward. Instead, Gyorko appears to have made a conscious effort to become a well-rounded hitter.
Gyorko is putting the bat on the ball more this season than at any point in his career, especially inside the strike zone. Combine that with his heightened propensity to swing at pitches in the zone, and we see that he has cut down on how often he whiffs at pitches in the strike zone:
Contact just for the sake of contact isn’t always great. Pitchers are coming into the strike zone against Gyorko more than last season, which means he is making more contact more often on these types of pitches. Sure, that can dilute power output, but this isn’t the case for the Cardinals third baseman. This is where the whole ‘well-rounded hitter’ thing comes in. Gyorko is taking the ball the other way better than he ever has.
Even from a quick glance at his spray chart, you can see that he has begun to drive balls the other way:
Gyorko is hitting the ball to right-center/right field more than he ever has in his career. This is why we’re seeing an even more improved Jedd Gyorko. He is a more complete hitter, and this version strikes me as a bit more sustainable. The high BABIP might be due to come down, but Gyorko has become more than just a one-dimensional hitter.
He has traded home run power for gap-to-gap power — the ability to drive the ball to all fields rather than just to his pull field. The increase in how much he has hit the ball the other way over the past two seasons is impressive. It is even more so when you consider the improved quality, and just how bad he has been over the course of his career at sending the ball to the opposite field:
Oppo Gyorko Season PA AVG SLG ISO IFFB% LD% Soft% wOBA wRC+ Season PA AVG SLG ISO IFFB% LD% Soft% wOBA wRC+ 2013 84 0.214 0.405 0.190 17.20% 20.00% 17.70% 0.263 66 2014 71 0.239 0.423 0.183 13.30% 15.10% 17.80% 0.279 78 2015 68 0.250 0.368 0.118 10.50% 23.20% 15.90% 0.261 65 2016 65 0.354 0.585 0.231 11.10% 21.20% 27.30% 0.390 146 2017 33 0.606 0.939 0.333 0.00% 33.30% 6.10% 0.653 318
It is weird for Gyorko to find another power supply one year after a big breakout. To me, it is even weirder that it happens to be an area most people lose power by hitting the ball to more often. With that being said, his diminishing soft-hit rate and rising line drive rate point to a conclusion that he is driving the ball to right field much better than he ever has. He is taking the ball to the right side this season (.939 SLG) even better than he was pulling the ball last season (.768 SLG).
The adjustment is impressive, and the difference it has made so far is nothing short of remarkable. There has been a production dip to his pull-field, but that is to be expected. What has taken the place of Gyorko’s reliance on launch angle, pull-rate, and flyball-rate for overall output is an improved plate discipline and a newfound ability to hit the ball the other way. Mike Matheny might have said it best at the beginning of May:
"Jedd's a great hitter." "He's just continuing to put together solid at-bats for us no matter what the situation. To be able to drive the ball out of the ballpark, in this ballpark, the opposite way in the right-center gap, puts him in a rare class.”
He is the same, yet he is not the same. The pop is still there, that is for sure. The difference is that he has developed an ability to do more than just hit for power. Since coming to the Cardinals, he has flourished, and it appears he is hell-bent on getting better. This is a dangerous hitter who has really come into his own at the plate this season.Let's be honest: the past few weeks haven't exactly been the easiest for Apple. From the glitchy livestream during its product announcement to the problematic preorder launch of the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, to the public-relations headache-inducing "Bendgate," to the outright catastrophic iOS 8.0.1 software update (which was nearly immediately pulled and replaced days later with an 8.0.2 update), the last few weeks could have gone much smoother for the California-based company.
But that hasn't stopped iPhone fans from going after the new devices. The iPhone 6 (with a 4.7-in. display) and the iPhone 6 Plus (with a 5.5-in display) both feature sleeker case designs (in silver, gold or gray), a second-generation 64-bit chipset, updated camera systems and several other notable improvements. The new iPhones support faster LTE (up to 150Mbps), Voice over LTE (VoLTE), low-energy Bluetooth and 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
Prices for this year's models are in line with last year's, but storage capacities have been tweaked. If you're going for a subsidized service plan with a two-year contract, the iPhone 6 costs $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 64GB model and $399 for the 128GB model. The iPhone 6 Plus is priced at $299 for a 16GB model, $399 for a 64GB model and $499 for a 128GB model. The new lineup drops the iPhone 5S to $99 and $149 (with 16GB and 32GB of storage, respectively), while the 5C is being offered for free. Unlocked prices are much higher, starting at $649 for the iPhone 6 and $749 for the Plus.
As usual, the iPhone comes with a minimal set of accessories. In the box you'll find a set of Apple ear buds with built-in mic and audio controls, a USB/Lightning cable, a wall plug, a set of Apple logo stickers and very sparse documentation.
Of the two models, I chose the iPhone 6, and so this review is of the smaller 4.7-in. model. (If you're still trying to figure out which one is best for you, I recently wrote a piece that may help.) I've since spent over ten days with it -- including using it during a camping trip, where the iPhone tracked our progress during a hike to the summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado.
Form-factor and display
At first glance, the iPhone 6 is very much an iPhone: There's the glass-covered front with the display framed in white or black and the obligatory Home button, which also doubles as the Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
However, the feel is certainly different. The back of the device is crafted from anodized aluminum; the chamfered edges introduced with the iPhone 4 have been replaced with smoother and sleeker curves that call back to the original iPhone design. With the exception of the rectangular display beneath the subtly curved glass front, all of the hard angles have been softened -- which felt great in my hand while simultaneously provoking me to grip it tighter than previous models. (And no, I didn't experience any of the warping that was part of "Bendgate.")
And when you look again, there are other signs that the iPhone 6 is different. Besides the relocated power button, which is now on the right side of the device instead of at the top, the iPhone appears stretched compared to previous models. That's because it is: A necessary design tradeoff to accommodate the new larger screen size.
The new iPhone models feature what Apple is calling its Retina HD display: a fingerprint-resistant 326ppi screen with 1334 x 750 resolution, a 1400:1 contrast ratio and wider viewing angles. Marketing-speak aside, the display is impressive. As I noted in my initial look at the iPhone 6, there is a slight color shift when viewing the display off-center, but the colors retain a credible consistency from even extreme angles. Overall, images are sharp, clear and bright; so much so that I have the brightness dialed back more than I did with the iPhone 5S.
More impressive is the performance of the iPhone 6 display in direct sunlight: During a recent hike, I never had to shield the display from ambient or direct sunlight to read the screen. (DisplayMate, which creates tools for optimizing and testing displays, was also impressed.) As I said in my first look, the iPhone 6 doesn't have the most pixel-dense or largest screen out there, but what it does have won't bring in complaints from new owners. HD videos, photos and content look great on this phone, and that's really what matters for most.
But there are a couple of drawbacks to having the larger screen.
First, any applications that haven't been written to take advantage of the additional screen real estate appear slightly blurry, because the content is being scaled up to fit the screen. There's nothing you can do about this: If your apps are showing this behavior, you just have to wait for an update.
But there is another drawback for iPhone users unaccustomed to the larger displays, and this one is much harder to work with. At 5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 in. and weighing 4.55 oz., the iPhone 6 is wider and taller than previous iPhones (for example, the iPhone 5S is 4.87 x 2.31 x 0.30 in. and weighs 3.95 oz). As a result, I found the iPhone 6 just a little past my limits of comfortable one-handed operation, and I tended to shift my grip much more while operating it.
To try to compensate for this, Apple has implemented a feature it calls Reachability, which is activated by touching (not tapping) the iPhone's Home button twice. Doing so slides the top-most onscreen interface elements closer to the center of the screen, within thumb-tapping distance for most people. It's true that Reachability adds an extra step, but if one-handed operation is important to you, this feature will be, too.
Improved photography
The camera located at the rear of the iPhone no longer sits flush with the case, but instead protrudes a few millimeters (which I didn't find a problem, even though I always put my iPhone down with the screen facing up). The camera was the one feature that I was looking forward to on my recent hike up Pikes Peak -- and it didn't disappoint. The iPhone 6 still features a rear-facing 8MP iSight camera with 1.5-micron pixels and an f/2.2 aperture, but this year's models include an Apple-designed image signal processor, enabling a feature called Focus Pixels that provides much faster auto-focus than before.
Michael deAgonia The iPhone 6 includes an Apple-designed image signal processor, enabling a feature called Focus Pixels that provides much faster auto-focus than before.
The camera includes several improvements to video as well. First, the iPhone 6 can finally shoot 1080p video at 60fps. This helps reduce motion stutter and also produces better slow motion than what can be achieved at 30fps.
And speaking of slow motion, the iPhone 6 can now shoot 720p video at 240 frames per second. Frankly, I love this feature; it's like getting a brand new perspective on everyday occurrences. The only problem with slow-motion video is that it requires a well-lit source to get proper results.
Surprisingly, the digital stabilization really helps in achieving great results. I'm not a fan of digital modifications like zoom or stabilization in general -- I prefer optical zooms or optical stabilization options when given a choice. (Actually, I feel so strongly about this that I was initially leaning towards the iPhone 6 Plus just for the optical stabilization.) But after shooting different subjects at different locations, I have to admit that the cinematic video stabilization feature compensated very well for slight camera shakes.
I was disappointed that, due to the rounded shape of the phone, you can no longer use the flat edges to keep it propped. This is too bad, especially when you consider that a self-timer is one of the feature additions in iOS 8.
The front-facing camera has been improved, too. It now features a ten-shot-per-second burst mode, timer, high-dynamic-range video, and improved face detection. FaceTime calls between iPhone 6 devices now use the more efficient h.265 codec for better performance.
Other new features
Performance-wise, this phone is no slouch. With both new iPhones, Apple ships its second-generation 64-bit chipset coupled with a custom-designed A8 processor. The new chip uses a 20nm process, making it 18% smaller and more energy-efficient than the previous A7, but with over 1 billion more transistors (for a total of 2 billion). In real-world performance, that means slightly shorter loading times for browsing the operating system and launching applications.
The speed increase is much more noticeable when using processor-intensive apps -- for example, when rendering video from Action Movie FX or Super Power FX.
Touch ID is a little faster at recognizing your fingerprint. This is a good thing, what with iOS 8 now allowing third-party applications to use the Touch ID results for authentication. (Your fingerprint data never leaves the device; anything that uses Touch ID receives the result of the scan as a yes or no, and nothing else.)
The iPhone 6 also includes a new sensor called a barometer. This gauges air pressure so the iPhone knows when you change elevation; useful for fitness fans trying to get a more accurate picture of workouts. The Health app tracks these changes in elevation under the Flights Climbed dashboard widget.
There is the inclusion of NFC for a new initiative called Apple Pay, but I can't comment because I've yet to use it; an update to enable this will be out some time in October.
Battery life
According to Apple the iPhone 6 will get about 11 hours of use when browsing the Web using Wi-Fi and 10 hours when using a cellular connection. HD video is supposed to last up to 11 hours, while audio playback will net you 50 hours.
During a day of normal usage, the battery life of my iPhone 6 lasted on average about two or three hours longer than the 5S. For example, during a recent four-hour flight, I was able to write much of this review on my iPhone using a Bluetooth keyboard at the same time I streamed music to a set of Bluetooth headphones. Even though I started with a 28% battery, the phone lasted the entire flight.
(If you are looking for the best battery life on an iPhone, you might want to take a look at the iPhone 6 Plus, which claims up to 12 hours of Wi-Fi browsing and 14 hours of video playback.)
Dealing with iOS 8
Unfortunately, the iPhone as it ships now has one major weakness: iOS 8. When I wrote Computerworld's review of iOS 8, I really liked the features, the feel and the overall design -- but, frankly, in its current form (version 8.0.2), it's buggy and makes iPhones sometimes perform unreliably. I've had apps just stop accepting touch input without cause, and the only way those apps responded again is if I quit out of the app and restarted it.
Other problems include random iCloud password prompts, crashes that bring up the Apple logo and several other minor, yet completely annoying, software glitches. A bug that actually deletes iWork documents from iCloud Drive made me pull my documents from iCloud -- which isn’t a ringing endorsement of Apple’s services.
Apple users have always loved that things 'just work' -- but Apple's software missteps are doing a lot to damage that reputation.
I mentioned several times in my iOS 8 review that the software contained some lingering issues, but that they could be gotten around. However, after a few weeks of using the final build and after speaking to colleagues and friends (as well as receiving email complaints and requests for help), it's clear that the bugs are more numerous than I originally thought. Making matters worse, days after the iPhone 6 and iOS 8 were released to the eager public, Apple engineers let loose an update to iOS 8 (version 8.0.1) that disabled Touch ID and cellular connectivity on the new phones.
Well, enough is enough. Apple users have always loved that things "just work" -- but Apple's software missteps are doing a lot to damage that reputation. Apple leadership owes their customers quality, and if Apple engineers are biting off more than they can chew, then leadership needs to push for more accurate and realistic deadlines than the ones they keep imposing on themselves in order to capitalize on the holiday season. Software (and hardware) should be released when ready, not due to some arbitrary and unrealistic schedule.
Bottom line
That being said, I love the hardware: it's sleek, gorgeous and incredibly well built. The way the glass subtly curves to meet the aluminum casing shows its quality, with tolerances and materials that make many rival phones feel cheap and toy-like. While the iPhone 6 may not have the densest pixel count or biggest screen, the display still hits high marks as one of the best LCDs available on mobile devices, featuring great viewing angles, as well as vibrant and uniform colors (even in direct sunlight).
So despite problems with the OS, I can still whole-heartedly recommend this phone. I'm sure that iOS 8 will continue to improve as regular updates come down from Apple. As it stands, the hardware is phenomenal, and in concert with the iTunes app ecosystem, future integration with Yosemite (the next operating system for the Mac) and the potential of Apple Pay, the iPhone 6 should be another winner for Apple.
It's just unfortunate that Apple's subpar execution is getting more news cycles than the best iPhone lineup the company has ever shipped.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested Tuesday night that U.S. intelligence agencies could “get back at” President-elect Donald Trump after he questioned the legitimacy of the intelligence community’s probe into Russian involvement in the hacking of Democratic party officials.
The “Intelligence” briefing on so-called “Russian hacking” was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2017
Appearing on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Schumer said, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being really dumb to do this.”
“What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?” Maddow asked. (RELATED: Report: Russian Operatives Claim To Have Compromising Information On Trump)
“I don’t know, but from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them,” Schumer replied.
WATCH:
Trump is set to receive an intelligence briefing on Friday about the probe into alleged Russian hacking of Democratic party officials. (RELATED: Trump Questions Legitimacy Of Russian Hacking Probe)
Follow Hasson on TwitterCHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — Here’s something that should give Apple investors pause: Bigger isn’t always better.
In fact, more often than not, it’s worse.
This is relevant to Apple AAPL, +0.31% investors because the company has the largest market value of any company in the S&P 500 Index. It’s not even close: Apple's market capitalization of $691 billion is almost double that of the second-biggest company, Exxon Mobil XOM, +1.03% whose market cap is $379 billion.
Unfortunately, companies that in past decades were at the top of the market-cap rankings were unable, on average, to keep up with the market itself.
To illustrate that point, I obtained from Standard & Poor’s Corp. a list showing, for each year since 1980, the stock that on Jan. 1 had the largest market cap of any in the S&P 500. For each of the stocks, I calculated its dividend-adjusted return over the subsequent 12 months, and compared that to the return of the S&P 500 SPX, -0.05% Over the past 34 years, those companies have produced an annualized return that has lagged the index by an average of 7.2 percentage points a year.
To be sure, those stocks didn’t always trail the broader market. So Apple is not guaranteed to perform more poorly.
But the odds don’t look good: In two-thirds of the years since 1980, the stock that was biggest at the beginning of the year proceeded to fall behind the S&P 500 over the subsequent 12 months.
Are you surprised by those results? You shouldn’t be.
They follow logically from the simple premise that stocks sometimes are overvalued, which is something that everyone but the most fanatical believers in market efficiency will surely concede. And it’s more likely that a stock at the top of the market-cap rankings will be overvalued than one with a lower rank.
Another indication of the uphill climb that Apple faces comes from the performance of so-called fundamental indices, which weight stocks according to fundamental economic criteria (such as sales, cash flow and dividends) rather than market value. Historically, at least, fundamental indices have outperformed comparable market-cap-weighted indices.
Consider the performance of the PowerShares FTSE RAFI US 1000 Portfolio PRF, -0.04% which owns the 1,000 largest companies when ranked according to various fundamental criteria. From inception in late 2005 through the end of 2014, the ETF produced a 9% annualized return, a full percentage point per year better than the iShares Russell 1000 ETF IWB, +0.04% which contains the thousand companies with the largest market caps.
That 1 percentage point per year difference is a direct reflection of the extent to which Apple faces stiff headwinds in its quest to beat the broader market.
Not surprisingly, Apple currently is the biggest holding within the iShares Russell 1000 ETF. In the PowerShares ETF, in contrast, it’s the eighth-largest.
Click here to inquire about subscriptions to the Hulbert Sentiment Indexes.Democracy ‘dipping fast into a big hole’, says Mu Sochua, after prime minister Hun Sen consolidates grip on power by banning opponents and closing media
A senior Cambodian opposition figure has called for the world to wake up to a calculated campaign by long-time prime minister Hun Sen to batter the remnants of its democracy ahead of elections next year.
“Democracy in Cambodia is dipping really fast into a big hole. There is no time to wait or waste,” said Mu Sochua from Berlin. After the Cambodian opposition leader, Kem Sokha, was arrested last month, Mu Sochua, his deputy in the Cambodia National Rescue party (CNRP), fled to Germany.
“Whatever Mr Hun Sen wants, he gets. People are so fearful,” she told the Guardian.
In the run-up to July 2018 polls, the government has shuttered radio stations and newspapers, kicked out civil society groups and last week it attempted to dissolve the CNRP, the main opposition party.
Warning of “the death of democracy” under Hun Sen, Mu Sochua said a government-controlled supreme court was likely to rule in his favour against the CNRP. “That will totally destroy and set back democracy, way back,” she said of the lawsuit against her party, which Human Rights Watch has described as a “naked grab for total power”.
“All the elements for building democracy in Cambodia have not just been weakened, but totally put into silence,” she added.
After the south-east Asian nation emerged from years of war, it has worked ostensibly as a democracy since 1993. While government harassment has been widespread, a reasonably free and critical press has survived, as well as functioning elections every five years.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cambodia National Rescue party deputy leader Mu Sochua: ‘I really do not feel safe.’ Photograph: Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images
The current crackdown appears motivated by the opposition’s significant and unexpected electoral gains during 2013 national elections, which it very nearly won. Taken aback by the sudden surge, Cambodia began a policy of imprisoning opposition leaders, including Sam Rainsy, the founding president of the CNRP, who is now in exile.
But it was the June 2017 commune elections – which saw the CNRP take close to 44% of all seats – that proved the resilience of the opposition’s popularity and led to the recent ramped-up purge. The opposition had presented a bona fide threat to Hun Sen’s three decades in power.
The government has since forced the closure of a famed long-running paper, the Cambodia Daily, as well as radio stations that re-broadcast Radio Free Asia and Voice of America’s Khmer language service.
“The ruling party, to make sure they don’t lose the next election, eliminated the independent voices, which is the radio. Because radio really reaches out to the most remote areas,” said Mu Sochua, who is globally renowned for her decades of women’s rights work and even served as a minister in Hun Sen’s coalition government for six years before resigning in 2004.
'Stranglehold': Hun Sen rules Cambodia and his family own it, says report Read more
“It’s been a very, very fast process. A rollercoaster for democracy, going towards the dissolution of the only and the main opposition party in Cambodia.”
Last month, CNRP leader Kem Sokha, a veteran rights campaigner, was arrested by more than 100 police officers and charged with treason. That left the party in the hands of Mu Sochua and two other vice-presidents, one of whom is also outside the country.
Only Kem Sokha’s lawyers can visit him, and when they do guards place a microphone and camera inside the cell, Mu Sochua said. Many of CNRP’s members of parliament, as well as senior party staff, have since fled the country of 16 million people.
Hun Sen has threatened that more opposition leaders are in danger. “This isn’t over yet with |
aniac tycoon Herkermer Homolka in the film of Michael Crichton's novel Congo, for example. In between he has spent his time in the voice studios, mainly working on children's cartoons - from Rugrats to The Wild Thornberrys to Scooby Doo.
"I remember being amazed by his extraordinary singing voice - it was just completely perfect, just something he was born with - it came ready made," said Barlow, who shared a house with Curry when they were both drama students at Birmingham University in the late 60s. "We would go to university parties and end up having a drink and whatever and he would break out into song, this marvellous bluesy voice."
Barlow, an actor, writer and director who achieved fame much later in life by creating the National Theatre of Brent, remembers being struck by how driven and determined Curry was. "You know you leave school feeling rather spotty and inadequate but he wasn't like that - he was rather marvellous, very assured. He was really good fun as well."
One story which says a lot about the young, ambitious Curry was a car journey down to London. In it were Curry, Barlow, Judy Loe (who married Richard Beckinsale and is the mother of Kate) and Barry Kyle (who went on to be associate director at the RSC).
"We were going to join this street theatre troupe in Chalk Farm. Someone had told us about it - none of us really knew how to get in anything in those days. We got there and of course I was the only one who stayed.
"Tim and Judy got a job in Hair the next day. All Tim had to do was just sing, of course, and Judy just had to say, hello, I'm here."
Curry may have a love of the limelight, but he is also a private man. He does interviews when he has to - for publicising reasons - and gives little away. Michael Palin, in his diaries, recalls filming Three Men in a Boat with Curry in 1975. During a lunchtime drink "I learn a little more about Tim, who used to be rather quiet for the first few days, but has gradually opened up and become more garrulous and at times quite ebullient.
"There's a soft, very English quality about Tim which is quite at odds with the Rocky Horror side."
It was that Rocky Horror film which made Curry's name. "He was brilliant in it. I was blown away, he was so funny and subtle and demonic," said Barlow. The critics and public agreed.
His career after that has been topsy-turvy, with his best work on stage. When it comes to awards he is a bridesmaid - nominated for a Tony in 1981 for example as Mozart in Amadeus (needless to say it was Salieri who won, played by Ian McKellen). There was another Tony nomination in 1993, and again last year for his current role as King Arthur in Spamalot.
Then there have been the film roles, principally as a hammy baddie, from the hotel concierge in Home Alone 2 to his all too brief role as the assumed villain in Charlie's Angels. It is easy to take seriously his comments that while Frank N Furter was his most memorable role, his favourite was as Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island because of the chance to meet Miss Piggy.
And to understand why he has done dozens of cartoon voices (he is Dr Doom in Fantastic Four and Dr Anton Sevarius in Gargoyles) you need to travel to the city he adopted as home in the 80s, Los Angeles.
Curry lives in the Hollywood Hills in a beautiful Spanish colonial-style villa with a breathtaking garden. In the huge Condé Nast coffee table book The Great Private Gardens of the World, Curry's diverse and wildly colourful garden leaps from the pages. He talks of inspecting it every morning, preening and pruning. "The idea is organising nature not just into pleasing shapes, but also as a kind of spiritual resource," he says.
His home and garden is also a place to entertain and Curry, while apparently not a regular on the party circuit, is a generous host not short of famous friends. He tells a wonderful story in a 1999 edition of House and Garden about doing a garden for his friend Freddie Mercury. "Freddie came back from a tour and said, 'The garden, dear, it's dead.' I said 'What? Did you water it? And Freddie said, 'Water it, dear?'"
Curry gives the strong impression that he wants to leave a horticultural legacy as much as an artistic one and those watching him in Spamalot should be aware it is probably his last musical. "They are hugely physically demanding, especially as you get older," he said recently.
The CV
Born April 19 1946 in Grappenhall, Cheshire
Family The son of a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain, James, and Patricia, a school secretary
Education Schools in Kingswood and Bath. Honours degree in drama and English at Birmingham University
Career Includes Frank N Furter in Los Angeles and Broadway productions of The Rocky Horror Show and the screen version, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Awards Two Tony award nominations, 1981 as best actor (play) for Mozart in Amadeus, and 1993, best actor (musical) for My Favorite YearRussian oil producer Gazprom Neft reports an increase in production for the first nine months of the year, adding to global oil glut. Photo courtesy of Gazprom Neft
MOSCOW, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft added to the oversupplied market, saying its output for the first nine months of the year increased more than 20 percent.
Crude oil prices are 45 percent lower than at this time last year in part because the increase in global production is more than a weakened economy can absorb. That's hurt economies like Russia, whose finances depend in part on export revenue.
Gazprom Neft, a division of Russian energy giant Gazprom and the country's fourth-largest crude oil producer, said production volumes of 436.4 million barrels of oil equivalent represented a 22.2 percent increase year-on-year. The company credited the gains in part to an increase at its arctic Prirazlomnoye field.
The company reached a milestone at the field in September 2014 with the production of its 1 millionth barrel of oil. After tapping the second production well in August, Gazprom Neft said the oil field, located in the Pechora Sea, should eventually double the full-year 2014 production level of 2.2 million barrels.
Sales for the oil arm of Gazprom were down less than 1 percent from last year, a drop the company attributed to declining oil prices. Net income fell 6.2 percent to $2 billion for the first nine months of 2015.
"The negative impact of foreign exchange rate differences in loan revaluations held back net income growth," the company said.
Sanctions and macroeconomic pressures had a negative impact on the value of the Russian currency, the ruble.OXNARD, CA—Descending from the stage as though from Mount Olympus on high, members of the alt-rock band Cold Thunder reportedly deigned to mingle among the awestruck masses at Club Lagos Thursday evening after the group’s 20-minute opening set. “Thanks for coming out, guys,” one of the godlike beings called to a throng of lowly supplicants, who gazed upon the almighty ones as they sipped upon the fine nectar they had obtained with their two complimentary drink tickets. “We’ve got another show next week, so come on out if you can. And we’re selling CDs out front. Only 10 bucks. We’ve got a mailing list, too, so definitely sign up for that.” Reports indicate the magnificent deities then hauled their equipment back to their van, leaving behind only a mythic afterglow, and the undying memory of their valor and might.
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Jeff Roberson/Associated Press
The Reds won't have the dollars to make any major splashes this offseason, at least not if they plan on making any substantial offers to any one of four different starting pitchers set to hit the free-agent market after the 2015 season.
There have been plenty of sources suggesting the Reds will indeed try to move a pitcher before the start of next season, and while that has the potential to weaken what is undoubtedly the strongest facet of this team, payroll flexibility is often a trait demanded by small-to-mid-market teams.
The following are a few suggestions of who the Reds should be chasing this offseason. The order will range from most likely to shocking development, but a plausible, realistic case will be made for each.
To begin, here is a list of the potential free agents at every position from Baseballprospectus.com. With that in mind, browse a short list of free-agent names the Reds should be chasing this offseason:
All stats, rankings and salary information courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.Kansas City’s Livestrong Sporting Park has been announced as the venue for the annual MLS All Stars match on July 31.
At Thursday’s announcement, MLS commissioner Don Garber claimed the decision to take the All Stars game to Livestrong Sporting Park was based on a promise he made when work began on the stadium in 2010.
The MLS All Stars will take on a yet-to-be-named international club at the Kansas City venue.
“We said when we came here for the ground-breaking and for the opening of this stadium we would be back with special events and we are here today to announce that the 2013 MLS All-Star game will be here in Kansas City, in this beautiful new stadium and we are so very excited about that,” Garber said.
Sporting Kansas City head coach Peter Vermes will take control of the All-Star team against an opponent that is expected to be a major European side.
It will be the 10th time that an MLS All Stars team has played an international opponent, with last year’s game being a 3-2 victory over Premier League side Chelsea.
“Our All Star game will continue with the format of the MLS versus The World,” Garber said.
We think it is one of the most exciting All-Star formats in the whole of pro sports.
“We are not just playing each other in another game because we do that every weekend and every Wednesday.
“We are going to go and take on some really big guys and hopefully stand toe-to-toe against the great powers (in football).”Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth this weekend. Oh the mass hysteria from the left about Americans gathering on the Anniversary of MLK’s “I had a dream” speech. The left, for all their talk about “tolerance” sure doesn’t know how to be tolerant, unless you agree them of course!
In case you haven’t heard, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial (with the crowd stretching all the way to the Washington Monument) to celebrate a new Awakening and to honor those who have served us in the military. In typical liberal/progressive fashion, it didn’t matter what was said as truth is the first casualty in the liberal/progressive war on those who disagree with them. No, what was more important was attacking the convener, Glen Beck, messengers like Alveda King and the hundreds of thousands of Americans of all colors who attended as not just being racists (a term that has lost its meaning and affect from misapplication by liberal/progressives) but of being the equivalent of KKK members.
The comments of the likes of Rev Fauntroy who called those gathered the equivalent of the KKK did more to besmirch Martin Luther King’s words than anything Beck or those in attendance could have ever thought to do. Fauntroy, Sharpton and their liberal/progressive troops have lost sight of the “dream”.
They claim to be the sole “heirs” of the dream and that no one else can possibly possess it like they can.
No one else can possibly understand it like they do. And, no one else should dare even speak of it except in their deluded, dysfunctional version.
They may be able to repeat the words of the speech, but they have forgotten and certainly do not represent or carry on the vision of it.
They have fallen prey to the thing Dr. King warned them about:
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. (emphasis added)
Rather than join together to fight to correct real injustice to all no matter the color of the skin, these deficient keepers of the dream artificially create injustice and indignity as necessary to benefit themselves showing that they have ignored Dr. King’s admonition to not drink of that bitter cup. Why? Why would those who walked with Dr. King, who claim to be heir of his dream, ignore the straightforward vision of the “dream”?
One can only surmise as we look at the propagators of such maliciousness and judgement of other peoples’ motives rather than their actions that it is self-interest that drives them and not the “dream”. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, economist or genius to see how those who are supposedly the “keepers” of the “dream” have prospered in so doing. If they had prospered really keeping the “dream” alive, causing a rising tide that lifts all boats, we would all say “more power to them!” Unfortunately, they have prospered by dangling the “dream” as a carrot on a stick, enriching themselves in the process and leaving crumbs for those who should be the real heirs of the “dream”!
Some will disagree with this assessment and I say fine, they have the right to be wrong. Some may say, “so what, if they are only affecting those who are foolish enough to follow them. What’s the big deal?”
The problem is that through their selfish actions, they create false dissensions rather than deal with real problems that we as Americans need to work together to solve to see the “dream” fully realized.
The problem is that through their selfish actions, they seek to enrich themselves not only through thinly veiled blackmail actions but through big government programs. These big government programs don’t improve peoples’ lives, they merely extend their time of travail and most often insure that the full realization of the “dream” is unachievable. For if the “dream” is unachievable, then “they” are needed even more.
Martin Luther King’s “I had a dream” speech is still powerful and can be effective today. It’s to bad that too many who claim to represent it only represent their selfish interests.Monetary permahawkery takes two forms. One is obviously ridiculous, but nonetheless has a lot of influence on right-wing politicians. The other can sound serious and judicious, which makes it dangerous, because it might gain real traction with policymakers.
Permahawkery of the first kind is exemplified by the likes of Ron Paul, Zero Hedge, and Paul Ryan. Hyperinflation is always just around the corner. And no matter how wrong the scare stories have been in the past, there’s always a willing audience.
But the clear and present danger comes from people like Andrew Sentance, who was until recently a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee – the equivalent of the FOMC. Sentance has a remarkable piece in today’s FT castigating the Fed for not hiking rates. What makes the piece so remarkable is that there isn’t so much as a nod to what you might have thought was the standard approach to monetary policy; not only has Sentance made up his own version of macroeconomics, he’s evidently completely unaware that he has done so.
As I’ve been trying to point out – and as others, notably Ben Bernanke, have also tried to point out – such monetary wisdom as we possess starts with Knut Wicksell’s concept of the natural interest rate. Try to keep rates too low, and inflation accelerates; try to keep them too high, and inflation decelerates and heads toward deflation.
Now comes Sentance, claiming that monetary policy has been consistently too easy, not just in recent months, but for the past generation:
Since the 1990s, the Fed and the Bank of England have pursued policies similar to the ones any well-meaning government official would have chosen. They have cut interest rates very readily, but when they have raised them (in 1994-5 and 2005-7) they have been behind the curve. Independent central banks were established precisely to avoid this “behind the curve” interest rate policy. But it has not worked.
So central banks have been too eager to cut and too slow to hike, presumably meaning that interest rates on average have been much too low. If true, this should imply that policy has had an inflationary bias, right? Except that inflation has trended downward, not upward:
Photo
You might have expected at least some effort to explain why this isn’t a problem for Sentance’s claim. But no. (The BIS does offer a sort of explanation, claiming that excessively low interest rates now push required rates even lower in the future, which is bizarre but at least coherent.)
Wait, it gets worse. Sentance mocks the decision not to raise rates, suggesting that it has no real justification:
A multitude of reasons have been advanced for delaying the first rate rise: sluggish growth in all the major western economies in 2011-12; the euro crisis in 2013-14; and now the Fed is citing weak economic growth in China and the impact this has on financial markets. If you look around hard enough, there can always be a reason for not raising interest rates.
Notice something missing? How about the fact that inflation is still below the Fed’s target, and shows no sign of rising? And that doesn’t even get into the argument, which Larry Summers, yours truly, and many others have made, that the risks of getting it wrong are highly asymmetric: a premature hike would do far more damage than waiting too long.
Maybe Sentance is right to toss almost everything economists have said about interest rate policy for the past 117 years out the window. But since he offers no reason for rejecting basic monetary economics, it’s hard to escape the suspicion that he has no idea that this is what he’s doing. And he sat on the committee making British monetary policy!Hello hello!
For White2Tea’s 2017 productions, they released two tea cakes priced at $109.00. One of those tea cakes is 2017 Magic Mountain DNA (which I reviewed last week), and the other one is 2017 Four AM. Four AM is a beeng that's described by White2Tea to be blended from multiple areas, and is supposedly, “…elegant and heavy at the same time, with a complex character.” So are White2Tea’s claims true? Is this tea as elegant and as complex as they say it is? Also, how does it hold up compared to the other tea listed at the same price? Wake up, because this is Four AM…
Steeps 1 - 4
For this session, I used 6.6g of tea for a 100ml vessel and used water heated to a temperature of 185ºf. Anyways, the first steep of this tea brought forth the notes of hay, with a medicinal undertone. After a few more steeps, this tea left a light aftertaste of wood/bark lingering on the tip of the tongue. Along with that, this tea’s texture was already as thick as soup.
Steeps 5 - 8
Four AM’s body was still thick and medicinal, but its texture grew more thick and viscous. The aftertaste of wood/bark grew stronger and more noticeable — as this tea’s tasting notes were more aggressive than before. It also left a light bitter aftertaste on the tongue, which seemed to last for a very short period of time.
Steeps 9 - 14
By the later steeps, Four AM was full on bitter (which was not unpleasant in any way), as its soupy texture was thicker than it was before. This tea’s aggressiveness began to settle down a little, as the ensemble of tasting notes came together blissfully to create a harmonious blend on the base of the tongue. In these later steeps, a faint honey aftertaste appeared to linger in the mouth after sipping on Four AM, which came as a total surprise. By its fourteenth steep though, this tea was depleted of any flavor and the session was over…
Conclusion
2017 Four AM by Whtie2Tea was as complex as it was tasty. One of the first positive attributes that I noticed about this tea was that its texture quickly turned into a soup, shortly after beginning the session. Another aspect about this tea I liked was the fact that it was complex and kept changing throughout the session. This tea also had a nice energy, which made me completely tea drunk by the end of the session. However, when compared to the other tea that’s listed at the same price point (Magic Mountain DNA), I liked Four AM substantially better. Overall, I would highly recommend For AM to any puer lover who’s looking in the market for a sturdy, reliable, and a complex drink to help them get through the day. I guess you could say that White2Tea’s claims about this tea are completely true….Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
A spokesperson for the French Government has said that it plans to legislate to allow lesbian couples access to assisted procreation.
This comes after an influential ethics panel yesterday recommended that medically assisted procreation be extended to include lesbian couples and single people.
The National Consultative Committee on Ethics made the recommendation on Tuesday, after President Emmanuel Macron promised to make the medically assisted reproduction techniques available to lesbians.
Government spokesperson Christophe Castaner said that Macron had been waiting for the backing of the ethics panel and now plans to legislate on the issue.
Castaner suggested that the process may be slow as to avoid strong opposition like that faced in 2013 when France legislated for same-sex marriage.
“It’s important to seek the broadest possible consensus and avoid overly dogmatic stances that would pitch people against one another,” Castaner told a weekly news conference.
“But our objective is to transform the view of the CCNE into legislation.”
If France goes ahead and changes its laws on assisted procreation, it would bring it in line with other European countries like Britain, Belgium and Spain.
It is currently only available to straight couples in France.
Some LGBT groups welcomed the recommendation, and SOS Homophibie said it was a good move, urging the President to legislate for the move swiftly.
Macron, who has spoken out on a number of LGBT issues, officially became the President of France last month.
Macron is a staunch supporter of LGBT rights and equality, having dedicated an entire section of his manifesto to addressing issues that the LGBT community faces.
The newly elected president, who is the youngest president to ever be elected in France, has pledged to end everyday homophobia as well as workplace anti-LGBT discrimination.
He has also promised to defend equal marriage, a legislation that Macron has deemed “an enrichment of what the family is in France that shows its importance to all of us”.
The President’s anti-LGBT opponent, Le Pen, had promised to abolish the law that created marriage equality in the country, burying the policy in a manifesto of 144 pledges.
The President faced ‘gay’ smears in the weeks running up to the final vote from Russian state media outlets.The other day a close family member asked me to explain to her why I left the Christian faith. Three years ago I did what I could to boil down my main reasons for doing so for a handful of friends, all of whom were pretty theologically-minded and had a ton of questions and challenges afterwards. That prompted a second, longer letter that enumerated some of the things which nudged me in this direction. Those letters are there for anyone to read, but this time around I decided I’d rather just give it another try and start over. It takes time to develop a comfortable vocabulary for explaining something as hard to nail down as this, and the passage of time makes some things a lot clearer. Below you’ll find my updated attempt to answer this question.
I have to first say again that I don’t usually spend much time doing precisely this because talking people out of their faith isn’t a particular burden of mine. It’s not that I find anything wrong with that per se, but I just know that changing minds on really big things takes a long time and can’t be done in just one or two pithy conversations. Most of my writing and talking to people is directed toward those who are already outside of (or on their way out of) their religion. I couldn’t have said it better than Captain Cassidy said it recently:
I’m not out to change minds. I don’t know many bloggers who are out to do that. I’m out to crystallize people’s half-thought thoughts and show them they’re not alone in thinking what they think. Maybe illuminate some dark corners and give name to some shapes. I don’t know if I’ll ever run across someone who deconverts because of [her blog], but I do know I run into people all the time who realize they’re not alone because of what they read there and who suddenly get that light-switch-flip moment of illumination because of something I talk about. Makes it all worth it, really.
Or like a great meme I saw the other day said:
But someone close to me asked a direct question and unlike most people who seem only out to show me up and prove their beliefs are superior to mine, I believe this question was asked in earnest. She just wants to try to understand how someone can go from fervently believing for decades to not believing at all anymore.
I also need to point out that any one of these issues taken alone might not have had the same effect on me, and could have been passed over because of any of the explanations people have come up with over the years for them. But for me, it was more like a death by a thousand cuts. It was the cumulative effect of all of these things that led me to decide that it made more sense to drop the belief in the supernatural than it did to hold on to it.
Dear [name removed],
I don’t usually go into all of my reasons for leaving the faith for people who are still in it because it usually leads to arguments and it always feels to them like something precious is under attack. But you asked for some kind of explanation and this is my best shot at doing that.
For me it started with realizing how good we are at fooling ourselves about things we want to believe. I noticed that people (including myself) are capable of overlooking mountains of information in order to leave undisturbed whatever beliefs we hold most dear. Take Dr. Oz products for example. I can tell a customer five different ways that the product she wants is useless and will not cause her to lose fat but she still will buy it anyway. There was something she wanted to believe, and nothing could convince her otherwise. The more I’ve noticed this tendency in other people, the more I’ve turned to analyze myself to see how many things I believe against contrary evidence.
Being in church leadership only intensified this for me. For example, getting to watch the decision making process that goes into guiding a church made me see that: 1) There’s no magic to it; people just do the kinds of things people do, good and bad, only in church you’re taught to believe that something supernatural is happening when it’s really nothing of the sort, and 2) People put more trust in religious authorities than is warranted. They’re more willing to suspend their critical thinking skills in church than anywhere else, and that sent up red flags for me. And while we’re on that subject…
I noticed that critical thinking skills in general are discouraged in both the Bible and in the Christian faith (or at least in most of the versions I’ve encountered, excluding the most liberal ones). Sure, I could find one or two “proof texts” which mention reason and intellect, but the overwhelming drift of the Bible is against trusting reason. Experience has taught me that this is a bad thing. Anyone who tells you to suspend your critical thinking skills in the interest of trusting something or someone should usually be noted and avoided. Both the Bible and our Christian culture as a whole do this far too many times to not raise my suspicion that something isn’t right.
Next I suppose I started to look outward to see that people all over the world believe very different things and that they are as convinced that they are right as I was that I was right. I started to ask more earnestly how I knew better than they did? How did I get to be so lucky to be born in one of the right countries so that I was taught just the right religion out of all the choices available out there? How come I believe the Hindus are wrong and there’s only one God, not many? How come Muslims got the number of gods right but picked the wrong one? They’ve even got their own “Bible” and it disagrees with ours on really important things. How come we’re right and they’re wrong? Hinduism is older than both Christianity and even Judaism so I can’t say we’re right because of being here first. And while there are only about a billion Muslims in the world, statistics say that soon there will be more of “them” than there are of “us” because of population trends. So I can’t say we’re right because we outnumber them.
So then I started asking myself what reasons I had for believing what I believed. The more serious I became about that the more I saw that my reasons for believing were all inside my own head. Once I asked myself what demonstrates the existence of supernatural things outside my own desire for them to exist, I saw that there really wasn’t much there. Now don’t get me wrong, I spent more time than most accumulating arguments to support my faith. I collected reasons for my faith like some people collect pictures on Pinterest. But I came to see that their persuasive power lies entirely in our own willingness to believe them before we even see them.
It reminds me of a picture I once saw of the inside of a haunted house in broad daylight. When the lighting is low it has the desired effect on people—it casts a spell of sorts—but when you turn the house lights back on the effect completely evaporates. In bright daylight a haunted house doesn’t look spooky at all. Well, this is kind of like the reverse of that. I was taught to see the world as “haunted” but in a good way. But the lighting always has to be right, and it all depends on your prior willingness to see it the right way. Incidentally, people seem to sense this instinctively. You’ll notice that a great deal of careful control is exerted over the worship experience at church, especially at a place like First Baptist. The same could be said for a concert or a retreat or a camp experience. There’s a good reason for that. Those kinds of experiences rely on generating just the right emotions and experiences. It’s like the opposite kind of haunted house experience. Once you look at it from a different angle, and in better light, you see there’s not anything supernatural about it.
I could go into a bunch of other things but I would rather keep this short and just mention three more things which at one point in time felt like good reasons to believe but in time I came to feel they just weren’t.
I’ll start with the Bible itself. I could spend way more time that you’d want listing all the ways the Bible isn’t what I was taught it is. And you know it’s not because I didn’t take it seriously enough. Quite the opposite; I took it more seriously than everyone else, which is why I started to figure out it’s a deeply flawed book. Besides the internal inconsistencies and the historical and scientific mistakes it makes, it also makes promises which I found to fail almost uniformly (kind of like Dr. Oz’s products!). It promises things about prayer which in my experience don’t match real life at all unless you first decide on principle to disregard or dismiss every instance in which it fails. I was taught to make excuses for it and explain away all the many ways prayer fails to deliver what the Bible says it will (e.g. It wasn’t God’s will, You didn’t believe hard enough, You weren’t living right, etc). But it finally dawned on me that this wasn’t really true to the way the Bible itself speaks of what prayer and faith can do. And then there’s the character formation which the Bible promises will accompany the one who believes. As with prayer, this belief only endures if you first decide to discount any time it fails to deliver (e.g. It was their fault, not God’s, They didn’t do it right, etc). In my experience, people who are naturally kind and generous will be kind and generous no matter what their belief system. And the jerks will be jerks no matter what, even though I’ll admit the overwhelming social pressure of Christian culture teaches some to keep it tucked under a nicer façade.
Belief itself can be powerful; I cannot deny that. But that doesn’t mean it’s correct. Beliefs can lead people to be very nice to others and they can also lead them to be very cruel and uncaring. They can empower one person to forgive others of great wrongs, but they can also convince a group of devoted men to fly a plane into a building to kill as many as possible. The power that belief has over us doesn’t mean that our beliefs are correct, it just means they’re powerful.
I want to know if my beliefs match the way the world really is. My need for that seems to be stronger than some people’s. I cannot change that about myself. I can’t even fake it. And for me, that need has led me to where I am. I had to eventually realize that my need to understand the world was not a weakness—it’s not something to overcome or squelch—and that it was so central to who I am that fear of people disapproving of me wasn’t enough to keep me from asking the questions I asked of my religion. The disapproval hurts. I hate it. I feel like I’ve fallen from everyone’s good graces just for following my own drive to understand the world around me. I don’t know if you have any idea how sad it makes me to know that people are disappointed in me for simply wanting to get to the bottom of things, for wanting to understand the world “too much.” I know the people who love me aim higher than that. But in my experience faith teaches you to see this insatiable need to know as a bad thing. It’s okay up to a point, but once you start questioning certain things it becomes very bad. And I just can’t go along with that. I’ve always felt I should go wherever the evidence leads. For me, that led me out of the Christian faith.
I don’t expect anyone else to follow me out of it. You’ll notice I’ve never tried to convince any of you that I’m right and you’re wrong. I wish that I could expect the same in return, but I know that some aspects of your faith dictate that I am “going down a path” which will end in either temporal misery or eternal punishment. So the best I can hope for is that people who love me, once they’ve said their piece, can get back to just relating to me like a normal person and not a project, or a prospect for re-conversion. People can sense that and it feels truly icky.
Thanks for asking, by the way. It’s always a good exercise for me to try to put some things into words, and I’ll probably share it with some others. Maybe it will help somebody else do the same. As always, I’m open for conversation and questions about this, so consider yourself invited.
–NeilHaving failed in their attempt to inject religion into science education, Texas conservatives have shifted their attention to the state's elementary school social studies curriculum. According to some, school children need no longer learn about national figures such as George Washington and Abraham Licoln or Texas leaders like Stephen F. Austin. Other public figures, Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall for example, too could be excluded from the study material. According to the right wingers, the former is an "unworthy role model" for young school children and the latter's life story and influence are deemed "inappropriate." Instead, they would like to emphasize the role of Christianity in founding America and formulating Texas history. I suppose if you can't indocrinate older children with faith based science, it is far simpler to catch them young by way of revisionist history.
Cesar Chavez? Not worthy of his role-model status.
Christianity? Emphasize its importance.
Such suggestions are part of efforts to rewrite history books for the state's schoolchildren, producing some expert recommendations that are sure to inflame Texans, no matter their political leanings.
The State Board of Education expects to start discussing new social studies curriculum standards this week, with members of the public getting their first opportunity to speak this fall and a final board vote next spring.
The process is a long one with lasting impact: reshaping the social studies curriculum, including history, for 4.7 million Texas public school children.
“This is something that every parent would want to be paying attention to. This will determine whether or not the kids get the education needed to succeed in college and jobs in the future,” said Dan Quinn of the Austin-based Texas Freedom Network. “If we are going to politicize our kids' education, that will put our kids behind other kids when they're competing for college and good-paying jobs on down the road.”
Curriculum standards are updated about every 10 years; the last social studies update came in 1997.
According to a preliminary draft of the new proposed standards, biographies of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Stephen F. Austin have been removed from the early grades, said Brooke Terry of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The early draft, which is likely to change multiple times in the coming months, also removes Independence Day, Veterans' Day, and anthems and mottos for both Texas and the United States in a section on holidays, customs and celebrations, she said.According to a recent article in reCode, The U.S. government plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funds overseas as part of an expanded federal program to do good around the world through what’s known as “impact investing.”
The program, unveiled Wednesday at a conference by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, will dedicate around $200 million over the next few years in 10 to 15 venture funds that focus primarily on making a social impact in overseas countries. The exact amount of money allocated could change, but is expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
OPIC will effectively serve as a limited partner in |
found on the Kernel Git page. Samsung is apparently testing the chip and has added support for the SoC on the development boards.
According to it, Exynos 4412 is very similar to the recently announced Exynos 4212 and is based on ARM Cortex A9 with four CPU cores. The clock speed is apparently the same as Exynos 4212, which is 1.5GHz.
We don’t have any word on the release but it seems Samsung will soon have something to compete with Nvidia’s Tegra 3 platform.
Samsung is also working on the next-gen Exynos based on ARM Cortex A15 that will support ARM’s big.LITTLE processing.
Source|ViaThis week, Harvard Law School has invited alumni back to campus to celebrate the 200th anniversary of our school’s founding.
But a bicentennial is not just a time for celebration of the past — it is also a time to confront the present and plan the future. As we celebrate, many students are concerned: about our school being overtaken by corporate interests and losing relevance to the average American; about a watchdog of the law being largely asleep as the institutions of the rule of law and equal justice under law are under siege; and of a school community that has lost track of its declared mission to “educate leaders who contribute to the advancement of justice and the well-being of society.”
To surface these concerns, I have compiled a report on Harvard Law School’s public interest mission — Our Bicentennial Crisis: A Call to Action for Harvard Law School’s Public Interest Mission — that is being released today to coincide with our school’s bicentennial celebration. The report aims to document: first, the crisis of mass exclusion from legal power for the average American (in the criminal justice, civil justice and political systems); second, Harvard Law’s failure to address this crisis, and the inaccurate excuses our community tends to give for not addressing it; third, what accounts for this civic deficit; and fourth, twelve reform proposals that aim to help us better live up to our mission. An electronic copy of the report can be downloaded here. To request a hard copy, email [email protected].
Between the 1970s and 1990s, a flurry of critical works — including Duncan Kennedy’s “Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy,” Joel Seligman’s The High Citadel: The Influence of Harvard Law School, Richard Kahlenberg’s Broken Contract, Scott Turow’s famed One L, and Lani Guinier’s writings on legal education and profession — helped set Harvard Law School on a course from the hidebound, lily-white, cutthroat school of The Paper Chase to the more diverse, pluralist and genial school it is today.
I hope for this report to have a similar motivating impact, inspiring the community to transition from a school community where four out of five graduates deploy their legal educations to advance the legal interests of a wealthy and powerful few to one where a majority of students use their education to serve the interests of the vast, underserved public.
The report has four parts, summarized below:
Part 1: The Crisis of Our Time: Mass Exclusion from Legal Power
First, the report documents how the vast public is excluded from legal power in the United States:
…in the broken criminal justice system : how public defenders are grossly underfunded and understaffed— a contributing factor to prosecutorial abuses and our ballooning prison system.
…in the inaccessible civil justice system : how 86% of the civil legal needs of the poor go unmet; how America ranks 50th of 66 wealthy countries in terms of “the ability of people to obtain legal counsel.”
…in the indentured political system : how public interest lobbyists are outnumbered 34-to-1 by corporate interest lobbyists in D.C.; how tort law and antitrust law are crippled by corporate interest lawyers; and how the John M. Olin Foundation paid Harvard Law School $18 million to teach what they have admitted is “conservative constitutional law.”
Second, the report offers an account of the legal profession’s failure to address this exclusion:
England spending 13 times as much per capita and Canada spending three times as much per capita as the United States does on civil legal aid.
The top 100 most profitable law firms making ~ $28 billion in profits while only ~ $1-2 billion worth of lawyers’ time is spent annually on civil legal aid for the poor.
Part 2: Harvard Law’s Failure to Lead
The report next moves on to Harvard Law School, documenting how for every one graduate of Harvard Law School who goes on to work in public interest law, government or education, four graduates work for corporate interest firms or businesses.
The report then proceeds to debunk various excuses put forth by school administrators regarding these lopsided career trajectories:
Excuse #1: “Pro bono work and charitable giving blurs the divide”
In fact, lawyers at the major corporate interest firms give less than half an hour a week and half a dollar a day to pro bono service and legal aid.
ABA survey data shows that only 36 percent of attorneys do 50 hours or more of pro bono work per year.
The most giving law firms only give about one tenth of one percent of their revenue to access to justice efforts.
Excuse #2: “Everybody deserves a lawyer”
A disproportionate number of corporate interest firm clients are white and male, while a disproportionate number of public interest clients (government, legal services, education and non-profit constituencies) are women of color.
Almost 70% of recent Harvard Law graduates work in just four states: New York, D.C., Massachusetts, and California. In fact, more graduates work in New York than in 47 other states combined.
The report asks: “Harvard Law prides itself on its diversity of inputs: students of all races from all around the country. However, when viewed in light of the narrow range of outputs, a disturbing picture emerges of a school that attracts a diverse set of students from all across the country and sends them to New York to serve a disproportionately rich and white client base. If everybody deserves a lawyer, should not Harvard work to encourage the lawyers it trains to go where people are underserved?”
Excuse #3: “Graduates take public interest jobs later”
In fact, only 7.2 percent of Harvard Law graduates who are working at large firms three years after graduation are working in public interest organizations twelve years after graduation.
Of the 303 members of the 2015 graduating class working in 100+ lawyer firms after graduation, we can expect, if trends continue, only 22 to be working in public interest organizations nine years later.
Excuse #4: “Students are free to choose”
In fact, there is a major “public interest drift” among students who are interested in public interest work (government, non-profit and educational work) upon admittance but end up in corporate interest work.
Whereas 35.4 percent of newly admitted students planned to work for law firms or businesses after law school, 63 percent planned to work for law firms or businesses by graduation.
Excuse #5: “This involves factors beyond Harvard Law’s control”
In fact, Harvard is losing out to other schools in terms of public interest careers in non-profits, government and education; Yale, Georgetown, Northeastern and CUNY all outperform Harvard.
Excuse #6: “Harvard Law is a path to the upper class”
In fact, available data shows that the majority of students at Harvard Law School are from families at the top of the income bracket.
Available data indicates that about 77.5 percent of Harvard Law students are from families that make more than $95,000 a year and have more than $175,000 in net worth.
This means that if you come from a family with double the median net worth of American families, you would still be in the bottom quarter of the economic bracket at Harvard Law School.
Part 3: How Did It Get This Way?
The report proceeds to explain how the school fails to live up to its civic potential:
A culture that fails to spark public-spiritedness: Harvard Law has an entrenched culture of competition, in which the law is viewed as a game and “geniuses” are praised regardless of their civic commitment. This law school culture provides a smooth transition to the culture of corporate interest legal work.
A curriculum that pacifies students : the first year curriculum of Harvard Law School is stuck in a century-old mold— and students do not get exposed to any pluralist curricula until their second and third years, when they have already made their decision to pursue corporate interest legal work.
: A career-building system that nudges toward corporate law : The school treats corporate interest work as the “default option,” a process that culminates in first year students being wined-and-dined by corporate firms and an “Early Interview Program” that streamlines corporate interest recruitment. The school career office has even provided materials that encourage students to pursue revolving door work: joining a firm, leaving for a government agency that regulates their clients, and then returning to the firm to trade their government experience for higher salaries.
: A cost structure that dissuades students from public interest work: Despite Harvard Law School’s efforts made to lower the debt burden of students pursuing public interest work, most students still see their law school debt as a major reason for pursuing corporate interest legal work.
Part 4: Steps Forward in Our Third Century
The report concludes with twelve reform proposals:
Reforming our culture
Reform #1: Measure public interest commitment: Harvard Law should join Yale in measuring graduate employment five years and ten years beyond graduation. With that measurement, the school can better set a goal of having a majority of its graduates pursue employment that serves the legal interests of the public at large.
Reform #2: Promote a culture of civic ambition : School leadership should work to center OUR stated mission — “to educate leaders who contribute to the advancement of justice and the well-being of society” — in the school culture.
Reform #3: Spotlight civic intelligence: School leadership should hold up lawyers who are examples of civic intelligence, rather than just narrow, analytical prowess.
Reform #4: Admissions should account for public interest commitment and experience: The school should adjust its admission criteria to more heavily weigh “civic intelligence” and commitment to the school’s public interest mission in crafting upcoming classes.
Reforming our curriculum
Reform #5: Learn from Gary Bellow’s Clinical Institute model Clinical education is the best way for legal education to be, to use a turn of phrase from Ralph Nader, empirically rooted and normatively fired up.
Reform #6: Learn from The School of Public Justice model: In the same way that medical education separates learning how to be a doctor from learning how to be a public health specialist, legal education should incorporate both training in being an attorney — an advocate for specific clients — and development as a lawyer— an officer of the court tasked with caring for the state of “public justice.”
Reform #7: Incorporate practice and theory into the first year curriculum: The current first year case method teaches the law outside of time and outside of lived practice. A first year curriculum that incorporates the history, philosophy and sociology of the law — paired with real-world clinical experiences — would better orient students to be change agents.
Reforming our career system
Reform #8: Fund and promote career offices around a goal of 51% of students pursuing public interest work: Instead of funding career offices around current demand — the school should aspirationally fund the public interest placement office based on the goal of inspiring a majority of students to pursue public interest work.
Reform #9: Supplement career-building with vocation-building: Students should more formally be invited to integrate the professional, the personal and the civic — “what opportunities are available?”, “what am I called to do?”, and “what needs to be done?” — in developing their post-graduation plans.
Reforming our cost structure
Reform #10: Limit the real and psychological debt burden of students aiming to pursue public interest work: The school should work toward a system where students who are committed to a certain period of public interest work after graduation are not burdened by tuition debt. Though this is achieved, in large part, by Harvard Law’s trailblazing Low Income Protection Program (LIPP) — the psychological baggage of holding immense tuition debt without total certainty that it will be paid off by LIPP should be addressed.
Reform #11: Lobby aggressively for civil legal aid funding: In the same way that the school community took a firm public stand on the DREAM Act, the law school should take a firm public stand on civil legal aid funding and deploy its heft to influence Congress to better fund “equal justice under law.”
Reform #12: Lead a network of needs-based residency programs: The school should follow the lead of the Appleseed Centers for Law and Justice — started by the Class of 1958 to create local centers for public interest lawyering — and deploy its endowment and alumni base to build institutions that serve the dual purpose of (i) providing career-starting jobs (or, to use the medical education term, “residencies”) for recent public interest graduates; and (ii) serving communities in need of legal aid and civic support across the country.
Legal figures are beginning to respond to the report:
Georgetown University Law Center professor David C. Vladeck has said:
“Pete Davis’ ‘Our Bicentennial Crisis: A Call to Action for Harvard Law School’s Public Interest Mission’ is a must-read for anyone who cares about legal education and the role of lawyers in society. Our nation’s legal system shuts out ordinary Americans. Most of the legal needs of Americans, except for the wealthy, go unmet. More lawyers work for corporations than for people. Many students come to Harvard Law School to prepare for public service careers. But along the way, most of these students abandon their ideals to seek out jobs in corporate law. Davis shows that Harvard is more than just complicit in building the hydraulic pressure that alter career paths. The messages are rarely overt, but Harvard, like its elite law school peers, lets students know that public interest work is less prestigious and less rewarding than corporate law. Davis makes a powerful case that it is time for Harvard to try to understand this phenomenon and ask ‘why?’ As Davis points out, Harvard Law School’s stated mission is to ‘To educate leaders who contribute to the advancement of justice and the well-being of society.’ Graduating armies of Wall Street lawyers is hardly faithful to that mission. Davis does far more than throw down the gauntlet. He supplies answers to that question, and proposes many measures that Harvard, and other elite law schools, should take to fulfill the promise of Harvard. If law is an means to the goal of justice, it is time for America’s elite law schools to take Davis’ proposals to heart.”
Mark J. Green (HLS ’70), New York City’s first public advocate, has added:
“While Harvard Law School rightly celebrates its Bicentennial, 3L Pete Davis focuses on the horizon of the possible.He explains how even a great law school is under-performing and how to do it better.”
Judge Learned Hand, of the Harvard Law School Class of 1896, once said: “If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.” When we celebrate our third century a hundred years from now, it is my fervent hope that they say of our generation of Harvard Law School students, faculty, staff and alumni: “they helped keep our democracy.” If this is to be the case, it will be because of reformers in our community who put in the work in the coming decades to better align our school with its public interest mission. I hope this report is a useful tool for their efforts. Let’s get to work.
(You can download an electronic copy of Our Bicentennial Crisis: A Call to Action for Harvard Law School’s Public Interest Mission here. To request a hard copy, email [email protected].)
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Welcome to Advanced Yoga Practices (AYP). This website includes nearly 500 free instructional lessons that have been developed and enhanced since 2003. Join the thousands of people who have been using these easy-to-follow teachings, and begin to incorporate powerful advanced yoga practices into your daily life in a practical, safe, and results-oriented way.
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Disclaimer: Each is responsible for his or her own spiritual progress, and for the methods applied. What you do with the information in the AYP writings and all related content is your call.author | Ben Goertzel year published | 2014
Ray Kurzweil has projected the date for a Technological Singularity as 2045. AI researcher Ben Goertzel believes it could potentially happen much sooner, if appropriate attention and resources are focused on the right R&D projects.
What current technologies are most likely to lead to the rapid advent of powerful Artificial General Intelligence systems? What impact will the advent of such technologies have upon human life? What philosophical, scientific and spiritual ideas should be deployed to explore such questions? How probable are Terminator type outcomes, versus friendlier scenarios where advanced artificial intelligences play a beneficent role to humanity and other sentiences? What should be our top priorities now, looking forward to a radically different AI-centric future?
This book gathers together essays that Ben Goertzel wrote during the period 2009–2011, for H+ Magazine and other periodicals, which explore these issues from various directions. Each essay is presented along with a brief personal introduction discussing the context in which the essay was written, and reviewing relevant developments from the period 2012–2014.
Paperback. PDF also available for free download.Google has silently disabled support for NFC Smart Unlock – the feature that allowed users to unlock their Android handsets with an NFC-powered physical token or a card. The disturbing part is that the internet giant never even bothered to alert users about its removal.
The decision was confirmed by a Google employee in an NFC Smart Lock bug report filed on the company’s Issue Tracker. The employee in question said that the “feature has been deprecated for new users,” clarifying that “the option will be hidden” for anybody who isn’t already an existing NFC user.
(Please note that the bug report page is only accessible to users signed in to a Google account.)
This sketchy move was brought to light by a Reddit sleuth going by the alias JamesDwho, who took to the Android community to notify users about the removal.
NFC Smart Unlock is no longer available to any users who made or set up a new Google account from July/August this year and onwards, according to the Redditor. He further points out that anybody who still has access to the feature should avoid signing out or updating their device – or else it would disappear for them too.
While NFC Smart Unlock was never really a standout feature, several manufacturers spun it as a selling point for their phones, including the Big G for the Nexus and the Pixel as well as Sony for its Xperia Z21. Indeed, the user manuals for both the Nexus and the Pixel still lists the functionality as active.
Another particularly outrageous thing about this development is that confused users have been seeking for ways to “fix” NFC Smart Unlock left and right for weeks now. Google never graced them with even a simple explanation.
Way to go, Google, great way to treat your customers.
Update: A Google employee has since provided the following statement with regards to removing the NFC Smart Unlock feature:
Smart Lock provides seamless and secure methods of unlocking your Android phone. For example, you can keep your device unlocked when it’s connected to your Bluetooth device such as your smartwatch or car, or when it’s in a trusted place, such as your home. Since Smart Lock was launched in Android 5.0, we have added more methods of unlocking, such as On-Body detection and made several security improvements to the different unlock methods. Today, many Android phones also support Fingerprint authentication which provides another convenient way to unlock your phone. We constantly evaluate unlock mechanisms and evolve them. Our end goal is to provide the best possible experience for you that balances security, simplicity and convenience. We constantly make product decisions based on multiple factors including usage, the value we provide, your feedback, and the availability of alternatives. In the case of NFC unlock, we’ve seen extremely low usage. At the same time, there are alternatives available now that are easy to use, are secure and have much wider adoption. Given this, we decided to disable NFC unlock. However, if you have NFC unlock currently set up, you can continue to use it until you reset your device, switch to a different device, or explicitly remove the NFC tag from Smart Lock settings. We apologize to those of you who are affected by this and we’re sorry for any inconvenience. We encourage you to use a different unlock method in Smart Lock, such as Trusted Bluetooth devices, Trusted Places, or On-body detection, all of which we believe to provide a better user experience.
Read next: 4 reasons why running a small business beats owning a startupA man died this morning when his car crashed into a pond off Lee Vista Boulevard near Chickasaw Trail, officials said.
A witness called police about 2 a.m. saying he saw a car leave the road and go into the pond, but he hasn't seen anyone surface, according to Orlando police.
Officers responded and found the vehicle in a pond near the 8200 block of Lee Vista Boulevard.
A dive team was called and located the car under the water, police said. They then found a man in the pond and pulled him to shore.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. Officers haven't released his name.
Detectives shut down part of westbound Lee Vista Boulevard near Chickasaw Trail in southeast Orlando while they investigated.
It's unclear how the car ended up in the water.
[email protected] or 407-420-5417In Sweden, city planners and the country’s traffic authority are looking into building a four-lane bike superhighway between the university town of Lund and Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest cities and one of its most diverse.
Cities like London have invested in protected lanes that they call “bike superhighways,” but this one would be one of the first to connect two cites (you know, like an actual highway). The designs for the trail have it following the path of railway tracks, protected from wind by fences and hedgerows.
In both cities, biking’s a popular form of transportation (Malmö’s just across the water from Copenhagen), and they’re not too far from each other, about 12.5 miles. That means the highway wouldn’t be so much longer than some of the more ambitious London routes linking the outer ‘burbs to the inner city. But 12.5 miles also makes for a very do-able ride and an uber-sustainable way to get from one place to another.On Tuesday night, Cubs GM Theo Epstein signed Ben Zobrist, one of the most versatile and consistently productive players in baseball, to a four-year, $56 million deal. Just now, he snatched up the best outfielder on the market, 26-year-old Jason Heyward, with a deal reportedly worth $185 million over eight years. It’s no great miracle that Epstein was able to get either player, but in both cases he reportedly persuaded them to sign for less money than they were offered elsewhere.
In Zobrist’s case, the discount wasn’t that huge. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that he had a four-year, $60 million offer from the Giants on the table, but valued the chance to play for Joe Maddon on a very good Cubs team more than the extra $4 million.
As for Heyward, Epstein was competing with two other attractive destinations in the Nationals and Cardinals, but managed to hold both of them off while apparently offering Heyward less money.
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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold reports that the Cardinals were aggressively pursuing Heyward, and offered him a contract that would have been the richest in club history. Heyward is now the second player to be pried away from the Cardinals by the Cubs this offseason, following starting pitcher John Lackey. All of this is adding up to one frightening lineup:
Getting premium talent at a discount is only a thing GMs in Theo Epstein’s very specific position can pull off. He knows he doesn’t have to offer the most money, because what he can offer—a great coach that everyone wants to play for, one of the best young lineups in the game, an organization that is now fully entering “win now” mode—can be much more valuable than money. Playing for the Cubs has never been a more attractive proposition than it is right now, and Theo Epstein isn’t letting that edge go to waste.
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Photo via GettyThis Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast will see some of the world’s biggest consumer brands vying for your attention at an estimated price of $4 million for 30 seconds. In years past, viewers have come to expect a certain recurring theme from these expensive ads.
In 2013 alone, we watched swimsuit model Kate Upton pose sexily and suggestively to sell cars for Mercedes while fellow swimsuit model Nina Agdal writhed sexily and suggestively to sell sandwiches for Carl’s Jr.
We saw another swimsuit model, Bar Refaeli, make out with a stereotypical bespectacled nerd to sell domain names for GoDaddy.com in a spot as unfunny as it was brainless. (GoDaddy spokesperson Danika Patrick helpfully explained that Refaeli represented “the sexy side” of the site, not “the smart side”, lest we found their ad too subtle and complex.)
Despite almost as many women as men now watching football’s championship game, brands and their advertising agencies can’t resist appealing to the lowest common denominator, portraying women as barely-sentient objects attached to breasts.
Now in time for this Sunday's face-off comes an iPhone app from gender equality campaigners The Representation Project aimed at combating outdated, sexist portrayals of women, starting with the Super Bowl’s notorious ads.
The newly-released Not Buying It app will allow users to catalog and share sexist advertising by companies and brands, whether that comes in the form of a television spot, a magazine spread or a billboard.
The name stems from a Twitter campaign during last year’s Super Bowl, when over 10,000 tweets were sent using the #NotBuyingIt hashtag – 7,500 of which were directed at @GoDaddy.
“We’re calling out brands using offensive, gendered, hyper-sexualized images in their advertising,” said Imran Siddiquee of The Representation Project, the nonprofit behind acclaimed Sundance documentary Miss Representation and the brainchild of filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
The app allows users to join together to create campaigns, using social media including Twitter to call on companies to improve the way they portray women. The app is location-based, allowing for localized movements around, say, an offensive billboard showing a woman slumped on a sink sexily, her legs open.
The Representation Project has already claimed victory over GoDaddy: the domain sales giant got in touch after last year’s disaster. “They asked what we thought,” said Siddiquee. “They have pledged not to use sexualized images of women this year.”
Indeed, the ad they’ve released online shows Danika Patrick as a bodybuilder in a muscle suit, no bikinis in sight.
The Not Buying It app was crowdfunded on Indiegogo and created by a female-led development team at Boston’s Raizlabs. Said Siddiquee: “It just shows that if the mainstream media isn’t representing us, we can create our own media to fight back."Once sequestered to the pastoral landscape, chickens (and bees and even goats) are coming home to roost in the city. In exchange for fresh eggs, honey or milk, urban animals can be rewarding and relatively easy to keep. They just require some planning, commitment and care.
Do I need a permit for my animals?
You do not need a permit if you keep a total of three or fewer chickens, ducks, doves, pigeons, pygmy goats or rabbits. You can mix and match however you like, as long as you do not exceed the total of three critters.
If you want to keep more than three of the above animals, please call 503-823-1174 for additional information.
If you are interested in keeping turkeys, geese, peacocks, cows, horses, burros, sheep, llamas or bees, no matter how many of these animals, please call 503-823-1174 for more information.
You are in great shape if your planned facility:
is in good repair.
won't disturb neighbors.
has absorbent ground cover (that can be replaced as often as necessary to suppress odor).
has a secure enclosure.
provides your animals with adequate lighting and ventilation.
is 15 feet from residential buildings (not including your own).
feeding practices won't attract unwanted rodents.
What about bees?
Please call 503-823-1174 for more information.
What is not allowed in Portland city limits?WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wading into a murky tax question for the digital age, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service said on Tuesday that bitcoins and other virtual currencies are to be treated, for tax purposes, as property and not as currency.
Bitcoins created by enthusiast Mike Caldwell are seen in a photo illustration at his office in Sandy, Utah, September 17, 2013. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
“General tax principles that apply to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency,” the IRS said in a statement, meaning that bitcoins would be taxed as ordinary income or as assets subject to capital gains taxes, depending on the circumstance.
Bitcoin, the best-known virtual currency, started circulating in 2009. Its present market value is around $8 billion, with up to 80,000 transactions occurring daily, according to accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
Recent incidents have brought the currency under new regulatory scrutiny, such as the failure of Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based exchange that filed for bankruptcy after losing an estimated $650 million worth of customer bitcoins.
Unlike conventional money, bitcoin is generated by computers and is independent of control or backing by any government or central bank, which its proponents like, but which also has led to calls for more guidance on U.S. tax treatment.
The IRS supplied that in its statement, which dealt a blow to bitcoin “miners,” who unlock new bitcoins online. The IRS said miners must include the fair market value of the virtual currency as gross income on the date of receipt.
This change “is a disincentive to start looking for bitcoins,” said John Barrie, a partner with law firm Bryan Cave LLP, who advises charities that receive bitcoins as donations.
NOT LEGAL TENDER
The IRS also said that virtual currency is not to be treated as legal-tender currency to determine if a transaction causes a foreign currency gain or loss under U.S. tax law.
For other forms of gains or losses involving virtual currency, the IRS explained how to determine the U.S. dollar value of virtual currency and said taxable gains or losses can be incurred in related property transactions.
“The character of gain or loss from the sale or exchange of virtual currency depends on whether the virtual currency is a capital asset in the hands of the taxpayer,” the IRS said.
If a taxpayer holds virtual currency as capital - like stocks or bonds or other investment property - gains or losses are realized as capital gains or losses, the agency said.
However, when virtual currency is held as inventory or other property mainly for sale to customers in a trade or business, ordinary gains or losses are generally incurred, the IRS said.
Capital gains and losses are taxable and deductible at different rates and amounts than ordinary gains and losses.
Democratic Senator Tom Carper, who chaired a Senate committee hearing last year on bitcoin, said in a statement that the IRS guidance “provides clarity for taxpayers who want to ensure that they’re doing the right thing and playing by the rules when utilizing bitcoin and other digital currencies.”
MINERS HURT
New bitcoins come from a process called mining. Computer programmers around the world compete to crack an automatically generated code and the first to do so is rewarded with a small stash. This happens about every 10 minutes.
Some online retailers will accept bitcoins as payment. The maximum potential number of bitcoins in circulation is 21 million, compared with around 12 million currently.
On the IRS guidance, William Lewis, a lawyer in Sunnyvale, California, who represents a start-up company creating a platform for virtual currencies, said: “This is going to be unfavorable to bitcoin miners because they’re going to have to include in income the fair market value of the virtual currency on the date they mined it.
“It’s going to make life difficult for a lot of people who have been mining over the past year, who have to go back and see what the values were on those dates when they mined it.”In a region rife with wars, occupation and a distinct lack of democratic freedoms, Iranian voters overwhelmingly re-elected pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani to a second four-year term. They did so knowing that fulfilling their long-standing political, economic and social aspirations will be a marathon, not a sprint. To that end, their willingness to double down on Rouhani demonstrates savvy, strategic patience on domestic and foreign policy. Not coincidentally |
without walls. ®A long-simmering dispute between the city of Santa Clara and San Francisco 49ers has been reignited during the NFL offseason.
A leaked draft of an audit claims the San Francisco 49ers owe the city of Santa Clara hundreds of thousands of dollars for its use of Levi's Stadium. Mayor Lisa Gillmor, who pushed for the $200,000 audit, told the Mercury News that it affirms her suspicions that taxpayer money has improperly subsidized the venue's operations.
Under a measure approved by the city's voters in 2010, no public money or city staff time is supposed to be spent on the Levi's Stadium events. A leaked draft of the audit, conducted by the Harvey M. Rose firm, found that the Niners owe the city $424,349 for public safety staff time.
A contractual agreement caps public safety costs for the team at $1.7 million a year, with 3 percent annual increases. But according to the Merc report, the 49ers surpassed that limit every year, requiring the city's Stadium Authority—a City Council-run commission that oversees Levi's and leases the property to the NFL team—to dip into its discretionary fund to pay the extra cost.
The 49ers quickly tried to discredit the findings.
In a 10-page response letter, the team called the report erroneous, incomplete and riddled with half-truths.
"We are disappointed that the Stadium Authority spent $200,000 to produce a report that will only serve to further confuse the board and the public with erroneous information, incomplete and out of context half-truths, and outright misrepresentations," the team's attorney Hannah Gordon wrote.
The audit also found that the Niners could owe Santa Clara nearly $719,000 for letting cars park on a public golf course, one of five city properties used for event parking. The 49ers disputes that claim, too, saying the team actually overpaid for parking.
The audit recommends strengthening financial controls over the stadium lease. Click here to read the draft report.
Like this: Like Loading...Bernardine Rae Dohrn (née Ohrnstein; born January 12, 1942) is a former leader of the Weather Underground domestic terror group, responsible for bombings of the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, and several police stations in New York, as well as the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion that killed three of its members.[1] As a member of the Weather Underground, Dohrn helped to create a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United States government, and was placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, where she remained for three years. From 1991 to 2013 she was a Clinical Associate Professor of Law at the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law. She is married to Bill Ayers, a co-founder of the Weather Underground, who was formerly a tenured professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Early life [ edit ]
Bernardine Dohrn was born Bernardine Ohrnstein in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1942, and grew up in Whitefish Bay, an upper-middle-class suburb of Milwaukee.[2] Her father, Bernard, changed the family surname to Dohrn when Bernardine was in high school.[3] Her father was Jewish and her mother, Dorothy (née Soderberg), was of Swedish background and a Christian Scientist.[4][5][6][7] Dohrn graduated from Whitefish Bay High School where she was a cheerleader,[8] treasurer of the Modern Dance Club, a member of the National Honor Society, and editor of the school newspaper.[2]
She attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for one year, then transferred to the University of Chicago, where she graduated with honors with a B.A. in political science in 1963. Dohrn received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1967. While attending law school, Dohrn began working in support of Martin Luther King, Jr. and became the first law student organizer for the National Lawyers Guild.[9]
Radical activist career [ edit ]
Students for a Democratic Society involvement [ edit ]
Dohrn became one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a radical wing of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), in the late 1960s. Dohrn with ten other SDS members associated with the RYM issued, on June 18, 1969, a sixteen-thousand-word manifesto entitled, "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows" in New Left Notes. The title came from Bob Dylan's song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues."[10] The manifesto stated that "the goal [of revolution] is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism."[11]
The manifesto concludes with,
The RYM must also lead to the effective organization needed to survive and to create another battlefield of the revolution. A revolution is a war; when the Movement in this country can defend itself militarily against total repression it will be part of the revolutionary war. This will require a cadre organization, effective secrecy, self-reliance among the cadres...[11]
The manifesto also asserted that African-Americans were a "black colony" within a U.S. government that was doomed to overextend itself. And the RYM was needed to quicken this process. Dohrn said, "The best thing that we can be doing for ourselves, as well as for the [Black] Panthers and the revolutionary black liberation struggle, is to build a fucking white revolutionary movement."[10]
The ninth annual national SDS conference was held at the Chicago Coliseum on June 18–22, 1969, and the SDS collapsed in a Revolutionary Youth Movement-led upheaval. Soon after the Revolutionary Youth Movement became known as the Weatherman. Dohrn led the Weatherman faction in the SDS fight and continued to be a leader afterward.[12][13] Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant who was with the Weatherman from autumn 1969 through spring 1970, considered her one of the two top leaders of the organization, along with Bill Ayers.[14] On May 26, 1968, as a speaker for the National Lawyers Guild, Dohrn said she was filing a motion in federal court asking for an injunction to halt any disciplinary action that was being taken against student activists and represented students from Columbia University who were striking and protesting. On June 14, 1968, Dohrn was elected the Inter-organizational Secretary of SDS, and, once elected, was asked if she was a socialist. She replied, "I consider myself a revolutionary communist."[15] From August 30 to September 1, 1968, Dohrn visited Yugoslavia. Her involvement with SDS and political advocacy stretch beyond the United States as well, as she and other SDS leaders had met with representatives from North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in Budapest, Hungary to discuss peace talks. She and a delegation from the SDS also traveled to Cuba via Mexico City, Mexico on July 4, 1969, and later arrived in Canada via a Cuban vessel on August 16, 1969.
On the night of October 1, 1968, Dohrn spoke at a meeting in Chicago to condemn Chicago's Mayor Daley's orders to attack protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Then, from October 11 to 13, she and SDS held a national meeting at the University of Colorado Boulder wherein Dohrn was a speaker addressing concerns about where the movement was headed and what involvement they could expect as governmental tensions mounted and the student movement splintered into factions. On October 11, 1968, Dohrn suggested she would expand the movement to non-students and do all that was necessary to complete the job of "attack, expose, destroy."[16] Dohrn continued to give speeches on behalf of SDS and Weather Underground and attend leadership conferences for both organizations. On January 29 and 30, 1969, in recognition of the tenth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, the University of Washington held a Cuba teach-in where Dohrn was a speaker on campus. A month later at a press conference at the regional headquarters of SDS in Chicago, Dohrn spoke of the plans that were under way to "attack" college graduation ceremonies across the country, saying, "Our presence will be known at the graduation ceremonies where the big people will come as speakers." By that time, Dohrn was now known as a National Interim Committee member of the SDS and a member of the Weatherman group.
Weather Underground involvement [ edit ]
Dohrn was a principal signatory on the Weather Underground's "Declaration of a State of War" in May 1970 that formally declared "war" on the U.S. Government, and completed the group's transformation from political advocacy to violent action. She recorded the declaration and sent a transcript of a tape recording to The New York Times. Dohrn also co-wrote (with Bill Ayers) and published the subversive manifesto Prairie Fire in 1974, and participated in the covertly filmed Underground in 1976. In late 1975, the Weather Underground put out an issue of a magazine, Osawatamie, which carried an article by Dohrn titled, "Our Class Struggle", described as a speech given to the organization's cadres on September 2 of that year. In the article, Dohrn clearly stated support for communist ideology:[17]
We are building a communist organization to be part of the forces which build a revolutionary communist party to lead the working class to seize power and build socialism.... We must further the study of Marxism-Leninism within the WUO [Weather Underground Organization]. The struggle for Marxism-Leninism is the most significant development in our recent history.... We discovered thru our own experiences what revolutionaries all over the world have found — that Marxism-Leninism is the science of revolution, the revolutionary ideology of the working class, our guide to the struggle...
According to a 1974 FBI study of the group, Dohrn's article signaled a developing commitment to Marxism-Leninism that had not been clear in the group's previous statements, despite their trips to Cuba and contact with Vietnamese communists there.[17]
Controversial statements about Tate-LaBianca murders [ edit ]
Dohrn was criticized for comments she reportedly made about the murders of actress Sharon Tate and retail store owners Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by the Charles Manson clan. In a speech during the December 1969 "War Council" meeting organized by the Weathermen, attended by about 400 people in Flint, Michigan, Dohrn said, "First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!"[18][19][20] In greeting each other, delegates to the war council often spread their fingers to signify the fork.[10]
In 2008, Dohrn's husband, Bill Ayers, described the story as a 'Big Lie' and said Dohrn's comments were taken out of context.[21]
Arrests and trials [ edit ]
On August 22, 1969, Dohrn was arrested in Chicago and charged with possession of drugs. The defense argued that Chicago Police had conducted an illegal search of the car in which she was a passenger, which led Judge Kenneth R. Wendt of the Narcotics Court of Chicago to dismiss the charges. On September 20, 1969, at an anti-Vietnam rally at the Davis Cup tennis tournament in Cleveland, police arrested Dohrn and twenty other persons on charges of disorderly conduct. On September 26, 1969, Dohrn was arrested again in Chicago during a rally in support of the eight men accused of conspiracy concerning the riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, who were being tried on riot conspiracy charges. Dohrn was next arrested on October 9, 1969, by the Chicago police during a rally for the women's faction of the Weathermen group and was later released on a one thousand dollar bond.[22] On October 31, 1969, a grand jury indicted 22 people, including Dohrn, for their involvement with the trial of the Chicago Eight, and she was again indicted on April 2, 1970, when a Federal Grand Jury indicted twelve members of the Weatherman group on conspiracy charges in violation of anti-riot acts during the "Days of Rage."[16][23] However, all of these convictions were reversed on November 21, 1972, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on the basis the judge was biased in his refusal to permit defense attorneys to screen prospective jurors for cultural and racial bias.[24]
Due to the increasing volatility of the Weather Underground led by Dorhn, on October 14, 1970, Bernardine Rae Dohrn was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list and was only removed in December 1973, after District Court Judge Damon Keith dismissed the case against the Weathermen. That dismissal was followed shortly by another, when, on January 3, 1974, Judge Julius Hoffman dismissed a 4-year-old case against twelve members of the Weatherman faction of the Students for a Democratic Society, including Dohrn. She had been charged with leading the riotous "Days of Rage".[15]
Coming out of hiding [ edit ]
While on the run from police, Dohrn used many aliases (including Bernardine Rae Ohrnstein, H.T. Smith, and Marion Del Gado) and married another Weatherman leader, Bill Ayers, with whom she has two children. During the last years of their underground life, Dohrn and Ayers resided in Chicago, where they used the aliases Christine Louise Douglas and Anthony J. Lee.[1] In the late 1970s, the Weatherman group split into two factions, the "May 19 Coalition" and the "Prairie Fire Collective", with Dohrn and Ayers in the latter. The Prairie Fire Collective favored coming out of hiding, with members facing the criminal charges against them, while the May 19 Coalition remained in hiding. A decisive factor in Dohrn's coming out of hiding were her concerns about her children.[25]
The couple turned themselves in to authorities in 1980. While some charges relating to their activities with the Weathermen were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct[26] (see COINTELPRO), Dohrn pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated battery and bail jumping, for which she was put on probation.[27] After refusing to testify against ex-Weatherman Susan Rosenberg in an armed robbery case, she served just less than a year in prison.[26] Shortly after turning themselves in, Dohrn and Ayers became legal guardians of Chesa Boudin, the son of former members of the Weather Underground Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, after the couple were convicted of murder for their roles in a 1981 armored car robbery.[28]
Later life and professional career [ edit ]
From 1984 to 1988, Dohrn was employed by the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin,[29] where she was hired by Howard Trienens, the head of the firm, who knew Thomas G. Ayers, Dohrn's father-in-law. "We often hire friends," Trienens told a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.[30] However, Dohrn had not been admitted to the New York or Illinois bar even though she had passed both bar exams, because she had not submitted an application to the New York Supreme Court's Committee on Character and Fitness.[29] Similarly, she was turned down by the Illinois ethics committee because of her criminal record. Trienens said of the Illinois rejection, "Dohrn didn't get a [law] license because she's stubborn. She wouldn't say she's sorry." [30]
In 1991, she was hired by Northwestern University School of Law, as an adjunct professor of law with the title "Clinical Associate Professor of Law". She was one of the founders of the Children and Family Justice Center, which supports the legal needs of adolescents and their families, in the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern Law. She left Northwestern Law on August 31, 2013. Because Dohrn was hired as an adjunct (a temporary assignment), her appointment did not need to be approved by the faculty. When law school officials were asked whether or not the dean hired Dohrn or the board of trustees approved the hiring, the school issued a statement in response stating: "While many would take issue with views Ms. Dohrn espoused during the 1960s, her career at the law school is an example of a person's ability to make a difference in the legal system."[30] Dohrn now serves on the board of numerous human rights committees. Since 2002, she has served as Visiting Law Faculty at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Her legal work has focused on reforming the much criticized juvenile court system in Chicago and on advocating for human rights at the international level.
Later politics [ edit ]
In 1994, Dohrn said of her political beliefs: "I still see myself as a radical."[31] On November 4, 2010, Dohrn was interviewed by Newsclick India. About the "Right" in the U.S., she said, "It's racist; it's armed; it's hostile; it's unspeakable." Referring to the Restoring Honor rally which was promoted by Glenn Beck and held on August 28, 2010, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., "You have white people armed, demanding the end to the [Obama] presidency." She also stated, "The real terrorist is the American government, state terrorism unleashed against the world."[32]
In 2008, Dohrn and Ayers resurfaced into news headlines as presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin publicly denounced the ties between Ayers and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.[33][34]
See also [ edit ]NEWFIELD, Ariz. — Along a stretch of dusty pavement in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, among giant saguaros and low-lying mesquite trees, sits a humble, pueblo-style Catholic church named St. Michael.
In the courtyard under a wind-beaten American flag, churchgoers lunch on chili, beans and tortillas and a salad garnished with indigenous cholla cactus buds. A concrete basketball court hosts musicians melding traditional Latin rhythms with native chicken scratch song akin to polka.
Chrystall Kanyuck CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW
View a timeline of the history of the Tohono O'odham Nation.
Emblems of U.S., Mexican and Native American life hold equal sway over the members of the Tohono O’odham Nation. All are carefree this bright September Sunday; children oblivious and adults content to momentarily forget that their 2.8 million acre reservation, 60 miles west of Tucson and nearly the size of Connecticut, is more than a cultural crossroads.
Five hundred feet away stands the U.S.- Mexico border, which stretches across 75 miles of the reservation. These borderlands have become a battle zone as illegal immigrants and drug runners push forth into America and the U.S. Government pushes back. Caught in the middle is the Tohono O’odham, a reluctant participant in a complex political struggle.
As Tristan Reader, director of non-profit tribal organization Tohono O’odham Community Action, said, “It’s kind of like living on top of the Berlin Wall.”
A nation divided
A muddy white truck, cab and bed full of young male tribal members, pulls up to the San Miguel Gate from Mexico. A Border Patrol gatekeeper asks them for identification. They don’t have any so are denied entry. They turn around slowly, then suddenly accelerate kicking up a cloud of dust and exhaust.
One rider yells back over his shoulder: “Pigs!”
Tension between the O’odham and Border Patrol is commonplace here, said Raymond Valenzuela, a tribal member who lives in one of the nine O’odham settlements south of the reservation in Mexico.
“See, now they’re probably just going to go around and jump over the fence,” he points out.
The San Miguel Gate is an unassuming assembly of barbed wire, wooden pillars and steel poles driven into a bumpy dirt road in a roughly 15-mile valley between Horse Peak and the jutting Baboquivari Mountains, home of Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Originally a cattle guard, it’s now one of seven heavily patrolled openings in the fence between Mexico and the reservation. They’re not official ports of entry but with a tribal identity card, O’odham can cross anytime, avoiding an hours-long detour to distant entries.
But Valenzuela said he resents having to show ID to traverse his ancestral land.
“When I was a kid, when I was going to school, we never had this problem,” Valenzuela said. “We came through and the buses dropped us off on the road and we’d walk home.”
“See, now they’re probably just going to
go around and jump over the fence. ”
The border was bare until the 1970s when a five-strand barbed-wire fence was raised to contain a Mexican mad cow disease outbreak.
Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. moderately patrolled the border there. But in the 1990s, ramped-up border protection in outlying urban areas—first San Diego and El Paso, Texas, and eventually closer Arizona communities like Nogales, Lukeville and Sasabe—tapered the immigration corridor, funneling illegal activity into the reservation.
Since June 2006, a series of staggered bollards, barbed wire and Normandy-style vehicular barriers have been under construction to contain the crime.
But the $22 million border barrier has been criticized for physically bisecting the tribe, separating the nearly 25,000 O’odham living in the U.S. from some 2000 relatives still living in small Mexican communities.
The O’odham inhabited the vast arid landscape from Sonora to Phoenix for thousands of years until the 1853 Gadsden Purchase scrawled an international borderline across their ancestral lands. The axiom many O’odham use is “The border crossed us, we didn’t cross the border.”
The purchase initially allowed free cross-border movement for the tribal members but today, those traveling by vehicle must stop at the gates. The government also wanted pedestrian walls.
This was not the intention, though, said Marla Henry, chairwoman of the Chukuk Kuk District, which includes most of the reservation’s borderline.
“The vehicle barrier was not meant to stop pedestrians,” she said “It was meant to stop vehicles that are transporting humans or drugs.”
The U.S. Government first approached the tribe with ideas for pedestrian wall, she said—large metal slabs like ones in outlying towns. But because of the unique nature of their Himdag, the O’odham word for their customs, values and way of life, the idea was shot down and continues to be taboo.
But Valenzuela said it’s not part of the Himdag to put up fences, at all.
“It impedes us from coming back and forth freely,” said Valenzuela, who crosses every day to work as a janitor at a reservation high school and on his days off sells white cheese and tortillas for extra money.
Valenzuela is a wiry, middle-aged man with torn clothing, a dirty mustache and few remaining teeth. He served in the U.S. Navy for nearly a decade, but moved back to Mexico after he was discharged.
“When I left and I came back, my grandmother got mad at me and said, ‘Well why did you join? Why did you go in there? The white man’s not going to do anything for you,’” he said. “And here it is, nothing going on for me.”
Recently, the 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People again tried for the right to free association across tribal lands. The U.S., however, did not adopt the measure.
Despite years of promises to the contrary, it’s been getting increasingly harder to cross, said Joseph Garcia, Lt. Governor of the tribe’s Mexican residents. He has come to believe that the borderline itself, not just the physical barrier, is the problem.
“Valenzuela is a wiry, middle-aged man with
torn clothing, a dirty mustache and few remaining teeth.”
“We say we are one tribe, but essentially the line did create a division,” Garcia said. “It officially endorses that the O’odham are two tribes.”
Valenzuela added that this outlook generates xenophobia. Though the tribal Constitution defines O’odham membership by blood not residency, he said his own people often alienate him.
“O’odham in Arizona are saying, ‘You guys don’t belong here… because you’re O’odham in Mexico. You’re Mexican,’” he said.
The two regions have separate governments—a chairman and council for the reservation and a governor on the other side. But Garcia said the two try to work closely. Henry said she is adamant about maintaining that relationship, too.
Still, Valenzuela and other O’odham in Mexico live in abject poverty. Tohono O’odham Community Action, or TOCA, figures show 41.7 percent of all reservation households live below the poverty level but in Mexico, many don’t have running water, electricity, adequate health care or Social Security like reservation dwellers.
“And yet I am a U.S. citizen and I have every right (to these amenities), but I can’t because of that border,” Valenzuela said.
If he moved onto the reservation, these problems would be amended, but Mexico is his traditional land and when he dies he believes his spirit will remain there with his ancestors.
“I want people to see and to know that there still is some O’odham left over here,” he said. “I want my kids to learn that they’re from here and keep on fighting for the land.”
There have been some efforts to help. In 2003, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., introduced the Tohono O'odham Citizenship Act into Congress. If passed it would have granted citizenship to the O’odham in Mexico. The bill never became law and no similar attempts have been made since.
Next year, cross-border travel may become impossible for those who lack U.S. citizenship. In June 2009, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative will mandate that to cross, a U.S. Passport be presented.
“I’m worried,” said Garcia, “Come 2009, will the people be able to get passports?”
deanna dent
The Department of Homeland Security is working with the tribe to find a solution, said spokeswoman Lisa Reed. But for now O’odham in Mexico face being decisively cut off from their kin.
Meanwhile, even with the fence, drug and human trafficking continue to devastate the community, endangering some tribal members’ lives while ensnaring others’ with easy albeit dirty money.
An ever-present problem
A half-hour drive into the reservation lies a dilapidated, boarded up house and an accompanying shed. A thin plank of plywood meant to secure the shed’s entrance has been forced off and shabbily propped back up, held taut by a tattered, flowery loveseat to cover the doorway.
“KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!” Andy Pasqual bangs on the timber. “Housing! Come out!” he shouts.
No answer.
“This house is notorious for being used for a drug and illegal (immigrant) pick-up,” says Pasqual, who manages legal services for the reservation’s Housing Authority. “Vacant homes are usually primarily the target for illegal activity.”
He tosses the couch aside to reveal the shed’s roughly 8-foot-by-8-foot beat-up interior, littered with remnants of its former squatters—Mexican-brand products, soiled clothes, empty water bottles and several concrete mix bags that Pasqual said smugglers use to give their cars a weighed-down appearance. Once they pick up their load, they’ll leave the bags so savvy Border Patrol agents notice no obvious weight increases to the vehicles.
Pasqual said the ex-residents of the house were found harboring immigrants and drugs. As a division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the tribal Housing Authority is obligated to act.
“If one of our residents is caught engaging in illegal activity it’s pretty much an automatic termination of their lease agreement and an eviction from their home,” he said.
Scores of similarly vacant houses dot the landscape. The lure of smuggling is ever-present on a reservation with a 2008 per capita income of $6,998, compared with $21,994 nationally—the lowest of all U.S. reservations, according to Tohono O’odham Community Action, or TOCA. The 2008 unemployment rate is close to 70 percent, according to the group.
And O’odham in Mexico who live in even poorer conditions are not above the snare of smuggling, either, said Garcia. He’s come across acquaintances with bundles of marijuana.
“When you don’t have work and you have your bills to pay and knowing that there are people recruiting,” he said. “It’s very tempting to people. It’s easy money.”
Border Patrol supervisor for the Casa Grande station, Jose Gonzalez, said it’s an unfortunate reality that he encounters almost daily.
“We arrest a lot of tribal members smuggling both immigrants and narcotics,” he said.
And drug cartels are unrelenting in recruitment and objective, said Tribal Vice Chairman Isidro Lopez.
“When the drug runners run, they don’t have but one goal in mind and that’s to get their drugs across,” he said.
While it’s a near impossibility to drive through the vehicular barrier, smugglers have been found dropping their load across to counterparts on foot. Sometimes, traffickers erect metal ramps and simply drive over.
Although U.S. government figures specific to the reservation are not kept Gonzalez said nearly half of all marijuana seizures nationwide happen in the Border Patrol designated Tucson Sector, of which the reservation comprises nearly a third.
“When the drug runners run, they don’t have but one
goal in mind and that’s to get their drugs across.”
“The Tucson Sector has been ground zero for the Border Patrol for the issue of securing our nation’s borders,” he said.
In 2007 more than 230,000 illegal immigrants were caught there, he said. The dry, sandy riverbeds along the borderline are littered with footprints.
Border towns have it worst, said Lopez, because immigrants break into houses—even with residents present—and take clothes, food, water and other essentials.
Years ago, he said, he’d willingly feed them and give water, but the sheer numbers made that eventually impractical.
“I’ve been hostage in my own home, not leaving it because there were about 50 [illegal immigrants] right in the area,” he said. “And if I leave, my car leaves, they know nobody’s home.”
At one time, Henry said, it was not uncommon to see 100 illegal immigrants cross daily. Now, they’ll see maybe 20 a day, but without the border protection, she said it would surely balloon.
“We’d be the corridor and we’d probably see 300 coming through every day,” she said.
Gonzalez said he’s been working up to three shifts a week for four years on the reservation.
“There are some days when you might encounter a group of 20 to 30 and other days when you catch two or three,” he said, adding that numbers aside, immigration arrests are made every day.
Tribal health services incur immense costs treating ailing immigrants found in the desert. On a reservation where, according to TOCA, half of all adults have Type 2 diabetes, every penny towards health care is needed.
The reservation is riddled with gang violence, too, and has a homicide rate three times the national average, according to TOCA, yet patrolling the reservation for immigrants and smugglers has cost the Tohono O’odham Police Department over $3 million per year since 2001, said Lopez, who thinks the tribe should be paid back.
“We have a running tab that the federal government needs to reimburse us,” he added.
Still, Pasqual said while immigrants may be an expensive nuisance, they generally pose no physical threat to tribe members.
“They’re trying to get in quietly. They don’t really bother the people,” he said. “The drug traffickers, those are the ones that bother the people.”
They have made the reservation an even more dangerous place, said Aaron Brown, a Tohono O’odham Police Department detective for more than a decade.
“When I first came out here… weapons wasn’t a major issue,” he said. “Now it’s normal to find a group with weapons.”
In October, tribal walkers en route to the Church of St. Francis in Magdalena, Mexico on an annual pilgrimage—an amalgamation of Catholic ritual and native custom—were forced to turn back for fear of their lives.
Sara Williams, a resident of Sells, Ariz., the reservation’s capitol, was one of about 160 pilgrims. She said they made it halfway when they got word from the tribal government that something was wrong.
“They were saying that walkers were getting shot by the Mexican Mafia, so they advised us to turn around,” Williams said.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Tohono O’odham are indigenous to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Mexico. With tribal members on both sides of the US Mexico border fence, the Tohono O’odham Nation straddles two nations.
2.8 Million acres in the Tohono O'odham reservation
9 Tohono settlements in Mexico
75 miles of US Mexico border fence run through Tohono lands
7 openings in the fence for tribal members to cross between the US and Mexico
25,000 O’odham tribal members live on the US side of the border
2,000 members live on the Mexico side
$22 Million cost of US Mexico border barrier
41.7% percentage of Tohono reservation households live below poverty level
$21,994 per capita income in the US for 2008
$6,998 per capita income on the Tohono reservation for 2008
70% percentage of O’odham on the reservation who are unemployed
$3 Million cost to tribal police to patrol for illegal immigrants and smugglers of tribal lands
Sources: Tohono O'odham Nation officials (1-6, 12)
Tohono O'odham Community Action (8, 10, 11)
US Census (9)
—By Chrystall Kanyuck
The Tohono O’odham government issued an official warning of heightened violence in the area discouraging people from traveling and offering to send vans to pick up those already there.
“A lot of people were going crazy on the Nation,” Williams said. “They were just worried about the walkers.”
She and some companions, including a 5-year-old child, holed up in a small church, she said, cowering from the sounds of gunshots until they could find a ride.
No O’odham ended up injured, but the fear was palpable enough to make them apprehensive about whether to continue the tradition that has endured for more than a century, said Williams. For her, it’s not a choice: She’s walking for her mother who died without being able to complete her last pilgrimage.
“Most of us are walking for someone who has passed on,” she said.
For this reason, Williams said, the pilgrimage will not stop and O’odham persist in their traditions despite dangerous circumstances.
“Unfortunately it’s nothing new to the Tohono O’odham Nation,” she said. “A lot of drugs are on our borders. We understand that.”
But as the border barrier nears completion, questions of its effectiveness linger.
“That’s forthcoming,” said Brown. “Once they complete the fence, in the next few months, to see if that’s actually going to stop vehicles from coming across… We’ll see if it will work.”
And though the Border Patrol aims to protect the tribe from these threats, many residents complain that agents routinely overstep their bounds.
Culture clash
Angelita Ramon, along with her husband and five children, lives in a sparsely furnished, run-down four-room shanty on a nameless Sells, Ariz., dirt road unofficially called Poltergeist.
The road’s namesake is a cemetery adjacent to Ramon’s house—the same cemetery where within the last decade she has buried her two sons.
The younger committed suicide at age 16 and her oldest, 18-year-old Bennett Patricio, Jr., was run over and killed by a Border Patrol vehicle in the early morning hours of April 9, 2002.
“His body was fully crushed from his skull to his feet,” Ramon said, choking back tears. They had to put him in a body cast just to bury him, she added.
Ramon is a quiet, stout woman with sad eyes. She’s been wearied by years of litigation with the U.S. Government over her son’s death and has gone broke trying to win the case, selling furniture, clothes and the family car to pay for a trip to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. She suspects foul play in the death, but the case was thrown out for lack of evidence. She plans to appeal again.
“They had to put him in a body cast just to bury him. ”
Lisa Reed from the Department of Homeland Security said she couldn’t comment on ongoing cases, but Ramon said the agent who was driving the truck claimed in court that Patricio had been passed out in the middle of the road and the vehicle couldn’t stop in time.
The truth about what happened that night might never be known, but the ordeal has fostered deep distrust of all Border Patrol among the Ramon family. So paranoid are they, that they carry a police scanner on family outings.
The Ramons are not the only O’odham cynical of agents' intentions. Conflict between Border Patrol and tribe members is regular—everything from violence to racism to verbal threats has been alleged.
As planes zoom around the airspace over the reservation and massive patrol SUVs traverse its roads, many tribal members, like former Gu Vo District Chairman Michael Flores, believe the tribe is losing its autonomy.
“We’re under military occupation here,” said Flores, who left his government post over disagreements about allowing Border Patrol on the reservation. “We’re losing our tribal sovereignty on a daily basis.”
Though the U.S. Government recognizes tribal sovereignty, the reservation is federal trust land, meaning while O’odham can use the land, its ultimate control remains with the federal government.
Agents operate out of two outposts shared with tribal police on the territory, but checkpoints rest at all corners of the reservation. Cars driving between the U.S. and tribal land are stopped and searched.
Despite his own efforts to curb drug trafficking |
and I gave him the stethoscope.
He quickly listened to himself.
"I had expected that my condition would be much worse. Many thanks. May I put my jacket on?" "Of course. Let us agree, then, that it is necessary to take a few drops of digitalis, don't you think?" "You consider that absolutely essential? I think that my old heart will survive the few days or months which remain to me quite well." "I think otherwise; I think that you will live much longer." "Do not upset me, colleague... To live more! To live still longer!... There must be instructions about the end; the court case cannot last longer... And then, then rest."
And when he said this, having in mind the final rest, it seemed that his face had the expression of happiness almost. I shuddered. This wish to die, to die soon which I read in his eyes, made me faint. I wanted to cheer him up from a feeling of compassion.
"You have not understood me, comrade. I wanted to say that in your case it may be decided to continue your life, but life without suffering. For what have you been brought here? Does one not treat you well now?" "The latter, yes, of course. Concerning the rest I have heard hints, but..."
I gave him another cigarette and then added:
"Have hope. For my part and to the extent which my chief will allow, I shall do everything that can depend on me, to make sure that you come to no harm. I shall begin immediately by feeding you, but not excessively, bearing in mind the state of your stomach. We shall begin with a milk diet and some more substantial additions. I shall give instructions at once. You may smoke... take some... " and I left him everything that remained in the packet.
I called the guard and ordered him to light the prisoner's cigarette whenever he wants to smoke. Then I left and before having a couple of hours rest I gave instructions that Rakovsky was to have half a liter of milk with sugar.
We prepared for the meeting with Rakovsky at midnight. Its "friendly" character was stressed in all the details. The room was well warmed, there was a fire in the fire-place, soft lighting, a small and well-chosen supper, good wines; all had been scientifically improvised. "As for a lovers meeting," observed Gabriel. I was to assist. My chief responsibility was to give the prisoner the drug in such a manner that he would not notice it. For this purpose the drinks had been placed as if by chance near me, and I shall have to pour out the wine. Also I would have to observe the weakening of the drug's effect, so as to give a new dose at the right moment. This was my most important job. Gabriel wants, if the experiment succeeds, to get already at the first meeting real progress towards the essence of the matter. He is hopeful of success. He has had a good rest and is in good condition. I am interested to know how he will struggle with Rakovsky who, it seems to me, is an opponent worthy of him.
Three large arm-chairs were placed before the fire. The one nearest the door is for me, Rakovsky will sit in the middle, and in the third will be Gabriel, who had shown his optimistic mood even in his clothes, as he was wearing a white Russian shirt.
It had already struck midnight when they brought the prisoner to us. He had been given decent clothes and had been well shaved. I looked at him professionally and found him to be livelier.
He asks to be excused for not being able to drink more than one glass, mentioning the weakness of his stomach. I did not put the drug into this glass and regretted it.
The conversation began with banalities... Gabriel knows that Rakovsky speaks much better French than Russian and begins in that language. There are hints about the past. It is clear that Rakovsky is an expert conversationalist. His speech is exact, elegant and even decorative. He is apparently very erudite; at times he quotes easily and always accurately. Sometimes he hints at his many escapes, at exile, about Lenin, Plekhanov, Luxemburg, and he even said that when he was a boy he had shaken the hand of the old Engels.
We drink whisky. After Gabriel had given him the opportunity of speaking for about half an hour, I asked as if by chance: "Should I add more soda water?" "Yes, add enough" he replied absentmindedly. I manipulated the drink and dropped a tablet into it, which I had been holding from the very beginning. First I gave Gabriel some whisky, letting him know by a sign that the job had been done. I gave Rakovsky his glass and then began to drink mine. He sipped it with pleasure. "I am a small cad" I told myself. But this was a passing thought and it dissolved in the pleasant fire in the fire-place.
Before Gabriel came to the main theme, the talk had been long and interesting.
I had been fortunate in obtaining a document which reproduces better than a shorthand note all that had been discussed between Gabriel and Rakovsky. Here it is:
INFORMATION THE QUESTIONING OF THE ACCUSED CHRISTIAN GEORGIEVITCH RAKOVSKY BY GAVRIIL GAVRIILOVITCH KUS'MIN ON THE 26TH JANUARY, 1938. Gavriil G. Kus'min. In accordance with our agreement at the Lubianka, I had appealed for a last chance for you; your presence in this house indicates that I had succeeded in this. Let us see if you will not deceive us. Christian G. Rakovsky. I do not wish and shall not do that. G. - But first of all: a well-meant warning. Now we are concerned with the real truth. Not the "official" truth, that which is to figure at the trial in the light of the confessions of the accused... This is something which, as you know, is fully subject to practical considerations, or "considerations of State" as they would say in the West. The demands of international politics will force us to hide the whole truth, the "real truth"... Whatever may be the course of the trial, but governments and peoples will only be told that which they should know. But he who must know everything, Stalin, must also know all this. Therefore, whatever may be your words here they cannot make your position worse. You must know that they will not worsen your crime but, on the contrary, they can give the desired results in your favour. You will be able to save your life, which at this moment is already lost. So now I have told you this, but now let us see: you will all admit that you are Hitler's spies and receive wages from the Gestapo and OKW* {footnote}. {footnote} * OKW - Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Supreme Command of the German Army - Transl. {end footnote} Is that not so? R. - Yes. G. - And you are Hitler's spies? R. - Yes. G. - No, Rakovsky, no. Tell the real truth, but not the court proceedings one. R. - We are not spies of Hitler, we hate Hitler as you can hate him, as Stalin can hate him; perhaps even more so, but this is a very complex question. G. - I shall help you... By chance I also know one or two things. You, the Trotzkyists, had contacts with the German Staff. Is that not so? R. - Yes. G. - From which period? R. - I do not know the exact date, but soon after the fall of Trotzky. Of course before Hitler's coming to power. G. - Therefore let us be exact: you were neither personal spies of Hitler, nor of his regime. R. - Exactly. We were such already earlier. G. - And for what purpose? With the aim of giving Germany victory and some Russian territories? R. - No, in no case. G. - Therefore as ordinary spies, for money? R. - For money? Nobody received a single Mark from Germany. Hitler has not enough money to buy, for example, the Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, who has at his disposal freely a budget which is greater than the total wealth of Morgan and Vanderbilt, and who does not have to account for his use of the money. G. - Well, then for what reason? R. - May I speak quite freely? G. - Yes, I ask you to do so; for that reason you have been invited. R. - Did not Lenin have higher aims when he received help from Germany in order to enter Russia? And is it necessary to accept as true those libellous inventions which had been circulated to accuse him? Was he not also called a spy of the Kaiser? His relations with the Emperor and the German intervention in the affair of the sending to Russia of the Bolshevik destroyers are quite clear. G. - Whether it is true or not does not have any bearing on the present question. R. - No, permit me to finish. Is it not a fact that the activity of Lenin was in the beginning advantageous to the German troops? Permit me... There was the separate peace of Brest-Litovsk, at which huge territories of the USSR were ceded to Germany. Who had declared defeatism as a weapon of the Bolsheviks in 1913? Lenin. I know by heart his words from his letter to Gorky: "War between Austria and Russia would be a most useful thing for the revolution, but it is hardly possible that Francis-Joseph and Nicholas would present us with this opportunity." As you see, we, the so-called Trotzkyists, the inventors of the defeat in 1905, continue at the present stage the same line, the line of Lenin. G. - With a small difference, Rakovsky; at present there is Socialism in the USSR, not the Tsar. R. - You believe that? G. - What? R. - In the existence of Socialism in the USSR? G. - Is the Soviet Union not Socialist? R. - For me only in name. It is just here that we find the true reason for the opposition. Agree with me, and by the force of pure logic you must agree, that theoretically, rationally, we have the same right to say - no, as Stalin can say - yes. And if for the triumph of Communism defeatism can be justified, then he who considers that Communism has been destroyed by the bonapartism of Stalin and that he betrayed it, has the same right as Lenin to become a defeatist. G. - I think, Rakovsky, that you are theorizing thanks to your manner of making wide use of dialectics. It is clear that if many people were present here, I would prove this; all right, I accept your argument as the only one possible in your position, but nevertheless I think that I could prove to you that this is nothing other than a sophism. But let us postpone this for another occasion; some day it will come. And I hope that you will give me the chance to reply. But at the present moment I shall only say this: if your defeatism and the defeat of the USSR has as its object the restoration of Socialism in the USSR, real Socialism, according to you - Trotzkyism, then, insofar as we have destroyed their leaders and cadres, defeatism and the defeat of the USSR has neither an objective nor any sense. As a result of defeat now there would come the enthronement of some Führer or fascist Tsar. Is that not so? R. - It is true. Without flattery on my part - your deduction is splendid. G. - Well, if, as I assume, you assert this sincerely, then we have achieved a great deal: I am a Stalinist and you a Trotzkyist; we have achieved the impossible. We have reached the point at which our views coincide. The coincidence lies in that at the present moment the USSR must not be destroyed. R. - I must confess that I had not expected to face such a clever person. In fact at the present stage and for some years we cannot think of the defeat of the USSR and to provoke it, as it is known that we are at present in such a position, that we can not seize power. We, the Communists, would derive no profit from it. This is exact and coincides with your view. We can not be interested now in the collapse of the Stalinist State; I say this and at the same time I assert that this State, apart from all that has been said, is anti-Communistic. You see that I am sincere. G. - I see that. This is the only way in which we can come to terms. I would ask you, before you continue, to explain to me that which seems to me a contradiction: if the Soviet State is anti-Communistic to you, then why should you not wish its destruction at the given moment? Someone else might be less anti-Communistic and then there would be fewer obstacles to the restoration of your pure Communism. R. - No, no, this deduction is too simple. Although the Stalinist bonapartism also opposes Communism as the napoleonic one opposed the revolution, but the circumstance is clear that, nevertheless, the USSR continues to preserve its Communistic form and dogma; this is formal and not real Communism. And thus, like the disappearance of Trotzky gave Stalin the possibility automatically to transform real Communism into the formal one, so also the disappearance of Stalin will allow us to transform his formal Communism into a real one. One hour would suffice for us. Have you understood me? G. - Yes, of course; you have told us the classical truth that nobody destroys that which he wants to inherit. Well, all right; all else is sophistical agility. You rely on the assumption which can be easily disproved: the assumption of Stalin's anti-Communism. Is there private property in the USSR? Is there personal profit? Classes? I shall not continue to base myself on facts - for what? R. - I have already agreed that there exists formal Communism. All that you enumerate are merely forms. G. - Yes? For what purpose? From mere obstinacy? R. - Of course not. This is a necessity. It is impossible to eliminate the materialistic evolution of history. The most that can be done is to hold it up. And at what a price? At the cost of its theoretical acceptance, in order to destroy it in practice. The force which draws humanity towards Communism is so unconquerable that that same force, but distorted, opposed to itself, can only achieve a slowing down of development; more accurately - to slow down the progress of the permanent revolution. G. - An example? R. - The most obvious - with Hitler. He needed Socialism for victory over Socialism: it is this his very anti-Socialist Socialism which is National-Socialism. Stalin needs Communism in order to defeat Communism. The parallel is obvious. But, notwithstanding Hitler's anti-Socialism and Stalin's anti-Communism, both, to their regret and against their will, transcendentally create Socialism and Communism...; they and many others. Whether they want it or not, whether they know it or not, but they create formal Socialism and Communism, which we, the Communist-Marxists, must inevitably inherit. G. - Inheritance? Who inherits? Trotzkyism is completely liquidated. R. - Although you say so, you do not believe it. However great may be the liquidations, we Communists will survive them. The long arm of Stalin and his police cannot reach all Communists. G. - Rakovsky, I ask you, and if necessary command, to refrain from offensive hints. Do not go too far in taking advantage of your "diplomatic immunity." R. - Do I have credentials? Whose ambassador am I? G. - Precisely of that unreachable Trotzkyism, if we agree to call him so. R. - I cannot be a diplomat of Trotzkyism, of which you hint. I have not been given that right to represent it, and I have not taken this role on myself. You have given it to me. G. - I begin to trust you. I take note in your favour that at my hint about this Trotzkyism you did not deny it. This is already a good beginning. R. - But how can I deny it? After all, I myself mentioned it. G. - Insofar as we have recognized the existence of this special Trotzkyism by our mutual arrangement, I want you to give definite facts, which are necessary for the investigation of the given coincidence. R. - Yes, I shall be able to mention that which you consider necessary to know and I shall do it on my own initiative, but I shall not be able to assert that this is always the thinking also of "Them." G. - Yes, I shall look on it like that. R. - We agreed that at the present moment the opposition cannot be interested in defeatism and the fall of Stalin, insofar as we do not have the physical possibility of taking his place. This is what we both agree. At present this is an incontrovertible fact. However, there is in existence a possible aggressor. There he is, that great nihilist Hitler, who is aiming with his terrible weapon of the Wehrmacht at the whole horizon. Whether we want it or not, but he will use it against the USSR? Let us agree that for us this is the decisive unknown fact or, do you consider that the problem has been correctly stated? G. - It has been well put. But I can say that for me there is no unknown factor. I consider the attack of Hitler on the USSR to be inevitable. R. - Why? G. - Very simple; because he who controls it is inclined towards attack. Hitler is only the condottiere of international Capitalism. R. - I agree that there is a danger, but from that to the assumption on this ground of the inevitability of his attack on the USSR - there is a whole abyss. G. - The attack on the USSR is determined by the very essence of Fascism. In addition he is impelled towards it by all those Capitalist States which had allowed him to re-arm and to take all the necessary economic and strategical bases. This is quite obvious. R. - You forget something very important. The re-armament of Hitler and the assistance he received at the present time from the Versailles nations (take good note of this) - were received by him during a special period, when we could still have become the heirs of Stalin in the case of his defeat, when the opposition still existed... Do you consider this fact to be a matter of chance or only a coincidence in time? G. - I do not see any connexion between the permission of the Versailles Powers of German re-armament and the existence of the opposition... The trajectory of Hitlerism is in itself clear and logical. The attack on the USSR was part of his programme already a long time ago.The destruction of Communism and expansion in the East - these are dogmas from the book "Mein Kampf," that Talmud of National-Socialism..., but that your defeatists wanted to take advantage of this threat to the USSR that is, of course, in accordance with your train of thought. R. - Yes, at a first glance this appears to be natural and logical, too logical and natural for the truth. G. - To prevent this happening, so that Hitler would not attack us, we would have to entrust ourselves to an alliance with France..., but that would be a naivete. It would mean that we believe that Capitalism would be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of saving Communism. R. - If we shall continue the discussion only on the foundation of those conceptions which apply for use at mass meetings, then you are quite right. But if you are sincere in saying this then, forgive me, I am disappointed; I had thought that the politics of the famous Stalinist police stand on a higher level. G. - The Hitlerist attack on the USSR is, in addition, a dialectical necessity; it is the same as the inevitable struggle of the classes in the international plane. At the side of Hitler, inevitably, there will stand the whole global Capitalism. R. - And so, believe me, that in the light of your scholastic dialectics, I have formed a very negative opinion about the political culture of Stalinism. I listen to your words as Einstein could listen to a schoolboy talking about physics in four dimensions. I see that you are only acquainted with elementary Marxism, i.e. with the demagogic, popular one. G. - If your explanation will not be too long and involved, I should be grateful to you for some explanation of this "relativity" or "quantum" of Marxism. R. - Here there is no irony; I am speaking with the best intentions... In this same elementary Marxism, which is taught even in your Stalinist University, you can find the statement which contradicts the whole of your thesis about the inevitability of the Hitlerist attack on the USSR. You are also taught that the cornerstone of Marxism is the assertion that, supposedly, contradictions are the incurable and fatal illness of Capitalism... Is that not so? G. - Yes, of course. R. - But if things are in fact such that we accuse Capitalism of being imbued with continuous Capitalistic contradictions in the sphere of economics, then why should it necessarily suffer from them also in politics? The political and economic is of no importance in itself; this is a condition or measurement of the social essence, but contradictions arise in the social sphere, and are reflected simultaneously in the economic or political ones, or in both at the same time. It would be absurd to assume fallibility in economics and simultaneously infallibility in politics - which is something essential in order that an attack on the USSR should become inevitable - according to your postulate - absolutely essential. G. - This means that you rely in everything on the contradictions, fatality and inevitability of the errors which must be committed by the bourgeoisie, which will hinder Hitler from attacking the USSR. I am a Marxist, Rakovsky, but here, between ourselves, in order not to provide the pretext for anger to a single activist, I say to you that with all my faith in Marx I would not believe that the USSR exists thanks to the mistakes of its enemies... And I think that Stalin shares the same view. R. - But I do think so... Do not look at me like that, as I am not joking and am not mad. G. - Permit me at least to doubt it, until you will have proved your assertions. R. - Do you now see that I had reasons for qualifying your Marxist culture as being doubtful? Your arguments and reactions are the same as any rank and file activist. G. - And they are wrong? R. - Yes, they are correct for a small administrator, for a bureaucrat and for the mass. They suit the average fighter... They must believe this and repeat everything as it has been written. Listen to me by way of the completely confidential. With Marxism you get the same results as with the ancient esoteric religions. Their adherents had to know only that which was the most elementary and crude, insofar as by this one provoked their faith, i.e. that which is absolutely essential, both in religion and in the work of revolution. G. - Do you not now want to open up to me the mystical Marxism, something like yet another freemasonry? R. - No, no esoterics. On the contrary, I shall explain it with the maximal clarity. Marxism, before being a philosophical, economic and political system, is a conspiracy for the revolution. And as for us the revolution is the only absolute reality, it follows that philosophy, economics and politics are true only insofar as they lead to revolution. The fundamental truth (let us call it subjective) does not exist in economics, politics or even morals: in the light of scientific abstraction it is either truth or error, but for us, who are subject to revolutionary dialectic, it is only truth. And insofar as to us, who are subject to revolutionary dialectic, it is only truth, and therefore the sole truth, then it must be such for all that is revolutionary, and such it was to Marx. In accordance with this we must act. Remember the phrase of Lenin, in reply to someone who demonstrated by way of argument that, supposedly, his intention contradicted reality: "I feel it to be real" was his answer. Do you not think that Lenin spoke nonsense? No, for him every reality; every truth was relative in the face of the sole and absolute one: the revolution. Marx was a genius. If his works had amounted to only the deep criticism of Capitalism, then even that would have been an unsurpassed scientific work; but in those places where his writing reaches the level of mastery, there comes the effect of an apparently ironical work. "Communism" he says "must win because Capital will give it that victory, though its enemy." Such is the magisterial thesis of Marx... Can there be a greater irony? And then, in order that he should be believed, it was enough for him to depersonalize Capitalism and Communism, having transformed the human individual into a consciously thinking individual, which he did with the extraordinary talent of a juggler. Such was his sly method, in order to demonstrate to the Capitalists that they are a reality of Capitalism and that Communism can triumph as the result of inborn idiocy; since without the presence of immortal idiocy in homo economico there could not appear in him continuous contradictions as proclaimed by Marx. To be able to achieve the transformation of homo sapiens into homo stultum is to possess magical force, capable of bringing man down to the first stage of the zoological ladder, i.e. to the level of the animal. Only if there is homo stultum in the epoch of the apogee of Capitalism could Marx formulate his axiomatic proposition: contradictions plus time equal Communism. Believe me, when we who are initiated into this, contemplate the representation of Marx, for example the one which is placed above the main entrance to the Lubianka, then we cannot prevent the inner explosion of laughter by which Marx had infected us; we see how he laughs into his beard at all humanity. G. - And you are still capable of laughing at the most revered scientist of the epoch? R. - Ridicule, me?... This is the highest admiration! In order that Marx should be able to deceive so many people of science, it was essential that he should tower above them all. Well: in order to have judgements about Marx in all his greatness, we must consider the real Marx, Marx the revolutionary, Marx, judged by his manifesto. This means Marx the conspirator, as during his life the revolution was in a condition of conspiracy. It is not for nothing that the revolution is indebted for its development and its recent victories to these conspirators. G. - Therefore you deny the existence of the dialectical process of contradictions in Capitalism, which lead to the final triumph of Communism? R. - You can be sure that if Marx believed that Communism will achieve victory only thanks to the contradictions in Capitalism, then he would not have once, never, mentioned the contradictions on the thousands of pages of his scientific revolutionary work. Such was the categorical imperative of the realistic nature of Marx: not the scientific, but the revolutionary one. The revolutionary and conspirator will never disclose to his opponent the secret of his triumph... He would never give the information; he would give him disinformation which you use in counter-conspiracy. Is that not so? G. - However, in the end we have reached the conclusion (according to you) that there are no contradictions in Capitalism, and if Marx speaks of them then it is only a revolutionary-strategical method. That is so? But the colossal and ever-growing contradictions in Capitalism are there to see. And so we get the conclusion that Marx, having lied, spoke the truth. R. - You are dangerous as a dialectician, when you destroy the brakes of scholastic dogmatism and give free rein to your own inventiveness. So it is, that Marx spoke the truth when he lied. He lied when he led into error, having defined the contradictions as being "continuous" in the history of the economics of capital and called them "natural and inevitable," but at the same time he stated the truth because he knew that the contradictions would be created and would grow in an increasing progression until they reach their apogee. G. - This means that with you there is an antithesis? R. - There is no antithesis here. Marx deceives for tactical reasons about the origin of the contradictions in Capitalism, but not about their obvious reality. Marx knew how they were created, how they became more acute and how things went towards general anarchy in Capitalistic production, which came before the triumph of the Communist revolution... He knew it would happen because he knew those who created the contradictions. G. - It is a very strange revelation and piece of news, this assertion and exposal of the circumstance that that which leads Capitalism to its "suicide," by the well-chosen expression of the bourgeois economist Schmalenbach, in support of Marx, is not the essence and inborn law of Capitalism. But I am interested to know if we will reach the personal by this path? R. - Have you not felt this intuitively? Have you not noticed how in Marx words contradict deeds? He declares the necessity and inevitability of Capitalist contradictions, proving the existence of surplus value and accumulation, i.e. he proves that which really exists. He nimbly invents the proposition that to a greater concentration of the means of production corresponds a greater mass of the proletariat, a greater force for the building of Communism, is that not so? Now go on: at the same time as this assertion he founds the International. Yet the International is, in the work of the daily struggle of the classes, a "reformist," i.e. an organization whose purpose is the limitation of the surplus value and, where possible, its elimination. For this reason, objectively, the International is a counter-revolutionary organization and anti-Communist, in accordance with Marx's theory. G. - Now we get that Marx is a counter-revolutionary and an anti-Communist. R. - Well, now you see how one can make use of the original Marxist culture. It is only possible to describe the International as being counter-revolutionary and anti-Communist, with logical and scientific exactness, if one does not see in the facts anything more than the directly visible result, and in the texts only the letter. One comes to such absurd conclusions, while they seem to be obvious, when one forgets that words and facts in Marxism are subject to strict rules of the higher science: the rules of conspiracy and revolution. G. - Will we ever reach the final conclusions? R. - In a moment. If the class struggle, in the economic sphere, turns out to be reformist in the light of its first results, and for that reason contradicts the theoretical presuppositions, which determine the establishment of Communism, then it is, in its real and true meaning, purely revolutionary. But I repeat again: it is subject to the rules of conspiracy, that means to masking and the hiding of its true aims... The limitation of the surplus value and thus also of accumulations as the consequence of the class struggle - that is only a matter of appearances, an illusion, in order to stimulate the basic revolutionary movement in the masses. A strike is already an attempt at revolutionary mobilization. Independently of whether it wins or not, its economic effect is anarchical. As a result this method for the improvement of the economic position of one class brings about the impoverishment of the economy in general; whatever may be the scale and results of the strike, it will always bring about a reduction of production. The general result: more poverty, which the working class cannot shake off. That is already something. But that is not the only result and not the most important one. As we know, the only aim of any struggle in the economic sphere is to earn more and work less. Such is the economic absurdity, but according to our terminology, such is the contradiction, which has not been noticed by the masses, which are blinded at any given moment by a rise in wages, which is at once annulled by a rise in prices. And if prices are limited by governmental action, then the same thing happens, i.e. a contradiction between the wish to spend more, produce less, is qualified here by monetary inflation. And so one gets a vicious circle: a strike, hunger, inflation, hunger. G. - With the exception when the strike takes place at the expense of the surplus value of Capitalism. R. - Theory, pure theory. Speaking between ourselves, take any annual handbook concerning the economics of any country and divide rents and the total income by all those receiving wages or salaries, and you will see what an extraordinary result emerges. This result is the most counter-revolutionary fact, and we must keep it a complete secret. This is because if you deduct from the theoretical dividend the salaries and expenses of the directors, which would be the consequence on the abolition of ownership, then almost always there remains a dividend which is a debit for the proletariat. In reality always a debit, if we also consider the reduction in the volume and quality of production. As you will now see, a call to strike, as a means for achieving a quick improvement of the well-being of the proletariat is only an excuse; an excuse required in order to force it to commit sabotage of Capitalistic production. Thus to the contradictions in the bourgeois system are added contradictions within the proletariat; this is the double weapon of the revolution, and it - which is obvious - does not arise of itself: there exists an organization, chiefs, discipline, and above that there exists stupidity. Don't you suspect that the much-mentioned contradictions of Capitalism, and in particular the financial ones, are also organized by someone?... By way of basis for these deductions I shall remind you that in its economic struggle the proletarian International coincides with the financial International, since both produce inflation, and wherever there is coincidence there, one should assume, is also agreement. Those are his own words. G. - I suspect here such an enormous absurdity, or the intention of spinning a new paradox, that I do not want to imagine this. It looks as if you want to hint at the existence of something like a Capitalistic second Communist International, of course an enemy one. R. - Exactly so. When I spoke of the financial International, I thought of it as of a Comintern, but having admitted the existence of the "Comintern," I would not say that they are enemies. G. - If you want to make us lose time on inventions and phantasies, I must tell you that you have chosen the wrong moment. R. - By the way, are you assuming that I am like the courtesan from the "Arabian Nights," who used her imagination at night to save her life... No, if you think that I am departing from the theme, then you are wrong. In order to reach that which we have taken as our aim I, if I am not to fail, must first of all enlighten you about the most important matters, while bearing in mind your general lack of acquaintance with that which I would call the "Higher Marxism." I dare not evade these explanations as I know well that such lack of knowledge exists in the Kremlin... Permit me to continue. G. - You may continue. But it is true that if all this were to be seen to be only a loss of time to excite the imagination, then this amusement will have a very sad epilogue. I have warned you. R. - I continue as if I have heard nothing. Insofar as you are a scholastic with relation to Capital, and I want to awaken your inductive talents, I shall remind you of some very curious things. Notice with what penetration Marx comes to conclusions given the then existence of early British industry, concerning its consequences, i.e. the contemporary colossal industry: how he analyses it and criticizes; what a repulsive picture he gives of the manufacturer. In your imagination and that of the masses there arises the terrible picture of Capitalism in its human concretization: a fat-bellied manufacturer with a cigar in his mouth, as described by Marx, with self-satisfaction and anger throwing the wife and daughter of the worker onto the street. Is that not so? At the same time remember the moderation of Marx and his bourgeois orthodoxy when studying the question of money. In the problem of money there do not appear with him his famous contradictions. Finances do not exist for him as a thing of importance in itself; trade and the circulation of moneys are the results of the cursed system of Capitalistic production, which subjects them to itself and fully determines them. In the question of money Marx is a reactionary; to one's immense surprise he was one; bear in mind the "five-pointed star" like the Soviet one, which shines all over Europe, the star composed of the five Rothschild brothers with their banks, who possess colossal accumulations of wealth, the greatest ever known... And so this fact, so colossal that it misled the imagination of the people of that epoch, passes unnoticed with Marx. Something strange... Is that not so? It is possible that from this strange blindness of Marx there arises a phenomenon which is common to all future social revolutions. It is this: we can all confirm that when the masses take possession of a city or a country, then they always seem struck by a sort of superstitious fear of the banks and bankers. One had killed Kings, generals, bishops, policemen, priests and other representatives of the hated privileged classes; one robbed and burnt palaces, churches and even centers of science, but though the revolutions were economic-social, the lives of the bankers were respected, and as a result the magnificent buildings of the banks remained untouched... According to my information, before I had been arrested, this continues even now... G. - Where? R. - In Spain... Don't you know it? As you ask me, so tell me now: Do you not find all this very strange? Think, the police... I do not know, have you paid attention to the strange similarity which exists between the financial International and the proletarian International. I would say that one is the other side of the other, and the back side is the proletarian one as being more modern than the financial. G. - Where do you see similarity in things so opposed? R. - Objectively they are identical. As I had proved |
, the process afforded to Clinton was different than it would have been for “any other American.”
“We now have evidence that the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton did not follow normal and standard procedures,” he said. “The current deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe sent emails just weeks before the presidential election saying that the Hillary Clinton investigation would be special — that it would be handled by a small team at headquarters, that it would be given special status.”
“Combine that with the fact that Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the James Comey to call this ‘a matter’ and not an investigation,” he continued. “That she met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac and that James Comey himself has admitted in testimony that he drafted the exoneration statement of Hillary Clinton before even interviewing her or other key witnesses. We seem to have a departure from the normal application of the law. And we will be calling for a full review by the Judiciary Committee of the processes and procedures that potentially gave Hillary Clinton a different process and a different standard of justice than would be applied to any other American.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a new consumer advisory warning on virtual currencies Monday, informing consumers about this ‘to the moon’ business on the internet and offering guidance on how to stay protected against fraud, hackers, volatility, and scams.
The advisory is likely in response to the June report issued by the Government Accountability Office strongly encouraging the CFPB to get more involved with Bitcoin.
Virtual currencies offer the potential for innovation, the report says, but there are still many issues that have yet to be resolved – some critical. This is very true – I’ll give them that.
“Consumers are stepping into the Wild West,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement, acknowledging that virtual currencies do have “many potential benefits” including easier payment processing.
The report specifically mentions Bitcoin, Ripple, and Dogecoin, along with the following risks:
Hackers – “Virtual currencies are targets for highly sophisticated hackers, who have been able to breach advanced security systems.”
The advisory lists four separate warnings regarding hacking, and says that using Bitcoin makes your computer and phone attractive targets for malware. These are valid warnings, as hackers are definitely targeting users for bitcoins. Computers are susceptible to being hacked and if your coins are stolen, you don’t stand much of a chance of getting them back. If your credit card is fraudulently charged or your bank is hacked, you are generally protected. But assuming you use two-factor authentication and a strong password on your encrypted wallet, are you at more risk than with credit cards or online bank accounts whose security is generally of lesser quality? And bitcoins can’t be counterfeited, so you’re safe there.
Fewer protections – “If you trust someone else to hold your virtual currencies and something goes wrong, that company may not offer you the kind of help you expect from a bank or debit or credit card provider.”
There is little you can do to reverse a Bitcoin transaction (for better or worse – it can be a good thing), your money isn’t insured, and you can’t file a credit dispute against a transaction. These factors definitely turn some consumers off, and from their perspective, understandably so. There is risk involved with using Bitcoin. Why would someone who doesn’t ideologically support (or even know) what Bitcoin stands for be inclined to put their money at risk? Especially if they are satisfied with the current fiat system?
Cost – “Virtual currencies can cost consumers much more to use than credit cards or even regular cash.”
Wait, what? I assume they mean that with the volatility and price fluctuations, consumers could lose money if there was a large price swing. Because surely they know that virtual currencies do not inherently cost more than credit or cash, but the opposite – they cost less to use.
And when you compare the devaluation of the dollar over the past few decades to Bitcoin’s rapid increase in overall value, it becomes even more apparent that using bitcoin will cost you less in the long run. Not to mention that the Federal Reserve has specifically stated that it is trying to devalue the dollar 33 percent over the next 20 years. (The same Federal Reserve who admitted to causing the Great Depression – just one reason why trusting an open-source code can be better than trusting humans with our monetary policy.)
Commenting further on the cost of using Bitcoin, the advisory says, “If you buy something with virtual currency you may be paying more than you would pay if you paid in dollars. Know how the merchant sets its exchange rate and look for mark-ups or other fees.”
Scams – “Fraudsters are taking advantage of the hype surrounding virtual currencies to cheat people with fake opportunities.” Valid point. Do your due diligence.
Along with advising consumers twice that they should read agreements with wallet providers and ask if the company would reimburse fraudulent transactions, the report warns against using Bitcoin ATMs.
“Bitcoin ‘ATMs’ are not ATMS at all. They may look like traditional ATMs, but unlike ATMs that you may associate with your checking and savings accounts, Bitcoin kiosks do not connect to your bank and may lack many of the safeguards you would expect. They may also charge high transaction fees – media reports describe transaction fees as high as 7% and exchange rates $50 over rates you could get elsewhere.”
The report continues:
“But virtual currencies aren’t regular money. To begin with, virtual currencies are not issued or backed by the United States or any other government or central bank. No one is required to accept them as payment or to exchange them for traditional currencies.”
Ahh yes, written as if the U.S. dollar and its fiat counterparts are the only forms of real money. Luckily for consumers, one of Bitcoin’s strongest attributes is that it’s not issued or backed by a government or central bank. And hopefully consumers realize that no one is required to accept cash as a form of currency either.
For virtual currencies to work, “they depend on the processing power of vast networks of unidentified, private computers around the world, which maintain and update a public ledger called the ‘blockchain.’”
Whereas for the U.S. dollar to work, consumers must only place their trust in the largest, non-transparent criminal organizations that have ever existed.
The CFPB provides an example of a bitcoin-gone-wrong scenario:
“According to online accounts, after learning about a Bitcoin exchange from an internet search, Nicole transferred cash to a bank account designated by the exchange’s representative, Jackson, who she had e-mailed with and even spoken to on the phone. Nicole never received her bitcoins, however. When Nicole tried to call Jackson again, the line was disconnected.”
The report mentions that virtual currencies are still experimental and rightfully says that there are big issues yet to be resolved, using the 51 percent attack as an example. But instead of explaining how a 51 percent attack would work, or how unlikely it is to actually occur, the report fails to elaborate or provide any additional information, instilling more unnecessary uncertainty in consumers.
“In particular, the critical component of the entire system—the public ledger known as the blockchain—is maintained by vast unidentified private computer networks spread all over the world. It is possible that elements of these networks could abuse the power that comes with maintaining the ledger, for example by undoing transactions that you thought were finalized.”
The advisory also criticizes Bitcoin’s pseudonymous nature, informing consumers that information about every transaction is publicly shared and stored forever. The CFPB notes that motivated people could link your transactions to other transactions and your other public keys, as well as your computer’s IP address.
“So it is possible that others will be able to estimate both how much Bitcoin you own and where you are.”
The CFPB also announced that they have added a Bitcoin complaint center to their database. As was mentioned in the Government Accountability Office report from June, as of February 2014, only 14 out of 290,000 complaints in the CFPB database mentioned virtual currency or Bitcoin.
Although perhaps intentionally vague on many issues, the CFPB’s job is to warn consumers of potential risks, and it seems they have done a decent job at that. The report is accurate in the fact that Bitcoin is lacking the same protections afforded to users of the traditional credit and banking system — for better or worse. How exactly these protections can be offered without compromising the Bitcoin protocol is up for debate, but until everyday consumers have these same protections with Bitcoin, it will struggle to see full mainstream success. However, it is true that the Bitcoin network still needs time to improve before going full mainstream, so taking it slow is probably a good thing.Notes for both the big 0.2.2.00 update and the bug fixes that followed shortly after.
Optimized my process for synchronizing the two game branches (Zero Falls and free ship editor)
Fixed a bug with inventory that could cause a crash if you pressed space while holding an item lifted from external storage
Fixed a threading bug that caused ship interiors to stop and restart after the last crew left which made them lose some data
Backdrops were made to load one at a time instead of all at once, this fixed some slowdown that occurred when transitioning between sectors
Terrain generation was integrated with the extensions API
Texture loading, unloading, and caching introduced and integrated with the extensions API for custom external textures
Many textures that used to live in static game memory have been removed since they are now covered by the extensions API thus freeing a lot of memory
Backdrops and terrain were revised to use the same texture sources to optimize memory management and texture caching.
Added a safety net to guarantee that whatever ship the player is in MUST be made active
Found and fixed a HUGE memory leak related to saving and loading sectors as you moved across the map.
Found and fixed a smaller memory leak relating to stations
Station generation was made slightly faster…still causes lag on entering a sector
Fixed some of the reactor art in old station interiors
Updated how the universe map draws icons to allow for future extension
Delete key spawning of ships in debug mode now draws the ship to be spawned again
Slightly buffed speed of rockets fired from rocket turrets
Slightly buffed large rail guns
Updated world map to show content of systems generated by extensions
Updated size of ship icons in universe map
Added some new helper functions to make patrol paths easier to define in the future
Updated all patrol paths for civilians and pirates
Pirates now have a 2nd zone with more difficult enemies
Added a complete overhaul to the layout of the world map
Added new backdrops
Added new zones
Made extensions more robust by checking for failed extensions and loading default values instead
Added a check to the game loop that will try and save your current progress if it thinks the game is crashing
Updated post processing effects with new shaders and methods created by Jan.
Added session light value information to extensions
Updated world generation to use light information from extensions instead of generating it from hard-coded values
Made station generation slightly smarter about where stations can be placed in the universe
Added UI art for the “press F” help text
Added a check to respawn the player when their ship becomes empty without killing it’s crew from (for instance) an asteroid impact
0.2.2.01
Fixed a bug that made drillbores crash the game related to having completely rewritten the artwork framework in the previous patch
0.2.2.02Former New Mexico Governor and 2012 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is being sued, in a civil lawsuit that claims the campaign and several contractors owe $104,945.65 in unpaid commissions and fees to their former money man.
Bydlak v. Gary Johnson (2/7/2012) [scribd]
Professional fund raiser Jonathan M. Bydlak (Bydlak & Associates) filed papers in Alexandria, Virginia Federal Court on February 7th. The suit names Johnson personally, Gary Johnson 2012 Inc., Our America Initiative, NSON Inc., Daines Goodwin & Company PC, Chet Goodwin (personally), Ronald T. Nielsen (personally), and Kim Blanton (personally). In the brief, Bydlak (who is represented by Charles Burham, a real lawyer) seeks damages for fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty.
Bydlak previously raised money for Ron Paul during his 2008 campaign (without incident) as Director of Fundraising, claiming to have raised more than $35 million. Now, he’s come out guns blazing over allegedly not getting paid in full for his commission on more than a half million dollars he says he raised for Johnson between July 2010 and December 2011, “OAI and GJ2012 are insolvent or in danger of becoming insolvent.” He says the campaign started to have payment problems “from the beginning.”
Accusing Nielsen, Blanton and Goodwin of fraud, Bydlak claims the trio promised they “would set aside GJ2012’s campaign funds in order to pay him first.” Without that guarantee, he “would not have continued working for the campaign without an assurance that he would be paid for his work”.
Instead he states that while he was out raising money from donors, the defendants spent the money on Johnson’s travel and “prioritized the use of those funds to ensure that their own companies would be paid first and paid in full, all at the expense of Bydlak and other contractors.”
George Phillies, a Libertarian Party candidate for president in 2008, warned his followers of Johnson’s looming debt issue last month, stating “The third-quarter FEC report of the Johnson 2012 Campaign showed that the Johnson campaign owed large sums of money, far larger than have historically been owed by real Libertarian Presidential campaigns at the same stage of the cycle.”
“Debts include $83,958 to NS0N, $94,666 to EH2 consulting, $8,666 to Hackstaff Law Group, and $52,776 to Jonathan Bydlak, for a total of $240,066.” Ominously, he added “expect an update next month.”
Request for comment from the Libertarian Party and the Johnson campaign were not returned.
UPDATE: Independent Political Report is also reporting on this lawsuit, adding “A Google search indicates the plaintiff was Republican presidential aspirant Ron Paul‘s fundraising director in 2008, and later director of development at Citizens in Charge, an advocacy organization which counts two former Libertarian Party national directors (Paul Jacob and Eric O’Keefe) and one former Libertarian National Committee chair / current LNC member (Bill Redpath) as members of its board. He also appears to have been affiliated with Paul’s Campaign For Liberty at least as recently as 2010.”
The comments over there are also pretty lively with accusations of fiscal impropriety within the Johnson campaign. And then some stuff about Israel… LOLIDUNNO!
UPDATE Apr-26: The case was dismissed from a federal court on jurisdiction technicalities.This article is about the audio format. For other uses, see Extended play (disambiguation)
Extended-play vinyl record
An extended play record, often referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single, but is usually unqualified as an album or LP.[1][2][3] EPs generally contain a minimum of four tracks and maximum of six tracks,[4] and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album.[3] An EP originally referred to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play (SP) and LP,[5] but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well.
Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said, "EPs—originally extended-play'single' releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk and indie bands."[6] In the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of maximum length or four tracks (not counting alternative versions of featured songs, if present).[1][2]
Background [ edit ]
EPs were released in various sizes in different eras. The earliest multi-track records, issued around 1919 by Grey Gull Records, were vertically cut 78 rpm discs known as "2-in-1" records. These had finer than usual grooves, like Edison Disc Records. By 1949, when the 45 rpm single and 331⁄ 3 rpm LP were competing formats, seven-inch 45 rpm singles had a maximum playing time of only about four minutes per side.
Partly as an attempt to compete with the LP introduced in 1948 by rival Columbia, RCA Victor introduced "Extended Play" 45s during 1952. Their narrower grooves, achieved by lowering the cutting levels and sound compression optionally, enabled them to hold up to 7.5 minutes per side—but still be played by a standard 45 rpm phonograph. These were usually 10-inch LPs (released until the mid-1950s) split onto two seven-inch EPs or 12-inch LPs split onto three seven-inch EPs, either sold separately or together in gatefold covers. This practice became much less common with the advent of triple-speed-available phonographs.
Some classical music albums released at the beginning of the LP era were also distributed as EP albums—notably, the seven operas that Arturo Toscanini conducted on radio between 1944 and 1954. These opera EPs, originally broadcast on the NBC Radio network and manufactured by RCA, which owned the NBC network then, were made available both in 45 rpm and 331⁄ 3 rpm. In the 1990s, they began appearing on compact discs. RCA also had success in the format with their top money earner, Elvis Presley, issuing 28 Elvis EPs between 1956 and 1967, many of which topped the separate Billboard EP chart during its brief existence.
During the 1950s, RCA published several EP albums of Walt Disney movies, containing both the story and the songs. These usually featured the original casts of actors and actresses. Each album contained two seven-inch records, plus a fully illustrated booklet containing the text of the recording, so that children could follow along by reading. Some of the titles included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), and what was then a recent release, the movie version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that was presented in 1954. The recording and publishing of 20,000 was unusual: it did not employ the movie's cast, and years later, a 12 in 33⅓ rpm album, with a nearly identical script, but another different cast, was sold by Disneyland Records in conjunction with the re-release of the movie in 1963.
Because of the popularity of 7" and other formats, SP (78 rpm, 10") records became less popular and the production of SPs in Japan was suspended in 1963.[7][8]
In the 1950s and 1960s, EPs were usually compilations of singles or album samplers and were typically played at 45 rpm on seven-inch (18 cm) discs, with two songs on each side.[9][10] Other than those published by RCA, EPs were relatively uncommon in the United States and Canada, but they were widely sold in the United Kingdom, and in some other European countries, during the 1950s and 1960s. Record Retailer printed the first EP chart in 1960. The New Musical Express (NME), Melody Maker, Disc and Music Echo and the Record Mirror continued to list EPs on their respective singles charts. The Beatles' Twist and Shout outsold most singles for some weeks in 1963. When the BBC and Record Retailer commissioned the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) to compile a chart it was restricted to singles and EPs disappeared from the listings.
In the Philippines, seven-inch EPs marketed as "mini-LPs" (but distinctly different from the mini-LPs of the 1980s) were introduced in 1970, with tracks selected from an album and packaging resembling the album they were taken from.[11] This mini-LP format also became popular in America in the early 1970s for promotional releases, and also for use in jukeboxes.[12]
Stevie Wonder included a bonus four-song EP with his double LP Songs in the Key of Life in 1976. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was less standardization and EPs were made on seven-inch (18 cm), 10-inch (25 cm) or 12-inch (30 cm) discs running either 331⁄ 3 or 45 rpm. Some novelty EPs used odd shapes and colors, and a few of them were picture discs.
Alice in Chains was the first band to ever have an EP reach number one on the Billboard album chart. Its EP, Jar of Flies, was released on January 25, 1994. In 2004, Linkin Park and Jay-Z's collaboration EP, Collision Course, was the next to reach the number one spot after Alice in Chains. In 2010, the cast of the television series Glee became the first artist to have two EPs reach number one, with Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna on the week of May 8, 2010, and Glee: The Music, Journey to Regionals on the week of June 26, 2010.
In 2010, Warner Bros. Records revived the format with their "Six-Pak" offering of six songs on a compact disc.[13]
Definition [ edit ]
The first EPs were seven-inch vinyl records with more tracks than a normal single (typically five to nine of them). Although they shared size and speed with singles, they were a recognizably different format than the seven-inch single. Although they could be named after a lead track, they were generally given a different title.[9] Examples include The Beatles' The Beatles' Hits EP from 1963, and The Troggs' Troggs Tops EP from 1966, both of which collected previously released tracks.[9] The playing time was generally between 10 and 15 minutes.[9] They also came in cardboard picture sleeves at a time when singles were usually issued in paper company sleeves. EPs tended to be album samplers or collections of singles. EPs of all original material began to appear in the 1950s. Examples are Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender from 1956 and "Just for You", "Peace in the Valley" and "Jailhouse Rock" from 1957, and The Kinks' Kinksize Session from 1964.
Twelve-inch EPs were similar, but generally had between three and five tracks and a length of over 12 minutes.[9] Like seven-inch EPs, these were given titles.[9] EP releases were also issued in cassette and 10-inch vinyl formats.[9] With the advent of the compact disc (CD), more music was often included on "single" releases, with four or five tracks being common, and playing times of up to 25 minutes.[9] These extended-length singles became known as maxi singles and while commensurate in length to an EP were distinguished by being designed to feature a single song, with the remaining songs considered B-sides, whereas an EP was designed not to feature a single song, instead resembling a mini album.
EPs of original material regained popularity in the punk rock era, when they were commonly used for the release of new material, e.g. Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch EP.[9] These featured four-track seven-inch singles played at 331⁄ 3 rpm, the most common understanding of the term EP.[citation needed]
Beginning in the 1980s, many so-called "singles" have been sold in formats with more than two tracks. Because of this, the definition of an EP is not determined only by the number of tracks or the playing time; an EP is typically seen[by whom?] as four (or more) tracks of equal importance, as opposed to a four-track single with an obvious A-side and three B-sides.
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America, the organization that declares releases "gold" or "platinum" based on numbers of sales, defines an EP as containing three to five songs or under 30 minutes.[14] On the other hand, The Recording Academy's rules for Grammy Awards state that any release with five or more different songs and a running time of over 15 minutes is considered an album, with no mention of EPs.[15]
In the United Kingdom, any record with more than four distinct tracks or with a playing time of more than 25 minutes is classified as an album for sales-chart purposes. If priced as a single, they will not qualify for the main album chart but can appear in the separate Budget Albums chart.[2]
An intermediate format between EPs and full-length LPs is the mini-LP, which was a common album format in the 1980s. These generally contained 20–30 minutes of music and about seven tracks.[9]
In underground dance music, vinyl EPs have been a longstanding medium for releasing new material, e.g. Fourteenth Century Sky by The Dust Brothers.
Double EPs [ edit ]
A double extended play is the name typically given to vinyl records or compact discs released as a set of two discs, each of which would normally qualify as an EP. The name is thus analogous to double album. As vinyl records, the most common format for the double EP, they consist of a pair of 7" discs recorded at 45 or 331⁄ 3 rpm, or two 12" discs recorded at 45 rpm. The format is useful when an album's-worth of material is being pressed by a small plant geared for the production of singles rather than albums, and may have novelty value which can be turned to advantage for publicity purposes. Double EPs are rare, since the amount of material recordable on a double EP could usually be more economically and sensibly recorded on a single vinyl LP.
In the 1950s, Capitol Records had released a number of double EPs by its more popular artists, including Les Paul. The pair of double EPs (EBF 1-577, sides 1 to 8!) were described on the original covers as "parts... of a four part album". In 1960, Joe Meek's I Hear a New World double EP was released in 1960 and has since become a collector's item. Probably the most well-known double EP is The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, released as a double 7" EP in the United Kingdom eleven days after the long-playing version, which became the standard for compact disc reissue, was released in the United States. The Style Council album The Cost of Loving was originally issued as two 12" EPs.
It is becoming more common to release two 12" 45s rather than a single 12" LP. Though there are 11 songs that total about 40 minutes, enough for one LP, the songs are spread across two 12" 45 rpm discs. Also, the vinyl pressing of Hail to the Thief by Radiohead uses this practice but is considered to be a full-length album. In 1982 Cabaret Voltaire released their studio album "2x45" on the UK-based label Rough Trade, featuring extended tracks over four sides of two 12" 45 rpm discs, with graphics by artist Neville Brody. The band subsequently released a further album in this format, 1985's "Drinking Gasoline", on the Virgin Records label.
There are a limited number of double EPs which serve other purposes,[which?] however. An example of this is the Dunedin Double EP, which contains tracks by four different bands. Using a double EP in this instance allowed each band to have its tracks occupying a different side. In addition, the groove on the physical record could be wider and thus allow for a louder album.[citation needed]
Jukebox EP [ edit ]
Filben Maestro 78 rpm jukebox
In the 1960s and 1970s, record companies released EP versions of long-play (LP) albums for use in jukeboxes. These were commonly known as "compact 33s" or "little LPs". They played at 331⁄ 3 rpm, were pressed on seven-inch vinyl and frequently had as many as six songs. What made them EP-like was that some songs were omitted for time purposes, and the tracks deemed the most popular were left on. Unlike most EPs before them, and most seven-inch vinyl in general (pre-1970s), these were issued in stereo.
See also [ edit ]Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Dec. 12, 2014, 11:02 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 13, 2014, 12:36 AM GMT
Attorney General Eric Holder has decided against forcing a reporter for the New York Times to reveal the identity of a confidential source, according to a senior Justice Department official.
The reporter, James Risen, has been battling for years to stop prosecutors from forcing him to name his source for a book that revealed a CIA effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear weapons program.
The government wanted Risen's testimony in the trial of a former CIA official, Jeffrey Sterling, accused of leaking classified information.
But now, according to the Justice Department official, Holder has directed that Risen must not be required to reveal "information about the identity of his source."
If the government subpoenas Risen to require any of his testimony, the official said, "it would be to confirm that he had an agreement with a confidential source, and that he did write the book."
No final decision has been made about exactly how to proceed, the official said, but added the government "will no longer seek what he's most concerned about revealing."
The decision ends months of internal debate about how aggressive prosecutors should be in seeking Risen's testimony. The federal judge overseeing the case, Leonie Brinkema of Alexandria, Virginia, gave the government until next Tuesday to declare how much he would be required to reveal in court.
Holder had earlier signaled he might decline to force Risen to reveal a source, telling a group of news media executives earlier this year that "As long as I am attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to jail."
Without Holder's decision, Risen would have faced the difficult decision between revealing a source or facing possible jail time for contempt of court.
IN-DEPTHKeith Leslie, The Canadian Press
TORONTO -- Environmentalists want the Ontario government to abandon plans for a $13-billion refurbishment of four nuclear reactors at the Darlington generating station east of Toronto and instead import more electricity from Quebec.
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance says nuclear projects always run over budget, and it doesn't want to see taxpayers on the hook to pay for rebuilding the Darlington reactors that are owned and operated by Ontario Power Generation.
"Every single nuclear project in Ontario's history has gone massively over budget by two and a half times," said Alliance president Jack Gibbons. "OPG says this project will cost $12.9 billion, but if history repeats itself it will be $32 billion."
Gibbons said even if the refurbishment came in on budget, the cost to taxpayers of maintaining about 2,225 jobs at Darlington would work out to nearly $6 million per job.
Greenpeace Canada, meanwhile, is concerned about the safety and health risks posed by nuclear power generation in the event of an accident, and says refurbishing the aging reactors at Darlington is not worth the risk.
"The government agencies mandated to protect the public are helping push the project through by concealing Darlington's true risks from the public," said Greenpeace spokesman Shawn-Patrick Stensil.
Quebec is the fourth-largest producer of electricity generated by water in the world, has the lowest power rates in North America, and could sell Ontario enough electricity to replace what would be generated by a refurbished Darlington, said Gibbons.
"We should sign a long-term deal with Quebec which would enable us to cancel the Darlington rebuild project, keep our lights on and reduce our electricity bills," he said.
Some existing transmission lines between Ontario and Quebec would have to be upgraded for an inter-provincial power deal, which the Clean Air Alliance estimates would cost $500 million but the Independent Electricity System Operator puts at closer to $2 billion.
"Darlington doesn't come to the end of its life until 2020, so we've got enough time to make the upgrades," said Gibbons.
Bruce Power announced plans last month to spend $13 billion to refurbish the nuclear reactors at the generating station it operates in Kincardine, on Lake Huron, and the private company will assume all risks of cost overruns.
Ontario's only other nuclear station, in Pickering, is also scheduled to be decommissioned by 2020, and there are no plans to rebuild its reactors to extend their lives.
Ontario is looking to expand existing electricity agreements with Quebec and is exploring importing power from Manitoba as well, but Premier Kathleen Wynne wants to keep generating about 50 per cent of the province's electricity from nuclear power.
"We made a decision not to build new nuclear, and we basically took $15 billion off the future energy plan by doing that," Wynne said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"So in order to make sure that we have enough power, we need to refurbish our nuclear, we need to buy from Quebec, we may need to buy from Manitoba, and we need to grow our green energy sector, our solar and wind."
OPG president and CEO Jeff Lash touted the benefits of the Darlington project in a speech last month, saying most of the $12.9-billion budget would be spent in Ontario.
"The Conference Board of Canada crunched the numbers and determined the refurbishment would generate $14.9 billion in economic benefits to Ontario... and about $5.4 billion in revenues for all three levels of government," said Lash.
"Importing power from Quebec or Manitoba would require construction of new dams and power stations, and perhaps more difficult would be constructing new transmission lines to reliably deliver the power where it's needed."
Ontario's New Democrats also said the Liberal government should consider options like importing power from Quebec instead of going ahead with the Darlington rebuild.
"The people of Ontario want to be sure that the future options for electricity are ones they can afford, because they sure can't afford it now," said NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns.A unique view of Roar and Joker, side-by-side
Some shade, the queue could use more though as during the morning you will be baking in the sun.
Giant 3d sculpted clown mouth looks really good!
A train full of happy riders return to the station...
....many requesting to ride it again!
Do not be fooled by this cute little airtime hill.
We were lifted right out of our seats!
Train approaches the pre-lift section after feeling like being "launched" out of the station!
78-degree initial drop, can really feel it in the back half of the train!
The Step Up Under Roll
In the middle, you feel some nice zero-g moments!
Our favorite part of the ride, the Zero G Stall! It's like having inverted airtime!
Joker-themed merchandise and some of the very few ride-related souvenir t-shirts you can get at the park.
Thrills by the Bay crew taking in a back car ride on The Joker!
Back in September Six Flags Discovery Kingdom surprised all of us with the announcement of The Joker - the Rocky Mountain Construction hybrid conversion of the former Roar roller coaster. Roar had seen better days (Ride was amazingly smooth its opening year, we had rode it a few months after its opening day). Unfortunately Roar was in pretty bad shape right down to feeling what felt like a pothole at the bottom of the initial drop. Easiest solution was to give the coaster the "RMC treatment."The ride originally was set to open Memorial Day Weekend but has been experiencing some difficulties and all-day closures as well as single train ops for the past few weeks. Several other RMC coasters around the nation and internationally have also had a rocky start, hopefully those will be running soon. In our case, we decided it was best to wait this out a bit to let the kinks get worked out, and check with the park whether if it is back up and running before taking the trek up to Vallejo (Thank you Six Flags for quick response on letting us know!).To our surprise, The Joker was running both trains and from the times we were in line to ride it, had only quickly gone down and back up twice. With this said, we managed to squeeze in 5 rides on it on this moderately busy summer Saturday (which was also a Bring the Friend day for season pass holders).Before we get to talking about the ride experience, let's talk about what you'll be doing before you ride. Average wait times with a partially filled queue was about 40-45 minutes, dispatch times were average. Riders are instructed to put on their seatbelts but leave the lap bars up which slows things down a bit. Several riders throughout the day were denied their rides as some of the rows (towards the middle on the green train) appear to have really picky lap bar sensors - needing to be much tighter than the rest of the rows. Riders of an average body build, not necessarily overweight, ended up not getting to ride after their 45 minute wait which is really a shame. Especially if they rode it earlier in the day with no problems.The queue itself has partial shade but has a stretch of switchbacks out in the sun. A very light and repetative carnival/funhouse music loop plays. Fortunately it's fairly quiet so you won't feel like going insane after hearing it for that hour in line. Before you know it though, you're approaching the large clown's mouth and on your way up to the ride platform. You are treated with a nice view of the pre lift of the Joker.The ride itself was insane and a solid coaster to the SFDK coaster lineup. Starting out with the pre-lift, the Joker lets you know immediately that this ride is no joke when it comes to airtime. The first hump as you turn out of the station actually gave us some mild ejector airtime in the front row and in the back and was a complete surprise and different contrast to its cousin, Twisted Colossus down at Magic Mountain (which felt more mild to us). The pre lift section also delivers a blend of light airtime combined with laterals before approaching the lift.The drop brings you the ride's first moment of ejector air which is best felt in the back. Sitting up toward the front didn't lift us out of the seat much but it did force us into our seats at the bottom of the drop. Following the initial steep drop is the "Step Up Under Roll" or as we like to describe it as an inclined dive loop. The inversion felt pretty unique and smooth and depending on the row you get, you get some nice zero-g moment as you head upward. We found the sweet spot for that moment to be toward the middle of the train. As you exit the roll, you |
clearing the air in her pot-puffing fight with her landlord.
Holsten, who faces eviction at the end of the month because she smokes marijuana inside her East Vancouver suite, was yesterday given a vapourizer by pot activist Marc Emery and his wife, Jodie. Emery and his wife dropped the $750 German-made Volcano Vaporizer off at Holsten’s suite on East 8th Avenue and she wasted no time in putting it to use.
Besides the donated vapourizer, Holsten was also given a baggie of Blueberry Island Sweet Skunk, a marijuana variant prized by pot puffers.
After a quick instructional session on using the high-end machine, Holsten took a few tokes and sang praise of the machine that allows her to get stoned while eliminating smoke.
“Wow is this ever nice, it doesn’t burn your throat,” said Holsten, 49, who uses marijuana to help with the unbearable pain she gets in the stumps of her legs. Holsten is a diabetic and has lived for more than eight years in a building run by the nonprofit Anavets Seniors Citizens Housing Society.
After pot smoke was detected coming from her suite, she was given an eviction notice in April 2008. In order to stay, she was forced to sign a document promising to light up outdoors only. Then last month Holsten was given a final eviction notice after management said the smell of pot was noticed in public areas of the building.
Despite having a doctor’s note saying she needs to smoke marijuana to ease her pain, the landlord told her to find another place. Emery, who faces possible extradition to the U.S. on drug charges next month, said he is hearing of cases similar to Holsten’s. “We know of many people who are using medical marijuana who are running into problems with their landlords,” he said.
Holsten has appealed her eviction and has a hearing June 9 with the Residential Tenancy Branch. [email protected]
– Article The Province.ADELAIDE told Jake Lever he wasn’t welcome to attend the club’s best and fairest — now the situation has got even uglier.
The Crows are still seething from Lever’s decision to request a trade to the Demons after their grand final defeat, culminating in his no-show at the club’s official awards night at the Adelaide Convention Centre on Friday.
The Crows are reportedly digging in and playing hardball in their trade negotiations with the Demons. The Demons in return have reportedly been filthy about the Crows’ refusal to entertain their reported offer of a first and a second round draft pick in exchange for the star defender.
It seemed unlikely the situation could deteriorate any further.
It has.
Lever was sensationally left out of the top 10 players in the Crows’ best and fairest — likely costing him a handy payday on the way out.
Lever did not feature among the club’s top players as midfield gun Matt Crouch took out the Malcolm Blight Medal as the Crows’ club champion of 2017.
Lever’s failure to crack into the top 10, comes after Crows’ football chief Brett Burton declared on radio that the 21-year-old was demanding a contract that would make him the highest paid player at the Crows.
According to reports, Lever has agreed to a four-year deal with the Demons worth between $750,000 per season and $850,000 per season.
media_camera Real messy.
Lever emerged as one of the best defenders in the game in 2017 and one of the most important players to the Crows’ set-up.
His failure to crack the top 10 in the best and fairest has certainly raised eyebrows.
His no-show in the Malcolm Blight medal vote count is particularly significant if Lever’s contract with the Crows includes a standard performance bonus clauses.
It is standard practice in the AFL for clubs to incentivise player contracts by inserting performance clauses tied to the best-and-fairest and other awards.
A finish in the top 10 normally guarantees a bonus payment.
Under this system, Lever has been dudded.
The out of favour star’s plight was highlighted by Brownlow medal champion Adam Cooney, who suggested Lever’s failure to crack the top 10 may not have been a coincidence.
How many places does Lever slip in the crows B&F??? #nobonusforyou #unlucky — Adam Cooney (@Adamcooney17) October 6, 2017
So we have Ablett winning Suns' B&F after playing half a season yet Lever can't break into Crows' top 10 with 20 games. Nothing to see here. https://t.co/7v8u2tlRwh — Adam Hill (@adamhillmedia) October 6, 2017
Jake Lever didn't finish in the top 10 in the Crows B&F?
Really? 🤔 — Sam McClure (@sam_mcclure) October 6, 2017
Lever only played 17 home and away games. Great conspiracy theory to say the Crows dudded him but it explains him not finishing top 10 b & f — Jon Ralph (@RalphyHeraldSun) October 6, 2017
Jake Lever not in the Crows top 10 for BnF. You'd think that justifies the decision to not make him highest paid player at the club. — Theo Doropoulos (@TheoDrop) October 6, 2017
I feel for Jake Lever, I once didn't get invited to my best friends 5th birthday party because I wouldnt share my trucks with him #childish — Tim Ludeman (@tludey) October 6, 2017
Would the Crows have uninvited Jake Lever from the best & fairest if they'd won (the flag) last Saturday? — Jake Niall (@JakeNiallFOX) October 6, 2017
Lever also didn’t get a look in for any of the 11 major awards handed out at the Crows’ best and fairest.
Crouch’s win saw him become the second-youngest recipient of Adelaide’s best-and-fairest award.
The 22-year-old (315) was the only player to poll more than 300 votes. Crouch drew level with superstar Rory Sloane in round 11 and streaked clear in the second half the season to finish 62 votes ahead.
Andrew McLeod, who won the award at 21 in 1997, the first of Adelaide’s two premiership seasons, donned the gold jacket at a younger age.
media_camera Jake Lever reportedly almost got stood down for the grand final.
Eddie Betts, who finished 10th in the medal standings, won the leading goalkicker gong while Brad Crouch took the Players’ Trademark Award.
It comes after the club sensationally uninvited Lever to the black tie event earlier this week.
Lever apparently wanted to attend, but was told it would not be a good idea.
Lever confirmed on Tuesday he wanted a trade to Melbourne, after plenty of speculation about his future.
The Crows are fuming, with unconfirmed reports that some teammates had wanted him dropped for the finals.
After Lever confirmed his wish for a trade, Adelaide list manager Brett Burton claimed money was a big factor.
The Victorian native said he sought the move to be closer to friends and family.
Star forward Charlie Cameron has also requested a trade to the Brisbane Lions, but the club are reportedly set to knock him back and hold him to his contract through to the end of the 2018 season.
Cameron did attend the best and fairest, but was also nowhere to see on the best and fairest leaderboard.
Cameron’s manager Colin Young said on Friday the livewire forward wanted a trade to Brisbane for personal reasons.
“There are compassionate reasons why Charlie has asked to go back to Brisbane,” Young told AFL Trade Radio.
“It’s where he grew up and it’s where his family and friends are.
“He feels that there’s more to life than playing football.”
ADELAIDE’S BEST AND FAIREST TOP 10
Matt Crouch – 315
Rory Sloane – 253
Rory Laird – 226
Sam Jacobs – 224
Richard Douglas – 219
Taylor Walker – 211
Tom Lynch – 203
Brad Crouch – 194
Brodie Smith – 194
Eddie Betts – 187
Originally published as Conspiracy theory behind dirty AFL snubCopyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.
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MLA Works Cited: Other Common Sources
Summary: MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (8th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.
Several sources have multiple means for citation, especially those that appear in varied formats: films, DVDs, T.V shows, music, published and unpublished interviews, interviews over e-mail; published and unpublished conference proceedings. The following section groups these sorts of citations as well as others not covered in the print, periodical, and electronic sources sections.
Use the following format for all sources:
Author. Title. Title of container (self contained if book), Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs URL or DOI). 2nd container’s title, Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date of Access (if applicable).
An Interview
Interviews typically fall into two categories: print or broadcast published and unpublished (personal) interviews, although interviews may also appear in other, similar formats such as in e-mail format or as a Web document.
Personal Interviews
Personal interviews refer to those interviews that you conduct yourself. List the interview by the name of the interviewee. Include the descriptor Personal interview and the date of the interview.
Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 19 May 2014.
Published Interviews (Print or Broadcast)
List the interview by the full name of the interviewee. If the name of the interview is part of a larger work like a book, a television program, or a film series, place the title of the interview in quotation marks. Place the title of the larger work in italics. If the interview appears as an independent title, italicize it. For books, include the author or editor name after the book title.
Note: If the interview from which you quote does not feature a title, add the descriptor, Interview by (unformatted) after the interviewee’s name and before the interviewer’s name.
Gaitskill, Mary. Interview with Charles Bock. Mississippi Review, vol. 27, no. 3, 1999, pp. 129-50.
Amis, Kingsley. “Mimic and Moralist.” Interviews with Britain’s Angry Young Men, By Dale Salwak, Borgo P, 1984.
Online-only Published Interviews
List the interview by the name of the interviewee. If the interview has a title, place it in quotation marks. Cite the remainder of the entry as you would other exclusive web content. Place the name of the website in italics, give the publisher name (or sponsor), the publication date, and the URL.
Note: If the interview from which you quote does not feature a title, add the descriptor Interview by (unformatted) after the interviewee’s name and before the interviewer’s name.
Zinkievich, Craig. Interview by Gareth Von Kallenbach. Skewed & Reviewed, 27 Apr. 2009, www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/1056940-skewed-%2526-reviewed-interviews-craig. Accessed 15 May. 2009.
Speeches, Lectures, or Other Oral Presentations (including Conference Presentations)
Provide the speaker’s name. Then, give the title of the speech (if any) in quotation marks. Follow with the title of the particular conference or meeting and then the name of the organization. Name the venue and its city (if the name of the city is not listed in the venue’s name). Use the descriptor that appropriately expresses the type of presentation (e.g., Address, Lecture, Reading, Keynote Speech, Guest Lecture, Conference Presentation).
Stein, Bob. “Reading and Writing in the Digital Era.” Discovering Digital Dimensions, Computers and Writing Conference, 23 May 2003, Union Club Hotel, West Lafayette, IN. Keynote Address.
Published Conference Proceedings
Cite published conference proceedings like a book. If the date and location of the conference are not part of the published title, add this information after the published proceedings title.
Last Name, First Name, editor. Conference Title that Includes Conference Date and Location, Publisher, Date of Publication.
Last Name, First Name, editor. Conference Title that Does Not Include Conference Date and Location, Conference Date, Conference Location, Publisher, Date of Publication.
To cite a presentation from a published conference proceedings, begin with the presenter’s name. Place the name of the presentation in quotation marks. Follow with publication information for the conference proceedings.
Last Name, First Name. “Conference Paper Title.” Conference Title that Includes Conference Date and Location, edited by Conference Editor(s), Publisher, Date of Publication.
A Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph
Provide the artist's name, the title of the artwork in italics, and the date of composition. Finally, provide the name of the institution that houses the artwork followed by the location of the institution (if the location is not listed in the name of the institution, e.g. The Art Institute of Chicago).
Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
If the medium and/or materials (e.g., oil on canvas) are important to the reference, you can include this information at the end of the entry. However, it is not required.
For photographic reproductions of artwork (e.g. images of artwork in a book), treat the book or website as a container. Remember that for a second container, the title is listed first, before the contributors. Cite the bibliographic information as above followed by the information for the source in which the photograph appears, including page or reference numbers (plate, figure, etc.).
Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800, Museo del Prado, Madrid. Gardener's Art Through the Ages, 10th ed., by Richard G. Tansey and Fred S. Kleiner, Harcourt Brace, p. 939.
If you viewed the artwork on the museum's website, treat the name of the website as the container (i.e., the "book"), and include the website's publisher and the URL at the end of the citation. Omit publisher information if it is the same as the name of the website. Note the period after the date below, rather than the comma: this is because the date refers to the painting's orginal creation, rather than to its publication on the website. Thus, MLA format considers it an "optional element."
Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV. 1800. Museo del Prado, museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-family-of-carlos-iv/f47898fc-aa1c-48f6-a779-71759e417e74.
A Song or Album
Music can be cited multiple ways. Mainly, this depends on the container that you accessed the music from. Generally, citations begin with the artist name. They might also be listed by composers or performers. Otherwise, list composer and performer information after the album title. Put individual song titles in quotation marks. Album names are italicized. Provide the name of the recording manufacturer followed by the publication date.
If information such as record label or name of album is unavailable from your source, do not list that information.
Spotify
Rae Morris. “Skin.” Cold, Atlantic Records, 2014. Spotify, open.spotify.com/track/0OPES3Tw5r86O6fudK8gxi.
Online Album
Beyoncé. “Pray You Catch Me.” Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.
CD
Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nevermind, Geffen, 1991.
Films or Movies
List films by their title. Include the name of the director, the film studio or distributor, and the release year. If relevant, list performer names after the director's name.
Speed Racer. Directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, performances by Emile Hirsch, Nicholas Elia, Susan Sarandon, Ariel Winter, and John Goodman, Warner Brothers, 2008.
To emphasize specific performers or directors, begin the citation with the name of the desired performer or director, followed by the appropriate title for that person.
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Twentieth Century Fox, 1977.
Television Shows
Recorded Television Episodes
Cite recorded television episodes like films (see above). Begin with the episode name in quotation marks. Follow with the series name in italics. When the title of the collection of recordings is different than the original series (e.g., the show Friends is in DVD release under the title Friends: The Complete Sixth Season), list the title that would help researchers to locate the recording. Give the distributor name followed by the date of distribution.
"The One Where Chandler Can't Cry." Friends: The Complete Sixth Season, written by Andrew Reich and Ted Cohen, directed by Kevin Bright, Warner Brothers, 2004.
Broadcast TV or Radio Program
Begin with the title of the episode in quotation marks. Provide the name of the series or program in italics. Also include the network name, call letters of the station followed by the date of broadcast and city.
"The Blessing Way." The X-Files. Fox, WXIA, Atlanta, 19 Jul. 1998.
Netflix, Hulu, Google Play
Generally, when citing a specific episode, follow the format below.
“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, season 2, episode 21, NBC, 29 Apr. 2010. Netflix, www.netflix.com/watch/70152031.
An Entire TV Series
When citing the entire series of a TV show, use the following format.
Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators. Parks and Recreation. Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2015.
A Specific Performance or Aspect of a TV Show
If you want to emphasize a particular aspect of the show, include that particular information. For instance, if you are writing about a specific character during a certain episode, include the performer’s name as well as the creator’s.
“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2010.
If you wish to emphasize a particular character throughout the show’s run time, follow this format.
Poehler, Amy, performer. Parks and Recreation. Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2009-2015.
Podcasts
“Best of Not My Job Musicians.” Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! from NPR, 4 June 2016, www.npr.org/podcasts/344098539/wait-wait-don-t-tell-me.
Spoken-Word Albums such as Comedy Albums
Treat spoken-word albums the same as musical albums.
Hedberg, Mitch. Strategic Grill Locations. Comedy Central, 2003.
Digital Files (PDFs, MP3s, JPEGs)
Determine the type of work to cite (e.g., article, image, sound recording) and cite appropriately. End the entry with the name of the digital format (e.g., PDF, JPEG file, Microsoft Word file, MP3). If the work does not follow traditional parameters for citation, give the author’s name, the name of the work, the date of creation, and the location.
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Moonlight Sonata. Crownstar, 2006.
Smith, George. “Pax Americana: Strife in a Time of Peace.” 2005. Microsoft Word file.
Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, and National Writing Project. Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. CWPA, NCTE, and NWP, 2011, wpacouncil.org/files/framework-for-success-postsecondary-writing.pdf.With the latest news that the refurbishment of the New Jersey Statehouse could cost nearly $750 million, there has been discussion to the merits of such an expense and why we should spend this money to fix a building that does not represent the changing role of government. Instead of spending that money on an antiquated building, I believe it is time for New Jersey to show the rest of the nation that we are going to be a cutting-edge place to live and work. The time of Trenton as our capital has past. It is time to look toward the rebirth of New Jersey, and I believe that starts with changing the actual capital of the state.
Yes, that is right. Let’s move the capital.
Trenton has been the state capital since our state’s founding, and one reason it was chosen was its close proximity to Philadelphia, the first capital of our country. Needless to say, times have changed. A majority of our population is located in the northern part of the state, and New York City has surpassed Philadelphia in importance. Trenton has a crumbling infrastructure, a local economy that has been depressed for decades and a failing school system that is controlled by the state. The neighboring city of Camden is consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. Is this the vision we want to give to the rest of the country and the world of what New Jersey is really like?
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I propose a capital for our state that is located more geographically in the middle of New Jersey, making it easier for people from the north and south to conduct business with the government. I propose a capital that is near major highways and close to an international airport, one that has a local economy and state theaters. One that is close to the businesses of New Jersey and has leading research facilities and the flagship of the state college system. A city that is not in the shadow of large cities such as Philadelphia or New York City. I propose that New Brunswick should become the new capital of New Jersey.
Over the past 10 years, I have witnessed the growth of New Brunswick firsthand. The improvements to the roads, the expansion of their hospitals, the new buildings that Rutgers has built and the return of a nightlife to a city. New Brunswick has hotels and conference centers that are important to a capital city. The money that is to be spent on one building can be used to create a dynamic new building that represents a change in government from the old way to the new way. Buildings that will house important government functions and represent the changing world of the 21st century. While some might say the new buildings do not look “capital like,” that should not matter. The actual look of the building isn’t as important as the actual work that is going on within.
Some may comment that a capital should represent the history of the state, and I can see why some would make that argument since I am a history teacher myself, but with choosing New Brunswick, we are not abandoning the history of our state. New Brunswick is a historic city, with Rutgers formed before the U.S. was even established. Gen. George Washington had a Continental Army training camp along the Raritan River, and one of the first readings of the Declaration of Independence happened in New Brunswick.
New Brunswick is an ethnically diverse city that can represent the best that our state has to offer. It has everything that a capital needs: a central location, easy transportation, museums and colleges, nightlife and government buildings as the county seat. The only thing missing is the actual seat of New Jersey government and a new cutting-edge building representing the forward-thinking of all people from New Jersey. Trenton was a past we can look fondly on, while New Brunswick can represent the future that we hope for.LAKE JACKSON, Texas—The only trail where you might catch Ron Paul this weekend is the biking one here.
While the other Republican presidential candidates were campaigning in South Carolina, the Texas congressman whose recent momentum is arguably second only to front-runner Mitt Romney's is home taking a break, just as his often belittled candidacy has never been taken more seriously.
Paul's supporters say they don't begrudge the 76-year-old for stepping out of the spotlight after he really seized it.
"It's totally OK," said Cindy Lake, 48, a volunteer passing out voter registration forms ahead of Nevada's primary next month. "We want him to take a break. He needs to take a break as much as any human being needs to take a break."
But Paul's retreat to Lake Jackson, where the former obstetrician is still likely to be spotted cycling down Oyster Creek Drive, may feed skepticism about whether he is really playing to win the nomination or just getting exposure for libertarian ideas. Some of his comments and his unorthodox campaign style have raised that question.
Paul, who was regarded as a gadfly when ran for president as Republican in 2008 and as a Libertarian in 1988, has finished in the top three in Iowa and New Hampshire this month.
After winning 22.9 percent of the New Hampshire vote, Paul made a brief stop in South Carolina on Wednesday before flying home. Early polls suggest he's in the top half of the field in the Jan. 21 primary.
Aides did not respond to questions about Paul's plans at home before his scheduled return to South Carolina, perhaps as early as Sunday.
A few cars came and went from Paul's new 7,300-square-foot mansion in the coastal city of 27,000. The white-stone home is largely concealed by a sprawling live oak tree. A "Paul Acres" sign on a white lattice fence reminds visitors the land is private and not to trespass.
"He's been doing this for 35 years and has done pretty well," said Dr. Richard Hardoin, a Lake Jackson pediatrician and friend of Paul. "If he needs to be here, I presume it's for some important reason."
Paul also raised eyebrows on the eve of the Iowa caucuses by going home for the weekend.
He bucks convention in other ways. He doesn't plunge into crowds to ask for votes. He keeps a relatively light schedule when does campaign, limiting himself to three or four stops per day. His wife, Carol, isn't seen as much as the spouses of the other candidates, and Paul's speeches talk mostly about a movement or message instead of himself.
Paul has been a spokesman for libertarian philosophies for more than 40 years, promoting the cause even when few seemed to be listening. He has written nine books and used his congressional seat and his political races to speak out for eliminating the Federal Reserve, bringing back the gold standard, ending foreign aid, ceasing overseas military engagements and legalizing marijuana. While other conservative politicians have changed positions on issues, he hasn't.
Many fellow libertarians see him as a hero.
"Ron Paul, I credit him. He really started introducing this into public consciousness," said Larry Hilton, an attorney and insurance salesman who helped draft legislation to legalize gold and silver coins issued by the government as currency. "Before then, people just took it on faith -- `the sun rises, the sun sets, the dollar devalues.' Ron Paul changed that."
Paul has been repeatedly asked about how serious he is about his campaign since saying on the eve of the Iowa caucuses that he doesn't envision himself in the White House. He told ABC News, "I don't deceive myself. I know what the odds are."
He's backed away from those comments since, and told a crowd this past week, "We're marching on. The numbers are growing. They grew exponentially in New Hampshire, and they're going to grow continuously here in South Carolina as well."
During the debates last weekend in New Hampshire, Paul stuck out by saying he'd probably be reading an economic textbook on a Saturday night if he wasn't campaigning.
Near his house, some wondered whether he was doing just that.
"He's a family man, he likes riding his bike and I think he feels comfortable doing it here than running around other states doing it," said Jordan Rogers, 21, a student whose backyard abuts to the biking trail where the Paul often exercises undisturbed. "He's got to see his family and strategize and probably catching up on a lot of reading."
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Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Austin, Cristina Silva in Las Vegas and Beth Fouhy in Manchester, N.H., contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.In response to North Korea’s latest—and largest—nuclear ballistic missile test, the United Nations Security Council approved another round of sanctions against the rogue state. The resolution bans textile exports, caps oil imports, and restricts employment of North Korean workers abroad. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called the new sanctions “the strongest measures ever imposed on North Korea.”
But will they put an end to the regime’s nuclear and missile programs?
Probably not. The final resolution is, after all, a diluted version of the original. After negotiations with Russia and China, the U.S. dropped its harsher demands, which included a full oil embargo and a travel ban on Kim Jong-un. According to a report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, even a full oil embargo would have limited long-term impact, as North Korea could find alternative sources of fuel.
Policymakers have long turned to economic sanctions as a way to change another state’s behavior—often with little success. When the Kennedy administration adopted the decades-long U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, its intended goal was to force the country to adopt a democracy. Yet Castro’s regime outlasted nine different U.S. presidential administrations.
And the case of Cuba isn’t an anomaly. In an assessment of sanctions applications from 1914 to 1990, political scientist Robert Pape came to the dismal conclusion that a mere five out of 115 applications accomplished their intended goals.
To understand why policymakers continue to turn to sanctions despite their apparent futility, we need to look not only at what they achieve, but also what they express. Even when they fail to bring about an ambitious policy or regime change, sanctions give world leaders the opportunity to construct a narrative—about themselves, the target state, and the current political moment.
So what do the sanctions against North Korea express?
First, they paint North Korea as a violator of international norms. The resolution “condemns” the country’s most recent nuclear test, calling it a “flagrant disregard of the Security Council’s resolutions.” By denouncing North Korea for its inappropriate behavior, the Security Council is reinforcing its outsider status among the international community.
The Security Council also expressed “deep concern at the grave hardship” North Korean citizens endure, lamenting that their country is “pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles instead of the welfare of its people.” Here, sanctions help characterize North Korea as an unjust and heartless state—one that cares more about weapons of mass destruction than the dignity of its people.
In reprimanding North Korea, the sanctioning states are also telling an important story about themselves. By standing up against an outlier in the name of global security, the Security Council is reaffirming its role as an institution that upholds international law.
But more importantly, the latest round of U.N. sanctions has given the Security Council the opportunity to demonstrate collective resolve. By accommodating the concerns of Russia and China, the U.S. showed that it cared more about international agreement than harsh sanctions. In a unanimous 15-0 vote, the world’s leading powers—who seem to agree on little these days—showed solidarity in the face of an international threat.
Of course, the U.N. resolution won’t mean the end of North Korea’s nuclear tests or its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal. But if sanctions are stories told to a global audience, then this week, we’ve heard a rare and encouraging tale of international unity.The government has rejected the opposition's demand to extend the sitting of the Rajya Sabha by two days in the first phase of the Budget session, nipping its plan to corner it over the Aadhaar Bill, controversially passed by the Lok Sabha last week, reports NDTV.The opposition had in a rare move sought that the Upper House sit for two days extra before breaking for a 39 day recess on Wednesday, March 16.In a chess-like move, the BJP-led government used its brute majority in the Lok Sabha to pass the Aadhaar bill as a "money bill" last Friday.This means that the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority, can only discuss the bill, but cannot send it back to the Lok Sabha with changes. Also, the upper house must discuss a money bill within 14 days of the bill being officially received by it, or it will be "deemed passed.""The Aadhaar Bill proves how the government, facing heat in the upper house, has decided to bypass it completely," alleged CPM leader Sitaram Yechury. The bill is likely to be "officially received" in the Rajya Sabha today, two days before the House breaks for the recess.The opposition had demanded an extension at the last three meetings of the business advisory committee or BAC which is made up of leaders of all parties, attempting to ensure that the bill is discussed in the Upper House so that it can record its objections to certain clauses and to the bill being presented as a Money Bill.Odell Beckham, Jr. gives entire LSU football squad a pair of his new sneakers
BATON ROUGE – Former LSU Tiger Odell Beckham, Jr., didn't forget his roots Thursday – surprising his former squad with pairs of his new shoe, the Special Field Air Force-1 Mid “OBJ.”
The show goes on sale Black Friday and retails for about $160.
The shoe is hard to miss – bold yellow.
“The color, I couldn’t take my eyes off this color because it was something that was so vibrant and different. I really liked the color,” Beckham said in an interview reported by Footwear News Wednesday.
LSU shared a video message Beckham sent to the team on Twitter Thursday.
Thanksgiving is about family. Odell remembers his in Purple and Gold! Forever LSU! @OBJ_3 x @Nike x #AF1 pic.twitter.com/XvReLNeT5j — LSU Football (@LSUfootball) November 23, 2017
“I sent y'all boys some shoes,” he said in the message. On cue, Ed Orgeron held up one of the yellow sneakers.
Shoutout to the bro @OBJ_3 on sending the team his collab shoe with Nike???????? much love pic.twitter.com/rOF8NqOcqg — 5? (@DhaSickest) November 23, 2017
Players tweeted to Beckham, thanking him for his gift.
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Follow the publisher of this post on Twitter: @treyschmaltzIn this series, a writer examines the history and influence of Northwestern fraternities — and proposes what to do about it. He is a former member of an IFC chapter.
IFC had a bad week. Like really bad.
To recap: The Interfraternity Council announced last week it would “derecognize” Sigma Alpha Epsilon. It seems IFC thought its move would pressure Northwestern to stop SAE from returning to campus, but the strategy completely backfired. The University said SAE will return next year if it “successfully completes” its suspension, and the Panhellenic Association ripped IFC for acting without consulting just about anyone. In a blistering statement, PHA said IFC’s decision means that when SAE returns, it will be “unregulated” by IFC and not subject to the council’s trainings and supervision.
If SAE returns and becomes a rogue fraternity, IFC’s decision will have made students less safe. The controversy follows a PHA survey that found more than three-quarters of respondents felt uncomfortable in a fraternity space, or that they felt a frat placed its own interests above their personal safety.
It all makes you wonder why we continue to vest so much responsibility and power in IFC fraternities. And that brings me to the column I prepared before this controversy erupted. It’s not precisely a response to this past week’s events, but it helps explain why IFC wields so much influence, and why its decisions have far-reaching consequences.
Let’s talk about alcohol.
I submit that frat boys are analogous to Prohibition-era bootleggers. I submit further that this analogy can help us understand their position in our social networks and what to do about it. Like mafia men in the 1920s, fraternity men illegally serve alcohol and control the spaces in which it is consumed. Underage Northwestern students are prohibited, by both law and the University, to consume alcohol. Evanston strenuously resists slouching into “college town” status, so we have few bars that reliably serve underage students (not since The Keg closed in 2013).
Puritanical public policy created a vacuum, and fraternities benefit from it. In the underground, frats provide alcohol and spaces to drink, and they have developed intricate strategies for avoiding punishment. For example, a frat will sometimes elide the chapter’s connection to a party, referring to it as, for example, “a party at John’s house.” The aim is to indemnify the frat, or at least obscure its involvement, so that it can continue to trade alcohol for social capital.
Young men join these frats and pay monetary dues, hoping to profit off that capital. Their dues buy alcohol, and the cycle continues. And we, the individual students who show up to these parties, fill those basements with livelihood and social worth. (Why else would frat boys care so much about the goddamn “ratio”?) In other words, many of us endorse and perpetuate this cycle. And like frequenting a mob-owned speakeasy in the 1920s, our transacting with fraternities has consequences: We help prop up a reckless cartel that excludes and harms our peers.
Still, we who seek out alcohol have few alternatives. That’s thanks largely to our history. When Northwestern was founded by a handful of Methodist men in 1851, they wrote into the charter that no alcohol shall be sold within four miles of campus. The founders hoped to encourage wholesomeness among the students, and the |
to a life that doesn't seem that far out of reach. Furthermore, as we empower the youths of both genders, we'll weaken the presence of misogyny and sexism.
Like I said, I would never cast my vote for Hillary based on that the fact that she is a woman, and I would never advocate that one should. However, AS a woman, I'm thankful for what she's done to represent us, and I find it important to shine a light on misogynistic criticism that seeks to conceal it. Several of the holes in the glass ceiling are there because Hillary Clinton took so many bullets for women. She's bravely broken down several barriers for women, and I, for one, would be stoked to have this smart, fierce lady as our to President. This, of course, is my humble opinion, but it's an opinion that I think will become more common as we evolve as a society, which can happen much faster if we empower our youth, and even MORE rapidly, once we elect our first female president.
To all genders reading this, PLEASE VOTE WITH YOUR BRAIN. Do your research. Read about the Hillary Doctrine, discover the mistakes she's learned from, and the successes that earned her great approval ratings in all her offices. Educate yourselves about her career, "smart power," what she's fought for and what she aims to do. Challenge yourselves to learn something about BOTH candidates that you may not have already known. Think about an issue that's important to you, and be curious enough to see what each candidate has done for that issue throughout his or her career.
To the women reading this, PLEASE DO NOT vote with your vagina (unless of course, you've done SO MANY kegels that your vag can actually HOLD A PEN and vote. If that's the case, then dayummmmm girl, use that talent, instagram that sh**, and make history in your own way!)Like freedom of speech, the presumption of innocence before proof of guilt is something that almost everyone agrees is important in principle, but are occasionally reluctant to apply in practice. In recent weeks we have witnessed some examples of this reluctance that, to me, seem chilling. Eric Garner was an obese African-American who was killed by police officers holding him in a chokehold while they arrested him for illegally selling individual cigarettes in New York City. His last words are here.
Virtually everyone who has seen the video agrees that they acted with an extreme amount of force against a man who was not fighting back although he was resisting arrest (passively – that is, in a way that would not harm the officers).
A Grand Jury found that the police officers who killed Eric Garner did not act unlawfully. I defer to the Grand Jury on this, but assuming they are correct this suggests that the scope for lawful killing by police officers is extremely broad. As law professor Glenn Reynolds (and others) has noted, killings by police are treated much more sympathetically by juries than killings by civilians.
Michael Brown was an African-American teenager who was shot and killed by a police officer during an arrest after he (seemingly) robbed a convenience store in Ferguson, Missouri. There is still some disagreement about what happened here. The initial reports suggested that the officer executed Brown as he fled or begged for his life, but the subsequent Grand Jury investigation seems quite conclusive that Brown assaulted the police officer. The Grand Jury’s conclusions prompted looting by people in Ferguson.
If Brown’s shooting was unjust, the Garner lesson applies. But if the narrative found by the Grand Jury is correct then the protests, lootings and slandering of the police officer involved are wrong. In that case, it is the media’s presumption of guilt on the part of the police officer involved (even after the Grand Jury verdict) that has led to significant destruction and violence. People suspended the innocence principle to advance a political point, and the results have been bleak.
Jackie is a student at the University of Virginia by a Rolling Stone article which alleged that she had been gang-raped by a group of fraternity men. Last week Rolling Stone retracted the story after a number of facts given by Jackie in her story proved to be false.
The aftermath of the Rolling Stone story has been extremely disturbing, with very prominent people proudly dispensing with the innocence principle. The Washington Post ran a piece titled “No matter what Jackie said, we should automatically believe rape claims” (this was later changed to “generally” believe them). The Guardian’s Jessica Valenti wrote that “I choose to believe Jackie. I lose nothing by doing so, even if I’m later proven wrong”, and that “the current frenzy to prove Jackie’s story false – whether because the horror of a violent gang rape is too much to face or because disbelief is the misogynist status quo – will do incredible damage to all rape victims.” [my emphasis]
Has Valenti considered that someone else may lose something if we chooses to believe an accusation that is untrue? Or that we may have other reasons than misogyny or incredulity to want to know if a criminal accusation is false?
Sexual assault is very common, but this does not mean that false accusations do not occur. An estimated 1.5% to 7.5% of accusations may be false. Staggeringly, a 2012 study that used DNA testing of old physical evidence and exonerated between 8% and 15% of convicted rapists.
I know why Valenti is eager to believe Jackie: because not believing a genuine story is horrendous for the victim and makes other rape victims less likely to come forward, and hence makes rape an easier crime to commit. But the inverse is also true: believing a false story is horrendous for the wrongly-accused and makes other false accusations more likely. (The Rolling Stone story did not name individuals, but guilt-by-implication can still be enormously harmful.)
In all of these cases, people who would normally say that the presumption of innocence before proof of guilt is a good thing have assumed the opposite. The rule might work in general, they may say, but this case is an exception. Police need to be able to subdue people resisting arrest. The death of an 18-year old must be unjust. Rape is too serious an allegation to question.
Like the principle of free speech, the innocence principle only produces good results if we apply it rigidly and in cases where doing so may feel deeply unsettling.
The innocence principle matters because people who seem guilty may in fact be innocent. This is why mechanisms like jury trials exist – like the ‘thick’ version of free speech that I argued for recently, they are a mechanism for sorting the truth from lies.
Hayek speculated that liberal institutions like these evolved over time, because the societies that lacked them eventually fell behind the ones that upheld them. Politically and culturally, we may be witnessing an erosion of these institutions now. That would be a catastrophe. But it is not too late to change course.Do you use the same swing for your driver that you use for, say, a 40-yard wedge shot? I'm not talking about the size of the swing and its energy and intensity — these factors change as you move from full swings to half-wedges. I'm talking about mechanics. In other words, do you see your 40-yard swing as a "knock-down" copy of your driver motion, or a motion that's completely different? Most weekend players are "one-swing" golfers. They hit 5-irons using miniature versions of their driver swing, knock half-wedges with small 5-iron swings, and roll putts as if they're mini-chips. Unfortunately, adhering to the one-swing theory limits your expertise to only one area.
My research shows that you need three swings to go low: a "stroke" for putting, a "finesse" motion for your short game, and a "power" swing to blast the ball as far as you can on full shots. Intuitively, you've probably learned that good putting is all shoulders, arms and hands but no body. And as for your power move, I'll bet you understand the need to coil your upper body against the resistance of your lower during your backswing—something you'd never do on the green.
Leonard Kamsler
That means you've got two swings down. What about the third? Here's where the lines are blurred, which is why your short game suffers. Half-wedges, chips and pitches require more movement than a putting stroke but zero coil. Why? Coil creates power, and you don't need power from short range. You need control. You get it by making a shorter, rhythmic, synchronized backswing. The photo at the far right shows me at the top on a 40-yard pitch. Notice how I've rotated my shoulders and hips together—I don't need any resistance (or energy storage) between my upper and lower body. This is ideal—and completely different from your power swing. At the range, practice these two motions based on the type of shot you're trying to pull off:
THE POWER SWING: Keep your hips and lower body motionless while turning your shoulders and swinging your arms and the club in slow motion to the top of your backswing. Hold for a count so you can sense the coil — and energy storage — between your upper and lower body. Now rotate your hips toward the target in slow motion and pull your upper body along through impact.
THE FINESSE SWING: Rotate your hips and shoulders together. Do it in slow motion, stopping about halfway back. Then rotate everything through impact at the same time and at the same speed until you reach the finish. You shouldn't feel any coil between your upper and lower body at any point in your motion.
Once you learn the difference between power and finesse, there's nothing the course can throw at you that you can't handle. And with these two swings down cold — along with a good putting stroke — you'll become a complete player. That's when golf gets really fun!David Luiz put in a solid performance on the pitch as Chelsea came from behind to beat Man City 1-3 at the Etihad Stadium in the Saturday afternoon kickoff, but he played an absolute blinder in the post-match interview.
Alongside Diego Costa, who doesn't speak a lick of English, he played the role of translator for all of Geoff Shreeves' questions, but when the Sky Sports presenter asked Luiz about the incident that saw Sergio Aguero sent off (a wild challenge on Luiz), the Brazilian completely played it down, spoke of his respect for Aguero, and explained why he didn't want to talk about trivial stuff like handbags on a football pitch considering what happened in Brazil earlier in the week.
Luis then paid tribute to the victims of the Chapecoense plane crash, and it was really, really well said.
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The pan down to zoom in on the injury was rather shameless, top marks to David Luiz who handled that like an absolute pro.
Shreeves was merely doing his job, so there's no need to criticise him too heavily, but he was clearly hoping for something juicy about the tackle as Luis and Aguero have somewhat of a history, but big Dave was having none of it.Jean-Eric Vergne has added fuel to speculation he is a major contender to return to F1 next year with Haas.
As a Ferrari test driver, the Frenchman is undoubtedly in the running to re-launch his grand prix career with the new American team.
Now a Formula E driver, Vergne admitted to the UK’s Downforce Radio: "I have a few cards in my hand for Formula One.
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"It’s still a bit early to talk about them but I have a few good options which is nice, so we’re going to see how things go over the next few months," the former Toro Rosso racer, who is still just 25, added.
Vergne said one of the best things since being dropped by Red Bull at the end of last year is that his fans continue to support him.
"Many of them know me, they know how nice I try to be with them, and even if I don’t get back to formula one things will still be exciting with my career. The good thing is the F1 doors are not closed for me," he added.
Click HERE for more F1 news and featuresThe former Tory minister, a major Leave campaigner, says he is buoyed by opinion polls that appear to be swaying towards an exit, including one that gave a 10-point lead.
He today said the poll reflected the mood of voters he had met at a number of events across the UK and Northern Ireland over the last week.
The latest survey by ORB for The Independent newspaper put the scores at 55 per cent to 45 per cent in favour of pulling out, after allowing for an individual's likelihood to vote
That is a four-point jump in support from April when Vote Leave led by 51 to 49 – and an exact reversal of the position when the series of surveys began a year ago.
Speaking at Bailey Head in Oswestry, where he was at a Brexit rally, North Shropshire MP Mr Paterson said: "I think it is always encouraging to see a poll like that. But we must not get too excited about the results of one poll.
"However, here at the Bailey Head, and everywhere else I have been this week, it has been absolutely overwhelming.
"A lot of people have already voted. We are trying to hand out leaflets and they are saying 'we don't need those, we have already voted to leave'.
"This is not a speculative poll we are talking about, these are real people and real votes.
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"In Oswestry today I would say 80 per cent of the people we have spoken to were in favour of Leave – that is huge. It has been the same across the country.
"I have been to Cornwall, to Wiltshire, to Sussex. I went to Northern Ireland to an Ulster farmers rally. That was an interesting one, where the majority were in favour of Remain but by the end of the talk it had completely swung round the other way.
"There seems to be an overwhelming desire to Leave outside of London."
But Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard, who is backing the campaign to stay in the EU, said it was not over yet. He spoke in the Shropshire Star last week of the need for Britain to remain in Europe, insisting that economic migration within the EU was a good thing.
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"The talking and debating is nearly all over. Soon it will be time to vote," he said.
"Every vote has equal weight. Europe is not perfect, but I believe, on balance, Britain will be stronger, safer, and more prosperous in a reformed Europe."
As the battle intensfies nationally, Jeremy Corbyn made a fresh push to persuade Labour supporters to back keeping Britain in the EU. The former Shropshire schoolboy hailed the "positive, optimistic" case for remaining in the bloc.
"What I believe is that this is a practical decision that we take in order to get better conditions across the whole continent for everybody," he said.
More than £500,000 has been wagered on the EU Referendum in the West Midlands with a leading bookmaker, it was revealed today. Approximately 60 per cent of the bets in recent weeks have been for leave, with the remainder being placed on Remain.
One confident punter in the region even placed a £20,000 bet on Britain to leave the EU with Ladbrokes.
It comes after bookies across the UK began shortening odds on Britain to vote leave. At the time of writing, Ladbrokes had a Remain vote priced at 1/3, with a Leave vote at 12/5.
Midlands MP Pat McFadden, Labour's former Shadow Europe Minister and a prominent campaigner for Britain to remain within the EU, said the figures were "interesting" but that ultimately the decision would be up to voters and not punters.
He said: "Ultimately it will not be up to the pollsters or the punters who are betting, it will be up to the voters in a few weeks time. I think these things are interesting but it will be up to the voters."
Asked if he was confident of seeing a Remain vote for Britain, Mr McFadden added: "I never like to make predictions so I am not going to make one here. Remain is what I would like and we will wait and see how the voters vote in a few weeks time."
West Midlands MEP Bill Etheridge added: "The clever money at the bookies is backing Britain to leave the EU and rightly so. I am confident that the people of the West Midlands will vote for Brexit and lead the way for the rest of the country to follow suit."
The £20,000 placed on a leave vote by a West Midlands punter is not the only big bet to be placed on the referendum recently.
Earlier this week a punter up in Leeds staked an eye-watering £60,000 on Britain to remain in the EU.NEW YORK, NY — A large police presence late Sunday near the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn has led to several individuals taken into custody in connection with the Chelsea bombing from Saturday.
Five men who may be connected to the bombs were taken into custody Sunday night by the FBI as they crossed from Staten Island into Brooklyn over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, sources said. They have not been charged.
FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney said in a Monday press conference after the apprehension of Ahmad Khan Rahami that the car was stopped because it had been located at an address associated with the suspect. The individuals were not being charged with anything and were no longer being detained as of Monday afternoon.
The men had several weapons in the SUV, according to a law enforcement source.
The FBI was led to the men after discovering more pipe bombs at a Elizabeth, New Jersey train station, sources said. NJ Transit confirmed "police activity" was holding up trains from entering New York-Penn Station on Sunday night. The mayor of Elizabeth told NBC New York that two people discovered a backpack in a garbage bin near the station which contained pipe bombs. One of the bombs accidentally went off while being disabled by a robot, but no one was injured, officials said.
#NEC rail service is temporarily suspended between Newark Airport and Elizabeth stations due to police activity near Elizabeth.
— NJ TRANSIT (@NJTRANSIT) September 19, 2016
The New York Post reported that the men were headed to the airport. A source would only tell Patch that was being investigated.
Sources said that the men are believed to be connected to the attack but refused to elaborate on why.
State Sen. Marty Golden, who represents the 22nd District in south Brooklyn, said on Instagram at 10:30 p.m. that "about an hour ago, the FBI took several individuals into custody on the Belt Parkway in the area underneath the Verrazano Bridge, with a possible connection to the bombing last night in Chelsea," saying the information came from the NYPD.
However, an NYPD spokesperson told Patch they had no information on any possible operation on the Verrazano Bridge late Sunday.
The FBI confirmed they had taken multiple people in custody, but had not charged anyone.
We did a traffic stop of a vehicle of interest in the investigation. No one has been charged with any crime. The investigation is continuing
— FBI New York (@NewYorkFBI) September 19, 2016
Golden is a former NYPD officer, who retired from the force in 1983 after suffering an injury on the job.
There's no question some operation took place on the Belt Parkway near the Verrazano Bridge late Sunday, where traffic was backed up due to law enforcement activity, according to people on the scene.
Brooklyn: Belt Parkway near Verrazano Bridge, reports of the FBI takes several people into police custody. #Breaking pic.twitter.com/usxhPvtoyS
— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) September 19, 2016
The region in question, near Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is represented by Golden.
Law enforcement sources tell Patch that in just over 24 hours, many clues have been accumulated into who may be responsible for placing the two bombs in Manhattan on Saturday — one that went off injuring 29 people, and one that didn't, but could have caused just as much damage had it not been found.
Sources describe the Manhattan devices as both being pressure cookers with Christmas lights and flip-style cell phones. Both were filled with ball-bearings and shrapnel.
Police said the Manhattan device that did not explode was rendered safe at the NYPD facility at Rodman's Neck. From there it was being transported to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia. Officials hope to be able to trace the purchases of several items including the pressure cooker, the Christmas lights and the cell phone.
Officials at the FBI lab will also examine evidence recovered from the scene where the bomb did go off. Some of that evidence will come from a 2012 Toyota Camry that was operated by a driver for Uber. He had just picked up a mom and her daughters and drove by the site as the bomb exploded.
He continued to a destination on Madison Avenue in the 40s and the FBI took possession of the car there.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said the five people had been arrested, when in fact they were just taken into custody by the FBI.
Reporting by Colin Miner/Patch
Photo Credit: Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office via FlickPRE-REGISTRATION ENDS IN 10 DAYS 9 HOURS 46 MINUTES!!!!!!!!
More hotel rooms have been added, but there is a condition attached! Since there are so few rooms left on Saturday, you can only book rooms for two days or more. So that would be Friday & Saturday (check out Sunday), Saturday & Sunday (check out Monday) or Friday-Sunday (check out Monday). I’m tyring to get Saturday-only rooms, but they won’t be able to be discounted, I can almost guarantee that. If you need a room for Saturday only, I have listed other hotels in the area. You can reach the venue hotel from there via cab (shouldn’t be more than $5, $10 at the absolute max). I’ll let you guys know as soon as Saturday rooms are made available, but for those needing two or three day stays, go nuts!Posted by Brandon Wuest, Software Engineer & Stereoscopic Sightseer
Google Cardboard is bringing virtual reality worldwide. Starting today, the Google Cardboard app is available in 39 languages and over 100 countries on both Android and iOS devices. Additionally, the Cardboard developer docs are now published in 10 languages to help developers build great VR experiences. With more than 15 million installs of Cardboard apps from Google Play, we're excited to bring VR to even more people around the world.
More Works with Google Cardboard viewers
Anyone can make their own Cardboard viewer with the open designs ready for download. If you'd rather not DIY, choose from the growing family of certified viewers, including the Mattel View-Master and Zeiss VR One GX, on sale now.
Better tools for building
The Cardboard SDKs for Android and Unity have been updated to address your top two requests: drift correction and Unity performance. This update includes a major overhaul of the sensor fusion algorithms that integrate the signals from the gyroscope and accelerometer. These improvements substantially decrease drift, especially on phones with lower-quality sensors. The Cardboard SDK for Unity now supports a fully Unity-native distortion pass. This improves performance by avoiding all major plugin overhead, and enables Cardboard apps to work with Metal rendering on iOS and multi-threaded rendering on Android. All of this adds up to better VR experiences for your users.
More places
Finally, to help bring you to more places, you can now explore Google Street View in Cardboard. So, download the updated Google Street View app for Android or iOS, and grab your Cardboard to immerse yourself in destinations around the world.
With Cardboard available in more places, we're hoping to bring the world just a little bit closer to everyone. Happy exploring!March 15, 2013
Is Cassiopeia A (Cas A) dying or just changing her fashion?
Bio 1:
In the beginning was an artist’s illustration of the consensus theory of stellar evolution. Thermonuclear fusion reactions at the center of the star transformed hydrogen into helium. After a time, the growing core of helium contracted enough under its own gravity to heat up to the stage where the helium transformed into oxygen and carbon. Successive contractions and transformations built up shells of neon, magnesium, silicon, and sulfur.
Finally, a core of iron began to grow. Iron is the dead-end of transformation succession: fusion reactions beyond iron absorb more energy than they release. The core can never balance it’s contracting with a new source of energy.
Three hundred years ago, the iron core of Cas A collapsed. The layers above imploded and blew themselves into space as a supernova.
R.I.P.
But now the autopsy reveals something surprising: the guts of the star—the iron and silicon and sulfur that should have been on the inside, that should have collapsed into a neutron star—are on the outside. The coroner reports, “Surprisingly, there is no evidence…for iron near the center…. Also, much of the silicon and sulfur, as well as the magnesium, is now found toward the outer edges…. [Something] somehow turned the star inside out.” He found in the outer layers “clumps of almost pure iron, [which] must have been produced by nuclear reactions near the center….”
Let’s examine this casual admission of surprise more closely. If the coroner was surprised, it must be because he was expecting something else. He was expecting something else because his theory predicted something else. Now a standard test procedure in science is to deduce some particular phenomenon from the theory to be tested and then to look for whether or not the phenomenon occurs. If it does, one proclaims that the theory has been validated (although this is a logically suspect exaggeration). If the phenomenon doesn’t occur…. Well, the matter is often simply hushed up. But logically the theory has been falsified, which means it’s not true, which means that only a fool would continue believing in it. Now, I don’t wish to cast aspersions on astronomers’ motley; I’ll just mention that they’re wearing it.
Furthermore, the coroner remarked that “[o]xygen, which according to theoretical models is the most abundant element in the remnant, is difficult to detect…because almost all the oxygen ions have had all their electrons stripped away.” It takes an astronomical amount of heat to smack oxygen atoms together hard enough to knock off all their electrons. The alleged explosion was long ago and far away. One might expect the debris to cool off a bit.
On the other hand (to foreshadow Bio 2), it takes only a modest amount of electricity to publicly embarrass an oxygen nucleus like that. A double layer capable of accelerating protons to cosmic-ray energies will strip electrons off oxygen atoms as easily as a bartender pops caps off beer bottles at happy hour.
Bio 2:
In the beginning was an analogy between the observed properties of plasma discharges in a lab and the observed characteristics of stars. A Bennett pinch in a galactic-scale Birkeland current squeezed the ambient plasma into a glowing balloon. High-energy discharges to the glowing skin generated light and x-rays, fused hydrogen into heavier elements, and sorted the elements into clumps and layers of like materials.
Three hundred years ago, an instability in the discharge current triggered a star-encompassing double layer to expand catastrophically. It carried not only the elements but also the processes that fused and sorted them into space.
Now, what’s on the outside of the nebula is merely a more distant version of what was originally on the outside of the star. The guts are still on the inside; we needn’t be nauseated or surprised; we still don’t know anything about them.
But we do know that the star is as much electrically alive as it always was; it just switched to a different mode of operation. Mourning is unnecessary.
The coroner would better spend his time on an autopsy of his theory than of his star.
Mel AchesonHappy surfing, internet friends! My name is DJ Goodfortune, and your eyes are glued to my promotional page. I produce two radio shows for KBVR, Oregon State University's student-run station. Cold Brew Acid, a joint effort with DJ Klaverwave, is a vinyl-only hour that we curate from our personal collections. The Little Harmonic Broadcast highlights three or four artists that I've been listening to recently.
Below, you will find broadcast times, hilarious advertisements I make, and exclusive music recommendations! Click on any of the images to find a set list of the music DJ Klaverwave and I played that evening. Your ears will thank you for tuning in to either show — click the KBVR button at the bottom of this page for online streaming. Party on!
Cold Brew Acid TBA September 2017 The Little Harmonic Broadcast TBA September 2017Ever since I juiced sausage with a hand press for The Chicago Italian Beef Combo Bloody Mary, aka Coach Juice, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of juicing. The result for the Bloody Mary was excellent, and I got a nice beautiful sip of sausage juice out of an Italian sausage. Who knew I would love drinking sausage juice so much? You guys should really experiment with your preferences. You never know what you might find out about yourselves.
When I visit my friend Ryan and his girlfriend Kat to record music, Kat is very sweet and makes us vegetable and fruit juice to sip on while we’re writing tunes. She makes juice with fresh vegetables and fruit they have in the refrigerator and it is always very delicious. It’s a nice thing to offer a friend when they are over, and it makes me happy. I like fresh fruit and vegetables, mostly because my body is slowly withering away from malnutrition due to my diet of miserable Waukegan food and canned goods.
Here is one of our music videos. It’s a very good cover of Cher’s Believe. As you can see by my bloated puffy body and dark nipples, I am definitely in need of more fresh produce.
Juicers are interesting machines. They grind up fruit and vegetables and use centrifugal force to extract the liquid, giving you with the liquid essence of the plant matter, leaving all the nutritious fiber and pulp in the rear compartment. Then you throw away all the nutritious stuff and just drink the sweet juice. The fact that you’re consuming simple sugars from plants offsets your guilt from eating things like Taco Bell all day.
My local K-Mart is going out of business, so I wandered in like a lost little child, looking for things I could buy on clearance. During my journey, I just so happened to find a magical juicer called the Big Mouth by Hamilton Beach. Shopping at an entire K-Mart going out of business is the closest I’ve ever been to witnessing a mass looting. It was absolute chaos and I could smell death in the air. Death smells like stale Little Caesar’s pizza.
According to this label, this juicer is “Rated Best Buy by a leading consumer advocacy publication.” My favorite part about this label is that they don’t tell you what this “leading consumer advocacy publication” actually is. This is like Hamilton Beach whispering in your ear, all creepy, with coffee breath, “Trust us. This thing works.”
I’ll be the judge of that, you goddamn assclowns.
Here is the juicer, unpacked, in all its glory. It’s a hulking beast of a machine. If I was a robot, I would be sexually attracted to its industrial lines, its cheap plastic, and its glossy finish. If I were a robot I would have sex with it. Actually, come to think of it, I would have sex with anything. I haven’t touched another human being in so long I think my penis has actually fallen off due to extreme atrophy. Oh no, wait, there it is. It just went back into its cute little shell.
As you all can see, I’m a pretty cool guy.
The great thing about juicing is you can mix and match different ingredients to your personal preferences. I like to pretend I have class, so I thought about a classy thing to juice and suddenly it hit me: I could juice a three-course surf and turf meal. A surf and turf meal is what suburban people think of when they think of “a real night out on the town.”
I have a suspicion that I was dropped on my head multiple times as an infant. I mean, two lazy eyes going in different directions doesn’t just happen.
But think about it: In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Willy Wonka invents a three-course meal gum, which starts with tomato soup, goes into roast beef and baked potato, and finishes with blueberry pie and ice cream. My meal would start with a classic steakhouse-style wedge salad, go into a juicy strip steak, rich lobster tail, and silky baked potato, and finish with a slice of good ol’ fashioned cheesecake.
Of course, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Violet Beauregarde turns into a big blueberry and has to be medically drained. The worst that could happen is I could also be medically drained. With a stomach pump and a concerned emergency room full of doctors looking at my two lazy eyes.
I purchased a package of steak at the grocery store that had a big sticker that said “Manager’s Special.” That’s code for “almost expired.” Perfect. I mean, come on, a good deal is a good deal. There’s no better gamble in this world than discount meat.
I started sous-viding my strip steak at 135° F for a juicy medium rare.
A classic wedge salad is really easy to make and it has an old-school vibe to it. It’s a giant wedge of crisp, cold, iceberg lettuce, topped with blue cheese dressing, blue cheese crumbles, tomatoes, and crisp bacon pieces. Green onions are an option — what the fuck, why not? Balls to the wall, people, balls to the wall.
I roasted a regular russet potato and did that cool thing they do at restaurants where they split it down the middle lengthwise and fluff it. You fluff it by pushing both ends together, forcing the potato upwards a little to create a pocket for toppings like cheese, butter, and sour cream.
The technical name for it is “potato vagina.” Go ahead, ask your server next time you’re at a fancy restaurant and see what they say. But you have to shout it as loud as you can because sometimes steakhouses can be noisy.
Once the potato was ready and topped with a shitload of sour cream, I seared the steak in a cast-iron pan to give it some crust and some delicious flavor.
I miraculously found a pre-cooked whole lobster at the store for a measly five bucks. Like I said earlier, “there’s no better gamble in this world than discount meat.” It’s doubly true when it involves seafood. Also, I totally just quoted myself from this very post. That’s how a pimp operates. He quotes himself.
Before I cracked it open, I named it “Robert Downey Jr.” Naming your food is a good way to pay respect to the creature before you, uh, juice it.
And I just bought a piece of Eli’s Cheesecake, a popular brand of cheesecake that’s made right here in good ol’ Chicago. Represent, bitches.
And now, the juicing.
Nobody ever told me that a juicer was so loud. It was as loud as a band saw. Turns out juicing a wedge salad is pretty easy. Sorry about the wobbly video; it’s hard to hold a cell phone in one hand while getting your other hand covered in blue cheese dressing. I once dated a girl who smelled strongly of blue cheese. It was your mother. We’re still together.
Next, I juiced the lobster and baked potato. “Dannis,” you say, “Lobsters and potatoes don’t have juice.”
Good God, guys, I’m not a moron. Lobsters and potatoes might not have much moisture, but they do have essence. And that’s what a juicer captures, no matter how small that essence might be. The juicer almost spat the lobster tail back into my face (did you see it dancing around, trying to escape?) and it didn’t really like the baked potato very much. Also at the end of the video you get to see my foot and leg. I hope that glimpse didn’t turn you on too much.
This is the part I was most concerned about, the steak. At this point the juicer was absolutely disgusting, covered in blue cheese dressing, lettuce juice, lobster bits, and potato puree. But I pressed on. Too bad the juicer had different plans. I chopped the steak into four manageable pieces (or so I thought) and dropped them in one by one. The juicer got slower and slower until the last piece, where it nearly ground to a screeching halt.
Holy shit.
I just ran steak through a juicer. Did it have juice? I’ll show you in a second.
You can’t forget dessert! There goes the cheesecake! That went as well as could be expected when dropping a cheesecake into a juicer.
Well, what you see here is what I believe to be essence of steak. It came out in a melted, emulsified, soft-serve style slop. It had a very pale pink color to it. I mean, this is kind of what hot dogs look like before they’re cooked. Plus…it’s not quite juice. At this point, the juicer was not in very good condition. But it survived.
Man, I almost destroyed a brand new juicer by running dense meat through it. There’s no warning in the instructions that says, “Don’t juice meat,” though. Come on, Hamilton Beach, your juicer was rated a “Best Buy by a leading consumer advocacy publication.” Get it together.
This mess is what came out of the pulp receptacle. This is essentially what your food looks like after you eat it, when it’s swimming in your stomach. I particularly like how the machine pulverized the steak but left big pieces of lettuce behind.
I let poor Harvey take a look at it. I offered him first crack at the beverage but he politely declined. Plus, he’s a stuffed animal. He can’t drink anything, silly.
I mixed the whole thing together a little better and took a big sip before I had the chance to lose my cookies. I immediately regretted it. The juice was foamy and thick and had the powerful flavor of blue cheese dressing. The potato starch, at least what little of it made it to the drink, gave the surf and turf essence a velvet-like texture. I got a few substantial squiggles of meat paste, which had an insanely smooth consistency, though it was hard to taste any actual meat in it. But the entire thing had a really distinct flavor. I couldn’t put my finger on it until my brain told me to stop drinking it.
It tasted like blended vomit.
That’s right — the vinegar from the blue cheese dressing, along with the supremely strong funk of the cheese itself, mixed with meat, potato, lobster, |
Mossberg Model 500 Series Pump Shotguns “Mossberg Model 500 Slugster “Mossberg Model 500 Sporting Pump “Mossberg Model 500 Super Bantam All Purpose Field “Mossberg Model 500 Super Bantam Combo “Mossberg Model 500 Super Bantam Slug “Mossberg Model 500 Super Bantam Turkey “Mossberg Model 500 Trophy Slugster “Mossberg Model 500 Turkey “Mossberg Model 500 Waterfowl “Mossberg Model 505 Series Pump Shotguns “Mossberg Model 505 Youth All Purpose Field “Mossberg Model 535 ATS All Purpose Field “Mossberg Model 535 ATS Combos “Mossberg Model 535 ATS Slugster “Mossberg Model 535 ATS Turkey “Mossberg Model 535 ATS Waterfowl “Mossberg Model 835 Regal Ulti-Mag Pump “Mossberg Model 835 Series Pump Shotguns “Mossberg Model 835 Ulti-Mag “Mossberg Turkey Model 500 Pump “National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) Banquet/Guns of the Year “New England Firearms Pardner Pump Combo “New England Firearms Pardner Pump Field “New England Firearms Pardner Pump Slug Gun “New England Firearms Pardner Pump Synthetic “New England Firearms Pardner Pump Turkey Gun “New England Firearms Pardner Pump Walnut “New England Firearms Pardner Pump-Compact Field “New England Firearms Pardner Pump-Compact Synthetic “New England Firearms Pardner Pump-Compact Walnut “Norinco Model 98 Field Series “Norinco Model 983 “Norinco Model 984 “Norinco Model 985 “Norinco Model 987 “Orvis Grand Vazir Series “Quail Unlimited Limited Edition Pump Shotguns “Remington 870 Express “Remington 870 Express Rifle Sighted Deer Gun “Remington 870 Express Series Pump Shotguns “Remington 870 Express Turkey “Remington 870 High Grade Series “Remington 870 High Grades “Remington 870 Marine Magnum “Remington 870 Special Field “Remington 870 Special Purpose Deer Gun “Remington 870 Special Purpose Synthetic Camo “Remington 870 SPS Special Purpose Magnum “Remington 870 SPS–BG-Camo Deer/Turkey Shotgun “Remington 870 SPS-Deer Shotgun “Remington 870 SPS–T Camo Pump Shotgun “Remington 870 TC Trap “Remington 870 Wingmaster “Remington 870 Wingmaster Series “Remington 870 Wingmaster Small Gauges “Remington Model 11–87 XCS Super Magnum Waterfowl “Remington Model 870 Ducks Unlimited Series Dinner Pump Shotguns “Remington Model 870 Express “Remington Model 870 Express Jr. “Remington Model 870 Express Shurshot Synthetic Cantilever “Remington Model 870 Express Super Magnum “Remington Model 870 Express Synthetic “Remington Model 870 Express Youth Gun “Remington Model 870 Express Youth Synthetic “Remington Model 870 SPS Shurshot Synthetic Cantilever “Remington Model 870 SPS Shurshot Synthetic Turkey “Remington Model 870 SPS Special Purpose Magnum Series Pump Shotguns “Remington Model 870 SPS Super Mag Max Gobbler “Remington Model 870 XCS Marine Magnum “Remington Model 870 XCS Super Magnum “Winchester 12 Commercial Riot Gun “Winchester 97 Commercial Riot Gun “Winchester Model 12 Pump Shotgun “Winchester Model 120 Ranger “Winchester Model 1200 Series Shotgun “Winchester Model 1300 Ranger Pump Gun “Winchester Model 1300 Ranger Pump Gun Combo & Deer Gun “Winchester Model 1300 Series Shotgun “Winchester Model 1300 Slug Hunter Deer Gun “Winchester Model 1300 Turkey Gun “Winchester Model 1300 Walnut Pump “Winchester Model 42 High Grade Shotgun “Winchester Speed Pump Defender “Winchester SXP Series Pump Shotgun “Zoli Pump Action Shotgun
Shotguns—over/unders “ADCO Sales Diamond Series Shotguns “American Arms/Franchi Falconet 2000 O/U “American Arms Lince “American Arms Silver I O/U “American Arms Silver II Shotgun “American Arms Silver Skeet O/U “American Arms Silver Sporting O/U “American Arms Silver Trap O/U “American Arms WS/OU 12, TS/OU 12 Shotguns “American Arms WT/OU 10 Shotgun “American Arms/Franchi Sporting 2000 O/U “Armsport 2700 O/U Goose Gun “Armsport 2700 Series O/U “Armsport 2900 Tri-Barrel Shotgun “AYA Augusta “AYA Coral A “AYA Coral B “AYA Excelsior “AYA Model 37 Super “AYA Model 77 “AYA Model 79 Series “Baby Bretton Over/Under Shotgun “Baikal IZH27 “Baikal MP310 “Baikal MP333 “Baikal MP94 “Beretta 90 DE LUXE “Beretta 682 Gold E Skeet “Beretta 682 Gold E Trap “Beretta 682 Gold E Trap Bottom Single “Beretta 682 Series “Beretta 682 Super Sporting O/U “Beretta 685 Series “Beretta 686 Series “Beretta 686 White Onyx “Beretta 686 White Onyx Sporting “Beretta 687 EELL Classic “Beretta 687 EELL Diamond Pigeon “Beretta 687 EELL Diamond Pigeon Sporting “Beretta 687 series “Beretta 687EL Sporting O/U “Beretta Alpha Series “Beretta America Standard “Beretta AS “Beretta ASE 90 Competition O/U Shotgun “Beretta ASE 90 Gold Skeet “Beretta ASE Gold “Beretta ASE Series “Beretta ASEL “Beretta BL Sereis “Beretta DT10 Series “Beretta DT10 Trident EELL “Beretta DT10 Trident L Sporting “Beretta DT10 Trident Skeet “Beretta DT10 Trident Sporting “Beretta DT10 Trident Trap Combo “Beretta Europa “Beretta Field Shotguns “Beretta Gamma Series “Beretta Giubileo “Beretta Grade Four “Beretta Grade One “Beretta Grade Three “Beretta Grade Two “Beretta Milano “Beretta Model 686 Ultralight O/U “Beretta Model SO5, SO6, SO9 Shotguns “Beretta Onyx Hunter Sport O/U Shotgun “Beretta Over/Under Field Shotguns “Beretta Royal Pigeon “Beretta S56 Series “Beretta S58 Series “Beretta Series 682 Competition Over/Unders “Beretta Silver Pigeon II “Beretta Silver Pigeon II Sporting “Beretta Silver Pigeon III “Beretta Silver Pigeon III Sporting “Beretta Silver Pigeon IV “Beretta Silver Pigeon S “Beretta Silver Pigeon V “Beretta Silver Snipe “Beretta Skeet Set “Beretta SO–1 “Beretta SO–2 “Beretta SO–3 “Beretta SO–4 “Beretta SO5 “Beretta SO6 EELL “Beretta SO–10 “Beretta SO10 EELL “Beretta Sporting Clay Shotguns “Beretta SV10 Perennia “Beretta Ultralight “Beretta Ultralight Deluxe “Bertuzzi Zeus “Bertuzzi Zeus Series “Beschi Boxlock Model “Big Bear Arms IJ–39 “Big Bear Arms Sterling Series “Big Bear IJ–27 “Blaser F3 Series “Bosis Challenger Titanium “Bosis Laura “Bosis Michaelangelo “Bosis Wild Series “Boss Custom Over/Under Shotguns “Boss Merlin “Boss Pendragon “Breda Pegaso Series “Breda Sirio Standard “Breda Vega Series “Bretton Baby Standard “Bretton Sprint Deluxe “BRNO 500/501 “BRNO 502 “BRNO 801 Series “BRNO 802 Series “BRNO BS–571 “BRNO BS–572 “BRNO ZH–300 “BRNO ZH–301 “BRNO ZH–302 “BRNO ZH–303 “Browning 325 Sporting Clays “Browning 625 Series “Browning 725 Series “Browning B–25 Series “Browning B–26 Series “Browning B–27 Series “Browning B–125 Custom Shop Series “Browning Citori 525 Series “Browning Citori GTI Sporting Clays “Browning Citori Lightning Series “Browning Citori O/U Shotgun “Browning Citori O/U Skeet Models “Browning Citori O/U Trap Models “Browning Citori Plus Trap Combo “Browning Citori Plus Trap Gun “Browning Cynergy Series “Browning Diana Grade “Browning Lightning Sporting Clays “Browning Micro Citori Lightning “Browning Midas Grade “Browning Special Sporting Clays “Browning Sporter Model “Browning ST–100 “Browning Superlight Citori Over/Under “Browning Superlight Citori Series “Browning Superlight Feather “Browning Superposed Pigeon Grade “Browning Superposed Standard “BSA Falcon “BSA O/U “BSA Silver Eagle “Cabela’s Volo “Caprinus Sweden Model “Centurion Over/Under Shotgun “Century Arms Arthemis “Chapuis Over/Under Shotgun “Charles Daly Country Squire Model “Charles Daly Deluxe Model “Charles Daly Diamond Series “Charles Daly Empire Series “Charles Daly Field Grade O/U “Charles Daly Lux Over/Under “Charles Daly Maxi-Mag “Charles Daly Model 105 “Charles Daly Model 106 “Charles Daly Model 206 “Charles Daly Over/Under Shotguns, Japanese Manufactured “Charles Daly Over/Under Shotguns, Prussian Manufactured “Charles Daly Presentation Model “Charles Daly Sporting Clays Model “Charles Daly Superior Model “Charles Daly UL “Churchill Imperial Model “Churchill Monarch “Churchill Premiere Model “Churchill Regent Trap and Skeet “Churchill Regent V “Churchill Sporting Clays “Churchill Windsor III “Churchill Windsor IV “Classic Doubles Model 101 Series “Cogswell & Harrison Woodward Type “Connecticut Shotgun Company A. Galazan Model “Connecticut Shotgun Company A–10 American “Connecticut Valley Classics Classic Field Waterfowler “Connecticut Valley Classics Classic Sporter O/U “Continental Arms Centaure Series “Cortona Over/Under Shotguns “CZ 581 Solo “CZ Canvasback 103D “CZ Limited Edition “CZ Mallard 104A “CZ Redhead Deluxe 103FE “CZ Sporting “CZ Super Scroll Limited Edition “CZ Upland Ultralight “CZ Wingshooter “Dakin Arms Model 170 “Darne SB1 “Darne SB2 “Darne SB3 “Depar ATAK “Doumoulin Superposed Express “Ducks Unlimited Dinner Guns/Guns of the Year, Over/Under Models “Dumoulin Boss Royal Superposed “E.A.A. Falcon “E.A.A. Scirocco Series “E.A.A./Sabatti Falcon-Mon Over/Under “E.A.A./Sabatti Sporting Clays Pro-Gold O/U “ERA Over/Under “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Aries “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Castrone “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Dove Gun “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Excaliber Series “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Jorema “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Leonardo “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Pegasus “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Posiden “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Quail Gun “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Royal “Famars di Abbiatico & Salvinelli Royale “Fausti Boutique Series “Fausti Caledon Series “Fausti Class Series “Ferlib Boss Model “Finnclassic 512 Series “Franchi 2004 Trap “Franchi 2005 Combination Trap “Franchi Alcione Series “Franchi Aristocrat Series “Franchi Black Majic “Franchi Falconet Series “Franchi Instict Series “Franchi Model 2003 Trap “Franchi Renaissance Series “Franchi Sporting 2000 “Franchi Undergun Model 3000 “Franchi Veloce Series “Galef Golden Snipe “Galef Silver Snipe “Golden Eagle Model 5000 Series “Griffon & Howe Black Ram “Griffon & Howe Broadway “Griffon & Howe Claremont “Griffon & Howe Madison “Griffon & Howe Silver Ram “Griffon & Howe Superbrite “Guerini Apex Series “Guerini Challenger Sporting “Guerini Ellipse Evo “Guerini Ellipse Evolution Sporting “Guerini Ellipse Limited “Guerini Essex Field “Guerini Flyaway “Guerini Forum Series “Guerini Magnus Series “Guerini Maxum Series “Guerini Summit Series “Guerini Tempio “Guerini Woodlander “H&R Harrich #1 “H&R Model 1212 “H&R Model 1212WF “H&R Pinnacle “Hatfields Hatfield Model 1 of 100 “Heym Model 55 F “Heym Model 55 SS “Heym Model 200 “Holland & Holland Royal Series “Holland & Holland Sporting Model “IGA 2000 Series “IGA Hunter Series “IGA Trap Series “IGA Turkey Series “IGA Waterfowl Series “K.F.C. E–2 Trap/Skeet “K.F.C. Field Gun “Kassnar Grade I O/U Shotgun “KDF Condor Khan Arthemis Field/Deluxe “Kimber Augusta Series “Kimber Marias Series “Krieghoff K–80 Four-Barrel Skeet Set “Krieghoff K–80 International Skeet “Krieghoff K–80 O/U Trap Shotgun “Krieghoff K–80 Skeet Shotgun “Krieghoff K–80 Sporting Clays O/U “Krieghoff K–80/RT Shotguns “Krieghoff Model 20 Sporting/Field “Krieghoff Model 32 Series “Lames Field Model “Lames Skeet Model “Lames Standard Model “Lames California Model “Laurona Model 67 “Laurona Model 82 Series “Laurona Model 83 Series “Laurona Model 84 Series “Laurona Model 85 Series “Laurona Model 300 Series “Laurona Silhouette 300 Sporting Clays “Laurona Silhouette 300 Trap “Laurona Super Model Over/Unders “Lebeau Baron Series “Lebeau Boss Verres “Lebeau Boxlock with sideplates “Lebeau Sidelock “Lebeau Versailles “Lippard Custom Over/Under Shotguns “Ljutic LM–6 Deluxe O/U Shotgun “Longthorne Hesketh Game Gun “Longthorne Sporter “Marlin Model 90 “Marocchi Avanza O/U Shotgun “Marocchi Conquista Over/Under Shotgun “Marocchi Conquista Series “Marocchi Model 100 “Marocchi Model 99 “Maverick HS–12 Tactical “Maverick Hunter Field Model “McMillan Over/Under Sidelock “Merkel 201 Series “Merkel 2016 Series “Merkel 2116 EL Sidelock “Merkel 303EL Luxus “Merkel Model 100 “Merkel Model 101 “Merkel Model 101E “Merkel Model 200E O/U Shotgun “Merkel Model 200E Skeet, Trap Over/Unders “Merkel Model 200SC Sporting Clays “Merkel Model 203E, 303E Over/Under Shotguns “Merkel Model 204E “Merkel Model 210 “Merkel Model 301 “Merkel Model 302 “Merkel Model 304E “Merkel Model 310E “Merkel Model 400 “Merkel Model 400E “Merkel Model 2000 Series “Mossberg Onyx Reserve Field “Mossberg Onyx Reserve Sporting “Mossberg Silver Reserve Field “Mossberg Silver Reserve Series “Mossberg Silver Reserve Sporting “Norinco Type HL12–203 “Omega Standard Over/Under Model “Orvis Field “Orvis Knockabout “Orvis Premier Grade “Orvis SKB Green Mountain Uplander “Orvis Sporting Clays “Orvis Super Field “Orvis Uplander “Orvis Waterfowler “Pederson Model 1000 Series “Pederson Model 1500 Series “Perazzi Boxlock Action Hunting “Perazzi Competition Series “Perazzi Electrocibles “Perazzi Granditalia “Perazzi Mirage Special Four-Gauge Skeet “Perazzi Mirage Special Skeet Over/Under “Perazzi Mirage Special Sporting O/U “Perazzi MS80 “Perazzi MT–6 “Perazzi MX1/MX2 “Perazzi MX3 “Perazzi MX4 “Perazzi MX5 “Perazzi MX6 “Perazzi MX7 Over/Under Shotguns “Perazzi MX8/20 Over/Under Shotgun “Perazzi MX8/MX8 Special Trap, Skeet “Perazzi MX9 Single Over/Under Shotguns “Perazzi MX10 “Perazzi MX11 “Perazzi MX12 Hunting Over/Under “Perazzi MX14 “Perazzi MX16 “Perazzi MX20 Hunting Over/Under “Perazzi MX28, MX410 Game O/U Shotguns “Perazzi MX2000 “Perazzi MX2005 “Perazzi MX2008 “Perazzi Sidelock Action Hunting “Perazzi Sporting Classic O/U “Perugini Maestro Series “Perugini Michelangelo “Perugini Nova Boss “Pietro Zanoletti Model 2000 Field O/U “Piotti Boss Over/Under Shotgun “Pointer Italian Model “Pointer Turkish Model “Remington 396 Series “Remington 3200 Series “Remington Model 32 Series “Remington Model 300 Ideal “Remington Model 332 Series “Remington Model SPR310 “Remington Model SPR310N “Remington Model SPR310S “Remington Peerless Over/Under Shotgun “Remington Premier Field “Remington Premier Ruffed Grouse “Remington Premier Series “Remington Premier STS Competition “Remington Premier Upland “Richland Arms Model 41 “Richland Arms Model 747 “Richland Arms Model 757 “Richland Arms Model 787 “Richland Arms Model 808 “Richland Arms Model 810 “Richland Arms Model 828 “Rigby 401 Sidelock “Rota Model 650 “Rota Model 72 Series “Royal American Model 100 “Ruger Red Label O/U Shotgun “Ruger Sporting Clays O/U Shotgun “Ruger Woodside Shotgun “Rutten Model RM 100 “Rutten Model RM285 “S.I.A.C.E. Evolution “S.I.A.C.E. Model 66C “S.I.A.C.E. 600T Lusso EL “San Marco 10-Ga. O/U Shotgun “San Marco 12-Ga. Wildflower Shotgun “San Marco Field Special O/U Shotgun “Sauer Model 66 Series “Savage Model 242 “Savage Model 420/430 “Sig Sauer Aurora Series “Sig Sauer SA–3 “Sig Sauer SA–5 “Silma Model 70 Series “SKB Model 85 Series “SKB Model 500 Series “SKB Model 505 Deluxe Over/Under Shotgun “SKB Model 505 Series “SKB Model 600 Series “SKB Model 605 Series “SKB Model 680 Series “SKB Model 685 Over/Under Shotgun “SKB Model 685 Series “SKB Model 700 Series “SKB Model 785 Series “SKB Model 800 Series “SKB Model 880 Series “SKB Model 885 Over/Under Trap, Skeet, Sporting Clays “SKB Model 885 Series “SKB Model 5600 Series “SKB Model 5700 Series “SKB Model 5800 Series “SKB Model GC–7 Series “Spartan SPR310/320 “Stevens Model 240 “Stevens Model 512 “Stoeger/IGA Condor I O/U Shotgun “Stoeger/IGA ERA 2000 Over/Under Shotgun “Techni-Mec Model 610 Over/Under “Tikka Model 412S Field Grade Over/Under “Traditions 350 Series Traditions Classic Field Series “Traditions Classic Upland Series “Traditions Gold Wing Series “Traditions Real 16 Series “Tri Star Model 330 Series “Tri-Star Hunter EX “Tri-Star Model 300 “Tri-Star Model 333 Series “Tri-Star Setter Model “Tri-Star Silver Series “Tri-Star Sporting Model “TULA 120 “TULA 200 “TULA TOZ34 “Universal 7112 “Universal 7312 “Universal 7412 “Universal 7712 “Universal 7812 “Universal 7912 “Verona 501 Series “Verona 680 Series “Verona 702 Series “Verona LX692 Series “Verona LX980 Series “Weatherby Athena Grade IV O/U Shotguns “Weatherby Athena Grade V Classic Field O/U “Weatherby Athena Series “Weatherby Classic Field Models “Weatherby II, III Classic Field O/Us “Weatherby Orion II Classic Sporting Clays O/U “Weatherby Orion II series “Weatherby Orion II Sporting Clays O/U “Weatherby Orion III Series “Weatherby Orion O/U Shotguns “Winchester Model 91 “Winchester Model 96 “Winchester Model 99 “Winchester Model 101 All Models and Grades “Winchester Model 1001 O/U Shotgun “Winchester Model 1001 Series “Winchester Model 1001 Sporting Clays O/U “Winchester Model G5500 “Winchester Model G6500 “Winchester Select Series “Zoli Condor “Zoli Deluxe Model “Zoli Dove “Zoli Field Special “Zoli Pigeon Model “Zoli Silver Snipe “Zoli Snipe “Zoli Special Model “Zoli Target Series “Zoli Texas “Zoli Z Series “Zoli Z–90 Series “Zoli Z-Sport Series
Shotguns—side By Sides “Armas Azor Sidelock Model “ADCO Sales Diamond Series Shotguns “American Arms Brittany Shotgun “American Arms Derby Side-by-Side “American Arms Gentry Double Shotgun “American Arms Grulla #2 Double Shotgun “American Arms TS/SS 10 Double Shotgun “American Arms TS/SS 12 Side-by-Side “American Arms WS/SS 10 “Arizaga Model 31 Double Shotgun “Armes de Chasse Sidelock and Boxlock Shotguns “Armsport 1050 Series Double Shotguns “Arrieta Sidelock Double Shotguns “Auguste Francotte Boxlock Shotgun “Auguste Francotte Sidelock Shotgun “AYA Boxlock Shotguns “AYA Sidelock Double Shotguns “Baikal IZH–43 Series Shotguns “Baikal MP210 Series Shotguns “Baikal MP213 Series Shotguns “Baikal MP220 Series Shotguns “Baker Gun Sidelock Models “Baltimore Arms Co. Style 1 “Baltimore Arms Co. Style 2 “Bayard Boxlock and Sidelock Model Shotguns “Beretta 450 series Shotguns “Beretta 451 Series Shotguns “Beretta 452 Series Shotguns “Beretta 470 Series Shotguns “Beretta Custom Grade Shotguns “Beretta Francia Standard “Beretta Imperiale Montecarlo “Beretta Model 452 Sidelock Shotgun “Beretta Omega Standard “Beretta Side-by-Side Field Shotguns “Beretta Verona/Bergamo “Bertuzzi Ariete Hammer Gun “Bertuzzi Model Orione “Bertuzzi Venere Series Shotguns “Beschi Sidelock and Boxlock Models “Bill Hanus Birdgun Doubles “Bosis Country SxS “Bosis Hammer Gun “Bosis Queen Sidelock “Boss Robertson SxS “Boss SxS “Boswell Boxlock Model “Boswell Feartherweight Monarch Grade “Boswell Merlin Sidelock “Boswell Sidelock Model “Breda Andromeda Special “BRNO ZP Series Shotguns “Brown SxS Shotgun “Browning B–SS “Browning B–SS Belgian/Japanese Prototype “Browning B–SS Sidelock “Browning B–SS Sporter “Bruchet Model A “Bruchet Model B “BSA Classic “BSA Royal “Cabela’s ATA Grade II Custom “Cabela’s Hemingway Model “Casartelli Sidelock Model “Century Coach SxS “Chapuis RGP Series Shotguns “Chapuis RP Series Shotguns “Chapuis Side-by-Side Shotgun “Chapuis UGP Round Design SxS “Charles Daly 1974 Wildlife Commemorative “Charles Daly Classic Coach Gun “Charles Daly Diamond SxS “Charles Daly Empire SxS “Charles Daly Model 306 “Charles Daly Model 500 “Charles Daly Model Dss Double “Charles Daly Superior SxS “Churchill Continental Series Shotguns “Churchill Crown Model “Churchill Field Model “Churchill Hercules Model “Churchill Imperial Model “Churchill Premiere Series Shotguns “Churchill Regal Model “Churchill Royal Model “Churchill Windsor Series Shotguns “Cimarron Coach Guns “Classic Doubles Model 201 “Classic Clot 1878 Hammer Shotgun “Cogswell & Harrison Sidelock and Boxlock Shotguns “Colt 1883 Hammerless “Colt SxS Shotgun “Connecticut Shotgun Co. Model 21 “Connecticut Shotgun Co. RBL Series “Continental Arms Centaure “Crescent SxS Model “Crucelegui Hermanos Model 150 Double “CZ Amarillo “CZ Bobwhite “CZ Competition “CZ Deluxe “CZ Durango “CZ Grouse “CZ Hammer Models “CZ Partridge “CZ Ringneck “CZ Ringneck Target “Dakin Model 100 “Dakin Model 147 “Dakin Model 160 “Dakin Model 215 “Dakota American Legend “Dakota Classic Grade “Dakota Classic Grade II “Dakota Classic Grade III “Dakota Premier Grade “Dan Arms Deluxe Field Model “Dan Arms Field Model “Darne Sliding Breech Series Shotguns “Davidson Arms Model 63B “Davidson Arms Model 69SL “Davidson Arms Model 73 Stagecoach “Dumoulin Continental Model “Dumoulin Etendard Model “Dumoulin Europa Model “Dumoulin Liege Model “E.A.A. SABA “E.A.A./Sabatti Saba-Mon Double Shotgun “E.M.F. Model 1878 SxS “E.M.F. Stagecoach SxS Model “ERA Quail SxS “ERA Riot SxS “ERA SxS “Famars Boxlock Models “Famars Castore “Famars Sidelock Models “Fausti Caledon “Fausti Class “Fausti Class Round Body “Fausti DEA Series Shotguns “Ferlib Mignon Hammer Model “Ferlib Model F VII Double Shotgun “FN Anson SxS Standard Grade “FN New Anson SxS Standard Grade “FN Sidelock Standard Grade “Fox Higher Grade Models (A–F) “Fox Sterlingworth Series “Franchi Airone “Franchi Astore Series “Franchi Destino “Franchi Highlander “Franchi Sidelock Double Barrel “Francotte Boxlock Shotgun “Francotte Jubilee Model “Francotte Sidelock Shotgun “Galef Silver Hawk SxS “Galef Zabala SxS “Garbi Model 100 “Garbi Model 101 Side-by-Side “Garbi Model 103A, B Side-by-Side “Garbi Model 200 Side-by-Side “Gastinne Model 105 “Gastinne Model 202 “Gastinne Model 353 “Gastinne Model 98 “Gib 10 Gauge Magnum “Gil Alhambra “Gil Diamond “Gil Laga “Gil Olimpia “Greener Sidelock SxS Shotguns “Griffin & Howe Britte “Griffin & Howe Continental Sidelock “Griffin & Howe Round Body Game Gun “Griffin & Howe Traditional Game Gun “Grulla 217 Series “Grulla 219 Series “Grulla Consort “Grulla Model 209 Holland “Grulla Model 215 “Grulla Model 216 Series “Grulla Number 1 “Grulla Royal “Grulla Super MH “Grulla Supreme “Grulla Windsor “H&R Anson & Deeley SxS “H&R Model 404 “H&R Small Bore SxS hammer Gun “Hatfield Uplander Shotgun “Henry Atkin Boxlock Model “Henry Atkin Sidelock Model “Holland & Holland Cavalier Boxlock “Holland & Holland Dominion Game Gun “Holland & Holland Northwood Boxlock “Holland & Holland Round Action Sidelock “Holland & Holland Round Action Sidelock Paradox “Holland & Holland Royal Hammerless Ejector Sidelock “Holland & Holland Sidelock Shotguns “Holloway premier Sidelock SxS Model “Hopkins & Allen Boxlock and Sidelock Models “Huglu SxS Shotguns “Husqvarna SxS Shotguns “IGA Deluxe Model “IGA Turkey Series Model “Interstate Arms Model 99 Coach Gun “Ithaca Classic Doubles Series Shotguns “Ithaca Hammerless Series “Iver Johnson Hammerless Model Shotguns “Jeffery Boxlock Shotguns “Jeffery Sidelock Shotguns “K.B.I. Grade II SxS “Khan Coach Gun “Kimber Valier Series “Krieghoff Essencia Boxlock “Krieghoff Essencia Sidelock “Lanber Imperial Sidelock “Laurona Boxlock Models “Laurona Sidelock Models “Lefever Grade A Field Model “Lefever Grade A Skeet Model “Lefever New “Lefever Model “Lefever Nitro Special “Lefever Sideplate Models “Leforgeron Boxlock Ejector “Leforgeron Sidelock Ejector “Liberty Coach Gun Series “MacNaughton Sidelock Model “Malin Boxlock Model “Malin Sidelock Model “Masquelier Boxlock Model “Masquelier Sidelock Model “Medwell SxS Sidelock “Merkel Model 8, 47E Side-by-Side Shotguns “Merkel Model 47LSC Sporting Clays Double “Merkel Model 47S, 147S Side-by-Sides “Merkel Model 76E “Merkel Model 122E “Merkel Model 126E “Merkel Model 280 Series “Merkel Model 360 Series “Merkel Model 447SL “Merkel Model 1620 Series “Merkel Model 1622 Series “Mossberg Onyx Reserve Sporting “Mossberg Silver Reserve Field “Navy Arms Model 100 “Navy Arms Model 150 “Orvis Custom Uplander “Orvis Field Grade “Orvis Fine Grade “Orvis Rounded Action “Orvis Waterfowler “Parker Fluid Steel Barrel Models (All Grades) “Parker Reproductions Side-by-Side “Pederson Model 200 “Pederson Model 2500 “Perazzi DHO Models “Perugini Ausonia “Perugini Classic Model “Perugini Liberty “Perugini Regina Model “Perugini Romagna Gun “Piotti Hammer Gun “Piotti King Extra Side-by-Side “Piotti King No. 1 Side-by-Side Piotti Lunik Side-by-Side “Piotti Monaco Series “Piotti Monte Carlo “Piotti Piuma Side-by-Side “Piotti Westlake “Precision Sports Model 600 Series Doubles “Premier Italian made SxS Shotguns “Premier Spanish made SxS Shotguns “Purdy Best Quality Game Gun “Remington Model 1900 Hammerless “Remington Model SPR210 “Remington Model SPR220 “Remington Model SPR220 Cowboy “Remington Premier SxS “Richland Arms Co. Italian made SxS Models “Richland Arms Co. Spanish made SxS Models “Rigby Boxlock Shotgun “Rigby Hammer Shotgun “Rizzini Boxlock Side-by-Side “Rizzini Sidelock Side-by-Side “Rossi Overlund “Rossi Squire “Rota Model 105 “Rota Model 106 “Rota Model 411 Series “Royal American Model 600 Boxlock “Royal American Model 800 Sidelock “Ruger Gold Label “SAE Model 209E “SAE Model 210S “SAE Model 340X “Sarasqueta Mammerless Sidelock “Sarasqueta Model 3 Boxlock “Sauer Boxlock Model Shotguns “Sauer Sidelock Model Shotguns “Savage Fox Model FA–1 “Savage Model 550 “Scott Blenheim “Scott Bowood “Scott Chatsworth “Scott Kinmount “SIACE Italian made SxS Shotguns “SKB Model 100 “SKB Model 150 “SKB Model 200 “SKB Model 280 “SKB Model 300 “SKB Model 385 “SKB Model 400 “SKB Model 480 “SKB Model 485 “Smith & Wesson Elite Gold Series Grade I “Smith & Wesson Elite Silver Grade I “Smith, L.C. Boxlock Hammerless Shotguns “Smith, L.C. Sidelock Hammerless Shotguns “Spartan SPR Series Shotguns “Stevens Model 311/315 Series “Stoeger/IGA Uplander Side-by-Side Shotgun “Taylor’s SxS Model “Tri-Star Model 311 “Tri-Star Model 411 Series “Ugartechea 10-Ga. Magnum Shotgun “Universal Double Wing SxS “Vouzelaud Model 315 Series “Walther Model WSF “Walther Model WSFD “Weatherby Atheana “Weatherby D’Italia Series “Weatherby Orion “Westley Richards Best Quality Sidelock “Westley Richards Boxlock Shotguns “Westley Richards Connaught Model “Westley Richards Hand Detachable Lock Model “William Douglas Boxlock “Winchester Model 21 “Winchester Model 24 “Zoli Alley Cleaner “Zoli Classic “Zoli Falcon II “Zoli Model Quail Special “Zoli Pheasant “Zoli Silver Hawk “Zoli Silver Snipe
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vitamins and minerals (as essential micronutrients). Peanut butter itself is a rich source of vitamin E (45% of the Daily Value, DV, in a 100 gram amount) and B vitamins (particularly niacin at 67% DV).[7]
Plumpy'Nut has a two-year shelf-life and requires no water, preparation, or refrigeration.[2] Its ease of use has made mass treatment of malnutrition in famine situations more efficient than in the past.[3][8] Severe acute malnutrition has traditionally been treated with therapeutic milk and required hospitalization.[9] Unlike milk, Plumpy'Nut can be administered at home and without medical supervision.[2] It also provides calories and essential nutrients that restore and maintain body weight and health in severely malnourished children more effectively than F100.[6]
The United Nations has recognized this utility, stating in 2007 that "new evidence suggests... that large numbers of children with severe acute malnutrition can be treated in their communities without being admitted to a health facility or a therapeutic feeding centre,"[10] as was implemented in 2007 by UNICEF and the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department in Niger to address a malnutrition emergency.[11] Plumpy'nut conforms to the UN definition of a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).[2][10]
Plumpy'nut is not intended for routine nutrition, or for malnutrition in non-famine situations.[12] Peanut allergies have not been found to be a problem in usage due to a lack of allergic reactions in the target populations.[13]
Composition [ edit ]
The ingredients in Plumpy'Nut include "peanut-based paste, with sugar, vegetable oil and skimmed milk powder, enriched with vitamins and minerals".[2] Plumpy'Nut is said to be "surprisingly tasty".[3]
Production [ edit ]
While the majority of Plumpy'Nut was made in France as of 2010, this therapeutic food is easily produced[3] and can be made locally in peanut-growing areas by mixing peanut paste with a slurry of other ingredients provisioned by Nutriset.[14]
A number of partner companies and one non-profit organization in the U.S state of Rhode Island make Plumpy'Nut; six of the factories are in African countries (Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Sudan, Madagascar, Kenya), one is in Haiti and another one in India.[14]
Plumpy'Nut is distributed from the manufacturer to geographic areas of need through a complex supply chain. Forward information flows, such as projections of need, order processes, and payment information, and backward information flows, including stock monitoring, quality assurance, and performance data occur through information exchange vulnerable to errors or tardiness associated with supply chain fragmentation.[15][16] Factors affecting potential for loss of efficiencies in the supply chain are information flow on orders, basis of need, forecasts, flow upstream from field officers and country offices to parties controlling regional distribution and manufacturing by Nutriset, downstream flow of information on delivery times and order status.[15][16]
A complete two-month regimen for a child costs US$60 c. 2010.[3]
History [ edit ]
Woman giving Plumpy'Nut nutritional aid to her children in Kenya
Inspired by the popular Nutella spread,[3] Plumpy'Nut was invented in 1996 by André Briend, a French paediatric nutritionist, and Michel Lescanne, a food-processing engineer.[2] Nutella is a spread composed of sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skimmed milk powder, whey powder, lecithin, and vanillin. In contrast, Plumpy'Nut is a combination of peanut paste, vegetable oil and milk powder, without including chocolate, but containing sugar, vitamins and dietary minerals.
Skippy may have developed a similar product in the early 1960s, according to a former employee, although it was never released.[17]
Patent issues [ edit ]
Nutriset holds patents in many countries (including US patent 6346284, published in 2002) for the production of nut-based, nutritional foods as pastes, which they have defended to prevent non-licensees in the United States from producing similar products.[8] In places where Nutriset does not hold a patent, manufacturers of similar pastes have been stopped from exporting their products to places where Plumpy'Nut is patented.[18] In at least 27 African nations, any non-profit (including NGOs) can make the paste and not pay a license fee.[19]
In 2010, two US non-profit organizations unsuccessfully sued the French company in an attempt to legally produce Plumpy'Nut in the US without paying the royalty fee.[8] Mike Mellace, president of one of the organizations claimed that “some children are dying because Nutriset prevents other companies from producing a food which could save their lives.”[20] Invalidation of the Nutriset patent may have a positive impact on populations affected by famine, and studies by humanitarian organizations support the idea that having a single, dominant supplier in Nutriset is undesirable.[21] Critics of Nutriset argue the US patent is “obvious in light of prior recipes” and “that the patent has essentially conferred monopoly power on Nutriset and thus violated the Sherman Act".[22] By definition, a patent grants a temporary monopoly, and Nutriset won the case. Some have suggested a similarity between pharmaceutical company compulsory licensing agreements, in place under the WTO TRIPS Agreement, and Plumpy'Nut.[22]
Following a threat of legal action against a Norwegian company that was exporting a similar product to Kenya, Nutriset was criticized by Médecins Sans Frontières,[21] which stated in an open letter that "Nutriset has been asked repeatedly by us and others for simple, reasonable licensing terms... Instead it appears that [Nutriset has] decided to adopt a policy of aggressive protection of [its] patents that could be considered an abuse in relation to humanitarian products."[23] A UNICEF study, commissioned at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, recommended a diversified supplier base of RUTF products to better serve global needs.[24] In response to the criticism, Nutriset has allowed companies and NGOs in some African countries to make the paste and not pay license fees.[19]
See also [ edit ]For too long LGBTIs have had their identities hidden and their loved ones excluded from their funerals
It is heartbreaking enough that Leelah Alcorn appears to have taken her life on Sunday (28 December) because she felt rejected by the family and community in which she grew up.
And it is sad, yet not entirely surprising, that in announcing her death, her family compounded that rejection. They identified her by a name and a gender that she clearly discarded.
But it would be an outrage if those who over-rode her wishes in life now did so in death, insisting on burying her not as she identified – as Leelah – but as a boy named Joshua.
Unfortunately, we have been here before. Jennifer Gable, a 32-year-old trans woman from Idaho, US died suddenly in October 2014.
Despite being fully transitioned for several years, and being known to all her friends as Jennifer, her father took a different view of matters. He instructed the funeral parlor cut Jennifer’s hair short, dress her up in a suit – and in all accompanying notices referred to Jennifer by her dead name and as ‘he’.
This truly was cold, calculated abuse. For unlike the instant Facebook posting by Leelah’s mother, it took time to plan and time to put into action. This was a father laying claim to his daughter’s memory and in place of her very clear wishes, substituting his own view of who she was.
Though of course it was anything but a first. It is not just trans funerals that have been taken over and subverted by those who consider that blood or marriage give them superior rights to dictate how the dead should have lived. Sadly, there are any number of stories of LGBTI folk being frozen out from the last rites of their life love.
Two years ago, a close friend lost a partner suddenly, unexpectedly to cancer. Their attempt to grieve was blown to pieces by the sudden re-emergence of a wife who had not been in contact with this man in a decade. There was no emotional connection. No love. No liking. Much suspicion that the main interest was in the deceased’s estate.
Yet one awful omission – the failure to finalize a divorce – meant my friend was not merely excluded from the funeral: but actively prevented from finding out where he was buried.
That was grotesque.
Surely, though, we should respect the wishes of the ‘nearest and dearest’? A funeral, after all, is a time when friends and family get a chance to let out just a little of the grief they are feeling. For that view, I have some sympathy – but only some.
A funeral is not just about coming to terms with death. It is, too, about coming to terms with a life that has passed. It is one last final party, celebrating a person who is no more. The ultimate irony: it should be the best party the deceased has ever had, if only they were around to turn up for it.
I’ve not – yet – got around to thinking morbid things about my own end. I’ve not updated my will: nor even begun to think about the music I’d like played or where I want donations to be sent. But I know this: if anyone tries to bury me as who I was, to employ a name I no longer own or even, in passing, to reference a gender I am not, I would be angry, upset beyond words.
Because while it may be their grief, it’s MY funeral. Not theirs.
I hope and pray that Leelah’s parents will find some way to allow this last gesture of respect to their daughter. I don’t subscribe to the poisonous brew of vitriol that has been poured on to them over the last 24 hours or so. There is absolutely no excuse for publishing their address or phone number and encouraging others to contact them, as some have done.
Clearly there are issues over what happened. In the fullness of time these will be explored and lessons learned: perhaps change that Leelah would have appreciated will follow.
But please, let us not continue to dissect words spoken in the 24 hours after. If you have ever experienced the death of a child or a sibling you will know, as many seem not to, that there is no reason in the immediate aftermath. Just shock, and shock and more shock. And let us not, please, turn our grief into viciousness towards a family who, whatever mistakes they have made, are themselves also grieving.
Let us, instead, look forward and if we can, give Leelah a send-off and a legacy of which she herself would be utterly proud.The Ebola virus may be becoming even more contagious as the West Africa outbreak continues, experts fear.
Doctors in the U.S. and U.K. have warned that the virus appears to be becoming more contagious and more they are finding more of the virus in the bodies of infected people than in previous outbreaks of the deadly virus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus has killed 4,500 people, mostly in West Africa. But it estimates conservatively that by January 2015 there could be as many 500,000 people infected in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone.
Jeremy Farrar, director of the medical research charity the Wellcome Trust, which has funded research that could help to contain the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, said: "It does look like the amount of virus in the body is higher than in previous epidemics. That means there is more virus in the blood, in saliva, urine, vomit and diarrhea."
Ebola is spread through body fluids. More virus in bodily fluids could make the virus even more contagious.
Professor David Mabey, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines, said: "Patients with more virus in bodily fluids will be more likely to infect people they come into contact with."
U.S. scientist Dr Peter Jahling, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Maryland, said his team had tested patients in Liberia and found "there is just more virus" in samples taken from infected people than in previous outbreaks.
Research also shows victims are passing the virus on to more people, but experts believe this is because the outbreak has spread through cities, and not just rural areas as in previous outbreaks.
U.K. prime minister David Cameron yesterday called on European Union leaders to donate more money to tackle the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
Britain has pledged more than £125 million, and Cameron wrote to other EU leaders to try to raise $1.275 billion to tackle what he called "the biggest health problem in a generation".All photos by the author
I was sitting in my car in a parking lot in Palmyra, New York, listening to a man shout accusations against Mormons into a megaphone. The man had been shouting for hours, from the late afternoon all the way into the evening, because of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a production put on every year by the Church of Jesus of Latter-Day Saints. The Mormon Church's annual pageant is a big, flashy spectacle complete with pyrotechnics and dramatic fight scenes. And every year, the LDS followers gathered inside are matched in vigor by the anti-Mormons outside, many of them evangelical Christians, trying almost as hard to convince people that Mormonism is a lie.
I heard the man with the megaphone shout, "Why would God appear to a perverted farm boy? A man who translated a book through a peep-stone? A man who, before he was 37, married 40 wives?"
I leaned forward, suddenly alert. Buried in his hate speech, the man with the megaphone had hit on a nugget of truth, a controversy that is quietly rippling through Mormonism. I got out of my car and headed towards him.
I know the Hill Cumorah Pageant well, because I was once an insider. I was raised in a Mormon family, and I went through all the rites of passage, striving to believe and to be a good person according to the tenets of Mormonism, only to have my faith crumble as a teenager. I ended up leaving Mormonism, although with my family still practicing, I can never be entirely free of its influence.
I came back to the pageant for a specific reason: I was searching for the memories of fear that shaped my upbringing. As a young child, I used to come here with my family. We'd spread blankets on the grass and I'd watch, transfixed, as the Book of Mormon stories I learned about in primary school came alive before my eyes. Then, as the pageant died down and we trailed our way back to the car, our feet trampling the grass beneath us, we'd pass some blank-faced people holding up pieces of paper. My father warned us in the strongest of terms never to take any.
As we walked past these people, I always looked sideways in fear. These were the "anti-Mormons" I had heard so much about. I knew, without even needing to look, that those papers contained nothing but the vilest of lies, full of Satan's trickery designed to lead us away from the one true church.
When I left Mormonism, I had to confront the fact that I had become the person that I once feared, that my family and friends still feared. The one inviolable belief of my upbringing was that "The Church Is True"—a phrase we repeated constantly and organized our attitudes, thoughts, and actions around. And so, if a member ever left like I did, it could only be because they were full of pride, or deluded by Satan, or wanting to sin. After I left, people probed at my individual circumstances, asking questions until they found whatever evidence they needed to place me into one of those neat categories.
It's obvious that I don't fit in anymore. When I first drove into the parking lot of the visitors' center next to the Hill Cumorah, the attendant on duty took one look at my sleeveless shirt, the coffee cup in my car (coffee is forbidden in the LDS), before gently explaining to me the religious nature of the nearby sites. When I talked to the performers who were milling around interacting with the audience, they too assumed that I was a curious non-member. I let them think this. After all, my outfit was a deliberate choice; one that clearly signaled the fact that I was not wearing the undergarments—the magic Mormon underwear, the Jesus jammies—that faithful Mormon adults are supposed to wear.
When asked if I'd been to the pageant before or if I knew about the Mormon religion, I said no, because I didn't want to go through the pain of explaining that I'd left the church long ago. Performers dressed in colorful costumes pressed religious pamphlets into my hands. Two missionaries, dressed in long flowing dresses and sporting black nametags, gave me a Book of Mormon, bearing a teary-eyed testimony that this was the true church.
I didn't like this dishonesty, but I knew it was necessary: I can no longer fake being a Mormon and I know, from years of experience, that the truth of my Mormon background will only invite pain. To be a non-Mormon is one thing—you still have time to discover the one true church—but to be an ex-Mormon means that you already found the one true church and rejected it.
I found a chair and sat down, looking at the crowd of people at the pageant, about a third of whom were costumed performers. With 650 performers, all of whom were volunteers, they seemed almost as numerous as the audience. The performers were all dressed in a weird mixture of ancient Jewish and Native American attire. They were supposed to represent a version of history where American civilization descended from Jews, although the costume designers didn't have much actual history to base their garments on.
I wondered what would happen if I started talking about the controversial aspects of Mormonism—the uncomfortable nuggets of truth that, as a faithful Mormon, I dismissed as Satan's attacks against the Mormon Church. Things like the fact that Joseph Smith, who I was raised to revere as a prophet of God, had a habit of marrying the wives of other men and teenage girls. The fact that the Book of Mormon describes civilizations, supposedly the descendants of settlers from Jerusalem that existed here in the Americas, for which there is no archaeological or genetic evidence. The fact that Joseph Smith wrote multiple conflicting accounts of the First Vision, which is considered the cornerstone of the Mormon religion.
Within the past few years, Mormon leaders have been quietly releasing letters, couched in careful language, that address these uncomfortable facts. These letters strive for plausible deniability, twisting these facts into a message about the trials and tribulations of faith, but the facts are still there. These facts still push at the boundaries of belief. My sense of the controversy, based on the zone of silence that seems to surround these letters, is that most Mormons either don't know about these letters or are making an active effort not to think about them too carefully.
I was wondering what would happen if I started probing, but I also remembered the weird skipping habit that my brain developed as a by-product of growing up as a Mormon—a habit that persisted long after I left the church. This mental skipping caused me to dismiss out of hand most of the weird rumors I heard from outsiders.
What could outsiders possibly know about Mormonism that I didn't? I dismissed the mention of secret handshakes as myth. (That's actually true—I just never went through the temple ceremony, so I never learned the handshake.) I vehemently denied the crazy-talk about blood oaths. (Unfortunately, that was also a part of the temple ceremony, at least up until 1990.) When I first read Jon Krakauer's book Under The Banner of Heaven, I skipped over the history section, completely missing the mention of Joseph Smith's polygamy and the doctrinal basis of polygamy. When I saw the South Park episode about the Mormons, I thought the scene of Joseph Smith putting his face into a hat to translate the Book of Mormon was an over-the-top parody. (Nope—also true.)
Why Gay Mormon Men Married to Women Are Fighting Gay Marriage
And so, sitting at the pageant, I tried to reconcile these two parts of me: the part that knew the truth, the part with logic; and the part that had spent so many years clinging to my unwavering faith. I was reminded of this when a middle-aged married couple from Utah, who came over to talk to me. The husband was wearing a yellow headdress and fake beard, while the wife was wearing a red turban with tinkling metal charms hanging around her forehead, which I guess is what passed for the fashion of the Jews-who-created-ancient-civilizations-in-the-Americas.
"Do you know much about the Book of Mormon?" she asked me.
"Most of what I know about Mormons comes from South Park," I replied, smiling with what I hoped was charming sheepishness.
Their faces were blank. Then recognition dawned on Jeff's face.
"Oh, the cartoon," the husband said. "Don't worry, we're not offended." His words sounded a little slow and carefully cheerful.
And once again, I retreated. I've been down this road a hundred times before. I could push. I could make South Park jokes and be my usual profane self, but the truth is that I wasn't there to argue or offend. The conversation moved on. I listened politely, trying to keep a smile on my face as they explained the Book of Mormon stories that I already knew so well. Lara told me that when I watched the pageant, I should listen to my feelings. She compared listening to the Holy Ghost to a conducting a science experiment.
"It's a test," she said, "like when you're testing..." and she fumbled for the correct words.
"Like when you test a hypothesis?" I asked. I remembered telling another performer about my training as a scientist. Jeff and Lara had probably been told that the blonde woman sitting alone was a curious non-member with a background in science. But Jeff and Lara still seemed like nice people, even if it their efforts were suspicious.
These were the people of my childhood. I know them, I understand them, and I love them, even though I am no longer one of them.
And then, as the sun set and the sky deepened into dark, the hill came alive with the light and noise of the pageant. This was the same pageant of my childhood, with the script and the props almost an exact match for my memories. The gray stage set, which in the daylight looked odd pressed up against the steep hill, turned into an old-fashioned Biblical city, lit with a number of colorful lights. The costumed performers who had been wandering around earlier trying to convert me crowded the stage.
The story played in the pageant was a re-enactment of the Book of Mormon. The actor-version of Mormon prophet Lehi, who in real life was an actuary, shouted hellfire and damnation to a skeptical Jerusalem. Then he left Jerusalem, traveling with his family by boat to the Americas. Once in the America's, Lehi's children split into the factions, into the "good" Nephites and the "bad" Lamanites. More prophets came, all sounding, as Lehi did, like crotchety old men shouting eternal damnation into the empty air. Jesus made an appearance, along with a bunch of trumpeted angels. The performers reenacted huge battles, their metal swords flashing against the colorful lights of the pageant. And then the pageant ended with one last battle, with a prophet burying a record of their people into the Hill Cumorah, with the final scene ending in Joseph Smith digging up this record and translating it.
The story was all black-and-white—the bad people all bad, the good people all good. The noise and color was over-the-top: the director must have been obsessed with pyrotechnics, as flames leaped up on the stage for any excuse. Flames backlit Jesus on the cross and jumped up as Lehi preached hellfire and damnation. The contrarian in me started to root for the "bad" people, as the "good" people were just too pompous, their prophets angry and querulous.
Which brings me back to sitting in my car, after the noise and pomp of the pageant had ended, I found myself listening to the man with a megaphone shout accusations against the Mormons. There was that nugget of truth—Joseph translated the Book of Mormon from a hat, Joseph and his many wives—that as a Mormon, I had learned to dismiss unequivocally. When I was a Mormon, there were no gray areas.
I got out of the car and approached the protesters. By now, the man with the megaphone had gone quiet and was speaking to another man, so I started talking to the kid next to him. This kid was sturdy-looking and blonde, and looked far too old for his age, which I estimated to be about 12 or 13. I started asking him about why he was here. He told me he was home-schooled and that he traveled around the country with his family, picketing events. As he pointed towards the white van his family traveled in, my heart broke. He was too young: just as I had once been afraid of him, he was now learning to fear me.
Then a woman came over, who seemed to be the kid's mother. She introduced herself as Stephanie.
"You a Mormon?" she asked.
"No," I said, honestly. I told her I was a writer, that I had cousins who lived nearby, that I wanted to write about the pageant—all true. But when she started probing about my beliefs, I started evading her questions. Just as the Mormons would have been offended by my former Mormon status, I figured Stephanie, a devoted Christian, would be offended by my agnosticism.
When I told Stephanie that I'd been following the controversy about Mormon history, her response was sharp and immediate.
"You be careful," she told me, gesturing with her hands. "I don't know what it is but there's something compelling about the Mormons."
And there it was: the fear, which had also been my own fear for a long time. Inside Mormonism, I had been afraid of the outside world. Outside Mormonism, my fear turned into nightmares where I returned to church. Even though I never had the personality or temperament for Mormonism, I was still heartbroken when I realized that I would never fit in again. And so, for years after leaving, I was afraid of the possibility that I might feel compelled to force myself back into the painfully narrow mold expected of me.
As I look around at the Christian activists, their voices slowly cracking from a long night of yelling, and at the detritus of a pageant based on simplistic stories that have no basis in physical reality, I felt completely foreign. So I returned to my car and left, my headlights sweeping past the crowds, and drove back to the life of gray areas I'd created for myself.
Thumbnail photo of the Hill Cumorah Pageant by Krishna Kumar.
Follow Rachel Velamur on Twitter.Winnipeg Jets 2016-17 Training Camp Day 18: Coach Maurice
On a day the team got down to 24 on the roster the Jets bench boss spoke following skate.
Topics: Background on the goalie decision. How did Pavelec react to the news? How hard it it for a guy who has been here since team relocated to not be part of this team moving forward? Does this show the depth the organization now has? How would he describe the Jets blueline? Filling the Trouba void by committee? When he looks at Morrissey what has he seen in his growth? Was Tanev long shot to make the team? On telling the young players they are in the NHL. Injury updates for Stafford and Matthias. Is there a clear cut #1 goalie? Will it be a tandem? Does he think its important to establish who is the #1 goalie? Has he decided who Morrissey will be paired with? Expectations for the Jets this year.Mrs Ethelston's Church of England Primary School, in Uplyme, Devon, prohibited photos and video filming, claiming it was due to changes in child protection and images legislation.
It is the first time the school has taken such measures.
Parents criticised the move and said they felt there was no legal reason why they cannot take photos for personal use.
Jane Souter, who has a son at the school and is chair of the Parents Teachers and Friends Association, said: "It is a shame but that is the way it is all going now, you are not allowed to do a lot of things because of rules and regulations.
"A lot of the parents think it is a great shame. There are people who have been there for many, many years and they are upset about it, although they do not blame the school.
"It is sad that you are not allowed to take pictures of your own children.
"It is all to do with the pictures getting into the wrong hands and the school has to follow its own code of conduct. "I am sure the school do not like it just as much as we do."
Another parent, who did not want to be named, said: "Parents want to record achievements through their child's life and not to be made to feel that they are all criminals and are going to upload dodgy photos to some porn site."
They added that many parents were upset that they could no longer take photos and fear photography will be banned at every school event.
They said: "Speaking to many parents, they were extremely annoyed and exasperated and no one really knew why they couldn't take photos of their children as they done so in the past.
"Many seemed just resigned that it was a sign of the times."
They added: "Please, please, clear this ridiculous nanny state affair up."
A spokesman for the Devon local education authority said: "It's a decision which individual head teachers come to, usually with consultation with governors."Home Daily News Judge accused of giving clerk $26K in gifts…
Judiciary
Judge accused of giving clerk $26K in gifts for'special friend' relationship seeks to keep his job
A California judge accused of giving his clerk a BMW in a bid to make her a “special friend” urged a judicial commission on Wednesday to allow him to keep his job.
The judge, 64-year-old Valeriano Saucedo of Tulare County, is accused of giving his clerk gifts worth $26,000, including the car, and sending her more than 400 text messages, the Recorder (sub. req.) reports. According to a July report (PDF) by a panel of special masters, he threatened to kill himself when the clerk tried to end the relationship.
The report said Saucedo had “a strong and unblemished record of service” before the alleged conduct that began in September 2013. The report concluded Saucedo’s version of events lacked credibility.
Saucedo told the Commission on Judicial Performance he acted inappropriately but he could still perform his judicial duties, according to the Recorder account. “My career is salvageable,” he said. “I am salvageable as a human being.”
Gary Schons, the lawyer presenting the case against Saucedo, said Saucedo’s plans to win his clerk’s friendship were “worthy of a Dickens novel” and he should be removed from office."Feature Toggling" is a set of patterns which can help a team to deliver new functionality to users rapidly but safely. In this article on Feature Toggling we'll start off with a short story showing some typical scenarios where Feature Toggles are helpful. Then we'll dig into the details, covering specific patterns and practices which will help a team succeed with Feature Toggles.
Feature Toggles are also refered to as Feature Flags, Feature Bits, or Feature Flippers. These are all synonyms for the same set of techniques. Throughout this article I'll use feature toggles and feature flags interchangebly.
A Toggling Tale
Picture the scene. You're on one of several teams working on a sophisticated town planning simulation game. Your team is responsible for the core simulation engine. You have been tasked with increasing the efficiency of the Spline Reticulation algorithm. You know this will require a fairly large overhaul of the implementation which will take several weeks. Meanwhile other members of your team will need to continue some ongoing work on related areas of the codebase.
You want to avoid branching for this work if at all possible, based on previous painful experiences of merging long-lived branches in the past. Instead, you decide that the entire team will continue to work on trunk, but the developers working on the Spline Reticulation improvements will use a Feature Toggle to prevent their work from impacting the rest of the team or destabilizing the codebase.
The birth of a Feature Flag Here's the first change introduced by the pair working on the algorithm: before function reticulateSplines(){ // current implementation lives here } these examples all use JavaScript ES2015 after function reticulateSplines(){ var useNewAlgorithm = false; // useNewAlgorithm = true; // UNCOMMENT IF YOU ARE WORKING ON THE NEW SR ALGORITHM if( useNewAlgorithm ){ return enhancedSplineReticulation(); }else{ return oldFashionedSplineReticulation(); } } function oldFashionedSplineReticulation(){ // current implementation lives here } function enhancedSplineReticulation(){ // TODO: implement better SR algorithm } The pair have moved the current algorithm implementation into an oldFashionedSplineReticulation function, and turned reticulateSplines into a Toggle Point. Now if someone is working on the new algorithm they can enable the "use new Algorithm" Feature by uncommenting the useNewAlgorithm = true line.
Making a flag dynamic A few hours pass and the pair are ready to run their new algorithm through some of the simulation engine's integration tests. They also want to exercise the old algorithm in the same integration test run. They'll need to be able to enable or disable the Feature dynamically, which means it's time to move on from the clunky mechanism of commenting or uncommenting that useNewAlgorithm = true line: function reticulateSplines(){ if( featureIsEnabled("use-new-SR-algorithm") ){ return enhancedSplineReticulation(); }else{ return oldFashionedSplineReticulation(); } } We've now introduced a featureIsEnabled function, a Toggle Router which can be used to dynamically control which codepath is live. There are many ways to implement a Toggle Router, varying from a simple in-memory store to a highly sophisticated distributed system with a fancy UI. For now we'll start with a very simple system: function createToggleRouter(featureConfig){ return { setFeature(featureName,isEnabled){ featureConfig[featureName] = isEnabled; }, featureIsEnabled(featureName){ return featureConfig[featureName]; } }; } note that we're using ES2015's method shorthand We can create a new toggle router based on some default configuration - perhaps read in from a config file - but we can also dynamically toggle a feature on or off. This allows automated tests to verify both sides of a toggled feature: describe('spline reticulation', function(){ let toggleRouter; let simulationEngine; beforeEach(function(){ toggleRouter = createToggleRouter(); simulationEngine = createSimulationEngine({toggleRouter:toggleRouter}); }); it('works correctly with old algorithm', function(){ // Given toggleRouter.setFeature("use-new-SR-algorithm",false); // When const result = simulationEngine.doSomethingWhichInvolvesSplineReticulation(); // Then verifySplineReticulation(result); }); it('works correctly with new algorithm', function(){ // Given toggleRouter.setFeature("use-new-SR-algorithm",true); // When const result = simulationEngine.doSomethingWhichInvolvesSplineReticulation(); // Then verifySplineReticulation(result); }); });
Getting ready to release More time passes and the team believe their new algorithm is feature-complete. To confirm this they have been modifying their higher-level automated tests so that they exercise the system both with the feature off and with it on. The team also wants to do some manual exploratory testing to ensure everything works as expected - Spline Reticulation is a critical part of the system's behavior, after all. To perform manual testing of a feature which hasn't yet been verified as ready for general use we need to be able to have the feature Off for our general user base in production but be able to turn it On for internal users. There are a lot of different approaches to achieve this goal: Have the Toggle Router make decisions based on a Toggle Configuration, and make that configuration environment-specific. Only turn the new feature on in a pre-production environment.
, and make that configuration environment-specific. Only turn the new feature on in a pre-production environment. Allow Toggle Configuration to be modified at runtime via some form of admin UI. Use that admin UI to turn the new feature on a test environment.
Teach the Toggle Router how to make dynamic, per-request toggling decisions. These decisions take Toggle Context into account, for example by looking for a special cookie or HTTP header. Usually Toggle Context is used as a proxy for identifying the user making the request. (We'll be digging into these approaches in more detail later on, so don't worry if some of these concepts are new to you.) The team decides to go with a per-request Toggle Router since it gives them a lot of flexibility. The team particularly appreciate that this will allow them to test their new algorithm without needing a separate testing environment. Instead they can simply turn the algorithm on in their production environment but only for internal users (as detected via a special cookie). The team can now turn that cookie on for themselves and verify that the new feature performs as expected.
Canary releasing The new Spline Reticulation algorithm is looking good based on the exploratory testing done so far. However since it's such a critical part of the game's simulation engine there remains some reluctance to turn this feature on for all users. The team decide to use their Feature Flag infrastructure to perform a Canary Release, only turning the new feature on for a small percentage of their total userbase - a "canary" cohort. The team enhance the Toggle Router by teaching it the concept of user cohorts - groups of users who consistently experience a feature as always being On or Off. A cohort of canary users is created via a random sampling of 1% of the user base - perhaps using a modulo of user ID. This canary cohort will consistently have the feature turned on, while the other 99% of the user base remain using the old algorithm. Key business metrics (user engagement, total revenue earned, etc) are monitored for both groups to gain confidence that the new algorithm does not negatively impact user behavior. Once the team are confident that the new feature has no ill effects they modify their Toggle Configuration to turn it on for the entire user base.
A/B testing The team's product manager learns about this approach and is quite excited. She suggests that the team use a similar |
Kalam’s assassination mission might not be resolved within this book, from the pace they’re moving at, and the number of other side plots. Maybe this upcoming convergence will form the climax of book two. Though I’d hate for climax = convergence to become a pattern.
How Duiker’s and Felisin’s plotlines will figure into this I can’t guess.Elon Musk, Chairman of SolarCity and CEO of Tesla Motors, speaks at SolarCityÕs Inside Energy Summit in Manhattan, New York October 2, 2015. REUTERS/Rashid Umar Abbasi
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Solar panel maker SolarCity Corp said on Monday it has formed a special committee of just two directors to evaluate Tesla Motors Inc’s $2.8 billion (2.13 billion pounds) takeover offer.
The committee will evaluate the offer and “a broad range of strategic alternatives,” the top U.S. solar installer said in a statement. It did not elaborate on those alternatives, and a spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The electric car maker announced its proposed acquisition last Tuesday, sending its shares sharply lower.
SolarCity independent directors Donald Kendall and Nancy Pfund will serve on the committee. Kendall is the chief executive of investment management firm Kenmont and is the only member of SolarCity’s board with no direct ties to Tesla, the Southern California automaker founded and run by Elon Musk, who is also the chairman of SolarCity.
Pfund is a venture capitalist whose firm, DBL Partners, has backed Musk companies SolarCity, Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp, known as SpaceX.
Tesla said last week that by acquiring SolarCity, the two companies would form a one-stop clean energy shop, offering consumers solar panels, home battery storage and electric cars under a single trusted brand. Investors, however, have been cool to the deal, sending the value of Tesla down more than what it proposed to pay for SolarCity.
Five of SolarCity’s eight board members recused themselves from ruling on the Tesla deal because of their ties to the company or to Musk, who is also Tesla’s CEO. That group includes SolarCity founders Lyndon and Peter Rive, the company’s CEO and chief technology officer, who also are Musk’s first cousins.
The status of SolarCity board member John Fisher in evaluating the deal was not immediately clear. Fisher has not recused himself so far.A complete list revealing the top-downloaded girl groups in 2015 has surfaced on Instiz, with some surprising results! The download figures were pulled from the Gaon Chart.
Second-year veterans Red Velvet slid into first place with a total of 2,412,935 downloads for the tracks off their three albums “Ice Cream Cake,” “Dumb Dumb,” and “Wish Tree;” barely beating out second place winner Girls’ Generation. Girls’ Generation racked up a total of 2,278,227 downloads off their three releases “Catch Me If You Can,” “Party,” and “Lion Heart.” Power-rookie group GFRIEND swept in to take third place, with an impressive total of 1,695,701 sales from “Seasons of Glass” and “Flower Bud.” Summer queens SISTAR took fourth place three with 1,652,340 downloads from their album “SHAKE IT.”
Take a complete look at the rankings and the breakdown of downloads by album below:
1. Red Velvet: 1st Mini Album “Ice Cream Cake” (1,081,868) + 1st Full Album “Dumb Dumb” (1,220,337) + Digital Single “Wish Tree” (110,830) = 2,412,935
2. Girls’ Generation: Digital Single “Catch Me If You Can” (152,373) + 2nd Single Album “PARTY” (937,716) + 5th Full Album “Lion Heart” (1,188,138) = 2,278,227
3. GFRIEND: 1st Mini Album “Season of Glass” (681,925) + 2nd Mini Album “Flower Bud” (1,013,776) = 1,695,701
4. SISTAR: 3rd Mini Album “SHAKE IT” (1,652,340)
5. EXID: 2nd Mini Album “AH YEAH” (1,165,825) + Digital Single “HOT PINK” (461,509) = 1,627,334
6. miss A: 3rd Mini Album “Colors” (1,328,093) = 1,328,093
7. AOA: 3rd Mini Album “Heart Attack” (1,268,506)
8. A Pink: Digital Single “Promise U” (81,625) + 2nd Full Album “Pink MEMORY” (1,134,477) = 1,216,102
9. MAMAMOO: 2nd Mini Album “Pink Funky” (1,188,720)
10. Wonder Girls: 3rd Full Album “REBOOT” (1,084,248)
11. f(x): 4th Full Album “4Walls” (986,828) + Digital Single “12:25 Wish List” (85,013) = 1,071,841
12 Girl’s Day: Digital Single “Hello Bubble” (224,252) + 2nd Full Album “LOVE” (835,296) = 1,059,548
13. 4Minute: Digital Single “Cold Rain” (147,424) + 6th Mini Album “Crazy” (703,242) = 850,666
Source (1) (2)
* A previous version of this article listed GFRIEND as further down the list, an error copied from Instiz. The rankings have been corrected to reflect the proper numbers.Even exceptional NFL stays often don't last a decade. A player can crash from stardom into its unforgiving aftermath in a single play. The speed of football can take your breath away not only the field, but in the career arcs of the men who play the sport.
It was March of 2014. Nick Foles was fresh off earning the Pro Bowl MVP award. Jairus Byrd was the No. 1 overall free agent in the entire league. Victor Cruz was coming off the first season of a hard-earned big-money contract.
In football years, it feels like that spring happened in the Mesozoic Era. Now all three men are fighting to keep their jobs in hopes of extending their football lives as long as possible.
Training camp starts this week. It's a time of optimism around the NFL, and a time of anxiety for many players. Below is our incomplete list of notable guys at risk of being released in the coming weeks. Foles was released Wednesday. Other cuts will be updated as they come.
Big-name veterans
1) Victor Cruz, WR, New York Giants: The organization is rooting for him. His teammates are rooting for him. Just about anyone who watched football between 2011 and 2013 is hoping for a rebound from one of the most popular players of this decade.
Sentiment only goes so far, though. Cruz already would be an ex-Giant if he didn't accept a pay cut from $7.9 million to $2.4 million in March. The undrafted slot receiver tore his patellar tendon in 2014 and missed all of 2015 with calf injuries. There is no telling if he can ever regain his form, and the Giants aren't counting on it. General manager Jerry Reese drafted a younger Cruz clone in Sterling Shepard, another versatile receiver with excellent quickness and confident hands.
The Giants guaranteed Cruz's $2.4 million base salary, an extraordinary show of faith that most front offices wouldn't dare. After taking his recovery slowly in OTAs, Cruz must prove he can withstand the rigors of NFL play again, or his Cinderella run in Gotham could end.
2) Arian Foster, RB, Miami Dolphins: It is cruel to put Foster on this list just days after the four-time Pro Bowler muscled his way back into the league. The plan is for Foster to show he recovered from his torn Achilles tendon, then eventually compete with Jay Ajayi for snaps.
History shows that running backs struggle to return after this injury, and Foster showed signs of wearing down in 2015 pre-injury, averaging just 2.6 yards per attempt. The contract here is telling. Foster got "only" $400,000 guaranteed and $1.5 million base salary, the price of a low-cost backup.
So will the Dolphins flush that money away if Foster doesn't look right in August? The Patriots gave Reggie Wayne a $450,000 signing bonus last year before pulling the ripcord ahead of Week 1. Odds are that Foster makes the team, but he will need to look healthy, or that signing bonus could turn into an early retirement nest egg.
3) C.J. Spiller, RB, New Orleans Saints: When Spiller is right -- like when he gained 2,821 yards from scrimmage in Buffalo from 2012 to '13 -- his speed can make other pros look amateur. Spiller didn't look right in New Orleans last season as he struggled with a knee injury.
Saints coach Sean Payton said Spiller looked "noticeably different" this offseason, yet there is doubt that New Orleans will retain a No. 3 running back with a $4.5 million cap hit. Mark Ingram is the clear starter, and remarkable comeback story Tim Hightower might run too hard to be denied a job. Travaris Cadet offers a similar skill-set to Spiller, giving the Saints another option if Spiller doesn't shine in camp.
4) Jairus Byrd, FS, New Orleans Saints: Sean Payton signed Byrd against former defensive coordinator Rob Ryan's wishes, then forced Ryan to change his system to suit Byrd's strengths. No defense gave up more points or yards in the two seasons to follow.
Byrd can't be blamed for all those problems, yet he's clearly on thin ice after 17 ineffective games over the last two years. No player earned more guaranteed money in 2014 free agency, and now Byrd's starting job isn't even safe. Rookie second-round pick Vonn Bell is ready to pounce if Byrd can't stay healthy after missing most of this offseason (again) with a knee problem.
It would cost the Saints more in cap room to release Byrd than to keep him, but sometimes a team knows when it simply has to cut its losses. The presence of Spiller and Byrd on this list is a reminder how poorly the Saints' front office has managed free agency and the salary cap in recent years.
5) Devin Hester, WR/KR/PR, Atlanta Falcons: One of the game's all-time-great returners, Hester rejuvenated his career in Atlanta in 2014. That magic ran out with the Falcons' coaching staff last season. He's no longer used on offense and could be a luxury item for the Falcons staff, especially considering he's 33 years old and carries a $3.5 million salary. (UPDATE: On Tuesday, a day after the initial publishing of this piece, the Falcons did indeed release Devin Hester.)
6) Nick Foles, QB, Los Angeles Rams: Coach Jeff Fisher spoke about Foles in the past tense this offseason during the quarterback's "mutual" absence from the team. That's not a great sign.
Foles was effective recently enough to inspire 1) a trade for Sam Bradford, 2) a three-year, $27 million contract in 2015, including a $6 million roster bonus paid this March and 3) a Pro Bowl MVP award. That all gives the Rams hope they could find a team desperate enough to trade for Foles (Denver? San Francisco?), but it's more likely he'll be cut.
UPDATE: On Wednesday, two days after the original publication of this story, the Rams announced they released Foles with a statement by head coach Jeff Fisher.
First-round picks running out of chances
1) D.J. Hayden, CB, Oakland Raiders: GM Reggie McKenzie's recent moves, including his extreme makeover in the secondary, have helped everyone forget about his initial first-round pick in Oakland.
2) Dee Milliner, CB, New York Jets: It's telling that Antonio Cromartie left town, yet Milliner is no higher than fourth on the Jets' cornerback depth chart. The No. 9 overall pick of the 2013 NFL Draft is a remnant of the glacial period under former GM John Idzik.
3) Matt Elam, S, Baltimore Ravens: It is conceivable that Ozzie Newsome's first- and second-round picks of the 2013 NFL Draft both don't make the Ravens. Elam's battling for a spot in the secondary, and Arthur Brown has one more chance to make an impact at inside linebacker.
4) Barkevious Mingo, OLB, Cleveland Browns: Mingo could be anywhere from the starting lineup to the waiver wire. It's worth noting he had his best season under new/old Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton in 2013. If nothing else, he'll have always inspired this headline.
5) Justin Gilbert, CB, Cleveland Browns: Unlike the rest of the players on this list, Gilbert was drafted in 2014. The former No. 8 overall pick was the subject of offseason puff pieces about a "fresh start" under Hue Jackson, but Gilbert has yet to show the instincts or discipline necessary to cover professional wideouts.
Free agency deals gone wrong
1) Arthur Jones, DT, Indianapolis Colts: The Jones family's second PED suspension of the summer could be the last straw. Signed to a five-year, $33 million deal in 2014, Jones was already in trouble because of injury problems. Jones' presence is a Post-it note attached to GM Ryan Grigson's shaky résumé in free agency.
2) Alterraun Verner, CB, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Once a metrics darling, Verner couldn't even keep his starting job last year. With Brent Grimes and No. 11 pick Vernon Hargreaves in the fold, the Bucs could move on from Verner two years after handing him a four-year deal.
3) Ahmad Brooks, OLB, San Francisco 49ers: Brooks seemingly has been on the bubble for years, yet some event always pops up to save him. That something this year could be the recent suspension of Aaron Lynch.
Running backs on the edge
1) LeGarrette Blount, New England Patriots: The Patriots annually release a big veteran name or three few people see coming. Keep an eye on Blount, who wasn't re-signed to the team until April and wasn't healthy this offseason.
2) Ronnie Hillman, Denver Broncos: It is still strange that Hillman started 12 games last season, including the AFC Championship Game. C.J. Anderson is the starter now, and fourth-round pick Devontae Booker could render Hillman obsolete.
3) Bishop Sankey, Tennessee Titans: The 2014 second-rounder -- the first running back taken in that draft -- looks like the odd man out after the team's selection of Derrick Henry this past April.
4) Tre Mason, Los Angeles Rams: After an offseason arrest, coach Jeff Fisher said the Rams "have to prepare ourselves that Tre's not going to be here." The magic number for Mason's off-field distractions is zero. Go over that, and he's off the team.
5) Andre Williams, New York Giants: This has been an offseason of incremental change for the Giants. Don't overhaul the coaching staff; just remove Tom Coughlin. Don't overhaul the beleaguered RB depth chart; just remove Coughlin's guy from Boston College.
The last six-pack
1) Bryce Petty, QB, New York Jets: Christian Hackenberg is the new quarterback of the future. Geno Smith is the quarterback of the awkward present. If the quarterback of 2015 and his beard show up again, Petty could be out of luck.
2) Greg Zuerlein, K, Los Angeles Rams: "The Leg" needs to be a lot more accurate in Los Angeles than it was in St. Louis.
3) Charles Johnson, WR, Minnesota Vikings: Like other players with no special teams value, Johnson could fall from a starting job to the waiver wire. Learning special teams as an NFL player is like learning computer science in 1994.
4) Justin Hunter, WR, Tennessee Titans: Dorial Green-Beckham seemingly has replaced Hunter as the toolsy wideout that drives the organization batty, just like Hunter once replaced Kenny Britt in this role. You can only have one.
5) Aaron Dobson, WR, New England Patriots: After a strong rookie season in 2013, Dobson has been the target of too many incomplete deep throws. This figures to be his last chance.
6) Margus Hunt, DE, Cincinnati Bengals: The former "Hard Knocks" star from Estonia has failed to add much polish to his game in three NFL seasons.The nation is still struggling with the effects of the most serious financial crisis and economic downturn since the Great Depression. But Wall Street seems all too ready to return to the same untenable business practices that brought it to its knees less than three years ago.And some in government who claim to be representing Main Street seem all too ready to help.
Already we have heard rationalization of the subprime mortgage debacle and denigration of those of us who have advocated long-term, structural changes in the way we regulate the financial industry. Too many industry leaders, as well as some government officials, compare the crisis to a 100-year flood. “Who, us?” they say. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Nobody saw this coming.”
The truth is, some of us did see this coming. We tried to stop the excessive risk-taking that was fueling the housing bubble and turning our financial markets into gambling parlors. But we were impeded by the culture of short-termism that dominates our society. Our financial markets remain too focused on quick profits, and our political process is driven by a two-year election cycle and its relentless demands for fundraising.
I’ve had a unique vantage point during my five-year term as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., from the early failure of IndyMac Bankto the implementation of reforms designed to ensure that no conglomerate ever again is deemed “too big to fail.”
Now that I’m stepping down, I want to sound the alarm again. The common thread running through all the causes of our economic tumult is a pervasive and persistent insistence on favoring the short term over the long term, impulse over patience. We overvalue the quick return on investment and unduly discount the long-term consequences of that decision-making.
Our decades-long infatuation with financing our spending through ever-growing debt, in the private and public sector alike, is the ultimate manifestation of short-term thinking. And that thinking, particularly in business and in government, is actually getting worse, not better, as we look for solutions to put our economy on a sounder footing.
Today, some want to repeal or water down key financial reforms, fearing that strengthening the rules for firms will curtail our recovery. But the history of crises makes clear that reforms will make our economy stronger in the long run.
While short-termism on Wall Street and in Washington was a huge driver of the most recent financial crisis, we all fall prey to this tendency to some extent.
Households have failed to save enough money to carry them through hard times or to achieve long-term goals. It became old-fashioned to save up for the down payment on that first home. Taking out a mortgage shifted from the most serious financial decision a family would make to a speculative bet on how far home prices would rise. Homeownership went from being a source of stability in our economy to a source of instability.
Business executives squeeze expenses of all types to meet their quarterly earnings targets, even cutting research and development that could create a competitive advantage down the road. This market failure leads to under-investment in projects with long payoff periods. “Patient capital” has become almost quaint.
And policymakers do everything they can to avoid acknowledging a problem or policy mistake, even as it grows more difficult and expensive to fix with each passing day.
In our routine decision-making, research shows, we increasingly use the part of our brain attuned to greed, fear and instant gratification. This short-termism is reinforced when economic incentives are taken into account.
Performance-based compensation, for example, can have disastrous results when it fails to consider long-term consequences. This is particularly true in financial services, where the downsides of risk-taking may take years to materialize but can lead to failed banks, foreclosed homes, unemployed workers and a credit shortage for small businesses. This past week, the FDIC adopted a rule that allows the agency to claw back two years’ worth of compensation from senior executives and managers responsible for the collapse of a systemic, non-bank financial firm.
To date, the FDIC has authorized suits against 248 directors and officers of failed banks for shirking their fiduciary duties, seeking at least $6.8 billion in damages. The rationales the executives come up with to try to escape accountability for their actions never cease to amaze me. They blame the failure of their institutions on market forces, on “dead-beat borrowers,” on regulators, on space aliens. They will reach for any excuse to avoid responsibility.
Mortgage brokers and the issuers of mortgage-based securities were typically paid based on volume, and they responded to these incentives by making millions of risky loans, then moving on to new jobs long before defaults and foreclosures reached record levels.
Such arrangements gave rise to the acronym IBG-YBG(“I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone”), a watchword for short-termism in the mortgage industry during the boom.
When the housing bubble burst, home values started to fall and adjustable-rate loan payments ratcheted upward, and subprime borrowers began to default in record numbers. But the inherent short-termism of bankers and policymakers kept them from moving quickly to limit the damage as the financial crisis escalated in 2007 and 2008.
I was among the few at that time advocating for widespread loan modifications as an alternative to foreclosure, which was leading to more displaced families, larger declines in home prices and more devastating losses for investors. But mortgage servicers, also typically paid according to volume, had neither the financial incentive nor the willingness to devote resources to a change in strategy. Their under-investment in servicing has led to a huge inventory of foreclosed properties and mounting litigation that is likely to cost them far more than any savings they achieved by cutting corners.
Government efforts to promote modifications, meanwhile, have gradually moved in the right direction but have remained behind the curve. At the height of the crisis in the fall of 2008, when fear over where the bottom was ruled the markets, policymakers were supremely focused on the short-term priority of preventing the failure of the nation’s largest financial companies. Government assistance to financial institutions took a variety of forms, amounting to a total commitment of almost $14 trillion by the spring of 2009.
While those actions were necessary to prevent an even bigger economic catastrophe, we still have not addressed the No. 1 cause of both the crisis and the subpar recovery we are in: a stubborn refusal to deal head-on with past-due and underwater mortgages.
It’s time for banks and investors to write off uncollectible home equity loans and negotiate new terms with distressed mortgage borrowers that reflect today’s lower property values. It is true that this would force them to recognize billions in mortgage losses — losses they mostly stand to incur anyway over time. But it will eventually be necessary if we are to clear the backlog and end the cycle of defaults, foreclosures and falling home prices that continues to hold back the economic recovery on Main Street.
The media has also played a role in expanding our short-termism. The type of information that dominates cable news and the blogosphere is generally not designed to appeal to our more rational, long-term thought processes. Instead, it excites our emotions, inducing greed and fear, and more often stokes prejudice and cynicism than rationality and fortitude. The 24-hour news cycle bombards us with constant information that compels action, not patience. Sound logic is often trumped by the sound bite.
On financial reform, “bailouts as far as the eye can see” is how some have described our efforts. In fact, the whole point of the new law is to prevent bailouts, which now are expressly prohibited.
Responsible policies are promptly vilified if they involve the slightest hint of short-term sacrifice. For instance, common-sense efforts to raise large bank capital requirements and to require issuers of mortgage securitizations to bear some portion of the loss when securitized loans go bad are resisted by the industry, which claims that such measures will raise the cost of credit and could derail the economic expansion.
But credible research shows that these requirements will lead to only a modest increase in the cost of credit, accompanied by a large improvement in economic performance over the long run because of a lower frequency and severity of financial crises.
There are many other examples of short-termism beyond the financial sector. Too often, the response to subpar economic growth has been another tax credit or a cut in interest rates that feels good for a while but does nothing to enhance the long-term performance of our economy. Far-sighted investments in job training and modernizing our physical infrastructure would surely pay greater dividends over time.
And as currently structured, our Social Security and Medicare programs will prove financially unsustainable as the baby boomers retire and both longevity and medical costs continue to rise. The rational thinker in each of us can appreciate the logic that reform is absolutely necessary to keep these essential programs viable.Yet the political debate cannot move beyond whatever combination of short-term sacrifices are being proposed to balance the accounts.
The current impasse in addressing the unsustainable growth in the federal debt also goes beyond mere partisanship to a distorted sense of the long-term national interest. One could hardly envision a market development more injurious to our economic security than a technical default on U.S. government obligations, which would lower our national credit rating from AAA status. At the same time, raising the debt limit without progress toward reducing our structural deficit would be equally irresponsible and unsettling to the markets.
Yet those are exactly the scenarios looming in the budget debate.
An electorate and a news media properly focused on the long-term implications of our government policies would rightly condemn any political position that even contemplated such outcomes. They would also press for more far-reaching reforms.
Our loophole-ridden tax system — which favors spending over saving, debt financing over equity, and homebuilding over other long-term investments — is badly in need of an overhaul as well. Closing loopholes would result in a more efficient allocation of capital and would allow us to reduce marginal tax rates while raising more revenue to help pay down our national debt. But most of us would have to give up some of our deductions and tax credits in the short term.
There are signs that suggest the public is already moving toward embracing thrift, at least in terms of personal finances. Total household debt is down by as much as 10 percent from pre-crisis levels, while the personal savings rate has risen to its highest level in more than 15 years.
It’s true that consumers who save more and borrow less won’t contribute as much to economic growth in the short run. But surely we have learned by now that there are limits to what excessive spending and borrowing can do for long-term economic growth and stability.
Our financial system is still fragile and vulnerable to the same type of destructive behavior that led to the Great Recession. Unless all of us — households, financial leaders and politicians — are willing to make some short-term sacrifices for longer-term stability, we are at risk of another financial crisis that will be just as bad, if not worse, than the last one.
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Sheila C. Bair was chairman of the FDIC from June 23, 2006, through July 8, 2011. During her tenure, she oversaw the takeover of more than 300 failed banks.
Read more from Outlook, friend us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after he refused to resign, was probing whether Fox News executives illegally obtained reporters’ phone records, and committed fraud by hiding financial payments to some women who accused former CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, according to a report by New York Magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman. Sherman reports, “Sources told me that that prosecutors have been offering witnesses immunity to testify before a federal grand jury that’s already been impaneled.”
Last month, an attorney for former Fox News personality Andrea Tantaros said in court, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, that his client had gotten a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Andrea Tantaros lawyer says he has gotten subpoena from Preet Bharara’s office. Grand jury said to be empaneled. — Eriq Gardner (@eriqgardner) February 15, 2017
President Donald Trump reportedly told Bharara earlier this year that he would be kept on during the new administration. But, something sparked a change of course late last week. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent out a letter Friday asking for the resignations of Bharara and 45 other Obama-era U.S. Attorneys who were still in place.
The New York Times reports that Marc Mukasey, the son of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, is being considered to replace Bharara as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As Sherman notes, Mukasey also “happens to be” Ailes’s personal lawyer.
In a previous statement from February, a Fox News spokesperson said, “Neither FOX News nor 21CF has received a subpoena, but we have been in communication with the U.S. Attorney’s office for months — we have and will continue to cooperate on all inquiries with any interested authorities.” The network declined to comment on Sherman’s latest reporting.
[Screengrab via WMHT]MPs expressed concern tonight after it emerged that far-right activists are planning to step up their provocative street campaign by targeting some of the UK's highest-profile Muslim communities, raising fears of widespread unrest this summer.
Undercover footage shot by the Guardian reveals the English Defence League, which has staged a number of violent protests in towns and cities across the country this year, is planning to "hit" Bradford and the London borough of Tower Hamlets as it intensifies its street protests.
Senior figures in the coalition government were briefed on the threat posed by EDL marches this week. Tomorrow up to 2,000 EDL supporters are expected to descend on Newcastle for its latest protest.
MPs said the group's decision to target some of the UK's most prominent Muslim communities was a blatant attempt to provoke mayhem and disorder. "This group has no positive agenda," said the Bradford South MP, Gerry Sutcliffe. "It is an agenda of hate that is designed to divide people and communities. We support legitimate protest but this is not legitimate, it is designed to stir up trouble. The people of Bradford will want no part of it."
The English Defence League, which started in Luton last year, has become the most significant far-right street movement in the UK since the National Front in the 1970s. A Guardian investigation has identified a number of known rightwing extremists who are taking an interest in the movement – from convicted football hooligans to members of violent rightwing splinter groups.
Thousands of people have attended its protests – many of which have descended into violence and racist and Islamophobic chanting. Supporters are split into "divisions" spread across the UK and as many as 3,000 people are attracted to its protests.
The group also appears to be drawing support from the armed forces. Its online armed forces division has 842 members and the EDL says many serving soldiers have attended its demonstrations. A spokeswoman for the EDL, whose husband is a serving soldier, said: "The soldiers are fighting Islamic extremism in Afghanistan and Iraq and the EDL are fighting it here … Not all the armed forces support the English Defence League but a majority do."
Following the British National party's poor showing in this month's local and national elections anti-racist campaigners say some far-right activists may be turning away from the ballot box and returning to violent street demonstrations for the first time in three decades.
Nick Lowles, from Searchlight, said: "What we are seeing now is the most serious, most dangerous, political phenomenon that we have had in Britain for a number of years. With EDL protests that are growing week in, week out there is a chance for major disorder and a major political shift to the right in this country."
In undercover footage shot by Guardian Films, EDL spokesman Guramit Singh says its Bradford demonstration "will be huge". He adds: "The problem with Bradford is the security threat, it is a highly populated Muslim area. They are very militant as well. Bradford is a place that has got to be hit."
Singh, who was speaking during an EDL demonstration in Dudley in April, said the organisation would also be targeting Tower Hamlets.
A spokesman for the EDL confirmed it would hold a demonstration in Bradford on 28 August because the city was "on course to be one of the first places to become a no-go area for non-Muslims". The EDL has already announced demonstrations in Cardiff and Dudley.
The former Home Office minister Phil Woolas said: "This is a deliberate attempt by the EDL at division and provocation, to try and push young Muslims into the hands of extremists, in order to perpetuate the divide. It is dangerous."
The EDL claims it is a peaceful and non-racist organisation only concerned with protesting against "militant Islam". However, over the last four months the Guardian has attended its demonstrations and witnessed racism, violence and virulent Islamophobia.
During the election campaign David Cameron described the EDL as "dreadful people" and said the organisation would "always be under review".
A spokesman for the Home Office said that although the government was committed to restoring the right to "non-violent protest … violence and intimidation are wholly unacceptable and the police have powers to deal with individuals who commit such acts. The government condemns those who seek to spread hatred."
He added: "Individual members of EDL – like all members of the public – are of course subject to the law, and all suspected criminal offences will be robustly investigated and dealt with by the police."A month out from Election Day, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump says he doesn’t want or care about getting support from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, that he wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with Mr. Ryan, and that Mr. Ryan might end up in a different post if Mr. Trump is elected president.
“The fact is I think we should get support, and we don’t get the support from guys like Paul Ryan,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on Tuesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News.
He said congressmen “practically rioted” on a conference call earlier this week on which Mr. Ryan reportedly told his GOP House members he no longer planned to defend or campaign for Mr. Trump, though he did not rescind his endorsement of the party’s nominee.
“This happens all the time. If you sneeze, he calls up and announces, ‘Isn’t that a terrible thing?’ So look, I don’t want his support, I don’t care about his support,” Mr. Trump said.
“What I want to do is I want to win for the people, because Hillary Clinton — she is a disaster,” he said.
Mr. Trump also associated Mr. Ryan with “open borders,” “amnesty” and “very, very bad budgets.”
“Frankly, the only one Obama negotiates well with is Paul Ryan,” he said.
Mr. Trump also said Sen. John McCain, who renounced his support of Mr. Trump in recent days, was “desperate” and “begging” to get his endorsement ahead of his primary contest in Arizona.
Mr. McCain, Mr. Ryan and other Republicans have criticized Mr. Trump in recent days for a newly-unearthed 2005 video in which Mr. Trump talks about groping women’s genitals and unsuccessfully pursuing a married woman. The GOP nominee has described the comments as “locker room” talk.
“He’s never heard salty language before - you know, John McCain, who has probably the dirtiest mouth in all of the Senate,” Mr. Trump said.
“I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with a lot of these people — that I can tell you,” he said. “Including Ryan — especially Ryan.”
Host Bill O’Reilly suggested to Mr. Trump that he would need people like Mr. Ryan and Mr. McCain if he’s elected.
“They’ll be there,” Mr. Trump said. “I would think that Ryan maybe wouldn’t be there. Maybe he’ll be in a different position. But McCain will be there. They’ll all be there.”
A spokesman for Mr. Ryan told The Associated Press Tuesday: “Paul Ryan is focusing the next month on defeating Democrats, & all Republicans running for office should probably do the same.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.What do Mark Zuckerberg’s private security officers and drivers of school buses, Uber cars and the many construction vehicles sitting curbside on Palo Alto’s streets have in common?
They’re all idlers — of parked vehicles. And to the dismay of many city residents, their idling vehicles spew pollutants into the air that could harm people and the environment.
Neilson Buchanan, who lives just north of downtown, said he sees idling vehicles all over town.
One day last week, Buchanan noticed shuttles and vans idling as they waited at the Caltrain stop for passengers; a bus idling as its passengers toured the Apple store; and Uber and Lyft drivers parked in the shade near his home waiting for customers during the evening rush hour.
“Not only do I see them, I can hear them and smell them,” Buchanan said. “The noise and smell pollution from diesel trucks is unmistakable. It’s kind of annoying to hear all the rumble, rumble, rumble.”
Diesel trucks and buses aren’t the only culprits. Even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s private security detail has been outed.
Norm Beamer, president of the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association, said some residents were concerned enough to approach the private security officers who sat outside Zuckerberg’s home in idling vehicles around the clock.
“I think people understand why he needs security people 24 hours a day, and some neighbors actually like the security because they feel it makes the neighborhood less vulnerable to burglaries and such,” Beamer said. “But people don’t like the idea of the cars running with the engines on. The optics of that are not very good in light of concerns about global warming.”
Residents say the officers seemed to have ceased idling in recent days, according to Beamer.
A spokesperson who handles personal communication for Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan said by email Wednesday: “The security team takes measures to reduce idling as much as possible, |
critical to surviving them intact.
Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)UPDATE [July 1st]: A new patch for Ghosts was released on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, and PS3 today. Here’s the notes:
Title Update: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3
Spawns
Spawn system has an improved ability to select better spawns when valid spawn locations are limited.
Weapon Balance
One shot to the body and one shot to the head is no longer a kill for ARs, SMGs and LMGs. Increases time to kill in this scenario
Anti-cheat
Overall anti-cheat improvements.
Additional Fixes
Replaced Hunted victor operations and requirements to work with Gun Game.
Fixed 60 second match timer that could occur after playing a clan public playlist match then starting a Private Match with CODeSports disabled.
Extinction
Player class is now displayed in game above players’ heads along with their gamertag.
Kastet rounds now explode at any distance.
Fixed an issue where players that exceeded 10 minutes in Chaos mode would get lulls
Fixed drill not respawning at last place picked up after falling off the map while carrying it.
Fixed Gargoyle getting stuck in the air.
Fixed issue that allowed the player to use an IMS with a propane tank to teleport outside of the map.
Challenge adjustments and fixes.
Balancing updates.
Various bug fixes to improve stability and performance.
Kills are now correctly displayed on the Player Stats comparison screens
A new patch for Call of Duty: Ghosts was released today for PC gamers. The new patch brings spawn updates, weapon balance, and Extinction fixes.
Title Update: PC
Spawns
Spawn system has an improved ability to select better spawns when valid spawn locations are limited.
Weapon Balance
One shot to the body and one shot to the head is no longer a kill for ARs, SMGs and LMGs. Increases time to kill in this scenario
Anti-cheat
Overall anti-cheat improvements.
Additional Fixes
Replaced Hunted victor operations and requirements to work with Gun Game.
Fixed 60 second match timer that could occur after playing a clan public playlist match then starting a Private Match with CODeSports disabled.
Extinction
Player class is now displayed in game above players’ heads along with their gamertag.
Kastet rounds now explode at any distance.
Fixed an issue where players that exceeded 10 minutes in Chaos mode would get lulls
Fixed drill not respawning at last place picked up after falling off the map while carrying it.
Fixed Gargoyle getting stuck in the air.
Fixed issue that allowed the player to use an IMS with a propane tank to teleport outside of the map.
Challenge adjustments and fixes.
Balancing updates.
Various bug fixes to improve stability and performance.
Kills are now correctly displayed on the Player Stats comparison screens
SOURCE: CoD ForumsMicrosoft is trying to hire new employees by luring them with god's greatest creation, the devil's most delicious treat and man's greatest love: bacon. They've set up a bacon cart (!) outside of Amazon's offices and will give away free bacon to everyone. EAT BACON, WORK MICROSOFT.
This isn't lame sauce light bacon either, it's the good juicy fatty stuff that, according to The Seattle Times, can be topped with Sriracha, spray cheese, peanut butter, maple syrup and chocolate sauce. The idea of the bacon cart work trap was created by ad agency Wexley School for Girls because Microsoft wanted to double its Kinect for Windows team from 35 to 70. And with good engineers typically already working for other companies, the bacon cart is a great ploy for Microsoft to grab their attention and tell them to "Wake up and Smell the Future".
Advertisement
The food cart is serving free bacon today at Amazon headquarters in South Lake Union, Seattle and has plans to move over to Fremont on Tuesday to be near Adobe and Google. I wonder if I'll think of Microsoft the next time I eat bacon. [Seattle Times via The Next Web, Image Credit: Brier Dudley/Seattle Times]BoJack, an ass of a horse, is right in the wheelhouse of Mr. Arnett, who has played self-centered oafs like Gob Bluth in “Arrested Development.” But he’s also deeply, well, human: self-absorbed, self-destructive, but self-aware enough to know that he wants to be better than he is, even as he fails.
In the third season, which arrives on Friday on Netflix, BoJack has realized his goal — kind of. After he flaked out on the set of “Secretariat,” the director completed his scenes by using a C.G.I. horse — which, it turned out, played the role better than BoJack himself.
Now he’s doing an awards-season press tour under the eye of his “Oscar whisperer” publicist, Ana Spanikopita (Angela Bassett), taking credit for the work of an improved electronic simulacrum of himself.
For the BoJack we thought we knew in the beginning of the series, this might be enough: praise, validation and love, without having to work for them. Now, he realizes, he wants to be good enough to have done it.
But actually doing the work is hard, and in the amniotic infinity pool of celebrity that BoJack floats in, there are too many incentives just to do the easy thing. BoJack is, among other things, an addict — booze, drugs, sex — and the endorphin rush of public adulation is one of the toughest buzzes for him to kick.On the first night that activists slept in the park on the corner of Broad and Farmington/Asylum, someone in the apartment building across the street shot BBs at protestors. Originally told they could not erect structures in the park, now, Occupiers have set up tents. Over the weekend, supporters have brought doughnuts and soup to activists.Word is getting out about the organization and action. The Unitarian Society of Hartford on Bloomfield Avenue displayed a sandwich board inviting activists with Occupy Hartford to worship there this morning.
Beyond Friday night’s march through Downtown, the activists have been troubleshooting. One longtime activist said some concerns about attitudes related to race and sex needed to be dealt with before they had the opportunity to blow up into major issues. Others have identified the need for a kids’ area in the park; some were working on scrounging up toys for kids. Creating a kid-friendly environment allows more participation from single parents in general and from women in particular.
On Sunday, someone with the Wellness Committee planned to lead children on a nature walk through Bushnell Park. The Wellness Committee was developed to help prevent activist burnout, as well as to ensure that their spiritual needs were being met.
Park Occupiers talked about the potential of running workshops in the future, including one on how to connect with the media. Among longtime activists, there was an airing of frustration over how long some of the meetings have lasted, and admitted that some of this was due to new activists who are unfamiliar with the consensus-building model. An expectation expressed both by those involved in Occupy Hartford and by those who have merely been observing is that there will be a thinning out process. Those with an impatience for a leaderless, process-heavy movement are expected to drop out, as are those whose belief systems do not jive with those of the rest of the group.
The activists have a meeting scheduled for early this evening; they have been posting meeting times on a sign along Farmington Avenue.Flat — Generative infrastructure for Python
Flat is a library for creating and manipulating digital forms of fine arts. Its aim is to enable experimentation with and testing of unpredictable or automated processes, to inspect the beginning of the "new".
It grew out of the needs for generative design, architecture and art. The concept of "design" is more of a subject of study yet to be delved into, hence the fitter term for subtitle is "infrastructure".
It is written in pure Python and distributed under a liberal license.
Content
Features
Graphic formats PNG, JPEG, PDF, SVG, OpenType (both TrueType and PostScript outlines), STL
Color spaces grayscale, grayscale + alpha, RGB, RGBA, CMYK, spot colors, overprint
Image manipulation resizing, blurring, dithering,...
Image synthesis Bezier path rasterization, BVH accelerated path tracing with explicit emitters and stratified sampling
Vector graphic primitives line, polyline,..., path, text, outlines, groups and units
Typography kerning, greedy line breaking, threaded text frames
Computational geometry Boolean operation on polygons
Data visualization tree layout
Core concepts
Flat library consists of three (slightly overlapping) parts: image, document and scene. An image is basically a container of pixels and a color kind. There are a few methods which operate over those pixels, such as "blur" or "put". It is possible to create completely new image, by opening a file or by "rasterizing" a page of document.
Document is then assembled from pages, and each page holds number of "placed" items, both of which can be exported, too. Here it also makes sense to introduce other entities: colors, shapes and strikes. There is support for following colors or color spaces, if you will: the usual ones (grayscale, RGB, CMYK,...), spot colors that can be used for controlling the application of special colorants and "overprint", which allows for printing of a graphic figure without erasing anything below it. A shape includes both graphical properties such as stroke width or miter limit and means of creating items with said properties that are to be "placed" into a page, for example "line" or "circle". Strike is a similar combination of text attributes (font, size, color,...) and a way of constructing text "spans". A span likewise connects text string to text attributes, one or more spans can form a "paragraph", which in turn may form "text" or "outlines". Outlines are similar to texts but they use paths of glyph outlines, instead of characters. One additional thing to note is that placed texts or outlines may be linked into a story or "chain" of blocks, making the text gradually "flow" from one text frame to another. Any of the items may be placed into a "group" as well.
Finally, a scene is made of (possibly light emitting) materials, meshes built of triangular faces defined by "triplets" of 3D vertices and a camera.
Tutorial
from flat import rgb, font, shape, strike, document red = rgb(255, 0, 0) lato = font.open('Lato-Reg.otf') figure = shape().stroke(red).width(2.5) headline = strike(lato).color(red).size(20, 24) d = document(100, 100,'mm') p = d.addpage() p.place(figure.circle(50, 50, 20)) p.place(headline.text('Hello world!')).frame(10, 10, 80, 80) p.image(kind='rgb').png('hello.png') p.svg('hello.svg') d.pdf('hello.pdf')
Short commentary:
We first prepared some invariants which we are going to use later, like the body typeface, some RGB color or a typeface we opened from a font file. One can think of shape and strike as of customizable factories which produce more concrete objects, for example lines or spans of text.
Next is the basic document hierarchy with just one page that can have items be placed into. The origin of coordinate system (0, 0) is at the top left corner and most of the time the default unit is "points" (1 inch = 72 points). A placed item may have some additional properties as position or frame. The latter is used to define the boundaries inside whose the text may run. As Flat currently lacks any kind of color management, we need to use the same color space for rasterizing the page into a PNG file. To access a page at any time one can simply keep a reference to it ( p ). Lastly, note that PDF is one of the few graphic formats which can hold multiple pages.
API reference
image.py
image.open( path ) Open an image located at path. Supported formats are JPEG and PNG.
image( width, height, kind='rgb' ) Create an image width by height pixels in resolution, where kind can be one of: 'g' (grayscale), 'ga' (grayscale + alpha), 'rgb', 'rgba', 'cmyk'. copy() Return a deep copy of the image. get( x, y ) Return the color values of pixel at x, y. put( x, y, components ) Set the color of pixel at x, y to components. fill( components ) Fill the image with solid color of components. white() Fill the image with solid white. black() Fill the image with solid black. blit( x, y, source ) Copy a region from source. Position of the region is x, y in this image, 0, 0 in the source. Size of the region is the size of the source, cropping it to size of this image as necessary. crop( x, y, width, height ) Crop the image to frame with origin at x, y and size width, height. The result will not enlarge beyond original size. flip( horizontal, vertical ) Flip the image horizontally and/or vertically. transpose() Flip the image over the diagonal. rotate( clockwise ) Rotate the image by 90 degrees clockwise if clockwise is True, anti-clockwise otherwise. resize( width=0, height=0, interpolation='bicubic' ) Resize the image to width by height, where interpolation can be one of: 'nearest', 'bicubic', 'lanczos'. Nearest-neighbor is fastest kernel and produces "pixelated" look when upsizing, bicubic is good general-purpose filter, Lanczos resampling preserves most detail and is slowest of the three. 0 width or height maintains the aspect ratio. rescale( factor, interpolation='bicubic' ) Similar to resize but uses scale factor to calculate new dimensions. blur( radius ) Blur the image with Gaussian filter kernel. dither( levels=2 ) Reduce the number of grayscale intensities to levels using Burkes dithering. gamma( value ) Perform gamma correction of value on the image. invert() Invert color of the image. png( path='', optimized=False ) Return the image serialized into PNG format. If path is set, save it as well. Improve the compression by setting optimized to True. jpeg( path='', quality=95 ) Return the image serialized into JPEG format. If path is set, save it as well. Higher (up to 100 ) quality lowers the perceptible loss in image quality but increases the storage size.
placedimage Don't call directly. Use page.place() instead. position( x, y ) Move the placed image to x, y. frame( x, y, width, height ) Move the placed image to x, y and resize it to width, height. fitwidth( width ) Proportionally scale the placed image to match width. fitheight( height ) Proportionally scale the placed image to match height.
raw( width, height ) Create a so called "raw" RGB image that comprises of floating-point intensities. put( x, y, r, g, b ) Set the color of pixel at x, y to r, g, b. tonemapped( key=0.18, white=1.0 ) Return an image with reduced dynamic range of integer values 0-255, where key indicates whether the scene is subjectively light or dark, typically varying from 0.18 to 0.4, and white is the smallest luminance mapped to pure white.
document.py
page Don't call directly. Use document.addpage() instead. meta( title ) Set metadata about the page, such as title. size( width, height, units='mm' ) Set the default document size to width by height, where units can be one of: 'pt','mm', 'cm', 'in'. place( item ) Place an item on the page. chain( block ) Add new text block to the block, enabling its text to flow along the linked blocks. A chain eventually eliminates overflow. svg( path='', compress=False ) Return the page serialized into SVG format. If path is set, save it as well. Reduce size by setting compress to True (currently not implemented). image( ppi=72, kind='g' ) Return the page rasterized at ppi (pixels per inch) into image of kind.
document.open( path ) Open a document located at path. Currently not implemented.
document( width=210.0, height=297.0, units='mm' ) Create a document with dimensions of width by height units. meta( title ) Set metadata about the document, such as title. size( width, height, units='mm' ) Set dimensions of the document to width by height units. addpage() Create and add one page to the document and return it. pdf( path='', compress=False ) Return the document serialized into PDF. If path is set, save it as well. Reduce size by setting compress to True (currently not implemented).
mesh.py
mesh.openstl( path ) Open an STL mesh located at path.
mesh( triplets ) Create a mesh with triplets of triangular face vertices. Each vertex is a triplet of x, y, z coordinates. stl( path='' ) Return the mesh serialized into STL format. If path is set, save it as well.
scene.py
diffuse( reflectance, emittance=None ) Create a diffuse material with reflectance and emittance, each of being an RGB floating-point triplet.
scene() Create empty scene. environment( sky, ground ) Set the sky and ground emittance, each of being an RGB floating-point triplet. camera( origin, target, length=50.0 ) Point the camera from origin to target, each of being an 3D point coordinate. Set focal length to length in millimetres. clear() Remove all items from the scene. add( mesh, material ) Add mesh combined with material to the scene. render( width, height, samples=10, multiprocessing=True, info=True ) Render the scene to raw image with size width by height pixels using samples × samples number of path tracing samples. To use all available cores set multiprocessing to True and to report rendering progress set info to True.
color.py
gray( intensity ) Create a grayscale color with intensity. 0 corresponds to black, 255 to white.
ga( g, a ) Create a grayscale color with intensity g and alpha a. 0 corresponds to black/transparent, 255 to white/opaque.
rgb( r, g, b ) Create an RGB color with intensities r, g, b. 0 corresponds to absence of component, 255 to maximum intensity.
rgba( r, g, b, a ) Create an RGBA color with intensities r, g, b and alpha a. 0 corresponds to absence of component/coverage, 255 to maximum intensity/opacity.
cmyk( c, m, y, k ) Create a CMYK color with tints c, m, y, k. 0 denotes the absence of colorant, 100 means maximum concentration.
spot( name, fallback ) Create a spot color with name and CMYK fallback used in case of absence of colorant in output device. thinned( tint ) Duplicate the color and sets the amount of application of its colorant to tint. 0 denotes the absence of colorant, 100 means maximum concentration.
overprint( color ) Create a wrapper of color which enables overprinting. Argument may be one of: cmyk, spot or devicen. When printing without overprint a graphic figure erases everything beneath it. With overprint it is possible to stack a layer of paint over preceding layers.
font.py
font.open( path, index=0 ) Open a font file located at path.
font Don't call directly, for now. Use font.open() instead.
shape.py
shape() Create an abstract shape. Defaults are: gray(0) stroke, no fill, 'butt' cap,'miter' join and 4.0 miter limit. stroke( color ) Set the stroke color to color. fill( color ) Set the fill color to color. nostroke() Disable stroke color. nofill() Disable fill color. width( value, units='pt' ) Set the stroke width to value, in units. cap( kind ) Set the stroke cap to kind, may be one of: 'butt', 'round','square'. join( kind ) Set the stroke join to kind, may be one of:'miter', 'round', 'bevel'. limit( value ) Set the miter limit. line( x0, y0, x1, y1 ) Create a line from x0, y0 to x1, y1. polyline( *coordinates ) Create an open polyline with a sequence of altering x and y coordinates. polygon( *coordinates ) Create closed polygon with a sequence of altering x and y coordinates. rectangle( x, y, width, height ) Create a rectangle with origin x, y and size width, height. circle( x, y, r ) Create a circle with center at x, y and radius r. ellipse( x, y, rx, ry ) Create an ellipse with center at x, y and horizontal/vertical radius rx / ry. path( *commands ) Create a path constructed out of commands. Valid types are: moveto, lineto, quato, curveto, closepath.
placedshape Don't call directly. Use page.place() instead. position( x, y ) Move the placed shape to x, y.
command.py
moveto( x, y ) Create a command which moves current point to x, y.
lineto( x, y ) Create a command which draw a line from current point to x, y.
quadto( x1, y1, x, y ) Create a command which draw a quadratic Bezier curve from current point to x, y, using control point x1, y1.
curveto( x1, y1, x2, y2, x, y ) Create a command which draw a cubic Bezier curve from current point to x, y, using control point x1, y1 and x2, y2.
closepath Singleton command which closes the current subpath.
moveto, lineto, quadto, curveto, closepath transform( a, b, c, d, e, f ) Transform the command by matrix a, b, c, d, e, f.
,,,,
svg.py
parsepath( data ) Parse SVG Path data into sequence of path commands.
path.py
union( subject, clipper, perturbation=0.0 )
intersection( subject, clipper, perturbation=0.0 )
difference( subject, clipper, perturbation=0.0 ) Return a sequence of path commands resulting from given Boolean opeation on subject and clipper polygons. Scatter the vertices by ± perturbation amount.
text.py
strike( font ) Create a strike with font. Defaults are: 10 pt size, 12 pt leading and gray(0) color. size( size, leading=0.0, units='pt' ) Set the text size and line spacing to size and leading, in units. Zero leading calculates a default value according to size. color( color ) Set the text color to color. width( string ) Measure the width of string, in points. span( string ) Create a text span by combining the strike and string. Spans may form a paragraph. paragraph( string ) Create a text paragraph with one span by combining the strike and string. Paragraphs may form a text. text( string ) Create a text by breaking string to paragraphs at newline characters, with each paragraph having one span. Placed texts may be chained to enable text flow. Text yields a sequence of characters tied to the font. outlines( string ) Create outlines by breaking string to paragraphs at newline characters, with each paragraph having one span. Placed outlines may be chained to enable text flow. Outlines yield a sequence of Bezier paths based on glyph outlines.
paragraph( spans ) Create a paragraph containing spans.
text.open( path, substitutes ), outlines.open( path, substitutes ) Open a text file located at path and use font substitutes. Currently not implemented.
, text( paragraphs ), outlines( *paragraphs ) Create a text/outlines containing paragraphs.
, placedtext, placedoutlines Don't call directly. Use page.place() instead. Blocks have infinite sizes by default. position( x, y ) Move the placed text to x, y. frame( x, y, width, height ) Move the placed text to x, y, resize it to width, height and reflow it along the chain. overflow() Return whether the placed text flows over the frame(s). lines() Return the text content broken into lines according to current layout.
,
group.py
group.open( path ) Open a vector graphics file located at path. Currently not implemented.
group( units='mm' ) Create a group with dimensions in units. units( units='mm' ) Set the units of the group. place( item ) Place an item into the group. chain( block ) Add new text block to the block, enabling its text to flow along the linked blocks. A chain eventually eliminates overflow.
placedgroup Don't call directly. Use page.place() instead. position( x, y ) Move the placed group to x, y. scale( factor ) Scale the placed group by factor.
extra.py
tree( item ) Create a tree rooted at item. add( item ) Add a child (i.e. another tree) with item and return it. layout() Use horizontal layout to position the nodes. transpose() Flip between horizontal and vertical layout. frame( x, y, width, height ) Move the tree to x, y and resize it to width, height. nodes() Return all the tree nodes in depth-first order. Each node has x, y coordinates, parent, children and the original item.
even.py
view( data ) Load data into the viewer if called inside of Even, otherwise do nothing.
Installation
pip install flat
Since version 0.3, it requires Python 3.
Alternatively, there is Even application which integrates the library, a viewer and Python editor.
Source code
github.com/xxyxyz/flat
pypi.org/project/Flat
Contact
Juraj Sukop, [email protected] don't quite understand the question. Since you ask about a language that uses GC, I assume you are asking for examples like
Deliberately hang on to a reference even when I know it's dead, maybe to reuse the object to satisfy a future allocation request. Keep track of some objects and close them explicitly, because they hold resources that can't easily be managed with the garbage collector (open file descriptors, windows on the screen, that sort of thing).
I've never found a reason to do #1, but #2 is one that comes along occasionally. Many garbage collectors offer mechanisms for finalization, which is an action that you bind to an object and the system runs that action before the object is reclaimed. But oftentimes the system provides no guarantees about whether or if finalizers actually run, so finalization can be of limited utility.
The main thing I do in a garbage-collected language is to keep a tight watch on the number of allocations per unit of other work I do. Allocation is usually the performance bottleneck, especially in Java or.NET systems. It is less of an issue in languages like ML, Haskell, or LISP, which are typically designed with the idea that the program is going to allocate like crazy.
EDIT: longer response to comment.
Not everyone understands that when it comes to performance, the allocator and the GC must be considered as a team. In a state-of-the-art system, allocation is done from contiguous free space (the 'nursery') and is as quick as test and increment. But unless the object allocated is incredibly short-lived, the object incurs a debt down the line: it has to be copied out of the nursery, and if it lives a while, it may be copied through several generatations. The best systems use contiguous free space for allocation and at some point switch from copying to mark/sweep or mark/scan/compact for older objects. So if you're very picky, you can get away with ignoring allocations if
You know you are dealing with a state-of-the art system that allocates from continuous free space (a nursery).
The objects you allocate are very short-lived (less than one allocation cycle in the nursery).
Otherwise, allocated objects may be cheap initially, but they represent work that has to be done later. Even if the cost of the allocation itself is a test and increment, reducing allocations is still the best way to improve performance. I have tuned dozens of ML programs using state-of-the-art allocators and collectors and this is still true; even with the very best technology, memory management is a common performance bottleneck.
And you'd be surprised how many allocators don't deal well even with very short-lived objects. I just got a big speedup from Lua 5.1.4 (probably the fastest of the scripting language, with a generational GC) by replacing a sequence of 30 substitutions, each of which allocated a fresh copy of a large expression, with a simultaneous substitution of 30 names, which allocated one copy of the large expression instead of 30. Performance problem disappeared.The Supreme Court has long been in the vanguard of expanding Indigenous rights. But in a landmark ruling, it has deftly applied the brakes. The ruling, released Thursday, centres on an attempt by the Ktunaxa First Nation of British Columbia to stop a ski resort from being erected on sacred land.
The Supreme Court of Canada has long been in the forefront of expanding Indigenous rights, but has deftly put the brakes on with its ruling on the Jumbo Glacier Resort, Thomas Walkom writes. ( Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo )
But it is really about the right of Indigenous peoples to override economic development decisions made by elected federal and provincial governments. The top court has already ruled that Indigenous nations do not have an absolute veto over such decisions, a point it reinforced Thursday. But in denying the Ktunaxa claim it also, in effect, ruled that Indigenous people cannot use the constitution’s freedom-of-religion clause as a back door to achieve the same end.
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The dispute over the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort has been going on, in one form or another, since 1991. By 2009, its proponents had obtained the approval of the nearby Shuswap First Nation. But that same year, the Ktunaxa weighed in with a new argument, saying that the project would drive away the Grizzly Bear Spirit they worship. The court noted that this argument came late in the game because of the Ktunaxa’s deeply held reluctance to discuss their religious beliefs with outsiders. But the justices didn’t buy it anyway. Seven of the nine, including Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, ruled that while the Constitution’s freedom-of-religion clause allows people to worship in any way they wish, it does not require the state to protect their objects of adoration — in this case the Grizzly Bear Spirit. The two remaining justices ruled that the ski resort plan did infringe upon the Ktunaxa’s freedom to worship but that, when weighed against the B.C government’s statutory obligation to encourage economic development, this infringement was justified. All nine ruled that the B.C. government had met its constitutional obligation to consult the relevant First Nations. But consultation, they noted, does not require agreement.
Indigenous leaders have treated the Ktunaxa ruling as a setback for aboriginal rights. In a sense, they are correct. The top court has long been in the forefront of expanding these rights. It has tended to interpret the relevant portions of the Constitution in the broadest manner possible and has been far ahead of elected governments in doing so.
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Various rulings have fleshed out treaty rights, expanded the definition of who gets to be considered aboriginal and confirmed that Indigenous people are exempt from fish and game laws. But lately, the court has become more cautious. In a decision this July, it dismissed efforts by a London-area First Nation to kill a proposed pipeline. In that case, the court ruled that the federal government and its agencies had made every reasonable effort to consult the Chippewas of the Thames and had taken their views into account before deciding to let the pipeline go ahead. That the decision contradicted the wishes of the First Nation, it said, was immaterial. Now, with last week’s ruling, the court had made it more difficult (although not impossible) for Indigenous appellants to try the freedom-of-religion gambit. Canadians like to maintain the useful fiction that their Supreme Court judges ignore politics. While they are not as blatantly partisan as their U.S. counterparts, they are not naïve. They know that their decisions, particularly the constitutional ones, have great political impact. They also know that while in some instances they can go beyond where elected governments dare to go, they can’t get too far ahead. So consider Thursday’s ruling as part of a balancing act. In the past, the top court has made sweeping rulings to advance the cause of Indigenous peoples. Now they are taking a breather. As for Jumbo Glacier Resort, it’s probably best not to book a room just yet. Construction has not yet begun and, in an attempt to win back its cancelled environmental assessment certificate, the company is involved in an unrelated court case with the B.C. government. Thomas Walkom appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.If the Russian-bought election interference ads hadn’t been bought by fraudulent accounts, “Most of them would be allowed to run” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said this morning. “The responsibility of an open platform is to allow people to express themselves” she said during the first of an Axios interview series with Facebook execs.
“The thing about free expression is when you allow free expression you allow free expression,” Sandberg said, noting that “we don’t check what people post” and that she doesn’t think people should want Facebook to.
The linchpin quote of the interview was when Sandberg said “The question is should divisive, political, or issue ads run … our answer is yes, because when you cut off speech for one person, then you cut off speech for all people.”
The perspective maintains Facebook’s neutrality across the political spectrum and absolves it from being the truth police. But it also means that it’s knowingly creating a platform where people can misinform each other.
That raises the question of how free speech scales to user-generated content sharing networks that lack the curation and editorial oversight of traditional news distribution systems. Sandberg dodged Axios editor Mike Allen’s question about whether Facebook is a media company, and wasn’t pressed about how it accepts money for ads like other media companies.
Facebook plans to hire 1,000 more human moderators to protect election integrity, make all ads transparent to everyone rather than visible just to those targeted, and increase scrutiny on political ad buys. But can the fake news issue ever be solved if Facebook actually permits fake news under the banner of free speech?
During her talk, Sandberg also confirmed that Facebook will support the plan of congressional investigators probing election interference to release the Russian-bought ads to the public. She said she met with Congress yesterday, Facebook is fully cooperating, and that it will provide Congress any content investigators want. That includes non-ads. “A lot of them, if they were run by legitimate people, we would let them run,” Sandberg explained.
She also said targeting information about the ads will be released to the public, as well. “We have a responsibility to do everything we can do to prevent this kind of abuse,” said Sandberg. “We’re hoping to set a new standard in transparency in advertising.” Though at the same time, she blatantly dodged a question about whether the Russian-bought ads and Donald Trump’s campaign ads had matching targeting.
As for the accusation that Facebook causes filter bubbles by surrounding us with information shared by our social graph instead of a more impartial news source, Sandberg said Facebook actually broadens our perspective through exposure to our weak ties and acquaintances. She cited studies showing we see a wider view of the news through the lens of Facebook than traditional sources.
You can watch the full talk with Sandberg below:
Exclusive interview with Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg WATCH LIVE: Axios' exclusive interview with Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg as public scrutiny intensifies over Russia's use of the platform. Posted by Axios on Thursday, October 12, 2017
Sandberg’s comments come alongside newly exposed information about the effectiveness of Facebook’s fight against fake news. In an email obtained by BuzzFeed, Facebook’s manager of news partnerships Jason White wrote to one of the company’s third-party fact checkers:
“Once we receive a false rating from one of our fact checking partners, we are able to reduce future impressions on Facebook by 80 percent... we are working to surface these hoaxes sooner. It commonly takes over 3 days, and we know most of the impressions typically happen in that initial time period.”
But while Facebook is willing to demote the News Feed prominence of a news story that’s unequivocally established as false by third parties, it still allows this content on its platform.
A Slippery Slope Worth Navigating
This all boils down to the fact that Facebook’s News Feed is sorted by engagement. Normally, low quality content simply receives too few Likes or comments to be seen by many people. But fake news is so tantalizing in how it stokes our biases and political leanings that it breaks this system. People will click-through, Like, and share this content because they agree with or are entertained by it, not because it’s high quality.
This, in turn, incentivizes publishers of false news hoaxes. Facebook demotes hoaxes when identified, and is blocking monetization and ad buys from these publishers. But these mechanics also incentivize publishing of highly polarized opinion, exaggeration, and sensationalism. And when advertisers pay to boost the reach of fake news, its click-baitness attains these ads a level of engagement that wins them a lower price in Facebook’s auction system.
That’s how Facebook profits from fake news and polarization, even as it vows to work harder to protect us from it. While Facebook might want to offer an open platform where it’s not the opinion police or even the truth police, it’s simultaneously earning money from some of the most malicious uses of free expression.
It’s all a slippery slope. One person’s fake news busting is another’s censorship. But at the same time, Facebook is not legally obligated to maintain a free speech platform. Its rules prohibiting nudity, hate speech, and graphic imagery for the sake of |
the substantia nigra network, which represents the brain region affected by Parkinson’s, to identify new genes and pathways involved in the disease.” Wong is one of three co-first authors of the paper.
The paper’s other two co-first authors are Arjun Krishnan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Lewis-Sigler Institute; and Casey S. Greene, assistant professor of genetics at Dartmouth College, who was a postdoctoral fellow with the Troyanskaya group from 2009 to 2012. Other key collaborators on this study were Emanuela Ricciotti, Garret A. FitzGerald and Tilo Grosser of the pharmacology department and the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Daniel I. Chasman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston; and Kara Dolinski at the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton University.
“This is an exciting time in biomedical research, and I believe we are still at the early stages of developing new ways to think about biological networks and their control,” Greengard says.
Olga Troyanskaya
Aaron Wong
About the Simons Foundation and the Simons Center for Data Analysis
The Simons Foundation is a private foundation based in New York City, incorporated in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons. The foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences, sponsoring a range of programs that aim to promote a deeper understanding of our world. The foundation offers funding opportunities through its Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Life Science and Education & Outreach divisions, and its Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) aims to improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders.
The Simons Center for Data Analysis (SCDA) was formed in 2013 with the purpose of developing innovative methods for examining large datasets. It aims to address the unsolved mathematical, statistical and computational questions whose resolution will illuminate the underlying science. The center is particularly interested in problems that present important long-term, systematic mathematical and computational challenges.Richard K. Moore is an expatriate software programmer from Silicon Valley who has lived for the past six years in rural Ireland. However, capitalizing on one of the better side effects of globalization, he and Canadian collaborator Jan Slakov have coordinated Internet discussions about new economic and political paradigms among hundreds of people worldwide, via e-mail lists and the Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance Web site. This article is a distillation of Moore's book-in-progress, which can be found in fuller form at http://cyberjournal.org. Richard can be reached at [email protected].
The defining dramatic moment in the film The Matrix [Warner Bros., 1999] occurs just after Morpheus invites Neo to choose between a red pill and a blue pill. The red pill promises "the truth, nothing more." Neo takes the red pill and awakes to reality?something utterly different from anything Neo, or the audience, could have expected. What Neo had assumed to be reality turns out to be only a collective illusion, fabricated by the Matrix and fed to a population that is asleep, cocooned in grotesque embryonic pods. In Plato's famous parable about the shadows on the walls of the cave, true reality is at least reflected in perceived reality. In the Matrix world, true reality and perceived reality exist on entirely different planes.
The story is intended as metaphor, and the parallels that drew my attention had to do with political reality. This article offers a particular perspective on what's going on in the world and how things got to be that way in this era of globalization. From that red-pill perspective, everyday media-consensus reality like the Matrix in the film is seen to be a fabricated collective illusion. Like Neo, I didn't know what I was looking for when my investigation began, but I knew that what I was being told didn't make sense. I read scores of histories and biographies, observing connections between them, and began to develop my own theories about roots of various historical events.
I found myself largely in agreement with writers like Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti, but I also perceived important patterns that others seemed to have missed. When I started tracing historical forces, and began to interpret present-day events from a historical perspective, I could see the same old dynamics at work and found a meaning in unfolding events far different from what official pronouncements proclaimed. Such pronouncements are, after all, public relations fare, given out by politicians who want to look good to the voters. Most of us expect rhetoric from politicians, and take what they say with a grain of salt. But as my own picture of present reality came into focus, "grain of salt" no longer worked as a metaphor. I began to see that consensus reality as generated by official rhetoric and amplified by mass media bears very little relationship to actual reality. "The matrix" was a metaphor I was ready for.
In consensus reality (the blue-pill perspective) "left" and "right" are the two ends of the political spectrum. Politics is a tug-of-war between competing factions, carried out by political parties and elected representatives. Society gets pulled this way and that within the political spectrum, reflecting the interests of whichever party won the last election. The left and right are therefore political enemies. Each side is convinced that it knows how to make society better; each believes the other enjoys undue influence; and each blames the other for the political stalemate that apparently prevents society from dealing effectively with its problems.
This perspective on the political process, and on the roles of left and right, is very far from reality. It is a fabricated collective illusion. Morpheus tells Neo that the Matrix is "the world that was pulled over your eyes to hide you from the truth....As long as the Matrix exists, humanity cannot be free." Consensus political reality is precisely such a matrix. Later we will take a fresh look at the role of left and right, and at national politics. But first we must develop our red-pill historical perspective. I've had to condense the arguments to bare essentials; please see the annotated sources at the end for more thorough treatments of particular topics.
Imperialism and the Matrix
From the time of Columbus to 1945, world affairs were largely dominated by competition among Western nations (primarily western Europe, later joined by the United States) seeking to stake out spheres of influence, control sea lanes, and exploit colonial empires. Each Western power became the core of an imperialist economy whose periphery was managed for the benefit of the core nation. Military might determined the scope of an empire; wars were initiated when a core nation felt it had sufficient power to expand its periphery at the expense of a competitor. Economies and societies in the periphery were kept backward?to keep their populations under control, to provide cheap labor, and to guarantee markets for goods manufactured in the core. Imperialism robbed the periphery not only of wealth but also of its ability to develop its own societies, cultures, and economies in a natural way for local benefit.
The driving force behind Western imperialism has always been the pursuit of economic gain, ever since Isabella commissioned Columbus on his first entrepreneurial voyage. The rhetoric of empire concerning wars, however, has typically been about other things the White Man's Burden, bringing true religion to the heathens, Manifest Destiny, defeating the Yellow Peril or the Hun, seeking lebensraum, or making the world safe for democracy. Any fabricated motivation for war or empire would do, as long as it appealed to the collective consciousness of the population at the time. The propaganda lies of yesterday were recorded and became consensus history?the fabric of the matrix.
While the costs of territorial empire (fleets, colonial administrations, etc.) were borne by Western taxpayers generally, the profits of imperialism were enjoyed primarily by private corporations and investors. Government and corporate elites were partners in the business of imperialism: Empires gave government leaders power and prestige, and gave corporate leaders power and wealth. Corporations ran the real business of empire while government leaders fabricated noble excuses for the wars that were required to keep that business going. Matrix reality was about patriotism, national honor, and heroic causes; true reality was on another plane altogether: that of economics.
Industrialization, beginning in the late 1700s, created a demand for new markets and increased raw materials. Both demands spurred accelerated expansion of empire. Wealthy investors amassed fortunes by setting up large-scale industrial and trading operations, leading to the emergence of an influential capitalist elite. Like any other elite, capitalists used their wealth and influence to further their own interests however they could. And the interests of capitalism always come down to economic growth; investors must reap more than they sow or the whole system comes to a grinding halt.
Thus capitalism, industrialization, nationalism, warfare, imperialism?and the matrix?coevolved. Industrial-ized weapon production provided the muscle of modern warfare, and capitalism provided the appetite to use that muscle. Government leaders pursued the policies necessary to expand empire while creating a rhetorical matrix, around nationalism, to justify those policies. Capitalist growth depended on empire, which in turn depended on a strong and stable core nation to defend it. National interests and capitalist interests were inextricably linked?or so it seemed for more than two centuries.
World War II and the Pax Americana
1945 will be remembered as the year World War II ended and the bond of the atomic nucleus was broken. But 1945 also marked another momentous fission?breaking of the bond between national and capitalist interests. After every previous war, and in many cases after severe devastation, European nations had always picked themselves back up and resumed their competition over empire. But after World War II, a Pax Americana was established. The US began to manage all the Western peripheries on behalf of capitalism generally, while preventing the communist powers from interfering in the game. Capitalist powers no longer needed to fight over investment realms, and competitive imperialism was replaced by collective imperialism. Opportunities for capital growth were no longer linked to the military power of nations, apart from the power of America. In his Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, William Blum chronicles hundreds of significant covert and overt interventions, showing exactly how the US carried out its imperial management role.
In the postwar years, matrix reality diverged ever further from actual reality. In the postwar matrix world, imperialism had been abandoned and the world was being "democratized"; in the real world, imperialism had become better organized and more efficient. In the matrix world, the US "restored order," or "came to the assistance" of nations that were being "undermined by Soviet influence"; in the real world, the periphery was being systematically suppressed and exploited. In the matrix world, the benefit was going to the periphery in the form of countless aid programs; in the real world, immense wealth was being extracted from the periphery.
Glitches in the Matrix, Popular Rebellion, and Neoliberalism
Growing glitches in the matrix weren't noticed by most people in the West, because the postwar years brought unprecedented levels of Western prosperity and social progress. The rhetoric claimed progress would come to all, and Westerners could see it being realized in their own towns and cities. The West became the collective core of a global empire, and exploitative development led to prosperity for Western populations, while generating immense riches for corporations, banks, and wealthy capital investors.
The parallel agenda of Third World exploitation and Western prosperity worked effectively for the first two postwar decades. But in the 1960s, large numbers of Westerners, particularly the young and well educated, began to notice glitches in the matrix. In Vietnam, imperialism was too naked to be successfully masked as something else. A major split in American public consciousness occurred as millions of antiwar protestors and civil rights activists punctured the fabricated consensus of the 1950s and declared the reality of exploitation and suppression both at home and abroad. The environmental movement arose, challenging even the exploitation of the natural world. In Europe, 1968 joined 1848 as a landmark year of popular protest.
These developments disturbed elite planners. The postwar regime's stability was being challenged from within the core?and the formula of Western prosperity no longer guaranteed public passivity. A report published in 1975, the Report of the Trilateral Task Force on Governability of Democracies, provides a glimpse into the thinking of elite circles. Alan Wolfe discusses this report in Holly Sklar's eye-opening Trilateralism. Wolfe focuses especially on the analysis Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington presented in a section of the report entitled "The Crisis of Democracy." Huntington is an articulate promoter of elite policy shifts, and contributes pivotal articles to publications such as the Council on Foreign Relations's Foreign Affairs.
Huntington tells us that democratic societies "cannot work" unless the citizenry is "passive." The "democratic surge of the 1960s" represented an "excess of democracy," which must be reduced if governments are to carry out their traditional domestic and foreign policies. Huntington's notion of "traditional policies" is expressed in a passage from the report:
To the extent that the United States was governed by anyone during the decades after World War II, it was governed by the President acting with the support and cooperation of key individuals and groups in the executive office, the federal bureaucracy, Congress, and the more important businesses, banks, law firms, foundations, and media, which constitute the private sector's "Establishment."
In these few words, Huntington spells out the reality that electoral democracy has little to do with how America is run, and summarizes the kind of people who are included within the elite planning community. Who needs conspiracy theories when elite machinations are clearly described in public documents like these?
Besides failing to deliver popular passivity, the policy of prosperity for Western populations had another downside, having to do with Japan's economic success. Under the Pax Americana umbrella, Japan had been able to industrialize and become an imperial player?the prohibition on Japanese rearmament had become irrelevant. With Japan's lower postwar living standards, Japanese producers could undercut prevailing prices and steal market share from Western producers. Western capital needed to find a way to become more competitive on world markets, and Western prosperity was standing in the way. Elite strategists, as Huntington showed, were fully capable of understanding these considerations, and the requirements of corporate growth created a strong motivation to make the needed adjustments?in both reality and rhetoric.
If popular prosperity could be sacrificed, there were many obvious ways Western capital could be made more competitive. Production could be moved overseas to low-wage areas, allowing domestic unemployment to rise. Unions could be attacked and wages forced down, and people could be pushed into temporary and part-time jobs without benefits. Regulations governing corporate behavior could be removed, corporate and capital-gains taxes could be reduced, and the revenue losses could be taken out of public-service budgets. Public infrastructures could be privatized, the services reduced to cut costs, and then they could be milked for easy profits while they deteriorated from neglect.
These are the very policies and programs launched during the Reagan-Thatcher years in the US and Britain. They represent a systematic project of increasing corporate growth at the expense of popular prosperity and welfare. Such a real agenda would have been unpopular, and a corresponding matrix reality was fabricated for public consumption. The matrix reality used real terms like "deregulation," "reduced taxes," and "privatization," but around them was woven an economic mythology. The old, failed laissez-faire doctrine of the 1800s was reintroduced with the help of Milton Friedman's Chicago School of economics, and "less government" became the proud "modern" theme in America and Britain. Sensible regulations had restored financial stability after the Great Depression, and had broken up anti-competitive monopolies such as the Rockefeller trust and AT&T. But in the new matrix reality, all regulations were considered bureaucratic interference. Reagan and Thatcher preached the virtues of individualism, and promised to "get government off people's backs." The implication was that everyday individuals were to get more money and freedom, but in reality the primary benefits would go to corporations and wealthy investors.
The academic term for laissez-faire economics is "economic liberalism," and hence the Reagan-Thatcher revolution has come to be known as the "neoliberal revolution." It brought a radical change in actual reality by returning to the economic philosophy that led to sweatshops, corruption, and robber-baron monopolies in the nineteenth century. It brought an equally radical change in matrix reality?a complete reversal in the attitude that was projected regarding government. Government policies had always been criticized in the media, but the institution of government had always been respected?reflecting the traditional bond between capitalism and nationalism. With Reagan, we had a sitting president telling us that government itself was a bad thing. Many of us may have agreed with him, but such a sentiment had never before found official favor. Soon, British and American populations were beginning to applaud the destruction of the very democratic institutions that provided their only hope of participation in the political process.
Globalization and World Government
The essential bond between capitalism and nationalism was broken in 1945, but it took some time for elite planners to recognize this new condition and to begin bringing the world system into alignment with it. The strong Western nation-state had been the bulwark of capitalism for centuries, and initial postwar policies were based on the assumption that this would continue indefinitely. The Bretton Woods financial system (the IMF, the World Bank, and a system of fixed exchange rates among major currencies) was set up to stabilize national economies, and popular prosperity was encouraged to provide political stability. Neoliberalism in the US and Britain represented the first serious break with this policy framework?and brought the first visible signs of the fission of the nation-capital bond.
The neoliberal project was economically profitable in the US and Britain, and the public accepted the matrix economic mythology. Meanwhile, the integrated global economy gave rise to a new generation of transnational corporations, and corporate leaders began to realize that corporate growth was not dependent on strong core nation-states. Indeed, Western nations?with their environmental laws, consumer-protection measures, and other forms of regulatory "interference"?were a burden on corporate growth. Having been successfully field-tested in the two oldest "democracies," the neoliberal project moved onto the global stage. The Bretton Woods system of fixed rates of currency exchange was weakened, and the international financial system became destabilizing, instead of stabilizing, for national economies. The radical free-trade project was launched, leading eventually to the World Trade Organization. The fission that had begun in 1945 was finally manifesting as an explosive change in the world system.
The objective of neoliberal free-trade treaties is to remove all political controls over domestic and international trade and commerce. Corporations have free rein to maximize profits, heedless of environmental consequences and safety risks. Instead of governments regulating corporations, the WTO now sets rules for governments, telling them what kind of beef they must import, whether or not they can ban asbestos, and what additives they must permit in petroleum products. So far, in every case where the WTO has been asked to review a health, safety, or environmental regulation, the regulation has been overturned.
Most of the world has been turned into a periphery; the imperial core has been boiled down to the capitalist elite themselves, represented by their bureaucratic, unrepresentative, WTO world government. The burden of accelerated imperialism falls hardest outside the West, where loans are used as a lever by the IMF to compel debtor nations such as Rwanda and South Korea to accept suicidal "reform" packages. In the 1800s, genocide was employed to clear North America and Australia of their native populations, creating room for growth. Today, a similar program of genocide has apparently been unleashed against sub-Saharan Africa. The IMF destroys the economies, the CIA trains militias and stirs up tribal conflicts, and the West sells weapons to all sides. Famine and genocidal civil wars are the predictable and inevitable result. Meanwhile, AIDS runs rampant while the WTO and the US government use trade laws to prevent medicines from reaching the victims.
As in the past, Western military force will be required to control the non-Western periphery and make adjustments to local political arrangements when considered necessary by elite planners. The Pentagon continues to provide the primary policing power, with NATO playing an ever-increasing role. Resentment against the West and against neoliberalism is growing in the Third World, and the frequency of military interventions is bound to increase. All of this needs to be made acceptable to Western minds, adding a new dimension to the matrix.
In the latest matrix reality, the West is called the "international community," whose goal is to serve "humanitarian" causes. Bill Clinton made it explicit with his "Clinton Doctrine," in which (as quoted in the Washington Post) he solemnly promised, "If somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion and it is within our power stop it, we will stop it." This matrix fabrication is very effective indeed; who opposes prevention of genocide? Only outside the matrix does one see that genocide is caused by the West in the first place, that the worst cases of genocide are continuing, that "assistance" usually makes things worse (as in the Balkans), and that Clinton's handy doctrine enables him to intervene when and where he chooses. Since dictators and the stirring of ethnic rivalries are standard tools used in managing the periphery, a US president can always find "innocent civilians" wherever elite plans call for an intervention.
In matrix reality, globalization is not a project but rather the inevitable result of beneficial market forces; genocide in Africa is no fault of the West's, but is due to ancient tribal rivalries; every measure demanded by globalization is referred to as "reform" (the word is never used with irony). "Democracy" and "reform" are frequently used together, always leaving the subtle impression that one has something to do with the other. The illusion is presented that all economic boats are rising, and if yours isn't, it must be your own fault: you aren't "competitive" enough. Economic failures are explained away as "temporary adjustments," or else the victim (as in South Korea or Russia) is blamed for not being sufficiently neoliberal. "Investor confidence" is referred to with the same awe and reverence that earlier societies might have expressed toward the "will of the gods."
Western quality of life continues to decline, while the WTO establishes legal precedents ensuring that its authority will not be challenged when its decisions become more draconian. Things will get much worse in the West; this was anticipated in elite circles when the neoliberal project was still on the drawing board, as is illustrated in Samuel Huntington's "The Crisis of Democracy" report discussed earlier.
The Management of Discontented Societies
The postwar years, especially in the United States, were characterized by consensus politics. Most people shared a common understanding of how society worked, and generally approved of how things were going. Prosperity was real and the matrix version of reality was reassuring. Most people believed in it. Those beliefs became a shared consensus, and the government could then carry out its plans as it intended, "responding" to the programmed public will.
The "excess democracy" of the 1960s and 1970s attacked this consensus from below, and neoliberal planners decided from above that ongoing consensus wasn't worth paying for. They accepted that segments of society would persist in disbelieving various parts of the matrix. Activism and protest were to be expected. New means of social control would be needed to deal with activist movements and with growing discontent, as neoliberalism gradually tightened the economic screws. Such means of control were identified and have since been largely implemented, particularly in the United States. In many ways, America sets the pace of globalization; innovations can often be observed there before they occur elsewhere. This is particularly true in the case of social-control techniques.
The most obvious means of social control, in a discontented society, is a strong, semi-militarized police force. Most of the periphery has been managed by such means for centuries. This was obvious to elite planners in the West, was adopted as policy, and has now been largely implemented. Urban and suburban ghettos?where the adverse consequences of neoliberalism are currently most concentrated?have literally become occupied territories, where police beatings and unjustified shootings are commonplace.
So that the beefed-up police force could maintain control in conditions of mass unrest, elite planners also realized that much of the Bill of Rights would need to be neutralized. (This is not surprising, given that the Bill's authors had just lived through a revolution and were seeking to ensure that future generations would have the means to organize and overthrow any oppressive future government.) The rights-neutralization project has been largely implemented, as exemplified by armed midnight raids, outrageous search-and-seizure practices, overly broad conspiracy laws, wholesale invasion of privacy, massive incarceration, and the rise of prison slave labor. The Rubicon has been crossed?the techniques of oppression long common in the empire's periphery are being imported to the core.
In the matrix, the genre of the TV or movie police drama has served to create a reality in which "rights" are a joke, the accused are despicable sociopaths, and no criminal is ever brought to justice until some noble cop or prosecutor bends the rules a bit. Government officials bolster the construct by declaring "wars" on crime and drugs; the noble cops are fighting a war out there in the streets?and you can't win a war without using your enemy's dirty tricks. The CIA plays its role by managing the international drug trade and making sure that ghetto drug dealers are well supplied. In this way, the American public has been led to accept the means of its own suppression.
The mechanisms of the police state are in place. They will be used when necessary?as we see in ghettos and skyrocketing prison populations, as we saw on the streets of Seattle and Washington, D.C. during recent demonstrations against the WTO, IMF, and World Bank, and as is suggested by executive orders that enable the president to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law whenever he deems it necessary. But raw force is only the last line of defense for the elite regime. Neoliberal planners introduced more subtle defenses into the matrix; looking at these will bring us back to our discussion of the left and right.
Divide and rule is one of the oldest means of mass control?standard practice since at least the Roman Empire. This is applied at the level of modern imperialism, where each small nation competes with others for capital investments. Within societies it works this way: If each social group can be convinced that some other group is the source of its discontent, then the population's energy will be spent in inter-group struggles. The regime can sit on the sidelines, intervening covertly to stir things up or to guide them in desired directions. In this way, most discontent can be neutralized, and force can be reserved for exceptional cases. In the prosperous postwar years, consensus politics served to manage the population. Under neoliberalism, programmed factionalism has become the front-line defense?the matrix version of divide and rule.
The covert guiding of various social movements has proven to be one of the most effective means of programming factions and stirring them against one another. Fundamentalist religious movements have been particularly useful. They have been used not only within the US, but also to maximize divisiveness in the Middle East and for other purposes throughout the empire. The collective energy and dedication of "true believers" makes them a potent political weapon that movement leaders can readily aim where needed. In the US that weapon has been used to promote censorship on the Internet, to attack the women's movement, to support repressive legislation, and generally to bolster the ranks of what is called in the matrix the "right wing."
In the matrix, the various factions believe that their competition with each other is the process that determines society's political agenda. Politicians want votes, and hence the biggest and best-organized factions should have the most influence, and their agendas should get the most political attention. In reality there is only one significant political agenda these days: the maximization of capital growth through the dismantling of society, the continuing implementation of neoliberalism, and the management of empire. Clinton's liberal rhetoric and his playing around with health care and gay rights are not the result of liberal pressure. They are rather the means by which Clinton is sold to liberal voters, so that he can proceed with real business: getting NAFTA through Congress, promoting the WTO, giving away the public airwaves, justifying military interventions, and so forth. Issues of genuine importance are never raised in campaign politics?this is a major glitch in the matrix for those who have eyes to see it.
Escaping the Matrix
The matrix cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Under the onslaught of globalization, the glitches are becoming ever more difficult to conceal?as earlier, with the Vietnam War. November's anti-establishment demonstrations in Seattle, the largest in decades, were aimed directly at globalization and the WTO. Even more important, Seattle saw the coming together of factions that the matrix had programmed to fight one another, such as left-leaning environmentalists and socially conservative union members.
Seattle represented the tip of an iceberg. A mass movement against globalization and elite rule is ready to ignite, like a brush fire on a dry, scorching day. The establishment has been expecting such a movement and has a variety of defenses at its command, including those used effectively against the movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In order to prevail against what seem like overwhelming odds, the movement must escape entirely from the matrix, and it must bring the rest of society with it. As long as the matrix exists, humanity cannot be free. The whole truth must be faced: Globalization is centralized tyranny; capitalism has outlasted its sell-by date; matrix "democracy" is elite rule; and "market forces" are imperialism. Left and right are enemies only in the matrix. In reality we are all in this together, and each of us has a contribution to make toward a better world.
Marx may have failed as a social visionary, but he had capitalism figured out. It is based not on productivity or social benefit, but on the pursuit of capital growth through exploiting everything in its path. The job of elite planners is to create new spaces for capital to grow in. Competitive imperialism provided growth for centuries; collective imperialism was invented when still more growth was needed; and then neoliberalism took over. Like a cancer, capitalism consumes its host and is never satisfied. The capital pool must always grow, more and more, forever?until the host dies or capitalism is replaced.
The matrix equates capitalism with free enterprise, and defines centralized-state-planning socialism as the only alternative to capitalism. In reality, capitalism didn't amount to much of a force until the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s?and we certainly cannot characterize all prior societies as socialist. Free enterprise, private property, commerce, banking, international trade, economic specialization?all of these had existed for millennia before capitalism. Capitalism claims credit for modern prosperity, but credit would be better given to developments in science and technology.
Before capitalism, Western nations were generally run by aristocratic classes. The aristocratic attitude toward wealth focused on management and maintenance. With capitalism, the focus is always on growth and development; whatever one has is but the prelude to building a still greater fortune. In fact, there are infinite alternatives to capitalism, and different societies can choose different systems, once they are free to do so. As Morpheus put it: "Outside the Matrix everything is possible, and there are no limits."
The matrix defines "democracy" as competitive party politics, because that is a game wealthy elites have long since learned to corrupt and manipulate. Even in the days of the Roman Republic, the techniques were well understood. Real-world democracy is possible only if the people themselves participate in setting society's direction. An elected official can truly represent a constituency only after that constituency
has worked out its positions?from the local to the global?on the issues of the day. For that to happen, the interests of different societal factions must be harmonized through interaction and discussion. Collaboration, not competition, is what leads to effective harmonization.
The movement to end elite rule and establish livable societies, if it is to succeed, will need to evolve a democratic process, and to use that process to develop a program of consensus reform that harmonizes the interests of its constituencies. In order to be politically victorious, it will need to reach out to all segments of society and become a majority movement. By such means, the democratic process of the movement can become the democratic process of a newly empowered civil society. There is no adequate theory of democracy at present, although there is much to be learned from history and from theory. The movement will need to develop a democratic process as it goes along, and that objective must be pursued as diligently as victory itself. Otherwise, some new tyranny will eventually replace the old.ALTON TOWERS • IG Express.co.uk was one of the first in the UK to test the awesome new, VR-fuelled ride
Galactica is the latest addition to Alton Towers' portfolio of adrenaline-filled rides. The new rollercoaster blasts thrill-seekers deep into outer space using the power of virtual reality. Express.co.uk was one of the first in the world to test the awesome new, VR-fuelled ride. Packed with all the usual twists, dips and turns – from the ground, the ride might look like a very familiar affair. And that's probably because it is. Galactica is a re-imagining of Alton Towers' Air rollercoaster, which was designed to give you the sensation of flying, and opened back in March 2002. Now 14 years later, the same ride comes with a pair of specially-modified virtual reality goggles.
Once the Galactica headsets have been wiped down, fitted and everyone has adjusted the focus to their liking – the ride starts. At first glance through the cutting-edge headset, it appears as if you will be riding Galactica blind. But when the countdown kickstarts and the seats are lifted – so that you're lying face down – the headset springs into life and transports you inside a futuristic spaceship. You're then blasted out into space for 90 seconds of intergalactic mayhem.
EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS The virtual reality headsets do take away some of the thrills you'd expect from a 47 mph ride
Every twist and turn of the Air rollercoaster has been mapped and perfectly-synced with what's happening in the intergalactic virtual world inside your goggles. And as you zip around the 840-metre long track at over 47 mph you really get the feeling of flying as the ride speeds past stars, banks through wormholes and takes you to undiscovered galaxies. The on-screen graphics look closer to a video game than a Professor Brian Cox documentary. But the experience is still pretty mind-blowing – especially if this is your first taste of virtual reality. To help with the immersion as you thunder around the rollercoaster, each of the modified Samsung Gear VR headsets include an in-built pair of headphones which bring a constant commentary from mission control.
EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS Once the headsets have been wiped, fitted and everyone has adjusted the focus – the ride starts
It's a lot of fun – and a very different experience to the dozens of other, more traditional rides littered across the Alton Towers resort. But Express.co.uk did have a few reservations about the flagship new 2016 rollercoater. Firstly, the virtual reality headsets do take away some of the thrills you'd expect from a 47 mph rollercoaster. Don't expect to hear any gasps or worried whispers as the ride cranks you to its highest point – preparing to thunder down the tracks. Everyone is too immersed in their 3D tour of the outer rims of our universe to feel the suspense. And we struggled to hear any screams as the ride blasted through its final G-force filled turns as most of the riders are too focused on the world inside the headset, or the chatter from mission control.
Ultimately, whilst it is not as stomach-churning as some faster roller coasters we've been on, the VR experience is well worth the queues. Sadly the ride time is quite short and just as you begin to get used to the virtual coaster it is time to remove the gadget goggles. Once we knew what to expect – and what to look out for – we found we enjoyed the experience much more during our second ride. But on a sweaty, crowded summer's day it is unlikely you'll want to immediately join the back of the queue for another try. And anymore than two times in a row – we are sure we would start to feel very, very queasy.
ALTON TOWERS Alton Towers' Galactica uses virtual reality to simulate a tour of our galaxy
PH Astronaut Chris Hadfield was brought in to test the space-themed 'coaster
PH Alton Towers' Galactica opens later this month
To prove Galactica is worth all the fuss, the theme park Towers drafted in Astronaut Chris Hadfield to take a ride alongside Express.co.uk. Spaceman Hadfiled has been off-planet three times and spent over 100 days high above the earth. Speaking after his first experience on Galactica, Chris Hadfield said "This is one of the best rides I've ever been on and I've been on some rides! "I've been lucky enough to serve on three space flights, including five months on the International Space Station, but this is as close as I've come to a virtual trip across the universe."Well, we are back and talking about the Simpson Athletic High Performance Center aka the new Memorial stadium. Every year Cal puts out an annual report regarding the progress made on paying off the over $400 million dollars worth of debt Cal incurred to build this gorgeous spectacle to athleticism and concussions. They put their report out just last November and I'm FINALLY getting around to writing it up. This is the new normal when you have a baby, but I guess I have until next November to write this up, so it's not a major concern. But to everybody upset that this did not go up four months ago, you have my sincerest apologies. Next time, you can watch my daughter and I'll get this post up sooner!
So, for those new to the gameplan, let me give you a quickie recap. Cal upgraded its football facility and incurred $440 million in debt. To pay this off, it created a plan based on selling 1%er seat basis and that plan almost immediately cratered. This was due partially to the high cost of the tickets, but also the general sucktitude of the football team. Also, both.
So, a few years ago they redid the entire plan and made it more balanced emphasizing more than just the super high end ESP seats. They have 5 different categories of income to hep pay off the debt. These categories are as follows:
1. ESP Seat Sales (i.e. pledge seats)
2. Other Seat Sales (i.e. non-pledge seats aka 1%er seats that you can buy on a game by game basis)
3. Philanthropy
4. Rental Revenue
5. Investment Earnings.
So, what is our bottom line after the end of FY2014? Continued growth in the funds despite missing the mark of selling the |
the cleared OTC interest rate swap (IRS) market.
In terms of LCH’s euro-denominated transactions, interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements and oversight indexed swaps constitute the biggest share of swap transactions with 187 billion, 121 billion and 160 billion euros cleared respectively, out of the total of 479 billion euros traded daily. In the repo market the monthly clearing volume is approximately 5.8 trillion euros, although it covers a range of markets, not only euro-denominated markets.
In 2011, the ECB raised concerns over “the development of major euro financial market infrastructures that are located outside of the euro-area” in a Eurosystem Oversight Policy Framework document. In particular, the ECB stated that the development of offshore centralised counterparties (CCPs), better known as clearing houses that clear and settle large amount of euro-denominated transactions, is of systemic importance to the euro area. It argued that these settlements “should be legally incorporated in the euro area with full managerial and operational control”. The threshold was drawn at clearing houses that have a daily credit exposure of 5 billion euros in one of their main transaction categories.
In response to the ECB’s location requirement, UK government argued in September 2011 at the General Court in Luxembourg that the Overnight Policy Framework should be annulled. It contended that under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the ECB lacks competence to impose such requirements on the clearing houses. Furthermore, by imposing location requirements ECB violates the freedom of establishment, freedom to provide services and freedom of movement of capital in the single market.
After 4 years of legal battles, in March 2015 the General Court ruled in favour of the UK, stating that the ECB lacks explicit regulatory competence with regard to the securities clearing systems. In order to obtain rights over securities clearing, the ECB would need to seek an amendment in the TFEU. Since the competence argument was enough to annul the case, the court ruled that it was unnecessary to bring the “no discrimination” argument of the single market.
If the UK votes to leave the EU and the activities of the clearing houses shift to the continent, the direct economic impact would likely be small, due to the capital intensive nature of CCPs. For instance, LCH Clearnet Group’s overall operating profit for 2015 was 78 million euros, from which the UK subsidiary had an operating profit of 63 million euros, and employs around 450 people. LCH Clearnet SA (a subsidiary based in France) had an operating profit of 28.8 million euros and has 168 employees. As such, in terms of job losses the effect would be negligible.
However, from a wider perspective, the UK leaving the EU would result in significant limitations and regulatory uncertainty for the UK financial industry in general. This would impact clearing houses in particular in terms of their access to the euro market. In the event of a Brexit, the loss of “passporting” rights, exacerbated by regulatory uncertainties and delays surrounding the re-negotiation agreements in financial services, might trigger changes in the euro-denominated market of the CCPs. This includes the possibility of a gradual shift of activities to the continent. Plus, CCPs would be wary of the fact that, as a non-member, the UK has no legal means to enforce the ECB to credibly commit to the liquidity swap agreement. Such legal uncertainty would mean significant risks in an event of a liquidity crisis.
Suppose the liquidity shift does not happen and the ECB commits to maintaining a liquidity swap line, the sheer size of the euro-denominated liquidity injections necessary to offset a crisis could be destabilising for monetary policy (Armstrong 2016).
By publishing the Oversight Policy Framework, ECB has made it clear that euro-denominated activities of clearing houses are a systemic risk to functioning of the euro-area. It is impossible to know whether the ECB will attempt to impose the “location” requirement again or attempt to amend the TFEU to specifically seek competences with regard to the securities clearing systems. However, it will be much harder for the UK to influence the course of action if it is no longer a member of the EU.The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is a 2014 epic high fantasy action adventure film directed by Peter Jackson and written by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro. It is the third and final installment in Peter Jackson's three-part film adaptation based on the novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, following An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and together they act as a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
It was produced by New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and WingNut Films, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The Battle of the Five Armies was released on December 11, 2014 in New Zealand, December 12, 2014 in the United Kingdom, and on December 17, 2014 in the United States. It stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Stott, and James Nesbitt. The ensemble cast also features Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, and Orlando Bloom.
The film received mixed reviews, and grossed over $956 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2014 (behind Transformers: Age of Extinction) and the 46th-highest-grossing film of all time. At the 87th Academy Awards, the film received a nomination for Best Sound Editing.
Plot [ edit ]
Bilbo and the Dwarves watch from the Lonely Mountain as the dragon Smaug sets Laketown ablaze. Bard breaks out of prison, and eventually kills Smaug with the black arrow brought to him by his son Bain. Smaug's falling body crushes the fleeing Master of Laketown and his cronies, who were escaping on a boat laden with the town's gold. Bard reluctantly becomes the new leader of the people of Laketown, with the Master's conniving servant, Alfrid, acting as Bard's reluctant servant, as they seek refuge in the ruins of Dale, while Legolas travels to investigate Mount Gundabad with Tauriel. Thorin, now struck with "dragon sickness" over the vast treasure in the mountain, searches obsessively for the Arkenstone, which Bilbo had previously found but kept hidden. Thorin, hearing that Laketown survivors have fled to Dale, orders the entrance of the Lonely Mountain sealed off.
Meanwhile, Galadriel, Elrond, and Saruman arrive at Dol Guldur and free Gandalf, sending him to safety with Radagast. They battle and defeat the Nazgûl and a formless Sauron himself, banishing them to the East. Azog, marching on Erebor with his vast Orc army, sends his son Bolg to Gundabad to summon their second army. Legolas and Tauriel witness the march of Bolg's army, bolstered by Orc berserkers and giant bats.
Thranduil and an Elf army arrive in Dale and form an alliance with Bard in order to reclaim a treasure once withheld from them by Thrór. Bard goes to the mountain and asks Thorin for the share of gold that he had previously promised the people of Laketown, but Thorin refuses. Gandalf arrives at Dale to warn Bard and Thranduil of the threat posed by Azog, but Thranduil dismisses him. Bilbo sneaks out of Erebor to hand the Arkenstone over to Thranduil and Bard so that they can trade it for the treasures they were promised and prevent a battle. When Bard's and Thranduil's armies gather at the gates of Erebor, offering to trade the Arkenstone for the promised treasures, Thorin angrily refuses to believe they have the Arkenstone until Bilbo admits giving it away and chides Thorin for letting greed cloud his judgement. Outraged by what he sees as betrayal, Thorin nearly kills Bilbo, but Gandalf appears and shames Thorin into releasing Bilbo. Thorin's cousin Dáin arrives with his Dwarf army, and a battle of Dwarves against Elves and Men ensues, until Wereworms emerge from the ground, releasing Azog's army from their tunnels. With the Orcs outnumbering Dáin's army, Thranduil and Bard's forces, along with Gandalf and Bilbo, join the battle, fighting the Orcs. However, a second front is opened when many Orcs, Ogres, and Trolls attack Dale, forcing Bard to withdraw his forces to defend the city, while Alfrid takes a bunch of gold and flees from Dale to his ultimate fate.
Inside Erebor, Thorin suffers traumatic hallucinations before regaining his sanity and leading his company to join the battle. He rides towards Ravenhill with Dwalin, Fíli, and Kíli to kill Azog; Bilbo follows them, using his magic ring to move through the combat unseen. Meanwhile, Tauriel and Legolas arrive to warn the Dwarves of Bolg's approaching army. Fíli is captured, and Azog kills him as Bilbo and the other Dwarves are forced to watch. As Thorin engages Azog in a fight to the death, Bolg knocks Bilbo unconscious, overpowers Tauriel and then kills Kíli, who had come to her aid. Legolas battles Bolg and eventually kills him. Thorin kills Azog, but is fatally wounded in the process. The Great Eagles arrive with Radagast and Beorn to fight the newly arriving Orc army, and the Orcs are finally defeated. Bilbo regains consciousness and makes peace with the dying Thorin. Tauriel mourns Kili, and Thranduil acknowledges their love. Legolas then tells Thranduil he must leave, and Thranduil advises him to seek out a Dunedain ranger in the north who goes by the name "Strider".
As Thorin's company begin settling back into Erebor (with Dáin now the king), and Dale begins to recover with Bard as the leader, Bilbo bids farewell to the company's remaining members and journeys home to the Shire with Gandalf. As the two part ways on the outskirts of the Shire, Gandalf admits his knowledge of Bilbo's ring and warns him that magic rings are not to be used lightly. Bilbo returns to Bag End to find his belongings being auctioned off because he was presumed dead. He cancels the sale, but finds his home pillaged; he starts to tidy up and to settle back in. Sixty years later, Bilbo receives a visit from Gandalf on his 111th birthday.
Cast [ edit ]
The Battle of the Five Armies panel at 2014 panel at 2014 SDCC
Additionally, Peter Jackson's and Andy Serkis's daughters made cameo appearances as girls rowing away during Smaug's attack; movement coach Terry Notary and stand-in Jamie Haugh appear as Laketown refugees after the destruction; Conan Stevens, who was to play Bolg, appears as the Keeper of the Dungeons, an Orc captain holding Gandalf hostage and the sons of key second-assistant director Guy Campbell, casting director Miranda Rivers, and Weta Workshop founder Richard Taylor appear as Hobbit children during the auction scene.
Production [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
The Hobbit was originally envisioned as a two-part film, but Jackson confirmed plans for a third film on 30 July 2012, turning his adaptation of The Hobbit into a trilogy.[8][9] According to Jackson, the third film would contain the Battle of the Five Armies and make extensive use of the appendices that Tolkien wrote to expand the story of Middle-earth (published in the back of The Return of the King). Jackson also stated that while the third film would largely make use of footage originally shot for the first and second films, it would require additional filming as well.[10] The third film was titled There and Back Again in August 2012.[11] In April 2014, Jackson changed the title of the film to The Battle of the Five Armies as he thought the new title better suited the situation of the film.[12] He stated on his Facebook page, "There and Back Again felt like the right name for the second of a two film telling of the quest to reclaim Erebor, when Bilbo's arrival there, and departure, were both contained within the second film. But with three movies, it suddenly felt misplaced—after all, Bilbo has already arrived 'there' in the Desolation of Smaug."[13] Shaun Gunner, the chairman of The Tolkien Society, supported the decision: "The Battle of the Five Armies much better captures the focus of the film but also more accurately channels the essence of the story."[14]
Score [ edit ]
As with all the previous films, Howard Shore composed the score. Conrad Pope (who conducted the orchestra) and James Sizemore orchestrated the music for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and for two Gamelan orchestra, while the London Voices and Tiffin' Boys choir were recorded in AIR Lyndhurst, London. The score featured a few new themes for Dain, Gundabad (featuring a "chorus" of didgeridoos) and the Dwarves' war preparations, but focused more on blending and clashing the themes against one another, eventually bringing the themes to a resolution.[15]
Billy Boyd, who played Peregrin Took in The Lord of the Rings, wrote and recorded the song "The Last Goodbye" to be played over the end credits of the film.[16]
Distribution [ edit ]
Marketing [ edit ]
A teaser trailer for the film was released on July 28, 2014 attached to Guardians of the Galaxy, Into the Storm, and If I Stay. The second theatrical trailer was released on November 6, 2014 attached to Interstellar and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.[17][18] To promote the film's release, Wellington-based association football club, Wellington Phoenix, wore a special designed jersey to commemorate the opening of The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. The custom, film-themed jersey was worn only once, on December 13, 2014.[19] In the film's Japanese release on December 13, Warner Bros. collaborated with mobile gaming company A-Lim to bring Bilbo, Gandalf, and Legolas into the game Brave Frontier at the end of December as Vortex Dungeon units. The campaign only ran until February 2015.[20][21][22] Smaug made a guest appearance, animated by WETA and voiced again by Cumberbatch, on the satire show The Colbert Report on December 12, 2014 to promote the film.[23]
Video games [ edit ]
Two video games were developed to coincide with the film's theatrical release. A tie-in fighting video game The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies – Fight for Middle Earth was released simultaneously with the film for Android and iOS platforms to negative reviews from critics and users. An action-adventure video game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 & Xbox One in October 2014 and for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 21, nearly a week prior to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies world premiere in London, on 1 December. The events of the game take place directly after Sauron fled to Mordor, escaping The White Council, which was shown at the beginning of the film. The game was planned to act as an overlap between The Hobbit film series and The Lord of the Rings film series.
Theatrical release [ edit ]
Initially the film was set for a July 2014 release; however, it was later pushed back to December.[24] The world premiere of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was held in London at Leicester Square on 1 December 2014.[25][26] The film opened in theaters on 11 December 2014 in New Zealand, on December 12 in the United Kingdom and on December 17 in the United States. Warner Bros released the film on December 18 in Greece and December 26, in Australia.[6][27] The film was released in China on January 23, 2015.[28] An extended edition of the film had a one-night-only re-release on October 13, 2015, accompanied by a special greeting from Peter Jackson.[29]
Home media [ edit ]
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was released on March 6, 2015 on Digital Release from digital retailers. The DVD and Blu-ray were released on March 24, 2015 in the United States.[30][31][32][33] It topped the home video sales chart in its opening week.[34] An Extended Edition of the film, with 20 minutes of additional footage and original music was released on Digital HD on 20 October and on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D on November 17, 2015 in the United States and on November 23, 2015, in the United Kingdom.[35][36][37]
Rating [ edit ]
Unlike the theatrical version's PG-13 rating, the Extended Edition was rated R by the MPAA for "some violence",[38] making it the only Middle Earth film to have a restricted rating and, interestingly, one of the few films based on a children's book to have such a rating.[39] Likewise, the extended edition was rated MA15+ by the Australian Classification Board for "strong fantasy violence", which is equivalent to the R-rating, and the highest rated of any Middle Earth film.[40] Furthermore, the BBFC granted the extended edition a 15 certificate for "strong violence", the only Middle Earth film with such a rating.[41]
Reception [ edit ]
Box office [ edit ]
Like its predecessors, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies became a financial success. It grossed a total of $255.1 million in North America and $700.9 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $956 million.[42] Worldwide, it is the second-highest-grossing film of 2014 (behind Transformers: Age of Extinction), the lowest-grossing film of The Hobbit series,[43] and the 40th-highest-grossing film of all time.[44][45] According to Deadline Hollywood's estimation, the film made a profit of $103.4 million.[46] The film failed to earn $1 billion at the box office, despite various pundits projecting it to reach that milestone. The Hollywood Reporter said that The Battle of the Five Armies was unlikely to gross $1 billion worldwide due to "plunging exchange rates around the globe" witnessed that year, and that Warner Bros. and MGM ultimately would take in nearly $90 million less than expected due to the rising dollar and plunging foreign currencies.[47] However, despite this failure, Forbes has declared the trilogy "an unmitigated financial grand-slam for all parties."[48]
North America [ edit ]
In the U.S. and Canada, it is the lowest-grossing of the three films of The Hobbit trilogy,[49] and also the lowest-grossing of the six Middle-earth adaptations,[50] but the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2014.[51] It opened on Tuesday, December 16, 2014 across 3,100 theaters and widened to 3,875 the following day.[52] It earned $11.2 million from Tuesday late-night shows, which is the second-highest of 2014, matching the numbers earned by Guardians of the Galaxy and both behind The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 ($17 million) of which $2.5 million of just over 22% came from IMAX showings. This broke the record for a Middle-earth adaptation previews previously set by The Desolation of Smaug with $8.8 million.[52][53][54][55] It then topped the box office on its opening day (Wednesday, December 17, 2014), earning $24.5 million (including previews),[56][57] which is the third-highest Middle-earth adaptation Wednesday opening behind the Wednesday openings of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($34.5 million) and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ($26.2 million).[58][59] In total, the film earned $57.4 million in its traditional three-day opening and $89.1 million over its five-day course making it the second-biggest five-day opening in The Hobbit franchise, beating the $86.1 million opening of The Desolation of Smaug, but still behind An Unexpected Journey's $100.2 million five-day opening. However, on a three-day basis, the film underperformed expectations and fell short of its predecessors.[42][60] The film set a December IMAX opening record with $13.4 million (previously held by Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol).[61] 3D accounted for 49% of the total gross while IMAX generated 15% or $13.4 million over five days, and $7.4 million over three days, and premium large-format screens comprised 8% of the total opening-weekend gross with $7.2 million from 396 theaters.[42][62] The film passed the $100 million mark on its seventh day (December 23, 2014).[63] It became the third film of 2014 to earn $100 million in just under a week following Lionsgate's The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 ($168.7 million in its opening week) and Disney/Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy ($134.4 million in its first week).[64] It was in first place at the North American box office for three consecutive weekends despite facing competition from numerous new releases each weekend,[65][66] but was finally overtaken by Taken 3 in its fourth weekend.[67][68]
Outside North America [ edit ]
The film began its international roll-out a week prior to its wide North American release.[69] It opened Wednesday, December 10, 2014 in 11 European markets, earning $11.3 million and December 11, 2014 in 17 additional markets, earning $13.7 million, for a two-day total of $26.6 million and topped the charts in each of the territories.[69][70][71] Through Sunday, December 14, 2015, it had an opening weekend total of $122.2 million from 37 countries in 15,395 screens,[72][73] topping the box office and outperforming the previous two installments on a local currency and admissions basis.[73] Seventy-one percent of the total gross ($86.7 million) came from 3D showings.[73] However, the overseas opening weekend was still lower than the openings of An Unexpected Journey ($138 million)[74] and The Desolation of Smaug ($135.4 million)[75]—both on a dollar basis. It set a December IMAX opening record with $6.4 million across 160 IMAX screens, previously held by An Unexpected Journey with $5.03 million.[73] The film opened to an additional 59 countries in its second weekend and earned $109 million from 19,315 screens still holding the top spot and fell gradually by 13% as a result of facing minor competitions.[61][76] In its third weekend, the film added a further $89 million abroad, remaining at number one. It was in first place at the box office outside North America for four consecutive weekends[78] and five in total.[79]
The film achieved numerous records in international markets during its opening weekend. It set an all-time Warner Bros. opening record in Russia ($13.8 million),[72] Argentina ($2.1 million),[78] Sweden, and Finland.[72] It also set a 2014 opening record in Germany ($20.5 million),[72] France ($15.1 million),[72] and Spain ($6.3 million).[80] It also had the best Middle-earth saga opening in the UK ($15.2 million),[72] and Mexico ($6.3 million).[72] In Brazil, the film scored the second-biggest Warner Bros. opening of all time with $6.8 million (behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2).[72] In Australia, the film was released on 26 December 2014 and set an opening-day record with $5.6 million, which is the biggest of 2014, the second-biggest Boxing Day gross, and the fourth-biggest ever in Australia[81] behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($7.092 million), The Avengers ($6.0 million), and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug ($5.9 million).[82] It went on to earn $10.1 million in its opening weekend. The film set an all-time opening record for Warner Bros. in China where it earned $49.8 million in its opening weekend (a record previously held by Pacific Rim).[79][83][84] IMAX generated $6.8 million of the total gross, which was once the second-highest IMAX three-day gross behind Transformers: Age of Extinction's $10 million.[79] Other high openings were recorded in Korea ($10.4 million), Poland ($5.6 million), Italy ($5.6 million), Malaysia ($3 million), and Taiwan ($2.8 million).[80] In total earnings, its largest markets are China ($121.7 million); UK, Ireland, and Malta ($61.3 million); and Australia ($27 million).[85]
Critical response [ edit ]
MTV reported that early reviews for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies were "generally positive" with critics praising the film "for its energy, shorter running time and satisfying closure".[86] According to IBT, reviews for the film were mostly positive, with critics "praising director Peter Jackson's effort at transforming J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel into an epic adventure film trilogy".[87] According to CBS News, critics said the film "will satisfy fans" but "otherwise, it may be worth waiting until it's available to rent".[88] Oliver Gettel of the Los Angeles Times said the critical consensus was that the film is "a flawed but fitting finale to The Hobbit trilogy".[89] The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 59% approval rating based on 243 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's consensus reads "Though somewhat overwhelmed by its own spectacle, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies ends Peter Jackson's second Middle-earth trilogy on a reasonably satisfying note."[90] The film also holds a Metacritic score of 59 out of 100 based on 45 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[91] In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, the same score as its predecessor.[42]
Scott Foundas of Variety said "The result is at once the trilogy's most engrossing episode, its most expeditious (at a comparatively lean 144 minutes) and also its darkest—both visually and in terms of the forces that stir in the hearts of men, dwarves and orcs alike."[92] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said "After six films, 13 years and 1031 minutes of accumulated running time, Peter Jackson has concluded his massively remunerative genuflection at the altar of J.R.R. Tolkien with a film that may be the most purely entertaining of any in the collection."[93] Andrew Pulver of The Guardian said "This film is a fitting cap to an extended series that, if nothing else, has transformed Tolkien's place in the wider culture."[94] Chris Tilly from IGN Movies said "There's a little too much padding in the final Hobbit flick, and the best sequence is without doubt the film's first. But the central battle is indeed spectacular, and as 'The Age of Orc' approaches, it rounds out this particular story in stirring and emotional fashion."[95] Russell Baillie of The New Zealand Herald said The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is "something less than the supposed 'defining chapter' of Jackson's time in Middle-earth as it's been billed. But action-wise, it certainly goes out with a very pleasing bang."[96]
Conversely, Inkoo Kang of TheWrap said "The 144-minute running time showcases Jackson's worst tendencies: eons-long battle scenes, sloppy and abrupt resolutions, portentous romances, off-rhythm comic timing, and, newly in this case, patience-testing fan service."[97] Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph described the film as "a paragraph on steroids" that was "neither very terrible nor remotely unexpected. It's a series of stomping footnotes in search of a climax."[98] The BBC's Nicholas Barber wrote that with The Hobbit series, Jackson had succeeded in bridging the gap between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and that The Battle of the Five Armies was a "colossal technical achievement", but he also criticized that the film as such was not compelling because of "its repetitive battle scenes and a lack of plot".[99] Nicolas Rapold of The New York Times said "Bilbo may fully learn a sense of friendship and duty, and have quite a story to tell, but somewhere along the way, Mr. Jackson loses much of the magic."[100]
Accolades [ edit ]Colorado is having a tough time. The ramifications of
and the
Continue Reading
are still coming into focus, and many questions won't be answered for months. But we're not going anywhere. In
Westword
's annual attempt to chronicle on paper -- to count the ways, if you will -- how we love our home state, it was as tough as ever to narrow the list down to the greatest, strangest and highest reasons we're proud to live here. If you live here, too, count this as a written fist-bump. If you don't, maybe this list will tempt you to move here.
Click through for a complete look at the fifty reasons Colorado reigns supreme, and continue below to see why it's held that spot for years.
See Also: • "Despite a tragic summer, Colorado is still the real sunshine state" • "50 reasons we're glad we live in Denver and not the United States" • "50 reasons Colorado is the best state in America"
50. Mountain Standard Time is really the way to go.
49. The first snowfall of the year. Depending on whether your Subaru is packed in, any snowfall of the year.
48. Ours are some of the best public skate parks in the world. If you don't believe us, ask Lil Wayne.
47. I'll have the double chocolate peanut butter porter. On Nitro.
46. The Clyfford Still Museum lives up to its legacy.
45. Frozen Dead Guy Days: We have a festival dedicated to a dead body found packed in dry ice in a Tuff Shed.
44. Chipotle is our Starbucks, so you can find a giant, cylindrical piece of Denver, wrapped up in foil, wherever you may travel.
43. Deer turn into elk at 10,000 feet. (Just testing you).
42. People fish for carp in the Platte, right in downtown.
41. Our new film incentives law welcomes casts and crews with autograph books wide open. We're ready for our close-up, Steven Spielberg.
Click through for more we love about Colorado. 40. There's a pot leaf on our state flag. Wait, there isn't? Start rounding up signatures! All you need is 86,000!
39. 72-degree days in October -- and November.
38. We keep our balls at a constant temperature. Our baseballs.
37. Dog the Bounty Hunter is all ours -- and so is his store.
36. The canning line at Oskar Blues, the first and the largest craft brewery in the nation to package its scrumptious suds in cans.
35. Bison by the side of the highway. Bison at the Stock Show. Bison in our mouths.
34. Without South Park, there would be no Trey Parker and Matt Stone. And without Parker and Stone, there would be no South Park.
33. Bob Dylan wears Rockmount. You can, too.
32. Being first in the lift line. Or even tenth.
31. Buying Colorado peaches, peppers, cantaloupes and sweet corn at the farmers' market. Forgetting why you didn't buy cantaloupes last year.
Click through for more we love about Colorado. 30. Getting lucky after a cruiser ride.
29. The Denver Zoo has the only exhibit in the country capable of holding eight male elephants. If we get a full house, we'll also have the most elephant testosterone in the world.
28. It can be sunny on one side of the Eisenhower Tunnel and snowing on the other. In June.
27. Now that billionaire Phil Anschutz is footing the bill at the five-star Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, the complimentary toiletries are classier than ever.
26. We are one of the most physically fit cities in America, so you might as well enjoy the shirtless bros playing volleyball at Wash Park and the laughing ladies in sundresses at Coors Field.
25. Hunter Thompson ran for mayor of Aspen.
24. Even ancient Ice Age life forms couldn't stay hidden from Colorado for long.
23. Shotskis are old hat. We've got beerskis.
22. Within the span of a year, Denver's slam poetry team boasted the country's best adult team, youth team and female poet. You can go ahead and snap.
21. Relief in the fact that backyard chickens are legal, but that my neighbors don't have them.
Click through for more we love about Colorado. 20. Biker Jim's hot dogs are a state institution and a sidewalk staple. They're also doggone delicious.
19. Pagosa Springs has the deepest hot springs in the world.
18. You can use the benches at Red Rocks to sit on and listen to music. Or you can run them, over and over.
17. They want us. They need us. And, this year at least, Colorado isn't a flyover state when it comes to the two men running for President.
16. Mondo Guerra made it work while making it look easy. Can someone give him his own show already?
15. Listening to the radio and realizing the song is by someone from the same city. Thank you OneRepublic, the Fray, 3OH!3, the Lumineers and Breathe Carolina.
14. The highest tunnel in the U.S. The highest continuous road in the U.S. The highest pizza parlor in the US.
13. Aurora's staunch attempts to change gears -- and its more than 400 ethnic restaurants.
12.The dive bars, pawn shops and late-night glory of South Broadway.
11. The ski slopes are full of smoke shacks -- and memorial shrines.
Click through for more we love about Colorado. 10. The Bootleg Bottom Trail in Golden Gate Canyon State Park. One of many trails in this popular state park, the hike that begins at Bootleg Bottom has a little surprise just a few minutes in: an old cabin and a lesson about the history of bootlegging in the area during Prohibition.
9. Our Den-Mex tradition guarantees us the best Mexican food in the country.
8. Every year, more than 450 breweries bring 35,000 gallons of beer to Denver so that we can drink as much of it as possible. Thank you Great American Beer Festival.
7. Firefighters.
6. C'mon, admit it. You know you kind of love it the bright blue "Mustang," aka Blucifer, at Denver International Airport, his thick veins and his red eyes. What other city would have had the cojones to erect something this grotesque as its welcome mat?
5. Peyton. Freaking. Manning.
4. John. Fucking. Elway.
3. There are two kinds of hangovers in this town, a Santiago's hangover and a Chubby's/Bubba Chinos hangover. Whichever one it is, you know you can blast it with some spicy, warming green chile from one of these places.
2. Were you expecting us to say Casa Bonita?
1. Missy. Goshdarnit. Franklin.
More from our Things To Do archive: "50 reasons we're glad we live in Denver and not the United States."Mark Levin Awarded Weekly Talk Show on FOX News
Conservative author and radio show host Mark Levin was awarded a weekly talk show on FOX News Channel.
Matt Drudge broke the news on Tuesday morning.
Levin, who was a Ted Cruz supporter in 2016, has defended President Trump from the police state tactics of the Obama regime.
The Wrap has more:
Conservative radio firebrand Mark Levin will host a new weekly Fox News program, the network announced Tusday. Beginning in February, “Life, Liberty & Levin” will air on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET and feature a mix of long-form interviews and debates with newsmakers and cover current events, history, philosophy and economics. “Mark’s passion for the principles found in the Constitution and success in talk radio has made him a distinct figure in the media landscape,” programming president Suzanne Scott said in a statement. “We look forward to adding this spirited program to our weekend lineup.”In 1934, Leader of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler announced a cheap, simple car to be mass-produced for his country’s new road network. Hitler assigned Ferdinand Porsche to head the project named Volkswagen – the people’s car. The ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone of Volkswagen factory at Wolfsburg took place in 1938, which later became the biggest factory of automobiles in the world. The first car rolled out from the factory in 1939 and it was called KDF Wagen (Kraft Durch Freude Wagen) which means “Car of the force by means of joy”. The KDF was such a modern and revolutionary car to make the competitors look like obsolete. Till ceasing production in Puebla, Mexico in 2003, a total of 21 Million+ units of VW Beetles have so far been produced, which is a record number of production of a single model of an auto manufacturer.
Today, we know this KDF Wagen as Volkswagen Beetle or some also call them as Bug. The Beetle’s journey in Bangladesh started in 1956-57 and around 50 units were imported in Bangladesh at that time. Import of brand new VW Beetle and other models in |
they pay their cloud provider a subscription fee or pay for only the resources they use. Simply by filling in web forms, users can set up accounts and spin up virtual machines or provision new applications. More users or computing resources can be added on the fly—the latter in real time as workloads demand those resources thanks to a feature known as autoscaling.
Cloud computing definitions for each type
The array of available cloud computing services is vast, but most fall into one of the following categories.
SaaS (software as a service)
This type of public cloud computing delivers applications over the internet through the browser. The most popular SaaS applications for business can be found in Google’s G Suite and Microsoft’s Office 365; among enterprise applications, Salesforce leads the pack. But virtually all enterprise applications, including ERP suites from Oracle and SAP, have adopted the SaaS model. Typically, SaaS applications offer extensive configuration options as well as development environments that enable customers to code their own modifications and additions.
IaaS (infrastructure as a service) definition
At a basic level, IaaS public cloud providers offer storage and compute services on a pay-per-use basis. But the full array of services offered by all major public cloud providers is staggering: highly scalable databases, virtual private networks, big data analytics, developer tools, machine learning, application monitoring, and so on. Amazon Web Services was the first IaaS provider and remains the leader, followed byMicrosoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and IBM Cloud.
PaaS (platform as a service) definition
PaaS provides sets of services and workflows that specifically target developers, who can use shared tools, processes, and APIs to accelerate the development, testing, and deployment of applications. Salesforce’s Heroku and Force.com are popular public cloud PaaS offerings; Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry and Red Hat’s OpenShift can be deployed on premises or accessed through the major public clouds. For enterprises, PaaS can ensure that developers have ready access to resources, follow certain processes, and use only a specific array of services, while operators maintain the underlying infrastructure.
FaaS (functions as a service) definition
FaaS, the cloud version of serverless computing, adds another layer of abstraction to PaaS, so that developers are completely insulated from everything in the stack below their code. Instead of futzing with virtual servers, containers, and application runtimes, they upload narrowly functional blocks of code, and set them to be triggered by a certain event (such as a form submission or uploaded file). All the major clouds offer FaaS on top of IaaS: AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, and IBM OpenWhisk. A special benefit of FaaS applications is that they consume no IaaS resources until an event occurs, reducing pay-per-use fees.
Private cloud definition
A private cloud downsizes the technologies used to run IaaS public clouds into software that can be deployed and operated in a customer’s data center. As with a public cloud, internal customers can provision their own virtual resources to build, test, and run applications, with metering to charge back departments for resource consumption. For administrators, the private cloud amounts to the ultimate in data center automation, minimizing manual provisioning and management. VMware’s Software Defined Data Center stack is the most popular commercial private cloud software, while OpenStack is the open source leader.
Note, however, that the private cloud does not fully conform to the definition of cloud computing. Cloud computing is a service. A private cloud demands that an organization build and maintain its own underlying cloud infrastructure; only internal usersof a private cloud experience it as a cloud computing service.
Hybrid cloud definition
A hybrid cloud is the integration of a private cloud with a public cloud. At its most developed, the hybrid cloud involves creating parallel environments in which applications can move easily between private and public clouds. In other instances, databases may stay in the customer data center and integrate with public cloud applications—or virtualized data center workloads may be replicated to the cloud during times of peak demand. The types of integrations between private and public cloud vary widely, but they must be extensive to earn a hybrid cloud designation.
Related video: What is the cloud-native approach? In this 60-second video, learn how the cloud-native approach is changing the way enterprises structure their technologies, from Craig McLuckie, founder and CEO of Heptio, and one of the inventors of open-source system Kubernetes.
Public APIs (application programming interfaces) definition
Just as SaaS delivers applications to users over the internet, public APIs offer developers application functionality that can be accessed programmatically. For example, in building web applications, developers often tap into Google Maps’s API to provide driving directions; to integrate with social media, developers may call upon APIs maintained by Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Twilio has built a successful business dedicated to delivering telephony and messaging services via public APIs. Ultimately, any business can provision its own public APIs to enable customers to consume data or access application functionality.
iPaaS (integration platform as a service) definition
Data integration is a key issue for any sizeable company, but particularly for those that adopt SaaS at scale. iPaaS providers typically offer prebuilt connectors for sharing data among popular SaaS applications and on-premises enterprise applications, though providers may focus more or less on B-to-B and e-commerce integrations, cloud integrations, or traditional SOA-style integrations. iPaaS offerings in the cloud from such providers as Dell Boomi, Informatica, MuleSoft, and SnapLogic also let users implement data mapping, transformations, and workflows as part of the integration-building process.
IDaaS (identity as a service) definition
The most difficult security issue related to cloud computing is the management of user identity and its associated rights and permissions across private data centers and pubic cloud sites. IDaaS providers maintain cloud-based user profiles that authenticate users and enable access to resources or applications based on security policies, user groups, and individual privileges. The ability to integrate with various directory services (Active Directory, LDAP, etc.) and provide is essential. Okta is the clear leader in cloud-based IDaaS; CA, Centrify, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Ping provide both on-premises and cloud solutions.
Collaboration platforms
Collaboration solutions such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and HipChat have become vital messaging platforms that enable groups to communicate and work together effectively. Basically, these solutions are relatively simple SaaS applications that support chat-style messaging along with file sharing and audio or video communication. Most offer APIs to facilitate integrations with other systems and enable third-party developers to create and share add-ins that augment functionality.
Vertical clouds
Key providers in such industries as financial services, health care, retail, life sciences, and manufacturing provide PaaS clouds to enable customers to build vertical applications that tap into industry-specific, API-accessible services. Vertical clouds can dramatically reduce the time to market for vertical applications and accelerate domain-specific B-to-B integrations. Most vertical clouds are built with the intent of nurturing partner ecosystems.
Other cloud computing considerations
The most widely accepted definition of cloud computing means that you run your workloads on someone else’s servers, but this is not the same as outsourcing. Virtual cloud resources and even SaaS applications must be configured and maintained by the customer. Consider these factors when planning a cloud initiative.
Cloud computing security considerations
Objections to the public cloud generally begin with cloud security, although the major public clouds have proven themselves much less susceptible to attack than the average enterprise data center.
Of greater concern is the integration of security policy and identity management between customers and public cloud providers. In addition, government regulation may forbid customers from allowing sensitive data off premises. Other concerns include the risk of outages and the long-term operational costs of public cloud services.
Multicloud management considerations
The bar to qualify as a multicloud adopter is low: A customer just needs to use more than one public cloud service. However, depending on the number and variety of cloud services involved, managing multiple clouds can become quite complex from both a cost optimization and technology perspective.
In some cases, customers subscribe to multiple cloud service simply to avoid dependence on a single provider. A more sophisticated approach is to select public clouds based on the unique services they offer and, in some cases, integrate them. For example, developers might want to use Google’s TensorFlow machine learning service on Google Cloud Platform to build machine-learning-enabled applications, but prefer Jenkins hosted on the CloudBees platform for continuous integration.
To control costs and reduce management overhead, some customers opt for cloud management platforms (CMPs) and/or cloud service brokers (CSBs ), which let you manage multiple clouds as if they were one cloud. The problem is that these solutions tend to limit customers to such common-denominator services as storage and compute, ignoring the panoply of services that make each cloud unique.
Edge computing considerations
You often see edge computing described as an alternative to cloud computing. But it is not. Edge computing is about moving local computing to local devices in a highy distributed system, typically as a layer around a cloud computing core. There is typically a cloud involved to orchestrate all the devices and take in their data, then analyze it or otherwise act on it.
Benefits of cloud computing
The cloud’s main appeal is to reduce the time to market of applications that need to scale dynamically. Increasingly, however, developers are drawn to the cloud by the abundance of advanced new services that can be incorporated into applications, from machine learning to internet of things (IoT) connectivity.
Although businesses sometimes migrate legacy applications to the cloud to reduce data center resource requirements, the real benefits accrue to new applications that take advantage of cloud services and “cloud native” attributes. The latter include microservices architecture, Linux containers to enhance application portability, and container management solutions such as Kubernetes that orchestrate container-based services. Cloud-native approaches and solutions can be part of either public or private clouds and help enable highly efficient devops-style workflows.
Cloud computing, public or private, has become the platform of choice for large applications, particularly customer-facing ones that need to change frequently or scale dynamically. More significantly, the major public clouds now lead the way in enterprise technology development, debuting new advances before they appear anywhere else. Workload by workload, enterprises are opting for the cloud, where an endless parade of exciting new technologies invite innovative use.Recently retired fighter and new Invicta FC matchmaker Julie Kedzie really hopes the organization’s 145-pound champion, Cristiane Justino, can make 135 pounds. She’s just not sure if “Cyborg” can sustain it.
“She has a large frame, and it’s a very muscular frame, and she has very, very low body fat, so she will have to give up a bit of muscle, I think, to make 135,” Kedzie recently told MMAjunkie. “Now, can she make it? I think she can. Can she sustain it? I don’t know. We’ll have to find out.”
Justino (12-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) won the Invicta 145-pound title in July, but Kedzie believes there are more intriguing options at 135. Most notably? UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC), whom “Cyborg” has long targeted. After initially saying it’d never happen, UFC President Dana White has even left open the door for a possible UFC deal for Justino.
How would that fight play out? And where does Kedzie’s training partner, former pro boxer Holly Holm (who said she looks forward to fighting Rousey) fit into the picture? Check out the above video.
And for more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.A HOMELESS man assaulted on a street in Co Kildare by a masked gang had part of his ear cut or bitten off and was forced by his attackers to eat the severed ear.
Gardaí are investigating the case even though the victim has so far failed to make a formal statement of complaint.
The gang involved were allegedly armed with metal bars and hammers.
The incident occurred in Newbridge about 1am on Monday.
The victim is well known on the streets of the town, where he has lived homeless in recent times.
Aged 21 years, he is originally from the Curragh, Co Kildare.
He was on Eyre Street in Newbridge when he was attacked.
He sustained bruising and cuts to his face, head, jaw and arms and also lost the top portion of his left ear during the attack.
Garda sources said it was unclear if the ear was cut off or possibly bitten off by one of the attackers.
The victim was initially treated at the scene by paramedics.
He was then taken by ambulance to Naas General Hospital before being transferred to St James’s Hospital in Dublin for treatment.
He told the medical staff treating him that the men who attacked him wore balaclavas and forced him to eat the missing segment of his ear.
He discharged himself from hospital and has so far not made any complaint about the incident to gardaí.
However, gardaí have confirmed that they are investigating the claim that the victim was forced to eat his own ear.
Speaking to KFM, Garda John Joe O’Connell of Newbridge garda station said: “Part of this man’s ear was cut off and he was actually forced to eat it, that’s how serious this is.”Hello Commanders,
Season one of 1v1 ranked has ended, so let us give our congratulations to [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX, a player so humble he put his own name in a clan tag.
Fighting off many worthy opponents he has dominated the Uber league, holding the #1 position for most of the season. An Invictus statue will be on its way to our deserving season 1 winner.
Season 2 – 2019-01-25 to 2019-04-25
It’s season 2!
All ranks have been reset; everything is up for grabs again.
A new season needs new maps. As you know we introduced four new maps mid-way through the previous season, and they’ll be carrying over to season two. But the rest of the maps have been taken out back and… retired. Sleep well old maps, you’ve served your time. Replacing them are eleven brand new maps.
Season 2 Map Pool (15)
Aquilaris (WPMarshall)
Bulkhead (WPMarshall)
Canyon (WPMarshall)
Centax-3 (Grand Homie)
Disparity (WPMarshall)
Enfer (Grand Homie)
Geonosis (Grand Homie)
Lost Temple (WPMarshall)
Lugaan (WPMarshall)
Niflhel (Grand Homie)
Riddler (WPMarshall)
Singe (WPMarshall)
Tartarus (Grand Homie)
The Ardennes (Grand Homie)
The Marne (Grand Homie)
New maps mean new strategies, and everyone is on an even footing because no one has had a chance to practice these before. We look forward to seeing what you make of them and hearing your thoughts on how they play. These maps will also be made available to play in custom lobbies in the near future.
Prizes!
Of course, what season is complete without prizes? And what could possibly top an Invictus Commander statue? Like that relative that doesn’t know what to get you as a present, we opted for cold, hard cash. Nice.
The player who holds Uber #1 at the mid-season point (2019-03-08 00:00 UTC) will be awarded US$500. The player who is Uber #1 at the end of the season (2019-04-26 00:00 UTC) will receive US$1,000.
But what about those of you playing in Bronze reading this and thinking, I’m never going to hit Uber so what do I care? Well we’ve got you covered too. We’ll be awarding US$100 to the most active player in each of the five leagues, both mid-season and at the end of the season. Doesn’t matter where you rank in the league, only how much you play.
Summary of Prizes
Mid-season at 2019-03-08:00:00 UTC
Uber #1 - US$500
Most active Bronze player - US$100
Most active Silver player - US$100
Most active Gold player - US$100
Most active Platinum player - US$100
Most active Uber player - US$100
End of season 2 at 2019-04-26:00:00 UTC
Uber #1 - US$1,000
Most active Bronze player - US$100
Most active Silver player - US$100
Most active Gold player - US$100
Most active Platinum player - US$100
Most active Uber player - US$100
Maximum annual winnings for Uber #1 is US$6,800 if you hold the position all year and play the most!
All prizes are awarded at the discretion of Planetary Annihilation Inc. Players in breach of the Planetary Annihilation Community Rules and Guidelines may be disqualified. The decision of Planetary Annihilation Inc is final.
tl;dr
Seriously? We spent a lot of time writing all that. Millennials are ruining the patch note industry.
Ranked season 2 has begun
New ranked map pool
US$2,500 to be won this season
Let the soothing voice of WPMarshall take you on a guided tour of this season’s maps.Rush Limbaugh sees left-wing conspiracy everywhere -- even Gotham City.
Speaking on his syndicated radio show Tuesday, the right-wing host brought up the Batman sequel The Dark Knight Rises (or as he called it, The Dark Knight Lights Up), in particular focusing on its main villain, the Tom Hardy-portrayed hulking madman Bane. With Mitt Romney's time at the investment fund Bain Capital (and the questionable time at which he retired from it) filling non-entertainment news headlines, Limbaugh tied the two together, casting some tough accusations at director Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros.
"Do you think it is accidental that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?" Limbaugh asked his listeners.
Limbaugh did note that the film, the sequel to the 2008 blockbuster The Dark Knight, has been in the works for a long time, with a summer 2012 release date long part of the plan.
VIDEO: Tom Hardy on Playing Bane and Fighting Christian Bale
"So this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there's discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful and whether or not it will influence voters. It's going to have a lot of people," he continued. "The audience is going to be huge. A lot of people are going to see the movie. And it's a lot of brain-dead people -- entertainment, the pop culture crowd -- and they're going to hear Bane in the movie and they're going to associate Bain.
"And the thought is that when they're going to start paying attention to the campaign later in the year," Limbaugh asserted, "and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital but Romney and Bain, that these people will start thinking back to the Batman movies, 'Oh yeah, I know who that is!' "
He then read from a Washington Times blog post that made the connection between Romney and Batman, as well.
Presumably, Limbaugh doesn't know the history of Batman and his enemies; Bane was not invented for this film, as he first appeared in 1993 in a storyline called Knightfall. That was a year before Romney made his first bid for elected office, his unsuccessful 1994 run against Ted Kennedy for the U.S. Senate.
There is some populist element in the film, as there is a take on wealth inequality in the story. Presumably, though, there is no politician in the film who founded an investment fund and later came under fire for contradicting his SEC forms.
Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @JordanZakarinWith the final season of Teen Mom currently airing, Farrah Abraham is getting her hustle on in an attempt to extend her fame beyond the MTV reality show with a new tell-all memoir, a debut single from a forthcoming studio album, and revelations about drug abuse and suicidal ideations. (She has a serious modeling career to promote, people!) The song, though, is extraordinary—if only for being the most horrible combination of sounds to ever be assembled in the history of audio recording.
I understand why Farrah chose to have and raise her baby Sophia, but her song really should have been aborted. If you're pregnant, it probably isn't safe to listen to it. Avoid it as you would rollercoasters or sushi. "Finally Getting up From Rock Bottom" features an egregious amount of Autotune that somehow manages to make her voice sound worse. It's an aggressively ugly song that sounds like something that would maybe be playing in one of those torture rooms in Hostel.
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"This is my song for finding happiness," Farrah tells In Touch. Evidently, for Farrah, happiness sounds like the horror of walking in on your parents having sex, the pain of getting your anus waxed, and the anxiety of being stuck in gridlock when you're running late for something important. It's a song about recovering from suicidal thoughts. The irony is that it will make you want to kill yourself.
Her memoir—My Teenage Dream Ended, published by MTV Press—comes out on August 14. In it, Farrah opens up about her relationship with and subsequent death of the father of her child and the emotional and physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother (whom she claims choked her). But the real juicy stuff will be the stories about her admitted out-of-control partying with pot, cocaine, and booze after her daughter was born and while she was filming Teen Mom. She says she's clean now, but at least one friend begs to differ, saying Farrah has been abusing Adderall and Xanax. You can check out the first few pages of her book here.
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First Listen: Teen Mom Farrah's Debut Single! [In Touch]
Read The First Chapter Of Farrah Abraham's Book For Free! [MTV]
Teen Mom's Farrah Abraham: 'She Abuses Adderall & Xanax While Chugging Booze,' Says Pal [Radar]We shared all the accolades that Neverwinter on Xbox One has achieved and now, we’re ready to celebrate even more! We’re holding a Double XP Weekend to help you level your characters and take on the mightiest of Dungeons. This is also a great chance to start that class you’ve always wanted to try out and to get those long-forgotten Companions a chance to shine.
Start Date: May 15, 2015 at 10 AM PDT (Pacific)
End Date: May 18, 2015 at 10 AM PDT (Pacific)
What grants double XP?
XP gained from killing creatures in game.
XP gained from professions.
XP rewards from quests.
XP rewards from invocation.
Companions will also gain double XP. Even if you are level 60, your companions will continue to gain double XP as you progress through the game.
You didn’t think we’d just give you a Double XP Weekend, right? We’re also going to have a much-anticipated Midweek Double Refinement Point event right after from May 18-21 and a Tymora’s Gift event after that from May 21-26. More information on these events to follow!
Want more game details, screens, and videos? Like Neverwinter on Facebook for more fan-exclusive content and follow us on Twitter – tweet us your questions! And, subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest Neverwinter videos.
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NORFOLK, Va. – One person is dead and five people were hurt during a house party in Norfolk Sunday morning.
Initially, police said four people were shot, but they confirmed two additional victims on Monday.
Police responded to the area of E. Princess Anne Road and Monticello Avenue just before 3:30 a.m., where they found two men who had been shot. The men had serious, but non-life threatening injuries and were transported to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Later, police responded to the 1500 block of Azalea Garden Road, where they found another male with a gunshot wound who was later pronounced dead on scene. Officers saw a large crowd inside of an apartment when they arrived on scene.
The victim has been identified as 25-year-old Maxie Mock.
A woman with a non-life threatening gunshot injury walked into Sentara Norfolk General Hospital at 3:35 a.m. A 24-year-old man walked into Sentara Leigh Hospital and a 26-year-old woman walked into Sentara BelleHarbour Hospital in Suffolk. All three had non-life threatening gunshot wounds are are expected to be okay.
Norfolk police say that according to a preliminary investigation, all six people were shot during a party in the 1500 block of Azalea Garden Road.
Business owners nearby say they're not surprised by the shooting. https://t.co/59HvMobQft via @WTKR3 pic.twitter.com/pFu6ygBgHy — Brian Hill WTKR (@BrianHillWTKR) July 30, 2017
At this time there is no suspect information.
They are asking anyone with information to call the Norfolk Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP or by texting "NORFOLK" and your tip information to 274637 (CRIMES).After failing to hand himself over to authorities as required in January, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm lost his chance to serve his sentence in an open prison. As a final surrender deadline looms, it's been revealed that interest charges being applied since May 2006 have boosted the damages award against the site's founders by 60% to nearly $11 million, a huge $4.06 million uplift.
As revealed earlier this month, Swedish authorities have now decided where the founders of The Pirate Bay plus one time site ‘financier’ Carl Lundström will serve their sentences.
There is, however, the still unresolved situation involving Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm.
From the date of the first appeal in September 2010, Svartholm (aka Anakata) has been somewhat of an enigma. First, he failed to attend that hearing due to an illness which left him too sick to leave hospital in Cambodia.
Then, despite having backed up his original absence with a medical certificate, Svartholm failed to appear at a subsequent hearing prompting an announcement last year that the District Court ruling of 2009 against him (1 year in prison and a share of the damages) would be made permanent.
Svartholm should have returned to Sweden to begin serving his sentence January 2nd this year, but again he was nowhere to be seen. The authorities had been prepared for him to spend his sentence in the reportedly fairly relaxed Svartsjö open prison where it’s said that inmates enjoy a range of sports, saunas, and a solarium.
But the no-show means that Svartholm is now required to serve his sentence in the Category 2 Mariefred prison roughly 65 km outside Stockholm. He now has until April 18th to hand himself in before police begin looking for him.
“When the person fails to appear, we make an inquiry via the police,” says Chief Officer of Probation Helena Lundberg. “We hope they are apprehended and taken to prison.”
On recent form it seems increasingly unlikely that the 27-year-old will appear, with one-time Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde speculating recently that Svartholm may even be dead.
Sunde’s situation is also unclear. Although he is required to spend his 8 month sentence in the Västervik Norra prison, his lawyer Peter Althin has hinted that there may some sort of appeal in the spring.
Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, was told he will spend 10 months in Kirseberg prison in Malmö, Sweden. Neij has made no secret of his time in Thailand during recent years but his current whereabouts are unknown.
Soon-to-be 52-year-old businessman Carl Lundström will spend his 4 month ‘jail’ sentence in the community, alternating his time between a Gothenburg apartment and a work placement.
Finally, the not insignificant matter of money, specifically the 46 million kronor the Pirate Bay four are required to hand over to the movie and recording company plaintiffs to compensate them for their claimed losses. That’s roughly $6.9 million dollars but it doesn’t stop there since there is a significant amount of interest to be added.
As of a month ago the amount owed had jumped nearly 60% to 73 million kronor – $10.97 million. Or put it another way, an extra $1 million each for Neij, Sunde, Svartholm and Lundström.
“According to the Enforcement Authority, the interest has been ticking since 31st May 2006, which is the date that ends the period in which according to the prosecutors their crimes were committed,” Swedish journalist Arvid Jurjaks informed TorrentFreak.
But as the founders have made clear for a long time, this amount could be a billion each, they don’t plan on paying anything. The authorities simply can’t find any assets in their names in Sweden. They did find 225,000 kronor ($33,800) belonging to Lundström, but the successful businessman probably won’t worry too much about that.I am angry.
You want my skills, my experience, my heart, my patience, which you demand from me so that I can keep my health insurance? You're going to have to earn it back, White Male America. I'm done being patient with your ignorance, your microaggressions, your smug superiority. There will be no more smiling when you say, "Smile, it's not that bad!" I'm not going to do you any favors that do not compensate me for my time and effort, but "look good on a resume." And, from now on, you're getting out of the elevator first so that I can be the threatening presence behind you. And, boy, can I be a menace when I want to be.
In the meantime, I'm joining and donating to every radical group I can find or create. We will continue to grow our ranks of proud feminist, egalitarian, LGBTQ, educated people of every race and religion. And then we'll come for your children. They're going to be the most open-hearted little voters someday, rejecting your rotten worldview through mayonnaise-tinted glasses.
You just created some wild new monsters. The only way you can silence us is with your stockpile of guns, but I assume you'll still go to jail for that.
Sara Cress (@saracress) is a writer in Houston. For her poems — and to buy her books — see her website, "Breaking Poems."
You want my skills, my experience, my heart, my patience, which you demand from me so that I can keep my health insurance? Bookmark Gray Matters.An arsonist lit up Los Angeles for a fourth straight night, torching more than a dozen targets yesterday in what seemed like a madman’s march to burn down the city, car by car.
Cops said yesterday that the fires are likely the work of more than one Molotov-cocktail-tossing maniac, given how fast and furious cars were igniting.
The arsonist could have an accomplice, or copycats could be at work, anonymous sources told the Los Angeles Times.
More than 40 cars have been set ablaze since Thursday, all parked and empty. The mayhem continued last night, as fire fighters responded to multiple car fires in Hollywood, the Times reported.
“We are dead serious about trying to apprehend the individual or individuals responsible for this,” said county Supervisor Zev Yarslavsky. “We want to get these SOBs before they hurt somebody.”
Early Thursday morning, cops arrested Samuel Arrington for allegedly lighting a fire in a 7-Eleven garbage can, trying to burn up a fuel tank, and another garbage-can fire that resulted in four cars and an apartment building going up in flames in Hollywood, according to the LA Daily News.
Cops also arrested Alejandro Pineda on charges of arson in a garbage-can fire outside a $400,000 home in Los Angeles, said the same report.
Yet new fires raged in rapid succession the next night, leading cops and feds on a frantic manhunt.
Nearly 24 parked cars were torched early Friday morning in Hollywood and adjacent West Hollywood, with flames spreading to some nearby homes — including one formerly lived in by The Doors’ Jim Morrison, which was currently for sale at $1.2 million.
“It was just like a towering inferno,” restaurateur Sandy Gende said.
Yesterday police issued an alert for a man driving either a tan-and-white or cream-colored Lexus.
“We’re pulling out all the stops,” said LA Fire Department spokesperson Brian Humphrey. “We’re hoping that the person or people responsible will be brought to swift and complete justice.”
Panic intensified early yesterday morning, when cars in North Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley exploded in flames.
The damage in West Hollywood alone is estimated at $350,000. Cops have issued a reward of $60,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
Some of the fires had been set in garages and carports, damaging at least four buildings.An interview with Rick Sterling
by Ann Garrison
Late last week, the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump will end covert support of militias attempting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. I spoke to Rick Sterling, investigative journalist for Consortium News and member of the Syria Solidarity Movement, about the report.
Ann Garrison: Rick Sterling, what’s your first reaction to the Washington Post’s claims?
Rick Sterling: If Trump orders the CIA to stop training and equipping extremists in Syria, that will be a good thing. We will have to see if this is implemented because sometimes they say one thing publicly but do other things secretly. For example, starting in late 2011, the CIA was coordinating the shipment of weapons from Libya to the armed opposition in Syria – in secret.
AG: The White House has refused to confirm the Washington Post report. If it is true, why do you think Trump won’t confirm?
RS: This is partly reflective of the power elites’ internal battle over foreign policy and whether Trump will actually move away from the aggressive “regime change” foreign policy. Those who favor escalation in Syria dominate discussion in the Washington Post and on CNN and MSNBC.
AG: And if this is true, won’t Trump be keeping at least one of his campaign promises?
RS: Yes, Trump would be taking a step that is in keeping with his campaign promise on Syria. It should be popular in the U.S. because it’s a move away from war, and the CIA has wasted billions of dollars that have effectively ended up supporting Al-Qaeda-Nusra-HTS. Jabhat al-Nusra was the official branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria, but now it calls itself Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
AG: What’s your response to corporate press and politicians calling this a concession to Russia?
RS: The anti-Russia McCarthyism is so extreme that Trump seems almost afraid to announce the termination of the CIA program. Neoconservatives are framing the decision as a concession or even “appeasement” of Putin because they want to continue the conflict. They want to stop Trump from de-escalating tension with Russia and withdrawing from Syria.
AG: And what about those who are loathe to acknowledge that Trump could ever make a good decision about anything?
RS: Whether it’s Obama or Trump or John McCain, one should evaluate policies and actions and criticize or support them on their specific merits and faults. If Trump is really trying to de-escalate the Syrian conflict, that is a good policy. One can support that and remain critical of his policies and actions in other areas.
AG: The one time that corporate press, Democrats (excepting Tulsi Gabbard) and pro-war Republicans have applauded Trump’s foreign policy was when he launched 59 cruise missiles worth $60-plus million at Syria over their unproven use of chemical weapons. Your response?
RS: The attack on Syria was an illegal act of war without any justification. And there is increasing evidence that the Syrian government was NOT responsible for the chemical weapons deaths. The fact that Western media congratulated Trump on that illegal action shows what their true goals are: to continue U.S. “regime change” foreign policy and specifically to attack Syria no matter the cost in blood and treasure.
AG: Aren’t the Syria Solidarity Movement – and any of the rest of us who think that the U.S. should stop arming terrorists – certain to be branded “pro-Trump” and “pro-Putin”?
RS: Yes, but that should not stop anyone. The aggression against Syria needs to stop – that is in our American interests as well as those of all people in the Middle East. Tulsi Gabbard’s “Stop Arming Terrorists” legislation is common sense and should be supported.
AG: And what can the anti-war community – insofar as it exists – do to encourage Trump in this one policy from outside the power elite argument in Washington, D.C.? A bill creating new sanctions against Russia, Syria and Iran got such overwhelming support in Congress that President Trump doesn’t dare veto it because Congress has the numbers to override a veto. Only Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders voted against it in the Senate, and Sanders said that he voted no only because he supports sanctions on Russia and Syria but not Iran.
RS: Again, it’s not about the person; it’s about the policy. People who are concerned about international politics, peace and justice should be writing, speaking out and lobbying for de-escalation and promoting more discussion and negotiation, including with Russia. When Trump encourages this, it’s a good thing and we should do whatever we can to support it.
AG: It’s often hard to believe that they give a damn about what those of us out here in the cheap seats think, but if they didn’t, they wouldn’t work so hard to control the narrative.
RS: We can all do a little bit and, when more and more people join in, we can make a difference. Just entering the debate changes the discussion.
AG: Last question: If Trump really does want to stop arming and funding Al-Qaeda-Nusra-HTS and other jihadist militias, won’t Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE step into the breach so they can keep fighting Assad – or the Kurds – with weapons that the U.S. sold them?
RS: Yes, all those countries have been funding terrorists in Syria to attack and overthrow the Damascus government. Sometimes they work together, sometimes not. No matter, the Syrian Army and their allies have weathered the worst period |
"Pinera is not well liked. He has [a lot of] negatives, but people think that he governed relatively well, that the country grew, that there was employment, there were opportunities for many people, so they are saying 'Let's give him a chance again,'" political analyst Patricio Navia told Al Jazeera before Sunday's vote.
'Strength for second round'
Guillier comes from the centre-left Nueva Mayoria coalition, the party of Michelle Bachelet, the outgoing president.
Bachelet, who took office in 2014, instituted a number of changes including same-sex marriage, education, pension and tax reforms designed to benefit the working class.
Corruption scandals and the public's impatience with the speed of the reforms dogged Bachelet's presidency, leading to an approval rating of 26 percent.
She cannot run for re-election under Chile's constitution, which prohibits candidates from serving consecutive terms.
The biggest surprise of the election was the success of Beatriz Sanchez, a left-wing candidate who won more than 20 percent of the vote.
While Sanchez has yet to endorse Guillier, she has said that a Pinera presidency would be a "step back" for the country.
"The sum of those who are for changes is more than that of those who want to go backwards, and that already gives us strength for the second round," Guillier told reporters after casting his ballot.
Regional effect
A victory for Pinera would be another blow to the once-powerful Latin American left. Right-wing governments have displaced leftists in Brazil and Argentina.
Venezuela, meanwhile, is undergoing a political and economic crisis, partly due to the low price of oil, which has reportedly caused widespread malnutrition.
Ecuador seemingly bucked the right-wing trend when the country elected Lenin Moreno to succeed populist Rafael Correa in February.
However, Moreno's policies have been criticised as pro-business, causing the Alianza Pais party to remove him in October as their leader.
Correa, who now lives in Belgium, his wife's home country, has called on Moreno to explain his policies.The language is vague and convoluted, and some details are wrong (Poe had no concept of relativity, and it makes no sense today to speak of the universe exploding into ''previously vacant space''), but here, unmistakably, is a crude description of the Big Bang, a theory that didn't find mainstream approval until the 1960's.
This wasn't Poe's only uncanny display of prescience. He also came up with the idea that the universe was expanding (and might eventually collapse), a notion that the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann ferreted out of Einstein's equations in 1922. Einstein initially pooh-poohed the idea, and it wasn't widely accepted until the 1930's, after Edwin Hubble gleaned some hard data from the velocities of far-flung galaxies.
Black holes? Poe envisioned something like those, too. And he was the first person on record to solve the Olbers Paradox, which had dogged astronomers since Kepler: the mystery of why the sky is dark at night. If the universe was infinite, as 19th-century astronomers believed, there should be an infinite number of stars as well, plenty, in other words, to illuminate the sky at all times. Poe understood why this in fact was not the case: the universe is finite in time and space (and light from some stars has not yet reached the Milky Way).
So what accounts for Poe's prophetic genius? Tom Siegfried, the science editor of The Dallas Morning News, doesn't explain just how the poet derived his cosmological theory, but in his new book, ''Strange Matters: Undiscovered Ideas at the Frontiers of Space and Time'' (Joseph Henry Press), he argues that the history of astrophysics is littered with such ''prediscoveries,'' or ''instances of theoretical anticipation.''
''There are lots of things theorists predict on the basis of what's known and what's already been found,'' Mr. Siegfried explained in a telephone interview. ''The distinction with prediscovery is that theorists discover the existence of something observers have never seen. It's one thing to figure out an explanation for the observation. It's another thing altogether to suggest something exists that no one had any idea about beforehand.''
Unlike, say, Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of ''flying machines'' or Jules Verne's descriptions of submarines and televisions decades before such objects were ever made, scientific prediscoveries, as Mr. Siegfried defines them, are not human inventions awaiting technological realization, but rather insights into the nature of reality.
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''Eureka'' may be Mr. Siegfried's most striking example, a literary mind hitting the cosmological jackpot. But his list of bona fide prediscoveries includes an impressive number of contemporary physics' most basic concepts: antimatter, electromagnetic waves, neutron stars, neutrinos, quarks and atoms.
In the 1860's the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell inferred the existence of invisible radiation from a mathematical analysis of electricity and magnetism. (Nine years after his death, Maxwell was proved right when the radio waves were discovered by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz.)
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In 1931 the English physicist Paul Dirac came up with a more preposterous-sounding notion: antimatter. From the mathematical equations of other physicists, Dirac concluded that electrons, one of the observed building blocks of atoms, must have identical but oppositely charged twins. The following year Carl Anderson, an American physicist, identified a positively charged electron, or positron, the first antiparticle.
And around the same time, the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli prediscovered the neutrino: a neutral particle so light and undetectable that it could pass through a lead wall trillions of miles thick without a trace.
Given the number of successful prediscoveries in the past, Mr. Siegfried argues, some of the wacky ideas floating around in astrophysics today are bound to be validated sooner or later. That turns out to be an alarming proposition: Mr. Siegfried's book is filled with enough mysterious hypothetical entities -- some of which, under the right circumstances could snuff out the earth in a nanosecond -- to sustain a dozen Hollywood thrillers.
Which object will turn out to be real? Cosmic Q-balls (''lumps of super matter that may have formed when tiny superparticles coagulated in the hot dense phase of the early universe'')? Wimpzillas (particles ''heavier than a million billion ordinary subatomic particles'')? Or quark nuggets (a four-ton object less than one twenty-fifth of an inch long that could ''shoot through Earth like a bullet through butter'')?
Any of these concepts might help solve the mystery of ''dark matter,'' the unidentified stuff that astronomers believe makes up 90 percent or more of an average galaxy's mass. Personally, Mr. Siegfried said, he's betting on WIMP's -- that's short for weakly interacting massive particles -- thought to be heavy, generally unstable particles that hover in the outer regions of galaxies and rarely interact with ordinary matter.
As extravagant as some of these potential prediscoveries sound, the astronomers behind them have a substantial leg up on Poe. They're working within a scientific world, using the latest technology, trading information and comparing notes. And yet Mr. Siegfried raises the tantalizing possibility that valuable scientific ideas may lie outside science, awaiting a mathematical mind to seize on them: Alexander Friedmann, the man credited with inferring the expansion of the universe from Einstein's theory, he notes, loved Poe.
Did Friedmann read ''Eureka?'' No one seems to know. Nevertheless, Mr. Siegfried speculates, it's quite possible ''that Friedmann was conditioned by Poe's imagination to see the true meaning of Einstein's equations, whereas others, Einstein included, did not.''
As for Poe, he never doubted that his ideas would eventually get their due. ''What I have propounded will (in good time) revolutionize the world of Physical & Metaphysical Science,'' he wrote to a friend in 1848. ''I say this calmly -- but I say it.''Abstract
STUDY DESIGN: Secondary analysis of 3 randomized controlled trials. Objective Analysis of studies that examined whether prescribing running shoes on the basis of foot arch height influenced injury risk during military basic training.
BACKGROUND: Prior to 2007, running magazines and running-shoe companies suggested that imprints of the bottom of the feet (plantar shape) could be used as an indication of foot arch height and that this could be used to select individually appropriate types of running shoes.
METHODS: Similar studies were conducted in US Army (2168 men, 951 women), Air Force (1955 men, 718 women), and Marine Corps (840 men, 571 women) basic training. After foot examinations, recruits were randomized to either an experimental or a control group. Recruits in the experimental group selected or were assigned motion-control, stability, or cushioned shoes to match their plantar shape, which represented a low, medium, or high foot arch, respectively. The control group received a stability shoe regardless of plantar shape. Injuries during basic training were assessed from outpatient medical records.
RESULTS: Meta-analyses that pooled results of the 3 investigations showed little difference between the experimental and control groups in the injury rate (injuries per 1000 person-days) for either men (summary rate ratio = 0.97; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.88, 1.06) or women (summary rate ratio = 0.97; 95% CI: 0.85, 1.08). When injury rates for specific types of running shoes were compared, there were no differences.
CONCLUSION: Selecting running shoes based on arch height had little influence on injury risk in military basic training.
LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prevention, level 1b.Claudio Villa/Getty Images
Before we get into a senseless which league is better debate, let me clarify that this is by no means a brash statement outlining the dominance of Serie A over La Liga, as that would be a comical stance. Spain has arguably the two most quality-filled sides worldwide in Real Madrid and Barcelona.
This is, however, a personal statement from a lifelong soccer fan who has learned to love the intricacies and faults of both leagues.
The past five years in La Liga have essentially been a two-horse race between Barcelona and Real Madrid, as either one has had a 20- or even 30-point lead over the third-place side by the end of the year.
This season, things have unfolded a bit differently, as the league was called over in December by Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho after Barcelona took a double-digit lead in what was their greatest-ever start to a La Liga campaign.
There are only so many 5-0 Barcelona beatdowns on poor, lower-table sides that I find myself watching for a full 90 minutes, as the competition has been sucked out of the opponents by the Blaugrana around the 35th minute.
Things have unfolded quite a bit differently across the Mediterranean Sea, as Serie A has been lauded for its dramatic storylines, polarizing owners and incomparable parity.
Matches aren't so predetermined before they start, as a lowly relegation-bound squad can shred one of the Italian giants on any given matchday.
It's the tactical nature of the Serie A which has captivated me far more than a full 90 of hypnotic tiki-taka lulling me into a coma.
The Italian league shows a consistent master class of defensive effort every week, as noted in the last Champions League match between Milan and Barcelona, where a very average Serie A defense managed to neutralize the greatest attack on earth.
To further prove this point, Lionel Messi has only scored three goals (all penalties) in nine matches against Italian sides.
Even though the two most talented teams are in Spain, it's the parity and overall competitiveness of Serie A which has led me to write this article. It might have seen better days, but the overall tactics, coaching strategies and wackiness behind it is what made me fall in love in the first place.Legendary WKBW-TV (Channel 7) news anchor Irv Weinstein has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, the progressive neurodegenerative disease more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
In a telephone interview Friday, the 86-year-old Weinstein said from the assisted living apartment in Mission Viejo, Calif., that he shares with his wife Elaine that he was diagnosed a few weeks ago.
The diagnosis came after months of tests taken after he had problems keeping his balance and fell 10 or 11 times.
“I went to several neurologists and took every test they could give and this process took a couple of months and by simply eliminating all the possibilities they gave me a diagnosis of ALS,” explained Weinstein.
Weinstein, who was the lead anchor at Channel 7 during the ABC’s affiliate glory days atop the news ratings in Buffalo from the 196os through the 1990s, added that he has gone from being in almost perfect health six months ago to being unable to walk in a couple of weeks.
A film aficionado, Weinstein said his immediate reaction after getting the diagnosis was to think of one of his favorite films, the 1942 classic about Gehrig, “Pride of the Yankees.”
“I immediately thought of Gary Cooper in a very touching moment saying ‘today as I stand here in Yankee Stadium, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,’ ” he said. “I have to tell you I didn’t fall apart. (But) I definitely did not consider myself the luckiest man.”
[Dec. 5, 1989: Irv Weinstein cuts back to just the 6 p.m. newscast]
His distinctive voice impacted by a disease that the ALS Association notes “affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord,” Weinstein spoke slowly about his future plans. He said doctors estimated that he could live five or six years with the disease.
“My plans are to do everything I can to maintain a semblance of a normal life,” said Weinstein. “I can tell you now from personal experience that when you lose your ability to walk, a big part of your life is gone.”
The Weinsteins live near one of their daughters, Beth Krom, about equal distance between Los Angeles and San Diego. Irv and his wife recently were visited by their two other children, Marc, who lives in Los Angeles, and Rachel, who lives in a Pittsburgh suburb.
[Related: Irv Weinstein is loving life in California]
Elaine Weinstein said her husband is “doing very well” under the circumstances.
“He realizes that he had 86 good years and he’s doing OK now,” she said. “He is in a wheelchair and we have all kinds of supportive services here. We are really in a very good situation. You know Irv; he’s an optimistic guy. He still finds what to laugh about. So thank goodness we’re in a situation we are doing as well as we can. And he’s still very mindful of the wonderful years in Buffalo.”
As if to prove his sense of humor is intact, Weinstein laughed loudly when a reporter told him that this was one of the toughest interviews he had ever done because the anchor was one of “most lively men” he’s ever met.
“I can use all the laughs I can get,” said Weinstein. “Having said that... I have had a great life due to in no small part to my radio and television fans and the fact that I have a wonderful wife and family who are so supportive.”
Weinstein, who left Channel 7 more than 17 years ago, said he has heard from former Channel 7 General Manager Phil Beuth, former sports anchor Rick Azar, weatherman Tom Jolls and several other friends.
[Related: Eyewitness to a reunion; Channel 7's iconic anchormen Irv Weinstein, Rick Azar and Tom Jolls are big news at this weekend's Variety Club Telethon]
His fans can send cards to Weinstein at: 27356 Bellogente Road, Apartment 271, Mission Viejo, CA 92691.
email: [email protected] Hojda owes her fame — and possibly a summer job — to Nicolas Cage. The second-year York psychology student was thrust into the online limelight after she accidentally emailed a picture of Nicolas Cage to a job posting rather than her resumé. Since then, she’s had a taste of celebrity herself.
York student Vanessa Hojda accidentally sent a picture of Nicholas Cage to job listing rather than her resume. ( Keith Beaty / Toronto Star ) Hojda had saved a picture of Nicolas Cage, who she says she loves “unironically”, on her desktop after finding it online. Somehow she got the two files mixed up. ( Tim Mosenfelder / GETTY IMAGES )
“Now I Google my name and it comes up as a Washington Post article,” Hojda told the Star. It all started with a job hunt. The unemployed 20-year-old stumbled upon a posting for a receptionist position at York University on Saturday and thought she had a good shot — she has related experience behind a desk. Hojda tailored her resumé, wrote a quick note to her potential boss, attached her resumé and clicked send. Ten seconds later, she checked her outbox. Instead of her resumé, a beady-eyed jpeg of Nicolas Cage stared back at her, teeth bared in a maniacal grin.
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Hojda had saved the picture of Cage, who she says she loves “unironically,” on her desktop after finding it online. Somehow she got the two files mixed up. Rather than emailing an explanation, Hojda did what any self-identified web geek would do: she blogged about it. “The first thing I thought was let’s post it on my blog, let’s laugh about it.” She posted a screen capture of the email on her Tumblr account with an emphatic note: “OH MY GOD.” Hojda thought the hilarity stopped there. But on Monday, Gawker published the post. It was then picked up by The Huffington Post, Yahoo! and finally, The Washington Post. In three days, she’s pulled 700 new subscribers to her blog.
“The lady at the Post made a point on how hard it is to find a job these days,” Hojda said. The writer said she would’ve hired Hojda — the student owns up to her mistakes, has a sense of humour and is clearly web savvy.
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Those qualities may have piqued the interest of some Toronto employers. “I actually got some job offers saying, ‘Hey, would you be interested in being a social media rep?’ ” A paid gig to run a radio station’s social media presence has Hojda particularly intrigued. The boss-that-wasn’t from York University replied Monday saying the position had been filled, and that she never received Hojda’s resumé — just a strange photograph. Despite the swath of job offers and fleeting fame, the student says she won’t make the same mistake twice. She deleted the picture of Cage from her desktop and saved her resumé with a new name: ThisIsYourResumeThisIsNotAPictureOfNicolasCage.doc.Malcolm Turnbull says it is the most significant reform of intelligence and security arrangements in more than 40 years, but some experts criticise move
Peter Dutton has been named the minister in charge of a new super portfolio, in a significant overhaul of Australia’s national security architecture.
But intelligence and security experts are split over the need for such a change, with some questioning whether the plan has been thought through properly.
The new home affairs department will incorporate immigration, border protection and domestic security agencies.
Asio and the Australian federal police will now answer to Dutton as home affairs minister, although the attorney general, George Brandis, will remain responsible for the approval of warrants.
The announcement comes after months of rolling, semi-public contention between senior government ministers about the security overhaul.
“We need these reforms, not because the system is broken, but because our security environment is evolving quickly,” Turnbull said on Tuesday.
“We are taking the best elements of our intelligence and national security community and making them better. As terrorists evolve their methods, we have to evolve our responses.”
Turnbull said the portfolio would be similar to the UK’s home office arrangement, “a federation, if you will, of border and security agencies”.
“Let me be quite clear, this is not a United States-style Department of Homeland Security,” he said.
“The agencies will retain their current statutory independence which is such a vital aspect of our Australian system.
“They will be supported by a central department that will oversee policy and strategic planning and the coordination of the operational response to the threats we face.
“Importantly, Asio, the AFP and Australian Border Force will all report directly to the home affairs minister. This will ensure that these three important agencies have direct reporting into the cabinet.”
The new portfolio also incorporates the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) and the office of transport security.
Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has cautiously welcomed the plan, saying it will help the intelligence and police communities to develop the capacity to think in the longer-term, like the Defence Department.
But he has warned that for the changes to work properly, the new Home Affairs Minister and Attorney General will have to work “incredibly closely,” so if there’s a clash of personalities it could lead to intelligence operations being paused.
“That would be very serious for intelligence,” he told Sky News.
“I think that’s quite a sensible allocation of responsibilities, but there will be teething problems as these new organisations are established.”
The head of the Australian National University’s Defence and Strategic Studies Centre, John Blaxland, said the plan would have significant ramifications and he was not sure if it the government had thought through the new tensions it would create between ministers and agencies.
“Contestability, collegiality?” he Tweeted.
The overhaul had been resisted by Brandis, the foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, and the justice minister Michael Keenan, on the basis it would upset arrangements that were working well and strip ministers of their current functions.
Despite resisting the change for months, Brandis told reporters he was now a supporter of the new arrangements, because they meant a cabinet minister would now have “exclusive” focus on national security, as opposed to the current situation, where the attorney general had a divided focus.
Brandis will retain his responsibility for issuing warrants under the Asio Act and ministerial authorisations under the Intelligence Services Act, and he will gain responsibility for oversight agencies – the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security.
Turnbull told reporters under the new arrangements Brandis would be able to separate his duty as Australia’s first law officer and the requirement that he defend the rule of law from his previous portfolio responsibility for Asio.
Asked about the potential problems created by Asio now having to report to two ministers – Dutton and Brandis – rather than just one in the current arrangements, Brandis said that situation had a precedent in Australia.
He said the ministers responsible for the Australian Signals Directorate and for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service currently had to make requests of the attorney general during operational matters. “This is a very familiar and established process.”
Michael Wesley, Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University, told Sky News there was no reason to force Asio, the AFP, and other security agencies to report directly to one minister.
“My question is what’s broken that needs to be fixed?” he said.
“I think we’ve got one of the most successful security and policing sectors in the world that has been honed over decades of practice and high operational capability.
“We’ve seen in Australia much fewer terrorist attacks than in the UK or the US that have centralised homeland security departments.
“I think we have a system that works extremely well and playing politics with Australians’ lives and safety potentially is an extremely bad move in my view,” he said.The youth of today are challenged to go beyond your comfort zone and embrace life
Published 11:03 AM, February 10, 2015
MANILA, Philippines – Go beyond your comfort zone and embrace life.
This was the core message of a variety of speakers at the recently held TEDxUPM (UP Manila) - an affiliate event of the famous TEDTalks - on Saturday, February 7, in the Little Theater of the UP Manila College of Arts and Sciences.
A group of inspirational individuals put passion into action as they spoke about how to look at life and society from different perspectives.
Beyond comfort
Julia Chu impressed the crowd as she shared how going beyond your comfort zone can bring you immense and unexpected benefits.
Chu has worked with Pilipinas Shell and Philippine Development Foundation for Project Tuklas - a scholarship program for public high school students.
For Chu, it is important to shape one's life while still young.
A Magna Cum Laude graduate from UP Diliman, she said her life in college was 'common and comfortable' - focused on getting decent grades and entering law school.
She said travelling around the world has helped her realize that its better to pocket precious moments instead of material things like diplomas and trophies.
"A lot of people say that ‘Oh, I’ll achieve it when I’m older.’ But as young people, we have the capacity to do that, right here right now,” she added.
While travelling worked for her, Chu urged the audience to discover their own passion.
“Find what is relevant to you and actually do something about it.. I hope in the end of this, you will be excited into action and shaping your life the way you want it."
Passion and art
“We are most creative when our emotions are on its highest.”
Antoinette Jadaone continued the optimistic tone and focused on the positive side of heartbreak.
The award-winning screenwriter and director of the critically acclaimed film That Thing Called Tadhana called her talk "How to turn your heartbreak into nasa’yo ang huling halakhak." (How to turn your heartbreak into you'll have the last laugh.)
Drawing inspiration from her own relationships, Jadaone produced critically acclaimed screenplays including Relaks, It’s just Pag-ibig, Beauty in a Bottle, Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay, and the award-winning MMFF film English Only, Please.
“Kapag nagmahal ka, nasaktan ka, pakinabangan mo na. Kasi sinaktan ka lang niya hindi ka niya pinatay,” remarked Antoinette Jadaone. (When you love and you get hurt, take advantage of it. The pain did not kill you.)
“We are most creative when our emotions are on its highest,” she added.
She stressed that indulging in pain is not to suffer more from it; it is supposed to make you remember everything so you can write clearly and honestly about it.
“Kaya kung sino man sa inyo ang nagmahal at nasaktan… Balikan mo lahat ng ‘yon, at sana maisulat mo ang pinakamagandang kwento… (So, if there is anyone among you who have loved and got hurt… Go back to it and write the greatest story…),” she ended.
Competition, passion
Other speakers included Abbey Sy, an advertising management graduate from the De La Salle University and Tony Abad, an economic law lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila Law School.
Sy said passion does not just drop from the heavens, it is something worked for.
“Good things come to those who hustle, work hard and never give up,” Sy pointed out.
Abad argued that the Philippines needs to be more competitive if it is to survive.
“The 1% is getting richer and richer at your expense,” he cautioned.
He explained that competition fights monopolization, concentration of wealth, corruption, bad governance, and poverty.
Abad further recommended that the youth should fight against the culture of anti-competition and promote a national competition mind-set.
TEDxUPM also showed videos of a talk of David Steindl-Rast who discussed about happiness and gratefulness, and Amy Webb on algorithms of romance and online dating.
If you missed the live stream of TEDxUPM, you can watch the video again below:
- With reports by Raisa Serafica / Rappler.comIt's important not to get sidetracked by an artist's fame in one area when confronted with their work in another. Leonard Nimoy is so well known for his portrayal of "Spock" on "Star Trek," that it may come as a surprise to learn that he was also an accomplished photographer and poet. One inevitable - and unanswerable - question is whether this book would have been published if someone else had taken these photographs.I would like to think that it would have been. On a technical level, Nimoy proves himself in full command of the mechanics of lighting and composition. As far as subject matter, fat nudes were already done in 1994 in Women En Large. Comparing the two, Nimoy favors action shots, where he has the women dancing around various objects, on stairs, in can-can lines, or otherwise in motion. He also prefers showing them in groups - there's only one shot of a woman by herself, aside from several almost abstract shots against black backgrounds that emphasize the models' shapes.Anyone who saw Eyes Wide Shut may recall the "orgy" scene, where scores of identical naked women wandered through the room (it was a very tame orgy, with no sex or even touching, just looking). The standard, ubiquitous female "model" is almost a clone. Nimoy's work communicates the variety of form that fat women possess, while showcasing their beauty for those inclined to view them in that way. "Women en Large" was fairly obscure; one would have hoped that Nimoy's fame might have resulted in a larger audience for this work, especially since fat women have come to be more accepted over the past two decades. This may happen postumously - the price of "The Full Body Project" has already quintupled in the time from when I ordered it to when I received my copy.The only reason I gave this four stars instead of five, is that the collection has a "message." It happens to be a message I agree with - that fat women can be beautiful and should not be marginalized - but the presence of any message at all is a distraction. Nimoy wants the viewer to come to a particular conclusion. Great art is more open-ended; when the viewer meets the artist partway, they can come to their own conclusions, and if these happen to coincide with the artists', then true communication has taken place. One example of this is Richard Avedon's masterpiece In the American West, which confronts us not with an "issue" (worthy as it may be) but with the beauty and complexity of life itself.ROME—It’s a rare, and indeed, singularly unique opportunity to read what a pope really thinks of the job after it has finished. Pontificates generally end in funerals, not retirements. But in the case of Pope Benedict XVI, who spectacularly retired in 2013, we will soon get that rare glimpse of what it’s really like to be pope when his memoir, Benedict XVI: The Last Conversations, is published on September 9 in Italy and Germany.
Benedict, who has been living in relative seclusion at a convent inside Vatican City, has only been seen a handful of times since stepping out of the limelight. But he has apparently been incredibly busy working with German journalist Peter Seewald on his side of history. Italian national daily Corriere Della Sera obtained rights to excerpt the book, which they announced in a full page spread in Friday’s edition called “My Years as Pope.”
Among what will be the most anticipated nuggets in the memoir are Benedict’s struggle with what he refers to as a “powerful gay lobby” of four or five key people who did all they could to influence key decision makers inside the Roman Curia, according to the paper. The existence of a gay lobby is not surprising since Francis admitted as much when he took the reigns of the Roman Catholic Church in March 2013. But what’s extraordinary is the admission by a pope how much power they truly had.
Benedict, who retired amid the Vatileaks scandal during which his butler was convicted of stealing papers from his desk, apparently writes in great detail how he struggled to “break up the group” but stops short of blaming them for his landmark decision to retire, which he says he did out of sheer exhaustion and his own admission that he was not such a good manager, or, as he puts it, lacked “resoluteness in governing.”
He denies long-held rumors that he was blackmailed and pressured to leave his post, and instead says he did it “freely.”
He also writes how surprised he was that he was elected pope in 2005 after John Paul II died. He describes the shock of finding out that high-ranking cardinals were holding a secret shadow conclave and had elected him before voting in the formal gathering in the Sistine Chapel. He also says he didn’t sleep for days and was incredibly anxious when he began his pontificate.
The retired pope will also shed light on just how difficult it was for him to combat the “filth that is in the church” and how many people tried to stop his attempts at reforms. All of that should provide a window into just how challenging it is for Pope Francis going forward.
Benedict, who says he kept a diary during his pontificate, will also recall his surprise when the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel heralded the first Latin American pope. He writes that he had a few names in mind, “but not him,” when Jose Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was announced, according to Corriere della Sera. He says he will destroy his diary now that the memoir is being published, even though he admits it might be a “golden opportunity” for historians to see what its really like to be pope.Station to devote whole day to vinyl format with presenters including Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey and Cerys Matthews
BBC Radio 6 Music is to make New Year's Day a vinyl-only day. Many BBC stations phased out the use of vinyl records in favour of CDs in the early 1990s, and now mostly use digital versions of songs.
Bosses of 6 Music are now to turn back the clock with their "all vinyl" day to round off a month-long celebration of the format. Presenters Jarvis Cocker and Elbow's Guy Garvey will be among those who will ditch digital in favour of 45s.
DJ Don Letts will raid his home jukebox to bring in seven-inch singles for his three-hour show. Singer-songwriter Richard Hawley will also host a show talking to prominent acts such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead discussing the joys of vinyl.
Dance DJ and producer Andrew Weatherall, as well as singer Cerys Matthews, will also host vinyl-only shows.
Station editor Paul Rodgers said: "In a world dominated by digital music, vinyl is a format still close to the hearts of many music lovers and increased sales demonstrate its enduring appeal."Under the Radar Blog Archives Select Date… January, 2019 December, 2018 November, 2018 October, 2018 September, 2018 August, 2018 July, 2018 June, 2018 May, 2018 April, 2018 March, 2018 February, 2018
If Congress, W.H. wanted to ban assault weapons, could they?
In the wake of recent mass shootings, the White House (under pressure from gun control advocates) has said it generally supports a federal assault weapons ban, though Congress is not moving in that direction. But if Congress were to act, would an assault weapons ban be constitutional?
Assault weapons bans have mostly been adjudicated in state courts thus far, where judges have generally been inclined to uphold them, according to Professor Adam Winkler of the UCLA School of Law. A federal ban, however, were it to end up before the Supreme Court, would most likely be evaluated in terms of the Second Amendment without much regard to state precedent, Winkler said.
The federal courts have not given much previous guidance on whether a federal assault weapons ban would pass Second Amendment muster, but Winkler says he suspects one would be upheld by the Supreme Court.
“In the Heller case, the courts said a handgun ban is not constitutional because handguns are in ‘common use,’” which is a common standard in jurisprudence, Winkler said. “A shoulder-launched missile is not in common use for self-defense; a machine gun is not in common use. The assault rifle is a slightly more difficult question. … I suspect [the court] would uphold such a ban, especially after such high-profile shootings. And I suspect that many judges, like many other people, would believe you don’t need an assault weapon for self-defense.”
In June 2010, the Supreme Court’s ruling in McDonald v. Chicago extended to states the decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that a D.C. ban on owning handguns violated the Second Amendment. The decision in McDonald struck down Chicago and Oak Park’s handgun bans by incorporating the Second Amendment through the 14th. Since the invalidation of handgun bans, both pro- and anti-gun advocates have turned their attention to assault weapons bans.
And in Heller, Scalia, writing for the majority, seems to indicate that restrictions on certain types of weapons remain constitutional.
“The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,” Scalia wrote. But he also said a 1939 Supreme Court case, United States v. Miller, allows for limitations on the right to bear arms, “supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’”
“We … read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns,” Scalia writes.
A follow-up to Heller, Heller v. District of Columbia (known as “Heller II”) challenged laws prohibiting large-capacity ammunition magazines and assault weapons. In October 2011, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled 2-1 to uphold those bans as constitutional, remanding certain registration requirements back to the lower court for further review. Judge Douglas Ginsburg, delivering the opinion of the court, used the logic of the first Heller to conclude some restrictions on the Second |
aking thanks to Ryan Coogler, brilliant performances from Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, as well as a brilliant marketing campaign and the right release date.” Warners is going to hold Creed as wide as they can into January. A decent start as we enter a slowdown period at the B.O. prior to Force Awakens.
And what do you do with a slow-walking monster like Victor Frankenstein? Even with 12% more business over this holiday weekend, if there was a prime time to grab cash, this was it. I understand that one of the challenges for this film was that it could never clearly define its audience, and that was after numerous tests. In the movie world we live in, if you don’t have a clearly defined audience for your wide release, you’re toast. However, Fox has always shown that they can make moolah from mincemeat overseas. We’re not glossing over failure in this analysis, but given the one-two-punch of British stars James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe, Victor Frankenstein could make good in foreign theatrical, TV and home entertainment. In the film’s greenlight, the emphasis was that foreign was always going to save the day. That might be the case as Victor seized $10M overseas, ranking No. 2 or 3 in a number of territories like Russia, Mexico and Brazil, which is far better than its place on the stateside charts. Victor aside, Fox had bragging rights with three of its titles in the top 10 — the most of any studio — with decent holds from The Peanuts Movie, The Martian and an expanded 230% surge from Searchlight’s Brooklyn as it crossed from arthouse to multiplexes with an A grade from audience polling.
The top 12 films per studio-reported figures as of Sunday AM for the period of Nov. 27-29:
1). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (LGF), 4,175 theaters (0) / $20.8M Fri. (+100%) / 3-day cume: $51.6M (-50%) /5-day cume:$75.75M /Total cume: $198.3M/Wk 2
2). The Good Dinosaur (DIS), 3,749 theaters / $15.1M Fri. (+130%) / 3-day cume: $39.2M /5-day cume: $55.6M /Wk 1
3). Creed (MGM/New Line/WB), 3,404 theaters / 3-day cume: $30.1M /5-day cume: $42.6M /Wk 1
4). Spectre (SONY), 2,940 theaters (-719)/ $5.2M Fri. (+94%)/ 3-day cume: $12.8M (-15%)/5-day cume: $18.2M/ Total cume: $176.1M /Wk 4
5). The Peanuts Movie (FOX), 3,006 theaters (-665)/ 3-day cume: $9.7M (-27%)/5-day cume:$13.6M/Total cume: $116.8M /Wk 4
6). The Night Before (SONY), 2,960, theaters (0)/ 3-day cume: $8.2M (-17%)/5-day cume:/Total: $11.5M/Total cume: $24.1M/Wk 2
7). Secret In Their Eyes (STX), 2,392 theaters / 3-day cume: $4.5M (-32%)/5-day: $5.97M /Total cume: $14M/Wk 2
8). Spotlight (OPRD), 897 theaters (+299)/ 3-day cume: $4.495M (+27%) /5-day:$5.7M/ Total cume: $12.3M /Wk 4
9). Brooklyn (FSL), 824 theaters (+713) /3-day cume: $3.8M (+230%)/5-day: $4.85M/Total cume: $7.3M /Wk 4
10). The Martian (FOX), 1,407 theaters (-679) /3-day cume: $3.3M (-13%)/5-day: $4.5M/ Total cume: $218.6M / Wk 9
11). Love The Coopers (LGF), 1,951 theaters (-652)/3-day cume: $3.05M (-26%) /5-day cume:$4.3M/Total cume: $20.486M/Wk 3
12). Victor Frankenstein (FOX), 2,737 theaters /3-day cume: $2.3M/5-day: $3.4M/Wk 1
13). Trumbo (Bleecker), 616 theaters (+570) /3-day cume: $1.5M (+493%)/5-day: $1.9M/Total cume: $2.57M/Wk 4
Notables:
Legend (UNI), 40 theaters /3-day cume: $285K (+228%)/3-day PTA: $7K /5-day: $404K/Total cume: $514K/Wk 2
Carol (TWC), 4 theaters /3-day cume: $203K (-20%) /3-day PTA: $51K/5-day cume: $276K/Total: $588K/Wk 2
The Danish Girl (FOC), 4 theaters / $274K Fri. (+15%)/3-day cume: $185K / Per screen: $46K /Wk 1
4th/5th UPDATE, Friday 10:20 PM/Saturday 9:11AM, Weekend outlook: Black Friday, one of the mothers of moviegoing days, racked up an estimated $72M for the top 20 movies, repping a 112% surge over Thanksgiving’s B.O., a day when most folks stay at home. Most films chalked up 100% upticks in their Friday grosses over Thursday, with films like 20th Century Fox’s The Peanuts Movie, Open Road’s Spotlight and Fox Searchlight’s Brooklyn seeing near two-fold increases over Turkey Day. Total ticket sales for the three-day period following the holiday are being estimated at $182.7M, which would be the fourth best for this frame of all-time, +12% over last year’s post Thanksgiving FSS. After a lucrative Black Friday, studio B.O. analysts are expecting grosses to be off just a tad today, mostly dropping between -5% and -10%. Specialty adult titles like Brooklyn, Carol, Spotlight and The Danish Girl are estimated to post either slight gains of 5% over Friday or stay even.
Katniss was always destined to be on top at the T-Day stretch, if pacing behind her earlier self in Mockingjay – Part 1. Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 spiked 107% on Friday over Thanksgiving, taking an estimated $21.5M, which is $2.7M short of what MJ1 did on Black Friday last year.
The second weekend for MJ2 currently looks to be off by 51% with $50.3M, while over 5 days, the film is expected to take in $74.4M. As we always predicted, MJ2 was bound to slot third over the Turkey stretch behind Catching Fire (2nd FSS: $74.1M, 5-day: $109.9M) and MJ1 (2nd FSS: $57M, 5-day: $82.7M).
Still, the masses won’t quit Katniss. Per RelishMix, Twitter hashtags for the film — #HungerGames, #Mockingjay and #MockingjayPart2 — even though they’ve subsided since last week, are outnumbering those for The Good Dinosaur, Creed and Victor Frankenstein. MJ2 has 15K hashtags daily, predominantly spurred by females (no shocker there). The overall sentiment from the social chatter illustrates a sense of nostalgia from the fans: They’ll miss the series. Facebook and Twitter posts range from costumed fan photos in theater lobbies to Hunger Games emojis.
So with all this groundswell, why does MJ2 continue to lag behind MJ1, and even Catching Fire at the box office?
One rival studio executive remarked that the decline in the novels’ sales between Catching Fire and Mockingjay can be attributed in part to the downturn in sequels’ movie ticket sales: “Catching Fire was the most entertaining and Mockingjay transitioned out of the whole fun of the games and the mocking of the infotainment world and turned the Hunger Games storyline into a revolution story; a war-in-the-streets movie. The first two films stoked young teenage girls with the whole plotline of which guy Katniss was going to hook up with. But Mockingjay is all about taking it to the man. As big franchises go, it was risky to make a movie like that, but to Lionsgate and the producer/director’s credit, they followed the book for the sake of fans and didn’t homogenize it for mass consumption.”
The Friday for Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is up 138% over Thanksgiving with an estimated $15.6M on track for a FSS of $39.5M and 5-day of $55.9M; higher projections this morning than what we were seeing last night. Despite the glowing reviews and A CinemaScore, some of the buzz on Good Dinosaur has not been as fervent as June’s Inside Out. That film easily delighted kids, but emotionally moved adults with its smart psychological story about an adolescent girl’s development. Good Dinosaur skews much younger in its appeal than the average Pixar film and in a lighthearted way, quite similar to how Cars resonated with moviegoers.
RelishMix praises the social media campaign for The Good Dinosaur: For a Pixar kids’ film, it has a strong reach. Good Dinosaur’s social media universe is 96M strong, including 65M Facebook fans, 8M Twitter followers, 1.8M Instagram followers and 21.2M YouTube views. RelishMix observes that the leading social media star of the film is actually the Pixar studio itself, with 20.3M fans across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram alone. But voiceover talent Jeffrey Wright and Anna Paquin are also joining the online conversation. The official YouTube trailer drew in a strong 10.8M views. Twitter hashtags #GoodDino, #TheGoodDinosaur and #GoodDinosaur have popped during the week to 4.3k daily. While these daily hashtags are a little behind Creed’s 5.3k, note that this level of activity for an animated feature is strong vs other pic genres.
MGM/New Line’s Creed distributed by Warner Bros. is looking at an estimated $11.7M on Friday, +81% over Thursday. Creed is looking better this morning than what we saw last night with its weekend on course for $28.7M over FSS and $41.1M over 5-days. The tale, directed and co-written by Ryan Coogler, follows the son of Rocky opponent/trainer Apollo Creed stepping into the ring. There has been some early awards chatter for Sylvester Stallone’s supporting turn as the aged pugilist. Consider the Rocky franchise reinvigorated: By Sunday Creed will beat the $21.9M 5-day B.O. and $26.7M 6-day take of 2006’s Rocky Balboa which Stallone wrote and directed. At the time, many talked about that film as the swan song for the character.
The holiday weekend’s third wide entry, Victor Frankenstein, is just completely buried by new, holdover and specialty competition. Fox opted to take this genre film out over the Thanksgiving weekend so as to avoid the competitive pre-Halloween period, which wasn’t any nicer to horror fare (except the PG-rated Goosebumps, which will near $78M by Sunday). Just as audiences weren’t asking for another Peter Pan film with Warner Bros.’ Pan, no one was begging for another Frankenstein flick. It also doesn’t help that this title is following in the footsteps of Lionsgate’s I, Frankenstein (even though that came out nearly two years ago), one of the worst-reviewed movies of 2014 (at 3% rotten)…yet that movie opened to a higher number at $8.6M. Fox’s Victor looks to ignite a low voltage of $2.28M over the 3-day and $3.37M over 5 days. Light candles and say prayers that foreign recoups for this $40M production. With its noteworthy British talent, maybe Victor Frankenstein pulls off a B.O. trajectory like Dracula Untold where foreign generates 3x or more than domestic receipts.
Focus Features’ The Danish Girl is off to a solid start with a projected $50K per theater at four locations in New York and Los Angeles. The Tom Hooper-directed film opened on Friday. Weinstein Co’s Carol is also holding well into its second weekend.
The Top 12 films per industry estimates for the weekend of Nov. 27-29, Friday percentage change compared to Thanksgiving day daily gross:
1). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (LGF), 4,175 theaters (0) / $21.5M Fri. (+107%) / 3-day cume: $50.3M (-51%) /5-day cume:$74.4M /Total cume: $197.1M/Wk 2
2). The Good Dinosaur (DIS), 3,749 theaters / $15.6M Fri. (+138%) / 3-day cume: $39.5M /5-day cume: $55.9M /Wk 1
3). Creed (MGM/New Line/WB), 3,404 theaters / $11.7M Fri. (+81%) / 3-day cume: $28.7M /5-day cume: $41.1M /Wk 1
4). Spectre (SONY), 2,940 theaters (-719)/ $5.26M Fri. (+96%)/ 3-day cume: $12.76M (-15%)/5-day cume: $18.4M/ Total cume: $176.3M /Wk 4
5). The Peanuts Movie (FOX), 3,006 theaters (-665)/ $3.99M Fri. (+177%) / 3-day cume: $9.8M (-26%)/5-day cume:$13.7M/Total cume: $116.9M /Wk 4
6). The Night Before (SONY), 2,960, theaters (0)/ $3.23M Fri.(+90%)/ 3-day cume: $8M (-19%)/5-day cume:/Total: $11.36M/Total cume: $23.9M/Wk 2
7). Secret In Their Eyes (STX), 2,392 theaters / $1.68M Fri.(+126%) / 3-day cume: $4.3M (-35%)/5-day: $5.77M/Total cume: $13.8M/Wk 2
8). Spotlight (OPRD), 897 theaters (+299) / $1.66M Fri. (+187%) / 3-day cume: $4.2 (+19%) /5-day:$5.46M/ Total cume: $12.1M /Wk 4
9). Brooklyn (FSL), 824 theaters (+713) / $1.4M Fri. (+188%)/3-day cume: $3.7M (+219%)/5-day: $4.7M/Total cume: $7.1M /Wk 4
10). The Martian (FOX), 1,407 theaters (-679) / $1.34M Fri. (+109%)/ 3-day cume: $3.23M (-15%)/5-day: $4.48M/ Total cume: $218.6M / Wk 9
11). Love The Coopers (LGF), 1,951 theaters (-652)/ $1.235M Fri. (+63%) / 3-day cume: $3.16M (-23%) /5-day cume:$4.4M/Total cume: $20.6M/Wk 3
12). Victor Frankenstein (FOX), 2,737 theaters / $908K Fri. (+93%)/3-day cume: $2.28M/5-day: $3.37M/Wk 1
Notables:
Tamasha (UTV), 182 theaters / $364K Fri./3-day cume: $982K / 5-day: $1.4M/Wk 1
Legend (UNI), 40 theaters / $113K Fri. (+87%) /3-day cume: $281K (+227%)/3-day PTA: $7K /5-day: $409K/Total cume: $519K/Wk 2
Carol (TWC), 4 theaters / $68K Fri. (+110%) /3-day cume: $183K (-28%) /3-day PTA: $46K/5-day cume: $256K/Total: $568K/Wk 2
The Danish Girl (FOC), 4 theaters / $76K Fri./3-day cume: $201K / Per screen: $50K /Wk 1
3RD UPDATE, Friday AM, Thanksgiving Day grosses: As is tradition on Thanksgiving Day, turnstiles slow down with most titles seeing slides from their Wednesday figures. But not MGM/New Line’s Creed from Warner Bros. Among the new titles, Creed posted a 7% gain over Wednesday in third place with $6.46M, bringing its two day cume to $12.5M. Industry B.O. analysts are revising their projections for Creed‘s five-day haul, now foreseeing $42M-$44M. MGM, WB and Ratpac co-financed this $37M-$38M Rocky spinoff, and out of the three Thanksgiving wide entries, WB spent the most on TV ads, $27.1M, per iSpot.TV, with most of the promos running during NFL, MLB World Series and NBA sporting events. As we reported yesterday, both Creed and Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur are being powered by A CinemaScores and glowing reviews this week.
Black Friday is one of the biggest moviegoing days of the year, so any downturn yesterday will be more than made up for today. And it’s one of those moviegoing-begets-moviegoing time frames, when trailers drop before huge audiences at the multiplex, encouraging audiences to come back to the movies down the road. With less than four weeks until the debut of Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the film’s campaign was being pumped to its capacity. It appeared as though the trailer was playing every half hour during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. Off of 325 airings, iSpot.TV reports that $8.9M has been spent already on Force Awakens TV spots through yesterday, with $3.7M of the spend running during NFL games.
Katniss is, of course, still on top. She took in $10.4M yesterday, off 25% from Wednesday with a running cume of $146.7M. Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 2 will continue to hold first place until Sunday, even over FSS, with a revised industry projection of $75M-$78M. Global B.O. for MJ2 stands at $338M.
The Good Dinosaur saw a 33% decline on Thanksgiving with $6.56M in second place, bringing its total B.O. over two days to $16.37M. It’s going to pop today and Saturday thanks to family matinees. Current industry forecast for the animated film directed by Peter Sohn is $57M-$59M over five days. The second Pixar film of the year cost $200M before P&A, with TV ads currently amounting to $22.1M from August 1 through yesterday. Among those animated titles playing over the five-day Thanksgiving frame, The Good Dinosaur will rank above the $50.6M made by Warner Bros.’ 2006 Happy Feet, and below such Disney titans Frozen ($93.6M five-day) and Toy Story 2 ($80.1M five-day).
The Frankenstein monster scared villagers away in Mary Shelley’s novel and 20th Century Fox’s Victor Frankenstein is doing the same to moviegoers. The film continued to post under seven-digit daily grosses in its second day at the box office, falling 23% from Wednesday with $470K at 2,796 hubs. It ranked No. 12 on Thanksgiving, getting beat by Opening Road’s Spotlight ($578K at 897 venues, five-day at $5.1M, $7.8M total B.O.) and Fox Searchlight’s Brooklyn ($486K at 590 theaters, five-day at $4.37M, total B.O. $3.5M) in slots No. 10 and 11. To date, Victor Frankenstein has made $1.08M. It cost a reported $40M before P&A, and iSpot.TV lists Fox’s U.S. TV ad spend at $10.6M, with most of that being spent on male-demo shows like The Walking Dead, South Park, NFL Football and NBA Basketball.
In the specialty realm, Weinstein Co.’s Carol slipped 17% over Wednesday with $33K and a week’s cume of $385K. That figure currently paces behind the first week of TWC’s The Imitation Game ($611K) and The King’s Speech ($483K), h0wever, this film will be in limited release for a while to pull in the bulk of holiday moviegoers after SAG and Golden Globe nominations are announced mid-December.
Universal’s Legend made $54K at 40 theaters yesterday, off 19% with a not as potent per theater as Carol. Total domestic cume to date for the British gangster film is $616K, but it has brought in $36M from 26 overseas markets.
The rest of the Thanksgiving Day B.O. unfolded as follows: No. 4 Sony/MGM/Eon’s Spectre $2.68M (+1%), five-day: $16M-$18M cume: $163.2M; No. 5 Sony’s The Night Before $1.699M (-1%), 5-day: $10M-$12M, cume to date: $15.9M; No. 6 20th Century Fox’s The Peanuts Movie $1.44M (-42%), five-day: $12M-$14.5M, cume to date: $107M; No. 7 CBS’ Love the Coopers $756K (+50%), five-day: $4.9M, cume: $17.4M, No. 8 STX/IM Global’s The Secret In Their Eyes $745K (+3%), five-day: $4.9M, cume: $9.5M.
2ND UPDATE, Thursday 7:57AM Wednesday grosses: Neither a Brontosaurus, nor boxer Adonis Creed could push Katniss from her No. 1 perch at the box office, as Liongate’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 owned the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with $13.8M at 4,175 theaters, +21% over Tuesday for a running cume of $136.3M. MJ1 made $14.6M on Thanksgiving eve a year ago. This is according to industry estimates this morning; many studios have yet to report. MJ2 paces behind MJ1 by 16% or $21..3M. At this point in time, some are predicting that over the five-day holiday, MJ2 could do $78M-$80M, which would put it below Catching Fire‘s $109.9M (which holds the Thanksgiving spread record) and MJ1‘s $82.7M. Overseas MJ2 is at $183M with a huge global take of $320M.
Walt Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is off to a decent start with an A CinemaScore and a No. 2 Wednesday gross of $9.8M at 3,749 venues. That’s not as high as their animated princess pics – read: Frozen‘s Thanksgiving eve wide opening of $15.2M and Tangled‘s $11.9M, but then again this film skews more boy and this dinosaur isn’t wearing a tiara and a gown. A great start nonetheless, which will take Good Dinosaur to a $58M-62M five-day. While Good Dinosaur‘s budget is at an estimated $200M, these animated films play and play during the holiday season, so a 4x multiple is conceivable. Good Dinosaur has an 81% Rotten Tomatoes score which is more than good. Moms lead the charge to see it, with females repping 56% of the audience while men numbered 44%. The Under 18 (43%) and 25 (54%) demos both graded the film an A+. A majority of the theatergoers at 70% came out because it’s a Pixar animated title, the second this year after June’s Inside Out.
MGM/New Line in association with Warner Bros’ Creed earned an A CinemaScore title belt from audiences last night and $6M at 3,284 playdates in third place. Current industry projections over five-days are at $39M-$42M which will be higher than where Warner Bros. was expecting the film. Creed also has extra muscle with a 92% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, which will definitely get the adults out there. The Ryan Coogler-directed film carries a $37M-$38M production cost. Creed drew 66% males with 62% over 25. 53% bought tickets because they’re Rocky fans while 39% turned up because they like Sylvester Stallone, who has a supporting turn in this film.
20th Century Fox’s Victor Frankenstein is not off to a good start per industry estimates with $620K at 2,737 in 9th yesterday; that’s a per theater of $227. The Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy film earned a bloody C CinemaScore, and is currently estimated to take in $3M-$3.7M over the five-day frame. Production cost before P&A is at an estimated $40M. Older males were the dominant crowd at this title at 60% for both 25 and up and the gender; the Radcliffe fangirls are not out in droves here. 46% responded that they watched Victor Frankenstein for the type of film that is, while 45% came out for the lead actors and 43% for the subject matter. The under 25 and 18ers gave it a B+.
1st UPDATE, Tuesday AM: ‘Creed’, ‘Good Dinosaur’ Rally At Tuesday Previews
Fox had better luck with The Peanuts Movie which slotted fifth with an estimated $2.5M, +12% from yesterday with a cume of $105.6M. The Blue Sky Animation title should rake in $16M-$17M over five days, bringing its total through four weekends to $120M. Fox is reporting The Martian in 10th place with $5K less than Victor Frankenstein —$615K at 1,407 theaters — with a total to date of $214.7M.
MGM/Eon/Sony’s Spectre targeted an estimated $2.66M yesterday in No. 4, +22% at 2,940 runs. Heading into the holiday, 007 shedded 719 screens as the competition heats up. Cume for Spectre is at $160.7M, which is trailing Skyfall at the same point in time by 29%. By Thanksgiving eve that film had bagged $227.16M. By Sunday, Spectre is projected to be at $176M. Sony also owned 6th with the Seth Rogen-Anthony Mackie-Joseph Gordon-Levitt R-rated comedy The Night Before which made $1.7M, +9% on its way to a five-day holiday run of $11.5M-$12.5M. Cume by Sunday should stand at $24.5M.
STX/IM Global’s The Secret In Their Eyes declined an estimated 9% from Tuesday with $729K. Domestic ticket sales for the Julia Roberts-Nicole Kidman remake of the foreign film Oscar winner is $8.8M.
At 897 locations, Open Road’s Spotlight holds onto 8th place in its third week with $653K, +41% from Tuesday with a running cume of $7.27M.
Fox Searchlight’s Brooklyn is currently hanging around in 11th place, but could fight its way into the top 10 by the end of the weekend. Yesterday, the John Crowley-directed movie grossed $530K at 824 theaters, and industry projections put it at $3.9M for FSS and $5M for the weekend.
Universal’s Legend which expanded to 40 theaters brought in $67K yesterday, up close to five fold over Tuesday. It’s on course to make $485K over FSS, a 5-day of $607K and a 10-day cume of $717K.
Weinstein Co.’s Carol made $40K yesterday, up a huge 32% at four NY and LA hubs bringing its six day cume to $352K. The Todd Haynes-directed movie is looking at an estimated $275K FSS, 5-day of $357K and a 10-day run of $670K.MADRID (Reuters) - Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdes is likely to be out of action until the end of the year after suffering a calf strain during Spain’s surprise defeat by South Africa on Tuesday, the club said in a statement on their website.
Barcelona's goalkeeper Victor Valdes blocks a ball against Schalke 04 during their Champions League quarter-final second leg soccer match at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, April 9, 2008. REUTERS/Albert Gea
It is another blow for Barcelona, who have a number of injury problems, and for Valdes who plans to leave the club when his contract runs out at the end of the season.
“Injuries never come at a good time and it is unusual for a keeper to get a leg injury but this is the situation and we will have to deal with it,” Barcelona sports director Andoni Zubizarreta told Radio Marca.
The friendly in South Africa began as a night of nostalgia with Spain back at the scene of their 2010 World Cup triumph in Johannesburg but they lost 1-0 with a midfield that struggled to link up and an attack that lacked cutting edge.
Andres Iniesta was one of the few Spanish players to come out of the game with any credit in a team missing a string of other Barcelona men.
Midfielders Xavi Hernandez and Cesc Fabregas were unavailable due to injuries along with defenders Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba.
Barca coach Tata Martino also has to deal with the absence of World Player of the Year Lionel Messi while Dani Alves and Javier Mascherano have returned from international duty with strains.
Cristian Tello is also injured so there could be a chance for Pedro Rodriguez, who started for Spain on Tuesday, to stake a claim for a regular.
Valdes’s understudy is the veteran Jose Manuel Pinto who has had little first-team action in recent seasons and is not a player the board have shown confidence in.
His contract runs out at the end of the season and there are no signs at this stage of a new deal being offered to him.
Pepe Reina, on loan at Napoli from Liverpool and who replaced Valdes after 81 minutes against South Africa, and Borussia Moenchengladbach’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen have been linked with a move to Barcelona next year.The 2016 Tour Down Under will be a familiar yet unusual affair for Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) as he lines up for the seventh time in the race. However he does so against his former teammate, Richie Porte. Related Articles Thomas open to changing teams in search of Tour de France glory
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2016 Tour Down Under race preview
Thomas and Porte have similar ambitions in 2016 as both riders eye off a high finish on GC at the Tour de France, rather than targeting early season stage races or the classics as 29-year-old Thomas has done so in recent seasons.
"It will be strange now. He’ll be shouting at us now rather than BMC," Thomas said of Porte. "He used to love that going up a climb. It will be strange as like you say, we've ridden together for a few good years now and we are good mates. I hope he does really well and comes second behind us."
In 2015 Thomas balanced stage racing ambitions along with a classics campaign as he first won the Volta ao Algarve in February, was fifth at Paris-Nice in March, then turned his attention to the classics where he won E3 Harelbeke, and finished third at Gent-Wevelgem. Thomas then placed second overall at Tour de Suisse before his breakout Tour de France performance where he was sitting fourth on GC starting stage 19. He eventually rolled into Paris in 15th place overall.
With Thomas turning his attention to his stage racing ambitions, the Welshman has also won Bayern-Rundfahrt twice and finished third at the Tour Down Under. He and Porte will turn from teammates to rivals. The progress of both riders as grand tour contenders will be an intriguing sub-plot to the early component of the 2016 season, and with both riders knowing each other's strengths and weakness, Thomas admits measuring his performances against Porte's will be exciting.
"I think we have a similar programme so it’s going to be an interesting year but exciting. He’s gone off to get a bit more of his freedom now and Tour is something he wants to do really well in. I’d love to see him do well and for me it’s a similar sort of story as well I guess," he said, adding, "last year I had a really good Tour and that sort of really opened my eyes as to what I can do there in the future."
First though, Thomas will line up with a Team Sky squad full of options at the Tour Down Under, a race he first appeared in back in 2007, unsure exactly what form and condition he is in compared to previous years when the South Australian race was a target.
"November and December, I trained hard but I wasn’t like in some previous years where I was like ‘I really want to go to Oz firing’ so I’m pretty chilled, but obviously still have some good legs to race hard, get stuck in and see what happens. We have a strong team here and it’s up for anyone to take their chance and lead the team. I am super excited to race. I haven’t raced since the Vuelta and I love coming down here. We’ve been here just over two weeks now so it’s great to be back.
"We’ll see how Corkscrew goes, that’s the first real test," he said of the stage 3 climb. "I feel OK in training but it depends on how this guy goes [Dennis, ed] and a few of the others for my own ambitions. Pretty relaxed, have fun and get stuck in."
See also
Having seen the race shift from a sprinters paradise to offering something for sprinters, puncheurs and climbers, Thomas added the Tour Down Under continues to be his choice of season opening race, regardless of his July ambitions.
"I think it’s great, since the last few years it’s been a great way to start the year," he added of the race. "It’s got stages for the sprinters then some tough days, they are not too tough, not too long. It can get really hot here so there's all that to take into account, it’s the one hotel with everything within half an hour away so it’s a great place training wise before it as well."We’ve finally obtained a full and complete and reliable copy of the complaint filed against Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in Nevada.
The complaint contains very specific allegations, which either helps prove that the event actually occurred — or which demonstrates that the plaintiff, Andrea McNulty, has a very active imagination.
McNulty, who says in the complaint that she has worked at Harrah’s since March 2003, alleges that she was assigned to serve a concierge-style function on the Penthouse floor of the hotel during the 2008 American Century Celebrity Golf Championship.
McNulty alleges that, on July 10, she and Roethlisberger had a conversation about fly fishing, and that they talked about the fact that McNulty is an avid fly fisherman. (Though, on the surface, the exchange isn’t relevant, the contention — if true — shows that there was at least a minor relationship between McNulty and Roethlisberger prior to the incident.)
As to the incident itself, it allegedly occurred on Friday, July 11. McNulty claims that, at approximately 10:00 p.m. local time, Roethlisberger returned to his room with a young woman, who left roughly 20 minutes later.
McNulty says that Roethlisberger walked the woman to the elevator, and that Roethlisberger then stopped to talk to McNulty and other staff, for roughly 20 minutes. (Obviously, it’ll be critical to determine who these other staff members are, and what they have to say.)
As he was leaving, Roethlisberger allegedly told McNulty that the sound system on his television wasn |
future.
Timeline
November 2016:
Changchun FAW-VW agency workers organise and file a report on unfair labour conditions to China’s only official union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU)
December 2016-January 2017:
With the intervention of Changchun ACFTU, worker representatives engage in two collective bargaining sessions with FAW-VW and Hongxin Youye (one of the employment agencies). The two CB sessions don’t seem to have yielded any outcomes
January-February 2017:
Over one thousand FAW-VW agency workers present their case to the district’s labour arbitration committee, they get no official reply
February 2017:
agency workers present their cases to court, which rejects their claims. 500 plus agency workers hold a protest in front of the local Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security office.
April 2017:
Agency workers organise a May Day protest, but they cancel their plans under police pressure
May 21, 2017:
Agency workers gather at the gates of the company and chant slogans during the Changchun International Marathon (FAW-VW is the leading sponsor of the sporting event)
May 26, 2017:
Worker representatives Fu Tianbo, Wang Shuai and Ai Zhenyu are detained for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order”. Not long after, Wang and Ai are released, Fu remains in detention.
June 7, 2017:
Worker representative Fu Tianbo is officially put under arrest
July 2017:
Police harassment of Fu Tianbo’s family increases, Fu’s mother publishes video demanding to see his son, otherwise she will go to Beijing to present her grievances to higher government officials.
Legal violations
Worker representative Fu Tianbo published on his social media account an 11 point list of demands that served as a template for his co-workers, quoting all relevant legislation in China to support their collective demands.
Fu quotes article 63 of China’s Labour Contract Law: “dispatched workers shall have the right to receive the same pay with that received by the employers' employees for the same work”, claiming that as an agency worker, he gets paid 60K yuan annually, while a full employee in the same station as himself gets paid 170K yuan.
As a factory floor worker at the soldering station, Fu asserts that he is in fact a long-term employee who’s work is integral to the factory’s main business which means FAW-VW is in violation of article 66 of the Labour Contract Law, which stipulates that “labour dispatch is a supplementary form and shall exclusively apply to provisional, auxiliary or substitutive positions.”
In his template of demands, Fu also points out employer violations of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security’s Interim Provisions on Labour Dispatch, particularly regarding the lack of employee benefits for agency workers. In total, Fu demands 1.3 million yuan in compensation.
The legality of the four known human resources agencies supplying labour to FAW-VW Changchun has been thrown into question. According to public records, at least one agency, Bozhong Auotparts, is directly owned and controlled by the FAW-VW company union, and its director Fan Xijun is the FAW-VW’s party secretary and union chair. Another agency, Hongxin Youye Human Resources Co., is located within Changchun’s FAW factory district, and only a kilometre from the Volkswagen plant’s main gate. Article 67 of the Labour Contract Law stipulates that “no accepting entity may establish any worker dispatch service to dispatch the workers to itself and to its subsidiaries.”
It's time for a response
The German car manufacturer is also in violation of it’s own 2012 Global Framework Agreement. In the agreement, VW agrees to resolve conflicts through negotiations with worker representatives, to limit the percentage of temporary external personnel, and to guarantee equal pay and treatment of all staff.
According to its own global commitment, Volkswagen is obliged to negotiate with workers to address their demands, and after the June arrests, it has yet to answer for the targeting and repression of worker representatives.
In his signed letter, worker representative Ai Zhenyu demands “full recognition of Chinese workers’ human rights,” and echoing his colleague in detention Fu Tianbo, he demands the employer “give us back what we are owed now!”
Their next collective bargaining session, according to social media posts, is scheduled for July 14, 2017.
Protestors at G-20 in Hamburg hold banner in solidarity with Changchun FAW-VW workers (photo: chefduzen.de; Chinese story via Globalization Monitor)
Relevant links
Fu Tianbo’s demands (in Chinese)
weibo.com/6052295373/Eq4oIkJff
Open Letter of Worker Representative Ai Zhenyu: "An ordinary Chinese worker’s demand" (in Chinese)
http://www.weibo.com/p/1001604127619745506068?retcode=6102
Labour Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China (2012 Amendment)
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/ELECTRONIC/76384/112877/F1810845897/CHN76384%20Eng.pdf
Interim Provisions on Labour Dispatch (agency labour), 2014
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---sector/documents/publication/wcms_246921.pdf
Charter on Temporary Work for the Volkswagen Group
http://www.industriall-union.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/GFAs/Volkswagen/precarious_agreement_Nov_2012/charta_der_zeitarbeit_englisch_final.pdfRT correspondent Roman Kosarev has managed to get in touch with the second pilot of the Su-24 jet bomber that was shot down by the Turkish Air Force over Syria on Tuesday.
The airman, who has been checked by medical staff at the Latakia air base, says he feels fine.
“The pilot was brought to the base overnight. We saw each other in the morning during breakfast. At least visually he looks fine. Doctors said that his health is out of danger,” says RT's Roman Kosarev.
READ MORE: One of 2 Russian pilots shot down by Turkey rescued, back to airbase in Syria
The pilot ejected from the aircraft and was brought to base following a 12-hour long rescue operation.
According to the Russian defense minister, "the pilot has been delivered to our base. Safe and sound.”
RT will have more details on first-hand account of the pilot.
LISTEN MORE:Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the few Hollywood filmmakers who has managed to work within the studio system and still maintain his own very distinct, very unique voice.
And in this excellent sit-down with the Inherent Vice director, stand-up comedian and host of the WTF podcast, Marc Maron, gets to venture inside Anderson's crazy cinematic world, pumping him for information and details on all of his work, as well as his creative process. And although every second of the full 2-hour interview is dynamite, you can scroll down for some quick takeaways -- just in case you're strapped for time.
There's no place like home
I know I'm not alone in thinking, at least at one point in my life, that I should've been born in one of the filmmaking hubs of the world, like L.A. or New York. We romanticize these places, because, frankly, that's where so much of the romance of cinema takes place, and damn it -- no one likes to be a tourist -- we want it to be woven into the same fabric that made us.
However, Anderson makes a great point at the beginning of the interview about how you feel like less of an impostor when you write about what you know, including places. (He grew up in Studio City and explains how the San Fernando Valley is completely different than the rest of L.A.)
"Be paranoid, be protective, and don't trust anyone."
Anderson describes making his first feature Hard Eight -- being "too young," too inexperienced, and bluffing his way through directing the whole thing, but despite that, he was still able to maintain quite a large amount of control over the project (albeit, without much financial backing). Maron asks him what he learned from the experience -- what the main lesson was, "Control?"
I think I went into my next situation thinking that the lesson was to be paranoid, be protective, and don't trust anyone.
He should've followed up with, "…unless you don't have to be, because you can trust some people in the industry," because he finished his story by raving about working with producer Mike De Luca on Boogie Nights.
The meanings behind his films
Anderson talks at length about the processes, inspirations, and meanings behind all of his films, including Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Inherent Vice, sharing stories behind each film and how they were developed. He explains how Punch Drunk Love is about "love, man", how Boogie Nights started off as a "fuck off" short film, and how Magnolia was about the death of his father from cancer. (He describes hearing the news that his father was going to die like someone telling him it was raining frogs -- completely unbelievable and foreign -- which is where the "raining frogs" thing from Magnolia comes from.
American Spirits (Yellows)
Those are the type of cigarettes he smokes -- just an FYI.Former Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, whose personal story as a quadriplegic made him a compelling champion of assisted dying during his time in Parliament, says the federal government’s new bill on the issue is a step in the right direction, but expects it won’t be the final word on the question.
He said the bill is “a good first step,” and likes that it will be reviewed in five years.
The federal Liberals introduced bill C-14 last Thursday, in a bid to meet the Supreme Court’s deadline of June 6 to institute a federal framework for assisted dying in order to comply with the Carter v. Canada ruling.
Fletcher’s own private member’s bills on assisted dying never made it through the previous Parliament, but he had recently contributed passionate testimony to the special joint Parliamentary committee studying how to implement the law.
Fletcher was a Manitoba MP until he was defeated in the last fall election, and is now running for the provincial Tories there. He became a quadriplegic after surviving a car crash with a moose in 1996. He was hospitalized hospital for months, living with tubes running into his collapsed lungs.
“When I was in the hospital 20 years ago, breath by breath, I was aware that they didn’t — I never made a request, I knew they’d never follow through with it — but I was terrified I was going to drown,” he said.
Fletcher has repeatedly written and talked about the importance of individuals having agency in matters related to their own deaths, citing his own suffering.
“If we can do something at the federal level that brings more peace of mind, and reduces terror, I think it’s positive.”
“This bill does it.”
He said Parliament’s special joint committee report, released in February, was a “very thoughtful report when it came out.” Fletcher says he was impressed when Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould “reached out to me on a one-on-one basis to get my views” on the matter before drafting the bill, which he said was appropriate because “it’s not a partisan issue — it’s a profound issue.”
Fletcher said no matter what the government does, it will be challenged through the courts. On limiting minors from the process, for example — something his own bill did — he said that “no government is going to touch that,” but nonetheless expects it will be challenged in the future.
The legislation also does not deal with advanced directives, which would allow prior consent in cases where a person might lose their competency or ability to consent. The government did, though, announce plans to appoint one or more independent bodies to study those issues.
He said the new bill is in the spirit of his own, and close to what the Supreme Court said, except that the new legislation is sets time limits on eligibility, based on a person’s trajectory for death.
“There are numerous tragic situations where people could deal with terrible living situations from disease or accident…that are not going to die but could live for decades.”
Changes to the law will happen incrementally, he said.
“I suspect it will be living legislation, as it will change over time, as we get more empirical evidence, and as attitudes change in Canada.”
“We don’t do things by revolution in Canada.”
Still, he called the bill a “paradigm shift.”
“It’s a huge shift, even from two years ago when no one in Parliament wanted to talk about it.”
Fletcher chided Parliamentarians for not wanting to deal with it in the first place and said the government shouldn’t have left it to the Supreme Court to decide on. He reminded MPs that they don’t have life-time jobs and should tackle difficult subjects, even when they’re politically sensitive.
He said he’s greatful that in his time as an MP was able to introduce his own legislation on assisted dying.
“It was the right thing to do,” he said.
“It turns out to be on the right side of history, and here we are.”http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Isaac Newton Lewis is best known as the designer of the Lewis light machine gun, of course - but that was not his only work in the firearms field. In 1919, he patented a semiauto handgun using the same gas-operated, rotating bolt mechanism as the machine gun. It is a pretty massive steel beast of a handgun, and interestingly fires from an open bolt, despite being semiautomatic only. This is a questionable choice for a handgun, as it substantially hinders practical accuracy because of the heavy mass moving during the firing process, forcing the shooter to have exceptional followthrough to make hits.
That said, this pistol is very well made, and operated quite smoothly (except when the cocking sleeve rotates slightly out of alignment and prevents the bolt from falling). It even has a reversible firing pin. This pistol is chambered for.45 ACP, and is depicted in patents as having a double-stack magazine with a 15-round capacity. The magazine is missing from this example, but I am aware of another Lewis handgun of different design that does have a magazine of this basic type, so it's not just a patent sketch. The gun is devoid of any markings, and I have no information on how many were made in total - but I suspect the number to be very low - possibly only this one.
Related:
Grant Hammond.45 Trials Pistol: https://www.full30.com/video/d704a9b1c364dad9e9738ea76d2b8397
Savage.45 ACP Trials Pistols: https://www.full30.com/video/dbb3150fa725fc12a117daad78fc189c
Shooting the.45 ACP Savage: https://www.full30.com/video/c2ca864d9dd1c1acc73189a6d364ed28
Knoble.30 Cal Trials Pistol: https://www.full30.com/video/4c01a38dd57f6078f049b178f934e2f5
Schouboe.45ACP Pistols: https://www.full30.com/video/9e08e89f2b288fb3af95af60ef28eab4
Pieper.45ACP Prototype Pistol: https://www.full30.com/video/f1e510114d72b4af22259fa9c3f180e1
BSA Prototype.45ACP Pistol: https://www.full30.com/video/048e00a1186971f92db6f097a8fc3882“And now, your highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden Rebel base.”
–Darth Vader
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of Strongholds of Resistance, a sourcebook for the Star Wars®: Age of Rebellion™ roleplaying game!
Strongholds of Resistance takes you to worlds that have boldly revolted from Imperial control and to the secret bases which serve as the command centers of the Rebellion. Your team of Rebel operatives might visit several of these locations in your work for the Rebel Alliance, or embark on a series of adventures amid the conflicts and challenging terrain of a single planet. Game Masters can easily integrate these new locations in their ongoing campaigns using the included modular encounters, or even launch a fresh campaign focused on worlds that are actively resisting the evil Empire or on the war efforts of a specific Rebel base.
Worlds in Revolt
In the Galactic Empire’s early days, Imperial agents and stormtroopers ruthlessly cracked down on any world that balked at Imperial rule. However, as some attempts to silence dissenting voices failed, other victimized planets began to express their discontent, particularly in the Outer Rim. Many planets have spawned local resistance groups, but not all such groups become part of the Rebel Alliance. And while thousands of worlds may sympathize with the Rebels and even provide support to the Rebellion, only a few hundred worlds have dared to openly resist the Empire.
A diplomatic mission might take you to the core world of Chandrila, a founding member of the Rebel Alliance and a center for poltiical debate, democracy, and peaceful protest. Or you may be sent to smuggle technology and weapons out of officially “neutral” planet Sullust. On Mon Cala you might swim through the planet’s submerged capital city and negotiate deals on capital ships that can swiftly transport starfighters and Rebel troops to the site of the next battle. Strongholds of Resistance describes multiple locations and adversaries for not only these three worlds, but also several others, ensuring an immense variety of possible adventures on a range of planets.
Hidden Rebel Bases
The Rebellion may be fueled, armed, and legitimized by openly dissenting worlds, but the true bases of its operation are in locations scattered throughout the galaxy, kept secret from the Empire at all costs. In the bustling corridors of these bases new recruits are trained, strategies are formulated, troops are mustered, and the wounded are healed. You may be charged with ensuring that a base remains secret from encroaching Imperial spies, with diffusing tensions among the Rebel leadership, or with organizing a high-risk mission on a nearby planet. No matter what your assignment, you’ll have to perform it in close confines and under the constant threat of sudden Imperial discovery.
Strongholds of Resistance introduces four Rebel bases and includes suggestions for integrating them into your campaigns, or even creating your own hidden outpost. Each base has its own focus: Polis Massa is a center of espionage, starfighter support, and medical research. The Defiant Core base, constructed out of a salvaged Star Destroyer from the Clone Wars, is dedicated to hindering Imperial forces and exposing their abuses. Tierfon is a smaller base focused on keeping its starfighters operational. Finally, in the frigid wastelands of Hoth lies the most important and expansive base of all– Echo Base, the current headquarters for the entire Rebellion.
Native Strengths and New Adaptations
Naturally, some members of the species native to Alliance worlds may be recruited into the Rebellion. Strongholds of Resistance therefore introduces playable species from Mon Cala, Polis Massa, and the Roche asteroid field: the proud and belligerent Quarren, the peaceful and telepathic Polis Massans, and the technophilic, communal Verpine. Each species offers a unique set of abilities and brings their own story of Imperial rule and open dissent to the Rebel Alliance.
The new species of Strongholds of Resistance: A Polis Massan, a Quarren, and a Verpine
Players and GMs will also find in this sourcebook a panoply of new gear and vehicles from repair droids to a cloaking-enabled starfighter. Some of the new gear is species-specific: Polis Massans, since they lack vocal chords, may want to purchase artificial ones. Verpine bond gauntlets mimic that species’ exoskeleton and help the wearer perform delicate tasks. Other gear is designed to help you navigate foreign planets. If your adventures take you to watery Mon Cala, you may want some organic gills so that you can breathe underwater, or you may find yourself traversing the bottom of the ocean in an Explorer submersible.
Defy the Empire
The war against the Empire has as many fronts as the galaxy has planets. You never know where your missions for the Rebel Alliance will take you, who you'll encounter, or what will be the location of your next home base. With the new settings, adversaries, character options, and gear introduced in Strongholds of Resistance, the possibilities are endless.
You can explore these realms of Rebel dissent in the second quarter of 2015. Until then, look for upcoming previews and current news on the Age of Rebellion website.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
SAN DIEGO - A long-planned but controversial religious tourism and conference center project in Mission Valley was approved Tuesday by the San Diego City Council.
The $131 million Legacy International Project, proposed by televangelist Morris Cerullo, was taken up by council members last month, but final decisions were delayed because of concerns over the potential for increased traffic in an already congested area.
Opposition was also expressed at both meetings by members of the local gay and lesbian community, who mainly kept their remarks to the traffic worries.
Councilman Scott Sherman said the council members were only allowed to consider the land-use question, not ancillary issues.
"What's important here is whether or not (the project) meets the guidelines the city sets forth," said Sherman, who represents Mission Valley. "I believe this does, and it answers every question that we've addressed for traffic mitigation has been taken care of."
Slated for the 18-acre site of the former Mission Valley Resort, the project encompasses five buildings, including a new 127-room hotel and restaurant. It will also have a replica of Jerusalem's Wailing Wall and a domed theater featuring biblical films.
Cerullo's organization plans to add one lane in each direction on Hotel Circle South. Under a permit condition, they plan to maintain a count of vehicles that enter the facility's driveway over the first three years.
On a 7-2 vote, the council approved the project's environmental impact report and development permit, along with amendments to zoning plans.
"It's a wonderful, wonderful vote to cause us to rejoice that San Diego finally can greet people with their desires that make San Diego a better city," Teresa Cerullo, wife of the televangelist, said following the voting.https://www.patreon.com/InRangeTV?ty=h
The P08 Luger has the distinction of being the world's first military adopted semi-automatic pistol.
It served through the maelstrom of WW1 and WW2 and became iconic; sought after as a war trophy and now considered highly collectible. As a result of this, the Luger has become not only recognized for its outline but also the seemingly endless lore and mythos that surround it.
One of these generally accepted beliefs is that the P08 Luger was ultimately replaced by the P38 due to its sensitivity and unreliability in the dirt, mud and filth of war. There really is no war that better encompasses the idea of mud and filth than the trenches of WW1 yet the Luger continued to be used post WW1 and up through WW2. Additionally these guns are generally 70+ years old, many of them worn and ill maintained from a functionality perspective which could corrupt modern perception as well.
Let's test this question: is this lore or reality? Let's find out.Gang members are pressuring girls as young as nine into group sex, causing them to believe it is normal behavior, an official Home Office report has revealed.
The report on urban gangs in 19 London boroughs and 14 local authorities, reveals young girls are having sex with up to five gang members, without realizing they are being sexually exploited.
Anti child exploitation campaigner suspended by Labour for sexting 17 yr old girl https://t.co/iCJHq7BMTbpic.twitter.com/3JwORpndoZ — RT UK (@RTUKnews) December 31, 2015
Gang members are forcing vulnerable girls to store their drugs, firearms and set up “honeytrap” attacks on rival gang members, according to the report, published Wednesday.
The report, compiled from evidence by police and other officials working to tackle gangs, also found the children are often persuaded to engage in such activities with the lure of “earning money or being given new trainers and tracksuits.”
Read more
It further warns of the “use of young, often vulnerable, people to transport drugs to other parts of the country.”
Ministers have warned that children aged 9 to 14 are “more involved” in gangs now than they were two years ago.
The report’s findings come as the Home Office revealed new plans for tackling gangs. Measures include protecting children in care homes and pupil referral units from being “targeted” by gang members.
In September, the Metropolitan Police said knife crime in London is up by at least 18 percent after years of falling.
“There is a general change in society, whether violence in the home or on the streets, violence is increasing in society. There is a cultural change,” Commander Dean Haydon, head of Scotland Yard’s homicide and major crime command, told The Guardian.
Drug dealing by gangs is “widespread,” with robbery and sex attacks being the most common criminal activities, the report added.
One campaigner involved in tackling London gangs said: “You get the guys talking of having group sex with vulnerable girls.
“Then you’ll have the girls talking about it as well but both will refer to it as though it was a normal thing. If you were to suggest it was rape or exploitation, they’d be horrified.”Required reading lists are the bane of any high-schooler's summer. Now, they're also a new frontier for politicizing teens in favor of right-wing politics.
An alleged list of required summer reading at an Alabama public school surfaced online Wednesday, compelling students to read at least one book from a list of works by conservative pundits like Ann Coulter, Michael Savage and Mark Levin, as well as a book about abortion by Ronald Reagan. The list was allegedly assigned by Gene Ponder, who teaches government, economics and AP-level political science courses at Spanish Fort High School in Alabama.
Among the assigned books are titles like Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions; It's OK to Leave the Plantation; Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America; The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Churches, Schools and Military; and Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto.
The list appeared online via journalist Eoin Higgins, who obtained it from out-of-state students who were passing it around.
Of the 31 books listed, only a small handful — Lies My Teacher Told Me and The Everything American Government Book, for example — were not explicitly written by right-wing media pundits.
Gene Ponder isn't just a public school teacher, but a former candidate for lieutenant governor of Alabama who lost the Republican primary. During his campaign, he cited the power of the federal government to enforce its laws on noncomplying states — the very means by which battles like school segregation and marriage equality were won — as his reason for running.
Ponder told AL.com that this kind of law enforcement is tantamount to "coercion, intimidation and blackmail."
In an email statement to Mic, Baldwin County Alabama Public Schools communications director Terry Wilhite wrote, "Mr. Ponder’s reading list that’s going around on social media has not been endorsed by the school or the school system."
"The list has been removed by the teacher," he added. "Baldwin County Public Schools has a process to vet and approve reading lists so that a variety of sources are used. I expect all employees to follow our processes, procedures and policies."
June 21, 2017, 7:45 p.m. Eastern: This story has been updated.Police in Hainan will be authorized to board and search ships that illegally enter the province's waters in 2013, the latest Chinese effort to protect the South China Sea.
Under a set of regulation revisions the Hainan People's Congress approved on Tuesday, provincial border police are authorized to board or seize foreign ships that illegally enter the province's waters and order them to change course or stop sailing.
The full texts of the regulations, which take effect on Jan 1, will soon be released to the public, said Huang Shunxiang, director of the congress's press office.
Activities such as entering the island province's waters without permission, damaging coastal defense facilities, and engaging in publicity that threatens national security are illegal.
If foreign ships or crew members violate regulations, Hainan police have the right to take over the ships or their communications systems, under the revised regulations.
Calling the revisions "significant", Zhuang Guotu, director of the Southeast Asian Center at Xiamen University, said: "It is urgent for China to improve its legal system regarding offshore law enforcement because disputes with other countries are on the rise in the South China Sea.
"Police have clear processes laid out in the new regulations for appraising illegal activities and punishing illegal entry," Zhuang said.
The revisions also emphasized border police should strengthen the patrolling of the waters of Sansha and coordinate with the routine patrols conducted by the country.
Sansha, the newest prefecture-level city, which was established in July, administers the islands and waters of the South China Sea. The city is under the jurisdiction of Hainan.
Bi Zhiqiang, director of the legislative affairs commission of the Hainan People's Congress, said the revised regulations will strengthen offshore patrols of the waters off Hainan, protecting national maritime interests.
An insider from China Marine Surveillance told China Daily that new ships will join the South China Sea patrol fleet soon.
On Nov 12, a 3,000-metric-ton inspection ship started patrolling the Yellow Sea, and on Nov 15, another one joined the patrol fleet in the East China Sea.
All these moves show that the country is preparing itself for dealing with complicated marine disputes, said Qi Jianguo, former Chinese ambassador to Vietnam.
Contact the writers at [email protected] and wangqian@
chinadaily.com.cn
Liu Xiaoli in Haikou contributed to this story.1. Jungkook, maknae - 97 line
2. V, second youngest - 95 line 2. V, second youngest - 95 line
3. Jimin, 3rd youngest - 95 line
4. Rapmon, 4th youngest - 94 line
5. J-Hope. 3rd oldest - 94 line
6. Suga, 2nd oldest - 93 line
7. Jin, oldest - 92 line
post response:
[+936][-105]
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 01:00 신고하기 How can V be handsome as a baby too?... 추천 372 반대 16
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 03:50 신고하기 The story about SM failing to cast Jin is pretty famous... 이미지확대보기 추천 329 반대 70
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 01:00 신고하기 I'm not their fan but what's with Rapmon and J-Hopeㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ ah cuteㅋㅋㅋㅋ 이미지확대보기 추천 301 반대 8
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 10:37 신고하기 Seriouslyㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋtheㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋsameㅋㅋㅋㅋ especially Park Jiminㅜㅜㅜㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 이미지확대보기 추천 137 반대 1
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 02:16 신고하기 J-Hope is the member in Bangtan that got accused of having plastic surgery.. but he has the same nose as his nuna 이미지확대보기 추천 125 반대 0
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 03:24 신고하기 Seriously he was cute ever since he was young ^♥^.. 이미지확대보기 추천 122 반대 1
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 01:10 신고하기 Armysㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ I'm not making fun of him but this is too cute ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ his proportions are only 3 heads (T/N: 7 heads = perfect proportions)ㄱㅋㅋㅋㅋㄱf*cking cute 이미지확대보기 추천 116 반대 0
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 10:43 신고하기 What the, suddenly I got a good vibe from themㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋcrazy cuteㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 추천 113 반대 0
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 02:11 신고하기 ㅋㅋㅋSeriously not a hint of plastic surgery 이미지확대보기 추천 113 반대 0
ㅇㅇ | 2016.06.26 12:25 신고하기 He was different since day 1.. 이미지확대보기 추천 103 반대 0
Rapmon and Jimin are just ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ and Jin turned out pretty hot :)We've known for a while that Boston Properties, the developer behind innumerable properties and projects, including those ginormous TD Garden towers, wanted to build a big complex above Back Bay Station, using air rights from the state gained in part by a commitment to sprucing up the transit hub. The developer just filed plans with the city that further clarify its proposal. Specifically, Boston Properties wants to construct a 1.4 million-square-foot complex of offices, residences and retail above the T stop and a neighboring parking garage it owns at 165 Dartmouth Street. As the Globe's Tim Logan notes, "any development of that size would mark the city's skyline alongside the John Hancock Tower, Prudential Center, and a new generation of towers that have been proposed but not yet built."
There's one thing we don't know, though, even with the fresh filing: the proposed complex's height. Might it rival recent arrivals such as the 60-story Millennium Tower in Downtown Crossing? Or soon-to-be spires such as the 61-story One Dalton, also in Back Bay? We'll see what happens. It's early days with this one, and building in Back is usually a tricky affair. Expect delays.
· New Complex Proposed Over Back Bay Station [Globe]
· Back Bay Station Redo Could Come w/ Skyscraper on Top [Curbed Boston]
· Ginormous Project Next to TD Garden Could Start This Year [Curbed Boston]
· One Dalton Developer Expects Most Buyers Will Be Local [Curbed Boston]
· Millennium Tower's Crane Now Boston's Tallest Structure Ever [Curbed Boston]
· Giant Copley Place Tower Almost There [Curbed Boston]WASHINGTON -- Toward the end of Ted Cruz's more than 20-hour occupation of the Senate floor Tuesday and Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) tried to pin the GOP senator down.
“Will the senator from Texas for the record tell us now -- and those who watched this debate -- whether he is protected and his family’s protected?” Durbin asked Wednesday morning, repeating a question he'd been trying to get Cruz to answer.
“I’m happy to tell you now I am eligible for it and I am not currently covered under it,” Cruz responded, diverting the conversation to an uninsured diabetic woman that Durbin had mentioned earlier.
Cruz and Durbin debated where the woman would fit in in a health care metaphor Durbin had concocted, with Durbin arguing that while Obamacare might not give her first-class coverage at its lowest level, at least she was on the plane. Cruz put forward that she was stuffed into the baggage compartment.
Daniel Webster vs. Henry Clay it was not, but it did leave the question of Cruz' health care coverage dangling.
"Senator, you and I are blessed to have the best health insurance in America as members of the United States Senate," Durbin said.
Durbin doesn't get out enough. Members of Congress are afforded top-notch, well subsidized health plans, but they're nothing compared with those provided to the people who make the real decisions in the U.S.
Top Wall Street executives get some of the best health coverage on the planet. Cruz's wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, is a regional head of a Goldman Sachs division.
According to a 2009 New York Times report, top executive officers and managing directors at the bank participate in a health care program that costs Goldman more than $40,000 in premiums for each particpant’s family annually.Mayor Chris Coleman today (May 23, 2016) released the following statement in response to the conclusion of the regular 2016 legislative session and today’s statement from Governor Mark Dayton. The Legislature adjourned last night after passing two key provisions needed to advance the city’s pursuit of a new soccer stadium, including: a license to sell liquor at the stadium and property tax exemption for the soccer stadium site, the majority of which has been tax exempt for decades.
“I respect the fact that Governor Dayton needs time to review the bills passed by the Legislature and to determine any next steps with regards to a possible special session. I am grateful for his continued support of property tax exemption for the soccer stadium site, which has been tax exempt for many decades.
“I also want to thank Representatives Rena Moran and Tim Sanders, Senator Sandy Pappas, the Saint Paul delegation and members of the House and Senate for their support of this important project. This is a catalytic opportunity for Saint Paul and a huge potential moment for our state.”
According to the Legislature, the city’s third soccer-related request – sales tax exemption on construction materials – is already allowed under Minnesota Statutes 2015 297A.71 subdivision 44, relating to building materials for capital projects of regional significance. While the city sought an up-front exemption at the Legislature this session, which is easier from an administrative perspective, the lack of action simply means that contractors can move forward and a refund will be granted on the back end. This refund in lieu of an up-front sales tax exemption is the same model used during the construction of CHS Field.
No bonding bill
The Legislature adjourned without passing a bonding bill. While there has been no decision regarding whether or not to hold a special session to address bonding needs, Mayor Coleman remains hopeful that should a special session be called, Saint Paul will make a strong case.
“Investments in the core aspects of our city are key to the work we are doing to make Saint Paul a vibrant place for all residents and visitors,” said Mayor Coleman. “Our Kellogg/3rd Street Bridge is critical infrastructure and an important connection point from the East metro to downtown Saint Paul. Similarly, our statewide assets like Como Zoo are in need of investments that will benefit everyone in the region.”Fairy tales of the past were often full of macabre and gruesome twists and endings. These days, companies like Disney have sanitized them for a modern audience that is clearly deemed unable to cope, and so we see happy |
the area around Samaritan house and surrounding blocks. Currently at least 75 people live outdoors in this area every night and a hundred more stay in this area during the day. People who have made the best home they can out of tarps, sleeping bags, and if they are lucky, tents, will be forced to leave. They have the added burden of confiscation of their survival gear which is taken to a far off location with some vague promise of retrieving it from the police, if they can jump through all the hoops. Even if this survival gear, their ID and valuable belongings are retrieved, the city says they cannot return to this area to camp.
Homeless people living in public space have no choice for survival but to use tarps, sleeping bags, tents and other materials for shelter. This currently violates the urban camping ban. The meager belongings that folks use for survival will be confiscated leaving them with nothing to use for their daily needs. This is a violation of their human rights. This, as the U.S. Justice Department has stated, is cruel and unusual punishment. We are demanding that Mayor Michael Hancock put an immediate stop to this sweep.
Denver city officials say, “no shelter has turned away any homeless person wanting to enter” and “there is room for all those currently staying outdoors to stay in the shelters. This is simply not true. The City lists just under 1,500 emergency shelter beds and mats. The 2015 Point In Time Count, known to be an undercount, counted 3,456 people experiencing homelessness in Denver city limits on one night. That is 9 people for every 4 shelter beds. Bottom line, if every homeless person sleeping on the streets of Denver tried to stay in the shelters tonight there would not be room. Thereby your urban camping ban violates the U.S Constitution.
Our request to stop the ban on urban camping has gone unheeded. No effort has been made to provide temporary “open-space” like Seattle has done. Your confiscation and destruction of the belongings and survival gear of the homeless is inhumane and criminal. We watched in dismay as your police removed people from their tents and shelters during a snow storm. We will not ever forget that image.
Therefore, consider yourself warned. You will immediately place a moratorium on enforcement of the camping ban. You will in good faith return the possessions confiscated to their owners. You will provide an open space to set up a temporary camp while a permanent solution is found.
We have had months to prepare our legion for the upcoming efforts in Denver. We would prefer to negotiate and work peacefully toward a solution. Your failure to work in good faith with local activists will bring the formidable power of Anonymous to bear on your city.
A very public spotlight is about to be shined on you Mayor Hancock and your sycophant, Councilman Brooks. The entire world will see what heartless people you are. Every member of the downtown partnership who supported the camping ban will also be doxed and their information posted for the world to see. We would prefer you worked with local activists on a solution. Our resolve is immeasurable. You will provide for the homeless one way or another. They are part of your community and deserve to be treated humanely. We trust you'll make a good decision.
We are Anonymous,
We are Legion
We do not Forgive
We do not Forget
United as One
Divided my None
Denver, you should expect us
Video 2 text:
To The Tattered Cover Bookstore,
It has come to our attention that you recently expressed issues with the community feed and boycott of your establishment. You expressed confusion and anger towards peaceful protesters feeding and distributing donations to homeless individuals. You stated "Quote" Why is the Tattered Cover being singled out?
Because we have refused to cave into their demand to take a public stand against the overnight camping ordinance,..."end quote". You are confused. We want you to relinquish your public stand SUPPORTING the camping ban through membership with the Downtown Denver Partnership.
As you are aware the camping ban makes it illegal for people without a home to be homeless. Sleeping is a part of living. It is an act that must occur at some time, in some place. You say "quote"The Tattered cover is a member of several organizations (for a variety of professional reasons, and, like many individuals may be in agreement or disagreements from time to time with their decisions or actions. Including the Downtown Denver Partnership and Aclu... why choose to to point out one membership and omit the other."end quote"
The first word that comes to mind is hypocritical, the second is selfishness. Hypocritical. If you believe in something or stand for something do you also stand for the polar opposite of your position. To in anyway support the Urban Camping Ban is immoral. By doing so you are oppressing the homeless individuals who are already struggling to survive in ways many can not begin to imagine.
In stead of doing nothing (which is much less than doing something to help these individuals, you "do something" or are a "part of something" that takes direct action against them. Selfishness. It seems to us you are simply playing both sides for your own benefit. No humanity for others simply your own benefits in mind unmoved by those who are impacted by your actions.
We will state it simply. These are our demands. Remove yourself from the Downtown Denver Partnership, or be a voice in the group that stimulates the movement for the Downtown Denver Partnership to no longer support the Urban Camping Ban. You stated "The Tattered Cover does not take a public position, pro or con, on matters of public policy unless those policies impact reading, readers rights, access to content or, on rare occasion are of internal importance to the book industry."
Would the Tattered Cover take a stand if people were being killed or attacked and left to die on your door step? Can you truly not see this is exactly the act that is happening and Tattered Cover decides to take no stand, no opposition for crimes against human rights? As long as this is how you respond to acts against humanity, we will be at your doorstep making others aware of how you feel about this community, and your lack of effort to defend it. Hope this helped answer your questions. See you next Friday. We will be watching closely. Operation Right To Rest has focused on Denver and you are rapidly approaching our sites. Ask the Partnership how their last week has been.
We are anonymous,
We are Legion,
We do not forgive,
We do not forget,
Tattered Cover. Expect UsThe Serbian is preparing to commence his ninth campaign as a Chelsea player and experience tells him how pivotal the first few games can be. He recalls the impact of our slow start this time last year and it is quickly apparent, as he sits down with the official Chelsea website at Cobham, that he and his teammates are determined for things to be different now.
‘For our confidence psychologically it’s very important to start the season well,’ he stresses.
‘If you can get points early you can then prepare with great spirit for the next game. The first couple of games are so important.
‘We started with big enthusiasm for the new season because we changed the manager. There were a lot of new things at the beginning of pre-season, we have worked very hard to adapt and I think we are improving every session.
‘There have been new things which we haven’t done a lot of before in previous years. With these small details and with these different training methods we can improve. A lot of things will change but I hope most of all altogether we can change the results from last season.
‘We are ready for the challenge and for the first game which will be very difficult.’
Ivanovic’s own pre-season was interrupted by injury, but the vice-captain says his dislocated shoulder has fully recovered and he is raring to go on Monday night.This is the story of the best piece of professional advice I ever got, and how it affected my career. I think it’s good advice, and I’ve never stopped thinking about it, so I thought it was time to share.
The Advice
It was 1996 and I was just starting work at my first job outside college. The company: Microsoft. The product: Windows 2000. The team was Base Test, and my boss was a guy named Terry Lahman, a lean mustachioed Dad-type who really cared about the product and his employees. I was nervous and green and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Eager to please, I did everything Terry ever asked of me, as best as a new college grad could.
One day he came into my office, and this is what he said:
Eric, every now and then I’m going to come into your office and ask you, “What are you working on that I don’t know about?” You should always have something to tell me.
I remember being surprised, which is probably why it stuck. I thought he’d be upset if he found out I was “wasting” time on outside projects. But here he was, telling me to do just that.
The Results
After that, I started taking on little side projects. I learned fast. A dislike of Perl and a love of C++ led me to write a C++ regular expression engine called GRETA. It had little to do with my job, but that’s OK. Terry always took a keen interest in my projects, and they never interfered with my work. My passion for code grew.
As luck would have it, my little regex engine became popular within Microsoft, and several groups started using it. Around that time, the C++ world was abuzz with talk about TR1, a set of planned extensions to the standard library. They were looking for C++ regex engines, so I got involved in the C++ standardization effort (an involvement that continues to this day).
Through my interactions with the standardization committee, I met a lot of talented and smart people. I also came to hear about Boost, a collection of open source C++ libraries. Eventually, my path crossed that of Dave Abrahams, a co-founder of Boost, and he and I became friends. When I finally decided to leave Microsoft, Dave took me on as a sub-contractor at BoostPro Computing.
During this time, my involvement in Boost grew. No matter what I had going on work-wise, I always had side-projects, as if Terry might walk into my office at any time. I wrote a new regex engine called Boost.Xpressive. As part of that work, I wrote a library called Boost.Proto for building embedded domain-specific languages. People started using my code and wanting my help on their projects.
Now I work for myself. Clients find me through my open source contributions, which I always make time for. I have never forgotten that day Terry encouraged me in just the right way.
Be Passionate
To me, Terry’s advice is about initiative and passion. Don’t wait for someone to tell you what to do. Just do it. Experiment. Play. You’ll find your passion, and you’ll surprise and delight your boss, your clients, and yourself.In the bad bitch tradition of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor, Hollywood has finally found its next great action heroine in the distant, hopeless future.
She is Imperator Furiosa—the one-armed, one-woman army of Mad Max: Fury Road.
We meet her in George Miller’s face-meltingly epic action sequel as Mad Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) does: With her head shaved and her brow inked in the grease-smeared war paint of the Wasteland, Charlize Theron’s tightly-coiled Furiosa has masked herself in androgyny in order to command a squad of War Boys at the wheel of a nitrous-fueled War Rig.
Under the rule of the brutal Immortan Joe, women and children are commodities exploited solely to extend the desperate existence of a dying patriarchy. The only path to survival lies in serving in an elite army of speed-racing warriors who troll the dusty wilderness shoring up the warlord’s resources and protecting his riches at any cost.
What we know of Furiosa, we learn after the fact, and offscreen: Kidnapped as a child and rendered motherless, she was discovered to be barren and therefore of no use in Immortan’s stable of fertile breeders.
“They almost forget she’s a woman, so there is no threat,” Theron explained to EW.
And so, long before we meet her in Fury Road, she’s turned off her femininity in order to scrape her way up the ranks to Imperator status, waiting for her shot at finding a way home.
But like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor before her, Furiosa is a rare creature in the annals of cinematic badassery—a character whose heroism and womanhood are intertwined, each part fueling the other.
By the time Furiosa first locks eyes across a speeding battleground with the feral Max, chained and bound to a War Boy’s turbocharged buggy like a human hood ornament, she has already reclaimed her identity as a woman and a warrior. Driven by compassion and vengeance, she has chosen to risk it all to liberate the Five Wives—the personification of soft, fertile femaleness—and stick it to the Man.
If Max is the tortured antihero who must learn to rejoin humanity as he journeys along the Fury Road, Furiosa is the resolute leader who’s already chosen her path to redemption. She just needs a little help to stay the course as she loses faith, and a lot of blood, along the way.
Director George Miller became so enamored of the Furiosa character that he scripted an entire stand-alone film dedicated to her story. In Fury Road, he deliberately plants her further along in her own hero’s journey than the character the movie is named for.
“We see [Max’s] evolution into a nobler, more reliable man,” Miller has said of the dual heroes of Fury Road. “We see what his better self could be. It’s where Furiosa already is. She’s fierce in her determination. Her heart gets pretty close to being crushed on this journey they take, but together, they find some way to stand against the chaos of the world and find some sort of redemption.”
Other iconic characters have achieved the combination of unrelenting ferocity and soul-baring humanity that Theron does in Fury Road. Many are trained killers pushed to the brink, like Uma Thurman’s The Bride, arguably the best assassin of any gender in film history—and one of the fiercest mothers.
The best of these screen warrioresses are often forged from humble beginnings in some heightened dystopia or another, like Carrie-Anne Moss’s Matrix-bending Trinity or Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen, the survivalist princess of District 12. Only the rare action heroine can exist and excel in the real world, like Noomi Rapace’s cyberpunk misfit Lisbeth Salander.
And of course, in the past year alone Scarlett Johansson has breathed life into two lethal action heroines—first as the synthetically enhanced ass-kicker of Lucy, and then as the superhero Black Widow, enjoying her most significant screen appearance to date in the Avengers franchise in last month’s Age of Ultron.
But even the Avengers’ acrobatic resident femme fatale got a controversial amount of short shrift in her biggest storyline. (She doesn’t even get to ride her own motorbike in the merchandising, let alone play with the boys on toy shelves?!)
Which is why, with the indignities of Black Widow fresh in mind—and in a studio landscape that doesn’t know what to do with their female superheroes, or when to do it—Theron’s Furiosa stands even taller as the best female action hero in ages.
She’s Joan of Arc with a mechanical arm, commanding and powerful and on a mission to redeem herself and all of humanity. Even Mad Max knows he’s met his match in Furiosa, and then some; their first meeting turns into an evenly matched mano a mano brawl, two distrustful animals trading brutal blows. Just imagine how things might’ve gone differently if she had two arms.
Later, in one of Miller’s more quietly brilliant moments, Max finds himself with only one bullet left in his rifle and a war party fast approaching. He defers wordlessly to Furiosa, the deadliest shot in the Wasteland, who rests the barrel on his shoulder and fires expertly into the darkness.
For the highest indication that Furiosa’s fulfilling a greater cultural need, look no further than the fact that she’s become Public Enemy No. 1 to the Men’s Rights Activists who’ve become so alarmed by Mad Max: Fury Road’s Eve Ensler-approved feminist themes that some have called for a boycott of the film.
Oh, the irony: The best action movie in years (with what might be a historic Tomatometer rating for a studio-released blockbuster) is too progressive for misogynists.
All the more Mad Max—and Furiosa—for the rest of us.Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
As Tesla prepares to ramp up production for the Model 3, some factory workers are using the occasion to put pressure on management to meet the demands of a union effort.
Tesla made company history in July when it delivered the first 30 Model 3 sedans, marking the start of production for its first mass-market vehicle.
But the real production frenzy won't start until the fall, when Tesla will begin ramping up Model 3 production from 1,500 sedans a month in September to 20,000 Model 3 cars a month in December.
Two of the Fremont, California, factory workers calling for a union told Business Insider there could be two potential issues with Model 3 production.
One is that Tesla skipped a standard trial of the new equipment for Model 3's assembly line. Unseen issues with new equipment could cause on-site injuries, the pro-union workers say, which has been an issue for Tesla in the past.
The second possible issue is, even if the assembly line runs smoothly, Tesla is still contending with its biggest order to date. Two workers Business Insider spoke with said they worry Tesla will employ excessive mandatory overtime to meet the deadline, which also contributed to above-average workplace injuries at the Fremont plant.
Tesla has made some changes to improve factory conditions since the unionization effort started in February, the workers said, but they added that more changes were likely necessary to ensure that production runs without significant delays and doesn't ultimately hurt factory workers.
Musk himself acknowledged at the company's handover event in July that the company faced at least six months of "production hell." But Musk has also stressed repeatedly that the manufacturing process for the Model 3 would be much simpler than the process for previous vehicles.
"We've gone to great pains with the Model 3 to design it for manufacturing and to not have all sorts of bells and whistles and special features," Musk said in May during a first-quarter earnings call. "We've designed it to be easy to make."
A risky strategy
Tesla's Fremont factory will handle production for the Model 3, Model S, and Model X for the first time this month. Tesla For the unionization effort, the Model 3 launch is an ideal opportunity to turn up the pressure on Tesla. The company has nearly a year's worth of orders to fill, and investors' expectations for a successful ramp up are high.
Two members of Tesla's production team who are part of the unionization effort said the Fremont plant may not be ready to handle the fast-paced production Tesla needs to fill the roughly 455,000 preorders it secured for the Model 3.
Tesla shut down its Fremont factory for a week in February to install brand-new equipment for the Model 3 assembly line.
But Tesla may have employed a risky strategy by skipping the production prototyping stage of the new equipment.
The prototyping stage is when automakers test less-expensive versions of equipment that will be used to launch a vehicle line. This phase is referred to as "soft tooling" and allows automakers to work out issues with the disposable equipment that could hurt the cars' overall quality before production kicks into high gear.
It would also give workers a chance to provide feedback on ways the equipment could be improved. Once the issues from soft tooling are addressed, automakers usually order the final set of equipment to proceed with mass production.
Tesla skipped the soft-tooling phase and instead used computer simulations to design and order the final production tools.
The Tesla workers Business Insider spoke with said they fear it will be difficult to work out growing pains with the new equipment while contending with a rapid production ramp up based on past experiences.
"I have my doubts with that because, just like anything new, there are always going to be adjustments that need to be made and you can't guarantee a flawless, injury-free line right off the launch," Michael Catura, a Tesla battery production associate, said in an interview. "You're going to have to deal with all the bugs, all the kinks."
The Tesla Model 3 has a very minimalist interior. Tesla
Catura said he has worked at Tesla's Fremont plant for three years. He is part of the union effort supported by the United Automobile Workers.
When asked about these concerns, a Tesla spokesperson referred to a May blog post that said an ergonomics team worked with engineers and used the computer simulations to design the equipment and ensure it wouldn't cause unnecessary strain for factory workers.
Jonathan Galescu, a pro-union production technician at Tesla, said he is skeptical that approach is enough to ensure workers won't get injured on the job.
"You've got engineers sitting in an office who have never broken a sweat sitting there on a computer, designing something that they can't relate with," he said.
"When we try to get it changed they've already spent thousands and thousands of dollars on that one piece of equipment, they don't want to change it for us," Galescu added.
Galescu has worked at Tesla for three years and said he currently helps with Model X production.
Injury rates at Tesla's Fremont factory were higher than the industry average in 2014 and 2015, according to a May report by Worksafe, a California worker-advocacy group.
Tesla has not disputed that its incident rate was above the industry average between 2013 and 2016, but the company has said injury rates have fallen between the first quarter of 2016 and first quarter of 2017 since making ergonomic changes to its Model S and Model X assembly lines.
Musk revealing the final specs for the Model 3 at a handover party at the company's Fremont factory. Screenshot/Tesla
Galescu added that problems with new equipment could make production less efficient.
The soft-tooling process can take between five months and eight months, said Michelle Hill, a vice president in the automotive and manufacturing industries division of Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm. Skipping the process allows Tesla to cut costs and begin manufacturing earlier, she said in an interview.
Major automakers are starting to rely on computer simulation to cut down time spent on soft tooling, but it's atypical to forego the tests completely, Hill said. Audi is experimenting with the concept at its plant in Mexico.
It's unlikely Tesla will avoid production issues after skipping the soft-tooling phase because it's difficult to predict every scenario with computer simulations, Hill said.
"You have to for sure know there will be a number of different engineering changes as they go through that production process," she said. "They may run into problems and it will delay reaching the ramp up curve that they are expecting of 5,000 or 10,000 units a week by December."
Still, Tesla took the soft-tooling approach for past vehicle launches and suffered through setbacks. An unnamed source told Reuters that the approach caused a host of complications for the Model X, which was delayed three years and went through a voluntary recall.
It was also around that time when injury rates at Fremont were at their highest.
When asked about the workers' Model 3 production concerns, a Tesla spokesperson referred us to the company's ergonomic efforts and previous statements about the vehicle's simple design.
The sedan doesn't have complex features like self-presenting door handles or falcon wing doors, which made prior production launches difficult, Musk has said.
"The Model 3 is designed with - it's really designed for manufacturing. It is conservatively a simpler car than the S or the X," Musk said during last year's fourth-quarter earnings call.
During that same call, Jon McNeill, president of Tesla's global sales and services, said that the company learned a lot of lessons from the Model S and Model X and that it used those lessons to improve its production strategy for the Model 3.
"We fought through it and succeeded, but I think in the design the Model 3 and the systems and the lines that produce it, many of those learning have been incorporated from the beginning," McNeill said.
'Cracking a whip'
Tesla factory in Fremont. Jim Tanner/Reuters
Even if the assembly line runs without a hitch, the two Fremont workers Business Insider spoke with said they were concerned work conditions would worsen as Tesla struggles to ramp up production to meet the high demand for the Model 3.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been open about the company's production challenges. In July, Musk said the Fremont factory would enter six months of "production hell" for the Model 3.
Musk has used the "production hell" terminology before to describe building the Model S and Model X.
"Back then, it literally was like they're cracking a whip on you," Catura said of Model X production. "They put [the assembly line] on so fast, like, 'OK, go — mush, mush, hurry up.'"
Jose Moran, a production associate at Tesla's Fremont factory, kicked off the union effort in February with a Medium post detailing difficult work conditions at the flagship plant. Moran said Fremont employees experienced work-related injuries regularly because of poor equipment and excessive mandatory overtime.
The Guardian published a bombshell report in May detailing how long hours and intense pressure have created grueling work conditions where people pass out in the middle of the factory.
Complicated features like falcon wing doors caused production issues for the Model X. Tesla
"The pressure to build is going to be very, very high," Galescu said. "I just hope they keep it at a reasonable speed for us and [aren't] unreasonable with some of the things we have experienced in the past."
In the May blog post, Tesla acknowledged employees have worked significant overtime for past production ramp-ups, but the company has since reduced the average amount of time that team members work by adding a third shift.
Both Catura and Galescu said the average shift time has been eight hours since Tesla employed a third shift, but they said that the change is unlikely to last for long.
Workers have already received schedules with extra shifts carved out on weekends in preparation for Model 3 production, Catura said, adding that there was speculation among workers that 10-hour shifts will return.
The high-stress environment isn't only bad for the workers involved. Similar scenarios with the Model S and Model X ultimately resulted in vehicle delays and defects.
"It's kind of a double standard because when you're doing the process and you get a defect from working fast, you get in trouble for that," Catura said. "And then you also get in trouble because you're not working fast enough."
The Model 3 could face similar delays as the Model S because Tesla is trying to rapidly ramp up production for a completely new car model with an entirely new set of tools, a former Tesla employee who oversaw the launch of the Model S said in an interview.
The lack of additional assembly lines for the Model 3 could become a problem when Tesla achieves high-volume production, the source said.
"Right now, we have a specific quota that we need, and at times we struggle to get that quota," Catura said. "So imagining we have Model 3s in combination with that in production, we're going to need a second or third line to compensate."
The Model 3 line is more automated than it was for the Model S and Model X, Tesla CTO JB Straubel said during the company's first-quarter earnings call.
Automation and a more simplistic Model 3 design should help Tesla meet its lofty production targets, a Tesla spokesperson said.
Putting pressure on Tesla's board
The Model 3 is Tesla's first mass-market vehicle. Timothy Artman/Tesla
Fremont workers calling for a union said they are placing added pressure on Tesla to meet their demands to ensure Model 3 production goes smoothly, an effort that could help minimize on-site injuries.
The Tesla Workers' Organizing Committee, which is leading the unionization effort, wrote a letter to Tesla's board in July listing their demands.
The letter asks Tesla to inform employees of the risks associated with working at the factory, make safety audits readily available, allow workers to make decisions about equipment, and to allow Fremont workers to have a voice in the company's safety plan.
"We have raised these issues repeatedly, but they remain unresolved," the letter says. "Your guidance navigating them would be invaluable as we work to become the most profitable and productive auto company in the US."
The Fremont plant was originally a union shop when it was jointly owned by General Motors and Toyota, but the facility has operated without union representation since it was turned over to Tesla in 2010.
It's not entirely surprising then to see a unionization effort crop up as Tesla transitions from a Silicon Valley startup to a mass-market automaker. Galescu and Catura declined to say how many people are part of the effort, making it difficult to assess how many employees are on board with the plan.
Nissan workers at a plant in Canton, Mississippi recently voted against a unionization effort that had been supported by the UAW.
Tesla has been receptive when it comes to some issues since the union effort started in February, the workers said.
In addition to forming an ergonomics team and adding a third shift, Catura said management has been more responsive when he and others have reported injuries.
"Since the unionization effort occurred, I've been getting a lot more proper communication from management," he said. "If we have an issue and bring it up, they'll try to help us."
The first 30 Model 3 sedans at Tesla's Friday handover party. Screenshot/Tesla
Although Tesla has made changes since injury accounts surfaced, some workers take issue with Musk's public attitude toward the claims.
Musk originally called injury allegations at the Fremont plant "disingenuous or outright false" but has since told employees to report injuries directly to him.
In the May blog post, Tesla called reports on Fremont safety issues a "misleading narrative based on anecdotes, not facts."
"It shouldn't be like this," Galescu said. "It shouldn't have to be a public thing of, 'Look, we're working ourselves half to death, and when we do report our injuries, we get sh-- upon.'"
One thing Tesla Workers' Organizing Committee and Musk agree on: Model 3 production will be a major challenge.Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa addresses a crowd in Juan Benigno Vela, Tungurahua, Ecuador, March 26. (Photo: Mauricio Munoz / Presidency of the Republic)
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In June, Josh Hoxie published a piece in Foreign Policy in Focus highlighting Ecuador’s adoption of an especially progressive version of the estate tax. In the article, he advised that Americans “pay closer attention to this small South American nation” and that the United States consider similar redistributive policies. Hoxie is not the first writer to highlight Ecuador as a model of 21st century socialism. In 2012, a Guardian piece by Jayati Ghosh called Ecuador “the most radical and exciting place on Earth” and suggested that “the rest of the world has much to learn” from its example.
With Ecuador having emerged as a poster child for political and economic leftism, readers may be surprised to learn that it only recently shifted away from a long-standing policy approach consistent with the neoliberal Washington Consensus. This shift coincided with the first election of President Rafael Correa in 2006, leading many analysts, including Ghosh, to credit Correa with Ecuador’s shift to the left. While Correa certainly deserves credit for policies implemented by his administration, the role that changes in the international political economy have played in facilitating Ecuador’s shift should not be overlooked.
For example, new economic partners have emerged for Ecuador, with Venezuela and China being particularly important. As I have documented in an academic article for Latin American Perspectives, trade, investment and credit lines from these countries have provided Ecuador with new revenue for social spending and with new leverage to rebuff Western creditors, multinational corporations and the Washington political establishment.
Before exploring these processes in greater depth, it is important to put Correa’s reformism into proper context. It must first be noted that Correa is hardly the first Ecuadorian president to have campaigned on a leftist platform. For example, 1996 presidential candidate Abdalá Bucaram promised voters that he would protect local industries, extend social security benefits and increase salaries of government employees. Lucio Gutiérrez similarly baited voters with populist promises during his successful 2002 presidential campaign.
However, both Bucaram and Gutiérrez quickly adopted policy paradigms in line with neoliberal orthodoxy upon taking office. This bait-and-switch was typical of Latin American heads of state during the Washington Consensus era: Neoliberal reforms were quite unpopular with the electorate, so campaigning against them was often a prerequisite to election. However, indebtedness to Western creditors, compounded by political pressure from Washington, left them with little choice but to create investment-friendly policies and to emphasize debt servicing over social service provision.
Ecuador was typical in this regard. Since the 1980s, the country had received dozens of loans from Washington-based international financial institutions – loans that included structural adjustment conditions, such as trade and financial liberalization, spending cuts and privatization of state-owned industries. Moreover, Ecuador relied on the United States for most of its foreign direct investment and depended on US-based importers to buy the bulk of its exports over this period. Indebtedness and economic dependency left Ecuador with little choice but to implement Washington Consensus-type domestic policies.
That Rafael Correa’s presidential campaign in 2006 promised a shift away from the Washington Consensus should have surprised no one familiar with bait-and-switch politics in Latin America. The surprise was that he, unlike Bucaram and Gutiérrez, actually followed through on these promises. Much to the chagrin of Washington, the Correa administration has raised taxes, increased social service provision, brought regulatory reforms to the public and private sector and written off much of the country’s external debt.
The question is, then, why has Correa been successful in following through on populist promises, while so many of his predecessors reneged on similar pledges? Correa’s supporters contend that he is unique among Ecuador’s presidents in terms of having the courage of his convictions. However, conviction alone is not likely to overcome the pressures of international capital. A more plausible explanation highlights the emergence of new economic partners, which effectively reduced Ecuador’s dependence on the United States, thereby allowing the country to implement policies that ran counter to the desires of Washington.
In particular, new trade, investment and credit lines from China and Venezuela have been key. Since 2011, China has provided Ecuador with billions of dollars in investments and loans, while overtaking the United States as the largest buyer of Ecuador’s oil, its key export product. Additional loans and investments have flowed in from Venezuela, which has also assisted Ecuador in efforts to improve its refining capacity. Through these new partnerships, Ecuador has diversified its credit sources and reduced its trade dependence on the United States, thereby leveraging its position in negotiations with Western creditors and reducing Washington’s political influence.
Ecuador’s newfound leverage with creditors and its political independence are evident in the Correa administration’s policies. The country has rejected the Washington Consensus by raising taxes and increasing social service provision, and negotiated debt settlements with Western creditors on highly favorable terms. It has also demonstrated its political independence from Washington through non-economic policies, such as ending the US government’s lease on a Malta air base and granting diplomatic asylum to Julian Assange.
Questions do remain about the sustainability of Ecuador’s new policy approach. The country is still highly dependent on oil exports, leaving it susceptible to the effects of oil price volatility in the short run and depletion in the long run. Likewise, Correa’s Ecuador is still highly reliant on foreign creditors. Indebtedness to China and Venezuela may compromise the country’s political independence just as indebtedness to US-based lenders did during the Washington Consensus era. This is compounded by the likelihood that Ecuador’s defiant approach to debt settlement has alienated Western lenders.
The key challenge for Ecuador going forward must be to find a sustainable and independent path to development. Doing so will require the country to diversify its domestic economy away from the extractive industries upon which it depends. Despite the Correa administration’s apparent progressivism, it has not made sufficient efforts in this direction. Nor has its newfound partnership with China aided in this respect, as most of China’s investments and loans have been directed toward Ecuador’s oil sector.
Ecuador is indeed an exciting country to watch, as its dynamic president navigates new ground in the midst of a changing international political economy. Going forward, if the Correa administration makes the right efforts and produces a sustainable and independent path toward development, Ecuador can indeed be the model for post-neoliberal success.The attacker mowed down several pedestrians as he drove a grey Hyundai i40 across Westminster Bridge before crashing it into railings then running through the gates of the Palace of Westminster and stabbing the officer.
At least 20 people were injured when the car mowed them down on a central London bridge.
The knifeman was shot by police in the shadow of Big Ben, as he had tried to force his way into a courtyard just outside the Houses of Parliament.
Conservative parliamentarian Tobias Ellwood, whose brother was killed in the Bali terror attack in 2002, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the police officer who was stabbed and later died. About 10 metres away from the police officer was the attacker who was shot dead by police after scaling the security wall toward the Parliament's grounds.
Ellwood, who served in the British military and served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Kuwait and Cyprus, applied pressure to the police officer's multiple lacerations.
Photographs showed Ellwood's bloodied hands and face from the police officer's wounds while the alleged attacker was seen nearby.
It is believed there is only one assailant, but a thorough search of the area is underway.
London mayor, Sadiq Khan, says he's grateful the police and emergency services could show "tremendous bravery in exceptionally difficult circumstances," and additional officers will be on patrol tonight to ensure the safety of Londoners.Accusing President Donald Trump of representing "the worst aspects of U.S. imperialism," hundreds of Filipinos protested in Manila on Friday ahead of his visit.
Protesters carried signs emblazoned with #BanTrump and chanting, "Trump, not welcome!" and "Fight U.S. imperialist war!"
The U.S. currently has 180 military bases in the Philippines, and the coalition of |
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