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one else got sick either.
Don’t get me wrong: the country is full of wonderful corn-based snacks, soups that are made from scratch without pesky bouillon cubes, and a wondrous amount of tacos. My point in sharing those “whoopsie” stories is only to make clear that what seems safe in Mexico may not be safe for a celiac. As a result, my gluten free translation card is clear to mention bread, egg bread, and the sauces that may be added and contain wheat.
This guide will help you navigate the dishes you will find, as well as offer alternatives when you are eating out. Snack time is the best time for a celiac, as many tamales, corn tacos, and elotes (corn with cheese, mayo, chili, and lime) are often safe and absolutely delicious. As with any of the other gluten free guides, the goal is both to empower you to eat safely by listing out local names of food, and give you the tool of a celiac restaurant card specific to Mexico to help you do so with even less anxiety.
Happy and safe travels!
-Jodi
Already know you want a gluten free translation card? You can buy my Mexico card here. If you’re heading elsewhere in Latin America, opt for the Mexico card and not the Spanish or Catalan ones, as products used in Latin America will be reflected more accurately on the Mexico gluten free translation.
Gluten Free Mexico: Table of Contents
Gluten Free Restaurant Card in Spanish (Tailored for Mexico)
What is Safe to Eat and Gluten Free in Mexico?
All-Inclusive Options and Gluten Free Restaurants for Celiacs in Mexico
What is Unsafe for a Celiac in Mexico?
Further Reading about Mexico
Tailored Gluten-Free Restaurant Card for Mexico
For starters, this detailed gluten free restaurant card will help communicate your eating restrictions, and allow you to understand what is safe and unsafe from the menu. The card was created with celiac-specific research, mention of cross contamination, and a double checked translation from locals who speak the language. The food names and dishes within the card are also double checked for accuracy with different regions in Mexico.
Note: The card is available for purchase via Gumroad, a trustworthy 3rd party site that uses https, so you know your information is safe. I am not gathering emails or information for anyone who buys the card.
Why is this gluten free card to Mexico different?
I have used several different translation cards on my travels, and I still got sick. I may be more sensitive than some celiacs, but even a small amount of contaminated oil for frying, or wheat-thickened sauce in the food, is enough to make me ill for days. Let alone the joint pain later that week, and the inflammation.
This card is different because:
It uses all of the local food names for what to eat or avoid;
food names for what to eat or avoid; Makes clear mention of the cross contamination concerns;
Is researched by celiacs;
Is translated by a native speaker who is familiar with the disease and local food, then double-checked with a second translator. In the case of Mexico, the second translator is also Mexican and a celiac;
Sized specifically for mobile, so that you can save to your phone and have it with you as you travel.
This card is also different from my Spanish gluten free restaurant card, as it uses names of ingredients commonly found in Mexico.
An English version of the card – so you know what you’re buying! – is available on the purchase page. A big thanks to Estela Torres Cota for her help on this one!
Gluten-Free Dishes and Snacks in Mexico
The following dishes are commonly wheat-free in Mexico, as confirmed by translators. This is not an exhaustive list — but the post is over 5000 words already, and I can’t include everything. I wanted to be sure some of the more common dishes were represented so you could recognize them on the menu.
As with any destination, at home or abroad, it’s important to confirm on a case-by-case basis that no flour, bread (for mole sauces, pan or pan de yema can be used), or Maggi/Knorr condiments were used in the dishes.
Dishes that are likely to be safe for celiacs in Mexico, with some additional communication.
Tacos – pure corn tortillas only: There are a few specific types of tacos in the “unsafe” section below, but freshly pressed or pre-made corn tortillas are often available at taquierias, even if they also use full flour. It is important to communicate that you need 100% masa / maiz as some places will press both wheat and corn together. The toppings you can get here are infinate! From tacos al pastor (slow roasted corn on a vertical spit, often topped with pineapple slices), to maciza de res, maciza de puerco, tacos de cabeza, tacos surtidos, tacos de lengua, tacos de carnitas and SO MUCH MORE. Please be sure to show them your card, or to ask that there is no seasoning like salsa Inglesa, Maggi sauce or Knorr in the taco meat – these have wheat. Pastor, for example, is usually marinated in spices and chilies, without these sauces. But some tacos are cooked on the grill with these extra condiments added in, and can be made without. If the taco options are a bit overwhelming, you might benefit from Tacopedia, a great overview of Mexican eats.
Quesadillas made with corn flour: In Central Mexico and Oaxaca, quesadillas are made from freshly pressed corn, much like memelas (below). Elsewhere, these are made from flour, including when found in the United States and Canada. Quesadilla fillings include quesillo cheese, mushrooms with peppers, chicken tinga (shredded chicken with onions, tomatoes, and chilies), and flor de calabaza squash blossoms that partner customarily with cheese.
Empanadas made from corn flour: as with quesadillas, Central/Southern empanadas are not the kind we are used to in North America, where they are either Argentine (small, crescent shaped wheat pockets) or Tex-Mex (flour tortillas). Elsewhere in Mexico, you must confirm what flour is used.
Arroz: Rice, a staple in menu of the day meals and many main courses, is readily available — often when off menu. I’ve had great success asking for rice when the side dish is something like soup with pasta in it, or pasta on the side. Be sure that it was not cooked in bouillon cube-enhanced water, which can occasionally be the case when you are getting it as a side to seafood.
Memelas: A memela is a Oaxacan specialty, a round corn snack with curled edges that is toasted on a comal (a clay or metal flat surface that is powered by fire or natural gas). Memelas are almost always freshly pressed from wet masa (corn flour) and made to order. Confirm that the flour is pure corn, but I have yet to encounter a Oaxacan stall that adds wheat flour to the mix. These are usually topped with pork lard (asiento), then beans, then cheese – either queso fresco or quesillo.
Tlayudas: Also from Oaxaca, these “pizzas” are actually made from large, crispy corn tortillas and are either served open faced (see below) or more frequently, folded in half and grilled over a fire until even crispier. They’re usually topped with pork lard, beans, avocado, shredded lettuce, and quesillo cheese — then topped with a meat of your choice. Tasajo (Oaxacan-style air cured beef, thinly sliced) is my fave, but you can choose others from chicken to pork to other beef cuts like arrachera. These are almost always gluten free, they’re filling, and delicious. Highly recommended! If eating outside Oaxaca, do confirm tortilla is fully made of corn.
Tamales: Ah, my beloved tamale. The word tamal derives from the Nahuatl tamalli, which means steamed cornmeal dough. Nahuatl, the language of Aztecs, was spoken as early as the 7th century, but tamales existed long before then in Mesoamerica. Historians believe that the tamal may have originated as early as 8000 BC to 5000 BC. It was (and remains) a perfect foodstuff to prepare in large quantities, easy to pack up for travel, and had the added bonus of helping small quantities of meat or fruit last longer, and feed a larger number of people. The Maya even had a hieroglyph for the tamal, which highlights just how important it was for pre-Hispanic civilizations. I digress!
avoid most moles. Mole negro, mole rojo, mole coloradito and sometimes mole amarillo are all often made with breadcrumbs. (See For gluten free tamale options it is important to. Mole negro, mole rojo, mole coloradito and sometimes mole amarillo are all often made with breadcrumbs. (See this post for more.)
Safe fillings: rajas (chicken with spicy peppers), elote (corn), cambray (chicken with olives), flor de calabaza / quesillo (squash blossom and cheese), dulce (sweet tamale, usually red on the outside and made with pineapple and sweet condensed milk inside), chepil (a delicious herb), and more. Mole verde with chicken has always been gluten free when I’ve asked. Given the variety of tamales throughout Mexico, the important part is making sure there is no pan or pan de yema in the filling.
Carne Asada: Grilled meat, often served in a menu of the day or a-la-carte dinner menu, with side of rice and beans. Be sure to check spicing to make sure no hidden gluten. These are rarely marinated in a wet marinade (but can be spiced, as with cecina enchilada below), but can sometimes include the dreaded Maggi for seasoning!
Cecina / cecina enchilada: Not to be confused with enchiladas, cecina enchilada consists of boneless pork that is coated in chilies and then cooked. The dry spice blend often involves several types of chili, bay leaves, garlic, oregano and more. The cecina itself refers to a thinly sliced, salted, partly dried sheet of meat – it can be beef or pork. The meat is cut finely (it’s impressive to see!), then folded into an accordion of meat. This cut / type of meat is found on top of dishes like tlayudas, but is also available as a carne asada — so I gave it a separate bullet point.
Chorizo (Mexican sausage): As with many Portuguese sausages, bread or flour fillers in chorizo seems to be the exception and not the rule. Chorizo is usually a deep red colour, as the meat is — of course! — spiced with chilies before it is stuffed. There are other options, such as a green chorizo, seasoned with green chilies and cilantro (spoiler, it’s awesome). Unlike Spanish chorizo, it is sold raw — the Spanish version is often dried and cured sausage in a casing. You’ll find this meat option in tacos, tlayudas, carne asada and much more. It’s fab.
Consommé: This dish is a lamb or goat soup, but not the thin broths you’re thinking of. In Mexico, the soup is actually deeply rich, as it’s the liquid that the barbacoa goat or lamb is cooked in. Flavoured with avocado leaves, garlic, and spices, it comes in smaller sized bowls because it packs a huge punch. Given how it’s made, there has yet to be a place that adds flour or any thickeners. If you’re at a restaurant (instead of a barbacoa stall) it is always worth asking.
Garnachas/Huaraches: These are mini disks of corn that are deep fried, and then topped with meat, onions, crumbled cheese, and pickled vegetables. I have no idea why these haven’t taken North America by storm, because they are bite sized snacks of awesomesness. (These are similar to sopes or gorditas). The key here is ensuring the oil is uncontaminated.
Chocolate and corn drinks like champurrado or atole or hot chocolate drinks such as agua de chocolate so long as you ask for it without the pan de yema (an egg bread often with the chocolate drink). The corn and chocolate drinks are made with only corn, no extra fillers (but lots of delicious spices).
Horchata (rice milk drink): horchata is made from rice, milk, water, and spices. It can be topped with cantaloupe and walnuts, and comes in a variety of tastes and styles throughout Mexico. Often incredibly sweet, it’s a refreshing option with tacos on a hot day.
Flautas/Taquitos/Tacos Dorados: These thin, crunchy taco tubes are served topped with lettuce, fresh cheese, and often refried beans. They’re a wonderful snack but beware of cross-contamination as many vendors will serve them with chile relleno, which are often dredged in flour.
Alambres: While the name sounds like it may have something to do with dancing (is that just me?), alambres are actually a very filling plate of grilled beef or pork, onions, sweet peppers, bacon, cheese, salsa, and avocado. Of course, it is served with corn tortillas on the side. The word alambre means “wire” – sadly nothing to do with dancing. But it refers to the fact that in parts of Mexico the meet is often cooked on a skewer! It’s basically a Philly cheesesteak, swapping out the bread for tortillas. Can’t go wrong! Confirm tortillas are corn, and none of the sauces mentioned at the top of the post were in the meat.
Chapulines: Eating bugs may not be your thing, but they are delicious. In Oaxaca, these fried, spiced grasshoppers are found in a variety of dishes or just on their own. Naturally gluten free.
Totopos: In North America these are just referred to as tortilla chips, but totopos is the name found in most of Mexico. Confirm chips are made from corn tortillas, and oil is uncontaminated.
Huitlacoche (This is a really cool looking grey corn fungus that tastes wonderful in quesadillas or cooked into rice. Since it’s an unfamiliar ingredient to many, I wanted to make mention and to note it’s completely gluten free.
Enfrijoladas or entomatadas if made from corn tortillas, and no mole sauces are used. Both are usually breakfast foods.
Chilaquiles: Breakfast of champions! Tortillas gone stale, re-fried or baked in the oven and smothered in with green or red salsa — or the delicious “divorciados” option with both. Topped with raw onions, cheese, herbs, and sometimes crema (cream), they’re finished off with a meat of your choice or an egg.
Jicama: Crunchy, refreshing vegetable that looks like a giant turnip. It’s part of the yam bean family, and — fun fact — got to Asia via the Spanish who found it in Mexico. Often served with chili and lime, and safe for celiacs.
Nopal: Cactus! Specifically the Opuntia cacti that we call prickly pear. There are hundreds of varieties of Opuntia in Mexico, and they’re used for traditional medicine, the fruit is used for desserts, soups, salads, and ice cream, and the pads are de-spined and then cooked for tacos and other dishes. Nopales are a bit slimy for some, but cooked with chilies and sauce they are very tasty.
Flor de calabaza: These refer to bright orange squash blossoms, which I have started to see at markets in Montreal — these were definitely not for sale when I was growing up in the city! They aren’t just beautiful, however, they’re delicious and gluten free.
Chicharrón: Fried pork rinds are now trending as a snack food in North America, but here in Mexico they’ve been eating them for a long time! They are sold in big sheets in the markets, or softened with tomatoes and salsa and made into tacos, or served as a crunchy snack in bars or at tiny ambulant street vendors. Celiacs: be sure to confirm they’re made of actual pork skin and not flour instead. I have not encountered a flour version but others have, and it’s important to ask.
Tostadas: Thin, round disks either baked or fried, tostadas are usually made of corn and then topped with beans, cheese, guacamole, and a protein of your choice. Confirm made of corn, and fried in uncontaminated oil.
Queso fresco, panella, Chihuahua, Cotija, and quesillo: These are but a few of many cheeses produced in Mexico, and all listed here are gluten free. To look out for: processed cheeses in supermarkets or fast-food stalls.
Flan: A delicious, simple desert made of water, sugar, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and milk, and one that really satisfies! Popular dessert throughout Mexico. Confirm no flour was used to thicken, but recipes do not call for it and traditionally-made flan will be safe.
Fruit: Don’t miss out on all of the amazing fruit that Mexico has on offer! From tuna (prickly pear cactus fruit), to papaya, guanabana, mamey, zapote negro/zapote, and much more, they are a great refreshing snack on a hot day.
Elote / esquites: Both are corn snacks, decadently topped with mayo, cheese, lime juice, chili powder, and salt. Elote refers to the corn on the cob version, a popular snack for kids. Esquites are the same concept but taken off the cob and served in a little cup, served from a steaming metal pot. One of my favorite snacks!
Pozole: A thick stewed soup with hominy, meat (you can get pork, chicken, beef, and more), shredded cabbage, radish, cilantro, and lime. And spicy salsa to top it off! Regional varieties differ, so it’s hard to call it “one” dish, but my advice is to try each pozole and make up your mind about what’s best. Doubt check broth contents for Maggi, but restauranteurs were appalled when I asked, as it suggested their broth wasn’t in ‘original’ form. A comforting dish on a cool day.
Sopa de lima: A Yucatan specialty, though it’s found elsewhere, this delicious “lime soup” is tangy as its name would suggest, with crunchy fried tortilla strips (confirm not made of flour), shredded boiled chicken, and vegetables like chayote and carrots.
Guacamole: No doubt you’re familiar. Avocado, lime, onions, and occasionally a grasshopper or two. Some places serve it with cheese on top. Note that when you’re getting guacamole with totopos as an appetizer, this will be the guacamole you may be used to if you’re from North America. However, when eating tacos or other snacks, the guacamole often comes in a squeezable dispenser and is more watery/blended.
Salsa rojo, hitomate, salsa picante, salsa verde: These are all versions of salsas that you can find to top your dishes on this list, and again since Mexico is a huge country there is a wide variety in salsa types! Confirm that these are made from scratch with no flavoring condiments like Maggi, but if made by the restaurant/vendor they are usually safe.
Cochinita pibil: This consists of a delectable pulled pork dish that is braised for hours in achiote and spices. Ask if bread or flour added but traditionally it is made celiac-friendly. I can’t do it as much justice as Serious Eats, so I’m quoting from them: “Real cochinita pibil is far from mild or dry. True, it’s not spicy (the heat comes in the form of intensely hot condiments on the side), but it has a uniquely sweet, earthy aroma imparted by bitter Seville oranges, achiote, charred garlic, and a host of other spices. That earthiness is backed with the herbaceous aroma of the banana leaves it’s cooked in, along with smokiness from hours of slow cooking.” Sounds good right? Go eat some.
Birria: Birria is a slow-booked stew flavored with chilies, herbs, and spices. It’s customarily made from goat or sheep, and is thick and hearty. Made from scratch, it is traditionally gluten free. As with any meat dishes, confirm no gluten-filled condiments.
Caldo de pollo, caldo de res: Caldo is soup, and these refer to chicken and beef soups. Unlike birria or some of the other dishes, the chicken and beef soup broths are usually clear, served with a generous portion of vegetables and occasionally rice. Confirm the base has no bouillon cubes. This has otherwise been a consistent go-to for my day-to-day eating.
Barbacoa: This refers to a style of cooking, one that can be made with lamb or goat. It’s rich and flavorful, with smoky aftertastes and the lingering smell of avocado leaves. No gluten goes into these recipes. Same broken record about condiments but traditionally made babacoa will be gluten free.
Gluten free drinks in Mexico
A lot more than what is mentioned here, but I wanted to make note of:
Mezcal, tequila, and pulque – These are alcoholic beverages made from the agave plant, and all very different in taste and process. None use malt, and they are safe.
Ocho Reales Beer is also made with hops and rice and sorghum — beer that has had the gluten removed is NOT necessarily safe for celiacs, regardless of whether it says “gluten free”. Instead, Ocho Reales uses safe products to begin with, making their beer tasty and reliable.
is also made with hops and rice and sorghum — beer that has had the gluten removed is NOT necessarily safe for celiacs, regardless of whether it says “gluten free”. Instead, Ocho Reales uses safe products to begin with, making their beer tasty and reliable. Agua frescas: In between water and juice, these “fresh waters” refer to lightly flavoured cold drinks, with fruit and sugar, including my favorite — Jamaica (hibiscus flower).
Gluten Free All Inclusive Resorts and Restaurants for Celiacs in Mexico
I’ve added an extra section here because readers have asked for all-inclusive resorts frequently. As with any of the other guides, I will keep updating this section as I receive more information.
Gluten Free All Inclusive Resorts in Mexico
Grand Velas are luxury resorts with locations in Los Cabos, Riviera Maya and Riviera Nayarit. Each resort has a selection of restaurants, most of which have gluten free dishes identified on the menu, as well as room service that can accommodate gluten free needs. The head chef at Grand Velas Riviera Maya says that guests’ dietary needs are registered into the resort’s computers upon arrival, so that staff are automatically notified when guests provide their room number. He also assures that separate cookware and utensils are used in order to avoid cross contamination for gluten free dishes.
Iberostar resorts in Mexico have a reputation for accommodating the needs of Celiacs thoroughly. It is however, important to check with the individual resort before booking, and to double check when you arrive. This is one place the translation cards come in handy!
Similarly, Valentin Maya resort in the Riviera Maya is known to be Celiac-friendly, with gluten free breads and treats available in the dining rooms and gluten free dishes clearly marked on restaurant menus.
The Karisma group of hotels and resorts offer an all inclusive gourmet experience that caters to a variety of dietary restrictions, including Celiac disease. Their resorts include the Generations Riviera Maya Resort, El Dorado Spa Resorts, and Azul Beach Resort Sensatori.
Secrets Resorts are high end adult-only resorts with locations in Baja California, Huatulco, and Puerto Vallarta, as well as multiple locations near Cancun, Riviera Maya and Cozumel. Each of the locations can accommodate Celiac guests.
While Sanará in Tulum Beach is not necessarily all-inclusive, it is an luxury eco hotel that offers yoga, a wellness center and a completely gluten- and dairy-free restaurant called The Real Coconut on site. The Real Coconut has breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, as well as a drinks menu that boasts herbal cocktails alongside fresh pressed juices and medicinal lattes.
Shopping Options and Restaurants for Celiacs
The Green Corner is a higher end grocery with multiple locales in Mexico City that emphasizes local and seasonal products, and carries a range of gluten free and vegan items. The branches in Coyoacán and Condesa have organic restaurants attached to the store.
Chedraui is a Mexican grocery and department store chain that carries gluten free items.
Superama is a supermarket chain owned by Walmart that carries gluten free products and has locations all across Mexico. So does Walmart itself.
KuidaT is a vegan and gluten free brand that makes a variety of products from breads to hamburger buns, cookies, pizzas and cakes. They have an online store that offers various monthly box subscriptions, as well as the ability to order individual loaves of bread or boxes of donuts. Numerous natural grocery stores across Mexico carry their range. Check them out at any of the following stores:
Kerala Organics in Queretaro
Cuesco Fino Sabor Natural (fine, natural flavor) in San Luis Potosí
Ecobutik in San Angel, Mexico City
Distrito Foods makes a gluten free mole and sells other gluten free flours at their Mexico City store.
Tonari Mercadería Gourmet in Chihuahua
Almacén Orgánico in Metepec
Gluten Free Restaurants and Bakeries in Mexico City
La Otilia is a dedicated gluten free bakery in Mexico City that values nutritious food, well trained staff, and your four legged pals as well (they get special treats!). They offer up a selection of cakes and pastries, baguettes and buns, and a breakfast and lunch menu to boot.
Pan Gabriel is an organic and gluten free bakery with two locations in Mexico City, in Coyocán and Condesa. Their wide variety of breads and pastries are often vegan as well.
Zero Glutentaciones is another gluten free bakery that caters to a variety of dietary restrictions, and offers take home pastas and bake mixes in addition to their fresh offerings.
Hadasa Gourmet in Mexico City not only offers gluten free pastries, sandwiches and other specialties; they’ll cater parties and banquets in your home as well.
Ojo De Agua is a café serving gorgeous breakfasts with a number of gluten free options, as well as vegetarian and vegan.
Amsterdam Market, with gluten free breads as well as nut butters and other baked items. A list of their stores by area on their Origines Organicos site, here.
What is Unsafe for a Celiac in Mexico?
As I mentioned at the top: beware of condiments like Maggi, Salsa Inglesa or Knorr cubes/seasonings. I got sick at tacos made from scratch where they were frying up and seasoning the meat using Salsa Inglesa. The gluten free Mexico restaurant card accounts for these and should help keep you safe.
Tortas: Sandwiches. All off limits.
Pastel: Cake. Rare to find gluten free baked goods here — even the corn breads have wheat flour — unless you seek out a gluten free bakery.
Certain mole sauces / Tamales with those mole sauces: Mole negro, mole rojo, mole coloradito and sometimes mole amarillo are all often made with breadcrumbs. (See this post for more.)
Chile relleno: Some stuffed chile peppers are dredged purely in egg and fried, instead of with egg and wheat flour. It seems to be the exception and not the rule, and you will be wise to avoid this snack.
Processed soups if base is made with Knorr or Maggi seasonings
Tortillas de trigo (wheat tortillas), which are found a lot more commonly in the North of Mexico and the Yucatan, including for quesadillas and empanadas. In the more Southern/Central areas of Mexico, corn tortillas are the prevalent option.
Burritos: These are almost always made with wheat tortillas. These aren’t as common, but are found in some parts of Mexico.
Some enchiladas: An enchilada can be a variety of things, and refers to a corn tortilla that is rolled around a filling of meat or cheese and bathed in salsa. Note that if the salsa is, as with other dishes, made from a thick mole sauce – it’s probably thickened with bread and off limits. Enchiladas with salsa rojo or salsa verde are usually safe.
Churros: I weep for my lack of churros, fried dough sticks often dipped in chocolate that look amazing. Sadly they’re made from wheat.
Panque de elote: If you ask, most vendors will say their corn cakes are made from corn — but I’ve yet to find a spot that doesn’t include some wheat flour added in. Best to verify with the restaurant but I would urge caution.
Michelada: This includes beer, and often Worcestershire sauce/Salsa Inglesa, and is a no go.
Cream-based soups: Per the Mexican woman, also celiac, who translated this card on the 2nd round: cream based soups in Mexico are often thickened with flour.
Salsa Inglesa – this is the common name for Worcestershire sauce, some of which is non-branded and made in Mexico. While not all Worcestershire Sauce contains wheat, the one I have seen in Mexico almost always does. I got glutened during a taco binge because they were dousing the grilled meat with it. Important if you are getting tacos to ask if it was used. Yes, my celiac card notes that it’s off limits!
Further Reading About Mexico
For those of you looking to visit, here are some wonderful books to help learn a little more about Mexico and its food before you get there.
The Mexican Celiac Association costs about 550 Mexican Pesos to join (about $30USD). Membership comes with access to their mobile app, which lists gluten free establishments safe for Celiacs. I have not joined yet but did want to mention!
Guide Books
For those of you looking to visit Mexico, there are some wonderful books to help inform your visit, and a few other helpful resources:
For guidebooks, Lonely Planet’s Mexico Guide came out in September 2016, and covers the entire country. For a more down to earth, but very useful take, see The People’s Guide to Mexico — I recommend it to anyone spending a lot of time in the country.
My Suggestions for Food Books about MexicoThe news: On Wednesday, Congress approved two amendments that will allow marijuana businesses to operate more like any ordinary business. This is a huge step for the legal marijuana movement, opening the door for current and future weed businesses to get financial services in the form of capital, loans, and safe deposits from large national banks. Legal marijuana businesses have battled to be recognized by these financial services. Now they'll be recognized like any other business.
The first of the two amendments says the federal government can't penalize banks handling marijuana money in legalized states. The second gives the go-ahead on a Treasury Department plan that allows for banks that store revenues from legal marijuana businesses.
This has been a huge issue for legal marijuana: Now banks in weed-legal states can accept money from weed businesses without the threat of the feds swooping in and seizing the money. Since pot is still federally illegal, banks feared that if they accepted money from marijuana businesses, they would be in breach of federal laws and thereby subject to prosecution.
As for the marijuana businesses themselves, they can finally operate like normal businesses and drop their revenues into a business account at the bank. Colorado previously attempted to remedy this problem within the state, but the measures were not enough to mollify banks fearing reprimand from the federal government. As a result, legal marijuana businesses that have been stacking their profits as actual, physical cash, can finally put all that loot in the bank, just like any normal business.
The problem of where to put legal weed money, and how to deal with banks that are accepting it, arose as a problem soon after legal sales in Colorado commenced. All this money started rolling in, but banks didn't want to touch it for fear that the federal government would hold them responsible. The Justice Department tried to implement a solution, as did the state, but neither was effective.
With these new measures, that can't happen. Legal weed businesses can go on selling, and states considering legalization have one less potential issue to worry about. Now that marijuana businesses can operate normally, they can focus on sales and become the massive economic boon that the state has projected them to be.Paper wallets are a great way to hold bitcoin for certain use cases. When using one of our BTMs, for example, you can buy bitcoin in the form of a paper wallet.
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The nation's largest anti-Muslim hate group is scheduled to hold its annual conference at a Marriott International property four miles from the White House, despite pressure from advocacy groups that have been calling on the hotelier to cancel the event.
ACT for America, which has promoted its ties to the Trump administration, is hosting a two-day conference at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., on Oct. 2 and 3. The group's website says the event will be "the nation's largest national security-focused grass-roots gathering."
It was not clear how many people would attend, but ACT for America — which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — says it has 750,000 members.
Marriott said it will not cancel the conference.
"We are a hospitality company that provides public accommodations and function space," a Marriott spokesman said in an email. "Acceptance of business does not indicate support or endorsement of any group or individual."
Muslim Advocates, a civil rights group, says it sent a letter to Arne M. Sorenson, Marriott's president and chief executive, on Sept. 11 asking him to reconsider the company's stance on the event.
"Marriott clearly and proudly states on its website that 'diversity and inclusion is fundamental to our core values and strategic business goals,' " the letter said. "We believe that hosting this anti-Muslim convention is antithetical to this otherwise clear commitment."
A spokesman for the group said he was disappointed that Marriott had decided to move ahead with the event.
"Given Marriott's commitment to being inclusive and diverse, we were optimistic that they would do the right thing here," said Scott Simpson, public advocacy director for Muslim Advocates. "This is very incongruous with their stance as a company."
Sorenson has been an outspoken critic of President Trump's travel ban affecting citizens from Muslim-majority countries, and has publicly criticized the president's plans to build a wall on the Mexican border.
[Marriott CEO: It’s time to make traveling to the United States easier]
As a company, Marriott, which is the world's largest hotel chain, has also been proactive in its stance on LGBT issues, immigration reform and other social and political issues. In 2010, the company called off plans to host a conference organized by the white nationalist group American Renaissance at the Washington Dulles Marriott. (A number of other hotels, including the Westin Washington Dulles Hotel and the Four Points by Sheraton Manassas Battlefield did the same.)
Marriott's decision to host the event comes after other corporations have publicly refused to do business with white supremacists and hate groups. The home-sharing service Airbnb recently refused to accommodate people who were attending last month's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Shortly after, GoDaddy, CloudFlare and Google said they would sever ties with the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer.
[GoDaddy — then Google — ban neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer for disparaging Charlottesville victim]
According to ACT for America's website, its two-day conference and legislative briefing will include talks from national security experts and meetings with lawmakers. Former Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson will give the keynote address at the event's awards luncheon.
"ACT for America's mission is clear," the site said. "Political correctness and cowardness has no place in America. We proudly stand strong on our Judeo-Christian foundation. We will not be silenced. We will not fail."
The Crystal Gateway Marriott's website showed that it was hosting the event. Act for America's site says the hotel is offering a discounted nightly rate of $250 for attendees from Oct. 1 to Oct. 5.
ACT for America's annual conference, which it calls ACTCON 2017, had previously been held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Northwest Washington in 2013, 2015 and 2016. A spokeswoman at the hotel said she was not sure why ACT for America had moved its event this year. She declined to give her name or title.
"We have enjoyed a great working relationship with them, and my suspicion is that their move to another hotel was a space issue," she said. "There was no controversy around hosting them, and we would welcome them back, just as we would any group."
ACT for America, founded a decade ago by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese-born Christian, has forged close ties with the Trump administration.
"ACT for America has a direct line to Donald Trump," Gabriel wrote in a fundraising email last year. The group, she |
to have unpleasant, unfortunate consequences. Yes, "unpleasant".
Sessions said he “couldn’t agree more” with Ingraham when she called this a “sob story” that simply proves that “enforcement of the law works!” It’s a good thing, Ingraham suggested, that immigrants are responding by leaving Alabama. “This is a rational response,” Sessions remarked, arguing that “one of the sad consequences of illegal immigration is families can be hurt in the process” — indicating that families brought the government’s harsh crackdown on themselves by seeking a better life here.
Of course you can count on Sessions to take up the cause of those who would oppress little children in order to make a point. He's a guy who was so blatantly racist that he couldn't be confirmed as a Federal judge and then went on to be elected by the (white) people of Alabama to the US Senate that rejected him. He's an unreconstructed confederate of the worst kind.
There are people calling this a form of ethnic cleansing and I can't figure out a reason why it isn't. Sure, not every Hispanic in the state is undocumented, but you could certainly forgive them for feeling that measures this punitive mean they aren't welcome. If the state is willing to deny someone water because they don't have proper ID, they really, really don't want you around.
And don't tell me this isn't ideological. Get a load of this: This is a real human rights tragedy happening before out eyes, right here in the US. Check this out:There are people calling this a form of ethnic cleansing and I can't figure out a reason why it isn't. Sure, not every Hispanic in the state is undocumented, but you could certainly forgive them for feeling that measuresmean they aren't welcome. If the state is willing to deny someonebecause they don't have proper ID, they really, really don't want you around.And don't tell me this isn't ideological. Get a load of this:
Dave Neiwert writes:
It's not like they weren't warned. There was already the example of Arizona, whose wrecked economy lies in ruins in the wake of SB1070 and the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that came with its passage.
People warned Alabamans that if they went ahead and passed their own version of anti-immigrant legislation, they would suffer similar economic consequences. But they did it anyway. Now, the state's anti-immigration laws -- which involve using schoolchildren as proxies for enforcement -- are easily the most draconian and vicious anti-immigrant laws in the country.
And guess what? They are now paying the price. Not only are the schools suddenly emptying of Latino children, more tellingly, the state's tomato farmers are in crisis because there's no one available to harvest the fruit. And the authors of the legislation are just telling them, "tough luck".
This is a sick and ugly story. It is 2011 not 1911 and this conservative majority of white supremacists --- I don't think you can look at their history and call that hyperbolic --- are doing it again. I guess it's just in their DNA.
Update: The Justice Department is seeking to block the law in federal court. This is a sick and ugly story. It is 2011 not 1911 and this conservative majority of white supremacists --- I don't think you can look at their history and call that hyperbolic --- are doing it again. I guess it's just in their DNA.
.
digby 10/07/2011 04:30:00 PMBRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/MILAN (Reuters) - Atlantia’s (ATL.MI) 17-billion-euro ($20 billion) bid for fellow toll road operator Abertis ABE.MC won unconditional EU antitrust clearance on Friday as Spanish builder ACS (ACS.MC) looked to prepare a rival bid.
Toll road operator Abertis´ headquarters is seen in Barcelona, Spain, October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
ACS is working on a cash-and-share offer for Spain’s Abertis, which it plans to launch next week, sources close to the matter said on Thursday.
The European Commission said the Atlantia-Abertis deal, which would create the world’s largest toll-road operator, would not hurt competition, confirming a Reuters report.
Sources said on Thursday that ACS’ offer was expected to be roughly half in cash and the rest in newly issued shares in German construction group Hochtief (HOTG.DE), which is controlled by ACS.
The value of an ACS offer was not known.
Milan brokerage Banca IMI said on Friday a potential offer with no premium versus Atlantia’s offer would be unattractive given the quality of Hochtief shares compared to those of the Italian company.
“Abertis shareholders would be directly exposed to the less predictable construction sector and, strangely, would even be financing the offer as Hochtief would issue new shares potentially to be underwritten by Abertis’ shareholders themselves,” the broker said in a note.
Atlantia’s offer was formally launched on Tuesday, a day after being approved by Spain’s market regulator, and runs until Oct. 24.
People close to the matter told Reuters that Atlantia may consider sweetening its offer if a counter-bid emerged, depending on the price and structure of any offer.
Under Spanish rules, any alternative suitors have until Thursday to present their own bid for Abertis.
Atlantia is offering 16.50 euros in cash or 0.697 Atlantia shares for each Abertis share. But the offer is conditional on Abertis shareholders who own between 10 percent and 23 percent of the Spanish company’s capital accepting the share offer.
Stefano Fabiani, fund manager at Milan-based Zenit, said the Atlantia deal offered synergies which could offer shareholders upside further down the road.
“Atlantia’s bid is there and the price looks about right. Time is running out for any counterbid,” he said, adding the market was waiting for concrete news.
At 1028 GMT Atlantia shares were up 0.26 percent while Abertis shares were unchanged.
Though the offer has been described as “friendly” by Atlantia, shareholders in Abertis have not expressed a view on the proposal.
The board of the Spanish company must publish its assessment of the bid within 10 days of its start.
Abertis’s top shareholder is Criteria Caixa, the financial arm of a politically connected and powerful banking foundation that controls Catalonia’s largest lender Caixabank (CABK.MC).
“Apparently, La Caixa would be willing to sell, but it wants a compelling case with a better price,” analysts at Mediobanca said in a note to clients.AAP's Kondli MLA Manoj Kumar was on Thursday questioned by police in an over a month old case of alleged land grabbing. A senior police official said Kumar was called to New Ashok Nagar Police station in East Delhi for questioning in the case.
Around a month back, a case of cheating was registered against Kumar following allegations that he duped his business partner of Rs 6 lakh. "This is an old matter related to land fraud. Questioning of Kumar is on as of now," Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said this afternoon.
Vinod Kumar had alleged in his complaint to the police that Manoj used to work as a property dealer before venturing into politics. Vinod claimed that he was Manoj's business partner and had given Rs six lakh to him to purchase a plot in November 2012 but he did not repay the amount.In an effort to help prevent traffic congestion on Barton Springs Road, traffic flow will be changed on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) and Holidays starting Saturday, March 28, 2015. There will be no entrance to the Zilker Park parking lot off of Barton Springs Road during these times. Entrances will be off the access road of N. Mopac (Loop 1). See graphic above for more details, or click on the link below to view a larger picture of the new traffic flow. http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/images/Parks/Parks/zilkerparkmap_3.jpg
Also starting on Saturday, March 28, 2015 through Labor Day (September 7, 2015) - a $5 parking fee will be charged on weekends (Saturday & Sunday), Holidays, and during special events. Normal collection times are from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and for Special Events from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
For additional questions, please contact Tony Savage at 512-974-1254. ###More than 20 million Egyptians voted in this week’s referendum on a new constitution, and more than 98 percent of them voted “yes”, the High Elections Commission announced on Saturday.
The outcome was never really in doubt: No major political faction was pushing a “no” vote, and many Egyptians saw approving the constitution as a key first step towards restoring stability after the army overthrew President Mohamed Morsi in July.
Turnout was 38.6 percent of registered voters, less than the 50 percent predicted by some officials earlier this week.
Nabil Salib, the chairman of the commission, called the vote an "unrivalled success" and "an unprecedented turnout".
It was still notably higher than the 2012 referendum on the constitution drafted while Morsi was president. About 17 million people, one-third of registered voters, participated in that ballot, and they approved the charter by a 64 percent margin.
The number of voters also exceeded the 2011 constitutional referendum held a few weeks after longtime leader Hosni Mubarak stepped down. About 18.5 million people voted in that election, a 42 percent turnout; Egypt has added about seven million registered voters in the past three years.
Salib announced the results in a deeply nationalistic speech filled with praise for the army.
"Do not worry about Egypt, it has special standing for God. It is mentioned in the Quran, the Bible, and the Torah," he said.
“Remember the heroes of your army. They have restored hope in our future and protected Egypt.”
Road map
This was the first vote since Morsi was overthrown on July 3. It was supported by most of Egypt’s secular and liberal political parties, as well as the Nour Party, the main salafi grouping.
Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the vote, saying the process was illegitimate.
Several revolutionary groups also refused to participate, and there were reports of low youth turnout, which Salib blamed on university exams.
Several Egyptian newspapers reported on Saturday that the army was planning to meet with youth activists to “listen to their demands”.
There were no reports of major irregularities during the vote, though election monitoring was limited, with about 5,000 observers for more than 30,000 polling stations.
Several international organisations declined to monitor the vote, criticising what they called the repressive atmosphere in which it was held. There was little space to campaign against the constitution; several people who tried to post flyers urging a “no” vote were arrested.
With the charter approved, interim President Adly Mansour is expected to issue a decree announcing a schedule for parliamentary and presidential elections.
The political “road map” issued after Morsi’s ouster called for the legislative ballot to come first. But officials have said in recent weeks that the order could be reversed, with a presidential ballot as early as next month.
If so, all eyes will be on General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the popular defence minister, who led the coup against Morsi. He is considered a likely presidential candidate, and a shoo-in to win if he runs.
Earlier this month, he said he would consider a run “at request of the people and with a mandate from my army.”KODAK, Tenn. - The Tennessee Browns was announced as the new name of the Tennessee baseball franchise at a private event Sunday Night. Along with the name, General Manager Brian Cox also revealed the team's new logo, cap and uniform. This change is effective April 1, 2013.
"Since our Chairman, Jimmy Haslam, acquired the Cleveland Browns last year, we have been looking for a way to connect the two franchises…and I think we found it," said franchise President Doug Kirchhofer.
"Making the switch to the Browns colors and logo will create an image that will be unique in all of Minor League Baseball," Cox added. "Imagine the only cap in baseball without a logo…just like the famous Browns."
The Browns' new logo will feature a brown bear's face with script "Tennessee Browns" above it. In addition to the logo, Tennessee has rolled out a logo-less cap, which will be the only one of it's kind in Minor League Baseball, will resemble the helmet of the NFL Browns, while the uniforms will also mirror those of the Cleveland Browns.The season is almost here. To get you ready, we counted down the top 10 SEC games for the upcoming season. Enjoy.
1. No. 3 Alabama at No. 6 Auburn, Nov. 28
Is there any surprise which game is No. 1? The Iron Bowl has decided the SEC champion in five of the past six seasons, and with both Alabama and Auburn ranked in the top 10, there’s no reason to think it will be any different this year. Oh, and the previous time these two played at Jordan-Hare Stadium, we saw maybe the greatest finish in college football history.
2. No. 3 Alabama at No. 9 Georgia, Oct. 3
It’s the first time Alabama has played at Georgia since the “blackout” game in 2008, and both teams are ranked in the preseason top 10. Black uniforms or not, the atmosphere will once again be electric, and that doesn’t bode well for an inexperienced quarterback making his first start on the road. Good luck to whoever wins the starting job at Alabama.
3. No. 9 Georgia at No. 6 Auburn, Nov. 14
You’re probably sensing a trend with the first three games all featuring Alabama, Auburn or Georgia, but there’s a reason all three are ranked in the top 10. This one will have a difficult time living up to the 2013 edition and the “Prayer at Jordan-Hare,” but many are predicting it to be a preview of the SEC championship game.
4. No. 17 Ole Miss at No. 3 Alabama, Sept. 19
Ole Miss shocked the college football world last season when it took down Alabama at home, and trust me, the Crimson Tide have not forgotten. Since Nick Saban took over in Tuscaloosa, he has lost to the same team in back-to-back seasons only once. The Rebels have the talent to pull off another upset, but it won’t be easy on the road.
5. No. 6 Auburn at No. 14 LSU, Sept. 19
The same day Alabama hosts Ole Miss in a critical SEC West clash, Auburn travels to LSU, where it has not won since 1999. Is this the year the streak ends? Auburn would hope so, considering the degree of difficulty in its final six games, but if LSU loses back-to-back games early in the year, its season could be over before it begins.
6. No. 9 Georgia at No. 25 Tennessee, Oct. 10
Finally, an SEC East showdown makes the list, and it’s an intriguing one. If Tennessee wants to break through and win the division, it starts here. The good news is that the Volunteers get Georgia one week after the Bulldogs play what should be a slugfest against Alabama, and the game happens to be at Neyland Stadium. Advantage, Tennessee?
7. No. 14 LSU at No. 3 Alabama, Nov. 7
It wasn’t long ago when this game was easily the best the SEC had to offer -- a matchup of perennial powerhouses that wouldn’t be decided until the fourth quarter. We could be in store for another showdown this season. There’s a chance neither team reaches 20 points, but that’s what you come to expect in this rivalry. That’s what makes it great.
8. No. 18 Arkansas at No. 25 Tennessee, Oct. 3
Momentum is a funny thing in college football, and these two teams have it. Despite finishing 7-6 a year ago, both Arkansas and Tennessee are ranked to start the season and both have been tabbed as contenders in the SEC. Sure, they might be a year away. But then again, they might not. We’ll find out who’s ready to take that next step when they meet in Week 5.
9. No. 24 Missouri at No. 9 Georgia, Oct. 17
With all the talk around Georgia and Tennessee, it’s easy to forget about Missouri in the East. Yet all the Tigers have done is win the division two years in a row. What’s maybe more impressive is that they haven’t lost a road game since 2012. That streak will be put to the test at Georgia in a game that could decide the East.
10. Texas A&M vs. No. 18 Arkansas (in Arlington, Texas), Sept. 26
Arkansas and Texas A&M are both capable of winning the West, but not everybody can make it to Atlanta. Something has to give. This is a game in which the winner stays in the hunt, and the loser is likely out. It’s a barometer to see where both teams stand as they head into the buzz saw that is the SEC.
Five other must-see games
No. 14 LSU at Mississippi State, Sept. 12
No. 17 Ole Miss at Florida, Oct. 3
No. 3 Alabama at Texas A&M, Oct. 17
No. 6 Auburn at No. 18 Arkansas, Oct. 24
No. 14 LSU at No. 17 Ole Miss, Nov. 21
Five best nonconference games
No. 6 Auburn vs. Louisville (in Atlanta), Sept. 5
No. 3 Alabama vs. No. 20 Wisconsin (in Arlington), Sept. 5
Texas A&M vs. No. 15 Arizona State (in Houston), Sept. 5
No. 19 Oklahoma at No. 25 Tennessee, Sept. 12
No. 9 Georgia at No. 16 Georgia Tech, Nov. 28You needn't concern yourself with the size of Serena's butt. Don't bother losing sleep over the musculature of her legs. After 21 Grand Slams, she's going to be just fine. And the woman accurately described as looking like a pretty "Disney princess" after winning her sixth Wimbledon championship has had more than enough concern trolling over her body by now.
The 33-year-old superstar easily qualifies as one of the greatest athletes of all time, living or dead, male or female. As the Guardian aptly put it "We're lucky to be living in her time." And yet along with the narrative of her awe-inspiring achievements, Williams has, since she exploded on the scene in the late '90s, been the subject of relentless scrutiny for her powerful-looking body. After she went through injury and a spectacular tumble in the ranks roughly a decade ago, she recalled, "Everyone called me fat, saying I was really unfit. Every paper, the headline was 'fat, fat, fat.'" In 2007, the Telegraph breathlessly noted her "weight loss" and "the new, slim-line Williams," but then, a notoriously jaw-dropping 2009 feature by Jason Whitlock took her to task for "arguably pushing 175 pounds" and lamented, "She'd rather eat, half-ass her way through non-major tournaments and complain she's not getting the respect her 11-major-championships résumé demands." And last year, Russian tennis chief Shamil Tarpischev was rightly fined for snarking on the bodies of "the Williams brothers" and declaring, "It’s frightening when you look at them." And then came this weekend.
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Even as she was solidifying her role as a living legend, defeating opponents who, as the Atlantic points out, were kindergarten-age when Williams was on her first Grand Slam, the New York Times' Ben Rothenberg was busy commenting that "Williams, who will be vying for the Wimbledon title against Garbiñe Muguruza … has large biceps and a mold-breaking muscular frame, which packs the power and athleticism that have dominated women’s tennis for years. Her rivals could try to emulate her physique, but most of them choose not to." The piece further notes that "body-image issues among female tennis players persist, compelling many players to avoid bulking up," and also quotes Agnieszka Radwanska's coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, who says, "It’s our decision to keep her as the smallest player in the top 10. Because, first of all she’s a woman, and she wants to be a woman." The implications were clear — Williams treads a lonely path. And if you've ever dared to go deeper into some online sports conversations or God forbid the replies on Twitter, you'll see a consistent level of far worse observations, a deluge of flat-out mockery for Williams' body.
Fortunately, as online critics have also been quick to point out, the continued shock and awe that Williams' body does not conform to some tiny little white girl paradigm is outrageously narrow-minded and insulting. And gloriously, J.K. Rowling went all fangirl over Williams on Twitter this weekend, declaring "What a woman!" Even better, when a troll replied, "Ironic then that main reason for her success is that she is built like a man," Rowling shot back with a photo of Williams looking flawless in a red dress and heels, and said, "Yeah, my husband looks just like this in a dress. You're an idiot."
Her physique doesn't seem to bother Williams herself too much these days. Maybe because she's a genius at what she does — in addition to being rich, successful and beautiful? I don't know, I'm guessing here. She told the Times, "I realized that you really have to learn to accept who you are and love who you are. I’m really happy with my body type, and I’m really proud of it." That body of hers has achieved things the rest of us can barely imagine. It's accomplishing things in its 30s that world-class athletes half its age can't do. And you can judge a woman like Serena by the size of her arms, but you'll be missing out, because I promise you that history will remember her by the length of the list of her victories.University of California president Janet Napolitano has attacked “free speech Darwinism” in an op-ed to be published in Sunday’s Boston Globe. While her essay purports to be a defense of free speech, Napolitano actually crafts a devious defense of “safe spaces” on campus and “trigger warnings” in the classroom.
Along the way, Napolitano attacks the University of Chicago’s so-called “free speech Darwinism” — a term she uses to defame, but does not bother to define.
Napolitano’s university system is rife with the suppression of free speech and academic freedom, both in an official capacity (and, more worryingly, by students themselves). Last year, the University of California circulated a list of terms that it called “microaggressions” that faculty should avoid, and which included such controversial statements as “America is the land of opportunity,” “There is only one race, the human race,” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”
In her op-ed, Napolitano offers up familiar free speech mantras: “[T]he way to deal with extreme, unfounded speech is not with less speech — it is with more speech,” she says. Yet she also claims, erroneously, that speech “designed to personally intimidate or harass falls outside First Amendment protections, as outlined by the Supreme Court.”
That is more restrictive than the actual boundary of free speech established by the Court, and it is a definition that the campus left has exploited by defining “intimidation” and “harassment” expansively, to shut down opposing (or insufficiently radical) views on campus.
Napolitano also defends “safe spaces” by distorting what they are. She calls them “student centers and student activities,” implying that they are meant to be inclusive. In fact, “safe spaces” are exclusive, designed to keep out unwelcome views or people.
She also says that “trigger warnings” are little more than a professor telling students “that a piece they are about to study explores the difficult topic of race,” which “helps students appreciate what they are reading.” In fact, “trigger warnings” do the opposite: they tell students that they should regard what they are about to read or hear with suspicion, fear and hostility.
The capstone of Napolitano’s intellectually dishonest “defense” of free speech is her accusation that the University of Chicago is engaged in “free speech Darwinism.” Napolitano is referring to a letter sent by that university’s dean to incoming students, informing them that while debate on campus must be civil, they can also expect it to be challenging, and that it is not the job of the university to protect students from uncomfortable ideas or diverse views with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings.”
The letter says nothing about “free speech Darwinism,” which Napolitano appears to have invented. If she means that only ideas that pass the tests of reason and debate will survive, there can be no objection to the term: that is the job of a university, in teaching and research.
But what Napolitano actually appears to be doing is linking free speech with social Darwinism, a nineteenth century movement that the left often uses to caricature capitalism and meritocracy as ruthless and predatory. By inference, she is signaling that arguments defending the free market and free competition should not enjoy equal tolerance.
And so what Napolitano is really doing is not defending free speech, but defending restrictions on conservative views by left-wing dons.
Notably, when Napolitano cites an example of offensive speech, she finds a way to attack Donald Trump: “Chalking an anti-immigrant pro-Trump slogan on a sidewalk is one thing; spray painting it on a building is another.”
The latter has never happened — but there are plenty of examples of left-wing vandalism in the Black Lives Matter vein, which universities have chosen to tolerate. Napolitano’s call for “free speech” is really a manifesto for more suppression on campus.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.Other: Free admission and parking. Also, Saturday night, June 28, a spaghetti feed is planned starting 6 p.m. at Rough and Ready Grange #795. ($10)
How: Pancake Breakfast, Rough and Ready Volunteer Firehouse, 7 to 11 a.m., games, bounce house, water slide for the kids, music, crafts, a reenactment play, lunches by the fire auxiliary and grange.
Why: Celebrates the three months in 1950 when Rough & Ready seceded from the U.S. and became the Great Republic of Rough & Ready.
Rough and Ready has the dubious distinction of being "the only mining town in the country to have'seceded' from the Union and then voted itself back in," according to historians.
For three months in 1850, between April 7 and the beginning of July, the town, five miles west of Grass Valley on a highway that bears its name, voted itself to be an independent country called "The Great Republic of Rough and Ready."
According to Nevada County historian Bob Wyckoff, the first order of business of the newly proclaimed Republic of Rough and Ready was to elect Col. E.F. Brundage, a veteran of the Mexican War, as president.
"The president-elect was not immediately available for comment," Wyckoff wrote in "The Way it Was."
"But a spokesman for the chief executive said the miners formed their own country because they felt that 'there were just too danged many federal laws that us Rough and Readyans can do without.'"
Most historians add that the law that irked Rough and Ready residents the most was a proposed gold mining tax.
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"The government was taxing gold mines," said Uhl "Red" Sagraves of Rough and Ready. "Everybody was pretty damn independent in those days."
Sagraves, 81, is most well known for playing a rowdy named "Slim" in the Rough and Ready Secession Days reenactment play, "The Saga of Rough and Ready."
This year's Secession Days celebration is from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. June 29, in downtown Rough and Ready (a "Spaghetti Feed" pre-celebration is 6 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at Rough and Ready Grange No. 695).
The Union will run a full schedule of "Secession Days" events in the Prospector magazine on Thursday, June 26.
According to Sagraves, the town voted to rescind the secession after a group of miners were denied alcohol for their Fourth of July celebration because they were "foreigners," he said.
"Some miners went up to Boston Ravine, off Allison Ranch Road, to get booze," Sagraves said. "They wouldn't sell to them because they said 'You don't belong to the U.S.'"
Not being able to properly celebrate July 4 was a deal-breaker, according to the Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce.
"The town gathered again and decided to rejoin the Union — just in time for the Fourth of July celebration," the Chamber says in its newsletter.
Wyckoff quoted one of the men who had supported the secession but who changed his mind.
"'But,' reasoned one of the men, 'we're not part of the United States. How can we observe their Independence Day when we just had one of our own?'" as Wyckoff told it.
Chamber Executive Director Craig Ashcraft said the essence of the change of heart was clear:
"It was for want of a good party that brought The Great Republic back into the Union fold," Ashcraft said. "And it is another good party that the town and visitors will enjoy during the annual Secession Days celebration on Sunday, Sept. 29."
Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire Co. Capt. Matt Wright said he has gone to the Secession Days celebration since he was a child.
His father, Assistant Fire Chief Monty Wright, "dragged me to it every year," Matt Wright said.
Now, Wright said, his father is cook at the firehouse's popular Secession Days pancake breakfast, the fundraising kickoff for the fire department.
The department also runs baked potato booths at the Fourth of July celebration at Nevada County Fairgrounds and at the Nevada County Fair Aug. 6-10.
Rough and Ready gets its name from the 12th United States president, Zachary Taylor, a general during the Mexican War whose nickname was "Old Rough and Ready."
The camp that later became the town was settled in 1849 by a company of men from Wisconsin led by Capt. A.A. Townsend. Townsend and the company, who were lured to California by the discovery of gold, had served under Taylor in the war and considered him their hero.
The company was named "Rough and Ready" in honor of Tayor, and the men gave the same name to their camp.
Unlike many Gold Rush towns and camps that disappeared when the gold ran out, Rough and Ready has hung on. From a bustling town that was the center of the region during the height of the Gold Rush to its 2010 Census population of 963, Rough and Ready remains proud of its colorful history.
"The West is dotted with the remains of scores of towns and camps that were and are no more," Wyckoff wrote in "The Way it Was." "Rough and Ready … refuses to 'ghost' and has hung tenaciously to life long after the last pan of gravel was washed for its gold."
According to Sagraves, the town has also hung onto its name — despite efforts to shorten it.
After World War II, the town posted a petition to reopen the post office, which had been closed during the war.
"They said, 'You can be Rough, or be Ready, but not both,'" Sagraves said.
The town didn't agree, however, and ultimately got permission to reopen the post office and keep the same name.
The post office, established July 25, 1851, still serves the town and the surrounding countryside.
Rough and Ready, meanwhile, has been added to the list of California Historical Landmarks.
To contact Staff Writer Keri Brenner, email [email protected] or call 530-477-4239.DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Gunfire rang out last night just two floors below Chris Bethel’s Mandalay Bay Hotel room.
“I could just hear the gun shots. Continuously. Just full automatic,” said Bethel. “There’s explosions going off. It was like, a bomb just went off man. And then there were more gun shots.”
Far from his Fort Worth home, Bethel is in Las Vegas for an IT conference. Now, police are crediting the Haltom High School graduate with helping lead them to the room where Stephen Paddock, 64, from Mesquite, Nevada was shooting into a crowd of more than 22,000 people.
Bethel called police immediately and told them what he saw and heard, convinced the shooter was nearby.
“I could just see everybody running… and I kept looking at the windows to see if I could see any kind of muzzle flash to see if I could see where the shooter was,” Bethel described of what many have called a “surreal” scene. “I crouched by my front door. In hopes that I might get the opportunity to see the shooter if he ran by and I could identify him.”
Perched high on the 32nd floor of the Las Vegas Strip casino, Paddock unleashed a shower of bullets down on an outdoor country music festival below, killing at least 59 people and wounding more than 515 as thousands of frantic concert-goers screamed and ran for their lives.
“About 10 minutes later the Las Vegas Police Department called me to let me know that the shooter was on the 32nd floor. Room 135, and that they had gotten him,” said Bethel.
A SWAT team found Paddock dead with at least 10 rifles in his hotel room. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) says it is conducting an “urgent trace” on the weapons to determine their origins. At a press conference Monday morning, Lombardo said Paddock brought the weapons into the hotel himself and used “a device similar to a hammer” to break the window.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history and Bethel was right in the middle of it, albeit safe behind concrete walls.
Bethel said he’s leaving Las Vegas — everyone is.
“I feel like I didn’t do enough. I feel like I couldn’t get a hold of somebody quick enough to let them know. And it felt like it took them too long to get over there… to take him out. To get him. And it’s actually eating me up inside,” said Bethel. “I just need to go home. That’s my thing. I need to go home to my family. And just process all of this.”
There’s a vigil in downtown Dallas at Thanks-Giving Square tonight at 7 p.m. in honor of victims.
Reunion Tower tweeted it’s own show of support Monday night.The Japanese national anthem (kokka) is "Kimigayo." When the Meiji period began in 1868 and Japan made its start as a modern nation, there was no Japanese national anthem. In fact, the person who emphasized the necessity of a national anthem was a British military band instructor, John William Fenton.
Words of the Japanese National Anthem
The words were taken from a tanka (31-syllable poem) found in the Kokin-wakashu, a 10th-century anthology of poems. The music was composed in 1880 by Hiromori Hayashi, an Imperial Court musician and was later harmonized according to the Gregorian mode by Franz Eckert, a German bandmaster. "Kimigayo (The Emperor's Reign)" became Japan's national anthem in 1888.
The word "kimi" refers to the Emperor and the words contain the prayer: "May the Emperor's reign last forever." The poem was composed in the era when the Emperor reigned over the people. During WWII, Japan was an absolute monarchy which moved the Emperor to the top. The Japanese Imperial Army invaded many Asian countries. The motivation was that they were fighting for the holy Emperor.
After WWII, the Emperor became the symbol of Japan by the Constitution and has lost all political power. Since then various objections have been raised about singing "Kimigayo" as a national anthem. However, at present, it remains sung at national festivals, international events, schools, and on national holidays.
"Kimigayo"
Kimigayo wa
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni
Sazareishi no
Iwao to narite
Koke no musu made
君が代は
千代に八千代に
さざれ石の
巌となりて
苔のむすまで
English Translation:No Flipping way! Retro Gaming and Transformers together makes my inner child just explode. A Japanese Company called Takara Tomy are behind all this greatness. Only two have been revealed So far are. The guy chilling on the left side is just only Optimus Prime as Sony’s original PlayStation. Which you may not realise it the PlayStation was released back in 1994.
With 2014 being the 30thanniversary of Transformers, and the 20th anniversary of PlayStation,It seems to combine the two is a good a reason as any to us. After getting over that they making out SEGA as the bad guys.( Sega Fan Boy over Here ) I just got thinking of all the possibilities of all the other consoles out there, for exsample a Neo Geo Pocket as one of the Minicons would be bad A**. Well no pre order yet but i will be totaly on it when it pop’s up there is no other exception.
Click image to Enlarge
Updates on Mega Drive Megatron & PlayStation PrimeSome 160 of the 342 blood group antigens are “high-prevalence,” which means that they are found on the red blood cells of most people. If you lack an antigen that |
of four men in construction gear with the caption: “These guys look like they got one GCSE.”
The snobbery, and similar poor taste slogans in some of her artwork such as “you’re peng but your English is shit”, led to intense mockery. Douglas began trending on Twitter and deleted her Instagram after people shared photos of her posing with her Jobcentre work plan, and complaining about the lack of water coolers in the building when she went to sign on.
The Daily Mail, Evening Standard and The Sun wrote up the backlash, while snippets from interviews with Douglas revealed she had claimed: “I think as long as we are kind and gentle to others and, more importantly, ourselves then everything is bless.” A profile of Douglas on the site of creative agency Babyface referred to Douglas as “the first Earl of Shottinghamshire, who currently resides on the Peckham-Camberwell borders; Her coat of arms is a neat little composition of a beanie, two tinnys of Stella, crossed paintbrushes and some potato gratin.”
Babyface have since taken the profile down, leaving only the cache.
Douglas’s background is only presumed, but most people read her as “a spoiled little rich girl gentrifying south London” because her behaviour is symptomatic of a trend in London and beyond: of embracing working class cultural signifiers while struggling to conceal your visceral hatred of actual working class people.
and you look like a spoiled rich girl gentrifying south London pic.twitter.com/0bysFYfc9c — rhi (@rhiharper) September 4, 2017
People behave stupidly in their youth, but there’s a difference between vomiting outside a bar, and feeling you have a right to publicly mock perfect strangers and make assumptions about their intelligence based on their workwear. Previously, Douglas had joked about the horror of finding a homeless person attractive – imagine discovering someone sleeping rough could be anything less than a figure of contempt for you! But the McDonalds Instagram post was a perfect metaphor for this tendency: entering spaces you deem working class to show how real and down to earth you are, but retaining a sense of disgust at the people who are in the same space for reasons other than irony.
It’s a phenomenon I first encountered at university. At a drinks reception on the first day of term, students were asked to meet their lecturers and each other over wine and crisps. I was ushered over to some lecturers with the handful of fellow scholarship kids to meet some senior members of faculty. One asked me a few questions about my background, then said “A word of advice – lose the accent, it’ll only hold you back.”
Minutes later, other students were introducing themselves to me: all from London, they claimed to be from Brixton, Peckham and Hackney. Later I learned that was code for, respectively, Herne Hill, East Dulwich and Stoke Newington.
While I was being told to shake off any vestige of my background, my classmates were confidently asserting they were far less middle class than the actuality, as if faking working class identity was a progressive form of dressing up.
This continued through university: endless bores bent my ear about their “working class roots” (usually their grandfather had seen a coal miner on a train once) and I quickly learnt the most middle class conversation of all is over whether you are “truly” middle class, and oh – isn’t it just so complex? People who went to schools that cost far more than my large family lived on in a year earnestly argued that they couldn’t truly be middle class because their mother was a teacher not a magistrate, or other minor quibbles. For these people, reading Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier showed how open minded they were.
Orwell’s approach, adopting the dress and lifestyle of the working classes to report on them is still endemic today. The poverty safari approach – where a middle class person goes “undercover” as a member of the underclass to expose the realities of low paid life – is still regarded as the height of investigative work on social issues. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickeled and Dimed has spawned dozens of copycat books, each less valuable than the original. The idea that you could simply ask, or commission, people in these jobs what their life is like and listen to them seems ludicrous to many journalists, failing as it does to provide them with any kudos for fleetingly enduring hardship and sacrifice themselves.
There are thousands of privileged young people in Britain though who spend their days eulogising about going to Greggs and Wetherspoons as if it shows how grounded and open-minded they are. No working class person I know does the same, because for most people going to McDonalds isn’t a notable event in which they’re deviating in what is acceptable for their class. They’re buying food or ordering a pint, not going on a class-crossing field trip to an alien territory in which they feel comfortable because being middle class affords you the confidence to feel entitled to enter any space you wish.
Instagramming photos from your Wetherspoons crawl seems exciting and exotic when you have the privilege to adopt any class signifier you like. But being working class hasn’t ever meant people treat me or friends with any wide-eyed respect. Instead I’m spoken to as if I’m stupid, have scorn poured on the fact I decided against going to Oxford, have people make openly scornful jokes about the areas we come from especially post-Brexit, or slag off “benefit scroungers” even after pointing out you grew up on benefits.
Playing class dress up is so irritating because it doesn’t erode discrimination and snobbery based on class. Common People by Pulp was a criticism, not an instruction manual. Tweeting and effusing about working class signifiers grates because middle class people have the cultural privilege to do so without reprisals, while working class people are still discriminated against openly day in and day out.
If you went to boarding school and are bankrolled by your parents, own it, and be honest about your privilege: don’t think donning an Adidas tracksuit and tweeting about going to Greggs for lunch is anything other than offensive and embarrassing.
Dawn Foster is a journalist based in London. Follow her on Twitter.
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There are plenty of people who drink too much, but they don’t look like Channing Tatum.
“I probably drink too much, you know,” the “22 Jump Street” star says in GQ’s June issue. “My wife, that’s what she bought into … I’m probably a pretty high-functioning, I guess, you know, I would say, alcoholic, I guess. There’s probably a tendency to escape. I equate it to creativity, and I definitely equate it to having a good time.”
Tatum’s love of the bottle should prepare him for his next role as the Marvel superhero Gambit.
The actor called the X-Man “the only superhero I really followed … He was the most real to me: smoking, drinking, women-loving, thief. He just looked cool to me. I’ve always loved him. And obviously he’s Cajun.”
Booze isn’t the 34-year-old’s only vice, though — he also loves fatty food.
“I really do love it. It’s terrible and it’s bad, but I really do think it’s because I have an inner fat kid in me. I can completely lose myself into just absolutely satisfying things — a really amazing cheeseburger, a pizza, good fries, a beer. I enjoy being comfortable and eating whatever the hell I like,” he says.
While it may be hard to believe because of his chiseled physique, Tatum showed off his food-loving credentials by getting into the nitty-gritty details of what he loves about one of his favorite foods, cake.
“I just love cake,” he said. “Confetti cake, to be specific. It has little colored candies inside the cake, and then you get the confetti icing, which is really hard to find sometimes. It’s really hard to explain to people, because it’s not icing with sprinkles on top. It’s icing that actually has candies inside of it. It’s Funfetti icing. It’s a beautiful mix. It is an angel sent from heaven.”
“22 Jump Street” hits theaters on June 13.A roundup of Emirates Investment Bank’s 2017 GCC Wealth Insights Report
Emirates Investment Bank today published ‘GCC Wealth Insight Report’ for 2017. The Report is now in its fourth year and it outlines the views of High Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) from across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
It looks at their views on local and global economies as well as the main elements that drive their own investment decisions. For the purposes of this study, HNWIs are defined as individuals with at least $2 million US Dollars in investable assets. Interviews with participating HNWIs were conducted face to face between September and December 2016, with the majority completed before the United States election result and the fall of Eastern Aleppo in Syria.
Khaled Sifri (CEO, Emirates Investment Bank) launched the report today at The Palace Downtown Dubai at an event attended by the bank’s clients and peers. Khaled Sifri and Ranya Afifi (Director of The Economist Corporate Network MENAT region) then discussed on stage the key findings of the report and the implications for the region.
Report overview
For both the global and regional economies, 85 percent of HNWIs feel the current situation is worse or unchanged, with investors’ primary concerns being political instability, conflict and threat of terrorism, along with a possible oil price decline. However, over the next three to five years, there is a positive outlook, with 76 percent of HNWIs optimistic for the global economy and the Gulf economy.
In terms of asset allocation, the distribution of HNWIs’ wealth is broadly similar to previous years, with wealth most likely to be allocated to their own business (34 percent). However, there does appear to be a continued shift since 2015 towards HNWIs having a greater share of their wealth in cash/deposits (27 percent, up from 17 percent in 2015) and away from real estate as an investment (15 percent, down from 30 percent in 2015). As in previous years, HNWIs from the GCC are focused on growing their wealth (80 percent), rather than preserving it and there is a strong preference for regional HNWIs to keep their assets closer to home (72 percent).
Commenting on the Report, Khaled Sifri (CEO, Emirates Investment Bank) said: “From a global perspective, 2016 was marked by heightened volatility across a range of markets and asset classes. This was certainly felt here in the GCC and, despite governments implementing structural reform plans and steady gains in the price of oil, liquidity remained relatively tight.
“It is, therefore, no surprise that this year’s GCC Wealth Insight Report shows that investors are expecting a flat or, possibly, declining economic performance in 2017 – both at a regional and international level. It was particularly interesting to see 18 percent of respondents say they had discontinued projects due to local economic conditions. However, over a three to five-year horizon, there is a greater sense of optimism, with HNWIs expecting of a more favourable oil price and for the region’s economies to show strength and growth.
“The Report does suggest a bit more caution concerning the medium-term outlook compared to previous years but my view is that this is more realistic given the nature of the global economic and political climate. Emirates Investment Bank has helped its clients navigate through a number of business cycles. At the core of our advice to clients has always been the importance of investment diversification and focusing on long-term sustainable growth. If the world has learned anything from 2016, it is that nothing is certain and that an investor must always consider all possible outcomes.”
On a panel discussion at the launch of the 2017 GCC Wealth Insight Report, Ranya Afifi presented her views on how the Report reflects the economic situation in the region.
Ranya Afifi (Director of The Economist Corporate Network MENAT region) said: “There are a multitude of similarities between the perceptions of HNWIs and the multinational corporates operating in the region towards macro-driven challenges and operational risks affecting investment decisions. Both cohorts have been impacted the most by oil prices and ensuing tightening liquidity. Structural reforms are bound to impact investment decisions over the medium term. The Economist Intelligence Unit believes that in this transformational phase lies a plethora of opportunities for the private sector to lead the next phase of development in the GCC through PPPs, SMEs, transfer of knowledge, and developing home grown solutions for sustainable growth.”
Current economic sentiment
This year’s findings show that investors are braced for worsening conditions or more of the same in 2017.
At a global level, HNWIs in the GCC remain pessimistic about the current condition of the economy. Almost half (47 percent) think that the situation is worsening and just 15 percent say the situation is improving. This is broadly in line with the results of our 2016 survey. Amongst the 47 percent of HNWIs who say the global economic situation is worsening, political instability, conflict and threat of terrorism (72 percent) is the most commonly cited reason for this, as it was in 2016 (53 percent).
HNWI’s have polarised views of the GCC’s current economic situation, with a marginal increase in those thinking the economic situation is improving, from 17 percent last year to 20 percent this year, as well as an increase in negativity, with 44 percent say that it is worsening compared to 36 percent in 2016. 36 percent say it is staying the same (down from 47 percent in 2016).
At a country level, the views of HNWIs on the economic situation in their own country vary significantly across the GCC. Views are most positive in the UAE (69 percent say economy is improving) and Qatar (42 percent say economy is improving), and least positive in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. HNWIs in Oman are most likely to feel that the economic situation in their country is worsening (75 percent). This pattern is consistent with 2016.
Economic outlook
There is a strong sense of optimism about the regional and global economy over the next five years.
76 percent of respondents are at least somewhat optimistic about the economic prospects for the global economy over the next five years. Despite this optimism, the outlook appears to be more cautious than in 2016 and 2015, with a continued fall in those who say they are ‘very’ optimistic, and an increase in those saying they are ‘somewhat’ optimistic. Amongst the 76 percent of HNWIs who are optimistic about the economic prospects for the global economy for the next five years, positive economic signs and stability (26 percent) is most frequently cited as the reason for this view.
A similarly high proportion (75 percent) say that they are optimistic about the economic prospects for the Gulf region over the next five years – slightly down compared to previous years. The proportion of HNWIs who say that they are ‘very’ optimistic about prospects for the Gulf region shows a notable decline from last year (20 percent, down from 40 percent in 2016). Over half say they are ‘somewhat’ optimistic about future prospects (55 percent, up from 43 percent in 2016).
Investment decisions
Regional HNWIs continue to prefer investing in their own business and remain focused on growth over preservation.
Half of HNWIs (50 percent) say the global economic situation has changed their approach to investing, with the most commonly cited impact being a more cautious approach and preference for lower risk (42 percent).
A similar proportion (49 percent) said that local economic conditions have changed their approach to investing and investment decisions. Amongst this group, the most commonly cited impacts are increased investment in new/ growing sectors (20 percent), and more caution when making investment decisions due to losses (20 percent). Almost two in ten (18 percent) say they have discontinued projects due to local economic conditions.
Over a third of HNWI respondents say their investment decisions have changed ‘a great deal’ due to movements in the price of oil (37 percent) and regional structural reform (37 percent).
More than two in five (45 percent) HNWIs say that the geopolitical situation in the Arab region has changed their approach to investing and the investment decisions they make.
The distribution of HNWIs’ wealth is broadly similar to previous years, with wealth most likely to be allocated to their own business (34 percent). However, there does appear to be a continued shift since 2015 towards HNWIs having a greater share of their wealth in cash/deposits (27 percent, up from 17 percent in 2015) and away from real estate as an investment (15 percent, down from 30 percent in 2015).
Looking ahead, half of HNWIs say that they plan to increase their investment in cash deposits (51 percent) and their own business (50 percent) in the near future. Approximately a quarter of HNWIs say they plan to increase the share of their wealth in direct investment/private equity (28 percent) and gold/precious metals (28 percent).
Preference for local investment remains, with the majority of HNWIs keeping investments closer to home, rather than being global investors, due to confidence in the stability and security of the local economy. However, we have seen an increase year-on-year since 2015 in global investors, principally driven by a desire for diversification and risk management.
Meanwhile, 80 percent of HNWIs say that they are focused on growing their wealth, rather than preserving it. Amongst the 80 percent of HNWIs who are focused on growing their wealth, the main reasons cited for this are to provide reassurance and security for themselves and their family (33 percent) and to fulfil personal ambitions (28 percent). Other reasons mentioned frequently include continuing to work on more/larger projects and the expansion of businesses/activities.Sheriff's deputies have arrested a man accused of shooting his girlfriend five times during a domestic dispute in Laurel County.
The Laurel County Sheriff's Office charged Michael Johnson, 48, with attempted murder and wanton endangerment.
Deputies said they were called early Wednesday morning to a home off Lon Chadwell Road for a report of a woman with gunshot wounds.
WKYT obtained the 10 minute 911 call and in it, the man admits to shooting his wife:
Dispatcher: “Where is she shot at?”
Caller: “In the abdomen…abdomen."
Dispatcher: “Who shot her?”
Caller: “I did.”
When deputies arrived, they found the suspect and the victim in a bedroom.
Dispatchers were told by both the suspect and the victim that the shooting was just an accident and that it happened when Johnson was cleaning his gun.
The victim told deputies the two were arguing earlier in the day and that Johnson backed her into the corner of the bedroom and shot her. Deputies said she and a five-year-old child were asleep in the room before the argument started.
“Even if he was just in the house, to be woken up by those shots, seeing his mom shot," said neighbor Rick Felts.
Neighbors say Johnson and his girlfriend had been together about a dozen years. They say their child is now in the custody of his grandparents.
A medical helicopter transported the victim to the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital for the treatment of her injuries.On a recent Tuesday evening, Neil Strauss, the man who introduced negging to America, stood in a dark bar in south Brooklyn asking men to talk about their mothers. Strauss is best known for The Game, his exploration into the world of pickup artists, and its follow-up, Rules of the Game, which distilled that wisdom into a set of tactics for approaching and seducing women. Like The Game, his new memoir, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, is bound in leatherette covers, with gilt-edged pages and a ribbon bookmark; the large typeface and comic-book style illustrations are the only features that outwardly differentiate it from a Gideons Bible. But it’s also something of a corrective to the earlier book: It puts forward a more vulnerable approach to women and relationships, one that isn’t guaranteed to be a success with Strauss’s fans. This was publication day, so no one at his first author event—mostly men, who bought advance tickets to see their guru in person—had read it yet.
The new book chronicles his forays into sex communes, threesomes, and a modern-day harem, but Strauss didn’t mention any of that at the event. For him, this tale of redemption—you could call it an Eat, Pray, Love for the oversexed and under-committed male—starts in rehab for sex addiction, which he entered after cheating on his former girlfriend. (Strauss was anxious throughout the evening about spoiling the book, but the fans who follow him on Instagram already knew the surprise ending: He gets back together with girlfriend Ingrid De La O, marries her, and has a baby.)
Rehab, he said, wasn’t the answer (“Whatever sex-positive is, this place was just sex-negative”), but it did give him the chance to talk about his childhood—specifically, his controlling, self-absorbed mom. She had no boundaries; she made him into her private confidant. And as he learned in rehab, she was the source of his problem. This situation, Strauss noted, is hardly unique. Tucker Max also has a narcissistic mom. So does the author of The Art of Seduction. When Strauss ran seminars on dating—one of his lucrative post-Game gigs—he found out that many of the book’s biggest acolytes had similar backgrounds: distant fathers, narcissistic mothers. “I thought that I wrote The Game and millions of people read it, which meant I must be speaking some kind of truth. What I realized was that maybe I was just speaking to people with my same shit or trauma.” Strauss paused for a few moments to let that sink in, then added: “Guess what, guys? We’re all fucked up together!”
And Strauss was pretty sure that everyone there was fucked up in the same way. He speaks a new language now—the therapy-speak of trauma and wounds and “working on yourself.” He threw out questions to audience members about their parents, and as they became more comfortable, the event began to resemble an EST seminar for lonely men. Even in mundane complaints—one guy whined about being made to drive a carpool—Strauss saw evidence of trauma and “enmeshment,” a psychological term used for relationships without defined boundaries. When asked what to do when the passion leaves a long-term relationship, Strauss responded, “OK, describe your mom to me.” He told another man, “You get your self-worth by taking care of needy people.”A new hybrid greenhouse facility larger than 16 football fields that will produce marijuana has broken ground in Leduc County, Alta.
Aurora Cannabis has started construction on the 800,000 square foot production facility, which the company said will be the largest, most advanced and most automated cannabis production facility in the world.
“Our objectives are very clear: to build the largest production capacity, with the highest production quality and the lowest production cost,” Aurora president Steve Dobler said.
READ MORE: Sneak peek inside Alberta’s first medical marijuana production centre
The company expects “Aurora Sky” to have the capability of producing 100,000 kilograms of marijuana per year.
Aurora believes the facility’s location will provide access to transportation, industrial infrastructure, power, water, gas and courier services.
“It’s a massive facility that’s going to employ a lot of people and it’s the right time to build something like this in the Edmonton area,” Terry Booth, CEO of Aurora Cannabis, said.
READ MORE: Alberta producer launches medical marijuana app
The company – which already operates a 55,200 square foot facility in Mountain View County, Alta. – said the closed-system, hybrid greenhouse concept of the design will give cultivation specialists control over environmental variables to ensure quality is consistent.
“We spent the past year evaluating and selecting the world’s best design concept for cannabis production on a massive scale. We are confident that the Aurora Sky project will achieve all of our key objectives, and further establish Aurora as an innovator and world leader in the cannabis sector,” Dobler said.
“This facility will grow and ship direct to patients across the country,” Booth said.
The facility will represent an investment pegged in the tens of millions of dollars.
“We’ve been really working on an agribusiness platform here,” Barbara Engelbart McKenzie, with the Leduc-Nisku Economic Development Association, said. “So, we consider this part of that full agribusiness platform.”
Still, to some, cannabis production may not be the most welcome industry. But it’s growing, with greenhouse facilities being built across the country.
“Things are changing,” Engelbart McKenzie said.
“We need to understand that things are moving forward,” she continued. “We know the government is going to make changes. We want to be ahead of that curve here in Alberta and in the region. So, we’re really looking at it as an opportunity.”
The target completion date for the facility is October 2017.
READ MORE: How will legal pot be sold? Three things that might happen, and one that won’t
Currently, the company supplies medicinal marijuana to about 10,000 customers. It is preparing for a future when it’s expected the recreational use of the cannabis will be legalized.
The federal government has said it will legalize recreational marijuana by spring 2017, which mean Canadians will be able to legally buy marijuana to use purely for pleasure next year.
A CIBC report earlier this year estimated the size of the national recreational cannabis market at up to $10 billion.Santa Fe-(Ammoland.com)- A new Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep area will open to hunting this year in northeastern New Mexico after successful negotiations between the Department of Game and Fish and two private landowners.
The single public ram license will be the first offered in the Dry Cimarron area near New Mexico’s borders with Colorado and Oklahoma.
“The growth of this bighorn sheep herd and this unique hunting opportunity would not be possible without the cooperation and land stewardship that these landowners have displayed,” Department Director Alexandra Sandoval said. “We are very thankful for their conservation efforts.”
The agreement between the department and the Pacheco and Black Mesa ranch owners will allow a hunter who is successful in this year’s public drawing to hunt on either ranch or on public lands in Game Management Unit 58. The hunt period of Aug. 15, 2015, through Jan. 15, 2016, was lengthened because the bighorns move around a lot and may not be present in the unit at all times.
Hunters interested in applying for the Unit 58 bighorn sheep hunting license or other 2015-16 big-game licenses for deer, elk, oryx, pronghorn, ibex, Barbary sheep or javelina are reminded to apply before the deadline, 5 p.m. MDT March 18. Hunters who have already applied for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep licenses and would like to add the Unit 58 hunt to their application may do so by calling the department by 5 p.m. March 13at (505) 476-8072 or (505) 476-8093.AUSTIN — Tea party activist Debra Medina, who last month publicly mulled running as an independent candidate for governor, instead on Wednesday filed as a Republican candidate for comptroller.
Medina advisers said she discussed her options with numerous people as she decided which office would be the right fit, and if she could run a competitive race.
Still, she is lagging in fundraising, having raised less than $75,000 as of the last reporting period, and asked supporters to help her in the comptroller’s contest. Sen. Glenn Hegar of Katy already has filed, and Rep. Harvey Hilderbran of Kerrville is expected to enter the race.
“Many of you know that I’ve been reluctant to launch this campaign underfunded,” she wrote to supporters. “I continue to seek support from both individual and business interests who traditionally provide support to candidates in Texas.”
Medina, of Wharton, ran an impressive race for governor in 2010, when she garnered 19 percent of the primary vote against two Texas titans, Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Last month, Medina told The News that monied interests had approached her last March, promising her significant campaign contributions if she ran for governor.
An independent tea party maverick like Medina could have siphoned off votes from GOP gubernatorial front-runner Greg Abbott.
But getting on the ballot in Texas as an independent is a steep hurdle, and in the end Medina chose to stick with the comptroller’s contest.
Democrat Mike Collier, a Houston-area businessman, also has entered the race.
Incumbent Susan Combs has chosen not to seek re-election.
Follow Christy Hoppe on Twitter at @christyhoppe.Motoharu Okamura (岡村 基春, Okamura Motoharu, 1901 – 13 July 1948) was a Japanese naval aviator who served as a test pilot in the 1930s, and served as the commander of the 341st Tateyama Kōkūtai (Air Group) for kamikaze attacks in June 1944.
Career [ edit ]
In June 1934, Lt. Okamura was flight testing the second prototype of two Mitsubishi 1MF10 Experimental 7-Shi carrier fighters, when it entered an irrecoverable flat spin. Okamura bailed out, but lost four fingers in the accident, jeopardizing his career as a fighter pilot.[1]
During the Kuangda campaign in China in 1938, Okamura served as a flight leader in the 12th Air Group's fighter squadron, where he was renowned for developing new air tactics for the Navy, and was noted as an expert aviator and trainer. He had formed an air demonstration team known as "Genda's Flying Circus" with Yoshita Kobayashi and Minoru Genda, using Nakajima A2N Type 90 fighters, at Yokosuka in 1932.[2]
Captain Okamura was in charge of the Tateyama Base in Tokyo, as well as the 341st Air Group Home, and according to some sources, was the first officer to officially propose kamikaze attack tactics, by arranging with his superiors for the first investigations on the plausibility and mechanisms of intentional suicide attacks on 15 June 1944. He was a veteran fighter pilot, who instructed the Yokosuka Air Corps at the war's outbreak. He also commanded a fighter group under Vice Admiral Kimpei Teraoka.[3]
Okamura had expressed his desire to lead a volunteer group of suicide attacks some four months before Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, commander of the Japanese naval air forces in the Philippines, presented the idea to his staff. While Vice Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, commander of the second air fleet, was inspecting the 341st Air Group, Captain Okamura took the chance to express his ideas on crash-dive tactics. “In our present situation I firmly believe that the only way to swing the war in our favor is to resort to crash-dive attacks with our planes. There is no other way. There will be more than enough volunteers for this chance to save our country, and I would like to command such an operation. Provide me with 300 planes and I will turn the tide of war.”[4]
"In August of 1944 the Naval Air Research and Development Center instituted an emergency development program of special piloted glide bombs, which bore the first character of Oka [sic], and which henceforth came to be known as the Marudai project. From late October to November [the Japanese] held accelerated flight tests of the new glide bombs. Tokyo established a new air corps charged with the mission of operating the Marudai weapons, and by the close of November pilot training was well on its way. Captain Motoharu Okamura, one of Japan's most famous senior fighter pilots, became the corps commander; Okamura selected as his first fliers experienced fighter and dive-bomber pilots. Actually these pilots were selected prior to the first Kamakaze attacks in the Philippines. The selection was unnecessary, beyond the critical choices made by Okamura; volunteers poured in by the thousands for the new operation, despite the'special nature' of their future missions."[5]
As commander of the new kamikaze unit in 1944, Captain Okamura commented that "there were so many volunteers for suicide missions that he referred to them as a swarm of bees," explaining: "Bees die after they have stung."[6]
After the war, Okamura shot himself in the face as penance for sending so many young men to their deaths.[3]
Personal life [ edit ]
Okamura remarried after his first wife died. He had several children.[7]
References [ edit ]UPDATE 2012-02-16: raver1975 released a SQL database w/35M Google Profiles as.torrent on The Pirate Bay.
UPDATE 2011-06-10: Central question in the Google discussion is whether mass-aggregation of profile data by unknown third parties is considered acceptable. We should neither exaggerate NOR DENY possibilities that public profile data offers to adversaries. We should THINK about them. How will YOUR LinkedIn + Facebook + Twitter + Google Profile + (…) make you look when I combine them and subject you to longitudinal study? I seriously doubt that such activities will turn out all good and harmless.
To quote from Tali Sharot’s piece on The Optimism Bias in Time Magazine June 2011 : “The question then is, How can we remain hopeful — benefiting from the fruits of [techno-]optimism — while at the same time guarding ourselves from its pitfalls?” Like him, I too believe knowledge is key in that.
====== START OF ORIGINAL BLOGPOST FROM 2011-05-24 ======
This is a follow-up to my previous blogpost on this topic.
In February 2011 it showed trivial to create a database containing ALL ~35.000.000 Google Profiles without Google throttling, blocking, CAPTCHAing or otherwise make more difficult mass-downloading attempts. It took only 1 month to retrieve the data, convert it to SQL using spidermonkey and some custom Javascript code, and import it into a database. The database contains Twitter conversations (also stored in the OZ_initData variable), person names, aliases/nicknames, multiple past educations (institute, study, start/end date), multiple past work experiences (employer, function, start/end date), links to Picasa photoalbums, …. — and in ~15.000.000 cases, also the username and therefore @gmail.com address. In summary: 1 month + 1 connection = 1 database containing 35.000.000 Google Profiles.
My activities are directed at feeding debate about privacy — not to create distrust but to achieve realistic trust — and on the meaning of “informed consent”. Which, when signing up for online services like Google Profile, amounts to checking a box. How can a user possibly be considered to be “informed” when they’re not made aware 1) about the fact that it does not seem to bother Google that profiles can be mass-downloaded (Dutch) and 2) about misuse value –or hopefully the lack of it– of their social data to criminals and certain types of marketeers? Does this enable mass spear phishing attacks and other types of social engineering, or is that risk negligible, e.g. because criminals use other methods of attack and/or have other, better sources of personal data? Absence of ANY protection against mass-downloading is the status quo at Google Profile. Strictly speaking I did not even violate Google policy in retrieving the profiles, because http://www.google.com/robots.txt explicitly ALLOWS indexing of Google Profiles and my code is part of a personal experimental search engine project. At the time of this writing, the robots.txt file contains:
Allow: /profiles Allow: /s2/profiles Allow: /s2/photos Allow: /s2/static
I’m curious about whether there are any implications to the fact that it is completely trivial for a single individual to do this — possibly there aren’t. That’s something worth knowing too. I’m curious whether Google will apply some measures to protect against mass downloading of profile data, or that this is a non-issue for them too. In my opinion the misuse value of personal data on social networks ought to be elicited before publishing it under a false perception of ‘informed’ consent.
My activities were performed as part of my research on anonymity/privacy at the University of Amsterdam. I’m writing a research paper about the above. Repeating from my previous post: this blog runs at Google Blogger. I sincerely hope my account “mrkoot” and blog.cyberwar.nl will not be blocked or banned – I did not publish the database and did not violate any Google policy.The neighborhood of Comuna 13, located on the periphery of Medellin, the second-largest city in Colombia, is one of the poorest section of the city. During the regime of Pablo Escobar, the notorious Colombian drug lord, many fled the city to the hills causing overpopulation and unsustainable growth leading to a large shortage in basic municipal services such as electricity, water, sewage, police and transportation, in turn leading to low quality of life for its residents. Crime and gang war gained upper hand, and Comuna became known as the most violent neighborhood in the city of Medellin.
But over the last decade, the city has worked hard to recover from years of violence, not only with law-enforcement initiatives but by making a series of innovative, public investments designed to integrate the city’s low-income residents and communities with its wealthier commercial centre. One of these initiatives is the construction of a massive hillside escalator.
Photo credit
For years, the 12,000 residents of the hilly neighborhood of Comuna 13 used to climb hundreds |
lap, that will allow me to come back next year and improve.”When did you first hear of Bitcoin and what did you think about it?
JB: I first heard about it in early 2011 from a Dollar Vigilante subscriber, Jeremy Bernal. I posted an interview with him here in May 2011. I met Jeremy at Doug Casey’s La Estancia de Cafayate in Argentina over a glass of torontes near a fireplace and was very interested as I had never heard of it before. I began to follow it near $3 and after interviewing him I then went on to talk more with another person I met in Cafayate, Trace Mayer in 2012.
[Trace] told me, in this interview, why it was so important. Trace actually walked me through opening my first bitcoin wallet, transferred me $10 in bitcoin and walked me through buying something on the internet with it all within a matter of about a minute and from then on I was enthralled with it. I’d also have to say you played a role in my bitcoin education as I initially got involved with you on the world’s first bitcoin ATM machine when Cyprus had their bank bail-ins. Quickly I was on Fox Business, CNBC and Bloomberg and you helped me to gain a better technical understanding of bitcoin at that time to answer the questions I was being asked.
What is your feeling of the Bitcoin ecosystem and the players investing in Bitcoin?
JB: I think it is vibrant and exciting. It reminds me very much of the mid 90s with the internet… a revolution I was very much a part of as I founded Canada’s largest financial website, Stockhouse.com, in 1994. Every year you can see more big name people coming on board with bitcoin and with the recent $75 million investment into Coinbase by banks, the New York Stock Exchange and former Thomson Reuters CEO it shows a lot of people see a major future for bitcoin.
What do you think about the Bitcoin Foundation?
JB: I truly didn’t see much about it until a good anarcho-capitalist friend of mine, Cody Wilson, stated that he wanted to run for President of it and then shut it down. I then discovered that the main purpose of the Bitcoin Foundation was to integrate bitcoin more with governments and the current banking system and, being an anarcho-capitalist myself, I don’t support that very much.
Is Bitcoin popular in Mexico?
JB: Amongst the general populace, no. But you could say the same about that in the US. It is rising tremendously with a vibrant business environment, however. I have spoken at a few bitcoin conference in Mexico City and every year the audience grows tremendously.
Are there any merchants in Acapulco taking Bitcoin that you know of?
JB: I think I am the only one right now. We accept bitcoin for our condo sales at Acacondos and at our hotel at Las Torres Gemelas Private Suites.
How can Bitcoin help the Mexican people/economy
JB: Bitcoin can help anyone, anywhere, because it gives us a free market currency option. Central banks, around the world, including in Mexico, serve no purpose but to impoverish the society, destroy the economy through money printing and price fixing of interest rates and also to fund government wars and other heinous acts.
One area, however, that I think will be massive for Mexico is in the area of remissions. Many Mexicans still work outside of Mexico and send funds back to their family in Mexico, usually via things like Western Union, which are difficult to use, heavily restricted and very costly. Bitcoin is easy, completely unrestricted and essentially free to transfer so bitcoin should catch on quickly here once it reaches critical mass.
Are you watching the Silk Road trial closely? Why?
JB: Absolutely. I recently called it the most important trial of our generation. The Silk Road was a completely free market (the government calls it a black market because they don’t get a cut of the action) with no restrictions or regulations except those put on by the users themselves. Ross Ulbricht stands accused of “masterminding” the website and is accused of, essentially, being a drug trafficker because people used the website to trade in things like plants (they call them drugs in government speak).
There were no victims and therefore there was no crime. The only victim in this case is the one standing trial, Ross Ulbricht, who has been kidnapped (arrested and jailed) and already had all of his bitcoin stolen from him even though he has yet to even be found guilty of anything. The case has major ramifications because it essentially says that if you have a website, of any nature, and people are on the website and transact that you are liable for their actions. It is the height of ludicrousness… but that is the police-state of the US today. Everything is illegal and everyone goes to jail.
How has TDV incorporated Bitcoin?
JB: TDV’s main role has been in championing the currency since 2011. Aside from that, every single product we offer, whether it be our newsletter (The Dollar Vigilante), second citizenships (TDV Passports), offshore banking and incorporation (TDV Offshore), wealth internationalization and management (TDV Wealth Management) or anything else, we accept bitcoin.
What is Anarchapulco?
JB: I have been an outspoken free market advocate since 2004 and a true free market advocate is an anarcho-capitalist. I’ve hosted my program, Anarchast, for many years now and had nearly 200 episodes with some of the most amazing free market advocates in the world including Doug Casey, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods and countless others. What I found, however, is that there had yet to be a truly anarcho-capitalist event. Most freedom events are called things like Libertyfest, Libertopia and Freedomfest… but they have all different styles of libertarians at it but don’t focus on the purest form, anarcho-capitalism. So, I decided to start one this year where I live in Acapulco, Mexico, called Anarchapulco, which I find to be the freest city in North America. We’ll be holding it from February 27th to March 1st.
What can one expect at Anarchapulco?
JB: The tagline is “Rethink. Reinvent. All the Things.” That really embodies the theme. We have a two day entrepreneurship camp, an independent media workshop, an unschooling workshop and we have many different speakers on things like precious metals, Austrian economics, anarchist and libertarian philosophy, expatriation and numerous other topics. The biggest topic is bitcoin and bitcoin/internet 2.0. We have many of the biggest names in the bitcoin world coming including Roger Ver, the bitcoin Jesus, Cody Wilson of Dark Wallet and countless others including most of the Mexican bitcoin community.
What Bitcoin options will be at Anarchapulco?
JB: I would say 99% of the people coming to the conference are huge proponents of bitcoin for its free-market value and so pretty much anything you can imagine bitcoin related will be there. And, of course, we accept registration for bitcoin.
Thanks Jeff!
JB: Thank you!CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Chicago police officer who shot a black teenager last year pleaded not guilty to murder on Tuesday, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel cut short a vacation to return to the city to deal with the fallout from two more fatal police shootings over the weekend.
Meanwhile, protesters demonstrated outside the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office in Cleveland, a day after a grand jury decided not to charge two white police officers in the 2014 shooting death of Tamir Rice, a black 12-year-old boy who was playing in a park with a replica gun that shoots plastic pellets.
Tensions over race and policing in Chicago and Cleveland come amid intense scrutiny of police killings in the United States over the past 18 months, especially of black men. Protests have taken place around the country and the issue has fueled a civil rights movement under the name Black Lives Matter.
Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, faces six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct for killing Laquan McDonald, 17, in October 2014. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on Tuesday at the Cook County criminal court in Chicago. Van Dyke’s lawyer said he may ask for a change of venue.
“We’re certainly going to explore every opportunity we have in order for my client to have a fair trial,” attorney Daniel Herbert said after the hearing.
The release last month of a video of the shooting, which shows Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times, set off a wave of protests and calls for Emanuel’s resignation.
McDonald’s great uncle, Marvin Hunter, said after the hearing that Van Dyke’s trial should be televised to ensure fairness.
Over the weekend, another Chicago police officer fatally shot two black people, setting off more protests, and prompting Emanuel to cut short a family vacation to Cuba.
Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke (R), leaves the courtroom after a hearing with his attorney Daniel Herbert at Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago, Illinois December 18, 2015. REUTERS/Zbigniew Bzdak/Pool
Bettie Jones, 55, a mother of five, and college student Quintonio LeGrier, 19, were killed early on Saturday by an officer responding to a call that LeGrier was threatening a family member with a baseball bat. Police said Jones was killed by accident. [L1N14H0YL]
A vigil by former students is planned for LeGrier on Tuesday evening at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, a selective enrollment high school LeGrier had attended, said Daniel Bauer, assistant principal.
“(Quintonio) was a good kid,” said Bauer, who had run with LeGrier and other students in the Chicago Marathon to raise money for clean water for children in Africa. “This is a tragic loss.”
LeGrier’s father, Antonio LeGrier, has sued the city, both for wrongful death and for false arrest, saying he was detained and interrogated by the police after the shooting and not allowed to stay with his dying son.
Antonio LeGrier told CNN on Tuesday that the officer, who was white or Hispanic, knew he had made a mistake after the shooting and exclaimed, “I can’t believe it. I thought he was coming at me with that bat,” and “Fuck no, no.”
In Cleveland, some protesters took to social media on Tuesday to ask Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star LeBron James not to play to help pressure the U.S. Department of Justice to get involved in an investigation. A representative for James was not available for comment.
A group of about 75 protesters unsatisfied with the grand jury’s decision in the Rice case listened to speeches outside the Cleveland prosecutor’s office on Tuesday. They then marched through downtown Cleveland chanting “No justice, no peace, no racist police.” The demonstration was peaceful and no arrests were reported.
Cleveland police will review the fatal shooting of Rice from start to finish to determine if the two officers involved or others should face disciplinary action, officials said on Tuesday.
A man holds posters as he takes part in a protest against the police in Manhattan, New York, December 28, 2015 after a grand jury cleared two Cleveland police officers on Monday in the November 2014 fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
In Chicago, about 20 protesters gathered outside Mayor Emanuel’s house on Tuesday afternoon, according to CBS Chicago. There is also a protest planned at City Hall on Thursday.
Protests over the shooting of Laquan McDonald led to the resignation of Chicago’s police chief and a Justice Department probe into whether the city’s police use lethal force too often, especially against minorities.
Van Dyke’s case was assigned to Cook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan. Van Dyke’s next hearing is on Jan. 29.The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service(FWS), the agency that manages the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, plans a controlled burn of 701 acres of Refuge land in the spring of 2015. This plan should be canceled.
In April 2000, a 50-acre "test burn" was done with approval of the Department of Energy (DOE) in the buffer zone of the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear bomb plant. The original plan was to burn 500 acres. It was reduced to 50 acres due to public opposition. This "test burn"was a serious mistake. The fire produced dense clouds of radioactive smoke that swept rapidly across the area, from the mountains on the west to Thornton and Denver on the east.
Federal and state agencies said there was no significant radiation release from this burn. But Paula Elofson-Gardine, with a Radalert Geiger counter, detected airborne radiation ranging from 600 to 1,300 times average background radiation in the Denver area. Government agencies were asked to analyze ash from the fire to determine its contents, but they refused. So no official record exists.
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The smoke probably contained plutonium-239, the radioactive contaminant of greatest concern at Rocky Flats. During production from 1952 until 1989, fires, accidents and routine operations at the plant released plutonium particles too small to see but not too small to do harm. Biologist Harvey Nichols, who in the 1970s was hired by the government to study airborne matter at Rocky Flats, concluded that billions of plutonium particles were dusted on the ten square-mile Rocky Flats site. Independent physicist John Till, who in the 1990s did research for DOE and the state, confirmed Nichols' results. Scientists from the Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor to the DOE) found plutonium in soil across the metro area to the far side of Denver.
The Superfund "cleanup" at Rocky Flats dealt only with the plant site, not off-site areas. No effort was made to remove from the environment as much plutonium as possible with existing technology. An unknown quantity was left behind in the plant's buffer zone, land that is now the Wildlife Refuge. Those doing the "cleanup" estimated the amount of plutonium by collecting samples only on the surface of the soil. But much plutonium on this land had percolated down to deeper levels. Most of it should still be there. With a half-life of 24,110 years, it remains radioactive for a quarter-million years.
Plutonium is harmful only if it is taken into the body. For as long as it is lodged within - likely for the rest of one's life - it bombards surrounding tissue with radiation. The result two or three decades later may be cancer, a damaged immune system or genetic harm.
In 1997, researchers at Columbia University showed that a single particle of plutonium within the body could induce cell mutations that can lead to cancer. A British study in 2004 concluded that cancer risk from very low doses of plutonium may be 10 times more dangerous than allowed for by existing standards, such as those used to guide the Rocky Flats "cleanup."
The history of Rocky Flats is plagued by the fateful link between tiny plutonium particles and a fierce wind. Manufacturing operations that released plutonium have ended. But much plutonium remains in the environment. An 11-year study at DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina found that grass routinely brings measurable quantitiesof plutonium to the surface. Any burn, thus, will release plutonium particles.
FWS manages refuges for wildlife on federal land. The land it received at Rocky Flats unfortunately is radioactive. And it's plagued by invasive plants that drive out native vegetation, including rare xeric tall grass. FWS plans to address this problem by burning grass in the southern portion of the Refuge near the Candelas and Whisper Creek residential developments. The proposed burn, if it happens, could expose residents of these areas to plutonium.
In conclusion, pleasego to http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/cancel-the-prescribed?source=c.em.mt&r_by=364519 and sign the petition urging FWS to cancel the planned burn. Second, I invite FWS personnel to meet with a small group from the Rocky Flats Nuclear Guardianship project to discuss what to do regarding invasive plants at the Refuge.
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LeRoy Moore, PhD, is a consultant with the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center. For more on Nuclear Guardianship, see rockyflatsnuclearguardianship.org. For Paula Elofson-Gardine's account of the "test burn" done at Rocky Flats in 2000, see http://mindfully.org/Nucs/Prescribed-Burns-Danger-EIN.htm.The United Nations food aid agency withdrew a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Rohingya population after the Myanmar government demanded it be taken down, the Guardian has learned.
The July assessment by the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that more than 80,000 children under the age of five living in majority-Muslim areas were “wasting” — a potentially fatal condition of rapid weight loss.
Rohingya crisis: UN'suppressed' report predicting its shortcomings in Myanmar Read more
The six-page document, which was reported on at the time, was replaced with a statement saying Myanmar and WFP were “collaborating on a revised version”.
That process would involve “representatives from various ministries, and will respond to the need for a common approach” that was in line with “WFP’s future cooperation with the government”.
The report should not be cited in any way, the statement added.
However, WFP’s executive director David Beasley said in an emailed statement to the Guardian later on Tuesday that the agency would republish the report.
“The assessment should not have been removed and I have directed that it be republished immediately in its original form,” Beasley said. “Put simply, the World Food Programme stands firmly behind the findings of the report.”
He said that the level of food needs in Rakhine state had likely since changed for the worse and called for authorities to allow free and unhindered access to aid deliveries.
The revelation that the report was spiked will add to a series of recent criticisms that UN did not push the government hard enough for the rights of 1.1 million Rohingya in Myanmar or sound the alarm on their spiralling oppression.
The issue exploded on 25 August when Rohingya insurgents attacked security forces, who responded with a severe counteroffensive. More than half a million Rohingya have since fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, many alleging the army conducted mass killings and rapes, claims the government denies.
The UN’s most senior official in the country will leave at the end of the month amid allegations she suppressed another report, a damning consultation of the UN’s strategy, and also attempted to shut down public advocacy on Rohingya suffering. She leaves in the middle of the current crisis, the worst in decades, while a replacement has not been publicly announced.
Asked why the July study on Rakhine state was removed, WFP said earlier that it was withdrawn from the website “following a request by the government to conduct a joint review”.
The August violence, however, halted the joint review, it said.
A consultant who has worked with the UN’s Myanmar office including WFP said the agency’s in-country team were already extremely nervous about the report getting too much attention.
The assessment indicated that controversial WFP food aid cuts to internally displaced Rohingya over the previous two years had left people in dire need, said the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely.
“That was the discussion that was going on behind the scenes and at a senior level,” the source said. “They knew it was potentially damaging. It was all to do with the fact that internally, there was a belief that the decision made to stop feeding some of the [internally displaced people] was actually causing people serious harm, in terms of food security, hunger and even starvation.
“There was a real sense that they had things to hide in their work in Myanmar. Things had not been going to plan there,” the source added.
The WFP country office had also been prioritising its relationship with the government above humanitarian needs, the source added, in an attempt to attract millions in donor funding by showing it had government-approved access to work in other parts of the country.
“It’s a funny thing in the UN. It’s all about how much money you can raise,” the source said. But the access came at the expense of Myanmar’s most hated minority, the Rohingya, a toxic topic to raise with the government, leading to it being side-lined.
Meanwhile, WFP knew the “government wouldn’t have been happy”, the source said, about the report, which found that in one district, Maungdaw, one-third of all homes were experiencing extreme food deprivation.
The report called for further humanitarian assistance for more than 225,000 people, a move the government, which has since blocked aid to Rakhine, would not want.
And alarmingly, the assessment pointed to widespread accounts of security forces preventing Rohingya from reach markets and their crops.
Documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis – in pictures Read more
“Restriction of movement was one of the main constraints for the population for accessing food,” it said. “Residents still did not have full access to the forest, agricultural land and fishing grounds due to continuous military presence.”
The Guardian has contacted the Myanmar government for comment.
WFP did not respond directly to questions about whether food aid cuts had left vulnerable people in need or whether it the agency had prioritised good relations with the government over the immediate humanitarian needs of the Rohingya.
“WFP’s purpose in Myanmar is and always has been to address the food and nutrition needs of vulnerable people,” it said.Cleveland Browns’ wide reciever Josh Gordon is hopeful for a return to the NFL in 2017. And according to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, he may find out as soon as late April whether commissioner Roger Goodell will lift the indefinite ban on his suspension for drug use.
But reinstatement doesn’t guarantee Gordon a spot on the Browns’ roster. In fact, it’s far more likely the Browns - who have his rights for two more years - would look to trade, then possibly release, him.
What's best for our football team is that we move forward and move on. He's not going to be with us and we wish him well, but we're moving forward. We're going to move on.
That’s a quote from Browns’ head coach Hue Jackson (via Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com) from late September of 2016. And considering Gordon’s off-the-field issues, it’s understandable how Jackson would want to move on.
Gordon, who turns 26 in April, hasn’t played in an NFL game since Dec. 21, 2014 as a result of his suspension.
But it sounds as if he’s taking the necessary steps to sway Goodell’s opinion. On Friday, Graziano noted that Gordon is working out with Tim Montgomery in Gainesville, FL. Montgomery, a former Olympian who had drug problems of his own, has since turned his life around and works with Numa Speed, an organization that "focuses on helping athletes build self-confidence and avoid social and professional pitfalls in the face of substance abuse and peer pressure."
The burning question - assuming he’s reinstated and the Browns are truly ready to move on from “Flash” Gordon - is not only who will be interested, but what will it cost?
Should the Los Angeles Rams Show Interest?
Well yeah. In 2013, a season in which Gordon played in only 14 games, he lead the entirety of the NFL in receiving yards (1,646), and finished with nine touchdowns. The last time a Rams’ receiver lead the NFL in that category was in 2003 — when Torry Holt finished with 1,696 yards. Since then, as many of you know, Kenny Britt’s 1,002 yard performance of 2016 was the team’s first 1,000+ yard season since 2007 (again, Holt).
Why the Rams Should
It’s pretty simple. He’d immediately be the biggest, most talented wide receiver on their offense.
Why the Rams Won’t
Because the new coaching staff - McVay and Co. - has made it clear that “culture” is important (in his introductory press conference). And bringing in high-character, locker room guys like Andrew Whitworth, Robert Woods, and Kayvon Webster has been their aim. Gordon, though an immediate/potential upgrade, just doesn’t fit the bill.
The Rams weren’t serious players on DeSean Jackson in free agency. There were no rumors of a move for Terrelle Pryor. And, assuming he’s reinstated, I don’t expect the Rams to be in play for Josh Gordon.
But that shouldn’t stop us from discussing the matter.
In YOUR opinion, armchair GM of the Los Angeles Rams, what would you be willing to do in order to obtain the services of Josh Gordon?
Would you cough up a draft pick? And if so, which round?
Assuming he hits free agency, are you going to outbid other teams to acquire a potential No. 1 WR? And what does that contract look like?This is basically every significant companion/partner of the 9th, 10th, and 11th Doctors*, from regular series appearances and Christmas specials. Even got Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All in there, and the genetic duplicate of the 10th Doctor that went to the other dimension with Rose. This was a lot, lot, lot of fun to do, as much for reminiscing on good times gone by as for the drawing itself.
*YES I KNOW CLARA ISN'T IN IT. PLEASE DON'T TELL ME. This was done before she made any appearances in the show. Before she was even announced! There was no way I could have known she'd show up. It's part of why I'm not going to color it or make a print out of it - I know that, if I did, I'd spend all day at conventions hearing "Where's Clara?!" or "You forgot ________" or "Where's the NEW Doctor?" or whatever. I didn't "forget" anybody, I simply drew it long before any of those characters were announced.
The only character I could conceivably be charged with "forgetting" is Kazran Sardick, and I didn't forget him - I chose not to include him for space reasons. So there.
EDIT: You can download this in really high resolution, so if anybody out there wants to try coloring it themselves, go to town! Just let me know in the comments if you did so I can see your work.
This was a commission I did for Dragon*Con a couple years back, but I never posted it because I hadto color it. Now it seems like that ship has sailed - if it was going to get color, it would have happened by now. I've got too much else on my plate, unfortunately. And oh, the plans I had!When the Fire TV received support for external USB storage, Amazon designated a handful of drives as officially compatible with the Fire TV. One of those drives, the PNY Turbo USB 3.0 flash drive, which is my personal drive of choice, has just gone on sale at an all time low price. The 128GB drive is $29.99, the 64GB drive is $19.99, and the 32GB drive is $10.99. These are the lowest prices these drives have ever been. The PNY Turbo drives are a great balance of performance and value. While the Fire TV will work with a wide variety of drives, it nice to use one that’s been officially acknowledged by Amazon as being Fire TV compatible. You can use these drives to free up some of the Fire TV’s 8GB internal storage by moving large apps and games, if they support it, to the external drive, and you can even move Kodi’s data to them.
Follow AFTVnews on Twitter / Facebook and subscribe via email to be the first to learn when new articles go live. Follow me, Elias Saba, on Twitter and Instagram to see what I'm working on before it's posted here.
ShareTweetShare+1It was over two hours of pure euphoria for metal heads in Bangalore on Sunday. After the initial fear of the concert getting cancelled, the Gods of metal – Metallica -- finally appeared on stage, with James Hetfield belting out Creeping Death.Never has Bangalore seen such a turnout for a concert with more than 50,000 fans singing along with James in perfect unison, joining him For Whom the Bell Tolls and the cult classic Fuel.Just watching drummer Lars Ulrich with his all energy was such a treat. Lead guitarist Kirk Hammet was up in front sounding better than ever during his glorious solo. But it was bassist Robert Trujjilo who literally stole the show. He got huge applause from the crowd as he went spinning round and round, jumping up and down the stage. Then there was eerie silence for 10 minutes as Rob took centre stage and delivered his solo. After that, there was very little doubt why Rob is a perfect match for Metallica, being the newest member to join the band in 2006.And there was fire and fireworks in abundance leaving the audience gaping in awe. There has never been a concert quite like this one before in Bangalore. After belting out Master of Puppets, Hetfield tells fans: “India has been a life-changing experience for us.” It was a night Bangalore will not for a long time to come. But for the most part, fans say that after witnessing Metallica performing live, all their weariness and waiting for long hours in serpentine queues just made it all worth their while.Performing a total of 18 songs for over two hours, fans were still hungry for more. The other songs in the set list included Ride the Lightning, Fade to Black, The Memory Remains, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Sad But True, and the all-time classics like Nothing Else Matters (which sounded more beautiful live) and Enter Sandman.As Hetfield and Ulrich prepared to leave the stage, fans screamed “We want more” and they did get more. Metallica played there more encore numbers – Am I Evil, Battery and the song everyone waiting for “Seek and Destroy”.When Hetfield screamed out “Metallica loves you Bangalore”, everyone replied: “And we love you right back!” It was a touching moment between the band and fans that it even prompted Lars to say it too. After which, he handed over drumsticks to one of the policemen manning to barricade. Lead guitarist Kirk Hammet and Ron too threw their plectrums at the crowd, much to the glee of the fans.They Lit The Bern, What Comes Next?
Above Photo: PACIFIC PRESS/GETTY IMAGES Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has released his own plan to make the Fed more accountable to the public. His campaign expressed support for the spirit of Fed Up’s reform proposal.
Winnie Wong calls herself a practical anarchist. She speaks in short intense bursts, an activist warrior slashing her way through the thicket of establishment politics toward a future that somehow has to be won. Charles Lenchner identifies as a “full-spectrum socialist” who will adopt the best strategy in a given moment to build the power of the working class. A former director of communications for the Working Families Party, his preferred voice is one of bemused irony that masks an underlying seriousness of purpose.
They both were active in Occupy Wall Street. In 2013 they began collaborating on bringing OWS’s battle cry of the 99% vs. the 1% into this year’s Democratic presidential contest in which Hillary Clinton was expected to stroll to an easy coronation.
They launched Ready for Warren, an online initiative that stimulated a groundswell of interest in Elizabeth Warren, the Wall Street-bashing senator from Massachusetts who ultimately declined to run for the White House. When Bernie Sanders jumped in the race a year ago, the anarchist and the socialist shifted gears and used their online organizing skills to help build a nationwide grassroots infrastructure to support Sanders’ nascent campaign. Their efforts included creating 200 pro-Sanders Facebook pages and giving away the passwords to his supporters, much to the surprise of Sanders campaign staffers.
“I knew that decentralizing would change everything, and that’s exactly what we did,” Wong recalls. “It was dangerous but effective.”
The prolific duo also launched the now-ubiquitous #FeelTheBern hashtag and started the People for Bernie Facebook page that currently has over three quarters of a million followers and more user traffic in some weeks than the official Facebook pages of either the Sanders or Clinton campaigns.
As the Democratic primaries wind down, Wong and Lenchner are at it again, helping to organize The People’s Summit in Chicago from June 17-19. This gathering of thousands of Bernie supporters, including many of the key groups that have backed his campaign, will seek to consolidate for the energies stirred by Sanders’ historic run for the long haul. While they scoff at being considered leaders of what has become a highly networked movement, Wong and Lenchner did see the potential of the Sanders campaign before almost anyone else. So I checked in with them recently to get their respective thoughts on the path traveled so far and how the Sanders movement might evolve in the future.
John Tarleton: It’s been a long primary battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton that has upended many people’s expectations. Why convene a People’s Summit at this point?
Winnie Wong: There has been an ongoing conversation among National Nurses United, People for Bernie, Democratic Socialists of America and a number of other groups about doing something between the California primary and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to ensure that the participation in this moment would not dissipate and that we could figure out what to do next en route to a contested convention, which we’re certain will happen.
What would you like to see happen?
I would like to see a progressive platform supported by elected officials who will be attending the conference, as well as soon-to-be electeds who are running for office and progressive political organizations that will be attending as well. It’s going to be a big space with people from many different backgrounds and political allegiances coming together to agree on a new progressivism for America.
The Left is prone to splintering in many different directions. How do you avoid that, if it’s even possible, after the unifying force of a campaign is no longer present?
I think over the last year the Left has become less cynical. It’s going to be the job of the facilitators to make sure we are creating a space where participants are able to be productive rather than cynical and regressive.
Will more people running for office be one of the legacies of the Sanders campaign?
It won’t be the legacy of the Sanders campaign because the Sanders campaign doesn’t get to call the shots. It will be a decentralized movement. There’s no way we can achieve political change in this country unless people from social movements commit to tackling electoral power effectively and strategically. The recent ousting from office of district attorneys in Chicago and Cleveland were both electoral battles led by organizations that emerged out of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Once social movements start to become more certain of their power, they will be unstoppable. You will see it not just from movements led by people of color, but also the women’s movement, the LGBTQ movement, the environmental justice movement.
Hopefully these movements will be more inclusive and will open up more space for more people of color to participate and the big picture will emerge that all our issues are connected and that capitalism is the root problem.
From your vantage point, what role did Occupy Wall Street play in setting us on the course we are on now?
The arc of the past five years has been remarkable. I believe it started with Occupy. It was there that single-issue activism became multi-issue activism. For the first time in many years, decades, you had housing activists working alongside trans activists, working alongside environmental justice fracktivists. It wasn’t always pretty but what emerged out of that experience was a deeper understanding of the influence of money and power over not just politics, but over everyday life, the 99 and the 1 percent. The Sanders campaign electrified the world by electoralizing those concerns.
You are an anarchist, yet at the same time you are comfortable working in the electoral realm.
Anarchy is a way of life based on the broad principles of cooperation, solidarity, resilience building, decentralized coordinated activity. We are applying that operating system to this campaign.
Creating 200 different pro-Sanders Facebook pages and then handing control of them to his supporters. That’s the opposite of what would have occurred in a normal top-down political campaign.
I knew that decentralizing would change everything, and that’s exactly what we did. We sensed there was a broader public that was ready for a Sanders messaging campaign, but it was also very clear to me that their participation in the electoral process would be dependent on whether they were able to create the messaging themselves. Social media has been both an organic ally, and a game-changing tactic.
I gave the passwords to everybody. It was dangerous but effective. It worked. It changed everything. I think the Sanders campaign was like, “Holy fuck!” and then had no choice, in some ways, but to follow our lead.
Unleashing the #FeelTheBern hashtag was another powerful intervention.
It carried the movement narrative co-created by hundreds of thousands of people across multiple platforms on the Internet. The establishment media incorporated the hashtag into their feeds and after that, there was really no looking back.
We encouraged people, pressured them even, to use the hashtag and this gave us an inkling of what a distributed strategy might look like. We always knew it was going to work, we just didn’t think it was going to work this well!
Yet this isn’t really about Bernie in the end, is it?
I am not a Democrat. I’m not a Bernie or bust person. Bernie Sanders has brought the S-word, small or large, to dinner tables across America every night now for a year. No one has ever done that before. Still, he is a tactic. He’s a means to an end. I think he’s aware that he is a tactic.
A tactic to what end?
To help us move toward building people power, community power that will put us on our way to a better place.
I don’t think that things are ever really going to be rosy again. We’re well past that. Just look at the rising sea levels, shocking forest and brush fires, ocean acidification and all the other signs of an accelerating climate crisis that is continuing to unfold.
We’re not doing enough, so we have to do something. Electing Bernie Sanders and building local politics is something.
We can create a transitional world and in that time, our culture and people can adapt to these new very challenging realities. At the core of it is a redistribution of wealth so we can have transformational changes like a guaranteed basic income and Medicare for all. If we don’t create conditions that are more just and palatable to human existence over the next 20 years, then our day-to-day existence will dissolve into violence and strife, and it’s not going to be pretty.
Charles Lenchner
John Tarleton: It’s been a long primary battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton that has upended many people’s expectations. What do you hope the People’s Summit can achieve?
Charles Lenchner: Tons of |
tiki bar. "I am Queens Boulevard!" The LIE traffic. The "Men in Black" towers at the World's Fair. The cricket matches in Flushing Meadow park.
Utopia Parkway, anyone? Roosevelt? The Cross Island? Woodside? You know it.
If you are reading this far, maybe you've got fond feelings for this stuff too.
Awesome.
So maybe you think like I do that our borough needs a little more love and respect to go with its NYC siblings. I've met too many "New Yorkers" who are like "I've never been to Queens". And now that I have two cute kids I want them to know what they should talk about. Queens rules!
P is for Pepsi Cola. The landmark all Manhattan stares at (especially on the FDR)
What are we making
We're going to make a beautifully illustrated hardcover children's book. I've been assembling images and Queens icons for quite some time now, and have started the artwork too.
When it's done we are going to print it on gorgeous amazing hardcover and archival stock, and mail it to you. So you can remind yourself and the kids in your life about the A to Z of Queens with Q is for Queens.
I've got the art part figured out and most of the icons sorted - so that part is well on its way. I still need to find the right printer to partner with here in Queens, so hopefully that part goes well.
A is for Arthur Ashe, B is for Bayside, C is for Cyndi Lauper...R is for Ramones or maybe Rockaway or maybe both! Lots to do as you can see.
Mets. Mets. Mets. Mets.
Why are we making it
If you are wondering why Queens needs a sweet collection of iconic images, posters and memorabilia all wrapped together in a little volume for the next-generation -- well, let's not go there.
Any borough that was home to Mae West, John Gotti, Jack Kerouac, and Dr. Jay pretty much has to have a book like this. And you need to be part of it!
Geraldine Ferraro, the First Female Vice Presidential Candidate. From Astoria! Icon!
Who are we
I gave you a feel for this already I think. But I really was born and raised in Queens. My parents are immigrants (like maybe 70% of Queens residents right?) and when I was born we lived in Jamaica. My brothers and I were halfway grown when we moved to Little Neck/Douglaston/Bayside (for the schools!) and I actually went to high school in the city. When I went off to college I swear I thought I'd never live in Queens again -- tall Manhattan something for me! -- but it was a very short time before I was back. This time in the starting-to-be-hip part -- Long Island City. I live here now and love it.
I've been part of a ton of Queens stuff. I started a blog called LICNYC -- www.licnyc.com which is the oldest LIC blog -- and helped a bunch of Queens organizations like the Queens Paideia School (an experimental school) and the Coalition for Queens (which tries to bring more opportunity and jobs from the tech world to Queens, link). I even helped to build a building in Queens and make it awesome -- East of East (www.eastofeast.com). I work from The Oracle Club often, which is a writer's room in LIC. And a lot of my family still lives around Queens in Forest Hills and Little Neck and thereabouts.
I've assembled some friends -- writers, illustrators, filmmakers, plain old regular awesome people, and hopefully YOU. We are working on this together.
The Best Art Museum in the World. PS1.
So why is this a Kickstarter?
I could probably come up with all the ideas and print up the book myself. But then it wouldn't have YOUR ideas in it. And that would be missing awesome stuff.
And even worse, you wouldn't get a copy. How on earth are you going to hear about this thing? On the local news? Well here you are. Welcome. Now you have heard about Q is for Queens and if you back it you will get a copy (or ten!)
So HELP MAKE Q IS FOR QUEENS. Be a co-author. Or an idea-giver. Or just a fan. Help! Your borough needs you.
The plan and budget
The plan is pretty simple. From March 15 to April 15 we will finish all the drawings and art. Then off to the press! I think we'll safely be able to ship by June sometime. I'm expecting lots of help from artists, designers and editors who are all over Queens. If you have a friend who prints stuff in Queens that would be AMAZING (like the Mets?). Let me know.
Printing
I haven't chosen a printer yet but there are some great ones in LIC. I will work with them on the paper sourcing and printing approach. I haven't chosen all this stuff yet so I'm not 100% sure on how long the prep will be there. But it will get done! Thinking of folks like Big City Graphix. Let me know if you have other suggestions.
World's Largest Fortune Cookie Factory. Believe It. Not in China. Made in Queens.
Aerosol museum. The 5 Ptz. Respect.
Mayor Koch.
C is for Cyndi Lauper. (And her hair dye is from Queens too!)
The world's greatest pianos, invented and still made in Steinway, Queens.
The best. I'm telling you it's the best.
The legendary studios where they filmed Sex & The City, Sopranos, etc etc etc etc to the King of Queens and beyond.There is an interesting correlation between happiness and gender equality. Today I will tell you that using global reports published on happiness and gender equality. Even though World Happiness Report 2016 states that the more a country attains gender equality, more they will be happy because of equitable distribution of assets, a detailed analysis of these two reports however proved otherwise.
A comparison of top 20 most happy countries in 2016 World Happiness Report and their corresponding ranking of Gender Equality as mentioned in 2016 Global Gender Gap Report found that 13 out of 20 countries that had gained maximum happiness in last one decade have all slipped in their gender equality ranking –
Out of rest of the seven countries, such data was not available for three countries and only the other four countries have shown improvement in gender parity while also being happier.
It is also observed that out of the top 20 countries in Gender Equality per 2016 Global Gender Gap Report, only six countries viz. Norway, Philippines, Nicaragua, Switzerland, Germany, and Latvia have shown improvements in happiness and twelve countries have shown a decline –
Data for Iceland and Burundi are not available.
The above analysis clearly shows that contrary to the claim made in World Happiness Report, Gender equality can’t bring happiness to a country.
In fact, a study of top 20 countries in terms of minimum standard deviation of happiness (Figure 2.5 of World Happiness Report) or Equality of Happiness (in other words, happiness for all) only four belonged to top ten in Gender Equality (better rank in std. dev. or lower std. dev. means maximum people fall near a mean value of happiness).
In fact, there are countries like Bhutan (121), Mauritania (129) and Rwanda (128) in this list that falls at the lower end of gender parity. In terms of overall happiness index, they fall below but we need to understand that 2016 happiness index also included factors like per capita GDP, Social Support and Healthy Life Expectancy where the third world countries are at a clear disadvantage –
Only countries like Iceland, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand out of this list of top 20 countries are also in top 10 ranks of Global Gender Parity chart.
Clearly, feminist controlled UN and other global bodies are trying to show that feminist nations as the happiest ones contrary to the fact that in order to gain gender equality, nations need to lose their happiness.
***It turns out that some Windows Phone 8 users will need to wait a bit longer for the new Halo game than others, however. Today Microsoft and Verizon revealed that the Windows Phone 8 version of Spartan Assault will launch first on Verizon phones in the US before eventually becoming available to all domestic customers. This timed exclusivity does not affect countries outside of the US, nor does it affect the Windows 8 version of the game.
Halo: Spartan Assault will be a landmark game when it launches on Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 later this month. It marks the first mobile entry in Microsoft’s Halo franchise, something fans have been clamoring for ever since Windows Phone 7 debuted back in 2010. While it took a long time for the game to actually be revealed to the world, the wait between the June announcement and Spartan Assault’s undisclosed July release date will be relatively short.
Verizon’s announcement
The official announcement came through Verizon’s website. In a story titled “Halo: Spartan Assault coming to Windows Phone 8,” the subtitle clearly reads “First to Verizon Wireless.” In the body of the article itself, the exclusivity bombshell is almost casually mentioned:
“ Halo fans and new Spartans will soon be able to download “ Halo: Spartan Assault ” on their Windows Phone 8 smartphone, and Verizon Wireless customers will be the first ones able to do so in the U.S.”
“Halo: Spartan Assault” will be available for $6.99 on the Windows Phone App Store and will be playable on the Nokia Lumia 928, Nokia Lumia 822, Windows Phone 8X by HTC and Samsung ATIV Odyssey from Verizon Wireless.”
All of those devices have 1 GB of RAM, because that’s all Verizon carries. But we have confirmed with Microsoft that Spartan Assault will also be compatible with 512 MB Windows Phone 8 devices as well.
So what does this all mean? Well, for one thing it shows Verizon’s support of their Windows Phone 8 devices and how much they want those phones to succeed. The US carrier’s lineup of devices is second only to AT&T’s. Verizon customers who play games will be happy (or at least not disappointed) by the announcement.
As for non-Verizon users who live in the US, the timed exclusivity IS sort of bad news. Microsoft would not confirm the duration of Spartan Assault’s exclusivity: it could be as little as a week or as long as a couple of months. I’m placing my bet on 3-4 weeks. International Windows Phone 8 users will not be affected by the Verizon exclusivity.
However, this announcement doesn’t mean that no Americans without a Verizon phone will be able to play Spartan Assault when it launches. Windows Phone Central has confirmed with Microsoft that the Windows 8 version will launch simultaneously with the Verizon and international Windows Phone 8 versions of the game. So if you don’t have a Verizon phone but do have a Surface or other Windows 8 device, you can still get the tablet or PC version right away.
The US hasn’t seen a carrier-specific Xbox Windows Phone game since ilomilo debuted for free to AT&T users back in holiday 2010. ilomilo later became available to everybody in January 2011. Halo: Spartan Assault will definitely not be free for Verizon users: they’ll pay $6.99, just like everybody else.
Gameloft’s N.O.V.A. 3 (amusingly enough, a clone based on the Halo console games) launched for free in India but at a price of $6.99 in the rest of the world. The Indian version was extremely buggy, however, and quickly got pulled from the Store. It’s a safe bet that Verizon’s US exclusive offering of the Windows Phone 8 version of Halo: Spartan Assault will not be plagued by similar problems.
via Phone Arena
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details.There is undeniable, ever-increasing evidence that a Cabal of powerful world elites believe in and worship something they call “Lucifer.”
Is there any truth to the idea that an “opponent” exists in a Universe that is truly holographic — where we are all reflections of One Infinite Creator?
Who, or what, might Lucifer be?
If we move fear out of the way for a moment, ask the question objectively and apply the latest scientific knowledge we now have, we may find a solution to the mess we are in.
Lucifer may well be a holographic projection of the part of ourselves that is an angry, rebellious child, defiantly throwing a temper tantrum and screaming “F- You Mommy and Daddy!”
By healing this wounded child within ourselves, we may actually be influencing the collective — and quickening the defeat of the Cabal on a planetary scale.
THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE
On September 17, 2013, a physics breakthrough emerged that is so significant, so all-encompassing, it renders our existing worldview as irrelevant as the flat earth.
This discovery is so new and fresh that the final paper itself wasn’t published until December 6, 2013 — just two months ago at the time of this writing.
Two physicists, Nima Arkani-Hamed and Jaroslav Trnka, essentially proved that space and time do not exist — at least not in the way we now think.
What appears to be a visible universe, with a clearly defined past, present and future, is not real.
The Universe is actually a holographic projection of a single geometric form — which these two physicists call “The Amplituhedron.”
The proof for this is quite elaborate — and was recently covered in seven different episodes of my half-hour-a-week TV show, Wisdom Teachings.
You can catch every episode of this show — now numbering over 50 in total — for free, during a 10-day trial membership.
Here we will review some of the highlights — and provide links where you can do your own research on this stunning new discovery.
THE CROWN JEWEL
This breakthrough appeared only one month after my new book, The Synchronicity Key, debuted at #8 on the New York Times best-seller list — thanks to your support.
Last year was pretty rough, given how hard I worked on this book, monthly conferences and Wisdom Teachings. I’m finally feeling relaxed enough to write long articles again.
The timing and nature of this announcement seemed like quite a synchronicity in its own right — and was a compelling reflection of the title and subject of the book.
I was thrilled to find this new discovery, because it was the final, crowning piece of the puzzle I’ve been putting together in my books, television show, film, lectures, videos, et cetera for all these years.
This research can be traced all the way back to the first ESP book I read when I was seven years old — some 34 years ago now.
Even after all the work I’ve done, I never expected that a single scientific discovery would so precisely define the Law of One as a universal truth.
A PERFECT EXPLANATION OF CYCLICAL TIME
The Synchronicity Key compellingly argues that time is cyclical, not linear. We also make the case that these cycles are powered by vast, unseen geometric patterns in space.
The full proof of the geometry, and how it functions, will be laid out in my next book, The Hidden Architecture of Time — and this new discovery will now form a key part of the argument.
The Amplituhedron discovery proves that all of space, all of time, all of matter, all of energy and all of consciousness is emanating from a single geometric form.
Like the “recursive” patterns within a fractal, there are many sub-geometries of this central pattern that we will find in space — and in time.
This next diagram illustrates the principle of geometric recursiveness with pentagons:
Each of these geometric patterns act as holographic reflections of this one, singular element — which is forming the entire Cosmos.
The astonishing, provable cycles of historical events that I revealed in Synchronicity are ultimately caused by fractals of a single, universal geometry.
These cycles also tell a story, as we will review a bit later in this article.
GEOMETRIC TIME
This “Geometry of the Cosmos” ultimately gives us a tangible model for how history is repeating itself — with such astonishing precision.
The geometry itself acts as a consciousness-influencing structure that we orbit through in space.
The 2,160-year “Age of the Zodiac” cycle, appearing in many ancient cultures and myths worldwide, is one of the most stunning examples of how this works.
This seemingly tired old concept from our ancient past becomes our key to unlocking a brilliant new tomorrow.
TWELVE FRACTALS OF THE SAME PATTERN
Each sphere in this geometric diagram, with the exception of the north and south pole, is one of twelve “fractals” of the same underlying pattern that our solar system is passing through.
Notice there is a triangle of six spheres on the upper-middle level.
Then we see another triangle of six spheres on the lower-middle level, pointing in the opposite direction.
As we orbit the entire geometric cluster, we pass over the surfaces of each of these twelve spheres, one at a time.
These spheres and geometries do not exist as hard, solid objects. They are energy patterns in space.
HOW DOES THIS WORK?
In order to see how this works, you have to imagine our entire Solar System orbiting a companion star over the course of 25,920 years.
Our solar system is tracing an elliptical pattern around the outside edge of this geometry. Our sun is the yellow dot in the blue circle below.
The companion star would be found in the center of the pattern — as the second yellow dot illustrated here.
The blue circle itself is the orbit that our solar system takes 25,920 years to pass through.
Compared to the size of our own sun, this geometry is very, very big — but there is compelling evidence that it does indeed exist.
Along the way, the companion star gravitationally tugs on our earth’s axis.
This creates the traditional “precession of the equinoxes” cycle of 25,920 years.
As I have extensively revealed in both of my books and on Wisdom Teachings, this 25,920-year pattern is the “master cycle” that was hidden in over 30 ancient myths worldwide — by someone.
It appears that the ancient “Gods” — also known as angels in the Bible and other works — deliberately implanted this knowledge worldwide.
Compelling clues exist in the Bible as well as many other ancient manuscripts and legends from over 30 different cultures — all across the world.
They specifically hid this away so we would re-discover it — once our technology had progressed to the point where we could understand why it matters.
DETAILS ABOUT THE COMPANION STAR
The surface of the companion star is rising and falling in set intervals — as all stars, including our sun, naturally do.
This was clearly illustrated in my epic article December 21, 2012: Romance and Reality. I highly recommend reviewing it for more details on this geometry.
The up-and-down movement of a star creates vibrations that ripple throughout the surrounding space.
Ultimately, space is structured with geometric patterns due to these same vibrations.
Dr. Hans Jenny demonstrated how this works by vibrating a spherical drop of water with tiny sand particles in it.
The vibrations naturally arrange the sand into beautiful geometries like those we are seeing in the above diagram.
THE SOURCE FIELD
This is basic fluid dynamics in action. In the case of our binary solar system, the “fluid” creating the geometry is what I call the Source Field.
Consciousness is a universal phenomenon. It is not constrained within biological life only. That is the big secret.
Consciousness is geometry.
A thought is ultimately a geometric ripple in the Source Field.
Different geometric regions of space impart different influences upon the minds of all who pass through them.
This is the science of astrology — which I defend with far more provable data points in The Synchronicity Key.
In The Source Field Investigations, I show how all the planets in our solar system are neatly held in place by these same geometric patterns.
This is by no means an accident. It is a basic truth in physics that works from the quantum level on up. It always has, and it always will.
I have explained this much more thoroughly in various episodes of Wisdom Teachings than I ever did in The Source Field Investigations.
These books are not free, but they are inexpensive enough that anyone can afford them with a nominal degree of effort.
The discovery of a universal geometry was the final piece that completed this grand puzzle.
Without reading the books or seeing the show, this might not make a whole lot of sense, but the “homework” has been done — complete with 1,730 references between the two volumes.
I heavily recommend reading The Synchronicity Key first, as a more user-friendly intro and overview to what follows in The Source Field Investigations.
EACH SPHERE TELLS THE SAME STORY
Each sphere within this geometry carries the same blueprint — the same script.
In terms of the Ages of the Zodiac, it takes us 2,160 years (25,920 / 12) to pass through each one of these spheres.
Much like a stylus etches music into a wax phonograph record, major events that happen in one cycle will repeat again in the next.
THERE IS ONLY ONE SPHERE
In order to truly understand the secrets of how this works, we have to remember a key principle of holograms.
If you cut a holographic plate into smaller pieces and shine a laser into them, you still see an image of the entire hologram — not just a piece of it.
Like the principle of recursiveness, each part of the geometry contains the image of the whole.
[And yes, as one skeptic pointed out, we do need to see two beams come out of the beam splitter for this illustration to be precisely correct. ‘Shanks.]
Just like we can cut up a holographic plate into smaller and smaller pieces and still see the same form, each sphere in this cluster contains the information of the whole.
All the other spheres are merely reflections — like the repeating patterns we see bouncing between two mirrors.
We only appear to be seeing fourteen different spheres, if we include the northern and southern poles.
For this same reason, any event that occurs in one sphere automatically affects what will happen when we pass through the next one.
This is much like a record that ends up skipping at the end of each side.
EXAMPLES OF THE 2,160 YEAR CYCLE
The entire second half of The Synchronicity Key is densely packed with astonishing examples of how history is repeating itself.
As one notable example, Roman history has been precisely duplicating itself in modern American history, exactly 2,160 years later.
This is the most recent and personal instance of the pattern.
Even the characters in these storylines are repeating — including Hitler, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.
They end up doing very similar things at precisely overlapping points in each cycle.
An event as seemingly complex, unpredictable and random as the Watergate scandal has a precise holographic duplicate in Roman history — 2,160 years earlier.
As time goes on, I hope to release more and more of this stunning new information in video form — with high production value.
NOTHING IS AS REAL AS WE THINK
The Synchronicity Key provides undeniable evidence that Jesus’ single most important secret teaching was of the truth of reincarnation.
This knowledge was orally transmitted from Jesus to St. Peter, to Clement of Alexandria, then to Origen, who documented it in De Principiis.
Modern-day researcher Dr. Ian Stevenson identified over 3000 cases of children who remembered having been someone else in another lifetime.
Those children had astonishing forensic face-matches with who they claimed to have been before.
Dr. Jim Tucker has continued and extended this research with police face-matching computer software.
Dr. Tucker has proven that the matches are astonishing in each of the validated cases. The data is far too extensive to be dismissed.
Reincarnation is an established, scientific fact. Jesus taught this same truth, but the Romans stripped it from the Bible for political purposes.
This is not yet a popularly-accepted concept, but the data is already in.
Now we’re just in the catch-up phase to bring everyone up to speed on what is really going on.
Once we figure this out on a collective level, and stop fighting over who is right and who is wrong about “God,” we will be well on our way to the “Golden Age” promised in antiquity.
ULTIMATELY THIS MAY BE HAPPENING TO ALL OF US
So far, we have been able to identify Joan of Arc, Hitler, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton as clear-cut reincarnations of historical figures who appeared in earlier cycles.
However, I do believe this is only the first glimmering reflection of water from a desert oasis.
Unlike what some critics complained about in the comments — that only the “elite” are reincarnating this way — I believe in time we will discover that this is happening to everyone.
We keep coming back, and repeating the same patterns — over and over again — in extremely precise, organized cycles of time.
The Carthaginian general Hannibal, a highly destructive warlord, returned as the German general Hitler… the arch-enemy of America.
Carthage became Germany, and Rome became the United States. Their histories repeat with utterly shocking precision from one Age to the next.
Hannibal / Hitler performed the same role with astonishing correlations in space and time — across exactly 2,160 years.
WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS?
Synchronicity also shows compelling proof that cyclical time is the other big, hidden mystery of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.
Certain passages in both the Old and the New Testament suggest that Biblical figures were well aware of this hidden aspect of reality.
This means that free will is not as free as we think. Critical, generation-defining events keep repeating in very even cycles of time.
The Nemesis is inevitably defeated in each of these cycles. However, in most cases they come back again — and do the same thing later on.
If we believe in a loving Creator, as the significant majority of people in the world do, then we must deal with the fact that this is all part of a Universal design.
This epic “story” of our struggle against a seemingly all-powerful villain appears to be built into the basic blueprint of our lives on Earth — at least so far.
But why?
The ancient teachings also tell us that once we master the lessons these cycles are teaching us, the pattern will no longer need to keep repeating.
This is what ultimately propels us into the true Golden Age. It is a journey that simultaneously occurs on a personal and collective level.
Click “Next” to keep reading!A motorcyclist was killed near Balboa Park early Saturday after losing control of his bike and being hit by several passing vehicles that didn’t stop, authorities said.
Joshua Alan Rios, 25, was transitioning from southbound state Route 163 to southbound Interstate 5 about 1 a.m. at unsafe speeds when he lost control and struck a guard rail, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office and highway patrol officials. He skid down the ramp and then was ejected into the roadway, where he was struck by multiple vehicles whose drivers didn’t stop, the California Highway Patrol said.
A passer-by saw his motorcycle in the road and called 911, the medical examiner said.
Rios, who lived in San Diego with his family, died at the scene.
CHP investigators are working to find the motorists who struck Rios but did not stop.Maguluf Police in Spain is searching for three men who allegedly gang-raped a 19-year-old Scottish teen at a beach in Majorca.
According to local media reports, the incident happened on Friday night at Punta Ballena, Magaluf, and the police were called at around 1am on Saturday. The reports said that one of the three men knew the woman very well. She went to the beach with this male friend, but later his two friends also arrived there.
On Friday night, this Scottish teen was found naked and crying at a beach in Punta Ballena. She said she called out for help, but no-one came to help her. Police did not reveal whether the woman was on holiday in Magaluf or was working and living in the area.
The teenager also gave police a photograph of one of the alleged offenders, and told that she can identify them. According to some reports, the photo of that person was present on woman’s mobile phone.
The police said that they are investigating the case. The nationality of three suspects has not been revealed yet. The investigating team is also taking the help of forensic experts and performing DNA tests on woman’s clothes to try to extract evidence.
Magaluf is one of the most popular holiday resorts on the Spanish island of Majorca. This resort is mostly visited by the British, Irish, Russian, German, and Scandinavian tourists. The resort caters to young adults, couples, and families. The peak tourist season at this resort starts from July, and tourists continue to come until early September.Time: 7:15pm
Location: Value City Arena - Columbus, OH
TV: ESPN2
Following a tough loss in the final of the Charleston Classic, the Tigers enjoyed a week off for Thanksgiving and will now travel to Columbus to face Ohio State in the ACC/B1G Challenge.
The two teams share a win over Texas Southern and are a combined 9-0 against teams outside KenPom’s top 125. Ohio State is much more tested after participating in the PK80 in Portland over the Thanksgiving Holiday. There they faced Gonzaga (a blowout loss), Stanford (an 8-point win), and Butler (a 1-point loss).
Ohio State is a very strong rebounding team. PF Keita Bates-Diop will be a challenge for the Tigers to contain. He has about 20lbs on Donte Grantham who the Tigers have used almost exclusively at PF this season, along with freshman Aamir Simms. The suspended David Skara will be missed in this one. Clemson will have to find a way to end defensive sets with a rebound. To this cause, it will be imperative that Tiger Center Eli Thomas avoids foul trouble.
Ohio State scores most of their points inside the arc. They have struggled from three and accordingly don’t shoot many of them. Neither of their guards are major three-point shooters. That’s a relief as the Tigers are once again struggle to get out and contest three-pointers.
The Tigers have a chance to pick-up a big road win and notch one for the ACC in the ACC/B1G Challenge. Despite the Buckeyes’ brand as one of the few universities that wins big in both football and basketball, this is expected to be a rebuilding year for them. They are in year one under Coach Chris Holtmann, who they hired away from Butler following the departure of longtime coach Thad Matta. They were picked to finish 11th in the B1G.
Prognosis: This is a fantastic barometer game for the Tigers. Even on the road, it is winnable, but it’ll be tough sledding in the paint. We’ll find out how well Clemson can handle a team that crashes the boards and attacks the basket. Grantham will have to show toughness battling in the paint, Eli Thomas will have to provide a defensive presence in the post without getting in foul trouble, and they must limit turnovers well below the 18 they coughed up against Temple. This game is winnable, but a slightly worse than 50-50 proposition.In this recently launched Brick Underground column, we celebrate the immigrant enclaves that make our city the vibrant metropolis it is. We're proud of our melting pot—a mixture of cultures, languages, and customs from around the world. This time, we're exploring Chinatown in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
When Renee Giardino, executive director of the Sunset Park Business Improvement District, bought her house in the Brooklyn neighborhood 30 years ago, “Eighth Avenue was almost entirely lined with empty stores.” Now that avenue is the hub of Brooklyn’s incredibly vibrant, 24/7 Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in all of the five boroughs. “It really has transformed our community,” she says.
Not everyone agrees on what the boundaries of Sunset Park’s Chinatown are, but one thing everyone agrees on is how the boundaries are steadily expanding and now reach far beyond Eighth Avenue. According to Steve Mei, director of Brooklyn Community Services for the Chinese-American Planning Council, the neighborhood roughly runs from Fifth Avenue to Ninth Avenue and 40th Street to 68th Street—an impressively large swath of Sunset Park.
One of the reasons that Eighth Avenue (pictured below) takes pride of place in the community is that the number eight is a particularly lucky number in Chinese culture, says Mei. It signifies prosperity and success, making it a perpetual favorite of Chinese who are establishing businesses.
To emphasize the importance of Sunset Park’s dominance as the largest Chinatown in NYC, a Friendship Arch, donated by a borough of Beijing, will be erected on Eighth Avenue and 61st Street in the fall of this year. “We’re planning on September,” says Raymond Chan, the architect in charge of the project. Chan says that the arch will combine the ornate, classical style elements of Friendship Arches in other cities with new technology—”it will be solar powered."
Why did so many Chinese immigrants choose Sunset Park?
Sunset Park was a logical destination for the Chinese who were being crowded out of Manhattan’s Chinatown 20 years ago. Rents were climbing and space was running out in that narrow slice of the borough. In Sunset Park in the 1990’s, residential and commercial rents and purchase prices were relatively low and there was plenty of room to grow.
On the website of the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, another reason for the choice of Sunset Park is given: “The commute was quick and simple on the N train to jobs in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Coming home, recent immigrants who didn’t know English would know which stop to get off because the Eighth Avenue station was the first stop in Brooklyn above ground.” The Chinese would call this station the ‘blue sky’ station because it was above ground and because the name “carried with it a sense of optimism. This place was where you emerge from the tunnel, where you escape darkness for the light.”
The first Chinese immigrants to settle in Sunset Park were Cantonese speakers but since 2000 most newcomers are from the province of Fujian in the southeast of China where Mandarin is spoken. Fuzhou is the capital of the province so many have started to call the area around Eighth Avenue “Little Fuzhou.”
Issues bubbling in Sunset Park’s Chinatown
In the first two posts of our series on immigration—one on Little Senegal in Harlem, the other on Little Manila in Woodside—two issues stood out as being the biggest concerns for those communities: housing and the current administration’s immigration policies. Sunset Park’s Chinatown is no exception.
Carlos Menchaca, who represents Sunset Park on the New York City Council, understands these concerns and has set up a satellite office on Eighth Avenue where Kaden Sun, director of Asian American Affairs, offers advice and assistance to residents, especially to those who know little or no English. Sun knows the community well, having lived in Sunset Park for 20 years. Many of the people who seek guidance are frightened about the possibility of deportation and are susceptible to rumors —many unsubstantiated—about ICE raids on businesses. “ A lot of people are scared and asking for help,” he says. They ask for legal assistance and help with applying for IDNYC cards, as well as to find out about the fastest the path to citizenship.
Mei says that his social service organization has seen a growing demand for citizenship classes over the past six months. “Happily, we were able to get a volunteer instructor to help meet the increased need.”
Housing is another issue that worry his clients. “Affordable housing is a big concern," he says. "Many of the people who come into our walk-in center ask about help applying for NYCHA housing.” According to StreetEasy, the median asking rent in Sunset Park is $1,900, while the median sales price is $453,000.
By comparison, Park Slope, the neighborhood directly north of Sunset Park, has a median sale price of $930,000 and a median asking rent of $2,750 while Bay Ridge, just south of Sunset Park has median prices of $360,000 and $1,850 respectively, according to StreetEasy’s calculations.
According to Mei, another issue that affects many in the community, is unemployment. New arrivals once relied on family or friends to help them find a job, but this is becoming increasingly difficult. “Jobs in the restaurant business were once plentiful, now they’re not. Recently, we’ve seen a lot of folks getting trained to do home attendant jobs instead....Many of our clients enroll in ESL classes, hoping that that will ease their transition into employment.”
Assimilating into American life
While Mei says that most immigrant parents want their children to take classes in Chinese culture and language (his organization offers Mandarin lessons for 5-11 year olds), they are also eager to have them integrate into the wider community. “Integration is very important to them, which is why Chinese folks take an American name when they get here. The reality is that they think that keeping their Chinese name is a disadvantage on resumes and documents.” (His Chinese name is Zhao Bo but he calls himself Steve.)
One of the biggest and most anticipated events in Sunset Park is the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association’s Lunar New Year Parade which began in 1988—”this joyous celebration held on a dreary street brought together people of diverse ethnic backgrounds and successfully marked a turning point for Sunset Park,” according to the group’s website.
Elected officials come out to march with community members in the parade each year but Mei says that he wishes the community were a little more politically engaged than they are. “The only way to grow is to be out there, to be seen—it’s a challenge.”
Eighth Avenue's culinary treasures
According to Mei, fresh food is very important to the Chinese—they like to buy their ingredients on the same day they’re going to eat them—and the dozens of fish, meat and fruit and vegetable markets along Eighth Avenue have plenty of fresh food on offer. A multitude of small mom-and-pop stores stock their shelves with what shoppers need, and some set items out for sale on a table on the street, or in a doorway. (On a recent visit, we saw a selection of fish heads for sale on a bridge table.)
The street life along Eighth Avenue is lively and varied: We also saw a shoemaker sitting on a folding chair near the curb, measuring a client’s foot. “If I had more time on the weekend, I’d love to just walk along Eighth Avenue," Sun says.
A visit to a Chinese supermarket is another treat for anyone new to the neighborhood. Not far from the N line's Eighth Avenue stop, on 60th Street and Eighth Avenue is the bustling Food Mart, a supermarket with that practically unheard-of NYC feature—a parking lot. The produce at Food Mart is fresh and abundant and there’s a huge variety of Chinese products on the shelves along with foods from other Asian |
a class action seeking monetary relief for personal injury or economic loss, each proposed class member suffered the same type and scope of injury as the named class representatives;
no class representatives or named plaintiffs are relatives of class counsel, except in a private securities litigation brought as a class action subject to the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; and
in a class action seeking monetary relief, the party seeking to maintain the class action demonstrates a reliable and administratively feasible mechanism for the court to determine whether putative class members fall within the class definition and for the distribution of any monetary relief directly to a substantial majority of class members.
Class counsel must disclose: (1) whether any proposed class representatives or named plaintiffs are relatives of, present or former employees or clients of, or contractually related to class counsel; (2) the circumstances under which such representatives or plaintiffs agreed to be included in the complaint; and (3) any other class action in which such representatives and plaintiffs have a similar role.
The bill limits attorney's fees to a reasonable percentage of: (1) any payments received by class members, and (2) the value of any equitable relief.
No attorney's fees based on monetary relief may: (1) be paid until distribution of the monetary recovery to class members has been completed, or (2) exceed the total amount distributed to and received by all class members.
Class counsel must submit to the Federal Judicial Center and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts an accounting of the disbursement of funds paid by defendants in class action settlements. The Judicial Conference of the United States must use the accountings to prepare an annual summary for Congress and the public on how funds paid by defendants in class actions have been distributed to class members, class counsel, and other persons.
A court's order that certifies a class with respect to particular issues must include a determination that the entirety of the cause of action from which the particular issues arise satisfies all the class certification prerequisites.
Except in certain private securities actions, a stay of discovery is required during the pendency of preliminary motions in class action proceedings (motions to transfer, dismiss, strike, or dispose of class allegations) unless the court finds upon the motion of a party that particularized discovery is necessary to preserve evidence or to prevent undue prejudice.
Class counsel must disclose any person or entity who has a contingent right to receive compensation from any settlement, judgment, or relief obtained in the action.
Appeals courts must permit appeals from an order granting or denying class certification.
(Sec. 104) Federal courts must apply diversity of citizenship jurisdictional requirements to the claims of each plaintiff individually (as though each plaintiff were the sole plaintiff in the action) when deciding a motion to remand back to a state court a civil action in which: (1) two or more plaintiffs assert personal injury or wrongful death claims, (2) the action was removed from state court to federal court on the basis of a diversity of citizenship among the parties, and (3) a motion to remand is made on the ground that one or more defendants are citizens of the same state as one or more plaintiffs.
A court must sever, and remand to state court, claims that do not satisfy the diversity jurisdictional requirements unless: (1) a claim is so related to claims that satisfy the diversity requirements that they form part of the same case or controversy under Article III of the Constitution, and (2) the plaintiff consents to the removal from state to federal court. The court must retain jurisdiction over claims that satisfy the diversity requirements.
(Sec. 105) In coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings for personal injury claims conducted by judges assigned by the judicial panel on multidistrict litigation, plaintiffs must: (1) submit medical records and other evidence for factual contentions regarding the alleged injury, the exposure to the risk that allegedly caused the injury, and the alleged cause of the injury; and (2) receive not less than 80% of any monetary recovery obtained for those claims, subject to the satisfaction of any liens for medical services provided to the plaintiff related to those claims. Trials may not be conducted in multidistrict litigation proceedings unless all parties to that civil action consent.
A federal appeals court having jurisdiction over the transferee district shall permit an appeal from an order issued in coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings if: (1) the order is applicable to one or more civil actions seeking redress for personal injury, and (2) an immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate termination of one or more civil actions in the proceedings.
A federal appeals court may accept an appeal from an order issued in any coordinated or consolidated proceedings granting or denying a motion to remand a civil action to the state court from which it was removed if application is made within 14 days after the order is entered.
TITLE II--FURTHERING ASBESTOS CLAIM TRANSPARENCY
Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2017
(Sec. 202) This title amends the federal bankruptcy code to require asbestos liability trusts to disclose information about claimant demands and payments from the trusts by: (1) filing with the bankruptcy court quarterly reports to be available on the public docket, (2) providing the information upon request to parties in actions concerning liability for asbestos exposure. (A bankruptcy court, in confirming a debtor's chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan, may prohibit entities seeking payment for alleged asbestos damages from taking legal action against a reorganized debtor if the court authorizes a debtor-funded trust to assume the debtor's asbestos liability and serve as asbestos-claimants' exclusive source of compensation.)The playoffs have arrived and the UBC Thunderbirds men’s soccer team is once again looking up to the task.
Forward Ryan Arthur’s first-ever U Sports (the new name for Canadian Interuniversity Sport) goal, an 18-yard strike coming just seconds before the full-time whistle, carried UBC (9-1-6) to a 1-0 win Friday over Kelowna’s visiting UBC Okanagan Heat.
UBC followed with a 2-1 win over the visiting Thompson Rivers WolfPack of Kamloops on Saturday, but Friday’s victory was the one that clinched first place in the Canada West’s Pacific Division.
“I looked up and it was like slow motion,” explained Arthur who joined the UBC program this season after formerly playing for the now-defunct soccer program at Surrey’s Kwantlen Polytechnic. “It just glided into the top of the net. Everyone just swarmed me and then the whistle blew.”
Arthur and Lucas Reis scored in Saturday’s regular-season finale.
*In NCAA D2 play, the No. 4-ranked Simon Fraser Clan remained unbeaten on the season (11-0-2 overall, 6-0-2 GNAC), topping St. Martin’s 5-0 on Saturday atop Burnaby Mountain. Magnus Kristensen opened the scoring, while Mamadi Camara and Adam Jones each scored twice. The Clan has four more regular-season games remaining, beginning with a home contest Thursday (7 p.m.) against Montana State Billings.
*In Canada West women’s soccer, Langley’s No. 2-ranked Trinity Western Spartans completed an undefeated regular-season campaign, winning the Pacific Division at 11-0-3.
In a pair of home contests, the Spartans beat Lethbridge 2-0 on Friday behind goals from Isabella Di Trocchio and Danae Derksen, then drew 1-1 with No. 5 Calgary on Saturday, getting its only goal from Stephanie Chin.
*In NCAA D2 women’s action, SFU (6-4-0) sits tied for third in the GNAC, getting a goal from Emma Pringle in the 29th minute to win 1-0 at Western Oregon.
CROSS-COUNTRY
SFU finished second to Alaska Anchorage in both the men’s and women’s divisions at the GNAC cross country championships held Saturday in Bellingham.
On the men’s side, the Clan got five top-20 finishes, led by Braeden Charlton in sixth and Sean Miller in ninth.
The SFU women were led by the third-place finish of Rebecca Bassett. Julia Howley (seventh), Miryam Bassett (11th) and Addy Townsend (13th) and Reta Dobie (24th) rounded out the Clan’s top five.
WOMEN’S HOCKEY
Logan Boyd scored her second of two goals 11 seconds into the second OT on Saturday in Edmonton, giving No. 2 UBC (5-1-0) a 3-2 win over the host and No. 8 Alberta Pandas, and a sweep of its Canada West weekend series. Boyd also counted the winner in the ‘Birds 2-0 win Friday.
FIELD HOCKEY
UBC (6-0-2) completed an undefeated Canada West season Sunday with a 3-0 home-field win over the Calgary Dinos (0-8-0). ‘Birds defender Rachel Donohoe was named the Canada West’s Player of the Year while teammate Gabrielle Switzer was the conference’s top keeper. Stephanie Norlander, Sarah Keglowitsch and Hannah Haughn joined Donohoe on the conference all-star team.
FOOTBALL
The SFU Clan held the offence of NCAA D-2’s No. 17-ranked Azusa Pacific Cougars (6-0) to no points over the first half Saturday at Swangard Stadium. The Azusa defence, however, turned four turnovers into touchdowns, including three off pick-six plays to lead 28-0 at intermission en route to a 57-0 win over Simon Fraser (0-5).Prosecutors on Thursday declined to file criminal charges against two Gardena High School students accused of aiding a 17-year-old student suspected of carrying a handgun that discharged, striking two students and critically wounding one.
The students, a 16-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy, were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of aiding the suspected gunman after he fled the classroom. Authorities said the girl took the suspect's backpack and the boy gave him his sweatshirt and money for bus fare to flee the campus.
Ultimately, prosecutors determined that there was not enough evidence to charge the students, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
The decision came the same day as the student suspected of carrying the handgun was charged with two felonies: possessing a firearm in a school zone and discharging a firearm in a school zone.
The suspect, whose name is being withheld because of his age, was on probation for a misdemeanor battery charge, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Joanne Baeza. Prosecutors have filed a motion to have the minor tried as an adult.
The teenager allegedly carried a loaded 9-millimeter Beretta in his backpack to school Tuesday. When he reached inside the backpack to get something to eat, the gun discharged a single round in a classroom about 10:40 a.m., authorities said.
The bullet struck a 15-year-old boy in the neck before hitting a 15-year-old girl in the side of the head, officials said.
The girl remains in critical condition at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center with a skull fracture and brain trauma. A spokeswoman for the hospital said she has been able to respond to basic commands.
The male victim was released from the hospital late Wednesday.
-- Andrew Blankstein
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Suspect in Gardena High School shooting surrenders; students in classroom safe
Classmates gave clothing, bus fare to student so he could elude police after Gardena shooting, sources say
Gardena High shooting suspect stole gun from his stepfather, source saysBobcat prototype at Base Borden Military Museum
The Bobcat was an armored personnel carrier (APC) designed and built in Canada in the 1950s and early 1960s. A lengthy development period and changing requirements drove the price up while not improving the basic design, and the project was eventually cancelled in late 1963 in favor of purchasing the ubiquitous M113.
History [ edit ]
During World War II the Canadian Army introduced the fully tracked APC to the world when they converted a number of M7 Priest and Ram tanks to expedient personnel carriers before Operation Totalize. Existing designs were almost universally half-tracks, or lightly armored tracked vehicles not really designed for the APC role, like the Universal Carrier. These expedient vehicles, named "Kangaroos," were considerably better armored and had much better cross-country performance. Similar vehicles were soon in use by other allied forces as well, converted from broken or out-of-date tanks.
In the post-war period the Canadian Army, like its other western counterparts, underwent a period of dramatic downsizing. By the late 1940s it was essentially identical in formation and equipment as it had been during the war, but much smaller. With the cooling of international relations that marked the start of the Cold War, and especially with the opening of the Korean War, the Canadian armed forces started the process of rapidly modernizing their equipment, which was by this point extremely outdated.
The Bobcat project started in 1952, intending to produce a fully modern replacement for the Kangaroo in the APC role. Over the next four years of design the requirements changed several times, adding an amphibious capability, as well as another version as a replacement for the Universal Carrier in the battlefield cargo role. When the requirements were finally stabilized as the XA-20 in 1956, a prototype contract was offered to Leyland Motors (Canada) under Project 97.
While the prototype was being built, Leyland Motors was purchased by Canadian Car and Foundry (CCF). A mockup was produced and sent to the Canadian Armour School at Camp Borden, and a number improvements were suggested. While this process continued, CCF itself was purchased by the ever-growing Avro Canada. Work continued on the design, and the first mild steel prototype was delivered in the APC layout, followed by two additional prototypes, another APC version, and a self-propelled artillery version intended to mount the 105 mm M101 howitzer, although this was not fitted.
Testing was relatively positive, and in 1959 the Ministry eventually secured an order for 500 of the APC version. However in 1960 the defense budget was slashed, and it was not until February 1961 that the Cabinet finally approved the budget. By this point the Bobcat had been in development for nine years, and no replacement for the Kangaroos or Universal Carriers had been purchased in the meantime. There was some discussion of modifying remaining Shermans and Universals for the interim, but this was dropped.
In 1962 Avro dissolved CCF, and moved production of the Bobcat to their aircraft plants in Malton, Ontario, which were underused since the cancellation of the Avro Arrow in 1959. A prototype of the complete production version started testing in February 1963, and by June it had completed 75% of its 2,000 mile qualification test run. However, the test report on the Bobcat was extremely negative. Pointing out a variety of problems, from tripping hazards in the cargo area to the extremely loud operating sounds, the report concluded that the vehicle was in need of additional development. Further confusing issues, in 1963 Avro itself was dissolved and rolled into its parent operating company, Hawker Siddeley Canada. In July the company met with the Ministry again to work out a program to fix the remaining problems, but neither side was willing to invest any more of their own money.
Given that no immediate solution seemed in sight, in November 1963 the Chief of the General Staff requested that the Bobcat project be terminated and the US M113 purchased in its place. Although the Bobcat had a number of advantages in comparison to the M113, notably in terms of size and its amphibious ability, the M113 by this point had entered service around the world and its huge production numbers led to a very low unit cost. Final cost for the Bobcat program was CDN$9.25 million. All that remains of the project is the qualification prototype at the Base Borden Military Museum.
Description [ edit ]
The Bobcat was a relatively typical post-war APC design, with the engine located at the front, infantry area with rear-exit doors at the back, and a crew of two between the two sections.
In the case of the Bobcat, the engine was located behind a large access door mounted in an almost vertical glacis that was tilted slightly forward, giving the front of the vehicle a slab appearance. The glacis ended just below the top of the vehicle, where it met a sharply sloped deck angled back towards the top of the vehicle. The two operators, driver and commander/gunner, were housed under hemispherical cupolas with a ring of vision blocks offering relatively good all-round vision except to the rear, where the infantry area was raised and blocked the view. The front half of the cupola could be flipped up and back, opening to allow the seats to be raised for heads-out operation when not "buttoned up".
Overall the design was smaller than the M113, and considerably less "boxy," more in keeping with contemporary European designs like the FV432. The small size meant there was no room for a transverse transmission in the front of the vehicle, so a rear-drive was used with a drive shaft and transaxle housed under the cargo section. These required boxy protrusions into the cargo area, and the transaxle in particular, mounted just in front of the doors, was a major tripping hazard. Additionally, the drive shaft was extremely noisy in operation.Graham Hancock
In his own words:
“Urgent call for help against an attempt to censor my work.
I have received notification today that my recent 18-minute TEDx video presentation, “The War on Consciousness” (YouTube) which has at time of writing received more than 132,000 views, is to be deleted from the TEDx website because what I say in that presentation allegedly “strays well beyond the realm of reasonable science”, and because I allegedly make “non-scientific and reckless” statements about psychotropic drugs. I am fighting these charges from TED’s Science Board which in my opinion are untrue and amount to nothing more than an ideologically driven attempt to censor my work. All the indications, however, are that my presentation will be deleted some time today…
…I don’t intend to allow this bizarre transgression of my freedom of speech on the part of an institution – TED – for which I once had the highest respect, to pass without a fight…” (paraphrased)
Taken from the TED site:-
Mar 21 2013: I previously commented that I would not post further on this Blog page because it is so clearly designed to distract public attention from the disastrous way TED have handled their attempt to censor my “War on Consciousness” talk and Rupert Sheldrake’s “Science Delusion” talk. That in my view is the important point, for it bears on the future of TED itself as a viable platform for “ideas worth spreading”. I am heartened that so many of the 400-plus concerned people who have now posted here (and the 1000-plus who posted on the original Blog page) have refused to fall for TED’s sleight of hand and continued to press the organization to rethink its policy.
Since TED have retracted and struck out all their justifications for the original deletion of my talk from the TEDx Youtube channel (http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/ ) and since they have published my rebuttal, and done the same re Rupert Sheldrake’s talk, I agree with Rupert on a new post he has made on this page (http://www.ted.com/conversations/17189/the_debate_about_rupert_sheldr.html). There are no more specific points surrounding TED’s misguided decision that he and I need to answer. Nor is it possible to make much progress through short responses to nebulous questions like “Is this an idea worth spreading, or misinformation?”
But I now make this one further post, simply to add my voice to Rupert’s and to put on record that I, too, would be happy to take part in a public debate with a scientist who disagrees with the issues I raise in my talk. My only condition is that it be conducted fairly, with equal time for both sides to present their arguments, and with an impartial moderator, agreed by both parties.
Therefore I join Rupert in asking Chris Anderson to invite a scientist from TED’s Scientific Board or TED’s Brain Trust to have a real debate with me about my talk, or if none will agree to take part, to do so himself.Computer simulation using MRI scans of children is the only possible way to determine the microwave radiation (MWR) absorbed in specific tissues in children. Children absorb more MWR than adults because their brain tissues are more absorbent, their skulls are thinner and their relative size is smaller. MWR from wireless devices has been declared a possible human carcinogen. Children are at greater risk than adults when exposed to any carcinogen. Because the average latency time between first exposure and diagnosis of a tumor can be decades, tumors induced in children may not be diagnosed until well into adulthood. The fetus is particularly vulnerable to MWR. MWR exposure can result in degeneration of the protective myelin sheath that surrounds brain neurons. MWR-emitting toys are being sold for use by young infants and toddlers. Digital dementia has been reported in school age children. A case study has shown when cellphones are placed in teenage girls’ bras multiple primary breast cancer develop beneath where the phones are placed. MWR exposure limits have remained unchanged for 19 years. All manufacturers of smartphones have warnings which describe the minimum distance at which phone must be kept away from users in order to not exceed the present legal limits for exposure to MWR. The exposure limit for laptop computers and tablets is set when devices are tested 20 cm away from the body. Belgium, France, India and other technologically sophisticated governments are passing laws and/or issuing warnings about children's use of wireless devices.Census Bureau back to using paper, pencil for 2010 count
WASHINGTON — Technology problems will force the government to count all of the nation's 300 million residents the old-fashioned way in the 2010 census - with paper and pencil.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez was scheduled to tell a House subcommittee Thursday that the government will scrap plans to use handheld computers to collect information from the millions of Americans who don't return census forms mailed out by the government.
The decision is part of a package of changes that will add as much as $3 billion to the cost of the constitutionally mandated count, pushing the overall cost to more than $14 billion.
The project to develop the computers ``has experienced significant schedule, performance, and cost issues,'' Gutierrez said in prepared testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee. ``A lack of effective communication with one of our key contractors has significantly contributed to the challenges.
``As I have said before, the situation today is unacceptable, and we have been taking steps to address the issues,'' he said.
This was to be the first truly high-tech count in the nation's history. The Census Bureau has awarded a contract to purchase 500,000 of the computers, at a cost of more than $600 million. The devices, which look like high-tech cell phones, will still be used to verify every residential street address in the country, using global positioning system software.
But workers going door-to-door will not be able to use them to collect information from the residents who didn't return their census forms. About a third of U.S. residents are expected not to return the forms.
The Census Bureau plans to hire and train nearly 600,000 temporary workers to do the work.
Interviews, congressional testimony and government reports describe an agency that was unprepared to manage the contract for the handheld computers. Census officials are being blamed for doing a poor job of spelling out technical requirements to the contractor, Florida-based Harris Corp.
The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary.
Gutierrez, who oversees the Census Bureau, said officials there were unaccustomed to working with an outside vendor on such a large contract.
The Harris Corp. issued a statement saying it still hopes to play a large role in the 2010 count.
``The wireless handheld devices are part of a larger, multifaceted process to move from a 'paper culture' to a more 'automated' culture appropriate for the 21st century,'' the company said. Despite the problems, company officials said they were ``encouraged that automation and the adoption of new technology is moving forward, even if in a more narrowly focused fashion.''
The 2010 census was already on pace to be the most expensive ever, even taking inflation into account. Officials now are scrambling to hold down costs while trying to ensure the count produces reliable population numbers - figures that will be used to apportion seats in Congress and divvy up more than $300 billion a year in federal and state funding.
Harris Corp. was awarded a $596 million contract in March 2006 to supply the handheld computers and the operating system that supports them. The contract has since grown to $647 million.
The success - or failure - of the census could have widespread repercussions. The Constitution has required a census every 10 years since the first one in 1790. It is used to apportion the 435 seats in the House of Representatives among the states. And states and many cities use census data to draw legislative districts.
Population numbers are used to calculate billions in state and federal grants for transportation, education and other programs. Private businesses use census data to identify labor and consumer markets.England manager Gareth Southgate talks about his decision to recall Jermain Defoe England manager Gareth Southgate talks about his decision to recall Jermain Defoe
Gareth Southgate felt he had little choice but to hand "phenomenal" Jermain Defoe an England recall after more than three years in the international wilderness.
The 34-year-old striker is set to feature for England for the first time since coming on as a substitute against Chile in November 2013.
It is just reward for Defoe, who has been in outstanding form for the Premier League's bottom side Sunderland with 14 goals and Southgate has been watching closely.
Defoe has scored 14 Premier League goals for Sunderland
"Year after year he is phenomenal but particularly this season in a team that perhaps aren't creating as many chances as other teams," Southgate said, whose England side will play a friendly against Germany in Dortmund on March 22 before the World Cup qualifier against Lithuania at Wembley on March 26.
"His strike rate is outstanding so I didn't want to just look at his age and think 'he is finished with England'.
"He is somebody that is immensely proud to have represented England at every age group.
"I think you get young players with a point to prove and older players with a point to prove. I think he still feels that.
"He warrants the call-up. I have to look at getting results short, medium and long-term. With this squad, we are definitely nodding towards the future with some of the decisions that we are making.
"But also you need senior players around that to educate some of the younger ones to show them some of the things they need to learn and also the competition is important."
England will be without both Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane
Defoe has taken advantage of injuries to Harry Kane, Daniel Sturridge and Wayne Rooney as one of three strikers in England's squad alongside Jamie Vardy and Marcus Rashford.
England captain Rooney missed Manchester United's FA Cup defeat to Chelsea after being involved in a training ground collision with Phil Jones.
Southgate revealed Rooney is recovering and may be fit enough to feature against Middlesbrough this weekend but he felt it was best for him to stay with United given how little he has played in recent weeks.
"I have talked with Wayne and I think there is a chance he is fit for the weekend," Southgate said.
"But the injury coupled with the fact he has really not had a lot of game time recently and others have in that area of the pitch has sort of determined my decision on that one."
Gareth Southgate does not expect Theo Walcott to be happy about his England ommission
One of the most notable omissions from the squad is Arsenal's Theo Walcott - who has scored eight Premier League goals this season - and Southgate admits it was a difficult call to leave him out.
"I think Theo has a really valid claim for being included," Southgate admitted. "He has scored a lot of goals for his club. He has obviously played a lot with England.
"I didn't see him featuring in the games this week so in terms of having him in the longer squad, I wanted to look at one or two other players I don't as much about.
"That is a really tough call on him and one I don't expect him to be chuffed to bits about but, as I say, I wanted to look at a couple of others.
"He is still very much in our thinking. If he keeps playing well for his club there is no reason he can't force his way back in as Michail Antonio and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have done this time."
Danny Welbeck recently scored for Arsenal against Liverpool
Southgate also resisted the temptation to call up West Ham striker Andy Carroll or Arsenal's Danny Welbeck.
Carroll has scored five Premier League goals since returning from a lengthy injury layoff in December while Welbeck scored his first league goal of the season during Arsenal's 3-1 defeat to Liverpool on March 4.
Southgate explained: "Andy [Carroll] I don't think has played enough. It's a bit like Danny Welbeck. Danny Welbeck is a player I really like but at the moment he is a little bit short of match minutes but certainly somebody that would be in our thoughts."WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama lifted all restrictions Monday on the ability of individuals to visit relatives in Cuba, as well as to send them remittances.
The changes in Cuban policy was unveiled before President Obama's trip to the Summit of the Americas.
The move represents a significant shift in a U.S. policy that had remained largely unchanged for nearly half a century. It comes days before Obama leaves for a key meeting of hemispheric powers, the Summit of the Americas, in Trinidad and Tobago.
"President Obama has directed that a series of steps be taken to reach out to the Cuban people to support their desire to enjoy basic human rights and to freely determine their country's future," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
Obama also ordered new steps to promote the "freer flow of information among the Cuban people and between those in Cuba and the rest of the world, as well as to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian items directly to the Cuban people," Gibbs added.
The president took "these steps [in part] to help bridge the gap among divided Cuban families."
Obama believes that the change in U.S. policy will ultimately help bring about a more tolerant, democratic Cuban government, noted White House Latin American policy adviser Dan Restrepo.
He thinks "that creating independence, creating space for the Cuban people to operate freely from the regime is the kind of space they need to start the process toward a more democratic Cuba," Restrepo said.
Several key components of America's embargo on the island nation will be preserved, however. Among other things, Americans will still be barred from sending gifts or other items to high-ranking Cuban government officials and Communist Party members.
Travel restrictions for Americans of non-Cuban descent will also remain in place.
Critics of the change blasted the administration for unilaterally changing what had been a long-settled U.S. policy.
President Raúl Castro's "dictatorship is one of the most brutal in the world. The U.S. economic embargo must remain in place until tyranny gives way to freedom and democracy," Rep. Connie Mack, R-Florida, said in a written statement.
Obama "should not make any unilateral change in America's policy toward Cuba. Instead, Congress should vigorously debate these and other ideas before any substantive policy changes are implemented."
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, and a native of Cuba, had kinder words for the administration, saying, "The announcement today is good news for Cuban families separated by the lack of freedom in Cuba."
He said that, in turn, the Cuban government should focus on improving its relationships with its citizens and the United States. "Lowering remittance charges and allowing travel for Cuban families wishing to see relatives abroad are two steps the Cuban regime could immediately take that would show change in Havana," he said.
Reps. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, and Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, held a news conference last week urging Obama to refrain from easing trade embargo or travel restrictions until the Cuban government releases all "prisoners of conscience," shows greater respect for freedom of religion and speech, and holds "free and fair" elections.
"Over the past 50 years, the Castros and their secret police have been directly responsible for killing thousands of nonviolent, courageous pro-democracy activists and for jailing and torturing tens of thousands of others. And they continue to this day to perpetrate their brutal crimes," Smith said.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, responded that it makes no sense to continue what she characterized as a failed policy. Watch report on easing of travel restrictions »
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but by any objective standard, our current policy toward Cuba just hasn't worked. Simply put, it's time to open dialogue and discussion with Cuba," she said in a written statement.
Lee and other Congressional Black Caucus members met in Havana this month with Raúl Castro and his brother, former President Fidel Castro.
Several members of Congress see broader relations with Cuba as vital to U.S. interests. A group of senators and other supporters unveiled a bill March 31 to lift the 47-year-old travel ban to Cuba.
"I think that we finally reached a new watermark here on this issue," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, one of the bill's sponsors.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, another sponsor of the bill, issued a draft report in February that said it was time to reconsider the economic sanctions. Lugar is the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Sarah Stephens, director of the Cuba Travel Projects and one of the leading advocates pushing for an end to the embargo, said Monday that "these are welcome steps, but the right course is to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba, to open up commerce and to directly engage the Cuban government in diplomacy and solving problems in both countries' interests." Watch report on whether Cuba is ready for U.S. tourists »
Obama "has a historic opportunity not to be the last president of the Cold War but the first president to turn the page in U.S.-Cuba relations," she argued.
Before he was elected president, Obama promised to lower some of the barriers in Cuban-American relations. Provisions attached to a $410 billion supplemental budget Obama signed in March also made it easier for Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba and to send money to family members on the island. In addition, they facilitated the permitted sales of agricultural and pharmaceutical products to Cuba.
The provisions loosened restrictions enacted by President George W. Bush after he came to office in 2001.
Obama's moves appear to be tracking the overall public sentiment on what has historically been a hot-button political issue.
Seventy-one percent of Americans think the United States should re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, according an April 3-5 CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, and 64 percent think the United States should lift the travel ban to Cuba for all Americans. Sampling error for the poll was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
All About Barack Obama • CubaWell, India is a country where there are plenty of places that are Biggest, Tallest, prettiest, and most wonderful which are worth sightseeing, among that, the palace in Jaipur which has the World’s Tallest Structure Without A Foundation. The Rajputian and Mughal Empire has constructed the palace in such a way that it actually proves the basic architecture wrong. Let’s know something in brief about it.
This Palace In Jaipur Is The World’s Tallest Structure Without A Foundation
A wonderful composite of the Mughal and Rajput architecture, palace in Jaipur, one of Rajasthan‘s most famous monuments, is carved out of red and pink sandstone.
Built by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh in 1799 A.D., it has 953 windows. Such windows were for the only purpose to keep the palace cool through the breeze.
in 1799 A.D., it has 953 windows. Such windows were for the only purpose to keep the palace cool through the breeze. The most interesting mystery is how this marvelous 5-storeyed structure is standing without a foundation since long.
It’s a pyramidal shape with curved and leans at an angle of 87 degrees!
Designed by Lal Chand Ustad, it was constructed in the shape of Lord Krishna’s crown.
We are talking about the ‘Palace of Winds’, more famous and commonly known as ‘Hawa Mahal’.
, more famous and commonly known as The building was used by the Jaipur Royals with the purpose of allowing the royal ladies to see everyday street life without being seen but little did they know that they had constructed a gem.
World’s Tallest Structure Without A Foundation
The Hawa Mahal, World’s Tallest Structure Without A Foundation, is best viewed in the dawn when the palace is lit up in golden chromaticity of the sunrise.
Article publié pour la première fois le 09/12/2015Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media, had to come to terms with earning more than her husband. Courtesy of Working Mother The majority of American mothers who serve as their household's primary earner aren't thrilled about the role.
Only 46% of breadwinning moms say they are pleased with their earning status, as opposed to 75% of dads who are primary earners, according to a new report from Working Mother Media and PwC. That's likely because most women in that role didn't choose it — 71% say they became the primary earner by chance or because of an unexpected change in their partner's work situation.
The report analyzed responses from 1,000 men and 1,000 women across the U.S. Three quarters of the respondents were married and all had children, with an average annual household income of $85,600.
Compared to women who are pleased with earning more than their spouses, women who wish their roles were reversed feel less satisfied across a range of factors:
Working Mother Media
Carol Evans, president of Working Mother and the breadwinner of her family, tells Business Insider that working moms can feel better about their status if they reframe their thinking.
"You can look at it as not necessarily being a matter of 'I chose it' or it being an accident, but that it happened," Evans explains. "Think about it as a positive circumstance in your life, and you start to think of it as a positive thing that you did decide."
Evans said she first started to out-earn her husband when she |
the same time, supposedly democratic countries continued to set a bad example by yielding to the temptation to prioritize security over other concerns and by adopting disproportionate measures to protect copyright. Internet users in “free” countries have learned to react in order to protect what they have won. Some governments stepped up pressure on technical service providers to act as Internet cops. Companies specializing in online surveillance are becoming the new mercenaries in an online arms race. Hacktivists are providing technical expertise to netizens trapped by a repressive regime’s apparatus. Diplomats are getting involved. More than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue.
New media keep pushing back the boundaries of censorship
Online social networks complicate matters for authoritarian regimes that are trying to suppress unwanted news and information. It was thanks to netizens that Tunisians learned about the street vendor who set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid and Egyptians learned about Khaled Said, the young netizen who was beaten to death by police outside an Alexandria Internet café. It was thanks to social networks that Sidi Bouzid and Khaled Said became news stories and went on to become cornerstones of the Arab Spring.
The revolution of microblogs and opinion aggregators and the faster dissemination of news and information that results, combined with the growing use of mobile phones to livestream video, are all increasing the possibilities of freeing information from its straightjacket. The mixing of journalism and activism has been accentuated in extreme situations such as Syria, where ordinary citizens, appalled by the bloodshed, are systematically gathering information for dissemination abroad, especially by the international news media, so the outside world knows about the scale of the brutal crackdown taking place.
Even the total news and information blackout in North Korea, the “Hermit Kingdom,” is being challenged. Mobile phones give those who live near the Chinese border the possibility of being linked to the rest of the world. And the border is sufficiently porous to allow mobile phones, CDs, DVDs and USB flash drives containing articles and other content to be smuggled in from China.
In Turkmenistan, an “Information 2.0” war was started by a deadly explosion at an arms depot in the Ashgabat suburb of Abadan in July 2011. For the first time, netizens managed to break through the regime’s wall of silence by using their mobile phones to film video of the explosion and its aftermath and post it online. They subsequently paid a high price.
Saudi Arabia’s relentless censorship has not been able to prevent women from fighting for the right to drive or vote and getting their fight relayed on the Internet, attracting the international community’s attention and, as a result, a degree of attention within the country.
In 2011, use of online information to rally support was not limited to “political” goals. The Internet also buzzed with condemnation of corruption and social abuses, including the protests by the residents of the Chinese village of Wukan against the seizure of their farmland by unscrupulous officials, and the documentation of electoral fraud in Russia.
In Vietnam, it is still dangerous to blog about the Chinese-run bauxite mines and their disastrous impact on the environment. The highland region where the mines are located is virtually sealed off. Its few visitors cannot take cameras, video-cameras or smartphones with them. The aim is to prevent the dissemination of potentially-embarrassing video footage. The Bauxitevietnam.info website is nonetheless managing to obtain information and is doing its best to cover the situation.
Internet and mobile phone shutdowns become commonplace
Repressive regimes have learned the lesson. Keeping the media at bay, intimidating witnesses and blocking access to a few news websites are not enough to ensure the success of a news blackout. A much more effective way is to seal off the area concerned to prevent unwanted witness from entering and any digital content from leaving, and to cut off communications by blocking SMS messaging and by shutting down Internet access and mobile phone services in a temporary or targeted manner.
Egypt showed the way at the height of the demonstrations at the end of February 2011 by cutting Internet access for five days, an unprecedented move. Other countries, such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Kazakhstan, have blocked SMS for the first ones or suspended the Internet for the last one during elections or unrest, or even ahead of anticipated unrest. China uses the well-tested tactic of suspending communications in cities or provinces when it loses control of the situation. Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia were the first victims.
Nonetheless, shutting down the Internet is a drastic solution that can create problems for the authorities and can hurt the economy. Slowing the Internet connection speed right down is more subtle but also effective as it makes it impossible to send or receive photos or videos. Iran is past master at this. Syria’s censors also play with the Internet connection speed, fluctuations being a good indicator of the level of repression in a given region.
Bahrain is an example of a news blackout succeeding thanks to an impressive combination of technical, judicial and physical censorship methods.
More content filtering
As soon as the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt got under way, most regimes that censor the Internet quickly reinforced online content filtering in a bid to head off any possibility of similar unrest spreading to their own countries. Some regimes have adopted filtering as standard tool of governance, one that strengthens their hold on power. Livestreaming sites and social networks are often the most affected.
In Uzbekistan, the government blocked access to forums where ordinary members of the public discussed the Arab revolutions. In China, the word “Jasmine” and the word “Occupy” followed by the name of a Chinese city were blocked online. In Belarus, where there were major demonstrations, the social network Vkontakte was rendered inaccessible. The Kazakh authorities reacted in a similarly disproportionate manner, blocking not only a few “extremist” sites but also the entire LiveJournal blog platform.
Turkey seems to have backed away from an announced plan, bordering on the ridiculous, to censor 138 words online. It has nonetheless created a system of online content filtering which, although optional, is seen as a veiled form of censorship.
The new Thai government boasts that more online content has been blocked in the past few months than in the previous three years. The grounds given for this new threat to freedom of expression is the need to combat lèse-majesté.
Continuing vigilance is needed in Tunisia where Ammar 404, the nickname for the online filtering and surveillance system established by deposed President Ben Ali, could be revived as a result of a possible judicial decision to require filtering for pornographic content.
South Korea has decided to increase the number of blocked websites in response to the North’s propaganda. Tajikistan, which does not figure in this report, has blocked Facebook and news websites while Pakistan is accused of wanting to build its own Great Electronic Wall.
More content removal, pressure on technical service providers
Censors are increasingly trying to enlist private-sector Internet companies in online surveillance and censorship. Some cooperate, others resist. Under government pressure, Chinese micro-blogging websites such as Sina Weibo have had to hire thousands of moderators and now require users to register under their real name.
Website hosting companies are under growing pressure to remove content in response to “notice and take down” process, a procedure likely to lead to abuses, as UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression Frank La Rue has stressed. In Thailand, Prachatai news website editor Chiranuch Premchaiporn is facing a possible 20-year jail sentence for failing to react with sufficient speed when told to remove comments posted by site visitors that were critical of the monarchy.
India is one of the countries where more and more pressure is being put on Internet service providers and website hosting companies. The authorities there are trying to persuade them to provide a preview of content so that anything “shocking” or liable to provoke sectarian strife can be eliminated.
Threat to Net neutrality and online free speech from “right to be forgotten”
More and more individuals are requesting that information involving them be deleted from online archives on the grounds of a supposed “right to be forgotten” or “right to digital oblivion.” European commissioner for justice Viviane Reding fuelled concern on 8 November by referring to a proposed directive that would allow anyone to request the deletion of content of a personal nature “for legitimate reasons.”
A generalized “right to oblivion,” enshrined in a law, would be hard to reconcile with online freedom of expression and information. Such a law would be hard to implement in practice and could place an impossible obligation on content editors and hosting companies – the complete erasure of online content. A thorough debate is need to determine whether individual rights are not already sufficiently guaranteed by existing legal provisions on the right to privacy, media offences, personal data and recourse to the courts.
(Read the response received by Reporters Without Borders from Viviane Reding's spokesman on March 14th, 2012)
Surveillance getting more effective and more intrusive
Internet content filtering is growing but Internet surveillance is growing even more. Censors prefer to monitor dissidents’ online activities and contacts rather than try to prevent them from going online. The police chief in the United Arab Emirates, for example, has acknowledged that the police monitor social networks.
The security services no longer interrogate and torture a prisoner for the names of his accomplices. Now they want his Facebook, Skype and Vkontakte passwords. It is the same in Bahrain, Turkmenistan or Syria.
The protection of networks of dissidents and reporters’ sources is one of the leading challenges in the fight for information. Foreign reporters visiting sensitive countries should take special precautions in accordance with local conditions. It is no longer enough to take a bullet-proof vest when setting off for a war zone or troubled region. A “digital survival kit” is also needed to encrypt information, anonymize communications and, if necessary, circumvent censorship.
Attempts to “phish” for social network usernames and passwords have been reported in Syria and Iran, as well as the use of false security certificates. The attempts were reported in Syria after the authorities had stopped blocking access to Facebook – something that was clearly done not as a conciliatory gesture but in order to facilitate surveillance.
The neutralization of encryption, anonymization and circumvention tools is also being prioritized by repressive regimes. Iran is now capable of blocking https and the ports used by Virtual Private Networks. China is able to restrict the number of IP addresses that can connect to the international network at the same time.
To enhance their surveillance abilities, repressive regimes turn to specialized companies for ever more effective equipment and software for filtering, monitoring and Deep Packet Inspection. The SpyFiles which WikiLeaks has published are a mine of information on the subject. The companies they use are very often western ones that have been lured by a very lucrative market.
They include the US company BlueCoat, criticized for its activities in Syria, the French company Amesys, which supplied Col. Gaddafi, and Vodafone, the target of an ANHRI suit in Egypt. The Italian company AreaSpa finally pulled out of Syria after an international campaign criticizing its cooperation with the Assad regime. The European Parliament has adopted a resolution supporting tougher regulation of exports to repressive countries. A bill with similar aims is currently before the US congress.
In her book Consent of the Networked, journalist and Internet specialist Rebecca MacKinnon has rightly stressed the need for Internet users the world over to raise questions about the way technology is used in order to ensure that their rights and freedoms are protected.
Propaganda rules the Web
North Korea has taken its propaganda war against its southern neighbour on to the Web, establishing a presence on social networks. Cuban propaganda continues to attack bloggers who criticize the government, accusing them of being mercenaries working for the American “empire”.
China has signed up “50-cents”, bloggers paid to post messages endorsed by the party, ever since the disturbances that shook in Inner Mongolia after a protesting herder was killed by a truck. Propaganda messages like this one have taken root on the Internet: “Dear students and friends, it was just a road accident. Some people with an ulterior motive have interpreted as an ethnic conflict, or linked to oil and gas. The government is taking this case very seriously … We hope that students will not believe the rumours …” The government is believed to have an arsenal of 40,000 microblogs to communicate with the population.
Syria’s cyber army is expert in the art of trolling the Facebook walls of opponents and dissidents, often with the aim of discrediting them, and to drown out critical comments with a tide of praise for the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Twitter accounts have been created to exploit the #Syria hashtag, sending out hundreds of tweets with keywords that link to sports results or photos of the country.
Bahrain is spending millions to polish its image abroad and give the impression that the country has returned to normal. This has been capped by the announcement that the 2012 Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, cancelled last year, will go ahead in April.
Cyber attacks
Cyber attacks in the form of distributed denials of service (DDoS) are widespread. Last year saw the rise of groups of hacker such as Anonymous, which were behind cyber attacks on the Tunisian, Egyptian and Syrian governments' websites.
Governments are often behind attempts to hack news websites or independent sites. Even Eritrea was hit. Opposition sites were blocked just as the United Nations was approving sanctions against the country. Sri Lankan sites were also victims of cyber attacks. On the eve of the parliamentary election in Russia, a series of coordinated cyber attacks and arrests of journalists and bloggers took place with the aim of stifling political discussion, which can only take place freely via the Internet.
During the demonstrations in Belarus, the Internet service provider BelTelecom redirected web users trying to connect to the Vkontakte social network to sites containing malicious software.
Besides a regular army, every country now has a cyber army, which may or may not be official. The reputation of the Chinese cyber police is well established and the Syrian and Iranian cyber armies also play a major role.
Getting rid of awkward witnesses
2011 was the deadliest year for netizens, its violence unmatched in the time that dissidents and human rights campaigners have been making widespread use of the Web. Several were killed in Bahrain, Mexico, India and Syria. Dozens of others are probably still to be identified and there will undoubtedly be still more to add to the toll, particularly in Syria.
In Mexico, drug cartels hit social network users directly. Three netizens and one journalist were shot dead in cold blood. The headless body of a Mexican Internet activist was found in Nuevo Laredo on 9 November. The victim, nicknamed “Rascatripas” (Belly-Scratcher), moderated the website “Nuevo Laredo en Vivo” which exposed organized crime. A message left beside the body proclaimed: “This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn’t report things on social networks.”
On 9 April 2011, the netizen Zakariya Rashid Hassan died in custody in Bahrain, a week after he was arrested and charged with inciting hatred, disseminating false news, promoting sectarianism and calling for the overthrow of the government on online forums.
At least seven media workers had already been killed as a result of their work in Syria by the end of February this year. Netizens who also paid with their lives included Basil Al-Sayed, Ferzat Jarban and Soleiman Saleh Abazaid.
Raids and roundups
As netizen numbers grow, more and more of them are at risk. At least 199 cases of arrests of netizens were recorded in 2011, a 31-percent increase compared with the previous year. Today, at least 120 netizens are in prison because of their activities. China, followed by Vietnam and Iran, has the largest number of netizens in prison again this year.
On 16 February this year, a raid was carried out at the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, similarly in Turkmenistan after an explosion at an arms depot near Abadan killed many civilians. Iran and Vietnam have also used similar methods. Vietnam has attacked Catholic networks and China regularly arrests netizens and dissidents to intimidate their followers. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo remains behind bars.
Egypt jailed its first political prisoner of the post-Mubarak era, the blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad who was convicted for criticizing the armed forces.
House arrests and “fake releases” abound. China has made this a speciality, as the blogger Hu Jia and cyber-dissident Hada, who campaigns for the rights of the Mongol people, discovered. Vietnam has also used this practice.
Inhuman treatment, pressure and unfair tactics
Many Syrian and Bahraini netizens have been tortured in custody. Iranian authorities in particular favour extracting confessions from dissidents then broadcasting them on television. In Egypt bloggers have reported being subjected to degrading treatment during questioning by security forces.
The “UAE five”, a group of netizens and activists accused of online subversion and jailed in the United Arab Emirates, were accused of being traitors, as were their families.
In Bahrain, the noted dissident Nabeel Rajab is regularly smeared in the media as well as being subjected to physically assault.
In Cuba, a pitched battle is in progress between pro-government bloggers and their “alternative” counterparts who criticize the government. The latter, including the blogger Yoani Sanchez, have been the target of a smear campaign in the state-run media and on foreign propaganda sites.
Chains of support
Bonds have been created between blogospheres and citizens throughout the world have started relaying calls for solidarity, as well as startling images and shocking stories. Global Voices, the international network of bloggers and citizen journalists, has played an important role in the dialogue between online communities and NGOs that campaign for freedom of expression.
In order to combat increasingly competent censors, self-styled “hacktivists” have been giving technical assistance to vulnerable netizens to help them share information in the face of pervasive censorship. The campaigns on behalf of the Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad and Syria’s Razan Ghazzawi have transcended international borders. The hashtag #OpSyria, started by Telecomix – a decentralised network of net activists committed to freedom of expression – has allowed Syrians to broadcast videos of the crackdown.
Last year also saw the development of tools to bypass censorship and blocking of Web access, such as “Internet in a suitcase” and FreedomBox. Cyber freedom activists are working flat-out to respond to increasingly effective censorship tools.
Diplomats enter the picture
Freedom of expression on the Internet is no longer the sole preserve of dissidents, geeks and censors. Diplomats have followed in their wake. Statements and joint texts issued by international organizations and coalitions of countries on Internet freedom have multiplied, from the report by Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur for the promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression, who last June acknowledged Internet access as a basic right, to the ruling by the European Court of Justice condemning Internet filtering and its adverse effects on freedom of expression.
At a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in late February, the high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, deplored restrictions on the Internet and the arrests of bloggers in some countries. She declared: “The Internet has transformed human rights movements. States can no longer exercise control based on the notion of monopoly over information.”
The U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, urged the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to approve a statement guaranteeing online freedoms, believing “rights exercised in cyberspace deserve as much protection as those exercised in real space”.
For their part, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan defended the principle of a code of good conduct for the Internet, a concept that in reality is aimed as legitimizing censorship.
Democracies have a poor record
Some democratic countries are far from blameless. The free flow of news and information online often loses out to internal security, the war on terrorism and cyber crime, and even the protection of intellectual property.
Monitoring of the Internet has been stepped up in India since the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. Russia habitually describes sites that do no more than criticize the Kremlin as “extremist” to justify closing them down. Canada has introduced repressive Internet legislation under the label of the fight against paedophilia.
The United Kingdom, whose Digital Rights Bill aimed at protecting copyright has been singled out by U.N. Commissioner La Rue, went through a difficult period during the riots last August. In a worrying development, the Canadian company Research In Motion, manufacturers of the Blackberry, made the personal details of some users available to the police without a prior court order.
Despite international condemnation and the fact that its laws are outdated, France still applies the Loppsi Internet security law, which provides for official filtering of the Web, and the Hadopi law, which allows for Web access to be cut off to prevent illegal downloading of copyright content, despite several unsuccessful cases. Decrees ordering the application of other laws show that the usual reaction of the authorities is to impose filtering. Australia has yet to scrap its national filtering system, despite waning support and the fact that the type of content it is designed to cover may change.
Speeches by U.S. officials on the importance of the fight against online censorship and their financial support for anti-censorship tools is belied by the treatment of WikiLeaks (see the Reporters Without Borders report on the United States and the Internet). Using Visa and MasterCard to cut off its access to funds has hampered the site’s operations. Bradley Manning, suspected of being one of WikiLeaks’ informers, has been detained for several months in dreadful conditions. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is the subject of a “secret indictment” which Reporters Without Borders urges the U.S. authorities to clarify.
Response of Internet users and netizens of the “free world”
Internet users in Western countries cut their teeth with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Many of them took to the streets to protest against the repressive U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which sacrificed Internet freedom for the sake of copyright protection. The operation Stop SOPA and the 24-hour blackout observed by many websites, including Wikipedia, mobilised Web users throughout the world who were potentially affected by these bills to an unprecedented extent.
The campaign took off again with a new wave of protest against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which up till then had left most people indifferent despite campaigns by the NGOs La Quadrature du Net and Reporters Without Borders. Netizens from all sides understood that these bills could affect on their day-to-day activities.
Eastern Europe spearheaded the campaign. Several governments held off ratification. Resistance to ACTA is stronger than ever and the treaty may not see the light of day. Vigilance must be maintained. The next target for Internet activists could be the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), proposed by the European Union to clamp down on infringements of intellectual property law, which could potentially lead to large-scale filtering of the Internet. Another blow for Web neutrality.
Internet sovereignty and fragmentation of the Web
Internet sovereignty is an idea that is gaining ground in the minds of national leaders, whether repressive or not. Others have followed the example of the national platform created in Burma in 2010. Several times in 2011, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, true to his nationalist policies, announced the creation of a national Web, a "clean" version of the Internet with its own search engine and messaging service. This may mean two different types of access, one for the authorities and another for the rest of the population, similar to the way the Internet is now structured in Burma. Belarus requires commercial companies to register the websites they have set up in the country. This does not affect news and information sites for the time being.
Some countries such as North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Cuba, and also Iran, censor Internet access so effectively that they restrict their populations to local intranets that bear no resemblance to the World Wide Web. The decision by Twitter among others to apply location-specific censorship confirms the tendency to fall back on national Webs.
In 2011, the fragmentation of the Internet gathered pace. Web users were granted varying access depending on where they were connected. This is contrary to the original concept of the founders of the Web. Digital segregation is spreading. Solidarity between defenders of a free Internet, accessible to all, is more than ever needed for the information to continue to flow.
The 2012 list of the Enemies of the Internet
Bahrain and Belarus move from “under surveillance” to “Enemies”. Libya and Venezuela had been dropped from the list of countries “under surveillance” while India and Kazakhstan have been added to it.
Bahrain and Belarus, new Enemies of the Internet
Two countries, Bahrain and Belarus, have been moved from the “under surveillance” category to the “Enemies of the Internet” list, joining the ranks of the countries that restrict Internet freedom the most: Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. They combine often drastic content filtering with access restrictions, tracking of cyber-dissidents and online propaganda. Iran and China, in particular, reinforced their technical capacity in 2011 and China stepped up pressure on privately-owned Internet companies in order to secure their collaboration.
Iran has announced the launch of a national Internet. Iran and Vietnam have both launched a new wave of arrests, while the bloody crackdown on protests in Syria is hitting netizens hard and is enabling the regime to perfect its mastery of online surveillance with Iran’s help. Turkmenistan has fought its first battle in the war over Information 2.0 while North Korea, which is developing its online presence for propaganda purposes, is confronted with an increase in smuggling of banned communications equipment across the Chinese border. In Cuba, bloggers supportive of the government and those critical of the regime argue online.
Saudi Arabia has continued its relentless censorship and suppressed coverage of a provincialuprising. Uzbekistan took measures to prevent Uznet from becoming a forum for discussing the Arab springs. There is one light of hope: the situation is improving in Burma, where the military have permitted the release of journalists and bloggers and the unblocking of news websites, but the legislative and technical tools for controlling and monitoring the Internet have yet to be dismantled.
Bahrain offers an example of an effective news blackout based on a remarkable array of repressive measures: keeping the international media away, harassing human rights activists, arresting bloggers and netizens (one of whom died in detention), smearing and prosecuting free speech activists, and disrupting communications, especially during the major demonstrations.
In Belarus, President Lukashenko’s regime has increased his grip on the Web as the country sinks further into political isolation and economic stagnation. The Internet, a space used for circulating information and mobilizing protests, has been hit hard as the authorities have reacted to “revolution via the social media.” The list of blocked websites has grown longer and the Internet was partially blocked during the “silent protests.” Some Belarusian Internet users and bloggers have been arrested while others have been invited to “preventive conversations” with the police in a bid to get them to stop demonstrating or covering demonstrations. The government has used Twitter to send messages that are meant to intimidate demonstrators, and the main ISP has diverted those trying to access the online social network Vkontakte to sites containing malware. And Law No. 317-3, which took effect on 6 January 2012, reinforced Internet surveillance and control measures.
Movement in “countries under surveillance” list
The countries “under surveillance” list still includes Australia, whose government clings to a dangerous content filtering system; Egypt, where the new regime has resumed old practices and has directly targeted the most outspoken bloggers; Eritrea, a police state that keeps its citizens away from the Internet and is alarmed by its diaspora’s new-found militancy online and on the streets of foreign cities; France, which continues its “three-strikes” policy on illégal downloading, with suspension of Internet access, and wher administrative filtering is introduced by an internal security law and appears with increasing frequency in decrees implementing laws; and Malaysia, which continues to harass bloggers (who have more credibility that the traditional media) in the run-up to general elections.
The “under surveillance” list also includes Russia, which has used cyber-attacks and has arrested bloggers and netizens to prevent a real online political debate; South Korea, which is stepping up censorship of propaganda from its northern neighbour and keeps an array of repressive laws; Sri Lanka, where online media and journalists continue to be blocked and physically attacked; Thailand, where the new government sends bloggers to prison and is reinforcing content filtering in the name of cracking down on lèse-majesté; Tunisia, where freedom of expression is still fragile and content filtering could be reimposed; Turkey, where thousands of websites are still inaccessible, alarming filtering initiatives have been taken and netizens and online journalists continue to be prosecuted; and the United Arab Emirates, where surveillance has been reinforced preventively in response to the Arab Spring.
Venezuela and Libya no longer under surveillance
In Libya, many challenges remain but the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime has ended an era of censorship. Before his removal and death, Col. Gaddafi had tried to impose a news blackout by cutting access to the Internet.
In Venezuela, access to the Internet continues to be unrestricted. The level of self-censorship is hard to evaluate but the adoption in 2011 of legislation that could potentially limit Internet freedom has yet to have any damaging effect in practice. Reporters Without Borders will nonetheless remain vigilant as relations between the government and critical media are tense.
India and Kazakhstan, new additions to the “under surveillance” category
Since the Mumbai bombings of 2008, the Indian authorities have stepped up Internet surveillance and pressure on technical service providers, while publicly rejecting accusations of censorship. The national security policy of the world’s biggest democracy is undermining freedom of expression and the protection of Internet users’ personal data.
Kazakhstan, which likes to think of itself as a regional model after holding the rotating presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010, nonetheless seems to be turning its back on all its fine promises in order to take the road of cyber-censorship. An unprecedented oil workers strike, a major riot, a strange wave of bombings and the president’s ailing health all helped to increase government tension in 2011 and led to greater control of information, especially online information: blocking of news websites, cutting of communications around the city of Zhanaozen during the riot, and new, repressive Internet regulations.
Thailand and Burma may be about to change places
If Thailand continues down the slope of content filtering and jailing netizens on lèse-majesté charges, it could soon join the club of the world’s most repressive countries as regards the Internet.
Burma could soon leave the Enemies of the Internet list if the country takes the necessary measures. It has clearly embarked on a promising period of reforms, which has included the release of journalists and bloggers and the restoration of access to blocked websites. It must now go further by abandoning censorship altogether, releasing the journalists and bloggers still held, dismantling the surveillance apparatus that was built on the national Internet platform, and repealing the Electronic Act.
Other countries to watch
Other countries have jailed netizens or established a form of Internet censorship. Even if they are not on these lists, Reporters Without Borders will continue to closely monitor online freedom of information in countries such as Azerbaijan, Morocco and Tajikistan, to name just a few.
At the time of writing, Pakistan has invited private-sector companies to bid for the creation of a national Internet filtering and blocking system. Reporters Without Borders has asked the authorities to abandon this project, which would result in the creation of an Electronic Great Wall. If they go ahead, Pakistan could be added to the Enemies of the Internet in 2013.California Gov. Jerry Brown affixed his signature to SB 967—the "Yes Means Yes" affirmative consent bill—which will require colleges to police their students' sex lives.
Some congrats are in order, I suppose? To collectivist feminists, doomsayers of the "rape is an ever-worsening epidemic" variety, and other puritans: Your so-called progressivism has restored Victorian Era prudishness to its former place as a guiding moral compass. Well done, liberals.
The law instructs colleges to define consensual sex under strict terms brilliantly thought up by the California legislature. It also requires university administrators to investigate accusations of sexual assault under a set of terrible procedures that short-change victims by denying them fundamental due process rights. The law specifically establishes the "preponderance of evidence" standard, which mandates convictions for accused students deemed 50.1 percent likely to be guilty by the campus judiciary body.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Kevin de Leon, celebrated the news of Brown's signature, according to the Associated Press. "With one in five women on college campuses experiencing sexual assault, it is high time the conversation regarding sexual assault be shifted to one of prevention, justice, and healing," said de Leon, citing a statistic that is at least dubious, if not entirely wrong.
At least entrepreneurs are hard at work inventing something to lessen the blow (or allow the blowing, or whatever). Good2Go, the affirmative consent iPhone app, theoretically eases the process of inviting a partner to bed, though Greg Piper of The College Fix has published a lengthy criticism of this thinking here.
If universities don't comply with the government's demands regarding students and sex, they could face losses of funding or lawsuits. But if they do comply with the the government's demands, they will probably face more lawsuits from students unfairly convicted of sexual assault under farcical campus judiciary proceedings.
Either way, colleges are fucked.What proponents of corporate tax cuts argue: A central argument proponents of corporate tax cuts make is that U.S. corporations face higher tax rates than those of our peer countries; they claim that this differential hurts U.S. “competitiveness” (a word they rarely define) and discourages companies from investing in the U.S. Consequently, they further claim that cutting corporate tax rates would increase American companies’ “competitiveness,” which they imply (but rarely argue directly) would redound to the benefit of most American families. What this report finds: We find their central argument—that U.S. corporations face high corporate taxes—to be empirically false. While U.S. statutory tax rates are higher, the effective tax rate paid by corporations is in fact roughly equivalent to the effective tax rates of our peer countries, due to loopholes in the U.S. tax code. Further, we find that even if the effective corporate tax rate were higher (if loopholes were closed), economic theory and data do not support the idea that cutting these rates would encourage further investment in the U.S. or benefit Americans in general; we find that such cuts would primarily benefit a small number of high-income capital owners while increasing the regressivity of the tax system overall. Recommendations: If we wish to reform corporate tax policy to benefit the vast majority of Americans—and not just a wealthy few—we should not be talking about lowering corporate tax rates or offering other tax breaks to corporations; we should instead be focusing on closing loopholes in the system that have eroded the corporate income tax base, to ensure the corporate sector is paying its appropriate share of taxes.
Introduction and key findings
Tax reform has moved to the center of the policy stage. In recent months, proposals to reform the American corporate tax code have included relatively new and untested ideas that have garnered much of the attention, with the “destination-based cash-flow tax” being the exemplar. In the end, however, we predict that calls for corporate tax “reform” will end up where they have too often been in recent years: with loud claims that American corporate income tax rates are too high, and that these allegedly too-high rates somehow hurt American “competitiveness.” Indeed, the recent Trump administration tax proposals provide large rate cuts for corporations.
Claims that current rates are excessive and harmful to American economic performance are untrue. The central problem with the American corporate income tax system is not that it raises too much money; it is that it has become so loophole-ridden that it raises far too little. Reform should focus on increasing, not decreasing, the tax share contributed by American corporations.
This report provides context and evidence for debates about the potential payoff to American families from cutting corporate tax rates. It finds this payoff to be clearly negative for the vast majority of American families. It then assesses some common arguments made by proponents of cutting corporate tax rates. Calls to lower the statutory tax rates faced by American corporations are often justified with claims that these rates render American firms “less competitive” in the global economy. It may seem intuitive to a lay reader that cutting the statutory tax rate faced by American corporations from 35 percent to (say) 20 percent would make them somehow “more competitive,” but both economic theory and data indicate that the competitiveness argument for lower corporate tax rates is completely empty. To be clear—cutting these rates would make corporations more profitable (at least in post-tax terms), but policy needs to focus on larger and more important goals than maximizing corporate profits, like boosting the incomes of typical American families.
Key findings of this report are:
Claims regarding the economic benefits of cutting corporate tax rates rarely relate these cuts to the three influences that could boost living standards for the vast majority of American households: employment generation, productivity growth, and a more progressive distribution of income. Unless corporate tax rate cuts help boost any of these influences, they will not raise living standards for the vast majority. Cutting corporate tax rate cuts would do very little to boost employment generation. In fact, cutting corporate tax rates ranks as the least effective form of fiscal support for employment generation, since corporate tax cuts primarily benefit rich households—who are less likely to increase their consumption than low- or middle-income households when they receive tax cuts. Corporate tax rate cuts would do nothing on their own to boost productivity. If they were “paid for” with spending cuts or lump-sum tax increases, and if the economy were at full employment, then they could theoretically boost productivity. But today’s U.S. economy is not at full employment and proposals to cut corporate tax rates rarely provide such pay-fors. Corporate tax rate cuts will unambiguously redistribute post-tax income regressively. The corporate income tax is a progressive tax, with the top 1 percent of households accounting for 47 percent of the incidence of corporate income tax (CBO 2016). Because of this, cutting it would clearly boost post-tax incomes substantially more for richer households.
Proponents of corporate rate cuts rarely explain how these cuts would affect these three key channels that connect American families’ incomes to taxes. Instead, they often provide misleading and context-free empirical and theoretical claims that cutting these tax rates will somehow boost American “competitiveness.” The most common claim is that U.S. corporate tax rates are the highest in the developed world (and that this adversely affects the “competitiveness” of U.S. companies). While it is essentially true that U.S. statutory rates are higher than those of other countries, the effective rates faced by U.S. corporations (i.e., the taxes they actually pay) are roughly equivalent to the effective tax rates of our large industrial peers: the difference between U.S. average effective corporate tax rate and the weighted average of rates in other advanced economies is less than a single percentage point. As a share of overall gross domestic product (GDP), corporate tax revenues have fallen precipitously |
to replace the subsidies for exporters.
The concept generated interest in the Senate, too. During a July 2003 Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said any repeal of the disputed subsidy "should also provide benefit to all domestic manufacturers" and could provide a "needed boost" to the sector.
But the question of what "manufacturing" really meant quickly became a point of contention. Both the House and Senate bills introduced in 2003 included language referring to the decline of jobs in the manufacturing sector. The proposed bill from Thomas's House Ways & Means Committee referred to a broad array of business activities, including film and computer software production, that was "manufactured, produced, grown or extracted" within the United States. Depending on the interpretation, the language could mean tax breaks for farmers, miners, home builders, oil companies, even fast-food restaurants.
Though little-known outside Washington circles, the leaders of the chief Congressional tax-writing committee wield tremendous influence over policy, and as such often have the closest ties with lobbyists who try to curry favor for coporate interests. A Sunlight Foundation analysis done last year in collaboration with National Public Radio found that the average lawmaker on the House Ways & Means committee raised an estimated $250,000 more in contributions from individuals and political action committees than the average member of Congress.
The committee also had the second-highest number of former staffers move on to become lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a tradition known as the "revolving door" that gives well-connected lobbies unique insight into the day-to-day mechanics of legislation. The Senate Finance Committee, its counterpart in the other chamber, had the highest number of revolving-door staffers.
John Buckley, the Democrats' chief counsel on the Ways & Means committee at the time, said that Thomas "decided to do some favors" after his desired approach -- a tax break for multinational companies -- fell apart.
Democrats on the Ways & Means Committee said that with Republicans in the majority, they were kept out of the process. "There did not appear to be a clear rationale about who got in and who did not," said Pomeroy, the North Dakota Democrat. "One can only assume that some lobbying shops were more effective than others."
Throughout 2003 and 2004, more than 110 companies and trade associations registered to lobby on the tax legislation being considered in both the House and Senate, according to disclosure forms. Those with close ties to Congress seemed to fare particularly well:
Bechtel, a major international construction and engineering company, hired Jeffrey McMillen, a staff director on the Ways and Means committee who left Congress in 2004 to work for Akin Gump.
The American Institute of Architects hired Evans, of K&L Gates, the former Senate Finance tax committee lawyer who also represented Starbucks.
The Motion Picture Association of America hired Cathy Abernathy, a former chief of staff for Thomas. The trade association also brought on the Federal Policy Group, a major tax lobbying firm that included several former Ways & Means staffers.
A spokesman for the architects association said his group pushed for inclusion because firms had benefited from the earlier exports subsidy. A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America wrote in an emailed statement that the film and television industry is a "vital component of the nation's overall economy." Bechtel did not respond to a request for comment.
All three industries -- construction, film production and architecture firms -- successfully convinced lawmakers that the manufacturing deduction should apply to them.
Indeed, each time lawmakers considered the bill, they stretched the definition of manufacturing a little more. One of the final additions was a clause that counts utility companies that produce electricity, gas and water as eligible among the ranks of domestic manufacturers. This was added during the conference committee, when Senate and House leaders meet to iron out differences.
Some of the perks attached to the legislation were gifts by individual Congress members to favored constituents, former staffers and others familiar with the tax law said. Then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), for example, won a repeal of excise taxes on fishing tackle boxes, as a gift to Plano Molding Co. of Illinois, the biggest manufacturer of those boxes. Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) successfully pushed for a break on Chinese ceiling fan import tariffs. Observers construed that as a gift for the home furnishings giant Home Depot, which sells large numbers of Chinese-made fans and has its headquarters in Atlanta. To attract Southern Democrats, the House bill included a $10 billion buyout for tobacco farmers. Then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who was in a tight reelection fight he would ultimately lose, successfully pushed for tax breaks for ethanol producers -- an issue close to the heart of farmers in the Midwest.
As the bill got bigger, and more expensive, policymakers at the Bush White House began to sound alarms.
"Because the manufacturing category is not well defined, firms would have an incentive to characterize themselves as in manufacturing," White House economic staff said in a report issued in early 2004. "Whenever possible, policy-making should not be based upon this type of arbitrary statistical delineation."
In October 2004, John Snow, then the Treasury secretary, described the bill as "a myriad of special-interest tax provisions that benefit few taxpayers and increase the complexity of the tax code."
Some congressional leaders also spoke out against the legislation, referring to it derisively as the "no lobbyist left behind act."
"We missed a golden opportunity with this issue," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a July 2004 floor speech. "We could have passed a good, clean bill months ago that would have brought us back into compliance with World Trade Organization agreements." The goal of the legislation, he said, had been "lost to a host of special-interest add-ons."
Fifteen congressional Democrats signed a dissent, arguing that the vague definition of manufacturing was a "deeply flawed provision that provides special-interest benefits to large architectural and engineering companies like Bechtel and Halliburton."
Still, supporters of the bill insisted they were not straying from the core goals of manufacturing growth.
"This bill is about helping American manufacturing," Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), then the Senate Finance Committee chairman, said in the spring of 2004. "Working families are living in financial fear. We owe a secure future to these hardworking men and women."
In a CNBC broadcast, Larry Kudlow and Jim Cramer asked Thomas, the architect of the tax bill, about criticisms that it was laden with business perks.
"Look, this is the House of Representatives," Thomas said. "Accommodation and compromise are classic tools in the American system."
The Huffington Post reached out to many of the lawmakers involved in the 2004 tax legislation, including Baucus, the current Senate Finance Committee chairman; Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the ranking Republican on the Finance committee and Grassley, the Senate Finance Chairman at the time. Spokesmen either did not return requests for comment or referred to past statements.
President George W. Bush signed the American Jobs Creation Act into law on Oct. 22, 2004. McCain didn't vote on the measure. Only three Republican senators voted against it. It also won the support of more than half of Senate Democrats.
PICKING WINNERS AND LOSERS
The political fight was over, but critics continued to slam the law as an overly complicated special-interest giveaway indefensible under any objective measure of fairness.
"There's always a certain amount of grease that's part of getting any tax policy changes through the process," Dan Mitchell, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Post at the time. "But with this bill, the actual policy seems secondary to the grease."
Less than a year after the domestic production tax changes went into effect, Bush's "Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform" recommended a repeal, calling it a slice of the corporate tax code "that is targeted at a specific type of activity, but that creates complexity for everyone."
As an example, the report pointed to a section in the law that disqualified sexually explicit movies from the tax deduction. That caveat "places IRS agents in the awkward position of screening movies to determine whether they qualify for the deduction," the report found.
Asking tax collectors to define pornography -- a task that has vexed even the U.S. Supreme Court -- was not the only challenge for would-be interpreters of the legislation. Accountants and lawyers struggled to figure out if they could claim landscaping or painting done on a construction job as "domestic production" under the law, according to accounts in industry trade journals. For oil and gas production, they wondered, would sales of geological maps and geophysical recordings count?
"There's no accounting system on the planet set up yet to capture the information I need for this," Glenn Mackles, a principal with Deloitte & Touche, told Accounting Today in November 2004. "I just laugh to keep from crying every time I read the coffee bean example."
To critics, the Starbucks footnote came to symbolize much of what was wrong with the American tax system. Hutson, the Starbucks spokesman, said the company advocated for the footnote because an early draft of the bill specifically excluded retailers from the manufacturing benefit. He noted that even with the deduction, Starbucks has paid an effective federal tax rate of between 30.1 percent and 35.8 percent since 2006.
The average effective corporate tax rate paid by the largest U.S. companies is roughly 19 percent, though many large companies with extensive overseas holdings pay a much lower rate. Exxon Mobil, for example, which also benefits from the manufacturing benefit, paid an average effective rate of 14.2 percent from 2008 to 2010, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.
This disparity underscores a problem that plagues the entire tax code, reform advocates say. Instead of a fair approach that neither helps nor hinders any particular set of companies, it gives some businesses huge advantages over others, usually without much scrutiny.
"One of the main arguments to repeal this is because it is an administrative nightmare," said George Yin, a professor of tax law at the University of Virginia's Law School, who served as chief of staff for Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation in 2004. "But I think that's really the secondary issue. The bottom-line question that really doesn't get answered in all of this debate is: Why should we be favoring any of these businesses?"
The final bill, for example, rewarded large-scale food production but not the work of individual chefs or craftsmen. "While the gross receipts of a meat packing establishment are qualified," the final bill read, "the activities of a master chef who creates a venison sausage for his or her restaurant menu cannot be construed as a qualified production activity."
Despite questions about its fairness, and recommendations from lawmakers of both parties that it should go, the manufacturing deduction has survived.
A much-heralded tax reform plan proposed by former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in 2010 would have eliminated the deduction. In 2010, President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board placed the domestic production tax break at the top of its priority list for corporate tax reforms. The board noted that if the deduction were to go away, the top tax rate for all companies -- including retailers and service companies that can't take advantage of it -- could be lowered by 1.4 percent.
In his renewed calls for corporate tax reform, Obama hasn't mentioned the deduction. Instead, this week, he proposed eliminating some off-shoring tax loopholes as part of broader corporate tax reform. At a speech at a North Carolina auto parts factory on Wednesday he called for lowering the top tax rate for manufacturers from 35 percent to 25 percent.
So far, the only measure that has served as a check on the manufacturing tax deduction, which costs taxpayers more every year, was the 2008 bailout bill, which limited the deductions for oil and gas companies to 6 percent, compared to 9 percent for other eligible industries. Otherwise, the bill has lived on -- even those parts of it that were supposed to expire.
As some provisions neared an expiration date, Congress simply added them to a $63 billion bundle of corporate tax breaks that it dutifully attaches to the budget each year, such as credits for building railroad tracks and accounting benefits for owners of NASCAR racetracks.
According to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the so-called NASCAR loophole will cost taxpayers $46 million this year and an additional $95 million through 2017. Supporters in Congress and industry groups have argued that the tax break is necessary to "maintain the current standard expected by our competitors and fans."
Most recently, Congress approved these extenders as part of the legislation to avert the fiscal cliff. At the same time, the payroll tax break, which helped American workers but did not have a powerful lobby fighting for it, was allowed to expire.
Jason Fichtner, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and a former senior economist with the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, said inequities in the tax code have the same effect as government spending programs, but without any of the required congressional oversight. "There's an accountability issue here, and a transparency issue," he said.The USA Freedom Act, once championed as the best way to limit mass government surveillance, passed the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday in a 303-121 vote. But privacy advocates inside and outside of Congress aren’t happy.
BREAKING: USA FREEDOM Act passes the House. It’s a weak attempt at NSA reform. We’re working for a stronger version in the Senate. — EFF (@EFF) May 22, 2014
Earlier this week, the Obama administration reportedly led last-minute backroom negotiations with House leaders to include new language in the bill that many believe negates efforts to meaningfully reign in National Security Agency spying activities. As a result, public supporters of the bill, including civil liberties advocates and major Internet companies, have since come out against the legislation, calling it “watered down” and “gutted.”
Formally known as H.R. 3361, the Freedom Act initially gathered broad bipartisan support, with more than 140 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. Ahead of Thursday’s House vote, however, that number began to fall.
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), an original cosponsor of the Freedom Act, announced on Facebook that he would vote ‘no’ on the current draft of the bill.
I am an original cosponsor of the Freedom Act, and I was involved in its drafting. At its best, the Freedom Act would have reined in the government’s unconstitutional domestic spying programs, ended the indiscriminate collection of Americans’ private records, and made the secret FISA court function more like a real court—with real arguments and real adversaries. I was and am proud of the work our group, led by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, did to promote this legislation, as originally drafted. However, the revised bill that makes its way to the House floor this morning doesn’t look much like the Freedom Act.
Another original cosponsor, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) also pulled his support for the bill:
As an original co-sponsor of #USAFreedomAct I was sad to see the bill weakened before the vote. #NSA http://t.co/fpZsA6QpLM — Rep. Jared Polis (@RepJaredPolis) May 22, 2014
As did a number of the bill’s other former supporters in Congress:
The watered-down #USAFreedomAct that passed the House doesn’t do enough to rein in the NSA & fails to adequately protect privacy. I voted NO — Rep. Suzan DelBene (@RepDelBene) May 22, 2014
I voted against the #USAFREEDOMAct today. Check out my Facebook page for my explanation –> https://t.co/oWBTHiEf0B #sctweets #tcot #PJNET — Rep. Mick Mulvaney (@RepMickMulvaney) May 22, 2014
I originally supported #USAFreedomAct, but it was weakened – doesn’t rein in #NSA & protect privacy. I just voted NO @CenDemTech @EFF — Rep. Mike Honda (@RepMikeHonda) May 22, 2014
I voted ‘no’ on the #USAFreedomAct. Read my statement here: http://t.co/YyAKPVwTvx — Michael Burgess, MD (@michaelcburgess) May 22, 2014
The gutted #USAFreedomAct, a bill I originally supported, just passed the House. I voted against #HR3361, here’s why: http://t.co/fAatbnChA0 — Rep. Steven Horsford (@RepHorsford) May 22, 2014
Despite the rising dissent, support for the bill remained strong in the House. And other cosponsors of the bill—including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.), Crime Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), Crime Subcommittee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Va.)—have touted its benefits for the privacy of Americans.
The group issued the following joint statement following Thursday’s vote:
Today’s strong, bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives on the USA Freedom Act will help protect our cherished individual liberties as the federal government carries out its duty to keep our nation safe from foreign enemies. The USA Freedom Act safeguards Americans’ civil liberties by ending domestic bulk collection once and for all and increases the oversight and transparency of these intelligence-gathering programs so that we can begin to rebuild trust with the American people.
The primary objection to the House-approved draft of the bill stems from the new definition of “specific selection term,” which dictates what data the NSA is allowed to surveill. An earlier version, which privacy advocates supported, limited these terms to “a person, entity, or account.” The latest draft adds the terms “address” and “device,” and prefaces them with the non-limiting phrase “such as,” which critics say leaves the bill open to dangerously broad interpretation.
Another major criticism of the legislation includes a lack of significant reform to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments (FISA) Act, which dictates when the NSA may collect data on Americans in particular circumstances, and how they must handle data incorrectly collected from U.S. citizens.
The Freedom Act will now move on to the Senate, which is expected to consider the legislation later this year.
Photo via Elvert Barnes/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)Campaigners fighting against Scotland’s alcohol problem last night accused the drinks industry of putting profit before health and claiming that hundreds of lives had been lost during the legal battle over minimum pricing.
Ahead of this week’s landmark judgment on minimum pricing, Alcohol Focus Scotland claimed lives would have been saved had the measure been introduced five years ago.
Drinks companies were attacked for taking and prolonging the legal action which has delayed the introduction of the policy designed to tackle problem drinking by setting a minimum price of 50 pence per unit of alcohol.
The five-year court battle will come to a conclusion on Wednesday when the Supreme Court makes its final ruling on a case which began in May 2013.
“The Scotch Whisky Association have pursued this case to the bitter end,” said Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland.
“They have relentlessly put their pursuit of profit over the health of Scots. Hundreds of Scots have lost their lives whilst they have done so. Let’s hope Scotland’s interests win out over those of global corporations.”
She added: “If minimum pricing had been introduced some lives would have been saved and a lot of misery for families would have been avoided.
“We await the Supreme Court’s ruling on minimum pricing with great anticipation. Should it find in favour of the Scottish Government, it will be a landmark victory for democracy and health alike.
“Scotland would be the first country in the world to set a minimum unit price for alcohol and we would lead the way in reducing the burden of alcohol harm. In the first year alone, a 50 pence minimum unit price will prevent an estimated 60 alcohol-related deaths, 1,600 hospital admissions and 3,500 crimes.
“It is heart-breaking that in the five years since the Scottish Parliament passed the legislation we have lost so many people to alcohol who could have been saved. Let’s hope that Wednesday’s ruling will give us the ability to take a huge step forward in preventing and reducing the harm caused by alcohol in Scotland. Given the recently published 10 per cent increase in alcohol-related deaths, we badly need it.”
READ MORE: Minimum pricing is all about public health v big business, says Kevan Christie
The 10 per cent rise recorded last year, saw the number of drink related deaths rise to its highest level for six years. Figures recently published by the National Records of Scotland show there were 1,265 deaths in 2016, up 115 from 1,150 in 2015.
Wednesday will see the conclusion of a legal fight that has seen the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) challenge minimum pricing in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Supreme Court.
The outspoken attack on the drinks industry was launched as alcohol abuse experts revealed that the next step in their battle with the bottle will be to try to convince the Scottish Government to ban sports sponsorship by drinks companies.
Dr Peter Rice, a psychiatrist specialising in the treatment of problem drinkers and the chair of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP), said he believed the court would rule in favour of minimum pricing.
He also said SHAAP, which is backed by Scotland’s medical Royal Colleges, now wanted to see an end to alcohol sports sponsorship being taken forward by the Scottish Government. Controls on TV advertising are reserved to Westminster but other marketing channels, including sport, are devolved to Holyrood.
Rice said: “We think sponsorship of sport increases brand awareness amongst children and establishes an inappropriate association between alcohol and health. Ultimately, we believe, alcohol marketing should be taken out of sport.
“Despite the battle over minimum pricing, Scotland has done pretty well on tackling alcohol problems and we shouldn’t lose sight of that. But sports sponsorship we think is a big way for companies to market for young people and kids, particularly to start associations with alcohol, so we would really like to see the back of that.
“All of that, however, is not easy to do. There are powerful forces ranged against you. Marketing is self-regulated. The industry polices itself. We just don’t think that’s good enough.
“We know children have a very high brand awareness particularly of the brands that sponsor sports tournaments and teams. If we are really talking about children having an alcohol-free childhood then controlling marketing and sports sponsorship is part of that.”
READ MORE: Minimum alcohol pricing on its way ‘as soon as practicable’
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We’re looking forward to the judgment of the UK Supreme Court on Minimum Unit Pricing. If it is the positive outcome we’ve worked for, we will move quickly to put the policy in place.
“While huge progress has been made in tackling alcohol misuse, we want to go further. Our Framework for Action outlines more than 40 measures to reduce alcohol-related harm, including cutting the drink-drive limit, banning multi-buy offers and irresponsible drinks promotions and tackling underage drinking.
“We will be refreshing our Alcohol Strategy later this year, providing opportunity to further consider the additional actions and steps still needed to tackle alcohol-related harm in Scotland.
“The Scottish Government has invested over £689 million to tackle the problem of alcohol and drug use since 2008, We also confirmed an additional £20m for alcohol and drugs services as part of our Programme for Government this year.”
A SWA spokesman said: “We await the judgment of the Supreme Court, which will mark the end of the five- year legal process. This issue for us has always been about competitiveness of Scotch, particularly in our vital export markets, and ensuring we can continue to support the jobs, investment and communities across Scotland which rely on the industry.
“We believe that the proposed MUP legislation contravenes EU law and WTO rules. Our case has sought clarity in the law.
“The Scotch Whisky industry is the first to acknowledge that promoting responsible drinking and tackling alcohol-related harm is of paramount importance. Whatever the Supreme Court’s decision, we will continue to work in partnership with the government and the voluntary sector in order to do this.”
The Scotch Whisky industry supports 40,000 jobs across the UK, employs 10,500 people in Scotland, 7,000 of whom work in rural areas. The SWA’s members include global spirits producers Diageo and brands owned by Pernod Ricard and Suntory Beam.
Viewpoint: ‘Sale of alcohol for less than price of fizzy soft drinks is a scandal’
The journey towards minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Scotland has been a long one, but it is approaching its end.
First brought forward by the then minority SNP government in 2009, the policy was initially defeated at Holyrood. However, the election of 2011 saw both a majority government returned and a change in attitude among opposition parties allowing the life-saving policy to be passed overwhelmingly in 2012.
Despite five long years passing, minimum unit pricing is still not in effect because of irresponsible attempts by the alcohol industry to block the policy in the courts.
This week, doctors and health campaigners hope the Supreme Court will end these challenges and let the policy proceed.
The strength of minimum unit pricing has always rested on the fact that it can achieve what taxation alone does not. The price of alcohol has long been known to be one of the key drivers behind consumption and while tax changes can be absorbed by the industry, minimum pricing by its nature cannot be.
Furthermore, a minimum price per unit of alcohol has been shown to have its greatest impact on reducing the consumption of the heaviest drinkers in society – those who are most at risk of death or serious illness from their use of alcohol.
As doctors, we see the heavy toll that alcohol takes on the health of people in Scotland and the emotional impact on loved ones, who are often left trying to pick up the pieces. The sale of alcohol for less than the cost of fizzy soft drinks is a scandal that must be addressed.
The most recent figures show that 1,265 people in Scotland lost their lives to alcohol-related causes last year.
This is a 10 per cent increase on the previous year and the highest total since 2010.
The cost of alcohol misuse to Scottish society runs into billions of pounds a year, taking into account losses to the economy, and policing costs, as well as a substantial financial impact on health services.
At a time when NHS resources are stretched as never before, we cannot afford to continue the cycle that sees pressure unnecessarily put upon the health service as a result of alcohol misuse.
The case for minimum unit pricing is as urgent
as ever.
For the sake of people across Scotland, I hope it will be implemented as swiftly as possible.
Dr Peter Bennie is chair, BMA Scotland- In a culture that often celebrates drugs use, Mark Henriquez is speaking about overcoming it.
His recent rap song has over 6 million views and a powerful message.
"I remember when my mom was in distress and sick from stress. She was stuck on drugs. She picked up meth," says Mark in the video.
That was 12 years ago, when Mark was 10 years old.
The Santa Ana song writer picked up rapping to deal with his mother's addiction.
"Because of my addiction, I lost my job of 16 years, I lost my kids, I lost my apt," says his mom in the video.
Mark tells FOX 11, at one point, the family feared losing their lives.
There was a time I was at a Cyber Café. And I heard that a dealer pulled a gun on my mom. So we ran back to the house. There were helicopters, at least 10 cop cars. That was a very difficult time," says Mark.
It took Ruby 4 years to get sober.
"It was just a very bad experience in my life, very bad," says Ruby.
The struggle, Mark says, is what made him stronger.
It's also how the song ends.
"Momma made us who we are today. And I don't regret a thing thank you for everything," says Mark.
"Seeing everything she's gone through, and seeing that she's made it out of it, is very inspiring to me," says Mark.
Mark hopes his story will inspire others
"I had a guy who told me he hadn't spoke to his mom in 8 years and this song inspired him to reach out to her," says Mark.
"I just want to say to whoever out there - going through the same thing, not to give up. Don't give up, and don't ever surrender to the drug. Because you can do it. It can happen," says Ruby.
In two weeks, Mark will perform at a women's correctional facility in Bakersfield.
Many of those women are recovering addicts, Mark and his mom hope to tell them they can recover and reconnect with their kids too.
Copyright 2017 FOX 11 Los Angeles: Download our mobile app for breaking news alerts or to watch FOX 11 News | Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Be a citizen journalist for FOX 11 and get paid – download the Fresco News App today.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Jan. 13, 2016, 5:02 PM GMT / Updated Jan. 13, 2016, 5:40 PM GMT By Corky Siemaszko
Secretary of State John Kerry announced Wednesday the U.S. is expanding its refugee admission program to help more people from Central America escape the chaos in their countries.
“That is who we are, that is what we do,” Kerry said at an address at the National Defense University. “The refugee crisis is not just a Syrian issue.”
It is, Kerry said, a global challenge that “tests our values, our self-confidence in our very humanity.”
Kerry said the expansion will aim to help people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to “offer them a safe and legal alternative to the dangerous journey many are currently tempted to begin, making them easy prey for human smugglers who have no interest but their own profits.”
Kerry did not say how many more Central American refugees would be admitted or when the expansion would start.
"We can both maintain the highest security standards and live up to the best traditions as Americans by welcoming those in need or our help to this great country of ours," he said.
The U.S. already plans to admit 85,000 refugees in the fiscal year that started in October — 15,000 more than in the previous year. And 10,000 of those are Syrians fleeing civil war.
Kerry’s remarks were yet more pushback by the Obama administration against the anti-refugee stances that Donald Trump and the other Republican presidential candidates have taken.
And they came as the White House has taken heat from fellow Democrats and Hispanic groups for taking steps to deport escapees from Guatemala, El Salvador and other Central American countries – mostly young mothers with children — whose asylum requests were denied.Introduction
In this article, we are going to see some approaches to pass the data between two Operation s in Swift. To avoid losing the focus on this topic, I will not explain what is and how works an Operation. For this reason, you need a basic understanding of Operation to understand the next sections of the article.
I may write another article to explain the Operation if I see that you would be interested on it.
Happy Reading!
Contents
Getting Started
Before diving into these approaches, we need a scenario for our examples. I guess all of us made an application where we had to fetch the data from an API request and then parse the data received. For this reason, I think it’s quite familiar if we use a scenario where we have two Operation s: one to fetch and one to parse the data.
We can start creating our two Operation classes:
FetchOperation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 final class FetchOperation : Operation { // 1 private ( set ) var dataFetched : Data? override func main ( ) { // 2 self. dataFetched = // data received from HTTP request } }
The data fetched to send to ParseOperation. Saves the data received from an HTTP request.
For the sake of explanation, I skipped a real implementation since it would need an asynchronous operation. If you want to learn how to use an asynchronous operation, you can have a look at my gist.
ParseOperation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 final class ParseOperation : Operation { // 1 var dataFetched : Data? // 2 private ( set ) var jsonParsed : [ String : Any ]? override func main ( ) { // 3 guard let dataFetched = dataFetched else { return } jsonParsed = try! JSONSerialization. jsonObject ( with : dataFetched, options : [ ] ) as? [ String : Any ] print ( jsonParsed ) } }
The data received from FetchOperation. The dictionary created from the parsing of dataFetched. Checks if the data exists and then creates a dictionary from the data fetched.
For the sake of explanation, I kept both Operation implementations as plain as possible without caring of the lifecycle.
The last step is creating a handler class which will manage these operations with an OperationQueue :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 final class Handler { // 1 private let queue : OperationQueue = OperationQueue ( ) func start ( ) { // 2 let fetch = FetchOperation ( ) let parse = ParseOperation ( ) parse. addDependency ( fetch ) // 3 queue. addOperations ( [ fetch, parse ], waitUntilFinished : true ) } }
OperationQueue to run our Operation s. Prepares our Operation s setting the dependencies. Adds the Operation s in the queue blocking the queue thread until it’s finished.
With these 3 classes, we are ready to start looking at the approaches to pass dataFetched from FetchOperation to ParseOperation.
Approaches
Internal dependency reference
The object Operation provides an array of its dependencies with the following property:
1 2 var dependencies : [ Operation ] { get }
Thanks to this information, in ParseOperation we can have access to its dependency FetchOperation :
1 2 let fetchOperation = dependencies. first as? FetchOperation
At this point, we can refactor the method main of ParseOperation to read dataFetched directly from its dependency:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 override func main ( ) { guard let fetchOperation = dependencies. first as? FetchOperation else { return } self. dataFetched = fetchOperation. dataFetched guard let dataFetched = dataFetched else { return } jsonParsed = try! JSONSerialization. jsonObject ( with : dataFetched, options : [ ] ) as? [ String : Any ] print ( jsonParsed ) }
This approach is the easiest since we don’t need any external helpers to inject dataFetched. To be honest, I don’t like this approach. I would prefer injecting the data from outside because ParseOperation wouldn’t have the responsibility to decide where to get the data.
Reference Wrapper
For this approach, we have to create a new class which will wrap fetchedData :
1 2 3 4 final class DataWrapper { var dataFetched : Data? }
Then, we can inject this new wrapper in both operations. FetchOperation will use this wrapper to set the property dataFetched, whereas ParseOperation will read the value of dataFetched —previously set in FetchOperation.
We can change our FetchOperation to inject this wrapper and set its property once we receive the HTTP response:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 final class FetchOperation : Operation { private let dataWrapper : DataWrapper // 1 init ( dataWrapper : DataWrapper ) { self. dataWrapper = dataWrapper } override func main ( ) { // 2 dataWrapper. dataFetched = // data received from HTTP request } }
Injects DataWrapper and keeps an internal reference to use in main. Sets the wrapper property to be used in ParseOperation.
Then, we can change ParseOperation to read the wrapper property:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 final class ParseOperation : Operation { private ( set ) var jsonParsed : [ String : Any ]? private let dataWrapper : DataWrapper // 1 init ( dataWrapper : DataWrapper ) { self. dataWrapper = dataWrapper } override func main ( ) { // 2 guard let dataFetched = dataWrapper. dataFetched else { return } jsonParsed = try! JSONSerialization. jsonObject ( with : dataFetched, options : [ ] ) as? [ String : Any ] print ( jsonParsed ) } }
Injects DataWrapper and keep an internal reference to use in main. Reads the wrapper property to parse it.
Finally, we can change the method start of Handler to use the new wrapper object:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 func start ( ) { let dataWrapper = DataWrapper ( ) let fetch = FetchOperation ( dataWrapper : dataWrapper ) let parse = ParseOperation ( dataWrapper : dataWrapper ) parse. addDependency ( fetch ) queue. addOperations ( [ fetch, parse ], waitUntilFinished : true ) }
To be honest, I don’t like also this approach. We cannot inject just the data but we must inject this wrapper—which may not have the data ready when we use it in ParseOperation.
Keep reading to learn better approaches.
Completion block
The object Operation provides a completion closure which is called once the Operation completes its task:
1 2 var completionBlock : ( ( ) -> Swift. Void )?
We can take advantage of this completion to pass the values between the two Operation s:
1 2 3 4 fetch. completionBlock = { [ unowned parse, unowned fetch ] in parse. dataFetched = fetch. dataFetched }
Remember to use unowned for both operation objects otherwise you would create a retain cycle.
At this point, we can refactor the method start of Handler like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 func start ( ) { queue. maxConcurrentOperationCount = 1 let fetch = FetchOperation ( ) let parse = ParseOperation ( ) parse. addDependency ( fetch ) fetch. completionBlock = { [ unowned parse, unowned fetch ] in parse. dataFetched = fetch. dataFetched } queue. addOperations |
said. "Let the goalie get set and make a recovery because, if not, too many bad habits start if they are rushing. … Make sure they are ready for the next one.
"I don't want him to stop every puck. That can make a lot of bad habits."Joe Raedle via Getty Images The DEA has decided to make the herbal supplement kratom, seen above in capsule form, a Schedule I substance.
Over 100,000 people are calling on President Barack Obama to intervene after the Drug Enforcement Administration announced plans to wage war on kratom, a natural substance that has been touted as an effective treatment for a variety of symptoms, including opioid addiction.
The petition, posted last week to the White House’s “We the People” platform, challenges the DEA’s claim that active ingredients in kratom deserve to be placed in Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, alongside drugs like heroin and LSD.
“Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” reads the petition. “This is not true for Kratom, it has been shown numerous times in reports from users to help recovering Opiate addicts, treat pain, combat depression and anxiety, and much more.”
The plea also contends that a kratom ban enacted in Alabama earlier this year led to an increase in opioid overdose deaths, a claim that appears too early to confirm.
With over 100,000 signatures as of Thursday morning, the petition has reached the threshold that typically requires a response from the administration. But it’s unclear if the White House will give one before the ban is set to go into effect.
In a notice published in the Federal Register last week, the DEA signaled its intent to ban kratom in order to “avoid an imminent hazard to public safety.” The action, set to go into effect at the end of the month, would last two years, during which the government could decide to make the ban permanent.
The DEA didn’t ask for public comment before making the announcement, completely surprising kratom advocates, including one of the nation’s largest advocacy groups.
“Rather than have an emergency scheduling, why not host a summit meeting with all of the groups and organizations and investors that are out there selling this product and say, ‘Hey, these are our concerns. If you don’t clean this up this is what we’re going to do’?” Susan Ash, founder of the American Kratom Association, a nonprofit that supports kratom consumers, told The Huffington Post last week. “Why not go to the sources that they’re having the problems with?”
Kratom is made from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, a Southeast Asian tree related to coffee, and has been consumed in Asia for millennia, typically as a tea or powder. The herb contains alkaloids that appear to activate opioid receptors in the brain and reduce pain. Although most opioids have sedative qualities, low to moderate doses of kratom serve as a mild stimulant.
These characteristics have led advocates and some researchers to claim that kratom is effective at treating a variety of ailments. Many users say they’ve turned to the herb as an alternative to prescription drugs, like painkillers or anti-anxiety medication. Others say it has shown promise as a maintenance drug, or a step-down treatment, to help recovering opioid addicts. Because kratom satiates opioid cravings, some users have been able to wean themselves off harder prescription narcotics and even heroin.
But as kratom has gotten a modern makeover, popping up in new products like energy shots and bright, gaudy packages sold in head shops, lawmakers have taken aim. Armed with sensationalistic news stories about supposed harm and abuse, drug warriors have sought to paint kratom as a new, highly addictive and extremely dangerous recreational drug, even likening the herb to heroin itself.
Initial studies have suggested kratom does have some addictive potential, but many of the reports warning of relapses and self-destructive behavior have centered around individuals who had existing opioid abuse disorders and who were in mandatory, abstinence-only drug treatment programs, where they may have been going through painful withdrawals without the help of medication.
Alissa Scheller An assortment of products made from kratom, which the DEA wants to make a Schedule I substance.
The DEA has provided scant evidence to support this alarming narrative.
In its notice, the agency equates any use of kratom ― regardless of the purpose ― to abuse, because the drug “does not have an approved medical use in the United States and has not been studied as a treatment agent in the United States.”
While some medical research has pointed to potential benefits ― or at least, noted that the plant has a relatively low potential for abuse or acute harm ― none of these studies have even come close to the rigor or scale that would be required for Food and Drug Administration approval. That’s not surprising, considering the process can cost pharmaceutical companies billions of dollars. Moreover, Big Pharma has little incentive to seek approval for plants like kratom, as corporations can’t exactly patent leaves that have been around for millions of years.
Instead, the DEA is relying on isolated reports to back up its contention that kratom prohibition is urgently needed. The notice cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent decision to declare kratom an “emerging public health threat.” The CDC based this move on 660 calls to U.S. poison centers related to kratom in the six years from January 2010 to December 2015, and 555 positive drug test results for for kratom from December 2014 to March 2016.
The DEA points to an upward trend over this period, which shows “growing abuse and popularity of these substances.” But these incidents make up just a tiny portion of the more than 3 million annual calls to poison centers, and the millions of drug tests the CDC surveyed.
The agency also claims there have been “numerous deaths associated with kratom,” yet fails to provide an example of one in which the herb was found to be the only contributor. Such a case does not appear to exist, and most users report that consuming too much kratom will only lead to nausea and vomiting.
Of the 30 total documented deaths associated with kratom around the world, many tests found that subjects had been abusing other drugs or suffering from other pre-existing health conditions.
To put that into context, around 25,000 people died of prescription drug overdoses in the United States in 2014, the highest number ever recorded.Mathieu Debuchy represented France in this summer's World Cup
Arsenal right-back Mathieu Debuchy will be out for about three months after undergoing surgery on an ankle injury.
The 29-year-old was stretchered off against Manchester City on 13 September after falling and damaging ligaments.
Gunners boss Arsene Wenger said the operation "went well" but added that Debuchy's extended absence "is a blow".
"How big it will be we will only know afterwards as it will be down to how well we replace him. We bought [Calum] Chambers for that," added Wenger.
Chambers, who signed in a £16m deal from Southampton in July, was also injured after the draw with City so Spaniard Hector Bellerin, 19, replaced Debuchy in a 2-0 Champions League defeat at Borussia Dortmund.
Also 19, Chambers returned for the Premier League win over Aston Villa last Saturday and is now set for a lengthy run in the side.
Debuchy's career Lille (2003-2013): 258 appearances, 16 goals Newcastle (2013-2014): 46 appearances, 1 goal Arsenal (2014-): Six appearances
France international Debuchy signed for the Gunners from Newcastle during the summer and played in the Community Shield victory over City.
He followed that up with six outings, which included being sent off against Besiktas in a Champions League qualifier, before suffering his left ankle injury.According to RiseOfTheVegan.com, Elmhurst Dairy in Queens has closed down after 90 years and reopened as a plant-based milk company.
Debuted last week at Natural Foods Expo West in California, the new nut-based brand is called Milked. CEO Henry Schwartz says his products pack "up to 4 times more nuts per serving than the other leading brands" and will be available in four flavors: almond, hazelnut, cashew, and walnut.
Elmhurst had been operating at a high cost in recent years, and according to Schwartz, “Pasteurized fluid milk has sort of gone out of style.” He explains:
[W]e are unable to continue to go on without ongoing losses. There isn’t much room for our kind of business. I tried to keep this open because it was my father’s plant and he asked me to do so.
But this story is part of something bigger. Since 1970, cow's milk consumption has fallen a whopping 40 percent in the U.S., while sales of dairy-free milk alternatives have soared by 30 percent since 2011.
Earlier this year, NBC News reported that internet grocery delivery giant Instacart found searches for "Non-Dairy" were up by 222 percent. Rebecca Silliman, the company’s head of communications, said, “Coconut, soy, and almond milks are all having a moment, and are in everything from yogurt to ice cream to creamer.”
This is great news for cows. On modern dairy farms, cows are roughly handled, forcibly inseminated, and kept in terrible conditions. Their calves are torn away from them shortly after birth. Male calves are killed for veal. Females are raised to produce more milk, trapped in a cycle of abuse for years until they are considered “spent” and sent to slaughter.
Watch this undercover footage from a recent MFA investigation in Colorado.
Thankfully, it’s never been easier to ditch animal products. Join the growing number of people who are taking a stand for animals, the environment, and their own health by transitioning to a plant-based diet.
Click here to order your FREE Vegetarian Starter Guide.Canadian internet and telephone companies are asked to provide the personal information of their customers more than a million times every year, a one-time disclosure to the Office of the privacy commissioner reveals.
A document filed with the office in 2011 – released publicly on Tuesday – reveals that government authorities ask telecom companies for an average of 1,193,630 disclosures every year. The aggregated disclosure provided to the office summarized the findings of nine, unknown telecom companies. It is unknown how many cases involved a warrant.
Three companies told the Office that represented the disclosure of 784,756 users or accounts.
According to the document, the telecom companies routinely seek compensation for complying with the governments’ disclosure requests, including the cost of warrants, and labour and facilities used to intercept information.
Both NDP and Liberal opposition leaders weighed in after question period, saying they hope the government is doing enough to protect Canadians’ privacy.
“I certainly hope that we will see the government is doing all it can to protect Canadians security,” Liberal leader Justin Trudeau told reporters.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said the 1 million number is “absolutely incredible” and is something the New Democrats will be following-up on.
“I find that there is no way plausibly to explain a million pieces of personal information being transferred to the government by telecom companies. So, we are going to try to get to the bottom of it. That’s all we can do at this stage,” he said.
Despite the findings, the privacy commissioner says she has no idea how often telecom companies share their consumer’s personal information.
After an appearance before the Senate committee on transportation and communications Tuesday, Interim Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier said cell phone and internet companies are refusing to release details on the practice.
“We have sought out information from the telecoms to find out and they have given us very general comments,” she said.
Bernier, and a legal counsel from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, testified as part of the Senate committee’s study on Bell Canada’s new privacy rules. The telecom giant’s updated policy allowed the company to gather information about users’ television and internet habits to better inform and target their advertising campaigns.
Representatives from Bell Canada are scheduled to testify at the committee’s next meeting, though none will be able to answer direct questions about how they use customer data due to the privacy commissioner’s on-going investigation.
The investigation, launched last October after receiving 170 complaints about Bell Canada’s new policies, is expected to be completed by the end of this year, Bernier told reporters.
The changing technological industry, Bernier told the senators, is a hurdle for Canadian companies trying to be competitive in a dog-eat-dog sector. With traditional advertising revenue plummeting, companies, including Google, Facebook and Bell, are increasingly using “targeted advertising” to generate more revenue.
“The more targeted the advertisement is, the more lucrative the advertisement is,” she said, pointing to Google as an example. The Silicon Valley company made 2.6 times more revenue from targeted advertising than regular ads last year, Bernier stated.
“There is a real economic incentive to use personal information for targeted advertising,” she added.
Consumers at risk
The concerning trend of sharing personal data obtained online creates an imbalance of power between the consumer and the company, Bernier stressed. Consumers often have a limited knowledge of a product and how a company plans to use their information.
This imbalance, she said, can only be resolved if the regulator has more powers, something Bill S-4, the Digital Privacy Act, accomplishes.
“It gives us one year, rather than 45 days to send an investigation to the courts, and that is much more appropriate because the issues that we deal with are often very complex,” she said.
“It also expands our power to name things in the public interest and that helps us make a difference.”
In addition to more power, Bernier’s office is pushing the government to create a legal framework that would require telecom companies to disclose how often personal information is used or shared without a warrant.
Current legislation allow private companies to share information with the police and government without requiring a warrant, something the privacy commissioner wants modified.
While there are emergency situations when information is needed before a court can issue a warrant, Bernier believes companies should be forced to better inform Canadians on the controversial topic.
“In relation to publishing statistics on warrantless, already it would be a matter of transparency, it would give a form of oversight by empowering citizens to see what the scope of the phenomenon is,” she said.
That recommendation was part of a Special Report tabled in late January, which the government has yet to respond to.
“Nope. We have not heard anything back,” Bernier said Tuesday, three months after the report was made public.
The privacy commissioner’s office is hoping to release a series of guidelines in May on how private companies can best protect a consumer’s privacy and ensure that opt-out and opt-in options are “meaningful.” Terms and conditions, Bernier suggested, should be written for the target audience, and device.The riskiest vaccine? The one that is not given
Last week, public health authorities in Minnesota asked more than 200 people to quarantine themselves after 12 cases of measles were diagnosed in less than 2 weeks—all of them in unvaccinated children younger than 6 years. Across the ocean, an unvaccinated 17-year-old Portuguese girl died of measles after the virus invaded her lungs, in the midst of an outbreak there that mirrors surges in cases in Germany, Italy, and Romania.
In 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, just 72% of U.S. toddlers had received seven key vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which together protect against 11 potentially deadly diseases. That is actually an improvement from 2011, when the number was 69%; but it also indicates that much work remains to be done, particularly in an environment in which vaccine skeptics have been emboldened, not least by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
As once common diseases of childhood fade from public view, it is understandable that parents' attention would shift from the fear of disease to concerns about risks of the vaccines themselves. The articles in this issue debunk myths old and new about these risks, while acknowledging the real, rare vaccine injuries that do occur. The data on these pages make clear the power of vaccines to vanquish disease—an impact that far eclipses their minute risks. Identifying the best ways to convince hesitant parents of this calculus in an age of internet-fed misinformation is an ongoing challenge for researchers.You read that right – Norwegian dark ambient pioneer Helge Sten has teamed up with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and recorded a full-length album under the moniker Minibus Pimps.
Sten is best known around these parts as the man behind Deathprod, and under that moniker he’s notorious for producing some of the best dark ambient albums we’ve ever heard. Jones has also been responsible for a number of avant garde works in the past, so it’s not totally out of the ordinary that the two should find themselves working together.
They snatched their unusual name from a title on Chinese experimental music compilation The Sonic Avant Garde, and their debut album Cloud To Ground will be a compilation of tracks recorded at a series of different live shows, exploring themes which connect the dots between 70s prog-rock and the Norwegian new music movement.
At the center of the Minibus Pimps sound is the expensive Kyma computer system, and each instrument (guitar, church organ, bass and violin) is fed through its processors to transform the sounds into clouds of seismic drone – the title track for instance is said to be a “monstrous duet for icicles and cathedral organ”. Sten notes that the music contains “composed and improvisational elements on an equal scale,” so don’t expect this to be a collection of simple live experiments.
Cloud to Ground is due for release on March 3 via Susannasonata.In 2004, Ron Artest became the center of one of the biggest atrocities in NBA history. In the closing minutes of a regular season game between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons, a fight broke out between the Queens native and big man Ben Wallace. Artest, looking to stay out of the melee taking place between the teams on the court, laid down on the scorers table, when a fan threw a beer on him. The Pacers forward leaped what looked like 20 rows into the stands and went… well… Artest… all over him. He was suspended for the rest of the season. The NBA went into full damage control. The rest went infamy.
The next day, Artest appeared on the Today show. Those of us watching knew the conversation would be about the Malice In The Palace. Apparently, the artist now known as Metta World Peace was told the conversation would be about an album he was releasing through his Tru Warier imprint. It was one of the oddest interviews I’ve ever seen.
The irony is that, 12 years later, I don’t remember what Metta said about the brawl. I don’t remember what he said about David Stern. I don’t remember anything other than that he had an album dropping the following week. If marketing is what he wanted more than reconciliation, it at least resonated on an individual level.
“That was interesting,” Metta World Peace tells HipHopDX in this exclusive conversation. “That CD was Allure. That was the first artist that I signed… We had a November 23 release date… On November 19, the Malice In The Palace happened. On November 20 I was on NBC because I had this record coming out that I put a lot of money into. When I got suspended, it was over. That whole check stopped. That was some of the money that I invested in Allure—touring and marketing the project. I was in a tough spot because the season’s over for me. They cut the whole check off and I’ve gotta continue to push the girls. When I went on NBC I was like, ‘Yo, I’m not talking about the brawl.’ Matt Lauer, he’s a big time columnist, he’s definitely a scumbag. He’s asking me to his show. When you’re asking me to your show, you’ve gotta show me some respect. He’s automatically taking the sides of everybody else instead of embracing a talent on your show. He’s definitely mean and irresponsible to invite somebody to your show. Anyway, they knew the whole time I was going to promote my CD. Now I look like a hoodlum promoting a CD because NBC didn’t back me up when they knew this is why I was coming on the show. So it looked like instead of talking about the brawl, I was talking about music.”
That’s the history. But if you thought Metta World’s music ambitions were strictly side hustle, you’ve missed out on the last decade-plus of his public life. At this point, he’s been rhyming for over 17 years and has a gaggle of artists he’s helping to reach their rap dreams. He released Streets & Ball earlier this year and has another project featuring Prodigy, Havoc, Tragedy, Capone, Nature, Cormega and several other Queensbridge elites. He explains his passion for music in this exclusive conversation, reflects on the life of Big Kap, details why Murda Mook deserves to be considered as a Top 10 Greatest Rappers Of All Time, shares how he repaired his dismembered reputation, and why New York artists are “selfish and full of shit.”
Also, if you missed it, check Metta World and his artist Southside Tre kick rhymes during #DXLive.
The Best Baller-Rappers
HipHopDX: I don’t think people realize how long you’ve been rapping and releasing music. It’s got to be at least 15 years of your life at this point.
Metta World Peace: I started in 1999. Now it’s 2016. I only had one hit. It’s cool though. I’m grateful for it. Nature, that used to be with the firm, we’re from the same block. I used to go to his house every Thanksgiving. We used to watch WWE and Royal Rumble. Nature wrote my first rhyme in college. I was gonna start rapping before I got to the NBA. Then it died down a little bit. Then I got back into it.
DX: Is it because the league is that demanding?
Metta World Peace: Yeah, man. I had some things I wanted to say coming out of high school and going into St. John’s [University]. Then I had some more things I wanted to say going into the NBA but I wasn’t able to write. I was into the game, practicing my defense, practicing my offense and things like that. I never got the chance to really do my best with the music.
DX: I remember when Allen Iverson tried to rhyme and David Stern had a real problem with it.
Metta World Peace: When AI was rapping, he said some things that was attacking some genres. I think that was the main issue. In my rhymes now, I still speak uncensored, but it’s coming from a place of things that I’ve been through. I think AI just made a slight mistake in one of his raps. But he’s one of the best baller-rappers. Everybody was looking forward to that album. He had the album ready. I think it would’ve been a little too uncensored; kind of like Eminem, but Eminem was not playing in the NBA. We missed out on hearing a great album from AI. It would’ve been amazing.
DX: Did you ever hear it? Did he ever play it for you?
Metta World Peace: I never heard the AI album. I heard the Kobe [Bryant] album, which never got released. I heard the mixtape. Kobe’s a really good rapper. There’s a lot of other ballers that rap, also. Ben Mclemore from the Sacramento Kings, he’s one of my favorites. Iman Shumpert is probably the best all around artist that’s an athlete, because he can produce videos, he writes his own videos. He’s very creative and a really good rapper. Damien Lillard, he just came on the scene last year with that freestyle on Sway, so he’s got more work to do. There’s a lot of other good, talented athlete rappers.
DX: Kobe’s project was a big deal. A lot of people wanted to hear it. Back then, coming off of Will Smith’s Big Willie Style, which was really popular, a lot of stuff that Steve Stoute was doing then was running. You’re saying it’s a good project?
Metta World Peace: Kobe’s a great writer. He probably won’t rap, but he can if he wanted to. I heard his music. We used to freestyle in the room sometimes. I think his bigger calling will be big theatrical movies. He’ just a great writer.
DX: Have you guys ever recorded together?
Metta World Peace: Nah. We never had a chance. Me and Kobe love the game. We can be in the room freestyling and talking about music, then we’ll forget we ever had the conversation because it’s game time. That’s it. Nothing else matters.
The Malice In The Palace
DX: I remember when you released your first album, [My World], in [2007]. There wasn’t whole lot of cursing on there. There wasn’t a lot of profanity. I was surprised by that.
Metta World Peace: A couple of things hurt me with that project. I was holding myself back. When I’m giving you music on my life but I’m cutting certain parts out, that’s not going to relate to the people I’m talking to. The other problem I had was I didn’t use any help. I didn’t use outside producers. I didn’t use outside engineers which is very important when you’re making an album. I didn’t use outside writers for the hooks or nothing. I’m competitive. I want to compete against whoever’s out there, whether it’s Jay Z or Nas. I don’t care. I’m competitive. I’m gonna do something. I’m gonna get into it. I’m gonna give it my all. In order to compete in that same field, you gotta have just as strong of a team. We was in a point where we was doing everything ourselves. I was doing most of the mixing and production. It wasn’t a great project.
DX: Tracks like “La La Ladies” and “Workin The Pole,” you produced those as well?
Metta World Peace: Man, I did a lot of the co-production. It brings me back when say that. Those were fun records. We spent a lot of time on them, but the time wasn’t used smart. We didn’t go out and do the right amount of shows.
DX: You opened for Ludacris at one point.
Metta World Peace: Yeah, we opened for Ludacris. We had a song called “Nasty Norf” featuring my man Knotie The Pimp. He’s from Queensbridge. He was accused of being one of the lead racketeers. He was facing a lot of time. A couple of my other dudes was on that record. We performed with Fat Joe overseas. It was great.
DX: I remember not being able to tell how serious you were until you were on the Today show following the Malice In The Palace. There were rumors floating around that you were interested in music. What’s interesting is that, I don’t remember what that Today interview was like. I don’t remember what Matt Lauer said. I don’t remember what you said about the brawl. I remember Tru Warier. I remember you pushing a CD.
Metta World Peace: That was interesting. That CD was Allure. That was the first artist that I signed. Allure used to be signed to Mariah Carey. We had a November 23 release date. We had this great R&B album that was coming. I was the manager and the label at that time. On November 19, the Malice In The Palace happened. On November 20 I was on NBC because I had this record coming out that I put a lot of money into. When I got suspended, it was over. That whole check stopped. That was some of the money that I invested in Allure—touring and marketing the project. I was in a tough spot because the season’s over for me. They cut the whole check off and I’ve gotta continue to push the girls. When I went on NBC I was like, “Yo, I’m not talking about the brawl.” Matt Lauer, he’s a big time columnist, he’s definitely a scumbag. He’s asking me to his show. When you’re asking me to your show, you’ve gotta show me some respect. He’s automatically taking the sides of everybody else instead of embracing a talent on your show. He’s definitely mean and irresponsible to invite somebody to your show.
Anyway, they knew the whole time I was going to promote my CD. Now I look like a hoodlum promoting a CD because NBC didn’t back me up when they knew this is why I was coming on the show. So it looked like instead of talking about the brawl, I was talking about music.
DX: I think it might’ve worked, man, because 12 years later, I don’t remember what you said about the brawl.
Metta World Peace: The whole brawl happened because it was a $50 bet. The guy who threw the cup at me, him and his friend was at the game. His friend bet him $50 that he could hit me with the cup. That’s what the whole thing was. Granted, I attacked the guy who hit me. Was I wrong? Who knows. Should you attack someone who hit you? That’s a question to be answered. The whole thing was I didn’t initiate that whole thing. That’s what I was trying to get across. I’m not saying I was the perfect kid. I always rep the ghetto to this day. That situation was not my fault. If that situation was my fault, then I would have to take full responsibility. I take responsibility for half of that, but nobody knows the backstory. That cost me a lot of endorsements. It cost me fans who liked me for just basketball, they turned on me. That whole day was crazy. Matt Lauer, that interview was crazy. He didn’t understand any of it.
DX: Have you spoken to the fan that threw the cup?
Metta World Peace: The guy who hit me with the cup, we’re cool. Four years later, I reached out to him. I don’t like to hold grudges. Too many times in the streets, I’ve seen people hold grudges. People die over grudges. I’m not that type of person. I’m transforming. As part of my transformation, I was talking to my psychologist, part of my transformation was reaching out to people you have problems with. So I reached out to him and we became good friends. He’s a white dude from Detroit. I’m a black dude from New York. We had issues. We talked and had a beer together. It’s a dude named Johnny Green. I’m cool with that.
DX: That reminds me of Troy Ave’s recent situation. Whatever the details really are, it sounds like there’s a grudge somewhere in there.
Metta World Peace: Hip Hop is definitely to uplift. And then somehow, I guess when N.W.A came out, people labeled that as gangster rap. That was not gangster rap. I don’t care what Ice Cube says. That music was inspirational because they were talking about things that they went through. If you’re from the east coast and you look at N.W.A, you’re like, “Wow, that’s gangster rap.” If you looked at what Biggie was doing, now you want to try to make that kind of music. But if you look at Afrika Bambaataa or MC Shan, that was real Hip Hop. The music was all about uplifting and having a great time. Somehow it went left. To me, it’s not really Hip Hop unless you’re making that type of music, which is the foundation of Hip Hop: having a good time and being inspiring. I’m not saying that the club music is not good. I like to go to the club. I like to go to Atlanta. I like to go to the strip club. I like to listen to that music and do what I gotta do in there: throw money. I love it! At the same time, that’s not Hip Hop to me. When you talk about Hip Hop, you’ve gotta protect it more. You can’t label irresponsible lyrics as Hip Hop, irresponsible music as Hip Hop. It’s not real Hip Hop. It’s different and it should be treated as such. Good music, cool music, whatever—but definitely not Hip Hop.
Rebuilding His Reputation
DX: You mentioned you’re endorsement issues. I feel like you’ve recovered better than many might think. You were on Dancing With The Stars. You were talking about your own reality show at one point. Your label’s growing. You’re working with different artists. How’d you do that?
Metta World Peace: When I first decided after the brawl, publicly I was humiliated. Maybe I humiliated myself a little bit. What I did was I spoke to my partner Heidi Bush and I said, listen, we’re not going to change overnight, we’re going to let it happen gradually. By the time I’m 35, we’re going to make a little transformation. By the time I’m 40, we’re going to make a full transformation. But I didn’t want to go on TV the next day in a suit and start crying and begging for forgiveness. This is a real reality situation. This is what happened. And overtime you’ll see change. That’s with anything in life—humans, animals, trees—everything grows over time. I wanted to grow over time and find myself over time. Even to this day, I’ll do interviews where a typical athlete will have on a suit and tie, I’ll go on TV in a t-shirt. I don’t live in the suit and tie era. To this day in my hood, they’re still coming down the street with 50 people, taking my friends to jail. We’re still having street problems. I’m out the streets, but a lot of my ties are to the streets. That’s the reality of my situation. I’m ready to move on and totally forget about the streets. That’s what a lot of the fans don’t understand. They’ll say, “Wow, Ron Artest’s rapping.” Well, I rap because of the shit I’ve been through. My big brother did 10 years in jail for selling drugs. A lot of my friends is in jail for murder and things like that. This is what we do in the streets. I play ball and I’m from the streets. Music is the best way to get the message out; the best way to get your artist out of the same circumstances and get that message out. That’s what people don’t understand about that connection that anybody can have with music.
DX: You were back in New York for a season [with the Knicks]. Now you’re back [in Los Angeles]. When I think about Hip Hop, I think about New York. When I think about opportunities in entertainment, I think about LA. From your point of view, how was your perspective on the entertainment side that season? Did it feel like things slowed down for you a bit?
Metta World Peace: It slowed down a lot for me in New York. I was trying to do other things. LA is different. For content, you come to LA. Everybody comes here for the content. In New York, they are too, but there are more corporate decisions in New York. It was different. I ain’t really know how to move in New York, to tell you the truth. I move way better in LA. I get more creative in LA. The problem is I need to get my fan base in New York. So for this project, we’re really focusing on New York. New York is a tough crowd because if you’re not a great artist and you’re trying to rhyme in New York, they’re gonna see that right away. I’ve been booed off of stage in New York before, but I kept rapping. I ain’t give a fuck. Nigga from New York, I’m from New York: “Get the fuck off the stage!” “Nah, nigga! You get the fuck out the club! I’m doing this fucking music.” I’m from New York. I know how that goes already. Even when I went to the Knicks, I know how to approach those New York fans. The problem was in New York, back in the day, I wasn’t ready. So I stayed away. I wasn’t a dope artist. Now I feel I’m confident in myself, so I’m going to New York and we’re going to get it back in, go to the clubs and perform. I got my crew with me this time. We ready. I ain’t gonna lie. We’re ready to do our thing there then take it here and then grow. I got a whole crew of young motherfucker’s that’s hungry. They’re from the streets and ready.
DX: I know you worked with with Big Kap. He went on tour with you. He passed away and it was tragic. What do you remember most about Big Kap?
Metta World Peace: Kap was my man. We went on tour overseas together. That was my DJ. We had a show with Ludacris together, a lot of shows together. He was on my album on a track I had with Game. We talked a lot. That was my man. To see him pass was tough. Everybody on my label, we was all cool with each other. We’d go out, eat, party, whatever together. That was a tough loss for us. For everybody.
DX: What’s coming up with Tru Warier?
Metta World Peace: I’ve got the album that I’m working on. Southside Tre is my artist. The Deacon. Then we’ve got other artists from the neighborhood. Mad Flow. Chef La. Bars & Hooks. They’re all from Queensbridge. Prodigy and Havoc is actually on the project. Nature’s on the project, too. Capone’s on the project. Capone is my cousin, C-N-N. Infamous Mob. Nitty. G.O.D. I’m gonna wait for Nas. Tragedy’s on the project. That’s my big bro. Poet from Screwball. I can’t get Hostile. He’s not functional right now. That’s actually my brother-in-law. He’s not gonna be on the project, unfortunately. The Tru Wariers, that’s my group. We’re all on the project.
Then there are other artists on the project, too. Noble Ali from Chicago. I don’t know him. I heard his music. I’m giving him a shot. He’s on the project. We got Hollow Da Don. He’s so nice. DNA is on the project, one of the best rappers out. We got a nice group |
quickly flicked away. Washoe had accepted the notion of human superiority very readily - almost too readily. Being superior has a very heady quality about it.
When Washoe was five she left most of her human companions behind and moved to a primate institute in Oklahoma. The facility housed about twenty-five chimpanzees, and this was where Washoe was to meet her first chimpanzee: imagine never meeting a member of your own species until you were five. After a plane flight Washoe arrived in a sedated state at her new home. The director of the institute insisted that she be put in a cage in the main building housing the adult chimpanzees. Despite our protests he even took away her blanket, under the pretext that it was time she learned what it was to be a chimpanzee. The director was from the old, but still popular, school of captive treatment that explicitly held that humans had to dominate the animals they owned, and that the best way to do this was to arbitrarily mistreat them.
When Washoe awoke she was in a cage. After some argument, the director had grudgingly allowed one of us to stay, so she had at least one familiar friend with her when she woke. When she began to move, the chimpanzees in the adjoining cages began to bang and scream at her. After she regained her senses her human friend asked in sign language what the chimpanzees were. She called them 'black cats' and 'black bugs'. They were not like her and if she felt about them the way she felt about cats and bugs they were not well liked. Washoe had learned our arrogance too well.
However, it wasn't long before Washoe began to accept the other chimpanzees, and herself as one of them. Like Wendy from Peter Pan, she took on the role of mother to all the young ones as well as defender of the picked-upon underdog. She seemed to show genuine compassion for her newly discovered species. During her first year at the institute she was allowed to spend time on a small island that the young chimpanzees enjoyed. The island had been constructed with a steep red clay bank that went into a water moat; there was a three-foot-high electric fence on the island side of the moat. One day a new young chimp had arrived at the institute and the director put the chimp on the island. The chimp became quite distressed and tried to jump across the moat but landed in the middle of it. Washoe's reaction was interesting because this was a new chimp, one whom she hardly knew, but who was obviously in danger. The chimp went under the water and carne up again. Washoe then jumped the electric fence and landed on a small grassy bank that extended about a foot from the fence. She held on to the bottom of one of the electric fence posts and stepped into the water, sliding down the steep submerged bank. She extended her hand to the drowning chimp and pulled her back to safety. Washoe had taken a great risk to save the stranger. It was truly a case of altruism on her part. If there was anyone she didn't like it was the arrogant humans who mistreated her friends. In the ten years she spent there she never gave up her self-worth, even though the director would occasionally try to intimidate her when her human friends were absent.
I have often wondered what it would be like to suddenly discover that you are not who you thought you were. Would we be like Washoe and accept it and show compassion and caring for our newly discovered conspecifics? Or would we maintain our earlier arrogance and continue to oppress and refuse to accept our own kind?
It could never happen to an individual human as it did to Washoe, but it has happened to all of us on another level: when Charles Darwin told us that those 'Black Bugs' were really our relatives. In reaction to this rude awakening some humans have clung to the vanity of human arrogance and continued to oppress and abuse their fellow animals. Others have discarded their false vanity and have attempted to remove the arrogance-induced ignorance by getting to know their newly discovered relatives. Some of us have even shown compassion and caring for them.
Human Arrogance
Why is human arrogance so pervasive and where does it come from? The answer to the first part of the question is easy. Arrogance is pervasive because it appeals to our vanity. We like it when we are told that we have high IQs, good looks and are extra special. What we seldom consider is that implicit in the statement that I have a high IQ is the suggestion that someone else must have a low IQ, and if I have good looks then surely someone else is quite ugly, and if I am extra special then most people must be quite ordinary. If this is so, then everything that is not me is sadly imperfect or downright defective. Once this attitude is established then you have a choice between advancing perfection or imperfection. There is no rational choice but to advance perfection. And what should you exploit in order to advance perfection? Why imperfection of course, those unfortunate individuals who are different from you. In this fashion you will become even more 'perfect' while at the same time removing some of life's imperfections.
Why do humans feel arrogant? It comes from our conception of animal nature. According to the seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes, animals are unthinking, unfeeling machines, so different from us as to be uncomparable. How could we not help but become arrogant when Descartes justifies it? If this is true then it is important to ask where our conception of animal nature comes from. The answer is that our conception of animal nature does not come from the non-human animals themselves, but from our preconceived concepts of human nature.[2] We have not bothered to ask the animals what they are, but instead we tend to define them as not human. If humans have thought, animals don't; if humans have an imagination, animals have none; and so on. Many of us, in our reaction to the implications of Darwin's notion of continuity, try to maintain our false superiority by steadfastly clinging to our ignorance. We use the absence of evidence to claim evidence for absence with regard to sharing any traits that we think are important for our species' uniqueness.
Washoe, among other chimpanzees, has served notice on this studied ignorance spawned by human arrogance. The results of her accomplishments have put many academic feet in many academic mouths. Her accomplishments, along with those of her African cousins, have served as a small flame in the dark halls of human ignorance. It was only when a few humans were humble enough to ask the chimpanzee what their nature was that these discoveries were made. However, these discoveries have not always been well received because of the obvious conclusion that must be faced: namely, that we are no longer demiurges. Just as we are human beings, chimpanzees become chimpanzee beings and the importance shifts to the 'beingness'. Human is no longer a special classification but merely an adjective describing our animal nature.
Chimpanzee Mentality
The early days of Project Washoe set the stage for the fascinating discoveries to come later, and the Gardners set the example to follow: a combination of caring that took Washoe on her own terms and very rigorous experimental design.[3] Their use of double-blind testing procedures in subject-paced tests, and the careful diaries they kept of Washoe's daily activities, continue to be the highest standard for this area of research. The recent discoveries made with Washoe and her family today continue to add to this impressive record. We will present some of these more recent discoveries in order to shed a little light on our ignorance.
Cultural Transmission
When Washoe acquired her signs, some critics were quick to point out that her sign language was taught to her by humans and that she would not have acquired it without human intervention. They assumed that chimpanzees are incapable of passing information on from generation to generation, especially something as complex as language. In 1979, when Washoe was of child-bearing age, a study was done that would answer this premature criticism.
Washoe became pregnant and we designed a study to see whether she would pass her signs on to her offspring.[4] Judging from how readily captive chimpanzees imitate human skills, from the ability of wild chimpanzees to acquire tool-making skills from their friends and family, and especially from the face that wild chimpanzees have demonstrated that they use gestural dialects which differ between chimpanzee com-munities,[5] it seemed likely that Washoe's infant would acquire signs from her.
Unfortunately, Washoe's own infant died, so a ten-month-old chimp from Yerkes Regional Primate Center was found to replace her dead infant and help ease her grieving. The infant's name is Loulis and Washoe readily adopted him. In order to control for the possibility that Loulis might acquire his signs from humans, we humans limited our signing in Loulis's presence to seven signs, otherwise we used vocal English to communicate with Washoe and Loulis, which she and he understood very well.
After the first eight days that Washoe and Loulis were together he began to imitate his first sign. Ten months is not an early age to learn signing; other signing chimpanzees have acquired their first signs in their fourth and fifth months of life. From our video recordings we found that Washoe was doing some very subtle teaching, in that she would initially orient towards Loulis, then sign come, then approach him, and then retrieve him. She gradually faded this so that she stopped retrieving him and then she stopped approaching him and finally all she had to do was orient and sign. She also did some active teaching of signs. In one case she actually took his hand and moulded it into the sign for food in an appropriate context. She was also observed to place a small toy chair in front of Loulis and then demonstrate the chair/sit sign. At fifteen months of age Loulis began to use his first two-sign combinations. What we found was that Loulis acquired his signs from Washoe and some of them she actively taught him. He used his signs to communicate with his fellow chimpanzees as well as with humans.
The tenacity of human ignorance was demonstrated after the early results of Washoe tutoring Loulis had been presented at the Psychonomics Society meetings in 1979, and even after several scientific articles had been published about Loulis's accomplishments (the first one in 1982). Even the attention of the popular media could not shake some scientists' hold on their ignorance. For example, as late as 1988 B. F. Skinner still felt able to publish the comment: 'No other species has developed the verbal environment we call a language. I doubt that the Gardners have ever seen one chimpanzee show another how to sign.'[6]
Chimpanzee Conversations
The next phase of our research looked at how Loulis used his signs with his mother and the other signing chimpanzees.[7] When we did this we had moved from Oklahoma, and Washoe and Loulis were joined by three chimpanzees whom the Gardners had cross-fostered on their second sign language project.[8] Moja joined Washoe and Loulis in 1979, and Dar and Tatu joined them in 1981. With five chimpanzees we were able to examine chimpanzee to chimpanzee sign language conversations. We found that Loulis gradually shifted his signing, as he grew Chimpanzees' Use of Sign Language older, from his adoptive mother Washoe to his new playmate Dar. This is typical of human children as well. What Loulis signed about with Dar was mainly play. They would request tickle and chase games from each other. However, whenever the game became too rough and one of them was hurt they would then sign to Washoe for comfort with hug/love signs and other solicitations of reassurance. When they fought we even observed Loulis apparently blaming Dar for the commotion. The two boys were screaming and fighting and when Washoe rushed in, as she usually did to stop the fights, Loulis signed to her 'good good me' and then, screaming, pointed at Dar. Washoe would then discipline Dar. After several months of this Dar apparently caught on to the tactic and would throw himself on the floor when he saw Washoe enter the room and begin to cry and sign a frantic 'come hug' to her, whereupon she would comfort Dar. Then she would scold Loulis with a bipedal swagger toward him signing 'go there' to him, pointing to the over-head exit tunnel for the room.
In one study we recorded over 5,200 instances of chimpanzee to chimpanzee signing.[9] This signing was analysed into different categories. The majority of signing by the chimpanzees occurred in the three categories of 'play','social interaction', and'reassurance'; these accounted for over 88 per cent of the chimpanzee to chimpanzee conversations. The remaining 12 per cent was spread across the categories of 'feeding', 'grooming','signing to self, 'cleaning' and 'discipline'. An interesting aspect of these findings was that they indicated that the chimpanzees used their signs primarily for various types of social interaction. It also showed that food was not a major topic, since it accounted for only about 5 per cent of their conversations. Some critics who wished to discredit the chimpanzee language studies claimed that chimpanzee signing consisted solely of begging for food. (Although this was true of one study, in which the poor chimpanzee was deprived of his food and was required to sign in order to get it.[10])
The previous study was done using humans to observe the chimpanzees and record their behaviour in much the same fashion that Jane Goodall adopts in her observations of wild chimpanzees. However, in the tradition of careful experimental design that the Gardners began, we wished to control for any possible human intervention, so Debbi Fouts began a study that used remote video recording of the chimpanzees.[11] For this procedure, three or four cameras would be placed outside the enclosure in one of the chimpanzees' rooms and then connected by cables through the ceiling to monitors in a completely separate room. In this manner we were able to record the chimpanzees' signing with no human beings present. Debbi began in 1983, taking twenty-minute video samples three times a day for fifteen days. In these fifteen hours she found over 200 instances of chimpanzee to chimpanzee signing. Of course, in some twenty-minute samples there was absolutely none because the chimpanzees were napping during that particular random sample. However, in one of the twenty-minute samples there were twenty-nine chimpanzee to chimpanzee conversations. As with the live observation study, Debbi found that the chimpanzees talked mainly about their social interactions. She also found that when they talked about food it wasn't to obtain food. Instead, they merely talked about it just as we might talk about some of our favourite foods without having to eat or even see them.
For three years Debbi continued to collect fifteen hours of video tape each year, to give a total of forty-five hours. She had several interesting records during this time. For example, Washoe did not seem to like the fact that everyone (all the humans at least) was required to leave the area during the taping. On one occasion after Debbi had positioned the cameras, shooed everyone out and gone back to the video monitoring room she saw on the screen that Washoe was approaching the cameras. Washoe then climbed up on the enclosure fence and looked directly into the camera and signed 'deb dirty deb'. Washoe uses the dirty sign to refer to faeces, soiled items or to humans or chimpanzees that she is displeased with.
Private Thoughts
In our live observation and subsequently in the remote video recording of the chimpanzees, we observed that they talked to themselves. This was not a new observation, since the Gardners had also noted that Washoe would do this when she was young. In fact, her private conversations with herself were truly private, even to the extent that if we tried to eavesdrop she would turn away; and if we continued to try to see what she was signing she would actually get up and move to a more secluded location. She would label pictures of things that she saw in magazines, or merely sign to herself. She would do this while alone in her bedroom, or to make sure she was not bothered sometimes she would take a magazine to the top of a thirty-foot willow tree and sign to herself up there. Later studies we did with the chimpanzees also found private signing. In the study with over 5,200 instances of chimpanzee conversations, 119 of these were private.[12]
When private signing occurs in humans it is considered to be overt thought - the person is thinking aloud. It is one of the few times that an observer can be privy to another person's private thoughts. Many philosophers and other intellectuals have claimed that thought is unique to humans and quite beyond the capacity of the other animals. This claim goes back to Aristotle, can be found in Aquinas and Descartes and has been defended by modern philosophers as well.[13] The research we are about to describe provides solid empirical evidence of nonhuman animal thought.
Debbi Fouts's forty-five hours of remote video tape had ninety stances of private signing on them. Mark Bodamer, one of our graduate students at the time, analysed these tapes for his master's thesis,[14] using research done with humans as a model. He found that, "humans, the chimpanzees used their private signing for a variety of functions. One major question that carne out of Mark's thesis was whether the sample he analysed was biased against private signing because when Debbi recorded the tapes she would choose to record from cameras with two or more chimpanzees in the frame as opposed to single chimpanzees. She did this because she was focusing on chimpanzee to chimpanzee conversations. So after Mark's thesis we did another study, which collected twelve minutes of tape per day, five days a week, for a total of fifty-six weeks. We had fifty-six hours of new tape to analyse, but this time if those recording the session had a choice between recording from a camera with two chimpanzees in the frame as opposed to one that had a single chimpanzee, they were instructed to choose the latter. This procedure increased the number of private signing instances three-fold, to 368 for the 56 hours.
One of the more common categories of signing used by chimpanzees and humans is'referential signing'. Examples are Washoe naming the picture in the magazine, or Dar signing dog when he notices a dog running by outside his window. Basically, the individuals are simply commenting on things and events in their environment. They are doing it apparently just for the sake of it - they are not asking for it or begging for something. Some scientists have claimed that chimpanzees do not use referential communication but only sign for rewards. This arrogant position makes the chimpanzees seem more like unthinking machines than the active information-seeking beings they are in reality.
Another category demonstrates another behaviour that chimpanzees are not supposed to have. The claim is that chimpanzees only ask for things in their immediate environment and cannot ask for things not present. In other words, a kind of 'out of sight, out of mind' criticism. An utterance of private signing is categorised as 'informative signing' if the chimpanzees are referring to something not in their present environment. Again this is strong evidence that, just like us, the chimpanzees also think about things that are not present. The chimpanzees used this type of signing in 12 to 14 per cent of the instances in the two studies for a total of fifty-seven instances. This again demonstrates the rich mental life of the chimpanzee.
‘Expressive signing’ was popular with Washoe. This is a category of signing that is used more commonly by adult humans than by children. It occurs in humans when we become upset or excited by something. It might happen when you accidentally strike your thumb with a hammer or if you notice a police car behind you just as you drive through a red light: even though you are alone you might say something very expressive. My favourite example of this for the chimpanzees was when Washoe was being recorded as she was lying on a bench looking at a magazine. Loulis carne running into the room and into the camera frame from an overhead tunnel. He was running very fast and Washoe ignored him. As he ran under the bench where she was lying he reached up and stole her magazine and then ran immediately out of the room using the overhead tunnel again. By the time Washoe got to her feet, Loulis was gone. She then began to walk off and as she did she signed to herself 'dirtv dirty'. As mentioned earlier, Washoe used the dirty sign as an insult.
Some of the other signs used by the chimpanzees were categorised as'self-regulatory','regulatory', 'attentional, 'interactional, 'instrumental', 'describing own activity', 'question' and 'imaginary'. The 'imaginary' category was expanded upon by another of our students, Mary Lee Abshire, in a study on chimpanzee imagination that included imaginative private signing as well as other imaginative behaviours.[15]
Imaginative Chimpanzees
Imagination is another of those special mental behaviours that some people have considered unique to the human species. Some of our species' more impressive accomplishments have been attributed to imagination. For example, we might never have gone to the moon had we not imagined that it could be done. In the private signing study, imagination was defined as an utterance that is'sung' or is word play, or represents a transformation of real objects or events, whether present or not: we found that 5 per cent of the utterances were imaginary. For example, rhythmic movements of signs or form alliteration of signs would be considered comparable to vocal singing. These were such events as Loulis playing with a block of wood by placing it on his head and then referring to it as a hat. Another instance was when Moja produced an alliteration by 'rhyming' signs that all used the same initial hand configuration.
Mary Lee Abshire's thesis expanded on this to other behaviours, such as play. She found that chimpanzees, when playing, would treat toys as if they were alive. In other words, imagination involves attributing to situations or things certain properties that they do not actually possess. Using the remote video recording technique, she recorded Dar using a type of imagination referred to as 'animation' when he signed 'peeka-boo' while playing with a teddy bear. Moja displayed a type of imagination referred to as'substitution' when she began to treat a purse were a shoe. Mary Lee was able to record six instances of imagination in the chimpanzees during fifteen hours of remote video recording. This is impressive when one considers that of the 5,200 observations of chimpanzee signing only about 2 per cent (119) were classified as private signing, and in the private signing studies only 4 to 5 per cent were imagination. In other words, imagination is a relatively rare behaviour compared with all the other things the chimpanzees do, just as it is with our species.
Timely Memories
Memory and a sense of time are two mental abilities that humans have thought absent in our fellow animals. Our favourite example of memory occurred with Washoe. About a year after we moved with Washoe to Oklahoma, the Gardners visited her. It was very hard on the Gardners to give Washoe up and send her away with us to Oklahoma, and it was perhaps because of the emotional pain associated with this that they did not visit Washoe again for another eleven years. By this time we had moved to our present home in Washington State and the chimpanzees from the Gardners' second project, Moja, Tatu and Dar, had joined Washoe and Loulis. Moja had not seen the Gardners for about three years and Dar and Tatu had not seen them for well over a year when they did visit. Loulis was the only chimpanzee who had never met them.
When the Gardners visited we did not tell the chimpanzees they were coming but kept it as a surprise. When they walked in the four chimpanzees who knew them did something very unusual. Normally if a stranger visits, the chimpanzee will begin to display and bang around in an apparent attempt to frighten the stranger away. When their familiar friends come in they usually greet us with pant hoots and Washoe and the others will often sign to us such things as come hug and want to touch us. However, when the chimpanzees saw the Gardners, except for Loulis they did neither of these things but sat down and stared at them they were dumbfounded. Loulis stood up and began to sway from side to side and bang the sides of the tunnel he was in, and his hair started to rise as well. When he started to do this Washoe and Dar, who : sitting on either side of him, both grabbed him. Dar covered his mouth with his hand and Washoe took his arm and shoulder and made : down and calm down. Loulis looked just as surprised by this as : were, because as far as we know the other chimpanzees had never treated him this way before.
The next surprise was when Washoe looked at the Gardners and their name signs. She had not seen them in eleven years, since she seven years old, and she still remembered them and their name signs. Then Washoe signed 'come mrs g' to Beatrice Gardner and led her into an adjoining room and began to play a game with her that she had not been observed to play since she was a five-year-old in Reno.
Another discovery we have made with Tatu combines memory with a sense of time. We have had only two examples of this and they were two years and nine months apart. The first one occurred during the Thanksgiving holidays in 1989. We make it a general rule here to celebrate all birthdays and holidays, since these seasonal events serve to break up the deadening routine that captive situations can have. We celebrate every Christmas by decking the halls with edible strings of dried fruits and treats in addition to the traditional tree, which is covered with edible strings of treats and edible ornaments as well. We always get the tree and decorate it on the weekend following the Thursday of Thanksgiving. The tree is placed outside the enclosure of one of the chimpanzee rooms, and as Christmas approaches the edible ornamentation grows and grows. Needless to say, the Christmas tree is a favourite topic of conversation with the chimpanzees, and they refer to it with a sign combination they devised - candy tree. Then on Christmas Day the chimpanzees are given some of the ornaments to eat and, because there are so many, they continue to receive these as a daily treat until New Year's Day.
On the Friday following Thanksgiving in 1989 it began to snow outside, and it was on this occasion that Tatu asked the following question: 'candy tree?' This impressed us a great deal because it could be interpreted that Tatu not only remembered the Christmas tree but also knew that this was the season for it, which is a temporal perception. However, we were also aware that this was but a single observation of this type of behaviour, and it was not until August 1991 that we made a second observation of a similar instance of behaviour.
As mentioned, we also celebrate all the birthdays each year. We have two birthdays right next to each other: Debbi Fouts's birthday is on the first of August and Dar's is on the second. This year we celebrated Debbi's birthday with treats and birthday songs as usual. Later that day, in the afternoon, Tatu asked 'dar ice cream?' Ice cream is often part of the birthday celebrations, and it appears that Tatu may have been aware of what came after Debbi's birthday.
Cain and Abel Revisited
Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. In terms of biochemical similarities based on blood research[16] and genetic similarities[17] chimpanzees are actually closer to humans than they are to gorillas, even though all three primates are within 1 per cent of each other.
The similarities of the behaviour of the chimpanzee in the wild to human behaviour are just as striking as are the biochemical and genetic similarities. The work of Jane Goodall[18] and others has shown us that the behaviour of wild chimpanzees is not so different from that of non-technological groups of humans. Indeed, wild chimpanzees live in communities surrounded by traditional boundaries, they hunt, they care for their mothers (even to the extent of mourning themselves to death over their mother's death), they make tools and, perhaps most important of all, they can suffer from emotional as well as physical pain.
In addition to the marked similarities that their culture has to ours, there are also striking cognitive similarities. The Gardners found that chimpanzees have the capacity to acquire human sign language.[19] We have shown in this chapter that chimpanzees can pass this language on to the next generation, that they can use it spontaneously to converse with each other as well as with humans, that they can use their signs to think with, as evidenced by their private signing, that they have an imagination, that they have good memories and that they may even be able to perceive seasonal time.
This research with the chimpanzee, together with research with other great apes, demonstrates that the difference between apes and humans is one of degree and supports the Darwinian notion of continuity. This position runs counter to the more popular notion that humans are different in kind from other animals. Unfortunately, much of the biomedical research on chimpanzees assumes a kind of schizophrenic position: it justifies the use of chimpanzees as a medical model because of Darwinian continuity, and yet at the same time it claims moral immunity with regard to the physical and mental damage done to the chimpanzees on the basis that humans are different from other animals. As a result, the chimpanzees are treated as if they are unfeeling machines.
Over the past twenty-five years our own research has served to help transcend the popular idea that humans are different in kind from all other animals. We have demonstrated that chimpanzees are aware, that they feel, and that they have very rich mental lives. From now on, we humans have a responsibility to make sure that our relationship with our sibling species, the chimpanzee, as well as with other great apes, is not that of Cain and Abel, but instead follows the more humane tenet of 'love thy brother'.Andrew Slavitt, a former executive at the technology company tasked with saving HealthCare.gov and current second-in-command at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was granted an ethics waiver by the Department of Health and Human Services to begin working with his former company immediately.
The waiver was granted despite Republican lawmakers’ concerns about Slavitt’s potential conflict of interest. The Daily Signal revealed those concerns in a story yesterday.
Slavitt, a former OptumInsight/QSSI group vice president, left the company last month to work as the principal deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Obamacare and HealthCare.gov. His post makes him the No. 2 at the agency under CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.
>>> Company That ‘Saved’ HealthCare.gov Faces Questions of Cronyism
The former Optum executive gave the maximum campaign contributions allowed to President Obama’s Victory Fund and Obama for America—now Organizing for Action—in 2012, federal campaign records show.
According to the ethics waiver, issued July 11 by the Department of Health and Human Services and posted publicly last week, Slavitt will be able to begin working on matters involving his former company, OptumInsight/QSSI.
Without a waiver, Slavitt would have had to wait at least one year before participating in work that involves his former employer.
The letter states that Slavitt severed financial ties with OptumInsight/QSSI upon his hiring at CMS, and upon doing so will be “empowered to participate fully in particular matters of general applicability, such as regulation and policy determinations, that affect the healthcare-related industries in which your former employer operates.”
Slavitt is also able to participate in meetings with OptumInsight/QSSI personnel to discuss “technical issues or progress on existing contracts” and can “weigh in on or make decisions on policy matters or technical direction that would result in the necessity of [OptumInsight/QSSI] having to perform additional compensated work under existing contracts to implement health care reform under the ACA.”
>>> This Circuit Court’s Obamacare Decision Could Have Huge Consequences
In the waiver, Edgar Swindell, associate general counsel for ethics at HHS, praised Slavitt for his work in the health care industry. He wrote:
The information provided to me indicates that you bring an exceptional blend of managerial experience, health care industry acumen, and hands-on experience from working for the systems integrator for healthcare.gov, Optum.
Hans von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told The Daily Signal ethics waivers are unusual. He continued:
It’s not a good idea to waive those kinds of potential conflicts of interest. This very case shows why it’s not a very good idea. … The person is going to have divided loyalties.
In a statement to The Daily Signal, Aaron Albright, spokesman for CMS, said:
Andy Slavitt has taken all appropriate steps, such as severing financial ties with his former employer, which allow him to execute his duties as principal deputy and participate in broad policy matters, including those affecting the health care industry. He will be recused, as appropriate, from participation in specific party matters, such as contracts or claims, involving his former employer. However, the terms of the limited waiver ensure that Andy will be able to continue to interact with all of the contractors as needed so the Marketplaces will be ready to enroll millions more Americans into quality, affordable coverage.
OptumInsight/QSSI is the sister company of UnitedHealthcare, which offers health insurance plans on a variety of state-run exchanges and plans to expand into the federal exchange run by HealthCare.gov. Both are owned by UnitedHealthGroup.
UnitedHealth purchased QSSI in September 2012. Before its acquisition, QSSI was tasked with building the federal data hub, which connects multiple government agencies to streamline verification of consumer information when Americans log into the federal and state exchanges and apply for Obamacare subsidies.
The company, now operating as OptumInsight/QSSI, was then tasked with saving HealthCare.gov after its disastrous implementation in October. HHS issued a new contract with OptumInsight/QSSI in January solidifying the tech company’s role as a “senior advisor.”
Slavitt’s new high-ranking post at CMS as well as OptumInsight/QSSI’s participation with HealthCare.gov has raised red flags for Republican lawmakers, who believe both circumstances present conflicts of interest. Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent letters to CMS’ Tavenner and UnitedHealth chief executive Stephen Hemsley seeking answers to several questions about “any conflicts of interest” between UnitedHealthcare and OptumInsight/QSSI.
Neither CMS nor UnitedHealth responded to the senators’ inquiries.Cadillac is expanding its subscription car service to Los Angeles and Dallas, the company said Monday.
Cadillac launched the month-to-month subscription service, called BOOK, in New York City earlier in 2017. It is one of a growing number of all-inclusive subscription services launched by companies luring car buyers who want the benefits of owning a car without the hassles of buying, maintaining and selling them.
Subscribers pay a one-time $500 initiation fee and a flat monthly fee of $1,800 to access a "curated selection of vehicles," including the CT-6 plug-in sedan, Cadillac's "V" performance sedans, and SUVs such as the Escalade, the company said. All of the vehicles are 2017 and 2018 Cadillac models with the brand's higher-end Platinum and Premium Luxury trims.
The monthly fee includes registration, taxes, insurance and maintenance costs. Subscribers can exchange vehicles up to 18 times a year. They are, however, limited to driving 2,000 miles a month.
Users manage their accounts and select vehicles through an app. A white-glove concierge service will drop off a chosen car to a specified location.
Other car companies are creating their own subscription plans for customers who might not want to commit to a purchase or a long-term lease.
For example, Volvo has the service Care, and also said it would offer its upcoming Polestar electric vehicles through a subscription service. Ford also recently expanded its Canvas service to Los Angeles, from its pilot market of San Francisco.
Hyundai offers a $275-a-month subscription for its Ioniq electric car, but so far only in California.
Porsche has a pilot subscription program for its vehicles in Atlanta, Georgia, where its North American offices are based.
Companies that do not make cars are also getting into the market, though. Companies such as FlexDrive and Clutch make the software that individual dealerships need to set up subscriptions for their own fleets.When the Record Industry Association of America adopted its standard disc playback equalization curve in 1954, hi-fi enthusiasts heaved a sigh of relief and bade fond farewell to years of confusion, doubt and virtual pandemonium. Before the RIAA curve there were six "standard" curves in use, and since nobody seemed to know who was using what, getting flat response from a disc was often more a matter of luck than anything else. The adoption of the RIAA standard playback curve heralded an end to all this.
If record manufacturers had endeavored to install the best available playback equipment, and made their records for use on this equipment, there might be little to choose today between a stereo disc and an original tape. But when hi-fi ceased to be a pursuit of quality and became a pursuit of the Merry Megabuck, the RIAA curve became just another obstacle between the product and the consumer's wallet.
The whole trouble was that J. Q. Public's polished mahogany boombox had never heard of the RIAA curve. Cut a disc to sound natural when RIAA-equalized, and it sounded muffled and distorted to the average record buyer. So, one manufacturer tried making a few minor "corrections" in the sound of his discs, and by Golly, they did sound better on JQP's console. Another manufacturer quickly followed suit, and the race was on.
Hi-fi enthusiasts and critics with good equipment noticed the change, but most of them naively confused more highs with better highs, so the record makers figured they had carte blanche to go hog-wild. They solved JQP's distortion and turntable rumble problems by compressing dynamics until some LPs and stereo discs had less volume range on them than many 78-rpm shellacs. They minimized groove-jumping by filtering out all deep bass, and brought out the "presence" by whacking up the treble, adding a 5kHz response peak, or moving their microphones right in on top of the instruments.
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travel, you know, sitting in a chair that long, driving to Huntsville. And it just wouldn't have happened.
NARRATOR: Gilbert's investigation was over.
ARSON INVESTIGATION VIDEO: -under the windows, the low burn, the concrete-
NARRATOR: In the 12 years since Willingham's conviction, one fact had remained unquestioned, the fire was an arson.
ARSON INVESTIGATION VIDEO: Burn patterns unusual to a normal fire burn.
NARRATOR: But during those years, there had been a dramatic change in the science of arson investigation.
JOHN LENTINI, Arson Expert: The fire investigation community largely consists of people who are firemen. They're not scientists. They don't have any formal scientific training. Extinguishing a fire and investigating a fire involve two different skill sets and two different mindsets.
NARRATOR: John Lentini is at the top of his field, one of a small group who reinvented the science of arson detection.
JOHN LENTINI: So many determinations were based on hunches and feelings. And these guys, they talk about, "Oh, you got to get in there and feel the beast." Oh! I'm just embarrassed for their profession that this is the way people evaluate physical evidence.
NARRATOR: The change in arson science began when scientists set their own fires and studied how they burned.
GERALD HURST, Ph.D., Arson Expert: That was the first time science was ever really introduced into the mainstream of fire investigation.
NARRATOR: Like Lentini, Dr. Gerald Hurst was one of the new fire scientists.
JOHN LENTINI: Gerald Hurst is a chemist extraordinaire with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University.
MICHAEL HALL, Texas Monthly: He's the idiosyncratic godfather of modern arson science. He's like this mad scientist who's not mad at all.
NARRATOR: For years, Willingham's supporters had tried to enlist Hurst's help. They finally gave him the state's arson report only weeks before the scheduled execution.
GERALD HURST: Taking a look at the photographs and video and testimony and fire investigation report, it became apparent that we were dealing with a fire which had gone to flashover.
NARRATOR: Flashover- the instant ignition of all combustible material in a room.
GERALD HURST: Flashover had left natural patterns on the floor that all post-flashover fires tend to leave behind, and these had been misidentified as pour patterns. And thus the fire had been labeled an arson.
NARRATOR: Hurst reviewed the report line by line.
GERALD HURST: Here's your first bit of so-called arson evidence. This was typically interpreted in the old days as "a pour pattern." In other words, someone poured gasoline or some other accelerant down the hallway, out the front door and then ignited it.
The prosecutor in this case literally believed that the burn patterns on the floor were in the shape of a pentagram, like some satanic ritual. When you actually look at the burn pattern that they drew and then you look at where the windows are- windows furnish ventilation to a fire, and all they were looking at is what we call ventilation patterns.
NARRATOR: The original arson investigators had testified that there was evidence of a liquid accelerant on the threshold of the porch door.
GERALD HURST: A sample of wood debris from the base of the front porch was analyzed, and the results were positive for a combustible liquid accelerant-kerosene. Well, that's quite understandable because the porch also had a barbecue on it. And of course there would be charcoal lighter fluid there, if there was a can of charcoal lighter fluid on the porch.
NARRATOR: Hurst also addressed Willingham's lack of injuries.
GERALD HURST: The question has been asked, Why were Todd Willingham's feet not burned? And the answer to that question is quite simple. Because if no accelerant was poured on the floor, the floor would have been relatively cool until shortly after flashover occurred in the bedroom. The last part of him that would have gotten any burn would have been his feet.
NARRATOR: And Hurst concluded the original investigators had not eliminated accidental causes.
GERALD HURST: There had to be at least one electrical short in that room. And since it was surface wiring, it would have been relative child's play to simply trace it, get a stepladder and trace it and go over it inch by inch until you locate the fault. That in and of itself is enough to toss a case out for arson.
NARRATOR: Hurst had come to believe Todd Willingham was not guilty.
GERALD HURST: Todd Willingham's case falls into that category where there is not one iota of evidence that the fire was arson. Not one iota.
NARRATOR: Hurst completed his report on February 13th, 2004, only four days before the scheduled execution.
WALTER REAVES, Appeals Attorney: You know, all hope was lost and we now have the answer. Getting the news from Dr. Hurst was- I mean, it was- it was definitely a high.
NARRATOR: Willingham's attorney filed a series of emergency last-minute appeals.
WALTER REAVES: I thought that somebody would- would at least say, "Let's stop, and you know, let's at least hold on and let's take a look at it." I mean, we were talking about somebody that was convicted of something that wasn't a crime.
NARRATOR: While Willingham waited for the courts to decide, he received shocking news. Stacy had told reporters that she now believed he had murdered their children.
TINA CHURCH, Private Investigator: She told me that she had changed her mind and felt that Todd was guilty.
NARRATOR: Stacy talked to Todd's private investigator, Tina Church.
TINA CHURCH: And she'd indicated that she had read the entire trial record in one day. And I kept trying to tell her, "Well, we have new evidence." You know, "How would that make you feel to know that your former husband, the father of your children, is going to be executed for something he possibly didn't do?" And she just really had convinced herself by this point he was guilty.
NARRATOR: It all started a few weeks before, at a contentious meeting between Todd and Stacy. For the first time in 12 years, she visited Todd in prison. He asked her not to come to the execution. And he had one last request.
EUGENIA WILLINGHAM, Stepmother: He asked her if he could be buried by the children, and she refused. It seems like there was just a lot of hate that came out in that interview.
NARRATOR: Then only one day before the execution, prosecutors filed a stunning document with the courts, an affidavit signed by Stacy's brother claiming that, according to Stacy, Willingham had allegedly confessed during that final meeting at the prison. It outraged Willingham. He denied it, and prepared to die.
SHERRY COOLEY, Friend: He said, "They'll kill me and I'll go to heaven with my kids because I don't want to live this life without them." And he said, "God knows- God knows I didn't do this, and that's what matters."
NARRATOR: On February 17th, the day of the execution, all of Willingham's final appeals failed. Despite the Hurst report, the Texas courts and the United States Supreme Court refused to delay the execution.
WALTER REAVES: You know, the train had left the station and nobody was going to stop it.
NARRATOR: And Texas Governor Rick Perry would not use his authority to delay the execution for 30 days.
MICHAEL HALL, Texas Monthly: In Texas, you do not get elected by granting stays of execution to people like Cameron Todd Willingham. You do not show any kind of mercy to criminals. You are hard on criminals. And that gets you elected in this state.
TINA CHURCH: I was given the duty or task to call Mr. and Mrs. Willingham, and it was one of the most really horrifying experiences that I ever had to go through, to tell parents that their son, even though had been proven innocent, was going to die.
NARRATOR: At 6:00 o'clock, Cameron Todd Willingham was told that his time was up.
MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press: When he was asked by the warden if he had anything to say, then he went into the statement where- that he said that he had been wrongly convicted and that he was innocent.
TINA CHURCH: At some point, he looked over and into the state's witness room, he noticed Stacy.
MICHAEL GRACZYK: She walked up to the window, and he says, "[expletive deleted] you, [expletive deleted]."
TINA CHURCH: I believe that he felt in his heart that she had lied and her lie had cost- you know, helped cost him his life.
MICHAEL GRACZYK: Not only did he tell his wife that he hoped she would rot in hell, he said that he hoped that she would [expletive deleted] rot in hell. I'd heard a lot of things over covering hundreds of these executions in Texas over the years. I'd never run into that. Then the drugs began to be administered, and within- you know, within a few moments, he had been- he was unconscious, and then a few moments later was pronounced dead.
EUGENIA WILLINGHAM: They told us that we could go to the funeral home when the state turned his body over to the funeral home and touch him while he was still warm. So that's what we did.
SHERRY COOLEY: And after I knew it was over, I went home to my kids, and never been so glad to see them in my life! And I knew Todd was with his. He finally went home to his.
NEWSCASTER: Did the state, which executes more convicts than any other, kill an innocent man?
NEWSCASTER: Did Texas execute an innocent man?
NEWSCASTER: Explosive new charges over the execution of a man who at least half a dozen forensic experts now believe was innocent.
NARRATOR: In death, questions about Willingham's innocence would not go away. By 2008, the controversy had ended up in a small state agency.
JOHN LENTINI, Arson Expert: The Texas Forensic Science Commission was designed to go in and figure out what happened and figure out how to keep it from happening again.
SAM BASSETT, Fmr. Chair, Forensic Science Commission: We decided that we needed to hire an expert in the area of fire science to look at all of the data we could get pulled together, and give us a report.
NARRATOR: The commission hired fire scientist Dr. Craig Beyler to investigate the Willingham case. Beyler agreed with other experts that there was no evidence of arson.
JOHN LENTINI: The Beyler report is point for point a confirmation of the original Hurst report that all 20 of the indicators were wrong.
NARRATOR: To the top fire scientists in the country, the implications were clear.
JOHN LENTINI: The state of Texas executed a man for a crime that they couldn't prove was really a crime, and the evidence says this was an accidental fire. And if it was an accidental fire, it doesn't matter how many posters of Iron Maiden Cameron Todd Willingham had on his wall, or Led Zeppelin, or whether he liked to play darts or drink beer, or whether he smacked his wife around. It only matters that the fire was not really a set fire.
NARRATOR: Texas governor Rick Perry was running for re-election.
SAM BASSETT: I knew from the beginning that it could be controversial simply because we had a person who had been executed and the science used in his case might be questionable, and the implications are obvious. It doesn't take long to connect the dots there.
NARRATOR: Just before the Beyler report was to be presented, the governor fired the commission's chairman.
SAM BASSETT: Around 4:00 or 5:00 PM, I received a call from Doris Scott of the governor's office. She said, "I just wanted to let you know that the governor thanks you for your service on the commission." And I said, "OK, well, thank you for calling."
Gov. RICK PERRY (R), Texas: This is a guy on his- on- in the death chamber, his last breath, he spews an obscenity-laced triad [sic] against his wife. That's the person who we're talking about here. And getting all tied up in the process here is, frankly, a deflection of what people across this state and this country need to be looking at. This was a bad man.
NARRATOR: In all, Perry fired three members of the commission, then installed a political ally, prosecutor John Bradley, as the new chairman.
MICHAEL HALL, Texas Monthly: It wasn't until Rick Perry stepped in and replaced three members of the commission, and within days the story had grown nationwide, that it got to be a big story.
NARRATOR: Willingham’s case is now at the heart of the national debate about the death penalty.
PROTESTER: Thank you for making this Todd's day!
SAM BASSETT: Well, I think the implications for capital punishment are there. But the implications for non-capital cases are there, too. And that is, if we make a mistake, are we going to learn from it? Or are we going to try to sweep it under the rug and act like nothing happened?
GERALD HURST: I can guarantee you we've got at least a couple of hundred people in prison in this state alone for accidental fires, and we need to get them out.
NARRATOR: But in Corsicana, they made up their minds a long time ago.
VICKY PRATER: I believe that Todd Willingham got exactly what he deserved the day they put him to death. And I don't believe that he didn't get a fair trial in this town. And I don't- it's really a shame we couldn't put him to death three times, since he took three lives.
NARRATOR: And the original arson investigators still insist Willingham set the fire.
DOUGLAS FOGG, Assistant Fire Chief: I don't care how many degrees you may have, how many books you may have written, this was a set fire. We had a jury of 12 people that convicted a man who was later executed. Was Mr. Willingham innocent? In my opinion, he was guilty as the day he was born.
NARRATOR: This year, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham is back in the news. A new controversy erupted over the key testimony from Johnny Webb, that jailhouse informant who testified about Willingham’s alleged confession.
MAURICE POSSLEY, Reporter, The Marshall Project: That was one of the two pillars that sent Todd Willingham to the gurney.
NARRATOR: Last month, Webb agreed to a new interview, this one recanting his testimony.
JOHNNY WEBB: Willingham never, ever, not once told me that he killed his family. He never said that. I was told to say that. You know, I’m sorry I lied about it. I wish I can change that. I can’t.
NARRATOR: Webb accuses the prosecutor, John Jackson, of making a secret deal in exchange for his testimony. At the time, Webb was himself facing charges in a robbery case.
MAURICE POSSLEY: And he says, “So they made me promises, promised that I would get taken care of, that they would get me out early.”
NARRATOR: And documents recently uncovered by the Innocence Project, a legal advocacy group, seem to support Webb’s story.
BRYCE BENJET, Innocence Project: You can’t believe Johnny Webb just on his word, but when the documents corroborate what he’s saying, that is when there’s truth to the matter.
NARRATOR: Among the documents, evidence that prosecutor Jackson assisted Webb in the years after the trial.
BRYCE BENJET: We start to see what really can best be described as a full-court press from John Jackson to get Johnny Webb out of prison.
NARRATOR: The Innocence Project has filed a formal complaint against Jackson, and Jackson has filed a lengthy response with affidavits from witnesses disputing Webb’s story. Jackson insists there was no deal, but does admit giving Webb “extraordinary assistance,” claiming he had an obligation to protect a witness from threats in prison.
Jackson declined a request for a new interview. The Texas State Bar is reviewing the matter.
DEATH BY FIRE
PRODUCED & DIRECTED BY
Jessie Deeter
WRITTEN BY
Mike Wiser & Michael Kirk
CO-PRODUCED BY
Mike Wiser
SENIOR PRODUCER
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FRONTLINE's Death by Fire is available on DVD. To order, visit Shoppbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS. [$24.99 & s/h]Most people will be disappointed, but probably not surprised, at the CommSec report. However, what would the result be if such reports measured wellbeing rather than simple economic growth? There is a strong case to be made for governments and research bodies to gather and publish combined data, which reflects many of the aspects of living that really measure our quality of life as individuals and as communities. Economic growth is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Perhaps NSW would still score poorly if health, housing, community safety, recreation, volunteering and personal happiness data were all considered. But measuring wellbeing, while difficult, is ultimately a much better gauge of how well or poorly we live, while the successes and failures of government actions over time can be seen for what they are. Gary Moore Balmain CommSec's latest report on state and territories economic rankings: WA No.1, the only Coalition government in Australia; NSW, stone motherless last after 14 years of hard Labor. Must be a message there somewhere.
John Shailer East Lindfield Putin hagiography coloured by numbers Ross Cameron's article extolling the virtues of Putin's 10-year dominance of Russia was extraordinarily callous and disingenuous (''Putin marks 10 years of extraordinary achievement'', January 11). His review of recent Russian history, guided as it is by an unflinching and myopic adherence to free market fundamentalism, is reminiscent of Cold War rationalisations that tied the West to the likes of Pinochet. The irony of Cameron's article is that Russia's form of semi-autocratic nationalist governance has little in common with the Western model that Putin himself - in word and deed - holds with utter contempt.
The invasion of Georgia, the use of gas supplies as a means of political harassment, an utterly negative regional influence and the sparking of nationalist fires, including a recent glorification of the Stalin era, make Russia an emergent threat, not a model of progress. Most worrying is that a target of the rising nationalism has been the West, which many Russians still view with suspicion; something Putin has inflamed rather than quelled. For Cameron it seems the only means to measure national success is to lift quotes and figures directly from the websites of economic bodies. What a terrible way to write and what a completely bankrupt view of Russia and the world more generally. Peter Waring Cammeray Ross Cameron, in his sycophantic defence of Putin, conveniently skims over a number of issues in his rush to praise the Russian Prime Minister's economic record. Putin's 2007 rehabilitation of Stalin's reputation by means of a ''revised'' history syllabus to be taught in schools, for example, fails to rate a mention, along with Putin's refusal to co-operate with the British investigation into the murder of the former spy and Putin-critic Alexander Litvinenko.
Similarly, Cameron's characterisation of the Georgian conflict, in which Russian forces moved beyond contested areas into Georgia's sovereign territory, as ''a complex story'' is naive at best, while Putin's concerning suspension of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty in 2007 does not even rate a mention. Putin's economic credentials are indisputable, but if Mr Cameron feels this is all that deserves a mention, I'm relieved he never got as far as Putin did in politics. Tim Clark Gordon Wise crackers It is not correct for Keith Parsons to say that ''Australians never celebrated Guy Fawkes night'' (Letters, January 11). Certainly, when I was growing up in South Australia, Guy Fawkes night was ''religiously'' celebrated by children on November 5. We even made an effigy of poor old Guy Fawkes and hawked it around the street, crying out ''Guy, Guy, Guy; penny for the Guy'' to collect money for fireworks.
On the night, the guy was placed on the top of the bonfire and burnt. We knew that Guy Fawkes had tried to blow up the British Parliament but we had no idea of the religious significance of the gunpowder plot. Laurie Malone Bilgola Keith Parsons has effectively excluded the majority of this country's citizens who were alive prior to the introduction of the prohibition of over-the-counter sales of fireworks. I grew up in Brisbane and the competition among the kids in my neighbourhood to save their pocket money to buy the latest bungers, throwdowns, Roman candles and Catherine wheels was intense. While happy to forget Halloween, where kids are encouraged to beg for treats, my memories of Guy Fawkes night will last a lifetime. Rodney Eve Cherrybrook
As kids in Brisbane in the 1940s and '50s, we always let off our fireworks on Guy Fawkes night. One year they all went off together when someone threw a bunger onto the stockpile in the laundry trolley. They were freely available to kids in the shops. When the date was changed to avoid the bushfire season, everyone lost interest. Allan Miles Stanmore Would you like tax with that? A tax on junk food is a start, but it is simply too late for the many thousands of young and overweight children and young adults whose start in life is at a significant disadvantage (''Paying the cost of fighting obesity'', smh.com.au, January 11). The problem is going to be deciding which foods qualify as junk food. There can be no doubt the process in deciding these finer points will be slow as manufacturers challenge the proposed taxes, which will invariably lead to further delays in action, resulting in a lost generation who are heading for a lifetime of chronic disease.
The true culprit, which sadly has been missing from the debate, is sugar, which is not only added to sweeten desserts and drinks but now also to bread and most processed savoury foods. Sugar will not only increase your weight, if increasingly consumed it also rots your teeth. Why not increase the tax on sugar as raw ingredient? Siobhan Cox North Narrabeen In an age when market products are elevated to ''goods'' and food pyramids are falsely constructed by marketing imperialists, I'm glad that ''junk food'' has not successfully been rebadged, and accurately describes its subject. Marshall Wilkinson Blackheath One law fits all
A secular system of civil law that applies equally to everyone is one of the great glories of Western civilisation and is not to be compromised merely in the name of security. If, as Paul Sheehan says, Islamic terrorism aims to destroy our values and way of life, then surely the way to combat it is not to subvert, undermine and bastardise our own legal system; that would be doing half the terrorists' work for them (''Those waging war on society shouldn't have access to its law'', January 11). Rather than applying the protections of civil law differentially or creating new laws that subvert our established rights and freedoms, it would be far better to apply our laws scrupulously and fairly as a sign of our confidence and determination to protect our legal system and what it represents. Nicholas Olson Peakhurst Kevvie goes ga-ga I have recently wondered whether our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is expecting the Australian public to morph back into childhood with his constant use of baby-like titles to people and places.
Wayne Swan is Swannie and there is Kevvie from Brissie. How many other words is he going to add the "ie" or "ey" to? Now he has written a children's book about a "pussy" and a "puppy" at Kirribilli. Maybe it is about time our childlike PM made decisions about the more important things in adult life, like "money". Rod Fountain Erina Horrible figures An Indian student in Australia is 2.5 times as likely as a non-Indian student to be assaulted here (''Horror Indian summer'', January 9-10). It's high time we stopped our denials and addressed the problem. And, Adam Barnett (Letters, January 11), it doesn't matter whether we're less racist than ''many Indians''; we have a problem we need to solve. Bruce Hanna Heathcote
Two legs bad, four hoofs not so bad There's no sinking feeling that equals reading a letter condoning cruelty. Much less written by a woman. For Liz MacPhee to describe as ''heroic'' the practice of culling brumbies by shooting them from helicopters is just nauseating (Letters, January 11). The evidence of these horses dying a slow death from inaccurate shots is everywhere. As Australia has no carnivorous megafauna, there are no species to put wounded animals out of their misery, so hundreds (perhaps thousands) of horses die in agony. Contrary to MacPhee's assertion, brumbies do minimal, if any, damage to the landscape. As the most destructive species ever to walk the earth, it's blinding hypocrisy for a human to point an accusing finger at a species introduced by humans.
Who in their right mind would suggest that a few hoof-prints came close to the level of soil compaction caused by the vehicles travelling on dirt roads? If culling horses is shown to be necessary, chemical sterilisation is by far the most humane solution. Taking pot shots from an aircraft is even worse than whaling. Peter Maresch Lane Cove Liz MacPhee rather shoots herself in her own hoof credibility-wise when she claims that horses have cloven hooves. Anybody who has had involvement with horses knows they have single non-cloven hooves. Taxonomically speaking, they belong to the order of ''odd-toed ungulates'' whereas cloven hooved animals, such as cattle and sheep, belong to the ''even-toed ungulates''. Ron Davis Lyons (ACT)
Labor's love lost Just remind me again why I voted for Kevin07. Nurses getting pay cuts, Japanese whaling worse, asylum seekers still ''processed'' offshore, action on climate change stalled. Sounds all a bit too liberal for my liking. Russell Mills Redfern Tennis service Even though I can appreciate your viewpoint, Alexander Bayes (Letters January 11), I am very thankful that the ABC does adhere to its printed program. For it to do anything else would be total anarchy and sheer lunacy.
I, for one, am not remotely interested in watching tennis, and to tune into Aunty at the normal and regularly designated news timeslot to find the previous program still running (whatever it was) would make me very, very browned-off. You have an odd perception of television programming when you say that "viewers have to take second place to its [Aunty's] program timings". Well, of course, we do - I was under the impression that was why we have programs in the first place: to maintain fair, regular and consistent viewing for all, not just tennis fans. Anthea M. Doe Russell Lea There is no doubt that Alexander Bayes hit the nail on the head about the ABC's inconsiderate programming around the tennis. On Saturday night the start of The Bill was delayed by half an hour so some match or other could go to air. It's an inconvenient racket really. Stewart Smith St Ives
Andrew Smith (Letters, January 11) raises an interesting question regarding the improved eyesight of tennis linesmen by placing their hands on their knees. It must work, as cricket slips fieldsmen do likewise. The real question is, where the hell is Birmingham Gardens? David Brogan West Ryde Time for nurses to tend to their own woes Cuts to nurses' pay is but one more example of Labor's betrayal of working families (''Nurses face pay cuts in new award system'', January 9-10). An industrial relations policy that's slightly less bad than John Howard's Work Choices. Well, now you know. For those nurses and others affected by this crazy decision it is time to get yourselves organised. Join the bloody union. Get your union off its backside and get yourselves an enterprise agreement that restores your penalty rates and a little extra above award wages as well.
For the respective unions, start organising and recruiting. Don't wait for someone to call asking for an organiser to visit. Pick up the Yellow Pages, make a list of employers and turn up at the door. If you're short of organisers then put the call out for volunteer organisers to start the ball rolling. I'll volunteer. Don't mourn. Organise. Paul Palmer Campbelltown Don't twist Tosca, write another opera
It is indeed not very clever to modify a masterpiece to the point that it destroys the vision of its original composer; this seems to be the case with the present production of Puccini's Tosca (''Loud boos but the singing was superb'', January 11). Christopher Alden should himself compose an opera and leave the magnificent work of Puccini alone.
Franca Bopf Curl Curl Tortured analogy It's one of the great generalisations that artistic genius and personal dysfunction go hand in hand (''Creators of beauty are capable of ugliness'', January 11). As a creative artist myself, I find the tortured genius archetype thoroughly tiresome. The world is full of quiet, respectable people making great, provocative art that helps us to better understand ourselves. Unfortunately Hollywood can't do much with such storylines. Lloyd Swanton Wentworth Falls
Human error I was gladdened to see someone reprimand DA for making a mistake (Letters, January 11), but even happier to learn a real person concocts those clues. I always thought it was a very clever computer program. Ben Newhouse Strathfield Tinsel etiquette Traditionally all decorations should be removed by midnight on the 12th night after Christmas (Letters, January 11). If they are left up beyond this time they should then be left up all year to avoid bad luck. It goes back to the belief that greenery brought into the house at Christmas contained tree spirits who would cause mischief in the house.
Ruth Witcombe Belmore The day after the Epiphany, which occurs on January 6, is the traditional time to take down Christmas decorations. The Epiphany is the biblical date assigned to the visit to the baby Jesus by the Magi and as such is the last day of the Christmas celebrations. Elizabeth Maher Bangor The last day to take down the lights is when you see Easter eggs in the shop. Now wait a minute… Greg Szudrich Balgowlah
Lost the plot Con Vaitsas is a true iconoclast but some icons may be better left unshattered (Letters, January 11). I have some sympathy though and often have trouble locating my loved ones as it is, in the huge Woronora resting place where they all seem to congregate. Perhaps we should try burying people in alphabetical order? John Little Cronulla Games of yore
Am I alone among sport lovers in finding the Commonwealth Games about as anachronistic as the playing of God Save the Queen in cinemas? I think the words ''British subject'' were removed from Australian passports about the same time as we cancelled the ''Australian Housewife of the Year Quest''. Some things do need to change. Peter Copleston Westleigh Well travelled card It may not be Australia Post's fault, but a perfectly addressed Christmas card from Potts Point arrived for me with a rubber stamped notation on the envelope advising it had been sent via Malaysia. Another of life's mysteries to add to the enjoyment of the silly season. Jennifer Dewar Double Bay
Vanishing bananas The tasty, small bananas for which many reminisce (Letters, January 9-10) do still exist. They are grown in and around Coffs Harbour, yet are becoming harder for even locals to find, given that even the big supermarkets here buy in those tasteless, large bananas from North Queensland. If you get a chance to buy and try the small ones, do so, before our local banana growers are completely put out of business. Tracey Schmidt Sandy BeachFor long considered a key strength of India’s tech majors, the bench is losing its relevance even as just-in-time contract hiring is gaining popularity. More companies are hiring techies on relatively short, fixed-term contracts, rather than employing them full-time even when there are no projects.
Automation, creeping unionism, and a global closing of borders for techies have in recent times accelerated this process. So much so that the average IT company’s bench strength has progressively fallen from between 8% and 10% of the billable employees to between 4% and 5% now, human resources experts believe.
So what exactly is happening?
What is the bench?
In the IT industry, the bench refers to the section of a company’s employees that isn’t working on any project for the time being but remains on the rolls and receives regular salary.
“The best way to answer this question is with an analogy…In football or cricket there are only 11 players allowed on the pitch/ground. So there are 5/6 players out as subs ready to come on in case of injuries. These players usually sit (or at least used to) on a bench and hence the expression ‘Sitting on the bench,’” Bhavish Parkala, a developer with General Electric, posted on Quora.
It is, indeed, a bank of personnel. (Interestingly, the term “bank” itself comes from the Italian banchiere, the foreign exchange dealers of 14th century Italy. They were called so because they “did their business literally seated on ‘benches’ behind tables in the street,” Nial Fergusson writes in his book The Ascent of Money.)
This bank could consist of fresh graduates or senior techies. A person could spend anywhere between a couple of weeks to up to six months on the bench.
“At Infosys, we have a small percentage of employees on bench at all times…This |
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Mackey, S. R., Choi, J.-S., Kitayama, Y., Iwasaki, H., Dong, G., and Golden, S. S. (2008). Proteins found in a CikA interaction assay link the circadian clock, metabolism, and cell division in Synechococcus elongatus. J. Bacteriol. 190, 3738–3746. Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text
Mutsuda, M., Michel, K.-P., Zhang, X., Montgomery, B. L., and Golden, S. S. (2003). Biochemical properties of CikA, an unusual phytochrome-like histidine protein kinase that resets the circadian clock in Synechococcus elongatus PCC (7942). J. Biol. Chem. 278, 19102–19110. Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full TextThe Vancouver Park Board voted on Monday night to put in place a "good neighbour" campaign for False Creek in an effort to avoid the dangerous spiking E. coli levels seen last year in the city waterway.
Vancouver Coastal Health has been erecting beach advisory signs in and around False Creek warning of the E.coli levels and intends to leave them up for the summer season, according to park board documents.
Now, the park board plans a social awareness campaign encouraging people to clean up dog waste, not dump chemicals in storm drains, and for boaters to use discharge pump-out stations to get rid of their on-board waste.
Park board commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung says the campaign will be launched as soon as possible, before the busy boating season.
"People don't intend to contribute to it but sometimes they're just not aware and certainly we have other boaters come in from other areas that may not be aware of the regulations."
Park board wants to avoid a repeat of last year
Last August, E.coli counts rose so high in many parts of Vancouver, Vancouver Coastal Health closed five beaches.
In False Creek, which is seldom used by swimmers but popular with paddlers, the levels rose to 26 times higher than what is safe for swimming and five times the acceptable limit for kayakers.
Terry Parsons, a member of the False Creek Racing Canoe Club and a paddler for a dragon boat team, said last year several people got pink eye after water was splashed into their boats.
"People with health conditions should not be on the water at all. For a major in-city water way, it should be in better condition."
The park board plans to work with groups including the Georgia Strait Alliance on the awareness campaign.NEW YORK (AP) — Elderly people are suffering concussions and other brain injuries from falls at what appear to be unprecedented rates, according to a new report from U.S. government researchers.
The reason for the increase isn’t clear, the report’s authors said. But one likely factor is that a growing number of elderly people are living at home and taking repeated tumbles, said one expert.
“Many older adults are afraid their independence will be taken away if they admit to falling, and so they minimize it,” said Dr. Lauren Southerland, an Ohio State University emergency physician who specializes in geriatric care.
But what may seem like a mild initial fall may cause concussions or other problems that increase the chances of future falls — and more severe injuries, she said.
Whatever the cause, the numbers are striking, according to the new report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One in every 45 Americans 75 and older suffered brain injuries that resulted in emergency department visits, hospitalizations, or deaths in 2013. The rate for that age group jumped 76 percent from 2007. The rate of these injuries for people of all ages rose 39 percent over that time, hitting a record level, the CDC found.
The report, which explored brain injuries in general, also found an increase in brain injuries from suicides and suicide attempts, mainly gunshot wounds to the head. Brain injuries from car crashes fell.
But the elderly suffered at far higher rates than any other group.
It’s well known that falls among the elderly are common. Older people are more likely to have impaired vision, dizziness and other de-stabilizing health problems, and are less likely than younger people to have the strength and agility to find their feet once they begin to lose their balance. The CDC had already reported that falls were the top cause of injuries and deaths from injury among older people; an estimated 27,000 Americans die each year from falls.
But even experts on elderly falls said the new numbers were striking.
Health officials have been increasing their focus on brain injuries among all ages, especially younger people. CDC investigators thought the overall rise in brain injuries might be mainly caused by rising awareness of sports-related head injuries in kids and young adults, and more diagnosis of injuries in that group that in the past were not recorded.
“But when we dug a little bit more into the numbers, we found the larger driver is older adult falls,” said the CDC’s Matt Breiding, a co-author of the new report.
The toll from elderly falls has been under-recognized by physicians and by seniors themselves, Southerland said. When falls do occur, older people tend to downplay it, she said.
But one fall can quickly lead to others. In a study published last year, Southerland and other Ohio State researchers found that more than a third of older adults with minor head injuries end up back in the ER within 90 days.
Even when they see a doctor, the future risk may be missed. In hospital emergency departments, it’s not unusual for a 25-year-old athlete who fell on his head to get a more thorough evaluation for concussion than an elderly retiree, said Southerland, who is trying to develop a standard for assessing concussions in geriatric ER patients.
Surveys show that most older adults want to live at home for as long as possible. Research is mixed on what the healthiest and safest setting is for a senior — often it depends on the individual. “There are people falling in nursing homes as well,” Southerland said.
Seniors are advised to have their vision checked regularly and do Tai Chi or other exercises that can strengthen legs and improve balance. Experts also advise making an elderly person’s home safer by removing loose rugs and other tripping hazards, improving lighting and installing handrails and grab bars.It'll be useful for a few retro games and Street Fighter
For weeks now there has been leaked knowledge of a Hori Fight Stick for the Nintendo Switch, which at the moment is probably only going to be useful for Ultra Street Fighter II.
But still, with those C-button-esque Joy-Con inputs it makes sense that folks would want a better option beyond just the Pro Controller, so lo and behold the Real Arcade Pro.V Hayabusa is a thing. No specifics, date, or pricepoint have been announced.
I know some real hardcore folks will probably pick this up just for Street Fighter, but I hope that any number of developers have more fighters planned for the Switch in the future. I'd love to see some wacky stuff like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, but on a system people will actually play it on.
Hori [Twitter]
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dexX7
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LegendaryActivity: 1106Merit: 1001 Re: [BTC-TC] CIPHERMINE-PT - Industrial Mining & High Performance Computing September 23, 2013, 12:57:49 PM
Last edit: September 23, 2013, 09:08:20 PM by dexX7 #43 Notice from Kate on the Litecoin Forums:
Quote Dear All,
This turn of events is unexpected and I shall not lie: almost certainly pretty bad for most of our shareholders.
As Giles said, we are looking at options as to how to proceed. The options under consideration are (in no particular order):
a) Move to a friedcat-style direct share ownership scheme
b) Migrate to a different exchange such as crypto-trade or Havelock
c) Create a new exchange (can't go into details right now but this is a possibility)
d) Forcibly buy back all shares (at a rate decided by the major shareholders, ie. me, Giles and a couple of others)
However, I must forewarn you that I do not think it is going to be practical to give all shareholders the same levels of attention in this transition. I am committed to looking after our major shareholders (eg. those with >500 or perhaps >1,000 share) but it may not be practical to switch to a friedcat-like system of direct share ownership with the large numbers of shareholders we have, nor to migrate all of you to a new exchange.
I therefore encourage those of you with a small number of shares to take what you can over the next week to get some value from the shares you have (ie. sell them) to avoid potentially being left with nothing at all should we end up in a situation where we cannot look after you all.
To be blunt, this experience has resulted in me getting royally screwed (I have significant holdings in addition to CipherMine on these exchanges). I am angry that this has come to pass and am tempted to take steps to close the door, taking CipherMine in-house with a very small number of investors. In practice, it would be simplest for us to walk away at this point (and with the exchange closing one could deem our contract as coming to a natural end) but I am going to take at least some steps to make good.
Anyway, the above is just me sharing some early, probably emotional, thoughts. I will be discussing the matter with our major investors (both in CIPHERMINE and CIPHERMINE.B1 the BTC bond) in due course. Unfortunately I have other pressing matters to attend to for the next 48 hours so please excuse a lack of comms in the mean time.
Kate. The Mastercoin faucet | Redeem unspent multisig outputs
dexX7
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LegendaryActivity: 1106Merit: 1001 Re: [BTC-TC] CIPHERMINE-PT - Industrial Mining & High Performance Computing September 23, 2013, 01:34:36 PM #46 Quote from: evilscoop on September 23, 2013, 01:00:18 PM
I know kate is busy, but I am around a fair bit on both forums
bitfunder is one we are looking at...I know kate is busy, but I am around a fair bit on both forums
Thanks. Very appreciated!
I'm around for the next hours also. All potential transfers will be proceeded immediately. Trading is intended to be open till 2013-10-07 (the day BTCT halts trading), though I reserve to stop this pass-through earlier to convert all remaining shares to CIPHERMINE shares and sell them on the open market and distribute the proceeds as final dividend as described in the shareholder contract:
Quote 8. Dissolution
In the event that the operator chooses to or is forced to close this security for any reason, the
following methods will be used for dissolution:
1. A new operator may be chosen by the operator to take over this security. Shareholders of
CIPHERMINE-PT are eligible to approve/disapprove the new operator by a motion.
2. Shareholders of CIPHERMINE-PT have the right to exchange CIPHERMINE-PT shares for
CIPHERMINE shares on LTC-GLOBAL. If applicable, this right is granted for at least four weeks.
3. All remaining underlying shares of CIPHERMINE will be sold on LTC-GLOBAL and the
proceeds will be distributed to the remaining CIPHERMINE-PT shares as a final dividend. This
option is to be considered as unfavorable and only applicable, if the other two options yield no
sufficient result and no other solution has been determined by a consensus of the operator and
shareholders.
Should 8.3 be applied, a notification will be issued with a leadtime of at least 48 hours. Thanks. Very appreciated!I'm around for the next hours also. All potential transfers will be proceeded immediately. Trading is intended to be open till 2013-10-07 (the day BTCT halts trading), though I reserve to stop this pass-through earlier to convert all remaining shares to CIPHERMINE shares and sell them on the open market and distribute the proceeds as final dividend as described in the shareholder contract:Should 8.3 be applied, a notification will be issued with a leadtime of at least 48 hours. The Mastercoin faucet | Redeem unspent multisig outputs
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Hero MemberActivity: 602Merit: 500 Re: [BTC-TC] CIPHERMINE-PT - Industrial Mining & High Performance Computing September 23, 2013, 04:37:40 PM #54 kate-
telling people to sell is just wrong. if you plan on closing everything down and leaving shareholders with NOTHING then wtf.
sell to WHO, you? who the hell would want to this stock that will be worth exactly 0 in a month.
your response seems to be filled with anger and hate.
keep in mind that anything short of either a fair buyback at 4ltc (your last round) is stealing.
i advice you to CALM down for a few days and then proceed to do something that is legal and fair.
ok
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LegendaryActivity: 1106Merit: 1001 Re: [BTC-TC] CIPHERMINE-PT - Industrial Mining & High Performance Computing September 23, 2013, 09:06:06 PM #58
Message from Kate to all shareholders, posted on Litecoin Global:
Quote Dear Shareholders,
Obviously today's news that LTC Global is closing down by the end of the month is very distressing.
We have not yet decided exactly what to do going forwards but are exploring a number of options, the most obvious of which is to simply bring all shares in-house and run them direct so you all continue to get dividend payments but to the public payment address you have set here (which does mean you must set it if you have not!).
If we were to do that it would prevent automated trading of the shares, and at this time we don't have the resources to administer trades manually. The security would therefore become illiquid for a time. We would likely therefore wish to move the security to a new exchange, and indeed we are exploring some options there too.
Another option is a forced buy-back of shares at the weighted average of the original issue prices (i-e. 1.62 LTC/share), but we don't have the necessary funds to do that in reality. Further, what funds we do have (mostly from the Avalon refund) I am more inclined to offer as a discounted, or possibly forced, buy-back of CIPHERMINE.B1 (the bond issued on BTC TC). At least 50% of the bondholders are investment funds who will likely want their money ASAP; I can't see how their funds can survive this unfortunately.
In the mean time please be assured that we are going to try to look after you, our shareholders, and that does include those of you with small stakes (my somewhat ill-considered forum post earlier should largely be ignored). CipherMine remains a viable business and will continue regardless.
I will be in touch in the couple of days with a clear plan. In the mean time, don't panic!
Kate. Looks like everything has calmed down a bit. The Mastercoin faucet | Redeem unspent multisig outputsDeauthentication attack and other ‘wifi hacks’ using an ESP8266 module.
Tomas C. Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 25, 2017
As famed wifi hacker Samy Kamkar recently said we should move towards low-cost hacking/exploitation tools. NodeMCU is one of such tools, a LUA based firmware for the ESP8266 WiFi SOC under $5.
Now thanks to Spacehuhn you can assemble your own WiFi jammer (to be more correct wifi deauth attack tool) with an NodeMCU ESP8266. You select the wifi client you need to disengage from their wifi and begin the attack. For whatever length of time that the attack is running, any wifi will not work.
With a device like this you can disable the netflix streaming of your roommate, the wireless security cameras of the mall or your neighbor’s Internet of Things gadgets.
The 802.11 WiFi protocol contains a deauthentication feature. It is utilized to detach customers from network. An attacker can send a station a deauthentication frame at any time, with a spoofed source address for the wireless access point. The protocol does not require any encryption for this frame, even when the session was established with. This vulnerability was addressed in 802.11w-2009 an approved amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard to increase the security of its management frames, rarely supported is off course disabled by default.
Deauthentication Broadcast Attack
A decade ago, when strong, cheap magnets, bright LEDs, and small coin cell batteries were materials fresh to hacking, someone had a great idea: tape all these items up and throw them on bridges and overpasses. The LED throwie was born, and while we’re sure the biggest installation of LED throwies looked cool, it’s really just a small-scale environmental disaster. There are — and have been for a long time — expendable military radio jammers which are very small (artillery grenade or ‘much less than backpack’ small) and relatively cheap. These jammers can be used to knock out radio comm in a radius of several hundred meters. Emplacement is typically by hand or howitzer. Since then, the ESP8266 was created, and the world now has a tiny WiFi-enabled computer that’s the size of a postage stamp and cost almost nothing.
Rand Druid battery powered, Compact ESP8266 based multi target De-Auth attack implementation.
While not recommended, it is an interesting example of the latest and cheapest technology that made a throwaway hacking tool possible; 10 years ago, a small wifi module this cheap would have been unthinkable.
Supported Devices: You can flash the code to every ESP8266. Depending on the module or development board, there might be differences in the stability and performance. The common ESP8266 512kb version won’t have the full MAC vendor list and other features. NodeMCU ESP-12 based board which has 4mb flash and builtin USB port on it will work best.
Installation: Uploading the.bin files is the easiest way to get up and running.
https://github.com/spacehuhn/esp8266_deauther/releases
Always use the 1mb version, will work on 4mb, 32mb, etc. Unless you’re sure that your ESP8266 only has 512kb flash memory.
Upload using the ESP8266 flash tool of your choice:
- nodemcu-flasher [Windows only]
- esptool-gui [Windows, MacOS]
- esptool [Windows, MacOS, Linux]
Power ESP8266 from OTG cable, powerbank, 2x AA battery. Scan for Wi-Fi networks and connect to pwned. The password is “deauther”.
Once connected, you can open up your browser and go to 192.168.4.1.
Sources: https://github.com/spacehuhn/esp8266_deauther (MIT License)Call for written submissions
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee are looking at ways to respond to the phenomenon of fake news, focusing in particular on the following questions:
What is 'fake news'? Where does biased but legitimate commentary shade into propaganda and lies?
What impact has fake news on public understanding of the world, and also on the public response to traditional journalism? If all views are equally valid, does objectivity and balance lose all value?
Is there any difference in the way people of different ages, social backgrounds, genders etc use and respond to fake news?
Have changes in the selling and placing of advertising encouraged the growth of fake news, for example by making it profitable to use fake news to attract more hits to websites, and thus more income from advertisers?
What responsibilities do search engines and social media platforms have, particularly those which are accessible to young people? Is it viable to use computer-generated algorithms to root out 'fake news' from genuine reporting?
How can we educate people in how to assess and use different sources of news?
Are there differences between the UK and other countries in the degree to which people accept 'fake news', given our tradition of public service broadcasting and newspaper readership?
How have other governments responded to fake news?
Submit your views through the Fake news inquiry page.
Deadline for written submissions is Friday 3 March 2017.
Inquiry background
Over the last few years, there have been rising concerns about this perceived trend for the public to distrust traditional sources of news, such as newspapers and broadcasters, and instead to turn to the internet and social media, despite the fact that the source of the stories is often unclear and it is not known whether the reports are factually accurate.
The fear that this might lead the public being fed propaganda and untruths has been increased by the suggestions that electors in the 2016 US presidential election were subjected to possibly unprecedented amounts of 'fake news', and concerns that this may have had a significant impact on democratic processes.
Chair's comment
Launching the inquiry, Damian Collins MP, Chair of the Committee, said:
"The growing phenomenon of fake news is a threat to democracy and undermines confidence in the media in general. Just as major tech companies have accepted they have a social responsibility to combat piracy online and the illegal sharing of content, they also need to help address the spreading of fake news on social media platforms. Consumers should also be given new tools to help them assess the origin and likely veracity of news stories they read online. The Committee will be investigating these issues, as well as looking into the sources of fake news, what motivates people to spread it, and how it has been used around elections and other important political debates."
Further information
Image: iStockphotoYour Nexus One is a second-class citizen no more: Today, Google's rolling out Android 2.3.3 to both its premier smartphones. The latest build, still referred to as Gingerbread, brings even more NFC goodies than foretold, as the Nexus S will soon be able to write (not just read) rewritable NFC tags as well as act as a glorified NFC tag itself. (You can see both possibilities in the three screenshots above.) What's more, Google tells us Android 2.3.3 will fix the random reboots that have plagued the Nexus S as of late, and offers other random bugfixes as well. You'll find the whole kit and kaboodle streaming to your phones over the air during the next few weeks to come.We're also hearing that integrated Facebook contacts will be treated differently in Android 2.3.3 -- we've reached out to Google for more information. Here's the deal with regards to Facebook.Michael Moore launches website devoted to stopping President Trump Called "Resistance calendar," the site is committed to helping anti-Trump protesters organize nationwide
Social activist and documentarian Michael Moore, who accurately predicted that Donald Trump would win the 2016 presidential election, has now launched a website to help organize the anti-Trump resistance.
"I've promised you a one-stop site, a clearinghouse of all actions — a RESISTANCE CALENDAR — where you can find every upcoming action, protest, march, sit-in, town hall, anti-Trump, pro-democracy event in all 50 states!" Moore proclaimed in a Facebook post on Monday. The website allows users to post their own anti-Trump events and locate other anti-Trump activities in their region.
Advertisement:
"We welcome all resisters across the movement to use this tool," Moore says. "It's completely free. There's no big 'funder' or group behind it. There will be no ads, no commercialization, no fundraising lists — all the stuff we hate. Just you, me, the volunteers donating their time to keep it going and the World Wide Web. BOOM!"
The Resistance Calendar allows users to not only search events by city and state, but also based on specific issues and chronological order.
In creating the Resistance Calendar, Moore is seemingly attempting to combine his powers of prediction with his longstanding history of social organizing. Less than two weeks before Trump's inauguration, Moore called for progressives to engage in "100 days of resistance" starting from the moment Trump took office.
"This will have an effect. We have to throw everything at this," Moore told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell at the time, when calling for massive protests. "This man is slightly unhinged, if I can say that, and he’s a malignant narcissist. He’s going to be very upset if there’s a lot of people there.”
In light of Trump's angry response to both his own paltry inauguration turnout and the protests that have continued unabated since he became president, it seems that Moore may have been correct about the power of resistance to get under the president's skin.Hey all Keith here with another update on the current state of development for Infinity: Battlescape (I:B). January has been a whirlwind of a month and it's kind of crazy that February has already arrived. During our Kickstarter campaign we had estimated the release of the I:B prototype by the end of January. Unfortunately we weren't able to ship it within that timeline as we had hoped. This is primarily because one of our programmers, Kimmo, left the team back in December due to changes in his personal situation. While we're working diligently to find a replacement a 33% reduction in our programming team is going to affect our schedule. That being said we're feeling pretty good about releasing both the prototype and the private development forums to Developer Access backers by the end of February.
In other news I've been working full-time since January 6th which I'm doing unpaid so we can afford a full-time replacement for Kimmo. Two of our artists, Jan van der Weg and Kristian Agren, will start full-time work today (February 1st) and their first order of business is working on our new SFC interceptor and bomber. Flavien has been working diligently all month on releasing the I:B prototype to Developer Access backers. This has primarily consisted of deployment/installation, account management, and patching the game - in other words stuff that's as thoroughly unsexy as game development can get. My time has been split between helping Flavien ship the prototype and handling accounting, legal/contracts, and various other administrative tasks.
Over the near-term our entire focus will continue to be shipping the prototype to Developer Access backers as soon as we can. I would like to take this moment to mention that you will be required to have an I-Novae Account to collect your backer rewards. If you don't have one yet please go to https://inovaestudios.com and create one. If you already have an I-Novae Account and you used a different email address for your pledge we will be providing a way for you to link your account soon. Beyond that, as mentioned in our last update, we will start releasing more content and increasing the frequency of our updates as the team settles into its new full-time production schedule. We're all super excited to be building this game, your support means the world to us, and we are just as anxious as you to begin playing!Recently, while on vacation in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and visiting family, we stayed at my sister’s house. She was kind enough to let us have her place while she found accommodations elsewhere. She moved in to this place herself not too long ago and was proud to point out to us the brand new, gigantic, flat-panel television and full Cable TV package she purchased slightly before our arrival. She felt that our four year old daughter Beatrix would especially get a kick over having so many kids channels to watch on such a big screen.
Now, we don’t watch what someone my age would consider a traditional television at home. We do own one — a 15 year old CRT model that resides in our third floor office loft. That said it is very rarely turned on. We don’t subscribe to Cable TV. It is connected to a not much newer DVD player. The digital converter and antenna we have for it have not been hooked up for a couple of years. Beatrix will occasionally remember it when we are up there and shove a DVD in the player to watch. That is the extent of its use.
When we want to watch things like movies and shows, we do so using streaming services on a three generation old iMac 20 inch that resides in our library/den. This means mostly Netflix unless available for streaming otherwise (Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, direct from the show’s website, etc.). One can safely assume that if it is not available via online streaming then we likely have not watched it.
I say all of this to set up the fact that Beatrix has little idea of how traditional TV works and seeing her first real exposure to it was enlightening to say the least.
The first time came after attempting to walk to a parade a few blocks away and getting caught in one of the area’s famous torrential downpour rainstorms and having to turn back. Wet from head to toe and cold, we figured finding something fun for Beatrix to watch on that great big screen would lessen Beatrix’s disappointment at missing the parade. After scrolling through what seemed like a hundred options in the built-in program guide, I finally found a channel that had something on that would hold her interest — Shrek.
I turn to that, Beatrix approves, and we watch. Then, a few minutes later, a commercial comes on. The volume difference is jarring to say the least. I would safely guess it is fifty percent louder than the show. I hurriedly reach for the remote and turn it down…
“Why did you turn the movie off, Daddy?”, Beatrix worriedly asks, as if she has done something wrong and is being punished by having her entertainment interrupted. She thinks that’s what I was doing by rushing for the remote.
“I didn’t turn it off, honey. This is just a commercial. I was turning the volume down because it was so loud. Shrek will come back on in a few minutes” I say.
“Did it break?”, she asks. It does sometimes happen at home that Flash or Silverlight implode, interrupt her show, and I have to fix it.
“No. It’s just a commercial.”
“What’s a commercial?”, she asks.
”It is like little shows where they tell you about other shows and toys and snacks.”, I explain.
“Why?”
“Well the TV people think you might like to know about this stuff.”
“This is boring! I want to watch Shrek.”
“I know, honey. It will be on in a bit. Just be patient.”
The show eventually comes back on. I reach for the remote to turn the volume back up. We can barely hear it now. The difference in volume between the show and the commercial is shocking and I don’t remember it being this bad when I did watch television regularly. Perhaps it is only like this on kids channels. I wouldn’t know.
Of course, not more than ten minutes later, the movie is once again interrupted by a round of commercials.
“Why did they stop the movie again?” Beatrix, asks. Thus leading to essentially the same conversation as before. She just does not understand why one would want to watch anything this way. It’s boring and frustrating. She makes it through the end of the movie but has little interest in watching more. She’d rather play. The television is never turned on again during our stay.
A few days later and on our way back home, after a long day of driving, we arrive at a hotel. We check in, unpack the car of our essentials, make it to the room, and settle in for the night. There was a television in the room with some select Cable TV stations and Beatrix asked if she could watch a show. Sure, I said, so I turned it on, and flipped it to what appeared to be a kids channel. There was a commercial on.
“Is this a show?”, she asked.
“No. This is a commercial, we have to wait for the show to come on.”
I now realize, in hindsight, that she did not understand that all televisions work this way. She thought it was only the one in my sister’s place that was “broken” and “boring”. In her mind, this was a new TV and thus should work differently.
Then, a commercial for The Secret World of Arrietty comes on.
“This! I want to watch this!”, Beatrix exclaims.
“We can’t honey. It’s not out yet. It’s just a commercial.”, I say. She seems more confused so I try an analogy.
“You know when we go to a movie theater, and they show you previews of movies that are not out yet before the real movie? It’s like that.”
“Oh.”, she resigns. Not sure she gets this but I think the television executives and I have finally worn down her curious resolve.
When the commercials are over, it is some live action teen show. She is not impressed.
“Can I choose?”, Beatrix asks. She’s still confused. She thinks this is like home where one can choose from a selection of things to watch. A well organized list of suggestions and options with clear box cover shots of all of her favorites. I have to explain again that it does not work that way on television. That we have to watch whatever is on and, if there is nothing you want to watch that is on then you just have to turn it off. Which we do.
I then do what I should have simply done in the first place. I hook up the iPad to the free hotel wifi and hand it to her. She fires up the Netflix app, chooses a show, and she is happy.
This, she gets. This makes sense.A man who made headlines when cell phone video showing a Miami Police officer allegedly punching him in the back seat of a car surfaced on social media won't face any charges, NBC 6 has learned. Tony Zaldivar was facing two misdemeanor counts, one for disorderly conduct and the other for trespassing following his arrest in August. But now the Miami-Dade State Attorney has decided not to prosecute him on either charge and Zaldivar believes it shows he should have never been in the back seat of the police car in the first place. (Published Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015)
A man who made headlines when cell phone video showing a Miami Police officer allegedly punching him in the back seat of a car surfaced on social media won't face any charges, NBC 6 has learned.
Tony Zaldivar was facing two misdemeanor counts, one for disorderly conduct and the other for trespassing following his arrest in August. But now the Miami-Dade State Attorney has decided not to prosecute him on either charge and Zaldivar believes it shows he should have never been in the back seat of the police car in the first place.
Zaldivar, 26, said he was mistreated after he was arrested and placed in the back seat of a City of Miami Police car, where he says Officer John Hinson punched him for no reason.
"I was placed in handcuffs, I walked to the police car, I sat in the car, sat down, it was hot that day in the back of the car, and I got punched," Zaldivar told NBC 6 in an exclusive interview after his arrest.
Miami Police suspended Hinson once they saw the video and now NBC 6 learned on Wednesday that the charges that got Zaldivar arrested in the first place have officially both been dropped.
David Kubiliun, Zaldivar's attorney, said he's pleased with the outcome.
"This confirms what we have been saying all along that Mr. Zaldivar did absolutely nothing wrong to warrant his arrest," Kubiliun said. "We are extremely satisfied with the state attorney's investigation into this matter and their decision not to file charges against my client."
Miami Police said they were determined to find out exactly what happened here.
No longer facing criminal charges, Zaldivar does continue to examine his legal options against Officer Hinson and the department itself.
"We are now looking into the possibility of filing a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Miami Police Department," Kubiliun said.
Miami Police said that their investigation into the incident continues and the state attorney chose not to elaborate on its decision to terminate the case against Zaldivar."First sale" is the legal doctrine which says that copyright holders in the United States only have the right to control the "first sale" of a physical book, magazine, DVD, etc., and that they have no right to control what you, the buyer, do with it after you buy it. Once you've purchased it, as far as the law is concerned, you can keep it on a shelf, sell it, rent it out (like Netflix/Blockbuster), loan it to your friends or to the general public (like a library), or give it away to Goodwill, your cousin Tim |
years,” Phipps said. “The vast majority of Hoosiers support this issue and they want it. They don’t understand why our attorney general is putting his 2 cents in this medical debate. That’s making them come out of the woodwork now.”
Support from the American Legion and other groups is also powerful, Staker said. “When the veterans talk, there is more interest and there’s more momentum than just Joe Civilian,” he said.
Henry Henry
William Henry, assistant department adjutant for the American Legion Department of Indiana, said the national American Legion came to support the idea of legalizing medical marijuana and increasing research for it after a grass-roots push.
“Folks don’t want opioids to be the only treatment available for chronic pain conditions,” he said. “They don’t want benzodiazepines to be the only treatment options for PTSD or some of the other mental ailments. It seems a lot safer route for folks to use [marijuana] that cannot destroy them. The idea really stuck with the members.”
Short session
The sudden momentum has been somewhat surprising, Tallian said, and she hopes it has an impact. For years, she said, she authored the only bill.
“Last year, there were 11 bills filed of one kind or another by Republicans and Democrats, Senate and House. So I think that there’s some movement,” she said. “People are beginning to realize that there’s really no solid argument about not using marijuana for medical purposes. Why should we deny people?”
Still, Tallian said she doubts the Legislature will legalize medical marijuana in 2018, when lawmakers will meet for what’s called the “short session,” which lasts only about 10 weeks and ends less than two months before the May primary election.
In odd-numbered, non-election years, lawmakers meet for four months.
Tallian said short sessions provide skeptical lawmakers plenty of reasons to kill bills.
“Their excuse is, ‘We didn’t have enough time’ or, ‘It’s going to be an election year,’” she said. “I’ve heard every one of the excuses for eight or nine years. I don’t know who it is that’s going to put the pressure on the two Republican leaders and let that bill come to a hearing.”
Meanwhile, the national momentum toward legalization appears to be picking up steam, succeeding in more Republican-leaning states like Arkansas, North Dakota, Montana and Alaska, said Robert Mikos, a Vanderbilt University law professor who is an expert on federalism and drug laws.
But advocates have had more success, he said, with legalization through ballot initiatives, in which citizens or organizations can put questions to voters.
Indiana does not have that process.
And Mikos said he doesn’t expect medical marijuana legalization to pass soon in Indiana, especially given the attorney general’s opposition to the cannabidiol oil law.
“If they’re not even comfortable with that, which is a pretty modest measure, I’d be surprised if they jumped into a medical marijuana law,” Mikos said. “That you have a Republican [Lucas] leading the charge might increase the chances somewhat, but it might still be a long shot.”
Still, opponents appear to be facing an uphill battle against public opinion, which has quickly reversed.
According to a Pew study in 2016, national support for marijuana legalization—not just medical marijuana—was at 57 percent of U.S. adults, while 37 percent said it should not be legalized. That was essentially reversed from a decade ago, when about 32 percent favored legalization and 60 percent were opposed.
The 2016 WTHR/Howey Politics Indiana poll was also surprising because all demographic groups surveyed supported the idea of medical marijuana.
Staker said he believes IPAC and the attorney general are pushing hard against legalization before the session begins because “they know that if we get hearings in the House or Senate, they will lose, just like they did last year against the mothers of the children with epilepsy.”
Powell said the prosecuting attorneys group is well aware that the tide of public opinion has swelled against them.
“We’re never going to win the emotional argument,” he said. “We’re just not. Our position was never that we didn’t care about these children. If you have a heart at all, you care about intractable epilepsy.”
The research
Meanwhile, debate continues about the safety and potential medical uses of marijuana.
The Indiana State Medical Association has urged the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to “support a lesser DEA controlled substance schedule for cannabis, only to promote/facilitate research on the possible medical benefits of cannabis.” But it opposes the Legislature’s legalizing it.
Thomas Vidic, a practicing general neurologist at the Elkhart Clinic and past president of the association, said “we’re very supportive of studying the potential effects” of marijuana.
“But right now, much of the data, large amounts of the data, are really not well done,” Vidic said. “We don’t have a good understanding of, ‘Is there a potential drug use?’ here. We need to be able to study the drug and encourage trials of this to determine exactly what we’re dealing with to know what’s hearsay, to know if there is a legitimate use. Right now, there’s no medical indication for marijuana.”
Outside of the trials of subcomponents of marijuana to treat specific types of epilepsy, he said, “The use of marijuana in general for medical use has very limited documentation.”
Vidic said he supports a non-emotional and rational debate at the Statehouse, and that Indiana should resist “getting on the same bandwagon” as other states when we lack crucial information.
“There’s so much hearsay,” he said. “It’s troublesome to me.”
But Thomas Clark, a professor of biology at Indiana University South Bend, said he believes there’s “actually pretty solid” evidence for the use of marijuana to help curb the opioid epidemic. Clark said he started studying marijuana five years ago.
“Marijuana is better with dealing with chronic pain than opioids are,” he said. “It’s not nearly as addictive. There’s no risk of fatal overdose. There’s some pretty good evidence that people who are addicted to opioids can reduce how much they use or reduce their addiction if they’re allowed access to medical marijuana.”
But the plant isn’t without risk, Clark said.
“If you have cardiovascular disease or arrhythmias, it can be dangerous,” he said. “It turns out that, especially in novice users, it can trigger a spike in blood pressure that can be dangerous. Then there are concerns with adolescent exposure to THC. There’s concerns about its effect on the developing brain.”
But even as the science continues to be developed, Mikos said, it is clear the battle is trending in one direction: legalization. That’s something Indiana should be prepared for.
“It’s pretty amazing that no state is considering abandoning these reforms,” he said. “All the states are moving in the same direction. You can glean from that that the sky hasn’t fallen. It doesn’t mean that they’re thrilled, but any doom-and-gloom forecasts have been rejected or look unlikely.”•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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A Center for American Progress event in Washington, DC. (REUTERS/Jim Young) Ad Policy
My piece here last Tuesday about secret donors to the Center for American Progress and other think tanks generated a lot of interest and debate. I also heard from many readers who passed along stories and documents, including a 2012 list of members of CAP’s “Business Alliance” corporate donor program [PDF]. Note on the second page of the document that donors are helpfully arranged by industry—“As listed by the Fortune 500,” the document says.
As I stated in the piece, CAP will not comment about its donors, and spokesperson Andrea Purse had refused to confirm or deny the names of Business Alliance members on three previous lists I had obtained, all from 2011. The lists were maintained by Chris Belisle, who CAP described as a “junior staffer” in its letter of reply to The Nation.
Belisle, who no longer works at CAP, carried the title of “senior manager” of the Business Alliance while at the think tank. In a résumé posted online, he said his job was to oversee the Alliance, which he said had more than sixty members, and that he worked “directly with senior or head of government relations in representing their company interests within the organization,” and was in charge of “programming” for members, including “the planning of monthly Roundtable discussions and customized policy briefings.”
When reporting the original story I sent Purse one of the 2011 lists, which she said contained dozens of errors (despite there only being a few dozen names on it), while failing to specify which names were incorrect. I was able to confirm more than a dozen names by calling the companies on the list, going through their foundation reports or obtaining independent confirmation.
The lists were sent internally to staffers so they would know to be careful when writing about companies that financially supported the think tank, sources told me. Numerous corporations appear on all four lists. They include Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Bank of America, Carefirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, Citigroup, Eli Lilly, General Dynamics, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Pfizer, The Carlyle Group and Verizon.
Last week, I sought comment for this story from Purse; Neera Tanden, CAP’s president; and John Podesta, CAP’s chair and counselor. I listed the names of companies on all four lists and asked for confirmation that they were CAP donors. I did not hear back from Tanden or Podesta. Purse declined again to confirm or deny particular names, saying, “Our work speaks for itself. Your inference that corporate donations shape or drive the content of CAP and CAP Action is false.”
I also asked if CAP felt that taking secret donations from corporate donors neutered its ability to address the issue of campaign finance reform, and if it believed that money in politics was a serious problem. I asked as well if CAP would consider changing its policy of taking money without disclosure from corporate donors.
In response to my questions about campaign finance, Purse said, “Our work shows that we believe campaign finance reform is a vital issue for our democracy and an issue which merits serious attention,” pointing to CAP’s coverage of the issue, through reports and ThinkProgress blog posts.
CAP has similarly cited all the ways in which it has been critical of its (otherwise unacknowledged) corporate donors as proof that they do not influence its policy agenda. CAP has pointed to many ThinkProgress posts going after Goldman Sachs, for example. But this argument obscures the indirect way influence is usually exerted. In most cases, a donor’s gift is not understood by either party as buying complete loyalty to its cause. As I note in my reply to CAP’s letter to the editor in The Nation, Wall Street companies gave a lot of money to President Obama not because they expected to get his support all the time but to get it more than they would if they didn’t give him money at all. A similar dynamic appears to be at work at CAP and other think tanks.
And in fact, there is evidence that CAP’s interest in wooing and pleasing corporate donors has shaped coverage—beyond what I included in my original piece. Multiple former staffers told me of editorial intrusion by senior think tank officials, in cases that included Saudi Arabia, when CAP was seeking Saudi support.
CAP pitched the Saudis for funding sometime after Tanden took over as president in 2011, I was told. Two people said to be involved in the pitch were Ken Gude, Tanden’s deputy, and Rudy deLeon, a former Boeing lobbyist and now CAP’s senior vice president for national security and international policy. (Boeing, of course, is a major supplier of weapons and commercial aircraft to the kingdom.) While the pitch was in play, some staffers were told to avoid criticism of the kingdom, sources said. It was not clear if the think tank was seeking money from the Saudi embassy directly or from a Saudi company or other cutout.
In response to my questions about this, Purse did not deny that CAP was seeking Saudi money. She said, “We have not received any money from the Saudi government, Saudi companies or any associated interests. We have not and will not allow corporations or others to censor our work as any examination of our extensive record of reports, columns and posts clearly shows.” Again, citations of critical coverage were offered to demonstrate an absence of influence; but, while it is true that CAP has run tough pieces on the Saudis and on some of its donors, the question remains whether that coverage would have been different had the pursuit of donations not been a factor or if the pitch had been successful.
Incidentally, my numerous sources all gave very good reasons for speaking off the record. I provided their names and notes of our conversations to my editor at The Nation. Some of them are disillusioned with CAP while others still view it with affection, but with one exception, they were all troubled by the think tank’s relationship with its donors.
In its letter to The Nation, CAP said that it currently receives 6 percent of its budget from corporate contributions and that figure has never hit double digits. Even if the 6 percent figure is accurate—and we have only CAP’s word to take for it, since unlike most major think tanks, it doesn’t publish or make available an annual report or otherwise disclose at least basic financial data—it’s impossible to know its true significance given CAP’s refusal to provide other information.
In a story in March, The Huffington Post reported that CAP pulled in “nearly $20 million from philanthropic groups in 2012, more than half of its funding base.” The story said that while CAP does not publicly disclose its donors, “the fundraising numbers were provided to HuffPost by a CAP source and confirmed by Tanden.” So again we only have CAP’s word to go on as opposed to a financial report, but even if what they say is true, a few obvious questions arise, which are unanswerable because of the think tank’s lack of transparency.
* Will CAP provide a full list of foundations whose support it receives? Is CAP including corporate foundations in this category?
* If 6 percent of the budget comes from corporations, and “over half” comes from foundations, that presumably means that somewhere around 40 percent comes from individuals. Who are they? Do any of them have ties to major corporations?
It’s not complicated. CAP should disclose its donors, corporate and otherwise.
At an Obama fundraiser, twelve undocumented immigrants and allies were arrested for protesting record deportations. Read Aura Bogado’s report.Pepsi, despite what you may think, really just wants to sell you health food. And it’s all ready and waiting to start putting less-fried, less-salty options in your hand. The problem, the company says? You just won’t stop buying chips.
PepsiCo isn’t just a sugary drink brand, even if the company name does immediately make you think, “the one that’s not Coke.” In addition to slinging soda, tea, and Gatorade, the company also owns the Frito-Lay, Quaker, and Tostito lines of snacks and chips. And while it’s trying to cut back on the chips in favor of lighter options, the Wall Street Journal reports, consumers just aren’t having it.
The company’s recent showings at a trade show in Atlanta made crystal clear the two directions the company is being pulled in at once, according to the WSJ. On the one hand, offerings from Quaker oatmeal, Naked juice, and Sabra hummus. On the other: the real money-makers like Doritos and Cheetos.
PepsiCo has been making gestures in the direction of less sugar and more health for ages, from setting up “healthy” option-only vending machines to cutting added sugar in drinks and even attempting to launch organic Gatorade. It’s even created “designer salt” that the company believes can provide the same amount of flavor with less sodium and waste. However, all these gestures, by and large, are not exactly making the company bank.
Still, the WSJ points out, after years of flagging, PepsiCo sales and stock are back up — but that’s largely thanks to the “traditional” fat, salt, and carb vectors everyone loves to pretend they don’t love, chips.
With Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, and Ruffles under its belt, PepsiCo owns four of the largest five savory snack brands. (The last one, Pringles, is owned by Kellogg.) And global sales of the top three — Lay’s, Doritos, and Cheetos — are up more than 5% in each of the last five years, according to the WSJ.
Frito-Lay’s North American snacks unit generated 52% of PepsiCo’s profit last year. In short: you may say that you’re switching to kale chips, swearing off salt, and staying away from the junk food — but the numbers tell a very different story.
PepsiCo Wants to Sell Healthy Food, Consumers Want Chips [Wall Street Journal]Police and the FBI said Friday they finally caught a man suspected of robbing as many as seven banks in the Seattle area, always wearing a fake beard.
His name: Christian N. Franzwa. Cops nicknamed him "Beardo."
The robberies unfolded at banks in Everett between June and December, investigators say. In addition to the fake beard, the suspect always wore a nose covering and glasses, Q13 Fox reported.
Franzwa, 57, would typically flash a gun or suggest that he was holding one before demanding cash from a teller, police say.
After launching a surveillance operation, investigators said they caught him Friday morning near one of the banks he'd previously robbed, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
Cops did not say exactly how much money he stole. He was booked on seven counts of first-degree robbery.Ailing mobile giant BlackBerry has announced that it’s pushing the video-call feature in its BBM messaging app cross-platform, which will bring the app in line with other messaging apps in the space.
Though it was quietly unveiled as a beta feature on Android last week, BlackBerry has now announced that it’s available on iOS, too. It will be limited to those in the U.S. and Canada until July, after which video calling will shed its beta tag and be made available globally.
Once a major force in the mobile phone realm, BlackBerry has struggled in the hardware market for some time and has recently embraced Android — it launched its first Android phone and plans to launch others this year. But BBM was opened up beyond its own mobile OS back in 2013, as it looked to capitalize on what was one of its most popular services. So far, video calling has been limited to BBM on BlackBerry 10.
This is the latest in a line of moves by BlackBerry to increase the “stickiness” of BBM. The company has also recently ditched its $1 privacy and control subscription to make all features completely free. But video calling feels like it’s perhaps coming a little late in the day — Skype has offered video calls on mobile for a while already and has recently expanded this offering to include group video calls. Facebook Messenger has also offered free video calls for some time, while younger messaging upstarts such as Janus Friis-backed Wire also offer it.
But for those who still use BBM and have friends on Android and iOS, it will no doubt be a welcome addition to BlackBerry’s messaging mix. According to a recent Pew study, 47 percent of U.S. smartphone owners made video calls from their devices in 2015, up from 33 percent in 2013.On eBay right now, you can buy a Complete Cryptocurrency GPU Mining Rig for $2,586, or a “Just Hodl” (a bitcoin inside joke) hoodie for $33.99, or a “collectible bitcoin gift coin” for 99 cents. There are hundreds of bitcoin-related items, but you can’t pay in bitcoin. Yet.
Scott Cutler, senior vice president of eBay Americas, told Yahoo Finance in an interview this week that the online retailer is “seriously considering” accepting bitcoin, but “we’re not quite there yet.”
A collectible bitcoin gift coin on eBay. (Not a real bitcoin! Bitcoins are intangible.) More
Not many retailers accept cryptocurrency as payment, but for one that does accept bitcoin, it’s been a boost to shares. Overstock.com (OSTK) is up more than 250% in the last six months, as it rides the bitcoin phenomenon. The web retailer is a pioneer in the cryptocurrency space, as it became the first major retailer to accept bitcoin in early 2014.
Payments in bitcoin aren’t exactly becoming commonplace, but they are slowly becoming more common: even a New York City preschool is accepting bitcoin for tuition. At some point in November, mobile-payments company Square (SQ) quietly rolled out a new feature to a small number of users on its Square Cash app: the ability to buy and hold bitcoin. Square CEO Jack Dorsey (also CEO of Twitter) told Yahoo Finance in October, “There’s nothing more impactful to our business than digital currency.”
As for eBay, it is currently focused on delivering a strong holiday season, as it tries to compete with Amazon. The retailer is working on expanding its offerings, shipping times, and return process.
—
Jen Rogers is the anchor of The Final Round, Yahoo Finance’s daily 3:55pm live show. Follow @jensaidit on Twitter or @jenrogershere on Instagram.
Read more about bitcoin from Yahoo Finance:
How Overstock deals with volatile bitcoin prices
Square dipping a toe into bitcoin is a big deal
The 11 biggest names in cryptocurrency right now
Why bitcoin matters, not just blockchain
Here’s how to buy bitcoinA federal judge has tossed an alleged rapist’s lawsuit against Columbia University for the way it handled his accuser’s protests demanding he get off campus.
The suit, filed by Paul Nungesser, a 2015 graduate of the school, said the Ivy League institution did not protect him against harassment from Emma Sulkowicz, who carried a mattress around campus as part of her senior thesis art project.
Sulkowicz said Nungesser, a native of Germany, raped her in August 2012. Nungesser said that the sex was consensual, and in 2013 the university found him "not responsible."
His accuser’s bed-toting protest of the decision and her alleged attacker's continued presence on campus received international attention and was accompanied by rallies advocating against sexual assault on college campuses.
Nungesser later filed suit against the university, saying that Columbia, its president Lee Bollinger and Sulkowicz’s thesis advisor Jon Kessler had allowed gender-based harassment against him and endorsed it by giving his accuser academic credit for her project.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods dismissed Nungesser’s suit, stating the "rapist" label is not a gender-based term.
“He assumes that because the allegations against him concerned a sexual act that everything that follows from it is ‘sex-based’ within the meaning of Title IX.5. He is wrong,” Woods wrote.
Emma Sulkowicz (l.) brought international attention to her accusations against Nungesser by carrying a mattress around campus as part of her senior thesis. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
“Taken to its logical extreme, Nungesser’s position would lead to the conclusion that those who commit, or are accused of committing, sexual assault are a protected class under Title IX.”
Woods, in his decision, also said the former student had not shown that the school breached any contract or had deprived him of any resources.
Despite the verdict, Nungesser’s lawyer Andrew Miltenberg remained confident.
“While we’re disappointed with the judge’s ruling today, we believe that this is a very strong case and we will continue in our pursuit of justice for Mr. Nungesser,” he said.
With News Wire Services
Follow on Twitter @CKozalBrennan.
Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing!CAMPBELL RIVER — A Campbell River cat spent an 'unpleasant night' away from home, according to a note duct taped to her collar.
Teri and Norman Marshall, who live in the 800 block of Greenwood Street in Campbell River, were shocked and angered to find the handwritten note inside a zip lock bag and taped over their cat's metal identification tag that was engraved with their address and phone number.
The note said, "Your cat has spent an unpleasant night. Please be a responsible pet owner and keep your cat in your own yard. We are tired of having it prowl our deck and we do not like gardening in a litter box. Should it come back we will have to take other measures."
The Marshalls said when the cat returned on Wednesday morning, she was 'clearly traumatized' and'meowing continually.'
"I think she was trying to tell me the story," said Norman. "She is so scared, and hiding. Usually she is friendly, gentle, loving and curious. You wouldn't know that looking at her today."
The Turkish-Angora named 'Girl-Girl', along with her brother 'Boy-Boy' were adopted by the couple in December. Their yard is treed and fenced, but the cats use the dog door to go in and out.
"What's wrong with calling us and telling us they have a problem with our cat being over there?" said Teri. "There are many cats in this neighbourhood who have gone missing. One of our neighbours found their cat in a trap, lured in by catnip. They heard her crying at three o'clock in the morning and went over there and got her out."
The Marshalls said they called the SPCA and were told people can trap cats on their property and take them to their shelter, where the owners have to pay a fine to pick them up, although Campbell River does not require cats to be licenced.
"The SPCA advertises picking up the feral cats, fixing them, giving them shots and then releasing them back, so it's OK for wild cats to roam free, but not mine who is tagged," said Teri.
The SPCA did not respond to inquiries by press time.
But Bylaw Enforcement Officer Karl Reed told the Courier-Islander that there are no bylaw provisions providing authority to trap cats.
Ted Blyleven with Coastal Animal Control Services agreed.
"There are no bylaws inside or outside the municipality regarding cats and cat trapping," he said. "That is not a very popular method of dealing with cats."
Blyleven suggested that pet owners call the RCMP if this happens to their animals.
"We are contacting bylaw enforcement, the RCMP, and have left a message with the SPCA Cruelty Investigation service," said Teri. "We are not going to let this go. We don't want to find out what the 'other measures' are and we are really upset about what (the person) did to our cat overnight. I totally feel that note meant danger to my cats."
For the time being the Marshalls have locked their dog door and the cats will stay inside. They want any other neighbours in the Greenwood Street area to come forward if their cats have gone missing.
"This is wicked," said Teri. "I get that people's animals can be annoying but that's why we have them tagged. The cat is my responsibility and I totally respect people not wanting it in their yard. But saying she spent an unpleasant evening brings me to sadness."
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The pre-throne speech spin told us that Wednesday's event would serve to unveil the new, kinder and gentler Conservative government.
We are not the big business party, chief Conservative spinner, Industry Minister James Moore told interviewers. We are really the consumers' party, he said.
Well, it seems the spinners and those who drafted the actual speech were not on the same page.
The touted consumer stuff is buried deep in the speech and promises very little. There are promises about roaming charges and pick-and-pay cable television, but neither the promised air travellers' bill of rights nor much that is concrete on bank and credit card charges.
No more Mr. Nice Guy
In fact, what the speech does emphasize is not the Mr. Nice Guy stuff we were promised. It is, rather, red meat, core conservative stuff.
It starts with the promise (that was pointedly not leaked beforehand) of balanced budget legislation -- the policy non-sequitur to end all policy non-sequiturs.
For critics who might say it is hypocritical for a government that not long ago resorted to massive deficit financing to propose balanced budget legislation, the speech has an important qualification.
It states that the proposed legislation would allow for deficits in times of "economic crisis" -- although even in such times there would have to be "concrete timelines for returning to balance."
The speech then goes on to promise to freeze what it calls the "federal operation budget." The goal of that measure, in case anyone might have missed it, is to "restrain hiring."
The Conservatives still have the public service in their sights, and they want to make that quite clear.
In addition to the bit on the operating budget, this speech talks pointedly about increasing "performance accountability" in the public service. It seems that treating its own employees as part of the problem and not an essential element of the solution is becoming a habit with the Harper government.
In much the same vein, the speech makes reference to the government's longstanding efforts to cut so-called "red tape" for businesses. Those over-zealous efforts were, in part, at the root of the much-publicized abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The speech claims that the government is still committed to vague reforms in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. It says that, somehow, Canadians should get the first crack at all jobs.
Policies on opposite ends of the spectrum
There is one non-partisan, evidence-based, solid policy in the speech: the promise to work with British Columbia and Ontario (and other willing provinces) to set up what the speech calls "a cooperative regulatory system for securities and capital markets."
In this world of mega-corporations and monster concentrations of wealth, it makes little sense for a medium-sized economy such as Canada's to have the fragmented system it has for overseeing and regulating equity markets.
There is nothing political or particularly Conservative about this one sane and reasonable idea.
It is, indeed, a rare case in which the Harper government's policy did not emanate from the fevered brains of the political backroom operators. This policy was, in fact, carefully crafted by those professional public servants the Conservatives so love to denigrate and disrespect.
At the other end of the spectrum, the single most disingenuous -- in fact, downright dishonest -- statement in the speech harkens back to former Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's package of refugee reforms, Bill C-31. The speech actually boasts that those reforms "increased protection for genuine refugees."
The truth is exactly the opposite.
Kenney's reforms created a two-tier system for refugee claimants, depriving many of any realistic chance of proving their case. Kenney also yanked basic and necessary health care away from a large number of asylum seekers in Canada.
Conservatives boasted about that latter nasty and gratuitous cut in their fundraising calls to identified core supporters. It is obvious the Harper team thinks there is a market out there for the politics of small-mindedness and resentment.
A new trade deal on the horizon
The big news that the speech did telegraph is that Canada is very close to reaching a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union. In fact, on Thursday, the Prime Minster will not attend the first day of Parliament following the throne speech. He will fly to Europe, supposedly to either finalize or sign the agreement.
For the Prime Minister to be absent at the very opening of a new session is, at least according to Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair, unprecedented.
Harper seems to hope that this new trade deal will help rebrand him and his government.
We will soon see what Canadians might have to sacrifice to achieve a trade deal with Europe, if there is indeed a deal.
One group that was definitely sacrificed in these negotiations are the central and east European Roma, who for more than a decade have been seeking asylum in Canada, fleeing severe discrimination and neo-Nazi violence.
One consequence of the Kenney refugee reforms was to declare virtually all European Union countries to be so-called "safe countries of origin," a designation that has almost totally cut off the inflow of Roma to Canada.
That "safe country" status, with all of its consequences, may not be a written part of any deal Harper could sign, but it was clearly a precondition for a trade agreement -- an agreement that is now a key piece of Harper's political strategy.
Devil in the details: Resource development, First Nations rights and the environment
And what about massive resource development plans, the rights of First Nations and the environment? Those were high on the policy agenda just a few months ago, but the speech has very little to say about them.
It makes the vaguest of vague commitments to Aboriginal peoples' having the "opportunity to benefit" from resource exploitation; while on the environment Harper shamelessly steals an idea from NDP Leader Mulcair and promises to "enshrine the polluter-pay system into law."
Sounds promising, but in this case, the devil will really be in the details.
If you want a better sense of what the Harper government really means when it talks about the environment, you only have to consult what the speech says on climate change policy.
Near the end of the hour-long rhetorical exercise, the government promises to "build on its record as the first government to achieve an absolute reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by working with provinces to reduce emissions from the oil and gas sectors, while ensuring Canadian companies remain competitive."
Let's deconstruct that seemingly anodyne statement.
In the first place, the Harper government cannot take any credit for Canada's greenhouse gas reductions. That was all the work of the sluggish economy and the genuine efforts of a number of provinces, including Ontario and Quebec.
Then, to say that the government will "build on a record" of non-action -- or of retrograde action that included withdrawing from the Kyoto Accord and backing away from a previous commitment to a cap-and-trade system -- and qualify that "commitment" by pledging to ensure the competitiveness of the oil and gas sector … well that is an environmental pledge that sounds far more ominous than promising.
Law-and-order policies and a seemingly softer side
Similarly ominous -- and almost scary -- is the deep red meat, hardcore stuff in the parts of the speech that deal with so-called law-and-order policies.
In the speech the Conservatives now pledge to introduce a new life sentence that does not even include the possibility of parole after 25 years. Try telling people who work in corrections that this sort of draconian sentence will make their jobs any easier. Those corrections folks will almost universally admit that prisoners without the slightest hope of ever seeing daylight again have no incentive whatsoever to make an effort to rehabilitate themselves.
Harper's throne speech also tells vulnerable sex workers that the government's priority will be to uphold the existing prostitution laws; and it sends a message to drug addicts and those who treat them that the government plans to close what it calls "loopholes that allow for the feeding of addiction under the guise of treatment."
Near the end, in an attempt to shore up the government's softer side, the speech trots out the Harper government's oft-repeated commitment (salutary, as far as it goes) to maternal and child health in the developing world.
This little nod to the softer side is much mitigated, however, by the fact that the government will not fund any organizations that facilitate abortions. And that even includes abortions for young girls who are victims of rape or of those forced marriages the government so vigorously condemns.
Somehow the Harper government really thinks it is possible to be against the forced marriages of children, but not in favour of dealing with one of the most obvious and far-reaching consequence of such marriages.Trump & the Arpaio Pardon: Flush of the Turd Reich?
by Thomas J. Mattingly
U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Phoenix campaign rally speech was the greatest speech since Adolf Hitler’s demagoguery in the “Bier Hall Putsch,” which initiated the Third Reich. For Hitler, the Munich ‘Bier Hall’ is known as the site of Hitler’s rise to power. For Trump, the Phoenix ‘Bier Hall’ will be known as the site where Trump ‘Crossed the Rubicon’ – Trump’s point of no return, not the rise of a 4th Reich but the flush of a turd Reich.
In Phoenix, at a veritable ‘Bier’ (English for funeral pyre, German for beer), Trump irreparably torched his presidency. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others now openly question whether Trump can save his presidency. Probably not. Trump and his attorneys know this. Thus, Trump & Co. are now preparing for the Endgame (e.g., Nixon/Agnew-like resignations, with sustainable pardons for Trump and Trump’s friends & family).
With his Phoenix ‘Bier,’ a power-drunk Trump virtually promised to pardon Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a white supremacist who had unconstitutionally targeted and killed numerous Hispanics and persons of colour in the streets and prisons of Maricopa County, Arizona.
On Friday night, during a hurricane of Trump-type and other news, Trump hammered the final nail into his presidential coffin or crematorium: Trump pardoned “Sheriff Joe.”
Arizona’s two Republican Senators, Arizona’s GOP, most Republicans nationwide, virtually all |
, at 489 Henry said he’s still looking around for a place, but has plenty of options. Compton, who works at Walgreens, said the apartment “was sort of like a transitional thing.” He said that most of his neighbors are not taking it in a similar stride. “They’re pretty bummed, you know, they’re annoyed with the whole thing,” he said. For Smith, the notice is the latest in a lifetime of changes for the neighborhood where he grew up. Looking down the street at vacant lots and boarded up storefronts, he recalls a section of the city once packed with apartments, laundromats, a grocery store and even a bowling alley. He recalled walking down Henry Street - Henry walking down Henry - the old Cass High School that's been replaced by Cass Tech. "This area used to be really hopping," he said. Residents panicked the day notices were delivered to apartment doors, Smith said. People in the first building were running outside by the time the owners were delivering notices to the second building. "They couldn't go fast enough," he said about people handing out the letters telling people they had to leave. Smith and other residents have organized meetings for the three buildings to review options. Residents hope they'll get some sort of assistance to find a new apartment. Smith said he's holding out for $2,500 per person, but didn't know if they'd get anything besides the free rent. Smith scratches his head at it all, and said he wonders why they would move Vietnam War veterans into the building via Veterans Affairs if they knew a sale would be imminent. Al Szubeczak is one such Vietnam veteran, though he said he has lived at 439 Henry for four years. Asked where he would be moving to, he joked that he is “going to the moon,” in between profanities directed at his current situation. “You’re on your own, just like in the army,” he said. “Here’s your gun and a can of beans, go fight the war.”TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
The full Steven Universe musical is here, and it is delightful. Joe Johnston and Jeff Liu turn out a great series of set pieces, including homages to classic Fred Astaire-style dance numbers, some Greg-inflected rock, an emotional, angsty Pearl number, and a lush (if slightly cheesy) Steven ballad to close things out.
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Everything comes from music here, from the beginning of the episode’s plot: It turns out Marty used “Like A Comet” as the basis of a jingle hawking burgers, and had to hand over some share of the profits from the commercial (which he also starred in) to Greg. (What happened to Marty’s share of the money? Why does he need to sell guacamole soda?) Without much of a sense for what they would want to buy, Steven and Greg hit on the idea of taking a trip. And just like that, we leave Beach City right after coming back, for a taste of the big, gleaming Empire City.
The prospect of spending an episode in Empire City is pretty exciting since other than the barn, the only location outside of Beach City we’ve spent much time in is Keystone, and that was just in a motel. And there are a couple of cool details we learn about the city (there’s a Brooklyn, apparently), but Steven, Greg, and Pearl mostly just hang out in the hotel the whole time. Greg has, essentially, paid the hotel staff to dance and do musical numbers while he and Steven wear tuxedos and splash around in the pool and eat pizza and play video games. (This is exactly the kind of luxury experience you would expect Greg to create.) It would be cool to see more of Empire City, but this episode of Steven Universe is a bit more inwardly focused.
Le Hotel’s staff round out the “Mr. Greg” dance sequence, eventually zooming in on Greg and Pearl. (Who looks great in a tux, by the way.) The moment is loaded with the language of fusion—as all dancing is on this show—so it’s not hard to see why Pearl is reminded of Rose when she comes up against Greg on the dance floor. (Also, Pearl is probably reminded of Rose by basically everything.) Pearl retreats in disgust, and while Greg and Steven are passed out in their tuxes surrounded by empty pizza boxes and video games, she wistfully sings “I Was Fine,” about her inability to get over Rose in what I believe is the show’s first explicit confirmation that her feelings were romantic, rather than simply subservient or fanatical in her capacity as a Pearl.
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DeeDee Magno Hall gets a full meal whenever Steven Universe does an episode about Pearl’s feelings for Rose, and though “Mr. Greg” is no “Rose’s Scabbard” it’s definitely up there. For example: After Pearl ridicules the burger ad, Greg posits that Rose would have liked the absurdity of the comic food. Pearl sighs and agrees. “She would have loved it,” she says, with an adroit mixture of pathos, unease, and humor. It’s a tough balance, making it all the more impressive that Hall, Johnston, and Liu manage to contain the entire emotional arc of the episode in one tight moment.
Rose might have taken an interest in humans over time as a passing fancy, but she fell in love with Greg, and that act denied Pearl the possibility of actually being with her leader in the long term. It’s a painful association Pearl has with Greg, especially when you remember that Steven is a product and constant reminder of that choice. This is, of course, why the whole trip is happening—Steven wants Greg and Pearl to work out their issues, and he is, ultimately, successful, playing them off in a ballad soaked with soft yellow and blue glows. (This is, I am sure, an anime reference I’m not getting at first—please remind me!) It’s another scene where someone tries to get two other characters to be honest about their feelings, but that doesn’t make it any less effective, either as a narrative tactic or as a way of actually resolving difficulties in a relationship.
There’s something really beautiful about Steven forcing adults to deal with their emotional problems–he has the kind of childish emotional clarity that it’s easy to lose, surrounded by complication and pain and decades of love and pain. Greg and Pearl both loved Rose, and are still trying to deal with losing her, but they should be able to bond over that and get something positive out of it, rather than stewing alone. Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst, and Greg’s various ways of slowly grieving for Rose are some of my favorite pieces of the show’s emotional tapestry, so an episode that concludes with fond, Shiva-like reminiscing about the deceased is a winner.
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Yes, there are some things I don’t love about “Mr. Greg.” For one, it’s a little on the nose, even for Steven Universe—I might just prefer when weird and deep-running Gem emotions seep out around the edges of other conflicts like they do in, say, “Sworn To The Sword.” And while the concept of a full Steven musical sounds incredibly appealing/swoon-worthy, “Mr. Greg” is a bit too tightly packed, song-wise. Most of the music is incredibly efficiently deployed (i.e. Pearl singing “Don’t Cost Nothing” at the end as a way of connecting with Greg’s happy-go-lucky attitude toward the simpler things in life) and good, but it still feels like it’s flying by, pushing at the boundaries of the show’s run time. Still, not being able to fully appreciate everything on a couple of views is, at worst, a minor complaint about a tightly-plotted, emotionally resonant musical with lots of different songs that happens over the course of 11 minutes. Loving Steven Universe don’t cost nothing.
Stray observations
Steven pointing to his Gem and saying “and don’t forget mom!” is so unsettling.
Seriously, does someone on the creative team just love hotels and motels? Will the next Steven Universe travel episode take place at a Holiday Inn?
Tom Scharpling is, always, great in this episode too, even if Pearl is doing the bulk of the emotional work. His resignation at never being able to get through to Pearl is, perhaps, part of the downside to his casual, go with the flow attitude toward life—he’d never have been active enough to do what Steven makes him do. Also, I love the callback to Greg being a cherry man.
It’s really too bad you have to drive through Jersey to get to Empire City.
I’m guessing at all the song titles, so I’ll update this if anyone confirms alternates.
Other things Greg could have bought with his money: food besides steak, better equipment, a new paint job and additional employees for the car wash, more Philosophy Majors records, health insurance.The Texas Senate on Sunday night approved a bill that would both simplify the formulas for funding public schools and allow parents of kids with disabilities to take state money to leave the public system for private schools or homeschooling.
Senators voted 21-10 to approve House Bill 21, which the House originally intended to reform a complicated system for allocating money to public schools and to provide a funding boost for most public schools.
Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, changed the bill to include a provision the House hates and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick very much wants: education savings accounts, which are state subsidies for parents who want to send their children with disabilities to private schools or need money for services to educate them at home.
"We're trying to fill a lot of different needs in the bill, and we're trying to keep our costs down," Taylor said while introducing the bill.
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The bill now goes back to the House, where it will hit a major roadblock: Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, the bill’s House author, has said he won’t accept a version that includes education savings accounts.
Patrick promised the House an extra $530 million for public schools if the education savings account program becomes law; he has been unsuccessfully advocating for similar voucher-like programs for the past decade. The House had originally budgeted a $1.5 billion boost for public schools, and with the promise of $530 million, the Senate went from offering little extra funding for public schools to meeting the House partway.
If the House doesn't approve HB 21 as amended by the Senate, public schools won’t get the extra $530 million, Taylor said. Under the Senate's version of the bill, about 93 percent of school districts would see more revenue by 2019, with 7 percent seeing no change in revenue, he said.
Taylor stripped the bill of several of the original tweaks from the House that were intended to either simplify the funding formulas or allocate money to specific student groups, saying they would cost too much money.
At the same time, he packed HB 21 with provisions from other bills in the House and Senate — including $100 million in first-time facilities funding for charter schools, $20 million in grants for schools running programs for kids with autism and a 15-member commission for long-term school finance reform.
Democrats challenged Taylor to explain why state money should be used to pay for private schools when they are not subject to state accountability, are not required to take all students and are not subject to federal law when it comes to offering services for students with disabilities.
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“We don’t want someone to be forced to take a student they’re not set up to handle,” Taylor said. He argued private schools are subject to a higher level of accountability because parents can decide to leave a school that doesn’t fit them.
He said he didn’t understand why a small program that would affect just 5,000 students would stop legislators from approving half a billion dollars for public schools.
“This whole [education savings account] is a mouse, and this elephant is just freaking out,” he said. “The whole world is coming to an end over this little bitty thing.”
Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso, unsuccessfully proposed an amendment to the school finance bill that simply crossed out the education savings account language.
Taylor succeeded in convincing rural conservative senators to vote for the Senate’s version of the bill despite the fact that they generally have fewer private schools in their legislative districts and serve constituents who are skeptical of “private school choice.”
Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said the 101 public school superintendents in his district dislike the education savings accounts but like the provisions that would save small, rural schools money. Nichols ended up voting yes on the bill.
Public education advocates did an about-face on the bill once they saw it included education savings accounts, with about 40 organizations sending letters to all Senate offices asking them to vote against it.
“In the middle of the night, the Texas Senate voted for a voucher scheme that will rob taxpayer money from public schools and give it to private schools,” said Ann Beeson, executive director of the left-leaning policy group the Center for Public Policy Priorities. “What started as a good school finance bill in the Texas House turned into a voucher bill that does not help remodel our state’s school finance system.”
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Patrick on Wednesday listed the bill as one of the priorities he wants the House to pass. In exchange for a vote on HB 21, he promised to concur with the part of the House's proposal for the school accountability system that would delay implementation of a controversial A-F grading system for schools and districts until 2019.
House Speaker Joe Straus shot back later that day, arguing that the Senate's budget proposal reduced the state's share of public education funding, leaving local property taxpayers with a heavier financial burden. "The House made a sincere effort to start fixing our school finance system, but the Senate is trying to derail that effort at the 11th hour," he said.
Read related Tribune coverage:
A Senate committee passed the House’s major school finance reform bill, after adding a controversial provision subsidizing private school tuition for special needs students — a move unlikely to go over well in the House.
The Senate Education Committee discussed a bill that would radically simplify the state's school finance formula, stripping it of some antiquated provisions. Parents and educators who testified wanted a few new provisions added in.
Disclosure: The Center for Public Policy Priorities has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors is available here.Episode 328
hosted by Shireen Hamza and Abdul Latif
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The seventeenth century, contrary to popular belief, was a time of great originality and change for scholars in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. In this interview, Khaled El-Rouayheb debunks the many myths of intellectual decline by showing how the intellectual production changed in tandem with major migrations across the Islamic world. We start with the influx of Kurdish and Azeri logicians into the Ottoman Empire, and the new disciplines that they brought with them. We then discuss the movement of scholars from North Africa to Egypt and the Hejaz, and how they insisted on methods of taḥqīq, or verification, rather than taqlīd, or the acceptance of knowledge based on authority alone. Finally, we touch on how the spread of Sufi orders from India and Central Asia into Arabic-speaking regions impacted the development and disputation of the concept of waḥdat al-wujūd, or the unity of being. How does this detailed research on intellectual trends change our understanding of "modernity" and the period we call the "early modern"?
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Contributor Bios
Khaled El-Rouayheb is James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic and of Islamic Intellectual History at the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Harvard University. His research interests include: the intellectual and cultural history of the Arabic-Islamic world in the early-modern period (1500-1800); the history of Arabic logic; Islamic theology and philosophy. Among his publications is the book: Before Homosexuality in the Arabic-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (University of Chicago Press, 2005), translated into French (2010) and Slovenian (2012). Shireen Hamza is a doctoral student in the History of Science department at Harvard University. Her research focuses broadly on the history of science and medicine in the Islamicate Middle Ages, and more specifically on the history of women's health. Abdul Latif is an MTS student at Harvard Divinity School focusing on Islamic Studies.
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Release Date:19 August 2017
Recording Location: Semitic Museum, Harvard University
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Bibliography courtesy of Khaled El-Rouayheb Episode No. 328Release Date:19 August 2017Recording Location: Semitic Museum, Harvard UniversityAudio editing by Shireen Hamza Music: Harmandali - Recep Efendi, Cemal Efendi Bibliography courtesy of Khaled El-Rouayheb
Select Bibliography
Islamic Intellectual History in the
Seventeenth Century
by Khaled El-Rouayheb
Cambridge University Press, 2015
Zilfi, M. The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age, 1600–1800. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988.Stearns, J. “All Beneficial Knowledge is Revealed: The Rational Sciences in the Maghrib in the Age of al-Yūsī (d.1102/1691).” Islamic Law and Society 21(2014): 49-80Le Gall, Dina. A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandīs in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700. Albany: SUNY Press, 2005.Kafadar, C. “The Question of Ottoman Decline,” Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 4 (1997–1998): 30–75.Ḥajjī, Muḥammad. Al-Zāwiya al-Dilāʾiyya wa Dawruhā al-Dīnī wa-l-ʿIlmī wa-l-Siyāsī. Casablanca: Maṭbaʿat al-Najāḥ al-Jadīda, 1988.Hathaway, J. The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited, 2008.O’Fahey, R. S., and B. Radtke. “Neo-Sufism Reconsidered.” Der Islam 70 (1993): 52–87.Janna Payne wants to know what often well-meaning compliments from men say about the politics of body image.
Midway through a mediocre domestic beer at a local bar, a stranger approached me to ask how tall I am. Having been asked about my height almost every day for the last 20-odd years, I responded, nonchalantly saying, “I’m 6’3.” Without missing a beat, he shrugged, leaned in and whispered, “Aww—well—it doesn’t bother me one bit.”
Later, stumbling across my friend Tim’s poem online, I was just delighted to see him empowering women like me. In his poem, “Listen Women,” he wrote, “You are loved / no matter your body shape, the sound of your voice or / the manner of how you’ve been treated in the past. / There is a place for you and / for your dreams / in the world. / You are not alone or weird, / you are wanted and accepted and…”
It was as if my whole body moaned with the profound realization that there are some men, like Tim and the stranger at the bar, who don’t think women are pathetic. There are some men who don’t find bodies like mine off-putting. There are some men willing to go out on a limb for gangly limbs, fat asses, and pudgy stomachs. For the bodies, selves, tits, and thighs of poor, pitiful women.
With a critical yet comical eye, I’ve started noticing this behavior everywhere. I’ve become attuned to men taking responsibility for the well-being of women, wishing that women could embrace their bodies, and offering lyrics, poems, and compliments at the altar of women. I’ve become attuned to men coddling, comforting, and championing the body image of women, who they perceive as having low self-esteem.
While gentlemen like James Blunt are declaring, “You’re beautiful, it’s true,” I have started to question if the innocent, well-meaning, and charming one-liners we take for granted reflect embedded power dynamics, underlying assumptions, and unquestioned social constructs. When it comes to compliments being hurled from men to women, I ask, what power interest is being served? What’s left unsaid?
To take a stab at it—I think somewhere along the way, we have come to the understanding that self-esteem is a gendered issue. We have bought into the myth that women automatically have a lower self-esteem than men, and that men automatically have a lot to teach women about having a healthy body image and self-esteem.
We have overlooked how this myth maintains a system of power that sees men sweeping in, rescuing women from a place of privilege, endowing women with self-esteem, keeping women in their place, and teaching women to rely on male approval.
We have overlooked that women, by and large, do not sing songs to cheer men up, herald the voices of men, take ownership of male bodies, or strive to ensure men feel loved, wanted, and adored. We have disregarded the fact that women don’t launch lines like: “You are loved / no matter your body shape, the sound of your voice…” at men just as subordinates don’t usually appraise or empower their CEOs.
And, we have all been happy to play along. Women have been happy to field compliments from men, and men have been happy to maintain power and control.
Maybe it isn’t the end of the world, but maybe—just maybe—the underlying assumptions and power divides we take for granted should be called into question. Maybe it’s worth moving away from women being the exclusive property of male body image experts, and moving toward open and honest dialogue grounded in a deeper understanding of systemic injustice.
Oh, and, maybe I’m not totally against fielding compliments about my legs, shoulders, or wrists—just as long as those compliments also come with the invitation to share in power, authority, and body image expertise.
Janna Payne is a Canadian, currently writing from Cork, Ireland. Visit www.facebook.com/jannaspeaks to find out more.
Related Links:Medical uses Edit
Hydrocodone is used to treat moderate to severe pain, although it is often prescribed to treat mild pain as well. In liquid formulations, it is used as an antitussive to treat cough.[9] In one study comparing the potency of hydrocodone to that of oxycodone, it was found that it took 50% more hydrocodone to achieve the same degree of miosis (pupillary contraction).[14] The investigators interpreted this to mean that oxycodone is about 50% more potent than hydrocodone. However, in a study of emergency department patients with fractures, it was found that an equal amount of either drug provided about the same degree of pain relief, indicating that there is little practical difference between them when used for that purpose.[15] Some references state that the analgesic action of hydrocodone begins in 20–30 minutes and lasts about 4–8 hours.[16] The manufacturer's information says onset of action is about 10–30 minutes and duration is about 4–6 hours.[17] Recommended dosing interval is 4–6 hours. Available forms Edit See also: Hydrocodone/paracetamol Hydrocodone/ibuprofen, and Hydrocodone/aspirin Hydrocodone is available in a variety of formulations for oral administration:[18][19][20] The original oral form of hydrocodone alone, Dicodid, as immediate-release 5 and 10 mg tablets of the hydrochloride (by analogy to Dilaudid, the original hydromorphone product invented around the same time, both in Germany) is available for prescription in Continental Europe per national drug control and prescription laws and Title 76 of the Schengen Treaty, but dihydrocodeine has been much more widely used for the same indications since the beginning in the early 1920s, with hydrocodone being regulated the same way as morphine in the German Betäubungsmittelgesetz, the similarly named law in Switzerland and the Austrian Suchtmittelgesetz, whereas dihydrocodeine is regulated like codeine. For a number of decades, the liquid hydrocodone products available are cough medicines.
Hydrocodone plus homatropine (Hycodan) in the form of small tablets for coughing and especially neuropathic moderate pain (the homatropine, an anticholinergic, is useful in both of those cases and is a deterrent to intentional overdose) was more widely used than Dicodid and was labelled as a cough medicine in the United States whilst Vicodin and similar drugs were the choices for analgesia.
Extended-release hydrocodone in a time-release syrup also containing chlorphenamine/chlorpheniramine is a cough medicine called Tussionex in North America. In Europe, similar time-release syrups containing codeine (numerous), dihydrocodeine (Paracodin Retard Hustensaft), nicocodeine (Tusscodin), thebacon, acetyldihydrocodeine, dionine, and nicodicodeine are used instead.
Immediate-release hydrocodone with paracetamol (acetaminophen) (Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet, Maxidone, Norco, Zydone)
Immediate-release hydrocodone with ibuprofen (Vicoprofen, Ibudone, Reprexain)
Immediate-release hydrocodone with aspirin (Alor 5/500, Azdone, Damason-P, Lortab ASA, Panasal 5/500)
Controlled-release hydrocodone (Hysingla ER, Zohydro ER)[21] Hydrocodone is not available in parenteral or any other non-oral forms.[4][1]
Side effects Edit
Common side effects of hydrocodone are nausea, vomiting, constipation, drowsiness, dizziness, lightheadedness, anxiety, abnormally happy or sad mood, dry throat, difficulty urinating, rash, itching, and contraction of the pupils. Serious side effects include slowed or irregular breathing and chest tightness.[22] Several cases of progressive bilateral hearing loss unresponsive to steroid therapy have been described as an infrequent adverse reaction to hydrocodone/paracetamol misuse. This adverse effect has been considered by some to be due to the ototoxicity of hydrocodone.[23][24] Other researchers have suggested that paracetamol is the primary agent responsible for the ototoxicity.[25][26] Hydrocodone is in U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pregnancy category C. No adequate and well-controlled studies in humans have been conducted. A newborn of a mother taking opioid medications regularly prior to the birth will be physically dependent. The baby may also exhibit respiratory depression if the opioid dose was high.[27] An epidemiological study indicated that opioid treatment during early pregnancy results in increased risk of various birth defects.[28] Symptoms of hydrocodone overdose include narrowed or widened pupils; slow, shallow, or stopped breathing; slowed or stopped heartbeat; cold, clammy, or blue skin; excessive sleepiness; loss of consciousness; seizures; or death.[22] Hydrocodone can be habit forming, causing physical and psychological dependence. Its abuse liability is similar to morphine and less than oxycodone.[29]
Interactions Edit
Pharmacology Edit
Chemistry Edit
Detection in body fluids Edit Hydrocodone concentrations are measured in blood, plasma, and urine to seek evidence of misuse, to confirm diagnoses of poisoning, and to assist in investigations into deaths. Many commercial opiate screening tests react indiscriminately with hydrocodone, other opiates, and their metabolites, but chromatographic techniques can easily distinguish hydrocodone uniquely. Blood and plasma hydrocodone concentrations typically fall into the 5–30 µg/L range among people taking the drug therapeutically, 100–200 µg/L among recreational users, and 100–1,600 µg/L in cases of acute, fatal overdosage. Co-administration of the drug with food or alcohol can very significantly increase the resulting plasma hydrocodone concentrations that are subsequently achieved.[47][48]
History Edit
Hydrocodone was first synthesized in Germany in 1920 by Carl Mannich and Helene Löwenheim.[49] It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on 23 March 1943 for sale in the United States and approved by Health Canada for sale in Canada under the brand name Hycodan.[50][51] Hydrocodone was first marketed by Knoll as Dicodid, starting in February 1924 in Germany. This name is analogous to other products the company introduced or otherwise marketed: Dilaudid (hydromorphone, 1926), Dinarkon (oxycodone, 1917), Dihydrin (dihydrocodeine, 1911), and Dimorphan (dihydromorphine). Paramorfan is the trade name of dihydromorphine from another manufacturer, as is Paracodin, for dihydrocodeine.[citation needed] The name Dicodid was registered in the United States and appears without a monograph as late as 1978 in the Physicians' Desk Reference; Dicodid may have been marketed to one extent or another in North America in the 1920s and early 1930s. The drug was pure hydrocodone in small 5 and 10 mg tablets, physically similar to the Dilaudid tablets. It is no longer manufactured by Knoll in Germany, nor is a generic available. Hydrocodone was never as common in Europe as it is in North America—dihydrocodeine is used for its spectrum of indications. Germany was the number two consumer of hydrocodone until the manufacture of the drug was discontinued there. Now,[when?] the world outside the United States accounts for less than 1% of annual consumption. It was listed as a Suchtgift under the German Betäubungsmittelgesetz and regulated like morphine. It became available in the Schengen Area of the European Union as of 1 January 2002 under Title 76 of the Schengen Treaty.[citation needed]
Society and culture Edit
See also EditROME (AP) It was late in the third set when Roberta Vinci cupped her ear with a hand, pointed to her chest and waved both arms at the pro-Serena Williams U.S. Open crowd.
The Italian had just closed a spectacular 18-stroke exchange with a volley winner and wanted some encouragement from fans growing nervous that Williams' bid at a Grand Slam was at risk.
Some 4,500 miles (7,000 kilometers) away in Vinci's hometown of Taranto, Vinci's parents were growing nervous and emotional, too.
''When we won we hugged each other and tears started flowing,'' Vinci's father, Angelo, told The Associated Press in a phone interview late Friday. ''It was just me and my wife. Then the calls started coming and now our heads are spinning.''
The 43rd-ranked Vinci managed to pull out a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 semifinal victory over Williams in one of the biggest upsets in tennis history.
''It was a liberating yell,'' Vinci said about that gesture toward the crowd. ''It's normal that the fans were for her. But I said, `Come on, how about a little applause for me every so often, too?'
''I was trying to enjoy those moments. Who knows if I'll ever have them again?''
In Saturday's final, Vinci will face fellow Italian Flavia Pennetta, a childhood rival from the same southern region in Italy, Puglia - the heel of the boot-shaped peninsula.
After Vinci's win, Pennetta's mother called the Vinci family to offer congratulations.
''We gave each other reciprocal complements,'' Angelo Vinci said. ''When they were girls they were always together. Flavia is a year older but they were always together at tournaments and traveling around. We have a beautiful relationship with the Pennetta family.''
Pennetta holds a 5-3 career edge over Vinci, although that doesn't count childhood encounters.
''Whoever wins wins but for us it's already a success having two Italians and Pugliese in the final of a Grand Slam,'' Angelo Vinci said.
Neither players' parents are traveling to New York for the final.
''We're staying at home for good luck. And Roberta likes it that way,'' said Luisa Maisano, Vinci's mother. ''We hardly ever see her. Also because of my husband's job, we can't travel that much. He's an accountant - mostly for his daughter.''
Angelo Vinci, 77, is a tennis enthusiast and taught his two children - Roberta has an older brother, Francesco - to play.
So was it dad who taught Roberta to play with all those slices and spins?
''That's just natural skill,'' Angelo Vinci said. ''She used to have a two-handed backhand and would hit slices even with that. It was her best shot. Then she had an inflamed wrist and when she played her two-handed backhand with topspin it became inflamed. So she started using only one hand.
''Even when she was a junior, they used to say she was capable of playing with a broom stick. It's just innate skill.''
---
AP Tennis Writer Howard Fendrich in New York contributed to this report.
---
Andrew Dampf can be followed at www.twitter.com/asdampfMatt: “Hey Anna, do you have some extra water?”
Anna: “Yeah sure, help yourself.”
Matt: “Thanks! Steve is bleeding everywhere and we need some water to wash him off.”
We were out climbing one weekend with my friend Steve who was stoked on bolting this heinous overhanging sport route.
Steve was placing traditional protection to keep him close enough to the wall to bolt on rappel. Being a sport route, he was having difficulty finding good placements.
He eventually managed to place his smallest offset nut in a crumbly, flaring slot.
He clipped his daisy to the nut,
Weighted it,
And…It held!
Awesome!
Steve told me later he didn’t hear or feel anything when it happened:
Apparently he was reaching over for the drill clipped to the side of his harness when suddenly his body was in the air, swinging away from the wall.
And his ear felt really… wet?
He reached up, touched it, and his hand came back covered in blood.
“Uh, guys…” he yelled down, “I think I might have ripped my ear off?”
Steve’s ear after some cleaning up
It turns out the nut had had so much tension on it that, when it blew, it shot out at my friend’s head like a bullet. It hit Steve’s earlobe, and the force of it literally exploded his ear, tearing a hole clean through.
(It had so much force it didn’t just go through the ear but also hit the back of his head and left a contusion:
Where the nut hit the back of Steve’s ear!
Steve was fine: a friend packed his ear with a bunch of gauze and we climbed the rest of the day. He probably would have just gone home after too, but I talked him into seeing a doctor—he got a tetanus shot and 4 stitches in the front AND back of his ear.
(7 days later he made me remove the stitches so he didn’t have to go back to the doctors. After watching a few how-to videos on youtube–yes, apparently there are instruction vids on how to remove stitches from an ear–I took them out using the light of my head lamp, nail scissors and tweezers)
Things Steve Learned:
According to him—nothing. Quote: “Shit happens.”
Things I learned:
Ears bleed a lot.
A first aid kit at the crag is handy
You can only get stitches within a certain time period after an accident, so if you think you may need them, don’t wait for tomorrow!
If you miss removing a stitch your body will push it out on its own..no worries! (it can also cause an abscess…check with your dr.)
(If you’re interested, YouTube link on how to remove ear stitches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k4XO2Q7snk )Marylanders are well represented at the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, from scientist Benjamin Banneker to abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
But there's a Baltimore connection you may never have heard of — half-smoke sausages. The spicy links served at the museum's Sweet Home Cafe are made by Manger's in West Baltimore.
The family operation, officially called Manger Packing Corp., turns out about 20,000 pounds of sausages a week, with half-smokes making up about 9,000 pounds. Considered a signature food of the nation's capital, most of the half-smokes are destined for Washington and one of its most beloved restaurants — Ben's Chili Bowl.
Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun Alvin Manger, 81, is the fourth-generation owner of Manger Packing Corp., which has made the half-smoke sausages for Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington, D.C. for 25 years. Alvin Manger, 81, is the fourth-generation owner of Manger Packing Corp., which has made the half-smoke sausages for Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington, D.C. for 25 years. (Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun) (Kenneth K. Lam / Baltimore Sun)
Alvin Manger, 81, is the fourth generation to run the meat processing company founded by his great-grandfather, George Manger, a German immigrant, in the 1860s.
As the guardian of his half-smoke recipe, Manger vaguely describes the sausages as a blend of pork and beef combined with spices mixed on the premises — he doesn't trust outsiders to do it — and stuffed into natural casings.
"They are cured the old-fashioned way, overnight," he said.
The definition of the half-smoke is mysterious, since no one has revealed the exact recipe for the links introduced to D.C. in the 1950s. Many food aficionados have concluded it's a smoked sausage that's half pork and half beef.
Manger will only say |
to invest in curriculum that teaches real-world skills. If the entire college system was tied to financial success, administrators would have to start thinking long-term. Given that many of the most successful businessmen of our time, including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, are college dropouts, educators are going to have to do a much better job appealing to their new economic life lines.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Teachers, don't read this.
And if one of the Jersey Shore cast members was your student, you probably shouldn't admit it.
Having made a splash on the MTV television series "Jersey Shore," three of the cast members from the reality show last night made another kind of splash on The Jay Leno Show.
A belly flop.
In a gameshow-like setting with three podiums and buzzers, Staten Island native Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, Pauly D, and Snooki answered questions most elementary school students would ace. Not so for this orange tan crowd, however.
Starting off, Leno asked about first grade history.
"Now this should be an easy one. What year did we first celebrate our independence?" Leno asked. Sorrentino confidently answered 1767.
"No, close," Leno said. "It's nine more than what you said before."
After an extended period of looking at each other, Leno offered help.
"Do the math -- you need pens and pencils? Add nine to 1767."
Mike answered 1775 to laughs from the audience.
When Leno asked Snooki where the UN is located, she answered "United Nations."
"Yeah, where is it?" Leno prodded. "I'll give you a hint, you live there."
Snooki: "Albany"
Leno: "No."
She finally answered New York to much applause.
Snooki also called Vice President Joe Biden "Vice President Crone" and identified Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi as singer Lionel Ritchie. Nobody was able to identify Richard Nixon and Pauly D. answered "Elvis" when Leno said "This guy from Hoboken, New Jersey, was known as 'Old Blue Eyes.'
Another history lesson came from the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
When Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. What wall was he talking about?" Leno asked.
"The dam," Snooki replied, adding the dam in Denver when asked further.
But perhaps the best line came from Snooki when a picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney was shown on the screen. She was able to identify him, but when Leno asked what his job was, her reply made Leno laugh.
"I thought he almost shot Bush," she said.
In the end, Sorrentino won with 8 points ahead of Snooki's 7 and Pauly's 6 points. Most of the points, however, came after a few wrong answers and hints from a mocking Leno.Republican presidential frontrunner foists blame for humanitarian crisis on Barack Obama, calling his tough talk on Syria ‘a very artificial line in the sand’
Trump 'hates concept' of US taking in Syrian refugees but resigns himself to it
Donald Trump – whose hardline position on immigration has upended the Republican race for president – has called on the US to take in more Syrian refugees, telling an interviewer: “I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis you have to.”
In an appearance on Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor on Tuesday night, the billionaire and presidential candidate said the US had a responsibility to do more for the millions of people who have fled Syria’s chaotic civil war since 2011.
'Everyone wants to leave': death of hope drives young Syrians to Europe Read more
“You know, it’s living in hell in Syria. There’s no question about it,” Trump said. “They’re living in hell, and something has to be done.”
The real estate mogul was quick to impute blame on Barack Obama, alluding to the president’s 2012 remark that the use of chemical weapons by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad would be a “red line” that would change US “calculus” and prompt more active intervention.
“This was started by President Obama when he didn’t go in and do the job he should have when he drew the line in the sand, which turned out to be a very artificial line,” Trump said.
The US and Russia ultimately brokered a deal with Assad over his chemical weapons, and the threat of western military action was lifted until the US began airstrikes on jihadi groups in Syria in 2014.
Trump did not directly answer whether he would have sought to remove Assad from what power he has left, saying “something should have happened” after evidence emerged that Assad had used sarin gas on civilians and rebels.
“Probably, in retrospect, they should have gone in and done something with Assad,” Trump said, adding that the US’s primary concern now should be the extremist group Islamic State.
“But you know, Assad is not our biggest problem because Assad and Isis are actually fighting,” he said. “So now what we’re doing is we’re fighting Isis and Isis wants to fight Assad. Some people could say: ‘Why don’t you just let them fight out and you take out the remnants?’”
Last week Trump was not as willing to say the US should accept more refugees, telling MSNBC: “We have so many problems, and the answer is, possibly, yes.”
On the subject of immigrants from countries closer to the US, Trump is less welcoming. He has published a plan that involves the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants, and has vowed to construct a wall along the border with Mexico, although it will have “a big, very beautiful door”.
Of the 22 declared candidates for president who were asked about the current refugee crisis, only Democrat Martin O’Malley told the Guardian the US should accept 65,000 refugees, as 14 senators and aid groups have urged Washington. Some of the most prominent candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Jeb Bush, did not respond to inquiries on the topic.
Republican John Kasich said the responsibility “fundamentally falls on Europe”, an echo of the White House statement last week that “there is certainly capacity in Europe to deal with this problem”.
The US has admitted approximately 1,500 refugees since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, about half of them in 2015. In contrast, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said Germany will take in 800,000 people this year, and more than 350,000 people have fled to Europe, many in sea journeys fraught with dangerous conditions, predatory smugglers and starvation.
Middle East countries have also struggled to accommodate the steady rush of migrants; Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have taken in millions of people in total.ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 semi-final, Mohali:
India 260-9 (50 overs) bt Pakistan 231 by 29 runs (49.5 overs)
Scorecard By Jamie Lillywhite
India booked a place against Sri Lanka in Saturday's World Cup final after beating Pakistan by 29 runs in Mohali. Virender Sehwag (38) hit nine fours and Sachin Tendulkar, reprieved by referral and dropped four times, looked set for his 100th international century. He was out for 85 from 115 balls as India compiled 260-9, left-arm seamer Wahab Riaz with a career-best 5-46. Mohammad Hafeez struck 43 and Misbah-ul-Haq made a defiant 56 but Pakistan were all out for 231 in the final over. With tickets reportedly exchanging hands for many thousands of rupees, an estimated 28,000 packed into the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium and every possible vantage point outside the ground taken, a match of such magnitude between the fierce rivals deserved to be a classic encounter. Misbah had played a curiously subdued innings, with his first 27 taking 52 balls, and though he hit two fours and a six in six deliveries 30 were needed from the final over and India justified their decision to field three seamers by defending a relatively modest total. The start of the India innings after they opted to bat on a pitch showing tinges of green saw Tendulkar overshadowed by the remarkable Sehwag. With precise clips off his legs and sweetly-struck drives, Sehwag struck five fours in an over from the wayward Umar Gul and had amassed 38 by the end of the fifth over. But he was lbw trying to turn one from Riaz to leg and as India reached 50, Tendulkar's innings was still in its infancy with eight to his name from only 11 balls faced. He soon demonstrated some exquisite timing as a defensive flick raced through mid-on for four, before he was given out lbw on 23 to the spin of Saeed Ajmal. Umpire Ian Gould's decision looked perfectly correct as Tendulkar was hit playing across the line but under review the ball tracking system indicated it was turning down the leg-side sufficiently to miss the stumps, and to the great delight of the vast majority of the crowd the decision was overturned. There was an appeal for a stumping next ball which was also rejected after a replay, while the first drop occurred with Tendulkar on 27 when Misbah-ul-Haq failed to cling on diving to his right at mid-wicket. The India 100 came up in the 16th over but Pakistan began to slowly claw their way back, Gautam Gambhir deceived in flight by Hafeez and stumped. Inexplicably Younus Khan spilled a routine chance at extra-cover with Tendulkar on 45 and the opener duly completed his 95th one-day international half century by taking the aerial route safely over the cover fielders for his eighth four. Left-armer Riaz soon brought Pakistan firmly back in the contest with wickets in successive balls to restrict India to 141-4, Virat Kohli mis-timing straight to point and Yuvraj Singh bowled first ball by a low, late-swinging full toss. Tendulkar saw a thick edge brush the gloves of Kamran when on 70 to the exasperation of the ever demonstrative Afridi, who went wicketless for the first time in the tournament. Then on 81 Umar Akmal spurned another opportunity, parrying the chance at mid-on in the style of a goalkeeper pushing the ball over the crossbar, with spinner Hafeez making a few choice observations on the error. But 15 short of the landmark Tendulkar drove to extra-cover where Afridi made no mistake, and the run-rate soon dropped below five for the first time since the end of the second over. Gul's erratic bowling Dhoni has now gone 13 innings without an ODI fifty and his sedentary 25 from 42 balls bore no resemblance to Sehwag's innings apart from the manner of dismissal, an attempted turn to leg off left-armer Riaz. Three fours were taken in an over from Gul, whose eight overs cost 69, but Pakistan would surely have expected their required rate to be substantially more than 5.20. Understandably their openers were not able to match Sehwag's rate of scoring but they utilised the fast outfield and had three boundaries apiece after seven overs before Kamran cut to point. The crowd had been subdued by Pakistan's assured start but they were revived when Hafeez attempted a reckless 'Dilscoop,' trying to work to leg from well wide of off-stump and feathering a catch to wicketkeeper Dhoni. Almost seven overs had elapsed without a boundary when Asad Shafiq, having calmly accumulated 30, lost his middle stump trying to cut Yuvraj's slow left-armers and with the rate rising above six the match was in the melting pot. Younus survived a missed stumping in Yuvraj's next over but three balls later drove tamely to extra-cover. Timing began to look difficult on the slow surface under the numerous low floodlights dotted around the ground but Umar hit a four over cover and a pull for six off Yuvraj, the first boundaries for 12 overs, to reduce the requirement to 131 from 20 overs. A six over the sightscreen from Umar saw the crowd go quiet again but from the first ball after the drinks break Harbhajan Singh struck a key blow with a quicker ball from around the wicket that straightened and breached his defences. Dangerman Abdul Razzaq was dismissed cheaply by a cutter from Munaf Patel and though Afridi made a quickfire 19 to leave 77 needed from 50, he sliced a Harbhajan full toss to cover. Misbah's brief late burst of hitting proved in vain and now attention turns to an enticing final in Mumbai, which will feature Tendulkar on his home ground seeking to record that 100th hundred against Sri Lanka's own talisman, Muttiah Muralitharan.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionDirector of films including Kanał, Katyń and the Palme d’Or-winning Man of Iron, Wajda was also awarded an Oscar for lifetime achievement
Andrzej Wajda: great director had Poland written on his heart | Peter Bradshaw Read more
Andrzej Wajda, the acclaimed Polish director whose films reflected his country’s turbulent history, has died at the age of 90.
Reports in Poland said he died in hospital of lung failure after being put into a medically induced coma in recent days.
Wajda, who was awarded an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2000, became a filmmaker only after being rejected by the army in 1939.
He attended Poland’s renowned Łódź film school after the second world war. His career took flight after winning the jury special prize at the Cannes film festival in 1957 for Kanał (Canal), about the doomed 1944 Warsaw uprising by Polish partisans against the Nazis.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A still from Wajda’s 1957 film, Kanał. Photograph: Allstar/Kingsley-Int
The award allowed Wajda to make his next film, Popiół i Diament (Ashes and Diamonds) in 1958 and cemented his position in Polish film.
In the 1970s Wajda turned to Polish literature for inspiration for Brzezina (Birch Wood, 1970), Wesele (The Wedding) two years later and Ziemia Obiecana (The Promised Land) in 1974.
At the 1977 Cannes festival, he screened Człowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble), a film critical of communist Poland.
It was followed three years later by Człowiek z żelaza (Man of Iron), focused on the rise of Poland’s anti-communist Solidarity trade union. That film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1981, even as Poland’s then-communist regime cracked down on Solidarity and imposed martial law.
“The day of the Palme was a very important day in my life, of course. But I was aware that this prize wasn’t just for me. It was also a prize for the Solidarity union,” Wajda said in an interview in 2007.
The filmmaker donated the prestigious award to a Kraków museum, where it remains on display next to his other prizes, including the lifetime achievement Oscar.
The 1981 Palme d’Or saved Wajda from being jailed by the communist regime – a fate that befell many of the director’s friends and colleagues – including Solidarity’s leader, Lech Wałęsa.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wajda after receiving his honorary Oscar in 2000. Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Reuters
Wajda’s opposition to the regime of Poland’s communist leader, general Wojciech Jaruzelski, led him to make films abroad, including Danton (1983) in France, starring Gérard Depardieu.
Eine Liebe in Deutschland (A Love in Germany, 1986) followed in Germany and Wajda’s interpretation of Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed (1998) was shot in France.
After the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989, Wajda returned to the country’s wartime history, focusing on stories suppressed by the communists. Korczak (1990) details the fate of Janusz Korczak, a pre-war Polish-Jewish children’s author and physician who died in the Holocaust.
With Pierścionek z orłem w koronie (The Crowned-Eagle Ring, 1993), Wajda once again turned to the 1944 Warsaw uprising. Wielki Tydzień (Holy Week, 1995) examined the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising – the doomed rebellion against the Nazis by Jewish partisans.
One of his last films, Katyń – nominated for an Oscar in 2008 – tells the story of his father, Jakub Wajda, who was one of 22,500 Polish officers killed by the Soviets in 1940 in the Katyn forest. Last year he directed Powidoki, which is Poland’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards.ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION). Story: Republican Donald Trump on Saturday (August 13) told supporters at a rally in Connecticut that he would "never, ever forgive" them, along with voters in Ohio and Florida, if he fails to carry those states in the general election in November. During a rally in Fairfield, Connecticut, Trump once again blamed U.S. President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for the spread of the militant group, Islamic State, which he called ISIS. On Friday (August 12), Trump backed away from comments calling Obama and Clinton the founders of the militant group Islamic State, saying that the comments had been sarcastic. Saturday's rally was again interrupted by protesters. On one occasion, Trump mocked the protester, saying the she looked like Clinton, and called out, "Is that you, Hillary?" A new poll showed Trump, whose unfiltered speaking style has repeatedly landed him in hot water, losing ground in three crucial states ahead of the Nov. 8 general election against Clinton. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll released on Friday suggested support for Trump is eroding among voters in three battleground states. Such states are hotly contested because their populations can swing either to Republicans or Democrats and thus play a decisive role in presidential elections, which are ultimately decided by the state-by-state tally of the Electoral College. The poll found Clinton widening her lead in Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina, while holding her advantage in Florida. Clinton released her tax returns on Friday, painting the move as a sign of transparency that her campaign says Trump lacks. Trump has cited an audit by the Internal Revenue Service in refusing to release his returns. Trump also has said his taxes are no one's business and that they reveal little.Over the course of 11 seasons, Supernatural has delivered 241 episodes filled with different monsters, mysteries, and of course, motels. But the biggest mystery of the show remains: How do the writers keep coming up with new ideas?!
“We really take great pains to not retread things,” executive producer Robert Singer tells EW. “Obviously we give nods to our past mythology, but we really want to be cognizant that we’re not telling the same story over and over again. Because that wouldn’t be fun for the audience and it’s not fun for us.”
So when it comes to finding new inspiration, showrunner Andrew Dabb says, “It begins in two places: There’s the character place and the plot place. How can we evolve these characters? We’re living in a world where Sam and Dean have changed a lot over the course of 11 seasons, and where do you take them that feels natural but also feels like new ground? Specifically, this season, Mary becomes a springboard toward interesting character growth for both of them. That’s the character place, that’s leaning heavily on what’s come before, who these people are.
“In terms of plot, I’m a big believer in feeding your brain,” Dabb continues. “We’re a show where I very strongly encourage [writers to] watch a lot of movies, watch a lot of TV, read a lot of stuff, and ideas can come from anywhere. Speaking very generally, there are six basic templates for scary stories: the haunted house, the stranger comes to town, etc. So how do you take that template and twist it? People are bringing things from other shows, people are bringing things from books they’ve read, from comics, from life, from weird thoughts you have when you’re waking up.” (For diehard fans of the show, “The French Mistake” is the episode that was born out of creator Eric Kripke’s “weird thoughts you have when you’re waking up.”)
“I wrote an episode a few seasons ago that applied cartoon logic to Supernatural,” Dabb says. “That was literally from watching the Looney Tunes archives. We did the Ghostfacers episode years and years ago, which was taking reality TV and applying it to our show. We’ve done sitcoms on our show. In the ‘Changing Channels’ episode, we did our version of Grey’s Anatomy. But to me, the best stuff or the most interesting stuff has something from real life in it as well. So we have a new writer on the staff this year named Davy Perez who grew up in a religious family and was able to bring, without giving away too many spoilers, is bringing some elements of that to the kind of stories that he’s writing, and I always think that’s where you get the most authentic stuff. That’s always really fun to do sure.”
Once inspiration strikes, it’s about making sure the story fits within the world the show’s established. “We certainly have rules that have been established about whatever monsters that we come up with — we have angel rules, we have demon rules, which I think you have to play within those sidelines,” Singer says. “I think some of the reason some of these shows don’t have the longevity that we have is that they burn through story really fast, where we have a slower rollout, but I also think they start playing a little fast and loose with the rules to try to get a story done and I think somehow either consciously or subliminally, the audience knows that. We have somebody who really keeps tabs on that so the rules, we try to adhere to our rules.
RELATED: Hear what inspired Mike Schur to create The Good Place
“When we stub our toe sometimes is when we’re trying to create new monsters with new sets of rules,” Singer continues. “I find that those episodes are not the best. I think another thing we do successfully is our vampires or our werewolves or any of the tried-and-trues, they’re not the same character every time. We try to imbue our monsters with a story of their own and personalities of their own and an agenda of their own. In that regard, they’re not a whole lot different than any villain that you might find on a police show. Every villain is the hero of their own story and that’s something that we try to do with ours.”
And yet, no matter where inspiration strikes or how it works within the world of Supernatural, there’s one very simple rule for working on the show. As Singer puts it, “At its core, which it’s always been, it’s a story of the brothers and trying to tell interesting stories that involve them emotionally.” In other words, you can never blow off the scene where they sit on the Impala and talk about their feelings.
Supernatural returns Thursday, Oct. 13 at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.The open free agency period isn't even a full day old and the Orioles have already missed out on at least one player they targeted. Korean first baseman Byung-ho Park is up for consideration under the posting process. The O's made a bid on Park, but they are known to not be the winning team, according to Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun. The winning bid is $12.85 million, which Park's KBO team, Nexen Heroes, has chosen to accept. The identity of the winning team isn't yet known.
Teams had to secretly submit bids for a posting fee, which will be paid to Nexen. The $12.85 million bidder gets the right to negotiate with the player exclusively for a month. If they don't reach a contract with Park, they don't have to pay the posting fee, either. A contract with Park is a separate expense from the posting fee.
This process is very similar to what was in effect between MLB and Japan's NPB league before they agreed to set a cap at $20 million for the posting fees. There's no such cap in effect with KBO players, though if more of them start coming over and generating higher and higher bids, you might see the same limit placed.
Park, 29, is coming off of a season in the KBO where he batted.343/.436/.714 and he has combined for 105 home runs in the last two seasons. That's impressive, although the league has a reputation as a hitter's league. As MLB Trade Rumors notes, Eric Thames, who couldn't break in as an MLB regular, just recently posted a.381/.497/.790 season. Thames was actually in the O's organization for two months back in 2013, but he slumped heavily in his time in Norfolk, batting only.252/.315/.356.
In his most recent MLB action, Thames batted.232/.273/.399. That was in 2012. Thames jumped over to KBO's NC Dinos in 2014 and immediately batted.343/.422/.688 while hitting 37 home runs. Maybe he has improved in some way since being in the American professional ranks, but you can get a pretty good sense of the inflation that's going on there.
On the other hand, the first-year MLB success of Pirates shortstop Jung-Ho Kang, who came over from Nexen just last offseason through the same process, means teams may be more likely to consider that the best talent of Korea can compete in MLB. Kang's posting fee was only $5 million and he signed a four year contract with $11 million guaranteed.
As far as the O's, it's interesting that they were interested, but it's not surprising that they didn't win with the winning bid at about $13 million. While MLBTR projects a relatively modest contract for Park of five years, $40 million, the posting fee money would probably also come out of this offseason's budget. So, unless we find out otherwise, it seems safe to assume they weren't ever going to be serious players at that price.
They'd still have to have committed $21 million this offseason to have Park on next year's team, and that's money that can't go to the starting rotation, or, for that matter, Chris Davis.Is The Walking Dead Giving Carol One Of Michonne's Comic Plots? By Nick Venable Random Article Blend Possible spoilers for The Walking Dead TV show, as well as details from the comic series are below. After the mother lode of head-squishing that The Walking Dead presented to viewers with its Season 7 premiere, the zombie drama will look to brighten things up a bit in the next episode with the introductions of King Ezekiel and new location The Kingdom. These narrative additions come straight from the comic books, but we're wondering if a big change from the source material is also on the way, with Carol taking over one of Michonne's storylines: her romance with Ezekiel. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not diving off the deep end of speculation here, since Carol hooking up with the tiger-leading Ezekiel isn't the most likely scenario, but it exists within the realm of Season 7 possibilities. This train of thought was already lurking when it was first revealed Carol and Morgan would be the first survivors to head to The Kingdom, and I admittedly let it run wild after The Spoiling Dead Fans shared what we can expect to see from Carol in the burgeoning world. Carol continues her Suzy Homemaker act, but Ezekiel catches her when she drops her facade. He seems to understand her. Nothing was said about how people shouldn't "come-a-knocking" when Carol and Ezekiel are together, but this gets to the heart of Carol's more recent identity crisis. As the show's core group reached Alexandria, she began showing off a completely different exterior personality than the darker persona under the surface. The homemaker Carol is the one that Tobin fell for during their brief tryst, but it's only the remaining long-term survivors that understand Carol through and through. So if Ezekiel is able to pick up on her true self so quickly - even if it was her own actions that tipped him off - then maybe she will start to understand him as well. And then they can make so many babies. Kidding on that last part, since childbirth doesn't go well in the post-apocalypse, but a romantic encounter between the two would hopefully spin Carol back around to regular bouts of happiness. And it would pick up the slack on a comic angle that seemingly got squashed when Michonne and Rick got together. Of course, Michonne also got with Tyreese in the comics long before she and Ezekiel did - in fact, this was the reason why Tyreese and Carol broke up on the page, oddly enough - so it's entirely possible Richonne will fizzle and give way to Michekiel or Ezekionne, with Carol getting the shaft (only metaphorically, of course). But even if these two newly bonding characters don't make sparks fly, here's hoping he's can bring a smile to her face on a regular basis. Whether it's romance or blood-curdling screams in the air, The Walking Dead will be back in front of its loyal fanbase every Sunday night on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. So long as Carol doesn't get her own comic storyline, we're all good. To see what else is hitting the small screen in the near future, check out our fall TV schedule. The Walking Dead's Whisperers, Explained Blended From Around The Web Facebook
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During Super Saturday coverage, an all-male panel on MSNBC led by Chris Matthews cut away from Hillary Clinton’s speech to discuss how she needs to speak more softly when she’s in front of a microphone. The three men then mansplained that this isn’t a matter of gender, in case anyone was wondering.
Video:
The men decided that when Hillary Clinton is speaking in an interview, she does well. It’s just when she is using a microphone to speak to a crowd that she has issues, apparently, as she speaks up like all public speakers do when they are speaking in front a large crowd. They tried to avoid using the loaded words that hung in the air like “shrill”. But the message was obvious enough to outrage many women journalists who heard the sexist whistle.
No one asked a woman if it might be related to gender because apparently men are the experts on sexism.
Being criticized for being “shrill” and sounding “angry” is old news for powerful women. Women are supposed to be strong but not so strong that they sound “strident”. Strident is bad.
MSNBC needs to send a memo out to their hosts and panel guests that instructs them how to determine if they sound like a sexist jerk. Hint: Maybe a panel of men aren’t experts on deciding what qualifies as gendered criticism.
Here’s a little schooling on how not to sound like a sexist jerk from Time:
Avoid Describing the Sound of My Feminine Voice. Also, the Tone of It. Women naturally have higher-pitched voices than men. Do we need to point it out? There’s no male equivalent of “shrill” or “screechy.” And I don’t believe there’s one for “nasal-car honk” tone either. And while we’re at it, let’s avoid descriptors like “whiny,” “nagging” or “complaining” to refer to women. Unless of course you’d use them to refer to a man too.
Maybe before male hosts announce something isn’t due to gender they should know something about sexism from… oh… say a woman. A panel full of men shouldn’t criticize Clinton’s voice for not being soft enough. It is sexist. It’s right next to commenting on her hair.
Sexist commentary about a politician reduces their standing among voters. This has been proven in studies. The media needs to get it together. There’s no excuse for this kind of ignorance about well documented evidence regarding what constitutes sexism. It’s not up for debate and it’s not up to a panel of all men.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:Matt Skiba recently spoke with Alternative Nation about Alkaline Trio and blink-182. Regarding blink, Skiba mentioned that he hopes to become a permanent member of the band depending on how things with Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker in relation to Tom DeLonge shake out. A portion of they interview can be found below.
Your recent joining with Blink-182 was quite a big deal. Can you discuss the pressure of replacing Tom and performing along with Travis and Mark?
Matt: In the punk rock world, nothing like that has ever happened before. When I was just learning the songs, Mark joked, “Don’t worry, everyone’s just going to be staring at you and judging you.” From the time that they asked me to play with them to the first show, all I did was learn Blink songs. When I would go to the gym, for a run, or a hike, I would go over the set. We decided on the setlist early on in rehearsals so I knew what I would be playing. We rehearsed five days a week. As we got better and the date got closer, I got more comfortable with everything. The pressure was always there but it began to feel like a band rather than I was just replacing Tom.
When I spoke to Travis last month, he described the process as very positive and even considered writing an album with this new lineup. What are your thoughts on that idea?
Matt: I think that’s a great idea and it’s something we have discussed. I’m pleasantly surprised to see Travis mention it to you guys. It’s something I would be very excited to do and I’ve known the Blink guys for about fifteen years and we’ve become good friends. Playing songs I haven’t written with Mark and Travis is a blast, so to go in and create music with them would be amazing.By Samuel Joseph
DUBLIN — A few weeks ago, I went to my first hurling match at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland. I had no prior knowledge about either the teams or the venue, nor did I actually know how hurling was played. A friend had found tickets online, and we decided to experience this new sport.
When we arrived, we found ourselves in a stadium that could fit up to 82,000 fans. It was nowhere close to being full, since it was very early in the hurling season. The 12,000 people who were there were dressed fully in blue and white for Dublin, and all the kids inside were waving their team’s flag. This number may not seem so monumental when compared to an average day at Yankee Stadium or MetLife Stadium, but wnot a single player on the hurling field is paid.
The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is both an amateur league and the largest sports organization in Ireland. The GAA is responsible for hurling and Gaelic football as well as many other Irish games.
While working with the Gaelic Players Association, the GAA promotes Irish sports both on a national and county level. The players do not make any money from their teams and, while high-ranked players may have sponsorships to support them, the league is set up to promote players to work other jobs to make their actual money. The players reach a level of professionalism in their sport without the capitalistic trap that leads to drug use and other pitfalls, and the money from tickets which sell for about €15-20, and merchandise is used to pay officials and maintain local clubs for kids and anyone who wants to play.
Like soccer, hurling and Gaelic football are split into two halves. During the 15 minute halftime break, young kids take the field and play the same sport as their elders, with each game moderated by a referee, sometimes one that is the same age as those playing. As a club, the GAA is also in charge of children’s leagues and promoting Irish sports in schools. The GAA is teaching these children that playing is not for some external goal, but rather the purpose of playing is to celebrate Irish tradition and games.
We tried to keep up with the action, watching players bounce a small ball off a stick, dubbed a hurley, back and forth down the pitch. Hurling is like a mixture of ultimate frisbee and American football. The point of the game is to move the ball down the pitch to the net. The net is like a soccer goal, also with a goalie, but has posts rising from each side, like an American football goalpost. If the player hits the ball between the upper posts, his team receives one point. If he can get the ball past the goalie and score in the lower section, he receives a goal, which is worth three points.
While these sports are played by amateurs, the players themselves are not weak. Gaelic football and hurling are all played with no padding and if two players collide and one ends up with a broken nose or takes a hard hit to the head, there is no stoppage of play to help out. Players who are injured are treated on the field by coaches or trainers or are taken off while the game continues. Coaches run over to the goalie or players to advise what to do next while play continue.
Seeing this level of artistry and passion makes me question the United States’ professional sports teams. We are so used to seeing top athletes make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and it takes away from the true meaning of the game.
As a Yankees fan, I am often criticized for cheering for money. While this complaint is irrelevant to other baseball fans, it sticks when looking at the Irish system. Sitting in Croke Park and watching seven-year-olds take the field, waving hurleys in the air where professionals were just playing is extremely refreshing to see. That level of dedication for a sport is engrossing.
The atmosphere during matches feels close to home and draws the audience in, knowing the passion that fuels each player to play is not that of profit, but actual enjoyment of his sport. Each player represents the place he is from and no matter how small his paycheck, he has his county cheering him on.Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said a determination would be made Saturday whether Tony Snell or Doug McD |
anski couldn’t tell how serious Felletter’s injuries were; she couldn’t reach him without going off belay, which she did not feel safe doing.
A nearby climber — Athena Vasquez, who was visiting from California — was able to reach Felletter and help stabilize him on the ledge, which sloped precariously at about thirty degrees. Felletter was aware enough to ask her to hold his head steady. “My neck hurts,” he said, drifting in and out of consciousness. Vasquez called 911.
When someone calls 911 to report a mountain emergency in Boulder County, the call is routed through the Incident Command System, which is a regimented chain of command that loops in the Sheriff’s Department and all relevant agencies and volunteer groups, including RMRG. All RMRG members carry a radio/pager that alerts them to calls, and at RMRG’s headquarters near downtown Boulder, the team keeps four-by-four trucks stocked with a variety of specialized mountaineering and rescue equipment that certain volunteers are trained to drive (other group members head to calls in their own vehicles).
Kevin Harner and Chris Wentz were closest to headquarters when the call about Felletter’s accident came in. They hopped into a truck and sped off toward Eldorado Canyon. Because it was graduation weekend at the university, traffic was extremely congested, but they were able to part the sea of cars by turning on the truck’s lights and sirens.
“This is 1933, acknowledging for Rocky Mountain Rescue,” Harner said, citing his code name on a radio channel where other emergency agencies were coordinating a response to the call.
During the rest of the mission, Harner would serve as RMRG’s “qualified” member, organizing the group’s response and keeping tabs on the members and what roles they were performing. (This responsibility is cycled on a preset schedule among certain group members.)
When Harner and Wentz arrived at Eldo, they found another member, Adam Fedor, already waiting for them. Because Harner had to coordinate the radio chatter, Wentz and Fedor immediately scrambled to the top of Bastille; from there, they would rappel to Felletter and assess his condition.
It was decided that Wentz, being a trained medic, would be the first to rappel to Felletter, on a 200-foot rope. He had an additional 200-foot rope with him in case he found that Felletter was close to death and needed to be evacuated to the road below. In that scenario, he’d hoist Felletter onto his back, attach the additional rope to the one already anchored at the top of Bastille, and continue his rappel to the canyon floor.
When Wentz conducted a medical assessment of Felletter, he found that he was stable enough that it was not worth the risk of moving his spine, which could cause paralysis if there was any spinal cord or vertebrae damage.
On the ledge with Vasquez and Felletter, Wentz noticed a chilling amount of blood, maybe ten feet of it, dripping down the rock face from the spot where Felletter had hit his head. As Wentz did a head-to-toe check of Felletter, he found only one serious laceration that the blood could have come from — on the climber’s forehead — and it had mostly clotted. He also felt for any cracks in the climber’s skull, as well as for signs of internal bleeding in areas like the pelvis, which can cause septic shock.
“He’s a trauma yellow,” Wentz reported on his radio, meaning that death was not imminent (that’s a trauma red) but that the climber’s injuries were still quite serious.
“It was clear to me that he was pretty injured and had spinal injuries,” Wentz recalls. “He needed a vertical evacuation.”
EXPAND RMRG did a vertical evacuation to get Felletter to an ambulance. Courtesy of RMRG
To avoid any further spinal damage, the vertical evacuation, which would involve getting Felletter off the rock face on a litter, would need to be carried out by multiple RMRG members.
At that point, Wentz could relax slightly; he knew that numbers and expertise wouldn’t be a problem. Already, more RMRG members who were trained for exactly this kind of delicate procedure were staging for a vertical evacuation from the top of Bastille.
When it comes to missions like vertical evacuations, Rocky Mountain Rescue Group’s reputation for expertise extends far beyond Boulder County.
Charley Shimanski, an expert on all things search-and-rescue — having served as the president of the national Mountain Rescue Association, as well as being a current member of the Alpine Rescue Team in Evergreen and volunteer coordinator for the helicopter program Flight for Life — calls RMRG one of the “most qualified teams in the country.”
“If I were ever in a world of hurt in Boulder County and the person coming to my aid had a Rocky Mountain Rescue sticker on their helmet, there would be as big a smile as I could muster on my face, knowing that I’m in good hands,” he says.
RMRG is one of about 100 teams that are accredited through the national Mountain Rescue Association. What that means, Shimanski explains, is that “every five years, accreditation testers, including from the Alpine Rescue Team, will descend on Boulder for three days and throw scenarios at Rocky Mountain Rescue.”
The group being tested gets no warning about the kinds of tasks it’ll be asked to perform.
“We’ll set up scenarios, and we’ve got all sorts of evaluators in bright-green vests that study everything that team members do — every rope they choose, every knot they choose, everything about the technical setup — and we evaluate throughout the day,” Shimanski explains. “And it’s not a rubber stamp. Teams do fail.”
The accreditation means the rescue group can be trusted to the highest degree. “When I go to Boulder and I’m on a joint mission, and there’s a rescuer with Rocky Mountain Rescue I’ve never seen before, and they hand me a rope and say, ‘Here, I’ve safetied this. Hang your ass off of it and rappel 2,000 feet down to our subject,’ if that person has a Mountain Rescue Association patch on their jacket, I know that they’ve been through an accreditation, and I don’t have to check their knots or question their system,” says Shimanski. “That patch is like M.D. at the end of someone’s initials. I know how much they’ve been through in terms of training.”
RMRG’s hierarchy is clear-cut. At the bottom are “prospectives” — individuals interested in joining the team who attend trainings but have not yet been voted into the group. Then there are “supports,” or team members who are directed to perform different tasks in the field during missions. “Qualifieds,” or “Qs,” coordinate the logistics of a mission, such as when Harner manned the radio during the Felletter mission. And finally, leading missions in the field are the “Rescue Support,” or “RS,” members of the team.
Making the jump from a support to an RS is a significant achievement, and RMRG likes to keep the test to become an RS something of a secret.
According to member Drew Hildner, “Becoming an RS is kind of like being kidnapped for a very technical hazing. You get taken out to the woods and get a bunch of technical problems thrown at you, and a lot of times they just kind of mess with you — just to rattle your head.”
For example, Hildner says, sometimes the RS test involves being asked to perform tasks that are physically impossible — like when evaluators remove essential climbing gear from a harness piece by piece and continue to ask its wearer to build rope systems or do technical hauls.
“They want to see how you fail.” Facebook
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“They want to see how you fail,” says Hildner.
Hildner got involved with RMRG in 2003, when he was 25, and was voted in as a member in 2004. He remembers the missions being thrilling when he started.
“After one or two meetings, I was hooked,” he recalls. “During those first years, I would look at the forecast and see nice weekends coming up, and I made sure I didn’t have any plans I couldn’t cancel that would put me out of a position to be able to respond to calls.
“But it’s not rushing into burning buildings or whatever the mountain-rescue equivalent of that is, hanging off of ropes and grabbing damsels in distress,” he adds. “It’s putting in a lot of work and paying attention to pretty boring stuff. But that all has high consequences.”
Hildner estimates that he’s participated in approximately 500 rescues and that he’s volunteered 4,000 hours to the team. He’s also taken on different roles, including as the group’s recruitment chair, so he’s had various vantage points from which to examine the team’s culture.
When he joined, Hildner remembers being intimidated.
“For me, what was intimidating was the institutional knowledge,” Hildner says. “You have these older members who can look at a map if we were looking for a lost party and they’d put their finger somewhere and say, ‘We should send some people there.’ And it’d be against all search theory to do that, but we’d send two members there, and fifty-fifty we’d find them. That’s because they’d done this for decades, and for me, it engendered a lot of respect.”
The team’s battle-hardened and innovative spirit is apparent even outside of rescues. When he first started, Hildner would look at older guys like “Big John,” a quiet blue-collar type who always sported a long handlebar mustache and a tool belt, and marvel at how he could do things like rebuild a carburetor in negative temperatures with his bare hands.
Hildner admits that it wasn’t always easy when he was 25 to be acknowledged by the older members or to break into conversations with them.
He remembers going to one training and attaching a piece of tape with his name on it to the front of his T-shirt. Older RMRG members started addressing him by his name.
“Oh, yeah, I’m getting somewhere!” Hildner thought.
But the moment he took off the piece of tape, some of the same group members forgot his name and were saying, “Hey, YOU!”
“Later, I made a point of telling people, ‘Hey, this happens,’” Hildner recalls of his time serving as recruitment chair. “The culture is not meant to cut people out. It’s just that this is a very demanding group.”
Prospectives must take classes in the fall to join the team. Members teach, and then test for, various skill sets — things like compass reading, knot tying and how to assemble and pack gear. Some members estimate that only 20 percent of prospectives make it all the way through the training and eventually get voted into the team as a support.
Hildner says that members aren’t merely assessing whether a prospective has the technical know-how to start going on missions.
EXPAND A recent group photo with current (in blue T-shirts) and past RMRG members. Courtesy of RMRG
“We really talk about the person’s personality and their ability to accurately assess safety,” he says of the voting process, which is done behind closed doors. “We ask, ‘Do they know their limits?’ Because there are folks who show up with technical skills but with more of a John Wayne personality, and they don’t get voted in.”
Jonathan Horne has been on the team since 1996 and was group leader from 2003 to 2005. “The idea of riding in on a helicopter or doing cliff hangs gets dispelled pretty early on,” he says. “It’s not like you’re Sylvester Stallone out there.”
Still, Horne says that going on rescues, especially during his early years with the group, is addicting in its own way. RMRG introduced Horne, a city kid from Boston who moved to Boulder to attend CU in 1994, to a whole new world of outdoor activities.
“In those early days, I was perhaps too passionate about it,” he says. “I almost hate to admit this, but I’d have the option of going climbing or sitting around and waiting for [a rescue] to happen.” He’d usually choose the rescue, “which sounds crazy,” Horne acknowledges. “But you can predict when the weather’s nice and it’s summer that you’re going to get a call. So there’s a good chance you’ll have some impromptu adventure.”
Like all veteran members, Horne is a repository of incredible stories of loss, rescue and heroics. And like many members, he is also reserved about sharing them; RMRG’s volunteers don’t conduct rescues for self-aggrandizement or to regale dramatic stories to audiences at bars.
But Horne doesn’t shy away from talking about the most frightened he’s been during a rescue.
In March 2003, a massive blizzard that hit the Eldora ski area caused an avalanche, which covered the highway leading to the resort, trapping a few cars in the snow and stranding others trying to get down the mountain.
When Horne and other RMRG members arrived on the scene, they had to act quickly. Not only did they have to save the people trapped in their cars, but they had to deliver supplies to the hundreds of people stuck at Eldora Mountain — “everything from medicine to tampons,” Horne recalls. The problem was that the avalanche that covered the highway was still moving.
Nevertheless, RMRG members traversed the avalanche field to make rescues and deliver supplies.
“So you’re running across this length of snow with people on either side of you carrying probes and shovels, ready to dig you out,” Horne recalls. “As a rescuer, it’s unusual to be in a situation where you feel like you’re in danger, and it was probably the most scary situation I’ve been in.
“You also have a priority to take care of yourself and your teammates,” he adds.
Horne says that missions are sometimes called off or delayed when the situation is deemed too dangerous for rescuers, like during a thunderstorm. Risking a rescue at such times could create more victims.
At the same time, Horne says that it’s the involved and grueling missions that drive his commitment to the team. “It’s nice to think that it’s all completely altruistic — like, ‘Hey, I helped this guy and his life is saved as a result’ — but so many of the highs come from camaraderie,” he says. “You have these incredible experiences with your friends, like, ‘I just did this thing for someone else, and we did it together.’”
Despite the team being male-dominated — only fifteen of the 75 members are women — female members of RMRG also report the same feelings of camaraderie, albeit with some challenges that come from being around so much testosterone.
Eleanor Waxman is one of fifteen women on the team. Anthony Camera
Eleanor Waxman, who joined the team in 2011, explains, “Most of the women on the team are used to being in male-dominated areas. A lot of them are scientists and engineers, in which case they’re used to being in situations that are 80 percent male. So in that sense, being on the team is not so different than being at work.”
Waxman herself is an example. She works in Boulder as a scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She sees a similarity in her field of work and RMRG: In both worlds, she has to speak up around her more aggressive male counterparts.
“Some of the women on the team tend to be quieter, and it can be hard to be heard,” says Waxman. “Guys will more often get picked for the exciting stuff like ascending up the Flatirons or being a vertical litter-bearer, and that’s probably a combination of guys being louder and volunteering to do it more assertively.”
But Waxman credits the team’s emphasis on merits and technical skills. “Because you have to get voted on by the entire group and show certain skill sets, there isn’t a questioning of your basic competencies [once you’re a member],” she says.
Even though there is always some good-hearted competitiveness among members, male and female, for the roles assigned during rescues, RMRG’s primary focus is on its “patients” and making sure their operations run smoothly and efficiently.
“Without a doubt, the sooner you can get to a call, the cooler job you’ll get,” Hildner explains, “and sometimes we’ll kind of race each other for positions. At the same time, you have to remember that it’s the [patient’s] emergency, it’s not your emergency. As soon as you can remember it’s not your emergency and that you’re going home tonight, you can kind of treat it like a math problem. Some people might think that’s kind of heartless. But if you can approach a mission like you’re solving for x — the variable — then it allows you to calm down, see things more clearly and take the blinders off.”
When it comes to technical rescues like Felletter’s, that kind of calculated approach is necessary.
A diagram of the Bastille shows where the accident occurred and how RMRG staged its rescue. Courtesy of Conor Felletter
Felletter’s fall was unusual because he was so high up Bastille and in a hard-to-reach spot. In many cases, when climbers fall on the south side of Eldorado Canyon, they fall all the way to the road and are promptly loaded into an ambulance. In the case that a climber falls on the other side of the canyon, RMRG will sometimes have to do a “Tyrolean traverse,” in which they build a steel-cable pulley system to transport a victim across the South Boulder Creek — a technical process that RMRG has carried out countless times, including during the rescue of climber Molly Berkenhoff in Boulder Canyon on June 21.
In Felletter’s case, RMRG decided it best to have team members rappel from the top of Bastille to him with a litter. They’d secure him in the litter and continue to rappel hundreds of feet to the road, where an ambulance would be waiting. Although a helicopter had been called for Felletter, it was waived off once it became clear that he was a trauma yellow and an ambulance would be satisfactory.
“People often don’t want to call and inconvenience us and the rescue group, and so they’ll wait to call until things are pretty drastic.” Facebook
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While RMRG’s rescues are free for their patients, ambulance and helicopter rides are typically handled by patients’ insurance companies and involve some out-of-pocket costs (from hundreds to thousands of dollars for an ambulance ride, and at least a couple thousand dollars for a helicopter ride), which can cause people to delay calling, in the hopes that their situation might change. But members of RMRG and Boulder Sheriff Joe Pelle stress that they’d like people who find themselves in serious situations to call for help as soon as they need it.
“People often don’t want to call and inconvenience us and the rescue group, and so they’ll wait to call until things are pretty drastic, and at that point, it makes things much more difficult,” Pelle says. “We would much rather launch a search or rescue mission during the day with the sunshine than we would in the middle of the night.”
EXPAND The operation involved loading him into a litter and rappelling hundreds of feet. Courtesy of RMRG
When two RMRG members reached Felletter, they lifted his body headfirst onto a litter using a hauling system that Wentz had constructed.
“Hey Conor, in a second or so you’re going to hear less, okay?” said one of the litter-bearers, Bijan Tuysserkani, to Felletter.
Tuysserkani and Wentz then used a device to pump air out of a full-body splint that rescuers call a “bean bag” surrounding Felletter’s body inside the litter. Once the air was removed, the bean bag formed a rigid splint around Felletter so that his body — especially his spine — would be less impacted by movement during the rest of the rappel.
Between the litter, Felletter and their own bodies, the litter-bearers were balancing a lot of weight. To make for a smooth rappel — especially because the rescuers had to navigate bulges and cracks and other abnormalities along the rock face — a separate team of RMRG members at the top of Bastille operated a brake system during the vertical evacuation. Using a dedicated radio channel, the team operating the brakes took radio commands from Tuysserkani about how fast to let out slack on the pair of 600-foot ropes attached to the litter team as it made its way to the canyon floor.
All the while, Tuysserkani did his best to keep Felletter conscious and engaged.
“You have to talk to the patient throughout the evacuation, because there’s this phenomenon when people survive for a while and then rescue comes and they think they can relax, and they die,” Tuysserkani explains. “So you don’t want that to happen, and I’ll say things like, ‘Hang in there — I know it’s hard, but it’s not over yet.’”
Felletter was promptly loaded into an ambulance and taken to Boulder Community Health Hospital. Only later, once reports came in from various doctors and surgeons, would the team learn just how close he had come to dying.
One reality of being on a search-and-rescue team is that members have to contend with death and tragedy. Facebook
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One reality of being on a search-and-rescue team is that members have to contend with death and tragedy.
Stories involving death are, unfortunately, common. Hildner, a medic, remembers the first time he had to perform CPR on a mission, when he was called to Boulder Canyon to help a man who took a forty-foot headfirst fall right in front of his sister and his fiancée.
Upon reaching the man, Hildner saw that his chances of survival were slim. “His head was cracked open like a melon,” he recalls. “Even so, I got really hands-on, pushing a bunch of epinephrine, which makes the heart pump even when it’s low on blood. And I started seeing [him respond], and I was thinking, ‘We’re going to get him back!’”
But the man had already lost too much blood and was pronounced dead before he was loaded into a helicopter. Hildner was left at the scene, covered in the man’s blood, with his fiancée and sister.
“Several members have said that they’ll never forget their screams when they were told he was dead,” says Hildner.
“A part of me was disappointed that I’d let myself get so [emotionally] involved, knowing the statistics of traumatic [cardiac] arrests,” he continues. “I remember going home and sitting by myself for hours in the dark to process it. But the experience served me well two years later when I faced another traumatic arrest.”
Hildner explains that a lot of the first few missions for prospectives after they become supports involve body recovery.
“That’s really weird, because you join the group and you want to help people,” he says. “And the first thing you see is often a body, and it’s usually not a natural death.”
Because her husband, Steve, has been part of RMRG since 1995, when he joined at 21, Karyn Dundorf no longer frets about his safety during rescue missions, especially because he’s a competent climber and is surrounded during missions by exactly the people you’d want to have around in any dangerous mountaineering or climbing situation. But she has a hard time with the suicides.
“What worries me are the suicide calls, because those are the ones that stay on the psyche,” she says.
Steve admits that there was a period in 2015 when the amount of body recoveries RMRG did because of suicides got to him.
“In March and April of 2015, we had a string of calls about people jumping off cliffs, which was really unusual,” he says. “It was call after call, and it was a little over the top.”
Steve and Karyn credit members of RMRG for being supportive of each other after tough emotional missions.
“I think people are fairly open,” says Steve. “There might be other rescue agencies — like firefighters — who are a little more testosterone-driven, but definitely not on our team.”
He says it’s not unusual for group members to grab a beer or three after a body recovery and talk things out.
Still, suicide calls can weigh on people. Steve admits that he’ll sometimes look up the Facebook pages of people who died by suicide. “Some of it is curiosity — like, what was their life like before? What caused them to do this?” he says. “You want to have some kind of connection to them.”
It’s an unusually heavy burden for someone in a volunteer position to carry, and Kayrn does not mince words about boundaries she’s had to set with Steve in their relationship and family life. The couple has three children, all under ten years old, and Steve also works full time as an environmental engineer for the Department of the Interior.
Kayrn says there is a joke among some wives of RMRG members that they are the “widows of Rocky Mountain Rescue.” In fact, during one of Karyn and Steve’s first dates, in 2001, Steve’s pager went off when they were hiking, and he dragged her along while he conducted a rescue in Gregory Canyon.
“There certainly have been plenty of broken-up relationships from too much rescue,” Karyn says half jokingly. “But [Steve and I] have come up with a happy compromise: If he goes on a rescue, I get to take a different day off or take time to do something on my own” — an arrangement she’s shared with other spouses of team members.
Steve admits that, while he constantly puts pressure on himself to do more for the team, he’s cut the number of calls he goes on now that he’s a father, from about fifty a year when he started to about fifteen.
When asked whether it’s strange to commit so much to something he’s not paid to do, Steve says, “Occasionally when you help out in places like Rocky Mountain National Park, it is a little funky when you’re surrounded by guys from other agencies who are getting overtime, and you’re taking vacation time.
“But it’s also nice to know you’re doing it just because you want to be doing it,” he adds.
According to Kevin Harner, when RMRG was founded, right after World War II, it wasn’t just a response to Boulder’s need for skilled first responders; the organization grew out of a desire to support and give back to the local community. As other SAR groups were established throughout the country, they, too, were based on an all-volunteer model, and today that has become the national standard. “We like giving back to our community,” Harner says. “And financially, certain operations like searches, which can involve fifty, sixty or even seventy people, would be quite costly if we weren’t volunteers.”
Indeed, groups like RMRG are a boon to local governments, which don’t have to worry about paying personnel. The County of Boulder helps RMRG secure donations and grants that allow it to maintain its headquarters and purchase expensive gear.
“The county couldn’t afford to do this with full-time paid employees,” says Sheriff Pelle. “They’re the ones bringing in the good people and the good training.”
Courtesy of Conor Felletter
On the first Wednesday night following Felletter’s climbing accident in Eldorado Canyon, about fifty RMRG members reported to the group’s headquarters for its usual weekly meeting to go over trainings and upcoming events.
They also debriefed recent missions, and when it came time to discuss Felletter’s accident, Harner produced the helmet that unquestionably helped save the young man’s life.
As Harner separated the broken helmet, there was an audible gasp in the room.
“Here’s hoping that they’ll give him a new one,” quipped one member, referring to the helmet’s manufacturer.
“They should give him more than that,” another added.
But the team fell silent once Harner announced that a couple of Felletter’s family members had come to thank the group in person. Although such visits are rare, Harner says it means a lot to RMRG members when they can see the effects of their work.
Vince Felletter thanked the group, then provided an update on his son’s injuries.
Right after Conor was transported from Eldo to a hospital in Boulder, he was transferred to a spinal surgeon at Denver Health. He had broken three ribs and seven vertebrae and had torn the UCL ligament in his elbow.
Felletter had broken three ribs and seven vertebrae and had torn the UCL tendon in his elbow. Facebook
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“The spinal surgeon said that the [vertebrae] in Conor’s neck displaced and moved sideways, so normally when that happens, it pinches or cuts the spinal cord, which is either fatal or causes paralysis,” Vince told the group. “What happened to him is that, at the same time that the vertebrae [in his neck] displaced, it fractured. It actually broke that ring open. And that gave the spinal cord just enough room that it didn’t sever or pinch.
“The spinal surgeon told us that Conor has no business being alive,” Vince continued. “I can certainly say that it was a miracle for us that you were there and did what you did, because there’s not a doubt in my mind you saved his life.”
The group then heard from Conor’s younger sister, Clare, his only sibling, who added, “For every one of you, because it could have been any one of you who got that call...I want you to know that the work you do is of such quality — I don’t know how you got him off that mountain without him being paralyzed in the process.”
In the weeks since that meeting, Conor Felletter has been a vocal advocate for RMRG, even though he’s still processing all of what happened during his accident on May 12.
Felletter is the first to admit that there are things he could have done differently when building the anchor at the top of the second pitch. “I could have clipped into that first cam,” he says. “That’s something that I’m going to have to consider going forward.”
Today, Felletter is recovering; he kept the helmet that broke into two pieces during his accident. Anthony Camera
It turns out that Felletter suffered more than a concussion; he has a moderate traumatic brain injury that, days after the accident, caused him to hallucinate and act out of character. During one episode, he punched a doctor because he was delusional and thought he was being held hostage in the hospital.
“It wasn’t a great time,” Felletter says.
But now that he’s come out of his hallucinations and is making progress with the brain injury, he’s making a speedy recovery.
“I got so lucky, and now I’m going to make the most of my life,” he promises. “I’d like to do my part to help fundraise for Rocky Mountain Rescue and to spread the word about wearing helmets and learning self-rescue techniques.
“I believe that having Rocky Mountain Rescue covering our back yard makes climbing in Boulder safer then anywhere else,” he adds. “It’s like having angels watching over us.”
Felletter says his accident gave him a greater appreciation for risk and reward. Moving forward, he says, he will be more considerate of how his pursuits could affect his family.
He’s excited to get back “out on the rock,” even though doctors have told him he can’t climb for the rest of the year. He’s already bought a helmet to replace the one that broke during his fall.
But he’ll never forget what else saved his life that fateful day in Eldorado Canyon.
“Without that helmet and Rocky Mountain Rescue, I’d be dead, no questions asked.”© AFP Photo
A federal judge in Idaho agreed this week that officials have no right to keep protesters from demonstrating on the lawn of the state capitol building in Boise.As that movement began to gain momentum across the US in late 2011, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter signed a law that enacted a handful of rules concerning Occupy Boise protesters wishing to protest on state property, including provisions that outlawed anything on the capitol property considered to be camping.Judge Winmill wrote this week that a lawsuit filed on behalf of the protesters in 2012 is now moot since the laws were later rescinded, but he nevertheless agreed to make a decision requested by Occupy Boise that could open the door for future protests like the ones that were previously outlawed.As part of the ruling,"The defendants' policy of enforcing I.C. §§ 67-1613 - 1613A to remove symbolic and assembly tents on State grounds or to prevent protesters from staffing tent protests around the clock violates the First Amendment," the judge ruled, meaning Idaho officials might be barred from going after demonstrators in the future engaged in politically-focused protests outside the capitol or other state property."This has been a long and costly battle over liberties that the State should treasure, not suppress," American Civil Liberties Union Legal Director Ritchie Eppink wrote in an official statement this week. "Let's hope this permanent injunction gets our elected officials to stop and think, and to start welcoming dissent, rather than trying to squelch it.""They may restore the tent city. The point is, the court found Occupy Boise was exercising its legal right to protest on state property," he told Reuters Judge Winmill's ruling was announced the same week that officials in New York City agreed to pay almost a total of $600,000 to settle a lawsuit related to the wrongful arrests of 14 protesters at the original Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan.The Walking Dead has been a huge hit for cable network AMC. The comic book adaptation tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world where zombies have overrun the world. Governments have fallen, leaving pockets of survivors to cope with the new world. It speaks a lot to the human experience. The zombie genre itself has been no stranger to social commentary, more prominently speaking to the times through George A. Romero’s films about the undead such as Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.
Tonight’s episode spoke to a prominent debate occurring in America now. Moderate spoilers ahead for those who have not yet seen the episode, be warned.
Negan is the new bad guy on the scene. A ruthless tyrant, he leads a group of survivors who rule by fear and takes by force. His entrance on the show was marked by the brutally savage beatings of two prominent characters in order to send a message to the survivors. Since this point, there have been a number of metaphors for society.
In the extended ninety-minute special, Negan found his way down to a fortified city known as Alexandria. Here, survivors have come together and build a walled in encampment to carry on living he best they can in the world. After gaining entrance into the city, Negan noted that the citizens of Alexandria had a lot of guns. To that point, he stated he wanted the guns confiscated.
The gun control debate thus becomes relevant here on two fronts. First, the issue of gun confiscation and Gun Free Zones. After this scene, Negan then finds the armory and takes the inventory of firearms to use in the confiscation.
Gun registries and owner databases have long been a source of distrust among Second Amendment supporters. The reason for this is exactly what is seen on screen: the confiscation of guns. Negan uses the armory inventory list to hunt down all of the guns in Alexandria and confiscate them for his group. As he makes clear, the existence of guns presents a threat to his control.
Another point gun rights advocates often make is that the elimination of guns only leaves the law-abiding and innocent defenseless, because bad people will always acquire guns. Alexandria’s citizens at that point have been disarmed, leaving the governing body as the only ones with weapons. According to a gun control advocate’s logic, this would leave the people in a safer place.
It’s tragic two beloved characters on the show, one of which had been there since the beginning, were executed by Negan. Senseless violence and slaughter of the innocent is wrong and here in the real world, we all know that. But we are also aware that, as gun control advocates also tell us, the existence of guns is to blame for all violence, whether it be gun related or not.
If guns had been banned and confiscated by Negan sooner, would Abraham and Glenn still be alive?Hardware startup Misty Robotics has a daunting task ahead of it. The Boulder-based company is working on a robot aimed at mainstream consumers for employment in the home and office. But Misty certainly has a solid foundation, as a spinoff of robotic toy maker Sphero, coupled with an $11.5 million Series A led by Venrock and Foundry Group.
The new company employs about half a dozen former Sphero ex-pats, including co-founder Ian Bernstein, who will be Misty’s Head of Product. Bernstein and team have been working on the seeds of Misty’s first product under the Sphero banner for roughly a year and a half, ultimately opting to spin it off into a new company, given its vastly different — and decidedly more ambitious — goals.
“At some point it just made sense for Sphero to focus on connected play,” Bernstein tells TechCrunch. “And it would make sense to spin off a company so we can raise more money and go bigger and faster on this idea of an autonomous robotic being in the home and office.”
Founded as Orbotix in 2010, Sphero has seen rapid growth in the past several years as it’s transformed itself from a niche maker of a smartphone-controlled robotic ball into a full-fledged Disney co-conspirator. The company rocketed to success when its first product became the basis of the remote-controlled BB-8, a wildly successful Star Wars tie-in. Since then, the partnership has produced new Cars and Spider-Man toys.
But Misty’s offering is something else entirely. The company isn’t ready to reveal much in the way of details at this early stage, except to say that it’s planting the seeds for more mainstream devices. It’s understandable, of course, that it’s fairly modest in its projections. Countless companies have tried to bring consumer robotics to the home, but have largely failed through some combination of half-baked technologies and impossible-to-meet consumer expectations.
For a robot to succeed in the home, it has to be affordable, capable and serve some task that people either can’t or simply don’t want to perform. Only iRobot’s Roomba has come close. The product has found success, but even so, its one-note functionality feels underwhelming compared to the expectations science-fiction has been feeding us for decades. But products like it and Amazon’s Echo are slowly opening the door to more technology in the home. Though Misty tells |
republics, and that all states, whatever their form of government, are equally affected by the serious problems of the present day.
Republicans frequently claim, in addition, that monarchy is a form of government belonging to the past, while republicanism is that of the future. Even a slight knowledge of history is enough to disprove this. Both forms have been in existence since the earliest times (though the monarchical periods have usually lasted considerably longer than the republican ones). In any case, it is misleading to call an institution which we already find in ancient Greece, Rome and Carthage, the form of government of the future.
In any objective discussion, we must also assign this question its proper place in our hierarchy of values. It is not an accident that we speak of the "form" of government. There is a great difference between the "form" and the "content" -- or purpose -- of the State. The latter is its essential raison d'etre, its very soul. The former corresponds to the bodily form of a living being. The one can certainly not exist without the other; but in any sane hierarchy of values the soul occupies a higher place than the body.
The essential purpose of the State, its "content," is rooted in natural law. The State is not an end in itself; it exists for the sake of its citizens. It is therefore not the source of all law (a claim that is still far too widely accepted), nor is it all-powerful. Its authority is circumscribed by the rights of its citizens. It is only free to act in those fields that are outside their free initiative. The State is therefore at all times the servant of natural law. Its task is to give practical effect to this law; nothing more.
If the mission of the State is the practical realization of natural law, the form of government is a means by which the community attempts to achieve this aim. It is not an end in itself. This explains the relatively subordinate importance of this whole question. Undoubtedly a great deal of importance attaches to the choice of the right means, since this choice will determine whether or not the end is attained. But what is lasting in political life is only natural law. The attempt to realize this law in practice will always have to take account of current conditions. To speak of an eternally valid form of government, right under all circumstances, shows ignorance and presumption.
From this it would seem to follow that it is fruitless to try to determine -- mostly from the wrong philosophical premises -- the objective value of one or the other form of government. The discussion will only become fruitful if we keep in mind the end which every such form is intended to serve. It is therefore not a question of investigating what value we are to attach to monarchies or republics as such. What we must ask ourselves is which form offers the best chances of safeguarding natural law under present-day conditions.
Once this point has been clarified, we can pass on to two other problems, which have frequently been dragged into this discussion and are threatening to poison the whole atmosphere. There is constant controversy about the relation between monarchism, republicanism and democracy. Here again we encounter the blurred thinking characteristic of our era of slogans and propaganda. The concept of democracy has become infinitely elastic. In Russia it is compatible with mass liquidations, secret police and labour camps. In America, on the other hand -- and occasionally in Europe -- even political theorists are frequently unable to distinguish between republicanism and democracy. Furthermore, both words are used to designate conceptions and characteristics that go far beyond the political field, and belong to the economic or sociological sphere. It must therefore be clearly stated that, generally speaking, democracy means the right of the people to participate in determining their own development and future.
If we accept this definition, we shall see that neither of the two classical forms of government is by nature linked with democracy. Democracy can exist under both forms, just as there exist authoritarian republics as well as monarchies. Monarchists, in fact, frequently claim democracy functions better under a monarchy than under a republic. If we look at present-day Europe, there is certainly some truth in this argument, though its validity may be restricted in time and space. At the same time, it is necessary to point out that in small states which are strongly rooted in their traditions, like Switzerland, democracy and republicanism can coexist successfully.
Still more hotly discussed is the question of monarchism and socialism, and republicanism and socialism. The reason for this is largely that in German-speaking countries the great majority of the official socialist parties are republican in outlook. Hence we find there among narrow and uneducated minds the belief that socialism and monarchism are incompatible. This belief is due to a basic confusion. Socialism -- at least in its present- day form -- is essentially an economic and social program. It has nothing to do with the form of government. The republicanism of some socialist parties does not arise from their actual programs, but is due to the personal beliefs of their leaders. This is shown by the fact that the majority of the really powerful European socialist parties are not republican but monarchist. This is the case in Britain, in Scandinavia and in Holland. In all these countries we not only find excellent relations existing between the Crown and the socialists, but one cannot escape the impression that a monarchy provides a better soil for working-class parties than a republic. In any case, experience shows that socialism remains longer in power under a monarchy than under a republic. One of the great leaders of the British Labour Party explained this by the moderating and balancing influence of the Crown, which enabled socialists to carry through their program more slowly, more reasonably, and hence also more successfully. At the same time, a ruler standing above the parties represented a sufficient safeguard to the opposition, so that it need not have recourse to extreme measures in order to regain power. It could watch developments more calmly.
Whether or not this is true, the facts prove that it is unjustified to draw an artificial dividing-line between monarchism and socialism, or between monarchism and classical democracy. The same applies to republicanism. One other point must be mentioned. This is the frequent confusion, particularly among those not trained in political science, between monarchy as a form of government and one or other monarchical dynasty; in other words, the confusion between monarchism and legitimism.
Legitimism, a special tie with one person or one dynasty, is something that can hardly ever be discussed in reasonable and objective terms. It is a matter of subjective feeling, and is therefore advocated or opposed by arguments ad hominem. Any rational discussion of current problems must therefore make a clear distinction between monarchism and dynastic legitimism. The form of government of a State is a political problem. It must therefore be discussed independently of the family or person who stand, or stood, at the head of the State. Even in monarchies dynastic changes take place. In any case, the institution is of greater importance than its representative; the latter is mortal while the former is, historically speaking, immortal.
To look at a form of government merely with an eye to its present representative leads to grotesque results. For in that case republics, too, would have to be judged not on political grounds, but according to the characters of their presidents. This would, of course, be the height of unfairness.
It should be added that among the protagonists of monarchism in republican Europe, there are relatively few legitimists. King Alfonso XIII of Spain once remarked that legitimism cannot survive one generation. It is valuable where there exists a strongly established, traditional form of government, with which most of the citizens are satisfied. But this kind of legitimism can be found in republics as well as in monarchies. One can speak of republican legitimism in Switzerland and the United States just as one can speak of monarchist legitimism in Britain and Holland. In most countries of Europe, of course, there have been so many profound changes in the course of the centuries that legitimism is less frequently encountered. Under such conditions, it is particularly dangerous to have recourse to emotional arguments.
We are now in a position to define what we understand by a monarchy and a republic. Monarchy is that form of government in which the head of State is not elected, bases his office on a higher law, with the claim that all power derives from a transcendental source. In a republic, the highest officer of State is elected, and hence derives his authority from his electors, that is, from the particular group which elected him.
Leaving aside purely emotional considerations, there are good arguments for both of these basic forms of government. The most important arguments in favour of republicanism can be summarized as follows: In the first place, republics are, with few exceptions, secular. They require no appeal to God in order to justify their authority. Their sovereignty, the source of their authority, derives from the people. In our time, which turns increasingly away from religious concepts, or at least refers them into the realm of metaphysics, secular constitutional concepts and a secular form of government are more easily acceptable than a form rooted, in the last resort, in theocratic ideas. It is, therefore, also easier for a republic to embrace a secular version of the Rights of Man. The advantage this form of government offers would therefore seem to be that it is in closer touch with the spirit of our time, and hence with the great mass of the population.
In addition, the choice of the head of State depends not on an accident of birth, but on the will of the people or of an elite. The president's term of office is limited. He can be removed, and if he is incapable it is easy to replace him. Himself an ordinary citizen, he is in closer touch with real life. And it is to be hoped that, with better education, the masses will become increasingly capable of choosing the right man. In a monarchy, on the other hand, once a bad ruler has ascended the throne, it is almost impossible to remove him without overthrowing the whole regime. And lastly it is claimed that the fact that every citizen can, at least theoretically, become president, encourages a sense of political responsibility and helps the population to attain political maturity. The patriarchal character of a monarchy, on the other hand, leads the citizens to rely on their ruler, and to shift all political responsibility on to his shoulders.
In favour of monarchism, the following arguments are put forward: Experience shows that kings mostly rule better, not worse, than presidents. There is a practical reason for this. A king is born to his office. He grows up in it. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a "professional," an expert in the field of statecraft. In all walks of life, the fully qualified expert is rated higher than the amateur, however brilliant. For particularly in a difficult, highly technical subject -- and what is more difficult than the modern State? -- knowledge and experience outweigh sheer brilliance. The danger certainly exists that an incompetent may succeed to the throne. But was not a Hitler chosen as leader, and a Warren Harding elected president? In the classical monarchies of the Middle Ages, it was almost always possible to replace an obviously incapable successor to the throne by a more suitable one. It was only with the decadence of monarchism, in the age of the courtly despotism of Versailles, that this corrective was discarded. Nothing would be more appropriate in a modern monarchy than the institution of a judicial tribunal, which could, if necessary, intervene to change the order of succession to the throne.
Even more important than the king's "professional" qualifications is the fact that he is not tied to any party. He does not owe his position to a body of voters or the support of powerful interests. A president, on the other hand, is always indebted to someone. Elections are expensive and difficult to fight. The power of money and the great mass organizations always makes itself felt. Without their help, it is almost impossible to become the head of State of a republic. Such support is not, however, given for nothing. The head of State remains dependent on those who helped him into the saddle. It follows that the president is mostly not the president of the whole people, but only of those groups that helped him to attain office. In this way, political parties or groups of economic interests can take over the highest command positions of the State, which then no longer belongs to the whole people, but, temporarily or permanently, becomes the privileged domain of one or another group of citizens. The danger exists therefore that a republic will cease to be the guardian of the rights of all its citizens. This, it is stressed by monarchists, is particularly dangerous at the present time. For today the rights of the individual and of minority groups are in greater danger than ever before. Financial power- concentrations and large, powerful organizations generally are everywhere threatening the "little man." Particularly in a democracy, it is extremely difficult for the latter to make himself heard, since this section of the population cannot easily be organized and is of no great economic importance. If even the topmost pinnacle of the State is handed over to political parties, there will be no one to whom the weak can turn for help. A monarchical ruler, on the other hand -- so it is claimed -- is independent, and is there for all citizens equally. His hands are not tied in the face of the powerful, and he can protect the rights of the weak. Particularly in an age of profound economic and social transformations, it is of the highest importance that the head of State should stand above the parties...
And, finally, the Crown contributes to political life that stability without which no great problems can be solved. In a republic, the firm foundation is lacking. Whoever is in power must achieve a positive success in the shortest possible time, otherwise he will not be re-elected. This leads to short-term policies, which will not be able to cope successfully with problems of world-historical scope.
There is one more point we must consider before we can answer the question of which form of government will best serve the community in the future. Generally speaking, democratic republics represent a regime dominated by the legislature, while authoritarian regimes are dominated by the executive. The judicial power has not had the primacy for a long time, as we have shown above. It found its earlier expression in the Christian monarchies. It is frequently forgotten that the true ruler has always been the guardian of law and justice. The most ancient monarchs -- the kings of the Bible -- came from the ranks of the judges. St. Louis of France regarded the administration of justice as his noblest task. The same principle can be seen in the many German "Palatinates," since the Count Palatine (Palatinus) was the guardian of law and justice delegated by the King- Emperor. The history of the great medieval monarchies shows that the legislative power of the king -- even of a king as powerful as Charles V -- was severely limited by local autonomies. The same is true of the ruler's executive function. He was not, in the first place, a law-giver or head of the executive; he was a judge. All other functions were subordinate, and were only exercised to the extent necessary to make his judicial function effective.
The reason for this institutional arrangement is clear. The judge must interpret the meaning of law and justice, and to do this he must be independent. It is essential that he should not owe his position, his function, to any man. The highest judge, at least, must be in this position. This is only possible under a monarchy. For in a republic, even the highest guardian of the law derives his position from some other source, to which he is responsible and on which he remains dependent to some extent. This is not a satisfactory state of affairs. His most important task is not to pass judgment in actual legal disputes, but to stand guard over the purpose of the State and natural law. Above all, it is the task of the supreme judge to see that all legislation is in accordance with the State's fundamental principles, that is, with natural law. The monarch's right to veto legislation passed by parliament is a remnant of this ancient function...
The future form of the State will be something entirely new, something which will represent principles of eternal validity in a form appropriate to the future, without the errors of the past...
The hereditary character of the monarchial function finds its justification not merely in the "professional" upbringing of the heir to the throne. Nor is it merely a question of continuity at the summit of the political hierarchy, though such continuity is highly desirable when it is a question of planning for generations to come. Its deepest justification lies in the fact that the hereditary ruler owes his position not to one or another social group, but to the will of God alone. That is the true meaning of the frequently misunderstood words, "by the grace of God," which always signify a duty and a task. It would be wrong for the ruler by the grace of God to regard himself as an exceptional being. On the contrary, the words, "by the grace of God," should remind him that he does not owe his position to his own merits, but must prove his fitness by ceaseless efforts in the cause of justice.
While there is thus much to be said for a hereditary transmission of the supreme position of the State, there is also one serious drawback, which has already been mentioned. If the succession occurs automatically, there is the possibility that the throne will be occupied by an incompetent. This is the greatest danger of the monarchial system. On the other hand, this danger only dates from the period when the inflexible legitimism of Versailles came into being, and the safeguards present in one form or another in most classical monarchies disappeared. Such safeguards would therefore have to be built into any future monarchical constitution. It would be wrong to hand this task over to political bodies, as that would open the door to private interests. The decision should be left to a judicial tribunal. The king, as the highest constitutional judge of the State, cannot exercise his function in a vacuum. He will have to be assisted by a body representing the highest judicial authority, of which he forms the head. It is this body which should pronounce on whether a law or a regulation is constitutional, that is, in accordance with the purpose of the State. When the ruler dies, the other judges will continue in office. It should be their duty to pronounce on the suitability of the heir presumptive, and, if necessary, to replace him by the next in succession.
The activity of the head of State will undoubtedly go beyond the purely judicial field. He will have to control the executive, since it is his duty to see that the decisions of the judicial power are carried out in practice. Nevertheless, all these tasks will remain of secondary importance. It is in his judicial function that a twentieth-century monarch will find his primary justification.
________________________________________________________________________ The Archduke Otto von Habsburg (born 1912) was the last crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and is the present head of the House of Habsburg, and therefore pretender to the throne of Austria and Hungary. He is the author of several books and of many essays which appeared in scholarly journals in Europe and America; he holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Louvain. One of his chief interests has been the idea of Pan-Europeanism, and he has lectured and written a good deal on the need for Continental unity. In his The Social Order of Tomorrow* (London: Oswald Wolff, 1958), he asserts that today, more than ever, monarchy has a place in the modern world. The selection above is taken from the chapter "The State in the Twentieth Century"; he weighs the differing advantages and disadvantages of the monarchical and republican forms of government. Reprinted in the public service of the national interest of the American people. RETURN TO ARCHIVEDo you have a favorite drunkard?
Some amazing man or woman, past or present, who stands colossus-like atop the Big Keg, the ground below littered with crushed empties and the blacked-out carcasses of lesser beings? A verging demigod, whose prowess with a bottle leaves you shaking your head in pop-eyed adoration? Lots of us do.
In addition to their wrist-raising abilities, we deify great drinkers because they indulge their lust for intoxication while simultaneously operating at the peak of their powers in whatever their chosen profession. In other words, great drunks are also great writers, actors, athletes, scientists, statesmen, philosophers, and so on.
I have a favorite drunkard. He was an athlete—a professional wrestler in fact—but he was also a gifted entertainer and a true artist. His parents named him Andre Rene Rousimoff, but we knew him as The Eighth Wonder of the World, Andre the Giant.
For two decades, from the late 1960s through the mid 1980s, Andre the Giant was the highest paid professional wrestler in the business and a household name across the globe. Promoters fought tooth and nail to book Andre, as his presence on a card all but guaranteed a sell-out. Fans cheered his every move, and mobbed him on the street as if he were a great big Beatle.
For proof of his drawing power, look no further than Wrestlemania III in 1987. The main event was Andre vs. Hulk Hogan. The show drew the first million-dollar gate in wrestling history, set a pay-per-view record that lasted a decade, and set the all-time indoor attendance record for any live event ever—78,000+ butts in seats at the Pontiac Silver Dome in Detroit—destroying the previous record set by some rock band called the Rolling Stones. His rematch with Hogan two months later, broadcast live on NBC, attracted 33 million viewers, making it the most watched wrestling match ever.
Known to his friends simply as “Giant” or “Boss,” Andre was born on May 19th, 1946, in Grenoble, France, the child of Russian immigrants. Shortly after his birth, he was diagnosed with a rare glandular disease, acromegaly, which caused his body to over-produce growth hormones. As a result, Andre grew to a height of somewhere between 6’11” and 7’5” and a weight of over 500 pounds (his actual height and weight have been speculated about for decades—the business is notorious for inflating wrestlers’ statistics—but Andre’s illness sometimes made him slouch or bow his shoulders, so he might well have been the advertised 7’5”). He first wrestled as Andre the Butcher, but it was Vincent J. McMahon Sr., owner of New York’s World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), who christened him “Andre the Giant.”
While it can be argued that a miniscule handful of professional wrestlers matched Andre’s in-ring achievements (Gorgeous George back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, perhaps; Dusty Rhodes in the ‘70s, and Hulk Hogan, without a doubt, in the ‘80s), no other wrestler ever matched his exploits as a drunkard. In fact, no other human has ever matched Andre as a drinker. He is the zenith. He is the Mount Everest of inebriation.
As far as great drunkards go, there is Andre the Giant, and then there is everyone else.
The big man loved two things: wrestling and booze—mostly booze—and his appetites were of mythic proportion.
First, consider the number 7,000. It’s an important number, and a rather scary one considering its context, which is this—it has been estimated that Andre the Giant drank 7,000 calories worth of booze every day. The figure doesn’t include food. Just booze.
7,000 calories.
Every day.
I don’t know about you, but it makes my brain turn somersaults. Hell, it makes my brain perform an entire floor routine, complete with colored ribbons.
When Andre arrived in New York to begin his long working relationship with the McMahon family, his reputation as both a serious student of the nightlife and an extravagant spender was already a topic of speculation and wonder among East Coast wrestlers and promoters. Andre might make $15,000-$20,000 for a single appearance at Madison Square Garden, and a substantial amount of that went to settling the bar tabs he piled up as he boozed his way up and down Manhattan until sunrise. Andre’s generosity matched his size. He often invited a gang of fellow wrestlers along for the ride, as he disliked drinking alone, and picked up some truly staggering tabs. Andre was going to have a good time and went out of his way to make sure everyone else did too.
Worried about his headliner, Vince McMahon Sr. assigned a “handler” to the Giant—long-time wrestler, manager, and road agent, Arnold Skaaland, whose only job when Andre was in town was to keep him out of serious trouble and get him to the arena in time to wrestle. Skaaland was an old-school drinker in his own right, but Andre blew his mind. On one occasion he could only watch goggle-eyed as Andre went about demolishing a dozen or so quarts of beer as a “warm-up” for a match.
With Skaaland on the job, Vince Sr. knew Andre was in capable hands, but the promoter still worried about how the Giant would cope with the insane amount of travel required of a wrestling superstar. Andre loathed flying—no commercial airliner could accommodate such a massive man without resorting to the luggage compartment—and his opinion of most cars wasn’t much sunnier, because aspects of his disease caused intense pain in his knees, hips and lower back when he remained too long in a cramped position. When a tight schedule left a plane or car as the only option, Andre eased his discomfort by getting good and hammered.
Vince Sr. pondered the situation and arrived at a novel solution. He wanted to keep the big man happy, so he bought a trailer and had it customized just for Andre. With plenty of room to spread out and relax, Andre could now travel in a semblance of comfort, which allowed him to do some serious boozing. During trips Andre consumed beer at the incredible rate of a case every ninety minutes, with bottles of vodka or top-rate French wine thrown in for variety.
Sadly, the trailer wasn’t available outside the WWWF territory; Vince Sr. wasn’t about to do the competition any favors. Andre didn’t expect other promoters to pony up a trailer just for him, so he commissioned a customized Lincoln Continental. With the front seat now positioned about where the back seat would normally be, Andre had a little leg room. He carried his luggage and wrestling gear in the trunk and towed his necessities in a trailer. Lined with plastic tarps, the rickety trailer was filled with ice and cases of Budweiser tallboys. As he cruised the nation’s highways, Andre kept a case on the seat beside him, stopping only for food, more ice, and another case or two if he ran low.
As famous as Andre was in this country, he was even bigger in Japan. He spent a few months out of every year over there, where he was treated like a living god and pocketed five-figure payoffs for a single night’s work. That being said, Andre didn’t really like Japan. Everything was too small. Hotel beds were like bassinets and it was all but impossible for him to shower or go to the bathroom in their Lilliputian facilities. He was known to rip the door off his hotel bathroom and make use of the toilet by sitting sideways with his legs sticking out into the main room.
Getting from show to show presented its own problems. Japanese promoters preferred to transport the gaijin wrestlers by bus, vehicles which steadfastly refused to house giants. In order to placate their star import, promoters removed several rows of seats from the back of the bus, creating something of a private cabin for Andre, a place spacious enough for him to stretch out or catch a nap. Mostly, though, Andre used the space as a comfortable spot to do his drinking.
A very green rookie wrestler named Hulk Hogan toured Japan several times with Andre and witnessed the Giant’s alcohol consumption first hand. According to Hogan, Andre drank, at a minimum, a case of tall boys during each bus ride. When he finished a can Andre would belch, crush the can in his dinner-platter-sized hand, and bounce the empty off the back of Hogan’s head. Hogan learned to count each thunk, so he could anticipate when Andre was running low. Whenever the bus stopped, it was Hogan’s job to scamper off to the nearest store, buy as many cases of beer as he could carry, and make it back before the bus departed, a sight that never failed to make Andre roar his bassoon-like laugh.
On one tour, Andre’s Japanese sponsors rewarded him with a case of expensive plum wine. Andre settled down in the back of the bus and started drinking. Four hours later, the bus arrived at the next venue, and Andre was polishing off the last bottle of wine.
Sixteen bottles of wine in four hours is a considerable feat, but it gets better. Andre proceeded straight to the ring and wrestled three matches, including a twenty-man battle royal. The 16 bottles of plum wine had no discernible effect on Andre’s in-ring ability. By the end of the evening, Andre had sweated off the wine and found himself growing cranky. He dispatched Hogan for a few cases of beer. Hogan hurried to do as Andre asked, knowing from painful experience that a drunken Giant was a happy Giant, and a happy Giant was less likely to fracture some vital part of an opponent’s anatomy in a fit of grumpiness.
In 1977, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes wrestled Andre at Madison Square Garden. Afterwards, the old friends went out on the town. They adjourned to one of Andre’s favorite watering holes and took stools at the bar (Andre occupied two). Several hours and some 100 beers later (around 75 of them were Andre’s), they decided to head back to their hotel. Andre looked at taxis with the same scorn as most other conveyances and announced that he and Dusty would walk, which was problem because Dusty was having trouble maintaining a vertical position. Andre studied the situation, and a twinkling grin blossomed across his huge face. People who spent any time with the big man quickly learned to watch for that grin. It was a harbinger of danger. It meant that Andre was contemplating something risky, something with potential legal ramifications, but also, most assuredly, something fun.
A moment later, the two huge wrestlers attacked a pair of horse-drawn carriages. Dusty threw a handful of paper money at one driver while Andre hauled the other from his seat with one hand. While one driver cursed and the other scrabbled around on the ground collecting his windfall, Andre and Dusty thundered off in the carriages. They raced through the Manhattan streets, dodging cars and pedestrians for fifteen blocks before ditching the carriages and lathered horses a block from their hotel. By the time the cops arrived, Andre and Dusty were enjoying snifters of brandy in the hotel bar, appearing as innocent as angels. The next day, they main-evented another card at the Garden. Another sell-out. Two pros at the top of their games.
Another time, in the ‘70s, Andre was holding court at a beach-front bar in the Carolinas, boozing it up with fellow wrestlers Blackjack Mulligan, Dick Murdoch, and the inimitable Ric Flair. They’d been drinking with gusto for hours when Flair goaded Mulligan and Murdoch into some slap-boxing with Andre, who had poured over 60 beers down his gullet. One of the two “accidentally” sucker-punched Andre. The Giant became enraged, grabbed both Mulligan (6’5”, 250 lbs.) and Murdoch (6’3”, 240 lbs.) and dragged them into the ocean, one in each hand, where he proceeded to hold them under water. Flair intervened, and Andre released the men, assuring them he was only playing around. Murdoch and Mulligan, who had nearly drowned, weren’t so sure, but neither messed with Andre the Giant again. They also picked up the tab.
On another occasion, Andre was touring the Kansas City territory and went out for drinks after a show with Bobby Heenan and several other wrestlers. When the bartender hollered last call, Andre, slightly annoyed, announced that he didn’t care to leave. Rather than risk an altercation with his hulking customer, the bartender told Andre he could stay only if he was drinking, imagining, surely, that he would soon be rid of the big fella. Andre thanked the man, and proceeded to order 40 vodka tonics. He sat there drinking them, one after another, finishing the last at just after five in the morning.
When ill health forced Andre to largely quit wrestling in the late ‘80s, he accepted the role of Fezzik in Rob Reiner’s movie The Princess Bride. Everyone on the set loved the big man, with the possible exception of Reiner himself. Ever the sociable fellow, he kept fellow cast members Mandy Patinkin and Carey Elwes out night after night, drinking and otherwise goofing around. The actors were incapable of matching Andre’s intake, but certainly gave it a serious try. As a result, they often showed up on set still loaded or suffering from the sort of hangovers that make death seem a pleasant alternative. Reiner tried to get Andre to leave the actors alone, but Andre could only be Andre, and the other cast members continued to pay the price.
The shooting schedule required Andre to be in England for about a month. When his part wrapped, Andre checked out of his suite at the Hyatt in London and flew back to his ranch in North Carolina. His bar bill for the month-long stay?
Just a shade over $40,000.
Now, if everything I’ve described so far isn’t proof enough that Andre the Giant was the greatest drunkard who ever lived, these last two stories should set my claim in granite.
You won’t find it in the Guinness Book of World Records, but Andre the Giant holds the world record for the largest number of beers consumed in a single sitting. These were standard 12-ounce bottles of beer, nothing fancy, but during a six-hour period Andre drank 119 of them. It was one of the few times Andre got drunk enough to pass out, which he did in a hallway at his hotel. His companions, quite drunk themselves, couldn’t move the big man. Fearing trouble with cops, they stole a piano cover from the lounge and draped it over Andre’s inert form. He slept peacefully until morning, unmolested by anyone. Perhaps the hotel people thought he was a piece of furniture.
Think about it: 119 beers in six hours. That’s a beer every three minutes, non stop. That’s beyond epic. It’s beyond the ken of mortal men. It’s god-like.
Giants are not made long for this world, and toward the end of his life injuries and health problems caused by the acromegaly caught up with Andre. It became difficult just to walk, let alone wrestle, so he retired to his North Carolina ranch to drink wine and watch the countryside. He declined myriad requests for a comeback, despite promises of lavish payoffs. He was simply in too much pain to perform at the level he demanded of himself. Then he received a call from Vince McMahon Jr.
McMahon was in the midst of taking his WWF promotion national. He’d scored big-time with his Wrestlemania events on pay-per-view, and as Wrestlemania III approached, Vince Jr. was hot to make it the biggest thing yet. To make that happen, he needed Andre the Giant.
Andre was in France visiting his ailing father when the call came. He thanked Vince Jr. but said there was no way he could get back in a ring, even though he very much wanted to. Not willing to give up, Vince Jr. flew to France to speak with Andre in person. He took Andre to see doctors specializing in back and knee maladies. Radical back surgery was proposed. If successful, the procedure would lessen Andre’s pain and perhaps make it possible for him to get in the ring for Wrestlemania. If Andre was game, Vince Jr. agreed to pay for the entire cost of the surgery.
The time arrived, and the anesthesiologist was frantic. He had never put a person of Andre’s size under the gas before and had no idea how much to use. Various experts were brought in but no solution presented itself until one of the doctors asked Andre if he was a drinker. Andre responded that, yes, he’d been known to tip a glass from time to time. The doctor then wanted to know how much Andre drank and how much it took to get him drunk.
“Well,” rumbled the Giant, “It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.”
And thus was a solution found. The gas-passer was able to extrapolate a correct mixture for Andre by analyzing his alcohol intake. It was a medical breakthrough, and the system is still used to this day.
Five months later, Andre the Giant wrestled a “body-slam” match against Hulk Hogan and brought down the house.
Two liters of vodka. Warm and fuzzy. Side by side like that, the two sentences hardly make any sense. For most of us, two liters of vodka means a one-way ticket to Blackout Island aboard the good ship Regurgitania.
After Wrestlemania, Andre retired for good. His beloved father died in 1993 and Andre returned to France to be with his family. He was still there when, on January 26th, 1993, Andre died in his sleep of heart failure at the age of 47.
The key to Andre the Giant is this — even as a youth he knew that his disease would dramatically shorten his life. He knew there was no cure, and lived every day with the understanding that death could shamble around the very next corner. Knowledge of this sort can darken a life.
It did not darken Andre’s.
He chose instead to pack his days with as much insane, drunken fun as they could hold. Instead of languishing in the darkness, he chose to walk in the sun.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now. Andre the Giant was an inspiration. I would pay a fortune for the opportunity to go back in time 30 years to watch such a master practice his craft, in the ring and at the bar.
Andre the Giant was the very embodiment of what being a drunkard is all about.
—Richard English
(Note: The Author is indebted to the works of Brian Solomon, Ric Flair, Terry Funk, “Superstar” Billy Graham, Dave Meltzer, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, and Hulk Hogan.)The Firefox Desktop engineering team met together last Tuesday to chat about what they’re working on. Here are some juicy tidbits from that meeting:
Highlights
Contributor(s) of the Week
Project Updates
Add-ons
Users with add-ons that have multiprocessCompatible set to true in their install.rdf’s should be eligible for e10s starting in Firefox 50, assuming the two blocking bugs are fixed and uplifted
Content Handling
Electrolysis (e10s)
Firefox Core Engineering
Form Auto-fill
Go Faster
Next areas of focus are likely to be improving the |
’s “Jane Eyre” — the first since Franco Zeffirelli’s Charlotte Gainsbourg-starring attempt in 1996 — is one of my most curiously awaited films of 2011. The novel, a personal favorite, has been filmed multiple times, with no screen version quite hitting the jackpot: I’m intrigued, then, to see what fresh insight the young director of “Sin Nombre” will bring to the material. (Here’s hoping the corsets don’t constrict his personality the way they did the similarly indie-based Jean-Marc Vallée’s in “The Young Victoria.”)
With Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender playing Brontë’s tortured lovers, the film couldn’t be more ideally cast — in addition to the above-the-title names, Sally Hawkins also features — and this sleek, elegant poster (just unveiled by Focus, and picked up on by The Playlist) does promise a certain modernity. We’ll find out in the spring.Kool-Aid, the official beverage of your childhood, used to be a little more extreme back in the day. It wasn’t just tropical punch and grape—Kool-Aid offered crazy fruit concoctions fronted by crazy mascots or at least provided kids with flavors never actually found in nature. Today, we look back and savor some of our most missed Kool-Aid flavors.
7 – Rock-a-Dile Red
That’s one smooth crocodile!
The 1990s were notorious for many reasons, one of the top ones being the insane amount of character mascots touting food and beverage products. Kool-Aid already had the Kool-Aid Man, but that didn’t stop them from breaking out a bunch of beloved, but unusual, secondary mascots for certain new flavors. In this case, the Rock-a-Dile Red flavor featured the Rock-a-Dile, a red crocodile jazz musician whose saxophone played delicious berry notes of cherry, grape, and strawberry. It’s hard to go wrong with red Kool-Aid to begin with, but if there were ever any doubts Rock-a-Dile Red definitely secured that thought in our hearts.
UPDATE 2014! Rock-a-dile Red is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!
6 – Purplesaurus Rex
This flavor suffered the same fate as the fabled Purplesaurus.
I hate grape Kool-Aid. I hate anything that is grape flavored—it is the devil’s work. Unless, of course, you throw in some lemons and slap a dinosaur on the packaging, in that case I am all over it. Even better: if the dinosaur is stealthily stealing a bunch of grapes from the Kool-Aid Man. Extra points!
UPDATE 2014! Purplesaurus Rex is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!
5 – Great Bluedini
Did I just post hentai?
While there have been other Kool-Aid flavors that changed colors, Great Bluedini went down in the history books as being the first advertised color-changing Kool-Aid. Great Bluedini the character was a magician octopus. Great Bluedini the beverage was blue and antifreeze flavored and thus has a pretty short life in stores.
UPDATE 2014! Great Bluedini is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!
4 – Incrediberry
Beware of the Blob!
Another delicious red Kool-Aid, Incrediberry is a concoction of strawberries and raspberries, fronted by a happy, yet disturbing mascot. The Incrediberry blob is just that—a blob of Kool-Aid that no glass could contain. It looks goopy and blobby and all around unsettling as it soars through the sky. The packet touts that it’s “super fruity” and that it changes color when mixed with water—starting out yellow and transforming into another glorious red beverage.
3 – Pink Swimmingo
I didn’t think flamingos could get any more annoying…
Donning Bermuda shorts, sunglasses, a backwards hat, and binoculars, the Pink Swimmingo is a frazzled tourist flamingo whose flavor was also produced under the less exciting moniker of Watermelon-Cherry. Falling under the realm of red Kool-Aids with an unusual combination of fruit flavors, Pink Swimmingo was right up there with another favorite—Sharkleberry Fin—but tasted a bit too much like regular old cherry to make it into shark-quality territory.
UPDATE 2014! Pink Swimmingo is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!
2 – Sharkleberry Fin
Fintastic!
There are pink sharks advertising this beverage. Pink. Sharks. Do I need to write up a whole paragraph on that? Just in case—strawberries, oranges, and bananas on their own aren’t all that bad. But when they team up, they will wreak havoc on your tastebuds—in a totally pleasant way. Crystal Lite makes a Strawberry Orange Banana flavor that could pass as an aspartamed-up version of Sharkleberry Fin. Not unpleasant, but not as awesome as the original. A fine beverage either way, though.
UPDATE 2014! Sharkleberry Fin is available once again! If you’re in the U.S., raid all your grocery stores!
1 – Berry Blue (later: Ice Blue)
Nothing quenches thirst quite like windshield wiper fluid.
It seems unlikely, but adding lemons to anything makes that first thing 75% tastier. We saw how lemons worked their magic earlier on in the list by teaming up with grapes for Purplesaurus Rex. And here they are again to team up with blue raspberries for the best Kool-Aid flavor in (non) existence—Berry Blue. Thanks to the ill effects of windshield wiper fluid on small children, Berry Blue was discontinued for many years. It’s a common parenting flub to keep windshield wiper fluid in a smiling Kool-Aid Man pitcher in the front of the fridge, so I suppose it is understandable.
The flavor did make a triumphant comeback in the late 1990s as Ice Blue, part of the Island Twists line, and is still available in supermarkets today. I’m glad I could give this article a happy ending.
Did we miss your favorite Kool-Aid flavor? Let us know about it in the comments!Daniel Freeman: The first homesteader
Daniel Freeman was born in 1826 in Ohio. He was a physician, Civil War veteran, crusader for the separation of church and state, the first American Homesteader, and an all-around badass. Just look at his photo. He looks like the kind of guy who doesn’t own an oven because “revenge is a dish best served cold.”
After graduating from medical school Daniel Freeman volunteered to serve in the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. This was a time when warfare was largely fought by lining men up into straight lines and having them shoot at each other at relatively close rang while it was raining cannon balls.
During the civil war Daniel Freeman served as an army scout, which is arguably one of the most dangerous and badass jobs one could have. It was at this time that President Lincoln signed the Homesteading Act of 1862. When Freeman found out about the Homesteading Act, he decided to go on a scouting mission to the land office. He somehow convinced an agent at the office to open just after midnight so that he could make his claim. In doing so, he became the first person to register under the Homesteading Act.
The Homesteading Act of 1862 gave 160 acres of land to those who registered under the act. In order to keep the land, one had to live on the land for several years after and “improve it” by planting crops and building a house. One of the requirements was that would be homesteaders had to build a home that was at least “12X14.” However, some homesteaders found a loophole in that the Homesteading Act didn’t specify if the dimensions were in feet or in inches.
The Homesteading Act also required that you live on the land for at least 5 years, which was a daunting task. Most homesteaders couldn’t make it through their first 5 years of blizzards, Indian raids, disease, droughts, loneliness, poor internet connection, and a host of other minor inconveniences. However, Daniel Freeman wasn’t the type to let poor cell service and a little frost bite get in in his way. Five years after being the first person to sign up under the Homesteading Act he got three witnesses to sign off and was granted his claim.
After staking his claim, marrying his dead brother’s fiancé, and moving to Nebraska, Daniel Freeman got into a little kerfuffle with the local school board. The issue came about when Freeman got word that the teacher at the local one room schoolhouse was spending more time teaching children about the Bible than she was teaching them their ABCs.
This didn’t sit well with Freeman who was an educated, no bullshit war veteran, who knew a thing or two about the United States Constitution. He marched right down to the schoolhouse with his righteous beard and told the teacher to knock it off. The teacher informed him that everything she was teaching had been approved by the school board.
As you can probably tell from his photo, Daniel Freeman wasn’t the kind of guy who just let things go. Rather he decided to take matters into his own hands and give the teacher and the school board a lesson is civics.
Daniel Freeman marched down to the local court house and became the chief plaintiff in a landmark separation of church and state decision that religious zealots are still bitching about to this day. Freeman lost the first couple of court cases. However, he kept fighting through the courts all the way up to the Nebraska State Supreme Court where he eventually won.Stevie Ray Vaughan, one of the most talented players to ever pick up a six-string, was born on this day in 1954. The incomparable guitarist was at the forefront of a 1980s blues rock revival before a tragic helicopter crash cut his life short on August 27, 1990. His untimely death came one month before the release of Family Style, the Texas icon’s only album of collaborations with his brother, fellow guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.
Just a few months before his death, Vaughan took the stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival for an all-too-brief, yet altogether stunning, display of guitar wizardry. The 14-song set included an extended sit in from his brother Jimmie, along with covers of Freddie King (“In the Open”), Guitar Slim (“The Things That I Used to Do”), Buddy Guy (“Mary Had a Little Lamb”), Stevie Wonder (“Superstition”), Jimi Hendrix (“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”) and more. All of it is captured with quality audio in the video below, which was posted to YouTube in 2014.
Happy Birthday, SRV!France has decided to rescue its Areva nuclear energy company once again, this time by combining the nuclear power station creation business with state-controlled power operator EDF, its biggest client.
Only a few years back, in 2010, Areva’s finances had been restored by the forced sale of its transport and transmission activities to industrial group Alstom and electrical engineer Schneider. Meanwhile, GE of the United States controls the Alstom power activities as part of its own rescue recapitalisation.
The rest of Areva includes uranium mines, nuclear waste recycling, transport, storage and some alternative energy activities.
For all intents and purposes, Areva is dead. It was created in 2001 by throwing together various nuclear energy related state assets, as a sort of desperate leap forwards to provide cash-generating activities to the loss-making nuclear power station building activities.
Now, EDF and Areva will have a month to finalise a deal. EDF is likely to pay for the assets, but the state will also have to dip in for a capital increase, which means that France will pay twice for ending what was once a great dream – partly via its electricity consumers and partly by the tax payer.
Energy of the future
Nuclear was a key competence of France and a major building block of its energy strategy. France has to import its oil and gas, it has closed its coal mines and is uneasy about entering into shale energy. It has big water reservoirs, sea tide turbines and is expanding its park of wind turbines, but that does not come close to compensating its energy appetite.
Nuclear was an option. France had already invested heavily in nuclear technology under president Charles de Gaulle after World War Two because the country wanted to have its own nuclear deterrence, outside NATO and not under the nuclear shield of the United States.
The oil crises confirmed its choice to develop civil nuclear for energy and the complexity appealed to its top-notch engineers and mathematicians, educated at its top schools.
EDF, at the time fully state owned, ordered nuclear stations and operated them to provide French industry and consumers with relatively cheap energy, allowing further prowess such as the high-speed trains.
The engineers sought excellence and technical progress; the state took up the tab and funded it via several budget posts and controlled energy tariffs in the absence of competition.
The European Union and the single market called an end to power monopolies, condemned fixed prices and rolled back state control over industrial sectors. The French nuclear power builders were faced with a slowdown in orders as EDF started to focus more on running its existing reactors, reducing prices for consumers and generating cash for dividends to shareholders.
They found a relay in export markets, such as Finland and China, and did not sell the power plants they had already developed and built for EDF, but more advanced technologies they had not been able to sell at home.
Then the Fukushima accident came along with the tsunami, and the world lost its love with nuclear.
That is the external story many French officials would like to blame for the Areva disaster. They are wrong.
It’s the client, stupid!
External factors may have precipitated the crash of Areva, but the cause is internal. Areva and the French nuclear industry is controlled by engineers and state officials and the market comes as an afterthought.
The problems of time and cost overruns in China, Finland and now in France at Flamanville are self-made and part of the “esprit de corps” arrogant attitude of the organisation.
The French designed the best possible nuclear reactors with their computer programmes and small-scale models, but they did not design reactors that they knew they could actually build. By pushing the technological barriers, out of an intellectual challenge and national pride, they pushed the projects beyond feasibility, let alone profitability.
Areva was the brain child of two high-ranking officials -- Anne Lauvergeon, a former advisor to president François Mitterrand, and nuclear scientist turned top bureaucrat, Pascal Colombani.
Their goal was to maintain and enhance France’s standing and reputation. Their definition of “value” was different from a company in a competitive environment.
The creation of Areva was not a solution; it was a band-aid to hide a wound, an expedient to delay a painful restructuring.
Now, 13 years later, the problem needs to be addressed and risks costing billion of euros and thousands of jobs. But still, the state might be tempted to find another expedient to keep up appearances until after the next presidential election in 2017, or until economic growth picks up and unemployment falls.
France needs to consider allowing foreign stakes in the capital structure, either direct of in joint venture. It cannot ignore the interest expressed by French power rival Engie, Italy’s Enel, or Japan’s Hitachi and Toshiba. Currently, the capital of Areva is 95 percent French. The Kuwait Investment Authority has just below 5 per cent.
At whose service?
The chairman of Areva is now Philippe Varin, freshly kicked out of carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen at the urging of the Chinese group that provided capital with the French state to shore up the wounded firm that was Europe’s second-biggest volume auto producer.
Varin studied at the top French technical schools and then had leading functions in the state metal industry in France and the Netherlands. At EDF, his counterpart is Jean-Bernard Levy, since late last year.
Levy also attended a French technical elite school and was an official in state telecommunications before entering the finance world and later heading media group Vivendi during an existential crisis. They should find a sustainable solution so that France can continue to enjoy cheap nuclear energy without big tax subsidies, without hiving millions of people to the job office and without a constant risk of liabilities for continuing cost and tile overruns.
In fact, they need to put the “toxic” advanced new nuclear station projects in a special legal structure, ring-fenced from the rest. That will need continued state backing. For the rest of the businesses, they need to decide what is most viable – standalone, alliance or sale.
The brilliant engineers should be contained to their state research institute and allowed to brood on new technologies, such as nuclear fusion that might once safe the world, but kept away from any construction projects as long as the feasibility of their projects, technical and financial, is not proven.
It could cost billions now to avoid costs of more billions later.
Will Varin and Levy take the bull by its horns? Or will they just come up with another elegant compromise that will keep France’s flag flying, slightly frayed, on top of an ailing former state darling industrial sector… until the next crisis?Sometimes, despite the stigma associated with them, it's fun to figure out which stereotype is linked to our gaming play styles. Besides being sort of fun and self-indulgent, it's also a fantastic way of figuring out which games you might like and which you're likely to get bored of rapidly.
Completionists
You're focused on achievement and progression; your primary objective is to complete the game's primary objectives, then its secondary objectives, then all the other content in the game. If it's a multiplayer game, Completionists often look to show off status and accumulated wealth. If it can be beaten, you beat it; if it can be collected, you collect it. You're the type of person that will reply an open-ended game multiple times, likely opting to beat it both as "good" and "evil," or whatever other options are present.
WHY DO I KEEP ACCEPTING THESE?
If it means a better score or exposure to a new adventure path, it is not below you to load and re-load in an effort to locate the best option. You are concerned with seeing all there is to offer and enjoy getting your money's worth, at times finding yourself obsessive about progression. You'd be the type to play Skyrim in "hardcore mode," just to see what it's like. It doesn't matter whether it's linear or open-ended, as long as it has a goal.
You most likely would enjoy: RPGs, MMOs, games of challenges.
Games to look into: Morrowind & Skyrim, SWTOR, the Baldur's Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Cave Story.
Destroyers
No game is too difficult for you; you research the best strategies, the overpowered approaches, map layout, assault directions, or -- if these things bore you -- maybe you're just damn good at killing things, whether or not you analyze your approach. If it can be killed, you kill it, maim it, destroy it, and leave nothing behind. Destroyers enjoy figuring out new and inventive ways to take people out, especially in multiplayer games where skill is shown to all in the server.
It doesn't matter if it's a stealth game, an open assault game, or just a multiplayer mash-up like Unreal Tournament and Quake; as long as you can obliterate the competition, you're happy (and damn good at it). You are most concerned with points and kill-death ratios, if it's a singleplayer game, you try to get as creative as possible when it comes to vanquishing your foes. You are very competitive, whether or not it's intentional.
You most likely would enjoy: FPS's, RTS's, games of skill.
Games to look into: Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat, Red Orchestra, Company of Heroes, StarCraft 2, Planetside 2, Age of Chivalry, Battlefield 3.
Creators
Originality, creativity, and expandability are your most important factors when playing a game. You like to build, innovate, or heavily mod your games. Collecting resources, building cities, and creating content are extremely enjoyable to Creators and supersede killing and objectives; you'd rather spend hours installing mods or building cities than completing objectives. You often show your creations off to all of your friends, whether or not they care. You're original and take pride in using limited resources in clever ways.
Tolkien would be proud... or horrified.
You do have a weakness, though: you're concerned with becoming bored and burning out; many times in the past, you've found that you just simply stop playing a game or question what the point of the game is.
You most likely would enjoy: Open RPGs, Mod-heavy games, Builders (i.e., Minecraft or city simulators).
Games to look into: MineCraft, the Tycoon series, Terraria, X3: Albion Prelude, Dwarf Fortress, Spore, Hinterland.
Thinkers
You're of a dying breed in gaming, but you find yourself to be the most strategic and advanced of all the gaming stereotypes. Settling in for the long-haul and strategically expanding your empire is of great importance -- Thinkers are focused on making beneficial compromises in effort to maximize your gain and minimize the potential for a future set-back. Solving complex problems, whether puzzles, profitability of a trade route, or paths of assault, is your favorite aspect of gaming. You hate it when games hold your hand and prefer to do it on your own.
You likely enjoy (or would enjoy) tabletop wargames or puzzles in addition to your gaming habits. You're most concerned with different types of empire building or puzzle solving and will often complete a game multiple times, if only to see the different ways to solve a problem. If you have to, you'll self-impose problems to make an otherwise thoughtless game interesting.
You most likely would enjoy: Turn-based strategy, some RTS, puzzle games.
Games to look into: The Total War series, Hearts of Iron, Aperatus (mobile devices), Frozen Synapse, SpaceChem, Portal 2.
Explorers
Unveiling the most expansive, breathtaking environments that the developers had to offer is incredibly important to you; exploring and adventuring are of paramount importance to you. Explorers embark on objective-less journeys to see the most impressive regions of a game. You love the visuals or inhabitant variations and believability of a game world and will even ignore main quests for days-on-end if it means seeing more of the land.
One of many star systems in X3: Albion Prelude.
Explorers are prone to collecting pointless items in games -- books, weapons, gadgets -- and putting them on display for all to see (even if it's a singleplayer game). You take pride in the fact that your map, unlike many of your friends, has almost every icon fast-travelable on it; you've seen all there is to see. Explorers are proficient at'making their own fun' in a game and are often similar to Creators.
You would most likely enjoy: MMOs, Open RPGs, expansive games.
Games to look into: Morrowind & Skyrim, the X3 series, MineCraft, Trine 2 (incredible visuals), Divinity II, SWTOR, Dwarf Fortress.
Casual Gamers
"What's with all this stereotype crap? I just sit down and play whenever I can." You really don't think that hard about your games -- you play when you can and tend to enjoy non-competitive, low-stress gaming. Casual gamers find themselves playing whatever's easily available - phone games, social network games, indie games, puzzle games, and often find themselves relatable with Thinkers. You might also find Triple-A games to be problematic, as pointed out here.
It's not of your concern to kill lots of people, which you find repetitive and frustrating anyway, or complete infinite objectives, or spend days building a castle; you just want something easy that doesn't take a lot of effort, although you do sometimes find thinking games fun, as long as they're not brutal.
You would most likely enjoy: Casual games (derp), Puzzle games, platformers, arcade-style.
Games to look into: Audiosurf, Beat Hazard, Droplitz, Scribblenauts, Spectraball, Zombie Driver, Orcs Must Die!.
Challengers
Games of pure skill, refinement, and speed are the most respectable in your eyes; you love mastering a game and being the best in the high scores tables. If people have complained about how difficult a game is, you're the one that exclaims: "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" You take it upon yourself to painstakingly figure out the fastest routes, preserve lives, and accumulate points.
There is no platformer too grueling for you, no arcade game worthy of your dedication, and no gamer that comes close to your attention to timing and sequencing. You're the very same type of person that plays games like StarCraft only for the modded challenges. Challengers will often spend hours on a single level, trying to perfect timings and complete goals with utmost precision. No goal is too hard for you.
You would most likely enjoy: Platformers, arcade-style games.
Games to look into: I Wanna Be The Guy, Silver Surfer (NES), Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV, Bit.Trip Runner, Jamestown, AaAaAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, N+.
Adventurers
A unique mix of explorer and destroyer, adventurers love to play for the story and the thrill of the game. They're the most likely to get immersed for hours at a time, and are captured by compelling stories and fantastical landscapes. Adventurers like to destroy, but only when it's relevant to the story (or they get bored, but they don't save if they kill things for no reason). You try to see as much as there is to see, complete the story, and still have fun at the same time. You're not interested in finishing everything in the game like the Completionists are - but you are captivated by many of the elements that Explorers find attractive.
Your weakness is also what makes you an Adventurer: You can easily locate flaws in the game, notice glitches frequently, and find gaping holes in the story. You're skilled at locating inconsistencies and, while it drives you crazy, you try to get over it if the story is good enough. Linear games don't bother you as much as they would explorers, but you still prefer openness.
You would most likely enjoy: RPGs, Story-based MMOs.
Games to look into: Fallout, Skyrim, Baldur's Gate II, Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Bioshock, Assassin's Creed.
So which one are you? Let us know in the comments below! If you think we missed someone, tell us and we'll add it to the next edition.
Update: We added 'Adventurers' to give those that love story an option!My first reaction to the internet was physical. I accessed Usenet to see what sort of newsgroups were around. Scrolling down the list, I was simply staggered. This was just one list, and there were so many discussion groups, and so many threads within each one. Two things happened: I started extrapolating from the small sub-section of the net I’d peeked into, boggling at the capacity for information exchange the whole thing appeared to afford; also, I kept remembering a quote at the end of a Throbbing Gristle interview in Re/Search, which inspired me at the start of my zine-making days: “Information exchange is the only way to ever get real change…” I hadn’t even got to the end of the list of newsgroups when my physical reaction to this vista of potential became unbearably intense… I was so excited I had to go outside and shout “FUCK!” a few times.
Well, that TG quote was from 1982. At that time, the ‘zine scene’ was only just emerging from the 70s’ mailart networks, the internet was mostly unheard of, and the arrival of VCRs had provoked a moral panic about screen sex and violence. Even now, the censorship of visual information is perhaps only beaten by that of political information. Us responsible over-18s still can’t see the more intimate details of lovemaking, like hard-ons and labia, onscreen. Well actually, we can—if we dig a bit deeper than the local multiplex or Blockbusters!
The same applies to political information. We get lied to daily about even the most basic of political situations through the mass media (and they lie even when they’re telling the truth). But anyone with the barest scrap of curiosity can get a better low-down through more underground media, whether it’s via the internet, Red Pepper, SchNEWS, Undercurrents videos, whatever. There are things that far too few people know about, no doubt; but there’s much more than enough information around to intellectually arm anyone who genuinely wants to get out there and do something about our corrupt cultures. Lack of access to information is not the major problem. Apathy is.
So is ‘information exchange’ still the Holy Grail of social change? Can it be such a thing in a society where information overload now seems to reign supreme? Bombarded with tragedies and trivia from around the globe, we grow numb to our immediate surroundings. Persuaded that we should be like this or like that—by everyone from advertisers to health experts, New Age moralists to totally sound eco-activist groups—our faith in our own nature is eroded. Faced with seemingly limitless possibilities for ‘inner change’ or ‘personal growth’—magick, yoga, therapies, dancing, crystals, NLP, psychedelics, neo-quasi-pseudo-shamanism—we can easily succumb to ‘option anxiety’. Imagine a rabbit, transfixed by oncoming headlights because it can’t decide which of the two escape routes to take. Now imagine that it’s not a rabbit, it’s you. There aren’t just two ways out, but hundreds. And it’s not a car approaching, it’s a black hole, on the other side of which there may be… a spouse, two kids, mortgage and a tiresome job? Schizophrenia? Death? Boredom? I feel like I’m just starting to learn that knowing how to apply a small amount of information is shitloads more powerful than being the most informed squashed rabbit around.
Actually, saying that I’ve just started to learn is a bit misleading. Nearly four years ago I wrote: “The concept of consuming information should be replaced by that of seeking out and using information.” Such a simple thing to do, no? But how many of us use—in a tangible, creative way—as much information as we consume? How many of us express as much information as we consume? I don’t think all information has to be immediately ‘functional’—that would be as boring as information overload is paralyzing. But as far as the way I allow information to change my life goes, I’ve reached some fruitfully creative peaks, and I’ve also sunk to some very burnt-out troughs. The learning process (or mine, at least) is wave-like and cyclic, not linear and progressive.
Lingering traces of linearity are my main bone of contention with the apocalyptic ideas of people like Robert Anton Wilson and Terence McKenna. Don’t misunderstand; people like this have inspired me to do some wonderful things. Their models of how human culture is evolving still influence me. And I know that they’re probably well aware of the criticisms I’m about to bring up—they just don’t seem to talk about them much. Only human.
RAW, mainly in Prometheus Rising, has demonstrated that the rate of human acquisition of knowledge is increasing exponentially. That is, it’s not just going up; it’s going up faster and faster and faster… So if it was mapped on a graph, it wouldn’t be a straight diagonal line going from bottom left to top right; it’d be a curve, rising slowly from the bottom at first, then getting steeper and steeper, until eventually it’s just going vertically.
What happens when human knowledge ‘goes vertical’? Time-travel? Space colonization? Entry into a hyperdimension? Massive good vibes? No one really knows, but Terence McKenna’s tagged a date and time to that vertical line—6.00am, December 21st, 2012. Moreover, because of the acceleration of the universe’s unfolding, he thinks that half of the total evolution of our 72-plus-billion-year old universe will occur in the last 0.3 seconds before 6.00am on this date. If we take the rise of life or the discovery of atomic energy as examples of key ‘barriers’ that universal evolution passes through, McKenna’s calculations tell us that thirteen such barriers will be passed in the last 0.0075 seconds!! (see The Invisible Landscape) This theory is staggering, unimaginable, and inspiring in a way that’s intense but very hard to grasp (until you smoke DMT I suppose). It’s also amazingly human-centred, ‘West-centred’, and probably very ‘male’ too.
The idea of a point at the end of history, or the universe—McKenna’s “concrescence of novelty”—is the flip-side of everything exploding out from a singularity at the beginning. The Omega Point and the Big Bang are like bookends of unification at either end of the flow of time. They can also be seen as Vast Ejaculations (now there’s an album title). Douglas Rushkoff first pointed out to me the masculine sexuality underlying linear apocalyptic ideas. As I wrote that last paragraph, I noticed the sexual innuendo in the idea of human knowledge ‘going vertical’ (fnarr, fnarr). The Big Bang isn’t really that far from Egyptian creation myths where gods bring forth various things by beating off. And the Omega Point is an ever-accelerating rush towards a crescendo of connectedness and barrier-dissolution—a Cosmic Climax.
This all sounds great, but I also wonder: where’s the female orgasm? What about continuous waves of full-body, non-linear ecstasy, with no focal point and no singular ‘explosion’? Such experiences are the focus of much sexual mysticism, for men and women. There’s no Point to it, but it ain’t ‘pointless’! Does it have no place in eschatology? Would the concepts of the Omega Point, the Apocalypse, Judgement Day, Timewave Zero, etc. even exist if this experience was more common than the furtive “sneeze in the genitals”, as Alan Watts has called the average male orgasm? Well, there’s only one way to find out!
Undigested information is mounting up inside most of us: facts without meanings, meanings detached from emotions, emotions we don’t take time to understand. Are we yearning for a quick and catastrophic explosion to relieve the tension—the tension of information overload, the tension of tightly measured time, the tension of too much history? Dare we step back for a moment amidst this frantic rush towards the Climax, and question the assumptions behind linear masculine eschatology—even as we approach the deadline? As Mogg Morgan says in his article ‘The Erotic Landscape (revisited)‘:Meta Brown, Sydnee Caldwell, and Sarah SutherlandLast year, our blog presented results from the FRBNY Consumer Credit Panel (CCP) indicating that, at a time of unprecedented growth in student debt, student borrowers were collectively retreating from housing and auto markets. In this post, we compare our 2012 findings to the news for 2013. Between 2012 and 2013, U.S. auto and housing markets recovered substantially. The CoreLogic national house price index rose by 11 percent from December 2012 to December 2013. According to the Los Angeles Times, “It was the [auto] industry’s best year since 2007.” Last summer, this blog post discussed the sources of the ongoing auto recovery. Here we pose two questions: What part have young borrowers, with and without student debt, played in the recent housing and auto market recoveries? And, have the housing and auto purchases of young student borrowers at last accelerated past those of nonstudent borrowers, to once again reflect their skill and earnings advantages?The share of twenty-five-year-olds with student debt continued to increase in 2013, as the group’s average student loan balance reached $20,926. For those twenty-five-year-olds with student loans, student debt now comprises 69 percent of the debt side of their balance sheets. Given the increased popularity of student loans, some have questioned how taking on extensive debt early in life has affected young workers’ post-schooling economic activity.As in last year’s blog post, we address the association between student debt and subsequent economic activity by examining trends in homeownership, auto debt, and total borrowing at standard ages of entry into the housing and vehicle markets for U.S. workers.The first post-schooling economic activity we explore is homeownership. The chart below shows the trends in the rates of (inferred) homeownership over the last decade for thirty-year-olds with and without histories of student debt.Despite an 11 percent house price recovery over the course of 2013 and an increase in overall mortgage debt, thirty-year-olds with and without student loans continued to retreat from the housing market.Further, student borrowers failed to exhibit the differential recovery one might expect in 2013. Prior to the most recent recession, homeownership rates were substantially higher for thirty-year-olds with a history of student debt than for those without. This pre-recession pattern is typically explained by the fact that student debt holders have higher levels of education on average, and hence, higher income potential. Simply put, these more educated, often higher-earning, consumers were more likely to buy homes by the age of thirty.However, the recession brought a sudden reversal in this relationship. As house prices fell, homeownership rates declined for all types of borrowers, and declined most for those thirty-year-olds with histories of student loan debt. In last year’s blog, we reported that 2012 was the first time in at least ten years that thirty-year-olds with no history of student loans were actually more likely to have home-secured debt than those with a history of student loans.Did student borrowers regain their homeownership advantage in the course of the broader recovery? They did not. Surprisingly, student loan holders were still less likely to invest in houses than nonholders in 2013, despite the marked improvements in the aggregate housing market.The next chart presents auto debt market participation among twenty‑five‑year‑olds. As discussed in the previous post, auto debt offers an informative, if incomplete, picture |
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The key battle in the midfield at Silverstone will be between Force India, Lotus, Sauber, Red Bull and Toro Rosso. That’s five teams battling for fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship and Force India are introducing a brand-new design at Silverstone and for the rest of the season; a new nosecone with innovative “nostrils” and pretty much every other aerodynamically critical surface of the car has been improved. So when you’re watching races from now until the end of the season, keep an eye out for Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg.
To much fanfare and some controversy, Max Verstappen joined Toro Rosso at the start of the season becoming the youngest Formula 1 driver in history at just 17 years and 3 days old. How do you feel he has grown as a driver?
He’s done very well so far, pulling off some great overtakes and even refusing to be intimidated by off-track pressures from elder statesmen like Felipe Massa when they’ve had a go at him about his driving standards. It’s a cliché to say that he’s got an old head on young shoulders but it’s true. So the big question for me is which big team is going to snap him up, and how long do they wait before they do it.
Is Alonso the unhappiest driver on the grid at the moment? He ended the last race in Austria with his McLaren parked on top of his former team mate, Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari. Thankfully both drivers emerged unscathed. Can you see anything on the horizon that will hearten Alonso’s troubled choice of cars?
Not really. McLaren and Honda have already written off development on this year’s car, preferring to concentrate on their 2016 model, so whilst reliability might improve (it can’t get any worse) Alonso’s not going to be scoring the podiums that he craves this year, but he’s in this for the long term so hopefully for everyone’s sake he won’t get too disheartened.
The teams have just had the last testing session of this season, do you think we are going to see any big changes in the remaining races?
Only with Force India moving up the order.
What do you think about the comments by Richard Branson speaking at Battersea Park as London hosted the final rounds of the inaugural Formula E season that Formula E will overtake F1 in popularity?
Well… as the owner of a Formula E team he would say that, wouldn’t he? But I do think Formula E has hit on a genius business plan which allows them to stage their races in downtown city locations that would never be available to Formula 1 – as a one-day event there’s much less disruption – and due to the nature of electric cars there’s next to no noise pollution and local government and mayoral offices are keen to be getting on the electric-vehicle bandwagon. So Formula E has a list of venues that Formula 1 can only ever dream of. Formula E organisers are bringing the race to these cities for free, so while it’s a business plan that isn’t hugely sustainable at the moment, an increasingly prestigious roster of series sponsors (Visa, DHL) means that there is at least some money coming in. But two critical problems remain for Formula E. Number one, they are slow. Really slow. On circuits where you’re also used to seeing Formula 1 going round, for example Monaco, it shows. And two, the calibre of the drivers really doesn’t match Formula 1.
Will F1 move back to larger, noisier engines to compete against the electric formula?
No I don’t think so. It was a condition of several manufacturers including Renault and Mercedes staying in F1 that we went to hybrid turbo-charged small-capacity engines and they are always going to be quieter than big V8s. So the genie is out of the bottle on that one, we’re not going back. As these engines deliver over 33% improvement in fuel economy, nor should we.
And finally, the big one, can Nico Rosberg keep Lewis Hamilton from a third world championship title this season?
He’s giving it a damn good go. But ultimately Lewis is the faster racer and I haven’t seen anything this season to convince me that Nico can beat him consistently enough to be world champion.
Further information: www1.skysports.com/f1/ / www.silverstone.co.uk/events/2015-british-grand-prix / www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30704154Santa I'm sorry this post is over a week late. I hope you don't think I'm not appreciative, or that I wasn't happy with what you sent because let me make our perfectly clear, I loved it!!
The day it arrived I went out to pick up the box my mom ordered from Amazon and found two packages. I saw some Halloween stickers on the box and thought yaaay!! Because I recalled my Santa had updated the shipping info. I swear literally it seemed like a day or two after matching the box was already being shipped! So i figured something was ordered online and sent from the retailer to move that fast. Well to my surprise my Santa worked at lightning speeds! I picked up the box and thought whoa! It was HEAVY. And it was in the bigger box that I've shipped in before so I know how expensive postage on those is! Dang I was in for a treat!
I took it into the dining room so I could take pictures of the glorious booty that I was about to behold. And I had no idea how cheesy my Santa had went! It seemed there was a never ending stream of items in the box! Surely just when I thought there couldn't be more in there right? There was! I'll let the pictures do the talking because honestly I'm pretty speechless about how much was put into the gift. I can clearly see how much money, time, and thoughtfulness was put into the package. 100/10. Seriously. Santa, I think I'm in love with you. And now I'm going to spend the next few weeks every day wanting to try a new color of polish. I'm floored. <3"Saturday Night Live" this week featured a Boyz II Men-style song about missing Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaChicago's next mayor will be a black woman Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year With low birth rate, America needs future migrants MORE, performed by the former president's friend and musician Chance the Rapper.
Chance the Rapper, who hosted SNL this week, performed the ballad alongside cast members Chris Redd and Kenan Thompson, with all three lamenting the end of Obama's presidency.
"Every night I turn the TV on and cry, and I cry, and I cry, I say why, I feel like we're all gonna die," the three sing.
"I'm in hell, dreaming about you and Michelle," the song continues.
“We didn't know just what we had. Now things are looking bad. Like really bad, like World War bad, like nuclear bad,” they sang, with Chance adding, “When I think of change, the only change I want is you.”
Chance is close to Obama, and even launched a clothing line earlier this year inspired by the former first family, called "Thank U Obama."A member of the New York City Police Department stands guard in Herald Square on Sunday in New York after Saturday night’s explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
There were the homeless men who alerted New Jersey police about a backpack of pipe bombs. There were the random New Yorkers who brought food and coffee to law enforcement staked out at the scene of the New York explosion. There’s the bar owner who realized that the man asleep in his entranceway was the suspected attacker.
These are some of the heroes whose stories have emerged since makeshift bombs went off Saturday in the popular Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan and in Seaside Park, N.J., during a race for wounded veterans.
On Sunday night, a full day after the dual attacks, two homeless men found a backpack and took it. But when they opened it, they saw wires connected to what turned out to be five pipe bombs. They dropped the backpack and immediately went to the police. Mayor Christian Bollwage On Sunday night, a full day after the dual attacks, two homeless men found a backpack and took it. But when they opened it, they saw wires connected to what turned out to be five pipe bombs. They dropped the backpack and immediately went to the police. Mayor Christian Bollwage told NJ Advance Media that they “probably saved hundreds of people.”
Meanwhile, in New York, with police still patrolling the crime scene where 29 people were injured in a bomb blast, random people brought them tokens of appreciation. One act was caught on camera by Knight News, an independent news organization out of the University of Central Florida, and has since been viewed on Facebook more than 17 million times. In the video, a man comes by with bags of pastries and coffee from Starbucks, and hands them over the guardrail to NYPD officers.
Then there was Harinder “Harry” Bains, the Sikh owner of Merdie’s Tavern in Linden, N.J., who found a man sleeping in the doorway of his restaurant Monday morning. When he tried to rouse him, he thought he may have recognized his face from the news. He told the man he could stay because the establishment wasn’t opening for another hour, Then there was Harinder “Harry” Bains, the Sikh owner of Merdie’s Tavern in Linden, N.J., who found a man sleeping in the doorway of his restaurant Monday morning. When he tried to rouse him, he thought he may have recognized his face from the news. He told the man he could stay because the establishment wasn’t opening for another hour, according to the New York Post. Then he called the police, resulting in the capture of Ahmad Khan Rahami.
But Bains denies that his actions were heroic.
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“When I heard about the attacks and realized the suspect was sleeping in a doorway across the street, I did what any American would do. I called the police. I’m not a hero,” he said in a statement released on Tuesday by the Sikh Coalition. The police are heroes; the EMTs are heroes; everyone who is working to bring New York and New Jersey together today is a hero.”
Bains added that as a Sikh American he “could have been mistaken for the perpetrator,” as many Sikhs have been targets of hate crimes when mistook for Muslims.
“I want to remind Americans that after an attack, we should target people based on evidence, not their faith or their country of origin or their accent,” he said. “I came to this country from India 20 years ago to create a better life for my family. I am a father of four and a proud American citizen. I am also what America looks like.”
(This post has been updated.)
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Fans have a seemingly insatiable appetite for expansion draft news.
They can't get enough of details about the June 21 draft, during which the league's newest franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights, will build a roster comprised mainly of players selected from other franchises. Each current team will create a protected list of players Vegas cannot select.
Mock expansion drafts, projected protected lists, which players can be exposed or are exempt? You name it, and NHL fans are all over it.
So the reaction on Twitter last Wednesday when I relayed the info, after the GMs meeting wrapped up, that the league was leaning toward not making the protected lists public before the draft wasn't surprising. Many fans -- and some fellow media members, for that matter -- were disappointed, even outraged.
Many media colleagues stated (rightly, I think) that the league would be losing out on a great opportunity to get even more buzz from the event, during which the Vegas team will announce its roster picks. The question is whether fans will know beforehand which players from each team are eligible to be drafted by the Golden Knights.
The league felt out team GMs last week on the matter and found that a fair number of them feel that their protected lists should be not be made public.
Not all of them feel that way. One GM told ESPN.com he thought the room was close to being split. But even that number gives the league pause.
Two GMs I've spoken with since then insist that they're fine with the lists being made public. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said via email on Tuesday that the issue is still being discussed.
"We haven't made a final decision yet on what public access we may make available to the protected and available lists," Daly said. "The managers have expressed a preference for maintaining the confidentiality of that information. We will make a final decision in due time. There is no rush here."
No doubt the league is aware that fans are eager for the information. But if the majority of clubs do indeed want confidentiality for the protective lists, the league may decide that's the route to go.
Perhaps even more intriguing to me is the possibility -- which another GM alerted me to on Monday -- that the protected lists might also not be shared among teams before the draft, meaning they would be shut out just like the rest of us.
The issue here, I think, is that some GMs are hesitant to let everyone else in the league see how they are ranking or otherwise valuing their own players.
I would argue that they already do show their cards when they reveal how they compensate the players in terms of salary. But I suppose that, if lower-paid players end up getting protected over higher-paid players in some cases, teams might not want that kind of naked truth being blatantly blasted out there for posterity.
Perhaps the information could affect future trade negotiations, if a team now knows how a competitor truly feels about a certain player its trying to move?
One GM told ESPN.com on Monday that if all the protected lists aren't shared among teams, "I think that's an advantage for Vegas. They'd be the only team with all the info.''
Again, let me stress, this remains a fluid situation. As Daly said, no final decision has been made by the league on the matter.
I reached out to the NHL Players' Association to see how it felt felt about the protective lists being made public or not.
"This is something the league and the NHLPA will be discussing in advance of the June expansion draft,'' NHLPA senior spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon said on Tuesday, not adding any further details.
In the end, much of the protected list news will get out to the media anyway, since most teams will inform their players and/or their agents if they're being protected or not.
But it's going to get leaked haphazardly via different sources, so we'll be left to assemble the overall puzzle over the 48 hours leading up to the expansion draft.
Will it be fun? Sure. I can't wait to dig in on that challenge. But I think it's clear what fans want -- all the details on all 30 protected lists blasted out in one clean, official fashion. Will they get it? Stay tuned.Portland Thorns FC vs. Sky Blue FC
Angie Kerr
( Steven Gibbons/for The Oregonian)
Portland Thorns midfielder Angie Kerr has announced her retirement from professional soccer.
Kerr played professionally for five years and was a member of the Thorns for the last two years.
The 29-year-old was selected by the Thorns in the second-round of the 2013 NWSL Supplemental Draft and appeared in 29 regular-season matches over two seasons in Portland.
"After all the years of getting to play this beautiful game, it's time for me to move on to the next chapter in my life," said Kerr in a prepared statement. "There are so many people who have helped and supported me throughout this journey, which I am so thankful for. Soccer has provided me with so many life-long friendships and experiences that I will never forget. I couldn't have asked for a better place to retire, playing in front of the best fans in the world."
Kerr, a graduate of the University of Portland, recored four assists during her time with the Thorns and was a member of the 2013 NWSL championship-winning squad.
"Angie was an instrumental part of the club's success in its first two seasons," said Thorns general manager Gavin Wilkinson in a prepared statement. "Her professionalism and ability is highly respected amongst coaches, peers and fans alike and we wish her all the best."
In her career, Kerr also earned 10 caps and scored two goals with the U.S. Women's National Team (2005, 2008-09).
-- Jamie Goldberg | @jamiebgoldbergThis article is over 3 years old
Seven News/ReachTel poll shows two-party preferred vote stable, but Turnbull’s preferred PM rating rises by nearly 10 points to 80.8%
Malcolm Turnbull’s personal popularity has improved over the summer parliamentary recess, according to a new poll, suggesting the prime minister’s electoral “honeymoon” is not over yet.
A Seven News/ReachTel poll shows the Coalition retains a 55% to 45% lead over Labor on a two-party preferred basis, which is stable compared with the previous corresponding poll conducted in November.
Ministerial scandals, which led to Jamie Briggs resigning and Mal Brough standing aside just after Christmas, and the Liberal party’s jostling over forthcoming preselections in New South Wales do not appear to have dented the Coalition’s support.
Malcolm Turnbull's popularity dips in poll, as Bill Shorten slumps to fresh low Read more
The proportion of people nominating Turnbull as preferred prime minister rose nearly 10 points to 80.8%, while those favouring Bill Shorten declined by the same number of points to 19.2%.
ReachTel differs from other major opinion polls in that it requires people to select one of the two options for preferred prime minister rather than allowing “don’t know” or “undecided” responses. This partly explains why Turnbull’s score is greater than in other major polls.
When asked to rate Turnbull’s performance as prime minister, 53.6% said it was either good or very good, an improvement of 5.4 points since the last poll in November, while 14.8% said his performance was poor or very poor (down 2.3 points) and the remainder said satisfactory.
Respondents were unimpressed with Shorten’s performance as opposition leader, with just 13.8% saying it was good or very good (down 6.8 points) and 57.4% believing it was poor or very poor (up 9.9 points).
ReachTel conducted the poll of 3,116 residents across Australia on Thursday night and said the margin of error was 1.8%.
Shorten has embarked on a three-week national tour of marginal seats to campaign against increasing the goods and services tax, cutting penalty rates and reducing pathology incentive funding.
Tony Abbott should quit parliament, voters in his electorate tell pollsters Read more
“We will oppose a 15% GST on everything with every breath in our body,” he said in Alice Springs on Friday.
The government has accused Shorten of mounting a “scare campaign” and it is yet to settle details of the tax package it will take to voters at this year’s election.
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, rubbished speculation about an early election. “The election is at the other end of this year,” he said on Friday.
The prime minister has returned to Australia after visiting troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and travelling to the US for a meeting with Barack Obama.
In the final ReachTel before Turnbull challenged for the Liberal leadership in September, Shorten led Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, 57.9% to 42.1%.Pricing for Release Management in TFS “15”
Vijay
[Update on Nov 16, 2016] This article is now outdated. With the RTM version of TFS 2017, we have the final pricing model for Release Management. For more information, see our official documentation.
Since the new version of Release Management was introduced in TFS 2015 Update 2, it has been in “trial mode“. Any user with Basic access level was able to access all features of Release Management. For the last few months, we have been hard at work to finalize the pricing model for Release Management in time for the release of TFS “15” RTM. We wanted a model that:
makes Release Management available to all Basic users in a team
is free for small teams, and is competitive as the complexity in an organization increases
is equally applicable to both TFS and VSTS
is uniform across Build and Release Management in VSTS
provides value to Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions
Based on all of these, here is a summary of the pricing model that we have finalized so far for Release Management in TFS “15”.:
Per-user charge All Release Management features, including authoring of release definitions, are included in TFS CAL. Release pipelines Run one release pipeline at a time for free per Team Foundation Server. Buy additional concurrent pipelines for $15/concurrency each month. The contribution of Visual Studio subscriptions in increasing the number concurrent release pipelines will be finalized soon.
Let us now look at what this model means in more detail.
No additional per-user charge: You do not pay per user any more for Release Management. Earlier versions of Release Management (Release Management Server 2013) required Visual Studio Test Professional or Enterprise subscriptions for users in order for them to author release definitions. That is no longer the case. Just like Build, Release Management can be used by all users in your TFS as long as they have a Basic access level or TFS CAL. Just like before, Stakeholders can continue to approve or reject releases even without a Basic access level or TFS CAL.
You do not pay per user any more for Release Management. Earlier versions of Release Management (Release Management Server 2013) required Visual Studio Test Professional or Enterprise subscriptions for users in order for them to author release definitions. That is no longer the case. Just like Build, Release Management can be used by all users in your TFS as long as they have a Basic access level or TFS CAL. Just like before, Stakeholders can continue to approve or reject releases even without a Basic access level or TFS CAL. No charge for agents: You do not pay for agents for Release Management. Register any number of agents with your TFS.
You do not pay for agents for Release Management. Register any number of agents with your TFS. Charge for concurrent pipelines: The primary metered entity for Release Management is the number of pipelines you can run at a time. A pipeline is just a single release. By default, you an always run one pipeline at a time for free. Additional releases that you create will be queued automatically. When you deploy a release to several environments in parallel, all the deployments still count as one pipeline, since they are part of a single release.
The primary metered entity for Release Management is the number of pipelines you can run at a time. A pipeline is just a single release. By default, you an always run one pipeline at a time for free. Additional releases that you create will be queued automatically. When you deploy a release to several environments in parallel, all the deployments still count as one pipeline, since they are part of a single release. Buy ala-carte: You can also buy additional release pipelines concurrency from Visual Studio marketplace without having to buy an entire Visual Studio Enterprise subscription.
This new pricing model is in effect starting from TFS “15” RC2. The only option that is still not available in RC2 is the ability to buy ala-carte extensions from the Marketplace. This work is in progress, and is expected to complete by TFS “15” RTM.
When you upgrade to TFS “15” RC2 or above, you will notice that:
Release Management is not in “trial mode” any more.
All Basic users in your server can access all Release Management features.
The number of concurrent pipelines that you can run is set to the free limit of “1” per server.
The “Resource limits” page under Settings -> Build and Release tab is where you manage the number of concurrent pipelines for your server.
To understand your true cost of Release Management, there is one key question that you need to answer – How many pipelines do I need to run at the same time? We believe that the one free concurrent pipeline gets a small sized team started for free. A rule of thumb is to count one pipeline for every 10 users in your server or account. Even for large accounts or installations (with around 200-500 users), it is unlikely that more than 20-50 pipelines run at a time.
We plan to complete the official documentation for this pricing model in the next few weeks before the release of TFS “15” RTM. We will also include the pricing model for Release Management in Team Services as part of that documentation. This blog is intended to provide guidance to users of Release Management as the above pricing features are being released in TFS “15” RC2.
Release Management TeamAnonymous asked: Being fit is being skinny you idiot, being athletic and flexible is a whole different thing, you don't have to skinny to be athletic but you do have to be skinny to be fit Being fit is being skinny you idiot, being athletic and flexible is a whole different thing, you don't have to skinny to be athletic but you do have to be skinny to be fit girlgrowingsmall: “Fitness." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2013. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fitness>. I don’t know what prompted you to send me the dumbest message I’ve received in at least 6 months, but nowhere in the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of “fitness” do I find the word “skinny.” Even synonyms for the word “fitness” focus 100% on health attributes as opposed to size attributes. So I’m sorry if you have this deep seeded complex that refuses to allow you to accept that, from all standpoints of medicine, science, and flat out fact, fitness is irrelevant to body size. That really sucks for you that your brain is struggling to let you come to terms with that. However, it is also 100% not my problem. tl;dr: Blow it out your ass. Shut the fuck up you fucking piece of shit and sit the fuck down before you speak you fucking asshole.
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SCOTTISH Police stopped and searched more than 25,000 children under the age of 15 last year.
And more than 200 children under nine were also searched says a police watchdog.
There were 25,324 children aged 10-14 searched (5 per cent of the total) on top of 223 children under nine, a Scottish Police Authority (SPA) report states.
Critics have called for a review of the controversial procedure – which one described as a “shambles” - and the SPA has set out 12 recommendations for improvement.
Police Scotland carried out 640,000 stop-and-searches last year – three times more than in London.
Teenagers aged 15-19 were the most searched group at 157,368 (30 per cent).
A total of 2956 people aged over 65 were searched, including 29 over the age of 85.
Deputy Chief Constable for local policing Rose Fitzpatrick said: "Last year there were 654 fewer victims of violence, 64,000 fewer incidents of disorder and 53,000 fewer incidents of anti-social behaviour and we believe that stop-and-search has had a big role to play in that.
"Scottish Government research in Edinburgh showed 29 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds admitted that they had carried a knife as a weapon.
"Stop-and-search last year recovered over 25,000 incidents of alcohol being carried by young people, and it's important to recognise that the misuse of alcohol by young people puts themselves at risk from harm from violence and sexual assault.
"From 640,000 stop-and-searches conducted last year we received only 34 complaints."
She added: "There are no targets for volume and no targets for numbers of stop-and-search and that's continued into the second year of Police Scotland."
A national stop-and-search unit has been set up to monitor its use and further improve the guidance for police officers, while searches have also been recorded on a database since May 1.
"All details of searches will be recorded on that database," she said.
"Those will be nominal details where they are given, descriptions where people don't wish to give their names and addresses in connection with a consensual search.
"We also record the details of the officer, the reason for the search and also for the outcome. We will have all of that in one place and will be able to use it to better inform our work in future."
The SPA has published 12 recommendations including improved data collection and analysis, increased public reporting and a shift towards informed consent in non-statutory searches to ensure the public are better informed of their rights, including the right to decline.
The review also highlights the need for policy consideration around the lack of statutory powers to search for alcohol, and the need for more research on the long-term impact of stop-and-search on particular groups and communities, especially younger people.
Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes said: "The report shows just what a shambles stop-and-search has been in Scotland.
"The Justice Secretary has consistently said that he does not recognise the concerns which I have raised about Police Scotland's use of non-statutory stop-and-search. Today's report should make him think differently.
"We heard that officers felt under pressure to carry out searches, that many had had little training since their probationary period and that the proportionality of stop-and-search in certain areas was questionable. The review also concluded that there was no causal link between the reduction in violent crime and stop-and-search activity.
"The First Minister, Justice Secretary and Chief Constable have all defended the use of stop-and-search as a key tactic in the reduction of violent crime. They are now looking increasingly isolated and are left with serious questions to answer after their stout defence of Police Scotland's use of stop-and-search."
Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: "We've always maintained that stop-and-search, when applied properly, can contribute to tackling violent crime.
"This report, however, undoubtedly challenges the common wisdom that such a measure is the main cause for a lowering of violent crime levels across Scotland.
"Police Scotland need to provide a full explanation as to the misuse of this practice and outline clear steps that will correct this in the future.
"Kenny MacAskill must also decide whether the law surrounding stop-and-search is fit for purpose."
Chief Constable Sir Stephen House said stop-and-search "has contributed to violence and anti-social behaviour reductions across Scotland".
"We will take all appropriate steps to ensure that stop-and-search is carried out as part of our engagement with the public, to detect weapons, drugs and alcohol and to deter people from carrying these in the future.
"We will also ensure that it is done in an intelligence-led way with respect for the rights of individuals so that the public have confidence and trust in the policing service that we offer.
"We have and we will continue to consult and listen, understand and improve our procedures in this area.
"A large amount of further work is well under way to make improvements to ensure that stop-and-search remains an essential component to support Police Scotland's drive to keep people safe and continues to increase public confidence in the police beyond the 80 per cent plus that it already has.
"While I am confident that we have gone a considerable way to strengthen our stop-and-search procedures, the recommendations we have just heard contained in the report provide an opportunity for us to further address concerns and to review, develop and improve our processes and communications even more.
"We fully accept that processes and communications can and should be improved."
Tam Baillie, Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young People, said: "It is wrong that children and young people are being subjected to stop and search on such a large scale.
"They account for over 30 per cent of all searches in Scotland and the vast majority are non-statutory. This high incidence is concerning and is discriminatory.
"I am very disturbed that a substantial number of children aged nine or under are being subjected to stop and search. There is no justification for this practice being used on children under eight years old, as they cannot give informed consent and are below the age of criminal responsibility."Robert Zeigler, is head of IRRI (International Rice Research Institute), one of the key groups who are carrying forward Norman Borlaug's Green Revolution. Yes, the Golden Rice people. His essay for COSMOS makes me both sad and angry at the same time.
As an intellectual direct descendent of the architects of the Green Revolution, like Norman Borlaug (pictured above), it is truly heartbreaking to see their noble endeavors attacked by people claiming to defend the environment and the interests of the poor. From Norm Borlaug to Peter Jennings, all these greats had something in common: a fire in the belly to try and make a mockery of the doomsday predictions of Ehrlich and the Paddocks brothers. The role of science was precisely to make the future different from the past. Sadly, the strange brew of anti-corporate sentiment, extreme environmentalism, romanticized traditional organic but land-hungry agriculture and fear of new technologies boiled over to create a powerful anti-technology backlash.
…(snip)…
Our understanding of genetics and the ability to proactively manipulate how plants behaved and responded to the environment was becoming a reality. Many of us saw this as a way to reverse the negatives of the Green Revolution and open the way for, in the words of Sir Gordon Conway, a “doubly green revolution.”
It was foreseeable that we could engineer into crops resistance to insect pests and pathogens that would eliminate the need for spraying toxic chemicals that sickened every organism they touched. Even better, we could now help the people left behind because they lived on lands plagued by droughts or floods that wouldn’t support modern crop varieties. I have seen this dream validated. India’s untouchable communities often farm on marginal flood-prone land. IRRI’s flood-tolerant rice is most useful to these farmers and promises to transform the lives of millions.
In short we saw modern biology as a driver for transforming agriculture into a tool for protecting the environment, meeting food needs, and reversing millennia of injustices that condemned certain segments of the population to the worst land.
Sadly, while we were working to make our dreams reality, the strange brew of anti-corporate sentiment, extreme environmentalism, romanticized traditional organic but land-hungry agriculture and fear of new technologies boiled over to create a powerful anti-technology backlash. The extreme regulations for GMO crops demanded by self-proclaimed protectors of the environment, had the perverse result that only the largest multinationals could afford to develop such crops. Predictably, this resulted in the same camp denouncing the growing domination of agriculture by multinationals.
As costs for developing crop varieties escalated, the few seed companies that could afford the work focused only on areas with large markets. The marginal farmers were once again excluded.
This time, though, who is to blame?WAYNE — Four football players from William Paterson University are enjoying a brush with celebrity after surveillance video of them entering a local store accidentally left unlocked after closing and paying for their goods anyway has gone viral.
Thomas James, Kell'E Gallimore, Jelani Bruce and Anthony Biondi made an appearance on "The Today Show" Wednesday morning after they were caught on camera doing the right thing.
Here's what happened: A mechanical malfunction left doors unlocked after Buddy's Small Lots on Route 23 had closed Sunday. The young men, recent additions to Willy P's football team, were out looking for some stuff for their dorm room before practice, and told NJ.com that the store "looked open."
"We had to get to practice, because we were running a little late," Bruce said on Tuesday. The guys picked up what they needed, just a few dollars worth of merchandise, but couldn't find a store clerk.
"So we decided to put the money on the counter instead of stealing it, because that's just not right," he said.
Police later alerted the store's management that there may have been a break-in, but the surveillance footage showed the men wandering around the store looking for employees before paying in full.
The store hunted down the players to offer them a reward — $50 of stuff for their new dorm rooms — and school officials tell NJ.com they're pretty proud.
Biondi said on "The Today Show" this morning that he was "ecstatic knowing that one good deed blew up nationwide and now everyone’s hearing about it.’’
Previous coverage: Men who left money on the counter at Wayne store left open after closing were William Paterson football playersWASHINGTON, D.C. – Hard-left political activist David Brock, founder of Media Matters – the father of “Fake News” – is working with co-conspirators Google and Facebook to implement a strategy designed to ban conservative and libertarian websites, including Infowars.com.
This is especially a problem given attempts being made by Eric Schmidt, the founder of the multinational conglomerate Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, to cozy up to the Trump administration.
On Dec. 14, 2016, Schmidt was included in a group of prominent tech industry executives that met with then President-elect Donald Trump in a much-publicized meeting.
On Jan. 17, 2017, Politico reported that Schmidt was sited at an unannounced visit to Trump Tower, where he lunched privately with Jared Kushner, Trump’s real estate magnate son-in-law married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka in 2009, who has emerged to be named a Senior Advisor to his father-in-law in the White House
In briefing book entitled “Media Matters, The Top Watchdog Against Fake News and Propaganda: Transforming the Media Landscape” (obtained by the Free Beacon) that Brock published privately in January to solicit donors, Brock asserts in the first sentence, “The onslaught of well-funded right-wing media brings with it significant challenges.”
This first sentence telegraphs that by creating and advancing the narrative of “Fake News,” Brock is trying to launch what the hard-left calls “a meme.”
That “meme” or theme is designed to discredit news media that dare publish conservative views differing from the hard-left news reported by CNN and MSNBC, as well as increasingly by the New York Times – the object of several recent President Trump tweet attacks.
On the first page, Brock targets Breitbart.com as having received “millions in funding from extremist billionaires close to the Trump administration,” while providing “a nexus point for the so-called alt-right (the newest branding for white nationalism |
, boys call out when they have something to say. Girls do this less often, and teachers’ reaction when they do it is much less tolerant. Something similar has been observed among adults—especially in male-dominated institutions where women are seen, and often see themselves, as ‘interlopers’.
In 1999, two years after the election of a record 119 women MPs, Sylvia Shaw carried out research in the House of Commons to investigate how the women were faring. At first glance it seemed they were holding their own: in proportion to their (much lower) numbers, they were contributing as much as men. But on closer inspection, this only applied to the ‘legal’ part of the debate. Women made far fewer ‘illegal’ interventions—turns defined as ‘out of order’, like comments interjected from a sitting position. At Westminster, illegal contributions make up a fair proportion of the overall proceedings, so by not breaking the rules women were losing out on both airtime and influence.
Shaw related this to their ‘interloper’ status. In interviews, some women told her they consciously avoided rule-breaking, because they wanted to make clear they knew how to conduct themselves (this is classic ‘interloper’ behaviour). But she also found that men were given more license to break the rules. Women who intervened illegally were more likely to be reprimanded by the Speaker.
Women don’t have strength in numbers
119 women MPs may have been a record number, but it was still less than 20% of the total. In public contexts it’s common for men to outnumber women, and this also contributes to their linguistic dominance.
The authors of The Silent Sex conducted an experiment to investigate how women’s participation in group discussion is affected by the gender composition of the group and the procedure used to make decisions. They put people into groups of five, composed to represent every possible male-female ratio, and asked the groups to deliberate on a question about the fairest way to distribute resources. Some groups were instructed to make their decision by majority vote; others were told their decision should be unanimous.
In a hypothetical just world, each person in a group would contribute equally, and each sex would contribute in proportion to its numbers. But that wasn’t what the study found. Women in mostly-male groups took up less than their fair share of the speaking time. By contrast, men in mostly-female groups took at least as much time as they were entitled to.
But the decision-making procedure made a difference. Women in mostly-male groups contributed more (though still less than their share) when decisions were made unanimously. This makes sense: if everyone has to agree, everyone also has to speak. But in groups where women outnumbered men, they did better with majority voting. Unanimous decision-making always helps the minority, and where men are the minority they exploit that to the max. As the researchers explain, ‘minority women leverage unanimous rule to reach equality, whereas minority men leverage it to exceed equality’.
Women don’t benefit from seniority
Most institutions are hierarchical, and the people at the top of the hierarchy have more authority to speak than those lower down. In many cases this puts women at a double disadvantage. As well as being in a minority, they are likely to be concentrated in the most junior positions.
A study of questions after presentations at an astronomy conference found that—in proportion to their numbers—men asked far more questions than women. The researchers explained this as an effect of seniority. Questions at academic conferences function as a display of the questioner’s own expert status, so they tend to be asked by higher-ranking academics. But in astronomy, seniority is gendered. The field was until recently extremely male-dominated; more women have entered it in the last decade, but they are still in the early stages of their careers. How many of them will advance to senior positions, and how quickly, remains to be seen.
The conclusion I draw from research is that in most situations, male linguistic dominance isn’t just a direct result of men being sexist. I’m not denying they can be sexist, and often are. I’m saying this is a hard problem to solve because usually men benefit from several different things working together: their numbers, their seniority, their ‘insider’ (rather than ‘interloper’) status, the preference of both sexes for male authority, and the choice some women make not to compete with men directly. At an abstract level these are all manifestations of the same problem—structural sexual inequality—but there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
So, what can we do to change things?
As a supposed expert on this subject, I often get men telling me about some panel or board or committee they were on where the women barely spoke. What they think they’re proving is that the problem is intractable: that’s just the way women are. I ask them what the gender balance in the group was, how status was distributed, what procedures they followed and how discussions were facilitated. And then I bore them with a few research findings which suggest that if they changed some of those things, they might find women behaving differently. More of us could ask those questions; those of us with some institutional power could also do something about the answers.
Another thing we could do is make a conscious effort to support other women. Standing up for your own rights can make you look like the aggressive one; standing up for someone else’s makes you less vulnerable to that judgment. Rather than ‘stop interrupting me’, we could try ‘just a second, can we hear the end of Linda’s point?’ Or we could try to pre-empt the need for defensive measures by jumping in to acknowledge Linda’s contribution before she gets interrupted.
The way girls and women police their own and each other’s behaviour is another factor that contributes to the problem. Criticizing individuals is not the answer; what we need to do is address the conditions that make their behaviour a rational choice. We could start by examining our own attitudes to women’s speech. Feminists don’t use words like ‘abrasive’ and ‘strident’, but we do sometimes praise women for being nicer than men. If we want to see women in positions of authority, we can’t expect them to behave as if they were not in those positions.
Of course feminists want to see things done differently, with less of the arrogance, aggression and self-aggrandisement we criticize in men. But that doesn’t mean we should idealize the opposite, the deferential, conciliatory and self-effacing behaviour which is expected of women under patriarchy. Masculinity and femininity are both products of the same oppressive system. And we will never be able to change it if women can’t make their voices heard.
AdvertisementsBernie Sanders isn't making a lot of friends in the business world.
After Sanders spoke at a rally of striking Verizon workers Wednesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam lambasted the Democratic presidential candidate in a long LinkedIn post.
McAdam said Sanders' "uninformed views are, in a word, contemptible," and that the senator is "disconnected from reality."
Issue 1: Sanders said Verizon fails to pay its fair share of taxes
Sanders said Verizon "in a given year has not paid a nickel of taxes."
McAdam said Sanders is dead wrong: Verizon (VZ) paid more than $15.6 billion in taxes over the past two years, at an effective tax rate of 35%. That's the official U.S. corporate tax rate.
It's unclear what "given year" Sanders was referring to. It might have been 2013, when Verizon's tax rate was -4.8%. That was in part because Verizon Wireless was, at the time, 45% owned by Britain's Vodafone. It is now 100% American-owned.
Issue 2: Verizon doesn't use its profits to benefit America
Sanders said Verizon is not investing in American communities, in particular the "inner cities."
McAdam said that's nonsense, noting that Verizon has invested about $35 billion in infrastructure -- virtually all of it in the U.S. -- over the past two years, making the company one of the top three capital investors in corporate America.
"We're making significant investments in New York City, Philadelphia and other metro areas throughout our wireline footprint," McAdam wrote in his LinkedIn post. "I challenge Sen. Sanders to show me a company that's done more to invest in America than Verizon."
Telecommunications companies are among the most capital-intensive businesses on Earth. That $35 billion isn't altruistic -- it's the cost of doing business.
Although Verizon has a landline footprint that reaches just about everyone from Massachusetts to Virginia, Verizon has repeatedly been criticized for rolling out its super-high-speed FiOS network only to wealthier neighborhoods.
Issue 3: Verizon is demanding workers take pay cuts and reduce health benefits
Sanders said Verizon will ship workers' jobs overseas if they don't agree to reduced benefits or pay.
McAdam countered that Sanders is oversimplifying a complex labor negotiation. He said Verizon has agreed to wage increases and continued pension benefits while asking for "more flexibility in routing calls and consolidating our call centers."
"Feeling the Bern of reality yet, Bernie?" McAdam quipped.
Verizon has outsourced about 5,000 jobs to Mexico, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic, and the company has contracted some U.S. jobs to lower-wage, non-union workers, angering the Communications Workers of America union.
Related: 36,000 Verizon workers go on strike
McAdam says the "facts of life" have changed, as wireless overtakes the landline and broadband business. He said Sanders is "ignoring the transformational forces reshaping the communications industry."
"Nostalgia for the rotary phone era won't save American jobs, any more than ignoring the global forces reshaping the auto industry saved the Detroit auto makers." McAdam said.
The Verizon workers' union, the CWA, endorsed Sanders. But Sanders isn't alone in his support of the union. Rival Hillary Clinton also sided with the striking Verizon workers, saying the company should give them a "fair offer."
GE CEO Jeff Immelt criticized Sanders last week for being out of touch, noting that "GE has never been a big hit with socialists."Earlier this year, President Obama gave his final State of the Union address. Toward the end, he took aim at a centuries-old issue. “I think we’ve got to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters and not the other way around,” the commander-in-chief said. Applause ensued.
How, exactly, do elected officials “pick their voters,” as the president claimed? Their main tactic is as simple as it is unfair. By redrawing the borders of electoral districts, members of a given political party can cram the opposition’s supporters into as few precincts as possible—thus grabbing a disproportionate amount of power.
Today, we call this tactic “Gerrymandering.” It's named after a man who helped make the Bill of Rights happen, a one-time Vice President, and the only signer of the Declaration of Independence who's buried in Washington D.C.
“A MAN OF IMMENSE WORTH”
Elbridge Gerry was born on July 17, 1744. He was a native of Marblehead, Massachusetts, and both his parents were linked to the merchant business. Gerry took up the trade in 1762 and became an exporter of cod (a profitable fish upon which countless fortunes have been built).
At age 28, he won a seat on the colony’s general court, where he’d come to share Samuel Adams’s revolutionary rhetoric. In 1776, Gerry joined the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Throughout his tenure there, Gerry demanded pay raises for patriot troops, earning him the nickname “soldier’s friend.” The merchant’s integrity was widely admired, even by John Adams (a notoriously hard person to impress). “[He] is a man of immense worth,” wrote the future President. “If every man here was a Gerry, the liberties of America would be safe against the gates of Earth and Hell.”
In 1787, with the war long over, Gerry took part in the Constitutional Convention. The importance of his presence cannot be understated. After all, it was he who moved to include a Bill of Rights—an idea that his colleagues shot down. Five days after the proposal, the newly completed constitution was ready to be signed. Since a Bill of Rights was nowhere to be found, Gerry—along with just two other delegates who made it to the end of the Convention—withheld his signature.
A subsequent letter to the Massachusetts State Legislature explained this choice. “It was painful for me, on a subject of such national importance, to differ from the respectable members who signed the Constitution; but conceiving, as I did, that the liberties of America were not secured by the system, it was my duty to oppose it,” Gerry stated. He may have lost that battle, but he ultimately won the war. Thanks in part to dissenters like him, a 10-amendment Bill of Rights was formally adopted on December 15, 1791.
Had he retired from politics right then and there, Elbridge Gerry might have gone down in history as the “Father of the Bill of Rights.” Instead, he’s remembered first and foremost for another, less admirable claim to fame.
REDRAWING HIS LEGACY
Massachusetts made Gerry its eighth governor in 1810. By then, America had turned into a nation divided. Two rival parties now split the electorate: Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans and the late Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists.
Gerry belonged to the former group, which backed his successful re-election campaign in 1811. At the time, Democratic-Republicans represented the Massachusetts legislature’s majority party. This gave them enough votes to pull off a rather devious scheme that secured big wins in the state Senate one year later.
The plan was brilliant in its straightforwardness. Early in 1812, Democratic-Republican legislators laid out brand new districts which shoehorned most Federalist Party supporters into a handful of precincts.
Behind closed doors, Governor Gerry denounced this plot, calling it “highly disagreeable.” Unfortunately, that didn’t stop him from signing the proposed new districts into law anyway. The result was a monstrously slanted election season. Overall, Federalist candidates for the state Senate earned 1602 more votes than their Jeffersonian opponents did. Yet, because of these new precincts, the Democratic-Republican Party nabbed 29 seats to the Federalist’s 11.
The new state electoral map looked positively absurd. Thanks to partisan manipulation, districts now came in all manner of spastic shapes. Particularly infamous was one such division in Essex County. To the staff of The Weekly Messenger—a prominent Federalist newspaper—this squiggly precinct looked like a mythical salamander. Thus, the name “Gerrymander” was born—and it stuck.
The Federalist surge meant that Governor Gerry was ousted from office, but Gerry’s career wasn’t quite over yet. On the contrary, it saw a swift rebound when James Madison chose him to become his second Vice President the following year. But like Madison’s previous VP, Gerry didn’t last long. Death took him while he was still in office on November 23, 1814.
Those interested may find his grave in the capital city of the nation he helped create. Nestled inside Washington’s Congressional Cemetery is Elbridge Gerry’s tomb. Above it sits the first monument ever funded in full by the federal government, where visitors can read Gerry’s personal creed: “It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country.”Notes Toward a Postcyberpunk Manifesto
by Lawrence Person
"Critics, myself included, persist in label-mongering, despite all warnings; we must, because it's a valid source of insight-as well as great fun."
- Bruce Sterling, from the introduction to Mirrorshades
Bud, from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, is a classic cyberpunk protagonist. An aggressive, black-leather clad criminal loner with cybernetic body augmentations (including a neurolinked skull gun), Bud makes his living first as a drug runner's decoy, then by terrorizing tourists for money.
All of which goes a long way toward explaining why his ass gets wasted on page 37 of a 455 page novel.
Welcome to the postcyberpunk era.
Arguably, science fiction entered the postcyberpunk era in 1988 with the publication of Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net. Just as Sterling's The Artificial Kid encapsulated many of cyber-punk's themes before the movement had a name, Islands in the Net prefigured a growing body of work that can (at least until someone comes up with a better name) be labeled postcyberpunk. But to understand postcyberpunk, it's important to distinguish what cyberpunk was (and wasn't) about.
Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datsphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body. William Gibson's Neuromancer is, of course, the archetypal cyberpunk work, and this (along with early Gibson short fiction like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Burning Chrome," The Artificial Kid, and the odd John Shirley work) is whence the "high tech/low life" cliché about cyberpunk and its imitators came.
The black-leather-and-chrome surface gloss was in large measure what attracted media attention, but isn't what made cyberpunk the most important science fiction literary movement since the New Wave. Cyberpunk's lasting impact came not from the milieu's details, but the method of their deployment, the immersive worldbuilding technique that gave it such a revelatory quality (what John Clute, speaking of Pat Cadigan, called "the burning presence of the future"). Cyberpunk realized that the old SF stricture of "alter only one thing and see what happens" was hopelessly outdated, a doctrine rendered irrelevant by the furious pace of late 20th century technological change. The future isn't "just one damn thing after another," it's every damn thing all at the same time. Cyberpunk not only realized this truth, but embraced it. To paraphrase Chairman Bruce, cyberpunk carried technological extrapolation into the fabric of everyday life.
The best of cyberpunk conveyed huge cognitive loads about the future by depicting (in best "show, don't tell" fashion) the interaction of its characters with the quotidian minutia of their environment. In the way they interacted with their clothes, their furniture, their decks and spex, cyberpunk characters told you more about the society they lived in than "classic" SF stories did through their interaction with robots and rocketships.
Postcyberpunk uses the same immersive world-building technique, but features different characters, settings, and, most importantly, makes fundamentally different assumptions about the future. Far from being alienated loners, postcyberpunk characters are frequently integral members of society (i.e., they have jobs). They live in futures that are not necessarily dystopic (indeed, they are often suffused with an optimism that ranges from cautious to exuberant), but their everyday lives are still impacted by rapid technological change and an omnipresent computerized infrastructure.
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age is perhaps the most popular postcyberpunk novel, though also worthy of consideration are Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net and Holy Fire, Ian McDonald's Necroville (aka Terminal Cafe), Ken MacLeod's The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal, Greg Bear's Queen of Angels, Slant, and (parts of) Moving Mars, Raphael Carter's The Fortunate Fall, some of Greg Egan's work (Egan novels like Permutation City and Diaspora are so wildly extrapolative that it's hard to fit them into any category), and the first hundred pages or so of Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi (among others).
Like their cyberpunk forebears, postcyberpunk works immerse the reader in richly detailed and skillfully nuanced futures, but ones whose characters and settings frequently hail from, for lack of a better term, the middle class. (And we do need a better term; here in the United States, economic mobility has rendered the concept of "class" nearly obsolete.) Postcyberpunk characters frequently have families, and sometimes even children. (Children, rather than plucky, hyperintelligent, and misunderstood teenage protagonists, being creatures all too lacking in most science fiction.) They're anchored in their society rather than adrift in it. They have careers, friends, obligations, responsibilities, and all the trappings of an "ordinary" life. Or, to put it another way, their social landscape is often as detailed and nuanced as the technological one.
Cyberpunk characters frequently seek to topple or exploit corrupt social orders. Postcyberpunk characters tend to seek ways to live in, or even strengthen, an existing social order, or help construct a better one. In cyberpunk, technology facilitates alienation from society. In postcyberpunk, technology is society. Technology is what the characters breathe, eat, and live in (in the case of Walter Jon William's Aristoi or Greg Egan's Diaspora, live in the literal sense of the word, with their selves (in part or in toto) immersed in the datasphere). Postcyberpunk characters dwell in what Sterling has dubbed "permanent technological revolution" even as we do today.
Cyberpunk tended to be cold, detached and alienated. Postcyberpunk tends to be warm, involved, and connected. (A nod here to Paul di Filippo's half-serious "Ribofunk" manifesto.) Cyberpunk tended toward the grim, while postcyberpunk is frequently quite funny (parts of The Diamond Age shine most brightly in this respect, as do Ken MacLeod's works.) It could even be argued that postcyberpunk represents a fusion of the cyberpunk/humanist schism of the 1980s, but: A.) I'm happy leave that particular can of worms to braver (or more foolhardy) souls, and B.) Though many a cyber-punk's work has become more humanized, the reverse doesn't seem to be true (John Kessel's recapitulation of Shiner & Sterling's "Mozart in Mirrorshades" in Corrupting Dr. Nice notwithstanding).
It may have been Isaac Asimov (though I first heard it via Howard Waldrop) who said there were three orders of science fiction, using the automobile as an example. Man invents the automobile and uses it to chase down the villain: adventure fiction. Man invents the automobile, and a few years later there are traffic jams: social problem fiction. In the third type, man invents the automobile, and another man invents moving pictures: fifty years later, people go to drive-in movies. It is this third order of fiction, social fabric fiction, that was at the heart of cyberpunk. Yet many a cyberpunk tale used classic plot devices (plucky young rebels topple decaying social order, etc.) to explore such issues. The best postcyberpunk moves further into third-order science fiction, the plot arising organically from the world it's set in.
Gardner Dozois's influential 1970s essay "Living the Future: You Are What You Eat" made this very point, noting that future societies should be depicted as "a real, self-consistent, organic thing." The postcyberpunk viewpoint is not outside the fishbowl looking in, but inside the fishbowl looking around. As a result, postcyberpunk frequently skirts the edge of what can be described in late 20th century English, be it the representation of data in fourth-dimensional Pikeover space in Slant to the intelligence-enhancing something that Maya realizes she's too old to embrace in Holy Fire.
Finally, there is the inevitable issue of generational relevance. Yes, cyberpunk was about the early 1980s, while postcyberpunk is about the 1990s, and cyberpunk was largely written by people in their 20s and 30s, postcyberpunk by people in their late 30s and early 40s. But another factor is at work. Many writers who grew up reading in the 1980s are just now starting to have their stories and novels published. To them cyberpunk was not a revolution or alien philosophy invading SF, but rather just another flavor of SF. Like the writers of the 1970s and 80s who assimilated the New Wave's classics and stylistic techniques without necessarily knowing or even caring about the manifestos and ideologies that birthed them, today's new writers might very well have read Neuromancer back to back with Asimov's Foundation, John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, and Larry Niven's Ringworld and seen not discontinuities but a continuum. They may see postcyberpunk not only as the natural language to describe the future, but the only adequate way to start extrapolating from the present.
Answers to the inevitable questions: Is postcyberpunk a movement? No. Aren't there cyberpunk or postcyberpunk works that don't fit these definitions? Yes. Sterling's Schismatrix and his other Shaper/Mechanist stories tend to defy this schema (though it becomes more applicable if you consider "Moving in Clades," the last third of Schismatrix, as postcyberpunk), and Cadigan seems to have run the sequence in reverse. Aren't there many newer writers (Jack Womack, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Linda Nagata, Nicola Griffith, etc.) whose work might be labeled postcyberpunk but which you haven't gotten around to reading yet??Tis true. Mea culpa. Aren't there books that came out in the 1990s that look like postcyberpunk that don't fit your definitions? Alexander Jablokov's Nimbus, Paul J. McAuley's Fairyland, and, of course, Stephenson's Snow Crash, all defy this taxonomy, or else must be regarded as mutant hybrids or late arriving "classic" cyberpunk. Aren't these definitions rather hard and fast? Not only that, they're ham-handed, Procrustean, and will probably look misguided in many particulars a decade or so hence. Yet postcyberpunk is a very real, and very vital, part of the modern science fiction landscape. Necroville, Slant, and Holy Fire, for all their differences, have far more in common with each other than they do with most works of modern science fiction as a whole, or even with other books in the 10% of SF that isn't crap.
Of all the mutant strains currently percolating through the science fiction body politic, postcyberpunk is the one best suited to explore themes related to world of accelerating technological innovation and ever-increasing complexity in ways relevant to our everyday lives without losing the "sense of wonder" that characterizes science fiction at its best. This is not to say that postcyberpunk is the only game in town; science fiction writers like Octavia Butler, Stephen Baxter, and Jack McDevitt (to name but three) are all doing good work outside its boundaries. But postcyberpunk is the most important game in town, and the one best suited for honing the genre's cutting edge.
All Slashdot feature and review contributors now get *free Slashdot t-shirts* from Copyleft. Lawrence, to get yours please send your mailing/shipping address and shirt size (along with this article's URL to jog my memory) to [email protected], minus the spambot-defeating "nojunk."Introduction
Prince Peter A. Kropotkin (1842-1921), second only to Mikhail A. Bakunin among the Russian anarchist philosophers in terms of popularity and influence on the anarchist communist thought, authored a momentous scientific work which asserted that cooperation within a single species was a more significant factor of evolution than were the competition and struggle for existence. On the other hand, Prince Kropotkin (a direct descendent of the Rurik dynasty) was also a revolutionary who carried a revolver and often approved of violent acts committed against authority figures throughout Europe. It is this seeming inconsistency that this series of articles explores by answering the following question: How was Peter Kropotkin able to simultaneously disseminate the view that the anarchists were morally justified to resort to violence as well as write scientific articles on how nature is replete with examples of intraspecific (within the same species) cooperation, while circumventing this apparent contradiction? The five articles of this series collectively provide an answer to this question.
The first article provides the reader with the essential background information on the origins of anarchist communist thought and it addresses the differences as well as similarities it shares with communism of Marxist-Leninist type. The article also presents pertinent biographical information on Peter Kropotkin, and it introduces the fundamental ideas of his renowned work Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution. Finally, this section sets up the just mentioned contradiction, which is examined in the subsequent articles. Article 2 establishes Kropotkin’s support for the revolutionary strategy known as “propaganda by the deed” which affirms that violent acts against oppressive authority can be utilized to win sympathy of the general public for the revolutionary cause. It also analyzes Kropotkin’s thoughts on individuals and organizations which participated in assassinations and other violent acts, and it traces Kropotkin’s own involvement in a number of propagandistic skirmishes and revolutionary organizations. Article 3 is devoted to Kropotkin’s work on ethics and his view on morality, which offers an insight into why he, at times, condoned the use of violent tactics to overthrow oppressive regimes. Article 4 elaborates on the concept of “mutual aid” and it discusses why Kropotkin thought that a society organized in an anarchist communist fashion is the most conducive environment for the stimulation of the best instincts of human nature, as well as why, consequently, authorities who precluded this development had to be disposed of, preferably in a peaceful manner but violently if necessary. Finally, the last article of the series attempts to answer some of the chief objections that Peter Kropotkin’s ideas attracted, and it also examines the extent to which Kropotkin was successful at reconciling his scientific theories with his support for revolutionary violence. Now that we have established the outline, let us first get acquainted with the essence and aims of anarchist communism.
Anarchist Communism: the Most Moral Organization of Society?
An adherent of anarchist communist philosophy believes that a centralized government (the same is true about any other form of authority) and the capitalist system (which establishes “laissez-faire for the one; complete denial of the right to combine for the others”[1]) are the two major obstacles impeding the creation of a more equitable and moral society. In the place of all coercive institutions, the anarchist communists seek to establish a system of collaboration between individuals and associations, and instead of accumulation and hoarding of wealth by a minority, they want the workers to be the possessors of the means of production as well as to see a division of the fruits of labor according to individual need. The founders of the nineteenth century anarchist communist movements were aware that in order to achieve the mentioned aims, they needed to reform the structure and the goals of production by shaping and redefining them as means to ensure the wellbeing of all men, so that all members of a society could have the opportunity to pursue higher intellectual endeavors, and in that way put an end to the unjust amassment of intellectual and material wealth by a minority at the expense of the laborers. They claimed that the innate demand for equity and freedom could only be satisfied through active participation in the production of goods and in the making of decisions which affect the whole society.
The major features of anarchist communism were described by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their account of the most advanced stage of communism which, according to them, was going to come to existence only after the “conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally”[2] have been swept away during the preceding stages of the historical development characterized by what they thought were the inevitable and predetermined changes “in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another.”[3] On the other hand, anarchist communists argued that historical processes were not as rigid as Marx and Engels had described them, that they don’t strictly follow the patterns invented by theoreticians who arrogantly claim that only they know when and how to act, and that the establishment of a society created on the foundation of freely chosen cooperation could become a reality as soon as a critical mass becomes aware of the advantages of such a society.[4]
When one is asked to explain the major differences between the anarchist communist ideology and the socialism of Marxist-Leninist kind, one typically addresses the conflicting ideas the two ideologies have on the question of authority. Anarchist communists generally believe that there should never be any while Marxist-Leninists are in favor of a central authority that, because of their advanced knowledge and perceptiveness, must lead the society in the direction of progress and pave the way for a future in which authority will eventually dissolve and the workers will assume the responsibility for the societal affairs.[5] Kropotkin believed that the resolute claim about the absolute necessity of the intermediate stage of socialism was a clear manifestation of the aspirations of a political party for the possession of power. He warned against the corrupting influence of holding any kind of position of authority, and the Bolshevist bureaucracy characterized by the dictatorship of a handful of persons belonging to a new privileged faction ended up being a prime example of the corrupting influence of absolute power.[6]
In 1929 Alexander Berkman, one of the leading figures of the anarchist communist movement at the time, wrote that “anarchism is the finest and biggest thing man has ever thought of: the only thing that can give you liberty and well-being, and bring peace and joy to the world.”[7] Anarchist communists believed that the benefits of a society designed according to the principles of their philosophy were too attractive to be delayed by the development of the specific historical preconditions regarded by Marx and Engels as necessary before the workers could claim that they are adequately prepared to take over the means of production, a prerequisite to the formation of a classless and stateless society.[8] Paul Avrich, a historian of anarchist movements in Russia and the United States, writes that Marx was convinced in the reliability of the philosophy of dialectical materialism and that “revolutions were predetermined by historical laws; they were the inevitable product of ripened economic forces.”[9] On the other hand, his chief opponent at the First International and one of the founding fathers of anarchist thought, Mikhail Bakunin, “adamantly refused to recognize the existence of any a priori ideas or preordained, preconceived laws.”[10] Anarchist communists thought that action was promptly needed since the characteristics of a free and just society were already known. Bakunin urged for less theorizing and more action; he urged the laborers, and together with them, he fought and participated in creation of free workers’ associations, which he considered to be the well of liberty and welfare.
While it is true that the chief conflicts between Bakunin and Marx came about because of their unbending positions on the role of authority and history, there was another, arguably even more significant difference between the two ideologies, a difference that is often entirely overlooked or not emphasized enough. Years of painstaking research brought Marx to the conclusion that communism was an inevitable stage in the historical progress. Conversely, anarchist communists arrived at the conclusion that communism was necessary not because it was inevitable or because it was an economically superior system, but because it was the most moral way to organize a society. The primary motivation for their actions did not come from scholarly discoveries of the historical forces and their rigid trajectory. They were instead disheartened by the oppression of the defenseless laborers, and in anarchist communism is where they found a summation of their desire for justice.
Kropotkin believed that Marx and Engels, after all, succumbed to the ideas of the Hegelian dialectical method, and by doing so had retained traces of metaphysics in their thought. It is precisely because of this that they failed to provide concrete scientific evidence to bolster their argument for the development of what they called “scientific socialism.” According to Kropotkin, the notion of a rigid flow of history, of the unavoidable accumulation of wealth by one small segment of population, of a bourgeois class and capitalist rule eventually dissolving into socialism, was overly deterministic and false, and by arguing that times were not yet ripe for a revolution they inhibited the action of people brave enough to promptly organize and implement their ideas.
Unlike Marx, whose mind was firmly made up about the veracity of the dialectical historical process, and whose actions were concentrated on detecting the stages of historical development and speeding up their progress by preparing the proletariat for the revolution, Bakunin’s and Kropotkin’s philosophy is filled with traces of their highly sensitive disposition, more specifically, their nagging psychological dissonance born out of what Kropotkin regarded as an innate urge to protect the vulnerable victims of the authoritarian system of his homeland, an unwavering feeling which urged him to act and speak out against other authoritarian systems he encountered during his exile in a number of European countries. In other words, they agreed with Marx and Engels about the importance of the economic factors in determining human behavior and welfare, but Bakunin and Kropotkin, like the majority of the nineteenth century Russian intellectuals, were much more preoccupied with ethics.
Rudolf Rocker, anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist, addresses this difference in his book Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice when he writes: “Economic equality alone in not social liberation. It is just this which Marxism and all the other schools of authoritarian Socialism have never understood.”[11] In addition to economic and political equality, a direct involvement in the decision making processes was required, and according to Kropotkin, so was the reawaking of the best impulses of human nature, those of mutual aid, solidarity, sympathy, and self-sacrifice. Kropotkin writes that these impulses were being perpetually suppressed and deliberately blunted by those in power for the purpose of preserving the existing state of affairs. Those in power employ different means to justify their status and privilege. To build an argument for their exceptionality, a cluster of the elites resort to religion, claiming that their privilege was bestowed on them from some kind of divinity. Others, like the nineteenth century British philosophers and naturalists, sometime purposefully and sometimes unwittingly, collected and interpreted scientific evidence through a specific cultural lens, and in many cases their conclusions were used as evidence to justify social and economic disparity in their homeland as well as inequality and poverty in the colonies they had subjugated.
One of these philosophers was Herbert Spencer. Spencer’s thought continues to have a significant influence on our understanding of how people and institutions of power function. Social Darwinism is an ethical theory which declares that the fittest and healthiest among us will survive |
Go, but only after it had trained on a database of thirty million moves, running on approximately a million watts. (Its opponent’s brain, by contrast, would have been about fifty thousand times more energy-thrifty, consuming twenty watts.) Likewise, several years ago, Google’s brain simulator taught itself to identify cats in YouTube videos using sixteen thousand core processors and all the wattage that came with them. Now companies want to endow our personal devices with intelligence, to let our smartphones recognize our family members, anticipate our moods, and suggest adjustments to our medications. To do so, A.I. will need to move beyond algorithms run on supercomputers and become embodied in silico.
Building on decades of work by Mead and others, engineers have been racing to roll out the first so-called neuromorphic chips for consumer use. Kwabena Boahen’s research group at Stanford unveiled its low-power Neurogrid chip in 2014, and Qualcomm has announced that its brain-inspired Zeroth processor will reach the market in 2018. Another model, I.B.M.’s TrueNorth, only recently moved from digital prototype to usable product. It consists of a million silicon neurons, tiny cores that communicate directly with one another using synapse-like connections. Here, the medium is the message; each neuron is both program and processing unit. The sensory data that the chip receives, rather than marching along single file, fan out through its synaptic networks. TrueNorth ultimately arrives at a decision—say, classifying the emotional timbre of its user’s voice—by group vote, as a choir of individual singers might strike on a harmony. I.B.M. claims the chip is useful in real-time pattern recognition, as for speech processing or image classification. But the biggest advance is its energy efficiency: it uses twenty milliwatts per square centimetre, more than a thousand times less than a traditional chip.
TrueNorth was also designed to emulate some of the brain’s messiness. For the past several billion years, life has had to learn to make do with its own imperfect corporeity—fuzzy eyesight, limited hearing, and so on. Despite sensing the world through a scrim of unpredictable molecular interactions, though, organisms tend to get around with remarkable accuracy. What seems like a bug may be, mathematically speaking, a feature. Randomness turns out to add a great deal of computational power to probabilistic algorithms like the ones underlying modern A.I.; input noise can shake up their output, preventing them from getting stuck on bad solutions. TrueNorth creates its own sort of fuzziness by including a random-number generator with each neuron. I.B.M. is developing another chip that achieves the same goal more elegantly, using a material that changes phase from amorphous to crystalline with a certain degree of randomness. And this is the crux of the conceptual shift that is taking place in computing: increasingly, engineers will exploit the computational properties of matter rather than guarding against its inherent fallibility, as they had to do with the punch cards. Matter will not execute a computation; it will be the computation.
Given the utter lack of consensus on how the brain actually works, these designs are more or less cartoons of what neuroscientists think might be happening. But, even if they don’t reflect absolute biological reality, the recent success of A.I. suggests that they are useful cartoons. Indeed, they may eventually confirm or challenge our understanding of the brain; as the physicist Richard Feynman put it, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” Or perhaps their power lies in their simplicity. Eve Marder, a neuroscientist at Brandeis University, has argued that the more details we include in our models, the more wrong we may make them—such is the complexity of neurobiology and the depth of our ignorance. Strict fidelity may not be necessary in designing practical A.I. TrueNorth, for instance, can’t learn on its own. The chip has to be optimized for a particular task using A.I. run on a conventional computer. So, though TrueNorth maintains one part of the biological metaphor, it does so at the cost of another. And perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that. Who is to say that every feature of the brain is worth mimicking? Our own human algorithms are not necessarily ideal. As Darwin demonstrated, evolution is not an unremitting race toward perfection. It is a haphazard wander around good enough.HARLEYVILLE, S.C. - A 28-year-old South Carolina woman who went missing after an online date has been found dead more than a month after she disappeared.
Edward Bonilla Dorchester County Sheriff's Office via CBS affiliate WCSC
Dorchester County authorities told local media outlets that the body of Ashley Nicole Pegram, of Summerville, was found Saturday in some woods near Harleyville.
Thirty-year-old Edward Bonilla had been arrested last week and charged with her murder. He is being held without bond.
Sheriff's Capt. Tony Phinney said investigators found blood in the trunk of Bonilla's car that was consistent with Pegram's DNA profile.
Bonilla originally had been charged with obstruction of justice. He had told investigators he took Pegram home after they went out April 3. Investigators said they met through the social media site "Kik."
Coroner Chris Nisbet confirmed the death was a homicide but said he would not release further information while the investigation continues.It has been revealed that billionaire George Soros, the biggest funder of anti-American activities in the world, was a main supporter of yesterday’s “Day Without Women” publicity stunt.
The whole country was talking about the “women’s” event that ultimately didn’t amount to much of anything, but as the mainstream media jumped to support the effort, the Media Research Center uncovered where much of the money came from to push the event.
Hillary’s decision to debut new ‘do while vying for role as leader of the ‘resistance’ proves not wise
According to the MRC the anti-American liberal billionaire donated more than $246 million to 100 out of the 544 partners supporting the women’s cause between 2010 and 2014.
Some of MRC’s key finding’s include:
Soros gave more than $1 million to 36 of those partners, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, MoveOn.org, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Soros also gave to partners hostile to Christians and conservative values: The ACLU, which received $37.3 million from Soros, has tried repeatedly to close Catholic hospitals and “emboldened” criminals in Chicago. The Center for American Progress (backed by $12.2 million from Soros) used the Orlando nightclub shooting to bash Christians. Even Human Rights Watch, which tracks human rights violations around the globe, ignores the right to life for the unborn and supports abortion giant Planned Parenthood.
Soros, said to be worth up to $25.2 billion, supported the women’s day which was originally started as a communist movement.
During the event women were encouraged to wear red as a paean to “revolution,” according to the Women’s March.
But as Conservative Review notes, underpinning the whole event is nothing else but an un-American communist movement.
“January’s Women’s March featured former Communist Party vice presidential candidate and Lenin Peace Prize winner Angela Davis. Pro-Life women, of course, were not invited,” CR noted.
Melania dazzles hosting her first solo WH event, drops some major truth bombs on women’s equality
“So yes, so-called Day Without a Woman supporters, please do wear Red,” CR concluded. “Those are your true colors, after all.”Last evening, D.C. United released the updated jersey numbers for the team. While most players are keeping their same numbers from last year, some players are changing while new players need to pick from the available numbers.
The last player to wear the coveted 10 shirt for D.C. United, Fabian Espindola, was traded in the middle of the season. After a season of wearing 11, Luciano Acosta has taken both Espindola’s role on the team and his jersey number, rightfully moving into the most famous shirt number in soccer.
Taking the 11 shirt vacated by Lucho will be new signing Sebastien Le Toux. Le Toux will be returning to a jersey number he has worn in the past, mostly for the Philadelphia Union. Jose Guillermo Ortiz, United’s new Costa Rican forward, will take the jersey of his countrymate Alvaro Saborio, donning the number 9.
Bill Hamid has worn number 28 since his debut, when Troy Perkins had the traditional goalkeeper number. Since Hamid seems content with that number, Travis Worra is abandoning 48 and moving up to take the number 1 shirt.
Finally, Ian Harkes is taking a number with plenty of meaning for United fans: 23. Most recently worn by Perry Kitchen, Harkes will have a lot to live up to by choosing that number.
Everyone else will retain their current numbers, and the trialists will have placeholder numbers in the preseason that may change if and when they make the team.It's 20 years since Dennis Bergkamp joined Arsenal from Internazionale
As we mark 20 years since Dennis Bergkamp arrived at Arsenal, Adam Bate argues that the signing of the Dutchman was an important precursor to the era of change instigated by Arsene Wenger…
It’s easy to dismiss the period between Alan Smith’s volleyed winner against Parma in the 1994 European Cup Winners’ Cup final and Arsene Wenger’s arrival two years’ later. It’s just the space between a couple of trophy silhouettes on the banner that runs around the Emirates Stadium.
But in the summer of 1995, with Smith retiring and long-time manager George Graham having been sacked under a cloud that February, there came the arrival of a man who would prove a catalyst for change. By the time Dennis Bergkamp departed 11 years later, Arsenal had won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups. More than that, the club had changed the way it defined itself.
A world-class player with wonderful ability, technically excellent and an individual capable of applying his considerable ability to the benefit of the team. Bruce Rioch on Dennis Bergkamp
His final game was sat out on the bench in the Champions League final with the Gunners having waved goodbye to Highbury earlier that month to move to a 60,000-seater stadium. In 2014, a statue was erected outside it in his honour. And yet, all that was far from inevitable when Bruce Rioch paid £7.5million – treble the club’s record fee – to bring Bergkamp to London in June 1995.
Rioch described the Dutchman as “a world-class player with wonderful ability, technically excellent and an individual capable of applying his considerable ability to the benefit of the team” while Bergkamp was optimistic too. “I know Arsenal didn't win anything last season,” he said. “But with this manager and this team I believe we can change that situation.” Others saw it differently.
With Bergkamp having scored only five goals in his second season at Inter, club chairman Massimo Moratti said Rioch would be lucky if the player got to double figures. Dutch journalist Ron Westerhof of Voetbal International went further. “I don't think he’ll succeed in England. He is still one of the best players in the world, but he's weak mentally. He's not a winner. He's a loser. He's a cissy.”
He was a real character. He was not one of those players who would go out every night like we used to in the old days but he was good fun and we would play golf every week. Ray Parlour on Dennis Bergkamp
Even Bergkamp had his doubts. Years later, in his autobiography Stillness and Speed, he recalled the combination of pressure and excitement he felt after arriving at his hotel room with wife Henrita following the press conference. “They must rate me here, they still expect me to be like Van Basten or Gullit. I don't think of myself like that. I looked at Henrita: ‘This is amazing! I have to step up’.”
When Bergkamp arrived, Arsenal didn’t even own their own training ground, instead sharing with the students at UCL, but it was the culture that was the bigger challenge. He admits being shocked by the drinking habits of his colleagues, something that hit home when strolling with Henrita on a pre-season tour of Sweden only to bump into his team-mates sat outside the local pub.
However, that didn’t mean integration was an issue. Ray Parlour recalls a man willing to get involved in his own way. “Dennis was also great fun,” Parlour told Sky Sports. “He was a real character. He was not one of those players who would go out every night like we used to in the old days but he was good fun and we would play golf every week.”
Dennis Bergkamp making his Arsenal debut against Middlesbrough
On the pitch, Bergkamp’s quality ought to have been obvious and there was an encouraging debut against Middlesbrough. But while Rioch was happy – “Dennis was a success from the start,” he said years later – rival supporters had their fun when it took the forward more than 10 hours to get off the mark. Chants suggesting that Arsenal had wasted their money became customary.
The media weren’t far behind. “The English tabloids criticised me at first when I didn't score in my first seven or eight games,” Bergkamp told FourFourTwo. “Fair enough.” But he was off the mark with a brilliant brace against Southampton – the first a volley, the second a sensational strike – and Arsenal remained unbeaten. The Daily Mirror ruled the man-of-the-match decision a no contest.
That old mastery of time and space was all there. Bergkamp scored a winner against Manchester United, capitalising on a Denis Irwin error, and Arsenal were still in the mix when he netted in a 4-2 win over Sheffield Wednesday in late November. But he missed five games over Christmas with the Gunners winning only one of them and wasn’t back in the goals until February.
Dennis Bergkamp in action against Man Utd at Highbury in 1995
Arsenal eventually finished fifth – up from 12th the season before – and the club was on an upward trajectory. The title followed in 1998 and Adrian Clarke, who made four Premier League starts alongside Bergkamp in that debut season, feels the seeds of success were sown that season. “Rioch’s Arsenal played good football too, and that’s often unfairly forgotten,” he told The Set Pieces.
“Released from Graham’s shackles, the team was encouraged to pass and move quicker, and played with freedom. His side was certainly easier on the eye than the one he inherited. Dennis Bergkamp’s arrival may have had something to do with that of course. Bruce adored Dennis and wanted us to build everything around him.”
Wenger’s arrival brought a host of stars to Highbury but for all the changes that were to come – including the Premier League’s first all-foreign side – looking back, it’s striking how little change in personnel was required to turn Arsenal into champions. In that 1997/98 triumph, there were eight Englishmen – all pre-dating Wenger – who played at least 24 league games.
Dennis Bergkamp completing a memorable hat-trick against Leicester
Of course, Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars had key roles and Nicolas Anelka scored some vital goals late in the campaign. But it was Bergkamp who was the team’s top scorer and best player. He set the tone with five in his first four games, including that hat-trick at Leicester. “Perhaps there is a better player in the world but I don't know of him,” said Wenger after a brace against Barnsley.
Thierry Henry might have since surpassed him at Arsenal, but the great French forward joined a team on the up and packed with talent. The journey had already started. “I believe that Bergkamp triggered the trend of continental stars such as Emmanuel Petit, Marc Overmars, Thierry Henry and Nwankwo Kanu joining Arsenal,” said Rioch. Perhaps that’s why Parlour still rates him as the key man.
“Henry was fantastic but Dennis arrived in English football slightly earlier and changed the aspect of the game; the way he trained and the way he worked hard,” added the former England midfielder. There will be anniversary celebrations next year if and when Wenger chalks up 20 years at the club and Henry has a statue of his own. But before them, there was Dennis Bergkamp. And this weekend, that’s worth remembering.Forty-eight subjects were enrolled and 41 were evaluable. There was a significant mean reduction in total lesion count in the pantothenic acid group versus placebo at week 12 (P = 0.0197). Mean reduction in inflammatory lesions was also significantly reduced and DLQI scores were significantly lower at week 12 in the pantothenic acid group versus placebo. The study agent was safe and well tolerated.
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of adults previously diagnosed with mild to moderate acne vulgaris was performed. Subjects were randomized to the study agent, a pantothenic acid-based dietary supplement, or a placebo for 12 weeks (endpoint). The primary outcome of the study was the difference in total lesion count between the study agent group versus the placebo group from baseline to endpoint. Secondary measurements included differences in mean non-inflammatory and inflammatory lesions, Investigators Global Assessment and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) scores between the two groups. Investigator assessment of overall improvement and skin photographs were also taken. Safety and tolerability endpoints were the assessment of adverse events and measurement of serum complete blood count and hepatic function.
Acne is a common disease of the hair follicles in the skin associated with an oil gland. Facial lesions due to acne can affect up to 95% of people during their lifetime and frequently starts in teens, but often persists or begins during adulthood [ 1 ]. Lesions include non-inflammatory and inflammatory types. There are many common treatments for acne lesions including drugs, over the counter products and procedures such as laser therapy [ 2 – 4 ]. There has also been an increasing interest in the use of natural products for skin health such as vitamin C, other antioxidants, botanicals and omega-3 fatty acids [ 5, 6 ]. One agent that has shown promise in reducing facial acne lesions is pantothenic acid (vitamin B 5 ). Pantothenic acid is a water-soluble member of the B-vitamin family that is converted into 4’-phosphopantetheine, which is then converted to co-enzyme A (CoA) via adenosine triphosphate [ 7, 8 ]. Pantothenic acid regulates epidermal barrier function and keratinocytes differentiation via CoA metabolism. Skin softening ability of pantothenic acid-based topical products have also been demonstrated in a recent clinical trial [ 9 – 11 ]. A recent feasibility study has also shown that daily oral supplementation of a nutritional agent containing pantothenic acid for 8 weeks was feasible and safe. Secondary endpoints of that study demonstrated that there was a reduction in total facial acne lesions over the 8-week study period [ 12 ]. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to further test the pantothenic acid-based supplement in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study to assess the effectiveness of the study agent in reducing global facial lesion count versus placebo over a 12-week study period.
The study sample size had 80% power to detect a significant difference in total lesions from baseline to week 12 of the study between the two groups and significance was set at 0.05. The IGA and Investigator Overall Improvement (IOI) evaluations were performed on a 5-point scale and transformed to numerical values (0–5) and the mean, standard deviation and percentages were calculated. Differences in DQLI scores were analyzed from baseline to week 12 using a t test. A last observation carried forward method was prospectively defined and used for missing data if the subjects had data at least for the first two visits. The tolerability and safety outcome was the incidence of adverse effects, complication/illness and/or serious medical events due to the study agent as measured by the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Common Criteria for Adverse Event Reporting Version 3.0 [ 14 ] and by analysis of serum complete blood count and hepatic function from baseline to week 12 (Esoterix™, LabCorp, Cranford, NJ, USA). Descriptive analyses were performed for demographics utilizing characteristic measures such as mean, standard deviation, and range.
The study was performed between August 2012 and November 2013. Once informed consent was given, consecutive human subjects with facial lesions as demonstrated by total lesion count were assessed and randomized 1:1 to either the study agent, a pantothenic acid-based dietary supplement herein referred to as study agent (Pantothen™, Avilan Marketing LLC, New York, USA) or an asthetically matched placebo tablet. The study agent was verified by the manufacturer to contain the correct dosage of ingredients as listed (certificate of analysis not shown). The ingredients in the placebo table were considered inert and the placebo tablet did not contain any active ingredients (certificate of analysis for the placebo tablet not shown). The dosage of the study agent or the placebo administered was two tablets taken orally, twice a day with food for 12 weeks. Each four-tablet dose of the study agent contained 2.2 g of pantothenic acid. The primary outcome of the study was the reduction in total facial lesions at the study endpoint (week 12) in the study agent group versus the placebo group. Secondary outcomes were changes in non-inflammatory lesions at specific facial areas, change in inflammatory lesions (total and specific facial areas), change in the Investigators Global Assessment (IGA) and change in scores on the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) from baseline to week 12 between the two groups. The DLQI is a general questionnaire that evaluates quality of life (QOL) in dermatology patients and consists of ten questions about symptoms, feelings, daily activities, type of clothing, social or physical activities, exercise, job or education, interpersonal relationships, marriage relationships, and relationship to dermatologic symptoms. Higher scores indicate a poorer QOL [ 13 ]. Finally, we assessed investigator overall improvement as deemed by the study doctor using a 5-point scale: 2 = marked improvement, 1 = slight improvement, 0 = unchanged, −1 = worsening, −2 = marked worsening at the study endpoint (week 12).
All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Quorum Institutional Review Board, Seattle, WA-Accredited by the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and 2008. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.
Fifty-one adult subjects (average age) with ≥50 non-inflammatory and up to 50 inflammatory lesions were recruited at 2 dermatology sites. The main exclusion criteria included pregnancy and lactation, known allergy or hypersensitivity to any of the constituents in the study agent and current use of any prescription treatment (oral or topical) for acne (washout allowed). Past use of any procedures including laser therapy, microdermabrasion and other procedures was prohibited if the study participant had received it within the past three months.
The study agent was well tolerated. One subject withdrew consent due to complaint that the tablet size was too large. There were no differences in complete blood count or hepatic function as measured at week 12 from baseline in any subjects in either the study agent or placebo groups (data not shown). There were two AEs reported, one of fatigue (placebo group) and one of shingles (study agent group) that were deemed unrelated to the study agent by the study principal investigator. No serious AEs were reported during the study.
The mean ± standard deviation (SD) DLQI score was lower at week 12 from baseline between the study agent and placebo group (baseline scores, 7.6 ± 5.3 versus 9.53 ± 7.69, P = 0.44 study agent versus placebo, versus week 12 scores, 1.93 ± 1.90 and 5.3 ± 4.8 study agent versus placebo, respectively, P = 0.022). The overall investigator assessment of improvement at week 12 as measured by a 5-point scale demonstrated that 85.7% of subjects had ≥1 rank improvement in the study agent versus the placebo group (35.7%).
Analysis of the number of non-inflammatory blemishes demonstrated a significant mean reduction in lesion count from baseline to week 12 in the study agent versus the placebo group (P = 0.0162) (Fig. ). Breakdown of changes in lesion count per facial area also demonstrated significance in numerous categories in the study agent versus placebo group (Fig. ). Overall efficacy, as measured by the IGA, was significantly improved for the study agent group versus placebo at week 12 (P = 0.045) as 42.85% versus 14.28% were downgraded to grade 1 (almost clear skin, few non-inflammatory lesions and no more than 1 inflammatory lesion). Figure a, b demonstrates examples of clearer skin in both inflammatory and non-inflammatory blemishes from baseline versus week 12 in subjects in the study agent group.
Fifty-one subjects were screened, forty-eight were randomized and forty-one subjects were evaluable. Of those, five subjects were lost to follow-up, one withdrew consent and one was dropped for non-compliance. None of the subjects were terminated due to an adverse event (AE) (see Fig. for study flow). Demographics and baseline characteristics are listed in Table.
Discussion
Pantothenic acid (vitamin B 5 ) is a water-soluble B-complex vitamin. In this study, volunteers with facial lesions who took a daily oral dose of a pantothenic acid-based dietary supplement demonstrated improved skin health versus those who took a placebo tablet. The results of this study further confirmed that it was safe and tolerable for healthy human volunteers to take a nutritional supplement containing pantothenic acid for 12 weeks. The results of this study showed that there was a greater than 67% reduction in the number of total facial lesions after 12 weeks of supplementation. Results also demonstrated that there was a significant reduction in the number of total and specific facial areas in non-inflammatory lesions after 12 weeks in the pantothenic acid group, improved scores on the IGA and improved overall investigators assessment at study endpoint. In addition, subjects in the study agent group demonstrated better quality of life as measured by the DLQI [13]; a well-validated quantitative questionnaire that measures the bother of unclear skin on patients’ QOL with regard to social, behavioral and mood indicators. Most importantly, the study agent was well tolerated and safe as demonstrated by minimal adverse events and no changes in serum blood chemistries.
The mechanism by which this occurs may be due to antibacterial and skin softening activity of pantothenic acid. Pantothenic acid is converted into 4′-phosphopantetheine that is then converted to CoA via adenosine triphosphate (ATP) [7]. CoA is a critical agent important in lipid metabolism and other cellular processes and it has been shown that pantothenic acid may regulate epidermal barrier function through proliferation and differentiation of keratinocytes via CoA metabolism [7, 15]. It is possible that the reduction in the amount of global skin lesions in volunteers following oral administration of the pantothenic acid-based study agent may function through these mechanisms. However, the exact mechanism of this effect is not understood. More recently the association between CoA metabolism and inflammation has also been suggested as it has been shown that the pantetheinase enzyme that recycles pantothenic acid and pantetheinase gene (vanin-1) knockout mice has been shown to be involved in the progression of inflammatory reactions [16]. The bioavailability of pantothenic acid has been reported in the range of 40–63% and amounts found in 24-h urine samples have been shown to correlate with this intake [17]. For example, avocados contain a wide variety of essential nutrients including pantothenic acid and essential fatty acids and studies have demonstrated that these correlate with improved health in persons who consume them [18].
In addition to physiologic mechanisms of action, this study also demonstrated that volunteers in the study agent group who demonstrated clear skin had improved quality of life as measured by a well-validated, quantitative questionnaire. It has been clearly shown that acne patients with poor facial skin have reduced quality of life with regard to dissatisfaction about appearance, social bother and even co-morbid depression. It has also been stressed that assessment of quality of life in studies testing any type of agent for facial acne lesions is important and strongly correlates with treatment success [19, 20].
Limitations of this study are its short duration intervention and that the study was powered to detect a difference in total lesions. If we aimed to look at the effects of the study agent in inflammatory lesions, a longer intervention period may be needed. Moreover, we are unable to measure long-term use and durability. Finally, there is always a possibility that milder, non-inflammatory lesions may resolve on their own by chance. Given that administration of study agent was safe, tolerable and demonstrated improvement in human facial lesions, further randomized, placebo-controlled studies are warranted.Reporters Jump Senators For Perceived Earmark Hypocrisy
Watching journalists who think they've caught a politician in some hypocrisy can be a lot like watching a cat with a mouse.
It's hard not to be fascinated by how much a cat seems to enjoy tormenting the wide-eyed object of its attention. While riveting, it's usually not a very pretty sight.
That seemed the case on Capitol Hill Wednesday, when Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of S. Dakota came to the Senate press gallery.
The senators came to criticize Senate Democrats for their just unveiled $1.25 trillion spending plan for the federal government's fiscal year 2011, which is already underway.
Among the objects of the senators' scorn were the earmarks, requests by lawmakers for money for particular projects, in the omnibus spending bill.
Said Thune:
The bill's loaded up with pork projects, and it shouldn't get a vote... The bill contains pork projects for everything from salmon studies to improved grapes -- not that there's anything wrong with those things, but it shouldn't come at the expense of bankrupting the country.
After Cornyn made a few points about the spending bill representing the old way of doing business in Washington which voters rejected, the reporters unsheathed their claws.
REPORTER: Senator Cornyn, the bill contains many earmarks that you requested. SEN. CORNYN: Pardon me? REPORTER: The bill contains many earmarks that you requested. I mean,why are you opposing this bill when there are things that you called for in there? SEN. CORNYN: I intend to vote against those earmarks because I think the American people sent a message on November the 2nd saying they want a new way of operating in Washington. And our Republican conference passed an earmark moratorium for the next two years, but it's pretty clear that the appropriators want to try to slip in earmarks for this year through this omnibus bill.
The cat and mouse game was just beginning. After a few more minutes on other issues, a reporter circled back to earmarks. This time it was Thune's turn.
REPORTER: Senator Thune, I was just looking at the list of earmark requests that you made this year. It adds up to over a hundred millions dollars. Have you asked that those earmarks be removed...? SEN. THUNE: I haven't asked that they be removed from it, but I'm going to vote against it, just like Senator Cornyn is. And -- REPORTER: But why haven't you asked that they be removed? SEN. THUNE: Well, those projects were projects that were vetted.Those are projects that we -- I mean, I support those projects. But I don't support this bill, nor do I support the process by which this bill was put together. And as John said, most of us voted, Republicans did, at our conference on a resolution that we would not request earmarks. So my way of expressing that is to vote against the legislation. REPORTER: So why not ask that they be removed...? SEN. THUNE: Well, I -- we're going to -- we're going to try and vote this thing down. I mean, I don't know how you -- how you get them out now other than amending the bill. You know, the bill's infront of us.
Cornyn tried to shift the discussion to Sen. Harry Reid's procedural machinations, but the reporters weren't yet done with their favorite topic, if not of the day, of this particular news conference.
REPORTER: Senator Cornyn, you both have complained about not -- another Republican has as well -- about not -- just getting to see the bill 24 hours ago, also about the earmarks. Do you both plan to go through the entirety of the bill before you vote on it, to read the whole thing? And we're talking about earmarks and -- all that sort of thing. SEN. CORNYN: Well, we're certainly in the process of doing that right now. It's a -- it's a lengthy bill, 1,924 pages long, and we're going through it as others have, and discovering a lot of bad stuff in the bill. REPORTER: Senator -- REPORTER: I would like to -- REPORTER: Going through this bill, there's earmark after earmark fromthe (both?) -- (inaudible), millions of dollars in earmarks from the two of you and from other senators. How do you have any credbility on this? Why do you have earmarks in yours? SEN. CORNYN: Because we're going to vote against the bill. This is the wrong way to do business. If people have concerns about what's in the bill, we ought to be given an opportunity to offer amendments to strip those out -- REPORTER: So you -- SEN. CORNYN: And I'm happy to have that process done. But we heard the American people on November the 2nd. Again, as Sen. Thune said, they don't want business as usual. And this bill represents business as usual. The Republican Conference voted for an earmark moratorium going forward.
Cornyn once again tried to change the subject. But the reporters were having none of it.
REPORTER: You're standing here and advocating for stripping these out when you both have requested them -- I mean, it appears like you're saying one thing, doing another.
Then another reporter jumped in.
REPORTER: So were you wrong -- Senator, were you wrong when you putthese earmarks in before?
Clearly exasperated, Cornyn tried for what seemed like the tenth time, to get reporters to understand the big picture as he saw it.
SEN. CORNYN: Carl, this is not just about earmarks. Earmarks are a symptom of wasteful Washington spending that the American people have said they want reformed. We agree with them, and that's why we will vote against this bill. But you're missing the story if you think it's just about earmarks. This is about a flawed process of sweetheart deals cut behind closed doors, and a big bill, spending bill, dropped on the American people and on us on December the 14th, without adequate time to amend it and debate it and to reveal to the American people what is in it so they can cast their judgment. So I think -- I think that's to me the context. And we've said very clearly -- we voted for an earmark moratorium. We will abide by that, and we will reject any earmarks requested by us or anyone else, because that's what the American people told us they want. STAFF: Thank you. Thank you very much.
And with that the senators escaped, er, departed the press gallery to continue tending to the nation's business.Bob Marley married Rita Anderson on February 10, 1966.
Rita brought a daughter into the marriage (Sharon) from a previous relationship and although not officially acknowledged so did Bob (Imani).
Bob & Rita Marley together would have four children during their marriage. Marley also fathered eight more children with eight different women during this time. Not one to be left behind, Rita also had a child (Stephanie) as a result of an affair during her marriage to Bob. Rumor has it that there are several other “unclaimed” or “forgotten” children of Bob Marley, but to the best of our knowledge this is the complete list of Bob Marley’s children and mothers.
Imani Carole Marley born May 22, 1963 (with Cheryl Murray)
Imani is Bob’s first born child but for reasons unknown she is not acknowledged as such on the official Bob Marley website.
Sharon Marley born November 23, 1964 (adopted by Bob)
Sharon was born two years before Rita married Bob to an unnamed man but Bob adopted her as his own and she is offically recognized as one of his children.
Cedella Marley born August 23, 1967 (with Rita)
Cedella is Bob and Rita’s oldest child together and she along with some her siblings were part of the group Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers. Cedella who was named after Bob’s mother is a clothing designer and CEO of Tough Gong International.
David “Ziggy” Marley born October 17, 1968 (with Rita)
David Nesta “Ziggy” Marley is Bob’s oldest son and the front man of Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers.
Stephen Marley born April 20, 1972 (with Rita)
Stephen is Bob & Rita’s last child together and the fourth member of the band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers.
Robert “Robbie” Marley born May 16, 1972 (with Pat Williams)
Robbie was born less than a month after Stephen and was Bob’s first of many children he fathered without his wife Rita. Not much is known about his mother Pat “Lucille” Williams as Robbie was brought to live with Bob and Rita. He is not a musician and has mostly stayed out of the spotlight as a motorcycle stunt rider.
Rohan Marley born May 19, 1972 (with Janet Hunt/Dunn)
Rohan was born just three days after brother Robbie and a month after brother Stephen. Not too much is known about Rohan’s mother Janet Hunt other than the fact that Rohan was also eventually brought to live with Bob and Rita at the |
the city.
The airstrikes made it possible for the Iraqi forces to move through the city. Troops reported finding dozens of roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings as they combed the city.
At a Cabinet meeting before he declared Tikrit liberated, al-Abadi was already calling the operation a success.
"The success of the Tikrit experiment will be repeated in other areas because of the results it has achieved on the battlefield, on a humanitarian level, protecting civilians as much as possible, in addition to the low casualties amongst our security forces," he said.
Iraqi forces have tried multiple times to win back Tikrit since ISIS conquered the city as part of its campaign to amass an expansive Islamic caliphate but failed until now. This operation, however, was the biggest by the Iraqi military so far.
"We managed to take (ISIS) by surprise," the Prime Minister said. "And our air force... in addition to coalition air force, helping Iraqi forces, managed to deal severe blows to ISIS and the enemies of Iraq. And our ground forces with the blood of Iraqis, Iraqis alone with their own blood, were able to liberate this land."
The latest push began after al-Abadi ordered Iraqi forces on March 1 to retake Tikrit and Salahuddin province.
Militants have been under pressure ever since in the battleground city, which is the birthplace of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and is located about 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Baghdad.
The Iraqi forces were aided by a coalition made up of mostly Shiite militiamen and volunteers.
The militia members, estimated to number around 20,000, are backed by Iran. The offensive marked the first very overt participation of Iranian advisers on the front lines.
The victory in Tikrit sets the stage for Iraqi forces to take back an even bigger prize: Mosul.
Mosul is Iraq's second-biggest city and the site of one of its military's biggest embarrassments, when Iraqi troops dropped their weapons and ran rather than defend their posts last June.
A U.S. official said in February that up to 25,000 Iraqi troops plan to return to Mosul in April or May and, ideally, win it back. This comment came days after al-Abadi told the BBC that while there's still work to do, he felt confident Iraqis could recapture the key northern city.Italian Supreme Court rules Meredith Kercher murder was a sex game gone wrong and orders Amanda Knox back for trial
Bad news: Amanda Knox has called the reversal by the Cassation 'painful' but said she is confident she would be exonerated
Italy's high court today faulted the acquittal of Amanda Knox by the appeals court for the murder of her roommate, ruling that it WAS a'sex game gone wrong' and ordered her back for trial.
The Supreme Court said the ruling was full of 'deficiencies, contradictions and illogical' conclusions and ordered the new appeals court to look at all the evidence to determine whether Knox helped kill the teen.
In March, the Court of Cassation overturned Knox's acquittal in the 2007 murder of flatmate Meredith Kercher and ordered a new trial.
On Tuesday, the high court issued its written reasoning for doing so. Kercher's body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, a central Italian town popular with foreign exchange students.
Knox, now 25, and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 29, were initially convicted and sentenced to long prison terms, but a Perugia appeals court acquitted them in 2011, criticizing virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors.
The appellate court noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and that prosecutors provided no murder motive.
A young man from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the slaying in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence.
In the 74-page Cassation ruling, the high court judges said they 'had to recognize that he (Guede) was not the sole author' of the crime, Italian news agency LaPresse reported. The judges though said he was the'main protagonist'.
They said the new appeal process would serve to 'not only demonstrate the presence of the two suspects in the place of the crime, but to possibly outline the subjective position of Guede's accomplices'.
It said hypotheses ran from a simple case of forced sex involving Kercher 'to a group erotic game that blew up and got out of control'.
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Innocent: Knox left Italy a free woman after her 2011 acquittal, after serving nearly four years of a 26-year prison sentence
The high court faulted the Perugia appeals court for'multiple instances of deficiencies, contradictions and illogical' conclusions.
The new court must conduct a full examination of evidence to resolve the ambiguities, it said.
Knox left Italy a free woman after her 2011 acquittal, after serving nearly four years of a 26-year prison sentence.
Now a University of Washington student in Seattle, she has called the reversal by the Cassation 'painful' but said she was confident she would be exonerated.
Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new trial and her lawyers have said she has no plans to do so. It is unclear what would happen to Knox if a possible conviction from the new trial is upheld on final appeal.
No date for the new trial has been set. Florence's appeals court was chosen since Perugia only has one appellate court.
Knox and Sollecito denied wrongdoing and said they weren't even in the apartment that night, although they acknowledged they had smoked marijuana and their memories were clouded.
Last month Knox said the future was very unsure for her financially and that she is almost broke because of her huge legal bills - despite a $1.5million book advance.
She will be paid a reported $4million in total for her memoir Waiting To Be Heard but claimed that her retrial and a potential libel lawsuits will leave her penniless.
Publicity drive: Amanda Knox appears on GMA earlier this month to promote her memoir
Knox also revealed that to make money in the future she will be writing more books and will be taking a creative writing course at the University of Washington, near her home in Seattle.
The prospect will inevitably cause further anguish to the family of Meredith Kercher, 21, the British student and her former roommate who she was accused of killing in 2007 in Perugia, Italy.
They are already angry at the string of interviews Knox has given to promote the book in which she has tried to portray herself as a victim of a gross injustice.
Speaking to the Toronto Post last month she said that she is scared and uncertain how she will get by in the years to come.
Knox, 25, said: ‘I don’t know what I am going to do. The future is very unsure for me financially.’
Her book could trigger a wave of costly libel lawsuits from police and prosecutors in Italy who she claims framed her, but Knox was unrepentant.
Freedom: Amanda Knox cries in court in 2011 following the verdict that overturns her conviction and acquits her of murdering her British room-mate Meredith Kercher
She said: ‘People asked me if I would change the book and I said absolutely not.
‘I am not going to change my story just because someone is threatening to sue me but I mean it sucks. It sucks and it sucks.’
Knox did not elaborate on what kind writing she will undertake in the future but said that it was ‘crushing’ to read the book by Miss Kercher’s father John in which he called on her to ‘come clean’.
Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially found guilty for the murder of Miss Kercher but were acquitted in 2011.
In the latest of many twists in the case, the Italian Supreme Court ruled in March that both Knox and Sollecito will face a retrial.
Revealing: Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito (pictured shortly after Meredith Kercher's murder) have both written books about their time in jail
Brutal death: Meredith Kercher, 21, was killed in 2007 in Perugia, Italy
In an interview this week, Sollecito said that the prospect did not bother him and hinted that like Knox he might not return to Italy and face a possible jail term if found guilty again.
He said: ‘It’s something like a very far-away thought in my mind. I already know that I'm innocent and we already have proved it. So for me, it's kind of nonsense.”When I think of cigarette smoking in the NBA, without a doubt, the first person who comes to mind is the gregarious, beloved Serb: Vlade Divac. Even your casual NBA fan most likely recalls hearing the tales: When he came into the league — not in the ’50s, when the harrowing health concerns were not yet known in full, but in the D.A.R.E.-era ’90s — Divac used to rip butts. At halftime. In the locker room.
Why do we care if this is true? Simply put, there’s a certain romantic insanity to the idea. Here’s a man tasked with consistent Herculean physical battles, surrounded by peak athletic forms, and yet he is louche enough to willingly ingest a product he knows can only debilitate his body and talented enough for that to not even matter.
Weighed against today’s climate — in which rapid and complex nutritional and physiological advances have combined to extend careers years and years past their once-natural end points — the contrast is even starker. We have Ray Allen treating his body as not only a temple but, like, the First Temple. We have Divac — purportedly — smoking cigs at halftime in the locker room. Wonderfully, the same league gives us both.
These days, Divac is a globe-trotting humanitarian who occasionally does his fund-raising by the manner of half-court shots.
I reached out: Does Vlade want to talk about cigarettes? And I was politely rebuffed. “Vlade rarely smoked while playing,” a rep for the Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation explained via email. “It has been more of a rumor than true.”
Fair or not, Eastern European players have long been automatically hit with the smoker tag. In 2003, when Sports Illustrated profiled a pre-bust Darko Milicic, then living in “the remote Serbian industrial town of Vrsac,” it found his conditions dire and used that stereotype to make its point: “Until last month, when his club rewarded him with a new two-bedroom apartment, Milicic had been sleeping on a pullout couch in a small studio with a space heater at his feet. While LeBron James received a $50,000 Hummer for his 18th birthday … [Milicic] is making $20,000 this season for playing against grown men with two-day stubble and cigarette breath.” There’s just an assumption there, mildly xenophobic in nature: Those crafty Euros, from those far-flung, unpronounceable towns? Oh, they sure do like cigs with their morning vodka.
Does that mean Divac didn’t smoke? No, of course Divac smoked! Here he is, in 2001, downplaying the habit to Dan Patrick in ESPN The Magazine.
DP: Are you still a smoker? VD: No. DP: You were a smoker. VD: Yes. DP: How many packs a day would you go through? VD: Not even one. Just 10 cigarettes a day. DP: And when did you realize that maybe I shouldn’t be smoking? VD: When I came to the NBA, I tried to improve. DP: Your health. VD: No, my game … health, too, but the game was on my mind. DP: Well, the NBA’s got to be happy that you would be smoking cigarettes as opposed to something else, like everybody else does in the league. VD: Well, it’s all the same thing — it’s all bad things, you know. Nobody’s perfect …
Still, when it comes to smoking at halftime, Divac is not talking. Now, if any of his old teammates or coaches want to get in touch — anonymously, if need be — I’ll be here. What say you, Nick Van Exel? Care to chime in, Anthony Mason? Cedric? Cedric Ceballos? Always good to hear from you, Ced!
Anyway, who else used to light a few squares up? I asked Boston Globe legend Bob Ryan the question; he told me: “I don’t recall anyone smoking when I covered the Celtics for the last time from 1986-88.” Grantland’s Charlie Pierce gave me a few names: “A lot of the old guys were real chimneys. Dave DeBusschere of the Knicks is one I remember. [Bob] Cousy, too. [John] Havlicek used to sneak them, as I recall.” (Also: “DeBusschere used to down a six-pack of beer after every game without ever taking the rings off the cans.”) Ryan disagrees: “Havlicek? Absolutely not. Don Nelson, Jo Jo White were the big smokers when I covered. And Tommy Heinsohn was a huuuuuge smoker.”
It’s not too hard to verify. Here’s Heinsohn celebrating some title or another, with Hondo pouring champagne on his head, and Heinsohn smiling, making sure his cig stays dry.
Cousy’s habit appears to be on the record as well. “MORE SCIENTISTS AND EDUCATORS SMOKE KENT with the Micronite Filter than any other cigarette,” declares a bit of classic advertising. “‘Kent is my favorite, too,’ says BOB COUSY, famous ALL-STAR guard of the Boston Celtics.”
“All of us were looking to scrounge every dollar we could those days,” Cousy tells me, in that inimitable accent, from his home in Florida. “Nowadays, the high-profile jock, for a national ad, will get a million bucks probably. I was getting a thousand dollars. Kent cigarettes came around. We didn’t have agents. A guy called me. I said ‘fine,’ and I did the ad. Then I came to my senses. The ad came out and I said to myself, ‘This is not an image I wanna be associated with.’ So I contacted the guy and told him my feelings. I said, ‘I would just as soon return the money — let’s shake hands and forget the whole thing.’ We had, I guess, a good relationship, and they took the ad back.
“We were all ghetto kids, scrounging for everything we could. When someone offered you a thousand dollars to pose, you jumped at it without giving it a lot of thought. I simply made a mistake in judgment. I didn’t wanna be telling kids to smoke. Even in those days, early ’50s, we were aware that smoking ciggies wasn’t the best thing for you. Anyway, that’s the only time in my career I ever gave money back.”
So was Kent your brand?
“I didn’t smoke,” he almost shouts. “I was a nonsmoker. I eventually smoked cigars for 20 years. One of the many bad habits I picked up from Arnold [“Red”] Auerbach. He and I used to go to Europe together, so I had to protect myself and start smoking those damn things myself. Otherwise I’d inhale his smoke. But I never smoked cigarettes. When we were kids we didn’t have money to buy anything. Damn cigarettes were too expensive. Other than drinking a lot of beer, which we picked up in college — that was the extent of our vices. We did like girls, I think. Although it being so long, I can’t rely on my memory for that either.”
What about Tommy?
“Oh dear. Tommy. I used to say to Tommy, ‘If you only moved as fast on the court as you do at halftime, you’d be all-world.’ From the time we get off the floor — from the moment that horn blew — he was zip. He’d be a flash. He’d run back to the locker room so he could light up. And Auerbach would already be polluting it with his cigar as well. We’d look at each other and listen to Arnold’s words through this cloud of smoke that Tommy and Arnold had created.”
We talk a bit longer, about how much things have changed in the interest of maintaining good health: the armies of trainers that travel with each team, the breadth of fitness knowledge now available. “In the ’50s and ’60s, they were concerned with keeping our heads above water and hopefully not losing too much money,” he says. “You were supposed to come in shape and stay in shape, and they ran your ass for 10 days and then the season would start and that would be it. We didn’t have a trainer that went on the road with us. Poor Auerbach had to tape ankles a lot of the time.”
He can’t help but laugh. The blistering pace, the freakish athleticism, and the transformation of the game that goes along with all of that has also meant one no-so-great thing: the kind of injuries you’d never suffer back when cigarette smoke hung so thick you could barely see your own coach. “I never heard of an ACL — literally, the 13 years I played, I never heard of an ACL,” Cousy says. “The only thing we dealt with were sprained ankles and charley horses.”
Returning to the modern-day NBA, there’s little to go on. A tossed-off mention in a hoops forum that Charles Barkley used to smoke certainly sounds feasible enough, but it leads to nothing other than the discovery of this photo:
To be sure, you may need a cigarette after looking at that, but there’s nothing to suggest Barkley was a cigarette dude.
In 2013, a Chicago Tribune article described Brad Miller as “a Midwestern country boy who has his own hunting show and is fluent in chewing tobacco.” In 2012, Arvydas Sabonis survived a heart attack and supposedly had this incredible thing to say: “The doctors told me, ‘You can’t smoke, you can’t drink, you can’t play basketball.’ So of the things I like, only sex is left.”
And in 2008, a report surfaced from an NBA fan in China who spotted shamed league obscurity Keith Closs in a “crappy Nanjing nightclub” wearing a Mavs jersey with his name on the back. (Closs never played for the Mavs.) The fan recalls:
He said the squad he was with was touring around China playing teams in various cities. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him for more than a minute. He seemed pretty detached and uninterested and just ended up sitting down puffing on cigs the whole night like Al Pacino in Godfather II.
(There’s also a certain photo, from the true depths of the Internet, that clearly depicts former Golden State Warrior Andris Biedrins enjoying a cigarette. We will not be linking to it here, nor ever speaking of it again.)
But none of these anecdotes have any actual ballplayers smoking anywhere near actual basketball activity. For that, we must turn to a certain once-mustachioed man of some ill repute. From a 2007-era post on the Seattle Times’s Sonics Blog:
[Dwayne] Casey traveled to China with Blazers guard/forward Martell Webster and former Gonzaga star Adam Morrison (Charlotte) for an Adidas camp and both Webster and Casey had some funny stories about Morrison. My favorite was that Morrison is still into the chew (tobacco), but would also take smoke breaks with the Chinese outside the facility. They formed a semi-circle around the 6-foot-9 NBA player puffing away. How Morrison does it and still plays, nobody knows — including Casey and Webster.
It’s hard to imagine a puffing NBA player in the league today. But despite how far we’ve come, surely, somewhere, in the deep recesses of an arena, on some cold winter night, there’s a guy untucking his jersey and surreptitiously lighting up a smoke. The rest of the league might be better off listening to the wise words of the Couz, though. Cigarettes? Damn things are too expensive. Better stick to beer.Oscar Robertson wants to talk about defense. (Getty Images)
The NBA’s recent history has been sadly littered with angry retirees barking about everything was tougher and better during their day.
Things certainly were “tougher,” for myriad reasons, but the quality of NBA play is as good as it has ever been, and the range of carpers has extended to include even those (like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Gary Payton) that were once criticized by their predecessors for acting as all flash, attitude, and entitlement.
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Unsurprisingly, sadly go ahead and add Oscar Robertson to the mix. He saw an NBA game in person on Wednesday evening, and promptly went off on the league and its Golden State Warriors on (sigh, sorry) Mike and Mike in the Morning on Thursday.
As transcribed by Randy Miller at NJ.com:
"If I've got a guy who's great shooting the ball outside, don't you want to extend your defense out a little bit?" the 77-year-old Big O said Thursday during a phone interview on ESPN's Mike & Mike show. "I just don't think coaches today in basketball understand the game of basketball. They don't know anything about defenses. They don't know what people are doing on the court. They talk about analytical basketball and stuff like that."
[…]
"He's shot well because of what's going on in basketball today," Robertson said. "In basketball today, it's almost like if you can dunk or make a three-point shot, you're the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Story continues
"There have been some great shooters in the past.... But here again, when I played years ago, if you shot a shot outside and hit it, the next time I'm going to be up on top of you. I'm going to pressure you with three-quarters, half-court defense. But now they don't do that. These coaches do not understand the game of basketball, as far as I'm concerned."
And now, the shocker!
Robertson thinks the game was played better in his era.
"I think Golden State and some other teams play very well, but look at the game of basketball," he said. "They run one play. Well, maybe two plays. They've got a high-pick with the center, then the shooters run baseline trying to get open with blocks from the forwards. I mean that's it. You don't see hardly any reverse plays at all, no double screens, no weak side and whatnot.”
No, you do. You see a lot of it. You see it more than ever. This rant may have worked in 1999, when Larry Brown-types had a stranglehold on the league, but this batch of scouting is just ridiculously misguided. And it’s not as if Oscar Robertson doesn’t have the ability to watch Golden State’s offense on national TV dozens of times per year. He doesn’t need to come on over and watch Portland on my League Pass.
Picking apart the hilarity behind merely asking teams to “extend your defense out a little bit” as it stares down a player with perhaps the most potent combination of shooting skill, ball-handling acumen and passing foresight isn’t worth anyone’s time. And we don’t want to get into the business of spending too much time tearing apart the thoughts of Oscar Robertson, an honorable and brilliant man who also ranks as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
What does deserve discussing and defending is the state of NBA coaching, in 2016.
There are several head coaches out there to chortle at, but on the whole NBA coaches have never worked harder, and they’ve never been more intelligent when it comes to finding new ways to either create, or slay the dragon. And that’s with Tom Thibodeau currently out of the league – likely doing chin-ups in a darkened basement at the moment.
The ability to take in new information – and we’re not even discussing analytical, on-paper concepts at this point – has never been easier. The opportunity to have opponent sets 1-through-147 memorized by the ball tips off has never been greater. And coaches and NBA staffs have taken advantage, even if Stephen Curry makes them all look silly every other night.
Deep into the 1990s – Michael Jordan’s heyday, with national television ratings that outpaced the World Series in some years – the NBA had its fair share of games that were not televised locally. A younger fan might not believe it, but for years SportsCenter anchors had to narrate the occasional “scoreboard-only” contests that only featured highlights culled from the feed of the arena scoreboard.
(Younger fans might also not believe that SportsCenter used to show highlights, but we digress.)
NBA coaching staffs, which now get to run four or five deep (twice as many bench inhabitants as Oscar’s day, due to need and the league’s increasing profits) have an ungodly amount of clips and full games at their disposal, taken from several official and sanctioned websites, as their chartered jet flies to the next city and next opponent. Scouts, coordinators and analytic-types (in the modern era, these employees tend to have interchangeable job titles featuring the best attributes of each of those areas), meanwhile, are either on the road or at the team’s home base planning out the next week’s opponents.
To see someone with such obvious basketball intelligence tee off on what is clearly an unsupported opinion (seriously, watch these games. Just look at what Golden State did to counter Miami’s various defensive attacks on Wednesday night in the team’s 51st win), is disappointing. If Oscar Robertson doesn’t care to waste his evenings watching the odd NBA game, fine. Don’t go on some pablum-happy, NFL-obsessed milquetoast radio chat show that revels in unfounded and un-researched opinion shilling and expect to be given a pass.
And don’t go off on a series of hard-working NBA head coaches – and the incredibly hard-working assistants and scouting staff that plow the road ahead of the leader – just because you think teams aren’t paying attention to Stephen Curry at the three-point line.
- - - - - - -
Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!Here at MLSsoccer.com, we're big fans of #positivevibes, #positiveliving and #doingme. (At least, that's what Eddie Johnson's Instagram told us to say.)
Anyway, our pal Eddie did something kind of crazy last week. In case you aren't on social media all day, everyday like myself, you might have missed the Seattle Sounders and US national team forward dying his hair blond*. It came out just about how you would have expected — equal amounts of awesome and ridiculous, kind of like Eddie.
(*No, really, watch that video on Eddie's Instagram page.)
We'll defer to Eddie's Instagram once again and let you decide how the bold statement is working for the self-proclaimed #floridaboy that's just #livinglife and #lovinglife.
A look at Eddie Johnson's new hairstyle. "I like it," he says. It's definitely interesting: pic.twitter.com/YTEojZd2wc — Liviu Bird (@liviubird) July 1, 2013
And head coach Sigi Schmid, your thoughts?
Sigi: "I don't know how it [@eddie_johnson7's hair] would look on me. Looks good on Eddie though." — Seattle Sounders FC (@SoundersFC) July 1, 2013
Eddie isn't the only one US national teamer to make the blond plunge of late, either. A couple of Eddie's assumed co-conspirators, Terrence Boyd and Maurice Edu, have given the look a shot, posting pictures online of their blond adventures gone wrong.
[From the Instagram accounts of Terrence Boyd and Maurice Edu]
If this trend was part of a bet gone wrong for the Americans, Terrence Boyd has either already backed out, or realized how much he looked like Sisqo, because he's already shaved his head as part of SK Rapid Wien preseason camp. (That's our boy Terrence, second from the left.)
Someone had better figure out the water-to-chemical ratio at US national team training centers before Landon Donovan returns to the squad for the Gold Cup this month and we have a repeat of this great American tragedy.This should clarify once and for all who won, who is relevant, and who is in charge. Any senator who did not bother to stand with the Democratic senators last night spoke volumes with that silence. Being a Democrat is a full-time job not a hobby you can pick up and put down at will. Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots do not receive commissions and do not get to make battlefield decisions.
Post Politics
By Abby Phillip June 16
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee. (Richard Drew/AP)
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is set to install an official who will take over the day-to-day efforts for the general-election race at the Democratic National Committee, according to several Democrats familiar with the change.
Brandon Davis, 38, will be the chief of staff for the general-election race and was introduced by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on Thursday morning at a DNC staff meeting. Davis served as national political director for the Service Employees International Union and is a former political director and deputy campaign manager for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
The installation of a Clinton campaign aide at the DNC marks a long-anticipated takeover of the Democratic Party’s core functions by the presumptive nominee as the race for the general election begins. In 2008, the Obama campaign installed Paul Tewes in a similar role. The change was first reported by CNN.
Read more >>>>Armed men ‘attack’ rakı festival in southern Turkey
ADANA – Doğan News Agency
A group of armed men reportedly opened fire and chanted anti-alcohol slogans at an annual rakı festival in the southern province of Adana on Dec. 12.The group fired into the air with shotguns and threatened festivalgoers, who escaped in panic from the streets of the Kazancılar Bazaar of Adana’s Yüreğir district, where the festival was being celebrated.Plainclothes later seized four suspects who slammed the tables with sticks and döner kebab knives.After a short period of alarm following the attack, the festival continued with its planned music and festivities.The festival, which has attracted thousands of people in previous years, had recently been in the headlines amid controversy over its name, originally dubbed the “World Rakı Festival.” Conservative anti-alcohol groups had objected to the festival and called for the authorities to ban it.Adana Governor Mustafa Büyük said he had no authority to officially ban the festival, but he urged its organizers not to hold its sixth edition as planned on Dec. 12.Upon Büyük’s urging, the festival’s name was changed from the “World Rakı Festival” to the “Adana Kebab and Turnip Festival.”August 10, 2015 · 7:48 pm
If you are involved in feminist discourse online, the chances are that you will have noticed a particular phrase becoming increasingly common: White Feminism. Sometimes, a trademark logo will even be added for emphasis. The term White Feminism has become shorthand for certain failings within the feminist movement; of women with a particular degree of privilege failing to listen to their more marginalised sisters; of women with a particular degree of privilege speaking over those sisters; of women with a particular degree of privilege centering the movement around issues falling within their own range of experience. Originally, the term White Feminism was used by Women of Colour to address racism within the feminist movement – a necessary and valid critique.
However, the phrase White Feminism is no longer being used exclusively by Women of Colour to challenge the racism that we face. Recently, it has become de rigueur for white feminists to dismiss other white feminists with whom they disagree as embodying White Feminism. White people have started calling out other white people for… whiteness. I shit you not. In a recent piece for Vice magazine, somewhat ironically, Paris Lees laments that “White Feminists have the biggest media platforms…”. Artist Molly Crabapple, with both media platform and sizeable income (unless bigging up Samsung was an act of charity), tweeted to dismiss the views of “ fancy white ladies ” on the grounds of privilege. But, from where I’m sitting, both Paris and Molly look pretty comfortable.
Instead of amplifying the voices of Women of Colour, or using their platform to highlight the intersection between race and gender, a number of liberal white feminists have hijacked a critique of racism in order to bolster their own image as progressives – as the right sort of feminist, not a White Feminist. But co-opting Women of Colour’s analysis of racism within the feminist movement is exactly the kind of behaviour the phrase “White Feminism” was created to prevent. White people critiquing “White Feminism” perpetuate white privilege. Prioritising their own image above the anti-racist struggle led by Women of Colour is at best narcissistic, at worst racist. These actions support the notion that the racism faced by Women of Colour is a side-issue, not a main concern, within the feminist movement.The Venus flytrap is one of a very small group of plants that are capable of rapid movement.
Rapid plant movement encompasses movement in plant structures occurring over a very short period, usually under one second. For example, the Venus flytrap closes its trap in about 100 milliseconds.[1] The dogwood bunchberry's flower opens its petals and fires pollen in less than 0.5 milliseconds. The record is currently held by the white mulberry tree, with flower movement taking 25 microseconds, as pollen is catapulted from the stamens at velocities in excess of half the speed of sound—near the theoretical physical limits for movements in plants.[2]
These rapid plant movements differ from the more common, but much slower "growth-movements" of plants, called tropisms. Tropisms encompass movements that lead to physical, permanent alterations of the plant while rapid plant movements are usually reversible or occur at over a shorter span of time.
A variety of mechanisms are utilized by plants in order to achieve these fast movements. Extremely fast movements such as the explosive spore dispersal techniques of Sphagnum mosses may involve increasing internal pressure via dehydration, causing a sudden propulsion of spores up or through the rapid opening of the "flower" opening triggered by insect pollination. Fast movement can also be expressed in predatory plants, where the mechanical stimulation of insect movement creates an electrical action potential and a release of elastic energy within the plant tissues. This release can be seen in the closing of a Venus flytrap, the curling of sundew leaves, and in the trapdoor action and suction of bladderworts.[3] Slower movement such as the folding of Mimosa pudica leaves may depend on reversible, but drastic or uneven changes in water pressure in the plant tissues[4] This process is controlled by the fluctuation of ions in and out of the cell, and the osmotic response of water to the ion flux.[5]
In 1880 Charles Darwin published The Power of Movement in Plants, his second-to-last work before his death.
Plants that capture and consume prey [ edit ]
Venus flytrap ( Dionaea muscipula )
) Waterwheel plant ( Aldrovanda vesiculosa )
) Bladderwort ( Utricularia )
) Certain varieties of sundew (Drosera)
Plants that move leaves and leaflets [ edit ]
Plants that are able to rapidly move their leaves or their leaflets in response to mechanical stimulation such as touch (thigmonasty):
Mimosa pudica leaves closing after being touched leaves closing after being touched
Plants that move their leafs or leaflets at speeds rapid enough to be perceivable with the naked eye:
Telegraph plant (Codariocalyx motorius)
Plants that spread seeds or pollen by rapid movement [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Hands on Her Hips
Hands on Hips proves Freud right. There's no other way to explain the presence of a fetish site devoted entirely to women posing with their hands on their hips, standing defiantly and angrily in the way so many mothers do when their children misbehave. Somewhere, deep in the psyche of the site's creator, he desperately wants to find and have sex with a mother figure who will discipline him with nothing harsher than a Time Out and denial of television. I guess this fetish is for people who aren't quite into sadomasochistic discipline, but think they might one day be. Bondage training wheels, if you will.
Damsels in Distress
If you played through the original Super Mario Bros and found yourself with a raging boner once you finally found Princess Peach, then Olde Worlde Damsels is for you. Olde Worlde Damsels is also for you, evidently, if you're really into confusing and inexplicable speech bubbles Photoshopped into pictures of the aforementioned damsels. Honestly, I can sort of understand what would compel a human being to poorly Photoshop gags and restricting rope around his favorite celebrities (it sort of functions as a mixture of bondage fetishism and superhero fantasy, I guess), but why accompany the pictures with totally nonsensical quotes like, "I feel like a licorice allsport!" Is the site trying to be funny, or just intentionally make its weirdass fetish even weirder? If you're aiming for the latter, then congrats, guys: mission accomplished.
Paraplegic Climbing Stairs
I could make a joke here. However, the fact that someone finds paraplegic girls attempting to climb flights of stairs sexually arousing is so deranged, so depraved, that I have to wonder just why they find it so fascinating. Best case scenario, these fetishists find something intriguing, inspiring, and subsequently arousing in a paraplegic's power to overcome her disability and function in the same way "abled" people are. She's overcoming a hardship, which empowers her and makes her a figure of respect and eroticism.
I kinda doubt that's why people jerk off to this, though.
Much more likely, and much more terrifyingly, is the possibility that PCS enthusiasts get off on seeing a handicapped woman struggle. They don't get off on seeing her succeed in climbing the stairs (which probably accounts for why she doesn't actually make it all the way up |
. We're not sure if invites were given out on golden tickets or if there were chocolate rivers involved, but hopefully David Ortiz was able to fly in some Oompa Loompas for the occasion.
Matt Monagan writes at night for Cut4. In his spare time, he travels and searches Twitter for Wily Mo Pena news.Carolina has yet to play a snap in Super Bowl 50, but Panthers cornerback Josh Norman is already keeping score.
"I watch," said Norman after Sunday's 49-15 NFC title game thrashing of Arizona, per the New York Daily News. "I'm not dumb to what goes on. So all them guys that's sitting up there picking the Cardinals, great. And thinking that they're gonna blow us out because we've never seen a wide receiving corps like that, great.
"Look at what we showed today," Norman said. "We could have put a 50-burger up there! Coach pulled us back!"
Norman has played with a chip on his shoulder all year, putting together a remarkable campaign for a Carolina defense that led the NFL in takeaways before coaxing four picks and a pair of fumbles out of Cardinals passer Carson Palmer.
"You don't put up 49 points by just getting out of bed in the morning. You do it by hard work," Norman said. "People still saying this is a fluke. I'm sure they're going to go back and say, 'Well, the Cardinals had an off night.' You know what, continue to make excuses for teams. We enjoy it. We love it."
It's unclear who Norman is pointing to at this stage. The Panthers are widely seen as the NFL's best team and a clear favorite over the Broncos heading into Super Bowl 50.
Still, fellow defensive back Kurt Coleman agreed, arguing that in "every game we've been an underdog," while safety Tre Boston came out of Sunday echoing Norman's complaints of disrespect from the pundits.
"We take balls from quarterbacks. That's what we do. Why do you expect less from the Carolina defense?" Boston asked, per the New York Post. "We led the league in takeaways. We're a top defense. Why are people so unexpecting our accomplishments? Why are they asking us questions? Did Carson not play his 'A' game? We are a great defense led by great leaders."
Hey, agitated Super Bowl-bound Panthers players: We believe you.A female estate agent who avoided jail for glassing a man - despite it being her 18th conviction for assault - has been given yet another let-off for breaching her suspended sentence.
Yasmin Thomas, 21, left victim Ronnie Lee with a deep gash very close to his eye after she set upon him with a broken glass following a row in a nightclub in Bournemouth, Dorset.
With all her previous convictions for assault and battery before she was 18, a judge branded her history ‘breathtaking’ - saying it was one of the worst he had ever seen of a woman her age.
Attack: Yasmin Thomas (left), 21, left victim Ronnie Lee (right) with a deep gash very close to his eye after she set upon him with a broken glass following a row in a nightclub in Bournemouth, Dorset
Yet she walked free from court in August after being handed a 12-month sentence suspended for two years, 80 hours of community service and ordered to go on an anger management course.
Thomas, who was fired from her job as a result of her actions, has now been hauled back before the same court after breaking the terms of her ‘compliance sessions’ three times in two months.
However Judge John Harrow, who sentenced her four months ago, said he was prepared to give Thomas ‘a chance’ and allow her to walk free from court.
He also said he would not reveal details about Thomas’s past in open court in case she found them embarrassing.
Venue: Thomas was arrested after she attacked stranger Mr Lee in Bar So (above) nightclub in Bournemouth
Judge Harrow told her at Bournemouth Crown Court: ‘Those guilty of a breach are almost all given one chance. I hope you understand that you had been given a chance.’
Thomas has displayed 'unacceptable behaviour' three times since she was sentenced for the attack
He warned Thomas she would be jailed if she broke the rules again. He added: ‘If you don’t comply with all conditions to the letter you are going to go through that door at the back.’
Thomas was arrested in February after she attacked Mr Lee, a stranger, in Bar So nightclub in Bournemouth.
The pair got into a row over a dropped E-cigarette. Thomas picked it up and thrust it at Mr Lee saying: ‘Are you not going to say thank you? Who do you think you are?’
She then lunged towards him with a broken glass, causing a serious gash to his left eyelid which needed stitches and two smaller cuts to his face.
The injuries were so close to his eye that Mr Lee feared he would lose it. Tiny shards of glass were later removed from his eye.
Thomas, from Bournemouth, was ordered to pay £1,000 compensation to Mr Lee, and £150 in costs. She had worked as a sales negotiator at an estate agents but was later fired from the position.
The court heard Thomas had displayed ‘unacceptable behaviour’ three times since she was sentenced for the attack.
Tom Evans, defending, said Thomas’s mother had suffered a stroke on one of the days when a breach occurred, and that she was afraid she might have cancer.Hi all, first of all we would like to apologies to those of you who have eagerly been awaiting the game on Steam. They have confirmed it will be up tomorrow (keep in mind they start their working day on Pacific Standard Time).The "steam version" of the game is also available on various other sales partners websites (to confirm you have the right version you will see it listed as either requires 3rd party activation or specified as Steam version on the page). The game code will then ask you to activate on Steam.See this link for a drop down menu of retailers carrying CK II: The Republic: http://www.crusaderkings.com/buy As a make good gesture towards our very loyal and patient community we will be launching a, with the man behind "one of the most appreciated strategy games of 2012" himself - Project Lead Henrik Fårheus (Doomdark) http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive Other links you might enjoy:Thank you again for your patience and for your dedication to Crusader Kings II!Kind regardsSusanaImagine a drama where dreams never come true; where the characters are real and venal and grasping and even those who wish to do good most frequently end up doing bad; where even the best intentions lead to disaster and long-held hopes of redemption fade a little more every week. Welcome to the world of Battlestar Galactica, America's most depressing television drama.
That's not to say that BSG isn't great. It is. It is dark and twisted and melancholy and frequently quite brilliant but it is also nearly impossible to get through without several strong drinks to numb the pain.
Take the opening episode of the second half of the show's final season, which began three weeks ago. At the end of the first half of season four of our intrepid band of pilots and politicians, Cylons and crew had finally achieved their long-cherished dream and made it back to the mythical planet Earth. And, in a twist typical of this show's dark vision, Earth turned out to be a complete dump. Not a Wall-E style abandoned shell where regeneration might still be possible but a burnt-out husk of a planet where nothing would or could ever grow again. It wasn't simply abandoned – it was dead.
This depressing scenario established, we instantly picked up the final half of the season where we left off, waiting to see how our heroes and villains dealt with their discovery. And the answer was … not very well. We were treated to breakdowns and bewilderment, to rage and impotency, to an act of pyromania on behalf of Starbuck and to Dee's devastating suicide.
It was this last act which serves to illustrate just how different BSG is from other shows. Throughout the episode we watched Dee struggle to cope with the death of everything she had dreamed of. We saw her contemplate life with Lee and ultimately decide that that life would never be the loving, equal pairing she hoped for, we saw her move inexorably towards the decision to take her life. And it was unbelievably painful to watch. Painful because Dee was one of BSG's few genuinely good characters certainly, but painful also because her actions, while shocking, were also entirely in character. Watching her final moments you felt that she could truly conceive of no other way out and, perhaps more importantly, that her actions were terribly, movingly human.
Yes, there are other dramas that turn their spotlight on humanity in all its flawed glory: the bleak and bittersweet The Wire, the ambiguous The Shield, the darkness that lurks at the core of The Sopranos or Deadwood. Yet great though all these shows are, none of them have BSG's relentless refusal to temper or lighten the load. The Wire gave Bubbles redemption and McNulty a rueful escape. The Sopranos and Deadwood allowed wisecracks amid the carnage and even The Shield, whose ending has yet to air in the UK, has been known to show characters a way out of the mayhem and lies.
Not BSG. Three episodes in and, in addition to suicides, breakdowns and a pervasive feeling of general despair, we now have mutiny, destruction and Saul and General Adama facing their own private Alamo. "Trust no one" is Battlestar Galactica's motto. Well, either that or "No one here gets out alive".
And that is the most interesting thing about this show. Not since the sadly cancelled prison drama Buried or Peter Kominsky and Leigh Jackson's brutal, brilliant war drama Warriors has a show been so determined to look at humanity's flaws without flinching. Yes, the end result is depressing and harrowing and seemingly determined to show us humanity at its venal, self-serving worst but the key to BSG's brilliance is that it remains true to that vision, no matter how grim. And that's ultimately why America's most depressing show is also among its very best.British canoeist Emma Kelty was tortured and raped as she died after being shot, villagers have claimed.
The full details of the adventurer's last moments were revealed in a confession by one of the suspects hours after the attack.
Ringleader Evanilson Gomes da Costa, 24, died Wednesday after being shot by rival gangsters.
Residents of the small riverside community of Lauro Sodre, near to where the crime took place, said all seven men accused of her murder are well-known drugs users in the village.
And one local who knows da Costa - known by his nicknamed Baia - said the gangster spoke to him in the early hours of the morning following Ms Kelty's death last Wednesday night, revealing what they had done.
The man, who didn't want to be named, said: "He said he was one of four men. The woman had put up her tent on the beach in exactly the area where the Colombia drug traffickers go through, and which is crawling with pirates who wait for them to arrive to attack.MANATEE COUNTY — Willie Finklea said he will purchase the tool needed to break a car window for his wife, daughter, and himself, after he needed to use his personal firearm to shoot out the window of a car and rescue a couple from a burning vehicle.
“All I had was my keys and my pocket knife so I had no other tools other than my off-duty weapon to make entry into the car,” said Finklea who is a Manatee County Sheriff’s deputy. “I banged on the window several times with my hand.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Neil Cook, 64, was driving with his wife, Claudia, 65, in the 9300 block of Moccasin Wallow Road at about 2:27 p.m. Sunday when he noticed smoke coming from his vehicle. Cook pulled over and realized the vehicle was on fire, but the couple was trapped inside because the electronic windows and locks were not working.
Deputy Finklea, who was off-duty, was riding by on his motorcycle with his wife and stopped to help while his wife called 911. Finklea used his personal firearm and fired a shot through the vehicle’s left rear window. He then got into the car, opened the rear passenger door and got Claudia Cook out. Neil Cook crawled to the front passenger side and was able to open the door and escape.
The Sheriff’s Office reports there were no serious injuries because of Finklea’s quick actions.
The incident was shocking even for the traffic deputy who said he has previously responded to rollover car crashes where people have been extricated and care fires, while on the job.
Finklea said he was not carrying the tool used to break windows that emergency personnel have with them in their service vehicles. He said he was cautious when he aimed his personal firearm low and toward the rear of the car, away from the Cooks, and fired a round to shatter the window.
“I saw that they were in a dire situation and I just went into action. … I just wanted to get them out of that car,” Finklea said.
Neil Cook was using his cane to try and break the window from the inside, and after Finklea shattered the rear car window, Claudia Cook tried to crawl into the back seat to escape. She was struggling and needed some help from Finklea, who went inside the car to help help her get out.
It wasn’t long after the Cooks were out of the car that it became engulfed in flames.
Finklea and his wife had stopped at a gas station to get a drink after church and took a road they don’t normally use to get home. It put them in the perfect place to assist the Cooks.
Finklea doesn’t think it was an accident that he was there to help the couple out.
“Just being used by God to help someone in their most desperate time that’s a gift for me,” said Finklea.
The deputy, who serves in the Sheriff’s Honor Guard, added, “Stay prayed up and be ready for anything.”
Source: heraldtribune.comFIFA has announced that competitions in six countries -- including Germany's Bundesliga and United States' Major League Soccer -- have been approved to run experiments with video assistant referees (VARs).
The off-line experiments will not involve referees but FIFA says live trials could be run in games next year.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino says he hopes VARs will be used to support refs at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
As well as Bundesliga and MLS, the experiments will take place in Australia's A-League, the league and cups in Portugal, as well as unspecified competitions in Brazil and the Netherlands.
FIFA added in a statement: "Subject to the successful completion of initial tests, the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2016 is also set to be used as a final test event before The IFAB allows participants to conduct live experiments early next year.
"An offline experiment represents a dry run whereby the VARs familiarise themselves with the setup, assess video replays and practice making calls on clear match-changing incidents but without communicating with the referee.
"This means there is no impact on the game, unlike during a live experiment when the match officials do communicate with each other and the referee can take decisions based on information provided by the VAR."
Details of countries & competitions, including Bundesliga & Major League Soccer, to run video replay experiments pic.twitter.com/jiViyPUXS6 - Rob Harris (@RobHarris) June 2, 2016
Video replay officiating would be restricted to decisions on goals being scored, penalties being awarded, players being sent off and cases of mistaken identity.
The only technology currently used in football is to rule on disputed goals.
The video assistance trials were approved at the annual meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in March.
Major League Soccer is proud to take a leadership role with video
assistance for referees #MLS https://t.co/BLwTGCKP6F - Don Garber (@thesoccerdon) June 2, 2016
IFAB secretary Lukas Brud said: "The IFAB believes the best way to answer the question of whether the use of VARs will improve the game is to test it in different regions, so we are delighted to already have competitions across four confederations sign up.
"The organisers of these competitions can now begin installing and testing video replay facilities as well as training match officials and technical staff in line with the protocol and in consultation with The IFAB and FIFA's Football Technology Innovation Department."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.Japanese precision machinery manufacturer Castem has sent nine origami space shuttles to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) office in Houston, it was announced on October 7. If all goes as planned, the paper planes will conduct experimental flights from the space station to Earth early next year.
The 29-gram (1 oz) origami shuttles, which measure 38 centimeters (14 in) long and 22 centimeter (9 in) wide, are made from lightweight but durable sugar cane fiber paper that has been chemically treated to resist heat and water. Developed by JAXA and the University of Tokyo, the special paper has already been used to construct a miniature prototype shuttle, which was tested in a hypersonic wind tunnel in January. In that test, the prototype survived wind speeds of Mach 7 (8,600 kph/ 5,300 mph) and temperatures of around 200 degrees Celsius (nearly 400 degrees Fahrenheit).
If NASA approves, the Space Shuttle Discovery will carry the origami planes to the International Space Station (ISS) in February 2009. JAXA astronaut Dr. Koichi Wakata, who will be living aboard ISS when the origami planes arrive, will carry out the experiment from the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module. It is yet to be decided whether Wakata himself will throw the paper planes or whether he will use the space station's robotic arm.
In either case, JAXA estimates it will take two days for the origami shuttles to complete the 400-kilometer (250 mi) journey from ISS to the planet surface.
A message printed beneath the wings identifies the plane, explains that it has completed a return journey from the space station, and requests the finder to contact JAXA. The message is printed in 10 different languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic.
Japan Origami Airplane Association chairman Takuo Toda, a strong proponent of the experiment, says he hopes the test flights will help engineers develop new types of lightweight spacecraft in the future.
[Source: Asahi // Photos: Oriplane]Saudi Arabia's top religious cleric has criticised the microblogging website Twitter, calling it "a council for jokesters" and a place for unjust, incorrect messages.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheikh made the remarks during a speech to other Saudi clerics on Friday.
The mufti's remarks came on the same day that an imam at Mecca's Grand Mosque said people had the right to express themselves, but should do so cautiously in order to protect the nation's prestige and unity.
Earlier this year, the mufti called on Muslims to avoid Twitter as it "invited [people] to throw charges between them, and to lie in a manner that brings fame to some".
The latest remarks have generated a wide range of reactions on social media.
Abdallah al-Dkhilallah, a Twitter user from Riyadh, said: "Twitter was found for us to unload our oppressed energy and write what’s on our minds. With regards to corruption and clowning, there are stuff more corrupt than Twitter."
Another Twitter user from the Saudi capital, Abdallah al-Moqhem, said such a description by the mufti is "not appropriate".
"This council has scholars, literary figures, preachers, and some of them are senior scholars," he said.
But local journalist Faisel al-Haidari tweeted that the mufti's remarks were not intended for all Twitter users but for "corrupt" people "who sabotage the thoughts of youth with corrupt tweets".
Imposing censorship
The two most influential Twitter users in Saudi Arabia are Muslim preachers. Sheikh Mohamad al-Arefe has more than 4.3 million followers, while Sheikh Ayed al-Qarnee has more than 2.8 million.
Rights groups have criticised Saudi Arabia for its limited media freedom.
Abdel Aziz Khoga, the country's minister for media and culture, admitted to local al-Watan newspaper that a series of government bodies imposed censorship of Twitter.
Last December, Saudi novelist and political analyst Turki al-Hamad was arrested for "insulting Islam". Saudi intellectuals called for his release, saying his arrest was "condemnable, reprehensible, shameful".
There are around three million Twitter users in the kingdom, according to one study.
GlobalWebIndex said that of the country's total internet users, about 51 percent are active on Twitter.
In 2012, Saudi Arabia had the third highest number of Twitter users in the Arab region, according to a social media report by the Dubai School of Government.Bill Simmons introduces The Ringer and Jason Concepcion answers 'Game of Thrones' questions in our first newsletter.
View in your browser Share | Subscribe In the March 14 newsletter, Bill Simmons introduces The Ringer, Jason Concepcion answers some pressing Game of Thrones questions, and Jonathan Tjarks looks at what it takes to win the NCAA tournament. Welcome to The Ringer By Bill Simmons We spent 10 solid weeks batting around names before finally settling on www.theringer.com. The Ringer? The Ringer. Easy to spell. Easy to say. Easy to remember. It frightened us for only two reasons: 1. A whopping total of zero websites have succeeded after using the same name as a failed Johnny Knoxville comedy about the Special Olympics. 2. If you look at theringer.com too fast, it looks like a Santa Barbara wine called Theringer. Then again, “The Ringer” worked way better than other names we were considering. Sean Fennessey liked “Klique,” which sounds like Kanye’s ill-fated answer to Tidal. Chris Ryan pushed for “Klaxon,” which sounds like a new fiber cereal that might blow out your colon. I liked “Watershed,” which sounds like a financial-planning service that might advertise on my podcast. Eventually, I pivoted to “Heat Check,” then “Channel 33,” then “Chase the Night” — which I’ve loved ever since overhearing Worldwide Wes tell a young NBA player to go home instead of a strip joint because “you can’t chase the night.” What does this have to do with a website? I have no freaking idea. But that’s what happens when you write a bunch of dumb names on a whiteboard and stare at them for hours on end. “The Intrepid”? (Sounds like a boat.) “Rational Confidence”? (Sounds like a failed college band.) “The Rafters”? (Sounds like a sports bar.) “Upper Echelon”? (Sounds like a hedge fund.) “Barnstorm”? (Sounds like a horse that would be favored to win the Kentucky Derby.) “Side Two”? (Too insider.) “Grantworld”? (Too ludicrous.) “Fuck Off, ESPN”? (Too easy.) We wrote off “The Curve,” “Dauntless,” “Parachute,” “The Route,” “Corners,” “Fathom” and “The Hot Hand,” but left their letter corpses up on that board for black comedy’s sake. A few promising names, including “The Hook” and “Upside,” were already taken. I had two different late-night “revelations” — “Brainwreck” and “Binge Mode” — that bombed badly and became running jokes (especially after everyone found out that I own www.bingemode.com). As the days passed, the whiteboard paralyzed Juliet Litman and Mallory Rubin, and they stopped suggesting anything new. They just kept staring at the board with the Chris Christie “I Can’t Believe I Sold Out to Trump” Face going. Then, finally, progress! We all liked “The Leap.” www.theleap.com. Done. Finished. Well, right until our trademark lawyers swatted us, Mutombo style. No way. Can’t do it. Leap somewhere else. We found ourselves drifting back to “The Ringer,” partly because we liked it and partly out of pure, unadulterated desperation. Come on, did anyone REALLY remember that Knoxville movie? Even Knoxville didn’t remember it by that point. We took the plunge and felt a little better about it every day. When we announced The Ringer last month, we braced for the ensuing barrage of Knoxville jokes, but something weird happened: People actually liked the name. I mean, as much as the Internet likes anything. Now we have a sports/tech/pop-culture website (coming within three to 37 months), a podcast network, a newsletter, a Twitter handle (@ringer), a Facebook page (facebook.com/ringer), an Instagram account (@ringer), a promising HBO Now relationship (stay tuned for news on our first project, coming imminently), more than 20 staffers and writers (some of whom we announced today) and our own L.A. office, which has meshed beautifully with everyone from my HBO show (also coming within three to 37 months). We’ve come a looooong way from that dumb whiteboard. Here, look: Isn’t it depressing? Imagine staring at that thing for weeks. But we made it. Thank God. I’m pouring myself a bowl of Klaxon and heading over to Klique to find Rational Confidence’s first album. Enjoy The Ringer. Getty Images Want to Win the NCAA Tournament? Your Coach Had Better Be a Good General Manager By Jonathan Tjarks The most important thing a college coach can do to help his team win the NCAA tournament isn’t to draw up killer plays or give inspiring halftime speeches — it’s to build a perfect roster. Sure, luck plays a huge part of winning during March Madness. But it ultimately comes down to matching the skill sets of your best players with the rest of your roster. The tournament is when you find out whether the sum of your team is better or worse than its parts. Recruiting McDonald’s All Americans is great, but just like a GM at the next level, you need to surround those blue-chippers with complementary pieces. Consider John Calipari and some of his recent Kentucky teams. Given the kind of individual talent he recruited, Calipari probably should have three national titles. The DeMarcus Cousins team in 2010, the Anthony Davis team in 2012, and the Karl-Anthony Towns team in 2015 all featured Naismith Award–worthy (or winning, in Davis’s case) players. But Calipari has built a roster capable of winning the big dance only once, with Davis in ’12. Accumulating future lottery picks is great, but winning a national title is more about finding the right mix of players. In something of a mirror image of this season’s Thunder failing to complement Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook with adequate outside shooting, Kentucky’s inconsistent big men have let down their playmakers. And this isn’t the first time that Cal has gone into March with an imbalanced squad. Calipari had Boogie, John Wall, and Eric Bledsoe in 2010, but no shooting around them. When that Kentucky team faced West Virginia in the Elite Eight, Bob Huggins dared the Wildcats to shoot, and they couldn’t, going 4-for-32 from 3-point range. When Cal did have knockdown shooters — Doron Lamb, Darius Miller, and Kyle Wiltjer — around Davis in 2012, Kentucky rolled to a title. In 2015, the Wildcats again had shooters — Tyler Ulis and Devin Booker — to go with a big man in Towns, but Calipari decided he wanted to die on the Harrison twins hill, and Aaron and Andrew took only two 3s in the Final Four loss to Wisconsin. This season’s Kentucky team has playmaking and shooting, but finding the right balance of scoring and defense from some combination of Skal Labissiere, Marcus Lee, Alex Poythress, and Derek Willis might be impossible. The most complete team in this year’s bracket is probably Michigan State. Even when they don’t have a lot of high-level talent, Tom Izzo’s teams generally play well in March because they don’t have a lot of defined weaknesses. With two future NBA players in Denzel Valentine and Deyonta Davis and a balanced team around them, Sparty is going to be a tough out. Winning the tournament is about answering a series of personnel questions. The stats and résumé are important, but it’s just as important for a coach to get the personnel balance right. You have to ask yourself questions like: Does this team have a great 1-on-1 scorer? Does it have a guy who gets everyone else involved? What about a guard who can control tempo? Can the team get offense from multiple options? Does it have enough shooting to complement its best players? What about rim protection and rebounding? Can the team guard all five positions? If a coach has done his job as GM, and he can say “yes” to enough of those queries? That’s when you get to celebrate while “One Shining Moment” plays. HBO Ask the Maester: Answering Your Burning Questions About Season 6 of Game of Thrones By Jason Concepcion We are just 41 days away from the start of the sixth season of Game of Thrones. With the Season 6 trailer debuting last week, our anticipation is revving up, so we thought we’d ask our in-house Maester and guru of all things GoT, Jason Concepcion, to answer a few nagging questions as we get closer to game time. Chris asks: Where is Tyrion right now, and what’s at stake for him? When we last saw Tyrion, he was on the walls of the ancient city of Meereen, gazing down at the royal ex-boyfriends, Ser Jorah and Daario Naharis. Shortly before that odd couple rode out of the shadow of the great pyramid in search of Daenerys, their queen had recently flown off on the back of her dragon at the height of the fighting-pits debacle. For, like, thousands of years (up until Season 4 or thereabouts) Meereen — along with Yunkai and Astapor — was a hub of Essos’s vast slave trade. Then Dany showed up with her baby dragons and ragtag collection of followers. Long story newsletter-short: The Stormborn reigned as Queen; the old slave-holding oligarchies were overthrown and their powers greatly curtailed; their former chattel were (ostensibly) granted equal rights of citizenship; and Daenerys’s government enforced its rule on the restive population via an army of spear-wielding freedmen. But before you try to break the wheel, it is perhaps wise to attempt breaking a training wheel. Meereen was supposed to be batting practice for Dany’s overarching (we hope!) goal to conquer and govern Westeros. Tyrion quickly found a place in the Queen’s court, despite his Lannister heritage, because of his skills as an administrator. With Dany disappeared and possibly (as the leading families of Meereen will surely argue) dead, her fledgling government rests completely on Tyrion’s shoulders. Riley asks: Did the Dornish people know that Myrcella was Jaime’s daughter? Yes. Stan asks: What are some ways in which Stannis Baratheon could “come back,” and what would be on his vengeance agenda? He’s not coming back. But if he did it, the resurrection would have to involve either the ice magic of the Others or the fire magic of Melisandre. Which is awkward since the Red Woman’s painful execution for the crime of not being good at seeing the future would likely be the first stop on Stannis’s back-from-the-dead revenge tour. But! He’s not coming back. Nope. Mal asks: In the closing seconds of the Season 6 trailer, we catch a glimpse of Ghost behind Jon Snow’s dead head. Every GoT fan has spent the offseason wondering whether there’s any way to save Jon. Now, my question is: Is there any way to save Jon and the Ghostest With the Mostest? Is Ghost there just to cuddle, or is he there to play a key role in Jon’s inevitable revival? The shot troubled me as well. We’ve seen so much death and pain and sadness, and have been subjected to multiseason torture arcs. Ghost’s death, though — and I say this knowing that he is mostly CGI — would be heartbreaking. This is, in the main, a space for discussion of fake history. That said, since Season 6 will largely encompass undiscovered/unpublished narrative territory, I would like to announce that I have a theory! It is mostly unoriginal in its speculative mechanics and, admittedly, its best trait is that it allows for Ghost to continue being alive. But here goes: As many, many, many people have noted, there is ample precedent in the books to support the theory that Ghost acts as the backup hard drive for Jon’s postdeath consciousness. So far, so good. Now, in the segment of the trailer in question, Davos says, “I’ve never been much of a fighter,” and then, “Apologies for what you’re about to see.” We see Davos, flanked by several brothers of the Watch, in a small room. In the middle of the room is a table on which lies Jon Snow’s body (a-mouldering in the nave) and a motionless Ghost. Davos, I imagine, will need to leave that room, and Castle Black in general, with Jon’s body before the black brothers burn it. How does he accomplish this considering he’s “not much of a fighter” and he looks to be alone? Maybe with the help of a very large direwolf? Look at this still, particularly the shading and shadow around Jon’s head. That looks computer generated to me. Meaning, Kit Harington is not lying on a stuffed wolf dummy. Why use CG if the wolf isn’t going to move around? Amanda asks: What developmental stage are the dragons in right now? Are they still teenagers? Well, dragons have lifespans of several centuries — and the older they get, the stronger they get. Dany’s dragons are around 4 or 5 years old. Certainly, they’re dangerous, especially Drogon, but they’re still quite vulnerable. Let’s call them preteens. Juliet asks: If you despise the Faith Militant plot line from Season 5, should you watch this season? You can go ahead and dip, Juliet. I’ll tell you what happens.
Bill Simmons welcomes Jon Favreau, former director of speechwriting for President Obama, and Dan Pfeiffer, former senior adviser to Obama, to break down the 2016 election.
In this Selection Sunday special, Tate Frazier and Mallory Rubin break down the brackets, make their Final Four and sleeper picks, compare tourney teams to 'Game of Thrones' houses, and more. The Billions Best-Dressed List By Amanda Dobbins and Chris Ryan Billions is many things: an indictment of the financial industry, a study of male ego, a searing investigation into whether Damian Lewis can act. It is also home to the best business-casual fashion on premium cable. Presenting our favorite looks of Season 1: 1. Dollar Bill Stern’s Fleece Vest Whether you’re getting short-squeezed by the Axe Capital air conditioning, sweating through a surprise FBI raid, or just casually waiting on the latest Pepsum news, this stylish vest will keep your temperature just right.
2. Bobby Axelrod’s Henley-Necklace Combo INT. BILLIONS DRESSING ROOM, DAY 1 Costume designer: Damian, if you’ll just hand me that necklace while you’re shooting.
Damian Lewis: This necklace is essential to my character.
Costume designer: I see, but I don’t think it works with our “rich guy on the weekend” mood.
Damian Lewis: I think it does. -- SCENE -- 3. Lara Axelrod’s Festive Print Blouses A fine-weave cotton with an embroidered finish? THAT’S HOW THEY DO IT IN INWOOD. Honorable Mentions Chuck Rhoades’s white shirts, pristine no matter how much takeout he eats; FBI windbreakers, garments of true power; Wendy Rhoades’s Saint Laurent bag. (Really, it’s very nice!) Share | Subscribebad idea. Over here in Lithuania, transgender healthcare and medical transitioning is a bit of a hot topic. The European Union is pushing our government to fix the laws that prevent trans people from having access to trans healthcare, but most politicians aren’t too enthusiastic about it. Local politician, Vida M. Cigriejiene, even proposed to make transitioning illegal in order to “save the money” we need to make it legal and accessible, perfectly illustrating how completely clueless a lot of politicians are about transgender healthcare. Several other conservative politicians, such as Antanas Matulas, teamed up with her, and now this is pretty much the moment of truth for transgender people in Lithuania. Both of the politicians are doctors, which makes it even more depressing. Since I have seen some of the most ridiculous and dehumanizing transphobia from our politicians, my hopes aren’t very high for this law. That's why I decided to write this article/open letter, about why it's a
Firstly, it is important to realize the significance of transgender healthcare (hormones, surgery, etc. - the one that this law would forbid). While not all transgender people choose to medically transition, it is still the only road for most of us, and it’s already not an easy one. Levels of difficulty depend on where you live, how much money you have, and many other things, but the main issue remains – healthcare is not easily accessible for a transgender person! Letters, therapists, and countless blood tests… This labyrinth is extremely stressful, difficult and even dangerous, since such methods like self-medication become a resort for quite a few people who don’t have the opportunity to jump through all the hoops. Obviously, this could be prevented by making healthcare for trans people more accessible.
Opponents of medical transitioning often say they "want to protect people from regretting irreversible changes and ruining their lives”, but, actually, only 3-7% of people regret transitioning. Not only is this patronizing (implying that trans people can't make choices for themselves), but it's also counter-productive - as I’ve already mentioned, those who |
between localized ultrafast phenomena that occur at the Å–micron length scale and the macroscopic long-term behavior of the battery system. Gaining insight into the nature of these processes is key to designing novel materials and chemistries for the next generation of chemical EES devices. Recent advances in nanoscience, analytical techniques, and computational modeling present unprecedented opportunities to solve technical bottlenecks. New synthetic approaches can allow the design of materials with exquisite control of chemical and physical processes at the atomic and molecular levels. Development of in situ methods and even multi-technique probes that push the limits of both spatial and temporal resolution can provide detailed insight into these processes and relate them to electrode structure. New computational tools, which can be employed to model complex battery systems and can couple with experimental techniques both to feed data into modeling and to use modeling/theory to help interpret experimental data, are critically important.
The Potential of nano-science
The lack of a fundamental understanding of how thermodynamic properties, such as phase co-existence, change at the nanoscale is in stark contrast to the wealth of information available on the novel electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of nanomaterials. While the latter properties typically arise from the interaction of the electronic structure with the boundary conditions (e.g., electron confinement and/or localization), purely energetic properties and thermodynamic behavior change in a less transparent way at the nanoscale.
Many fundamental questions remain to be answered. For example, are the differences in the electrochemical properties of bulk and nanosize electrode materials simply due to the higher concentrations of different surfaces available for intercalation, or are the electronic properties of the nanomaterials significantly different? Are surface structures at the nanoscale significantly different from those in the bulk or are the improved properties simply a transport effect? At the nanoscale, can we conceptually separate pseudocapacitive from storage reactions? Can we develop general rules and, if so, how widely do we expect them to apply? How are ionic and electronic transport processes coupled in complex heterogeneous nanostructured materials? The ability to modify the properties of materials by treating size and shape as new variables presents great opportunities for designing new classes of materials for EES.
It is imperative to explore how the different properties of nanoparticles and their composites can be used to increase the power and energy efficiency of battery systems. A tremendous opportunity exists to exploit nanoscale phenomena to design new chemistries and even whole new electrode and electrolyte architectures—from nanoporous mesoscopic structures to three-dimensional electrodes with active and passive multifunctional components interconnected within architectures that offer superior energy storage capacity, fast kinetics and enhanced mass transport, and mechanical integrity. To do so, we need to be able to control chemistries and assembly processes. Furthermore, low-cost, high-volume synthesis and fabrication techniques and nanocomposites with improved safety characteristics must be designed, to satisfy requirements for large-scale manufacturing of nanostructure materials and for their use in practical battery systems.
New Capabilities in Computation and Analysis
Although clever engineering can address some inherent problems with a particular battery chemistry, dramatic improvements in performance will ultimately come from the development of different electrode and electrolyte materials. New computational and analysis tools are needed to realize significant breakthroughs in these areas. For example, new analytical tools will provide an understanding of how the phase behavior and electrochemical properties of materials are modified at the atomic level. With this information, computational tools will expedite the design of materials with structures and architectures tailored for specific performance characteristics. It is now possible to predict many properties of materials before attempting to synthesize and test them (see Appendix B, “Probing Electrical Energy Storage Chemistry And Physics Over Broad Time And Length Scales,” for further details), and expanded computational capabilities specific to chemical energy storage are a critical need. New capabilities in modeling and simulation could help unravel the complex processes involved in charge transport across the electrode-electrolyte interface and identify underlying reactions that cause capacity degradation.
Tremendous opportunities exist to develop and apply novel experimental methodologies with increased spatial, energy, and temporal resolution. These could answer a wide range of fundamental questions in chemical electrical storage, identifying and providing ways to overcome some of the barriers in this field. In particular, techniques that combine higher resolution imaging, fast spectroscopic tools, and improved electrochemical probes will enable researchers to unravel the complex processes that occur at electrodes, electrolytes, and interfaces.
CAPACITIVE ENERGY STORAGE
Abstract
To realize the full potential of electrochemical capacitors (ECs) as electrical energy storage (EES) devices, new materials and chemical processes are needed to improve their charge storage capabilities by increasing both their energy and their power densities. Incremental changes in existing technologies will not produce the breakthroughs needed to realize these improvements. Rather, a fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical processes that take place in the EC—including the electrodes, the electrolytes, and especially their interfaces—is needed to design revolutionary concepts. For example, new strategies in which EC materials simultaneously exploit multiple charge storage mechanisms need to be identified. Charge storage mechanisms need to be understood to enable the design of new materials for pseudocapacitors and hybrid devices. There is a need for new electrolytes that have high ionic conductivity in combination with wide electrochemical, chemical, and thermal stability; are non-toxic, biodegradable, and/or renewable; can be immobilized; and can be produced from sustainable sources. New continuum, atomistic, and quantum mechanical models are needed to understand solvents and ions in pores, predict new material chemistries and architectures, and discover new physical phenomena at the electrochemical interfaces. From fundamental science, novel energy storage mechanisms can be designed into new materials. With these breakthroughs, ECs have the potential to emerge as an important energy storage technology in the future.
FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGES
Little is known about the physico-chemical consequences of nanoscale dimensions (see sidebar “Correlation Between Pore Size, Ion Size, and Specific Capacitance”). Further, it is necessary to understand how various factors—such as pore size, surface area, and surface chemistry— affect the performance of ECs. This knowledge can be used to design nanostructured materials with optimized architectures that could yield dramatic improvements in current capabilities in energy and power. Novel electrolyte systems that operate at higher voltages and have higher room-temperature conductivity are critically needed for the next generation of ECs. Fundamentals of solvation dynamics, molecular interactions at interfaces, and ion transport must be better understood to tailor electrolytes for optimal performance. Exciting opportunities exist for creating multifunctional electrolytes that scavenge impurities and exhibit self-healing. A potential bridge between ECs and batteries is combining a batterytype electrode with a capacitor-type electrode in so-called hybrid or asymmetric ECs.6 This approach needs to be better understood at the fundamental level so that it enables the tailoring of energy density without compromising power density. In situ characterization of the electrolyte/electrode interface during charging/discharging at molecular and atomic levels is critical to understanding the fundamental processes in capacitive energy storage. This will require the development of new experimental techniques that combine measurement and imaging, including so-called chemical imaging, where chemical information can be obtained at high spatial resolution. In addition, new computational capabilities can allow modeling of active materials, electrolytes, and electrochemical processes at the nanoscale and across broad length and time scales. These models will assist in the discovery of new materials and the performance evaluation of new system designs.
Background and Motivation
A chemical energy storage system (battery) is inherently complex, consisting of a cathode, an
electrolyte, and an anode (see sidebar “What is a Battery?” on page 11). Any future system
must be designed to include a number of essential characteristics, including
• high energy density;
• sufficient power achieved through holistic design of the storage materials, supporting
components, and device construction;
• electrochemical and materials stability to ensure long lifetimes;
• practical materials synthesis and device fabrication approaches;
• reasonable cost; and
• optimized safe operation and manageable toxicity and environmental effects.
Future chemical energy storage applications, ranging from portable consumer products to
hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles to electrical distribution load-leveling, require years to
decades of deep discharge with subsequent recharging (charge-discharge cycles). This level
of use must occur with minimal loss of performance so that the same capacity is available on
every discharge (i.e., with minimal capacity fade). The necessity of ensuring stable cycle-life
response has restricted the number of electrons that can be transferred in any given discharge
or charge reaction, thereby limiting the utilization of the electrodes and the amount of energy
that could be available from the batteries.
This restriction in battery operation is driven by the fact that deep, but thermodynamically
allowable, discharge reactions usually drive the electrodes toward physical and chemical
conditions that cannot be fully reversed upon charging. The extent to which the physical and
chemical properties of electrode materials change during electrochemical cycling is
dependent on the battery’s chemistry. For example, during charge-discharge, the electrode
materials can undergo damaging structural changes. They can fracture, resulting in the loss of
electronic contact, and they can dissolve in the electrolyte, thereby lowering the cycling
efficiency and delivered energy of the batteries.
I’m amazed you got this far. This is just page 35 of 186 pages, go read the rest online if your eyes haven’t glazed over yet!
Please follow and like us:Recently by Jeff Clark: If the Dollar Goes, What Happens to YourPortfolio?
In spite of constant headlines about debts and deficits, most Americans don't really believe the U.S. dollar will collapse. From knowledgeable investors who study the markets to those seemingly too busy to worry about such things, most dismiss the idea of the dollar actually going to zero.
History has a message for us: No fiat currency has lasted forever. Eventually, they all fail.
BMG BullionBars recently published a poster featuring pictures of numerous currencies that have gone bust. Some got there quickly, while others took a century or more. Regardless of how long it took, though, the seductive temptations allowed under a fiat monetary system eventually caught up with these governments, and their currencies went poof!
You might suspect this happened only to third world countries. You'd be wrong. There was no discrimination as to the size or perceived stability of a nation's economy; if the leaders abused their currency, the country paid the price.
As you scroll through the currencies below, you'll see some long-ago casualties. What's shocking, though, is how many have occurred in our lifetime. You might count how many currencies have failed since you've been born.
So what's the one word for the u201Cthousand picturesu201D below? Worthless.
Yugoslavia — 10 billion dinar, 1993
Zaire — 5 million zaires, 1992
Venezuela — 10,000 bolvares, 2002
Ukraine — 10,000 karbovantsiv, 1995
Turkey — 5 million lira, 1997
Russia — 10,000 rubles, 1992
Romania — 50,000 lei, 2001
Central Bank of China — 10,000 CGU, 1947
Peru — 100,000 intis, 1989
Nicaragua — 10 million crdobas, 1990
Hungary — 10 million pengo, 1945
Greece — 25,000 drachmas, 1943
Germany — 1 billion mark, 1923
Georgia — 1 million laris, 1994
France — 5 livres, 1793
Chile — 10,000 pesos, 1975
Brazil — 500 cruzeiros reais, 1993
Bosnia — 100 million dinar, 1993
Bolivia — 5 million pesos bolivianos, 1985
Belarus — 100,000 rubles, 1996
Argentina — 10,000 pesos argentinos, 1985
Angola — 500,000 kwanzas reajustados, 1995
Zimbabwe — 100 trillion dollars, 2006
So, will a similar fate befall the U.S. dollar? The common denominator that led to the downfall of each currency above was the two big Ds: Debts and Deficits.
With that in mind, consider the following:
Morgan Stanley reported in 2009 that there's u201Cno historical precedentu201D for an economy that exceeds a 250% debt-to-GDP ratio without experiencing some sort of financial crisis or high inflation. Our total debt now exceeds GDP by roughly 400%.
Investment legend Marc Faber reports that once a country's payments on debt exceed 30% of tax revenue, the currency is u201Cdone for.u201D On our current path, analyst Michael Murphy projects we'll hit that figure by October.
Peter Bernholz, the leading expert on hyperinflation, states unequivocally that u201Chyperinflation is caused by government budget deficits.u201D This year's U.S. budget deficit will end up being $1.5 trillion, an amount never before seen in history.
Since the Federal Reserve's creation in 1913, the dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power. Our government leaders clearly don't know how — or don't wish — to keep the currency strong.
Whether the dollar goes to zero or merely becomes a second-class currency in the global arena, the possibility of the greenback being added to the above list grows every day. And this will lead to serious and painful consequences in our standard of living. While money is only one of many problems we'll have to deal with, you can protect your assets with the one currency that can't be debased, devalued, or destroyed by irresponsible leaders.
Don't be the investor who dismisses this message from history. Use gold (and silver) as your savings vehicle. Any excuse you have now will be meaningless and irrelevant when we enter that fateful period. Make sure you own enough precious metals to make a difference in your portfolio.
Because when it comes to money, worthless is not a fun word.
Owning physical gold is good protection from the sinking value of the U.S. dollar; investing in the right gold miners can yield even higher returns. BIG GOLD focuses on the larger miners that have strong profit potential, and will help you build your wealth. Give it a ninety-day risk-free trial. Details here.
Jeff Clark is editor of BIG GOLD in Casey’s Daily Dispatch.
The Best of Jeff Clark#LoveWins - Stories of Marriage Equality
Lindsey Leaverton and Jenny Leman
Met: Wait for the excitement (sarcasm intended) — We met in 2006 at Gateway movie theatre in Austin! I was there with my group of friends and she was there with her group of friends – for The Devil Wears Prada movie premier, of course. Her friends introduced her to me because I was in the market for a new full-time drummer and tour manager for my band at the time. She was an expert-level drummer and tour manager bad-a$$. I took one look at her and decided she wasn’t a drummer. She was simply too beautiful, blonde, thin, and girly. So I “misplaced” her number. She will tell you that I threw it away. The jury is still out. But, boy, was I wrong about her. Never judge a book by its cover, as they say. Not only was she an incredible drummer, she was the best I’d ever seen or played with. And I had the privilege of playing with some of Nashville’s best. She absolutely blew me away. More on our story below…
Married: We had a private marriage ceremony in October of 2008 at her family’s lake house. It was just me, her, and our puppies. We exchanged rings, said vows, took communion, and read scriptures that meant a lot to us. We forgot wedding outfits so we wore white sheets as togas. We couldn’t stop laughing and crying all throughout the ceremony. Then, when marriage equality came to New York, we planned a trip to travel to Manhattan and get legally married in Dec of 2011. We were married under the Rockefeller center tree and our marriage license has “30 ROCK” on it. We love that show.
Get to know us: Lindsey was a professional touring Christian singer/songwriter and recording artist. Averaging 200-250 dates per year, she was living the dream. However, the entire time, Lindsey was in the closet and told no one about her sexual orientation. After years of failed ex-gay therapy and valiant attempts to pray the gay away, Lindsey began a journey of reconciling her faith with her sexuality. During that process, her career was taking off. In 2006, at the height of her touring career, she found herself in need of a new drummer and tour manager. <Enter Jenny> the shy, reserved, beautiful blonde drummer. Where did she come from? It was meant to be. Jenny had a full-time job working for the State and had no interest in quitting to tour the world. However, one gig led to another and they began traveling together full-time. Eventually Lindsey asked Jenny to be on staff as the full-time tour manager and drummer. They toured all over – record label showcases in Nashville, women’s prisons in Alaska, the pyramids in Egypt, to name a few.
After months of traveling together and becoming best friends, the two fell in love. However, the entire time, Jenny thought Lindsey was straight, and Lindsey through Jenny was straight. Thus, they were forced to keep their feelings to themselves. Not for long though. The feeling grew and became too intense. Lindsey realized she had to say something. In May of 2007, Lindsey decided to sit Jenny down and not only disclose her sexual orientation to her, but to also confess her feelings for her. On an old couch while eating Eggo waffles Lindsey uttered the words that would change everything: “I’m gay and I have feelings for you.” Expecting Jenny to throw the waffle in her face and run away for good, Lindsey soon realized the exact opposite was about to happen. Jenny said, “Me too.”
And thus began the growing love relationship between the two gals. In 2008, they both realized this wasn’t a short term fling. No, this was the real deal. They were “the ones.” They realized they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, no matter the risk. After a private wedding ceremony in 2008, they began planning their coming out process. A process that would inevitably leave them both unemployed and devastated. Coming out in the Christian music industry as gay is the fastest way to kick yourself to the curb and end your career forever. Lindsey knew she would lose everything – a career she spent 10+ years building. This was her full-time job, the only one she’d ever known. It was her love. Her calling. And she knew that coming out would risk all of that. She didn’t choose Jenny over her career. She chose HERSELF. It was time to start living in authenticity and integrity. No more singing at events where anti-LGBT rhetoric was being spewed from the pulpit. It was time for the proverbial rubber to meet the road. A road that would be lonely, painful, and filled with loss.
In January of 2009, Lindsey and Jenny began coming out to select family and friends. In a surprise twist, the wrong person found out and exposed the truth about Lindsey on a national scale. Within a matter of weeks, Lindsey’s successful, professional Christian music career came to an end. Her songs were pulled from radio. Her albums pulled from stores. Hate mail and death threats filled her inbox, and cyber bullying became an everyday occurrence. By March, both Lindsey and Jenny were unemployed, and had lost countless friends and family. However, the two stayed together through that indescribably painful season. What’s more, they grew stronger. The truth, had indeed, set them free as individuals and as a couple. They began to pick up the shattered pieces, and they began to rebuild.
Fast forward past the painful season of loss, Lindsey and Jenny both found new careers that they ended up absolutely loving. They got legally married in New York City in December of 2011 after Lindsey planned an extravagant proposal (which Jenny casually mentioned to Lindsey was a dream of hers in 2006… though Jenny doesn’t remember that conversation) where she had the entire ice skating rink at Rockefeller center cleared off so she could get on one knee, on the ice, and official propose. This all happened while the Rock Center staff played a song that Lindsey had recorded for Jenny on her latest album. The song played over the loud speaker which washed over Rockefeller Plaza. But that is a story for another day… So, throughout 2010 to the present, they are still able to continue to sing and play occasionally. Having made it through that horrendous season in 2009, they knew that their relationship could withstand anything. A desire to start a family began growing stronger and stronger within their hearts each day. In 2011, Lindsey and Jenny began the adoption process and by August of 2012 they were the proudest moms of the most beautiful twin baby girls named Annabelle and Olivia. This special family of four resides in Cedar Park with two dogs and a minivan they swore they’d never drive. It’s hard to truly comprehend how things have evolved for Lindsey and Jenny since that day at the movie theatre in 2006. I suppose it’s proof that beauty comes from ashes, strength comes from adversity, and freedom comes from authenticity. – submitted by Lindsey Leaverton, July 21, 2015
Meet more of our happily married couples! #LoveWins
Are you a same-sex married couple or know one that needs to be profiled? Simply email the following information to [email protected].
Names:
When and where we met:
When and where we married:
Get to know us: (your story in your words)
Feel free to submit up to four photos and/or a video to accompany the story. And be sure to indicate who took the photo/video for credit and that you have permission to share their work with us!
Click here for more information on submission!
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commentsRoute revamp for
LOTOS 73rd Rally Poland
The route of this year's LOTOS 73rd Rally Poland, the seventh round of the championship, has undergone a transformation, with 33 per cent of stages changed since 2015.
The event will be based in the familiar setting of Mikołajki in the Mazurian Lakes district and will feature 22 gravel stages that total 317 competitive kilometres. Organisers say they have made changes to last years route to make it more attractive for competitors and fans and also to take into consideration safety issues.
Four stages remain the same as last year (Mikołajki Arena, Gołdap, Świętajno, Wieliczki), while two (Chmielewo and Stare Juchy) have featured in previous years. Other tests have been modified and 33% of the route was not run in 2014 or 2015. The shortest is the 2.5 km of Mikołajki Arena and the longest will be Stańczyki at 26.90 km.
“We made some valuable modifications after considering last year’s reports, teams’, drivers’ and media representatives’ suggestions. We also tried to listen to the fans, whom we’d like to secure the best conditions to follow their favourite rally. Safety issues were also very important factors while complementing changes," said Clerk of the Course Jarosław Noworól.
The ceremonial start is scheduled for Thursday, 30 June in the centre of Mikołajki. That evening the competitive action will start with the head-to-head super special at the Mikołajki Arena.
On Friday, 1 July drivers will face nine stages, with a total length of 111.24 kilometres. After the first four stages, cars will return to the service park for 30 minutes. Then, in the afternoon, they will tackle the same tests for a second time before a return to the stage at the Mikołajki Arena.
The next eight stages, totalling 143 kilometres, will be held on Saturday. Three will be driven twice without a midpoint service before drivers tackle the Mikołajki Arena stage for a third time at the end of the day.
Four final stages will be held on Sunday, including the Live TV Power Stage (SS 22 Sady 2) before the finish ceremony back in Mikołajki from 1400hrs.
Click here to see the full itinerary.
More News
VideoChicago police put out a community alert notifying area north 019th an 024th districts about a string of recent robberies at grocery and drug stores. In each incident the offender, who was armed with a handgun, entered the store and demanded money from the register.
Two Edgewater drugstores were the first to be hit, both on the 6100 block of N. Broadway on November 26. According to cwbchicago.com, a law enforcement source identified the businesses as the CVS Pharmacy at 6150 N. Broadway at 4:19 a.m. and the Walgreens at 6121 N. Broadway at 7:40 p.m.
Two other robberies occurred the following day, November 27, allegedly by the same man. A store in the 3200 block of N. Broadway in Lakeview was hit around 1:28 a.m., then an additional robbery in the 3400 block of N. Western Avenue in Roscoe Village at about 1:50 a.m.
The suspect is described as a Hispanic man between 25 and 45 years old, weighing 180 to 230 pounds, between 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-11 with brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a tan Carhartt-style jacket, a black hooded sweatshirt and cargo-style pants.
Cwbchicago.com also reported that witnesses saw the gunman flee in a white four-door vehicle, possibly a Maxima or Altima, that was driven by an accomplice.
Anyone with information about these robberies should contact Area North detectives at (312) 745-6110.Comic Con is winding down, which means that the last day of the convention will be one of the more mellow days compared to the hype and anticipation that the previous days contained — specifically Saturday.
One favorite among Comic Con goers is director Quentin Tarantino, and while he’s not there to promote a project of his, he’s there anyways to geek out over comics and niche comics at that.
Here’s an overview of what to expect at the panel Quentin Tarantino will be at today, courtesy of Comic Con’s official site:
Join Dynamite publisher Nick Barrucci, Dynamite senior editor Joseph Rybandt and moderator Alan Kistler as they present a special 10th Anniversary Celebration featuring the upcoming Django/Zorro crossover creative team of Reginald Hudlin (editor, Django/Zorro), Matt Wagner (writer, Django/Zorro) and of course the very special guest Quentin Tarantino as they help to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Dynamite Comics!
So when does the panel that Quentin Tarantino will be at kick off today? We have all the information you need to know so you know when the right time is to be looking for news released during the event.
Date: Sunday, July 27th
Start Time: 2:15pm PST/5:15pm ET
Event: Dynamite Comics Panel
Where: Room 6BCF
Guests: Guillermo del Toro, Cory Stoll and more
Live Stream: No Live Stream Available
What are you most looking forward to from the panel Quentin Tarantino will be attending at Comic Con today? Sound off in the comments section below and let your opinion be heard.
Need more entertainment news? Check back to FanSided.com’s Entertainment page as well as Hidden Remote for more TV news and FlickSided for all your movie news and rumors.Close
Samsung has listed a new variant of its just-released Galaxy Note 4 phablet on its website. Verizon Wireless is set to get the Note 4 Developer Edition soon, which is the same Galaxy Note 4 it offers but at a lower price and with an unlocked boot loader.
We've watched smartphones take the place of feature phones as more users have viewed an always-on Internet connection as a necessity, rather than just a toy for geeks. The popularity of devices like Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy series have made both companies the biggest players in the smartphone game by a wide margin.
Apple released its latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in late September and the larger 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays have proven to be extremely popular with consumers. The smartphones are still sold out when purchasing from Apple's online store but can be tracked down in retail stores, along with deals to entice customers into switching carriers or trading in older smartphones to reduce the overall cost of the upgrade.
While Apple has accused Samsung of copying the look of both its iPhones and iPads, the company's latest and larger iPhones take some "inspiration" from the large smartphone trend Samsung began. The iPhone 6 Plus also marks Apple's first foray into the phablet category Samsung pioneered with its Galaxy Note series. The company is already on its fourth-generation phablet and the just-released Galaxy Note 4 is available on all major carriers in the U.S. and will be competing directly with the iPhone 6 Plus and Google's Motorola-built Nexus 6.
Samsung has never been shy about flooding the market with variants of its existing smartphone lineup and we recently reported that the curved display Galaxy Note Edge phablet is heading to Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile in the near future. Verizon is slated to offer the Note Edge, and Samsung has quietly confirmed the carrier will also offer a new Galaxy Note 4 variant.
Samsung has listed the Verizon Galaxy Note 4 Developer Edition on its online store and has listed the phablet as "coming soon." The Note 4 Developer Edition is the same 5.7-inch Quad HD display phablet Verizon is currently selling off contract for $699, but includes an unlockable bootloader. That makes it easier for developers and tinkerers to test the device and allow the installation of custom ROMS, steps which let users remove the confines Samsung and Verizon are notoriously known for placing on all of their Android devices.
The Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Developer Edition is listed as coming soon and Samsung has priced it $662.53, which is actually $30 lower than the Verizon non-developer Note 4 off contract. The Verizon Note 4 Developer Edition is reportedly waiting for FCC approval, which is why Samsung can't sell it yet, but it's expected to become available
Once we hear any news on when you can expect the phablet to officially go on sale, we'll report back.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Above: Portland-homeless-live-in-fear-of-frequent-weekly-sweeps-by-police, from “Portland’s Homeless Still Suffer Without a Right to a Tent or a Tarp.”
A group of fired-up activists in Portland, Ore., who were tired of seeing homeless people being mistreated staged the kind of protest that will be difficult for the mayor to ignore.
An estimated 4,000 people sleep on the streets of Portland, Ore., on any given night and, since last summer, life has become increasingly difficult for them.
So, a group of protesters descended upon Portland City Hall on Tuesday night carrying pitchforks and torches to “shame the mayor into action,” organizer Jessie Sponberg told The Oregonian.
Portland appears to be gearing up to revive a bill that would allow police to rouse homeless people sitting on sidewalks, The Oregonian reported at the end of last year. In July, Mayor Charlie Hales launched an effort to clear out homeless campsites,according to the Portland Mercury.
Sweeping campsites often exacerbates the situation for people living on the streets because the police discard homeless people’s few possessions, which may include their only warm clothing and blankets, advocates noted in a Change.org petition.
But Hales told The Oregonian in August that he plans on balancing the crackdown on homeless camps with increasing funding for overnight shelters. But he didn’t commit to a spending figure.
“This is not about homelessness,” the mayor told the paper about the anti-camping law. “It’s about lawlessness.”
Hoards of advocates have continued to voice their concerns about the extensive measures, but Film the Police Portland — a grassroots advocacy group — took their protest beyond just handing out petitions.
The group of about 50 protesters set up shop at City Hall on Tuesday, waving pitchforks and torches. They turned the surrounding gardens into a cemetery scene to signify the number of homeless people who have frozen to death, Sponberg wrote on his Facebook page.
They said they hope their efforts will urge Mayor Hales to stop criminalizing homelessness.
“You know, the cops are out there sweeping out these camps. Destroying the closest thing to a normal life that these people have managed to carve out in this crazy world,” Sponberg wrote. “Throwing everything they have into the garbage. And it’s not that the cops are doing this because they are jerks. They may be jerks, but they get a pass on this one. In this case they are just doing their jobs, following city policy, as per established by Mayor Hales.”EXCLUSIVE: The Philippine National Police files a criminal complaint against Willyn Trabajador, whom they accuse of posting a bomb threat against the President's followers. But Trabajador insists her account was cloned.
Published 4:30 PM, September 15, 2017
AT A GLANCE
A bomb threat and assassination plot against the President posted by Facebook page Lyn Ouvrier went viral on social media in March
Willyn Trabajador, who has used the alias Lyn Ouvrier in the past to criticize the administration, claims that her Lyn Ouvrier account was cloned by a Duterte supporter to ruin her reputation
Trabajador now faces a criminal complaint filed by the police before the Department of Justice, for violation of the Cybercrime Law
MANILA, Philippines – “We are going to plant bombs at the Luneta Park on April 2nd, 2017 in order to protect the Vice President and disrupt the rally to be organized by fanatics of Duterte.”
It was a Facebook post that made waves in the Philippines, angering online supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Today, Willyn Trabajador alias Lyn Ouvrier – who police allege are responsible for posting the threat – is facing a criminal complaint before the Department of Justice (DOJ), filed by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
But Trabajador, who admits she is a self-confessed critic of Duterte, has vehemently denied that she posted the threat. She has maintained she is a victim of identity theft and that her Facebook account was cloned.
"Only a certified idiot would truly believe that I, a noted human rights defender and terrorism critic, would be stupid enough to post a self-incriminating bomb threat on a public forum using my identifiable face for everyone to see and identify, and my birth name as the FB (url)," she posted on April 10.
It has been 6 months since the bomb threat posted by a Facebook page using her name and alias changed her life.
Going viral
On March 25, the bomb threat posted by a Facebook user named Lyn Ouvrier – the same alias Trabajador uses – went viral.
A screenshot of the threat was first shared by an account named “Khayri Woulfe for President” at 4:35 pm that day.
“Mga ka-DDS alam na this! Ingat kayo sa gaganapin niyong rally sa April 2! Kapag may naganap na bomb scare o aktuwal na pagsabog, alam niyo na kung sino ang may kasalanan at kung sino ang kakasuhan. Lyn Ouvrier is Willyn Trabajador in real life, a devout fanatic of Leni and Leila,” his post read.
(Fellow DDS, now we know! Be careful at the rally on April 2! If there’s a bomb scare or an actual explosion, you all know who is to blame and who to file a case against.)
DDS stands for Diehard Duterte Supporters, the name the President’s supporters like to call themselves. Leni refers to Vice President Leni Robredo, while Leila is Senator Leila de Lima. Both are members of the opposition.
Around the same time, another previous post from the same Lyn Ouvrier account resurfaced. “If our plan to impeach Duterte doesn’t work, we will plot an assassination attempt against him," it read.
Khayri Woulfe’s post was spread widely – with Duterte supporters calling for Ouvrier’s head.
Former interior secretary Rafael Alunan III, a supporter of the President, shared Ouvrier’s bomb threat post on his Facebook page on March 26.
He cited Presidential Decree No. 1727, which states that any threats “by means of explosives, incendiary devices, and other destructive forces of similar nature or characteristics, shall upon conviction be punished with imprisonment of not more than five (5) years, or a fine or not more than forty thousand pesos (P40,000.00) or both.”
“This stupid post by troller Lyn Ouvrier (an alias) in Facebook (now deactivated) could land her in jail,” he declared.
Alunan pinned the threat on Trabajador, without concrete evidence. (READ: Propaganda war: Weaponizing the internet)
“Someone said that she's allegedly blogger Wilynn Trabajador. Trabajador is ‘laborer’ in English and ‘ouvrier’ in French, and a rabid fan of a political personality. Nagwawala na itong mga ito (They’re going crazy). Hollow heads on emotional overdrive.”
On March 30, columnist and Duterte propagandist Antonio Contreras, dedicated an article to Lyn Ouvrier on The Manila Times entitled, “The crimes of Lyn Ouvrier, a certified Leni troll.”
The article accused Ouvrier of using “her vitriol on Duterte supporters.”
“She thought she could get away with this. She is dead wrong,” Contreras wrote. (READ: State-sponsored hate: The rise of the pro-Duterte bloggers)
He tagged Ouvrier as a "terrorist," adding that Ouvrier is “even willing to commit a crime in (the Vice President’s) name.”
Contreras went on to say that Ouvrier “placed herself against one of the most formidable social media army of activists that has emerged in the cyber-mediated political landscape. And here, she has to contend with a determined group.”
He ended his article by calling her a “committed criminal.”
Online, netizens showed no mercy. Trabajador’s home address in Dasmariñas, Cav |
October 1990.[9] As in other former parts of East Germany, the lack of modern infrastructure and exposure to West Germany's competitive market economy brought widespread unemployment and economic difficulty. In the recent years, however, Brandenburg's infrastructure has been modernized and unemployment has slowly declined.
In 1995, the governments of Berlin and Brandenburg proposed to merge the states in order to form a new state with the name of "Berlin-Brandenburg", though some suggested calling the proposed new state "Prussia". The merger was rejected in a plebiscite in 1996 – while West Berliners voted for a merger, East Berliners and Brandenburgers voted against it.
Geography [ edit ]
Brandenburg is bordered by Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the north, Poland in the east, the Freistaat Sachsen in the south, Saxony-Anhalt in the west, and Lower Saxony in the northwest.
The Oder River forms a part of the eastern border, the Elbe River a portion of the western border. The main rivers in the state itself are the Spree and the Havel. In the southeast, there is a wetlands region called the Spreewald; it is the northernmost part of Lusatia, where the Sorbs, a Slavic people, still live. These areas are bilingual, i.e., German and Sorbian are both used.
Protected areas [ edit ]
Brandenburg is known for its well-preserved natural environment and its ambitious natural protection policies which began in the 1990s. 15 large protected areas were designated following Germany's reunification. Each of them is provided with state-financed administration and a park ranger staff, who guide visitors and work to ensure nature conservation. Most protected areas have visitor centers.
National parks
Biosphere reserves
Spreewald Biosphere Reserve (474 km 2 or 183 sq mi)
or 183 sq mi) Schorfheide-Chorin Biosphere Reserve (1,291 km 2 or 498.46 sq mi)
or 498.46 sq mi) River Landscape Elbe-Brandenburg Biosphere Reserve (533 km2 or 206 sq mi)
Nature parks
Cities [ edit ]
Demography [ edit ]
Development of population from 1875 within current borders Population density in Berlin-Brandenburg in 2015 Significant foreign born populations[10] Nationality Population (2014) Poland 14,802 Syria 10,832 Russia 7,556 Ukraine 3,578 Vietnam 3,344 Afghanistan 2,868 Romania 2,764
Religion [ edit ]
Religion in Brandenburg - 2011 religion percent Other 79.8% Registered EKD Protestants 17.1% Registered Roman Catholics 3.1%
17.1% of the Brandenburgers are registered members of the local Evangelical Church in Germany (mostly the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia), while 3.1% are registered with the Roman Catholic Church (mostly the Archdiocese of Berlin, and a minority in the Diocese of Görlitz).[11] The majority (79.8%)[11] of Brandenburgers, whether of Christian or other beliefs, choose not to register with the government as members of these churches, and therefore do not pay the church tax.
Politics [ edit ]
Subdivisions [ edit ]
Brandenburg is divided into 14 rural districts (Landkreise) and four urban districts (kreisfreie Städte), shown with their population in 2011:[12]
Administrative Divisions in Brandenburg
Government [ edit ]
The parliament building (Landtag) in the capital Potsdam
Dietmar Woidke, Minister-President
The most recent election took place on 14 September 2014. The coalition government formed by the Social Democrats and the Left Party led by Dietmar Woidke (SPD) was re-elected. The next ordinary state election is scheduled for 2019.
Economy [ edit ]
The unemployment rate stood at 5.8% in October 2018 and was higher than the German average but lower than the average of Eastern Germany.[14]
Year[15] 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Unemployment rate in % 17.0 17.5 17.5 18.8 18.7 18.2 17.0 14.7 13.0 12.3 11.1 10.7 10.2 9.9 9.4 8.7 8.0 7.0
Transport [ edit ]
Berlin Schönefeld Airport (IATA code:SXF) is the largest airport in Brandenburg. It is the second largest international airport of the Berlin-Brandenburg metropolitan region and is located 18 km (11 mi) southeast of central Berlin in Schönefeld. The airport is a base for Condor, easyJet and Ryanair. In 2016, SXF handled 11.652.922 Passengers (+36,7%).
It is planned to incorporate Schönefeld's existing infrastructure and terminals into the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER),[16] which is scheduled to open not before the end of 2020.[17] The new BER will have an initial capacity of 35-40 million passengers a year. Due to increasing air traffic in Berlin and Brandenburg plans for airport expansions are in the making (as of 2017).
Culture [ edit ]
The University of Potsdam campus
Education [ edit ]
In 2016, around 49,000 students were enrolled in Brandenburg universities and higher education facilities. The largest institution is the University of Potsdam, located southwest of Berlin.[18]
Music [ edit ]
The Brandenburg concerti by Johann Sebastian Bach (original title: Six Concerts à plusieurs instruments)[19] are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt,[20] in 1721 (though probably composed earlier). They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era and are among the composer's best known works.
Notable people [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]President Barack Obama broke into a laugh on Thursday morning when asked to respond to Donald Trump’s remark that Vladimir Putin was “a leader, far more than our President has been a leader.”
At the final press conference Obama held at the the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ summit, he was asked if he wanted to “defend” his legacy from Trump’s criticism.
“Do I care to defend…? OK, OK, respond,” he said, laughing.
“As far as Mr. Trump, I think I’ve already offered my opinion,” Obama said. “I don’t think the guy’s qualified to be president of the United States. Every time he speaks that opinion is confirmed.”
The President has mostly refrained from offering play-by-play commentary on the 2016 race, though he has taken shots at Trump’s business acumen, nativism and lack of “basic knowledge” about the world.
On Thursday, he called on the press and public to “just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions about what appear to be either contradictory or uninformed or outright wacky ideas.”
Obama cautioned that this particularly unusual election cycle shouldn’t “normalize” “behavior that in normal times we would consider completely unacceptable and outrageous.”
“People start thinking that we should be grading on a curve,” Obama added. “When you speak, it should actually reflect thought-out policy that you can implement.”Using the most powerful laser system ever built, scientists have brought us one step closer to nuclear fusion power, a new study says.
The same process that powers our sun and other stars, nuclear fusion has the potential to be an efficient, carbon-free energy source—with none of the radioactive waste associated with the nuclear fission method used in current nuclear plants.
Thanks to the new achievement, a prototype nuclear fusion power plant could be operating within a decade, speculated study leader Siegfried Glenzer, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Glenzer and colleagues used the world's largest laser array—the Livermore lab's National Ignition Facility—to heat a BB-size fuel pellet to millions of degrees Fahrenheit.
"These lasers are pulsed, and for a very short amount of time"—one ten-billionth of a second—"the power they produce is more than all the power generated by the entire electrical grid of the United States" at any given moment, Glenzer said.
The test confirmed that a technique called inertial fusion ignition could be used to trigger nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—which can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.
The laser demonstration means scientists are now much closer to triggering nuclear fusion in a controlled setting—something that's never been done before and which is necessary if fusion is to be harnessed for energy.
Nuclear's Nice Side?
Performing nuclear fusion in the lab requires enormous amounts of laser power, but if perfected, controlled fusion should generate ten to a hundred times more electrical energy than is used to spark the nuclear reactions. Nuclear fusion, after all, is what allows stars to burn for billions of years.
And fusion could be not only powerful but clean and green as well.
Not only does nuclear fusion not produce long-lasting nuclear waste, but fusion could potentially be used to chemically neutralize radioactive pollutants and has been "proposed as a cure to our nuclear waste problem," Glenzer said. Simply put, neutrons released by fusion could rearrange radioactive atoms so they aren't radioactive anymore.
Nuclear fusion energy is also potentially carbon free, meaning it could be used to generate power without creating any more carbon dioxide gas, which contributes to global warming.
And while fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, and nuclear fission fuels, such as uranium, are limited resources, there's enough nuclear fusion fuel on, in, and around our planet "to power the Earth longer than the lifetime of the sun," Glenzer said.
Gold Fusion
During the laser experiment, the fuel pellet was placed inside a solid-gold cylinder about the size of a pencil eraser, which was hit by multiple laser beams.
The gold cylinder absorbed the laser energy and converted it into thermal x-ray energy.
The x-rays then ricocheted inside the cylinder and struck the fuel pellet from all sides. As the pellet absorbed the x-rays, it heated up—eventually reaching about 60 million degrees Fahrenheit (33 million degrees Celsius)—then collapsed in on itself.
The experiment was designed only to test the lasers' ability to heat the cylinder efficiently. Made largely of plastics and helium, the fuel pellet was not filled with enough actual fuel—chemical variants of hydrogen called deuterium and tritium—to actually trigger nuclear fusion.
Actual fusion, Glenzer said, will occur sometime this year.
With a fully loaded fuel pellet, "the implosion will be like squeezing a soccer ball to the size of a pinhead," he added. "The center of that spherical ball will get so hot that nuclear fusion starts."
Nuclear Fusion Plant by 2020?
If successful, the upcoming nuclear fusion experiment will create two classes of energetic particles: alpha particles and neutrons.
"The neutrons escape and can be used to do things like heat up water"—which could potentially be used to produce steam to drive turbines in an electrical plant, Glenzer said.
"The alpha particles remain trapped [in the burning sphere] and continue to heat the fuel and make it burn," as happens in a star.
Scientists estimate that if they can get to the point where they can burn about five fuel pellets a second, a power plant could continuously generate up to a gigawatt of energy—about what the city of San Francisco is consuming at any given moment.
A working prototype of a such a plant could be built in a decade, Glenzer said.
Cheaper to Burn Cash?
Nuclear fusion researcher Michael Mauel is "very excited" about the recent experiment and said it shows the ignition method works as expected.
But "whether or not we'll have lasers imploding pellets to make fusion energy—it's way too early to tell," said Mauel, who was not involved in the study, which will be published in the journal Science tomorrow.
In addition to the considerable engineering challenges involved in ramping up the laser systems for wide-scale use, the cost of the fuel pellets will also have to come down, said Mauel, a Columbia University physicist.
"Each one of these costs between ten [thousand] and a hundred thousand dollars," Mauel said. To use the pellet method to generate nuclear fusion power, "they'll have to cost less than ten cents a piece."On Monday, walking down the street in Washington, I ran into Representative Darrell Issa. Naturally, we chatted about the Benghazi investigation that his committee has been conducting for several months. Like many journalists who haven’t followed every single twist and turn of the case, I found e-mails that had been leaked to ABC News the week before somewhat damning, and I said so. One of those e-mails appeared to show that the deputy national-security advisor Benjamin Rhodes weighed in decisively on the side of the State Department in a dispute with the C.I.A. over what to include in a set of talking points given to officials after the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.
That report, published last Friday, dramatically changed the nature of the Benghazi story, and Issa’s work suddenly moved from the fringes to the center of the discussion. The congressman seemed to be enjoying a new sense of respect, and he was on his way to talk about the case on TV. He explained how frustrating it was that his staff was only allowed to look at the White House e-mails. They could take notes, but they couldn’t keep the documents or make copies of them. As for the leak about the e-mails, Issa insisted, “They didn’t come from us.”
The following day, the e-mail story took another turn. CNN’s Jake Tapper obtained an actual copy of the Rhodes’s allegedly damning e-mail.
Here’s how ABC, which, as it emerged, had relied entirely on a source’s description of the e-mail, quoted one portion of what Rhodes wrote to his colleagues: “We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the F.B.I. investigation.”
Here’s what the actual e-mail said, according to the document obtained by Tapper: “We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.”
The version given to ABC is not close to verbatim. The source added a reference to “the talking points” when none existed, though that was indeed the context of the remark, and, most importantly, he or she added a reference to the State Department.
Rather than conspiring with the State Department to scrub the talking points, Rhodes appears to have been doing his job as a senior N.S.C. official. The purpose of the N.S.C. is to adjudicate interagency disputes. When the N.S.C. is functioning properly, it serves as an honest broker that takes into account every department’s position—or “equities”—and provides a forum to come up with a consensus policy, which is exactly what happened in this case.
When Jonathan Karl, the ABC reporter, went back to his source for an explanation, he was told:
WH reply was after a long chain of email about State Dept concerns. So when WH emailer says, take into account all equities, he is talking about the State equities, since that is what the email chain was about.
Read that again, closely: “When WH emailer says, take into account all equities, he is talking about the State equities.”
As a reporter, sometimes you have a hunch about how something you’re investigating played out, even though you only have small pieces of the puzzle. There’s a great temptation to overlay your theories onto the facts in front of you. Whoever deceived ABC seemed to be doing something similar, adding details to a basically innocuous e-mail to make it fit a larger picture of malfeasance.
Is the White House completely innocent in this back-and-forth? No. We still only have pieces of the puzzle, and Obama officials could—and should—release all of the documents they shared with Issa’s committee. But, after yesterday’s news, the Congressman’s investigation seems decidedly less explosive.
And of the three controversies currently preoccupying Washington—along with whether the I.R.S. targeted conservative groups and the Department of Justice secretly subpoenaing A.P. phone records—Benghazi is the only one in which White House officials even play a role. The highest-ranking official implicated in the I.R.S.’s egregious targeting of conservative groups is the deputy commissioner for services and enforcement. The highest official with knowledge of the Justice Department’s subpoenas of the Associated Press is Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole. This makes the two stories decidedly less sexy. “Impeach the D.C.F.E.!” and “Fire James M. Cole!” are not terrific rallying cries.
There is a great deal still to learn about all three cases. But, contrary to much of the reporting and punditry, my sense is that Tuesday saw the peak of scandal-mania for a while. We learned that the most dramatic Benghazi revelation is not as incriminating as advertised, and that the actions of the I.R.S. appear to be confined to that agency. For what it’s worth, as a journalist, I do find the A.P. subpoenas by far the most troubling of these three cases. (Lynn Oberlander, The New Yorker’s general counsel, lays out some of the reasons why.)
Both the political press corps and the Republican opposition are, not unreasonably, preoccupied with the White House’s role in major events, and coverage of these three scandals will rise and fall depending on the level of White House involvement, which so far ranges from modest to nonexistent.
The larger problem with the scandal culture in D.C. is that, because each example of government wrongdoing quickly morphs into a partisan effort to attack the White House (the same was true when a Republican was President), the actual remedies for the problems uncovered become almost beside the point. A U.S. congressman will probably go farther in his party hierarchy by roughing up Obama than he will by helping to pass legislation to ensure that all diplomatic posts have adequate security. Likewise, the I.R.S. abuses suggest the need for both major tax reform and changes to campaign-finance laws, while a future dragnet of news media phone records could be prevented if a strong federal shield law were in place. Don’t hold your breath waiting for any of these policy changes.
Above: Darrell Issa welcomes Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya, at a hearing about the Benghazi attack. Photograph by J. Scott Applewhite/AP.DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted to CNSNews.com yesterday that “anyone’ can see that the economy is improving and sought to interpret what Pres. Obama really meant when he admitted Monday that Americans were not better off today than four years ago.
“Well, what President Obama said was that certainly since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, that Americans are not better off,” Wasserman Schultz told CNSNews.com. “That was specifically the president’s comment. I thought. And I think anyone who looks at the economy knows we have come a long way.
“We are certainly no longer dropping like a rock like we were in the months leading up to President Obama taking office,” Wasserman Schultz continued. “And now we’ve begun to turn the corner.”
“Anyone” can see that we’ve turned the corner? Really?
Even the 115,730 people who lost their jobs last month (the most in more than two years), or the American Airlines workers faced with the danger that their employer is going to have to file for bankruptcy?
And, how about the person at the pump fretting over the cost of filling his gas tank, or the young couple trying to sell their home?
I guess these aren’t the “anyones” the DNC chair was referring to.There's no animosity between Asheville, N.C., and Grand Rapids.
Although the two cities tied in a vote to be named 2012's BeerCity, U.S.A., the two beer scenes have taken it in stride and rolled with the craft beer culture of collaboration.
This weekend, Grand Rapids will host an ambassador from Asheville, Adam Reinke, who will receive the royal treatment in a tour of the area's breweries by Revue Magazine's Beer Editor, Ben Darcie.
Reinke said he’s coming to Grand Rapids for two main reasons — and it’s more than just drinking beer.
“I enjoy craft beer, and Grand Rapids has a nice burgeoning industry,” he said. “But with the passion and motivation behind winning BeerCity, U.S.A., it reminded me a lot of Asheville when we tied Portland (Ore.) in 2009.”
From his decision to come to Grand Rapids as a tourist, he sought out some guidance and contacted Darcie, Michele Sellers, co-owner of Barfly Ventures, which owns Grand Rapids Brewing Co. and HopCat, and Rick Muschiana, manager at Brewery Vivant.
Darcie took the lead and organized the tour that will take Reinke across the area. Darcie made contact with all the area breweries and said the reception was a resounding "yes."
"Just seeing the breweries and drinking the beer is one thing," Darcie said. "But to be at a table and sitting across from the guy who made the beer, that's what helps make this scene special."
Darcie isn't confining the tour to the city limits of Grand Rapids. Tthey'll also head out to Hudsonville and outlying Grand Rapids-area breweries.
"Grand Rapids is the hub of the beer scene," Darcie said. "But I really wanted to reach out to the outlying breweries, because they still are key players in the West Michigan culture."
One of the key events of the two-day tour, which includes about nine of the area's breweries, will be a tasting of beers Reinke brought from Asheville.
"I opened up communication and asked, ‘What can I do to be the ambassador to Asheville beer?’" Reinke said, adding that seven or eight breweries gave him cases of beer to share.
Although it's unlikely the two cities will finish in a tie again next year, Reinke said he wishes there could be three or four BeerCities every year.
"What it really does is brings awareness to a city's beer scene and sharing it together," Reinke said. "If our cultures came together, it only shows that there's that much support behind it. It just shows what craft beer can do from a people, community-relationship standpoint. It's not about driving Grand Rapids out of business but to show we both make awesome beer and have great beer people.”The union representing government employees in Ontario is concerned by reports that the province is looking at selling beer and wine in large grocery stores.
A Toronto Star report says the Liberals plan to introduce the grocery store policy in their spring budget, but the government wouldn’t confirm it.
Warren Thomas, the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, says the move is "troubling in four ways.
"The first is economic," he said in a statement Friday. "The LCBO brings nearly two billion dollars into the provincial treasury every year. The government is facing hard economic times and is searching everywhere for new sources of revenue. Why would it want to share its liquor profits?"
Public safety is another concern, he said.
"Staff at the Beer Stores and the LCBO are trained in the safe and responsible sale and handling of alcohol, and have product knowledge to share. The same will not be true for staff of grocery stores – and some grocery store employees are too young to legally sell and handle alcohol at all."
Thomas also feels that making alcohol more readily available "will contribute to more violence in the province, particularly violence against women. We know alcohol contributes to violence, and this makes us question Premier Kathleen Wynne’s commitment to making women in this province safer."
Thomas pointed out that the wines sold in grocery stores "will not be premium vintages, making them more attractive and more available to people whose incomes are already marginal. This is a truly anti-social move, coming at a time when the government maintains tax breaks for big business."
Brad Duguid, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure, disagrees.
“Our lifestyles are very fast-paced these days,” Duguid said Friday. “There’s a lot of demands on my time as a minister and I do every week have to pick up a case of beer. If I can do it more conveniently I would probably welcome that opportunity.”
Several concerns would need to be addressed before the government would proceed with any major change to the alcohol retail system, but there is “great enthusiasm” within the government for Clark’s ideas, he said.
— with files from Antonella ArtusoThe conventional wisdom of our health professionals is that a calorie is a calorie. "From a purely thermodynamic point of view, this is clear because the human body or, indeed, any living organism cannot create or destroy energy but can only convert energy from one form to another."
That's what Andrea C. Buchholz and Dale A. Schoeller from the Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison wrote and the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published three years ago.
But it's not true. It depends on what you eat.
Most of us with type 2 diabetes want to lose weight. On a typical high-carbohydrate diet the establishment tells us that we should eat even less fat. That seemed to make sense because each gram of fat has 9 calories, more than twice as much as the four calories that each gram of carbohydrate or protein has.
As we all know, that's a tough path to descend.
On the other hand, our body's chemistry is radically different on a low-carb diet. A calorie from one source doesn't act like one from another source.
Dr. Richard K. Bernstein learned this experimentally. The leading exponent of a low-carb diet for people with diabetes and the author of Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution (third edition, 2007), Dr. Bernstein answered 50 questions in his telecast last week.
This was the question and answer that interested me the most:
Q. What's the best way to prevent weight loss without increasing the carbo, increasing the fat or protein or both?
A. This reminds me of an experiment that I did many years ago when I had patients on a low carbo diet, all of whom were taking insulin and they all wanted to gain weight. So I gave them extra fat in the form of olive oil to the tune of a shot glass in the morning and a shot glass in the afternoon. This was 3 ounces of extra calories, which boiled down to 900 extra calories a day. Over the course of 6 months not one of four patients gained a pound. So giving fat on a low carbo diet will not make you fat. You will metabolize it. It's been proven subsequently. On a low carbo diet you metabolize your fat, rather than store it.
Unlike Dr. Bernstein's questioner and the four patients in his experiment, I would like to lose a few more pounds, not prevent weight loss or gain weight. But I am now following a low-carb diet. Since I don't have all those carbs in my diet like I used to have, can I really eat a lot more fat and still lose weight?
So far, it looks like I can. I have liberalized my fat intake with no weight gain and possibly some weight loss.
Then I wrote Dr. Bernstein. The way it works, he suggested, was through "insulin sensitive lipase." Googling that term, I found his explanation online:
The beta oxidation (or "burning") of fat by the body requires the action of an enzyme called insulin-sensitive lipase. This enzyme is turned off by insulin. Eating carbohydrate obliges the body of a nondiabetic to make insulin in proportion to the amount consumed and obliges many diabetics to inject insulin to prevent blood sugar elevation. When insulin levels go up, fat oxidation therefore goes down, and since insulin is also the fat-storage hormone, dietary fat is stored. Furthermore, insulin signals the liver to convert the carbon backbone of carbohydrates (glucose) to saturated fat, which then appears in the blood as triglycerides, which are subsequently stored. So calories of fat are handled much differently on a low-carbohydrate diet than on a high-carbohydrate diet. Recent studies on humans eating equivalent amounts of fat show that those eating more carbs store more fat.
But that raised another question. What recent study was Dr. Bernstein referring to that showed that people eating more carbs store more fat?
First, he provided some background on his experiment with the four people he gave 900 extra calories of olive oil a day.
"When I was treating them with olive oil there was a problem of taste," Dr. Bernstein told me. "What I ended up with that everyone liked was Myers's dark rum. Why did I pick that? Because I knew alcohol was miscible with oil and was more likely to disguise the flavor. Everyone liked it.
"So we had these people doing this for six months. I couldn't understand how we got that miraculous result. 900 extra calories a day. No effect on weight.
"I called the head of biochemistry at my medical school who was a friend of mine and who specailized in carbohydrate and fat metabolism. He had no idea, which sort of surprised me, and he asked arround all his buddies in that field. No one had any idea."
Then, Dr. Bernstein saw an article in a professional journal. "And when he read that, he said to himself, "'Ah, of course' It's lipoprotein-lipase, also called insulin-sensitive lipase. These enzymes gets turned off by insulin. So if you have high insulin levels you cannot break down fat. Furthermore, we know that insulin is the major fat-building hormone. You can only build it and you can't break it down if you are on a high carbo diet."
Unfortunately, Dr. Bernstein didn't remember just where or when he read that study. So he asked me to search a few years' worth of Diabetes and Diabetes Care. "I need that article so badly for so many arguments," he told me.
Being able to help someone who has done so much for people with diabetes as well as to learn something for this article was enough to activate my research gene. Working together, we found the article today.
The April 2000 issue of Diabetes contained the article, "Increase in Fat Oxidation on a High-Fat Diet Is Accompanied by an Increase in Triglyceride-Derived Fatty Acid Oxidation" by Patrick Schrauwen and four of his colleagues.
The Diabetes study investigated the mechanism behind the oxidation - rather than the storage - of fat on a high-fat diet. It suggested that insulin might play a role. But, they concluded, "The mechanism behind the increase in fat oxidation on a high-fat diet is unknown."
Now, seven years later, thanks to the work of Dr. Bernstein and of Gary Taubes we know that the mechanism is lipoprotein-lipase, which works to oxidize our dietary fat, except when our insulin levels are high.
In his important new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes explains how lipoprotein-lipase works. Any cell that uses fatty acids for fuel or stores fatty acids uses it. When a triglyceride-rich lipoprotein passes by in the circulation, the lipoprotein-lipase will grab on, and then break down the triglycerides inside into their component fatty acids. This increases the local concentration of free fatty acids, which flow into the cells, either to be fixed as triglycerides if these cells are fat cells, or oxidized for fuel if they're not.
What's the primary regulator of lipoprotein-lipase activity? It's insulin. In fat tissue, insulin increases lipoprotein-lipase activity, while in muscle tissue, it decreases activity. As a result, when insulin is secreted, fat is deposited in the fat tissue, and the muscles have to burn glucose for energy. When insulin levels drop, the lipoprotein-lipase activity on the fat cells decreases and the lipoprotein-lipase activity on the muscle cells increases. The fat cells release fatty acids, and the muscle cells take them up and burn them.
There's still another way of looking at the carb problem, which seems to me to be an especially damning conclusion. "As long as we respond to the carbohydrates by secreting more insulin," Taubes writes, "we continue to remove nutrients from our bloodstream in expectation of the arrival of more, so we remain hungry, or at least absent any feeling of satiation. It's not so much that fat fills us up as that carbohydrates prevent satiety, and so we remain hungry."
Now that I understand both the theory and practice of eating a low-carb diet, I relish the freedom that it gives me to eat the fats I love. Will the last 10 pounds that I want to lose just melt away? I will let you know here.True Blood star Rutina Wesley has joined the cast of The Walking Dead, a report suggests.
She will play the character of Michonne in the zombie drama's second season finale, according to Hollywood Hills.
A fan favourite from the original Walking Dead comic, Michonne has a mysterious past and fights off flesh-eating walkers with a katana.
Wesley is best known for playing Tara on True Blood and will next be seen in Ridley Scott's sci-fi blockbuster Prometheus.
Her casting on The Walking Dead is yet to be confirmed by AMC or other official sources.
Series creator Robert Kirkman recently revealed that new characters will join the show in the near future.
Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl Dixon, has also promised that future episodes will be "more action packed".
The Walking Dead will return in early 2012 to AMC in the US and FX in the UK.
> The Walking Dead named top-rated cable drama
Watch a preview for the return of The Walking Dead below:Rosario Dawson recently confirmed to Den of Geek that she will be in Kevin Smith's upcoming "Clerks 3".
Smith intends to return to the Quick Stop for a third time and plans to have the picture out by November this year for the twentieth anniversary of the first flick. According to the interview Smith recently confirmed with Dawson that she will reprise the role of Becky.
Presumably Dante and Randall will return (it can't very well be "Clerks" without them) and Smith has previously stated that he's written Elias into the story and has shared the script with Trevor Fehrman, the actor who played that character.
This is no real surprise, Smith is known for bringing characters and actors back even just for cameos. "Clerks 2" saw the gang leave Mooby's and return to the Quick Stop as the new owners so presumably Dawson will pick up with the boys there.
Once upon a time Smith indicated that "Clerks 3" would be his final film, effectively opening and closing his career in the same place. Smith has threatened us with retiring before and I hope he never follows through. With "Tusk" on the horizon and "Clerks 3" just beyond it he doesn't seem to be slowing down right now. In a recent episode of his podcast Smodcast, Smith indicated that he may never retire, but instead he remarked saying from now on "I'll only make movies that only I could make".
Dawson had no news otherwise regarding the production. When asked if the movie would make it's planned November release date she stated "Well, we haven’t shot it, so I don’t know if that’s possible."
Smith has also recently stated he's working on a script for a movie tentatively called "Holy Christ" about a vengeful returned Messiah. Smith is dream casting Russell Brand as the malevolent deity and seemed to think there would be no problem making that happen.
Both "Tusk" and "Holy Christ" are based on conversations Smith had on his Smodcast podcast. It seems at this point Smith is interested most in having a good time with those close to him and if a movie is born out of it so be it. It feels organic and unhindered by the expectations that haunted his earlier career. I'm excited to see what he does with this new freedom.
So welcome back Dawson, welcome back Anderson and O' Halloran, welcome back Fehrman, welcome back Smith and Mewes. Welcome back one and all.
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Tags: Rosario Dawson, Keven Smith, Clerks 3One of the overlooked aspects of the Democratic party’s reliance on identity politics is that sometimes those aggrieved demographic segments squabble with each other. Such is the case with the much celebrated “women’s” marches over the weekend which are being blasted for get this – a lack of diversity.
Never mind that that the crowds as the anti-Trump tantrums were almost overwhelmingly white, it is the transgenders who are offended over the heavy emphasis on pussy and pussies that was the overriding theme of the protests.
According to a story from the website Heat Street “People Are Calling the Woman’s Marches Transphobic Because of All the References to P**sy”:
The women’s march was by almost all indicators a success. Hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully in cities across the country, numbers that far exceeded expected turnout. But there are some on the left who think the entire motif of the march was transphobic. Since many women wore “pussy” hats and many of the signs at the protest referenced pussies, some believe this promoted “cisnormativity,” or the idea that women are supposed to have vaginas. Connecting the concepts of vaginas and women excludes trans women who do not have vaginas.
Talk about a bitch fit.
The best, nastiest protest signs from the Women’s March on Washington: https://t.co/Zps5J3uwem pic.twitter.com/22DYvUdh7h — Slate (@Slate) January 21, 2017
From 'Hope not Hate' to 'Ovaries of Steel,' here are 10 of best signs from the Women's March in Toronto https://t.co/pO0RO42zhm #womensmarch — Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) January 21, 2017
these signs are so important and speak volumes #womensmarch pic.twitter.com/YkO7bK1Ncp — nadia (@jamespxtns) January 21, 2017
This |
a terrible form of oppression. If we declared ourselves “death neutral,” would that make it so?
— Mona Charen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. © 2014 Creators Syndicate, Inc.Because I frequently wake up at a depressingly early hour I sometimes wind up catching the replays of late night cable news hosts. That was the case today, and when I first tuned in I became concerned that some sort of constitutional crisis was engulfing the nation. Something had happened involving Donald Trump and he had disappeared. Oh no! What could it be?
As it turns out, Trump’s traveling press corps had been given the full lid signal last night as the President Elect settled in at Trump Tower. After they cleared out, the First Family in waiting decided to go out for a steak dinner at a nearby eatery. Yes, this was the crisis of the day. (The Hill)
Donald Trump left Trump Tower without his press pool on Tuesday to have dinner with his family, according to reporters. The president-elect reportedly received a standing ovation and cheers upon arriving at 21 Club, a New York City restaurant, an hour after his spokeswoman had called a “lid,” signaling to the reporters following him that he was in for the night. Spokeswoman Hope Hicks said she “wasn’t aware of this movement,” adding she wouldn’t do anything to “leave the press in the dark.”
So Trump ate dinner with his wife and children. Now, you might be wondering why this is so awful. (I know I certainly was.) It’s apparently a terrible violation of protocol, you see. No… I didn’t make that one up myself. It’s a quote from Sam Stein.
So Trump ditched his press pool tonight to grab a steak dinner– a terrible violation of protocol that his defenders will probably cheer — Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) November 16, 2016
The breathless diatribe I referred to at the top came from none other than Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, who introduced her brief coverage of this event by describing the story as, “really, really important.”
It is a matter of tradition, a matter of security, a matter of national interest that you don’t go dark… you don’t get to be a private person anymore. People get to know where you are at all times… You may resent that you’re not allowed to have a private life anymore, but it’s a matter of national security and national interest… You really don’t get to just go anywhere you want. It’s too important to the country.
Here’s the first thing to know about this. There is no law that says the press pool has to follow the President (or President Elect) at all times. It is, as Maddow grudgingly admits, “a tradition.” And the reason that it’s a “tradition” is because that’s how the press wants it. It’s particularly curious how she keeps repeating that it’s a matter of “national security.” Excuse me? Are the reporters all packing heat and prepared to take down any bad guys who show up? This would be a bigger story if Trump had given his Secret Service detail the slip, but apparently they were along for the ride.
Given Trump’s rather rocky relationship with the media (to say the least) and the treatment he’s received from most of them thus far, is anyone really surprised? Ultimately Donald Trump wound up having dinner with his wife and several of his children. If he had remained inside of Trump Tower he could have done the same thing and the press would not have been invited into the dining room to cover it. Add to that the ongoing protests by sore losers and this is fairly easy to understand. As soon as the reporters began broadcasting Trump’s plans and choice of restaurant the crowd probably would have shown up to hurl bottles and shut the place down. This, of course, is precisely what most of those same reporters would like to see because it would provide them with more B roll footage to continue the narrative of how “unpopular” he is and what a mistake the nation has made.
Do you really blame him for ditching them? And for the record, Trump’s spokesperson said she wasn’t told of the plans either, so if anyone ditched the press intentionally it was Trump himself. Somehow I think the republic will survive this terrible tragedy.Seattle becomes the second major U.S. city to regulate how large retailers and food-service employers schedule their workers.
The Seattle City Council unanimously passed a “secure scheduling” law on Monday, making Seattle the second major U.S. city to regulate how large retailers and food-service employers schedule their workers.
Approval was expected, as the draft bill had passed out of committee last week with the five council members present all voting for it. The five represent a majority on the nine-member council.
The move again places Seattle at the forefront of a national movement on workers’ issues after the city passed, in 2014, a bill to gradually increase the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour.
Now, there’s a push by labor advocates for scheduling laws. San Francisco was the first major city to pass, in 2014, a scheduling law covering chain stores and eateries. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio earlier this month said he intends to introduce legislation regulating scheduling practices at fast-food restaurants.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, who has supported the scheduling effort all along, has indicated he would sign the legislation, likely this week or next.
“Seattle once again is taking concrete steps to address income inequality,” Murray said in a statement Monday after the council vote. “Secure scheduling helps working families, young people, students, and workers of color by providing stability and clarity to their work schedule.”
Councilmember M. Lorena González, one of the council members who spearheaded the effort, said: “We are shifting the power to workers.”
Cheers erupted after the vote tally, with many in the audience waving “Our Time Counts” signs.
Sejal Parikh, executive director of labor-backed Working Washington, which has pushed for the scheduling law, said of its passage: “We’re really excited. This is a piece of policy that workers have needed for decades.”
The response from the business community was far more muted.
The Washington Retail Association said it would not be commenting Monday. The association has opposed the scheduling law, saying it would lead to reduced work hours and less flexibility for retail employees.
Meadow Johnson, senior vice president of external relations at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, said: “The city’s survey showed that many hourly employees in Seattle are already satisfied with how their employers handle scheduling, so we will continue to work closely with our members to ensure that the rules do not negatively impact the flexibility their employees value.”
The law is expected to take effect in July and will apply to large retailers and quick-serve food and drink establishments with 500 or more workers, and to full-service restaurants with both 500 or more employees and 40 or more locations.
Backers say the law will protect employees from erratic and variable work schedules and from not getting enough work hours.
Employers would be required to give good-faith estimates of hours an employee can expect to work upon hiring, post work schedules two weeks in advance, provide at least 10 hours rest between opening and closing shifts, give available hours to existing part-time employees before hiring new workers, and pay additional “predictability pay” when employers make changes to the posted schedule.
The measure also requires employers to keep records for three years, documenting everything from responses to employee requests for schedule changes to good-faith estimates of the number of hours an employee could expect to work.
Unionized workers could negotiate an alternative for secure scheduling through collective bargaining.
Labor groups, which have pushed for the law, have spoken out heavily in favor of it.
Retail and business groups have been largely against it.
Councilmembers González and Lisa Herbold, as well as the mayor’s office, have spearheaded the effort, which has spanned some seven months and involved “stakeholders” groups representing workers and businesses, with those two groups meeting separately.
Herbold said in remarks before the vote that employers’ scheduling practices, geared toward controlling labor costs, disproportionately affect people of color, single mothers and especially women of color in the city.
González had said in a news conference before the meeting that “the promise of a $15 minium wage falls flat when you’re unable to work more than 10 hours a week … and when you’re unable to know how many hours you’re going to work next week.”
Employers found to have violated the law would be assessed civil penalties, starting with $500 per aggrieved worker for the first violation. The amount goes up for subsequent violations.
Enforcement of the law would fall to the city’s Office of Labor Standards, which currently has four investigators.
The mayor’s office has said it would push for more investigators during the budget process this fall.It sounds like a drunken slur you mumble to your pals after a night out on the town, but William Shatner—who pronounces it precisely like that—assures us that Gishwhes (the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) is so much more.
“It’s a terrific game with good-natured competition,” Shatner says from his nondescript office off Ventura Boulevard as he pulls on and off a Union Civil War soldier’s outfit, complete with sword, for item number 115 in the weeklong annual hunt. “Social media elects people—it makes them popular, it destroys them, it makes them killers, it makes them religious. It spans every aspect of human behavior. With this, we raise money for charity.”
Gishwhes was invented by Supernatural’s Misha Collins four years ago because, among other things, he has a fond memory of his car being stolen during “Scav Week” at the University of Chicago in order to smuggle sheep across state lines. “It was awesome,” he tells VF.com over the phone from the Supernatural set. It’s now a worldwide scavenger hunt joined by over 20,000 people from over 100 countries each year, and boasts multiple Guinness world records, including the longest safety-pin chain and the largest online photo album of hugs. The goal of the whole game lies somewhere between “do good” and “be funny.” The other M.O. is to activate all of the participants to donate food and volunteer at food banks, give blood, become bone-marrow donors, and generally do good. (All proceeds from registration fees after paying operating expenses go to the charity Random Acts.)
“For at least one week,” Collins explains, “this shatters the routine of ordinary life. Everyone who participates and everyone who comes across the participants are shaken out of the mundane for a moment. It’s nice to be a part of something that I hope shocks people or wakes them up into a different state of reality.”
Copyright 2015 GISHWHES
Team Shatner includes not only Chloe Dykstra from SyFy’s Heroes of Cosplay and Jonathan Scott from HGTV’s Property Brothers, but also an architecture student from Iran, a Geekdom blogger from Florida, and an astronaut. The point of Gishwhes isn’t to get a photo op with Hillary Clinton, although that is number 45 on the items list; it’s to go out and perform acts of kindness, and have fun while doing it.
For Shatner and Collins it was love at first tweet. The two have been chirping back and forth over the last few years, and when the two finally met in person before last year’s hunt, Shatner was sold on the game. His team came in second, and he seems pretty determined to win it this year. (The rules state that if a “celebrity” team wins, the runner-up team gets the grand prize as well—that is, an adventurous trip to an exotic locale with Collins.)
“There’s this subterranean flow going on [below the surface of Gishwhes],” explains Shatner, finished with his Civil War uniform, one of the milder items of the challenge. “See, I [solicit money] all the time for charities.” (His favorite is the Hollywood Charity Horse Show.) “It usually becomes a burden to the person you’re asking. It’s a tough job. And here, the generosity is against the blackness of social media and how terrible it can be sometimes.”
The dark side, indeed, or at least some gray area—while Shatner was tweeting to Justin Bieber in hopes of some Gishwhes love, Mashable got in on the fray and misunderstood it as a teen-girl-like obsession with the pop star. No press is bad press when it comes to Captain Kirk, though. Shatner claims the exchange almost led them to getting a Kardashian on board.
Gishwes wrapped up this past weekend, and the judging process is under way. #TeamShatner supporters will find out if the Captain took home the big prize in a few weeks.March 8, 2017
— SpaceX's announcement that it plans to launch two private passengers on a flight around the moon evoked comparisons to Apollo 8, NASA's December 1968 mission that sent the first astronauts into lunar orbit.
Targeted to fly in late 2018, SpaceX's moon-bound clients would carry the "hopes and dreams of all humankind," said the spaceflight company, "like the Apollo astronauts before them." SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft could lift off in time for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 8, serving as a fitting tribute to that mission's historic achievement.
Or maybe not.
"No, not really," said Jim Lovell, who flew on Apollo 8 with Frank Borman and Bill Anders. "If I understand the project correctly, this is going to be a fully-automated spacecraft. We have sent many unmanned, robotic spacecraft around the moon already."
SpaceX plans to launch a privately-crewed Dragon spacecraft on a mission to circle the moon by the end of 2018. (SpaceX)
On the first flight to the moon, Lovell and his Apollo 8 crew mates were kept busy operating and flying the spacecraft.
"On Apollo 8, of course, as the initial flight, there was a lot of stuff [to do]; we were navigating," described Lovell in an interview. "It appears to me that they won't have to bother navigating. It will be done just as we have sent unmanned spacecraft to the moon."
"Two people are going to sit in there [the Dragon], they're going to be launched, they're going to go out, they're going to circumnavigate, they will be on a free-return course and they will come back and land," Lovell told collectSPACE on Tuesday (March 7). "I hope they take a camera."
That is, unless things go wrong.
"If it is Apollo 13, and not Apollo 8, they'll have a problem," Lovell said. "It will be a big setback for SpaceX. That is the risk they are taking."
SpaceX intends the lunar mission to build off the success of its autonomous Dragon cargo flights to the International Space Station that began in 2012. Further, it does not plan to launch to the moon until it begins its contracted flights to send NASA astronauts to the space station, now targeted for mid-2018.
"We are confident this will be a good vehicle to fly on," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in a Feb. 27 call with reporters.
Lovell, who after Apollo 8 commanded the near-disastrous Apollo 13, said SpaceX's mission will be worth the risk — for the passengers.
"It was for me," he said. "If there are people who like to live on the edge, and certainly the astronauts during the Apollo period had that type of personality, it will be well worth it. If they've money to give to SpaceX to go do that, well, yes [it will be worth the risk]."
Jim Lovell reads the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper proclaiming "Astronauts Safe!" after he and his Apollo 13 crew mates returned to Earth, surviving an explosion on the way to the moon. (NASA)
The lunar mission, which SpaceX said will travel faster and further than any mission of its type before, will not be in the same category as Apollo 8, Lovell said.
"They're not accomplishing anything. They're not pioneers. It is not a Lewis and Clark expedition of some sort, it is just a ride that goes around the moon," said the veteran Apollo astronaut. "They will see something that has been looked at before by other people and in photographs."
But that is not to say that SpaceX's moon mission will only be about what can be seen out the window, Lovell noted.
"You have to remember, it's not just the view. It is also the experience. It's the fact that they will come back and at the next cocktail party, they will be the center of attention," he said. "It is the fact that they will have done something that only a few other people have ever done."
"So I am sure even if they were blindfolded, they would go. That is the attraction and that is where SpaceX may find a viable business," said Lovell.
"Earthrise," as first seen from Apollo 8 in December 1968. (NASA)
Lovell is glad that SpaceX and other companies like it are starting to turn their attention to the moon — in addition to other lunar-focused efforts underway at NASA.
"I think we have barely scratched the surface of the moon with the six Apollo landings," Lovell said. "I think that since the moon is there, 240,000 miles away [386,000 km], and we have the technology, let's concentrate on learning more about the moon and making travel to the moon, and back again, sort of a routine thing, so we're very confident in the architecture, infrastructure we have to do the job. And then expand on that."
That being said, Lovell won't be signing up — or accepting any invitations — for a return trip to the moon.
"Why should I? I've been there twice," he said.COLUMBUS, Ohio - Secretary of State Jon Husted said cyber attackers would have a hard time disrupting Ohio's elections but expressed concern about what the federal government could do if it took over the state's election computer systems.
Husted, the state's chief elections officer, wrote to congressional leaders Thursday asking that the House and Senate make clear that federal agencies cannot involve themselves in the election process.
You can read the letter below. Mobile users click here.
What prompted the letter?
The letter was prompted by comments from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson that his department would review whether state election systems should be considered as "critical infrastructure" under the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Such a designation would give the federal government ability to step in to protect those systems.
While Johnson has since made clear that the government intends only to study the issue, Husted said that his fear is that at some point, if the law is not clarified, the federal government might act.
"If you designate it as a critical infrastructure and take control of it, that is essentially taking control of the election," Husted said. "I've had enough experience with federal government, federal regulations and the federal courts to know that unless you clearly state [that election systems are off limits] in the law you could see it someday."
What stirred up the issue?
Johnson's remarks followed revelations that hackers had targeted voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona.
The FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state, The Washington Post reported. The state shut down the voter registration system for a week. Ultimately, the system was not compromised but the username and password of one county election employee was stolen.
In July, Illinois officials discovered someone had hacked into their election system. Federal officials said it was the first successful compromise of a state registration database, although hackers did not alter any data.
Husted said Thursday that his belief, based on conversations with federal officials and security experts, is that the cases were attempts to steal voter identities.
Ohio's voter registration database also is online. Husted said his staff has worked with Homeland Security, the FBI and others to try to identify vulnerabilities and bolster security.
"This can only limit threats," Husted said. "I'm not going to suggest that it will eliminate every threat."
How secure are Ohio's voting systems?
While the registration system could someday be a target, Husted is confident that the election system is secure.
"Voting equipment in Ohio is not in any way connected to the Internet," he said. And while computers are used as part of the voting process, there are backups. About 70 percent of the ballots cast this November will be paper ballots that get scanned into a computer. Others are touch-screen voting systems that produce backups.
"One of the benefits of our system is essentially that it is decentralized," Husted said. "There is not one state system. There are 88 county systems that help create the state system."
Follow me on Facebook.LTC prices are back down to near $64.31 and the culprit is quite obvious: reduced trading from South Korean exchanges. That was the pivotal piece of Litecoin news this week (because China’s crackdown on initial coin offerings applies more to decentralized application blockchains like Ethereum).
We wrote in our previous Litecoin price forecast that heightened trading volume from Korean exchanges was powering the LTC boom. We also said that sustained volume would be required in order for LTC prices to continue their skyward climb.
However, that did not happen. Korean traders cooled on LTC tokens, leading Bithumb—the biggest Korean exchange—to drop to second on the list of most active Litecoin exchanges.
As of writing, the most active exchange is OKCoin.cn. It is a Chinese exchange that makes up 22.5% of total volume.
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The dropoff in Korean interest caused LTC prices to fall roughly 3.92% against the U.S. dollar and about 3.05% against Bitcoin. Can this trend correct in the coming week? It depends.
Litecoin is widely considered “the silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” meaning that its fortunes are tied to the cryptocurrency frontrunner. On the whole, that relationship should bode well for Litecoin, because it means that it will serve in commercial purposes while Bitcoin acts as a store of value.
However, if Bitcoin is able to manifest a working micropayments system, it could usurp Litecoin’s place in commercial operations. That risk is the disaster scenario for Litecoin prices.
Analyst Take:
Thankfully for LTC investors, its disaster scenario is nowhere close to coming true. Litecoin is one step ahead of Bitcoin with its early implementation of SegWit and the “Lightning Network.”
It would take an eleventh-hour miracle for Bitcoin to close the gap. Since that possibility is minuscule, we should consider that LTC will indeed reach our 2018 Litecoin price forecast of $200.00.
Also Read: Litecoin Price Prediction 2018: Is Litecoin Potential Higher Than Current Counterparts?Blind Spot
The subject at hand is a bit hard to articulate. Hard to articulate because it is counterintuitive. Counterintuitive because, against all our struggle loosing from the traps of liberal supremacy, we still find it hard not to believe they understand what they mean, that they have thought things through fully. That they know well of what they speak. After all aren’t they the inheritors of the Enlightenment? Isn’t what they hold held in the pure light of reason, having rebelled against the superstitions of faith? Truth is they seldom have reasoned justification, but their confidence throws our attention, protecting the content of their positions from scrutiny. Sure we can easily disprove their arguments at their conclusion manifested in failed policy; the reductio ad absurdum of social practice. But pointing out these failures will only appeal to the pragmatic mind. The Left does not insist on success to confirm the veracity of their positions. Their success is not necessary to confirm righteousness; right action rooted in right intent. They are content with 10% success and happy to blame the moral lethargy of the greater society for the lack of the remaining 90 –the rub being that 100% of society is transformed to affect these meager successes. Yet this very disposition reveals the slippery moral premise at the heart of their confidence. We will attempt to tie this serpent down and poke a stick into it.
It has been said elsewhere that the Left functions as a cult. It is not really interested in reason, or in liberal discourse, though it claims both of these virtues to itself. In truth it wants no part of conversing with opponents, and simply quarantines enemies. Labeling satanic anything it considers authoritarian or that insists on bringing the conversation back to nagging facts. Facts set limits to utopian vision. And Progs must not let anything set limits to the progressive gospel of liberating all marginal people and giving each a place in the sun at the centre of society. As written above, it enacts this mission with single-minded zeal; without a shred of doubt in the necessity of the endeavour. Progs act to elevate the marginalized, simultaneously destroying ‘systems of oppression’ in conviction to the moral obviousness of these efforts which would make a medieval pope blush. Victims of Prog objectives are themselves oppressors. Because the revolutionary’s intent to abolish victimhood is from a pure heart, error is impossible. If people are hurt, it is from their own selfishness or lack of commitment to the overarching precepts of Social Justice Warrior Brand™ social justice. The theoretical causes of the victimization they put forward for any oppressed group or individual are necessarily the true causes because as liberators they alone can make plain the tangled web of oppression. Because of the purity of their hearts and the righteous intent of their will they are above question the best, yeah the only judges of how society functions and how it will be educated into a social paradise if only stubborn reactionaries would not be so selfish, hanging onto their mean old ideas. “Praise the void though,’ We shall overcome’.”
That sums up the disposition fairly well. But we are left with a great uncertainty, what is the source of this conviction? What is its ground? It is at once present, and elusive. Obvious, yet unnamed. Personally I have smacked up against it as if against a wall. And though it gave a concussion, I could not quite tell what it was constructed from. It may well be that it is made of nothing –nothing tangible or provable. That is it is not built from data or sound reason, certainly nothing as stolid as tradition, but is constructed purely from will. Yet, not a positive will, that is, not a position. Rather an opposition. In opposition to the past, in opposition to nature [A], authority, God and anything that came before it started reinventing the world last week. But as it is not based on proof it is based entirely on faith. Progs cannot recognize this though. They are incapable of faith, or so they flatter themselves. Belief is for God people, and there is no God. This lack of belief has set them free from all the categories that Theists were and are subject to. Removing God from consideration grants the Secular Progressive infallible insight into the personal and social condition of the human community. This single act of intellect also imbues the Prog Brahman with creative insight into the best design for society and how to best advise all and everyone on how to live the most fulfilling life. They are really quite something.
The funny thing is denying the efficacy of the category ‘God’ does not logically grant any special power. For if God does not exist then God never existed. God never had influence. So whatever the God-believing people were doing before was not affected by God. They were just doing what people do, while attributing ‘God’ as the source of their political and social will. It is difficult to imagine a non-superstitious reading that would support the notion that merely believing in a non-existent God (in a world where no Gods exists) could radically alter the believer’s categories of perception. `God`is merely shorthand for macro social-psychological principles. More so, it is impossible to understand why denying God’s existence, in such a world, should grant the denier any special powers of perception de facto. In a world without God there is no metaphysical advantage in either believing or denying the existence of God. That is, simply denying the existence or efficacy of God cannot invoke the strong moral confidence of the contemporary Secular Progressive. This confidence is in truth a conceit; an unproven merit. Logic and reason from evidence is all any Western school of thought has to make its case.
I hope it is clear that this is not an argument for the existence of God. It is rather a start of a consideration into the roots of Progressive chauvinism. This societal transfer to non-belief provides a kind of origin myth for secularists, and as with all faith systems it imbues the holder with special powers of insight and social organization. Yet, these people are utterly blind to their state of belief. There is nothing in Secular Atheism or Agnosticism that makes the holder immune from the same pitfalls that Theists and believers of any kind have. Ask them, though, to see things this way and they will rail against the challenge to the untarnished superlatively of their perceptions as tenaciously as any fundamentalist. But unlike the most fundie of fundies, they are unaware of their faith as faith. This is the most dangerously myopic disposition of Leftists; they are utterly blind to their own subjectivity; uncomprehending that they are really doing nothing new in the world. But in denying this fact, they act with more violent self-assurance than the most believing believers.
[A] I once had dedicated Progressive friend tell me quite proudly that, “We now do things that are against nature”.
Image: Cultural Marxism #2, digital collage, by William ScottAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD reported non-GAAP earnings of 10 cents per share compared with 3 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. The figure also surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 8 cents per share.
Revenues increased 26% year over year and 34% sequentially to $1.64 billion and exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.51 billion. The quarterly revenue figure was also the highest since 2011, primarily driven by robust performance of the company's product portfolio comprising Ryzen, EPYC and Radeon Vega.
Segments
Advanced Micro has two reportable segments - Computing and Graphics (focused on the traditional PC market) and Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom (focusing on adjacent high-growth opportunities).
Computing and Graphics
Computing and Graphics segment revenues witnessed year-over-year increase of 74% to $890 million. The growth was backed by accelerated sales of Radeon graphics and Ryzen desktop processors.
Operating income for this segment was $70 million against a loss of $66 million in third-quarter 2016, primarily driven by higher revenues.
Client computing revenues recorded strong double-digit growth from the year-ago quarter driven by solid demand for the expanded Ryzen processor family in the desktop market. Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 processors constitute around 40% to 50% of the desktop market share. Additionally, the accelerated ramp up of shipments by OEM customers prior to the holiday season has increased adoption as well.
Ryzen 3 processor has expanded the company's foothold in the mainstream segment. Moreover, Ryzen Threadripper processors have enabled AMD to re-enter the high end desktop market. Notably, the company's Ryzen PRO-based offerings have already been adopted by prominent commercial PC providers including Dell, Lenovo, and HP.
The company achieved record Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) revenues on the back of improved average selling price (ASP) and higher unit shipments compared with the year-ago quarter.
The company's release of Vega-based GPUs and increasing demand for its Polaris products in both gaming and blockchain industries led to improved revenues. Launched during the quarter, Radeon RX Vega family of GPUs aimed at gaming enthusiasts has performed better than previous Radeon GPUs.
Additionally, AMD started the shipment of Radeon Instinct MI25 to major cloud data center customers and Radeon Pro WX 9100 graphics cards to the high-end content creation market during the quarter.
Notably, the company entered into a partnership with Baidu during the quarter to focus on "optimizing" software for AMD's Radeon Instinct GPUs in Baidu datacenters. Moreover, Amazon AMZN Web Services announced that it is powering Amazon AppStream 2.0 with AMD Radeon Pro technology, aimed at driving cloud delivery of virtual applications.
Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom
Segment revenues amounted to $824 million, almost flat year over year but up 46% sequentially. However, higher costs brought down operating income for the segment from $136 million to $84 million for the quarter.
The sequential increase in revenues was based on an increase in semi-custom revenues. Management expects the trend to continue in the holiday season.
The ramping up of EPYC datacenter processors sale to cloud and OEM customers have boosted server revenues. Management remains optimistic about this product with companies like Tencent and JD.com planning to deploy the company's EPYC processors. Baidu and Microsoft also announced plans of deploying EPYC based products in their hyperscale environment, which is another positive for AMD.
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Quote
Margins
Gross margin increased 400 basis points (bps) to 35% year-on-year backed by a proper product mix in the Computing and Graphics segment and IP-related revenues. Management noted that ramping up of high performance products will continue to have a positive impact on margins.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to $191 million compared with $103 million in the year-ago quarter.
Balance Sheet & Cash Flow
AMD ended the third quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $879 million compared with $844 million in the previous quarter. Free cash flow was $32 million.
Guidance
Notably, fourth-quarter 2017 is a 13-week quarter while the year-ago quarter comprised 14 weeks.
For the fourth quarter of 2017, management expects revenues to decrease approximately 15% sequentially (+/-) 3%. At the mid-point, revenue growth is expected to be 26% on a year-over-year basis.
Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be 35% while non-GAAP operating expenses are anticipated to be around $410 million
The company expects 2017 revenues to witness a more than 20% increase, better than a mid-to-high teens percentage guided earlier.
Zacks Rank and Key Picks
AMD currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Better-ranked stocks in the broader technology space include Micron Technology, Inc. MU and NVIDIA Corporation NVDA, both sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The long-term earnings growth rate for Micron and NVIDIA is projected to be 10% and 11.2%, respectively.
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free reportTo IJE Editors I would like to thank the IJE editors for withstanding the pressure from one particularly discourteous and bullying reviewer who went to extremes to prevent our study from being published. After the paper's online publication, I have received emails from colleagues around the world who felt our contribution was useful and potentially important. One colleague informed me that the angry reviewer was the first author of the above letter to the editor. In an email, Morris had called people on his mailing list to arms against our study, openly admitting that he was the reviewer and that he had tried to get the paper rejected. To inspire his followers, Morris had attached his two exceedingly long and aggressive reviews of our paper (12858 words and 5291 words, respectively), calling for critical letters in abundance to the IJE editors. Breaking unwritten confidentiality and courtesy rules of the peer-review process, Morris distributed his slandering criticism of our study to people working for the same cause. “ ” --Morten Frisch. Author's Response to: Does sexual function survey in Denmark offer any support for male circumcision having an adverse effect?
Connection to the Gilgal Society
Morris hides his association with the 'Gilgal Society'
On the 26th of April, 2012, documents suddenly disappeared from Brian Morris's website.[25] The documents were his leaflets promoting circumcision, bearing the imprint of the Gilgal Society.[10][9][8] Recently, the head of the Gilgal Society, Vernon Quaintance, has been convicted of possessing child pornography.[12][13]
Until the 26th of April, 2012, Morris's leaflet, "Circumcision A Guide For Parents", said it was published by Brian Morris & The Gilgal Society, with the society's address and logo.[10][9] As of the 26th of April, 2012, all reference to the society are gone, along with a reference to Morris's "interest in circumcision".
Morris's leaflet for women, "Sex and Circumcision: What every woman needs to know", which boasted a long list of co-authors—a virtual roll-call of the pro-circumcison movement—was removed and later replaced by a black and white version—again, with all reference to the Gilgal Society removed. Links to the Circumcision Foundation of Australia and the circumcision fetish site Circlist have been added.
Since April 11th 2012 (the day Vernon Quaintance's court hearing was set, the Gilgal Society website has carried the message:
"We regret that as a result of major computer failure none of our publications are currently available to order from us." But Professor Morris's leaflets continue to be advertised on the site.
Morris's site continues to show a "circumcision humor" page, including a verse by Vernon Quaintance, directly under a picture of a baby with his foreskin trapped in a cellphone.[26]
Brian Morris' Websites
Original Website
Brian Morris ran a circumcision website hosted by the University of Sydney. While no longer on University of Sydney equipment, www.circinfo.net is again operational.[27] The University of Sydney asked Brian Morris not to associate his views on circumcision with his position at the university. [citation needed]
Recommended
Morris' website links to the following recommended websites and groups (8 of which are circumfetish sites, and 7 that sell devices to perform circumcisions):[28]
The Gilgal Society [29]
Circlist (German) [30]
C |
] negative teaching I never had the sense that God didn’t love me.”
In his teens he “used to call into the church on the way home from school. It was the one place where I could be myself. God knew who I was. My sense of a calling had its seeds there.”
He also realised that priesthood was “a way of doing something worthwhile without declaring orientation”. He feels he was lucky being an order priest when it came to formation. There was “none of the narrow-mindedness” he associated with the seminary in Maynooth. He and fellow students had “more freedom within the self. There was never a negative message. It was very broad-minded.”
While not spelling out issues around their own sexuality, they were encouraged to be “as open as we could be” and “to grow in relationships”. It helped too that he could read the works of contemporary moral theologians who wrote compassionately about homosexuality.
He came to realise some colleagues shared the same orientation but “very few were naming it as gay, but many were and still are, in hindsight.”
He agrees with former president Mary McAleese, who said in a Glasgow Herald interview, published last Tuesday, that significant numbers of Catholic priests are gay.
As a priest he has preached sympathetically about gay people and challenged the church’s teaching on homosexuality and its treatment of gay people. He was called in by a bishop once for doing so. In the main he has experienced no problems from the laity when he does so, apart from a few right-wing Catholics.
Running away
He believes that for some colleagues who share his orientation, becoming a priest was about “running away from sex while having a role and status in life”. Indeed, he felt that “probably a lot of men and women, gay or straight”, who became priests or nuns, “were running away from sexuality”.
But “if that is their primary reason, it is not enough unless you are willing to become comfortable with yourself”. Failure to achieve this comfort is why some clergy became “angry, short [with people], bitter”, he believes.
Accepting himself as he is has contributed positively to his sense of vocation. “I know the margins. I know the edges, the fear of rejection, insult. I know what those experiences are like. If you grow, be honest, be true; that can be positive when dealing with other people on the margins,” he says.
In 1986 in a Vatican document the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described homosexuality as “a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder”.
In November 2005 the cardinal, by then Pope Benedict XVI, introduced new regulations for seminaries whereby men who had “deep-rooted homosexual tendencies’’ may not be accepted for the priesthood.
This Irish priest found the language “awful”, even if in church circles its meaning was not quite the same. It was all “part of a huge movement back to a pre-Vatican II church,” he said. But it was “incredible”. He was “very hurt by it”. It was “an injustice, and a huge hypocrisy when it was known that many promulgating such teaching were themselves homosexual”. Many such people, he felt, had in fact themselves become “desexualised”.
Inappropriate conduct
He disagrees with Mary McAleese’s comments about Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the former leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, who resigned last year after allegations that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with junior priests.
In her Herald interview McAleese said: “I would have thought Cardinal Keith O’Brien, in telling the story of his life – if he was willing to do that – could have been of great assistance to gay people, not just in the church but elsewhere, who felt over many, many years constrained to pretend to be heterosexual while at the same time acting a different life.” She said that, like so many closet homosexuals, Cardinal O’Brien hoped to divert attention from himself by raising his voice “in the most homophobic way”.
The priest says that: “Mary McAleese has done a great service [to gay people] by saying what she has said. She loves the church, so when she says anything about the church she has to be listened to.” But he feels “a degree of sympathy” for Cardinal O’Brien.
“It is probable that he is nowhere near understanding his own story. He was very publicly exposed, with fingers pointing. It’s an awful place.” The priest was aware of colleagues who had worked with the cardinal in Edinburgh. “They found him supportive and, while conservative, he was pastorally decent. It’s sad. He is a product of the institutional church. I would not be judgmental.”
As for McAleese’s observation that the Catholic Church had been in denial over homosexuality for decades and that it was a case of “not so much the elephant in the room but a herd of elephants”, when it came to the number of homosexual priests, it is what he himself has been saying for years.
“The Catholic Church’s teaching on sexuality in general needs recasting, whether it be issues related to marriage, contraception, homosexuality, the whole range. It needs to be looked at – and not in a fearful way: through science, psychology and experience. People are more open about the subject than before. It needs to be more compassionate.”
Moral theology in the past “tried the impossible. It tried to legislate for every possible situation. But human nature is complex, and one size does not fit all. It needs renewal.”
Very hopeful
He is “very hopeful” in all of this where Pope Francis is concerned. “He is humane, kind, compassionate and gives a huge sense of being open to dialogue”. As for himself the priest is “happy where I am in my own life”.
He believes in being hopeful and recalls Oscar Wilde’s words: “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.”There’s a smorgasbord of VR games happening right now. Possibly, we are all trying to escape from this repugnant reality. Or maybe there’s just a bubble happening around VR what with all the Silicon Valley Nerds-in-Chiefs pushing their expensive headsets to the masses, encouraging lots of game makers to go and toy with the technology. Not a day goes by without the Steam early access lists filling up with more VRware, leaving me desensitised to the whole thing. Except when one of them is about downing shots in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and trying to shoot waves of the undead while your in-game vision blurs. They called it Drunk or Dead [Steam page] instead of “Dead Drunk” – the fools!Here’s what it looks like in action.
Basically, it is another stationary wave shooter, which is one of VR’s most comfortable babygenres right now. But it also makes a mechanic out of drunkenness. The more sober you are, the more accurate your shots. But the drunker you are, the more time begins to slow, and you also get more points for each kill. If you get whacked by a zed, you instantly sober up a bit, and you also need to turn around, away from the oncoming waves, to pick up your next shot. The whole thing is about balance. As the blurb points out: “If you get too drunk or too sober – you lose.”
That’s a fun idea and I like it. Simple, silly, and sozzled. It also illustrates one of VR’s major problems. Many of the best games are essentially minigames, snippets of fun that look like they can be enjoyed and used up in a couple of hours. Until the platform can produce something more than a sense of novelty, I’m staying put with my flat rectangle of moving light. But if you’re an early adoptorisator, Drunk or Dead is available for the HTC Vive and its jazz-hands peripherals.Even Randy Orton can’t believe it’s been 15 years since he shocked Hardcore Holly on SmackDown, but this week officially marked a decade-and-a-half of The Apex Predator’s legendary in-ring career. From Legend Killing to winning 13 World Championships, Orton truly has done it all in WWE, and the reigning WWE Champion isn’t slowing down anytime soon. A House of Horrors Match against Bray Wyatt looms this Sunday at WWE Payback with Jinder Mahal on the horizon at WWE Backlash. But before Orton embarks on one of the most demanding months of his career, he sat down with WWE.com to discuss the highs, lows and lessons of the 15 preceding years, from knowing who he’s here to please to his single favorite RKO ever.
WWE.COM: How does it feel to be a 15-year veteran?
RANDY ORTON: How does it feel? It feels like, “Where did the time go?” to be honest. I’ve been around a long time, and it seemed for the longest time like I was the young guy. Now, all of a sudden, I’ve got fans with beards telling me, “I used to watch you when I was a kid.” So, I don’t know what happened to all those years, man, but the little bit I do remember? It was definitely a fun ride.
WWE.COM: Looking back on your debut match, what were your hopes and expectations going into it? What did you want to leave the audience with as a first impression?
ORTON: I was only 21 or 22 when I had my first match. It was mostly just nerves. I was a good enough athlete and had been trained by good enough people that I had a good sense of what I was doing, but I didn’t have any confidence in what I was doing yet. I was still very young. You’ve got new guys here now — Kevin Owens is “new,” but he’s been wrestling for 20 years. When I was new, I was a baby and hadn’t been wrestling long at all. Grew up in the business, but had only been in the ring a few years. So, I just wanted to get from bell to bell in one piece because I knew it was with Bob Holly and he was gonna beat the [crap] out of me. But other than that? What I wanted to leave the fans with? I just wanted to have a good match and not mess anything up.
WWE.COM: Do you remember what the reaction was when you got back through the curtain?
ORTON: Oh, God. No, I don’t. [Laughs]
WWE.COM: Coming from a sports-entertainment family, did you put pressure on yourself to achieve as much as you did as early as you did?
As long as the fans were happy, I knew I'd had a good night, and it didn't really matter what anyone else thought. - Randy Orton
ORTON: The pressure was always there, but I feel like it was almost invisible to me. I had too much going on once I got rolling with Evolution and won my first title. They say the cream rises to the top, and I felt like the cream. I rose to the top real quick, and I was surrounded by Triple H, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, these guys who were very well respected in the profession, and they wanted to work with me, so I knew I was doing something right. There was never a point early on where I went, “Oh, God, they’re going to expect so much of me because my dad is who he is and my grandfather is who he is.” I never really felt that other than when I was in [then-WWE developmental organization] OVW because I didn’t know anything at all, and I was in there with other guys who were paying to train. I was being paid to learn the basics. So, that was when I felt [pressure]. But not up here.
WWE.COM: Did you ever feel like you got two different educations — one from your father and one from your time with Superstars like Triple H and Ric Flair?
ORTON: We had a bunch of people my dad used to work with, so he was kind of on the same page with his advice. But one of the things he always told me is, “The only guy you gotta make happy over there is Vince, so don’t have too many people telling you what they want to see from you because you can’t make everybody happy.” I’ve never been very tactful, but it was good to know who I’m here working for and who I need to please. And, as I grew, [it became] the fans. As long as the fans were happy, I knew I’d had a good night, and it didn’t really matter what anybody else thought.
WWE.COM: Going back to your early matches, do you ever watch them and critique yourself? Do you have a specific reaction to your debut after all this time?
ORTON: My stepsons watched it with me probably a year or two ago, and other than being a little more spry — I was obviously younger and not hurting as much — I moved a little better, but you could see the greenness and my inability to think on my feet out there. With the confidence growing throughout the years and working with different guys, now I’ve learned to go to the ring with a bare minimum [of a game plan] if the circumstances allow.
WWE.COM: You were the youngest World Heavyweight Champion of all time. What’s it like for a young man to reach that pinnacle so soon into his career?
When I was in Evolution I definitely learned... how to be one of the boys and take care of them, and how much that comes full circle when you do take care of them. It just helps for a better locker room. - Randy Orton
ORTON: Yeah, when I won the World Title at 24 and became the youngest, I knew that was huge. You ask me how I felt after that match, I’ll remember. I remember calling my grandfather and my dad on Stephanie McMahon’s phone. I teared up. I’ll never forget how I felt after that match. So many emotions. I might as well have won the World Series. That title means a lot to us. So, that first time winning it, especially making history like I did, will forever be one of the most memorable, if not the most memorable, experiences I’ve ever had here.
WWE.COM: Were you nervous that you weren’t ready to be World Champion, or were you able to tell yourself, “I’m ready for this”?
ORTON: It wasn’t an “I’m ready for this,” but it wasn’t [nervousness] either. It was a healthy in-between.
WWE.COM: You’ve been The Legend Killer, The Viper and The Apex Predator. Do you find it difficult to reinvent yourself over the years?
ORTON: Not really, because I’ve always been kind of the same guy. Whether I was The Legend Killer, The Viper, The Apex Predator, nothing’s really changed. When I look at [Superstars] who’ve had 10 different personas … it’s amazing to me. These guys are very talented that they’re able to do that. Would I be able to do that? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But I think the fact that I’ve never really had to change is a testament to what my persona is on the show. Whether you’re sick of it or love it, you know what you’re gonna get with me.
Track Randy Orton's path from his first match to 13-time World Champion in this photo gallery of The Viper's evolution.
WWE.COM: You have famously been part of a lot of groups in addition to your singles career. Was there a specific time when you felt like you learned the most?
ORTON: When I was in Evolution I definitely learned the most; I had Hunter and Ric. Those are two of the top-five ever, maybe three. Whether it was making my lockup better or locker-room etiquette. We flew into Alaska one time and there was no food, so Hunter ordered pizzas and hot dogs and the boys got to eat because he took the initiative. Learning locker-room leadership skills from these guys and learning how to be one of the boys and take care of them, and how much that comes full circle when you take care of them. It just helps for a better locker room. I learned that from them.
The fact that I've never really had to change is a testament to what my persona is on the show... whether you're sick of it or you love it, you know what you're gonna get with me. - Randy Orton
WWE.COM: With everything you’ve achieved, what do you consider to be the single greatest accomplishment of your career?
ORTON: There’s honestly not one thing. Youngest champ; I think I’ve won more Survivor Series Matches than anything else, maybe I’m tied with Ultimate Warrior; won two Royal Rumbles; won Money in the Bank; I’ve main-evented WrestleMania; I’ve wrestled in 13 WrestleManias — those are all up there. I’ve stolen the show numerous times. I’ve wrestled in Seoul, I’ve wrestled in Auckland, New Zealand. There’s not one thing, there’s a bunch of things.
WWE.COM: The RKO has taken on a life of its own within your career. As the man who performs the move, what is your single favorite RKO of all time?
ORTON: I would say probably the one with Evan Bourne. It just shows you how important timing is and I felt like the timing on that particular one was harder to achieve than any of the other ones. The one on Seth [Rollins] at WrestleMania was difficult, too. I’ve done some cool ones with Dolph [Ziggler] and Cesaro, too, and springboards in with Carlito and CM Punk. The timing is what makes that. But the hardest one, the highest-risk one to hit perfect was the Evan Bourne one, and that’d probably be why it’s my favorite.A/N: Welcome to chapter thirty two of Strawberry Thief! This one did come earlier so hurray! Now let's get moving!
I don't own Frozen or the mentioned Disney Characters, please enjoy.
"Absolutely not" Anna said as she and Elsa stood by one of the rides. It was the one that had no seatbelts and swayed back and forth, getting higher and higher with each swing until you felt like it was going to flip over and everyone would fall out. It was Elsa's suggestion, and Anna was having none of it. She would ask Amelia to back her up, but she and Fawn had decided to divide off and go check out the livestock. There would be a showing of animals today and Fawn wanted to go watch. So now it was just Anna and Elsa alone at the festival. And Elsa was eager to get on the ride.
"Elsa, this ride looks like a death trap, I'll just watch from the safety of the ground" Anna said nervously.
"It is okay, the momentum won't let you fall, and even if it did, I would just catch you" Elsa said as if it were the simplest solution in the world. And while the assurance was very strong. Anna was still a bit skeptical.
"Please Anna, it won't be fun without you" Elsa said before batting her eyes and throwing her a seductive smile. Making Anna blush and stutter,
"B-But" she said. It was the only thing she could get out at the moment. The look Elsa was giving her was very distracting.
"I won't let you fall" she promised with a silvery purr, wrapping her arms around the shorter woman's waist. And then they stared at each other, and eventually, which was about five seconds later, Anna reluctantly agreed to ride the ride with Elsa. And as they gave their tickets to the ticket collector, Anna gave Elsa's hand the vice grip. However to Elsa, it felt like a gentle squeeze,
"Be calm my love, nothing will harm you" Elsa assured before she pressed her forehead to Anna's, making her blush and nod. Funny things can happen on festival rides. You can really learn a lot about yourself. And so can everyone around you. Elsa learned that if Anna is terrified, her vocabulary becomes worse than that of an Army drill Sergeant.
Meanwhile, Fawn and Amelia were watching the cow showing. They had all sorts come out before, dairy cows, Angus, breeds of that nature. And now they had just finished the brahma cows.
"So, how is the winner determined? I was never one for FFA or 4-H in my youth" Amelia asked. Fawn, who was lazily leaning against the cold metal gates, simply shrugged.
"Not a clue, it's just fun to watch" she then snorted with a stifled giggle. Amelia raised her eyebrows in slight surprise, but her face returned to a neutral state.
"Oh check it out, they're bringing out some lambs, how cute!" Fawn cooed.
"I prefer to eat them" Amelia said with a sudden wicked grin. The much shorter woman guffawed before swatting at the captain's stomach.
"That was awful" she snorted.
"Oh yes, but it's true. Would you care to walk with me to the rabbits? They always have a lovely little bunnies you can hold" Amelia said.
"Lead the way, dear lady" Fawn said with a fake English accent, linking arms with Amelia. Then the two began to walk. Laughing more about the animals. Never breaking their arms apart.
"And so I said, well if you have a thing about dirt, why take the gloves off?" Anna said as she and Elsa stood in line for some funnel cake. Anna explained what it was, but Elsa took a major pass. Deep fried anything didn't sound very appealing. Only fruit, chocolate, and Anna made her mouth water. Suddenly a savory idea popped into her mind. Why not combine all three? Oh what a treat that would be! She loved how her mind thought gave her such naughty ideas, but yet again, it's always good to think ahead right?
"Very true" Elsa commented, but she suddenly scrunched her nose in disdain. The unpleasant concoction of human sweat, oil, and exhaust. Anna happened to glance her way and noticed how sick Elsa seemed to suddenly become. Her eyes narrowed into concern,
"Els, what's the matter?" Anna asked in concern, pulling herself and the blonde out of line.
"It's nothing important" Elsa said dismissively, however her face told a whole different story.
"Well if it wasn't important, so let's try this again, what's wrong?" Anna asked more sternly.
"Very well, do you remember how I told you that a vampire's nose is very sensitive?" Elsa questioned. Anna nodded,
"Good, because I can smell everything, the good and bad, but it's a little overwhelming" Elsa confessed. The new information made an idea pop into Anna's mind.
"Well, lucky for you, I know a place in the festival that should fix that, come on!" Anna smiled as she grabbed Elsa's hand and began to pull her away from the food area. She knew a place that Elsa would appreciate!
"I cannot believe that you bought that thing" Amelia said with slight concern. In a plastic cat carrier, Fawn was carrying a rabbit. A little brown Holland lop, however this one was a little.. sort of.. kind of.. evil.
"Nonsense, he's absolutely adorable" Fawn smiled. The statement made the Captain roll her eyes. Oh sure, even though that little hairball hopped around squealing and scratching at everyone that came near its hutch. It was no wonder the owner was selling him. And for so cheap at that.
"Oh yes, a vicious brown furred demon, such a sweet creature" Amelia said with heavy sarcasm.
"Great, I'm glad you see it my way" Fawn chuckled, clearly not catching the obvious sarcasm. The taller woman sighed in slight exasperation, but chose to say nothing more on the matter. It was clearly a losing battle. Suddenly Fawn stopped.
"Something the matter dear?" Amelia asked. Fawn's nose flared before she chuckled.
"Yup, everything's fine, just had a passing thought. Are you hungry?" Fawn asked.
"Well, now that you mention it, I could go for something, and I know just the stand! Follow me" Amelia said before taking Fawn's hand and guiding her to the food court.
"Anna, where are we going?" Elsa asked. It seemed to be the fifteenth time that the blonde supernatural had asked that. However Anna refused to answer, but she had an eager smile.
"Don't worry about it, besides you should be able to smell it anyway" Anna giggled as she pulled around a corner. Then out of literally nowhere, all the stands, buildings and rides disappeared, and a path of potted flowers appeared. Elsa raised a curious brow, what on earth? And just as Anna said, a new, more appreciated smell filled her nostrils. It was earthy, delicate, but so pleasant.
"Anna" Elsa started as she was pulled towards a large, baby blue tent. And inside, was filled with all kinds of flowers. Most were out of their normal season, but it was beautiful just the same. Orchids, roses, marigolds, daffodils, hydrangeas, every flower you could think of, it was guaranteed to be in here. And it certainly beat the rest of the festival's previous smells.
"Do you like it? This where the flower show is held whenever the festival comes to town. Before I met you, I would always come here when I needed some peace and quiet and something better to smell" Anna said with a sincere smile. This gesture was truly a heartfelt one. Something she learned to love about Anna. A fine woman with a genuine heart. She was a great mate indeed. Even if she was not her official mate. Yes it was true. Granted her instincts confirmed that Anna was her mate, it was not a "sealed deal". Since Anna was human, she was only half. But, if she were become a vampire, than her status as Elsa's mate would be whole. However, there was a process that had to be gone through. Something that would have to be brought up soon.
"Elsa? Are you okay?" Anna asked worriedly. Elsa shook her head and looked slightly down to dee the red head's worried, yet amused gaze. Apparently she had become lost in her thoughts.
"Yes love I'm fine, just a thought is all" Elsa smiled.
"Good, you had me worried there for a second. You looked like you were in outer space" Anna chuckled.
"Did I? Well I have returned, so please, show me around this wondrous place" Elsa said.
"Okay, let's go check out the exotic flowers! I heard they have some really good ones!" Anna exclaimed before pulling Elsa further into the tent. It would have more shade, and protect Elsa from the sun, should she fall asleep in there. Which of course she did about half way through the tour. Anna was showing her the rose section when Elsa suddenly changed into a bat and flopped onto the ground in a deep sleep. Luckily no one was around, so Anna picked her up and hid her in her hoodie. However she continued her venture before leaving to go check out the artistic part of the festival.
The sound of boisterous laughing could be heard on the benches in the outdoor food court. And if you what to look for, you would find Fawn and Amelia laughing it up as their food bounced around the table, due to the pounding her fist on the wooden table top.
"S-So let me know if I misunderstood, Anna thought I had a crush on you?" Amelia grinned as she calmed down.
"Yeah, that's what Elsa told me anyway. I mean you're cool and everything, but the farthest our relationship will go is friendship" Fawn said.
"I agree, now, remind me to have a talk with Anna later, she tends to get her hopes up in situations like these" Amelia sighed with a fond smile.
"No problem, so, are you up for a rollercoaster ride?" Fawn asked hopefully.
"Naturally, I live for dangerous and exciting things, but I'd rather finish eating first" Amelia grinned.
"Why? Are you trying to throw up during the ride or after?" the animal vampire asked jokingly.
"Ha, you dare underestimate me? I'll have you know that I have a titanium stomach, it's a Gladden family trait" Amelia said proudly.
"Ten bucks says you lose it after we ride three of the rougher rides" Fawn said with a challenging glint in her eye. Amelia matched the look with a smirk,
"You're on shorty" Amelia agreed before continuing to eat her food.
After a long day at the fair, it was time for everyone to head home. Amelia had proudly bragged about the fact that she had won four bets that day with Fawn, and she now had one hundred and fifty dollars stashed away in her pocket. But when she was asked where Elsa was, Anna told her that Elsa had to go check on the dogs, but would be back to pick her up.
"Really Fawn? You bet she would lose her lunch on these rides? That's like betting that a duck can outfly a falcon" Anna sighed with an amused smile. Elsa did not share the humor, seeing as she was sleeping at the moment. She had taken refuge in Anna's hoodie pocket. Leaving Anna to hold the prizes won that day. And Anna secretly hoped that Elsa would not have solar sickness tomorrow.
"Well I know that now!" she grumped.
"There, there my dear friend, look on the bright side, now I can buy that boot polish I've been needing and I can brag to my Lieutenant about it" Amelia grinned. The short brunette merely rolled her eyes.
"Which reminds me, Anna dear, we need to talk" Amelia said giving Anna knowing gaze.
"Am I in trouble?" Anna asked jokingly.
"Semi" Amelia answered. She then escorted Anna a couple meters from Fawn. Even though she would hear the whole conversation anyway. And it was a little funny.
"Anna, it seems that you had a slightly misguided idea running through your mind" she heard Amelia say.
"What are you talking about?" Anna answered sounding somewhat surprised, but there was a hint of nervousness.
"A little birdy told me that you thought that I had romantic feelings for our dear friend Fawn" Amelia continued. Making Fawn grin a little bit.
"What? Who told you that?" Anna asked, her tone of voice giving away her guilt. Fawn had learned that Anna was not a very good liar long ago.
"Yes, and what I have I told you about making assumptions about people or their feelings?" Amelia asked in a reprimanding voice. Fawn couldn't wait to hear the obvious answer.
"Do I have to say it?" Anna asked.
"Yes" Amelia answered with no hesitation. Fawn then heard her sigh,
"Making an assumption can make an ass out of you and me, intentional or not" Anna recited.
"That's right, now, I love you dear, but Fawn and I are just friends, one of the best I've had in quite some time aside from you and Elsa" Amelia said before pulling Anna into a hug.
"Now be sure to apologize to Fawn too, and don't worry about our romantic lives, I'm sure we're fine on our own" Amelia chuckled.
"Sorry Kitty" Anna apologized.
"Don't worry about it, now come on" Amelia said before hugging her shorter friend. Then the two walked back to Fawn, where Anna apologized to Fawn. All was forgiven, and then after a few more verbal exchanges, everyone took off for the night, promising to take another group outing in the near future. Anna took off to her car and drove home, Elsa still sleeping in her lap. When they got home, Anna placed all their prizes on the bed, then, as a mixture of a joke and curiosity, Anna placed the snow colored fruit bat in the plushy pile. She quietly gave a sigh in adoration and humor. Elsa had a stark difference from the corny festival prizes, given that she was an animal. But it was still cute. She quickly snapped a few quiet pictures before sending them to Fawn. She was going to get a kick out of this.
A/N: Tada! Chapter thirty two! I hope you liked it, see you guys soon!Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Chloe Fan via Wikimedia Commons.
This story originally appeared in Inside Higher Ed.
Carnegie Mellon University is partnering with Duolingo, one of its spinoffs, to see if a 20-minute, $20 test is sufficient to prove international students’ English proficiency. Duolingo, meanwhile, hopes its test can upend the market.
Duolingo, a crowdsourced Web translation project created by researchers in Carnegie Mellon’s computer science department, spun off from the university in November 2011 to become a venture capital-backed startup. The company now offers language learning Web and smartphone apps.
Last week, the company released Duolingo Test Center, a stand-alone app intended for language learners interested in more than deepening their vocabularies. Duolingo is breaking into what the company’s head of marketing, Gina Gotthilf, described as the “archaic” industry of language proficiency tests, starting with English.
To study in the U.S., most international students have to produce evidence that they can speak and write in English, usually by taking a standardized test. The IELTS and TOEFL, two such tests, have long dominated the landscape of English proficiency tests, but they can cost hundreds of dollars, take hours to complete, and require students to travel to approved test centers on specific dates.
Duolingo, in comparison, promises a 20-minute, $20 test that can be completed at home on a computer or smartphone—and produce equally representative results of a student or job-seeker’s English proficiency.
“The test-taking industry—especially for language certification—is pretty much a monopoly,” Gotthilf, who also heads the company’s international development efforts, said in an interview. “It just seems really silly that people can’t get jobs or a chance to study somewhere because they can’t take these tests.”
In the absence of proctors, Duolingo requires test-takers to snap a picture of a valid photo ID, then one of themselves. Using the built-in camera on the computer or smartphone, the app then matches photos to test-takers and monitors them for suspicious behavior such as excessive background noise or glances at something outside the camera’s field of vision. The recording is later verified by a third-party proctoring service.
The test consists of four types of questions. Test-takers have to pick out English words from a lineup that in one example included “boax,” “champoo” and “dac”; listen to a sentence and transcribe it; record themselves reading; and complete fill-in-the-blank questions. The test adapts itself to the test-taker’s level of proficiency, becoming easier or more difficult in response to correct or incorrect answers.
Some of the test’s content comes from the public domain—a passage from Moby Dick appeared in one question—but the test also pulls in data from Duolingo’s learning app, which processes about one test each second, said Burr Settles, a lead scientist and software engineer with the company.
“What the machine is trying to learn here is how well you know English, and it explores the space of sophistication in the language and quickly tries to zero in on where you are,” Settles said. Twenty minutes is enough for the adaptive algorithms to build a profile of the test-taker, he said, adding that it also pushes the limit for how long someone is willing to stare at his or her smartphone.
Google is supporting the launch, which may explain why the app is only available on the Web or on Android. An iOS version—as well as French and Spanish tests—is in the works.
Back to Carnegie Mellon
Building a new language proficiency test only gets Duolingo halfway there. Unless colleges, universities, and employers in English-speaking countries accept the test, it will remain a novelty.
Duolingo hopes Carnegie Mellon’s clout can spark widespread adoption. During the upcoming admission cycle, the university will encourage its international applicants to take Duolingo’s test in addition to other standardized tests. By 2016, Duolingo’s test may qualify as an admission requirement on its own.
Duolingo already has some preliminary data to suggest the test holds up to scrutiny. A study released this May by University of Pittsburgh assistant professor Feifei Ye—and sponsored by Duolingo—found a statistically significant connection between strong Duolingo and TOEFL test scores.
Carnegie Mellon enrolls more than 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Last fall, about one-third of them, or 4,121, came from countries other than the United States, according to a university report.
While institutions generally require international students to achieve a certain IELTS or TOEFL score, not all of those who do can use English at a university level.
Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit that offers the TOEFL, was this summer rocked by scandal after the BBC uncovered widespread fraud at test centers. The British government responded by removing ETS from the list of approved test providers and stripping 60 institutions of their ability to host international students.
Thomas A. Ewing, a spokesman for ETS, declined to comment on Duolingo’s plans, instead stressing the company’s dedication to security. The TOEFL, he pointed out, is accepted by more than 9,000 institutions and agencies worldwide, and the test itself uses security measures such as biometric voice recognition. “Providing standardized testing on a global basis requires such efforts especially when universities, businesses and governments are depending upon those scores as part of making important decisions,” Ewing said in an email. “Without such safeguards and standards for quality, global acceptance is difficult, if not impossible.”
Duolingo sees real vulnerability in the market leader, and they’re not the only ones. The investigation “definitely added” to the company’s decision to capture a slice of the standardized test market, Gotthilf said. Earlier this summer, Pearson also introduced its Global Scale of English, calling it the first “globally recognized standard in English.”
Universities often use their own safeguards to ensure international students don’t misrepresent their language skills—particularly in graduate admissions. John Lehoczky, Carnegie Mellon’s interim executive vice president, sits on the steering committee for the university’s master’s degree program in computational finance. The department videoconferences with its applicants, which he said can serve to validate test scores. “I would say we certainly find some students whose TOEFL scores are surprising,” Lehoczky said. “One wonders how they might have done so well on the exam—but I’m certainly not willing to connect that to fraud.”
Still, the app is not yet ready to replace the other tests, Lehoczky said. The TOEFL generates its final score by adding up how students performed in the listening, reading, speaking, and writing sections |
's Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation, has been put to work on Assassin's Creed 4, which explains why there is no Assassin's Creed game on PlayStation Vita this year.
"Liberation actually did very well - we're very proud of it," game director Ashraf Ismail told Eurogamer. "Sales were fairly decent. But the focus for us was Assassin's Creed 4, for current-gen consoles and next-gen consoles.
"From a resource standpoint, the team that worked on Liberation is actually working with us on AC4. They're developing a specific part of the game for us."
He continued: "The amount of people working on AC4, Watch Dogs - that's a massive game - the focus within Ubisoft right now is on these two games, and then you have The Crew and The Division as well."
Assassin's Creed 4 will be released November 1 for Xbox 360 and PS3, with PC, PS4 and Xbox One versions to follow.
[video]15187[/video]
Had Ubisoft really wanted a new Assassin's Creed title for PS Vita, surely it would have been able to find a team to work on it? You can't help but feel that sales of Liberation and the PS Vita in general haven't been strong enough to warrant a new game.
Source: EurogamerReplacement referees blowing game-deciding calls might just be the best thing to ever happen to the NFL. While fans and the media work themselves into a frenzy over the sad state of football officiating, the concussion litigation continues to move forward in a federal courthouse in Philadelphia. The referees are a temporary embarrassment. This litigation, however, could deal the NFL a knock-out blow much like lawsuits did to the tobacco industry in the 90s.
What began in August 2011 with one lawsuit filed by seven former NFL players and their wives has grown to include 2,000 plaintiffs in nearly 150 individual suits. Now known as the National Football League Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation, U.S. District Judge Anita Brody in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is overseeing the fast-tracking multi-district litigation (MDL).
To truly understand the significance of this litigation we decided to call in the big gun and pick the brain of concussion litigation expert Paul D. Anderson. Mr. Anderson (@PaulD_Anderson) graduated summa cum laude from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law and recently passed the Missouri Bar Exam. The former judicial clerk now runs NFLconcussionlitigation.com to provide up-to-date coverage and legal analysis of the lawsuits filed by former NFL players against the NFL regarding its alleged concealment of the risks associated with concussions. He explains the ins and outs of this litigation after the jump.
When did you decide to start your website? Did you anticipate becoming a go-to source on the concussion litigation?
Shortly after the first concussion-related class action was filed I came across a blawg that discussed the lawsuit. I decided I’d write a law review note on the litigation. As my research progressed more lawsuits were filed, and I figured this had the potential to become a very hot topic.
So, in January of 2012, I launched my website with the hopes of trying to break into the sports law arena. I certainly didn’t anticipate becoming the go-to guy on the litigation – but it has definitely been a remarkable, and rewarding, experience. I should thank Jeff Blumenthal, Darren Rovell and Mike Florio for taking an interest in my work and introducing it to the public at large.
In the simplest terms, why should America care about this litigation?
It’s probably fair to say that football is America’s #1 form of entertainment, and it could all be gone in the next 5-10 years, according to some. Add the fact that concussions have become a public health issue and it should be clear why people should take note of the litigation.
There are billions of dollars at stake, former players are, arguably, dying from football, and according to some doomsday theories, a several billion-dollar judgment could send shockwaves through our economy.
However, I tend to disagree with the outlook that concussion litigation could bring the NFL to its knees.
The more important concern here, whether the lawsuits are successful or not, is the impact that it has already had. A culture change has occurred right in front of our eyes. The science about concussions has evolved rapidly in the past five years. It’s clear that there is a link between repeated blows to the head and later-life cognitive decline. I’m not sure this rapid change would have occurred but for the litigation.
In your analysis, is the district court in Philadelphia the best venue for the plaintiffs?
Federal court is generally not a plaintiff’s first pick. They prefer to be in state court, which is known to be more plaintiff-friendly. At least for now, the parties are stuck in federal court until Judge Brody rules on the preemption issue.
Due to the unique nature of labor law, federal courts have original jurisdiction over labor issues. See Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act.
To that end, the parties appear to have drawn a highly respected, and fair, jurist in the Honorable Anita Brody.
The NFL likes to argue that players must go through arbitration, per the CBA, and not sue in court. Why is the concussion litigation different?
The NFL argues this often and with much success. That is the threshold issue that must be decided by Judge Brody. The NFL, in its motion to dismiss, argues that the players’ claims do not belong in court because the CBAs set forth the parties right and duties, and thus it must be interpreted, if at all, by an arbitrator.
On the other hand, the players will argue that these are garden-variety common law claims that have nothing to do with the collective bargaining agreements.
The players, in my opinion, may have a stronger argument. I think the players’ fraud claims should be able to withstand the CBA argument. However, this doesn’t mean they won’t be dismissed later at the 12(b)(6) or summary judgment stage — if no smoking gun is found.
What is your prediction on the scope of discovery? Is it possible for there to be a smoking gun?
I think it will be long and drawn out, but the plaintiffs will certainly try to go on a fishing expedition. It’s conceivable a smoking gun will be found. The Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee, and in particular Drs. Ira Casson and Elliot Pellman don’t appear to pass the smell test.
The recent revelations in the Ed O’Bannon v. NCAA litigation may turn out to be peanuts in comparison to the NFL Concussion Litigation. On the other hand, and to the plaintiffs’ chagrin, only a water gun may be found. Only time will tell.
As an analyst, my biggest fear — assuming the parties get to the discovery stage — is that the NFL files a protective order seeking to have all court documents filed under seal. Then, unfortunately, we may never get to see what turns up unless there is a trial.
Could the outcome of this litigation impact other professional sports leagues too? If so, how?
I think it really depends on how this litigation shakes out. If the plaintiffs win, then I wouldn’t be surprised if the NHL or AFL becomes the next targets.
However, I don’t think we will see litigation on a massive scale like what is going on here.
There is no doubt that concussion litigation is here to stay for the foreseeable future. It will occur at all levels: from pee wee up to the pros. For example, in the past year, there has been a flood of concussion lawsuits at the high school level.
Some pundits have compared this litigation to the Big Tobacco cases. Do you think that is a fair assessment? Could this be the end of the NFL?
There certainly appear to be some parallels between tobacco litigation and the current NFL litigation. In 2009, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez infamously analogized the NFL’s conduct to Big Tobacco.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that the NFL “took a page right out of Big Tobacco’s playbook.” In the 1950s, Big Tobacco created a committee that was tasked with discovering the effects of smoking. Instead of applying science, Big Tobacco engaged in several years of fraud – creating “junk science” that refuted the link between smoking and cancer – which subsequently cost the tobacco companies billions of dollars in damages.
Similarly, the plaintiffs argue, the NFL created the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee which reportedly spent years developing studies that refuted the link between concussions and later-life cognitive decline.
As for the assumption of the risk doctrine in the sporting context, the defendant can show that it didn’t owe a duty to prevent risks inherent in the sport. The NFL will argue that concussions and the effects of concussions are part of the game, and thus it owed no duty to protect players from the inherent risks of football.
Of course, the players assumed the risk of having knee, back, joint pains, etc., but the players will argue that they weren’t warned about the lasting brain damage concussive and sub-concussive blows can cause. Further, they will argue, if the NFL warned us about these risks we would have 1) not engaged in the conduct of covering up our headaches; 2) we would have hung up our cleats a lot earlier or 3) not played the game at all.
In addition, there is an exception to the doctrine when the defendant acts recklessly or intentionally. The players will argue that the NFL acted intentionally when it concealed the risks about concussions.
There is also a notable difference between tobacco and concussion litigation. Here, the players were compensated while smokers purchased the product that allegedly caused their damages.
Many of the plaintiffs’ lawyers involved in the litigation made millions off the tobacco litigation, and they probably plan to pursue the same aggressive tactics as those used in the tobacco litigation.
Whether we will see tobacco-like damages is yet to be determined, but it is at least conceivable. Like I said earlier, I don’t think the litigation, or a couple huge jury verdicts, will bring the NFL to its knees — but the replacement refs might.
In your opinion is there anything the NFL could or should have done differently to avoid these lawsuits?
The luxury of hindsight makes it easy to criticize the NFL. But at the time, the NFL must of thought it was getting out in front of the concussion issue by creating the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee. These lawsuits really have teeth due to the allegedly wrongful conduct of the MTBI Committee.
According to this 1994 Sports Illustrated article, the NFL had two paths to choose: the Elliot Pellman route (i.e. concussions are a vocational hazard and aren’t serious) or an independent neurologist’s view point (i.e. concussions can have a lasting impact and must be taken seriously). The NFL chose the Pellman path, and its now paying the price in the court of public opinion and by having to defend the concussion lawsuits.
Steve James, the director Hoop Dreams, has a new documentary coming out about concussions called Head Games. Now that people are making movies about concussions do you think we’ve reached the apex of awareness about head injuries in this country or will this be an issue for a long time to come?
Without writing a full essay about this, I think it’s here to stay. Until there is a product created that prevents concussive and sub-concussive blows, which I don’t ever see happening in our lifetime, this will continue to be a major public health issue. I don’t think we’ve even broached the full impact of the concussion crisis.
By the way, another great documentary, The United States of Football by Sean Pamphilon, will be released soon, and it will have us talking about this issue for years.
What is your prediction for the outcome of this litigation?
I think the plaintiffs will survive the NFL’s motion to dismiss, and the parties will proceed to discovery. Depending on what’s uncovered, we will either see a long (e.g. 5 to 10 years) and expensive discovery battle, or the NFL will propose a global settlement on fair terms shortly after Judge Brody’s decision is affirmed or reversed by the Third Circuit – I think an appeal is inevitable.
I tend to lean more on the side of a long litigation battle filled with lots of motion practice and nebulous disputes over the scope of discovery. If the owners’ position in the referee lockout has taught us anything, it’s that the owners will not be rolling over and handing out money despite the public outcry.
If the plaintiffs reject an offer and demand a multi-billion dollar settlement, then I think, and assuming the plaintiffs survive all pre-trial motions, we will see a bellwether case go to trial. This will, presumably, give the parties an indicator for what the cases are worth and what a fair global settlement should be.
In short, I don’t see a quick settlement or resolution on the horizon. The plaintiffs’ lawyers are going to have to work extremely hard, spend a lot of money, and hope for a smoking-gun, if they want to score big.by Sayer Ji
GreenMedInfo.com
Since ancient times, turmeric has been used for remedying oral ailments, among other therapeutic applications too numerous to count.[1] Consider that plants like turmeric were first eaten for thousands of years before our species ever devised the modern day oddity of encapsulated or tableted extracts that could be swallowed without significant oral contact. It is only logical, therefore, that after long stretches of biological time, taking the root orally as either food, spice or medicine, it would agree with and have benefit for that part of our anatomy and its unique physiology.
Indeed, recent research shows that turmeric extract and turmeric oil may even reverse precancerous changes in oral submucous fibrosis in humans.[2] [3] In addition, there are at least a dozen studies showing turmeric extract can kill oral cancer cells,[4] including a recent study showing that turmeric extract-loaded nanoparticles kill chemotherapy-resistant oral cancer cells.[5] But turmeric’s positive role to play in oral health encompasses more than relatively rare health issues like oral cancer, as it also has tangible value to the vast majority of folks who use common mouthwash in an attempt to keep their mouth clean of plaque.
Turmeric contains approximately 3-4% curcumin by dry weight. This yellow pigmented polyphenol has been studied extensively in human clinical research as a natural alternative to the common mouthwash ingredient known as chlorhexidine for the treatment of gingivitis, “inflammation of the gum tissue.”
Gingivitis is classified as a non-destructive periodontal disease,[6] and involves bacterial plaque-induced inflammation, but if left untreated, it can progress to a form of periodontal disease that can be highly destructive. Some of the most common symptoms associated with gingivitis are bad breath (halitosis), and bleeding, bright, tender or swollen gums.
Chlorexidine, while considered the gold standard in dentistry for the prevention of dental plaque,[7]was flagged in 2012 in a patient safety alert issued by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), due to its potential to induce anaphylactic reactions.[8] While chlorexidine-induced analaphylaxis is an exceedingly rare reaction, low level exposure has been confirmed in numerous scientific studies to cause a variety of complications.[9] [10] [11] Clearly, safer alternatives are needed and especially if they can be shown to be more effective.
Turmeric Mouthwash Shown Superior to Chlorexidine
In 2012, a study published in the Journal of Indian Society of Periodontology compared the efficacy of a.1% curcumin extract mouthwash +.01% eugenol (Group A) to a more strongly concentrated.2% chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwash (Group B), in subjects with mild to moderate gingivitis. Both Group A and Group B consisted of 30 subjects who were advised to use 10 ml of mouthwash with equal dilution of water for 1 min twice a day 30 min after brushing. They were then tracked for plaque and gingival changes at day 0, day 14h and day 21. Both their direct experience (subjective) and objective criteria were assessed at days 14 and 21.
The results were as follows:
On comparison between chlorhexidine and turmeric mouthwash, percentage reduction of the Plaque Index between 0 and 21 st day were 64.207 and 69.072, respectively (P=0.112), percentage reduction of Gingival Index between 0 and 21st day were 61.150 and 62.545 respectively (P=0.595) and percentage reduction of BAPNA [The N-benzoyl-l-arginine-p- nitroanilide assay; a measurement of pathogenic bacterial activity] values between 0 and 21st day were 42.256 and 48.901 respectively (P=0.142). [emphasis added]
In all three objective parameters tested, turmeric extract was at least as effective as chlorhexidine mouthwash at improving the patient’s oral health. However, technically, the curcumin formulation beat out the chemical mouthwash in all 3 measurements, and at only one-half the concentration.
Also, subjective evaluations showed that the turmeric mouthwash was better received by the subjects.
In the characteristically conservative style of academia, the author’s concluded:
“Chlorhexidine gluconate as well as turmeric mouthwash can be effectively used as an adjunct to mechanical plaque control in prevention of plaque and gingivitis. Both the mouthwashes have comparable anti-plaque, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.”
Additional human clinical research has confirmed curcumin’s effectiveness as a chlorexidine alternative in reducing plaque,[12] as well as reducing plaque-associated gum inflammation.[13]
One of the major differences with a turmeric (curcumin)-based mouthwash is that if one happened to swallow some, it would not result in the type of adverse effects associated with a biocidal/antiseptic chemical such as chlorhexidine. In fact, given the broad range of documented health benefits of turmeric, it would actually provide some side benefit, were this to happen.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. But remember, always exert caution when embarking on any new dietary and/or supplement change, and do so under the guidance of a trained professional such as a medical herbalist or integrative physician. And remember, the quality of the herb will depend on whether it was organically produced (non-irradiated), well-handled and preserved in order to eliminate mycotoxins and related microbial contaminants.
Read the full article here: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/turmeric-superior-chemical-mouthwash-improving-oral-health-0
References
It’s All in Your Head
The Link Between Mercury Amalgams and Illness
Free Shipping Available! The book by America’s most controversial dentist, and the book the dental industry does not want you to read. Taken to court four times to prevent this book from being sold, Dr. Huggins has won each time.BOWIE, Md. — Senator Rand Paul laid out his vision on Friday for a legal system that makes it easier for people with criminal records to get jobs and to vote, telling students at a historically black college here that he believes there are still “two Americas” as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said almost a half century ago.
Mindful of his audience and, no doubt, his appearance two years ago at Howard University when the mostly black audience was often skeptical of what he had to say, Mr. Paul, a Republican and a likely candidate for president, chose his words more carefully this time during his visit to Bowie State University.
He was generous when speaking about President Obama, a man for whom he usually has few flattering things to say. He said he would not question whether the president was “a good man.”
Mr. Paul tried to avoid appearing presumptuous and at one point corrected himself when answering a question about the progress that black Americans have made. “I think sometimes we think we haven’t gone very far when I think we’ve come a long way,” he said, pausing to tweak his wording. “And I say ‘we’ collectively; obviously it’s not me.”Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unais (Sirya of Muhammad) Date Muharam, 624CE, 3 A.H Location Nejd Result Abdullah ibn Unais beheads the Banu Lahyan chief, and brings his head back to Muhammad[1][2] Belligerents Muslims Banu Lahyan Commanders and leaders Abdullah ibn Unais Khaled bin Sufyan Al-Hathali Strength Unknown [1][2] Unknown Casualties and losses 0 Chief of Banu Lahyan Killed
The Expedition of Abdullah ibn Unais, also known as the Assassination of Khaled bin Sufyan was the 1st attack against the Banu Lahyan, which took place in the month of Muharam in the year 4 A.H. it was reported that Khaled bin Sufyan Al-Hathali (also known as Hudayr, the chief of the Banu Lahyan tribe), considered an attack on Madinah and that he was inciting the people on Nakhla or Uranah to fight Muslims. So Muhammad sent Abdullah ibn Unais to assassinate him. After cutting off Sufyan bin Khalid's head at night,[3] Unais brought it back to Muhammad.[1][2][4][5]
Attack on the chief of Banu Lahyan [ edit ]
Abdullah ibn Unais found Hudayr in the company of his wife, when asked about his identity. Unais replied:
"I am an arab tribesman who has heard of you and the Army you are raising to fight Muhammad, so i have come to join your ranks"[2]
Sufyan bin Khalid trusted him. Then Unais asked to talk to him privately, once, while conversing, Abdullah ibn Unais walked a short distance with ibn Khalid, and when an opportunity came he struck him with his sword and killed him. After killing ibn Khalid, he cut off his head, brought that to Muhammad,[3] Muhammad gave him his staff as a reward and said:
This will function as a sign of recognition for you and me, on the day of resurrection Musnad Ahmad 3:496[1][6][7]
This assassination had the effect of silencing the Banu Lahyan, for some time. But another branch of Banu Lihyan wanted to take revenge for the killing of their leader, Sufyan ibn Khalid and where thinking of means to do so.[2]
Islamic sources [ edit ]
Biographical literature [ edit ]
This event is mentioned in Ibn Hisham's biography of Muhammad. The Muslim jurist Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya also mentions the event in his biography of Muhammad, Zad al-Ma'ad.[8] Modern secondary sources which mention this, include the award winning book,[9] Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) [1]
The Muslim Jurist Tabari, also mentions the event in his biography of Muhammad:
“ "The Messenger of God called me and said, ‘It has reached me that Khalid b. Sufyan b. Nubayh al-Hudhali is gathering a force to attack me. He is either in Nakhlah or ‘Uranah, so go to him and kill him.’" Al-Tabari vol.9 p.121[10] ”
Hadith literature [ edit ]
The incident is also mentioned in the Sunni Hadith collection Sunan Abu Dawud:
“ The Apostle of Allah (pbuh) send me to Khalid b. Sufyan al-Hudhali. This was towards 'Uranah and 'Arafat. He (the Prophet) said: Go and kill him. I saw him when the time of the afternoon prayer had come. I said: I am afraid if a fight takes place between me and him (Khalid b. Sufyan), that might delay the prayer. I proceeded walking towards him while I was praying making a sign. When I reached near him, he said to me: Who are you? I replied: A man from the Arabs; it came to me that you were gathering (an army) for this man (i.e. the Prophet). Hence I came to you in connection with this matter. He said: I am (engaged) in this (work). I then walked along with him for a while.; when it became convenient for me, I dominated him with my sword until he became cold (dead).
[Abu Dawud, book 2 no.1244][11] ”
The event is also mentioned in Musnad Ahmad 3:496.[7]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]by
There are numerous legal and ethical arguments that can and have been made in opposition to U.S. foreign policy of raw aggression. For an example of the illegalities of U.S. Empire, examine the Geneva Conventions, all four of which directly proscribe what they each call “outrages” to human dignity, “in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” (I, 1, 3). The “outrages” are named specifically as torture, mutilation, cruel treatment, taking hostages, murder, biological experimentation, and passing sentences on prisoners without benefit of “a regularly constituted court.”
Additionally, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 both underscore the Geneva Conventions and expand the traditional ethical concerns to rights and duties of neutral states by banning the use of poison gases or arms, destroying or seizing enemy private property, attacking towns and cities that are undefended, pillaging, collective punishment, servility of enemy citizens, and bullets made to wreak havoc once inside the human body. Prescriptions to limit the conduct of war include the requirements to warn towns of impending attacks, to protect cultural, religious, and health institutions, and to insure public order and safety.
For an example of the ethical problems of empire, think about the completely unjustifiable attacks on civilians done by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and most prominently in Pakistan and Yemen, especially done by drones. Or consider U.S. use of torture, from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay. As everyone knows by now, ethical and humanitarian appeals have been completely and categorically rejected by U.S. leaders, not beginning with 9-11, certainly rejected with greater vigor since then.
But there is another, often overlooked, analysis of U.S. actions, that is the logical result of engaging in the actions of Empire, and that concerns the logical consequence of using massive amounts of resources to attempt to control the resources being used (the second use of the term “resources” here includes citizens; the people of a city or nation). As the economic, logistic, and humanitarian costs all rise in direct proportion to Empire’s actions, the sustaining of the Empire becomes impossible, on the basis of its own internal logic.
In whatever historical epoch you choose, if you take your compass and draw a circle around any given tribe, you can see the desired extent of their territorial claims for resource control. One thus can see that particular group’s 1) resource consumption; and 2) circle of desired resource control. But when two further historical developments are added, such as 3) technologically-driven consumption (e.g. fossil-fuel guzzling appliances and cars, etc.); and 4) now necessary desires for global resources needed to feed that group’s consumption habits—then the situation expands sufficiently to become one of using extensive amounts of the very resources one is attempting to control (in the U.S. case, oil and money) for the sake of controlling the resources over which one needs to exert control! This circular logic cannot be maintained when it meets 5) a scarcity of resources; and 6) the natural-institutional-logical antinomy of using resources in massive amounts to control the resources you are using for control. In other words, the empire based on this pattern must end when it runs headlong into resource scarcity, and/or natural-logical contradictions involving its own internal (economic and resource) limitations. This argument against U.S. Empire is not based on ethical or legal grounds (although those remain the best arguments in favor of voluntarily ending empire and regaining our citizenship [civil rights] and humanness)—since those arguments have been put asunder by the U.S. administrators of empire. Rather, the institutional-logical analysis argues that an empire such as the U.S. has constructed exhausts itself by being unable to expand fast enough to control everything it seeks in order to continue its dominance. When the issue of blowback is added—i.e. that other nations and peoples are unlikely to cooperate willingly in having their resources, humanity, and very lives removed from them—the end result, Empire’s fall, could be hastened, and is certainly assured. We can now predict not only how it will happen, but also its imminent coming. Here’s how.
First, the heaviest resource consumers of fossil fuels, in order, are the U.S. military, U.S. citizens, China, and India. The Department of Defense per capita energy consumption is 10 times more than per capita energy consumption in China, or 30 times more than that of Africa. Oil accounts for more than three-fourths of DoD’s total energy consumption. The Post Carbon Institute estimates that abroad alone, the U.S. military consumes about 150,000 barrels per day. In 2006, for example, the Air Force consumed 2.6 billion gallons of jet-fuel, which is the same amount of fuel U.S. airplanes consumed during all of WWII (between December 1941 and August 1945) (from The Resilience Group of the Post Carbon Institute, www.resilience.org ).
Second, concerning the global dimension of resource control, one needs only to understand the preferred method that U.S. Empire acolytes use to justify their actions abroad: the “state of emergency” that was declared after 9/11 has continued unabated since then, due to the “ongoing threat” of “terrorism” (see Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, for the latest detailed instances of this process.). The domestic equivalent to his “war” has been well underway since 9-11. (For detail on the domestic front, see also Trevor Aaronson, Terror Factory, regarding FBI domestic use of the “ongoing threat of terrorism” to deny basic civil rights to citizens).
This allows U.S. government administrators to maintain a “state of exception” to the rule of law. Georgio Agamben, in his book States of Exception, defines this phrase as extraordinary governmental actions resulting from distinctively political crises. As such, the actions of such administrators are in-between normal political operations and legal ones. This “no man’s land” of government policy is not only difficult to define, but brings in its wake a “suspension of the entire existing juridical order.” Thus, states of exception are those in which a government in fact suspends the rule of law for itself, while attempting to maintain some semblance of legal order, for the purpose of consolidating its power and control (see Georgio Agamben, States of Exception, Chapter Two).
Regarding the scarcity of resources issue, none other than the World Bank produced a detailed study of demand and supply projections for the immediate future. The study projects that, on the basis of current consumption and immediately precedent rises in it, the demand for food will rise by 50% by 2030, for meat by 85%, for oil by 20 million barrels a day, and for water by 32%, all by the same year. This is met by alarming statistics and predictions from the supply side. In their report, they state that global food growth rates fell by 1.1% over the past decade, and are continuing to fall, while global food consumption outstripped production in seven of the eight years between 2000 and 2008. Further, the Food and Agricultural Organization and the UN Environment Program estimate that 16% of the arable land used now is degraded. Intensifying competition between different land uses is likely to emerge in future, including food crops, livestock, etc., and the world’s expanding cities. Current rates of water extraction from rivers, groundwater and other sources are already unsustainable in many parts of the world. Over one billion people live in water basins in which the physical scarcity of water is absolute; by 2025, the figure is projected to rise two billion, with up to two thirds of the world’s population living in water-stressed conditions (mainly in non-OECD countries). On oil, the International Energy Agency has warned consistently that there is a significant risk of a new “supply crunch” as the global economy “recovers.” Additionally, the IEA’s chief economist argues that peak production could take place by 2020 (from the “World Development Report 2011, Background Paper: Resource Scarcity, Climate Change and the Risk of Violent Conflict,” www.worldbank.org ).
The conclusion from all of these points is nearly obvious: if resources are even relatively scarce, and the habits of and desires for consumption continue to rise among nations, and especially among the citizens of Empire (as has been documented in part above), and if control over those resources is the goal of Empire, but if the Empire consumes more resources than it can logistically or economically control due to natural limitations of those resources themselves, and/or to the consumption of more resources than is either available to it or that it needs to survive, then the power of the Empire will naturally-logically end in a sharp decline, and soon (For applicable details on this, see Richard Heinberg, “The Brief, Tragic Reign of Consumerism—and the Birth of a Happy Alternative,” www.postcarbon.org ).
With all indicators predicting that the contradictions of Empire’s resource consumption, circle of desired resource control, scarcity of resources, and contradiction in resource use and control, are all about to collide in a few years, not decades, it is time to start planning for a post-Empire future. To that end, any psychologist reading this analysis will recognize themes of “realistic conflict theory,” which is a theory which explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition over limited resources The key point in bringing this psychological theory into the discussion is that in this theory, it is concluded that friction between groups can be reduced only in the presence of superordinate goals that promote united, cooperative action (see Wikipedia on “Realistic Conflict Theory” for a good overview, summarized here. https://en.wikipedia.org ). Note the agreement of the ethical, legal, and psychological analyses of Empire’s oppression: the most effective resolution to oppression, (empire) dominance, and conflict is united, cooperative action, not the attempt to control or destroy people and nations who stand in the way of our control.
We have seen that progressives have had available to them a standard two-pronged argument against empire—American or any other. Progressives have for good reason appealed consistently to the ethical and the legal arguments available to help stem the desires for world and resource domination. This essays suggests that these two solid arguments should now be combined with an institutional-logical analysis to demonstrate not only the intrinsic, natural limits to empire, but to show reasons how and why empire must and will ultimately disintegrate due to the hubris of ignoring natural limitations of unbridled consumption coupled with attempts at singular control over others’ resources and peoples.
Dr. Robert P. Abele holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Marquette University He is the author of three books: A User’s Guide to the USA PATRIOT Act (2005); The Anatomy of a Deception: A Logical and Ethical Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq (2009); Democracy Gone: A Chronicle of the Last Chapters of the Great American Democratic Experiment (2009). He contributed eleven chapters to the Encyclopedia of Global Justice, from The Hague: Springer Press (October, 2011). Dr. Abele is a professor of philosophy at Diablo Valley College, located in Pleasant Hill, California in the San Francisco Bay area.ANALYSIS: After a tragic week in the United States, the main actor in the presidential election has been Donald Trump, but for all the wrong reasons.
Photo: AFP
Donald Trump promised that once selected he would reinvent himself into a kinder, gentler candidate with a more presidential demeanour. It lasted a single speech. The moment Mr Trump goes off script he reverts to type, revelling in the attention he derives from scurrilous and swingeing attacks.
Historian Tom Holland has drawn parallels between Mr Trump and the Roman Emperor Caligula.
Not so much for the orgies (so far as we know), but for the conscious populism - tapping into the people's feelings about the elite, drawing on the energy of the mob, the taste for spectacle.
Caligula's ultimate downfall was his liking for humiliation and his inability to self-censor. He compared a Praetorian Guard's voice to a girl's and discovered the soldier's sword was sharper than his tongue. Which is somewhat reminiscent of Mr Trump's mocking of disabled journalist Serge Kovaleski, give or take a sword.
Photo: AFP
A lack of impulse control and a penchant for populist bigotry is a dangerous mix in a politician, especially with a dollop of conspiracy theory. It makes for a career sometimes entertaining, frequently horrifying, but not often long-lived. Except when the ground conditions are just right, but more on that in a moment.
Firstly, is it reasonable to call Mr Trump for bigotry?
A potted history may be useful. In the 1960's Richard Nixon's strategists concocted the Southern Strategy. The aim was to capture the American South from the Democratic party by appealing to white southern racist anger over the advances of the civil rights movement. The 1964 rout of Barry Goldwater, who was considered dangerously intemperate, demonstrated that unguarded speech scares the moderates, so the bigotry went underground and the southern strategy was achieved through coded language referred to as Dog Whistle Politics.
For example, calling for'states rights' meant segregating blacks if you want to, and now means banning gays, abortion and Muslims if you want to.
'Inner city crime' is code for blacks are criminals, and 'Barack Hussein Obama' means he's really a secret Muslim foreigner, (can you remember any other recent candidate's middle name?)
Photo: AFP
The In-his-own-words Trump Bigotry Checklist:
As Republican dirty-tricks specialist Lee Atwater explained: "By 1968 you can't say "nigger" - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff."
The Southern Strategy worked, and the south is now the fortress of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. Both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis are spinning in their graves (in opposite directions). However, the cynical racism also created a monster that has become hard to manage, and as demographics have shifted and |
79 Berlin
Insomnia
In a way, Insomnia was born out of KitKat Club since it started out as a club night that was hosted in the aforementioned venue in the mid-1990s. It aims at being the lovechild of Roman orgies and New York’s Studio 54 and also wishes to be a place where sexual topics are discussed and showcased, be it through exhibitions or charity events. The place has hot tub parties every Tuesday and is also well-known for its fetish parties, even though they insist on being as inclusive as possible.
Insomnia, Alt Tempelhof 17-19D, 12099 Berlin
Berghain
Berghain was made world famous by Claire Danes who mentioned it recently while she was a guest during Ellen DeGeneres’ show, but has been the holy grail of techno music fans for many years now. Its specificity is that it started out as Ostgut, one of the first places to host gay sex and fetish events. Berghain itself opened in 2004 and is also home to a gay sex club called Lab.Oratory. Not only does it book the best DJs in the world, it also has several dark rooms and fetish (inspired) clothing is the norm among its regular visitors. Its door policy is reputed to be extremely unpredictable, but the club’s bouncers somehow always manage to only let non-judgmental, positive people in, which after all is nothing but a good thing.
Berghain, Am Wriezener Bahnhof, 10243 Berlin
CLUB NIGHTS
Pornceptual
Pornceptual was launched by photographer Chris Philips about two years ago and, as its name suggests, wants to conceptualize pornographic aesthetics. It has an extremely arty vibe and co-exists with Chris’ eponymous erotic photography project. Each party has its own theme, and those who follow its dress code or come naked are allowed in for a reduced price. What sets Pornceptual apart is that it manages to make sex-positive events hip and strongly promotes sex positivity among the younger crowd and those who usually do not attend sex-related events.
GEGEN
GEGEN happens on a bi-monthly basis at KitKat Club and is an arty queer techno party. The German word gegen means against, and each of their events is titled “against” something and accompanied by the greatest Facebook event descriptions like, ever. The November edition is called GEGEN ASS and the text deals with the topic of sexual orientation and its stigmas in the best possible way, quoting Spanish essay collection “Por el Culo: políticas anales” by Javier Sáez & Sejo Carrasco in the process. All guests pay close attention to their outfits and this is the night to see all the open-minded cool kids who call Berlin their home in action. Think techno music, lots of leather and shameless dancing as well as, of course, some X-rated action, all of which makes for the best cocktail one could possibly think of.
(ART) VENUES
Schwules Museum*
Schwules Museum, literally gay museum, was founded in the mid 80s and is dedicated to promoting LGBT life in Berlin. It was launched after a very successful exhibition on gay topics at Berlin Museum, which highlighted a high demand for shows that address these issues. Aside from exhibitions such as Homosexuality_ies which is currently running and deals with the history, politics and culture of homosexuality, the venue hosts a lot of talks and events around them. All of this makes it is a must-see for anyone interested in sex-related topics.
Schwules Museum*, Lützowstraße 73, 10785 Berlin
HAU
HAU, short for Hebbel am Ufer, actually comprises of three venues spread along the banks of Berlin’s Landwehrkanal. They host exhibitions, concerts, performances, theater plays and parties, and often have events related to sex and gender topics, such as the Sexy MF performance by Ana borralho & João Galante earlier this year or the Grindr-themed performance “Wanna play?” that was at the heart of a large controversy around privacy last year. Its programming choices are very forward thinking and I cannot recommend their events enough.
HAU, Stresemannstraße 29, 10963 Berlin
Studio Я
Studio Я (which is the last letter in the Russian alphabet and means I), is “a place where radical new forms and political theories merge with theatre”. They have organized many events linked to homosexuality and are focusing on the political side of things, having hosted discussions on topics such as Istanbul’s gay pride in the past.
Studio Я, Dorotheenstraße 9, 10117 Berlin
Schwelle 7
Unfortunately, Schwelle 7 is currently at risk of closing for administrative reasons, but its founder is looking for a new location so let us hope they reach their goal and are able to go forth! Their current venue is a 500 square metres industrial building which they use to host workshops and events on contemporary dance, performance and BDSM. The variety of its program is astounding and fascinating. They offer bondage, aerial yoga, tantric massage classes and so much more, and aim to be a space where people interested in more kinky topics can learn and talk about their interests, with a strong focus on consent.
Schwelle 7, Uferstrasse 6, 13357 Berlin
SHOPS
Schwarzer Reiter
Schwarzer Reiter is is an authority as far as fetish fashion and sex accessories are concerned. Unlike many other shops, it manages to keep things very tasteful and classy and offers a variety of carefully selected products for affordable prices. However, this doesn’t mean they compromise on quality and their main goal is to help their clients experience a sense of luxury when entering the shop. Their sale staff is welcoming and wants their clients to peruse the shop knowing that they have all the time in the world. It is truly a great place to visit, even if you have never walked into a sex shop before.
Schwarzer Reiter, Torstraße 3, 10119 Berlin
Très Bonjour
Located right next to Schwarzer Reiter, Très Bonjour is a latex haute couture and lingerie shop. Everything is as expensive as it is tasteful, and I have to shed a tear every time I look at the shop’s window and remember I cannot afford anything that is on display. Their pieces have been featured in many fashion magazines such as Vogue, Grazia or France’s Jalouse, and you should pay it a visit even just to look at the beautiful pieces they sell.
Très Bonjour, Torstraße 3, 10119 Berlin
Other Nature
Other Nature describes itself as a “queer feminist sex shop” and its particularity is that it mostly offers vegan products. In other words, it tries to abstain from selling accessories or apparel made out of leather. They sell clothes, accessories and sex toys as well as feminist and sex-positive porn DVDs. They also host workshops because they believe that “knowledge is sexy” and that learning about sex is the best way to enjoy it more. Topics include bondage, dirty talking, and all events are hosted by professionals and experts.
Other Nature, Mehringdamm 79, 10965 Berlin
FAIRS AND FESTIVALS
Pornfilmfestival Berlin
Pronfilmfestival Berlin was launched in 2006 by German filmmaker Jürgen Brüning and focuses on erotic and porn movies by encouraging people to rethink the genre in terms of art, society and philosophy topics. Its mission statement says the festival wants that “pornography becomes actually stimulating, actually erotic and actually sexy, rather than enjoyable and erotic only in theory, unwatchable in reality.” The festival happens every year in October and organizes public screenings in many of the city’s sex-positive venues.
Pornfilmfestival Berlin
PorYes – Feminist Porn Award
Another Berlin event which actively fights sexism in porn is PorYes, Europe’s feminist porn award. Its focus lies on high quality erotic movies “with a wide range of portrayed female sexual lust and in which women also play an important role as producers.” The yearly event also happens in October and consists in a ceremony, a party and panel discussions.
PorYes
Folsom Europe
San Francisco’s Folsom has its European counterpart and it takes place in—you guessed it—Berlin! This street fair is held every year in September since 2003 in gay-friendly neighborhood Schöneberg and focuses on BDSM and leather subcultures. It is mostly visited by gay men, but strives to remain inclusive and open-minded.
Folsom Europe
Venus
Venus is the world’s largest erotic trade and consumer fair and is happening for the 18th time this year. It attracts 30,000 visitors annually and is a place for all actors of the industry to meet, as well as an event aimed at those who want to find out more about this field all while shopping the latest products and attending various performances and shows.
Venus Berlin
Camille Darroux is a Berlin based writer, weighing in on topics like sex, feminism and nightlife.
Comments
CommentsWASHINGTON: One of the two police officers who allegedly assaulted the 57-year-old Indian man in Alabama has been arrested and FBI will be conducting a probe into the matter to find out if there were any federal violations in the incident.Larry Muncey, the Madison City Chief of Police while apologizing to the victim Sureshbhai Patel, who was wrongfully assaulted by two police officers, without any provocation just because he did not know English and was unable to answer to their questions, informed that Federal Bureau of Investigation will also be conducting a probe into the matter."I sincerely apologize to Mr Patel, Mr Patel's family and our community. We strive to exceed expectations," Muncey told reporters at a news conference.
READ ALSO: US cops leave Indian temporarily paralyzed
"Additionally FBI would be conducting a parallel inquiry to ascertain if there were any federal violations," Muncey said after he released audio and videos related to the incident."As a result of the investigations, I found that Mr Parkers's actions did not meet the high standard and expectations of the Madison City Police Department," he said, adding, that he (Muncey) has proposed termination of officer Parker, who has now been arrested for third-degree assault.The incident occurred on the morning of February 6 while walking down the sidewalk in the neighbourhood, Patel, a permanent US resident, "was violently assaulted by a police official without provocation, and left partially paralysed," according to the 11-page lawsuit filed.A day before, Patel had arrived in the United States to assist his son and daughter-in-law in caring for their 17-month-old child, who was developmentally delayed after a premature birth.
READ ALSO: India protests police assault on Indian man in US
In the video, Patel is seen walking quietly in a sidewalk. He is not seen peeping at any of the houses or garage as was the police told in an non-emergency call it received from a neighbour, after which a police car was rushed to the neighbourhood.In the video, two police officers are see approaching Patel and asking him questions like name, address and identity card.Patel is heard saying "No English" and pointing finger towards his son's home. Soon one of the police officer, later identified as Parker, is seen violently throwing Patel on the ground and threatening him not to leave. It is at this time it appears Patel was paralysed, apparently by shock.Moments later when two police officers try to walk him, Patel is not able to stand on his own. Patel was severely injured in the incident, said his attorney Henry F Sherrod.Patel has been partly paralyzed and is currently under treatment at a city hospital.Despite being born without half of his left arm, Zach Hodskins will play Division I basketball next year for one of the most successful programs in the country. He committed to Florida on Saturday, ESPN reported.
As a preferred walk on, Hodskins doesn't have a scholarship, but his contract guarantees him a spot on the roster. With his school chosen and place secured, his next goal is playing time.
"At Florida, I'm going to have every opportunity to get on the floor and play," he said. "The situation was different at Kentucky."
Before committing to Florida, Hodskins, whose from Georgia and reportedly had offers from lesser DI programs, considered Kentucky after speaking with head coach John Calipari, according to ESPN. But Kentucky, the preseason No. 1 team, has regularly hauled in the best recruiting class since Calipari's hiring in 2009 and did so again this year. Hodskins worried he'd never play on coach Cal's team of high school all stars and future NBA prospects.
"I'm coming on as a preferred walk-on, but I'll be treated like every other player," Hodskins said. "If I work hard, Coach Donovan told me I'll have a chance to play."
Making Hodskin's story more remarkable is his size and position. At 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, he's big for a guard but he'll still have to handle the ball a tremendous amount for someone with just a single dribbling hand. Based on his YouTube footage, he can't dribble with his left arm, so it remains to be seen how he'll continue to beat defenders to the right at the DI level - or ever take them left. He does have a nifty behind the back dribble - which starts and ends with his right hand - that is effective in transition.
Hodskin's shot is smooth (he uses his shortened left as its guide), and he'll never suffer from anything less than the purest rotation. He jumps on his shot, but is restricted from getting too high because of the length of his left arm. According to the The Big Lead, he hit 60 percent of his 3-pointers last season so Hodskins could make his mark at Florida as a 3-point specialist. Most of his points last year were scored behind the arc, including seven 3s in a season-opening, four-point loss, according to Max Preps.
"He is remarkable," his high school coach Van Keys told USA Today in 2012. "Watching him play would be amazing anyway because he's that good, but when you consider what he's overcome to be so good, it's almost surreal."
The odds will be against Hodskins, which could become his greatest strength. Like one-legged wrestlers and, to a lesser extent, lefthanders in general, Hodskin's game may be just quirky enough to work, even at the DI level. According to CBS Sports, Hodskins can do at least 10 one-armed pullups.
In an interview on "Sportscenter", Hodskins said the greatest obstacle he had to overcome was people. Billy Donovan won't mind having a player like that on his team.
"I know that people who don't know me sleep on me when I walk on the court," he told USA Today last year. "They don't think I can play or they don't know what to think, but it's when I hit those first few shots or when I go by them is when they wake up. That's when they start playing me hard. That's what I love. I know I've just earned their respect. That's all I want.
"It's always been my dream growing up," he said. "I never expected it to be like this, but the hard work has paid off. I'm ecstatic I'm going to be a Florida Gator."
Hodskins won't be the only one-armed Division I athlete to debut next season. Shaquill Griffin, also missing the lower half of his left arm, won a scholarship to play cornerback alongside his twin brother Shaquem at Central Florida, according to ESPN. Griffin is also nationally-ranked in the triple jump.You can't debate the NRA, and it's a waste of time to pick at their arguments, because they're not a political movement, or a marketing group or even a cult -- their worldview isn't robust enough to support a cult. Also, in a cult, someone in the leadership is usually getting laid. The NRA are just crackheads.
Once you understand that, you don't have to get mad at every little thing Wayne LaPierre says. He's a crackhead. If you untangled the rat's nest of old extension cords in his rhetoric you'd find the threads of a four simple thoughts:
I like crack.
I'm never going to stop smoking crack.
The sooner you stop bitching about the bad things that happen when I smoke crack, the happier we'll all be.
Do you have any crack?
Take his speech today, about militarizing America's grade schools, to deter "monsters." Don't try to reason it out. When he says "guns" just pretend he's saying "crack."
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away... or a minute away?"
Becomes:
"The only thing that stops a bad guy who wants crack is a good guy, giving him some crack. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with some crack from a mile away... or a minute away?"
Well, whichever gets the crackhead out of my house quicker, I suppose. I have to work tomorrow.
"Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: 'More crack,' you'll claim, 'is the NRA's answer to everything!' Your implication will be that crack is evil and has no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the word 'crack' automatically become a bad word?"
I dunno. When all those children and teachers got murdered?
Let's not "automatically" make "gun" a bad word. How about "semi-automatically?"
When Wayne LaPierre suggests that we arm all our children -- Are you saying "with all the foreign aid, with all the money in the federal budget" we can't? -- he's not trying to infuriate you, by being too stupid for Wasilla. He doesn't know that America doesn't spend any money on foreign aid, and he doesn't care. He's a crackhead. He's saying:
"Why can't I buy more crack? Look at all the money you're spending on diapers."
But there was one part of LaPierre's speech that puzzled me, as someone who works in entertainment -- you know, the "callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people" -- I couldn't understand LaPierre's choice of the only two movies to single out as the bad ones:
"... the blood-soaked slasher films like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers..."
Natural Born Killers came out 18 years ago. It's currently the 1,298th most popular movie at the American box office. It was 25th in 1994. Behind, among others, True Lies, Clear and Present Danger, Pulp Fiction and The Specialist. All of which contained a certain amount of gunplay, if memory serves.
America Psycho came out 12 years ago. It's this nation's 3,257th most beloved film. It was 117th in 2000. Far, far behind Mission: Impossible II, Scream 3, The Patriot, Shaft, The Cell, Romeo Must Die, Final Destination, The Exorcist Directors Cut, The Skulls, The Sixth Day, Dracula 2000, The Art of War and Reindeer Games.
How did Wayne LaPierre not see any of those movies, but he did see American Psycho? What kind of Blockbuster did he belong to?
Before a movie can destroy a country's moral fiber don't some people have to watch it?
So why are these two movies stuck in this crackhead's craw?
I think American Psycho is terrific. You'd have to go back to Kiss Me Deadly to find another adaptation where a director treated a novel with such cold (and deserved) contempt. Natural Born Killers is sweaty and shrill, but it's got a couple more ideas than, let's say, The Specialist.
Why them?
Because both of them make violence look stupid.
Both of the make hurting people look like the kind of thing an asshole would want to do. Or a twisto, or a weakling, or a pervert or a cretin.
Or a crackhead.
And that's supposed to be Wayne LaPierre's little secret.After finally getting a good night’s sleep the team here at Roberts Space Industries would all like to thank you for helping us make history.
It’s gratifying to see Star Citizen mentioned across the gaming and mainstream media; how its broken records, how it shows that people still believe in PC games, how they want to play a space sim, how it is another nail in the coffin of the traditional publisher model.
We hope that you will feel the same way. Even though a lot of press and commentators are praising our skill in running a campaign, the secret sauce that really made Star Citizen happen was YOUR dedication. Your belief in this game energized us as the days got long. Your desire to play kept us going as we faced technical issues and growing mountains of work to do. The community YOU built made sure WE stayed believers. You made this game your own; big publishers may someday look back at this as the beginning of the end, a day when the players took over the development process and made it their own. So from all of us at RSI: good work, Citizens!
The Pledge
You’ve spent the last month pledging for the Star Citizen project with your money, your time and your trust.
We’ve created “The Pledge”, a founding document to let you know the standards to which we intend to keep ourselves to and how we will keep you informed and involved in the process over the next two years. You can access The Pledge here.
Grace Period
RSI
RSI
In the aftermath of some ofit’s become clear that there’s a sizable number of people that were unable to pledge, or adjust their pledges due to the difficulties with thesite. Many people tried repeatedly over the weekend, only for the site to crash at various points during the check out. Some people switched to Kickstarter, but there were also a large number of people that Kickstarter wasn’t an option and so they have been left high and dry. The focus of our campaign was, from day one, involving the fans and trying to give them as many options to support us as possible. The last thing we want to do is punish any of you, and so we have decided to adapt our plans and offer a grace period for all current members of thecommunity.
If you have a membership, regardless of whether you have previously purchased a tier, you will be able to pledge at the current prices through this weekend. We will keep the limited add-on ships available through that time for everyone who tried to purchase one but wasn’t able. Everything will switch to the new pricing structure on Monday November 26th
Billing and Customer Service Issues
RSI
Over the last 72 hours almost 40,000 new members joined our community and combined with thesite going down, sometimes in the middle of someone’s transaction there are quite a few billing issues to resolve. We apologize for any inconveniences, and we just wanted to let you know that our customer support staff is working around the clock to resolve any issues. As there is such a high volume it will take at least a couple of days to work through the backlog of emails and intercom (our customer support software) messages.
If you have any issues you would like resolved which you have not previously notified us via [email protected] or [email protected] please email [email protected]. We’re dedicated to resolving any issues, so don’t worry, we will get to you and will do our best to fix any problem. We ask for you to please be patient. We’re a very small company, and while we’re staffing up to take care of our growing customer base, we only have two very overworked people dealing with fixing account issues – Cindy Armstrong, our CFO and Sandi Gardiner, our VP of Marketing.
Moving Forward
Look for updates from us in the very near future as we go about transitioning the site back to being focused on our community and telling the story of development.
For those of our backers in the USA we wish you a warm Thanksgiving holiday for later this week.
The biggest “Thank you” possible!
RSI
Chris Roberts and theteam.By Rachel Blevins
In addition to his “War on Cannabis,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently revealed that he is also in favor of a “War on Poverty,” when he rescinded a legal guidance document that was meant to end illegal debtors’ prisons.
While debtors’ prisons are labeled as institutions to keep people from failing to pay fines and debts, they have been used to take advantage of impoverished, low-income individuals. A simple traffic ticket can turn into months in prison, which results in even greater fines. As defined by the American Civil Liberties Union:
Nearly two centuries ago, the United States formally abolished the incarceration of people who failed to pay off debts. Yet, recent years have witnessed the rise of modern-day debtors’ prisons—the arrest and jailing of poor people for failure to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford, through criminal justice procedures that violate their most basic rights.
The legal guidance rescinded by Sessions was one that was implemented by the Department of Justice in 2016. It states that courts are required to follow constitutional principles and to prohibit the imprisonment of poor individuals because they cannot pay court fines and fees.
Sessions rescinded the March 2016 “Dear Colleague Letter on Enforcement of Fines and Fees” last week, along with 25 other legal documents dating back to 1975. In a statement, he claimed that he was “ending 25 examples of improper or unnecessary guidance documents” that had been identified by a DOJ task force:
Last month, I ended the longstanding abuse of issuing rules by simply publishing a letter or posting a web page. Congress has provided for a regulatory process in statute, and we are going to follow it. This is good government and prevents confusing the public with improper and wrong advice. Therefore, any guidance that is outdated, used to circumvent the regulatory process, or that improperly goes beyond what is provided for in statutes or regulation should not be given effect. That is why today, we are ending 25 examples of improper or unnecessary guidance documents identified by our Regulatory Reform Task Force led by our Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. We will continue to look for other examples to rescind, and we will uphold the rule of law.
The guidance was originally put in place after a series of reports and lawsuits from the ACLU revealed that state and local courts were increasingly offsetting budget deficits by charging additional fees for “public defenders, prosecutors, court administration, jail operation and probation supervision,” and that the courts were using “aggressive tactics to collect these unpaid fines and fees, including for traffic offenses and other low-level offenses.”
As a result, the courts were then jailing people who fell behind on their payments, without holding a hearing to determine if the individual was able to pay the fines, or offering alternatives such as community service.
The ACLU argued that because the courts were imprisoning an individual based on the fact that he or she could not pay court-imposed fines or fees, the court was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection under the law.
Avoiding The Eye - Ships Free Today! In one case, a man undergoing chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer in Sherwood, Arkansas, spent 90 days in jail and ended up owing a court more than $3,000 after he wrote a series of bad checks for small amounts ranging from $5 to $41, and his medical condition prevented him from earning money to pay for the fines associated with the checks. Another case involved a veteran battling homelessness in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who spent 22 days in jail because he showed up to court with $25 out of the $50 the judge wanted him to pay as the first installment for the $2,600 he owed in restitution, fines and court fees after he was found intoxicated, on the roof of a building. Ultimately, the only ones who benefit from debtors’ prisons are the prisons themselves, and the people who suffer are the ones who find themselves facing jail time on top of the inflated fees and fines they already cannot afford to pay. Rachel Blevins is a Texas-based journalist who aspires to break the left/right paradigm in media and politics by pursuing truth and questioning existing narratives. Follow Rachel on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.The Irish rugby team is to break new ground by playing New Zealand in Chicago next November, with a return fixture against the back-to-back World Cup champions to be held in the Aviva Stadium later in that same autumnal window.
The Irish Times has learned that Ireland will meet the All Blacks in Soldier Field, Chicago, on Saturday, November 5th, before hosting a Tier 2 country a week later at the Aviva Stadium. They will then play New Zealand again on November 19th as a prelude to rounding off a busy November window and year with a game against the World Cup finalists Australia on the 26th.
Soldier Field, which is home to the Chicago Bears American football teams, hosted its first international rugby union test match when the All Blacks beat the United States 74-6 in November 2014. The match was a 61,500 sell-out, and although only 23,112 attended Australia’s 47-10 win over the USA Eagles in a World Cup warm-up match last September, it will be a surprise if the combined popularity of both Ireland and the All Blacks did not ensure a sell-out for their meeting next November.
The World Cup highlighted the willingness of Irish supporters to travel long and far to support their country and the IRFU will thus be tapping into the Irish diaspora for a first ever meeting with the All Blacks in America.
These high profile tests are also in keeping with Joe Schmidt’s desire to face the world’s leading teams more regularly, and in addition to the Six Nations, adds to a three-test tour of South Africa next June in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. Six clashes with teams from the Rugby Championship in one calendar year is unprecedented and emulates the six games Argentina, Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final conquerors, will have against the same opponents in 2016.
Ireland have never beaten New Zealand in 28 attempts, dating back to 1905, and never came closer than in the countries’ most recent test at the Aviva Stadium in November 2013, when the All Blacks won 24-22 thanks to a try in over time by Ryan Crotty and a twice taken conversion by Aaron Cruden. They are now set to have two cracks off the World champions next year.
Ireland’s November 2016 schedule
Saturday 5th: Ireland v New Zealand, Soldier Field, Chicago.
Saturday 12th: Ireland v Tier 2 team, Aviva Stadium.
Saturday 19th: Ireland v New Zealand, Aviva Stadium.
Saturday 26th: Ireland v Australia, Aviva Stadium.When Windows 10 hits, people who upgrade to the new operating system and own an Xbox One will be able to stream and play those console titles to their PC.
Yesterday's announcement of the ability to wirelessly stream your Xbox One game to your PC for gaming was focused on what should be available at launch. The service will only work through a Wi-Fi connection in your home and only one supported game can be streamed at a time.
Following the news there was a short on-stage demo of Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox division, playing Forza Horizon 2 on his PC streamed from his Xbox One.
Later that day, Spencer sat down with a group of journalists to answer their questions and talk a bit about where this new service might be heading.
Spencer was sure to clarify that this isn't like the PlayStation 4's remote play, which allows people to play PS4 games on their Vita, even if they're not in the same house.
"It is not a Gaikai or OnLive solution," he said "This is not 'take my laptop down to Starbucks and play,' unless you happen to live right above a Starbucks or something.
"But if I think about our longterm direction, I want your Xbox games to be your Xbox games and your Xbox friends to be your Xbox friends, and you're able to play what games you want where you want with whoever you want. We're taking strides. We're not there yet. We're not there on the content side, we're getting closer on the multiplayer side, but in terms of longterm direction, I think I should feel like my games and my friends are just my games and my friends."
The intent for the service is that the console won't even have to be running initially for you to start the process for connecting your PC to your console and then play an Xbox One title.
"If my kids are watching TV and I want to play Forza... I can just go do that and they wouldn't even know... It just loads in the background"
"Our intent is somebody could be watching television on the Xbox One — and I say watching television running any Windows application," he said. "So the Xbox One's capable of running one Xbox game and multiple Windows applications at the same time. Our goal as a team is to enable that you would be able to do both.
"Now, we haven't perfectly landed that yet."
Spencer said while he didn't discuss that on stage he wants to be transparent and let people know that the goal is "to enable a scenario where if my kids are watching TV, and I want to go up and play Forza... I can just go do that and they wouldn't even know what's happened. It just loads in the background, obviously I wouldn't shut down the console like I did in my demo, so that's our intent.
"We just haven't landed the scenario. It does take us the horsepower for the Xbox to obviously play the game but to obviously play the stream."
He added that he's almost certain they'll be able to "land that scenario."
What you won't be able to do is play an Xbox One game on the console while someone in your house plays a different one on your PC. The service will also require that if the game you want to play is one you purchased on a disc, it will have to be in the Xbox One's drive.
"If it's a digital game sitting on your hard drive, you're just able to launch."
Spencer wasn't entirely sure if you would have to be logged in on the console to use the streaming service, but he hopes that won't be the case.Garrrrggg!!! The goblins roared as they crashed into the elvish city gates of Penca. Hundreds of three foot tall, goblins smashed into the large wooden doors over and over with their shields. The goblins in the back pushing up against the goblins in the front breaking ribs of ones that were caught in the middle. A few goblins pass out from lack of oxygen. The city gates creaked louder than the war cries of the goblins. elves atop the city gates shot arrows down at the goblins, there was no need to aim. If they shot an arrow at the horde of goblins, it was sure to hit. Bastian was among the elves shooting two sometimes three arrows at a time. He would load his bow and shoot in a fluid motion like a wagon wheel turning. The goblins piled so high they could almost reach the top of the gate.
The gates were not going to hold much longer. goblins were strong for their size and brute. The creaking grew louder and louder before a loud POP!. The gates flew open.
Goblins came rushing into the city screaming obscenities at the elves. They torched anything that could burn and slashed at anything living that they came across. Goats bled out on the ground, dogs were thrown into fires, and cabins were set ablaze with elvish people still inside.
Goblins were normally pale green but when they were filled with anger, their skin would turn dark red. Their hatred for the elves was unprecedented, a mere mention of anything having to do with elves around a goblin was enough to turn them. One of the goblins grabbed a teenage elvish boy by the shirt.
“Let me go you red twat!” The child screamed.
“You’re not going anywhere” the goblin responded looking up at the child.
Even elvish children towered over goblins by at least two feet. Three other goblins grabbed ahold of the boy pulling at his arms in separate directions.
The boy screamed “Help me! My arm! It’s going to break!”
The boy’s father came running from behind a cabin and elbowed one of the Goblins and kicked the other one. Pulling the boy to the side he told him “Run! get to the citadel!”
The boy hesitated for a moment before running North up the stone mello steps that ran for half a league toward the Citadel. Five Goblins surrounded the elvish man, with shields and swords the goblins paced. One looked at the others, smiled before dropping his weapons.
“Let’s show this tree fucker what we do with his kind.”
The father elf turned to run towards the Citadel. One goblin jumped on his back biting him on the shoulder. The other four goblins grabbed a hold of both arms pulling as hard as they possibly could.
“Gaaaahhh!” The father screamed. He lifted his head up looking towards the Citadel hoping that his son was safe.
“Turn em around” A goblin spoke.
Still stretched as far as they could the goblins turned the elf to face another goblin. Abnormally large for his kind standing at least four feet high with thick arms and legs.
“Meet... The Ox” one goblin said whispering and laughing in the fathers ear.
The Ox took a few steps back before sprinting towards the elf.
The Ox lowered his shoulder and rammed into the elf’s chest ripping and taking the elf’s body with him. The Ox raised his arms in victory and let out a roar. The other goblins held the elf's severed arms in the air before rushing over to the bloody torso of the dead man and began beating the corpse with his own arms.
“Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself HAHAHA!” the goblins laughed hysterically.
Bastian had stayed atop of the gate tower shooting arrows. One by one, goblins fell to the ground with arrows through their hearts or head. He was reaching to take another one out when suddenly TWAK!, his head rammed into one of the stone pillars that held the roofing over the tower.
Bastian drew blood from his nose, he turned around. A goblin held a small wooden shield up at Bastian with a short sword in the other hand. Bastian reached for an arrow but the goblin had already lunged at him. Bastian swayed to his right slapping the goblin’s arm out of the way. He pulled an arrow from his quiver |
now reunited with his family, where he says he hopes to start a school for neglected Nepali children.Two of President Trump's top campaign aides have handed over documents requested by the Senate Intelligence Committee amid the panel's probe of Russian election interference, NBC News reported Monday.
Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and unofficial Trump adviser Roger Stone provided the information to the Senate committee's investigators by last Friday's deadline, the report said.
The panel also reportedly sent document requests earlier this month to former Trump policy adviser Carter Page and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Stone and a spokesman for Manafort confirmed to NBC News that the two of them fulfilled the committee's request.
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Flynn on Monday invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to turn over his records because of the “escalating public frenzy” surrounding the investigation, according to The Associated Press.
The retired general previously said he would testify in exchange for immunity, but neither the House nor Senate Intelligence committees accepted his offer.
Page also has not turned over his documents to the committee, NBC reported.
Trump fired Flynn from his top security position in February after misleading Vice President Pence and other administration officials about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Russia.
The New York Times reported last week that Trump tried to convince then-FBI Director James Comey to "let go” of his investigation into Flynn. Trump fired Comey earlier this month, acknowledging in an interview that it was at least in part because of the FBI's investigation into Russian election interference.
- Updated at 4:14 p.m.Uh oh, what do we have here? What you are seeing below, is said to be a leaked screenshot from an internal logistics system that apparently lists the Galaxy Note 7 versions destined for the local Korean market. The SM-N930 obviously marks the next Note generation, as the Note 5 is SM-N920, while the other letters afterwards are the different carrier models and versions, as usual.
As you can see in the screenshot here, however, all the models for one carrier are listed as 64 GB versions, which might come as a tangential proof to the @evleaks rumor that the Note 7 will start you off with 64 GB+ of storage, all the while having a microSD card for further expansion.
Couple confirmed specs: 5.7" QHD SAMOLED, 64GB + microSD, 12MP DualP / 5MP, IP68, black/silver/blue — Evan Blass (@evleaks) 25 юни 2016 г.
Still, the entries further down the list, one of which looks like a model for the popular LG U+ carrier in Korea, don't list the storage specifically, as all basic versions do, so we'll believe that Note 7 starts you off with 64 GB of internal memory when we see it. After all, Samsung did do something similar with the Galaxy S5 (16 GB+) and the Note 4 (32 GB+) in 2014, so there is hope out there.Wardog dons her humourless femi-nazi hat.
~
complain about why those bitches only want to shag jerks
I suggest that she comes to my place and she refuses... I suggest I drive her back to her place and she agrees. [He takes her to his place]. We get to my home and come up stairs to my room. She suddenly says “No!” I ask her why. She says she’s “worried that I’ll close the door.” I assure her I won’t; she comes in.
Now this chick did not verbally coalesce in the least. I tried to take her pants off, “Take me home.” I tried to kiss her, “Take me home.” I’m rubbing her tits, “Take me home.”
And in terms of problems like aggressive LMR techniques or misogynist metaphors, it’s not clear that asshole PUAs are worse than misogynists in the mainstream...”
I have stood in bars and watched beginner PUAs screw their courage to the sticking point, then try to start conversations with girls. I have watched the guys get ignored or shut down. It did not make me hate or fear them.
It’s all about the metaphors. PUAs tend to see feminists as uptight bitches who don’t want anyone to get laid while many feminists view PUAs as the foot soldiers of rape culture.
I especially loved talking to guys who – much like myself – saw pickup artistry as another tool for understanding gender and sexuality. Often, the most thoughtful guys, preferred not to label themselves pick up artists at all...
... I felt zero compunctions about messing with his head in a completely non-negotiated way. He was a PUA right? He’d spent the whole night pushing my boundaries, trying to manipulate me. I dreaded to think how well his tactics might have worked on a younger, more naive, more insecure version of myself.
This was war.
And, besides, it wasn’t like PUAs had feelings or anything.
PUAs have their own problems with the commodity model because they don’t like the idea that a guy should have to offer something.... in exchange for sex.
More often I avoided speaking my mind or I phrased my critiques as questions. People – especially women – can go a long way when we phrase objections as questions. I’d rather live in a world where women can be assertive without being labelled bitches but sometimes it’s fun to see how many feminists concepts I can get into a conversation by stealth.
If you read The Game carefully you can spot Neil’s feminist sympathies from the start. For example on page 227 he talks about how getting obsessed with pickup artistry was leading him to ignore his career and non-PUA friends. He writes: “All the sarging was beginning to scramble my brain... in the process of dehumanising the opposite sex, I had also been dehumanising myself.
I liked Adam. He was smart and unassuming and nerdy, an excellent conversationalist, had an ironic sense of humour, had done some interesting activism, read lots of science fiction and his feminist politics were rock-solid. You know what’s even hotter than a man who intelligently uses ‘heteronormative’ in a sentence? A man who can use both ‘heteronormative and cisgendered.’
“I can’t tell you what this feels like,” he choked out between sobs. His whole body spasmed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it will not be rational.” [...]
He wore a gold silk robe that was several sizes too small, exposing his scabbed knees. The ends of the sash just barely met to form a knot and the curtains of the robe hung half a foot apart, revealing a pale, hairless chest and below it, saggy gray Calvin Klein boxer shorts. [...]
“This living thing.” He was speaking again. “It’s so pointless.”
“Balding is not a choice, but bald is a choice,” he said. “If anyone asks why your head is shaved tell them, I used to have it down past my ass but then I realised I was covering up my best feature.” He laughed...
When the barber finished I looked in the mirror and saw a chemo patient staring back at me.
“It looks good,” Mystery said.
I just double-billed Clarisse Thorn’s newly released e-book Confessions of Pickup Artist Chaser with Neil Strauss’ 2005 bestselling PUA classic The Game and, let me tell you, it’s been quite a ride. Just to give a bit of background in case you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about: the pickup artist (PUA) or seduction community is basically a subculture of heterosexual men dedicated to manoeuvring women into bed, though you’d be forgiven for wondering at what point wanting to get laid began to constitute a subculture. From relatively low key beginnings, in newsgroups, forums and mailing lists, where men came together todiscuss their experiences and refine upon the teachings of a handful of gurus, like Ross Jeffries and David DeAngelo, it’s now a massive industry (just try googling this shit) and, arguably, went pretty mainstream, if it wasn’t already, with the publication of Strauss’ writings on the subject.PUA strategies have their origins in neuro-linguistic programming and other hypnosis bullshit, and are complicated, analytical and acronym-heavy. They run the gamut of basic common sense (for example, the notion that you might want to try and look vaguely attractive and have something interesting to say when you approach a member of the desired sex) to the morally dubious, like handy ways to lower a woman’s self-esteem so she’ll feel temporarily bad enough to bonk you, or techniques for overcoming Last Minute Resistance (LMR) so that if she has second thoughts you can manipulate her into having sex anyway. Yay! The PUA community itself, as Clarisse goes to some lengths to describe in her book, is equally diverse, encompassing socially awkward nerdboys who just want to learn how to talk to girls and misogynistic monsters, motivated largely by anger and frustration, who are far more interested in power and control than sex. She also reminds us explicitly in the text and implicitly through the PUAs she introduces over the course of the book that communities should not be judged by their outliers and treating groups of individuals as being homogeneous is deeply problematic.Early on, she presents a personal taxonomy of PUAs, which she notes functions as a short-hand, differentiated by what particular ‘types’ of men want to get out of the community - for example power (Darth Vaders), money (Sharks) or plain ol’ better social skills with women (Freaks and Geeks). She situates rampant misogyny firmly in the Darth Vader camp, but although socially awkward nerdboys may not go around shrieking about how much they hate those bitches, I personally have always found the nice-guy misogyny of entitlement much more harmful than straightforward anti-feminism. And I think it’s genuinely problematic to isolate the more toxic elements of the community as being solely the province of demonic misogynists.Just to establish where I’m coming from, here’s a sample of a lay report that Clarisse quotes in the book:And, here’s the thing, I’m sure this was written by a perfectly ‘nice’ guy, not a woman-hating monster. But he still just raped a girl. Clarisse comments later:But I think what this lay report, and other reports like it, actually flag up is that the problem is not identified or self-identified misogynists, it’s people like this, the socially awkward nerdboys we’re supposed to feel sorry for because they were bullied at school and can’t get laid. To give the PUA community what little credit it deserves, one commenter does ask for more evidence that the girl isn’t being raped but the writer just interprets this as a problem with his write-up, not his raping.I suppose you could argue (and Clarisse, in fact, does argue) that in teaching socially awkward nerdboys how not be creepy fucks around women, the PUA community is doing everybody a favour, but I think you also have to accept that what it might be doing is giving already resentful, entitled nerdboys useful techniques for raping women, and an entire vocabulary of self-justification for doing so. For example, PUAs call bad after-sex reactions, “buyer’s remorse.” I find the very fact they have a word for this problematic in itself, because if people are having bad reactions to sleeping with you then you’re doing it very wrong indeed. I’m absolutely 100% sure that I haven’t had sex with anyone who regretted it afterwards, nor have I had sex I have myself regretted, and I’ve plenty of casual sex.Clarisse, I think, wants us to understand and sympathise with these socially awkward nerdboys struggling against the dismissive cruelty of attractive women:One would hope there’s a comfortable middle ground between hate and fear and “oh but think of the nerds” hand-wringing, one that doesn’t, for example lead to women either feeling obliged or being manipulated into sleeping with people they don’t want to sleep with. The thing is, although I do understand that it’s rubbish to be insecure and uncertain in social situations, you still have to face up to the fact that even if ignorance and awkwardness lie at the root of certain misogynistic behaviours, it still doesn’t excuse the behaviours themselves, nor should we be expected to forgive them. To put it another way: if you’ve had a really awful day and you hit me in the face, you still just hit me in the face. Your day is irrelevant.Despite its profound problems, the truth is, I’ve been rather fascinated by pickup artistry since I learned about it from a friend a few years back. Part of the reason I was quite excited to download a copy of Confessions (other than the fact it was £1.99 when I bought it, it’s now a fiver though) is that I wanted to read a feminist perspective on the subject, because if you close your eyes and squint there are subsumed elements to pickup artistry that seem like they could be kind of almost positive, maybe. If you ignore the, ah, rape. Hum. Given that PUAs are interested in sleeping casually with women, and that women can also be interested in casual sex (not just marriage and babies), some PUA concerns seem to overlap interestingly with feminist ones.For example, PUAs talk about the “anti-slut defence (ASD)” which is essentially PUA terminology for the constructed social pressure women are under not to sleep around, and the fear of being harshly labelled (by both men and women) for doing so. Similarly, a lot of taught PUA approach behaviours are focused on not making women feel threatened, creeped-out or otherwise uncomfortable - which is surely positive for everyone, since, as Clarisse herself points out in the book, a large part of the reason that many women don’t enjoy / don’t have casual sex is because, even putting aside the potential social stigma for being easy, it can be unpleasant and dangerous for women. The feminist-sympathetic aspects of pickup (though, it should be said that PUAs themselves are not in any way feminist friendly) are addressed effectively, and comprehensively, by Clarisse over the course of the book, and it’s fairly easy to get seduced (oh irony) by them.However, the more I read of Confessions, the more uncomfortable I became with this search for sympathy. I mean, to look at it in the most positive possible light, there’s an extent to which all pickup artistry does is teach men techniques for initiating consensual, casual sex with women who want to sleep with pickup artists - and, thus, everybody wins. But unfortunately I don’t think the positive aspects of pickup artistry can co-exist with the negative ones, in the sense that learning how to make women feel sufficiently comfortable that they’ll go home with you at the end of the evening is kind of undermined (to put it mildly) if you then manipulate them into having sex they may not really want.Don’t get me wrong, I think there is value in Clarisse’s very moderate, very balanced, very sympathetic approach to what is surely a controversial subject, but by the end of Confessions I couldn’t help but feel it had drifted, probably unconsciously, into apologia, and I was left asking myself: who is this book for? I guess if you knew nothing about feminism or pickup artistry you’d wouldn’t be in any danger of being over-challenged (and that’s fair enough) but I felt, in general, that the tone was skewed towards pacifying pickup artists at the expense of feminism. And whatever superficial similarities it is possible to find between the agendas and preoccupations of the two groups, I don’t think we’re ever going to be friends. For example, Clarisse writes:This, to me, epitomises the problems with Clarisse’s approach to the subject. It isabout the metaphors, and it’s seriously trivialising to make this issue about language when it’s about behaviour. Feminists have legitimate criticisms of pickup artistry, whereas pickup artists apparently just want to call feminists names. This is the equivalent of suggesting that, because Fred Phelps claims gay people are ‘soul-damning, nation-destroying moral filth’ while gay people say he is a bigot, the truth must lie somewhere in the middle. This is, of course, bollocks. Just because two groups, or individuals, have negative opinions of each other does not mean there is a space of compromise between the two; sometimes it is simply the case that one group is right and the other group is wrong. And moreover, even if there are (and I’m sure there are) uptight feminists out there who don’t want people to get laid, that’s not comparable to people thinking it’s okay to commit rape. Although I certainly don’t see every PUA as a rapist-in-training, and I understand that in any large community there’s bound to be some rapists in there because, hey, rape statistics are shockingly high, PUA techniques explicitly include rape, even if many/most/nearly all PUAs are not individually rapists. And that’s where the discussion has to end.I should probably make clear at this juncture that Clarisse in no way condones rape at any point during the book (or, as far as I can tell, ever). Nor does she deliberately shy away from the more problematic elements of the seduction community, including its unpleasant objectification of women and the use of aggressive LMR techniques & etc. By the end of the book she has, in fact, concluded that her engagement with the PUA community is not good for her, and is in the process of distancing herself from it. However, despite her direct condemnation of the more hostile extremes of pickup artistry and the honesty with which she attempts to address her own agendas and ambivalences, I was still quite troubled by the book. And perhaps I’m just the world’s most paranoid reader but I felt as though there were times when her attempts to maintain a moderate position amounted to a subtle rhetoric of justification.For example, she meets several PUAs over the course of her book, all of whom, even the sexist and challenging ones, ultimately come across pretty well. In fact, one of her most successful portraits, I would argue, is of the shark-ish Nathan, an aggressive and confident PUA coach she nicknames Mr Shady. I think there’s an extent to which Clarisse is just a nice human being, and therefore tends to present the people she encounters in as a generous a light as possible but it does lead to a rather distorted perspective of the community as a whole in that there are names and faces for its charming, balanced, socially acceptable side, whereas the darker underbelly is culled mainly from blog posts and fleeting encounters with nameless wankers, for example the PUA who snarls “What the fuck is personality?” when Clarisse puts forward the suggestion that two people might be dating because they like each other.There’s a chapter in which Clarisse addresses the writings of a notorious PUA blogger known as Roissy but his perspective is so ludicrously, almost hilariously, sexist that there’s no space for meaningful engagement there at all, rendering him little more than an outrageous strawman against whom, in safe imaginary combat, Clarisse can ‘prove’ her feminist credentials. The overall effect of this is that it becomes increasingly easy to invest your understanding of pickup artistry in the nice people with names, rather than anonymous slew of voices, who are actually as much a part of the reality of the community as the friendly bits.Similarly, she does an awful lot of work to situate PUA behaviour in familiar, non-threatening spaces. For example, she compares the PUA writing field (or lay) reports for the online community as being similar, or the same, as women discussing their relationships with close personal friends. Um no. She also opens the book by recounting stories about how she used to indulge in what could be interpreted as PUA behaviour, e.g. talking to random strangers (sarging) or thinking up things to say to people (preparing openers), and often references the overlap between her own interests and those of pickup artists, while simultaneously distancing herself, and her acquaintances, from the more toxic aspects of the community:The thing is, although I do agree that aspects of pick up can be used as Clarisse suggests, emphasising the theoretical side is clearly disingenuous when the community itself is extremely derogatory about keyboard-jockeys (those who talk, but don’t practice). So what Clarisse is basically saying here is that the ‘most thoughtful guys’ she met weren’t actually PUAs, since community-identity is kind of a big part of the shtick.As I mentioned earlier, Clarisse is at pains to present the community as a diverse group of individuals, even going so far as to highlight the ways in which her initial attitude towards PUAs was equally cynical and manipulative. However this is yet another false dichotomy. Early in the book, she recounts an evening spent with a PUA called David. He basically pulls out all the stops to sleep with her, up to and including offering to take her somewhere to get something to eat and driving her to his own apartment. His behaviour is pushy but Clarisse doesn’t feel threatened (which is entirely a personal call, and therefore I’m passing no judgements on it; however I would personally not feel safe with a man who lied to me about where he was taking me) and they have a conversation that lasts until the early hours of the morning (mainly because he changes the subject every time Clarisse asks him to take her home) interspersed with intervals of him jumping her and she rejecting his physical advances. If it was me, I would not be happy with that mismatch of expectations, since David clearly sees talking to Clarisse as a tedious premable to shagging her, but, as before, it’s a personal judgement, and that’s cool. Eventually she manages to force him to take her home, by threatening to walk instead, and she kisses him in the car, even though she doesn’t fancy him.Well big whoop.She writes:I think this is an attempt to present us with an “aaaah d’ysee” moment, by revealing the ways in which we (women/Clarisse/whatever) are just as guilty of manipulative behaviour as PUAs, and just like they reduce women to sexual objects judged solely by conventional physical attractiveness, so we also reduce PUAs to feeling-devoid monsters who...oh come on! Seriously? First of all, I don’t think Clarisse did anything wrong here at all, so I have no idea what she mea-culpa-ing about. She is perfectly open and honest with David from the beginning, telling him repeatedly she is not going to sleep with him. That he convinces himself that no really means yes and ‘wastes’ a night talking to her is his problem, not hers. If you go home with someone, you are not obliged to fuck them. If you kiss someone, you are still not obliged to fuck them. Kissing someone you aren’t attracted to may set up false expectations and is, at worst, a bit mean. But Clarisse claims the power game was non-negotiated which is complete nonsense because David not only consented to the power game, he initiated it. He just happened to lose. It’s really telling that Clarisse comes away from the encounter thinking “oh bad me, oh poor guy” when she also acknowledges that if she’d have been younger and more insecure, he would have successfully raped her.To put it another way, we have a situation in which two people have oppositional goals. David wants to have sex with Clarisse, Clarisse does not want to have sex with David. If David fails to have sex with Clarisse, the worst that happens to him is a minor case of blue balls. He’s not entitled to sex with Clarisse, even if she comes home with him, even if she kisses him. If Clarisse fails to stop David having sex with her, then … err … we’re back to rape again. Playing mind games with someone specifically to mess with their head because you know they’re a PUA is a bit dodgy. However playing mind games with someone who has been trying to mess with your head (and possibly trying to rape you) all evening is entirely different. It’s the established terms of the relationship. If he gets a pass on trying to manipulate her into having sex with him, then she gets a pass on using his desire to have sex with her to get one over on him. Yes, it’s about power, it’s always been about power. But it was, at no point, non-consensual.Later in the book, Clarisse discusses the commodity model of sex, and argues that PUAs are, once again, unintentionally on-side with feminists in that they recognise the harmfulness of the model and therefore work to subvert it:Um. Yeah. Not the same thing. Feminists don’t like the commodity model for a whole variety of reasons, mostly a) that it implies sex is something men are entitled to if they behave in a certain way b) it implies that sex isn’t something that women can want for its own sake. Pickup artists do not think that they should literally spend money to get a woman to have sex with them but this does not reject the commodity model any more than The Apprentice buying task rejects capitalism. In fact, PUA techniques are very much grounded in the assumptions of the commodity model - it is all about selling your attention as high value, and the woman’s body as low value, so that she will trade her body for your attention. And this is demonstrated perfectly in Clarisse’s encounter with David, since he clearly spends the night talking to her as an investment that will pay off when she sleeps with him.Throughout the book, Clarisse acts as though there is room for negotiation between feminists and pickup artists, and perhaps I’m just irredeemably cynical but all her arguments succeeded in doing was convince me there isn’t. And, to an extent, I even started to resent her behaviour which struck me largely as being calculated to win the sympathies of pickup artists by proving she wasn’t one of “those” feminists. For example, when she talks about her interview with Neil Strauss, she comments: “I didn’t have much time to talk to Neil and I was nervous about coming off as a so-called ‘humourless feminazi’ so I didn’t probe further...” Incidentally, this was after expressing her surprise that so many feminists are angry with Strauss, because “from a PUA perspective, [he’s] way on our side.”Now I understand that Clarisse is there to engage with the community, and you don’t get anything ‘out’ of people if you antagonise them but, equally, I think the point at which you’re fearful of expressing your truly held beliefs for fear of negative judgement is also the point at which you have to accept that you’re not going to be listened to anyway. Clarisse writes:Well, I suppose we make our own fun. And I’d rather be a bitch than a panderer, but we all make our choices.I suppose this is just the tone argument writ large but I genuinely don’t think it is the role of feminists to make themselves approachable to anti-feminist men so theycan be patted on the head for not being angry or unpleasant or challenging like those other bitches. Again, maybe I’m being unfair but I do not buy into the idea that there are feminist-men and misogynistic-men and a morass of undecideds in the middle who can be swayed to our cause if we’re nice enough to them. This is not really a morally subjective issue. It’s like - there are some people who believe black people are entitled to the same treatment as white people. If you’re not quite sure, then you’re a racist. You shouldn’t have to be wooed into being a decent human by the people you’re oppressing. It’s really not that complicated.And Clarisse’s attempts to wring feminism out of Neil Strauss are particularly entertaining:Firstly, I wouldn’t consider page 227 to be “the start” exactly but this argument has precisely the same problems as Clarisse’s earlier effort to support the idea that PUA techniques challenge the commodity model of sex, in that although a superficially similar conclusion is reached, the underlying assumptions are irreconcilable. PUAs dehumanise women by reducing them to physical objects, and women, obviously, aren’t mad keen on this. Neil Strauss is mainly worried that dehumanising women is having a bad effect on him. This is not the same as recognising that dehumanising other people is, in itself, not okay.Differing feminist agendas aside, however, my main problem with Confessions was actually the writing. The book is clearly a labour of love, which makes me feel slightly guilty for criticising it but, despite being quite interesting in some places, it’s simply too long and too unwieldy. Somehow it manages to be both incredibly laboured and structurally incoherent. Clarisse opens every chapter with a Henry Fielding-esque summary of what is to come and ends with - I shit you not - a tl;dr summary of what you’ve just damn well read, but still everything feels a little haphazard, as she careens from analysis to citation to personal musings and anecdotes to random pieces of advice, There tends to be a vague thematic connection but it’s disorganised, ill-disciplined, self-indulgent and, oh God, it needs an editor so badly.I understand that Clarisse is a blogger and it does feel like a very new-media text, heavily hyperlinked and drawing its references largely from the internet, which is fine by the way, but I felt that some of the stylistic holdovers from blogging actually interfered with Confessions’ effectiveness as a book. The tl;dr summaries, for example, drove me nuts. I can absolutely see their value on webpages, which people tend to browse with limited time and attention, but when you’re sitting there, with a book in your hands, you’re kind of already committed and therefore telling me what I’ve just read isn’t helpful, it’s unnecessary (and borderline insulting).Similarly, when you’re writing a long-running blog, readers dip in and out of it at random, they often forget what they’ve read, they might have missed certain posts, or they might be a new reader, so it’s important to repeat vital pieces of information regularly, and it serves you well to take a basically Dickensian approach to characterisation: Mr Flubberwit, my submissive feminist ex-lover with the tongue ring who once took me to a sex party in Paris … However, books tend to be read over a relatively short of period of time, and therefore the information contained within them is often retained, at least while you’re in the middle of reading, so Clarisse’s habit of constantly reminding me of everything she’s already told me rapidly became infuriating. By the end of the book, I was about ready to scream every time I read the words: “my goth-feminist polyamorous PUA friend, the S&M switch Brian...” Given how many times she’d already given us an S&M 101, I was starting to wonder what other kind of switch she imagined we might believe Brian to be. A light switch?Although the writing style is inoffensive, lucid and occasionally witty, it’s not sparkling and, at times, it’s painfully over-explanatory. I cracked a little smile when I ran across a chapter called “Women in their sensitivities”, but then, of course, Clarisse had to take all the fun out of it by immediately telling me that this is a reference to Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Sweeney Todd. The thing about off-hand references is that if the reader needs to pick up on them to understand something about the text, they shouldn’t be there in the first place. In this case, if you didn’t get the chapter title, it honestly wouldn’t have mattered, so it was perfectly safe to remain unexplicated. Similarly, when Clarisse introduces us to the blogger Hugh Ristik, she kindly tells us: “his blogger name was a pun on the semi-obscure psychological term ‘heuristic’ which indicates an experience-based method of making quick decisions. Urrrgh. I understand that readers come to text with differing levels of knowledge and although I think it’s perfectly reasonable Clarisse would take the time to explain certain S&M, or feminist concepts in case they were unfamiliar, it seems to me as though she genuinely has no faith whatsoever in her readers to get a pun, recognise a reference or, even, remember something she said a paragraph ago, let alone a chapter. It’s just depressing.I’d say that her strengths as a writer, such as they are, lie in analysis and exploration, which means that the various people she introduces to us over the course of the book don’t come across particularly successfully. Although one can superficially distinguish between Brian the (S&M) switch and David the one who didn’t manage to rape her and Adam the dude she has a totally abortive relationship with, it’s basically just one long bland-a-thon. I commented earlier that I think she’s just a genuinely nice person who doesn’t want to write anything bad about anyone, and that’s entirely reasonable, but it does mean that the people she encounters have very little depth or reality to them. Nathan, the sharkish one, comes across the best, and I suspect that’s largely because he’s such an invincibly arrogant tosser that she wasn’t worried about criticising him, or portraying him in a semi-negative light. Adam, who is surely supposed to be sort of important, since she spends half the book alternatively analysing and then agonising over how much she likes him, is an utter non-entity. I didn’t entirely understand why the relationship fell apart (a lack of honest communication, if you ask me, but I’m a simple creature) but then I didn’t really understand why they were into each other either.Clarisse writes:Well, yes, those are nice qualities, but they didn’t really give me any sense of him as a person. Also nearly everybody I know can use those words in a sentence - I consider it kind of the default. I couldn’t actually work out why the Adam Sequence was in the book at all. I think he was supposed to be her attempt to date a PUA, or her attempt to date while being saturated in PUA culture, but none of this really comes through successfully or illuminatingly. Mainly it ends up with Clarisse having interminable conversations with her vegan-psychologist-friend Sharon in which she says things like: “Thirdly he’s inexperienced with alternative sexualities like S&M and polyamory … he has really good S&M instincts and he’s a good communicator, and he’s familiar with the idea of polyamory but I don’t think he’s as committed to polyamory as I am. If we got serious that could end up being a major conflict because I’m not letting another guy talk me out of polyamory.” And I felt like stabbing myself in the eyes with a fork. Is this how other women really talk about their relationships? God help us all.The main thing Confessions did for me was make me easy prey for The Game. I should hate The Game, I really should, but, honestly, I kind of feel there’s no point. It’s simply too reprehensible and too delicious. And, yes, I am well-aware of the irony that a PUA text basically PUA-ed me into delirious submission - but I am 100% consenting. Where Confessions is workmanlike at best, The Game is glittering and fabulous. It has a similar sense of unreality to it, but that’s because Strauss (unlike Clarisse) successfully weaves a satisfying fictionalised narrative from random events (that, in Strauss’ case may or may not be true), and whereas Clarisse clearly hesitates to portray people unsympathetically, Strauss has no compunction whatsoever in shredding his friends and acquaintances into little piles of humiliation. I mean, The Game opens with Mystery (PUA extraordinaire) crying hysterically in the middle of an epic nervous breakdown on the floor of Project Hollywood:It’s a gorgeously unglamorous beginning, and basically sets the tone for what follows which is PUAs Behaving Badly. Strauss pulls of a masterful job of portraying nearly everyone involved in the community as a frail, fallible pathetically broken human being. Well, everyone but him. He’s seems fairly honest about his insecurities and inadequacies but since everyone he meets reacts as though he’s awesome, they evidently don’t really count. I guess that officially makes Neil Strauss the Mary Sue of his own life because even when he’s your everyday AFC (average frustrated chump) who can’t get laid the proclaimed gurus of the nascent PUA community, like Mystery and Ross Jeffries, nevertheless see something in him, fight over him and generally court his favour.I personally read The Game which so much salt it’s a wonder I didn’t die of heart failure in the middle, while giggling with delight, but it reads like a cross between really trope-heavy genre fiction (the young Chosen One, considered lowly by the world at large, has his value recognised by a succession of wise mentors who nurture him on his destined journey to become the Lord of Pickup) and one of those delicious 18th century confessionals about how the author turned his back on righteousness, God and virtue and proceeded to have an awesome time, but now he’s sorry, really, sorry, and righteousness, God and virtue are totally the only way to live. As such, it’s a ridiculous, hypocritical and generally repulsive text but, oh my god, it’s so compulsively readable that I had a complete blast with it.The plot, such as it is, basically revolves around Strauss’ gradual mastery of pickup and his ascendancy, alongside Mystery, over a community of desperate, needy men. There’s a lot of Strauss angsting about sex (it takes him a long time to close, even when he has overcome his approach anxiety), a succession of unerotic, uninteresting sexual encounters, some fame-wanking (Strauss meets Tom Cruise and Courteny Love OHMGEE) and eventually the establishment Project Hollywood, which is supposed to be this amazing epitome of, um, something, man bonding I think, but basically comes across as a frat house for PUAs. And, needless to say, falls apart disastrously. Our noble hero grows gradually more disillusioned with pickup (but only, of course, after he’s had all the hot chicks and threesomes he wants) eventually meets a girl who doesn’t tolerate any of his bullshit, falls in love with her and moves on with his life.Although I wouldn’t go looking for feminism in The Game (despite the fact Strauss playfully-maliciously opens each chapter with the juxtaposition of a macho cartoon and a quote from a feminist writer) I very much enjoyed the spectacle of reading about a bunch of dudes behaving in a |
productivity growth to surge. At last, the computers Solow and everyone else saw around them had become visible in the statistics. It just took a while.
Well, here we go again. Now robots are everywhere — but they are also an object of confusion.
In early April the think tank Third Way published research by Henry Siu and Nir Jaimovich that blamed robots and automation for the fact that many repetitive jobs have all but vanished from the economic recovery. And yet, as Larry Summers noted recently, for all of the anecdotal evidence that automation is prompting mass layoffs and presumably increasing productivity, the “productivity statistics over the last dozen years are dismal.”
Again, something is failing to compute. And what’s more, the fact that there hasn’t been much macroeconomic research on the impact of robots has only added to the confusion. Commentators have largely been forced to rely on anecdote.
However, empirical evidence is beginning to trickle in that could begin to clear up the current paradox. Provided in a new paper from London’s Center for Economic Research, the analysis offered by George Graetz and Guy Michaels of Uppsala University and the London School of Economics, respectively, offers some of the first rigorous macroeconomic research and finds that industrial robots have been a substantial driver of labor productivity and economic growth.
To fuel their analysis, Graetz and Michaels employ new data from the International Federation of Robotics to analyze the use of industrial robots across 14 industries in 17 countries between 1993 and 2007. What do they find? Overall, Graetz and Michaels conclude that the use of robots within manufacturing raised the annual growth of labor productivity and GDP by 0.36 and 0.37 percentage points, respectively, between 1993 and 2007. That might not seem like a lot but it represents 10% of total GDP growth in the countries studied and 16% of labor productivity growth over that time period.
Moreover, to put that gain in context, it’s worth noting that the robots’ contribution to productivity growth in the 1990s and 2000s is comparable to that of a true “general purpose technology” (GPT) — one that has a pervasive, longstanding impact on a number of dissimilar industries. Graetz and Michaels calculate, for example, that robotics have of late increased labor productivity by about 0.35% annually — or by about the same amount as did the steam engine, a classic example of a GPT, during the years 1850 to 1910.
More recently, other analysis has shown that the pervasive IT revolution supported 0.60% of labor productivity growth and 1.0% of overall growth in Europe, the U.S., and Japan between 1995 and 2005. That’s about two to three times the amount contributed by robotics thus far but capital investment rates in IT during those years were also five times higher than those in industrial robots during the 1993 to 2007 period. As many economists have noted, productivity figure are often quite difficult to calculate in new technology categories, and could be larger or smaller than official estimates. Nonetheless, to the extent that one can trust today’s flawed productivity data, Graetz and Michaels’ work suggests the young robotics revolution is going to be a very big deal.
And yet, there is another critical question that needs asking, and that is whether the robots’ productivity impacts are resulting in job losses.
Consider that between 1993 and 2007 (the timeframe studied by Graetz and Michaels) the U.S. increased the number of robots in use as a portion of the total hours of manufacturing work (a standard measure of economic output) by 237%. During the same period the U.S. economy shed 2.2 million manufacturing jobs.
So is there a relationship between the use of industrial robots and job loss? The substantial variation of the degree to which countries deploy robots according to Graetz’ and Michaels’ data should provide clues. If robots are a substitute for human workers, then one would expect the countries with higher investment rates in automation to have experienced greater employment loss in their manufacturing sectors. For example, Germany deploys over three times as many robots per hour worked than the U.S., according to Graetz and Michaels, largely due to Germany’s robust automotive industry, which is by far the most robot-intensive industry (with over 10 times more robots per worker than the average industry). Sweden has 60% more robots per hours worked than the U.S. thanks to its highly technical metal and chemical industries.
However, these data don’t compute with expectations. By our calculations there is, as yet, essentially no visible relationship between the use of robots and the change in manufacturing employment. Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19% of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33% drop in the U.S. (We introduce a three-year time lag to allow for robots to influence the labor market and continued with the most recent data, 2012). Korea, France, and Italy also lost fewer manufacturing jobs than the United States, even as they introduced more industrial robots. On the other hand, countries like the United Kingdom and Australia invested less in robots but saw faster declines in their manufacturing sectors.
For their part, Graetz and Michaels also see a lot of ambiguity when it comes to robotics’ influence on the labor force. They cannot rule out that there is no effect of robot densification on national employment levels. But they do see variegated skill-biased impacts. Specifically, their data suggest that the arrival of robots tended to increase the employment and pay of skilled workers even as it seemed to “crowd out” employment of low-skill and, to a lesser extent, middle-skill workers. So while robots don’t seem to be causing net job losses, they do seem to change the sort of workers that
are in demand.
In the end, the new data are important because they dispel at least some of the robotics productivity paradox. Assuming more analyses fall into line with Graetz’ and Michael’s work it will be possible to say that robots have become visible in the productivity data — and that the data and observed realities match up and can be useful. In addition, the scale of the robots’ impact — even with technology improvements racing along — suggests that robotics may well be a big thing: a general purpose technology that over time pervades the economy, spawns myriad new innovations, and elevates productivity for years, with major impacts on society. No, we’re not there yet, as Summers notes, but the evidence suggests that day is coming. As to the bots’ impact on employment, that is less clearly visible, and may be positive, negative, or mixed. Yet if the IT experience is any indicator, full adoption of a powerful technology can take a generation, and come after years of delay. In that sense, while it’s early, the advent of the robots is beginning to conform to expectations.The London Underground: Property Price Tube Map
We’ve painstakingly charted the average house price for each of the 280 tube stops on the London Underground network. It was well worth time time though, because it looks awesome!! Unfortunately, the Transport for London weren’t too happy about us basing our design on a map replicated around the world, so we’ve had to take it down, but we can still give you the rundown of our research below.
Across the tube network even one stop can make a big difference in property price. Although not the largest gap in price on the tube network, the most notable is certainly Wembley Park to Finchley Road. The average house price in Finchley Road exceeds £1.4 million, but taking the tube just eight minutes down the line to Wembley Park, can save UK buyers £1 million on their property price.
On the Northern Line moving one stop from Hampstead (£1.4m) in Zone 2 to Golders Green in Zone 3, where the average house price is £962,000, can save you nearly half a million on the price of your property.
Further south, moving one stop and one zone from Turnham Green out to Acton Town will also save you £400,000 on the price of a London property. The average house in Turnham Green, Zone 2, will cost you just shy of a million. However four minutes down the District or Piccadilly line and the average house price in Acton Town only just tops £500,000.
But for those looking to really maximise their property potential on the London Underground, the most affordable property prices across the whole network are found in Zones 4 and 5. In fact the cheapest all lie within a nine minute tube journey of each other in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Barking, Dagenham East and Becontree all offer an average house price ranging from £237,000 – £240,000.
With an average house price of £1.2m, no tube stop in Zone 1 offers a property for less than £500,000. However there are five tube stops where the average house price hasn’t yet hit the £700,000 mark. At £536,000, Aldgate East offers the ‘cheapest’ property prices across Zone 1. Aldgate East is joined by Lambeth North (£660k), Borough (£665k), Waterloo (£670k) and Vauxhall (£690k).
Of course as you head further out of inner London the prices start to drop and, with an average house price of £796k, Zone 2 is 37% cheaper than Zone 1. Where property prices are concerned, the re-shuffling of the zonal boundaries has seen some new additions to Zone 2’s more affordable property market. West Ham (£313k), Canning Town (£324k) and Stratford (£340k) to the east, join originals Bromley-by-Bow (£330k) and North Acton (£385k) as the most affordable spots in Zone 2.
East London also accounted for the majority of Zone 3’s cheapest tube stops. Zone 3 has an average house price of £595,000 and East Ham is the most affordable of the lot at £274,000. Nearby Upton Park (£283k), Plaistow (£285k) and Leyton (£364k) also offer an affordable option, with Park Royal (£371k) the cheapest stop in Zone 2 to the west of the capital.
Founder and CEO of online estate agent Emoov.co.uk, Russell Quirk, commented:
“The tube map is a fascinating way of breaking down the London landscape, especially where property price is concerned.
Despite the constant threat of strike action, a property close to a tube stop, on a good line, remains one of the most sought after pieces of property in the capital. Close proximity to a tube stop will always act as an additional selling point for sellers and in most cases, is justification for a higher asking price.
It’s well worth doing your homework when buying in London, because as this research shows, sacrificing a few extra minutes with a longer commute can result in a considerable reduction in the price you will pay for a property.”Three Things You Can Do to Promote Solar Energy in Indiana
Updated as of January 13, 2019
What you can do to support rooftop solar in Indiana:
Be a part of the “Solarize Indiana Initiative”, where you can help accelerate customer-owned solar energy in your local community. Contact Madi Hirschland at mhirschland at gmail dot com. Make time to meet your state representative and your state senator. You can find contact details here. Please thank them if they opposed 2017’s anti-solar energy bill SB 309; you can find their voting records here (House) and here (Senate). When you meet with your lawmakers, a.) encourage them to support a pro-solar bill like 2019’s SB 430, which repeals the phase out of net metering and makes net metering more accessible by lifting the ceiling on overall participation, b.) let them know of your support for 2018’s Senate Bill 207 (which will be filed under HB 1331 in 2019). This latter bill would ensure that HOAs do not impose unreasonable restrictions on homeowners’ desire to install rooftop solar on their own homes. (To understand this issue, see this Powerpoint and this YouTube video. To send a signal of support for this solar access bill, sign this petition from Solar United Neighbors).
History of SB 309, the Controversial Anti-Solar Energy Law
To get the full background on the highly controversial, anti-rooftop solar energy, SB 309, which was signed into law in May of 2017, please read the sections below:
I. A Growing Global Sector. Past, Positive Steps in Indiana
The U.S. solar energy sector has now surpassed the number of jobs in the oil & gas drilling sector! Indiana showed signs of seeking to be a part of this thriving industry in 2011 by enacting a new state policy, which enabled all types of customers (homes, small businesses, schools, factories) to take advantage of net metering, with systems up to 1 Megawatt in size. Net metering reimburses self-generators of renewable energy that they feed back onto the grid, at the retail rate of electricity. Customer-generators not only help advance such societal goals as environmental stewardship, but reduce distribution & transmission costs, and can improve electrical grid stability.
II. A Troubling Future in Indiana: The Threat of SB 309 in the 2017 Indiana Legislature
Unfortunately, Indiana is vulnerable to taking a major step backwards in tapping into clean energy like solar and wind. SB 309‘s amended bill would generally create significant roadblocks to those homes, businesses, places of worship, community centers, and factories seeking to install solar panels and small wind turbines.
a. It forbids new net metering in five years.
By 2022, all investor-owned utilities will be prohibited from offering net metering to any customers who seek to install their system after 2022. This does not apply to customers who are net metered before then; in that case, there are two types of treatment: if you have net metering on or before December 31, 2017, you’re grandfathered for 30 years when it comes to net metering (affects less than 1,000 Hoosiers). If you install between January 1, 2018 and July 1, 2022, you’re grandfathered only until 2032. If you are a solar customer after July 1, 2022, you are ineligible for net metering.
b. It places a hard limit on who could benefit from net metering before 5 years.
If the total of customer-owned generators of small solar and small wind account for 1.5% of given utility’s total energy use (in their entire service area), then anyone above that 1.5% would not be eligible for net metering.
c. It forces a sharp reduction in the value that solar energy brings to the electricity grid.
43 states have net metering, including Indiana. Indiana would move away from its sound, long-standing policy towards an approach that sharply reduces the value of solar from retail electricity to wholesale electricity rates, which is quite likely more than two thirds less. This is unjust because customer-owned generators of solar energy bring great benefits to the grid (in terms of reduced/offset generation, transmission, distribution, and environmental compliance costs for utilities) — benefits that more than exceed the costs that customer-owned generators place on the grid (see our citation in the next section).
d. Learn about more problems with SB 309 by viewing our SB 309 Assessment.
III. The Implications of SB 309
-Indiana claims to be an “all of the above” energy state, and yet SB 309 would seriously hamper the growth of small-scale solar and wind in Indiana, undermining one of the most promising pathways for Indiana’s energy future.
-The worse Indiana’s policy climate gets for renewable energy, the more likely Indiana will deter clean energy manufacturers, installers and maintenance persons from staying or being drawn to Indiana.
-Residences, places of worship, community centers, etc. who wish to align their energy choices with their values (i.e. environmental stewardship, care for creation, climate action, etc.) will be far less likely to do so given the significant barriers that would be erected if SB 309 were to pass.
SB 309 goes against the idea of creating an Indiana that is an attractive place to invest in, because it destabilizes the solar policy climate — just at the time in our nation’s history where solar job growth outpaces national job growth by 12 times!
SB 309 also totally disregards the fact that 8 out of 11 recent studies on solar energy, several of which were commissioned by state governments themselves, that net metering actually undervalues the true value of solar: In other words, the value of solar to the grid exceeds the retail price (net metered level)!
IV. SB 309 WAS a Renewed Threat to Customer-Owned Solar
Indiana’s powerful utility lobby, with ideological allies in the legislature, attempted to eliminate net metering in 2015 with the push to pass HB 1320. Due to the outpouring of opposition to this bill from a diverse number of agricultural, consumer, environmental, libertarian, religious, and social justice groups — along with several solar entrepreneurs — Speaker Brian Bosma wisely chose to kill HB 1320 by not putting it to a House vote.
V. SB 309’s Movement from the Senate to the House and Back to the Senate (January through April 2017)
a. Our Statement on SB 309, on Passage out of the Senate on Monday, February 27th.
The highly controversial anti-solar bill, State Senate 309, passed out of the Indiana State Senate on a vote of 39 to 9, despite overwhelming opposition among those who contacted their senators and despite an array of school leaders, entrepreneurs, pastors, homeowners, and public interest groups opposed to the bill. “In a state that celebrates freedom, liberty, and customer choice, this bill does a great deal to discourage commitment to those principles: SB 309, in its current form, poses six significant obstacles to businesses, schools, churches, and homes installing rooftop solar — obstacles that remain even after the two amendments to the bill. The Indiana House of Representatives would be wise to put a stop to this bill out of a sincere commitment to customer choice.”
b. Status in the Indiana House of Representatives
Six+ hours of testimony were heard on SB 309 in House Utilities on Wed., March 22nd, overwhelmingly in opposition. You can view HEC’s testimony here. The amendments on 3/22 deal with one of the six big problems that we have with the bill — it will eliminate our concern about the net metering benefit not transferring to a new property owner; see our modified SB 309 Assessment.
On Wednesday, March 29th, the Indiana House Utilities Committee voted to advance SB 309 on a vote of 8 to 5, with bi-partisan opposition. Our thanks to Representatives Hatfield, Macer, Pierce, Pryor, and Speedy, for voting against this bill, and putting the interests of homeowners, small businesses, places of worship, and schools above the interests of utility lobbyists. The bill, in Committee, only dealt with a small element of one of our five outstanding concerns — clarity over the wholesale x 1.25 credit rate for excess power for new solar panel owners after July 1, 2022.
On passage of the bill out of Committee, we released the following statement: “Indiana’s top elected officials, from Governor Holcomb to Speaker Bosma, talk about jobs, jobs, jobs. But then Indiana lawmakers, facing immense pressure from a fleet of utility lobbyists, vote to keep advancing SB 309, a bill that would do great harm to Indiana’s emerging solar energy jobs sector. The solar jobs sector, just in its infancy, already employs more Hoosiers than coal mining. SB 309, even as amended out of the House Utilities Committee, would kill — for new solar panel owners after July 1, 2022 — a public policy called net metering, which provides fair credit to people who contribute their solar energy to the electricity grid. SB 309 could also add new fees for people who want the freedom to produce their own electricity. It adds at least three other major roadblocks to promoting rooftop solar energy. We urge Speaker Bosma to listen to the outpouring of opposition, from Hoosiers across the political spectrum, who are opposed to this bill. We urge lawmakers to not move this bill forward to the floor: SB 309 is wrong for Indiana jobs, wrong for our commitment to environmental stewardship, and wrong for the cause of energy freedom.”
On Tuesday, April 4th, SB 309 passed the Indiana House on a vote of 56 to 43 early this evening. It is the narrowest vote that we have seen on utility legislation in the last decade. Thank you to Representatives Matt Pierce (D-Bloomington), Mike Speedy (R-Indianapolis), Ron Bacon (R-Boonville), Carey Hamilton (D-Indianapolis), and Dan Forestal (D-Indianapolis) for their floor remarks against the bill. Thank you to YOU for your countless calls and emails to your legislators in opposition to SB 309!By Captain Pyke | January 6, 2010 - 9:32 pm
Starship Farragut: The Animated Episodes just released Act 1 of their new episode "The Needs of the Many". If you haven't heard of Starship Farragut, the series chronicles the adventures of the U.S.S. Farragut, commanded by John T. Carter, and takes place during what would have been fourth season of Star Trek: The Original Series. The U.S.S Farragut is a sister ship to the legendary Enterprise commanded by James T. Kirk. Check out the episode synopsis below.
Stardate 6047.1: The Farragut takes on a special visitor as they return to Cestus III, the site where Kirk and the Gorn fought on stardate 3045.6. As fate would have it, Carter and crew encounter the same rogue Gorn, looking for revenge against the Federation. Time will NOT be on Farragut's side for this episode. (source Starship Farragut)
The first episode of Starship Farragut called "Power Source", finds The Farragut dispatched to search for the USS Azrael (NCC-517) under the command of Captain Glenn, only to find that they may be the ones being searched for. And, this episode is available in it's entirety. Be sure to check out Starship Farragut and support this wonder fan film.
Watch act 1 of "The Needs of the Many" here.
Watch the entire episode of "Power Source" here.Gregory Greiten c.jpg Fr. Gregory Greiten, ordained in 1992, is pictured in May 2017. (Provided photo)
For years now, I have been carrying a heavy burden, a secret cloaked in silence that the leaders of my church have not wanted me to share publicly. Each time I had a great desire to speak out I was challenged by other priests and leaders. "Shhhh … be quiet." "Keep it to yourself." "Don't say a word to anyone." "If you don't keep quiet, you will be thrown out of here." "If you make it known publicly, it will hurt your ministry." Then I recall the personal struggles of the prophet Jeremiah who desperately wanted to keep the Word of God to himself because it provoked such a negative response from those who heard his preaching. No matter how much he did not want to speak in the name of the Lord anymore, he could not hold it in. "There is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot" (Jeremiah 20:9). Jeremiah understands the anguish of preaching; however, keeping silent and not speaking the truth comes with an even greater cost. What a trap!
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Today, I break the silence and emerge free from the shackles of shame placed upon me at a young age. There is so much to speak about, to repair and to heal — much beyond the limits of these words in print. I am gay. Driven to silence, hiding, being straight Since my days in high school seminary in the 1980s, I was taught that homosexuality was something disordered, unspeakable and something to be punished. Friends with "particular friendships" were immediately removed from the school due to "family problems." During my senior year, a friar led an inquisition seeking to identify and discipline sexually active students. After being questioned, I was told directly that if I was caught talking about this with others, I would be dismissed immediately from the school. Because of the culture of shame and secrecy around issues of sexuality in the seminary environment, students lived in fear and felt threatened to remain silent. It was evident that the leadership wanted everything to be swept under the carpet and to ensure that nothing would ever be leaked out. It was in this secretive environment that I grew up. Truth breaks through denial The words of author Jack Morin, seem so prophetic to me, "If you go to war with your sexuality, you will lose, and end up in more trouble than before you started." Since my traumatic experiences in the high school seminary, I immersed myself into my college and graduate studies exploring my vocation to ministry within the church. In reflecting back on those years, I didn't realize how I was repressing my feelings in an attempt to live life as a straight man. This was until one day, at the age of 24, on a five-hour drive back to seminary, when the truth broke through the denial. I finally admitted to myself, "I AM GAY!" I was driving down a road trying to keep from veering out of my lane or off the road itself, repeating to myself again and again, "I am gay!" Years of built-up, toxic shame came pouring out of me as the tears were flowing down my cheeks. It felt more like a life sentence than freely embracing my true sexual orientation.
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I went to the fifth floor of the seminary building, opened the window and climbed into it — with one leg inside the room and the other leg dangling outside. There I sat straddling the window for three hours contemplating whether I could face the truth of being gay or simply jump out of the window ending this once and for all. I kept repeating and pondering my truth: "I am gay." What was I going to do now? Where would I go from here? I remembered the words of the high school seminary rector, that if I were to say anything to anyone, then I would be thrown out. For years now, I had felt a calling to ministry in the church and have had a desire to serve people. I felt a shift taking place inside, a reassurance that I wanted to live; I didn't want to die. In a moment of lament and ultimate surrender, I remember crying out inside, "God, where are you right now? I need you. Help me. I cannot do this or face this by myself." Wiping away my tears, I crawled out of the window and stood firmly on the floor inside the seminary. My ministry, my joy With support from the director of spiritual formation at the seminary as well as my own spiritual director, both of whom assured me everything was going to be OK, I moved forward with ordination to the priesthood and with my ministry in the church. This past May, I celebrated my 25th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood — for 25 years I have faithfully served as a priest. I minister alongside families celebrating joy through marriage, welcoming children, watching them grow. Throughout the years, I wondered whether they would think of me differently if they knew who I really was. Would they pull away? Who else could I serve if I accepted my true self? Am I limiting my ministry by hiding in shame and fear? As I weighed whether or not to speak out at different moments in my life and publicly accept the person God created me to be, the words of a wise trauma therapist with whom I was conferring echoed: "Greg, it is like you are out on that window ledge once again, although this time as you are straddling it, you look down noticing that there is no floor on either side for you to safely step off onto. It appears as if you are having to make serious choices in your life." In clearly identifying this dilemma in my life, he was helping me to realize the difficulty and severity of the choices that I was making. For the next several years, I pushed onward in my priesthood seeking to maintain the secrecy of my sexual orientation only to discover that the harder I tried to suppress it, the more and more it was pushing back in order for the truth to be set free. Over the past year, I came to the realization that I could no longer live the lie of masquerading as a straight man in the priesthood. I'm one, but not alone There is no question there are and always have been celibate, gay priests and chaste members of religious communities. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, in 2016, there were 37,192 diocesan and religious priests serving in the United States. While there are no exact statistics on the number of gay Catholic priests, Fr. Donald B. Cozzens suggested in his book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, that an estimated 23 percent to 58 percent of priests were in fact gay. It would mean that there are anywhere from 8,554 (low) to 21,571 (high) gay Catholic priests in the United States today. By choosing to enforce silence, the institutional church pretends that gay priests and religious do not really exist. Because of this, there are no authentic role models of healthy, well-balanced, gay, celibate priests to be an example for those, young and old, who are struggling to come to terms with their sexual orientation. This only perpetuates the toxic shaming and systemic secrecy.
I can only imagine that day in our church when we are accepted for who God created us to be and no longer fearing that we might be dismissed from active ministry.
However, a few Roman Catholic priests around the world have mustered up the courage to break through the wall of silence and speak the truth about their sexual identity. Today, I stand with these few courageous priests who have taken the risk to come out of the shadows and have chosen to live in truth and authenticity. What if every priest and religious were given the opportunity to live their life in truth and freedom without worrying about some form of reprisal from someone in authority over them? How different, affirming and welcoming would our Catholic Church truly become by simply acknowledging, accepting and supporting each and every gay priest and religious in their midst? While gay priests and religious remain committed and faithful to their ministries, I know many who are deeply disturbed and angered by some of the official statements and disparaging remarks continually made about us. From my own personal experience, I attest to how exhausting it is trying to remain hidden in the closest pretending to be something other than what we truly are. All of this psychological, emotional and spiritual energy could be redirected into building up our communities of faith. I can only imagine that day in our church when we are accepted for who God created us to be and no longer fearing that we might be dismissed from active ministry. To those the church has hurt On the return papal flight from Armenia to Rome on June 26, 2016, Pope Francis urged the Catholic Church and other Christian communities to apologize to the LGBT community and others groups that they have offended throughout history. "I believe that the church not only must say it's sorry...to this person that is gay that it has offended. … But it must say it's sorry to the poor, also, to mistreated women, to children forced to work." Francis further clarified, "When I say the church: Christians. The church is holy. We are the sinners."
Greiten communion c.jpg Fr. Gregory Greiten distributes Communion at his 25th anniversary celebration May 20, 2017. (Provided photo)Bob Bradley left his job with the United States in 2011.
Former United States coach Bob Bradley is confident that the game will continue to grow in America but believes that plenty of improvements can still be made at club and international level.
Bradley took charge of the U.S. men's national team after the 2006 World Cup and, at the next edition of the tournament four years later, they topped their group ahead of England, Slovenia and Algeria before suffering an extra-time loss against Ghana in the last-16.
Bradley was relieved of his duties in July 2011 and, having since managed the Egypt national team and Norwegian club Stabaek, has been in charge of French side Le Havre since November. The Ligue 2 side are currently third and chasing promotion.
An MLS Cup winner with Chicago Fire in 1998, the 58-year-old believes American soccer is moving in the right direction.
"Without a doubt the game is growing and [with] the coverage and the fact that there are more teams in the league, it gets discussed more and more," he told ESPN FC in a telephone interview. "The spotlight gets greater so there's a lot of really positive things.
"But every now and then it's important to step back and not let any of that get in the way of really assessing the job that gets done in terms of the quality of play, in terms of improvement, in terms of developing players. I think there are good examples. I think that there are other situations that don't do things as well."
Bradley was sacked by U.S. Soccer soon after they lost to Mexico in the 2011 Gold Cup final. Ex-Germany international Jurgen Klinsmann succeeded him and oversaw a run to the 2014 World Cup Round of 16, in which the United States lost 2-1 to Belgium after extra-time.
Results since then have declined, however, and Klinsmann has come under increasing pressure following a draw against Trinidad and Tobago and a 2-0 defeat against Guatemala in 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
Bradley believes that, no matter who holds the top roles in U.S. soccer, the same challenges will crop up again and again.
"I felt very strongly after the World Cup in 2010 that we had grown over those four years," he said. "We all felt there was more there for us in that World Cup but that we were in position to continue to move forward.
"I still felt over the next year that we were looking at players, trying to find ways to improve and that the work was going in a good direction and didn't agree with U.S. Soccer's decision.
"But at that point, I'm out and then I continue to watch and hope that things can continue to move forward. And I would say that in the time since, there are days when you feel like you like what you see. There are other days where you don't. It's the way the game works.
"Every camp, every opportunity you have to get a team together. Doing things right, bringing new players in, seeing how they fit into the group. Trying to establish a real identity so that every time the team steps on the field, there's a real sense of what it's all about.
"Those challenges never stop and so I continue to watch and of course I'll bet the U.S. can continue to move forward."
Mark covers European football for ESPN FC. Twitter: @mroddenDec. 4, 1969—48 years ago today—police officers from the Cook County, Ill., State Attorney’s Office, in collusion with the FBI, assassinated Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, and Black Panther Party leader Mark Clark.
Hampton and Clark were 21 and 22 years old, respectively.
At approximately 4:45 a.m., 14 police officers raided the apartment on Chicago’s West Side and opened fire in the orchestrated hit. Four other Panthers were shot; several were beaten; and Deborah Johnson, Hampton’s eight-months-pregnant fiancee, barely escaped with her life.
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Noam Chomsky once called Hampton’s assassination “the gravest domestic crime of the Nixon administration.” It was brutal and intended to send a message to revolutionary “niggers” that freedom in the United States comes with an asterisk.
“When I leave, you’ll remember I said, with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary. And you’re going to have to keep on saying that. You’re going to have to say that I am a proletariat, I am the people.” —Fred Hampton
In the current political resistance—fueled, in large part, by the election of white supremacist and sexual predator Donald Trump and by red-baiting amplified to near hysteria by the Democratic Party—the FBI has enjoyed a rise in popularity.
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“Comey is my homey” became a liberal rallying cry right before the FBI released a dishonest, violent and alarmist report on so-called “black identity extremists” who attacked police officers.
Make no mistake: The FBI has never been a friend to black America, and if it has, then who needs enemies?
Today we salute the Black Panther Party.
Today we honor Fred Hampton’s and Mark Clark’s legacies.
May their lives and their deaths not be in vain—and may we never forget that the FBI has black blood all over its corrupt hands.Because it is actually poisonous sulfur and ash, partially solidified in the frigid air
D'aww, little drunken angel
I love watching Dwarves swarm onto a project, like a hive of insects
Guess who just volunteered for militia duty?
So there I was, scaling a mountain for no reason...
Waste not, want not
Neat
Wagon party!
Normally, I'd be content with once a week. For now however, both my FPS and time remain abundant, so please enjoy Chapter 2Anvilmastered! Home of the elusive volcano-reindeer. Don't eat that yellow snow!Year 2 continues much the same as year 1; a veritable wonderland of valuable but useless gemstone, struggling to make enough food, and equally useless but useless weather. In case anybody is wondering what life is like in AnvilmasteredIt's like that. I noticed that one of the Miners has curled up to sleep with a barrel of wine, and I don't mean in a cutesy way, he is actually sleeping in the food stockpile.On the plus side, this means I don't have nearly as many married Dorfs sharing a bedroom as I expected, which means fewer children. The downside is I must divert my Miners & Masons to building another bedroom wing much sooner than I had planned. While that is going on, a Weregecko arrives on the scene. I have not yet built |
one makes, even though they had the same credentials when they were offered the job, except that one is a man and the other is the woman. The woman is the one who makes less. As the conversation went on, I realized that this gentleman only makes about $2,000 a year less than me, a woman with a master’s degree that he doesn’t have. Do you have any advice on how to bring this up with superiors at my company?
A: This could be a function of pure sexism. It could also be function of the well-noted tendency for women to take the offer (as you did, even though you found it inadequate) and for men to consider it a starting point for negotiation. Maybe the guy with fewer credentials than you, instead of saying to himself, “Well, the cost of living isn’t that high here,” said to the bosses that he needed several thousand more than the offer, and he got it. What you don’t do is go to the bosses and say that happy hour turned into unhappy hour when you learned women were being underpaid. Use this information to go in, describe what you’ve accomplished for the company, your skills, and what you would like to do for them in the future. Then you ask for more compensation. If you get it, keep doing it at regular intervals. Let’s hope you can close that gap. I know readers will suggest lawsuits or say that women get punished for asking for more money. But first, you have to ask for more money. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Q. Wife’s Weight: When I met my wife, she was a size 2. What I loved was her ability to “tuck in” at a meal and never worry about her weight. Turns out that ability was due to an autoimmune disorder, and now her doctor has her on steroids. My wife’s weight ballooned from a 2 to a 14, and I love it! She has “all the right curves in all the right places.” Unfortunately, her doctor wants her to lose weight, so she joined Weight Watchers and now harps on “points” and analyzes every meal. Last week I brought her chocolates for Valentine’s Day, and she accused me of sabotaging her diet. I am. I don’t want her to lose the weight. I think she looks better this way, and I miss my wife who would just eat what she wanted. Should I support her or keep trying to lure her to the dark side? (We have cookies.)
A: What a lovely gift. She’s trying to lose weight under doctor’s orders and instead of giving her flowers for Valentine’s Day, you give her 10,000 calories. If someone is being treated with steroids, it is a real struggle to keep the weight off. Your wife has a significant medical condition, which doesn’t matter to you. What matters is you like her new chest and hips. If the only thing that attracted you to your wife was her trencherman appetite, then you two need to consider the basis of this marriage. You’re seriously asking me whether you should support her or undermine her efforts to stay healthy. I hope you can answer that yourself, and I hope she could list at least a couple of things that made her want to marry you.
Q. Re: Guestbook Caricature: Get some one with artistic ability to paint flowers, butterflies or something over offending drawing and scattered flowers and butterflies in other areas of the matte.
A: Penis butterflies, great idea! I agree that there is this or some other fix available. And if you go with butterflies, you can always tell your friend, “I appreciate the pupa you drew on the matte. I didn’t know what an insect lover you were!”
Q. Re: Pay Discrimination: Be careful of how you approach this! My company has a policy of forbidding people to discuss pay, and you can get written up or punished if it’s found out. I found out by accident that a person in my department was getting paid more than me. I put together a presentation showing why I deserved a raise and got it without mentioning the other person’s pay.
A: Exactly. As I mentioned, she doesn’t reveal how revealing happy hour was. She just uses this information to make her own case for herself.
Q. BDSM/Sexuality: I am in a loving, fulfilling, healthy marriage with a man I deeply respect. We also happen to practice BDSM, which, until recently, was a relatively unpublicized fetish lifestyle. Now that a certain book series and movie have unfairly portrayed the lifestyle and made the topic mainstream, everyone seems to be weighing in, including my family members. My mother, in particular, keeps posting articles to social media—written by various mental health professionals—saying that BDSM is equivalent to domestic and verbal abuse and that anyone in a dominant/submissive relationship should seek help immediately. My question is: Is there ever an appropriate time or situation for me to say to close family members that I am living proof a BDSM relationship can be healthy and fulfilling, or should I keep quiet and let others think what they’re going to think about the lifestyle?
A: Of course people’s minds get changed about subjects like this by learning from loved ones what it means to be gay, for example, or in your case, to love BDSM. But once you reveal your personal sexual predilections, the image of you whipping your husband, or him handcuffing you, is going to be hard to get out of the minds of your family members. This is your call. But instead of making it personal, you could get into dueling Facebook feeds with your mother, posting stories that say that BDSM is one of the eternal human sexual variations, and when done by carefully consenting adults, there’s nothing abusive about it.
Q. Re: Pay Discrimination: Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, it is illegal for employers to discourage their employees from discussing pay! Six other states have additional laws on the books that further protect the right to discuss your pay with co-workers.
A: Thanks for the clarification. Here’s an Atlantic article about this issue. However, as a matter of making the best case for herself, she should not mention the enlightening conversation; she should simply act on the intelligence.
Q. Too Soon to Quit?: I’m in my early 30s, and I recently left my successful career at one of the largest companies in my field due to burnout. I was highly respected among my peers in the industry and had a lot of freedom at work, but the pressure was too much. I recently accepted a job at a small company in the suburbs thinking I would enjoy the peace and quiet. Boy was I wrong! My breaks are strictly held to state-mandated minimums, I’m watched all day, my boss rewrites most of my work, and I’ve been belittled to the point of tears. Co-workers admit he’s a jerk and told me to get used to it. Is three months too soon to quit a new job? This place is making me miss the corporate rat race! I feel guilty about not giving it a fair shot, but I can’t take it anymore!
A: It sounds as if you need to leave for your mental health, and you have the wherewithal to do it. Go!
Q. Re: Guestbook Caricature: My ex-boyfriend wrote “Tupac” on a similar wedding guestbook—the couple in question took it in stride and frequently point it out to guests in their home. Moral of the story: Don’t use this guestbook approach if your guests are ever the kind of people who would deface the photo in ways you can’t laugh about later.
A: Love it! Thanks.
Click here to read Part 2 of this week’s chat.
Discuss this column with Emily Yoffe on her Facebook page.I Can See Right Through You
A short story from McSweeney’s Quarterly 48, available now.
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When the sex tape happened and things went south with Fawn, the demon lover did what he always did. He went to cry on Meggie’s shoulder. Girls like Fawn came and went, but Meggie would always be there. Him and Meggie. It was the talisman you kept in your pocket. The one you couldn’t lose.
Two monsters can kiss in a movie. One old friend can go to see another old friend and be sure of his welcome: so here is the demon lover in a rental car. An hour into the drive, he opens the window, tosses out his cell phone. There is no one he wants to talk to except for Meggie.
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(1991) This is after the movie and after they are together and after they begin to understand the bargain that they have made. They are both, suddenly, very famous.
Film can be put together in any order. Scenes shot in any sequence. Take as many takes as you like. Continuity is independent of linear time. Sometimes you aren’t even in the scene together. Meggie says her lines to your stand-in. They’ll splice you together later on. Shuffle off to Buffalo, gals. Come out tonight.
(This is long before any of that. This was a very long time ago.)
Meggie tells the demon lover a story:
Two girls and look, they’ve found a Ouija board. They make a list of questions. One girl is pretty. One girl is not really a part of this story. She’s lost her favorite sweater. Her fingertips on the planchette. Two girls, each touching, lightly, the planchette. Is anyone here? Where did I put my blue sweater? Will anyone ever love me? Things like that.
They ask their questions. The planchette drifts. Gives up nonsense. They start the list over again. Is anyone here? Will I be famous? Where is my blue sweater?
The planchette jerks under their fingers.
M-E
Meggie says, “Did you do that?”
The other girl says she didn’t. The planchette moves again, a fidget. A stutter, a nudge, a sequence of swoops and stops.
M-E-G-G-I-E
“It’s talking to you,” the other girl says.
M-E-G-G-I-E H-E-L-L-O
Meggie says, “Hello?”
The planchette moves again and again. There is something animal about it.
H-E-L-L-O I A-M W-I-T-H Y-O-U I A-M W-I-T-H Y-O-U A-L-W-A-Y-S
They write it all down.
M-E-G-G-I-E O I W-I-L-L L-O-V-E Y-O-U A-L-W-A-Y-S
“Who is this?” she says. “Who are you? Do I know you?”
I S-E-E Y-O-U I K-N-O-W Y-O-U W-A-I-T A-N-D I W-I-L-L C-O-M-E
A pause. Then:
I W-I-L-L M-E-G-G-I-E O I W-I-L-L B-E W-I-T-H Y-O-U A-L-W-A-Y-S
“Are you doing this?” Meggie says to the other girl. She shakes her head. Meggie laughs. “Okay, then. So okay, whoever you are, are you cute? Is this someone I’m going to meet someday and we’ll fall in love? Like my husband or something? Who is this?”
M-E-G-G-I-E W-A-I-T
The other girl says, “Can whoever this is at least tell me where I left my sweater?”
O W-A-I-T A-N-D I W-I-L-L C-O-M-E
They wait. Will there be a knock at the bedroom door? But no one comes. No one is coming.
I A-M W-I-T-H Y-O-U A-L-W-A-Y-S
No one is here with them. The sweater will never be found. The other girl grows up, lives a long and happy life. Meggie goes out to LA and meets the demon lover.
W-A-I-T
After that, the only thing the planchette says, over and over, is Meggie’s name. It’s all very romantic.
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(1974) Twenty-two people disappear from a nudist colony in Lake Apopka. People disappear all the time. Let’s be honest: the only thing interesting here is that these people were naked. And that no one ever saw them again. Funny, right?
- -
(1990) It’s one of the ten most iconic movie kisses of all time. In the top five, surely. You and Meggie, the demon lover and his monster girl; vampires sharing a kiss as the sun comes up. Both of you wearing so much makeup it still astonishes you that anyone would ever recognize you on the street.
- -
It’s hard for the demon lover to grow old.
- -
Florida is California on a Troma budget. That’s what the demon lover thinks, anyway. Special effects blew the budget on bugs and bad weather.
He parks in a meadowy space, recently mowed, alongside other rental cars, the usual catering and equipment vans. There are two gateposts with a chain between them. No fence. Eternal I endure.
There is an evil smell. Does it belong to the place or to him? The demon lover sniffs under his arm.
It’s an end-of-the-world sky, a snakes-and-ladders landscape: low emerald trees pulled lower by vines; chalk and apricot anthills (the demon lover imagines the bones of a nudist under every one); shallow water-filled declivities scummed with algae, lime and gold and black.
The blot of the lake. That’s another theory: the lake.
A storm is coming.
He doesn’t get out of his car. He rolls the window down and watches the storm come in. Let’s look at him looking at it. A pretty thing admiring a pretty thing. Abandoned site of a mass disappearance, muddy violet clouds, silver veils of rain driving down the lake, the tabloid prince of darkness, Meggie’s demon lover, arriving in all his splendor. The only thing to spoil it are the bugs. And the sex tape.
- -
(2012) You have been famous for more than half your life. Both of you. You only made the one movie together, but women still stop you on the street to ask about Meggie. Is she happy? Which one? you want to ask them. The one who kissed me in a movie when we were just kids, the one who wasn’t real? The one who likes to smoke a bit of weed and text me about her neighbor’s pet goat? The Meggie in the tabloids who drinks fucks gets fat pregnant too skinny has a secret baby slaps a maître d’ talks to Monroe’s ghost Elvis’s ghost ghost of a missing three-year-old boy ghost of JFK? Sometimes they don’t ask about Meggie. Instead they ask if you will bite them.
Happiness! Misery! If you were one, bet on it the other was on the way. That was what everyone liked to see. It was what the whole thing was about. The demon lover has a pair of gold cuff links, those faces. Meggie gave them to him. You know the ones I mean.
- -
(2010) Meggie and the demon lover throw a Halloween party for everyone they know. They do this every Halloween. They’re famous for it.
“Year after year, on a monkey’s face a monkey’s face,” Meggie says.
She’s King Kong. The year before? Half a pantomime horse. He’s the demon lover. Who else? Year after year.
Meggie says, “I’ve decided to give up acting. I’m going to be a poet. Nobody cares when poets get old.”
Fawn says, appraisingly, “I hope I look half as good as you when I’m your age.” Fawn, twenty-three. A makeup artist. This year she and the demon lover are married. Last year they met on set.
He says, “I’m thinking I could get some work done on my jawline.”
You’d think they were mother and daughter. Same Viking profile, same quizzical tilt to the head as they turn to look at him. Both taller than him. Both smarter, too, no doubt about it.
Maybe Meggie wonders sometimes about the women he sleeps with. Marries. Maybe he has a type. But so does she. There’s a guy at the Halloween party. A boy, really.
Meggie always has a boy and the demon lover can always pick him out. Easy enough, even if Meggie’s sly. She never introduces the lover of the moment, never brings them into conversations or even acknowledges their presence. They hang out on the edge of whatever is happening, and drink or smoke or watch Meggie at the center. Sometimes they drift closer, stand near enough to Meggie that it’s plain what’s going on. When she leaves, they follow after.
Meggie’s type? The funny thing is, Meggie’s lovers all look like the demon lover. More like the demon lover, he admits it, than he does. He and Meggie are both older now, but the world is full of beautiful black-haired boys and golden girls. Really, that’s the problem.
- -
The role of the demon lover comes with certain obligations. Your hairline will not recede. Your waistline will not expand. You are not to be photographed threatening paparazzi, or in sweatpants. No sex tapes.
Your fans will: offer their necks at premieres. (Also at restaurants and at the bank. More than once when he is standing in front of a urinal.) Ask if you will bite their wives. Their daughters. They will cut themselves with a razor in front of you.
The appropriate reaction is—
There is no appropriate reaction.
- -
The demon lover does not always live up to his obligations. There is a sex tape. There is a girl with a piercing. There is, in the middle of some athletic sex, a comical incident involving his foreskin. There is blood all over the sheets. There is a lot of blood. There is a 911 call. There is him, fainting. Falling and hitting his head on a bedside table. There is Perez Hilton, Gawker, talk radio, YouTube, Tumblr. There are GIFs.
- -
You will always be most famous for playing the lead in a series of vampire movies. The character you play is, of course, ageless. But you get older. The first time you bite a girl’s neck, Meggie’s neck, you’re a twenty-five-year-old actor playing a vampire who hasn’t gotten a day older in three hundred years. Now you’re a forty-nine-year-old actor playing the same ageless vampire. It’s getting to be a little ridiculous, isn’t it? But if the demon lover isn’t the demon lover, then who is he? Who are you? Other projects disappoint. Your agent says take a comic role. The trouble is you’re not very funny. You’re not good at funny.
The other trouble is the sex tape. Sex tapes are inherently funny. Nudity is, regrettably, funny. Torn foreskins are painfully funny. You didn’t know she was filming it.
Your agent says, That wasn’t what I meant.
You could do what Meggie did, all those years ago. Disappear. Travel the world. Hunt down the meaning of life. Go find Meggie.
When the sex tape happens you say to Fawn, But what does this have to do with Meggie? This has nothing to do with Meggie. It was just some girl.
It’s not like there haven’t been other girls.
Fawn says, It has everything to do with Meggie.
I can see right through you, Fawn says, less in sorrow than in anger. She probably can.
- -
God grant me Meggie, but not just yet. That’s him by way of St. Augustine by way of Fawn the makeup artist and Bible group junkie. She explains it to the demon lover, explains him to himself. And hasn’t it been in the back of your mind all this time? It was Meggie right at the start. Why couldn’t it be Meggie again? And in the meantime you could get married once in a while and never worry about whether or not it worked out. He and Meggie have managed, all this time, to stay friends. His marriages, his other relationships, perhaps these have only been a series of delaying actions. Small rebellions. And here’s the thing about his marriages: he’s never managed to stay friends with his ex-wives, his exes. He and Fawn won’t be friends.
The demon lover and Meggie have known each other for such a long time. No one knows him like Meggie.
The remains of the nudist colony at Lake Apopka promise reasonable value for ghost hunters. A dozen ruined cabins, some roofless, windows black with mildew; a crumbled stucco hall, Spanish tiles receding; the cracked lip of a slop-filled pool. Between the cabins and the lake, the homely and welcome sight of half a dozen trailers. Even better, he spots a craft tent.
Muck farms! Mutant alligators! Disappearing nudists! The demon lover, killing time in the LAX airport, read up on Lake Apopka. The past is a weird place, Florida is a weird place, no news there. A demon lover should fit right in, but the ground sucks and clots at his shoes in a way that suggests he isn’t welcome. The rain is directly overhead, shouting down in spit-warm gouts. He begins to run, stumbling, in the direction of the craft tent.
- -
- -
Meggie’s career is on the upswing. Everyone agrees. She has a ghost-hunting show, Who’s There?
The demon lover calls Meggie after the Titanic episode airs, the one where Who’s There?’s ghost-hunting crew hitches a ride with the International Ice Patrol. There’s the yearly ceremony, memorial wreaths. Meggie’s crew sets up a Marconi transmitter and receiver just in case a ghost or two has a thing to say.
The demon lover asks her about the dead seagulls. Forget the Marconi nonsense. The seagulls were what made the episode. Hundreds of them, little corpses fixed, as if pinned, to the water.
Meggie says, You think we have the budget for fake seagulls? Please.
Admit that Who’s There? is entertaining whether or not you believe in ghosts. It’s all about the nasty detail, the house that gives you a bad feeling even when you turn on all the lights, the awful thing that happened to someone who wasn’t you a very long time ago. The camera work is moody; extraordinary. The team of ghost hunters is personable, funny, reasonably attractive. Meggie sells you on the possibility: maybe what’s going on here is real. Maybe someone is out there. Maybe they have something to say.
The demon lover and Meggie don’t talk for months and then suddenly something changes and they talk every day. He likes to wake up in the morning and call her. They talk about scripts, now that Meggie’s getting scripts again. He can talk to Meggie about anything. It’s been that way all along. They haven’t talked since the sex tape. Better to have this conversation in person.
- -
(1991) He and Meggie are lovers. Their movie is big at the box office. Everywhere they go they are famous, and they go everywhere. Their faces are everywhere. They are kissing on a thousand screens. They are in a hotel room, kissing. They can’t leave their hotel room without someone screaming or fainting or pointing something at them. They are asked the same questions again. Over and over. He begins to do the interviews in character. Anyway, it makes Meggie laugh.
There’s a night, on some continent, in some city, some hotel room, some warm night, the demon lover and Meggie leave a window open and two women creep in. They come over the balcony. They just want to tell you that they love you. Both of you. They just want to be near you.
Everyone watches you. Even when they’re pretending not to. Even when they aren’t watching you, you think they are. And you know what? You’re right. Eyes will find you. Becoming famous, this kind of fame: it’s luck indistinguishable from catastrophe. You’d be dumb not to recognize it. What you’ve become.
- -
When people disappear, there’s always the chance that you’ll see them again. The rain comes down so hard the demon lover can barely see. He thinks he is still moving in the direction of the craft tent and not the lake. There is a noise, he picks it out of the noise of the rain. A howling. And then the rain thins and he can see something, men and women, naked. Running toward him. He slips, catches himself, and the rain comes down hard again, erases everything except the sound of what is chasing him. He collides headlong with a thing: a skin horribly clammy, cold, somehow both stiff and yielding. Bounces off and realizes that this is the tent. Not where you’d choose to make a last stand, but by the time he has fumbled his way inside he has grasped the situation. Not dead nudists, but living people, naked, cursing, laughing, dripping. They carry cameras, mikes, gear for ghost hunting. Videographers, A2s, all the other useful types and the not so useful. A crowd of men and women, and here is Meggie. Her hair is glued in strings to her face. Her breasts are wet with rain.
He says her name.
They all look at him.
How is it possible that he is the one who feels naked?
“The fuck is this guy doing here?” says someone with a little white towel positioned over his genitals. Really, it could be even littler.
“Will,” Meggie says. So gently he almost starts to cry. Well, it’s been a long day.
- -
She takes him to her trailer. He has a shower, borrows her toothbrush. She puts on a robe. Doesn’t ask him any questions. Talks to him while he’s in the bathroom. He leaves the door open.
It’s the third day on location, and the first two have been a mixed bag. They got their establishing shots, went out on the lake and saw an alligator dive down when they got too close. There are baby skunks all over the scrubby, shabby woods, the trails. They come right up to you, up to the camera, and try like hell to spray. But until they hit adolescence all they can do is quiver their tails and stamp their feet.
Except, she says, and mentions some poor A2. His skunk was an early bloomer.
Meggie interviewed the former proprietor of the nudist colony. He insisted on calling it a naturist community, spent the interview explaining the philosophy behind naturism, didn’t want to talk about 1974. A harmless old crank. Whatever happened, he had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t lecture people into thin air. Besides, he had an alibi.
What they didn’t get on the first day or even on the second was any kind of worthwhile read on their equipment. They have the two psychics—but one of them had an emergency, went back to deal with a daughter in rehab; they have all kinds of psychometric equipment, but there is absolutely nothing going on, down, or off. Which led to some discussion.
“We decided maybe we were the problem,” Meggie says. “Maybe the nudists didn’t have anything to say to us while we had our clothes on. So we’re shooting in the nude. Everyone nude. Cast, crew, everyone. It’s been a really positive experience, Will. It’s a good group of people.”
“Fun,” the demon lover says. Someone has dropped off a pair of pink cargo shorts and a T-shirt, because his other clothes are in his suitcase back at the airport in Orlando. It’s not exactly that he forgot. More like he couldn’t be bothered.
“It’s good to see you, Will,” Meggie says. “But why are you here, exactly? How did you know where to find me?”
He takes the easy question first. “Pike.” Pike is Meggie’s agent and an old friend of the demon lover. The kind of agent who likes to pull the legs off small children. The kind of friend who finds life all the sweeter when you’re in the middle of screwing up your own. “I made him promise not to tell you I was coming.”
He collapses on the floor in front of Meggie’s chair. She runs her fingers through his hair. Pets him like you’d pet a dog.
“He told you, though. Didn’t he?”
“He did,” Meggie said. “He called.”
The demon lover says, “Meggie, this isn’t about the sex tape.”
Meggie says, “I know. Fawn called too.”
He tries not to imagine that phone call. His head is sore. He’s dehydrated, probably. That long flight.
“She wanted me to let her know if you showed. Said she was waiting to see before she threw in the towel.”
She waits for him to say something. Waits a little bit longer. Strokes his hair the whole time.
“I won’t call her,” she says. “You ought to go back, Will. She’s a good person.”
“I don’t love her,” the demon lover says.
“Well,” Meggie says. She takes that hand away.
There’s a knock on the door, some girl. “Sun’s out again, Meggie.” She gives the demon lover a particularly melting smile. Was probably twelve when she first saw him on-screen. Baby ducks, these girls. Imprint on the first vampire they ever see. Then she’s down the stairs again, bare bottom bouncing.
Meggie drops the robe, begins to apply sunblock to her arms and face. He notes the ways in which her body has changed. Thinks he might love her all the more for it, and hopes that this is true.
“Let me,” he says, and takes the bottle from her. Begins to rub lotion into her back.
She doesn’t flinch away. Why would she? They are friends.
She says, “Here’s the thing about Florida, Will. You get these storms, practically every day. But then they go away again.”
Her hands catch at his, slippery with the lotion. She says, “You must be tired. Take a nap. There’s herbal tea in the cupboards, pot and Ambien in the bedroom. We’re shooting all afternoon, straight through evening. And then a barbecue—we’re filming that too. You’re welcome to come out. It would be great publicity for us, of course. Our viewers would love it. But you’d have to do it naked like the rest of us. No clothes. No exceptions, Will. Not even for you.”
He rubs the rest of the sunblock into her shoulders. Would like nothing more than to rest his head there.
“I love you, Meggie,” he says. “You know that, right?”
“I know. I love you too, Will,” she says. The way she says it tells him everything.
The demon lover goes to lie down on Meggie’s bed, feeling a hundred years old. Dozes. Dreams about a bungalow in Venice Beach and Meggie and a girl. That was a long time ago.
- -
There was a review of a play Meggie was in. Maybe ten years ago? It wasn’t a kind review, or even particularly intelligent, and yet the critic said something that still seems right to the demon lover. He said no matter what was happening in the play, Meggie’s performance suggested she was waiting for a bus. The demon lover thinks the critic got at something true there. Only, the demon lover has always thought that if Meggie was waiting for a bus, you had to wonder where that bus was going. If she was planning to throw herself under it.
When they first got together, the demon lover was pretty sure he was what Meggie had been waiting for. Maybe she thought so too. They bought a house, a bungalow in Venice Beach. He wonders who lives there now.
- -
When the demon lover wakes up, he takes off the T-shirt and cargo shorts. Leaves them folded neatly on the bed. He’ll have to find somewhere to sleep tonight. And soon. Day is becoming night.
Meat is cooking on a barbecue. The demon lover isn’t sure when he last ate. There’s bug spray beside the door. Ticklish on his balls. He feels just a little bit ridiculous. Surely this is a terrible idea. The latest in a long series of terrible ideas. Only this time he knows there’s a camera.
The moment he steps outside Meggie’s trailer, a PA appears as if by magic. It’s what they do. Has him sign a pile of releases. Odd to stand here in the nude signing releases, but what the fuck. He thinks, I’ll go home tomorrow.
The PA is in her fifties. Unusual. There’s probably a story there, but who cares? He doesn’t. Of course she’s seen the fucking sex tape—it’s probably going to be the most popular movie he ever makes—but her expression suggests this is the very first time she’s ever seen the demon lover naked or rather that neither of them is naked at all.
While the demon lover signs––doesn’t bother to read anything, what does it matter now anyway?––the PA talks about someone who hasn’t done something. Who isn’t where she ought to be. Some other gopher named Juliet. Where is she and what has she gone for? The PA is full of complaints.
The demon lover suggests the gopher may have been carried off by ghosts. The PA gives him an unfriendly look and continues to talk about people the demon lover doesn’t know, has no interest in.
“What’s spooky about you?” the demon lover asks. Because of course that’s the gimmick, producer down to best boy. Every woman and man uncanny.
“I had a near-death experience,” the PA says. She wiggles her arm. Shows off a long ropy burn. “Accidentally electrocuted myself. Got the whole tunnel-and-light thing. And I guess I scored okay with those cards when they auditioned me. The Zener cards?”
“So tell me,” the demon lover says. “What’s so fucking great about a tunnel and a light? That really the best they can do?”
“Yeah, well,” the PA says, a bite in her voice. “People like you probably get the red carpet and the limo.”
The demon lover has nothing to say to that.
“You seen anything here?” he tries instead. “Heard anything?”
“Meggie tell you about the skunks?” the PA says. Having snapped, now she will soothe. “Those babies. Tail up, the works, but nothing doing. Which about sums up this place. No ghosts. No read on the equipment. No hanky-panky, fiddle-faddle, or woo-woo. Not even a cold spot.”
She says doubtfully, “But it’ll come together. You at this séance barbecue shindig will help. Naked vampire trumps nudist ghosts any day. Okay on your own? You go on down to the lake, I’ll call, let them know you’re on your way.”
Or he could just head for the car.
“Thanks,” the demon lover says.
But before he knows what he wants to do, here’s another someone. It’s a regular Pilgrim’s Progress. One of Fawn’s favorite books. This is a kid in his twenties. Good-looking in a familiar way. (Although is it okay to think this about another guy when you’re both naked? Not to mention: who looks a lot like you did once upon a time. Why not? We’re all naked here.)
“I know you,” the kid says.
The demon lover says, “Of course you do. You are?”
“Ray,” says the kid. He’s maybe twenty-five. His look says: you know who I am. “Meggie’s told me all about you.”
As if he doesn’t already know, the demon lover says, “So what do you do?”
The kid smiles an unlovely smile. Scratches at his groin luxuriously, maybe not on purpose. “Whatever needs to be done. That’s what I do.”
So he deals. There’s that pot in Meggie’s dresser.
Down at the lake people are playing volleyball in a pit with no net. Barbecuing. Someone talks to a camera, gestures at someone else. Someone somewhere is smoking a joint. At this distance, not too close, not too near, twilight coming down, the demon lover takes in all of the breasts, asses, comical cocks, knobby knees, everything hidden now made plain. He notes with an experienced eye which breasts are real, which aren’t. Only a few of the women sport pubic hair. He’s never understood what that’s about. Some of the men are bare, too. O tempora, o mores.
“You like jokes?” Ray says, stopping to light a cigarette.
The demon lover could leave; he lingers. “Depends on the joke.” Really, he doesn’t. Especially the kind of jokes the ones who ask if you like jokes tell.
Ray says, “You’ll like this one. So there are these four guys. A kleptomaniac, a pyromaniac, um, a zoophile, and a masochist. This cat walks by and the klepto says he’d like to steal it. The pyro says he wants to set it on fire. The zoophile wants to fuck it. So the masochist, he looks at everybody, and he says, ‘Meow?’”
It’s a moderately funny joke. It might be a come-on.
The demon lover flicks a look at him from under his lashes. Suppresses the not-quite-queasy feeling he’s somehow traveled back in time to flirt with himself. Or the other way round.
He’d like to think he was even prettier than this kid. People used to stop and stare when he walked into a room. That was long before anyone knew who he was. He’s always been someone you look at longer than you should. He says, smiling, “I’ll bite. Which one are you?”
“Pardon?” Ray says. Blows smoke.
“Which one are you? The klepto, the pyro, the cat-fucker, the masochist?”
“I’m the guy who tells the joke,” Ray says. He drops his cigarette, grinds it under a heel black with dirt. Lights another. “Don’t know if anyone’s told you, but don’t drink out of any of the taps. Or go swimming. The water’s toxic. Phosphorous, other stuff. They shut down the |
since we have 4 different images that make up the background, we’ll create a Group of TileSprite objects. Using a javascript array of the image keys, we can use the built in forEach method to quickly and elegantly create all four in the correct order.
var state = this; this.background = this.game.add.group(); // setup each of our background layers to take the full screen ['forest-back', 'forest-lights', 'forest-middle', 'forest-front'].forEach(function(image) { var bg = state.game.add.tileSprite(0, 0, state.game.world.width, state.game.world.height, image, '', state.background); bg.tileScale.setTo(4,4); }); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 var state = this ; this. background = this. game. add. group ( ) ; // setup each of our background layers to take the full screen [ 'forest-back', 'forest-lights', 'forest-middle', 'forest-front' ]. forEach ( function ( image ) { var bg = state. game. add. tileSprite ( 0, 0, state. game. world. width, state. game. world. height, image, '', state. background ) ; bg. tileScale. setTo ( 4, 4 ) ; } ) ;
A TileSprite is a type of image that is meant to be repeated or tiled over a large area. To create one you need to pass it not only the x & y coordinates, but also a width and height for how big the area that it needs to cover should be. Just like the Sprite, you give it the image key to use. The final parameter that we pass it is our group, so that each one is automatically added to the background group. We want the background to cover the whole screen, so we’ll pass in the game world’s width and height. Also, in this case, our image isn’t really meant to be tiled like a mosaic, so we’ll scale the tiling so that it looks more like one image (play with the scale numbers to see what I mean about the tiling).
Let’s take a moment to talk about the group that we created. Groups are an extremely powerful feature of Phaser that are capable of a whole lot more than just the name suggests. At the very base level, they act as a collection, sort of like an array, and they have several methods available for traversing and manipulating the items in the collection. Another important aspect of groups is that the children of the group are positioned, rotated, and scaled all relative to the group itself. If we set group.x = 10; then it will move all of the children over by 10 as well. The position of the children is relative meaning that if a child item also has it’s x coord set to 10, then it will actually be placed at x 20 on the screen (assuming that the group itself is not a child of another parent that isn’t at 0,0). We will use groups extensively in our game and I encourage you to read the documentation to find out more about all of the methods and properties that are available.
Reminder: time to commit your files!
The Army of Darkness
After setting the stage, the next thing we need is something to attack. Time to unleash the horde of monsters that we’ve collected. In order to be able to use all of our monsters, we need to load each image. Let’s change the preload section of our play state to do just that. Each one needs a key to reference it by, and the path to the image file.
this.game.load.image('aerocephal', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/aerocephal.png'); this.game.load.image('arcana_drake', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/arcana_drake.png'); this.game.load.image('aurum-drakueli', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/aurum-drakueli.png'); this.game.load.image('bat', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/bat.png'); this.game.load.image('daemarbora', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/daemarbora.png'); this.game.load.image('deceleon', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/deceleon.png'); this.game.load.image('demonic_essence', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/demonic_essence.png'); this.game.load.image('dune_crawler', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/dune_crawler.png'); this.game.load.image('green_slime', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/green_slime.png'); this.game.load.image('nagaruda', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/nagaruda.png'); this.game.load.image('rat', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/rat.png'); this.game.load.image('scorpion', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/scorpion.png'); this.game.load.image('skeleton', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/skeleton.png'); this.game.load.image('snake', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/snake.png'); this.game.load.image('spider', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/spider.png'); this.game.load.image('stygian_lizard', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/stygian_lizard.png'); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 this. game. load. image ( 'aerocephal', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/aerocephal.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'arcana_drake', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/arcana_drake.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'aurum-drakueli', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/aurum-drakueli.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'bat', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/bat.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'daemarbora', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/daemarbora.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'deceleon', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/deceleon.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'demonic_essence', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/demonic_essence.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'dune_crawler', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/dune_crawler.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'green_slime', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/green_slime.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'nagaruda', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/nagaruda.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ( 'rat', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/rat.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ('scorpion', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/scorpion.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ('skeleton', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/skeleton.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ('snake', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/snake.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ('spider', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/spider.png' ) ; this. game. load. image ('stygian_lizard', 'assets/allacrost_enemy_sprites/stygian_lizard.png' ) ;
In the create method is where we’ll want to create Sprite objects for these images so that they can exist in the game world. Much like the background images, it’s faster and easier to read if we put all the information that we need to load into an array. This time however, we need more than just the image key. We’re going to want to display the name of the monster on the screen below it, so that the player knows what they are facing. To do this we’ll create an array of objects that has a name property suitable for display, as well as the image key.
var monsterData = [ {name: 'Aerocephal', image: 'aerocephal'}, {name: 'Arcana Drake', image: 'arcana_drake'}, {name: 'Aurum Drakueli', image: 'aurum-drakueli'}, {name: 'Bat', image: 'bat'}, {name: 'Daemarbora', image: 'daemarbora'}, {name: 'Deceleon', image: 'deceleon'}, {name: 'Demonic Essence', image: 'demonic_essence'}, {name: 'Dune Crawler', image: 'dune_crawler'}, {name: 'Green Slime', image: 'green_slime'}, {name: 'Nagaruda', image: 'nagaruda'}, {name: 'Rat', image: 'rat'}, {name: 'Scorpion', image:'scorpion'}, {name: 'Skeleton', image:'skeleton'}, {name: 'Snake', image:'snake'}, {name: 'Spider', image:'spider'}, {name: 'Stygian Lizard', image:'stygian_lizard'} ]; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 var monsterData = [ { name : 'Aerocephal', image : 'aerocephal' }, { name : 'Arcana Drake', image : 'arcana_drake' }, { name : 'Aurum Drakueli', image : 'aurum-drakueli' }, { name : 'Bat', image : 'bat' }, { name : 'Daemarbora', image : 'daemarbora' }, { name : 'Deceleon', image : 'deceleon' }, { name : 'Demonic Essence', image : 'demonic_essence' }, { name : 'Dune Crawler', image : 'dune_crawler' }, { name : 'Green Slime', image : 'green_slime' }, { name : 'Nagaruda', image : 'nagaruda' }, { name : 'Rat', image : 'rat' }, { name : 'Scorpion', image :'scorpion' }, { name : 'Skeleton', image :'skeleton' }, { name : 'Snake', image :'snake' }, { name : 'Spider', image :'spider' }, { name : 'Stygian Lizard', image :'stygian_lizard' } ] ;
After that, we’ll need to create the actual sprites for them in order to render them in the game world. Time for another group!
this.monsters = this.game.add.group(); var monster; monsterData.forEach(function(data) { // create a sprite for them off screen monster = state.monsters.create(1000, state.game.world.centerY, data.image); // center anchor monster.anchor.setTo(0.5); // reference to the database monster.details = data; //enable input so we can click it! monster.inputEnabled = true; monster.events.onInputDown.add(state.onClickMonster, state); }); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 this. monsters = this. game. add. group ( ) ; var monster ; monsterData. forEach ( function ( data ) { // create a sprite for them off screen monster = state. monsters. create ( 1000, state. game. world. centerY, data. image ) ; // center anchor monster. anchor. setTo ( 0.5 ) ; // reference to the database monster. details = data ; //enable input so we can click it! monster. inputEnabled = true ; monster. events. onInputDown. add ( state. onClickMonster, state ) ; } ) ;
When it comes to sprites, groups have a special method create that we can use. For other game objects we need to create them using the normal game factories, and add them as children to the group, the create method only works for sprites. It takes the normal sprite parameters; position and image key, but also lets you pass in a flag as to whether or not the sprite “exists”. This parameter is most often used in object pooling, which we’ll cover a bit later. Each sprite we’ll set the anchor to the center, and set a reference to our monsterData item so that we can reference it later (to display the name).
We’re also going to want to be able to click the monsters (it’s a *click*er game after all), we can tell Phaser to register click events by setting inputEnabled to true. Doing so will enable several input events, we’re interested in what happens when we click the mouse button down (or tap it). For that we’ll tell it to use the onClickMonster method of our state, and that it should be called in the context of our state (javascript “this”). We haven’t created that method yet, we’ll do that in a minute.
In this game, we only ever want to face one monster at a time, so we need a reference to the monster that we are currently facing. Another cool feature of a group is that we can let Phaser randomly select one using getRandom(). Then set the position of the monster to roughly the center of the screen, a little off so that we have room for some other things later.
this.currentMonster = this.monsters.getRandom(); this.currentMonster.position.set(this.game.world.centerX + 100, this.game.world.centerY); 1 2 this. currentMonster = this. monsters. getRandom ( ) ; this. currentMonster. position. set ( this. game. world. centerX + 100, this. game. world. centerY ) ;
Next we can modify our render method so that we can show the name of the monster that we are up against.
render: function() { game.debug.text(this.currentMonster.details.name, this.game.world.centerX - this.currentMonster.width / 2, this.game.world.centerY + this.currentMonster.height / 2); } 1 2 3 4 5 render : function ( ) { game. debug. text ( this. currentMonster. details. name, this. game. world. centerX - this. currentMonster. width / 2, this. game. world. centerY + this. currentMonster. height / 2 ) ; }
Finally, we need to add that onClickMonster handler so that something happens when we click them. For now, we’ll just change out the monster on each click so that we can test running through our list (epic insta-kill!). Each click we’ll set the currentMonster to another random one, and position it in the center of the screen. We’ll move the other monster off screen so that we can’t see it at the same time.
onClickMonster: function() { // reset the currentMonster before we move him this.currentMonster.position.set(1000, this.game.world.centerY); // now pick the next in the list, and bring him up this.currentMonster = this.monsters.getRandom(); this.currentMonster.position.set(this.game.world.centerX + 100, this.game.world.centerY); }, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 onClickMonster : function ( ) { // reset the currentMonster before we move him this. currentMonster. position. set ( 1000, this. game. world. centerY ) ; // now pick the next in the list, and bring him up this. currentMonster = this. monsters. getRandom ( ) ; this. currentMonster. position. set ( this. game. world. centerX + 100, this. game. world. centerY ) ; },
Reminder: time to commit your files again!
Clicking For Great Justice
Obviously just clicking to cycle through the monsters isn’t much of a gameplay element. Instead we need to simulate RPG combat by clicking and dealing damage to the monsters. In order to deal damage, we need to know something about our player. The main hero of this game isn’t directly represented by a sprite on the screen, so we will just create a plain javascript object to hold useful information about them. Add this to the bottom of the create phase:
// the main player this.player = { clickDmg: 1, gold: 0 }; 1 2 3 4 5 // the main player this. player = { clickDmg : 1, gold : 0 } ;
Also in order to be able to kill the monsters, they need to have some health to damage. Let’s go back to our monster database from before, and add a maxHealth attribute to each one. For now, for the values of maxHealth, I’ve just chosen somewhat arbitrary numbers, by looking at the sprite and just making a few tougher than the others. Later we can get deeper into gameplay and balance out the toughness of the monsters. I also adjusted the spacing so that it looks a little more like a table and is easier to edit.
var monsterData = [ {name: 'Aerocephal', image: 'aerocephal', maxHealth: 10}, {name: 'Arcana Drake', image: 'arcana_drake', maxHealth: 20}, {name: 'Aurum Drakueli', image: 'aurum-drakueli', maxHealth: 30}, {name: 'Bat', image: 'bat', maxHealth: 5}, {name: 'Daemarbora', image: 'daemarbora', maxHealth: 10}, {name: 'Deceleon', image: 'deceleon', maxHealth: 10}, {name: 'Demonic Essence', image: 'demonic_essence', maxHealth: 15}, {name: 'Dune Crawler', image: 'dune_crawler', maxHealth: 8}, {name: 'Green Slime', image: 'green_slime', maxHealth: 3}, {name: 'Nagaruda', image: 'nagaruda', maxHealth: 13}, {name: 'Rat', image: 'rat', maxHealth: 2}, {name: 'Scorpion', image:'scorpion', maxHealth: 2}, {name: 'Skeleton', image:'skeleton', maxHealth: 6}, {name: 'Snake', image:'snake', maxHealth: 4}, {name: 'Spider', image:'spider', maxHealth: 4}, {name: 'Stygian Lizard', image:'stygian_lizard', maxHealth: 20} ]; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 var monsterData = [ { name : 'Aerocephal', image : 'aerocephal', maxHealth : 10 }, { name : 'Arcana Drake', image : 'arcana_drake', maxHealth : 20 }, { name : 'Aurum Drakueli', image : 'aurum-drakueli', maxHealth : 30 }, { name : 'Bat', image : 'bat', maxHealth : 5 }, { name : 'Daemarbora', image : 'daemarbora', maxHealth : 10 }, { name : 'Deceleon', image : 'deceleon', maxHealth : 10 }, { name : 'Demonic Essence', image : 'demonic_essence', maxHealth : 15 }, { name : 'Dune Crawler', image : 'dune_crawler', maxHealth : 8 }, { name : 'Green Slime', image : 'green_slime', maxHealth : 3 }, { name : 'Nagaruda', image : 'nagaruda', maxHealth : 13 }, { name : 'Rat', image : 'rat', maxHealth : 2 }, { name : 'Scorpion', image :'scorpion', maxHealth : 2 }, { name : 'Skeleton', image :'skeleton', maxHealth : 6 }, { name : 'Snake', image :'snake', maxHealth : 4 }, { name : 'Spider', image :'spider', maxHealth : 4 }, { name : 'Stygian Lizard', image :'stygian_lizard', maxHealth : 20 } ] ;
Phaser sprites come with both Health and LifeSpan components built in that provide all of the features that we need in order to get combat working. They provide us with a damage() and heal() method and take into account health and maxHealth in those methods. When you apply damage and the health drops to 0 (or below) it will automatically call kill() and fire the onKilled event. Similarly, there is a revive() method that allows you to bring a monster back from the dead fully healed. When a monster is revived, it fires the onRevived event. We will hook into those events to drop loot and change monsters. Inside the loop that creates the monster sprites, let’s set the health component based on the value in our data array.
// use the built in health component monster.health = monster.maxHealth = data.maxHealth; // hook into health and lifecycle events monster.events.onKilled.add(state.onKilledMonster, state); monster.events.onRevived.add(state.onRevivedMonster, state); 1 2 3 4 5 6 // use the built in health component monster. health = monster. maxHealth = data. maxHealth ; // hook into health and lifecycle events monster. events. onKilled. add ( state. onKilledMonster, state ) ; monster. events. onRevived. add ( state. onRevivedMonster, state ) ;
Next update the onClickMonster method to deal damage to the monster based on the player’s clickDmg attribute. When the monster’s health reaches 0, it will be killed.
onClickMonster: function(monster, pointer) { // apply click damage to monster this.currentMonster.damage(this.player.clickDmg); } 1 2 3 4 onClickMonster : function ( monster, pointer ) { // apply click damage to monster this. currentMonster. damage ( this. player. clickDmg ) ; }
Clicking on a monster will do damage, but it’s important to provide feedback to the player that this is happening. No one likes to click things and see nothing happen, it feels broken. Also, I think it’s time to get rid of the debug text and use an actual text object to display the monster’s name and health. Add these 2 Text objects to your create method. Again we’ll create another group so that moving the monster information around is easy. Creating Text objects is relatively straight forward, like most display objects you provide it the position on the screen (or relative to its parent), but instead of an image key, you pass it the string that you want to display. Optionally you can send in font styling data to change how it’s displayed. This font style information is very similar to standard HTML Canvas fonts.
this.monsterInfoUI = this.game.add.group(); this.monsterInfoUI.position.setTo(this.currentMonster.x - 220, this.currentMonster.y + 120); this.monsterNameText = this.monsterInfoUI.addChild(this.game.add.text(0, 0, this.currentMonster.details.name, { font: '48px Arial Black', fill: '#fff', strokeThickness: 4 })); this.monsterHealthText = this.monsterInfoUI.addChild(this.game.add.text(0, 80, this.currentMonster.health +'HP', { font: '32px Arial Black', fill: '#ff0000', strokeThickness: 4 })); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 this. monsterInfoUI = this. game. add. group ( ) ; this. monsterInfoUI. position. setTo ( this. currentMonster. x - 220, this. currentMonster. y + 120 ) ; this. monsterNameText = this. monsterInfoUI. addChild ( this. game. add. text ( 0, 0, this. currentMonster. details. name, { font : '48px Arial Black', fill : '#fff', strokeThickness : 4 } ) ) ; this. monsterHealthText = this. monsterInfoUI. addChild ( this. game. add. text ( 0, 80, this. currentMonster. health +'HP', { font : '32px Arial Black', fill : '#ff0000', strokeThickness : 4 } ) ) ;
Back in our onClickMonster event, we want to update the text now to reflect the monster’s new health.
// update the health text this.monsterHealthText.text = this.currentMonster.alive? this.currentMonster.health +'HP' : 'DEAD'; 1 2 // update the health text this. monsterHealthText. text = this. currentMonster. alive? this. currentMonster. health +'HP' : 'DEAD' ;
When a monster is killed it fires the onKilled event, we want to push it back off screen and then select a new monster and revive them. The revive method optionally takes a health parameter that will set the health of the monster to the value provided. It then sets alive, visible, and exists to true, and then fires the onRevived event. Add the onKilledMonster method to our state now.
onKilledMonster: function(monster) { // move the monster off screen again monster.position.set(1000, this.game.world.centerY); // pick a new monster this.currentMonster = this.monsters.getRandom(); // make sure they are fully healed this.currentMonster.revive(this.currentMonster.maxHealth); }, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 onKilledMonster : function ( monster ) { // move the monster off screen again monster. position. set ( 1000, this. game. world. centerY ) ; // pick a new monster this. currentMonster = this. monsters. getRandom ( ) ; // make sure they are fully healed this. currentMonster. revive ( this. currentMonster. maxHealth ) ; },
When a monster is revived, we want to get them into position on the screen, and reset the monster display text to reflect the new monster. After the kill handler, let’s add the onRevivedMonster event handler to our state as well. Here we move the monster to the center area of the screen and update our text objects to reflect the new information.
onRevivedMonster: function(monster) { monster.position.set(this.game.world.centerX + 100, this.game.world.centerY); // update the text display this.monsterNameText.text = monster.details.name; this.monsterHealthText.text = monster.health + 'HP'; }, 1 2 3 4 5 6 onRevivedMonster : function ( monster ) { monster. position. set ( this. game. world. centerX + 100, this. game. world. centerY ) ; // update the text display this. monsterNameText. text = monster. details. name ; this. monsterHealthText. text = monster. health + 'HP' ; },
Ok, now we can see what is happening, and that is good. It still doesn’t quite feel exciting enough though, I think we can add more. For every click, let’s display the damage that we’re doing. For that, we’ll want to create a pool of text objects. Each click we need to display the damage number for a short period and then it should disappear. Instead of creating a new text object for each click (which we could do), it’s better to create a bunch up front and just change the properties. The reason is that in almost all programming situations, especially in JavaScript, creating new objects is an expensive operation. Not something that you want to be doing a lot of every frame. Let’s create a pool of about 50 text objects (I think I can do 30 clicks / second so that’s a decent buffer). The following should go in your create method.
this.dmgTextPool = this.add.group(); var dmgText; for (var d=0; d<50; d++) { dmgText = this.add.text(0, 0, '1', { font: '64px Arial Black', fill: '#fff', strokeThickness: 4 }); // start out not existing, so we don't draw it yet dmgText.exists = false; dmgText.tween = game.add.tween(dmgText).to({ alpha: 0, y: 100, x: this.game.rnd.integerInRange(100, 700) }, 1000, Phaser.Easing.Cubic.Out); dmgText.tween.onComplete.add(function(text, tween) { text.kill(); }); this.dmgTextPool.add(dmgText); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 this. dmgTextPool = this. add. group ( ) ; var dmgText ; for ( var d = 0 ; d < 50 ; d ++ ) { dmgText = this. add. text ( 0, 0, '1', { font : '64px Arial Black', fill : '#fff', strokeThickness : 4 } ) ; // start out not existing, so we don't draw it yet dmgText. exists = false ; dmgText. tween = game. add. tween ( dmgText ). to ( { alpha : 0, y : 100, x : this. game. rnd. integerInRange ( 100, 700 ) }, 1000, Phaser. Easing. Cubic. Out ) ; dmgText. tween. onComplete. add ( function ( text, tween ) { text. kill ( ) ; } ) ; this. dmgTextPool. add ( dmgText ) ; }
As you can see in order to create a pool of damage text objects to use we didn’t have to do anything special. We used the groups that we already know and love. A standard for loop will help us create 50 of them, and we’ll set them all to exists = false so that they don’t render on the screen until we tell them to. Next, we’re going to add another super powerful tool in Phaser’s arsenal, a Tween. A tween allows you to modify various properties of an object over time. It uses one of several mathematical equations to “ease” these values from start to finish and create animation effects. For the damage text, we want it to fly out from where it was clicked in a random direction and also fade out so that by the time that it reaches its destination, it can no longer be seen. In the to method of the tween, we set the final values that we want the alpha, y and x properties of the object to be, the starting values will be the values of the object when the tween begins. The second parameter is the time that it should take to complete the tween, we’ll set it to 1000 (the value is in milliseconds, so 1 second). The final parameter is the Easing equation that we want to use. When a tween animation is completed, an event is fired, we can hook into there and kill() the text object (effectively setting it back to exists = false ).
Now we’ll turn these on so that clicking to do damage is really exciting. Every time we click, we’ll grab the first available dmgText object (i.e. not killed) from the group using getFirstExists(false), the false tells the group that we want one that doesn’t exist. Then update the text to reflect the current click damage. We need to reset the alpha property from when the tween had adjusted it, and we want to start this one at the spot where the player clicked. Then we’ll start the tween again, and get our animation.
// grab a damage text from the pool to display what happened var dmgText = this.dmgTextPool.getFirstExists(false); if (dmgText) { dmgText.text = this.player.clickDmg; dmgText.reset(pointer.positionDown.x, pointer.positionDown.y); dmgText.alpha = 1; dmgText.tween.start(); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 // grab a damage text from the pool to display what happened var dmgText = this. dmgTextPool. getFirstExists ( false ) ; if ( dmgText ) { dmgText. text = this. player. clickDmg ; dmgText. reset ( pointer. positionDown. x, pointer. positionDown. y ) ; dmgText. alpha = 1 ; dmgText. tween. start ( ) ; }
Reminder: commit that code!
Phat Lootz
Killing monsters isn’t something that the player does just for sport, they’re in it for the rewards of gold and treasure. We need to drop some loot when the monster dies, let’s add a gold coin to our images loading in the preload method.
this.game.load.image('gold_coin', 'assets/496_RPG_icons/I_GoldCoin.png'); 1 this. game. load. image ( 'gold_coin', 'assets/496_RPG_icons/I_GoldCoin.png' ) ;
To start with, every monster will drop a single gold coin when it dies. The player will need to click on them to collect them, and so there could be quite a few laying around before they decide to do that. To create a pool of gold coins, again we’ll utilize the group. This time, since we’re creating a pool of sprites, we can use a special method called createMultiple. This method is very similar to the create method in that it only creates sprites, for this one, it takes a new parameter, the number that you want to create. Since we’re not using a for loop this time to create them, we need a way to setup some defaults without having to loop through our newly created group, for that, we have another method called setAll. It takes the property and value and applies that to each object in the group. We also want to register the onInputDown handler, since adding a handler to an event is a method, we use callAll to execute the events.onInputDown.add method on each child of the group.
// create a pool of gold coins this.coins = this.add.group(); this.coins.createMultiple(50, 'gold_coin', '', false); this.coins.setAll('inputEnabled', true); this.coins.setAll('goldValue', 1); this.coins.callAll('events.onInputDown.add', 'events.onInputDown', this.onClickCoin, this); 1 2 3 4 5 6 // create a pool of gold coins this. coins = this. add. group ( ) ; this. coins. createMultiple ( 50, 'gold_coin', '', false ) ; this. coins. setAll ( 'inputEnabled', true ) ; this. coins. setAll ( 'goldValue', 1 ) ; this. coins. callAll ( 'events.onInputDown.add', 'events.onInputDown', this. onClickCoin, this ) ;
Again we need feedback in the UI so that we know that we are collecting gold. Add this text object to the create method.
this.playerGoldText = this.add.text(30, 30, 'Gold:'+ this.player.gold, { font: '24px Arial Black', fill: '#fff', strokeThickness: 4 }); 1 2 3 4 5 this. playerGoldText = this. add. text ( 30, 30, 'Gold:'+ this. player. gold, { font : '24px Arial Black', fill : '#fff', strokeThickness : 4 } ) ;
Now we can add our click handler for the coins. When a coin is clicked, the goldValue of the coin is added to the player’s gold. We also have to update the UI so that we can see the change. Finally, we kill the coin so that it disappears back into our pool for reuse.
onClickCoin: function(coin) { // give the player gold this.player.gold += coin.goldValue; // update UI this.playerGoldText.text = 'Gold:'+ this.player.gold; // remove the coin coin.kill(); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 onClickCoin : function ( coin ) { // give the player gold this. player. gold += coin. goldValue ; // update UI this. playerGoldText. text = 'Gold:'+ this. player. gold ; // remove the coin coin. kill ( ) ; }
Next we need to add to the onKilledMonster event so that we can actually drop these coins. Much like the dmgText objects, we’ll grab the first available coin and bring it to life positioning it somewhere randomly in the center-ish of the screen. We update the goldValue (even though we’re just setting it to 1 now) so that in the future we can drop different amounts of gold as we progress.
var coin; // spawn a coin on the ground coin = this.coins.getFirstExists(false); coin.reset(this.game.world.centerX + this.game.rnd.integerInRange(-100, 100), this.game.world.centerY); coin.goldValue = 1; 1 2 3 4 5 var coin ; // spawn a coin on the ground coin = this. coins. getFirstExists ( false ) ; coin. reset ( this. game. world. centerX + this. game. rnd. integerInRange ( - 100, 100 ), this. game. world. centerY ) ; coin. goldValue = 1 ;
As I mentioned earlier, the player has to click on the coins in order to collect them. After a few kills, if they don’t do that, the floor will become quite littered with gold. While piles of cash is always fun, eventually we might run out of new coins to spawn from our pool. What we need to do is automatically collect gold for the player after a short time so that the world doesn’t become cluttered.
To accomplish this, Phaser has a Timer object that we can use to create our own custom timed events. If the coin sits there not being clicked for 3 seconds, |
constructed by starting with the actual city and building outwards," Zurovec said. "So, when you're flying through the city, you really can see the actual area where you'll be given free rein to walk around, shop, identify missions of interest to you, and meet other players. The outer periphery of the cityscape and sky lanes, though, employs a bit more smoke and mirrors, which was itself the result of very conscious design decision.
"Real cities tend to have a lot of redundancy — dozens and dozens of extremely similar bars, gun shops, medical facilities, gas stations, and the like.... Cities in Star Citizen are more representative in nature — we wanted them to provide players with access to everything that they needed, but also wanted to keep them relatively compact so that there was a minimum of wasted transit time, and so that players at a given city could easily find one another. This narrowing of the focus allows us to achieve a far higher level of detail than would otherwise be the case, and to create a larger number of these smaller, more distinctive cities than would otherwise be the case."
Star Citizen is being launched piecemeal, with systems like the player hangars and the dogfighting modules each having their own alpha and beta releases. The plan is for the persistent world module to launch some time in late 2015.
"Only a small fraction of those areas will make it into the initial launch of the persistent universe... but following that release I'd expect to see a steady stream of new areas to explore."|
Dostum & Gülen Comeback Plan in Uzbekistan, Ukrainian Neo-Nazis & Chechen Terrorists, How Azerbaijan Benefits from Crimean Crisis & More!
The Great Game Round-Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. We document the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits between a U.S.-dominated NATO, its GCC proxies, Russia, China and other regional players.
After the success of Washington's "Brown Revolution" in Ukraine, NATO is yet again aligned with fascists and neo-Nazis in its never-ending struggle against Russia and Western media is busy selling the myth of moderate Ukrainian neo-Nazis similar to the "moderate Syrian rebels". During the days of Operation Gladio these forces were simply called "anti-communist" but now the presstitutes will have to come up with more innovative forms of propaganda to conceal the fact that the new puppet regime in Kiev boasts several neo-Nazis in key positions. So the fight against fascism in Europe falls once again to Russia, which wants to get rid of the Ukrainian "ultranationalists" for a number of reasons:
Russia to add 2 Maidan leaders to intl wanted list over Chechen militant links
Members of the Ukrainian far-right parties, including Maidan leaders Oleg Tyagnibok and Dmitry Yarosh, are to be added to the wanted list for participation in hostilities against Russian soldiers in Chechnya, Russia’s Investigative Committee says.
Russia intends to prosecute members of the UNA-UNSO ultranationalist party for being part of the gang that fought alongside militant leaders Shamil Basayev and Arab mercenary Emir Khattab [Thamir Saleh Abdullah Suwailem] in the North Caucasus in 1994-95, said Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the Investigative Committee.
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Ukrainian Neo-Nazis & Chechen Terrorists
Both Oleh Tyahnybok, high-profile leader of the Svoboda party, and Dmitry Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector, played a decisive role in the Euromaidan protests and subsequent coup d'état. Yarosh was rewarded with the post of deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, where he is now working with another prominent neo-Nazi: Andriy Parubiy. According to former State Security Head of Ukraine Oleksandr Yakimenko, Parubiy was instrumental in organizing the Euromaidan sniper shootings, which were reportedly carried out by UNA-UNSO members. During the First Chechen War, NATO's Ukrainian "Gladio" branch UNA-UNSO fought alongside the jihadi mercenaries led by Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab. So it was hardly surprising, when Right Sector leader Dmitry Yarosh called on Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov to join the fight against Russia:
Ukraine nationalist leader calls on'most wanted' terrorist Umarov 'to act against Russia'
A leader of the Ukrainian radical group Pravy Sektor (Right Sector), Dmitry Yarosh, has called on Russia’s most wanted terrorist Doku Umarov to act against Russia in an address posted on Right Sector’s page in VKontakte social network.
The statement points out that “many Ukrainians with arms in the hands” supported Chechen militants in their fight against Russians and “it is time to support Ukraine now.”
The message, signed “leader of Right Sector Dmitry Yarosh” then calls on Umarov “to activate his fight” and “take a unique chance to win” over Russia.
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Realizing that this statement could tarnish the image of the "moderate" Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the Right Sector's spokesman claimed one day later that Yarosh had nothing to do with the message and that the VKontakte account had been hacked. Maybe it was just an evil Russian plot to discredit the new rulers in Kiev. However, Yarosh's fellow neo-Nazis have already accomplished this feat on their own. Especially Alexander Muzychko, another member of UNA-UNSO, gained worldwide fame thanks to several YouTube videos. But this fame comes with a price:
Court in N Caucasus issues sanction in absentia to arrest Ukrainian militant Sashko Bily
City court in Yessentuki, a resort town in Russia’s southern Stavropol territory, has entertained investigators’ petition to authorize an arrest in absentia of the Ukrainian militant Alexander Muzychko, more widely known as Sashko Bily, a spokesman for the court told Itar-Tass.
Sashko Bily has been placed on an international wanted list on suspicion of involvement in the tortures and killings of Russian soldiers in Chechnya in the period of 1994 through to the 2000’s.
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Not everybody in Russia is in favor of using the legal system to take Muzychko and other Ukrainian neo-Nazi terrorists off the streets. State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin urged Russian special services "to follow Mossad examples" and assassinate Alexander Muzychko and Dmitry Yarosh. If Muzychko and Yarosh were not in the spotlight right now, Russia's FSB might consider this possibility. But there is a difference between assassinating Washington's new favorite neo-Nazi leader, who is running for president of Ukraine, and killing a few Chechen terrorists in Turkey:
Chechens killed in Istanbul in the name of Russian intel, prosecutor claims
Five Chechens who were killed in Istanbul between 2009 and 2011 were done so in the name of Russia’s intelligence agency, according to a public prosecutor's indictment in the case.
The suspects are accused in the indictment of killing Ali Osaev, the Istanbul representative of the Caucasus Emirate, designated as a terrorist organization by Russia and the United States, on Feb. 26, 2009. Additionally, the execution-style murder of three Chechens, Berg-Hadj Musayev, Zaurbek Amriyev and Rustam Altemirov, on Sept. 16, 2011 in a parking lot in Istanbul was committed by two people who work for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and entered Turkey with fake passports under the names Alexander Zharkov and Nadim Ayupov, according to the prosecutor.
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Kremlin hit squads have taken out a large number of Chechen terrorists abroad. Therefore, Russia's War on Terror is taking place among others in the NATO member states Turkey and Germany, which shelter many of these terrorists and keep the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus running via aid organizations like the German-Caucasian Society. Other attacks by Russian intelligence agents were carried out in Azerbaijan, another base for regional jihadi operations.
Azerbaijan to Benefit from Crimean Crisis
But the country in the South Caucasus is of course much more than just a terror base. Washington and Brussels are constantly looking for new ways to lessen Europe's dependence on Russian gas utilizing Azerbaijan's abundant natural-gas resources. The latest idea is to take advantage of the Crimean crisis by luring future South Stream customer Bulgaria away from Gazprom [emphasis mine]:
Azerbaijan May Benefit from the Russia-Ukraine Crisis
In theory, those supplies even could start this year, commented energy expert Ilham Shaban. In particular, it could ensure supply diversification in one European market completely reliant on Russian gas -- Bulgaria. “If the EU will finance the construction of a short, 180-kilometer interconnector between the gas distribution networks of Turkey and Bulgaria” it could transport 2 billion cubic meters of gas to Bulgaria in 2014, said Shaban. The project “could take a few months and would not require big investments.”
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So Bulgaria could be supplied with Azerbaijani gas via the TANAP and TAP pipeline network. However, first the cash-strapped EU has to come with enough money to finance the project. Fortunately, the Crimean crisis offers several opportunities for the Aliyev regime to benefit from the new Cold War:
Pentagon Making Contingency Plans If Russia Blocks Afghan Transit
The U.S. is already making plans to redirect cargo to Afghanistan if Russia no longer allows the Pentagon to use its territory, a top U.S. military official has said. And it appears that Georgia and Azerbaijan may be poised to benefit if that happens.
The only NDN routes that don't pass through Russia are the ones using the so-called southern spur, that is through Georgia and Azerbaijan, across the Caspian into Kazakhstan and onward into Afghanistan. Conversely, the Baltic states, especially Latvia, would stand to lose, since they are the starting node of the most common route that passes through Russia.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is still refusing to sign the bilateral security agreement with the United States, which would allow U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan, and he stated in his final address to parliament that all American soldiers can leave the country at the end of this year because the Afghan military is ready to take over. Since all ten presidential candidates have already vowed to sign the security agreement if elected, we will not find out if Karzai's assessment is correct and NATO troops will eventually stay in the Hindu Kush.
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Uzbekistan: Dostum, Gülen Plan Comeback
Nevertheless, leading figures in Afghanistan do not discount the possibility of a takeover by the Taliban and disintegration of the country. Abdul Rashid Dostum, infamous warlord and leader of Afghanistan's Uzbek community, just paid unofficial visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in order to negotiate potential military and technical assistance. Dostum also used the opportunity to remind the Kazakh and Uzbek authorities about himself in light of Afghanistan's unclear future. Especially the Uzbek regime could be tempted to support Dostum in establishing a buffer state near the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan border:
Will ‘Dostumistan’ Be Established Near Afghanistan’s Border With Uzbekistan?
Much as they did in the 1990s, the Uzbekistani authorities recognize the possible value a buffer state in the ethnically Uzbek region of Afghanistan—should one again be established there. “Dostum is one of the most secular politicians in Afghanistan and his policy is convenient for the Central Asia authorities. Nobody wants to see the Taliban near their borders,” said pro-government Uzbek political scientist Rafik Saifulin (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, on January 31).
“After the withdrawal of US troops, the probability of Afghanistan disintegrating into a few ethnic-based states is high,” the Russian Oriental Studies Institute’s Knyazev told Jamestown. “It is possible that Dostum discussed with Uzbek and Kazakh authorities the option of recreating a de-facto independent state in the Uzbek part of Afghanistan,” Knyazev posited (Author’s interview, February 10).
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Two weeks ago, the vulnerability of the bordering'stans was highlighted, when three Turkmen border guards were killed, supposedly by Taliban fighters, although the Taliban denied this. Uzbekistan's leader Islam Karimov would probably prefer to seal the borders of his country altogether. Karimov is not only concerned about the wrong people entering Uzbekistan but also about the wrong people leaving the country. Last week, he issued a decree banning all government officials from traveling aborad without his permission:
Karimov to all top government officials: you cannot leave the country without my permission
76-year old Uzbek president Islam Karimov seems to have taken on a lofty responsibility. Going forward, every government official, presidential cabinet or Senate member, and even every non-profit organization executive planning a business trip requires the president’s personal approval.
This measure is meant to strengthen the Protection of State Secrets law, which allows for the government to restrict the mobility of those of its citizens who are deemed to possess state or military secrets.
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Some Uzbek citizens will be happy that they left when they had the chance to do so. One of these Uzbek citizens is certainly opposition leader Muhammad Salih, who has no intention of returning to his home country. But it remains to be seen if his opinion matters because the shadowy network of CIA puppet Fethullah Gülen is working behind the scenes to deport Salih from Turkey in exchange for a comeback of Gülen's schools in Uzbekistan [emphasis mine]:
Mukhammad Salikh claims threats of deportation from Turkey
The long-standing NDU leader Mukhammad Salikh maintains that Fethullah Gulen, a controversial Islamic preacher and politician in Turkey, and his supporters are seeking his deportation from Turkey in the hope of improving their relationship with Uzbekistan.
In his interview Salikh informed the Turkish daily that Gulen’s people are carrying out negotiations in Tashkent on re-instating their business interests – while in Turkey his supporters are pressuring members of government to initiate Salikh’s deportation.
Instead of Salikh, a friend of his, professor Orhan Kavuncu, has been deported, who upon his arrival in Uzbekistan immediately called on Salikh to leave Turkey so that Gulen’s schools can start operating in Uzbekistan.
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In 1999 Uzbekistan's government had closed all Gülen movement schools in the country. Subsequently, eight Gülen school graduates were arrested and found guilty of setting up an illegal religious group and of involvement in an extremist organization. Since Gülen's schools in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states had played a central role in CIA operations in the region, this came as no real surprise. So the Uzbek authorities should know what they are getting into if they allow the CIA-backed Gülen cult to reopen its schools.
Kunming Attack Linked to "East Turkestan Forces"
According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, Washington's "Gladio B" operations in the Eurasian Balkans, which involved among others Fethullah Gülen, included bringing people from East Turkestan to Azerbaijan via Kyrgyzstan. From the base for regional jihadi operations in the South Caucasus these "mujahideen" were then channeled to Chechnya or Bosnia. Apparently, terrorists from China are still very much interested in traveling abroad for jihad but one their latest trips failed and this reportedly prompted the horrific attack in Kunming:
‘Failed overseas jihad’ led to terrorist attack
The suspects in Saturday's terror attack in Kunming, Yunnan Province had originally wanted to become jihadis overseas, Yunnan deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) said Tuesday.
Qin Guangrong, the provincial Party chief, said that eight attackers had traveled to Yunnan and Guangdong provinces try to leave China to participate in "jihad". They returned to Yunnan when they failed to get out, reported China National Radio (CNR).
When the group failed to escape through Honghe county in Yunnan, which borders Vietnam, they plotted to launch jihad at transport terminals in either Kunming or Honghe, according to the confession of one captured female suspect who regained consciousness in hospital on Monday.
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Chinese media announced within hours of the incident that Uyghur terrorists had perpetrated the massacre linking the Kunming attack to the ongoing destabilization campaign in East Turkestan aka Xinjiang. Although nobody has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, there is some evidence to support this claim. Police found a few flags of the "East Turkestan forces" at Kunming's railway station after the attack and the leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkestan Islamic Party, emphasized in rare interview shortly after the massacre that the fight against China takes top priority:
From his Pakistan hideout, Uighur leader vows revenge on China
Entrenched in secret mountain bases on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, Uighur fighters are gearing up for retribution against China to avenge the deaths of comrades in Beijing's crackdown on a separatist movement, their leader told Reuters.
In a rare but brief interview, Abdullah Mansour, leader of the rebel Turkestan Islamic Party, said it was his holy duty to fight the Chinese.
"The fight against China is our Islamic responsibility and we have to fulfill it," he said from an undisclosed location.
"China is not only our enemy, but it is the enemy of all Muslims... We have plans for many attacks in China," he said, speaking in the Uighur language through an interpreter.
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So the ETIM will continue to work on Washington's East Turkestan project. Due to the rising violence in Xinjiang, the rift between Han Chinese and Uyghurs in the autonomous region appears to be widening but there is still a long way to go before Anwar Yusuf Turani and his puppet government can be installed in China's far west. The authorities in Xinjiang know very well who is behind the East Turkestan independence movement and they are fed up with the separatist activities:
Xinjiang chairman blames overseas forces for separatist activities
A top government official from far west China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region blamed the separatist activities in the ethnic area on overseas forces Thursday, saying that they will never achieve their purpose.
"We will be on high alert against those instigators. They are dreaming of splitting Xinjiang from our great motherland everyday," Nur Bekri, chairman of the regional government, told reporters while attending the annual session of the country's top legislature in Beijing.
# # # #
Christoph Germann- BFP Contributing Author & Analyst
Christoph Germann is an independent analyst and researcher based in Germany, where he is currently studying political science. His work focuses on the New Great Game in Central Asia and the Caucasus region. You can visit his website hereLouis C.K. has dropped out of hosting the Radio & Television Congressional Correspondents dinner after Fox News host Greta Van Susteren threatened to not attend.
C.K.'s take-no-prisoners brand of stand up comedy apparently rubs Van Susteren the wrong way. "Louis C.K. Comedian? I don't think so. Pig? Yes," she wrote on her blog on March 8.
The Fox News host included a few choice quotations from C.K.'s Twitter and stand up, which she argued made attending the event unconscionable. "I refuse to show any support for this guy or for the Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner Committee who hired him," she added. "I think the organization that hired him is just as bad as he is. It is no secret that he denigrates women."
According to CNN's Peter Hamby, however, Van Susteren's blustering wasn't to blame for the Emmy award-winning comedian's decision to drop out:
Louis CK cancels on RTCA Dinner... His agent: "He just didn't want to do it anymore." — Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) March 9, 2012
C.K. is the creator and star of "Louie," a semi-autobiographical FX original series in which C.K. plays a fictionalized version of himself. The show chronicles his trials and tribulations of raising two daughters as a divorcé in New York City.Image copyright 9News.com.au Image caption Police at the scene where a Sydney man caught fire after being shot with a Taser
A chainsaw-wielding Australian man who allegedly threw petrol at police caught fire when he was shot with a Taser.
Police were called to the western Sydney suburb of Riverstone on Tuesday morning after receiving reports of a man trying to cut down a power pole.
The 51-year-old man allegedly threw petrol at the officers as they approached him.
His clothes caught fire when the officers attempted to subdue him using a Taser and pepper spray.
After police extinguished the fire, the man ran to his house and barricaded himself inside.
About one hour later he came out of the house and surrendered to police.
He was treated for minor burns and a police officer whose eyes were splashed with petrol was also taken to hospital.
Police expect to lay charges against the man.Florida's so-called Smart Solar amendment is "smart" only for the utility companies that have poured more than $20 million into this attempt to guarantee that they can keep their monopoly on consumer energy.
The amendment is meant to confuse Floridians, and the state's Supreme Court never should have let it get on the ballot. We strongly urge voters to say "No" to Amendment 1.
Amendments typically come from citizen initiatives or, every 20 years, from the Florida Constitution Revision Commission. This shady-not-smart solar amendment exists only because the utilities saw it as a way to torpedo a separate amendment they didn't like.
Amendment 1 supporters acknowledge their ballot question isn't in response to widespread complaints from residents. Rather, it came about after another amendment sought to make it easier for Floridians to obtain affordable solar energy.
Instead of simply fighting that amendment, the shady-not-smart solar group created its own dueling amendment. With a much larger war chest to pay signature gatherers, they wiped the other amendment off the map.
The war chest for Amendment 1 includes massive contributions from utility companies. It already is the second-most expensive ballot initiative in Florida history. The utility companies are spending a ton of money to protect their interests, not to protect consumers.
Under the guise of being pro-solar, Amendment 1 inserts into the state's constitution what already exists in law — the right to own or lease solar panels. But the amendment could also land a crushing blow to net metering, a policy that is common across the country and requires utility companies — including those in Florida — to buy electricity from homes that generate excess solar power.
The amendment ensures "that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do."
If this amendment passes, the utility companies could argue that net metering is a "subsidy" and, since it's in the state constitution, lawmakers would have to ban it. Solar energy costs could then rise, making it less affordable for consumers. There's no evidence this would help save money for non-solar users.
These are discussions that state lawmakers should be having as solar energy becomes more affordable in Florida. It makes no sense, however, to place regulations in the state constitution before we fully realize the market for solar power in Florida and understand what it means for consumers.
Current state law bans landlords from selling power from solar panels to their tenants, something that the initial solar amendment supporters sought to legalize.
Right now, for example, Publix is allowed to install solar panels. But Publix cannot sell its excess solar power to tenants in the shopping plaza who might be able to save money and help the environment by using solar energy. State law mandates that only energy companies like FPL can sell energy.
Amendment 1 supporters point to Arizona, where homeowners can bypass utility companies and unscrupulous third parties are allowed to sell long-term solar power leases. Florida homeowners, they say, could fall victim to the same type of companies if utility companies' stranglehold over the state isn't protected in the constitution.
Those are scare tactics. If lawmakers ever consider allowing third-party companies to sell solar leases in Florida, they would have the ability to regulate it. And there's no change in the state law on the horizon.
The shady-not-smart solar group knows that voters like the sound of solar energy. We live in the Sunshine State so why not support an underutilized source of energy?
But Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente, writing in dissent when the high court approved putting the amendment on the ballot, said Amendment 1 does nothing to kick start solar energy use in Florida.
"Masquerading as a pro-solar energy initiative, this proposed constitutional amendment, supported by some of Florida's major investor-owned electric utility companies, actually seeks to constitutionalize the status quo," Pariente wrote. The high court approved the amendment on a 4-3 vote.
Amendment supporters argue that they're looking out for consumers, including the elderly and poor, by keeping costs down so non-solar users aren't paying higher fees to subsidize solar users, who still need access to the grid for when their batteries run low. It's an unsubstantiated claim.
"As solar becomes an essential part of Florida's energy mix, we must protect consumers, particularly our seniors, from scams, rip-offs and unfair subsidies," says Jim Kallinger, the co-chair of Consumers for Smart Solar.
So why is FPL, which has donated millions of dollars to this initiative, asking the state's Public Service Commission to make consumers pay an extra $1.3 billion in higher rates over the next three years? In the last couple years FPL also has eliminated cost-saving rebates. The company is not looking out for your pocket book — FPL is looking out for FPL.
Floridians need better solar policy. Despite year-round sunshine, we are 15th in the country in solar energy usage.
Placing an amendment in the state constitution that benefits the utility companies isn't the smart answer.Oil spill at Goi Creek, Nigeria in 2010. Image: Friends of the Earth Netherlands
Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa, and petroleum products make up nearly all of the country's exports. So when the governor of Nigeria's central bank alleged that some $20 billion of state oil revenues were missing from the national energy company, citizens weren't happy.
The uproar was met by a promise from President Goodluck Jonathan to audit the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). But along with official misconduct comes private theft: Last week, Royal Dutch Shell, the largest foreign oil operator in Nigeria, reported some $1 billion worth of oil and natural gas were stolen in 2013. In response, the Nigerian navy announced that it shut down some 260 illegal oil refineries and burned 100,000 tons of stolen oil.
In 2012, Nigeria had the second-largest GDP in sub-Saharan Africa. That year, nearly 96 percent of its exports came from the oil sector. But that oil wealth, which led to its joining OPEC in the 1970s, has "failed to raise Nigerian incomes and done little to reduce poverty," as UCLA's Michael Ross wrote in 2003. Or as National Geographic's Tom O'Neill wrote in 2007, "Nigeria has been subverted by the very thing that gave it promise—oil." Nigeria was dead last in GDP per capita among OPEC nations in 2012.
Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi's accusation that NNPC is keeping billions out of state coffers—revised from an earlier accusation that the theft amounted to $50 billion—is thus a major event for Africa's most populous country. As Reuters put it, Nigeria has had "a reputation for corruption but the scale of the alleged oil graft is unprecedented and Sanusi is the most high-profile figure to raise issues directly to the president."
Nevertheless, President Jonathan suspended Sanusi for "unrelated 'financial recklessness' and 'gross misconduct' at the central bank," per Reuters, which also reported that the general sentiment in Nigeria is that the suspension is politically motivated.
In its annual report published earlier this month, Shell also blamed politics for poor management of the Nigerian oil industry. At issue is Nigeria's Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), a piece of legislation years in the making that proponents say will help clean up the unregulated oil industry. Foreign oil companies say PIB will make business harder to conduct in the country, while the bill is supported by transparency organizations, which say it will help ensure Nigeria's oil wealth will benefit its citizens.
Whether or not PIB is the answer, lack of oversight has left an environmental disaster in the industry's wake. Remember two years ago when a Chevron gas rig burned for three weeks straight? Or when the country tried to ban an Occupy video about the industry that went viral? Or how about Shell's point about oil theft: As our VICE colleagues saw last year, many Nigerians looking to profit off of the oil sector have turned to stealing oil, refining it in illegal, highly toxic refineries, and selling it to brokers for a pittance.
VICE cofounder Suroosh Alvi visited the Niger Delta for the last season of VICE on HBO.
According to an Associated Press report about the Nigerian navy's crackdown on illegal refineries, many anti-theft NGOs blame official corruption for fueling the industry. "The whole idea of selling oil illegally was sponsored and maintained by our political leaders" to fund election campaigns," Patrick Dele Cole, director of an advocacy group called Stop The Theft, told the AP. Meanwhile, the report explained that:
Niger Delta residents have told The Associated Press that they feel entitled to steal oil because they have received little reparation for decades of oil spills and gas flaring that have corrupted their environment, killing fishing and agricultural fields.
The end result is a rather convoluted mess of corruption and theft that's left the Niger Delta heavily polluted with little economic payoff. As AP reporters Hilary Uguru and Michelle Faul dryly put it, "Corruption at the highest levels is endemic in Nigeria. The oil thefts are unrelated to some 20 billion petrodollars allegedly missing from the country's treasury, from oil sold between January 2012 and July 2013."
In other words, the dueling accusations of $20 billion in official theft from Sanusi and $1 billion in oil theft from Shell have been met with the promise of a government audit and a military crackdown on illegal refineries that netted a total of five arrests. Meanwhile, meaningful change to the oil industry, the type that would actually benefit Nigeria's 130 million citizens, remains elusive.A Baltimore-area police chief is reviewing the arrest of a man who rose at a town hall-style meeting to challenge the national Common Core standards and wound up in an angry confrontation with an off-duty police officer.
Robert Small, 46, showed up at the public forum Thursday night in Towson, but when he began asking questions about Common Core, the police officer, who was providing security at the meeting, shut him down.
“My question is how does lowering educational standards prepare kids for... college, because that’s what it’s all about?” Small asked in a scene caught on videotape.
But audience members had been told to submit their questions first in writing, and when Small went off script, the police officer moved in. He was forcibly dragged out of the room, while exhorting the crowd to join his cause.
The forum was held by the Maryland State Department of Education to explain the new K-12 standards, backed by the federal government and adopted by 45 states. While Common Core is not itself a curriculum, but a standard evaluated through a national test, new textbooks and lesson plans are tailored toward it. As it is being implemented, objections have grown.
Small, who was charged with disturbing school operations and second degree assault, declined to comment on Monday. His wife said the family has hired a lawyer and would not address the case on the attorney’s advice. Each charge carries a $2,500 fine, but Small faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of assaulting an officer.
The police report said Small had attempted to push the officer away, though in the video, Small is not seen doing anything that could be construed as assaulting the officer. The video did not capture the entire sequence.
Maryland PTA President Ray Leone, who was present at the meeting, declined to comment on whether an assault actually took place.
Baltimore County Police Chief James Johnson said he will review the incident, but in a statement, said that the police officer intervened only after Small refused repeated requests by to take his seat and follow the prescribed format.
“While [the Baltimore County Police Department] strongly supports a citizen's right to exercise his or her First Amendment rights, it also recognizes that meeting organizers have the right to establish rules of order,” the statement said.
The police report said Small had attempted to push the officer away when he first confronted him.
Small is a research manager for the Department of Veteran Affairs and has a second-grader and a sixth-grader who attend Howard County schools.Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe formally endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry for president today, saying his fellow Republican has the right combination of executive experience and know-how about government regulations to beat President Obama.
Inhofe, a former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is a leading congressional skeptic on global warming and climate change. Perry made headlines recently for saying he has doubts about man-made global warming, saying it is an unproven scientific theory based on "manipulated data."
Inhofe is opposed to the "cap and trade" plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and says Perry wouldn't enact such a proposal to charge businesses so they could exceed their emission limits.
"I know he is the strongest leader to run against and defeat President Obama," Inhofe said about Perry. "He is one of the few who... won't cave in to the extreme environmental activists or the Hollywood crowd and their liberal agenda."
Last week, Inhofe told the Tulsa World that he called Perry a year ago and promised to endorse the Texas governor if he would enter the race. Perry formally joined the race for the GOP presidential nomination on Aug. 13.
In the same Tulsa story, Inhofe knocked former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney as being "a little mushy on environmental issues" and also suggested former House speaker Newt Gingrich got too close to Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi while he was in Congress.Well, I'll admit I thought this was going to be another year in which I didn't receive a gift. When my gift was marked as shipped I got pretty excited. Then when christmas came and went I started to worry. Then new years, then the first couple weeks of january, and I was sure I wouldn't see anything.
Then last night I was checking the mail and found a parcel from Bangkok, Thailand. HOLY CRAP! I hurried home and opened it up.
My cat's helped me out, as you can see. They were as excited as I was.
What I found was an amazing set of laser cut Game of Thrones coasters, showing several of the house sigils. AMAZING! I love gifts that can be displayed and used in daily life. I'll be using these often.
Thanks so much, Santa, and remember: Winter is Coming.The Francis J was found ashore Michigan City, Ind. this week after being reported stolen Sunday from Monroe Harbor. View Full Caption Reddit/aoscott
DOWNTOWN — This little boat was found ashore in Indiana after possibly being taken for a joyride out of Monroe Harbor, the boat's owners say.
The Francis J, a handmade wooden trawler, was reported stolen Sunday from the harbor at 400 E. Monroe St., police records show.
By Wednesday night the Coast Guard told the boat's owners that the Francis J had washed ashore in Michigan City, Ind. A passerby snapped a photo of the beached boat and posted it to Reddit Thursday night.
The boat's owners think the boat was likely taken for a joyride.
"I had no idea people did boat joyrides," Hal Conick, the son of one of the boat's owners, said. "[This is some] Ferris Bueller s---."
The owners, two suburban lawyers, discovered the boat was missing Sunday when they went to the harbor. They filed a report with Chicago police, who told DNAinfo earlier this week they had no surveillance or other information on any suspects.
Petty Officer James Bradberry, who's stationed in Michigan City, said authorities were alerted to an unmanned boat floating 200 yards off the beach at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Coast Guard searched near the boat to make sure no one was in the water, and by 7:50 p.m. the boat had drifted ashore, where the Coast Guard was able to match the boat to its owners.
A private company then loaded the boat to a truck and drove it back to Chicago, Bradberry said. He declined to say whether the boat was damaged or if there was evidence it was stolen.
Bradberry said this marked the first time he had seen an unmanned boat floating near the beaches of Michigan City.
The boat's discovery was good news for its owners, who were worried their one-of-a-kind vessel was lost forever. The Francis J was handmade in Madison, Wis., by a carpenter who intended to use it on Wisconsin rivers before selling it. The boat resembles a trawler commonly found on the East Coast but not so much in Lake Michigan.
The boat is valued between $15,000 and $20,000, much less than many other boats docked Downtown, but the Francis J was worth much more to its owners sentimentally.
"It takes special effort, like piracy on the high seas, to use a craft to take a craft," one owner, Harold Conick of suburban Wheaton, said. "I would've preferred he stole my car, or 15, 20 grand of my money. I could deal with that more readily."Job Openings – StartUpHire Seeks 10,000 Recruits And More
Perhaps when the Dark Knight rises this summer he can riddle me this: how can the economy be hurting so badly, yet startups continue to struggle to hire all the talent that they need? At least one startup isn’t waiting for superheroes to offer an answer. StartUpHire is out to fill vacant startup positions with a purpose.
StartUpHire
StartUpHire is a job search engine that aims to fill jobs at venture backed companies. Free to all users, the company posts thousands of jobs, which can be filtered by industry, geography, skill, functional area, and more.
The company is campaigning this summer to fill 10,000 startup jobs by November. Social media and word of mouth will spread new opportunities opening up daily. With election talk escalating and economic data figuring prominently in national media conversations, StartUpHire and partners intend to show that the startup industry is an economic driver and job supplier. Increased assistance for future companies might be a byproduct of filling current vacancies and young companies succeeding.
Approximately 45 VC firms have paired with StrartUpHire to aggregate job listings. The National Venture Capital Association, New Venture Communications, Startup America |
he failed to mention that the motive behind the 1993 law was very different than that of the conservative supporters who rallied for Bill 101, or the author’s clear statement on the same matter. He also reminded that President Barack Obama supported a similar law when he was an Illinois legislator.
While I tend to take any politician’s word with a grain of salt, Pence provided further reason to question his motives to sign the bill. During the news conference following the signing of the law, a reporter asked the governor if he thinks sexual orientation should be a protected class (same as race, religion, color, sex and national origin) and if he would support matching Illinois by adding it to the state’s civil rights law. His response was “That’s not on my agenda. I won’t be pursuing that”.
While the signing of the bill was closed to the public and the press, it was reported that 75 to 80 people, all supporting the bill of course, had attended the private ceremony.
It is also reported that during the ceremony, which took place in the governor’s Statehouse office, the press was even asked to leave the waiting area and that the governor’s office declined to provide a list of the people who had attended. Not the most trust-inspiring move if you ask me.
“This bill is not about discrimination, and if I thought it legalized discrimination in any way in Indiana, I would have vetoed it,” said Pence in a statement. “In fact, it does not even apply to disputes between private parties unless government action is involved. For more than twenty years, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act has never undermined our nation’s anti-discrimination laws, and it will not in Indiana”.
Jane Henegar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, responded:
“We are deeply disappointed that the governor and state lawmakers have been tone-deaf to the cries of legions of Hoosiers—including businesses, convention leaders, faith communities and more than 10,000 people who signed petitions against the bill—who say they don’t want this harmful legislation to impair the reputation of our state and harm our ability to attract the best and brightest to Indiana”.
Pence might have a point there, though, much to the disappointment of the bill’s supporters. As sixteen legal scholars stated in a joined letter to the Senate’s Judiciary Chairman, “it is not at all clear that the proposed Indiana RFRA would lead courts to recognize such an exemption”. They were referring of course to businesses being exempt from offering their services to same-sex couples.
According to the Indianapolis Star, there has only been one case discussed in court in the 19 states that already have a religious freedom law. A Christian wedding photographer from New Mexico was sued following his refusal to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. The photographer lost the case, despite the state’s RFRA.
“Opponents of the legislation may make unsupported claims about the extreme results that it would produce, but they have no examples of judicial decisions actually reaching such results,” added the legal experts in their letter.
“There’s been exaggeration on both sides about what this law would do in particular settings”, said Daniel Conkle, a law professor at Indiana University and one of the letter’s authors.
While that might be the case, and the judges’ role in religious freedom laws is being overlooked by both sides, this law leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth due to the intentions of its authors and supporters.
Proving that intentions (even if they won’t end up being supported in court) carry just as much weight as the law itself, gaming convention Gen Con threatened to pull its convention, and its estimated $50 million economic impact, out of the state should the governor decide to sign the bill.
After the bill was formally signed, George Takei posted the following message on Facebook:
“I am outraged that Gov. Pence would sign such a divisive measure into law. He has made it clear that LGBT couples, like Brad and me, are now unwelcome in his state. The notion that this bill was not driven by animus against our community is belied by the record and frankly insulting. I will join many in demanding that socially responsible companies withdraw their business, conferences and support from his state and that LGBTs and our friends and supporters refuse to visit or do business with Indiana. It is a sad day for the Hoosier state, and indeed for the many good people of Indiana, for whom this law now stands as a terrible blight upon that state’s reputation”.
Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff was quick to follow, writing on Twitter that “Today we are canceling all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination”.
The NCAA, whose Final Four will be played this year in Indiana, and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin were also amongst those who raised their concerns over the new law.
Despite Indiana photographers now being “protected”, hopefully none of them will feel the need to take advantage of the new law.
[via The Indianapolis Star | Lead Image: DonkeyHotey]Some days, I drop my children at school in Paris at 8.30am, and before noon I’m having coffee in London. This sort of experience is becoming quite normal in Europe. Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright, wrote during his 1930s exile (spent in Czechoslovakia, France, Denmark and Sweden) about “changing our country more often than our shoes”. Nowadays some Europeans change their country faster than their socks, especially in the “Eurostar triangle” of London-Paris-Brussels. This connectivity is most common among the elite but is spreading wider. Western Europe today is surely the most interlinked region in global history. That explains why – contrary to popular opinion – it remains the most successful region on earth.
Western Europe always was connected. Because of what the British historian Norman Davies calls its “user-friendly climate” – mild and rainy – the land is fertile. That has allowed people speaking different languages to live more closely together here than anywhere else on the planet. That creates networks. European exploration has also been aided by another geographical asset: seas. Malise Ruthven, a scholar of Islam, notes that Europe has “a higher ratio of coast to landmass than any other continent or subcontinent”.
Mobile Europeans have been exchanging ideas for centuries. The “scientific revolution” of the 16th and 17th centuries happened here because our scientists were near each other, debating with each other in their shared language: Latin. Copernicus, Polish son of a German merchant, wrote that the Earth circled the Sun. Galileo in Florence read Copernicus and confirmed his findings through a telescope. The Englishman Francis Bacon described their “scientific method”: deductions based on data.
The proximity of so many nations also brought frequent wars. Eventually, in 1945, the continent was separated. After 1989, when I began crossing the Iron Curtain, I had a series of shocks: the people on the other side weren’t exotic at all. Despite communism, they seemed distinctly European. I remember one eye-opening moment in Riga, Latvia, in 1992 soon after the country left the Soviet Union. I was renting an apartment on a courtyard. One evening, my landlady pointed out the neighbouring flat, which had belonged to the second secretary of Latvia’s Communist party. She described the crowds breaking into it during the 1991 revolution. The story was unusual – and yet the scene was familiar. I knew brick apartment buildings just like this in Amsterdam and Berlin, albeit in better shape. My landlady, an ironic young woman who spoke passable English, was as recognisably European as my East German fellow students at university in West Berlin in 1990-1991. Europe had survived communism.
From the 1950s – and especially after 1989 – Europe converted its unique proximity from a threat into an opportunity. On January 1 1993, the EU legally became a single market. By 1996, Ryanair, EasyJet and the Eurostar were carrying people around Europe. From Frankfurt airport today, you can fly within three hours to dozens of countries, containing more than 500 million people. That is the world’s densest network. For comparison: the only foreign capital you can reach from Tokyo within that time is Seoul, and from New York even Ottawa is further away.
Crossing European borders keeps getting easier. In 2006/07 a report for the European Commission found an estimated 780,000 cross-border commuters in western and central Europe. Today there are undoubtedly more. Some are Poles who have bought cheap houses in eastern Germany and travel to work in Poland. That was unimaginable in 1945, but one feature of post-1990 Europe is the fading of old national enmities; witness last month’s first state visit by an Irish president to the UK or the BBC’s international poll last year that identified Germany as “the most positively viewed nation in the world”. The Greek newspaper that depicted Angela Merkel in Nazi get-up was a marginal voice.
Admittedly, one form of interconnection still barely exists in Europe: labour mobility. Of the EU’s 506 million citizens, only 14 million (or 2.8 per cent) live in another EU state to their own. Very few southern Europeans have emigrated during the crisis. The number of Spaniards living abroad, for instance, rose by just 40,000 between January 2009 and January 2013, says Carmen González Enríquez of Spain’s Real Instituto Elcano think-tank. That’s fewer than 0.1 per cent of all Spaniards. And when Europeans do emigrate, they often go outside the EU. Ireland dispatches its many migrants chiefly within the Anglosphere: to the UK, US, Australia and Canada. Shared language still trumps shared European passports. Free movement of labour is a European reality only in London, Luxembourg and Brussels.
Rather, European mobility consists of countless daily exchanges, great and small. Europe today is a group of Germans descending on Maastricht to smoke pot in “coffee shops”. It’s Irish football fans in Dublin cheering on Arsenal and its German-Turkish playmaker Mesut Ozil. It’s Britons visiting Tallinn for a stag weekend or Flemings Christmas-shopping in Paris. It’s Danes living in relatively cheap southern Sweden and commuting to Copenhagen. English-language websites, Irish pubs and Mediterranean holidays have become pan-European staples.
These connections provide more than just pleasure (though pleasure matters). They also allow Europeans to learn from each other. That learning happens partly because European countries remain slightly different from each other. In the 1994 American film Pulp Fiction, John Travolta asks Samuel L. Jackson:
“You know what the funniest thing about Europe is?”
“What?”
“It’s the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there, that they got here, but it’s a little different.”
“Examples?”
“Alright, well you can walk into a movie theatre in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don’t mean in no paper cup. I’m talkin’ about a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy a beer in McDonald’s. You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?”
Et cetera. Europe’s “little differences” encourage cross-border learning. This happens first in everyday life: look at the steady improvement of London’s nightlife, from something resembling Soviet-era Moscow 20 years ago, when police still banned most pavement tables as “fire hazards”, to something more like Barcelona today. London changed because more Londoners began visiting the continent and saw better ways of doing things. The spread of free bicycles and gay marriage are other examples of intra-European learning.
But this learning happens in high politics too. When George W Bush wanted to invade Iraq, the UK articulated the “Yes” position, and the French and Germans attacked it. Europeans could choose between contrasting views, whereas the American political class mostly united in pro-invasion groupthink. On employment today, there’s a debate between the free-market Brits, the Danes and Dutch with their flexible labour markets, and the southern Europeans, who protect jobs. Debates like that will eventually lead Europe to economic answers. Whatever Europe’s formula will be, it won’t be to copy China. Of course China is growing faster than Europe. It’s easy to grow fast if you starve and impoverish your people, and then suddenly introduce a free market with imported technology, international trade and almost no environmental controls. That’s catch-up. Europe is trying something harder: to achieve growth, and not just for the 1 per cent who are already well-off.
European countries also teach each other by setting each other political limits. Merkel, for instance, has chastised the Dutch far-right and helped oust Silvio Berlusconi as Italian prime minister. While Hungary threatens to abandon democracy, the European Commission labours to pull it back. Most inspiringly of all, as Kiev’s “Euromaidan” protests showed, western Europe has become a beacon to less happy countries. The post-communist era could have gone horribly wrong. After 1989, eastern Europe’s ex-communist countries could choose among various models to follow – including some nasty populist ones. Few of these countries had a democratic tradition. But those closest to the EU chose the European model. From 1995 to 2013, the world’s fastest-growing middle-income economies were the Baltic states, Poland and Slovakia, says Marcin Piatkowski, the World Bank’s senior economist in Warsaw. These countries grew faster even than South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. That was mostly because they looked at the EU, saw what they wanted to be and set about getting there fast. They copied European laws, and got billions in EU funds after joining the union in 2004. Now Europe can inspire Ukraine, Tunisia and Turkey after Erdogan.
…
This kind of cross-border learning helps Europe sidestep the apocalypses constantly foreseen by foreign observers. A decade ago, for instance, some Americans were predicting a European plunge back into fascism. In 2004, the US ambassador to the EU, Rockwell Schnabel, said European anti-Semitism was “getting to the point where it is as bad as it was in the 1930s”. Now that even most European far-right parties have binned anti-Semitism, Schnabel himself must realise that’s ludicrous. The American neocon dystopia of “Eurabia” – a Europe ruled by a vast fundamentalist Muslim population – hasn’t come true either.
Nor will the current apocalypse narrative of a Europe led by far-right parties. This will be trotted out again after this week’s European elections, when thugs wearing suits celebrate before the TV cameras. But, in fact, it’s remarkable how little headway these people have made, after nearly six years of Europe’s worst postwar economic crisis. Even most of their voters regard the populists as protest parties without answers. Because the European parliament is boring and lacks power, many Europeans treat Euro elections as a safe place to teach mainstream politicians a lesson. The populist UK Independence party, for instance, tipped to triumph in this week’s election, has precisely zero seats in Westminster. As the research and advisory group Counterpoint notes, Europe’s far-right parties haven’t risen en masse during the crisis. Some have gained votes; others have declined. (And even these parties have pan-European networks; witness the “pact” between France’s Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders or the bizarre communal pilgrimage by several European far-right leaders to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in 2010.)
Foreign observers need apocalypse narratives to make Europe’s tame politics interesting. But most Europeans have been vaccinated against utopianism by their continent’s past. They don’t believe that armies goose-stepping to the national anthem will usher in Valhalla. Anyway, most Europeans – excluding young people in Mediterranean countries – still enjoy the safest, fairest and most comfortable daily life on earth. A few statistics:
• Most countries where people can expect to live to 82 or longer are European, according to the World Health Organisation.
• On the UN’s human development index, Estonia, Slovakia and even Greece still outrank Qatar, despite its wealth.
• Most “emerging economies” lag Europe by decades. Greek income per capita is double Brazil’s, more than three times China’s and 15 times India’s, according to the World Bank.
• Europe accounts for seven of the top nine countries on the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index, six of the top eight in Transparency International’s corruption perception index and the 17 countries with most income equality, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency’s ranking. In short, Europe still spreads its gains pretty well.
All this adds up to a European dream: dozens of nations living together in harmony and freedom, with unmatched exchanges across borders and with the world’s highest quality of life if not highest incomes.
The European dream appears quite stable. China may be heading for a bump in the road if its population ever demands democracy. Russia had a period of fast growth (with precious little benefit for most Russians) but what happens if Vladimir Putin is becoming a military adventurer? Europe looks to have those traumas behind it. Nor has it become an American-style plutocracy.
Europe still has lots to learn. A French friend recently attended a Californian reception packed with brilliant French engineers working in Silicon Valley. He came home thinking: “What would it take to bring those people back to France?” That’s the sort of question Europeans need to ask: how to convert their wonderful idea networks into Apples and Googles? London, Europe’s de facto business capital, with its budding tech sector, may be finding an answer. If it does, the rest of the continent will try to copy it, because nonstop cross-border learning is still the secret of Europe’s success.
Simon Kuper writes a weekly column for FT Weekend Magazine. He is based in Paris
To comment on this article please post below, or email [email protected] superstar Shohei Otani has not made anything official, but indications continue to gather that he will indeed seek a move to the majors over the offseason to come. After reports emerged recently that Otani was lining up to request that he be made available by his current team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, the 23-year-old pitcher/outfielder has now begun to interview MLB player agents, according to a report from Jon Heyman of Fan Rag.
It seems that Otani and those close to him have already begun the process in earnest, with a variety of well-known agents making the trek to Japan (even as MLB executives do the same). Heyman’s report suggests that the search for a rep is moving at a healthy clip, with Otani said to be possibly preparing to “begin a second round of interviews within the next week or so” after narrowing the field of possibilities.
Otani is widely regarded as the best baseball player in the world that isn’t currently wearing a MLB uniform. Given his age and immense talent (as both a pitcher and a hitter), there’s little question that Otani would command a nine-figure commitment were he free of the international bonus pool caps.
Because he is less than 25 years of age, and evidently does not wish to wait to make the move, Otani can receive only a minor-league deal that almost certainly won’t top seven figures. The precise bonus that each team can offer varies widely, but in no event can a team accumulate and dispense more than $10.1MM under the current system. And even those teams that could reach that figure will have committed some funds to other players. Quite a few organizations — including some that seem to be looking into Otani — cannot even give more than $300K to a single player, owing to penalties imposed under the prior bonus system. (Whatever team signs Otani would also need to send $20MM to the Fighters, though that element of the player exchange rules is said to be up for potential discussion before the offseason transactions get underway in earnest.)
With that backdrop, Otani’s meetings with prospective agents are all the more interesting to ponder. Just what he’ll prioritize in deciding upon a MLB team — geography, the ability to play both ways, likelihood of contention, marketing opportunities, long-term extension possibilities — isn’t clear. And his precise approach will surely be influenced by what he believes to be possible after this series of sit-downs.
Many have speculated that Otani could seek — and teams could offer — a handshake agreement of some kind to enter into an early-career extension. While the league has indicated it will police any attempts to evade the bonus pool rules, there seems to be a broad gray area that could theoretically be encountered. Just how far will Otani’s agents and organizational suitors go in weighing a future contract during initial talks? How long might they wait to formalize any such agreement? What would happen if injury or performance issues intervene to change the future expectations? These are fascinating questions that we won’t know the answers to for some time — if the issues even fully form — but the groundwork for how things may play out is being laid right now.For Immediate Release, February 12, 2016 Contact: Leigh Moyer, (520) 623-5252 x 313, [email protected] 10,000 Endangered Species Condoms to Be Given Away for Valentine's Day Condoms, Animated Video Highlight Impact of Human Population
Growth on Wildlife in Age of Dating App TUCSON, Ariz.— With Valentine’s Day right around the corner and romance in the air, the Center for Biological Diversity is distributing 10,000 free Endangered Species Condoms across the United States to remind couples that safe sex saves wildlife. Condoms will be distributed at Valentine’s Day events on college campuses and in cities in 35 states. “Finding love can be hard in the human world, but as human population grows — and with it overconsumption — habitat loss, resource depletion and climate change make it next to impossible for wildlife to thrive,” said Leigh Moyer, the Center’s population organizer. “That’s why it is so important that we bring population growth back into the environmental conversation. Endangered Species Condoms make starting that conversation easier. They really get your attention.” The Endangered Species Condoms are wrapped in colorful packages featuring six different endangered species and information about the impact of runaway human population growth on polar bears, monarch butterflies and other imperiled wildlife. The Center has given away 650,000 free Endangered Species Condoms since 2009. “For the past two years I have been lucky enough to be able to a part of this important movement to educate people about how endangered species are threatened by human population growth,” said Melissa Tran, who will distribute condoms at Truman State University around Valentine’s Day. “I feel like I'm making a difference by actively educating my fellow peers.” In addition to distributing Endangered Species Condoms, the Center is also releasing a short animated video featuring two friends, a human and a polar bear, and the complications the human dating scene can cause for the wildlife mating scene. The video shows the friends using a dating app to find matches in their area, similar to the types of apps used by millions every day across the United States, such as Tinder, where users “swipe right” to choose love or “swipe left” to keep looking. “With 50 million people swiping a collective 1.4 billion times on Tinder every day, isn’t it time for us to swipe right for wildlife?” said Moyer. “In the United States, half of all pregnancies are unplanned. We need to make sure that every person has the education and resources to decide if, when and how many children they have.” The United Nations’ predicts that the world’s human population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and exceed 11 billion by 2100. The population of the United States is likely to reach 389 million in 2050, growing by more than 200 million people since 1950. The world’s human population is currently 7.4 billion. Scientists agree that we are currently in the midst of the planet’s sixth mass wildlife extinction. While previous extinction periods were driven by geological or cosmic factors, the current crisis is caused by human activities. The Center’s population and sustainability program uses creative media to promote a range of common-sense solutions like access to family planning and reproductive health services, as well as education, opportunity and equal rights for women and girls. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 990,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.Marton Sadler with wife Agata and child Olivia. He travels 25 minutes to play in a grassy area with Olivia from their Southbank apartment. Credit:Paul Jeffers Today the elementary student shares a room with his younger brother Jace, 6, in the family's neat two-storey unit. The boys' beds are folded into a cupboard every morning so they have their own play space during the day. When The Sunday Age visits one Thursday evening the youngest son was bouncing about the unit with impatient energy. "Can you keep it down?" says their mother after Jace set off a loud electronic toy. "Only use soft balls please!" It is an upbringing that seems light years away from the so-called Great Australian Dream of the quarter-acre suburban block, where momentarily manic kids can be dispensed to the big grassy backyard. But as cities such as Melbourne prepare for enormous population growth, the lessons learnt by Manhattan's high-rise parents are becoming increasingly relevant.
Siblings Marlon and Mia Cirker shared a room in their family's two-bedroom Manhattan high-rise flat until they left for college. Victoria's capital is forecast to reach up to 9.8 million people by 2061, making Melbourne busier than modern-day London. Unless the extra 4 million people are to be exiled to the far infrastructure-poor fringes, Melbourne will have to get higher and denser. And that means more families will be living in apartments. In the Ditmyers' high-rise building in the midtown neighbourhood of Hell's Kitchen, children have been growing up in apartments since the 1970s. The Gentlemen of Docklands group meet each morning for coffee at the Mad Duck Cafe. From left to right. Shaun Bassett, Matthew Selleck, Trevor Rowe, Ian Johnson and Kim Rea. Credit:Emma Morgan Manhattan Plaza was originally built as luxury housing estate, with spacious bedrooms, large balconies and sunset views of the Hudson.
Today it is estimated a two-bedroom unit in the building would fetch about $67,000 a year in rent but in the late 1970s the neighbourhood was rough and gritty and the units simply would not sell. Christine and Jason Cirker with son Marlon and daughter Mia. The children spent their childhood sharing a bedroom in a Manhattan high-rise, before leaving for college. As a solution, the building was repurposed as federally-subsidised housing largely for performing artists. In those early days the arts community was suffering disproportionately from HIV/AIDS and Manhattan Plaza reportedly saw more deaths from the disease than any other block in New York City. Since that time the estate with a population of about 3500 people has been recognised as a breeding ground for showbiz stars. Possibly its most famous former resident is R&B singer and 15-time Grammy winner Alicia Keys, who was born in Hell's Kitchen and grew up in the building with her mother, a paralegal and part-time actor. The social housing block also had a crucial part in the birth of hit American sitcom Seinfeld. The television show's creator Larry David lived in Manhattan Plaza for six years across the hallway from comedian Kenny Kramer, his inspiration for Seinfeldcharacter Cosmo Kramer.
Christine and Jason Cirker have lived in the tower since 1990. They are eligible for the housing as an actor and jazz musician. Their two children, son Marlon, 21, and daughter Mia, 18, were raised in the same bedroom in their 40th level apartment until they recently moved out to attend college. Far from creating enemies of the children, their shared quarters forced them to become incredibly close. Marlon, an aspiring rap artist, says although it would have been nice to have some privacy from time to time, his sister was his best friend. "We get on really well," he says. "We learnt about give and take, and being respectful from an early age. "I have a [college] roommate now who has no idea of the unwritten rules of living with another person."
Christine and Jason says living in an apartment for 25 years was made possible by the building's unique community – a thriving vertical neighbourhood that sees children on Halloween haunt the hallways rather than the local streets. The Cirkers know everyperson on their floor. So, when on New Year's Eve 2000 none of the parents could find babysitters, the floor held a "progressive" from unit to unit. Like a "pub crawl" in Australia, the parents went from one apartment to the next, where everyone held their own party. The building also holds a twice-yearly clothing and toy exchange, that sees second-hand items are passed from household to household to save money. The only downside, says Christine, was when you realised that you were accidentally looking at the wrong child on the playground – someone else's child dressed in your child's old clothes. Seinfeld creator Larry David once described Manhattan Plaza as "unlike any other building [he's] been in". It is the sort place that you would always find a helping hand if it was needed - where cards are signed in the lobby for the arrival of a baby and the death of a resident.
But it is a different dynamic altogether in Melbourne's burgeoning high-rise precincts, where very few plan to stay for good. Southbank resident Marton Sadler, 49, has been living in the same building for more than four years but admits if he needed help carrying furniture he would not know whose door to knock on. "People come here knowing they won't be here for a very long time, so they don't go out of their way to make friends," he says. There are a small but growing population of families adrift among the young people and retirees who dwell in the skyscraper neighbourhoods of the world's most liveable city. The 2011 census found there were 215 children aged up to four years old in Docklands, a neighbourhood of almost 6000 people. There are significantly fewer primary-school-age students, meaning parents are packing their bags and heading for the suburbs when its time for them to consider their children's formal education.
It is a similar scenario in Southbank where there are about 305 children aged up to four years old but just a handful of older kids recorded during the past census. Families living in apartments in or near the CBD say the convenience of living minutes from work is the key reason for their lifestyle choice. Jarrod Jeremiah, 41, a financial planner who lives in Southbank with his wife and two young daughters says he has no desire to have to make a long trek into the office every day. "At 6am in the morning the roads are pretty busy," he says. "I have no concept or understanding of what that commute is like." But despite the apparent willingness of some families to live in towers, Melbourne City Council planners say the market is failing to meet the demand for affordable child-friendly apartments. Late last year 96 per cent of more than 20,000 apartments planned for the inner-city had two or fewer bedrooms.
Meanwhile, the council predicts there will be 14,693 children aged up to 14 living in the City of Melbourne come 2035 (an increase of about 70 per cent). A major sticking point remains the lack of a CBD public school. Docklands mother and local campaigner Janine Standfield says she had received a number of calls from people who wanted to move into the area but were holding off until a school was guaranteed. Many consider the school the magic ingredient needed to create a genuine neighbourhood, where boys and girls grow up among Melbourne's skyscrapers. Standfield says if a primary school had been built alongside Dockland's new state-of-art library, the suburb would have had "instant community". Having raised two children to adulthood in a New York apartment, the Cirkers have strong opinions about the things needed to make high-rise living work for families. Their advice echoes what the experts say is best-practice urban design that often gets forgotten along the way by developers and government.
Christine says it is essential that schools are built in high-rise districts, even when units were originally marketed at childless young professionals. "They're obviously going to have sex and they're obviously going to make babies," she says. The couple say Manhattan Plaza had been a success because children had places to play and parents space to gather. The tower's generous third-level basketball court and playground has a view over the treetops to the Empire State Building. Jason says: "If they start building a whole lot of high rises in Melbourne make sure they have some space – make sure they have some community areas". Marton Sadler and other Melbourne CBD parents are already calling for more green space around neighbourhoods rapidly being filled by even taller towers. He says there is no decent space for children close to his home in Kavanagh Street, Southbank. As a result he usually travels about 25 minutes daily to another suburb for play time with his three-year-old daughter Olivia.
Meanwhile, Manhattan has plenty of its own problems. With average monthly rents of $3836, living on the island is becoming increasingly difficult, even for the educated middle class. The Cirkers and Ditmyers pay a capped amount of 30 per cent of their income to live at Manhattan Plaza. Tamara, an actor, estimates that the discount saves the family at least $US3500 ($4500) a month. Without the subsidised housing, she says, "we would be in some other state or probably in one of the outer boroughs". Trade-offs are inevitable while attempting to live with a family in the city that never sleeps. Being in Manhattan has allowed the parents to pursue their artistic careers and expose their children to a kaleidoscope of cultures and people. Though not all their brushes with New York life have been positive. One day Marlon was playing outside when a man jumped out from one of the apartment windows, landing dead on the basketball court in front of the children. "The kids tend to be very savvy because they have to learn a lot. It's a trade-off but I don't regret it. I like who my children are as people," Marlon's Christine says.
With all its highlyeducated artist residents, politicians like to joke Manhattan Plaza is home to more school PTA presidents than anywhere else in the country. Others who live in the building are famous or on their way to it, including child actor Timothee Chalamet, who got his big break in TV drama series Homeland playing the vice-president's son. Jason says they called him "Soccer Timmy". But the building also takes a proportion of low-income families from the local neighbourhood, who are not necessarily destined for the bright lights of Hollywood or the Broadway theatres, located nearby. In other buildings in Manhattan this sort of melting pot does not exist. Similarly, in Melbourne, ugly public housing towers and shiny luxury apartments still preserve class divides. The median weekly household income is $1901 in Docklands and $1837 in Southbank, with two-bedroom homes with panoramic views currently on the market for $700,000. Average weekly rents are about $500 in both suburbs – more than a single parent on welfare payments of $360 a week could ever afford. Jason Cirker says it is a beautiful sight to watch the children of Manhattan Plaza play together, oblivious to their differences.
"We've got kids here being raised by their grandparents, we've got kids whose parents are incarcerated," he says. "I really do believe that works, when you mix people together, then you will have people starting to come together." University of Melbourne urban planning professor Carolyn Whitzman says Australians are fooling themselves if they believe the only place to raise children in Melbourne is the suburbs. She says the phenomenon of disappearing backyards was not only a side-effect of high-rise living, but a trend being experienced across the city as big houses are squeezed onto smaller lots. Whitzman says four to six storey blocks were the ideal high-rise buildings to bring up children, because they were not so tall that parents in apartments could not supervise their kids playing on street level.
"But the fact is children do grow up perfectly good in 20 storeys, it just adds extra challenges," Whitzman says. When reflecting on her sons' upbringing, New York parent Flannagan-Ditmyer points out "children only know what they know". Her boys do not consider anything unusual about their high-rise home, as even their wealthy Tribeca friends live in apartments (albeit loft apartments that take up an entire floor). Yet when Tamara was pregnant with her second child, she says her aunt was shocked to discover Tamara's children would be sharing a room together – even if the second child was a girl. Her aunt had grown up in southern Florida with beaches and swimming pools and houses so large everyone could have their own room. "She seemed to think it was crazy," Tamara says. "It was because that's all she knew."
The 3000-strong vertical community Shaun Bassett doubts anyone living in their homes in Melbourne's leafy suburbs can name 200 of their neighbours. But he can, and he has been living in Docklands for 14 years. "It's like one of those old television shows where everyone walks past, saying 'Hello Bill' and 'Hello Sam'," he says. "We've got a real community down there – 3000 people living vertically." The property developer, 47, is a resident of Mirvac development Yarra's Edge, on the south side of the river opposite the CBD.
While other tenants of high-rise areas continue to complain of segregation from their neighbours, many of the residents of this wealthy five-tower estate say they have never lived in such a close-knit suburb. The roots of this community started to take hold when a women's coffee group began, alongside a similar organisation for men, Gentlemen of Docklands, or as they also call themselves, The GOD Squad. Bassett says the group assertively reach out to new faces that arrive and gather without fail at the local coffee shop from 7.30am in the morning during weekdays. Many of them also share interest in horse racing, golf and motoring. "I drive a lot of that stuff to make sure the men connect because, honestly, men don't usually have big friendship networks," he says. Promotional material describes Yarra's Edge as "an exclusive village-style neighbourhood". It is a description that has overtones of retirement village brochure and Bassett concedes there are some similarities. Most of the people active within the community groups are in their late 50s or early 60s.
Properties with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and two car spaces are currently up for sale within the precinct for more than $1 million. Bassett says many of the young-professionals living within Yarra's Edge had high-paying jobs for their age. "It's very different to the rest of Docklands.". MANHATTAN VS MELBOURNE * There are at least 234,709 children living in the borough of Manhattan (population about 1.6 million). * The percentage of number of children in |
Embassy was aware of this. We spent much time doing that because this was effectively one of the first coup d’états in the 21st century. It was a step backward for Honduras, a country that has been under U.S. control for a very long time, over a hundred years.
In my own work, I document the reach of the United Fruit Company and the Standard Fruit Company in the first half of the 20th century. You know, it wasn’t just in Guatemala that the United Fruit Company was controlling politics and exercising coups. They were also doing so in Honduras and really stomping on workers’ rights and national rights. They could dominate over presidents and weigh in on elections. This is a corporation, right? This is a corporation weighing in on sort of national politics in Central America, but particularly a strong reach in Honduras.
In fact, the United States also had an embassy and two consulates in the North Coast. That’s how much presence you had of the U.S. State Department in this very small country of less than 7 million people. As we see, the military dictatorships of the—from 1963 to 1980 actually helped the United States. They could work with these dictators, right? They were yes men. They would do everything that the U.S. would say, and particularly in the 1980s, when you had the Contra revolutionaries fighting against Nicaragua and El Salvador armed for—you know, and being trained in Honduras. So, just to give your listeners—this is a long history of reach in the country and oppression of the country and national politics.
But the Obama administration’s refusal to call it a coup d’état was damning and really difficult for the Honduran people. It’s led to thousands of deaths. It’s led to thousands of children at the border. 2011 was one of the most violent years in Honduras, you know, murder rates going up to 90 per 100,000. You had over 90,000 children at the border trying to leave the country, many more people on their way up to Mexico. There is no jobs. There’s joblessness. The coffers of government were totally destroyed by the coup d’état. They used basically all the people’s money, you know, from contributions and taxes and everything. They used all that money to basically tear gas their own citizens, to kill their own citizens, to put them in jail for protesting and exercising their right to protest and to want a democracy and to have their president reinstated. They weren’t asking for very random things.
So, the Obama administration has this very dark past in Honduras, and particularly Hillary Clinton. In fact, when she was asked in 2014, and she was running for office, what to do about the children at the border, she said, “Deport them.” This is why the Central American community withheld from voting for Hillary Clinton, because they knew that these were their kids. These were their people—
AMY GOODMAN: Professor—
SUYAPA PORTILLO: —at the border. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Portillo, I wanted to ask—
SUYAPA PORTILLO: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —just as we wrap up, on the issue of President Juan Orlando Hernández, what is the U.S. role in supporting him? And what are U.S. troops doing there now?
SUYAPA PORTILLO: So, the Alliance for Progress is this plan that’s supposed to address the immigration situation in the home country. You know, it’s supposed to be money used for education, for controlling the gang problem and violence issues. And that money has basically been granted during the Obama administration but continues to be granted now. It’s basically using—it’s being used to militarize the country, not to improve education. In fact, some of the schools that we were at during the elections were in really poor state. And really, yeah, I can’t believe children go to school in such conditions in some of the poorest neighborhoods. So, the money was used for that. And so the troops are there to keep the peace, they say, to make sure that the country—that the violence in the country is under control. But we know that that’s not the real reason why the troops are there.
AMY GOODMAN: How many troops are there?
SUYAPA PORTILLO: We know that under right-wing governments is when the U.S. can actually exercise its reach in the region. Honduras is in a geopolitically important place to oversee, for example, nearby Nicaragua or Venezuela, which is really in the eye of the United States. So, it’s almost unfortunate that the Honduran geopolitical location has created room for this, and also that we have a president that has basically sold not only his soul, but the entire country, to capitalists and U.S. State Department.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Portillo, how many U.S.—
SUYAPA PORTILLO: So, we’re quite concerned about—
AMY GOODMAN: How many U.S. troops are there?
SUYAPA PORTILLO: I’m not quite sure how many U.S. troops, but you know that Soto Cano Air Base has permanent U.S. troops since the 1980s there. And I think there was one deployment, I believe from Arkansas, a couple of months ago, of troops. I’m not clear how it’s happening there.
But the other thing, Amy, is also that these are the troops we know about. We also understand that there are DEA agents and covert operations supposedly to control the drug traffic. And, you know, in 2011, DEA agents actually shot and killed two pregnant women in the Mosquito Coast region. And so we know that there’s—again, they haven’t been brought to justice, not in the U.S. or in Honduras. So, you know, these people’s lives are still unsettled from that. And really, DEA agents are exercising covert operations. We also have sort of connections between military. Remember, a lot of these military members were trained at the School of the Americas. So they’re actually connected to military men in the United States.
So there’s three levels of engagement here from the United States. On the one hand, the diplomatic engagement that Hillary Clinton boasts about in her book, you know, these “hard choices” she had to make. There’s also the military connection—right?—between Southern Command, School of the Americas and the military men, such as Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, who executed the coup. And then there’s this sort of immigration prevention sort of Alliance for Progress against violence program. And so, there’s this economic sort of congressional money going in there.
So, it’s quite complex. And the reach of the United States has been that complex for over a hundred years in Honduras. And it’s now just being revealed, because the resistance groups and the sort of egregious violence against human rights defenders, such as Berta Cáceres, have sort of cracked open this window into Honduras.
AMY GOODMAN: Which brings us to John Kelly, who is the former head of SouthCom—right?—Southern Command. That was under President Obama. And then he becomes the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, dealing with the border.
SUYAPA PORTILLO: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And now, of course, he’s in the inner circle of President Trump. He’s his chief of staff. Can you talk about John Kelly’s history specifically in Honduras? Interesting that as President Trump pushes the building of the wall, still the U.S. military presence expands way south of that.
SUYAPA PORTILLO: I think that Honduras—and many Hondurans will say this, as well—has been sort of the backyard of the United States, a place where people—a place where they can actually have, like I said, covert operations on the rest of the region, where they can actually train military that will go commit incredible heinous human rights violations. You know, this is their—they feel like this is their land, in some ways, right? That Hondurans don’t have rights to this land. That there are—that the reason there aren’t any movements that have developed in Honduras has been because of the strong reach.
And again, the collaboration between generals in Honduras and the United States dates back to the 1950s. So the reach of, you know, these kinds of operations go way back to even—the invasion of Guatemala in 1954, that led to the coup d’état there, actually came in from Honduras. So, you know, Southern Command’s reach in Honduras, it’s almost unquestionable that they’re going to have access. And as you saw in the WikiLeaks reports in 2011, you know, even the State Department was incredibly informed about what’s going on in Honduras.
So, we just don’t know, Amy, like the reach and the covert operations that are happening there in the name of the drug war. So, I think that those are things that will be emerging over time as we learn from people on the ground who are experiencing these issues. And now that Honduras is on the international stage, hopefully these relationships will be revealed.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Portillo, we have 30 seconds. What happens next?
SUYAPA PORTILLO: What happens next is, we hope, the electoral court will actually reveal the true results and declare the Alianza Libre, Nasralla party, victorious, as the polls show. You know, his lead is unquestionable at this point. So, we hope that that’s what’s going to happen. Otherwise, we’re going to have another international violation of all kinds of laws in Honduras, but also another international situation to deal with in Honduras.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us. Professor Suyapa Portillo teaches Chicano and Latino studies at Pitzer College in California, just back from Honduras, where she was an election observer this weekend. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.Another franchise tag for Kirk Cousins this season may prove to be the beginning of the end of his stay in Washington. The Redskins, therefore, need to sign him to a long-term deal before the tag deadline and must prepare to overpay to keep him.
The Washington Redskins face a second consecutive offseason with questions surrounding the future of its quarterback Kirk Cousins. Unlike last year, however, Cousins, on the strength of another productive season, commands nearly unchecked leverage in his bargaining position with the Redskins in 2017. Instead of ignoring this stark reality, the team would be wise to acknowledge the gravity of this conundrum, and, more importantly, that it was the party responsible for its creation.
With the franchise tag deadline looming, a quick fix is the best – and perhaps only – fix to this self-imposed quandary. That’s because, while a happy ending may very well result from the coming negotiations between player and team, a tag could very well spell another type of ending for the team’s former fourth-round draft choice. A twice-tagged quarterback is unprecedented, and a bleak harbinger that the organization and quarterback will ever find common ground with the other. Because the Redskins can’t afford to take that chance, they should start bargaining in earnest to spare themselves the uncertainty that awaits if they tag Cousins and hope for a long-term deal to emerge.
That begins by abandoning the traditional contract dance with Cousins that the team conducts with its other free agents. But doing so would force it to come to grips with the inconvenient truth that the team will have to overpay Cousins to keep him in Washington. This means that it should be prepared, according to John Keim of ESPN, to pay him more than what the Colts paid Andrew Luck last year. And the team needs to do so in the less than two weeks before the March 1 tag deadline to preempt any uncertainty in a road that’s never been traveled.Donald Trump received three separate assurances from then-FBI Director James Comey that the president was not personally under investigation — but he may now be under investigation because he couldn’t let his obsession go.
The greatest threat to Trump and his presidency, say administration officials and outside advisers, comes from his own conduct and obsessive behavior after he took office. While congressional and FBI investigations may prove Trump or his team broke laws before he took office, his advisers say they’re more worried that the things he’s done since the inauguration may have left him exposed to obstruction of justice or other charges.
Story Continued Below
Trump, for months, has bristled almost daily about the ongoing probes. He has sometimes, without prompting, injected. “I’m not under investigation” into conversations with associates and allies. He has watched hours of TV coverage every day — sometimes even storing morning news shows on his TiVo to watch in the evening — and complained nonstop.
“You may be the first president in history to go down because you can’t stop inappropriately talking about an investigation that, if you just were quiet, would clear you,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last weekend.
Just as he has done publicly on Twitter, Trump has told friends and associates that the investigation is a “witch hunt” and that others are out to get him. “It’s basically all he talks about on the phone,” said one adviser who has spoken with Trump and his top aides.
Aides have tried to change the subject, with little luck. Advisers have tried to buck up the president by telling him to be patient, agreeing that it is a “witch hunt” and urging him to just let it play out — and reassuring him, “Eventually, you will be cleared,” in the words of one.
But none of that has changed Trump’s response.
“The frustration he feels is he fully well knows there was no collusion with Russia. And yet, he’s been on the hot seat about it for six months,” said Barry Bennett, a top campaign aide who continues to have ties to the White House. “He’s been told, 'You’re not under investigation,' and yet he still wakes up every day to read he’s under investigation. It’s really hard to be accused of being a traitor and take your lawyer’s advice to shut up and not talk about it.”
Two people close to Trump note that his is an obsessive personality — whether about businessmen who wronged him over the years, his years-long and fruitless quest to prove President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, to reporters who have written negative stories about him. One transition official said Trump lashed out at reporters over old stories within a day of winning the election in November.
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Aides say they fear his incendiary tweets and public comments have spurred “countless” leaks of damaging information, in the words of one. Chief strategist Steve Bannon has told others that he believes the FBI is now out to get the Trump administration.
They have urged Trump to stop meddling — but he won't. Under oath, Comey testified that Trump asked him to consider letting go of an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in February. Trump ordered top aides to leave the room, according to testimony from Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, before he made the request.
That was after Trump asked Comey for “loyalty” and repeatedly sought assurances that he wasn’t under investigation. He later asked national security officials to make statements they didn’t believe to be truthful, according to The Washington Post.
Then, again frustrated with the investigation, he fired Comey several months later, according to several aides and advisers — and told contradictory stories about his decision. “And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.' It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,” Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt.
“I faced great pressure because of Russia, that’s taken off,” Trump told Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in the Oval Office, an incident first reported by The New York Times. That, according to several people who spoke to Trump, was the real reason he fired Comey.
Two days later, angry that the firing might damage him, and after fuming about Comey nonstop, Trump threatened the former FBI director with “tapes” on a Friday morning, a threat that Comey later said spurred him to release memos of his meetings with Trump. One Comey associate at the time said the tweet “amazed” him.
“I woke up in the middle of the night Monday thinking that there might be corroboration for our conversation,” Comey said under oath. “And my judgment was that I needed to get that out in the public square.”
Trump now has begun fuming about special counsel Robert Mueller, particularly after Mueller hired several prosecutors and investigators with ties to Democrats. Trump has told associates he might fire Mueller, though they don’t believe he will. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Trump was under investigation for obstruction — and that Mueller wanted to interview the national security officials who reportedly had been asked to make false statements.
Trump woke up Thursday morning and appeared to question Mueller’s integrity on Twitter. “You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people!” he wrote. White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters she believed the president was responding to the Post story.
“He is totally in a box now,” one friend said. “And it might make him want to fire Mueller more.”
“If he didn’t send about 15 tweets that he’s done, he’d be in much better shape than he is right now,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “I kept thinking he would change from these self-destructive tendencies, but he may be the first president in history who brings himself down because he just can’t help himself.”Acer has launched its newest monitor, the Acer ProDesigner BM320. The large 32-inch display produces vivid 4K Ultra HD visuals with professional-grade colour at a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate. It’s now available to purchase starting at US$1,299 (AU$1,759).
To make sure that its new monitor provides consistent colour output as well as sharper and unblemished visuals, Acer equipped the BM320 with the company’s ColourPlus technology suite. The enhancements include built-in 100 percent coverage on both Adobe RGB and sRGB for packing, producing and presenting an extensive and precise array of hues needed for colour matching across applications and print output.
The ProDesigner BM320 offers the ability to fine-tune hue and saturation settings using 6-axis colour adjustment, so professionals get the exact shade they want. The monitor’s so-called “super sharpness technology” also optimises the quality of low-res images by slightly enhancing the edges.
“Video editors and directors can work with confidence with 100 percent of Rec. 709 and 90 percent DCI-P3 colour coverage, the standard format for HDTVs,” says Acer. “It ensures that every hue is authentically represented, critical for video editors during post-production work and animators dealing with colour-critical projects.”
The ProDesigner monitor has support for 10-bit colour, providing considerably more colour depth compared to conventional 8-bit displays. It’s also pre-calibrated and tested from the factory to guarantee a Delta E<1 colour accuracy with clear-cut hues. Moreover, colour and brightness consistency are maintained across the screen thanks to integrated uniformity compensation.
The Acer monitor has adequate connectivity options including DVI, HDMI v2.0, DisplayPort v1.2, Mini DisplayPort and USB 3.0 hub (1 up / 4 down). It also comes with a couple of 2W speakers.
The BM320 sports a sleek ZeroFrame design that disregards the screen’s bezel for maximum and seamless viewing in multiple display setups. The IPS panel provides wide viewing angles at 178 degrees both vertically and horizontally. The display is also quite adjustable thanks to Acer’s ErgoStand.
“Users [can] easily swivel (+/- 45 degrees), tilt (-5 to 25 degrees), pivot (+/- 90 degrees) and alter the height (up to 5.9 inches) to find the optimum viewing position and it also comes with a VESA mount for hanging it on the wall to save space,” declares the Taiwanese hardware and electronics company. “Integrated AcerVisionCare includes Acer Flicker-less, BlueLightShield, Low Dimming and ComfyView technologies, which can reduce screen glare, flicker and blue light for more comfortable viewing, critical during long work days.”
The Acer ProDesigner BM320 monitor is now available in the US starting at US$1,299 (AU$1,759). It comes with a three-year warranty that includes next business day advance exchange as well as free shipping and toll-free support. Australian pricing and release details have yet to be announced.
Acer ProDesigner BM320 specs and features
Screen Size: 32 inches
32 inches Resolution: 4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160)
4K UHD (3,840 x 2,160) Aspect Ratio: 16:9
16:9 Response Time: 5 milliseconds
5 milliseconds Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
60 Hz Colour Support: 1.07 billion
1.07 billion Contrast Ratio: 100,000,000:1
100,000,000:1 Brightness: 350 nit
350 nit Backlight: LED
LED Panel Type: IPS
IPS Stand: Height-adjustable (up to 5.91 inches) | Tiltable
Height-adjustable (up to 5.91 inches) | Tiltable Ports & Connectors: DVI-in | HDMI-in v2.0 | DisplayPort v1.2
DVI-in | HDMI-in v2.0 | DisplayPort v1.2 Environmental Certification: TCO
TCO Dimensions without stand (H x W x D): 17 inches x 28.6 inches x 2.3 inches
17 inches x 28.6 inches x 2.3 inches Dimensions with stand (H x W x D): 24.24 inches x 28.64 inches x 7.91 inches
24.24 inches x 28.64 inches x 7.91 inches Package Contents: BM320 Widescreen LCD Monitor | 1 x DVI Cable | 1 x DisplayPort Cable | 1 x HDMI Cable | Power Cord | 1 x USB 3.0 Cable
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LG 43UD79-B launches: New 42.5-inch 4K IPS monitor has FreeSync plus loads of connectivity and gaming features
Apple Watch soars: Apple now world's number one wearables sellerWalt Disney Pictures has brought online the new trailer for The Lone Ranger, hitting theaters on July 3, 2013. You can watch it in the player below!
From producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the filmmaking team behind the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, comes Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ The Lone Ranger, a thrilling adventure infused with action and humor, in which the famed masked hero is brought to life through new eyes. Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Johnny Depp) recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid (Armie Hammer), a man of the law, into a legend of justicetaking the audience on a runaway train of epic surprises and humorous friction as the two unlikely heroes must learn to work together and fight against greed and corruption.
Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter co-star.TNA’s Spin Cycle airs on Xplosion in the UK and is uploaded to the YouTube channel. It’s amazing. You have to watch it.
Since we’re halfway through the year and I’ve been OBSERVING the Spin Cycle, I felt it was only right to deliver some mid-year OBSERVING Awards. Be sure to watch all the latest editions of the Spin Cycle over at TNA’s YouTube channel.
Most Outstanding Panel Member: Rockstar Spud
The work rate or rate of work that Spud gives you is just too much. From a great feud with Sanada to stellar outfits to beautiful drawings to his war on selfies, Rockstar Spud’s body of work gave him the crown.
Biggest box office draw-ing: “Dixie Carter” by Rockstar Spud
Magnificent artwork by Spud.
Feud of the (Mid)Year: Robbie E vs. Ethan Carter III
After months of hatred and hostility, EC3 and Robbie finally hashed it out in the Spin Cycle intervention. It gave us an ending as satisfying as Hogan vs. Rock at Wrestlemania 18.
Most charismatic: Sanada
The clear winner.
Worst worked magic: Robbie trying to make his magic work by making EC3 disappear but failing
Poor Robbie E tried his hand at magic in the Talent Show but could not get the better of EC3.
Best gimmick: Low Ki
Gotta love a guy who isn’t afraid to step out of his comfort zone and showcase his wacky side.
Best practical joke: Sanada filming EC3 in the shower
That silly Sanada with his loveable hijinks.
Most disgusting promotional tactic: EC3’s contract stipulations
Ethan Carter III’s contract has prevented him from participating in numerous events and the world is a lesser place thanks to it.
Show of the (mid) Year: The talent show
Make Low Ki Laugh and Spin, Lose Or Draw were close behind but the talent show came in with a late run to make itself the best edition of Spin Cycle. Between EC3’s rapping ability, Spud’s beatboxing, Robbie’s lack of magic skills, Sanada’s elite magic skills and Lance Bass, the talent show was truly the best Spin Cycle episode of all time.
MVP: Jeremy Borash
Through the years, the Spin Cycle has been a constant source of entertainment regardless of the panel, topics or format. The one constant has been Jeremy Borash, host and Spin Cycle leader extraordinaire.
(*MVP is not to be confused with the TNA wrestler Motivate Validate Participate.)
Spin Cycle superstar of the (mid) Year: Sanada
Sanada is currently on a once in a lifetime roll of momentum. We’re witness something absolutely remarkable.
All photos and videos are from TNA’s official YouTube page.Despite a very public career covering the world in guerrilla art, Banksy's true identity has remained unknown.
Banksy is the nom de guerre of a prolific English graffiti artist, political activist, director and painter whose true identity has remained unknown, despite his very public career. His stencil technique street art can be seen across the world, making social and political commentary in satirical and sardonic ways that many have labeled as guerrilla art.
He also created the groundbreaking 2010 documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop. From the absurd to the provocative to the acerbic, Banksy’s art has been witnessed across the globe:
Banksy In The United Kingdom
Banksy began his career in the Bristol graffiti scene in the early 90s,as a hybrid stencil/freehand graffiti artist. By the turn of the century, he had moved completely to stencils as a way to create more intricate pieces in the quickest way possible to avoid detection. Most of his work in the UK can be found in Bristol and London.
Banksy in the United States
Banksy has made several appearances in the United States, with stops in LA, San Francisco, New York, and New Orleans. His work in America tends to comment on the failure of the American dream and American society, as well as a critique of the United States relationship with the rest of the planet.
Banksy’s Guerrilla Art In Palestine
In 2005, Banksy daringly painted nine pieces on the West Bank wall between Israel and Palestine. The pieces sardonically criticize the treatment of the Palestinian people. The wall, Banksy says, “essentially turns Palestine into the world’s largest open prison.” Here is one tense exchange he had with an Israeli soldier:Houston's Space Problem: Johnson Space Center Has Lost Its Identity and Purpose, Houston Press
"However, former astronaut Bonnie Dunbar, now also a UH professor, argued that SpaceX and commercial flight are being touted as a solution but that the money being diverted from NASA to fund these endeavors will cost space exploration in the long run. "Industry is not poised to do the kind of research and development we need to do for space exploration," she said."
Keith's note: This is typical of the pervasive ignorance that surrounds NASA - and it comes from decades of drinking the Koolaid. Bonnie Dunbar clearly has no idea what other commerical launches SpaceX has (or its long manifest backlog), how much private capital has been invested in SpaceX, or even the nature of what SpaceX does for NASA. It doesn't do the research that she's so worried about. It hauls groceries. Someday it will fly Texans. What these people do up there - with that cargo - is NASA's call. They are buying a ride. Given the $500 million to $1 billion cost per launch of a shuttle, this is a bargain no matter how you look at it.Hong Kong 97,[a] stylized as HONGKONG1997 on the game's cover, is a 1995 unlicensed multidirectional shooter made for the Super Famicom in disk drive format by HappySoft Ltd., a Japanese homebrew game company. It was designed by the Japanese game journalist "Kowloon" Kurosawa [ja] (クーロン黒沢 Kūron Kurosawa), who said the game was made in two days. The game has gained a cult following in Japan and Taiwan for its notoriously poor quality, considered to be a kusoge.
Plot [ edit ]
The game is set around the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. People from the Chinese Mainland started immigrating to Hong Kong and greatly increased the crime rate. As a countermeasure, Chin (Jackie Chan in his Wheels on Meals appearance), an unspecified relative of Bruce Lee and a heroin addict,[3] was hired by the Hong Kong government (represented by Chris Patten) to wipe out all 1.2 billion people in China. But meanwhile, in China, research was underway to bring the dead Tong Shau Ping (Deng Xiaoping) back to life as the "ultimate weapon".
When the game was released in 1995, Deng Xiaoping, said to be dead in the game, was still alive. However, he did die months before the handover in 1997, which is when the game's plot actually takes place.[4]
Gameplay [ edit ]
Immediately after the plot introduction (which follows some ads and the title screen), the game begins. The player controls Chin, with the objective being to shoot and evade the Chinese populace and police officers moving downwards from the top of the screen. When shot, the enemies explode in mushroom clouds, leaving behind a flashing corpse and items for instant death or temporary invincibility. After a while, cars start appearing from the sides, moving horizontally across the screen as obstacles. After thirty enemies have been defeated by the player, the final boss, ultimate weapon Tong Shau Ping (depicted as the disembodied, proportionally giant head of Deng Xiaoping), appears. Once he is defeated, the game repeats itself. The game shows static photos as the background, which alternate between pictures of Maoist propaganda, Guilin, the logo for Asia Television, the logo for Chinese Coca-Cola or Mao Zedong in monochrome.
If Chin is hit by anything other than the invincibility item, the game is immediately over (unless Chin is under invincibility), and a still image of a corpse with bullet holes is shown as the game over screen. The words "CHIN IS DEAD!" in English and in grammatically incorrect Chinese – "Chén sǐ wáng" (陳死亡) can be interpreted as either "Chin is dead", or as a proper name, "Dead Chin" – are superimposed on the game over screen. The game then goes to the credits (curiously listing the Embassy of Canada to Japan as cooperation partner) and back to the title screen and repeats again.
Upon turning on the game, the first two lines of an upbeat "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" song can be heard, which loop endlessly throughout the game. The game can be played in English, Japanese or traditional Chinese.
Development [ edit ]
In January 2018, Yoshihisa "Kowloon" Kurosawa, the person responsible for Hong Kong 97, finally broke his silence on the development of the game to the South China Morning Post.[1] He stated that his goal was to make the worst game possible as a mockery to the game industry. Since Kurosawa did not have much programming skills, he had an Enix employee help him out, with the game being made in two days. Kurosawa took the music from a second-hand laserdisc he got in Shanghai Street, and the main character sprite was taken from a movie poster.[1][5]
With the game completed, Kurosawa used a game backup device that could copy Super Famicom games onto floppy disks, devices sold in computer malls of Sham Shui Po. He made some merchandise through articles written under pseudonyms for underground gaming magazines, and set up a mail-order service to sell the game in floppy discs and cartridges.[3][6] After selling it for a few months, he forgot about his bootleg. He became aware that Hong Kong 97 was gaining some unwanted attention in the late 2000s. Eventually, fans of Hong Kong 97 found his Facebook account and since then he has been repeatedly bombarded with questions surrounding the game.[1]
Reception [ edit ]
In retrospective reviews, Hong Kong 97 was met with overwhelmingly negative reception, with some calling it one of the worst video games ever made.[1][4][5][7][8] It was also referred to as a kusoge, meaning "shitty game".[7] Journalists have noted the game's racism.[4][7]
Hong Kong 97 was reviewed in episode 134 of James Rolfe's web series Angry Video Game Nerd, which reviews video games considered of bad quality.[9] The video game has gained a cult following in Asia.[5]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Hong Kong 97 ( 香港 97, Hon Kon 97) [2]About this artwork
Oil ~ Canvas
Original painting, oil on canvas technique with chromatic harmony.
Size: H - 40 cm, W - 50 cm (15.74"/19.68")
Oil on Canvas, Unframed.
An original abstract painting signed and dated by the artist, ready to ship.
Colors: green-blue, white, red, blue, brown…
Abstract painting on canvas with oil colors in Knife Technique Original painting, oil on canvas technique with chromatic harmony.
Size: H - 40 cm, W - 50 cm (15.74"/19.68")
Oil on Canvas, Unframed.
An original abstract painting signed and dated by the artist, ready to ship.
Colors: green-blue, white, red, blue, brown…
Abstract painting on canvas with oil colors in Knife Technique
Related themes: Painting, Oil, Abstract Art, Canvas, Abstract Art, art, painting, abstract, acrylic, canvas, expressionism, modern, colorful, wall hanging, large, original painting, colorful art, oil on canvas, art decor, Öl auf Leinwand, abstrakte Malerei
Added Apr 21, 2014 ©
Other art by Constantin Galceava
Expression of Love. Original Painting, Oil on Canvas. Abstract Painting, Art-Deco - Painting, 40x50x2 cm ©2014 by Constantin Galceava - minimalist painting, art, painting, abstract, acrylic, canvas, expressionism, modern, colorful, wall hanging, large, original painting, colorful art, oil on canvas, art decor, Öl auf Leinwand, abstrakte Malerei, abstrakten Expressionismus, Gegenwartskunst Relaxing. Contemporary Art, Original Painting, Oil on Canvas, Abstract Art - Painting, 43x46x2 cm ©2013 by Constantin Galceava - Abstract Art, minimalist painting, art, painting, abstract, acrylic, canvas, expressionism, modern, colorful, wall hanging, large, original painting, colorful art, oil on canvas, art décor Contrasts.Original Painting, Oil on Canvas. Abstract Landscape - Painting, 33x40x2 cm ©2013 by Constantin Galceava - Abstract Art, minimalist painting, art, painting, abstract, acrylic, canvas, expressionism, modern, colorful, wall hanging, large, original painting, colorful art, oil on canvas, art decor, Öl auf Leinwand, abstrakte Malerei, abstrakten Expressionismus, Gegenwartskunst Puzzle. Original Painting, Contemporary Art - Painting, 50x60x2 cm ©2013 by Constantin Galceava - Abstract Art, minimalist painting, art, painting, abstract, acrylic, canvas, expressionism, modern, colorful, wall hanging, large, original painting, colorful art, oil on canvas, art decor, Öl auf Leinwand, abstrakte Malerei, abstrakten Expressionismus, Gegenwartskunst Journey Through Time. Contemporary Art, Oil on Canvas, Original Painting, Art-Deco - Painting, 40x50x2 cm ©2014 by Constantin Galceava - Abstract Art, minimalist painting, art, painting, abstract, acrylic, canvas, expressionism, modern, colorful, wall hanging, large, original painting, colorful art, oil on canvas, art decor Between Worlds. Original Painting, Oil on Canvas, Abstract Art, Contemporary Art - Painting, 34x23 cm ©2014 by Constantin Galceava - Abstract Expressionism, small painting, oil on canvas, abstract art, fine art, minimalist art, pallet knife, art décor, colorful art, expressionism, wall hanging, green, red, peinture, huile sur toile, art abstrait, peinture abstraite, l'art décoratif
View all artworks by Constantin Galceava
Comments"There is no negotiation here, we're done," he told the Big Sports Breakfast on Friday morning. "If it comes to that [banning the RBB] it's an extreme measure, but if it comes to that we need to explore that. We need to consider all options and nothing is off the table." Firm stance: Western Sydney Wanderers CEO John Tsatsimas. Credit:Wolter Peeters "I have no qualms in saying this: we'll do it. Enough is enough. The Wanderers have had enough, Australian football has had enough and the Australian sporting landscape has had enough." During a meeting at Club Marconi on Wednesday night, members of the RBB convened to discuss their response to the controversy and the potential action against the club and themselves. The post by the group indicated that what happened at Etihad |
YOU are the expert on your own life.Media playback is not supported on this device West Brom 7-0 Gateshead highlights
Saido Berahino scored four times as West Brom reached the FA Cup fourth round with a ruthless victory over non-league Gateshead at The Hawthorns.
The striker, 21, took his goal tally to 13 for the season with some clinical finishing to give new Albion boss Tony Pulis a win in his first home game.
Victor Anichebe, Chris Brunt and James Morrison also found the net.
Conference outfit Gateshead had managed to hold Albion for 42 minutes before they conceded.
Media playback is not supported on this device West Brom 7-0 Gateshead: Tony Pulis 'had to put things right'
The last time Albion faced a non-league side was in 1994 when they were beaten 2-1 by Halifax Town, and for most of the first half of this contest the Premier League side were far from convincing.
Pulis, who replaced Alan Irvine as head coach earlier this week, vacated his seat in the stands for the dugout and shortly afterwards his side found their stride and effectively ended the match as a contest with two quick goals before the interval.
A scramble inside the Gateshead box from a Chris Brunt free-kick led to the ball falling kindly for Berahino, who controlled a shot through a crowded area high into the net.
Anichebe added a second on the stroke of half-time when he used his strength to hold off Ben Clark before he angled a low finish past Gateshead goalkeeper Adam Bartlett.
Earlier this week, West Brom described reports linking Berahino with a £23m January move to Liverpool as "entire fabrication".
And a minute into the second half the youngster showed why his name has been mentioned in connection with the Premier League's top clubs with a spectacular second goal.
Gateshead had not conceded a goal in this season's FA Cup until they faced West Brom
Berahino curled past Bartlett from the edge of the area before he completed his treble when he swept home Chris Baird's low cross on 53 minutes.
Brunt added a fifth when he got to the ball ahead of Bartlett, who had come scurrying off his line, and calmly stroked into an empty net and Morrison the sixth when he tapped in from close range.
Berahino rounded off the rout for the Baggies in injury time with his fourth of the contest when he effortlessly curled the ball past Bartlett into the top-right corner of the net.
West Brom boss Tony Pulis: "Saido is a very talented lad, with great ability and obviously he scores and I am looking forward to working with him.
"I hope he keeps reading the headlines if he scores four every week.
"Someone said he didn't celebrate but it was lovely to see all the lads go over when we scored a goal as that showed the unity we'll need."
Gateshead boss Gary Mills: "I thought we were excellent for 40 minutes, but conceding two before half time killed us.
"We'll move on, we knew we weren't going to win the competition but we wanted to give a good account of ourselves.
"We have been knocked out of the FA Cup and have to get back up the league. We are close to the play-offs and have a big game against Woking on Wednesday."By now it is no secret that humans are reaping immense benefits from 3D printing, but they are not the only ones. Even animals are returning to happy and healthy lives due to the advances of 3d printing. Oreo is a six year old mixed breed dog in Canada. Oreo had a dislocated hind patella which had to be surgically removed. Once removed Oreo was healthy but he was not able to run, jump or play liked a normal dog his age. This led his veterinarian to reach out to Orthopedic Innovation Center for help with Oreo’s condition.
www.3dprintingindustry.com
With a donated patella and scans of Oreo’s healthy patella, OIC was able to create a detailed digital image of Oreo’s missing patella. Then using a 3d printer they created a new patella for Oreo in just four days. The patella was made using bio-compatible polycarbonate and was tested to make sure it would be strong enough to function like a normal patella. The patella was attached to the tendon and quadriceps with polypropylene sutures. Oreo made a complete recovery and regained complete use of his leg just eight weeks after surgery. He can now jump, run and play like a normal dog. FDM printing is revolutionary because it allows for the creation of strong, biocompatible implants that can be perfectly fitted to each patient. Scientists at OIC stated that once they overcome the initial learning curve with creating the patella the production time can be reduced from four days to just two.
main image credit: 3dprintingindustry.comHooligans take dead body to soccer match
Posted
Hooligans supporting Colombian top-flight club Cucuta Deportivo smuggled a dead gang member in a coffin into a match.
Cristopher Jacome, 17, had been shot by hitmen overnight on Sunday, but still made it to the match later in the day at the 45,000-capacity General Santander Stadium in the north-eastern city of Cucuta, which finished in a 1-1 draw with Envigado.
"This regrettable incident happened on Sunday when a group of hooligans managed to hoodwink stadium security and get the body of young Cristopher Jacome into the stadium," local police colonel Alvaro Pico told AFP.
According to police, the teenager had been targeted by gunmen while playing in a friendly park kick-around in a poor district in the southern outskirts of Cucuta.
- AFP
Topics: human-interest, law-crime-and-justice, crime, murder-and-manslaughter, colombiaForeign Policy
Iranian Speaker: Free Elections Guarantee Stability in Syria
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani underlined that Syria needs to hold presidential elections in a bid to guarantee restoration of peace and stability in the country.
"Holding free elections and respecting the Syrian people's vote and view is an important step for the establishment of stability and tranquility in the country," Larijani said in a meeting with Cuban Envoy to Iran Vladimir Andres Gonzalez Quesada in Tehran on Wednesday.
The Cuban ambassador, for his part, referred to the regional developments, specially the Syrian crisis, and said, "Cuba is opposed to any foreign interference in Syria."
During the meeting, the two officials also discussed ways to further expand the relations between Tehran and Havana in the different economic, cultural and parliamentary fields.
Larijani also stressed the importance of continued consultations between the two countries in various arenas.
Elections in Syria are scheduled for June 3. Last month, the Syrian parliament passed a new law on elections stipulating a presidential candidate must be backed by at least 35 members of country’s Legislative Assembly. He should also be not younger than 40 and must have lived in Syria for the last 10 years.
Assad was unanimously nominated by the Syrian parliament for president in 2000 following the death of his father, former President Hafez Assad. He was re-elected in 2007 to a second term after receiving 97.62 percent of the votes.
He has not yet announced if he will be running for reelection.
In relevant remarks yesterday, a senior Iranian parliamentary official blasted certain countries' demands from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to delay the polls, and said elections in Syria will thwart enemies' plots against the country.
"Holding elections and deciding about the Syrian people's fate through the ballot box has received the Islamic Republic of Iran's support since the very first day of the crisis in Damascus and Iran has always wanted to strengthen this idea," Parliament's Director-General for International Affairs Hassan Sheikholeslam said on Tuesday.
He said that the demands from Assad to delay the elections by those countries which claim to be advocates of human rights are a conspiracy to complete their plots against the Syrian people.
"But Bashar al-Assad wisely seeks to have an antidote for such plots by holding elections," Sheikholeslam said.An IDF force shot dead Eyad Zakaria Hamed, a 38-year-old Palestinian, at the entrance to Silwad, adjacent to Ofra, in the West Bank (between Jerusalem and Nablus) on Friday. The shooting, next to an IDF position, was part of a procedure for stopping a suspicious individual.
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Hamed reportedly came at the soldiers' guard post running. They followed the IDF procedure for stopping a suspicious person in full, and he was shot dead at its conclusion. The soldiers were from the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion within the Kfir Brigade. No soldiers were injured.
IDF forces in Silwad (Archive photo: IDF Spokesperson)
A Palestinian official said the 38-year-old man suffered from mental illness and was not found to have any weapons on his person when searched, and no signs of gunfire were found on the guard post.Russia blocks websites on a very large-scale but citizens often circumvent those blocks using VPNs, TOR and other anonymizing tools. The country is now looking at ways of bringing this to an end, with Russia's main web-blocking body supporting a worrying proposal by a Russian MP to ban use of these tools
Since 2012, Russia has had legislation allowing the country’s main telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor to maintain a list of domains to be blocked by ISPs in the country.
While the usual serious crime suspects such as child abuse and terrorist sites are included, more controversial resources are also filtered, including sites that feature content about drugs and suicide. Also present are sites that fail to remove copyright content in a timely manner and in the past couple of years plenty of torrent, storage and links forums have been blocked.
Of course, where there’s a block or filter there are people ready to circumvent them and it now appears that Russia is growing tired with the ease that citizens do so. Proposals from the Duma (lower house of parliament) now indicate that the country is considering how to further limit access to “banned” content.
Speaking at Infoforum-2015, Russian MP Leonid Levin, who is deputy head of the Duma Committee on information politics, indicated that access to anonymization and circumvention tools such as TOR, VPNs and even web proxies, needs to be restricted.
“One of the factors in the formation of the Internet environment in our country has become the authority for the pre-trial blocking of websites. It allows us to block sites banned in Russia quickly enough. At the same time the pre-trial blocking of anonymizing services deserves attention, such as access to the anonymous network Tor,” Levin said.
By introducing restrictions on these systems, Levin added, it would restrict citizens’ access to blocked content, stop people transferring content anonymously, and also help to reduce the commercial distribution of malware.
Levin also called for greater powers for the Roskomnadzor watchdog, an organization that also supports the idea of locking down anonymous networks. According to Vadim Ampelonskogo, Roskomnadzor’s chief press officer, the task won’t be easy but is technically possible.
Describing the Tor network as a “den of criminals” and “ghouls, all gathered in one place”, Ampelonskogo said Roskomnadzor would find a solution to block anonymous networks if it was supported by a relevant regulatory framework.
Levin’s proposals to block anonymizing tools and networks is not new. In 2012 the topic was raised but came to nothing and in 2013 an initiative was launched by the FSB and received support from the State Duma. However, there is a growing feeling that Russia will eventually do something.
According to figures cited by Russia’s RBC, 150,000 citizens use the TOR network with up to 25% of Internet users now using some kind of VPN.
While Russia’s attack on encryption won’t be a surprise to many, other supposedly more free societies are also looking to crack down on the anonymous. In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, Prime Minister David Cameron indicated that users of private services such as WhatsApp could be blocked or monitored if his government wins the next election.New Delhi: India to face a below normal rainfall during the June to September south-west monsoon season, said private weather forecaster Skymet on Monday.
According to Skymet, 2017 is likely to remain below normal at 95% of the long period average (LPA) of the 887 mm for the four-month period from June to September. Monsoon is considered normal if it falls in the range of the 96% to 104% of the LPA. This year’s forecast is one notch below that.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) will provide their first forecast about the south-west monsoon on 20 April, giving information about the El Nino as well.
El Nino is a weather condition which develops due to the excessive warming of the Pacific Ocean disrupting the pattern of the June to September south-west monsoon and often leading to drought-like conditions in India.
According to Skymet, June will have a monsoon of about 102% of its LPA, which will be normal. September, too, would have a rainfall of 96% of its LPA. July and August will have below normal rainfall with 94% and 93% of their respective LPA.
This year is the fourth consecutive year, when monsoon rains are not likely to surpass the normal shower.I’m often deluged with hate online – and I’m used to being told not to feed the trolls. But after one of them stole my dead dad’s identity to abuse me, I decided to ask him why
For the past three years or so, at least one stranger has sought me out pretty much every day to call me a fat bitch (or some pithy variation thereof). I’m a writer and a woman and a feminist, and I write about big, fat, bitchy things that make people uncomfortable. And because I choose to do that as a career, I’m told, a constant barrage of abuse is just part of my job. Shrug. Nothing we can do. I’m asking for it, apparently.
Being harassed on the internet is such a normal, common part of my life that I’m always surprised when other people find it surprising. You’re telling me you don’t have hundreds of men popping into your cubicle in the accounting department of your mid-sized, regional dry-goods distributor to inform you that – hmm – you’re too fat to rape, but perhaps they’ll saw you up with an electric knife? No? Just me? People who don’t spend much time on the internet are invariably shocked to discover the barbarism – the eager abandonment of the social contract – that so many of us face simply for doing our jobs.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A young Lindy with her parents. Photograph: Bob Peterson/Lindy West
Sometimes the hate trickles in slowly, just one or two messages a day. But other times, when I’ve written something particularly controversial (ie feminist) – like, say, my critique of men feeling entitled to women’s time and attention, or literally anything about rape – the harassment comes in a deluge. It floods my Twitter feed, my Facebook page, my email, so fast that I can’t even keep up (not that I want to).
It was in the middle of one of these deluges two summers ago when my dead father contacted me on Twitter.
At the time, I’d been writing a lot about the problem of misogyny (specifically jokes about rape) in the comedy world. My central point – which has been gleefully misconstrued as “pro-censorship” ever since – was that what we say affects the world we live in, that words are both a reflection of and a catalyst for the way our society operates. When you talk about rape, I said, you get to decide where you aim: are you making fun of rapists? Or their victims? Are you making the world better? Or worse? It’s not about censorship, it’s not about obligation, it’s not about forcibly limiting anyone’s speech – it’s about choice. Who are you? Choose.
The backlash from comedy fans was immediate and intense: “That broad doesn’t have to worry about rape.” “She won’t ever have to worry about rape.” “No one would want to rape that fat, disgusting mess.” “Holes like this make me want to commit rape out of anger.” It went on and on, to the point that it was almost white noise. After a week or so, I was feeling weather-beaten but fortified. Nothing could touch me anymore.
But then there was my dad’s dear face twinkling out at me from my Twitter feed. Someone – bored, apparently, with the usual angles of harassment – had made a fake Twitter account purporting to be my dead dad, featuring a stolen, beloved photo of him, for no reason other than to hurt me. The name on the account was “PawWestDonezo”, because my father’s name was Paul West, and a difficult battle with prostate cancer had rendered him “donezo” (goofy slang for “done”) just 18 months earlier. “Embarrassed father of an idiot,” the bio read. “Other two kids are fine, though.” His location was “Dirt hole in Seattle”.
My dad was special. The only thing he valued more than wit was kindness. He was a writer and an ad man and a magnificent baritone (he could write you a jingle and record it on the same day) – a lost breed of lounge pianist who skipped dizzyingly from jazz standards to Flanders and Swann to Lord Buckley and back again – and I can genuinely say that I’ve never met anyone else so universally beloved, nor do I expect to again. I loved him so, so much.
There’s a term for this brand of gratuitous online cruelty: we call it internet trolling. Trolling is recreational abuse – usually anonymous – intended to waste the subject’s time or get a rise out of them or frustrate or frighten them into silence. Sometimes it’s relatively innocuous (like asking contrarian questions just to start an argument) or juvenile (like making fun of my weight or my intelligence), but – particularly when the subject is a young woman – it frequently crosses the line into bona fide, dangerous stalking and harassment.
And even “innocuous” harassment, when it’s coming at you en masse from hundreds or even thousands of users a day, stops feeling innocuous very quickly. It’s a silencing tactic. The message is: you are outnumbered. The message is: we’ll stop when you’re gone. The volume and intensity of harassment is vastly magnified for women of colour and trans women and disabled women and fat women and sex workers and other intersecting identities. Who gets trolled has a direct impact on who gets to talk; in my personal experience, the fiercest trolling has come from traditionally white, male-dominated communities (comedy, video games, atheism) whose members would like to keep it that way.
I feel the pull all the time: I should change careers; I should shut down my social media; maybe I can get a job in print somewhere; it’s just too exhausting. I hear the same refrains from my colleagues. Sure, we’ve all built up significant armour at this point, but, you know, armour is heavy. Internet trolling might seem like an issue that only affects a certain subset of people, but that’s only true if you believe that living in a world devoid of diverse voices – public discourse shaped primarily by white, heterosexual, able-bodied men – wouldn’t profoundly affect your life.
Sitting at my computer, staring at PawWestDonezo, I had precious few options. All I could do, really, was ignore it: hit “block” and move on, knowing that that account was still out there, hidden behind a few gossamer lines of code, still putting words in my dad’s mouth, still using his image to mock, abuse and silence people. After all, it’s not illegal to reach elbow-deep into someone’s memories and touch them and twist them and weaponise them (to impress the ghost of Lenny Bruce or whatever). Nor should it be, of course. But that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate it without dissent.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul West: ‘A magnificent baritone and a lost breed of lounge pianist.’ Photograph: Bob Peterson/Lindy West
Over and over, those of us who work on the internet are told, “Don’t feed the trolls. Don’t talk back. It’s what they want.” But is that true? Does ignoring trolls actually stop trolling? Can somebody show me concrete numbers on that? Anecdotally, I’ve ignored far more trolls than I’ve “fed”, and my inbox hasn’t become any quieter. When I speak my mind and receive a howling hurricane of abuse in return, it doesn’t feel like a plea for my attention – it feels like a demand for my silence.
And some trolls are explicit about it. “If you can’t handle it, get off the internet.” That’s a persistent refrain my colleagues and I hear when we confront our harassers. But why? Why don’t YOU get off the internet? Why should I have to rearrange my life – and change careers, essentially – because you wet your pants every time a woman talks?
My friends say, “Just don’t read the comments.” But just the other day, for instance, I got a tweet that said, “May your bloodied head rest on the edge of an Isis blade.” Colleagues and friends of mine have had their phone numbers and addresses published online (a harassment tactic known as “doxing”) and had trolls show up at their public events or threaten mass shootings. So if we don’t keep an eye on what people are saying, how do we know when a line has been crossed and law enforcement should be involved? (Not that the police have any clue how to deal with online harassment anyway – or much interest in trying.)
Social media companies say, “Just report any abuse and move on. We’re handling it.” So I do that. But reporting abuse is a tedious, labour-intensive process that can eat up half my working day. In any case, most of my reports are rejected. And once any troll is blocked (or even if they’re suspended), they can just make a new account and start all over again.
I’m aware that Twitter is well within its rights to let its platform be used as a vehicle for sexist and racist harassment. But, as a private company – just like a comedian mulling over a rape joke, or a troll looking for a target for his anger – it could choose not to. As a collective of human beings, it could choose to be better.
So, when it came to the case of PawWestDonezo, I went off script: I stopped obsessing over what he wanted and just did what felt best to me that day. I wrote about it publicly, online. I made myself vulnerable. I didn’t hide the fact it hurt. The next morning, I woke up to an email:
Hey Lindy, I don’t know why or even when I started trolling you. It wasn’t because of your stance on rape jokes. I don’t find them funny either. I think my anger towards you stems from your happiness with your own being. It offended me because it served to highlight my unhappiness with my own self. I have e-mailed you through 2 other gmail accounts just to send you idiotic insults. I apologize for that. I created the [email protected] account & Twitter account. (I have deleted both.) I can’t say sorry enough. It was the lowest thing I had ever done. When you included it in your latest Jezebel article it finally hit me. There is a living, breathing human being who is reading this shit. I am attacking someone who never harmed me in any way. And for no reason whatsoever. I’m done being a troll. Again I apologize. I made donation in memory to your dad. I wish you the best.
He had donated $50 to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, where my dad was treated.
That email still unhinges my jaw every time I read it. A reformed troll? An admission of weakness and self-loathing? An apology? I wrote back once, expressed my disbelief and said thank you – and that was that. I returned to my regular routine of daily hate mail, scrolling through the same options over and over – Ignore? Block? Report? Engage? – but every time I faced that choice, I thought briefly of my remorseful troll.
Last summer, when a segment of video game fans began a massive harassment campaign against female critics and developers (if you want to know more, Google “GamerGate”, then shut your laptop and throw it into the sea), my thoughts wandered back to him more and more. I wondered if I could learn anything from him. And then it struck me: why not find out?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lindy at the 2013 Women’s Media Awards in New York City. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images
We only had made that one, brief exchange, in the summer of 2013, but I still had his email address. I asked the popular US radio programme This American Life to help me reach out to him. They said yes. They emailed him. After a few months of gruelling silence, he finally wrote back. “I’d be happy to help you out in any way possible,” he said.
And then, there I was in a studio with a phone – and the troll on the other end.
We talked for two-and-a-half hours. He was shockingly self-aware. He told me that he didn’t hate me because of rape jokes – the timing was just a coincidence – he hated me because, to put it simply, I don’t hate myself. Hearing him explain his choices in his own words, in his own voice, was heartbreaking and fascinating. He said that, at the time, he felt fat, unloved, “passionless” and purposeless. For some reason, he found it “easy” to take that out on women online.
I asked why. What made women easy targets? Why was it so satisfying to hurt us? Why didn’t he automatically see us as human beings? For all his self-reflection, that’s the one thing he never managed to articulate – how anger at one woman translated into hatred of women in general. Why, when men hate themselves, it’s women who take the beatings.
But he did explain how he changed. He started taking care of his health, he found a new girlfriend and, most importantly, he went back to school to become a teacher. He told me – in all seriousness – that, as a volunteer at a school, he just gets so many hugs now. “Seeing how their feelings get hurt by their peers,” he said, “on purpose or not, it derails them for the rest of the day. They’ll have their head on their desk and refuse to talk. As I’m watching this happen, I can’t help but think about the feelings that I hurt.” He was so sorry, he said.
I didn’t mean to forgive him, but I did.
This story isn’t prescriptive. It doesn’t mean that anyone is obliged to forgive people who abuse them, or even that I plan on being cordial and compassionate to every teenage boy who tells me I’m too fat to get raped (sorry in advance, boys: I still bite). But, for me, it’s changed the timbre of my online interactions – with, for instance, the guy who responded to my radio story by calling my dad a “faggot”. It’s hard to feel hurt or frightened when you’re flooded with pity. And that, in turn, has made it easier for me to keep talking in the face of a mob roaring for my silence. Keep screaming, trolls. I see you.
Hear Lindy West’s show at This American LifeIn a year, cameras likely will replace humans in the effort to prevent suicides on Caltrain tracks in Palo Alto.
The City Council on June 19 approved a $1.4 million contract with G4S Secure Integration to design and construct the video management surveillance system. The work is expected to take about six months.
The cost for G4S to maintain and monitor the remote camera system, and for fiber subscription and power expenses, could total $325,000 a year.
City officials have discussed the cameras as a way to phase out the need for Track Watch, a program in which the city stations private security guards along the rail corridor section where multiple teen suicides happened between 2009 and 2015.
Acting police Chief Ron Watson told city leaders during a finance meeting in May that no system is foolproof, but cameras have at least one distinct advantage over human guards: night vision.
“It is so dark out there that 50 or 100 feet away, they can’t see anything, whereas with the technology, there will be some advantages on greater distances,” Watson said. “We have four miles of rail that runs through town. … Their coverage is very limited just by the environment.”
Cypress Security provides guards at an annual cost of about $1.7 million; its contract ends June 30, 2018, unless renewed by the council.
At the June 19 meeting, City Manager James Keene said city officials anticipate not having Track Watch guards beyond 2018 but are carefully planning the transition to cameras.
Keene reminded officials that the private guards do not intervene when someone is spotted on the tracks. Their role is simply to call police, which is what someone monitoring the camera system would do, Keene said.
“What (the guards) do provide is, from a distance, a visible sign that there is somebody there, and that’s one of the issues that we want to sort of acclimatize ourselves to,” Keene said.
The city has tested a camera system at the East Meadow crossing, which covered an area of 1,000 feet in both north and south directions and potentially distinguished between humans and other objects. Unsafe conditions on the tracks triggered alarms.
“The ability of a human to maintain focus and concentration in the comfort of a monitoring center compared to the fatigue and stress of standing in the elements in the dark of night is one reason why rail systems utilize (intrusion detection systems),” city staff said in a report.
Guards have been posted at the crossings around Alma Avenue, Charleston Road, Meadow Drive, Churchill Avenue and the California Avenue train platform.New means may be needed to protect investment in database-type works.
THE Federal Court's rejection of Telstra's claim that its valuable Yellow Pages and White Pages directories are covered under copyright measures will prompt a rethink by owners of similar directories and databases regarding protection of their intellectual property. More positively, it will open the door for content seekers such as iPhone application developers who will profit from greater access to information and the certainty afforded by this important decision.
New strategies (and maybe new laws) are required to properly protect investment in valuable database-type works. This brave new world of IP protection, commercialisation and enforcement will be a critical point of discussion for several Australian executives as they consider the impact of this decision and seek to shore up protection measures.
The decision means users of directories and databases now have greater, and potentially free, access to use growing volumes of content - works previously assumed to be protected by copyright and thus unavailable. New opportunities will arise for IT developers - such as the plethora of developers of iPhone applications and third-generation media tools - who are now free to use many online timetables, product listings, betting odds and directories, and to incorporate them into their products.
Generally, Australian copyright law is becoming increasingly similar to that in the US, paving the way for easier cross-border proliferation of applications and online tools by global developers.Housing volumes could plummet and prices tank, Citi says
Updated
House price declines of up to 20 per cent and an 80 per cent crash in residential sales is the doomsday scenario investment bank Citi says is a real possibility if the residential property market rolls over.
Key points: Prices in residential developments could fall 20 per cent if the property market cools
Historically sales have fallen 70 per cent from peak-to-trough in downturns
The property market generally takes two years to unravel
Citi's residential property team has looked at the impact of a cooling property market on big developers such as Stockland and Mirvac and the picture is far from pretty.
"When the market cools, it freezes — peak to trough volumes can decline as high as up to -80 per cent," Citi's David Lloyd said.
"One industry contact puts a 90 per cent probability on a 10-to-20 per cent decline in house prices in the next 12 to 24 months," Mr Lloyd and his team wrote in a note to investors.
"House prices tend to closely follow housing sales volumes, and housing sales volumes have already started falling.
"We believe a continuation of declining housing sales could put downward pressure on house prices, negatively impacting both Stockland and Mirvac."
Stockland sold 6,600 residential lots last year — up 8 per cent on 2015 — while Mirvac sold 3,300 in a record year.
Citi said opinions remained divided about which way the market is heading in the short term.
"The residential bulls are expecting robust land volumes to continue with upward pressure on prices, albeit at a slower pace than the past 12 months," Mr Lloyd said.
"The bears are pointing to declining auction clearance rates, declining investor activity, rising interest rates and apartment pre-sales in the $600,000 to $2 million [range] suffering from declining Chinese interest from tightening capital controls."
On Citi's analysis, projects located in metropolitan areas typically fare better than those in the regions, while large projects have a lower downside.
While the average peak to trough change in sales is about 70 per cent, it generally takes two years to unravel.
Topics: company-news, economic-trends, building-and-construction, housing-industry, australia
First postedBitjob is an online decentralized platform or network that offers employment opportunities for students all across the globe. It is the best recommended marketplace for employers, freelancers and students to earn an additional income.
It operates over the blockchain of Ethereum (ETH) and it uses ERC – 20 tokens. Its partnership concerns include Token market, BCB ATM, and Bancor and so on. The minimum contribution limit for its users to participate in the ICO is 0.01 Ethereum (Eth). The value of 1 ETH is 888 STU. (V )
It offers benefits of both the bidding sites (via freelancing) and the micro – gigs to the students. It uses fiat currencies for making payments. It gained a great reputation for its outstanding services. Its users can make use of a web wallet named myetherwallet for the safe storage of their funds.
Dror Medalion is the Founder as well as the chief executive officer (CEO) of this platform. Bogdan Fiedur, Elad Kofman and Aviad Gindi are the three co – founders along with Dror.
Academic Partners:
Cyprus International Institute of management,
Cambridge Blockchain,
Thoughtfile and so on.
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Total amount of STU tokens supplied: 200 million STU
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Percentage of tokens allotted for Escrow protection and supervisory purposes: 2%
Percentage of tokens allotted for Founders: 10%
Percentage of tokens allotted for Bonuses and team development: 2%
Percentage of tokens allotted for Ambassadors: 2%
Percentage of tokens allotted for Network stabilization and welfare: 6%
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Percentage of tokens allotted for Bug bounty and testing: 1%
Minimum target for funding: 2250 Ethereum
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The users can utilize the multi – signature wallet by doing the following procedures:
Account creation with a password manager. (Instructions: How to start with MyEtherWallet)
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, director of children's services for Barking and Dagenham council, said there had been a big influx of families to the borough, which might in part be down to the early effects of the housing benefit cap. The borough is separately experiencing a rise in the birth rate, but also expects to see many more families move in over the next year.
"We are mapping for growth. We expect significant growth," she said. "The main reason people are moving here it that rents are growing elsewhere. In the borough we had spaces in schools until three years ago. Now we are becoming a much more popular borough and we have no spaces in schools." The borough opened 10 new primary school classes last year, and expect to have to find space for another 200 reception class places in September 2012.
Romin Sutherland from Z2K has been advising families that they need to think about the next stage of benefit cuts when they think about leaving their homes, so that they do not find themselves moving a couple of miles out of Westminster this year, only to be forced by the overall benefit cap to move out further in 18 months. He and colleagues were telling families to think open-mindedly about "life beyond London" in other cities, such as Manchester.
"We don't want people to move to Wembley and then find that they can't afford to stay there either. This is the first wave of a tsunami, and the second wave will come with the overall benefit cap," he said.Though music videos are an important creative outlet for hip-hop artists, few videos are actually made by the artists they feature. Tyler, The Creator is not only an exception to this rule, but proof that the rule need not be followed. While earlier this year we highlighted Tyler’s antics in front of the camera, today we’d like to focus on his work behind it. Check out our list below.
8. “WHOA” – Earl Sweatshirt (Directed by: Wolf Haley)
Just like the song it visualizes, this video really embodies the “traditional” Odd Future aesthetic. There’s skateboarding, pranks, cameos from several members of the Odd Future crew and all-around weirdness. The beauty of the video is that these familiar, chaotic elements are presented in perfect harmony. That isn’t an easy task.
7. “NY (Ned Flander)” – Hodgy Beats & Tyler, The Creator (Directed by: Wolf Haley)
The visuals for “NY (Ned Flander)” are the sequel to the “Rella” video. In this one, Hodgy is bald, mustachioed, overweight, and taking pills while watching large women strip on TV. This dysfunctional atmosphere is amplified by the fact that Tyler is his baby and grandpa is a predator. What’s interesting about the video is that despite its clear elements of hyperbole and camp, somehow it’s still incredibly serious.
6. ‘Trouble On My Mind’ – Pusha T ft. Tyler, The Creator (Directed by: Decon’s Jason Goldwatch )
“Trouble on My Mind” is a cross-generational collab between Pusha T and Tyler that connects them through their shared respect for The Neptunes, who actually produced the song. This is the only video on the list that was not directed by Tyler, but it belongs here nonetheless because Tyler‘s visual flair is sublimated throughout, especially when Pusha-T comically dresses up as Tyler, crutches and all. In other words, though Pusha and Tyler are neck-and-neck on the actual song, Tyler owns this video.
5. “IFHY” – Tyler, The Creator (Directed by: Wolf Haley)
The Pharrell-assisted “IFHY/Jamba” is Tyler’s twisted version of a love song (the title stands for “I Fucking Hate You.”) The video has Tyler costumed as a life-sized doll living with his supposed true love, who is also a doll. The video centers around how they fail to live blissfully despite residing in the proverbial dollhouse. Their romance is so deformed, in fact, that even their faces, which should be perfect, are also deformed. This may all sound cynical, but Tyler seems to be speaking from an actual experience of love, so it’s actually very insightful. And the transition between “IFHY” and “Jamba” is so seamless that without the beat change, it might be unnoticeable.
4. “VCR” – Tyler, The Creator (Directed by: Wolf Haley)
“VCR” is a dark video that craftily uses suggestive imagery to represent the song’s dark content. It’s actually quite a surprise to see this video after hearing the song. Whereas the song is pure shock, horror after horror, the video is perverse, not showing anything, but hinting at everything. Tyler probably has a nice internal knowledge of horror movies and thrillers.
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Editor PicksAn Australian accountant could be sentenced to death after he was arrested in Bali, allegedly caught with 19.97grams of crystal methamphetamine in his suitcase.
Pictures surfaced on Tuesday showing Isaac Emmanuel Roberts sitting in a media conference wearing orange prisoner garb and a black balaclava over his head.
He was pictured beside two other suspects guarded by police officers who wore balaclavas and carried rifles.
The 35-year-old Australian man, born in Toowoomba Queensland, was arrested after officials allegedly found the drugs in his luggage on December 4 this year.
Scroll down for video
Roberts (pictured), was reportedly arrested after officials found the drugs in his luggage on December 4 this year
Roberts was allegedly found with 6.22 grams of ecstasy, 14.32 grams of methamphetamine and 22 mils of a psychotropic substance.
Details of his arrest were kept secret until Tuesday, when the drug bust was announced by Indonesian officials.
'We have arrested an Australian, IER, for bringing drugs into Bali,' Customs and Excise Officer Husni Syaiful said.
Roberts reportedly arrived in Bali on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok on December 4.
Roberts (pictured) reportedly arrived in Bali on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok on December 4
Roberts (pictured) was allegedly found with 6.22 grams of ecstasy, 14.32 grams of methamphetamine and 22 mils of a psychotropic substance
Roberts (pictured) reportedly arrived in Bali on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok on December 4
The drugs were allegedly discovered when his luggage was X-rayed.
Indonesia carries the maximum death penalty for drug importation crimes.
Speaking to media after the conference, Mr Roberts reportedly said he was invited to Indonesia by a customs officer.
'I was working with a customs officer and they knew I was going to bring something,' he told reporters.
'I'm just a f*****g addict. They want to waste resources on addicts, they want to punish addicts? This is ridiculous. What about the f…..g importers? I wasn't going to sell it to anyone here, no one was going to use it here. This is ridiculous. This is an embarrassment.'
Indonesian police alleged Roberts admitted to being a drug user, but denied he was a dealer.
Isaac Roberts is escorted by officers, followed by media, at the customs office in Kuta, Bali
Isaac Roberts escorted by armed police officers from the media conference on Tuesday
Anti-Narcotics Agency officials show an Australian man (second from left), an American man (centre), and a Malaysian man (second from right)
The men arrested were allegedly caught with the drugs including methamphetamine, in their possession
Speaking to media after the conference, Mr Roberts (pictured) reportedly said he was 'just a f*****g addict'
Roberts is being held in jail at police headquarters in Denpasar, Indonesia.
When the police investigation is finished, he will reportedly be transferred to Kerobokan prison - where he will await trial.
Roberts, a Queensland man, ran as a Liberal Democrat candidate in the seat of Higgins in Melbourne in 2009.
He was unsuccessful, polling eighth out of 10 candidates.
Roberts describes himself as a Chartered Accountant and Registered Tax Agent on his personal website.
'I specialise in personal income tax returns, however years of experience in corporate tax have given me the confidence to service many business clients,' he said.+ Microids Adventure Bundle Clash of the World: Central Europe Games, albums + bonuses! Games include Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams (Steam), Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (Steam), Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart (Steam + DRM-Free) and Where Angels Cry (Steam), music from Besides, Spiral, Dopelord and more. Get it here: http://groupees.com/clash4
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Evopollution (Groupees Spotlight)Nearly three years after a Dothan police officer fatally shot a man the attorney for his estate alleges the city refuses to turn over documents pertinent to the case.
Attorney Henry Sherrod wants personnel and training records of Officer Adrian Woodruff---who shot Robert Lawrence-- and then Dothan Police Chief Greg Benton. Both have since retired.
Lawrence died from a gunshot wound he suffered in December, 2014 during a dispute with Woodruff, who was assigned to the city’s animal shelter. He was attempting drop off an animal and refused to provide identification, as required.
Though details of the shooting were never released, a civil lawsuit filed by Lawrence’s estate indicates he attempted to take a stun gun from Woodruff during the altercation and she shot him. The city claims it was in self-defense.
The State Bureau of Investigation conducted a probe and the findings were presented to a Houston County Grand Jury that cleared Woodruff of wrongdoing. The panel examined evidence including video that has not been made public.
The lawsuit, alleging the officer’s action were unwarranted, was subsequently filed and documents requested several months ago. Sherrod alleges the city has refused to turn over all requested records and is asking a federal judge to order them to be surrendered.
“Personnel and training records for Woodruff and Benton are highly relevant to plaintiff’s claims. The personnel files contain information on the officer’s job performance, ethics, interpersonal relationships, decision-making abilities, work and safety habits, promotions, training records, discipline, instances of misconduct, interviews, employee orientation, and employment applications. These types of documents may reveal the defendant officers’ patterns of behavior, as well as the City’s response to such behavior, and these documents are not available from alternative sources,” a motion filed in federal court states.
Court documents show Dothan City Attorney Len White considers the request for records too broad.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial was requested. A trial date has not been set.From RationalWiki
Cadet Bone Spurs, wearing the uniform of the New York Military Academy, 1964.
Women's March in Washington, D.C., 2017. Don't forget to vote next time, please!
Not to be confused with his old man
“ ” They promised they were going to take on corruption in Washington. Instead, they've racked up enough indictments to field a football team. Nobody in my administration got indicted, which, by the way, is not that high a bar. —Barack Obama at a rally for the 2018 midterm elections.[1]
Donald John "Greatest Jobs President God Ever Created" Trump (b. 1946) is an American (un)intentional comedian, honorary Russian Cossack,[2] heel wrestling personality, WWE Hall of Famer,[note 1] demagogue,[3] and personality-cult leader[4] who governs as a thug and an aspiring strongman,[5] Nobel Prize nominee,[note 2][7][8] and current false-equivalency.[9][10] He won the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination, and against all odds, was elected President of the United States. On Inauguration Day, Trump had the dubious honor of having the single largest number of protesters in American history—the Women's March.[11]
Despite his campaign mythologizing around his path to the presidency somehow "coming from outside the system" and being "free of cronyism" (imagining a Democrat-disgruntled working class being the ones to carry him into office), actual Trump supporters generally have above-average incomes, typical of the same voter demographic that have always supported the GOP.[12][note 3] In American terms, Trump is pretty much styling himself as the second coming of Andrew Jackson, complete with his plan for a new Trail of Tears. In turn, Trump actually appears to have secured the conspiracy theorist vote,[13][note 4] a demographic which, these days, appears to include both himself[14] and his wife.[15]
Following an escalating series of gaffes and scandals in the run-up to the Presidential election, many Republican leaders have withheld or renounced their support for his candidacy.[16] He has also been condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.[17] Stung by the results of the 2018 midterm elections—[18] when Democrats gained control of the House while Republicans expanded their majority in the Senate,[19]— and the ongoing Russia probe, Trump appears to be distancing himself from the ordinary presidential duties, sending aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, to various events in his stead.[18] In 2019, it was revealed that after Trump removed FBI Director James Comey over investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the FBI began investigating whether Trump was a knowing or unknowing asset of the Russian government assisted by Russia to act against the interests of the US government.[20] Trump has put forward policies clearly in favor of the Russian government's interests, most importantly on the matter of the NATO alliance of the US as the leading country of the alliance along with European countries, Turkey, and Canada, with Trump indicating in public statements that the US could abandon the NATO alliance.[21]
Business ventures [ edit ]
th President of the United States), according to the Ураласбест (Uralasbest) company[22][23][24] "Одобрено Дональдом Трампом, 45-м президентом США" (Approved by Donald Trump, 45President of the United States), according to the Ураласбест (Uralasbest) company
Tax returns [ edit ]
Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate in four decades other than Gerald Ford who has not released his tax returns. Ford published a summary of his instead. Although the chances of the bill passing are low, Democrats are proposing legislation requiring presidential candidates to release ten years of tax returns. In support of forcing Trump to release his tax returns, an organization called Americans for Tax Fairness argued that this would shine light on the various means wealthy people evade taxes in general and Trump's potentially illicit business interests in particular. Trump has been accused of using public office to enhance his private business interests.[25]
According to legal experts, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Trump's ties to Russia, almost certainly has Trump's tax returns. However, he cannot release them unless they are relevant to a criminal case.[25]
Teflon Don [ edit ]
“ ” That may be Trump's one skill – performing so many outrages that he gets us to sideline some of them while we try to deal with the worst/most recent. — Ophelia Benson [26]
Trump's connections with mob figures are old and run deep, according to journalist Wayne Barrett; they're mostly associated with his casino and huge erections, including but not limited to buildings.[27][28][29] In 2015, the details became public of Trump's involvement with Colombo crime family figures during the making of Trump's first name-branded product: a Cadillac limousine in 1988.[30] Trump will never willingly release his tax returns, and Ted Cruz suggests those returns could show the extent of his mob dealings.[31] Trump and some of his spawn have been named as material witnesses in a massive tax-avoidance scheme by mob-connected Felix Sater.[32] As an aside, it has been reported that Trump himself paid no income taxes in 1978, 1979, 1984, 1992, and 1994.[33]
The tax schemes have apparently caught up with the Trumps: in 2018, the New York Times reported that Trump and his siblings engaged in vast tax fraud starting in the 1990s; the allegations are based on confidential tax returns and financial records.[34] Following the Times' report, New York state tax officials began their own investigation into the Trumps' alleged tax fraud schemes.[35]
Trump's connections to organized crime go back to shortly after his first forays into Manhattan real estate.[36] Trump made friends with Roy Cohn, formerly Joseph McCarthy's lawyer during the McCarthy Senate hearings, but who by then was a mob lawyer.[36] Cohn likely introduced Trump to Genovese crime boss Anthony Salerno. [36] In his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, Trump denied that there was any association between asbestos exposure and cancer, stating "I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented."[37][38] Ironically, it was Trump's hiring of organized crime-controlled companies that enabled his demolition contractor to hire the illegal workers that were exposed to asbestos.[36][39] Trump is still pushing asbestos denialism in 2018 via his EPA director Scott Pruitt, who announced that the EPA would cease evaluating asbestos hazards in the environment.[37] This is some four decades after the last known time that the asbestos industry itself engaged in denialism.[40]
In 1979, Trump hired a demolition contractor to take down the building at the future Trump Tower site.[36] The contractor used illegal, non-union Polish workers who were exposed to asbestos.[36][41] Though the site was a union site, there was no picket because it was a mob-controlled union; Trump knew that the Polish workers were illegal.[36] Trump used overpriced concrete from companies controlled by Salerno and Gambino family crime boss Paul Castellano to build Trump Tower and Trump Plaza.[36]
When Trump sought to build casinos in Atlantic City in 1982, he was able to hide his mob connections by persuading the New Jersey Attorney General John Degnan to only investigate him for the prior six months.[36] At least one Trump company has been exposed as having ties to international money laundering from an ex-Soviet Union state,[42] and it has been speculated that the Trump casinos may have been used for laundering prior to bankruptcy.[43] Trump bought land in Atlantic City at an inflated price from hit men connected to Nicky Scarfo, of the Philadelphia crime family as well as purchasing or leasing other land that likely benefitted the Scarfo mob.[36]
A Saudi prince claims he bailed Trump out twice when the mogul got into financial difficulties. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal bought up a private yacht that Trump was forced to cede to creditors during the 1990's, and later helped buy a NYC hotel when Trump was short of funds a second time. Said Saud is now embarrassed by the association.[44][45]
On January 1, 2017 Trump hosted and appeared on stage with Joey 'No Socks' Cinque at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.[46] Cinque is a Gambino crime family-affiliate who was convicted of felony possession of a trove of stolen artwork.[46]
Trump has lied on numerous occasions about his connections to organized crime, including under oath.[36][47]
Business acumen [ edit ]
Farewell, Trump Mortgage. We hardly knew ye.
“ ” In 1995, when he offered this company, if a monkey had thrown a dart, at the stock page, the monkey on average would've made 150 percent. But the people that believed in him, who listened to his siren song, ended up losing well over 90 cents in the dollar. They got back less than a dime. —Warren Buffett on Trump's Atlantic City hotels business[48]
It's always been a bit of mystery just how much Trump buys into his own bullshit. He estimates his net worth at "OVER TEN BILLION", which is impossible for him to prove but also impossible for anyone to disprove.[note 5] This is not just based on his assets (which are not terribly liquid) but also how he feels about his worth on a daily basis.[49] The record really shows a middling businessman with a lot of structural advantages, who came out on top because of how rigged the system is.[50] It's not hard to make a lot of money in New York real estate, especially when your rich daddy gives you a big head-start. In fact, over time it becomes practically impossible to lose money.[51] This is relevant to his claim that he can do an exceptional job of running the US government, since he hasn't been truly tested in a situation with no fawning yes-men or training wheels.
Really, the reason the Trump Brand still exists and is fiscally solvent is because of his daughter Ivanka.[52] Supposedly his sons are both dumbasses, but she is scarily intelligent. It was her idea to start selling off the name in exchange for royalties without having to put up the capital costs of construction and running a property, something which Donald opposed but is now the cornerstone of the company, since it's effectively free money. Ivanka is obviously worried about damage to the Trump brand, since she's tried to spin out a separate sub-brand; she's the one who staged a family intervention and convinced Dad to fire his campaign manager.[53]
Trump's record on predicting economic recessions is also laughably bad:[54]
In 1999, he predicted an economic crash greater than the Great Depression.
Then, in 2001, he reversed his position and claimed the US market was strong right before a minor recession hit.
In 2005, he claimed the real estate market was strong, and followed this up with the launching of "Trump Mortgage" in 2006. Trump Mortgage subsequently went out of business when the housing market crashed the next year.
In 2011, he predicted massive inflation, suggesting the price of a loaf of bread would soon be $25.
And he has been predicting another recession since 2012...though this has been silent since his election.
Golf [ edit ]
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the real-life Auric Goldfinger has been trying to build a golf course on (what used to be) a protected wetland habitat.[55] He tried to have several of his Scottish neighbors evicted, including a local farmer by the name of Michael Forbes who refused an offer on his property. For this, Forbes was awarded "top Scot" award in 2012.[56] His actions were parodied in this song.
Since then, the Scottish government's plans to increase wind turbine capacity (his opposition to which even led to a heated discussion over Twitter with the host of the British version of The Apprentice, Lord [formerly Sir Alan] Sugar[57]) has encouraged him to cancel his plans, proving once and for all that they are worth every penny. Trump reported to Scottish authorities that he lost millions on the project, whereas in his US presidential disclosure, he claimed that the project was highly profitable.[58]
Trump University [ edit ]
No one has more scorn for the victims of a con man than the con man himself.
Trump University was essentially a diploma mill, a scam in which people were promised an education in real estate by hand-picked experts in exchange for exorbitant "tuition." Salesmen were told to apply high-pressure tactics on vulnerable people. Some were encouraged to max out their credit cards, others had to cough up their disability money, etc.[59] In return, they received bare-bones real estate education from people Trump never even met, though he was very much involved in the marketing aspects.[60] He got a cut in return for these "institutions" being allowed to use his name.[61]
An even bigger issue lies with name Trump University itself and its claims to offer certain degrees: graduate, postgraduate, and doctoral. This is in violation of New York law, which requires you to obtain a charter to call yourself a university. In 2014, the New York Supreme Court held that Trump was personally liable for running an unlicensed school and making false promises through his "university", the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative;[62][63] this was confirmed by the testimony of a former salesperson and the court-released "Trump University Playbook."[64][65][66] About 8000 former students are suing Trump U. in two separate class-action lawsuits, one of which involves the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act.[67] In August 2016, Judge Curiel ruled that Trump must face a civil trial for fraud and racketeering under RICO, which automatically requires triple damages; things are looking very bad for Trump on this front.[68]
This is the case in which Trump attacked a “Mexican” judge’s ancestry (he's actually from Indiana) because he made a judgment Trump didn't like.[69] But all this shows is that Trump is willing to do anything to help us make him realize his American dream, even if it means ruining us financially.
“ ” Why isn’t this man in jail for fraud? In addition to his phony Trump University, there was also a Trump Institute, that used plagiarized materials to peddle real estate advice. —PZ Myers [70]
Trump faces law suits over this.[71] Trump may be liable for impeachment over this[72], but somehow managed to settle for a fraction of the damages.[73] No, we're not sure how this works.
The multilevel marketing company [ edit ]
In 2009, Trump "partnered" with the founders of Ideal Health International (est. 1997), a multilevel marketing business, rebranding this pyramid scheme as The Trump Network.[74] "Partnering" in this case is just another Trumpian term of art. It was yet another Trump brand rental where he claimed not to be involved with the company's operations, even though he, company representatives and advertising for the network implied there was an actual partnership "that was certain to lift thousands of people into prosperity"; after the brand rental came to an end in 2012, its assets were bought off by a Canadian and rebranded.[74]
The "business", which consisted of selling a urine test device with customized vitamins,[75][76] not only made investors lose money buying the highly overpriced products, but also buying customized infomercials in local TV channels.[74]
Charity [ edit ]
this is where he left his heart.[77][78] As of 2015, Trump owned 30% of the Bank of America building in San Francisco, location of the "Banker's Heart" statue. Apparently,is where he left his heart.
Donald Trump has been called "the least charitable billionaire in the world".[79] Take, for example, his donations to 9/11 charities: $1,000 (his own backyard, no less). The donation went to the anti-psychology Scientology front group, the "New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund", which was co-founded by Tom Cruise.[80][81] Trump, who owns 40 Wall Street, actually received $150,000 for damages due to 9/11 from a special federal fund earmarked for "small businesses", despite the fact that the building wasn't damaged.[82]
Many of Trump's larger donations are on their face self-serving, in the form of donations to:[83][84]
To prove his anti-vaxx bona fides, Trump's foundation gave $10,000 to Jenny McCarthy's "charity" Generation Rescue.[84]
As for real charities, Trump has a pattern of stiffing them:[87][88] The Donald J. Trump Foundation has actually received more donations from a single other donor (World Wrestling Entertainment) than Trump himself contributed during the period 1990 to 2009 when he gave a paltry $3.7 million.[80] In 2014, Trump personally gave $0 to his own foundation.[89]
The office of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was reported to have been considering an investigation of Trump University just before requesting and receiving a $25,000 political donation from Trump himself.[90] The donation allegedly came illegally from a non-profit Trump family foundation, which is not allowed to make political donations because of its tax status.[90] It's also come out that he may not have been donating the proceeds of several business ventures to charity as he had promised to do, which could amount to fraud. This is aside from the veterans' charity snafu.[91] These include Trump U, Trump Vodka, and his new book Crippled America, all high-profile activities with profits supposedly going to benefit charity. The harsh spotlight of a presidential run was suddenly not working out for him.[92] The Trump Foundation has been illegally soliciting money in the State of New York because it is not registered to do so as required by law.[93] On October 3, 2016, the Trump Foundation was ordered to cease and desist fundraising immediately by the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office.[94] The charity did not register properly as it should have and investigations by the Washington Post suggested Trump benefited personally from spending by the charity.[95] Additionally, the New York tax collecting agency opened an investigation in July 2018 into the Trump Foundation, which could result in criminal charges.[96]
Pretending to be religious [ edit ]
“ ” "[It] was the theo-political equivalent of money laundering. Dobson and his gang are making Trump clean so that he is worthy of "[It] was the theo-political equivalent of money laundering. Dobson and his gang are making Trump clean so that he is worthy of evangelical votes. —John Fea, history professor at Messiah College[97]
James Dobson of Focus on the Family believes that Trump was recently born again, but not everyone agrees.
When asked the inevitable leading question, "What is your favorite book?" Trump answered with the usual pandering reply, "The Bible!", although he couldn't provide a favorite verse.[98] Eventually, Trump found one: "Two Corinthians" (he means Second Corinthians, which incidentally is a book, not a verse), which earned him an endorsement from Falwell Jr.[99]
It also leads one to wonder how frequently he takes holy communion, despite Trump’s claim of "as often as possible"[100] — quite the dedication to drinking red wine for someone who is also a teetotaler.[101]
Regarding the prospects of electing a hypothetical born-again Trump prone to fiddling with the nuclear football when bored or intoxicated, Hemant Mehta remarked that:[102]
“ ” If Christians do vote for the nuclear weapon-loving Trump, they probably have a better chance of meeting God real soon…
Rare moments of sanity [ edit ]
See the main article on this topic: Stopped clock
“ ” Our country is divided and out of control. The world is watching. Our country is totally divided and our enemies are watching. —Trump accidentally says something poignant, for once.[103]
Despite his deplorable reputation, Trump is no exception to the stopped-clock principle. Here is an incomplete list of the right things he has done.
He regularly calls out the neoconservatives and their hired help.[104] His annihilation of the Club for Growth was also on point.[105]
Presidential candidacy [ edit ]
See the main article on this topic: Presidential candidacy of Donald Trump
The Presidential candidacy of Donald Trump began years before he actually won the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination. Indeed, Trump has been involved in politics for quite some time.
Rhetoric [ edit ]
See the main article on this topic: Rhetoric of Donald Trump
Donald Trump is notorious for his rabble-rousing and inflammatory, pernicious rhetoric, especially toward his political opponents and journalists that report on the bad things he has said and done. He frequently uses coarse language as well as having the verbal abilities similar to a grade-schooler on a broken record; no big bad words or nuance plus the power of repetition makes for a dangerously convincing combo, especially if he speaks to his audience's racist, xenophobic, or sexist insecurities. This is why people claim that he speaks it "as it is" when this is far from the truth. In fact, the incoherent and often perfidious way he talks (such as labeling news he doesn't like "fake news"[116] and often setting off political fact-checkers like Politifact, FactCheck.org, WashingtonPost, and Snopes) muddies understanding of his real thoughts, being prone to interpretation. For instance, his words on "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best" and "they're animals" set off debate on which group he's really referring to. His poor English is exacerbated when other countries try translating what he's saying.
Psychologists at the University of Texas and Princeton University studied over three million texts dating back to 1789 belonging to political leaders of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus news stories, books, movie subtitles, and cable news transcript. They noticed a clear trend of politicians speaking more simply but with greater confidence. Donald Trump accelerated that trend. In fact, he ranks first on confidence but last on analytical thinking compared to all other U.S. presidents. John Quincy Adams topped the U.S. chart with just under 99 points in analytical speech while Trump scored only 16 in a 2015 debate. The average for U.S. presidents is 90, with everyone other than Trump and Barack Obama scoring above 70. In speaking with confidence, Trump's score is 89; the average for U.S. presidents is 64.[117]
Stranger things [ edit ]
“ ” Never has more ignorance been stuffed inside one head. —Laurence Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School[118]
Trump's near-total disdain for the truth has been characterized as either gaslighting everyone he speaks to,[119] or as pathological lying,[120][121] though not in a clinical sense.[122]
The alarming nature of Trump's continuing behavior has gotten so bad since the election that psychologists have been breaking the so-called Goldwater rule in the American Psychiatric Association's code of ethics against giving a clinical analysis of someone who is not their patient. John D. Gartner, a psychotherapist who formerly taught at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, has explicitly broken the rule without caveat in order to warn the public of Trump's dangerousness.[123] Gartner said, "Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president."[123] Gartner diagnosed that Trump has "malignant narcissism", an extreme mix of narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, aggression, and sadism.[123] Many other mental health professionals have also expressed their concern over Trump's mental state.[124][125][126] Dr. Allen Frances, The chair of the DSM-IV taskforce, the one that wrote the definition of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), stated that while Trump "may be a world-class narcissist", he does not have NPD.[127][128] Dr. Allen went further to state, "He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers."[127]
HS quarterback [ edit ]
“ ” He's like that right-wing uncle you dread seeing at Thanksgiving, just with a national media profile—and your uncle couldn't be happier about it. —Paul Waldman[129]
The biggest Overton shift this year has been anyone believing that Donald Trump is "anti-establishment."[note 8] Liberals and conservatives are just wired differently. Republicans generally respond better to displays of strength and forthrightness, whereas Democrats generally respond better to bipartisanship and compassion.[130] For better or worse, Trump looks at life like buying a used car. You go in with bluster and threaten to walk if they don't give you what you want.
With that in mind, it's no surprise that the candidate with the best “tell it like it is” game on Twitter and in debates won. It's a strategy in touch with the perceptions of the GOP base. Many still think that Romney had the general election sealed up, but choked. It's why Don's portrayal of his opponents as boring, dumb, nerdy,[131] losers,[132] low-energy,[133] chokers[134] or "choke artists"[135] has been so effective.
In the minds of the base, it's never been the case that the country has become more progressive, or that |
to him? Is it the killing itself? Whatever it is, the demon tells him he is seeing the world as it is. Corrupted, Dylan begins to see the world as corrupt. And he starts to see everyone as a potential target.
Kill Or Be Killed captures something here, something messy—white male depression, white male anger, the sense that if the right person or group of people is eliminated, everything would be like it should be. The sense that the world should be some way that it isn’t. But the book is messy itself, dragging in the downsides of its influences, vigilante movies like Death Wish, where the solution to encroaching non-whiteness and fickle white women is for straight white men to listen to demons and arm themselves.
Death Note is much clearer in its presentation of the damage being a vigilante does to Light Yagami. As the story begins, Light is studying for his admission exam to a prestigious university. His life is very different from Dylan’s. Light is serious about his studies. He is sociable and popular. He is recognized as a genius. And he has a drive to help solve crimes, following in the footsteps of his father, National Police Agency Chief Soichiro Yagami. Light finds a notebook on the ground outside his school one day with the words, “Death Note” written on it. Instructions inside describe how to use the notebook to kill people. If you write down the name of someone while looking at their face, they will die of a heart attack. If you write in a time and a cause of death, your victim will die at that time of that cause of death.
Like Dylan, Light Yagami encounters an infernal being that only he can see, Ryuk, a shinigami / God of Death. Unlike Dylan’s demon, Ryuk does not push Light to kill other people. Ryuk’s just bored. Nothing is happening in the shinigami realm. Most shinigami spend their time gambling and sitting around. Ryuk drops a Death Note into the human world assuming that someone won’t be able to resist using it, thus allowing Ryuk to enjoy the ensuing hijinx. Death Note seems to describe a perfect means of killing without any repercussions. What could be more distant–physically or emotionally–than writing a name in a notebook? Light keeps the Death Note but does not test it until he witnesses a man harassing a teenage girl. At first, Light is frightened by what he has done. But after five days of writing in the names of criminals he sees in the news, he becomes inured.
Unlike Dylan, Light is ambitious. Light maintains his passion for justice, but it becomes warped. He plans to use the Death Note to perfect the world. Light wants people everywhere to know that they are being judged by someone with the power to kill them. He will eliminate crime by killing criminals and by letting everyone know that if they commit a crime they will die. He knows that criminals are a fearful and superstitious lot, but more, he believes that most people secretly agree with his actions. And as his killings continue he people begin to post their support online. They call him, “Kira / Killer” and some even worship him****. And he declares he will be the god of this new world, because he has the power to kill anyone at any time.
Ultimately, Light becomes more invested in outwitting the international task force created to stop him than in creating his new world. Eventually, he crosses his own line and kills only to protect himself. By then, though, he blames the task force for this death. If they had left him alone, he wouldn’t have had to kill innocent people. Ohba and Obata underscore the change in Light by having him revert to his earlier self. One of the Death Note rules is that if the owner of the notebook ever renounces possession of it, they lose all memory of the notebook, the killings associated with it, and the shinigami. As part of a scheme to outsmart the task force charged with stopping Kira, Light renounces the notebook. And Light reverts to who he was before—smart, caring and dedicated to catching a killer.
Death Note is much clearer about the desires for easy solutions, like just writing down a name to erase a life we might find problematic. Or the willingness to pay the price of other people’s lives for a new world we want to create. Dylan is more Breaking Bad–probably passive-aggressive hostile before he became very actively aggressive-aggressively hostile. Light is a Classically tragic figure. He wants to do the right thing with his exceptional talents. He aspires to be a god and perfect the world and it ultimately destroys him. And he is ironically destroyed. Light acts as a god of death, but he cannot be both a god and a human being. Ryuk even repeatedly implies to him that something terrible happens to humans who possess a Death Note. Not because Ryuk will do anything or there is a ritual price, but because killing like that destroys people. But Light filled with fervor and hubris, never asks Ryuk more about it. Light has no demon to blame but himself and the temptations of using killing to perfect the world. I kind of wish that Dylan had no demon to blame but himself, too.
* I am aware of Batman’s early appearances and this. And I’m aware of Superman’s years when he didn’t necessarily save everyone. But both characters came to be defined by their refusal to kill and it’s that refusal that is being contended with and reversed in our dark age of comics.
** As with all Brubaker, Phillips, Breitweiser collaborations, single issues of Kill Or Be Killed come with essays in the back. Some of them are by Devin Faraci this time, so you know.
*** Why, no, I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch Netflix’s adaptation of Death Note. On one hand, the idea of Willem Dafoe as Ryuk is really appealing. On the other hand… well, everything else.
**** Kind of makes you wonder about Dylan’s girlfriend, huh?
~~~
Carol Borden cannot advise you strongly enough to never use a Death Note if you find one on the sidewalk. Also, special thanks to Mark D. White for the Detective Comics #696 scan. She really appreciates it!Europe has not been doing well. Just this year, GDP per capita for the Eurozone as a whole finally returned to pre-crisis levels. It is claiming victory in Spain—even though unemployment remains near 20% and youth unemployment is more than twice that—simply because things are better today than they have been since the euro crisis began a half decade ago. Greece remains in a severe depression. Growth for the Eurozone over the past year has been an anemic 1.6%, and that number is twice the average growth rate from 2005 to 2015. Historians are already speaking of the Eurozone’s lost decade, and it’s possible they’ll soon be writing about its last decade, too.
The euro was introduced in 2002, but the cracks in the single currency arrangement, which began in 1999, became evident with the 2008 global financial crisis. Economists had predicted that the test of the euro would occur when the region faced a shock, and Europe was unlucky in facing such a big shock coming from across the Atlantic so soon after its creation. By 2010, the euro crisis had become full blown, with interest rates on the sovereign debt of the “periphery”—Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal—soaring to unheard-of levels. But a closer look at the Eurozone shows imbalances building up from the very beginning—with money rushing into the periphery countries in the misguided belief that eliminating exchange rate risk had somehow eliminated all risk.
This illustrates one of the key flaws in the construction of the Eurozone: It was based on the belief that if only government didn’t mess things up—if it kept deficits below 3% of GDP, debt below 60% of GDP, and inflation below 2% per annum—the market would ensure growth and stability. Those numbers, and the underlying ideas, had no basis in either theory or evidence. Ireland and Spain, two of the worst afflicted countries, actually had surpluses before the crisis. The crisis caused their deficits and debt, not the other way around.
The hope was that fiscal and monetary discipline would result in convergence, enabling the single-currency system to work even better. Instead, there has been divergence, with the rich countries getting richer and the poor getting poorer, and within countries, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. But it was the very structure of the Eurozone that predictably led to this. The single market, for instance, made it easy for money to leave the banks of the weaker countries, forcing these banks to contract lending, weakening the weak further.
Economists assessing the prospects of a single currency arrangement some quarter century ago emphasized the importance of sufficient labor mobility and an adequately large common budget to buffer against shocks as well as sufficient economic similarity among the countries. But the euro took away two of the critical instruments for adjustment—the exchange and interest rates—and didn’t put anything in their place. There was no common deposit insurance, no common way of resolving problems in the banking sector, and no common unemployment insurance scheme.
Equally important, these early discussions ignored the importance of intellectual convergence: There is a huge gap in perceptions of what makes for good policies, especially between Germany and much of the rest of Europe. These differences are longstanding. They were evident to me when I chaired the Economic Policy Committee of the OECD in the mid-1990s. If anything, there has been divergence here, too. Thus, the austerity policy—which Germany thought should have brought a quick return to growth—has failed miserably in virtually every country in which it has been tried. The consequences were predictable, and predicted by most serious economists around the world. So too, many of the particular structural reforms have actually weakened the countries on which they have been imposed, lowering growth and increasing their trade deficits.
A huge democratic deficit has since opened up: citizens in Greece, Spain, and Portugal have all voted in large numbers for parties opposed to austerity. Yet, they have felt they have no choice but to accept the demands of Germany. Citizens were never told that when they joined the euro, they would be giving up their economic sovereignty.
The ambition of the euro was to bring greater prosperity to Europe. This, in turn, would promote economic and political integration. The euro was a political project, but the politics weren’t strong enough to create the institutional arrangements that would ensure success. With the euro leading to stagnation and worse, it is no surprise that it has led to increasing divisiveness rather than to more solidarity. Today, it seems that the euro, which was supposed to be a means to an end, has become an end in itself—the pursuit of which poses perhaps the single most important threat to the European project.
In response to the repeated crises, Europe has made reforms, but they have been too little, too late. Some may actually be counterproductive: Having a system of common supervision, without adequate sensitivity to local macro-conditions and without common deposit insurance may actually exacerbate divergence. Meanwhile, the region has the misfortune of being repeatedly bombarded with crises, especially the refugee crisis. With unemployment in so many countries so high—at least partly because of the euro—those seeking a new future wish to move to where there are jobs, resulting in a few countries bearing the brunt of the wave of migrants. And naturally, countries where unemployment is high resist having new workers competing for the scarce jobs.
Europe has been engaged in brinkmanship, but the danger of brinkmanship is that there is a high probability that eventually one goes over the brink. Markets sense that the system is not viable in the long run—speculators attack when they smell blood. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s assertion that he will do “whatever it takes” has worked wonders—for longer than anyone expected. But it is a confidence trick: It works only because market participants believe it will work.
These market forces are intertwined with politics. Voters who should be unhappy—simply because they have done so poorly for such a long time—have expressed their anger by voting against the centrist parties of the left and right. The dissidents are in the ascendancy.
Perhaps European leaders, sensing the urgency of the moment, will finally make the reforms in the structure of the Eurozone that will enable a single currency arrangement to work—to achieve a shared prosperity. Perhaps 2017 will be the year in which the reform of the Eurozone really takes hold.
In order for a single currency system to work, there has to be more Europe—more solidarity; more willingness of the stronger countries to help the weaker; more willingness to create institutions like a common deposit insurance and a common unemployment scheme—than the current halfway house, which is simply not viable. But the failures of the Eurozone make such reforms increasingly hard. It is at least as likely that the political forces are going in the other direction, and if that is the case, it may be only a matter of time before Europe looks back on the euro as an interesting, well-intentioned experiment that failed—at great cost to the citizens of Europe and their democracies.
Joseph E. Stiglitz is a professor at Columbia University, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 2001, and most recently, author of The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe, W.W. Norton, 2016.Fourteen people were arrested after police seized the equivalent of about 3,000 bottles of fake liquor.
The 12 men and two women were rounded up during an islandwide operation - the biggest so far this year.
Officers confiscated $336,000 worth of moonshine, production equipment and counterfeiting accessories. Six of the suspects - aged between 39 and 56 - were charged in court on Thursday.
The syndicate was busted during a 16-hour police operation on Tuesday. Officers raided a production facility at Woodlands Industrial Park, two distribution outlets at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 and Hougang, a storage area at Aljunied Road, and a retail outlet at Beach Road.
They confiscated 520 bottles of counterfeit liquor bearing the trademarks of renowned brands such as Chivas Regal. Also seized were 65 jerry cans containing adulterated liquor.
The syndicate's suspected leader was arrested, along with the alleged runners and production crew.
Moonshine is usually bought by bootleggers, who sell it for half the price of the real thing. Smaller pubs and clubs are also known to serve the dodgy drinks to cut costs. There have been cases in which moonshine was found to be contaminated by petrol.
"Adulterated liquor not only hurts the interests of legitimate companies but may also harm the health of consumers," said Superintendent Teo Cheow Beng, who heads the Criminal Investigation Department's intellectual property rights branch.
"Police take a serious view of such syndicated piracy and will pursue all available leads to clamp down on offenders." Anyone found guilty of selling, distributing or manufacturing counterfeit liquor could face up to five years in jail. They can also be fined up to $10,000 per item, capped at a maximum of $100,000.
The six charged yesterday are Singaporeans Ng Yan Puae, 50; Lai Tze Sian, 56; Phar Loo Beng, 52; and Ng Hock Joo, 47; plus Malaysians Lim Ai Kok, 39; and Tan Teng Suan, 46.
[email protected]
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.Tristan Pompey doesn’t mind when people refer to him as “Dalton’s little brother.” The way he sees it, that epithet might be temporary anyway.
[np_storybar title=”Marcus Stroman’s season-ending injury a huge loss for Blue Jays’ pitching staff, clubhouse” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/10/marcus-stromans-season-ending-injury-a-huge-loss-for-the-toronto-blue-jays-pitching-staff-and-the-clubhouse/”%5D%5B/np_storybar%5D
“My end goal is to have people call Dalton ‘Tristan’s older brother,”‘ the younger Pompey said with a laugh.
While Dalton Pompey tries to capture the Blue Jays starting centre-fielder job at spring training in Dunedin, Fla., Tristan will be forging his own path as an outfielder with the junior national team, which trains just down the road in St. Petersburg. The Mississauga, Ont., siblings may even get to play each other this Sunday when Toronto hosts the young Canadians at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.
With an age difference of over four years between them, Dalton, 22, and Tristan, who’ll turn 18 this month, have never even played a scrimmage on the same field before.
But that doesn’t mean they haven’t thought about it.
“You know how you’ll see outfielders meet up in centre before a game? I’ve always pictured me and Dalton doing that on a big-league field,” Tristan said. “It won’t be exactly like that since I’m not in the majors, but it’s the next best thing because I’m on my way there and he’s already there.
“Dalton’s excited, too. We’ve talked about it for the past few months. He says he’s going to play in on me, force me to hit it over his head.”
Tristan watched his older brother rise through the ranks of the minor leagues last season, starting in high-A and ending in Toronto as a September call-up.
He travelled to Minnesota’s Target Field with his parents, Ken and Val, to see Dalton play in the Futures Game in July, and two months later, watched from the Rogers Centre stands as Dalton’s dreams became reality.
“I was so happy to see him make it to the big leagues,” Tristan said. “It was amazing.”
It also helped improve Tristan as a player.
The brothers spoke regularly during Dalton’s meteoric rise, with the older Pompey giving the younger tips he could implement into his own swing and mechanics.
Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada’s director of national teams and head coach of the junior squad, says Dalton’s success has impacted Tristan beyond that.
“When your brother has walked the same path as you, overcome the same developmental challenges and hurdles and made it to the big leagues, you have the chance to not only discuss it with him but to know his journey first-hand and be able to relate to it,” Hamilton said.
“It gives you some perspective and allows you to not only dream but have a sense that it’s doable, it’s within your reach, your grasp, your potential. That’s immensely important in building your confidence.”
Hamilton, who also coached Dalton during his stint with the junior team, sees similarities in the brothers’ playing styles.
They’re both physically imposing — Dalton was six-foot-one, 170 pounds five years ago while Tristan is six-foot-four and 195 pounds — and they’re both what Hamilton called “relative late bloomers,” not putting their skills together until their senior year of high school, which Tristan is in now.
Dalton was drafted in the 16th round in 2010. Tristan, who’s ranked sixth among Canadians heading into this June’s selection process, could go higher.
After sharing his brother’s draft experience five years ago — the two were playing video games together when Dalton’s name was called — Tristan knows what to expect.
“I don’t think I’ll be as nervous as some other guys,” he said. “But I’m trying not to think about it too much yet. There’s still March, April and May to worry about before we get to June.”
For now, Tristan’s sights are set on the junior team’s 11-day spring training camp, specifically Sunday’s potential sibling showdown.
Hamilton says having Dalton and Tristan on the same field would be a “special moment,” not just for the two players but for their parents, who will be at the game. Tristan agrees, adding that his mom plans to switch allegiances every inning.
As for the game itself, Tristan isn’t worried about being shown up by his brother.
“He might be a major-leaguer but if we were the same age, I would blow him out of the water,” he joked. “I’m bigger than he was at this age … I’m a lot faster than he was, and I’ve always been a better hitter.
“I’d say I’m the better ballplayer.”Yik Yak has been on its last legs for a while, and now the end is officially here.
The anonymous, location-based messaging app that rose to popularity in 2014 will "begin winding down" over the next week, Yik Yak co-founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington wrote in a blog post Friday.
Square — yup, the Jack Dorsey-led payments company — acquired some of the Yik Yak engineering team for $1 million. Unsurprisingly, Square didn't want the app.
Yik Yak was once valued at $400 million and raised $73.5 million in venture funding. Then, it was plagued by cyberbullying on its platform and a dropoff in interest among the college and high school students who used it.
For an app whose core users were always college students, summer felt like the right time to end things, the co-founders said.
"With the school year drawing to a close for many of you and summer vacation on the horizon, now feels like a good time for us to say'so long for summer' to y’all, too. To that end, we’ll begin winding down the Yik Yak app over the coming week as we start tinkering around with what’s ahead for our brand, our technology, and ourselves," Droll and Buffington wrote.
"We’re grateful to the users who made Yik Yak a place for laughs, camaraderie, stress relief, social comfort, news, memes, class recommendations, campus spirit, and so much more," they added. "We've loved being part of your college experience over the past four school years."
RIP Yik Yak.Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Saturday, March 12 faulted Republican front-runner Donald Trump for not condemning violence that has occurred at Trump rallies. (Reuters)
LARGO, Fla. — Sen. Marco Rubio strongly condemned the chaos exhibited at Donald Trump’s recent rallies and called on the Republican front-runner to denounce the violence.
Visibly frustrated by the prospects of Trump’s ascendance, Rubio’s voice cracked as he raised — for the first time — the specter of not supporting the businessman as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.
“I mean, I already talked about the fact that I think Hillary Clinton would be terrible for this country, but the fact that you’re even asking me this question,” he said, pausing before continuing. “I still at this moment continue to intend to support the Republican nominee, but it’s getting harder every day."
Later, he warned supporters here in his home state that if Trump is the party nominee, “it will fracture the Republican Party.”
[Kasich blames Trump but stops short of saying he won't support him]
Rubio and other presidential contenders lashed out Friday night and faulted Trump for failing to condemn violence and threats of violence at his recent public events. Their comments came as the Trump campaign abruptly canceled a rally in Chicago amid fears that the event would lead to widespread violence inside and outside the venue.
On Saturday morning, Rubio spoke especially to the caustic rhetoric used at Trump rallies, saying that “Our politics have basically become like the comments section of blogs. This is what happens when political candidates talk as if they’re people on Twitter. And the result is now bleeding over into the broader culture.”
“In many ways he doesn’t want to say anything to his supporters, because he doesn’t want to turn them off. Because he understands that the reason they’re voting for him is because he’s tapped into this anger,” he added. “The problem is leadership has never been about taking people’s anger and using it to get them to vote for you. If it is, it’s a dangerous style leadership.”
[After months of playing protesters to his advantage, Trump is overpowered in Chicago]
Rubio lay blame across society for the the violence and caustic rhetoric of recent weeks — he faulted candidates, people protesting those candidates, political parties and the news media.
“The protesters are not blameless, some of these people are organized elements who are paid. Others just went there for the intent of disrupting an event,” he said. “And you don’t have a right to disrupt an event just because you disagree with someone.”
“But I think we also have to look at the rhetoric of the front-runner in the presidential campaign,” he added. “This is a man who in rallies has told his supporters to basically beat up the people who are in the crowd and he’ll pay their legal fees. Someone who’s basically encouraged the people in the audience to rough up anyone who stands up and says something he doesn’t like.”
The media is also at fault, Rubio said, because for too long Trump’s taunts of protesters and calls for violence were ignored. “Some people thought they were cute. And he’s gotten an extraordinary amount of coverage for all the stuff he says that’s outrageous. … It’s wall-to-wall coverage, and it’s only elevated him even more.”
Rubio grew visibly frustrated as he recounted how policy speeches he gave for months were largely ignored and his rallies were rarely covered live on cable television news until last month when he decided to taunt Trump’s physical appearance and behavior. The senator later apologized for the Trump remarks and said again on Saturday that he never plans to attack his rival like that again.
The winner-take-all Florida Republican primary is on Tuesday, and Rubio is still trailing Trump in recent surveys. He is campaigning Saturday in the Tampa region before flying to Pensacola later in the day for a rally. He is scheduled to visit the Villages, a large retirement community north of Orlando, on Sunday. At the events, he is poised to encourage supporters to vote this weekend — the early voting period ends on Sunday.
With his campaign on the brink of collapse, Rubio wouldn’t say Saturday whether he will remain in the presidential race if he loses on Tuesday.
“I’m focused on winning Florida — I haven’t thought about Wednesday. I said it yesterday. I literally don’t know what I’m having for lunch or dinner today. … I intend to win Florida, we haven’t made any decisions about after Florida,” he said.This article is from the archive of our partner.
The North Carolina Senate is not only considering an anti-Sharia (or Islamic law) bill passed in the state's House earlier this year, they've tricked it out with a whole new issue. House Bill 695, which began as a cookie-cutter ban on the use of foreign law in family law and custody cases, now would implement several restrictions on abortion services in the state.
The abortion provisions were tacked on to the bill late on Tuesday, which was then re-named the more omnibus-friendly "Family, Faith, and Freedom Protection Act of 2013." Those provisions are familiar to trackers of conservative legislation concerning abortion. They include measures already making their way through the state's legislative process.
The newly dual-issue bill would restrict health care coverage for abortions on plans offered through an Exchange, ban sex-selective abortions, require physicians to be present during a chemical (pill) abortion, and require clinics performing abortions to meet the requirements of an ambulatory surgical center. Currently, according to the News-Observer, just one clinic in the state meets that requirement. North Carolina passed an earlier set of anti-abortion laws in 2011.A plunge in the share price of the Royal Bank of Scotland prompted City and Westminster speculation tonight of imminent full-scale nationalisation for the bank as the financial markets issued a vote of no confidence in the government's latest bail-out.
Amid growing concern from the government that the credit crunch is intensifying an already severe recession, Gordon Brown served notice that Labour's patience with the banks was rapidly running out as the Treasury unveiled a second emergency package in three months.
Britain's banks will be forced to sign binding contracts with the Treasury to take part in an insurance scheme to indemnify them from future losses, while in a U-turn on the position adopted since last February's nationalisation, Northern Rock will be used to increase lending for home loans. Although the chancellor, Alistair Darling, said ministers had no desire to take banks into public ownership, the prime minister's tough language did little to quell the belief that RBS will be the third UK bank to be nationalised since the financial crisis broke 18 months ago.
Brown said the public had a right to be angry as he condemned the "irresponsible losses" caused by the "wrong investments" at RBS, which today left the bank nursing the biggest loss – up to £28bn – in Britain's corporate history.
He said today's measures were not a blank cheque: "At every point, conditions are laid and the greatest condition of all is that in return for our support for the banking system they have an obligation to lend to small businesses and to families in this country. I will not sit idly by and let people and businesses go to the wall." His tough language served only to worsen City sentiment. Bank shares finished dramatically lower, with RBS – almost 70% owned by the taxpayer after yesterday's announcement – down by 65% and Lloyds HBOS suffering a 33% loss. Barclays, which lost a quarter of its value on Friday, fell a further 10%.
After a weekend of negotiations with the banks, Darling unveiled measures designed to increase the flow of credit and to shorten the recession. Ministers are prepared for a week of dire economic news, and the Treasury yesterday gave the Bank of England permission to take emergency steps to boost the money supply if the sharply falling bank rate fails to boost growth. The European commission warned today that the UK economy would shrink by 2.8% this year and barely expand in 2010.
The Treasury insurance scheme means banks will have to pay the first tranche of any loss on investments, with the taxpayer insuring around 90%. But details of the scheme will only emerge following discussions with individual banks over the coming weeks, and the lack of clarity was cited by the City as one reason for the rout in banking shares. There was also concern expressed that last Friday's lifting of the ban on "short-selling" – traders selling shares they don't own with a view to buying them back at a cheaper price – may have exacerbated volatility in the market.
Announcing the RBS loss today, Stephen Hester, the newly appointed chief executive, admitted full-scale nationalisation of the bank had been discussed with the government, but said he did not believe this was an option ministers wanted to take.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne claimed the British taxpayer had already made a paper loss of £17bn on its RBS shareholding and said it was incredible the Treasury had not known the scale of the hit the taxpayer was about to face.
He derided the rescue plan saying: "This is not some long-planned, carefully thought-through'second phase' of government policy. It is instead the clearest possible admission that the first bail-out of the banks has failed and now they have no option but to attempt a second bail-out – a bail-out whose size we still don't know, whose details remain a mystery and whose ultimate cost to the people of Britain will only be known when this government has long gone."CONTACT: Caroline Perry, (617) 496-1351
Cambridge, Mass. - January 8, 2013 - At a time when communication networks are scrambling for ways to transmit more data over limited bandwidth, a type of twisted light wave is gaining new attention. Called an optical vortex or vortex beam, this complex beam resembles a corkscrew, with waves that rotate as they travel.
Now, applied physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a new device that enables a conventional optical detector (which would normally only measure the light's intensity) to pick up on that rotation.
The device, described in the journal Nature Communications, has the potential to add capacity to future optical communication networks.
"Sophisticated optical detectors for vortex beams have been developed before, but they have always been complex, expensive, and bulky,” says principal investigator Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at SEAS.
In contrast, the new device simply adds a metallic pattern to the window of a commercially available, low-cost photodetector. Each pattern is designed to couple with a particular type of incoming vortex beam by matching its orbital angular momentum—the number of twists per wavelength in an optical vortex.
Sensitive to the beam’s “twistiness,” this new detector can effectively distinguish between different types of vortex beams. Existing communications systems maximize bandwidth by sending many messages simultaneously, each a fraction of a wavelength apart; this is known as wavelength division multiplexing. Vortex beams can add an additional level of multiplexing and therefore should expand the capacity of these systems.
"In recent years, researchers have come to realize that there is a limit to the information transfer rate of about 100 terabits per second per fiber for communication systems that use wavelength division multiplexing to increase the capacity of single-mode optical fibers," explains Capasso. "In the future, this capacity could be greatly increased by using vortex beams transmitted on special multicore or multimode fibers. For a transmission system based on this'spatial division multiplexing' to provide the extra capacity, special detectors capable of sorting out the type of vortex transmitted will be essential."
The new detector is able to tell one type of vortex beam from another due to its precise nanoscale patterning. When a vortex beam with the correct number of coils per wavelength strikes the gold plating on the detector’s surface, it encounters a holographic interference pattern that has been etched into the gold. This nanoscale patterning allows the light to excite the metal's electrons in exactly the right way to produce a focused electromagnetic wave, known as a surface plasmon. The light component of this wave then shines through a series of perforations in the gold, and lands on the photodetector below.
If the incoming light doesn't match the interference pattern, the plasmon beam fails to focus or converge and is blocked from reaching the detector.
This illustration (not to scale) simulates the process by which an incoming complex wave can be identified and transmitted to a photodetector. (Image courtesy of Patrice Genevet.)
Capasso's research team has demonstrated this process using vortex beams with orbital angular momentum of −1, 0, and 1.
"In principle, an array of many different couplers and detectors could be set up to read data transmitted on a very large number of channels," says lead author Patrice Genevet, a research associate in applied physics at SEAS. “With this approach, we transform detectors that were originally only sensitive to the intensity of light, so that they monitor the twist of the wavefronts. More than just detecting a specific twisted beam, our detectors gather additional information on the phase of the light beam.”
The device's ability to detect and distinguish vortex beams is important for optical communications, but its capabilities may extend beyond what has been demonstrated.
"Using the same holographic approach, the same device patterned in different ways should be able to couple any type of free-space light beam into any type of surface wave," says Genevet.
Coauthors on this work included Jiao Lin, a former postdoctoral fellow in Capasso’s lab (now at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology), and Harvard graduate student Mikhail A. Kats.
The research was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, and through research fellowships from the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research in Singapore and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The researchers also benefited from facilities at Harvard's Center for Nanoscale Systems, a member of the NSF-supported National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network.Tony Blair is facing accusations that his multifaith charity has links to an Islamic extremist group being investigated by MI5 and MI6.
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which was established in 2008 to help combat extremism, is being advised by a Muslim leader who is alleged to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation that could be banned in Britain.
The urgent review was commissioned by David Cameron, and spy chiefs will report their findings to him in the summer.
A second Islamic cleric, who has advised Mr Blair’s charity from its inception, is also accused of having close ties to the Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a worldwide Islamist movement that has been declared a terrorist group by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Many of its members have moved to London to escape a crackdown in Cairo, where the group backs Mohammed Morsi, the ousted Egyptian president. This week, Mr Cameron said that he had asked the security service MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and the Foreign Office to investigate the Brotherhood’s activities in Britain and abroad.
Claims that his charity has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood will embarrass Mr Blair, who has been openly critical of the Islamic organisation in the past.
Last year, he compared the Brotherhood to the Russian Bolshevik party, and described its agenda as undemocratic. He said the Brotherhood was in “pursuit of values that contradict everything we stand for” and, in a television interview this year, he said the party was “taking the country [Egypt] away from its basic values of hope and progress”.
But now it is claimed that two of his own advisers are linked to the party. Inquiries by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, which has been investigating the Brotherhood for 13 years, have revealed that Dr Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti, an adviser to the Kuwaiti government and a member of Mr Blair’s advisory council, is a leading member of the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), the Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to a news agency report in 2000, Dr Shatti told a crowd of Kuwaitis protesting over Palestine: “Israel is an evil, and we can never live with evil.” In 1995, it was reported in America that a Palestinian terrorist group wrote to him requesting funds.
The other Islamic adviser to Mr Blair is Mustafa Ceric, the former Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Mr Ceric, who accepted Mr Blair’s invitation to join the foundation’s religious advisory council in 2008, is tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood through his membership of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), headed by Youssef Qaradawi, considered the Brotherhood’s intellectual leader, and whose extremist views led to his ban from Britain in 2008.
During his last visit, in 2004, Dr Qaradawi defended suicide attacks on Israelis as “martyrdom in the name of God”.
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch says Mr Blair’s ties to the Brotherhood through the men cast a shadow over his judgment and work.
Steven Merley, a US investigator of extremist movements, who runs Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, said: “Many groups don’t call themselves Muslim Brotherhood but they are linked to what I call the 'Global Muslim Brotherhood’.
“These individuals have fooled |
Kabul bank executives and shareholders under investigation is the brother of Afghanistan's First Vice-President Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
Another major shareholder is Mahmoud Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, but Mahmoud Karzai is not being investigated.Sewage from the illegal Jewish settlement of Beitar Illit has again been flowing on to farmers’ fields in the Palestinian village of Wadi Fuqeen, near Bethlehem, causing terrible damage to crops and poisoning the land.
For two days now, raw sewage has poured on to large areas of farmland in Wadi Fuqeen.
Regular and longstanding members of the British-based Friends of Wadi Fuqeen group will have heard about this issue many times before. However, on 28 September they received some photographs that give an idea of just how serious the problem is.
Some villagers went down to the fields on the 28th to show a group of Methodist church visitors the extent of the problem and the visitors have shared their digital pictures with the Friends of Wadi Fuqeen group.
The sewage outflows are sporadic but occur about once or twice a wee; however, the latest contamination is of considerable scale. The photographs show urine and faeces spread across the fields.
Please excuse the quality of some of the photographs. We have to take what contemporary pictures we can get hold of to show the truth of the situation. But they give an indication of what is repeatedly happening to the village of Wadi Fuqeen.
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Also see:Proposal would remove environmental justice office, tasked with bridging gap in pollution in black, Hispanic and low-income areas and wealthier white ones
Planned cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency are set to fall heaviest upon communities of color across the US that already suffer disproportionately from toxic pollution, green groups have warned.
New EPA head Scott Pruitt's emails reveal close ties with fossil fuel interests Read more
Donald Trump’s administration is proposing a 25% reduction in the EPA’s $8.1bn budget, eliminating nearly 3,000 jobs and several programs including the agency’s environmental justice office. Funding for the cleanup of lead, marine pollution, tribal lands and the Great Lakes region faces severe cuts, while climate initiatives are earmarked for a 70% budget reduction.
The environmental justice office is tasked with bridging the yawning disparity in pollution experienced by black, Hispanic and low-income communities and wealthier white neighborhoods. It provides grants to communities to mop up toxins and rehabilitate abandoned industrial facilities that are invariably found in poorer areas.
In the final months of Barack Obama’s administration, the EPA unveiled a new effort to tackle lead poisoning, air pollution and other problems suffered by communities of color situated next to waste treatment plants, smelters and other sources of toxins. But this plan will be cut down in its infancy should the environmental justice office be dismantled.
To cut the environmental justice program at EPA is just racist. John Coequyt, Sierra Club
“The Trump administration has decided fence-line communities across the country, whose residents already bear an outsized burden from pollution, are on their own to take on big polluters,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization.
“Most pollution-spewing operations are within eyeshot of the backyards and kitchen windows of African American and Hispanic families, as well as those of many largely white lower-income communities.
“Through this decision to zero out funding for the EPA’s environmental justice programs, the president and the administrator have sent a shameful message: the health of poor Americans is less important than that of the wealthy.”
Trump has targeted the EPA, which he has called a “disgrace”, in order to fund an increase to the military’s $600bn budget. Scott Pruitt, the controversial new EPA administrator, has stressed that grants handed to the states – which account for around 40% of the EPA’s budget – should be protected, meaning the axe would fall on enforcement action, climate change initiatives and other programs.
Pruitt is also set to review the Clean Water Act, which protects Americans’ drinking water, as part of an effort to roll back environmental regulations that the Trump administration believes are stymieing economic activity.
In response to written questions from senators during his confirmation hearing, Pruitt said he was “familiar with the concept of environmental justice and believe the administrator plays an important role in this regard. I agree that it is important that all Americans be treated equally under the law, including the environmental laws.”
John Coequyt, campaign director of the Sierra Club, said: “To cut the environmental justice program at EPA is just racist. I can’t describe it in any other terms than a move to leave those communities behind. I can’t imagine what the justification would be, other than racism.”
Environmental justice, or environmental racism, has been acknowledged by the federal government since Bill Clinton signed an executive order in 1994 instructing agencies to address the “disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs... on minority populations and low-income populations”.
Years of urban planning decisions and sporadic regulation has led to a situation in which black children are twice as likely to have asthma as their white counterparts. Meanwhile, nearly half of America’s Latino population lives in counties that do not meet EPA air quality standards.
This burden was starkly demonstrated last year in Flint, Michigan, where a toxic water crisis has ravaged a largely black city. A recent report by the Michigan state government found that the lead poisoning was caused, in part, by “systemic racism”.
Amid a lengthy history of such problems, community campaigners have accused the EPA of failing to respond forcefully enough. Over the past 20 years, the agency has rejected nine out of 10 complaints from communities plagued by pollution. The EPA has yet to find a business in breach of the Civil Rights Act’s Title VI provisions against discrimination on environmental grounds.
In September, the US Commission on Civil Rights released a scathing report that found the EPA “has a history of being unable to meet its regulatory deadlines and experiences extreme delays in responding to Title VI complaints in the area of environmental justice”.
EPA staff experiencing stress and fears Trump will suppress climate science Read more
The report highlighted the plight of Uniontown, a predominately black community in Alabama. The EPA allowed coal ash to be dumped in a landfill in the town in order to appease economic interests and failed to deal with years of complaints from residents who said they suffered from ailments and the odor of the waste dump, the report stated.
On Thursday, the EPA also made initial steps in winding back methane emissions standards imposed by Barack Obama’s administration. The agency withdrew its request that oil and gas operators provide information on equipment and levels of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, emitted during drilling operations. The move follows complaints from nine states that the request was too onerous on businesses.
“By taking this step, EPA is signaling that we take these concerns seriously and are committed to strengthening our partnership with the states,” said Pruitt.
“Today’s action will reduce burdens on businesses while we take a closer look at the need for additional information from this industry.”Jeff Smith, CEO of Starboard Value. Thomson Reuters Starboard Value's Jeff Smith recommended Macy's at the CNBC/Institutional Investor's Delivering Alpha Conference at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.
This is the first time the activist investor is disclosing the position.
The stock jumped more than 4.8% after Smith announced the position.
Smith thinks Macy's is undervalued. He pointed out that the retailer's stock currently trades around $66 per share. Smith thinks it's worth in excess of $125 per share.
On the surface, he explained, the stock appears to be "fairly valued." It trades in line with its peers, but it doesn't "tell the whole story."
Smith pointed out some of the retailer's valuable real-estate holdings (trophy properties such as Herald Square and high-end malls). Smith later added that his fund hired a real-estate consultancy firm to help them value the properties.
Adjusted for real-estate value, shareholders are getting the rest of Macy's for less than 3x EBITDA, he said.
He also noted that Macy's has a "highly valuable" credit-card business.
Smith is also the activist investor in Darden, the parent company of Olive Garden.
During the Q&A, Smith said that he's always ready to get involved as an activist. He noted that he thinks that Macy's is "receptive to looking into this opportunity."
Here's a chart of Macy's stock:A whole host of experts on eastern Europe have lined up to warn that the conflict in the eastern Ukraine could spark a widespread chemical disaster if industrial storage units of chlorine gas are damaged and the contents released into the environment. The threat is not just hypothetical. On February 24 a stray artillery shell hit the Donetsk Filter Station’s chlorine gas depot, which stores around 7,000kg of the gas. Fortunately, none of the storage units were damaged.
Getty The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in April 1986
Before conflict broke out in the area three years ago the Donbass region in the country was home to 5,300 operational industrial enterprises, although not all of those will have been processing hazardous materials. Robert Amsterdam, Russian political expert and lawyer at international law firm Amsterdam & Partners, said: “If one of those uncontrolled sites containing chemicals were to detonate, tens of thousands of people could be poisoned. It is a potential disaster on the scale of Chernobyl.” Rudy Richardson, Professor of toxicology at the University of Michigan backed up that view. He said: “In a situation like this, where a war zone is near a concentration of industrial facilities where toxic and explosive chemicals are manufactured and stored, it is possible that massive releases of toxic chemicals could be released.
Chernobyl disaster: Haunting images of Chernobyl's no-go zone Sat, November 18, 2017 Inside Chernobyl's no-go zone abandoned after the radiation blast that killed 31 people. Play slideshow Caters 1 of 17 A child's bedroom is a desolate scene in Chernobyl
If one of those uncontrolled sites containing chemicals were to detonate, tens of thousands of people could be poisoned. It is a potential disaster on the scale of Chernobyl Russian political expert Robert Amsterdam
“And that would result in high levels of civilian casualties.” The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances Basket Tuncak indicated that damage to just one chlorine-filled, 2,000-pound container has the potential to kill anyone within a 600-foot distance and poses dire health risks to the tens of thousands of surrounding residents. In case of extensive damage, people living within 4.5 miles downwind of the facility would need to be moved away within 24 hours.
Getty The Chernobyl nuclear plant after the fire in 1986
Mr Tuncak told the UN: “Large chemical and industrial facilities are in areas where fighting is ongoing. “Battles are now being fought in cities, close to industrial centres with factories increasingly at risk of being hit: The consequences for anyone living close by would be severe.” He added: “All parties to the conflict need to be aware of the risks that continuous insecurity brings, including for a chemical disaster. Ultimately, it is about ensuring that all precautions are being taken to prevent such catastrophe to occur, and mainly for the fighting to stop.”
John Gilbert, a senior science fellow with the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation’s Chemical and Biological Arms Control Working Group – who previously conducted inspections in Russia and the Ukraine as a U.S military officer – concurred that a chlorine release would result in significant injuries and would be fatal to most. He also said that steps should be put in place now to minimise potential fallout. “The fact that there are many large industrial facilities and water treatment plants in the conflict zone is cause for concern. Ensuring that workers in the vicinity of toxic stockpiles have immediate access to protective equipment (such as masks) is important.” Mr Gilbert also cautioned that safety equipment is both costly and requires training to don and wear properly, in addition to having a limited shelf life.
Getty A former fire fighter pays tribute to those who died
He added: “Collateral – or even intentional – chemical casualties from the Ukraine conflict is a real possibility.” Mr Gilbert stressed that there are precautions that industrial facilities can take, such as dispersing chemical storage containers rather than clustering them and looking at outside storage rather than inside a building. However, it is unknown if any such precautions are being implemented. James Kirchick, author of The End of Europe, said: “Russian forces have been accused of using chemical weapons in the Ukraine already, during the 2015 battle over the Donetsk airport in which 80 Ukrainian soldiers showed symptoms of being exposed to nerve agents.
Getty The Chernobyl nuclear plant after the disasterBaltimore Ravens fullback Vonta Leach poses with the Lamar Hunt trophy in the locker room after defeating the New England Patriots 28-13 in the AFC championship game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass on Jan. 20, 2013. (Photo11: Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Leach says call from Ray Lewis was key to signing with Baltimore
Pro Bowl fullback has helped transform Ravens offense
NEW ORLEANS -- Vonta Leach, the highest-paid fullback in football, had numerous suitors in 2011. The Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Baltimore Ravens and his former team, the Houston Texans, all wanted him.
Running back Arian Foster wanted the Pro Bowler back in Houston to be his lead blocker after Leach helped him run for 1,616 yards in 2010.
But the Ravens won, Leach says, because he got a phone call from linebacker Ray Lewis.
DRAFT WIZ: Newsome keeps Ravens rolling
"I got a call from (Ravens GM) Ozzie Newsome, he said 'Hey, I need you over here,'" Leach says. "My next phone call was five minutes later. It was Ray Lewis. He said, 'Hey, we need you to get your tail over here.' So I came. That sold it. When Ray Lewis calls you, that's gonna' sell you.
PHOTOS: A look around media day
"He said, 'you're one of the missing pieces.' I jumped on here on faith. I didn't know a whole lot about the Ravens except for the defense and (running back) Ray Rice."
It turns out the retiring Lewis isn't just the emotional/spiritual/existential leader of the Ravens. He's also the head recruiter. Not only did Lewis recruit Leach over the phone and in person at the 2010 Pro Bowl, but he also helped bring wide receiver Anquan Boldin into the fold three seasons ago. Both Boldin and Leach have been instrumental in the Ravens offense taking the load off the defense, with Leach opening up holes for Rice and Boldin catching 65 passes for 921 yards and four touchdowns during the regular season.
Leach says his decision to sign a three-year, $11 million contract with Baltimore was one of the best he ever made in his life. While the Texans crashed in the divisional playoffs, Baltimore reached the Super Bowl for the second time in Lewis' 17-year career.
"It was hard," Leach says of his decision. "I spent some great years in Houston. I played injured down there. And when it was time for me to get the contract I thought was right, they didn't. It happens. In the end, it worked out pretty well."THR's exclusive excerpt from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright's new book reveals how the church came between Cruise and Kidman, leader David Miscavige's intense courtship of the star, Bill Clinton's advice to the actor on how to lobby Tony Blair, and how Cruise once told Miscavige, "If f--ing Arnold can be governor, I could be President."
This story first appeared in the Jan. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
The past year hasn’t been kind to the Church of Scientology. Katie Holmes divorced Tom Cruise. A Vanity Fair cover story that revealed the Scientology-run “audition” process to be Cruise’s wife included an interview with one of Cruise’s original candidates who was forced, she claims, to scrub toilets with a toothbrush as punishment. Meanwhile, Scientologist John Travolta was hit with several lawsuits (albeit unrelated to the Church) that spawned endless Internet speculation. Behind those sensational headlines, details of an organization whose secrecy long has been guarded began to seep out with detractors using the Internet to expose the Church’s sacred documents and allege wrongdoing. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright, who profiled ex-Scientologist Paul Haggis for The New Yorker in 2011, delves fullon into the history and inner workings of the Church of Scientology in his book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.
Despite bad publicity and questions about its size — one survey puts U.S. membership at 25,000 (the Church claims 8 million worldwide), with the largest concentration in L.A. — Scientology continues to survive, with ex-members claiming it has assets of about $1 billion. As many as 5,000 people belong to the Sea Org, its elite clergy. Adherents are drawn to Scientology’s emphasis on self-improvement, though the Church’s theology and practices remain unknown to the public. (Since 1993, the IRS has classified Scientology as a tax-exempt religion.) Wright’s account, which is detailed through Church documents, court records and hundreds of interviews, including many with ex-members, is disputed by Scientology, which declined to give interviews for the book.
Karin Pouw, a representative for Scientology tells THR that, “The one thing ‘clear’ about Lawrence Wright’s book is that he continues to carry water for a handful of angry, bitter individuals... [who] regurgitate six decades of false, bizarre tabloid allegations about the religion’s founder, its leadership and its prominent members.” Far from being in decline, she says Scientology opened 30 new churches in 2012. (Read Pouw's complete response here.)
Wright argues that the Church’s mystique rests mainly on its celebrity members. Early on, founder L. Ron Hubbard recruited Hollywood notables like Gloria Swanson. David Miscavige, who has headed the Church since Hubbard’s death in 1986, followed this strategy by cultivating Cruise, who has become the public face of the Church and one of its largest donors. Cruise, now 50, became a Scientologist in 1986 and the biggest celebrity to join the Church since Travolta. Cruise admired Miscavige’s confidence and bravado. Miscavige, in turn, was seduced by Cruise’s celebrity and opulent lifestyle. But by the mid-’90s, Cruise and wife Nicole Kidman drifted away from the Church, which frantically scrambled to win him back. In this exclusive excerpt, Wright details the relationship between Cruise and Miscavige, the star’s renewed commitment to Scientology following his divorce from Kidman and his emergence as possibly the second most- powerful figure in the Church. — Andy Lewis
For five days in October 1998, Tom Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, secretly drove into a private parking lot in the back of the historic Guaranty Building on Hollywood Boulevard, with the yellow Scientology sign atop. Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino used to have their offices here -- now the lobby is a shrine to the life and works of L. Ron Hubbard. A giant bust of the founder greets the occasional visitor.
Cruise went in a back door that led to a basement hallway and went directly to the "secret" 11th floor, where senior Church officials like David Miscavige and Marty Rathbun maintained offices. "He was not in good shape, spiritually or mentally," Rathbun observed. "He was personally very enturbulated," Scientology terminology for agitated.(1)
Rathbun, then the Inspector General at the Religious Technology Center, which oversees the Church's spiritual materials, had gone to Los Angeles to meet Cruise for auditing, the Church's system of religious counseling. (Rathbun is no longer connected to Scientology and is now one of its most outspoken critics. The Church has dismissed his accounts and refers to him as part of a "posse of lunatics.")
Cruise, the Church's most visible adherent, had been drifting away. According to Rathbun, Miscavige -- Scientology's de facto head since Hubbard's death -- blamed the actor's wife, Nicole Kidman, and viewed her as a gold digger who was faking Scientology. He says that Miscavige was hopeful that if they portrayed Nicole Kidman as a Suppressive Person, Cruise could be peeled away from her.(2)
After that episode of auditing, Cruise went quiet again. He and Kidman were in England filming Eyes Wide Shut for Stanley Kubrick. Suddenly, in January 2001, Rathbun said he got a call from the actor asking for help. Cruise said that he and Kidman were finished. Cruise never offered a public explanation for the divorce, and Kidman herself was clearly surprised by his decision.
This was a decisive moment in Cruise's relationship with Scientology. Rathbun provided the star with more than 200 hours of auditing over the next couple of years. From July through Thanksgiving 2001, Rathbun was with Cruise at the Celebrity Centre frequently, doing auditing rundowns. He paired Cruise with another actor, Jason Beghe, to do training drills; for instance, Beghe would think of a hypothetical date, which Cruise had to figure out using the E-Meter, a Scientology device that measures a body's electrical resistance by gripping two metal rods, a guessing exercise Cruise found really frustrating. (Cruise's attorney says, "Cruise may have had a chance encounter with Beghe at the Celebrity Centre but had no such meeting with him.")(3)
Interview with Mark "Marty" Rathbun.
Interview with Mark "Marty Rathbun.
Interview with Jason Beghe.
At the same time, 29-year-old Tommy Davis began acting as Rathbun's assistant. He brought sandwiches and helped out with Conor and Isabella, Cruise's two children with Kidman, making sure they were receiving Church services. Despite his youth, Davis was already a unique figure in the Church: He was a second-generation Scientologist, a member of the Sea Org, an elite group of about 3,000 that functions in effect as the Church's clergy, and a scion of the Hollywood elite.
His mother was Anne Archer, a popular actress who had been nominated for an Academy Award for Fatal Attraction. She had always been proud to associate herself with Scientology in public, speaking at innumerable events on behalf of the Church, and her son Tommy embodied the aspiration of the Church to establish itself in the Hollywood community. He had known Cruise since he was 18 years old, so it was natural that he soon became the Church's liaison with the star. Rathbun assigned Davis to sit with Cruise in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Hollywood while the star was doing his Tone Scale drills -- guessing the emotional state of random people coming out of the store.(4)
Rathbun was opposed to the endless courtship of Cruise. In his opinion, there was no need for it once Cruise was securely back in the Church's fold. He told Miscavige, "I think I'm done with this guy." Miscavige responded, "He'll be done when he calls me." Rathbun believes the leader was galled by the fact that Cruise had never contacted him when he came back for counseling.(5)
During the actor's early years in the Church, Cruise and Miscavige, who are two years apart in age (Cruise was born in 1962, Miscavige in 1960), had been exceptionally close, drawn together by a similar meteoric rise to success. They were both short but powerfully built, "East Coast personalities," said Sinar Parman, Miscavige's then-private chef. They shared a love of motorcycles, cars and adventurous sports. Cruise had been a movie star since he was 21, with two popular movies in the same year, The Outsiders and Risky Business. By age 25, he was the biggest star in Hollywood, on his way to becoming a true movie legend. At the same age, Miscavige rose to his position atop Scientology. Each of these men assumed extraordinary responsibilities when their peers were barely beginning their careers, so it was natural that they would see themselves mirrored in each other.(6)
Miscavige got involved in Scientology through his parents, who joined a Church near their Cherry Hill, N.J., home in the early 1970s and moved to its then-headquarters in Saint Hill, England, in 1972, where at the age of 12 David became one of the youngest auditors in the history of the Church -- the "Wonder Kid," he was called.(7)
On his 16th birthday in 1976, he dropped out of 10th grade and formally joined the Sea Org, whose members dress in military-style uniforms -- a remnant of its original purpose as Hubbard's private navy. Less than a year later, he was transferred to the Commodore's Messengers in California, an even more elite inner circle that enforced religious doctrine and served as Hubbard's personal assistants. Here he continued to capture the attention of the Church hierarchy with his energy and commitment, renovating one of Hubbard's houses and ridding it of fiberglass (which the founder said he was allergic to). Miscavige filled a spot in the founder's plans that once might have been occupied by his troubled son Quentin Hubbard, who died in 1976 at age 22, although Miscavige displayed a passion and focus that Quentin never really possessed. Miscavige was tough, tireless and doctrinaire.(8)
He was just 19 when Hubbard promoted him to Action Chief, the person in charge of making sure that the founder's directives were strictly and remorselessly carried out, and then at 23 to head of Special Project Ops, running missions around the world to fix sensitive problems that local Scientologists themselves could not handle.(9)
[After Hubbard died of complications from a stroke in January 1986, Miscavige consolidated power by becoming Chairman of the Board (COB) of the Religious Technology Center (RTC), which controlled the Church's intellectual property, and forcing out Hubbard's designated successors. By April 1988, he was essentially running Scientology, nominally reporting to a figurehead board, but in reality controlling the levers of power.]
When it came to Cruise, Miscavige was bedazzled by the glamour surrounding the star, who introduced him to a social set outside of Scientology, a world Miscavige knew little about, having spent most of his life cloistered in the Sea Org. He was thrilled when he visited Cruise on the set of Days of Thunder, and the actor took him skydiving for the first time. Cruise, for his part, fell under the spell of Miscavige's commanding personality. He modeled his determined naval-officer hero in 1992's A Few Good Men on Miscavige, a fact that the Church leader liked to brag about.(10)
In the early '90s, Miscavige surrounded Cruise and Kidman with a completely deferential environment as spotless and odorless as a fairy tale at Gold Base, Scientology's desert outpost near Hemet, Calif. Miscavige heard about the couple's fantasy of running through a field of wildflowers together, so he had Sea Org members plant a section of the desert with them; when that failed to meet his expectations, the meadow was plowed and sodded with grass. When a flood triggered a mudslide that despoiled a romantic bungalow specially constructed for the couple, Miscavige held the entire base responsible and ordered everyone to work 16-hour days until everything was restored.
Miscavige showed his instinctive understanding of how to cater to the sense of entitlement that comes with stardom. It was not just a matter of disposing of awkward personal problems, such as clinging spouses; there were also the endless demands for nourishment of an ego that is always aware of the fragility of success; the longing for privacy that is constantly at war with the demand for recognition; the need to be fortified against ordinariness and feelings of mortality; and the sense that the quality of the material world that surrounds you reflects upon your own value, and therefore everything must be made perfect. These were qualities Miscavige demanded for himself as well.(11)
Interview with Jason Beghe. Interview with Tommy Davis.
Interview with Mark "Marty" Rathbun. Interview with Tom De Vocht.
Sinar Parman, personal communication.
Interview with Karen de la Carriere.
Deposition of David Miscavige Larry Wollersheim vs. David Miscavige and Church of Scientology California, Oct. 30, 1999; Deposition of David Miscavige, Bent Corydon vs. Church of Scientology, July 19, 1990.
Deposition of David Miscavige, Bent Corydon vs. Church of Scientology, July 19, 1990.
Interview with Mark "Marty" Rathbun.
Affidavit of Andre Tabayoyon, Aug. 19, 1999. Interviews with Marc Headley. Interview with Amy Scobee. Karen Pressley interview on One Day One Destiny, a French documentary produced by Magneto Presse, 2009.
Miscavige also cultivated Cruise to be a spiritual leader, not just a follower, having him trained as an auditor at Gold Base. Sixteen-year-old Sea Org member Marc Headley says he was among the first people audited by Cruise. He reported to a large conference room and right away noticed Kidman, who was also receiving auditing, and Kirstie Alley, whom he later came to believe was there mainly as a "celebrity prop," since she did little other than read.
"Hello, I am Tom," Headley remembers Cruise saying, vigorously shaking his hand. (Cruise, through his attorney, says he has no recollection of meeting Headley.) The actor handed Headley the metal cans that were attached to the E-Meter and asked if the temperature in the room was all right. Then he instructed Headley to take a deep breath and let it out. This was a metabolism test, which is supposed to show whether the subject was prepared for the session. Apparently, the needle on the E-Meter didn't fall sufficiently. Headley was so starstruck that he was having trouble focusing.
"Did you get enough sleep?" Cruise asked.
"Yeah."
"Did you get enough to eat?"
"Yeah."
"Did you take your vitamins?"
Headley said he never took vitamins.
"That might be the problem," Cruise said. He went into the pantry, which was filled with snacks for the celebrities. Headley was used to the meager Sea Org fare, and he was taken aback by the cornucopia laid out. The actor found several vitamins and then asked, "Do you take a lot of bee pollen?"
Headley had no idea what he meant.
"Never had bee pollen?" Cruise said excitedly. "Oh, that will do the trick for sure."
He led Headley to his Yamaha motorcycle and rode the two of them to the base canteen. It was dinnertime, and the canteen was filled with Headley's gawking co-workers. Headley was surprised to learn that there was bee pollen for sale, though he says Cruise didn't pay for it; he just grabbed it, and they went back to the conference room. This time, Headley passed the metabolism test, though he privately credited a Danish he ate over the bee pollen.
According to Headley, Cruise helped him through the Upper Indoctrination Training Routines. "Look at the wall," Cruise would have said, according to Hubbard's specifications. "Thank you. Walk over to the wall. Thank you. Touch the wall. Thank you." The purpose of this exercise, according to Hubbard, is to "assert control over the preclear and increase the preclear's havingness." ("Clear" is the state novice Scientologists aspire to that signals their subconscious, or "reactive," mind is free.)
Cruise went on to ask Headley to make an object -- such as a desk -- hold still or become more solid. Another exercise involved telling an ashtray to stand up, at which point the novice stands and lifts the ashtray, thanks the ashtray and then commands the ashtray to sit down. With each repetition, the commands get louder, so soon he is yelling at the ashtray at the top of his voice. The purpose is to come to the realization that your intention is separate from your words and the sound waves that carry them. These procedures went on for hours as Headley robotically responded to Cruise's commands. "You learn that if you don't do what they say, they'll just ask the same questions 5 million times," Headley recalled.(12)
Headley, Blown for Good, pp. 116-18. Hubbard, “Training and CCH Processes,” HCO Bulletin, June 11, 1957, reissued May 12, 1972
After becoming associated with Cruise, the style of Miscavige's life came to reflect that of a fantastically wealthy and leisured movie star. He normally awakens at noon, with a cup of coffee and a Camel cigarette. Then he takes breakfast, the first of his five meals.(13)
According to Parman, the chef, he was eating "three squares and a snack at night" until the late-'90s, when he said he wanted to "get ripped and have six-pack abs" like bodybuilders featured in magazines. At the time, Miscavige changed physical trainers, began taking bodybuilding supplements and adopted a diet that requires each meal to be at least 40 percent protein and to contain no more than 400 calories. Soon, he was looking like the men in the magazines.
To maintain Miscavige's physique, chefs have to enter each portion size into a computer. Miscavige often starts the day with an omelet of one whole egg and five egg whites. Two-and-a-half hours later, lunch is provided. Two choices would be prepared daily, for both him and his wife. Dinner is a five-course meal, and once again, dual entrees are prepared for him to choose from. Miscavige's favorite foods include wild mushroom risotto, linguine in white clam sauce and pate de foie gras. Several times a week, a truck from Santa Monica Seafood delivers Atlantic salmon or live lobster. Corn-fed lamb is flown in from New Zealand.
When guests such as Cruise come to dinner at his well-appointed house, the kitchen goes into extravagant bursts of invention, with ingredients sometimes flown in from different continents. Two hours after dinner, the first evening snack arrives, with lighter offerings such as Italian white bean soup or clam chowder. After midnight, there is a final late-night snack -- a selection of nonfat cheeses, an apple crisp or blueberry crepes, often garnished with edible flowers. Two full-time chefs work all day preparing these meals, with several full-time stewards to serve them. According to Headley's wife, Claire, who oversaw the finances for the Religious Technology Center between 2000 and 2004, the food costs for the Miscaviges and their guests would range between $3,000 to as much as $20,000 a week.(14)
At the end of the evening, Miscavige retires to his den and drinks Macallan scotch and plays backgammon with members of his entourage or listens to music on his $150,000 stereo system (he loves Michael Jackson) or watches movies in his private screening room (his favorite films are Scarface and The Godfather trilogy). He usually turns in around three or four in the morning.(15)
He collects guns, maintains at least six motorcycles and has a number of automobiles, including an armor-plated GMC Safari van with bulletproof windows and satellite television and a souped-up Saleen Mustang that Cruise gave him to match his own. Until 2007, when he traveled, Miscavige would often rent Cruise's Gulfstream jet, but he has since upgraded to renting a roomier Boeing business jet, at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000 a trip. His uniforms and business suits are fashioned by Richard Lim, a Los Angeles tailor whose clients include Cruise, Will Smith and Martin Sheen. Miscavige's shoes are custom-made in London by John Lobb, bootmaker to the royal family. His wardrobe fills an entire room, and two full-time stewards are responsible for his cleaning and laundry. Cruise admired the housecleaning so much -- even Miscavige's light bulbs are polished once a month -- that the Church leader sent a Sea Org team to Cruise's Telluride retreat to train the star's staff.(16)
Miscavige keeps a number of dogs, including five beagles. He had blue vests made up for each of them, with four stripes on the shoulder epaulets, indicating the rank of Sea Org Captain. He insists that people salute the dogs as they parade by. The dogs have a treadmill where they work out. A full-time staff member feeds, walks and trains the dogs and enters one of them, Jelly, into contests, where he has attained championship status.(17)
Reitman, Inside Scientology, p. 290.
Reitman, Inside Scientology, p. 290. Interviews with Tom De Vochit and Mark “Marty” Rathbun. Information about David Miscavige’s diet comes from his former chefs, Sinar Parman and Lana Mitchell.
Reitman, Inside Scientology, p. 319. Interview with Mark “Marty” Rathbun. Interview with Tom De Vocht. Lana Mitchell, “Hot and cold Running Servants,” June 27, 2011, www.scientology-cult.com/hot-and-cold-running-servants.html. Sinar Parman says that when Miscavige is in Clearwater, he generally rises at 9 a.m.
Interviews with Mike Rinder, Janela Webster, John Brousseau and Noriyuki Matsumaru. John Brousseau, personal correspondence. Lana Mitchell, “Hot and Cold Running Servants.”
Interviews with Marc Headley, Claire Headley and John Brousseau.
One of Miscavige's favorites, a Dalmatian/pit bull mix named Buster, went on a rampage one day and killed 10 peacocks on the property, and then the dog proudly laid out his kill for all to see. Buster also attacked various members of the staff -- sending one elderly woman to the emergency room -- before being transferred to another base, causing staffers to joke he had been sent to the dog equivalent of Scientology rehabilitation.(18)
The contrast with the other Sea Org members is stark. They eat in a mess hall, which features a meat-and-potatoes diet and a salad bar, except for occasional extended periods of rice and beans. The average cost per meal as of 2005 (according to Headley, who participated in the financial planning each week) was about 75 cents a head |
(SBU) told RIA Novosti that the objective of the operation – carried out by SBU with the help of the Interior Ministry – was to kill Muzychko, rather than to detain him.
“The goal of the operation was not to detain, but to neutralize Muzychko, to remove him from the stage,” the source said, adding that the militant leader was undermining the new Ukrainian authorities and pursuing his own interests through his leadership of the Right Sector movement.
Muzychko himself earlier said he believed he could be killed. In a video address recently posted on YouTube he said that the leadership of “the Prosecutor General's office and the Interior Ministry of Ukraine made a decision to either eliminate me or to capture me and hand me over to Russia, to then blame it all on the Russian intelligence.”
The man was known for his radicalism, attacks on local officials during the coup in Kiev, and refusing to give up arms after the new authorities were imposed.
Under the name Sashko Bilyi, he took an active part in the First Chechen War in 1994-1995, when he headed a group of Ukrainian nationalists fighting against Russian troops.
Russia’s Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case against Aleksandr Muzychko in early March. The Ukrainian was accused of torturing and murdering at least 20 captured Russian soldiers as he fought alongside Chechen militants.
Aleksandr Muzychko came under the spotlight of the Russian authorities after a series of scandals in Ukraine, when the radical nationalist leader went on with the rampage against regional authorities, lashing out at a local prosecutor, threatening local authorities with an AK-47 and making openly anti-Semitic statements.The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is moving swiftly again–and this time, Obama’s veto is less certain.
The “new” version poses the same threats to privacy rights that alarmed the White House a year ago.
When the House introduced the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in 2011, purportedly to help prevent cyber threats to national security, the measure was criticized heavily by Internet policy watchdogs and civil liberties groups, who argued that the bill would likely encroach on internet users’ Fourth amendment rights. The bill passed the House in the spring of 2012 but died in the Senate under threat of a White House veto.
Now CISPA is back, reintroduced in the House by its original author, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). By all accounts, the “new” version poses the same threats to privacy rights that alarmed the White House a year ago. In an unusual secret session on Wednesday, the House Intelligence committee passed the bill without additional privacy protections proposed by Jan Schakowsky (D.-Ill.). The measure could be up for a full House vote as soon as next week.
This time around, it remains to be seen whether the president will issue a veto. In January, Obama unilaterally enacted a major provision of the bill when he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to share “cyber security” information with private companies.
CISPA opponents are as vocal as ever. As part of a “week of action” in March, thousands of websites including Craigslist and Reddit broadcast an “action tool” that invited users to send an automated statement of opposition to Congress, and a WhiteHouse.gov petition gathered more than 100,000 signatures—enough to earn a response from the administration, which is forthcoming. You can sign a petition or find further actions at the websites of the ACLU, Demand Progress, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.Following the release of the film’s second trailer, some hawk-eyed fans thought they spotted Harley’s iconic get-up. The evidence was blurry at best, but with a squint of an eye anyone could be convinced. During an interview months ago, Margot Robbie revealed she had tried on the court jester costume. Costume designer Kate Hawley has corroborated the actress’ statement, saying the outfit was created, yet didn’t make the film.
“The jester suit has an amazing, powerful quality to it,” Hawley said (via CBR). “We built that. We actually put it on Margot, and she looked amazing. There’s a moment where there’s homage to that very garment. What happens, though, and the way David works – and I’m not speaking out of turn here – and because it’s a very organic quality and he’s writing it as we speak, the weight of things change. There’s beats that you think you can establish an arc within and then it changes again. We have limited beats to show all the elements.”
She also noted that other outfits were crafted for Harley Quinn, but also failed to make the final cut. “There are so many elements and depth to her character. And we built stuff for scenes that aren’t here anymore, and things like that.”
However, the court jester look shouldn’t be counted out just yet. According to Hawley, the Squad carefully chooses their gear and attire. Harley Quinn is no exception.
“They get given their mission outfits out of Belle Reve en route to this mission they are on,” Hawley said. “There’s a delightful scene where they’re all putting on their ‘murderous suits,’ as they call them, because when they put them on, people die. And Harley’s sitting there and you’ll see a moment where she’s putting on all her corsets, so we quote every comic variation of her. It’s her dress-up box. And I feel sure that jester suit is going to come into it because none of us can leave it alone.”
Perhaps there will be a moment where she tries on the iconic look, but quickly dismisses it. We won’t have long to find out. Suicide Squad is just weeks away, as it opens in theaters on August 5.
Image: DC
Posted By Brianna Reeves Brianna Reeves is an editor at GeekFeed. She has written for Geeks of Color, and has worked as an editor for numerous publications. Brianna Reeves is an editor at GeekFeed. She has written for Geeks of Color, and has worked as an editor for numerous publications.
You might also likeMini-donuts, churros and hot dogs are staples of any great experience at the fair.
But this year, The Fair at the PNE Vancouver may cause you to turn your nose up at the fairground classics.
Because this year, organizers have searched throughout North America and created the weirdest, quirkiest new menu of meals and munchies.
Drawstring pants are encouraged, indulgence a must. Here's a sampling of what fairgoers are in for.
The Savoury
Mac n' cheese? Boring. Take one creamy portion of the classic dish, beloved by kids and college kids alike and stuff it into a handmade, beef burger patty and then add the fixings. And you've got the Mac N' Cheese' Stuffed Burger.
Your craving for a brand-new type of corn dog is covered by the Big Pickle Corn Dog. It begins with a wiener, surrounded by pickle and then deep-fried. Your craving for a brand-new type of corn dog is covered by the. It begins with a wiener, surrounded by pickle and then deep-fried.
Ketchup and mustard could also be on the way out, after you try Butter Chicken Fries. Ketchup and mustard could also be on the way out, after you try
The Sweet
Yes, we all love the usual desserts at any fair— mini-donuts, churros, funnel cake. But mix in some Oreos here and Nutella there and we may just be seeing an evolution of the sweet treats we've come to savour.
The fair seems to have challenged itself as to how many things it can inject Oreos into. Number one on our list is Oreo Funnel Cake.
But a very close second is Oreo Churros.
And speaking of seconds, we could go back for Granny's Reese Oreo, which indeed is a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, sandwiched between two Oreos.
The fair has not overlooked mini-donuts, but has come up with a refreshing take, perfect for a hot summer day. That would be the Mini Donut Ice Pop.
For the wonderfully adventurous, how about cake that's tequila-flavoured, sprinkled with icing sugar and, wait for it, deep fried. Introducing Deep Fried Tequila Shot Bites.
And if you feel you need something to go with your deep-fried tequila cake, how about Salted Caramel Deep Fried Coffee?
These sweet and savoury treats are on offer during the entirety of the fair starting Aug. 20 until Sept. 5 (excluding Aug. 22 and Aug. 29) so right-brained eaters can pace themselves over the full two weeks.
Organizers also promise to cater some wacky foods for those with dietary restrictions, such as gluten-free options.
The 15-day event draws 750,000 visitors each year on average.
Happy snacking!Corporations don’t have to wait for the SOPA bill to pass to start censoring the Internet, it turns out. Under a ruling just handed down by a federal judge in Nevada, hundreds of websites accused by Chanel of selling counterfeit goods are having their domains confiscated and their names removed from search engine results, with scanty evidence of the accusation’s validity.
The SOPA bill, which you can read more about here, is backed by Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and others and is intended to stem piracy. However, numerous tech companies and civil liberties groups have pointed out that it’s a sledgehammer approach to a delicate problem, since it allows corporations to have the government remove sites from search engines and take other actions that create an Internet blacklist, similar to the Great Firewall of China.
These actions, in fact, would be very similar to what just happened in Nevada. Chanel had filed suits against more than 900 domain names they believed to be selling fake Chanel products. But the proof they provided to the court that these sites were guilty leaves a lot to be desired, Nate Anderson at Ars Technica reports:
For the most recent batch of names, Chanel hired a Nevada investigator to order from three of the 228 sites in question. When the orders arrived, they were reviewed by a Chanel official and declared counterfeit. The other 225 sites were seized based on a Chanel anti-counterfeiting specialist browsing the Web.
On the rather dubious strength of that evidence, the domain names were confiscated, so the sites are no longer accessible, and their names are to be removed from search engine results. The case, coming on the heels of SOPA’s presentation before the House of Representatives, suggests that corporations may not even need legislative approval to cripple sites they want taken down—just approval from a court.
Read more at Ars Technica.The tavern is buzzing with all the stuff that’s packed into this Hearthstone update! There’s a Ranked Play update, a Wild party, card changes, and a chance to save on packs with a new Mammoth Card Bundle! We managed to squeeze in some card backs and bug fixes too!
Whew! Read on for details!
Ranked Play Update – This Hearthstone update brings changes to Ranked Play, starting March 1st. Read the Ranked Play Updates blog for details!
** Your reset will not be based on the stars you earned over the season. Instead, you’ll reset to four ranks below the highest rank you achieved during the season.
** Players at Legend reset to rank 4, 0 stars.
** All ranks will have 5 stars.
** Starting in March, you will no longer earn the monthly card back by reaching Rank 20. Instead, you can earn each season’s card back by winning 5 games in Ranked Standard or Wild at any rank.
Card Changes – Please read the Upcoming Balance Changes blog on the official Hearthstone site for full details regarding the reasons and philosophy behind these changes.
** Corridor Creeper – Now has 2 attack, down from 5.
** Patches the Pirate – No longer has Charge.
** Raza the Chained – Now reduces your Hero Power cost to 1 instead of 0.
** Bonemare – Now costs 8 mana, up from 7.
Wildfest!
** From February 19th through March 11th join us for a Wild party! Read the Wildfest blog for details!
** Wild cards return to the Arena for the duration of Wildfest.
** Venture into the Wild – A Tavern Brawl celebrating Wild with pre-built decks.
** The Wild Brawliseum – A special Tavern Brawl where you’ll build and lock-in a Wild deck, and then see if you can take it to twelve wins versus other players! Three losses and your run comes to an end.
*** Your first Brawliseum run is free!
*** Additional runs are available for the same price as Arena tickets. Also like the Arena, prizes are based on number of wins, and follow the Arena reward structure.
Year of the Mammoth Bundle
** For a limited time, purchase 10 packs each of Journey to Un’goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs—a total of 30 packs!—for a special price.
Added the following card backs:
** Sparkles - Acquired from achieving Rank 20 in Ranked Play, February 2018.
** Year of the Mammoth – Acquired from winning five games in Ranked Play, March 2018.
Mobile Bug Fixes & Updates
* [iOS] Compatibility now requires iOS 8.0 or later.
* [iOS] The client will no longer sometimes freeze when a spectated player wins a match.
* Resolved an issue with the Collection Manager that could allow the set filter to be interacted with behind the “Done” button.
* Scrolling through an Arena deck on a mobile device will no longer generate unnecessary prompts.
* The “Back” button will now function correctly after an Arena run is complete.
* History tiles that were queueing up while viewing a history event now populate correctly.
* Resolved an issue that could cause crafted cards to remain visible over the Collection Manager.
* Corrected a visual issue with the search bar in the Collection Manager.
* For a full list of bug fixes and gameplay improvements visit www.PlayHearthstone.com.Secret documents on Gitmo's youngest detainee revealed Diane Sweet
Published: Saturday July 12, 2008
Print This Email This Secret documents were unsealed this week showing for the first time the extent of Canada's federal government's knowledge of the treatment of Omar Khadr inside of Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Khadr is Canada's only prisoner detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. At age 17, Khadr was placed in a special program at the camp that intentionally deprived him of sleep, and moved him every 3 hours for 21 days in order to prepare him to speak to government officials. It is reported that the document release is just ahead of a release of video tapes of the interviews with those government officials that will give the first look at a detainee being questioned at the prison. From the Canadian news The Globe and Mail: "On a number of occasions, the teenager was observed crying uncontrollably, and claiming he was at least partly blind. He removed his shirt to show interviewers bullet wounds, one of them still seeping blood, that he had suffered to his back and stomach during a battle in Afghanistan. The documents show that: Mr. Khadr was subjected to what was known as a "frequent flyer program," which moves a prisoner from cell to cell every three hours 24 hours a day. The idea is to keep prisoners from resting, making them more susceptible to interrogation. A Foreign Affairs document states that Mr. Khadr was placed in the program prior to a set of interviews and âwill soon be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then he will be interviewed again.â The effectiveness of the method was questionable in the eyes of the Canadians. "Certainly Umar did not appear to have been affected by three weeks on the 'frequent flyer' program. He did not yawn or indicate in any way that he was tired throughout the two-hour interview. It seems likely that the natural resilience of a well-fed and healthy 17-year-old are keeping him going." During the first Canadian visit, in February of 2003, Mr. Khadr recanted certain admissions claiming "all the information provided in his previous interviews was said only due to 'torture.'" During that same visit, Canadians agents questioned Mr. Khadr about his family. The cameras caught the teenager complaining about his wounds, his eyes and a shoulder, and dabbing âat a small spot on his shoulder that was seeping blood.â Foreign Affairs kept records of the visits under intelligence files marked "UBL" or "Bin Laden." The Khadr family once lived with the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan. A forensic psychologist told DFAIT that Mr. Khadr was "a Mama's little boy." Considering him a "thoroughly screwed up young man." officials remarked on several odd behaviours, including one after an interview with a Pentagon interrogator. "He was shown a picture of his family - he denied knowing anyone in the picture. Left alone... he urinated on the picture," -twice, and despite being shackled. When left alone, the documents say, he "laid his head down on the table beside the picture in what was seen as an affectionate manner." The judge ordering the release of the tapes said that Canada had become implicated in violating international law when the Foreign Affairs office took part in Khadr's interviews. The Globe and Mail also reported that the interviews were not being released to benefit the U.S.'s case against Khadr: "In one of the few observations that augurs to the benefit of the federal government, Judge Mosley said that Canadian interrogators apparently were not acting with the purpose of helping U.S. authorities assemble a case against Mr. Khadr. A Supreme Court ruling last winter had already favoured Mr. Khadr's right to view material that could aid his defence against U.S. military charges that he still faces of murdering a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan." In June of this year, another Canadian news outlet, CBC News released reports from Guards at Guanatanamo Bay with favorable impressions - as well as concerns - regarding Omar Khadr, who is now 21 years old: "Omar Khadr is "salvageable" and a "good kid," but a prolonged detention at Guantanamo Bay could turn the Canadian into a radical, say the U.S. soldiers who guard him. His guards describe him as a "likable, funny and intelligent young man," according to documents from Foreign Affairs, which also state the 21-year-old hopes Canada will get him out of the U.S.-run detention centre in Cuba." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a statement while attending the G8 Summit said that he would not seek the return of Khadr to Canada claiming that there was "no real alternative" to the U.S. legal processes in place for Khadr at Guantanamo. However, the Canadian Press disputes Harper's claims of no alternative in a report issued shortly after Harper's statements.Why Does China Have A Small Nuclear Arsenal?
China is the undisputed nuclear titan of Asia–whether civilian or military. But how come it never sought to equal the atomic hard power of Russia and the United States? What follows is a tale fraught with ambition, prudence, and quiet determination.
Rattled by the outcome of the Korean War, China’s quest for the bomb had glib threats by US commanders like Curtis LeMay as its impetus. Fortunately, relations between Peking and Moscow were so close in the 1950s almost no barriers existed on what they shared. Including nuclear weapons research undertaken from 1954 to 1956 at locations such as the Ministry of Machinery Building and the Institute of Physics and Atomic Energy in Beijing. Even when the romance fell apart soon after enough know-how remained with the Chinese for the uranium fission bomb detonated in Lop Nur on October 16, 1964.
It announced the People’s Republic’s entry into the elite nuclear club, albeit ranking it a distant bottom placer among members then. (The US, the USSR, the UK, and France.) 32 months later China successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb in Lop Nur and began its quest to attain ballistic missiles. Therein lay the problem. A genuine delivery system for the PLA’s thermonuclear weapons wasn’t adopted until 1980. This hardly compared to the thousands of ground and submarine-based MIRVs the Americans and Soviets had perfected at the time.
With the Cold War over China’s nuclear forces counted as larger than Israel’s and its total warheads equaled those stockpiled by France, give or take a few handfuls. In the meantime, China’s neighbors–India, Pakistan, and North Korea–introduced their own nuclear capabilities in the 1990s and 2000s.
Beijing isn’t falling behind these upstarts but it isn’t galloping ahead either. Short of an official explanation, the reasons why are speculative. For example, since its nukes are reserved as a second strike option for avenging an attack on the mainland, there’s no rush to grow its stockpile. Plus: Nukes and their infrastructure are a waste of money, anyway, with billions needed as insurance for a country’s existence. So what has China done with its planet killers?
No First Use
Any serious attempt to demystify China’s nuclear arsenal always bears a confessional tone, wherein the author acknowledges the dearth of scholarship and credible sources on the topic. While this remains true, digging up enough research published in the last 30 years proves the opposite. There’s a remarkable amount of serious writing on China’s nukes and simple corroboration does work at uncovering its secrets. Well, at least some of them.
A near forgotten gem is Shen Dingli’s The Current Status of Chinese Nuclear Forces and Nuclear Policies published during his post-doctoral stint at Princeton University in 1990. Shen, who now teaches International Studies at Fudan University, assembled a detailed overview of China’s nuclear capabilities in the late Deng Xiaoping-era. Shen fine-tooth combs the subject matter, including details about Beijing’s multi-billion dollar sale of conventional DF-3A MRBMs to Saudi Arabia in 1987, a transaction that makes China appear a less than the responsible nuclear power.
Shen’s 50-page treatise offers the reader a glimpse into a rising Chinese hegemon. “The US intelligence community predicted in 1986 that China’s nuclear arsenal will double by 1996,” is one such awe-inspiring nugget on page 4. Shen’s own citations place the nuclear warheads at the PLA’s disposal at a high 350. But how many ICBMs did China have at the time? Just 10.
So few, in fact, and they were aimed at the Soviet Union.
Shen’s research hasn’t aged well because the decade following its publication saw China’s peaceful rise and an incremental modernization of the PLA and the Second Artillery Corps responsible for its nuclear missiles. Its vast and obsolescent bomber fleet was scrapped (a transition Shen took note of) and developing better ICBMs, multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV), and nuclear submarines occurred at a snail’s pace.
But the Pentagon’s Annual Report to Congress for 2016 serves as a stark reminder the PLA are making specific improvements. Its findings reveal the PLA Rocket Forces’ silo-based ICBM stockpile now have between 75 to a hundred missiles and these are divided between DF-5’s and DF-5B’s, either of which are as menacing as Russia’s R-36 ICBMs.
This is proof that despite China’s long-held no first use stance, its nukes aren’t neglected.
The Numbers
A helpful independent study on the subject is Claire Mills’ Nuclear Weapons–A Country Comparison published for the House of Lords in 2016. Though citing the Pentagon‘s latest Annual Report, Mills’ own research gives a modest assessment of the PLA’s capabilities while acknowledging impressive breakthroughs.
“China is thus considered to have transitioned from possessing a small, unsophisticated and highly vulnerable nuclear force to a more modern one with an improved strike capability,” Mills writes.
Mills does give a low number for the PLA’s nuclear warhead stockpile: “approximately 260” compared to Shen’s 350 from 26 years prior. 260 warheads is the same figure reported by the Arms Control Association in its metrics for global stockpiles, a figure trailing France but higher than the UK’s. Mills believes more than half that amount, 160, are operational–a higher assessment than the Pentagon’s–even if this figure is divided between 50-60 ICBMs and the remainder are IRBMs, i.e. missiles with a 5,000 kilometer range.
A curious shortcoming, asserts Mill, is the lack of a nuclear triad where nukes are divided between land-based sites, warships, and aircraft. In Shen’s 1990 treatise he mentions an SSBN program underway. This was too generous. During the 1980s the PLAN deployed a lone Xia-class boomer with 12 missiles for testing purposes. Today the PLAN have four Jin-class SSBNs that aren’t even sent on genuine deterrent patrols. As for the airborne arm of the nuclear triad? With most of the H-6 fleet gone, other than suspected R&D on an air-launched cruise missiles there’s zilch.
In size, scope, and scale, China’s nuclear arsenal does bear a striking resemblance to France’s, albeit with a slight gap at the warhead count. The resemblance extends to an unsavory French practice. As a recipient of US technical assistance for its domestic nuclear program, France wasted no time sharing its expertise with Israel in the 1950s and exporting nuclear equipment to Iraq, Iran, and South Korea–all countries who once flirted with the possibilities of homegrown atomic weapons.
China is guilty of the same but worse. From the 1980s onward it played nurse to Pakistan’s own ambitions and sold ballistic missiles across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Even North Korea’s pint-sized atomic aspirations owe their existence to Chinese assistance. Why the clientele of rogues? One can guess to counter-balance perceived enemies, be it the US or rival neighbors.
The Payoff
In the event China has to confront a hostile power, what nuclear forces can it bring to bear? As shown by the available reading material, its arsenal ranks it a middleweight with serious performance gaps. That doesn’t mean the dragon can’t incinerate its enemies.
The pinnacle of China’s nuclear forces are its reliable DF-5 and DF-5B ICBMs. The former is silo-based and the latter is a MIRV capable system. Both can reach targets within the US and the EU.
Aside from these juggernauts there are two additional headaches to contend with. The older DF-4, a limited-range two-stage ICBM available in presumptive dozens, and the cutting edge DF-31 on its mobile platform. The latter is almost as good as its Russian counterpart. For enemies at close range the PLA Rocket Forces have the DF-21, an intermediate system whose “D” variant can target warships and bases.
If the PLA needs to deal with troublesome adversaries on the battlefield, at least a thousand short-range “tactical” missiles are at its disposal that may or may not be armed with nukes. But multiplying nuclear warheads doesn’t appeal to the PLA and their political bosses so improving their reach is the medium-term goal with the DF-26 and DF-41 programs.
In summation, as lethal as it appears on paper, China has a limited menu against existential threats. Maybe it’s enough.
It’s unrealistic for China to double or triple its nuclear warhead stockpile in the short-term. Beyond cost, there’s very little value in doing so. As its scientific and industrial breakthroughs have shown, the point now is to improve delivery systems for the same longstanding goal: a genuine second strike option in case of nuclear attack.
Besides, the potential for an apocalyptic nuclear exchange is nil. Should the global economy collapse and a great power war erupt in the Asia-Pacific, nukes remain a last-ditch option for national survival. If anything, China’s nuclear weapons are one of the Communist Party’s survival tickets. Whatever the outcome of minor skirmishes over borders and waters, the home front remains unassailable.
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he world is colored by our feelings and vice versa. We feel happier when the sun shines and the skies are blue than when it is overcast and cloudy. We speak of bitter weather, of the cruel sea. John Ruskin called this habit of attributing human characteristics to nature “the pathetic fallacy,” and literature would be very much impoverished without it.
There is another kind of fallacy, less literary, but much more pervasive. An example is when we say something like the following: “This is the best book you can read on (name your subject),” or “Go see (name your film); it is the best movie this year.” We make such statements constantly, as do the reviewers of books and movies. If, however, we follow their advice—take the recommended book into our hands and start reading, or pay $15.00 to see the movie—don’t we often find ourselves disappointed? The book may have been good, the movie, too, but really, excellent, the best? No way.
What we consider “good,” “best,” “excellent,” and so on are matters of what, since the 18th century, has been called taste. And if there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s that taste is an individual thing: I like Manet, you like Lucian Freud. Our personal preferences, for this is what they are, will probably change over our lifetime. By the time we reach middle age, what impressed us when we were 20 will seem immature instead. We “grow”: We read more books, we see more movies. Our opinions evolve.
Nevertheless, when we use words such as excellent, we feel that what we love will also be loved by everyone else, especially our kind of people: our spouse, our friends, our colleagues. We attribute our own feelings to others. To a great extent, this desire to share with others what we love is a very human thing: It indicates a certain universality. At the same time, our judgments of taste—for instance, that a painting or a book is excellent or not even worth considering—are value judgments, and they have a coercive aspect. When I assert that something is good, it does not mean that you too might find it good; it means that what I love, you too should love. This would not be a problem if the matter were restricted to books, movies, art, or, increasingly, food—subjects on which few of us come to blows.
But such value judgments encompass the social and political realms as well, with destructive, cascading effects. We can call it “the liberal fallacy.”
It was in empiricist, wealth-producing England, the concept of taste began to replace objective, eternal standards in judging the perfection or imperfection of works of art and literature.
For liberals, the correctness of their opinions—on universal health care, on Sarah Palin, on gay marriage—is self-evident. Anyone who has tried to argue the merits of such issues with liberals will surely recognize this attitude. Liberals are pleased with themselves for thinking the way they do. In their view, the way they think is the way all right-thinking people should think. Thus, “the liberal fallacy”: Liberals imagine that everyone should share their opinions, and if others do not, there is something wrong with them. On matters of books and movies, they may give an inch, but if people have contrary opinions on political and social matters, it follows that the fault is with the others.
To explain why contemporary liberalism is about taste and not about disinterested principles, we must take an excursus into the past, to the 18th century, which marked the rise of aesthetics. For most of recorded Western history, theorizing about the arts was limited to very few people, mostly men. The growth of industry and commerce by the beginning of the 18th century produced an incipient educated professional class in Western Europe whose aspirations pulled the rug out from under the earlier arbiters of beauty. This class did not make a living from art or literature, but it purchased paintings, it went on the Grand Tour of Europe, it read the newest literary works, it built splendid mansions. As people of independent means, not necessarily dependent on the power of a monarch, they wanted to have their judgments about their purchases taken seriously. In empiricist, wealth-producing England, the concept of taste began to replace objective, eternal standards in judging the perfection or imperfection of works of art and literature.
The philosopher David Hume (1711–1776), while he conceded that there was no “wrong” subjective response to a work of art, nevertheless sought to give taste a firmer footing and to create authority in the realm of artistic judgment. He argued for approval of certain works of literature across time and cultures by positing the authority of a sort of invisible hand, whose judgments on art would be “universal.” Hume was a man of society and no doubt influenced by the shape of the literary public that existed in England, whose taste could be recognized by their clothes, behavior, and conversation. In 18th-century discussions of the arts, it was universally accepted that the ability to render correct judgments was the preserve of “good society.” There emerged in England what we in the literature business call “criticism.” The job of critics—Pope, Addison, Shaftesbury—was to guide the taste of the public.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) built on Hume with the criteria he laid out in his 1790 work Critique of Judgment. While excluding from the aesthetic realm such changeable subjective preferences as those for food or dress, Kant made the case for why aesthetic judgments could be regarded as “universal.” For him, our very experience of the world and our ability to come to think about it at all is a matter of interpretation by our different mental faculties. Thus, all perception and interpretation are subjective. In the presence of objects without an objective determination, this subjective response is an aesthetic judgment. Feeling, of course, is not knowledge; it is simply the beginning of knowledge. But it is this ability to respond subjectively—whether to the beauty of sunsets or to the Sistine Chapel—that makes our other cognitive accomplishments possible. The fact that all of us can agree that we are seeing the same object—a rose is his example—is the proof that we share a common, universal human cognitive apparatus. It is because we feel that we are also able to think.
How do Hume’s and Kant’s lucubrations on aesthetics manifest themselves in liberal political opinion? Consider the positive attitude of many liberals toward Europe vis à vis the United States. The idea that Europe possesses a nobler culture than ours has been a feature of American intellectual life since the mid-19th century; that was why Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and T.S. Eliot made their homes abroad. But the general American opinion was that Europe was mired in an undemocratic, aristocratic past while the United States was the country of the future. That view began to change somewhat when the economies of the European nations started to rebuild in the 1960s (after a war that, in the majority of American opinion, they had brought on themselves). Owing to a strong dollar that made European goods affordable, more American consumers were introduced to the best European products. Especially among those with considerable discretionary income, ideas about what is most important in life underwent some alteration.
The person of advanced taste is always on the lookout for the newest object worthy of consideration, one that will set him apart from the crowd.
No longer seen as a civilizational sinkhole that brought two world wars upon us, Europe was now thought of as a bastion of enlightened values, especially by comparison with bourgeois America. Liberals began to speak approvingly of the superiority of European social arrangements in the realms of health care and family leave—but their view here was not exclusively about top-down benefits. After all, even the Soviet Union offered universal health care, female equality, and family leave, and only radicals thought the USSR was a model for a more enlightened life. The Soviet Union produced no product comparable to Italian wines or shoes, French cheeses or couture, or German automobiles. Europe’s aesthetic preeminence was a necessary element of what was taken to be its superior political culture.
This combination of taste and politics is the key. The conservative complaint that the media are liberal in their orientation does not address the true advantage that liberals enjoy in forming public opinion on political issues. Most people don’t think much about politics, but they do want to know how to talk to one another, to friends and strangers alike, whether the subject is cars or computers or movies or books or, increasingly, “lifestyle.” The many manifestations of media, including magazines and the Internet, have the role of filtering out the chatter and telling us what the newest books and movies mean. Political opinion is simply another aspect of consumer taste, and liberals lead the way in taste formation.
The liberal media, moreover, inevitably create a crushing conformity of taste: Who wants to be out of step with what “everyone else” is agreed upon, whether it be political opinion or clothing fashion? Taste is not static, and the person of advanced taste is always on the lookout for the newest object worthy of consideration, one that will set him apart from the crowd. Thus, the rapidity with which liberal fashions change and the distaste with which liberals regard those who question them. Liberal political opinion and the molding of consumer taste overlap.
My introduction to the importance of correct opinions and of being on the cutting edge of things came early in my college career, in the 1960s, when I attended my first foreign movies. While there might have been differences in the evaluation of the movies of Ingmar Bergman as opposed to those of Jean-Luc Godard, hardly anyone who valued being in the know would have suggested that Hollywood movies were preferable to either of the two. These opinions, as I noticed, were pronounced as if there could be no room for debate, as if no sensible person could think otherwise. You were simply a dimwit if you preferred films that did not portray existential angst.
In truth, such preferences are simply grown-up discriminations. The connection between aesthetics and liberalism goes much deeper.
In a contemporary American household, and indeed in a European one today, for whom is it obvious—indeed, natural—that the world should conform to their desires? Children, of course, but also those lucky adults who have grown up accustomed to things like good dermatological and dental care. This offers a clue to contemporary liberalism’s emergence alongside postwar American prosperity. The Boomer generation in particular was the first in world history to come of age with such amenities and without the responsibilities that have traditionally been required of young people. The changes of the 1960s (which for most of us were really the early 1970s) was the first manifestation of the way in which the standards of children would take over the nation.
It was not that the Boomers were radical. Most who experienced the ’60s to the hilt—the rock concerts, |
, he can find George on the wings. I always say, in this league you need two guys who can handle the ball at guard. They both can do that.
Looking back now the period you went through in building the team, how difficult was it? You were taking a lot of criticism. Newspaper columnists, radio people were saying, 'If he wasn't Larry Bird, he would have been fired by now.'
After Donnie left, the first thing I did was trade Jermaine O'Neal. I thought that was huge. Even getting the 17th pick really helped us. I didn't really worry about that. I knew it was going to be difficult. The day that Donnie left, I said, 'This is going to be my biggest challenge, to make all the decisions and get the type of team that I want here. It's going to be tough.' People love to go after individuals they don't think can get the job done. I was no different. You have to be tough and you have to be focused and driven. My goal was to get a team here in Indianapolis that fans could be proud of.
It seems like it was the first chance for people to take shots at Larry Bird. Nobody could say much about you as a player or coach, but now there was a chance to go after Larry Bird.
That's fine. I don't care about that. As a coach it's well documented that I had two great assistant coaches. I ain't going to sit here and say that I did all that myself. I sort of managed the team. Rick (Carlisle) was the offensive guy and Dick (Harter) was (the defensive guy). But it's like I told Frank, somebody's got to manage these guys. You can not let these guys be in the locker room making decisions about how they're going to play the game and who's going to take the shots. Anytime you have fires in the locker room, you have to put them out. You have to be on top of things. My job as a coach was to make sure they're in shape, make all the decisions about what time we're going to practice and how hard we're going to practice. Even as a coach, I told the guys, if I see what I want that day, we'll end practice. You can be here an hour or all day long. I have nothing to do. It was more a managing standpoint than a coaching standpoint. Everybody knows the Xs and Os. From the defensive standpoint it's different. If you're going to be good, you have to guard.
My thing is patience. You have to wait on players, sometimes. You have to get the right fit. It's like Rick Carlisle said, you don't want all milk drinkers. I believe that. But you don't want guys that get in trouble. You don't want them 5 o'clock phone calls (about players violating the law). It hurt me as much as it hurt our fan base. I was in the middle of all this. But once I took over, I felt there were some things that needed to be changed. But I wasn't going to be drastic in all this. It was going to be a process. I thought I could get it done in three years and that's about what it took.
Is there anything you learned in the years since you started in this role? Are there things you wish you could go back and do differently?
No question. There's so many, I don't want to get into them. There's so many. Early on, I was behind Donnie and we talked everything out. But being the sole decision-maker is a whole different ballgame. It's like being an assistant coach and moving up to head coach. But I had a plan and we stuck with it, and it worked. And we got lucky. I ain't going to say I knew we was going to get Roy. The day I walked down to the draft room (in 2010), it was between Ed Davis and Paul George. My owner kept asking me who I was taking, and I was still debating. But when it came down to it, you had to take the young, talented guy with a lot of length. If you watched Paul George in college it was scary, because he shot a lot of air balls, he took a lot of bad shots, he turned the ball over at a high rate. But he's long, athletic, he shot 90 percent from the foul line and he can guard.
It's amazing to think a guy who was second-team all-conference as a sophomore enters the draft and becomes the 10th pick and then has this kind of career. It was a gamble for you.
Yeah, but basketball-wise, he hadn't matured yet as a player. He still hasn't. But he got better. He's a worker. We did our background checks. He loved to play. He would work. He wants to be good. It's completely different between him and Lance. Lance's got the ability, you just have to slow him down a little bit. Paul's got to keep working to get better.
It seems like one of the advantages this team has, other than Lance, none of them came up five-star recruits or big-time players. David West had to go to a military academy before going to Xavier and wasn't a big deal coming out of high school. George Hill goes to IUPUI. Roy was awkward growing up. Paul George wasn't highly recruited until the end of his senior year. It seems like that all works to your advantage now, because there's a lack of ego.
It goes to show you that hard work does pay off. I can remember watching Roy as a sophomore in college. I also knew Roy as a junior. If he had come out, he probably would have been a top 12 pick. And then he had a better senior year. Why is he No. 17 all of a sudden? I remember talking to his agent and telling him, if Roy's there at 17 I'm taking him. He goes, I'll get Roy there. If you take him, I'll get him there.
How does an agent do that?
Just tell other teams not to take him. But he told me the day of the draft, 'OK, he will be there at 17.' I said, 'I'm taking him.'
It's amazing that a 7-foot-2 guy with any skills would drop to 17.
You never know. You never know how these guys are going to turn out. I thought Shawne Williams (who Bird drafted with the 17th pick in 2006) was going to be a great, great player. I thought he was going to fit in perfectly as a stretch four. But it didn't pan out. If he panned out, it would have been pretty amazing.
Is this the best defensive team you've been around?
They're really good. It's amazing what Dick Harter did with the team. If you look at what we had, I thought with Dick we blitzed a little too much (defending pick-and-rolls) and we got Rik (Smits) out of position sometimes. But if somebody messed up, everybody on the bench knew who it was. But we had smart players. That team was smart. They were off-the-charts with basketball IQ. Dale Davis... people always asked why we would have him take the ball out. I said, 'He'll eat it before he throws it away.' You never seen him make turnovers. Their basketball IQ was off the charts.
But defensively, this team is the best I've seen.
The other question that comes up so often is how long you'll stay in this role now.
I ain't worrying about that. Obviously, when you're going good you feel good and you like it. I definitely needed a year off. I was burnt out. I was hurting. Donnie was sitting there (available). He loves it. So it was easy. Did I think I was going to come back? I didn't know. I really didn't know.
I never understood why you wouldn't come back. Wouldn't you be bored if you weren't working?
No. I tell you, I was pretty content. The thing that got me was when other teams started calling. It sort of fired me up a little bit. I never really gave Donnie or anyone an answer until Herbie called me one day. That day, I was a little bored. He said, with his age, he wanted to make a run for it. Just about all the guys here were our guys. Let's make a run for it and see what we can do. If you're not doing anything, why not? Once I found out we had a little bit of money this summer and were probably going to sign Paul George without waiting to match an offer and all that, I was set to come back. Once I told him that, he called back the next day and said, 'I want you in the office next week.' And I'm not going to start paying you until July 1. (laughs)
Are you glad you did?
Well... yeah, I'm pretty content. But I was pretty happy last year, too. I feel better. When you feel good you can do anything.
I did miss it a little bit. But coming back knowing most of these guys were my guys and we were going to be able to do what we wanted to do made it easier. We just had to tinker with the bench a little bit.
How much is Donnie involved now in your decision-making?
You have to have one decision-maker. I understood that from working with him. But do I go down there and ask him questions a lot? Yeah. Is Kevin (Pritchard) and Peter (Dinwiddie) involved big-time? Yes.
Donnie told me one time, 'Bird, I'm glad you're here.' I thought he was just saying that to be nice. He said, 'I'm glad you're here, because I really have nobody to talk basketball with.' I know what he meant. I've been through it. Donnie's been through it. It's been our life. That's the same way I felt when Donnie left. I had nobody. So I called him up one day in New York, I said, 'Donnie, I finally get it. I have no one here that I can talk basketball with.' That's tough. Then when Kevin came on board, he's an old basketball player and he understands the game inside and out, it made it so much easier. It was so easy. Then Peter, he's never really played it, but he's very sharp. Peter's the guy who comes in here (to talk about a trade) and says, 'What about this and this for this?' You're sitting there going, 'Wow! Pretty good.' Then we've got to make it happen. But having Kevin Pritchard here has been a godsend for me. He's been in basketball all his life. He's been the head of a team. He turned a team around. Then you go next door on the other side and you've got Donnie Walsh.
But they know I'll make the decisions. It's like this summer, I knew what I wanted to do when I got here. Then I tell Kevin who I want and he goes and gets them. It's pretty simple.
I've told Donnie a couple of times how happy I am that he's here, because this is a special team. We've had our ups and downs, but last year when he took over again I told him, 'I tell you what, Donnie, you're going to love these guys. They're not going to come over every day and talk to you, but you're going to love them. They're good kids and they want to win. They care.' They want to be here. It's like me, I don't go down and talk to these kids every day. I don't say a lot to them, because when I was a player I didn't want people in the front office bothering me. They're sort of their own little group. I'm the last guy who needs to be in there patting them on the back telling them how great they are. I said at the beginning of the season when we had our dinner what I thought of each individual and what I thought they could do this year. They don't need to hear it every day.
Did you tell them they can win a championship?
I don't bring up championships. I tell them I know how good they are and what they can accomplish as a group and what kind of guys they are. I know they're in it for each other. I have nothing to do with it now. I got you all together, but it's up to you to make things happen. But I know this is one of the better teams we've ever had here. I knew that going in, with the additions we made this summer. It's pretty easy to see, being around it all my life, that these guys are good. They're good. They're going to have games where they don't play as well, there are going to be some teams come in here that beat them that shouldn't beat them. But overall, they're going to win a majority of their games. It's just a given. Did I think they were going to beat New Orleans (in the second game, the night after the opener against Orlando). I told Frank a month before the season, gear for New Orleans now. Because you're going to get (beat) when you go down there (if you're not ready). And Detroit's going to knock your ass off if you're not ready to play against them. I thought early on they passed some tests that I thought was going to be very difficult for them. As each game goes on, they're getting better and better.
I know they're good. I know they are. Can they win it all? I don't know. But they're good. I give them credit. They are what I thought they could be.
I tell people all the time it's the best locker room I've ever been around. It's the most mature team I've been around. Do you feel that way?
It's the best group of guys you could ever have. Years ago, we'd get two or three-hundred thousand dollars a year in fine money (from players). Now, if you get $20,000 a year... I said you guys are killing these charities around here. I get a call the other day about a player who was late two times in a month. I said, 'Come on, man, if that's all you're worried about, don't call up here.' It's amazing. They'll be here in the locker room, but they're supposed to be taped at a certain time, and if not they're fined. And we still don't have that. It's pretty amazing. They're tied in. They know what they're supposed to do. Even last year … that's why I told Donnie, 'You've never seen nothing like this, Donnie.' It's been easy.
Do you feel like this team has a certain window as a championship contender? I guess in my mind I think David West has three years left on his contract, so you have at least three years as a championship contender.
You never know the injuries. They always play a major role. I always feel if you lose somebody you just put somebody else in there. We don't want to lose anybody, because this team is together. They'll stay together. They're tied in. I don't know what the window will be. But like I tell Donnie and Kevin, we've got to enjoy this year. Because they're good. And they're going to win a lot of games.
They're obviously good enough defensively to win a championship. Are there certain things on offense you worry about?
You can nit-pick them all day. But when the going gets tough, they're pretty good. Sometimes they dribble too much. If you watched the first half of Miami the other night and how they (the Heat) were moving the ball … if we ever got to that point, we could score a lot more points. I'm a big believer in taking it from side to side. You don't have to get a shot up in the first 10 seconds. I think we start our offense too far out. And we don't get into a play until 13 or 14 seconds, and that hurts us. It's all stuff that can be fixed. If they go back and watch Miami and the ball movement, they were picking us apart. That's the way the ball has to move if you're going to be a championship contender every year.
Is there anything left you want to accomplish? Not in this role, but in life?
This is my life. This is what I do. I've been fortunate to be involved in it for more than 30 years. I don't know what else I want to accomplish, but while I'm here I want to accomplish great things. I want to win a championship as bad as anybody else here, but it's like Slick (Leonard) always says, You've got to get there first. So let's try to get (to the Finals), and then it's up to the players.
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Pay zero online ticket fees this month for all remaining home gamesImage caption Skyfall is Daniel Craig's third Bond outing, with two more on the cards
New James Bond movie Skyfall has had the biggest Bond opening weekend of all time, according to figures from film company Sony Pictures.
It took £20.1m following its release on Friday making it the biggest UK opening of 2012 so far and the third biggest UK opening of all time.
However Skyfall failed to smash the record set by last year's Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2.
The final film in the wizard franchise, in 3D, took £23m in its first weekend.
It is also just behind Toy Story 3, which took £21.2m in its opening weekend according to Screen Daily, although the animation also benefited from four days of previews.
Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of the 23rd 007 movie, said: "We are absolutely overwhelmed with the reaction to Skyfall this weekend. It is particularly thrilling as the UK is home to James Bond and it being the 50th anniversary year."
James Bond is the longest-running film franchise in history.
Co-starring Dame Judi Dench and Javier Bardem, it opened in 587 cinemas across the UK and Ireland, while US fans will get to see the film from 9 November.
Skyfall marked director Sam Mendes' Bond debut, but sees Daniel Craig back in the role of the spy for a third time, following the success of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.
He has signed up to return as 007 in two more Bond films.
Last week it was revealed in The Hollywood Reporter that one of Skyfall's co-writers, John Logan, had begun work on a two-part original Bond story, not based on the work of the series' original author Ian Fleming.
Logan has previously worked on Martin Scorsese films Hugo and The Aviator and Ridley Scott's Gladiator.What effect would that have on elections? The researchers assumed those 1 million extra voters would have behaved similarly to the surviving black population in terms of both turnout and partisanship, controlling for gender, age, and geography. Their votes wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the 2004 presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry—although Kerry would have netted more than 86 percent of the votes they cast. (As Andrew Prokop notes, but the authors do not, the 2000 election was close enough that the missing black voters would likely have swung the outcome in Florida and, with it, the national electoral vote.)
But it would have helped Democrats beat Republicans in seven close Senate elections and 11 close gubernatorial elections between 1970 and 2004. That would have handed Democrats continuous control of the Senate between 1986 and 2002—a pretty large impact.
One of the interesting things here is who the missing voters are. Although media attention has rightly focused on the deaths of young black men like Freddie Gray, the big difference in mortality has nothing to do with violent deaths from street violence, police brutality, or drugs. “In fact, the predominant and persistent driving force behind US black/white mortality disparities is the unequal distribution of chronic morbidity among young through middle aged adults,” the paper notes:
Age of Death by Race
Rodriguez et al.
The 40-65 range highlighted in the graph above also happens to match up with the peak age of voting. (Naturally, the longer someone lives, the more opportunities they have to vote.)
There’s a public-policy catch-22 at work here. The authors note that there is a range of factors that help determine racial disparities in mortality. Residential segregation and lower levels of public investment in black neighborhoods reduce lifespans. Black neighborhoods tend to have greater exposure to pollution, are less pedestrian-friendly, have higher food costs, and see more tobacco and alcohol marketing. Access to healthcare is also sharply divided by race. In short, there is a range of problems that could be addressed by public policy. But altering public policy requires voting, and the present policies have combined to remove a chunk of the voting-age population that would otherwise have benefited from their repeal.
Of course, there’s an element of parlor game in this study—you, too, can play along at home, as long as you’ve got access to the General Social Survey, exit polls, and Microsoft Excel. There are all sorts of ways to design a different electorate. What if the voting age returned to 21? Or what about differences in mortality rates based purely on socioeconomics? Better-educated and wealthier people tend to live long. What if mortality rates among (more conservative) poor southern white voters were the same as those for (more liberal) wealthy Manhattanites?
But black votes are a particularly interesting and important area of focus, both because of the long history of efforts to prevent or suppress black voting, and because of the partisan homogeneity of African Americans. Electoral impact isn’t the only reason to worry about racial disparities in health outcomes, much less the best one, but the vicious public-policy cycle described here makes a compelling case that mortality rates deserve more attention in conversations about race and voting.Ten Poles have been posthumously awarded Righteous among the Nations medals by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Institute for helping save Jews during the Second World War.
The ceremony at Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw was attended by Sara Peretz’s daughter, Nira Berry (left: photo - PAP / Marcin Obara
One of the Poles, Grzegorz Czyżyk, who served as a policeman in Chełm, eastern Poland, during the war in Nazi-occupied Poland, used his contacts to take Bela Peretz, serving a prison term for illegal ‘trading in flour’, out of jail.
He later offered shelter to her and her small daughter Sara in his farm buildings for two years.
The ceremony at the historic Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw was attended by Sara Peretz’s daughter, Nira Berry.
She said that ever she was a little girl she heard her grandmother and mother calling Grzegorz Czyżyk “a great hero”.
“‘My mother was trying, unsuccessfully, to establish contact with him. I have carried on the task and it is possible to honour a man to whom I, my children and my grandchildren owe our lives,” Nira Berry said.
Israel's Ambassador to Poland, Zvi Rav-Ner, who presided over the ceremony, said that those who saved Jews were people of various background: rich and poor, city residents and farmers, highly educated and uneducated people.
“What they in common was a sense of humanity in the most difficult times. As the Talmud says:‘whoever saves one life, saves the entire world',” the Israeli ambassador said.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles offered aid to Jews during World War II, risking their lives and those of their families.
About 19 000 people have been honoured with the Righteous among the Nations medals, over 6 300 of them Poles. (mk/pg)McDonald's posts disappointing quarterly results(Photo : Reuters)
McDonald's franchisees' sales outlook for the next six months is the most negative it's been in more than a decade, according to Janney Capital Markets.
According to a survey conducted by Janney, franchisees' sales outlook is the weakest it has been in a decade. This was enough for the research house to cut its June comparable sales estimate by 1.1 percent to a 2.6 percent drop. In addition, second quarter EPS was reduced by two percent.
Janney's restaurant analyst, Mark Kalinowski, wrote in a research note that the franchisees surveyed on their six-month outlook gave an average rating of 1.84 on a scale of 1 to 5, in which 1 means "poor" and 5 means "excellent." Nine of the 27 respondents rated their outlook at 1, and no franchisees indicated their outlook was a 5.
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"This 1.84 number is meaningfully below the 2.9 average result over the history of the survey and below the 2.21 result from three months ago," Kalinowski wrote. "Indeed, this result becomes the worst ever in our decade plus of conducting this survey, even lower than the previous low score of 1.89 from six months ago."
According to Bloomberg, if Janney is right, McDonald's will record the worst June and July sales in 11 years.
McDonald's shares were last trading at $99.71, down 0.6 percent in the pre-market.2018 List of Restaurants Open on Thanksgiving
2018 List of Restaurants Open on Thanksgiving
We have compiled the following list of all the restaurants that are open & closed on
Thanksgiving Day & Black Friday
Green = Open Red = Closed Grey = Unknown/Unverified
We advise that you call individual restaurants to verify they are open before going.
If you notice missing or incorrect information text correction to
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We advise that you call individual restaurants to verify they are open before going.If you notice missing or incorrect information text correction to 402-474-7335 or email us at [email protected] and we will correct it asap.
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z - #The current design of the Piston game loop:
/// Returns the next game event. fn next(&mut self) -> Option<GameEvent> { loop { match self.state { RenderState => { if self.game_window.should_close() { return None; } let start_render = time::precise_time_ns(); self.last_frame = start_render; let (w, h) = self.game_window.get_size(); if w!= 0 && h!= 0 { // Swap buffers next time. self.state = SwapBuffersState; return Some(Render(RenderArgs { // Extrapolate time forward to allow smooth motion. ext_dt: (start_render - self.last_update) as f64 / billion as f64, width: w, height: h, } )); } self.state = UpdateLoopState; }, SwapBuffersState => { self.game_window.swap_buffers(); self.state = UpdateLoopState; }, UpdateLoopState => { let current_time = time::precise_time_ns(); let next_frame = self.last_frame + self.dt_frame_in_ns; let next_update = self.last_update + self.dt_update_in_ns; let next_event = cmp::min(next_frame, next_update); if next_event > current_time { sleep( Duration::nanoseconds((next_event - current_time) as i32) ); } else if next_event == next_frame { self.state = RenderState; } else { self.state = HandleEventsState; } }, HandleEventsState => { // Handle all events before updating. return match self.game_window.poll_event() { None => { self.state = UpdateState; // Explicitly continue because otherwise the result // of this match is immediately returned. continue; }, Some(x) => Some(Input(x)), } }, UpdateState => { self.state = UpdateLoopState; self.last_update += self.dt_update_in_ns; return Some(Update(UpdateArgs{ dt: self.dt, })); }, }; } }
These 63 lines of code represent many hours of work from 3 people: bfops, gmorenz and bvssvni.Every member of an Arizona family has undergone a transgender transformation, with the father identifying as a woman, the fiancee identifying as a man and the two children also having swapped genders since birth.
Daniel Harrott, of Queen Creek, Arizona, lived most of his life as a woman and fiancee, Shirley Austin, was born a man but has been living as a woman, KJZZ-TV reports. Harrott’s two children, Mason, 11, and 13 year-old Joshua have also both switched sexes within recent years. Mason is living as a boy but was assigned to be a woman at birth. Joshua’s birth sex was assigned male but she says she’s long known she’s more comfortable as a female.
Austin describes the entire family as being in “transition.”
“It feels like you’re getting to live for the first time,” he said. “And my children are getting to be who they’ve always wanted to be.”
Daniel Harrott told KJZZ-TV transgender individuals have been members of the family for generations, with his grandmother’s sister being described by other members of the family at the time as a “cross-dresser.” Daniel’s mother was raised to dress “feminine” by her grandmother who was concerned over her own sister’s transvestite behavior.
Harrott and Austin both say they are trying to teach their children about “traditional” gender roles despite Mason and Joshua both going through gender transitions themselves.
“Of course my mother just gave that same lesson: ‘This is not OK. You must be a girl. This is who you were born to be,” Harrott said.
Despite previously getting married to a man and giving birth to two children, Harrott says he never felt comfortable in makeup or women’s clothes and wasn’t introduced to the word “transgender” until a few years ago when Joshua was unable to join the Girl Scouts after being raised as a boy.
Harrott said that it was the children who led the way on the family’s collective gender transitions. Soon after being introduced to the term “transgender,” Joshua came out as a trans girl and Mason came out as a trans boy. In order to live his “authentic self” as well, Harrott got a haircut and began shopping in the men’s section of clothing stores.
“And when I finally looked it up, and I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re trans, and I know it’s true – because I am, too, and it’s been my whole life,’” Harrott said.
Harrott told KJZZ that everyone in the family are actually ‘very traditional’ people, who really see each other.”Italy continues to suffer from a steadily declining birthrate, especially among native Italians, with live births falling by nearly 20,000 in 2015.
According to the latest data released Monday by Italy’s National Institute of Statistics (Istat), 485,780 live births were registered in 2015, representing a drop of some 17,000 children relative to 2014. This is just the latest confirmation of a downward trend, with the yearly birthrate declining by 91,000 since 2008.
The decline was far sharper in births to couples both of whom are Italian citizens. Children born to Italian couples sank to 385,014 in 2015 (a drop of over 95,000 over the last seven years). Istat attributed the trend to two factors: ever fewer Italian women at childbearing age and an increasing unwillingness to have children among those who could.
Births to couples where at least one of the members is a non-Italian have continued to climb relative to births to Italian couples, and now make up 20.7 percent of the total yearly births nationwide, or just over one fifth.
The Institute also highlighted a precipitous drop in the marriage rate, with 52,000 fewer marriages in 2015 than in 2008. The birthrate within marriages has dropped even more than among the general population (a decline of nearly 120,000 births in just 7 years). At the same time, out-of-wedlock births have risen steadily as a percentage of all births, representing 28,7 percent of the total in 2015.
Summing up, Istat notes that the average number of children per woman has dropped to 1.35 in 2015 from 1.46 in 2010. Italian women have on average 1.27 children whereas foreign women residing in Italy give birth to an average of 1.94 children per woman.
Italy’s birthrate has fallen further and further below the replacement rate of roughly 2.1 children per woman. Globally, Italy is ranked 211 out of 223 countries for new live births as a percentage of the total population.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsromeHis poll ratings have hit new lows. Here are the numbers that should worry the White House the most.
Remember when President Obama was popular? It wasn't that long ago.
In early May, the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden lifted Obama above the 50 percent approval threshold as measured by every major, national polling agency other than Rasumssen. In early June, his numbers approached those he saw during the 2008 election contest. National Journal's Ron Brownstein wrote at the time that those gains could have been "heavily influenced" by bin Laden's death and could be reversed by a stagnant economy.
And that's exactly how it's played out.
For nearly two months, Obama kept his head above the opinion waters, with more Americans approving of him than disapproving. But in late June, with no significant gains on employment, a stagnating war in Libya, and a debt-ceiling fight beginning to break out, Gallup (the firm that usually gives Obama his highest marks) showed a sharp reversal, with 50 percent disapproving of Obama and only 43 percent approving. It's been downhill since then.
A trio of new polls from NBC/The Wall Street Journal, ABC/The Washington Post, and Politico/George Washington University confirm it: Obama has reached new lows on multiple fronts. Here are the numbers he should worry about most:
By a margin of two to one, respondents said his policies are making the economy worse, not better. ABC/Post: 34 percent said "Obama's economic program is making the economy" worse, 17 percent said it's making the economy better, and 47 percent said it's having "no real effect." Meanwhile, 36 percent said they approved of Obama's efforts to create jobs, while 62 percent said they didn't.
His overall job approval ratings are the lowest of his presidency, according to ABC/Post and NBC/WSJ -- worse, even, than during the 2010 midterm elections, when Republicans took over the House of Representatives. ABC/Post: 43 percent approve, while 53 percent disapprove. NBC/Wall Street Journal: 44 percent approve, while 51 percent disapprove.
Approval ratings on the economy are also the lowest of his presidency, according to ABC/Post and NBC/WSJ, reaching deficits of over 20 percentage points. ABC/Post: 36 percent approve, while 62 percent disapprove. NBC/WSJ: 37 percent approve, while 59 percent disapprove.
His re-election polling looks bad, too. Obama trails a generic Republican in election polling, NBC/WSJ finds: 40 percent said they would vote for Obama if the 2012 election were held today, while 44 percent said they would vote for a generic Republican. According to Politico/GWU, 43 percent said they would definitely vote against Obama in 2012, while only 26 percent said they would definitely vote for him.
More Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction than at any other time in Obama's presidency. ABC/Post: 20 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, while 77 percent said it's on the wrong track. NBC/WSJ: 19 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, while 73 percent said it's on the wrong track. Politico/GWU: 19 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, while 73 percent said it's on the wrong track.This article is about the central bank of Canada. For banks in Canada, see List of banks and credit unions in Canada
Not to be confused with Royal Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada (or BoC) (French: Banque du Canada) is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank.[3] Chartered in 1934 under the Bank of Canada Act, it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy,[4] and for the promotion of a safe, sound financial system within Canada.[5] The Bank of Canada is the sole issuing authority of Canadian banknotes,[6][7] provides banking services and money management for the government, and loans money to Canadian financial institutions.[8][9]
The Bank of Canada headquarters are located at the Bank of Canada Building, 234 Wellington Street in the nation's capital, Ottawa. The building also used to house the Bank of Canada Museum, which opened in December, 1980 and temporarily closed in 2013. As of July 2017, the museum is now located at 30 Bank Street, Ottawa, Ontario, but is connected to the main buildings through the Bank of Canada's underground meeting rooms. [10]
History [ edit ]
Prior to the creation of the Bank of Canada, The Bank of Montreal, then the nation's largest bank, acted as the government's banker, and the federal Department of Finance was responsible for printing Canada's banknotes.
In 1933, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett instituted the Royal Commission on Banking and Currency[11] and it reported its policy recommendations in favour of the establishment of a central bank for Canada. The Royal Commission's members consisted of Scottish jurist Lord Macmillan, Bank of England director Sir Charles Addis, Canadian former Finance Minister William Thomas White, Banque Canadienne de Montreal general manager Beaudry Leman, and Premier of Alberta John Edward Brownlee.[12]
The bank was chartered by and under the Bank of Canada Act[13] on July 3, 1934, as a privately owned corporation, a move taken in order to ensure the bank would be free from partisan political influence. The Bank's purpose was set out in the preamble to the act: "to regulate credit and currency in the best interests of the economic life of the nation, to control and protect the external value |
the story on the surface, then it doesn’t hold up. There are all sorts of shocking exaggerations that are there to intentionally destabilise the player.
RPS: Would you suggest that one of those destabilisations is what has been perceived as racism?
Jeffrey Yohalem: Yes! It’s NOT! It’s the opposite! The game is the opposite. It’s so funny to me. I’ve seen these arguments on forums, and I think these arguments are fantastic because people are engaging in a discussion about art, which is exactly what I was hoping would happen. But, the game’s argument is that Jason is basically used by everyone on the island – Jason is basically a gun, that is upgraded by the natives on the island. It’s the opposite of Avatar. And it’s fantastic to me, because Citra is standing in front of the home tree when you first meet her, you’re called Snow White, the people are called the Rakyat, which means “the people”. It’s the laziest name for a tribe ever, they’re not real, they’re a metaphor. People need to be looking at the names of these things. There are all kinds of secrets in this game for people to figure out, that tie into the main plot. It’s all part of what the game is trying to say.
I wanted to create this gigantic riddle. I created the glyph puzzles in Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and this is a gigantic glyph puzzle.
RPS: Do you not think there’s a danger of having your cake and eating it? You’re deliberately being a hokum story, you’re deliberately evoking lazy stereotypes, but at the same time, aren’t you just evoking lazy stereotypes?
Jeffrey Yohalem: Yes! Do you know what the name of the island is?! It’s Rook Island! Which means to fraud people! Look up the definition – the definition of “rook” is, someone that steals your money, or it’s a piece in chess. So this is an island that is a fraud. The point is, look under the surface. Not because the game is a fraud, the game is not a fraud, but the island is. What is going on on this island, and the clues are right there in front of you. In my mind it’s an interesting undertaking to take on some kind of examination of deeper issues like this, because like you said if people don’t examine it that way, then maybe they don’t see it? But like I told you, I was building a building that has four legs instead of six. If you don’t see those issues, the thing doesn’t make sense. I find it fascinating again, all the stuff that people are discussing on the internet, because you can see that the people who only looked at the surface are really uncomfortable. So much so that they keep discussing it. So to me that says that the story is not fitting. If the story functions correctly, like say Avatar – Avatar allows you to fit with the story. The story completes, then there’s nothing to discuss any more. So your brain goes, “Yes, I like it.” As humans we’re always looking for meaning, and for things to make sense. So if you miss the deeper meaning it doesn’t make sense any more.
The end of this story is very blatantly a subversion of any kinds of racist stereotypes. What I feel like what’s happened is to explain this story you need more than a soundbite, and I feel like a lot of people just glancingly looked at the thing and then got upset. They didn’t actually explore the whole game.
RPS: When I got to the end of the game what I saw was a depiction of a tribe, standing topless in simple clothes, dancing in a tribalistic way. It was very clearly an image of this archaic 19th century perspective of natives on an island. And I was given the choice to join them and as a white man become their leader, or walk away. I’m not quite sure how that squares up with a dramatic statement. How is it more than what I saw on the screen?
Jeffrey Yohalem: [Very animated] Because if you choose to become a part of that tribe and become their leader, it’s completely manufactured in your head! It doesn’t come from them at all! They never said “become our leader”! She says “become our king”, she doesn’t say “become our leader”! And then if you choose the tribe, she kills you! It turns out you were being used by them. The entire time you thought you were the leader of the whole tribe, you were nothing. You were just a gun that she upgraded with tattoos.
RPS: But is that any different from the tribe making you their leader, carrying you on their shoulders, and then boiling you in a pot?
Jeffrey Yohalem: [laughs] Yeah! It’s exactly… I’m playing with all of that! The game is about playing. I was just reading an article this morning about the conceptual artist who did Lose/Lose, the space invaders game that deleted your files, created by Zach Gage. He did a piece where you’d come in a museum, and stand in front of the piece, and when you stand in front of it, it tallies that you stood in front of it. The point was to be a satire of popularity. Why would you judge something by the number of people who’ve seen it? Some people said, “This is great, that I stood in front of this piece and it’s acknowledging my existence.” So they were missing the satire. The artist is very clear in the article about what he wanted to say with that piece. So what I was hoping for with this game is that people would say, “Maybe there’s something more interesting and different going on here that I can examine?” That videogames can be more than what they’ve been before. Which is covering up potholes in meaning instead of conveying it.
RPS: Do you not think that part of the problem of people’s not interpreting it this way comes from the fact that the majority of games’ stories are as bad as the thing you’re parodying? They are atrocious. So people come into a game expecting these incredibly immature and incredibly simplistic, and often incredibly stereotyped storylines, so when they approach Far Cry 3, instead of saying “This is an arch commentary on that,” they say, “Well this is another one of what most games are like.”
Jeffrey Yohalem: That question is an interesting one, because I thought we went so extreme in such a huge number of ways, that we had been totally exaggerated. I’ve played all of these games, so the shocking thing for me is that people would think this is serious. At the same time, all of the articles coming out didn’t come out for other games. So there must be some form of exaggeration, I must have succeeded at exaggerating. For example, the rape by Buck being glossed over, where he rapes Keith, or implied rape, that’s so exaggerated because it’s taking the exploitation of female characters in videogames and saying, well what if it’s a man, how do you feel then?
In most games that exploitations is glossed over, so in this case it’s glossed over. So by swapping out the Keith character for a female character, and then not having this deep emotional scene acknowledging the sadness from how these guy feels from that, it makes you really uncomfortable.
[Becoming agitated again] The sex scene [at the midpoint] – first Jason is shooting at that gigantic monster. He kills the monster, and it jump-cuts to him orgasming with Citra! He’s firing sperm at this gigantic monster, and then suddenly he’s on this alter with Citra, having sex with her, and then he thinks he’s the leader of the tribe and makes the big speech, and it’s his power fantasy! That’s the other thing – it’s all from first-person, so it’s completely unreliable. There’s a reason why Jason is a 25 year old white guy from Hollywood – these are all ideas that are in his head. You’re seeing things through his eyes. That’s why the Alice quotes are there, and why Willis’s database entries are written from Willis’s perspective, and not written from a universal perspective. So the game is all from a series of perspectives, and I think it’s all there. And again, you could say to me, “Why isn’t this even more exaggerated?”, but why should it have to be? I don’t understand why what I did isn’t so insanely exaggerated already. What you’re saying is that games are so bad with this stuff that it has to be so through the roof – I mean, male rape, having this transition, having the end of the game be that she kills you while having sex with you? And she says, “you win,” as you’re dying. The only thing more outrageous I could think of is if she castrated him.
RPS: You say the rape scene is critiquing how mawkishly rape scenes can be shown, but I’m not sure I understand your point when you say you changed it to a man to say something. When I played it, I saw that it was a situation where a man had been repeatedly raped. I didn’t think, “Ah, but it’s a man rather than a woman.” I didn’t find anything to make me compare it to rape scenes featuring women. What I fear with that scene is that it ends up becoming a sarcastic remark, at the expense of a really traumatising subject.
Jeffrey Yohalem: Well, I don’t think it downplays a traumatising subject. Keith is not okay after that. He says very little for the rest of the game. You know, in Assassin’s Creed II your mother is raped, and she doesn’t talk for the rest of the game. So Keith is very similar. What he says after the rape is he tells you your brother is dead. Then he doesn’t talk. I don’t think that it downplays or is sarcastic. None of this is intended to be ironic – I don’t like games, or jokes, that hold people at arm’s length – that the only emotion that people can experience is the irony or the sarcasm of it, which is something I think was going on a lot in entertainment three or four years ago, maybe even two years ago, where it was all about, “Look how funny we are – we’re making fun of this.” That’s not the point at all.
It’s not intended to be glossed over in that sense. The intent was to not allow there to be some kind of cathartic sad scene where people get to deal with the fact that Keith’s been through this. I don’t give you the satisfaction, and it is a satisfaction, when you watch a character go through experiencing the torture of what they’ve just been through, it satisfies the player’s expectations of that thing being addressed. So that scene is taken away from the player. So you have this disturbing exchange of power, something Jason and Buck experience, where Buck forces Jason to call him sir, demeans Jason and his manhood, this diminishing of who Jason is – of who the player is, because the player is in Jason’s body.
And then the player experiences what Buck did to Keith. I really do think that it being a man matters. Throughout the game you have Daisy and Lisa, and Citra, and you expect certain things, the mistreatment of those characters, because of how past videogames have treated them. I don’t think you’re expected Keith to be treated as an object in that way. The fact that Buck did that is shocking, because it hasn’t really happened in videogames before. And at the same time, videogames have a primarily male audience, so it’s very easy to have this gratuitous portrayal of women in other games be glossed over and allowed by its audience, because it’s not them. To really hit someone where they live, I think destabilises the trope. I’m hoping in the future when you encounter the objectification of women in games, you go, “Maybe this is uncomfortable, the way I felt uncomfortable in Far Cry 3.”
To be fair, Far Cry does it twice. When Citra kills you at the end, it’s like Mario thinking he’s rescuing the princess for the whole game, and then the princess stabs Mario, and says “You win”. The point is, she didn’t need saving. She didn’t need rescuing, she’s not a princess in a castle, and she’s not waiting for you to save her. In fact, it’s all part of this elaborate ritual. It’s not even clear that she needed your help to begin with. In fact Vaas was there to do it first, and Vaas left because he didn’t want to be a part of her crazy ritual. It’s not that she needed a white saviour at all. She didn’t need a white guy at all. She was just looking for the ultimate warrior and someone to be her gun.
RPS: The problem for me is I didn’t choose that ending. I chose not to slit the throat of my girlfriend! There’s no way I was going to do that, so I walked away. While you get one less scene of her tits, you get a more elaborate ending for walking away, but you don’t get this delivery of the punchline.
Jeffrey Yohalem: Correct. And with YouTube so big right now, I assumed everyone would go and look at the other ending, and I created it that way.
RPS: And I did – the first thing I did was look at the other ending on YouTube. But then I was vicariously seeing someone else’s ending, I wasn’t experiencing my ending, I wasn’t getting my punchline to the game.
Jeffrey Yohalem: But if you don’t choose to win, if you don’t choose to get the final tattoo, to me you’ve chosen who you are – you’re the guy who saves the girlfriend. The curation for you is different.
RPS: Do you think this understanding was carried by the rest of your team? I’m listening to your arguments, and I understand the points you’re making, and I’m coming from the position of thinking this is one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. But stuff like the hunting for skins is so ridiculous in the game…
Jeffrey Yohalem: Right! Right, cos Jason asks why he’s doing it. Isn’t there a line where he says, “What am I supposed to do?”, and an objective pops, an objective gives you what you’re supposed to do.
RPS: Yeah, but the way it’s delivered by the game, the mechanics of the game, don’t seem to be carrying the same satire. To the point where, when you ‘skin’ an animal its skin is left on and you seem to take a lump of guts. Do you think the delivery of the game in some places fell short of the message you were trying to convey?
Jeffrey Yohalem: To me that helped the delivery. Games are built by gigantic production teams. So even if everybody on the team doesn’t understand what the point of the game is, what I understood was: here’s the direction that these people are going to go in. So to me all that continues to support the message of the game. Because the message of the game is, look at all these systems that we’re creating, and if they’re illogical, and if they’re not challenging you as an individual but are just things for you to do that pass the time, then see how that makes you feel. The crazier the things that you’re doing are, the more interesting it is that you’re not going and helping the friends.
People who have looked at the surface of the game think that the story and the game are at war with each other as they are in most games, with the story just plugging potholes and the gameplay is going along its merry way. I think it’s very exaggerated that, “Oh, go save the friends! Go save the friends!” but most people are out on the island doing all this other crazy stuff and experiencing the gameplay. And that’s actually the point of the story.
It’s not a game about go save your friends. It’s a game about – doing a lot of picking skins from things, and wait, it’s just a pile of meat – this doesn’t even make sense, yet I’m still doing it instead of saving the friends.
RPS: How on board were the project leads with your ideas?
Jeffrey Yohalem: The director was a hundred percent. Pat Plourde is a genius. We worked together on Brotherhood and AC2, and something called The Lost Archive, which was a DLC for Assassin’s Creed Revelations, where we started exploring some of these ideas. Of how gameplay and story could be one-to-one. That’s about a guy named Clay, who’s got all these support structures in his life, like his parents and assassins and his job. And gradually he loses all those support structures or they fail him. It’s a game where you shoot blocks, and a block is a support structure that you’re walking on, so the game gets increasingly harder to play, an ultimately he runs out of blocks and he has to kill himself by falling. It’s a game about the loss of support, and that’s conveyed literally through the gameplay. If you muted it, you’d still experience a game that’s about the loss of support.
Far Cry 3 is a continuation of those ideas. He was entirely on board. And everyone else, in all of their different departments, understood what was going on, and what we were trying to say. But again it’s such a labyrinthine production – as it is with every triple-A game – that on some levels it’s like the Wild West. You have this freedom to express things in a way you wouldn’t have in a blockbuster movie.
RPS: In Roland Barthes’ essay The Death Of The Author, he argues that the author is meaningless once the piece is out there, that the understanding is in the interpretation of the viewer. If most people come away from this game saying either it’s racist, or it’s old-school colonialism, do you still think you’ve succeeded in what you’ve set out to do?
Jeffrey Yohalem: I think that’s an interesting hypothetical question, because my feeling is most people aren’t feeling that way. I get the impression that it’s a small minority of people who feel that it’s racist, or talking about that. So my hope is that a vast majority of people do not come away feeling that way, because then they’ll have missed the point. But, the point is for them to examine who they are. I feel like we’re living in this incredible time when you can actually experience someone else’s curated mind. To me that’s what games are. To me that’s where the Death Of The Author argument doesn’t necessarily hold up. This experience is curated. It’s curated by us. So all the systems you’re playing on that island, and all the things that happen in the story, and all the moments that you play, are chosen. If an artist curates his installation in an art gallery, and it’s very important spacially how things are laid out, although you could just ignore that and go to the bathroom in the art gallery instead of looking at anything, I think that there’s no argument that if someone goes into that installation they’re going to have some kind of impact that the author intended.
My argument is that the player is an actor, and the game is the director. And it’s the job of a great director, as opposed to a bad director… A bad director says, “Look at this thing! Look at this! Feel what this thing is! Feel the power of this – cry!” A bad director tells an actor, “Cry now.” Which the actor in their head goes, “Fuck this guy. I’m not feeling that.” In fact, I want to do the opposite of what the director just told me. Not explaining why – it’s really offensive. It’s distrusting the actor’s intelligence. Or even the actor’s essence. So a great director instead says, “Here are all the things that are going on in the world in which this play occurs, and the script. We take those and see what fits with you and give me that.” The goal of Far Cry 3 is to allow players… I think the problem with narrative in the past has been that writers are trying to say something, and they’re trying to get the players to sit down and listen to it. My feeling is that games are interactive, they’re about what you’re doing in the world, they’re about gameplay, and they’re not about sitting there and telling anyone anything.
So they player gets up, and explores the world, and explores the curated experience, and he can’t find everything in the world in that experience, and that’s very intentional. The director has chosen what this island is made up of – it’s called Rook Island, it’s not called some other island – and the Alice quotes have an effect on you, and there’s a meaning behind all the Alice quotes. And there’s meanings you may find then in those things that surprises me as the author. Which is wonderful, because it’s then like you’re expressing your self. You take the story, and the puzzle pieces in the story, and you put them together in a pattern that I didn’t realise, I go, “Wow, that isn’t what I thought of at all when I was writing it.” And it works. The only thing I wanted to ensure was that the surface reading of this plot didn’t work. Like I said, I was trying to remove support structures from the building so the building would fall down if it was analysed that way.
RPS: Right, but I’m coming at this with the perspective of a player. So take the boss fight – in that moment it doesn’t matter whether this is metaphorical, or if it’s an arch commentary on the nature of boss fights – the reality is I’m still having to play through a really crappy boss fight. In that moment it doesn’t really matter what commentary it’s making – as a player I’m still having to struggle through a crappy fight. Do you see how the intention can become mistranslated in the mechanics of what the player has to do?
Jeffrey Yohalem: This is the most collaborative art form we’ve ever done as a species. It’s incredible. If what you’re saying is that not every element in this game lived up to what you feel is good as the player, that’s valid because there are so many different art forms here. At the same time, what we try to do with Far Cry 3 is – you’re choosing to go on this vision quest mission. So you could be hunting animals, or you could be… And by the way, you’re hunting endangered species on these island – that’s also intentional – it’s supposed to be an exaggeration of things you do in other games. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable. Everything that we curated in there is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable in some way. Some of it I think didn’t quite succeed, because it wasn’t exaggerated enough as you said, but a lot of it is.
RPS: But again, we’ve just been trained over decades to shoot endangered animals in Tomb Raider and Uncharted and so on – we’re just used to shooting endangered animals. It’s just another game having us shoot endangered animals at this point.
Jeffrey Yohalem: Yes, but if that were true then I wouldn’t see articles on the internet about it.
RPS: But people have always mocked the Tomb Raider games for the fact you’re shooting endangered species!
Jeffrey Yohalem: Yeah, but then there are all these articles online talking about how disgusting it is in Far Cry. Modern art felt like it couldn’t shock anyone any more. Modern art’s been in this strange period where it’s trying very hard to be relevant, and to shock people, and this videogame seems to have shocked a lot of people.
RPS: But so do sick, stupid videogames. A game like Medal Of Honor I felt was deeply revolting, a really vile game. I find it problematic that the writer of that game could come back and say, “Ah, but it was satire.” Do you see – it’s maybe too easy a get-out?
Jeffrey Yohalem: Yes, of course it’s too easy a get-out! That’s why I put all the clues in there. There are dozens of clues! Of course it’s lazy if it’s not real satire. If it’s not real satire I can’t come after the fact and tell you – that’s the point of the clues. Before the game is produced, all the clues are put in there, so when you say exactly what you just said to me, I go, but wait, look at this, this, this and this.
You may say that the things I’m saying to look at, like the name of the island – if you analyse each of the Alice quotes it’s about the metaphor behind each of the characters you’re experiencing – and the island is clearly Never Never Land, and there are all these references… You pointed out one of the clues – the Snow White clue. If this was about the white messiah motif, would I be so stupid as to have a main character’s nickname be Snow White? I’m making fun of that!
RPS: But I think where you say, “Would I be so stupid?” you really get to the key issue here. Most games writers are being stupid! We don’t have any background to assume you’re being smart here. It’s so much simpler for the player to assume you were being as stupid as most game stories are.
Jeffrey Yohalem: My experience of this has been that literally… that gameplay has a tutorial at the beginning of the game, where it’s explained how to play. Or over the course of the game – in Assassin’s Creed, over the course of the whole game you’re explained how to play all the different systems. So I never thought that story should have a tutorial until experiencing this. Whether maybe there was a point where I should have literally had a tutorial in the game. For me it was the death of Grant, that Grant as the main videogame classic protagonist being shot in the head at the beginning of the game – this game is not that. And Alice quotes at the beginning. All of that was supposed to put you in this state of, “Okay, I’m going to examine this differently.” Maybe I needed to be even clearer. What I’ve been doing now in interviews is trying to explain the story tutorial, which for me is not a negative because gameplay gets to do it. I don’t feel like I’m cheating in some way to say that maybe you should examine this as a riddle or a puzzle. That’s what I would have put at the beginning of the game if I were putting a tutorial in. What I was trying is create a game with the story, which means it’s interactive. And it’s something that players come to if they want, not something that they’re forced to.
My biggest surprise has been that people didn’t expect something like this, and I guess I should have anticipated that.
RPS: Do you think that because this is following on from Far Cry 2, for whatever it achieved it didn’t have this sort of depth behind it. Do you think people’s expectations are set because it’s the third game in a series?
Jeffrey Yohalem: I don’t think so. I think Far Cry 2 talked a lot about philosophical and artistic issues, and that was my opening. For me FC2, with the guns jamming and the malaria and all these systems that were considered not fun, it was about deconstructing the fun of a videogame. I thought Clint was very clear in a lot of interviews he did that that was what he was doing. He was trying to be philosophical about videogames, about their fundamental mechanics. If you have a gun that can jam at any point when you’re shooting it disrupts the flow. So he’s examining what makes a game fun, if I take away what’s considered traditionally fun.
So Far Cry 3 is actually doing the same thing – and I’m surprised that no one’s referenced that connection between the two of them – it’s just that Far Cry 3 is saying, what if I give you so much quote-unquote fun that it becomes uncomfortable. It’s a different approach to the same problem – they’re both trying to approach building the same building, I think. Everyone keeps saying how they’re so different, but in reality I think conceptually he approached it from the mechanical side by disrupting the mechanics, and I approached it from the story side by disrupting the story.
RPS: But at the same time you can argue, you know, I’m spending my £30 on this game – I don’t want to have my fun interrupted, and that…
Jeffrey Yohalem: YES! That’s my…
RPS: …I don’t want to be the victim of your experiment.
Jeffrey Yohalem: That’s my argument! What I experienced in Far Cry 2 is that I didn’t have fun playing it, although I found the ideas really, really interesting – let’s say. I’m not saying that was my experience, but that’s something that you see out there. If you approach Far Cry 3 you’re not going to find any of those problems. This is where the level of exaggeration issue comes in – if you turn the volume to 11, it’s like you’re screaming at the player and it’s very uncomfortable. It turns a lot of players off. I was trying to reach a volume of, err, six. Like Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence, you can approach Far Cry 3 on the surface level and still have a lot of fun. Now you may say that compromises some kind of artistic ideal, that if I had cast it so it was so exaggerated that it was not entertaining at all, unless you read it as commentary, then I would agree with you that it is forcing my opinion down the player’s throat and being a bad director. My goal was to bring joy to everyone. But at the same time I’m hoping players can look at the riddles in the story and see that there’s a lot more going on there. And actually look into themselves and learn something through the journey. The goal was really not to waste players’ time, because we’re going to die soon, and there’s so much to read and watch and do on this planet.
RPS: You talked about how in previous Assassin’s Creed games you questioned themes and tropes, and have gone far farther with that Far Cry 3. Do you think it’s a fair criticism to say, why not make a game that doesn’t make all these mistakes? Why set out to highlight the mistakes or the laziness, or the issues, or the laziness in the players – why not set out to make a game that’s really good?
Jeffrey Yohalem: First of all, I don’t think there’s any laziness in the players. I think our players are some of the most intelligent, grown up, free-thinking people that there are. I feel like a lot of games don’t respect that. I feel like we’re in this place in the videogame industry where we’re in an abusive relationship. Players feel like game developers don’t respect them, and don’t create meaningful works for them, so they call a lot of games stupid. And a lot of developers get upset because things are being called stupid, and they say that players don’t get it anyway, so they just handhold them all the through. I think that’s an abusive relationship. You need to break that cycle. You need to cause both sides to step back and say, “Maybe there’s something else that we can both have between each other.” We can create situation where players go, “Huh, maybe games have something interesting to say after all, and I’m going to listen.” And then that puts the pressure on game developers to not create lazy crap. Players will see it. As soon as players are listening, game developers have to deliver. In that context you can see that Far Cry 3 is trying to break that loop, rather than create the thing that’s going to happen when people are definitively sitting there, listening.
I feel like we’re in a place still where there’s this dark anger between the two sides. Far Cry 3 was trying to break that loop and say, maybe what we’ve been doing before… Vaas’s insanity speech is the lynchpin of the game, because he’s talking about videogames. If you take what’s been done before, and you see it for what it really is, then can we make something better? Which is what Jason’s speech and the good ending is about. Where he says, “I’ve been a monster, maybe I can’t come back from this.” But he thinks he can. So it’s a statement of hope about the industry.
RPS: So are you now going to go on to make something better?
Jeffrey Yohalem: Yes… I’m not allowed to say anything…
[At this point a PR on the line panics and jumps in, assuming I’m asking what his next game is. I explain that I’m not. That it’s a philosophical question.]
Jeffrey Yohalem: I’m not going to give away anything, but there’s a statement at the end of that game, and I will hold true to it.
RPS: That seems a great place to stop. Thank you for your time.
So then. I think what I feel most strongly at this point is a wish that I’d experienced the Far Cry 3 Yohalem believes it is. It’s unquestionably one of my favourite games in a good long time, but not because of the story, and perhaps even despite it. I can only imagine how more brilliant it would have been to have been understanding the experience on that level, alongside adoring the simple mechanics of playing the thing. I’m also fascinated to realise that the game’s biggest mistake might have been covering up your tattoo with a wing suit. If completing it was so important, concealing it for the second half of the game seems to be a surprisingly dumb decision.
It’s tempting to believe that some of Yohalem’s claims about the game’s intentions are a little too convenient, but he’s right – what about all the clues? He said there were dozens more, but he wants people to find them for themselves. While I doubt very much that things like the crappy skinning animations are really a deliberate conceit to this meta-analysis, I have come away far more convinced that much of what felt simply poor about the game was genuinely an attempt to make me feel uncomfortable, to “destabilise” me, as Yohalem would put it. I think the mistake, perhaps, was the belief that being destabilised would have any profound effect on a player.
There’s one larger issue, however, when it comes to my feeling that this is a case of wanting to have their cake, and smear it all over their faces. You may well have noticed that at the start of the interview, Yohalem says,
“The goal was to create a videogame that examined what shooting does to us in a videogame.”
Then surprisingly soon after he said,
“This is the most interesting misperception that I’ve found – people who thought the game was going to be an examination of shooting. Like, what it would be like to be a real person in this jungle, shooting people, and if you kill hundreds of people what happens to you. That’s not what this game is about. It was never what this game was about.”
Where might they be getting this misconception from?! And it’s worth noting that in a previous interview Yohalem said,
“We want this game to be about shooting. Let’s make a game about shooting, and what it does to humanity. This game is our statement, and it’s a very clear statement, about what we feel shooting means.”
There’s definitely an impression that the answer changes to excuse the game. With such stark contradictions in intent, it doesn’t seem too surprising that the game has failed (in my mind) to convey the meaning he wished.
And as I say a few times above, we’re pretty well worn when it comes to dealing with exaggerated, unbelievable plots, and no more so than with shooters. We make excuses for nonsensical stories because we enjoy the mechanic of shooting at targets in well designed locations, so there was no jarring moment in Far Cry 3 to make us think this was being any different. In a year that’s contained the jingoistic stupidity of Black Ops 2, and the outright racist stupidity of Medal Of Honor, if anything Far Cry 3 felt less exaggerated and offensive. Throwing in racial stereotypes and colonial backward thinking just feels disappointing, rather than shocking. When you make a game that’s satirising shooter power fantasies, and questioning what the player will do in order to progress through a game, you have to be more effecting and more grotesque than the norm, and Far Cry 3 simply isn’t.
Sure, you aren’t trying to save the world when you’re torturing your brother, but you are trying to get through this scene so the game you paid for keeps progressing. And that’s the same reason you might simulate torture in a game where there’s some loose plot about preventing a terrorist – it doesn’t matter that Jason’s intentions are personal, we’re only ever doing it to turn the page, and the point gets lost. In neither is the real world in any peril – there’s only the concern that we don’t get to see what happens next. Sure, that’s something that’s open to satire, but the mistake here was believing that there was ever any player-perceived noble intent in any of the other games that asked you to do it.
That’s the mistake Far Cry 3’s plot keeps making. I love that it was trying to be about gaming itself, that it was a statement, and I applaud it wholeheartedly for attempting this. But again and again, what Far Cry 3’s story really does is just put another selection of negative examples on the piles of negative examples in gaming. From my perspective as a player, it wasn’t pointing at them and asking me to question them – it was joining in with them, and asking me to accept it yet again. Yohalem is completely correct that his missing support structures for his house made me feel unsure what it was really about – I ended up writing much about how that made me feel, as did many others. Like he says, if all these articles are appearing about his game, and not the others, he must have done something right. But unfortunately, I think, rather than making us aware of the horrors of the starving Irish when he says they should eat their babies, instead it too often felt like he was publishing baby recipe books to the very hungry. As a work of satire, Far Cry 3 fails, simply because it required this interview to be apparent. But as an attempt, I’m delighted it’s there, and I am thrilled to see |
old. Its time is probably up. There’s certainly a new young actor waiting to be scooped out of relative TV obscurity, just as Willis was decades ago; why saddle him (or her) with a role so deeply tied to another star? It’s nice to be needed, as John McClane might say, but there comes a point when every action hero needs to confront the reality of retirement.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected] delegation from Manchester United has visited Glasgow Celtic's Parkhead home to examine its safe standing section.
The group headed north of the border following a growing clamour among fans to introduce rail seating at Old Trafford.
Sportsmail understands that United remain neutral on the issue but are open to introducing an area similar to that installed by the Scottish club, with a capacity of close to 3,000 should it be deemed legal and feasible.
Manchester United would be open to installing a small standing section at Old Trafford
United officials visited Celtic's Parkhead ground to take a look at their rail seating
The stadium is not thought to be structurally sound enough to support a large standing area but a small section of rail seating, similar to that at Parkhead, is an option.
The issue is to be debated at a fans forum next month with the Manchester United Supporters Trust instrumental in the matter.
Any such move will be reliant upon the interpretation of the 1989 Football Spectators Act, which states that stadia in the two top divisions must be all-seater. Clubs would need to get Premier League guidance on whether legislation would be required.
United supporters rise to their feet to celebrate Paul Pogba's first goal at Old Trafford
The regulations were introduced following the Hillsborough disaster, which saw 96 Liverpool fans unlawfully killed.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport are monitoring the situation.Richard G. Lugar, a six-term Republican senator from Indiana, lost his bid to stay in office after his Tea Party-backed rival questioned his conservative credentials and accused Mr. Lugar of losing touch with Indiana and its voters.
Richard E. Mourdock, the state’s treasurer, defeated Mr. Lugar in the Republican primary on Tuesday, according to networks and The Associated Press. Mr. Mourdock will face Joe Donnelly, a Democratic member of the House, in November.
The results of the primary end the career of one of the longest-serving members of the Senate and provide a new trophy for the Tea Party movement. Mr. Lugar, 80, leaves after three decades as one of the chamber’s leading foreign policy experts and with a reputation as a voice of moderation in his party.
That reputation — and a sense among his constituents that he had long ago become a creature of Washington — doomed Mr. Lugar, who had not faced a primary challenger in more than a quarter-century.
Mr. Mourdock repeatedly accused Mr. Lugar of not being conservative enough for Indiana. He pointed to Mr. Lugar’s votes to confirm President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, support for immigration legislation known as the Dream Act and his backing of bank bailouts during the economic crisis.
Conservative organizations with connections to the Tea Party movement flocked to Mr. Mourdock, hoping to add to the list of moderate senators they had helped to oust over the past several years. (Bob Bennett, Republican of Utah, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, both lost primary battles to Tea Party candidates, though Ms. Murkowski ran as an independent and kept her seat.)
But Mr. Mourdock also benefited from the perception that Mr. Lugar had long ago abandoned Indiana for a life in Washington. The senator and his wife live in suburban Washington, having sold their house in Indiana years ago.
That became an issue when election officials ruled him ineligible to vote in his former home district. The Marion County election board voted that he no longer meets the residency requirements needed to vote in the county.
That controversy fueled Mr. Mourdock’s case that Mr. Lugar no longer had the interests of Indianans at heart.
The Indiana Democratic Party released a statement Tuesday evening thanking Mr. Lugar for his service and criticizing Mr. Mourdock as an “extremist” who is “out of touch with Hoosiers.”
“Like all Hoosiers, we owe Senator Lugar a debt of gratitude for his long and storied career,” said Dan Parker, the Democratic Party chairman. “Hoosiers deserve real leadership that will reach across the aisle in Richard Lugar’s successor, not Richard Mourdock’s Tea Party extremism.”
After the results were in, Senator Lugar released a statement, defending his decision to run for re-election and criticizing growing partisanship in national politics. “Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country.”NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- JPMorgan Chase said Thursday that profit plunged in the second quarter, stung by $1.1 billion in writedowns, but the firm still managed to beat Wall Street projections.
JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) shares jumped 10% in early trading. Other banking firms - including Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) - also posted strong stock gains.
The New York-based bank reported net income of $2 billion in the second quarter, a 53% drop from $4.2 billion in the second quarter. The firm said earnings on a per-share basis fell 55% to 54 cents from $1.20 in the year-earlier period.
Analysts had expected a 64% decline in earnings per share to 44 cents, according to a consensus provided by Thomson/FirstCall.
But without a $540 million net loss stemming from its acquisition of Bear Stearns - which closed in May - net income would have been $2.5 billion, the company said.
"[JPMorgan] earnings are significantly better than what analysts have been looking for because the negative hysteria, panic, fear - whatever you want to call it that hit these stocks - made no sense whatsoever," said Richard Bove, analyst for Ladenburg Thalmann.
Bove said that financial firms tend to be multi-faceted, which allows them to compensate for the weak portions of their business with the stronger performing sections.
The firm reported $19.7 billion in second-quarter net revenue, a 1% decline from a year earlier. That beat the $16.5 billion projected by analysts surveyed by Thomson/FirstCall.
"Our earnings were down significantly due to the unfavorable credit environment and market conditions," CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement.
JPMorgan bought Bear Stearns on May 29 for $2.2 billion, or $10 a share. The deal allows JPMorgan to expand its financial footprint, though it also has has to clean up the mess from its imploded acquisition.
Housing hit Dimon said the plummet in investment bank net income, to $400 million in the second quarter from $1.2 billion a year ago, was partly due to mortgage-related investments.
He blamed the drop in profit in retail financial services on higher charges to the home lending portfolio. Profit in that division fell to $600 million from $785 million a year ago.
"However, the firm overall continued to maintain solid underlying business momentum," Dimon said, noting that some other areas of the company performed well.
Commercial banking net income grew to $355 million in the quarter, up from less than $300 million a year earlier.
Despite the decline in earnings, and drop in share price - JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) stock has plunged 29% so far this year without counting Thursday's gains - the firm is considered one of the stronger companies in the banking industry.
As the year has progressed, analysts have become increasingly concerned about JPMorgan's performance, particularly in its large leveraged loan portfolio and rapidly weakening home-equity loan holdings.
But the firm's troubles seem manageable compared to other participants in the devastated industry, such as Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500).
"I think we're executing quite well," Michael Cavanagh, chief financial officer, said during a call with journalists. "The conditions continue to be choppy. A lot of stuff is resolving itself and working itself through."
"At a point, it will stabilize, but I would be cautious for the near term," he added.
Bank sector woes Both large and small financial institutions that bet big on the mortgage industry continue to be plagued by ongoing deterioration in the housing market. Now with signs that the economy is weakening further, analysts are paying particularly close attention to banks' credit card and auto loan portfolios for signs of rising delinquencies.
JPMorgan said its auto loan net profit slipped 2% on a year-over-year basis to $83 million. The firm's credit card net profit plunged 67% to $250 million.
JPMorgan's results come at the start of what is expected to be a particularly difficult second-quarter bank reporting period.
Despite Wednesday's better-than-expected numbers from Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), both Merrill Lynch and Citigroup are expected to book losses for the quarter. Merrill is due to report earnings after the market close Thursday. Citigroup's results are slated for release early Friday.
Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500), which reports on July 22, warned last week that it expects to lose between $2.6 billion and $2.8 billion during the second quarter. Profits for Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), due out on July 21, are expected to be less than half of what they were just a year ago.
Bove, the analyst, does not own banking stocks and his firm does not conduct business with them.A version of this article appears on Baseball Prospectus.
By Alex Skillin
The Red Sox entered the season with a bevy of groundball pitchers in their rotation, or so the narrative went at the time.
Foremost among them was Rick Porcello, newly acquired from Detroit where he had earned his reputation as a heavy sinker-baller. From 2012 to 2014, Porcello's groundball rate sat above 50 percent, and his sinker was a big reason why. The right-hander turned to his sinker in 43 percent of his offerings during that time span, far more than any of his other pitches, including his four-seam fastball.
As this zone chart from Brooks Baseball shows, Porcello pounded the lower and outer-left portion of the strike zone with his harder offerings from 2012 to 2014:
Porcello's strategy during this time was clearly to churn out grounders by attacking the bottom parts of the zone. He didn't generate all that many strikeouts as a result, and a notoriously poor Tigers infield defense didn't do him too many favors either.
But in 2014, Porcello's results finally improved, and after the Red Sox traded for him this offseason, many viewed the 26-year-old as the poster child of Boston's groundball-oriented staff.
As many observers have pointed out, however, the Red Sox aren't exactly keeping the ball on the ground with the regularity many expected. For his part, Porcello has turned far more to his four-seamer than in years past. Per Brooks Baseball, he has thrown his four-seam fastball 31 percent of the time through 44 innings this season, far more than the 19 percent he averaged in the six years prior.
As a result, he has begun attacking the upper portions of the strike zone, a reality that becomes more apparent when looking at this zone chart of his harder offerings so far in 2015:
Interestingly enough, Porcello's results have changed mightily through his first seven starts in a Red Sox uniform when compared with the rest of his career. His groundball rate, long sitting north of 50 percent, has dropped to 41.9 percent this year, which would be the lowest single-season mark of his career by far.
Porcello's strikeouts have gone up in turn, with the righty garnering more whiffs as he uses his four-seamer more aggressively up in the zone. His 20.1 percent strikeout rate would be a career-high, as would his 3.5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Most intriguingly, Porcello's four-seam fastball has been among the best of any pitcher in baseball. His current whiff-per-swing percentage with the offering sits at 30.1 percent, the third highest mark among Major League starters and above guys like Johnny Cueto, Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey.
From a results standpoint, Porcello's four-seamer has been impressive as well. The pitch has yielded a.190 true average through his first seven starts, fourth best in all of baseball and better than pitchers like Scherzer, Gerrit Cole and Jon Lester.
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Harper vs. Trout: It's WAR You don't really hear Mike Trout and Bryce Harper linked that much anymore, which is strange, because for a couple… More» These are pretty remarkable results for a starter who just two months ago was known mainly for his heavy sinker and little else. That Porcello is striking batters out at career-best levels with an aggressive fastball approach is certainly a positive for the Red Sox and the pitcher they recently invested four years and $82.5 million in.
Still, Porcello's altered approach might leave him more susceptible to hard contact. Pitching up in the zone can certainly help a pitcher garner more whiffs, but such a tactic can also leave one more vulnerable to the long ball.
That notion is especially noteworthy given Porcello's early-seasons issues with surrendering home runs. He hasn't given up a homer in any of his last three outings, but Porcello has allowed six long balls in 2015, which is one-third of his full-season total from a year ago. His.311 BABIP is well above the league average and might also indicate that batters are squaring up the ball against Porcello more than you'd like to see.
Considering Joe Kelly has also used his four-seamer more frequently this season in lieu of his sinker, Porcello's pitch usage is worth monitoring as the season continues. Kelly himself has had issues with giving up hard contact, though Porcello has certainly pitched better than his rotation-mate. Generating more strikeouts is rarely a bad thing, and it's certainly odd to talk about the potential drawbacks for both Porcello and Kelly despite their improved strikeout and walk numbers.
But will Porcello's increased number of K's ultimately lead to better results? Will he continue to attack the upper portion of the strike zone and turn further away from his sinker? Will the departure of Juan Nieves and the arrival of Carl Willis as Boston's pitching coach have any effect on how the club's starters approach opposing hitters the rest of the season?
We don't have answers to these questions just yet, but they are worth monitoring as the 2015 campaign continues.
At the very least, Porcello's ability to evolve as a pitcher and develop an effective four-seamer is a positive step for his development. More strikeouts likely give him a better opportunity to become the mid-rotation starter Boston is paying him to be.
***
Alex Skillin is an author at BP Boston and also writes about baseball at SB Nation, The Hardball Times and Over the Monster. His writing has previously appeared at Beyond the Box Score, The Classical, Sox Prospects and in The 2015 Hardball Times Annual.Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
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President Obama’s Kenya-born half-brother Malik will be in the audience in Las Vegas on Wednesday night when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off in their third and final debate.
Malik — an American citizen who lives in Washington, DC, when he’s not in Kenya — says he will be a guest of Trump, the Republican nominee he supports for president.
“I’m excited to be at the debate. Trump can make America great again,” Malik told The Post.
“I look very much forward to meeting and being with Malik,” Trump said. “He gets it far better than his brother.”
Malik agrees with Trump that the mainstream media is biased, and he dismisses the women who claim Trump kissed or groped them without their permission.
“I don’t believe them,” Malik said. “Why didn’t they come forward before?”
Malik also blasted Clinton’s performance as secretary of state for exacerbating the chaos and violence in the Mideast. Malik said ousted Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy had been a good friend. “Check out the situation in Libya now,” he said.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation — Malik named it after his and the president’s father — would be better able to help the family’s village of Kogelo, Kenya, “if I had gotten the support I should have gotten from my brother,” Malik said.
Malik, who is three years older than Barack, said he last saw his sibling in August 2015 after the president had visited Kenya.
“I went to the White House to say hello. I paid a courtesy call,” he said. But it wasn’t a very warm and loving reception.
“As usual, it was a hands-off kind of thing, very businesslike, very formal,” Malik said.
Though Trump held a press conference with three Bill Clinton accusers before the second debate in St. Louis, Malik said he is not participating in any such conference in Las Vegas.Marvel Comics provides codes for digital copies of its printed comics. This free digital copy is an incentive for consumers to purchase the comics, which generally sell for $3.99 – readers get not only a physical comic book, but also a code, found inside, that can be redeemed online for a digital copy. While some consumers value having this digital copy, some do not, and they may choose to give away, trade, or sell their unused codes. The latter practice has created a secondary sales market for Marvel’s codes, with many sale listings on eBay and Reddit, among other sites.
Researching the secondary sales market for Marvel’s digital codes, Nothing But Comics conducted a month-long survey of eBay’s listings for Marvel’s codes – which included a random sampling of fifty code listings – to evaluate how many codes were being sold, and for what prices. In the course of our investigation, we learned that eBay appears to be removing Marvel code listings from its site, informing some sellers that these listings violate eBay’s listing policy for digital media.
In January 2015, Nothing But Comics conducted a semi-daily review of eBay’s Marvel code listings using the search term “Marvel digital code only” (some sellers advertise the sale of both the physical comic and its “digital code” in their listings, so the “digital code only” language was used to get more focused listings). Throughout the month, the number of daily listings ranged from a high of 675 listings to a low of 475 listings; the month began with 672 listings, and ended with 534 listings. In mid-January, Nothing But Comics added a random sample of fifty listings to its eBay “watch list” in order to track the number of codes sold from this sample, as well as their sales prices.
Reviewing this eBay watch list in early March, we noticed that 13 listings were missing, leaving only 37 listings in our sample. We also noticed that the daily listings for Marvel’s digital codes had dropped significantly from the January listings, to less than 300 listings. Also, as part of our research, we contacted several sellers from our watch list to ask them about their experiences selling Marvel’s digital codes on eBay. Two sellers responded, and informed Nothing But Comics that their code listings had recently been removed by eBay.
Seller “collectorsdenwf” revealed that “eBay pulled all of our codes; they were doing very well, too. I’m working to find a way to re-list them with eBay’s help.” When asked if eBay gave any indication as to why the seller’s code listings were removed, while hundreds of other listings were still on the site, “collectorsdenwf” responded: “Yes, they said they know about mine; the others will need to be reported before they do anything. Which is stupid; we were selling a ton of back issue stuff that would have otherwise collected dust.”
Another seller, “section1-operations,” also reported that eBay had removed digital code listings: “Roughly the 2nd and 3rd week of February 2015 was when they were getting pulled. Some of these listings – that were all placed at the same time – had current running bids and some had none; however, not all were removed. Example – I had listed 12 and of those at least nine had active running bids, I ran them all for three day auctions and of those, four kept going and ended with a sale, while the rest were all pulled, stating nothing more than removal due to violation of listing policy, and I’m guessing it was either strategic targeting from another seller reporting me or that eBay was randomly monitoring sale habits. Don’t know if they have groups that watch increased sales from individual accounts and check to see the content for identity protection; my sale habits have been rather low for a few years.”
Seller “section1-operations” also informed Nothing But Comics: “I have been collecting comics for years and have never used those codes. If they expire within a year of publication then there is no reason why someone else can’t benefit from them. I started selling only a few a week and all was going well. All were selling and using the auction style listing; I was getting back the extra dollar I spent on the comic and sometimes more. I never encountered anyone having an issue using the codes I sent. Not many people give feedback for the codes but any I did get were positive” and that the codes had been “removed from eBay as it violates their policy on selling digital media.”
It is unclear which of eBay’s digital delivery guidelines (listed below) were violated and prompted the removal of the digital code listings; eBay did not respond to multiple inquiries from Nothing But Comics about why some digital code listings were removed from the site, while hundreds of other listings remain:
“You can list most digitally delivered goods on eBay as long as you follow these guidelines:
You need to list your item only in the Everything Else > Information Products category using only the Classified Ad format.
Your listing clearly states that you legally own the content (sometimes called intellectual property) or are authorized to sell it by the owner, the owner’s authorized agent, or the law.
Your items can’t have any sexually-oriented adult (pornographic) content. For more details, see our Adult Only category policy.
Your item can’t include software that would damage anyone’s computer, could be used for malicious purposes like sending spam emails or spreading a computer virus, or would violate anyone’s privacy (spyware or cookies, for example). For more details, see our HTML and JavaScript policy.
You have to be verified on PayPal to help confirm your identity.”
The second guideline is problematic for eBay sellers. In its comics, Marvel, the “owner” of the “intellectual property,” states that the “Digital copy requires purchase of a physical comic.” It is unclear what Marvel’s policy is regarding the second market sales of its digital codes to consumers that did not purchase a physical comic, and whether the company officially “authorizes” such sales. Nothing But Comics contacted Marvel Comics to ask about its policy or opinion on the second market sales of its digital codes, and Marvel declined to comment.
Nothing But Comics has documented that some sales listings for Marvel’s digital codes have recently been removed by eBay from its site, although hundreds of such listings remain. We do not have enough data (our survey was only for the month of January) to determine whether the lower number of digital code listings in March is normal, or the result of an organized effort by eBay to remove these listings. We also do not have enough information to determine if the removals of these listings is unprecedented, or if similar removals have occurred in the past. Without a response from eBay, we are also unable to determine the specifics of why the listings of some sellers were removed, whereas others were not. However, the removal of listings raises troubling concerns about the viability of selling – and buying – Marvel’s digital codes on eBay.
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The images above are the property of their respective owner(s), and are presented for not-for-profit, educational purposes only under the fair use doctrine of the copyright laws of the United States of America.Crimean Tatar activist Ilmi Umerov was undergoing hospital treatment for a heart condition, when Russian special services officers forcibly transferred him to a psychiatric hospital in August.
He was held in psychiatric confinement for 21 days. During this time, Umerov, 59, who also suffers from diabetes and Parkinson's disease, was denied medication, causing his health to deteriorate rapidly.
"On the fourth day, he fainted and even then the psychiatrists did not give him any medical attention. When he was released his health was very bad and [it] took several weeks for him to recover," Ayshe Umerov, his daughter, told Al Jazeera.
Umerov was kept in a room with about 20 other patients who suffered from serious mental health disorders.
"I was told by psychiatrists, 'You just need to admit that you're wrong, and everybody will stop bothering you,' It's as easy as that," Umerov told Russian journalist Anton Naumlyuk during an interview in the psychiatric ward.
"Patients are often denied access to a bathroom and are fed at intervals of up to 17 hours," said Emil Kurbedinov, one of Umerov's lawyers and a 2017 recipient of the Front Line Defenders Award for his work with Tatars in Crimea. According to Ayshe Umerov, neither she nor lawyers were allowed to see her father in the first week of his confinement.
Human rights activists Robert van Voren, director of the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry (FGIP), and Halya Coynash from the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group point to Umerov's case and dozens of others to highlight what they call the re-emergence of punitive psychiatry, a practice widely used during the Soviet era.
READ MORE: Putin's Soviet 'therapy' for Crimea
Critic of Russia
Months before his detainment, Russian security forces had opened a criminal investigation against Umerov on charges of "separatism".
As the former head of Crimea's Bakhchisaray district, Umerov has been a virulent critic of the Russian occupation in Crimea since its annexation in March 2014.
"We must force Russia to withdraw from Crimea … Ukraine should adopt several laws on the status of the Crimean Tatar people, and amend the constitution," Umerov told the Crimean Tatar channel ATR last March. He claims that his words were taken out of context.
"I didn't make any calls to violate the country's territorial integrity. I was speaking about the necessity to increase sanctions, which would make Russia return Crimea to Ukraine," Umerov told the Supreme Court in Crimea.
Umerov's father, Rustem, was one of the survivors of Stalin's forced eviction of the Crimean Tatar population in 1944. Most of those who survived the arduous journey - around 46 percent - ended up in Central Asia.
It was in the Uzbek city of Jizzakh where, at the age of 16, Umerov was first noticed by the KGB. He was disseminating leaflets to the public that urged Crimean Tatars to "speak out".
He has since had a long and successful career in politics, rising through the ranks to become one of the first Crimean Tatars to become deputy prime minister of Crimea, serving from 1994 to 1997.
Umerov's detention sparked international outrage. Human Rights Watch called it "a shameful attempt to use psychiatry to silence him and tarnish his reputation".
While Umerov's detention has been a focal point, rights groups and others have found that dozens of activists have faced punitive psychiatry over the past five years.
A report published in April by the FGIP, an NGO that monitors human rights in psychiatry, documents more than 30 cases from 2012 until April 2017 in which human rights activists and journalists have been illegally detained in psychiatric institutions for up to 10 years.
Most of the cases have been reported in Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea. However, cases have also been reported in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
"I think the real amount of cases is considerably higher than those cited in the report, based on my interviews with lawyers, psychiatrists and other human rights activists involved," said van Voren, who, along with this reporter, is one of the three authors of the FGIP report.
OPINION: Putin's war on the Crimean Tatars
Punitive psychiatry in Soviet Russia
Historically, when legal means of punishing a political activist had been exhausted, Russian authorities have turned to psychiatry as an alternative method of political repression.
In 1960s Soviet Russia, punitive psychiatry was used to incarcerate thousands of dissidents. During this time, the practice was unbeknown to the world beyond the "Iron Curtain", the ideological and physical boundary that divided Europe from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War.
"The available evidence shows that KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, who in 1967 took the helm of that organisation, and a selected group of associates, developed the political abuse of psychiatry as a systematic means of repression," van Voren said.
"KGB offices in other republics, like in Ukraine, received detailed instructions from 'the centre' on how to use psychiatry either as a 'preventive measure' or to remove a 'hostile element' from society."
Punitive psychiatry was especially convenient because unlike a prison sentence, a hospitalisation term could be indefinite. A person was only released when he or she retracted the "wrong ideas" that first led to his or her confinement. In this way, psychiatric hospitals hoped to help realise the communist vision of a uniform society.
'Sluggish schizophrenia'
In Soviet times, mental health concepts were inextricable from political ideology. This is reflected in Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 declaration.
"A crime is a deviation from the generally recognised standards of behaviour, frequently caused by a mental disorder … We can now say, too, there are people who fight against Communism … but clearly the mental state of such people is not normal," Khrushchev said.
The FGIP's van Voren, a professor of Soviet studies in the Ilia State University in Georgia, found that the "political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union originated from the concept that persons who opposed the Soviet regime were mentally ill because there was no other logical explanation why one would oppose the best socio-political system in the world".
In the 1960s, a disease unique to the USSR called "sluggish schizophrenia", characterised by its slow onset, became a convenient framework for explaining all anti-Soviet behaviour. Symptoms included "anti-Soviet thoughts", "delusions of reformism" and "infantilism".
READ MORE: Pussy Riot punks compare trial to Stalin-era
As a result, almost any behaviour that deviated from the norm could be attributed a psychopathological meaning.
A favourite adage of Georgi Morozov, the late Soviet psychiatrist, was: "It's no secret to anyone that you can have'schizophrenia' without having schizophrenia."
Thousands were diagnosed with "sluggish schizophrenia" and sent to psychiatric hospitals because of their political views, where they were subjected to electroconvulsive therapy without anesthetic, large doses of antipsychotic medications and insulin comas. A Moscow investigative commission recorded about 2,000 political prisoners in five Russian hospitals alone.
Toward the end of the 1980s, when the Iron Curtain began to fall across eastern Europe, the secret of the practice leaked and led to the expulsion of Russia from the World Psychiatric Association.
Punitive psychiatry essentially ceased to exist in the 1990s, but since Vladimir Putin's accession to the presidency in 2000, reported cases of it have resurfaced, leading many to believe that the Soviet-era practice has returned.
Despite the evidence, a number of Russian psychiatrists deny that psychiatry was ever abused. One state psychiatrist called accusations of its use "slander, which was [previously] used for anti-Soviet ends, but is now being used for anti-Russian ends", writes Julie Fedor in Russia and the Cult of State Security: The Chekist Tradition, from Lenin to Putin (2011).
In a 2015 interview with Russian newspaper Novye Izvestiia, psychiatrist Mikhail Vinogradov said punitive psychiatry is a "fairy tale" and that the majority of diagnoses have proven correct. Vinogradov also said that there are occasions when "medicine must have a police function", in a 2012 interview with Russian journalist Irina Mishina.
'Political conformity'
Today, as in Soviet times, rights groups and academics argue, however, that the psychiatric imprisonment of activists is thought to be a preventive measure, not just a punitive one.
Gerhard Mangott, a professor of political science at Austria's University of Innsbruck, said that punitive psychiatry sends a "signal" to politically active citizens not to publicly criticise the authorities.
Many also argue that a label of mental illness is used to stigmatise the opposition, and prevent others in society from sympathising with their views.
"Punitive psychiatry is part of a long-standing effort by authorities to enforce political conformity," said Sergei Kovalev, a human rights activist and politician who previously served as a human rights adviser to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
WATCH: From Russia, not always with love
Russian officials in Crimea are also striving for this political conformity, Umerov has said.
"What the authorities want most is the population's loyalty. I dare say that the Crimean people do not recognise the Russian jurisdiction in Crimea or the ruling authorities in Crimea," Umerov said during an interview with the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske last May, shortly before his arrest.
According to Umerov's lawyer, Kurbedinov, a further 10 Tatar activists have been subjected to punitive psychiatry in Crimea since Umerov was held in August.
"The resumption of punitive psychiatry is closely linked to the deteriorating human rights situation in Crimea and the fact that lower-level authorities feel more freedom to clamp down on opposition than previously," van Voren said. "The rule of law is increasingly being subject to political machinations."
The author was a research assistant for FGIP during the collation of the April 2017 report and is one of its three authors. She extensively researched punitive psychiatry in Russia for her Master's thesis at University College London.TEL AVIV – As anti-Islamic State coalition forces prepared to strike the terrorist group’s strongholds in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, the Islamic State’s propaganda apparatus continued to release gory photos of so-called justice from areas under its control.
[WARNING: The Following are EXTREMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOS of the Works of the Islamic State During the Final Days of Islam’s Holiest Month–Ramadan].
One series of photos depicted a Syrian man who was sentenced to death in Raqqa for “mocking Islam.” His execution – beheading with a massive blade – was carried out in front of a live audience. A selection of images appears below via the Islamic State’s Telegraph Forum:
In the nearby Elkheir region, IS gunmen were photographed slaughtering a man who was accused of “pledging allegiance to the infidels,” after his “verdict” was read out in public.
In the town of Bukamal, in Iraq’s Euphrates region, “sinners” who were convicted of violated Ramadan with no religious grounds were seen whipped and humiliated by being made to wear a sign that gave away their offense.
The fighters of the caliphate were also keen to show their merciful side, and released pictures of themselves handing out leaflets explaining to the public how to spend Ramadan’s traditional charity money (Zakat) on the poor, and what the Sharia provisions are on the matter.Major steps have been taken in Japan as retailers began their roll out of Bitcoin-ready Point of Sale software in over 260,000 stores this week. Recruit Lifestyle, one of Japan’s leading retail corporations, is forging the way in implementing digital currencies as another form of day to day payment.
Three months ago, Recruit Lifestyle made the news when they partnered with Japanese Bitcoin exchange Coincheck to build a Point of Sale app that would readily accept Bitcoin in stores around the country.
“Mobile Payment for Air Regi,” as it is known, is now ready to be implemented and the first stage of the uptake into the retail market is through 334 eyeglass stores which will officially accept Bitcoin come July 10.
This marks another big step in the utilization of Bitcoin in Japan with this announcement coming just two days after the eight percent consumption tax was removed from digital currencies by the government.
As easy as barcode scanning
The retail acceptance of Bitcoin has not quite found its feet yet in the mainstream. There are still differing ideas of how to implement it to the best effect. For Recruit Lifestyle and their app, they have gone with a simple barcode system that allows those holding Bitcoin to scan a code on the Mobile Payment app to transact in the digital currency.
In total, over 260,000 stores from drugstores to fast food restaurants use this Point of Sale app that is now ready to accept Bitcoin alongside traditional means. The use of this proprietary app now gives those stores the ability to easily offer Bitcoin as a method of payment to regular customers.
Seeing Bitcoin clearly
The first line of stores that will be accepting Bitcoin will be the 334 eyeglass stores who have quickly taken the plunge into the world of digital payment. The stores, called Megane Super, will be setting a bold precedent with the hope being that their success will lead to further uptake, particularly in Europe and the US.
Besides the benefits to the clients, and the digital currency itself, the stores are also expecting increased business from tech-savvy tourists who seek out these innovative stores to spend Bitcoin in retail shops that once took only cash and card.
To the moon
With the 260,000 stores all in line with this roll out in the near future, there are further plans for expanding the Bitcoin-ready |
2015. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. It was the most dramatic response yet by any candidate to last week’s shooting spree by two Muslims who the FBI said had been radicalized.
UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, asked about Trump’s remarks, told a news briefing in Geneva: “What (Trump) was speaking of was an entire population but this also impacts the refugee program.
“Because our refugee program is religion-blind. Our resettlement program selects the people who are the most in need.”
About 120,000 refugees are resettled worldwide each year, including to the United States, the largest recipient under the UNHCR’s program, according to the agency.
This year the UNHCR expects that the total number of asylum-seekers it will ask the United States to take in from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere will be 75,000.
The screening process takes up to two years and UNHCR’s priority is given to the most vulnerable, including women heading families, children needing specialized medical treatment and victims of torture, Fleming said.
President Barack Obama has pledged to bring into the United States as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees fleeing civil war and Islamic State militants. The figure, announced in September, was for the U.S. fiscal year that began in October.
“The (Obama) administration has been standing by the program. This is most scrutinized population coming into the United States,” Fleming added.
“It would be a shame if this were halted at a time when we actually need the world to step up and to help the victims of the terrorism, the violence that is driving so many people from their homes.”
Some 40 U.S. governors had spoken out against the resettlement program, she said.
“We are concerned that the rhetoric that is being used in the election campaign is putting an incredibly important resettlement program at risk that is meant for the most vulnerable people - the victims of the wars that the world is unable to stop,” Fleming said.
Joel Millman, spokesman of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), asked about Trump’s comments, said:
“I will just say what others have said, that prejudice or discrimination based on religion is totally against every Convention that we know of in aiding people in humanitarian emergencies and of course in resettlement.”Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border near Laredo, Tex., in July 2015. (Rick Wilking/REUTERS)
Randal John Meyer of the Cato Institute has an interesting article explaining how Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall across the Mexican border would require the use of eminent domain to forcibly displace large numbers of American property owners:
What Donald Trump doesn’t want you to know about his plan to build a “Great Wall” between the U.S. and Mexico: He’d need to steal private property from Americans to build it. In 2013, the federal government succeeded in using eminent domain to acquire the land rights to build a border fence across Dr. Eloisa G. Tamez’s ancestral home in 2013. Dr. Tamez’s land has been in her family since the King of Spain granted it to them in 1767. But it rests on the U.S.-Mexican border, so the Department of Homeland Security took it to erect a border wall under a federal law enacted during the Bush administration. The Great Wall of Trump would mean hundreds, if not thousands, of Tamezes…. The Government Accountability Office reports (PDF) that “federal and tribal lands make up 632 miles, or approximately 33 percent, of the nearly 2,000 total border miles.” What of the remaining 66 percent? “Private and state-owned lands constitute the remaining 67 percent of the border, most of which is located in Texas.” That means that if Trump’s plan to build another 1,000 miles of wall is carried to fruition, thousands more homeowners will see their property destroyed or partially walled-off.
Trump has a history of lobbying governments to abuse eminent domain in ways that benefit him. In this case, he wants to use it for the purpose of keeping out potential immigrants whose only sin, in the vast majority of cases, is migrating in search of freedom and opportunity. Conservatives – and all the rest of us – should think twice before supporting extensive violations of property rights for such a purpose. Trump’s proposed wall is yet another example of how immigrants are far from the only victims of efforts to enforce immigration restrictions.
Trump supporters might comfort themselves with the notion that people who lose their land to eminent domain “get… a fortune from it,” as The Donald himself puts it. Unfortunately, they generally get no such thing. If eminent domain really were a path to riches, the Donald Trumps of the world would be lining up to lobby the government to condemn their property.
Of course, maybe Trump can persuade Mexico to pay for the wall themselves. Perhaps he’ll even get the Mexicans (who just love Trump and his wall plan) to pony up some extra money to compensate property owners more generously. And if you believe that’s going to happen, I have some vintage Trump steaks I’d like to sell you.state house mug by julie.JPG
(Julie Bennett/[email protected])
A bill allowing adoption agencies in Alabama to follow faith-based policies, such as not placing children with gay couples, is on its way to Gov. Kay Ivey.
The House of Representatives gave final approval to the bill by a vote of 87-0, with six abstentions, concurring with a change the Senate made when it approved the bill last week.
The bill by Rep. Rich Wingo, R-Tuscaloosa, says the state could not refuse to license adoption agencies because of policies that adhere to their faith.
"Around the country there are other states that have required faith-based agencies to place children in homes, foster or adoption, to place children in homes that go against their religious beliefs," Wingo said.
"These faith-based agencies have been forced to close their doors because they refuse to place children in homes that go against their faith."
Wingo said that has not happened in Alabama but wanted the law in place to prevent it. Wingo said about 30 percent of the placement agencies in the state are faith-based.
The law would not protect the licensing of any agencies that receive state or federal funding.
Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, said that was a good provision in the bill, but her main point was that the bill allows discrimination against gay couples.
"This bill obviously came about because same-sex marriage was approved," said Todd, who is gay and speaks out consistently on issues affecting the rights of gays. "It's based in a stereotype. And it's wrong. And we shouldn't discriminate and I will always fight that.
"When a faith-based organization decides to step into either adoption or child care, they should have to follow the same rules and regulations as every other agency."
Wingo countered that the bill was not to condone discrimination, but to prevent it.
"The bill simply says do not discriminate against us, the faith-based agencies. It's not discriminating against anybody else," Wingo said.
Corrected at 8:33 p.m. to correct vote total.Google has bought SlickLogin, TechCrunch reveals, with both companies confirming the acquisition. Google’s purchase proves that the Search giant is more and more interested in improving Internet security, suggesting that the passwords of the future may be entirely different from what they are today.
SlickLogin offers a sound-based password technology, which requires a smartphone. With SlickLogin’s tech in place, a website would play a “nearly-silent” sound through the computer’s speakers, with an app running on the smartphone listening and picking it up. Then, the app would analyze it and send back a signal to the site’s server confirming the login.
The service can be used either as a traditional password replacement, or as a secondary code for two-step authentication purposes. SlickLogin’s product was only available in a limited beta before being purchased by Google.
It’s not clear yet in what services Google will integrate SlickLogin features in the future, but considering the tech requires a smartphone to be able to offer sound-based login features, it’s likely Android will be involved.
“Today we`re announcing that the SlickLogin team is joining Google, a company that shares our core beliefs that logging in should be easy instead of frustrating, and authentication should be effective without getting in the way,” SlickLogin wrote on its website. “Google was the first company to offer 2-step verification to everyone, for free – and they’re working on some great ideas that will make the Internet safer for everyone. We couldn`t be more excited to join their efforts.”
The following video shows SlickLogin’s presentation from TechCrunch Disrupt 2013.Respond quickly with Smart Reply
Whether it’s planning a night out or just catching up, we all rely on messaging to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. But too often we have to hit pause on our conversations — whether it’s to check the status of a flight or look up that new restaurant. So we created a messaging app that helps you keep your conversation going, by providing assistance when you need it.Today, we’re releasing Google Allo, a new smart messaging app for Android and iOS that helps you say more and do more right in your chats. Google Allo can help you make plans, find information, and express yourself more easily in chat. And the more you use it, the more it improves over time.
Google Allo makes it easier for you to respond quickly and keep the conversation going, even when you’re on the go. With Smart Reply, you can respond to messages with just a tap, so you can send a quick “yup” in response to a friend asking “Are you on your way?” Smart Reply will also suggest responses for photos. If your friend sends you a photo of their pet, you might see Smart Reply suggestions like “aww cute!” And whether you’re a “haha” or “😂” kind of person, Smart Reply will improve over time and adjust to your style.By Oleg Shchedrov
MOSCOW, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe on Wednesday to try to drum up support from eastern allies for its tough policy on Georgia that the West has condemned.
The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) takes place on Thursday as the dust is still settling from the Kremlin’s military intervention in Georgia and its recognition of the breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.
Western governments issued strongly worded condemnations of the Kremlin’s decision to grant recognition, deepening a rift that has already drawn comparisons with the Cold War.
But Moscow’s allies in the former Soviet Union, Asia and elsewhere, who traditionally side with the Kremlin against the West on contentious issues, have been notable for their silence.
The biggest prize for Russia would be to win the support of China when Medvedev meets Chinese President Hu Jintao at the summit. But analysts say Moscow will not receive decisive backing from Beijing.
"China, which has own separatists, will be the biggest problem," Alexei Mukhin, head of the Centre of Political Information think tank, said. "The recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is unacceptable for Beijing."
Georgia was not included in the formal agenda for the summit of the SCO, which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
But analysts say the agenda will be pushed to one side by the need to discuss the new political realities created by Russia’s military operation in Georgia and Moscow’s growing confrontation with the West.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing: "During the summit, the leaders of different countries can... enunciate shared positions on issues of interest to them, including South Ossetia."
MAINTAINING A BALANCE
The other four SCO members, all ex-Soviet states who have so far refrained from expressing outright support for Russia on Georgia, all have their own reasons to adopt a "wait-and-see" position.
The four, all in ex-Soviet Central Asia, have built their foreign policy strategies on trying to maintain a balance between loyalty to Moscow and building ties with the West.
Kyrgyzstan will find this balancing act particularly difficult as it now hosts both Russian and U.S. military bases.
Analysts say the most Medvedev can hope for is for SCO leaders to say they understand Russia’s motives, without going any further.
"No one will recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Boris Makarenko, deputy head of Moscow’s Centre for Political Technologies think tank said.
In other business, the Kremlin source said the summit would look at procedures for bringing in new members.
That could allow Iran, which has been an observer at past SCO meetings, to play a greater role — a development that would help the Kremlin achieve its ambition of turning the organisation into a political counterweight to the West.
(Editing by Robert Hart)Vladimir Kononov, defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, looks on Wednesday as Ukrainian prisoners of war clear rubble in a destroyed airport building outside Donetsk. Ukrainian troops held captive in the separatist stronghold dug through the rubble to retrieve the bodies of fellow soldiers killed last month in a battle for the city’s airport.
Feb. 25, 2015 Vladimir Kononov, defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, looks on Wednesday as Ukrainian prisoners of war clear rubble in a destroyed airport building outside Donetsk. Ukrainian troops held captive in the separatist stronghold dug through the rubble to retrieve the bodies of fellow soldiers killed last month in a battle for the city’s airport. Vadim Ghirda/AP
As fighting in the east begins to quiet, focus turns to threats to the country’s economy.
Violence in the east persists, affecting the country’s economy as a cease-fire with Russian-backed rebels fails to take hold.
Violence in the east persists, affecting the country’s economy as a cease-fire with Russian-backed rebels fails to take hold.
Ukraine’s currency touched record lows Monday as continued violence in the rebel-held east fueled pessimism about the country’s economic future.
The currency slump came as the Ukrainian military said it will not pull back its heavy arms from the front lines until attacks by pro-Russian rebels cease completely. Rebel leaders said they have agreed to begin a fuller withdrawal starting Tuesday.
A pullback of heavy weaponry is a key step in a cease-fire deal reached this month, but both sides have said that fighting is continuing, casting doubt on efforts to quell the 10-month-old conflict.
[Read: Ukraine pleads for peacekeepers amid fighting]
Fighting between the separatists and Ukraine’s Western-allied government has claimed more than 5,600 lives, according to U.N. estimates. It is the worst bloodshed in Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
As Kiev accuses rebels of opening rocket and artillery fire on villages in southeast Ukraine, residents in the north burn an effigy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Reuters)
Amid the violence, the Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, fell 10 percent against the U.S. dollar Monday before recovering its losses — yet another sign of the nation’s flat-lining economy. The combination of military setbacks and fiscal woes is increasingly threatening the leadership in Kiev, the capital.
Ukraine’s currency has dropped 42 percent this month and is down 69 percent in the year since President Viktor Yanukovych fled office after months of pro-European street demonstrations.
The Ukrainian central bank on Monday announced new measures to stem the losses, imposing limits on the ability of Ukrainian businesses to purchase foreign currency.
“We hope that we will be able to stabilize the situation using these measures,” Valeriya Gontareva, governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, said Monday in Kiev, according to the UNIAN news agency. She vowed to combat the currency crisis, saying that “it destroys the economy and the whole banking system.”
The currency’s nose dive puts even more pressure on government finances, making it harder for the country to buy energy, military hardware and the basics necessary for a war-hit population. It also sends prices of imported goods skyrocketing, meaning that ordinary Ukrainians need to pay far more for their groceries.
The plunge calls into question Ukraine’s ability to repay money borrowed from global creditors. The central bank’s reserves of foreign currency are depleted, raising the prospect that the nation could soon go bankrupt.
Ukrainian military officials said Monday that the ongoing violence means they cannot pull back their weaponry.
Members of the Ukrainian armed forces are seen near Artemivsk, eastern Ukraine, on Feb. 23. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)
Lt. Col. Anatoliy Stelmakh told reporters in Kiev that although attacks on Ukrainian military positions had “significantly decreased,” there were two artillery attacks overnight. “As long as firing on Ukrainian military positions continues, it’s not possible to talk about a pullback,” he said.
Under the internationally brokered peace deal reached in Minsk, Belarus, two weeks ago, both sides are to withdraw their heavy weapons from the front lines to create a buffer zone. Ukrainian officials had said Sunday that they were planning to begin the pullback.
Rebel leaders, meanwhile, said they were planning a fuller withdrawal Tuesday. Both sides have repeatedly said they would start pulling their weapons from the front lines, only to renege later. Last week, government forces were dealt a major defeat when they were forced to retreat from the strategic railway hub of Debaltseve. The violence came after the cease-fire was supposed to have gone into effect Feb. 15.
The setbacks have even Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s allies questioning the government’s strategy and military planning.
Germany, the primary Western driver of the cease-fire deal, said Monday that it was losing hope for the prospects of the peace plan.
“It is clear the implementation of the measures is not satisfactory,” Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told reporters in Berlin. “What is decisive is a comprehensive cease-fire. It is worrying for the German government that we haven’t yet seen anything like this.”
The currency plunge came a day after a bombing at a pro-Ukrainian rally in the government-controlled city of Kharkiv that killed two people. A third victim, a 15-year-old boy, died Monday of wounds suffered at the rally, city authorities said. A spate of attacks in Ukrainian-held cities has sparked fears even in areas far from the harshest fighting in the east.
Daniela Deane in London contributed to this report.Even as the nation recovers from the shock of the Boston Marathon bombing, the US government is under pressure to intervene in Syria on behalf of the Tsarnaev brothers’ jihadist compatriots.
The drumbeat for intervention in Syria has been going on for many months, with the same neoconservatives who authored the Iraq war joining with “humanitarian” liberals to demand we “do something.” The latest claims of the use of sarin gas by the Assad regime are the occasion for a raising of the decibel level.
Under attack from Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadists for the last year, with car bomb attacks on both civilian and military targets and the rebels in control of a third of the country, Syria’s authoritarian government has responded with lethal force – much like any government that found itself in a similar position would, including our own. Yet there is reason to doubt this latest claim: the “rebels” have staged a number of alleged “atrocities” committed by the secular authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad, but these have been consistently debunked – and the increasing dominance of jihadists in the Syrian opposition has made the Obama administration reluctant to get involved.
Now, however, we have a new accusation leveled not only by the rebels and their American amen corner, but also by the British and Israeli governments: in answer to an inquiry from Senator John “Boots On the Ground” McCain, the administration accuses the Syrian regime of using sarin gas “on a small scale,” an assessment they make “with varying degrees of confidence.”
Varying from what to what?
The letter is rife with equivocation and conjecture:
“Our standard of evidence must build on these intelligence assessments as we seek to establish credible and corroborated facts. For example, the chain of custody is not clear, so we cannot confirm how the exposure occurred and in what conditions.”
Translation: no facts have been established. But that doesn’t stop the Obama administration from making assumptions about who used sarin:
“We do believe that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would very likely have originated with the Assad regime. Thus far, we believe that the Assad regime maintains custody of these weapons, and has demonstrated a willingness to escalate its horrific use of violence against the Syrian people.”
Yet there is no reason to assume any such “belief” about the Syrian government’s possible use of sarin gas. That regime is deteriorating by the day, as fast as their control over vast swathes of Syrian territory is disappearing. It is just as reasonable (i.e. not very) to assume the rebels are responsible: after all, they have plenty of state-backed sponsors (the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar) who would be more than ready to provide it. And, of course, the jihadists who are the backbone of the rebel army, wouldn’t hesitate to deploy it.
US intervention in Syria’s civil war – which pits Bad Guys against Even Badder Guys – will be justified by the alleged use of “weapons of mass destruction” by Damascus, and the cry will go up: “He’s killing his own people!” If all this has a familiar ring to it, then you’ll recall the same accusations, including allegations of poison gas deployment, were made against Iraq: this was the justification for the invasion, conquest, and subsequent occupation of that country, a project that cost trillions and is now regarded as one of the worst military disasters in our history. (Never mind that Saddam’s use of poison gas on the Kurds occurred when we were his ally.) That the War Party is running this one up the flagpole defies belief – but, hey, in Bizarro World, where up is down and unwarranted assumptions are “very likely,” anything is possible.
What’s really going on here? After all, the “arguments” made by the interventionists just don’t add up. Take Jamie Kirchick, who works for an outfit called the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (formerly known as “Emet“), writing in the New York Daily News:
“Of all the regimes that have experienced turmoil as a result of the Arab Spring, Syria’s is the only one that has been consistently opposed to American interests. It is the only Arab ally of Iran, a major supplier of weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah, a perpetual violator of Lebanese sovereignty and a transit hub for jihadists on their way to Iraq.”
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Syria proactively offered to aid – and did aid – in the round up of Al Qaeda cadre, and, indeed, we renditioned several to Assad’s torture chambers for the kind of interrogation not even our water-boarding CIA was prepared to conduct. As per usual with Kirchick, he confuses American interests with Israeli interests, citing Syrian support of Hamas and Hezbollah as further proof of Assad’s crimes. While both organizations are indeed terrorist groups which target civilians – as were their Israeli counterparts, the Irgun and Haganah – their target is Israel, not the United States.
The kicker is when Kirchick kvetches that Syria is “a transit hub for jihadists on their way to Iraq.” He can’t be unaware that these very same jihadists stand at the head of the Syrian rebel army. The sheer sloppiness is breathtaking: war-mongering hacks like Kirchick – who once proposed setting up a “gay brigade” to go fight in Iraq (without saying whether he’d join up himself!) – are feeling so confident they aren’t even bothering to make a credible case.
Similarly, one would think the numerous hoaxes – such as trying to pass off photos of atrocities occurring in Iraq as “evidence” of mass killings by the Syrian government – attempted by Syrian rebel propagandists would induce skepticism at these new accusations. But no – not in Bizarro World, where a history of outright lies naturally causes one to trust the pronouncements coming out of Washington and its allies even more.
Britain and France were demanding a UN investigation even before this latest release of “intelligence” by an Israeli general at a security conference, who claims to have “proof” of the sarin gas charge. Now the Israelis have added their two cents: however, in a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, John Kerry was unable to get him to confirm this latest revelation.
The British also claim to have definitive evidence, but the Wall Street Journal reports some officials are skeptical: the Brits tout their test results, but US intelligence sources are saying “the samples may have been tainted by rebels who want to draw the West into the conflict on their side. Likewise, they said the detection of chemical agents doesn’t necessarily mean they were used in an attack by the Syrian regime.”
How many times do we have to be lied into war by some murky “rebel” group – and their foreign backers – looking for us to do their fighting for them?
If Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, laying there in the hospital, could only hear the war cries of our pundit-shrikes grow louder and more insistent, he would crack a smile. After all, one of his causes is the Syrian rebel movement: as this Yahoo article points out, on his Vokontakte page (the Russian Facebook), Dzhokhar “expresses sympathy for rebel fighters in Syria and elsewhere:
“One video bears the Russian title ‘For those who have a heart,’ showing people being brutalized by uniformed men in a country the video identifies as Syria. ‘They are killing your brothers and sisters without any reason,’ the Russian subtitles of the video read. ‘Simply because they say our Lord is Allah.'”
Indeed, if we do intervene, Dzhokhar could even imagine his horrific crime is a great success – because, after all, isn’t the Great Satan on the verge of taking up the cause of jihad in Syria? One might even conjecture that, from a certain vantage point, this development is a response to the Boston bombing, a message to jihadists both here and abroad: Don’t bomb us – because we’re here to help!
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
Here is a link to my recent debate with Jonathan Rauch on the subject of gay marriage: see also here.
I’m having great fun on Twitter these days, and I urge you to join me on this wonderfully interactive site: you can do so by going here.
I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Forward by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and David Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).
You can buy my biography of the great libertarian thinker, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), here.
Read more by Justin RaimondoAs Canadians, we know maple syrup goes on just about everything: even house fires.
That’s what happened in February when a local family noticed a fire on their neighbour’s property – and failing to locate water, decided to battle the blaze with something a little sweeter.
Terry Hering and his three sons Trent, Tyler, and Tanner own and operate Hering’s Maple Syrup in the small town of Watersville, Minnesota. Terry and Tyler were on their way home with a full haul of maple tree sap when they noticed something amiss on their neighbour’s property.
“Dad and Tyler were hauling sap and just happened to be driving by [their neighbour’s property] when they saw smoke,” Trent Hering told Global News. “So they decided to try and help.”
As they pulled into their neighbour’s driveway, they noticed his outdoor wood burner and wood pile were engulfed in flames threatening to spread on the windy afternoon.
“The wind was blowing [between] 30 to 55 miles per hour,” Trent Hering said.
Is maple syrup the new brain food? Canadian research suggests it could protect against Alzheimer’s
With no hose nearby and seemingly no other large source of liquid at hand, the Hering family decided to use what they had: 1,500 gallons of maple tree sap.
Tyler and Terry Hering also happened to be driving in an old fire truck, purchased from the local fire department several years ago and used to haul sap as part of the family’s syrup business.
And so, at the scene of a fire threatening to spread out of control comes a fire truck loaded with flame-fighting tree sap.
“Dad couldn’t believe what he was seeing,” Trent Hering said. “The heat from the fire caused the sap to cook off. So the whole fire began to smell like maple syrup.”
Hering estimates his father and brother sprayed between 300 and 400 gallons of sap to contain the blaze. A large amount of sap but a drop in the bucket for the Hering family, which produces 55,000 gallons of sap a day.
For those wondering: maple tree sap is over 90 per cent water, so its properties as a flame fighting liquid – while not ideal – are at least adequate for an emergency situation.
READ MORE: Maple Syrup brings crowd out to Kings Landing’s Sugar Bush Weekend
Hering’s neighbour Jeremy Schwartz – himself a member of the Waterville fire department – is thankful for the quick thinking of his neighbours, even as he ponders their unique methods.
“I’m thankful Terry responded and did what he did,” Schwartz told Minnesota South News. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone using sap to put out a fire before, but it worked.”This article is about the appliance. For humans who wash dishes, see Dishwasher (occupation). For other uses, see Dishwasher (disambiguation)
A dishwasher containing clean dishes
An open dishwasher
A dishwasher is a mechanical device for cleaning dishware and cutlery automatically. Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies largely on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, typically between 45 and 75 °C (110 and 170 °F), at the dishes, with lower temperatures used for delicate items.[1]
A mix of water and dishwasher detergent is pumped to one or more rotating spray arms, which blast the dishes with the cleaning mixture. Once the wash is finished, the water is drained, more hot water enters the tub by means of an electro-mechanical solenoid valve, and the rinse cycle begins. After the rinse cycle finishes and the water is drained, the dishes are dried using one of several drying methods. Typically a rinse-aid, a chemical to reduce surface tension of the water, is used to reduce water spots from hard water or other reasons.[2]
In addition to domestic units, industrial dishwashers are available for use in commercial establishments such as hotels and restaurants, where a large number of dishes must be cleaned. Washing is conducted with temperatures of 65–71 °C (149–160 °F) and sanitation is achieved by either the use of a booster heater that will provide an 82 °C (180 °F) "final rinse" temperature or through the use of a chemical sanitizer.
A dishwasher has 6 main cycles usually with different options. Rinse and hold is a quick rinse cycle with no drying or detergent for a quick rinse off of dishes. Express is a 60-minute wash usually with drying for washing a small to medium-large load of pre-rinsed dishes. Delicate is for a delicate load of prerinsed dishes. It is an energy efficient cycle. It needs less detergent. It uses mild hot water and a mild dry. Normal is an energy efficient cycle too. It is meant for a regular load of normally stained dishes. It uses mild hot water to save energy and has only 1 or 2 rinses. It has a good drying cycle. Auto or Sensor wash is the recommended wash for most dishes. It uses a turbidity sensor to sense the soil on dishes. it adjusts the water and heat to adapt to the level of soiling on the dishes. This is fairly energy efficient. Heavy is meant for heavily soiled dishes and pots and pans. It also sanitizes the dishes on most dishwashers. It sprays a concentrated hot water jet and a super hot rinse cycle. Dishwashers also have additional options. Sanitize raises the rinse water to 160 °F and extends the drying time. This is meant for sick people and dishes exposed to raw meat. High temperature wash raises the wash temperature for a better wash. Extra dry makes the dishes dry better.
History [ edit ]
A hand-powered dishwasher and an early electric dishwasher both from about 1917.
The first mechanical dishwashing device was registered in 1850 in the United States by Joel Houghton. This device was made of wood and was cranked by hand while water sprayed onto the dishes.[3]This device was both slow and unreliable. Another patent was granted to L.A. Alexander in 1865 that was similar to the first but featured a hand-cranked rack system. Neither device was practical or widely accepted.
However, the most successful of the hand-powered dishwashers was invented in 1887 by Josephine Cochrane together with mechanic George Butters in Josephine's tool shed in Shelbyville, Illinois[4] when Cochrane (a wealthy socialite) wanted to protect her china while it was being washed.[5] Her invention was unveiled at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois under the name of Lavadora but was changed to Lavaplatos as another machine invented in 1858 already held that name. Cochrane's inspiration was her frustration at the damage to her good china that occurred when her servants handled it during cleaning.[6]
McClure's for The Faultless Quaker Dishwasher. Advertisement in an 1896 issue offor The Faultless Quaker Dishwasher.
Europe's first domestic dishwasher with an electric motor was invented and manufactured by Miele in 1929.[7][8]
In the United Kingdom, William Howard Livens invented a small, non-electric dishwasher suitable for domestic use in 1924. It was the first dishwasher that incorporated most of the design elements that are featured in the models of today;[9] it included a front door for loading, a wire rack to hold the dirty crockery and a rotating sprayer. Drying elements were even added to his design in 1940. It was the first machine suitable for domestic use, and it came at a time when permanent plumbing and running water in the house was becoming increasingly common.[10][11]
Despite this, Liven's design did not become a commercial success, and dishwashers were only successfully sold as domestic utilities in the postwar boom of the 1950s, albeit only to the wealthy. Initially dishwashers were sold as standalone or portable devices, but with the development of the wall-to-wall countertop and standardized height cabinets, dishwashers began to be marketed with standardized sizes and shapes, integrated underneath the kitchen countertop as a modular unit with other kitchen appliances.
By the 1970s, dishwashers had become commonplace in domestic residences in North America and Western Europe. By 2012, over 75 percent of homes in the United States and Germany had dishwashers.[12]
In the late 1990s, manufactures began offering various new energy conservation features in dishwashers.[13] One feature was use of "soil sensors", which was a computerized tool in the dishwasher which measured food particles coming from dishes.[13] When the dishwasher had cleaned the dishes to the point of not releasing more food particles, then the soil sensor would report the dishes being cleaned.[13] The sensor operated with another innovation of using variable washing time.[13] If dishes were especially dirty, then the dishwasher would run for a longer time than if the sensor detected them to be clean. In this way, the dishwasher saves energy and water by only being in operation for as long as needed.[13]
Design [ edit ]
Size and capacity [ edit ]
North American counter-top dishwasher
Dishwashers that are installed into standard kitchen cabinets have a standard width and depth of 60 cm (Europe) or 24 inches (US), and most dishwashers must be installed into a hole a minimum of 86 cm (Europe) or 34 inches (US) tall. Portable dishwashers exist in 45 and 60 cm (Europe) or 18 and 24 inch (US) widths, with casters and attached countertops. Dishwashers may come in standard or tall tub designs; standard tub dishwashers have a service kickplate beneath the dishwasher door that allows for simpler maintenance and installation, but tall tub dishwashers have approximately 20% more capacity and better sound dampening from having a continuous front door.
The international standard for the capacity of a dishwasher is expressed as standard place settings. Commercial dishwashers are rated as plates per hour. The rating is based on standard sized plates of the same size. The same can be said for commercial glass washers, as they are based on standard glasses, normally pint glasses.
Layout [ edit ]
Present-day machines feature a drop-down front panel door, allowing access to the interior, which usually contains two or sometimes three pull-out racks; racks can also be referred to as "baskets". In older U.S. models from the 1950s, the entire tub rolled out when the machine latch was opened, and loading/removing washable items was from the top, with the user reaching deep into the compartment for some items. Youngstown Kitchens, which manufactured entire kitchen cabinets and sinks, offered a tub-style dishwasher, which was coupled to a conventional kitchen sink as one unit. Most present day machines allow for placement of dishes, silverware, tall items and cooking utensils in the lower rack, while glassware, cups and saucers are placed in the upper rack. One notable exception were dishwashers produced by the Maytag Corporation from the late sixties until the early nineties. These machines were designed for loading glassware, cups and saucers in the lower rack, while plates, silverware and tall items were placed into the upper rack. This unique design allowed for a larger capacity and more flexibility in loading of dishes and pots and pans. Today, "dish drawer" models eliminates the inconvenience of the long reach that was necessary with older full-depth models. "Cutlery baskets" are also common. A drawer dishwasher, first introduced by Fisher & Paykel in 1997, is a variant of the dishwasher in which the baskets slide out with the door in the same manner as a drawer filing cabinet, with each drawer in a double-drawer model being able to operate independently of the other.
The inside of a dishwasher in the North American market is either stainless steel or plastic. Stainless steel tubs resist hard water, and preserve heat to dry dishes more quickly. They also come at a premium price. Older models used |
, such a joke. Basically every potential complaint in there could be more accurately attributed to either the ballpark, the Fairgrounds, Yards Park, Bluejacket, or a few other things in the neighborhood.The decision is basically "well, we said no the last time, so we're saying no again. Oh, and nobody complained about the Bullpen/Fairgrounds, so we can't talk about that."Nobody is going to be driving there who wouldn't be driving to a Nats game anyway, the vast majority of any parking there would be an addition to overall capacity. The noisiest thing in the neigborhood is already the ballpark itself, by far, and there's so very little right around the site to complain about any noise. There are already thousands of people who cross Potomac and South Cap to get to other parking lots.A few annoying, inexplicable quotes:From the ANC: "She also noted that biking is prohibited between the 11th Street Bridge and the Frederick Douglas Bridge that connects to South Capitol Street, S.E.; therefore, it is unclear how most bikers would access the site."Uh, from the North? The same way that hundreds get to the ballpark's own bike garage?From MPD: "Mr. McCarthy also discussed the public transportation available in the neighborhood. Specifically, the last train on the Red Line ends service at 11:20 p.m. between Sunday and Thursday; therefore, all baseball game attendees that rely on Metro must be on the train at that time."And? Is any bar prohibited from opening anywhere in DC that stays open later than 11:20 during the week now?"Specifically, in the past, the area has had issues with people crossing South Capitol Street, S.E., which led to one traffic fatality. In response, barriers were placed on the South Capitol Street, S.E., to prevent dangerous street crossings."They put barriers up for opening day, playoff games, and Taylor Swift concerts. There's signs at S. Cap and N saying no crossing on game days, but they provide crossing guards. If the traffic safety is adequate for baseball games, Bardo wouldn't be making it any worse."He has concerns that the food trucks operating generators on the site to support their operations will generate high levels of late night noise."Again, any noise is outweighed by either the ballpark, whether game noise, or the industrial air conditioners on the roof that regularly malfunction, or by the highway right next to it.Well, that got long.
Shogungts says: (3/17/16 5:20 PM)
Hmmm, I wonder why the Nats would be against it. I am sure it wouldn't have anything to do with it being a competitor.
And as GC said, how is parking a concern? Where is everyone at the Bullpen, Justin's, Gordon Biersch, Bluejacket, etc parking?
I can somewhat understand the concerns about potentially holding up traffic and safety at Potomac Ave, but certainly they could have come up with a solution using crossing guards as they do around the corner at 1st St. says:Hmmm, I wonder why the Nats would be against it. I am sure it wouldn't have anything to do with it being a competitor.And as GC said, how is parking a concern? Where is everyone at the Bullpen, Justin's, Gordon Biersch, Bluejacket, etc parking?I can somewhat understand the concerns about potentially holding up traffic and safety at Potomac Ave, but certainly they could have come up with a solution using crossing guards as they do around the corner at 1st St.
Shogungts says: (3/17/16 5:30 PM)
Oops, I hadn't refreshed the page since I opened it; kalicki did an even better job listing the reasons didn't work.
And it is hard for me to take MPD testimony seriously when you get gems like this: "Commander Jeff Brown of MPD about how the "applicant here says it's going to be cornhole bean-bag toss, which I'm not even going to pretend to know what that is, but I think I'll be safe to say that it's not very popular."" (quoted from JD's previous coverage). How is someone who is so out of touch and obviously didn't do the slightest bit of research before commenting on something considered credible? says:Oops, I hadn't refreshed the page since I opened it; kalicki did an even better job listing the reasons didn't work.And it is hard for me to take MPD testimony seriously when you get gems like this: "Commander Jeff Brown of MPD about how the "applicant here says it's going to be cornhole bean-bag toss, which I'm not even going to pretend to know what that is, but I think I'll be safe to say that it's not very popular."" (quoted from JD's previous coverage). How is someone who is so out of touch and obviously didn't do the slightest bit of research before commenting on something considered credible?
(3/17/16 5:40 PM)
Just to be clear, the Jeff Brown testimony is from the 1st license application for Bardo. 1D's new commander, Commander Contee, testified at this hearing.
Here's the full transcript for the most recent hearing, on Feb. 10, 2016:
link
JD says:Just to be clear, the Jeff Brown testimony is from the 1st license application for Bardo. 1D's new commander, Commander Contee, testified at this hearing.Here's the full transcript for the most recent hearing, on Feb. 10, 2016:
Chris says: (3/17/16 5:44 PM)
I was not a member of the ABC Committee when this application was considered, and I don't really have a position on it, but I'd note that it was on the agenda of numerous public meetings, most of them right here in the neighborhood. When neighborhood members and the police speak out against it and noone other than the business owner speaks in support of it, it's pretty unlikely to be approved. says:I was not a member of the ABC Committee when this application was considered, and I don't really have a position on it, but I'd note that it was on the agenda of numerous public meetings, most of them right here in the neighborhood. When neighborhood members and the police speak out against it and noone other than the business owner speaks in support of it, it's pretty unlikely to be approved.
JES says: (3/17/16 6:36 PM)
So it's too unsafe for a beer garden, but totally safe enough for the bars that'll eventually occupy Dock 79's ground floor? Ok, whatever. says:So it's too unsafe for a beer garden, but totally safe enough for the bars that'll eventually occupy Dock 79's ground floor? Ok, whatever.
(3/17/16 6:42 PM)
I might suggest reading the transcripts of the two Bardo hearings. I don't think Mr. Stewart did himself any favors at either hearing with his presentation and preparation.
JD says:I might suggest reading the transcripts of the two Bardo hearings. I don't think Mr. Stewart did himself any favors at either hearing with his presentation and preparation.
Kels says: (3/17/16 8:29 PM)
Is there anything that Navy Yard residents can do now? We were really looking forward to this place. says:Is there anything that Navy Yard residents can do now? We were really looking forward to this place.
JHUGrad says: (3/18/16 10:03 AM)
I think there are plenty of other places for folks in the Capitol Riverfront to drink/socialize that are, frankly, much better venues than this would've been. says:I think there are plenty of other places for folks in the Capitol Riverfront to drink/socialize that are, frankly, much better venues than this would've been.
202_cyclist says: (3/18/16 11:33 AM)
Will the Brig actually open this spring/summer? says:Will the Brig actually open this spring/summer?
(3/18/16 12:51 PM)
So, I have zero specifics, and don't wish to say anything that would reveal how I know this, but I think we're going to be hearing about another restaurant coming before long, in an existing retail space (ie, not a building still under construction).
JD says:So, I have zero specifics, and don't wish to say anything that would reveal how I know this, but I think we're going to be hearing about another restaurant coming before long, in an existing retail space (ie, not a building still under construction).
202_cyclist says: (3/18/16 1:27 PM)
I hope it is one of the spaces on L St, SE, across from the blue castle. With the Indian restaurant, Las Placitas, the Brig (if it ever opens), and the new residential building there, it would be a real boon to lower 8th Street. says:I hope it is one of the spaces on L St, SE, across from the blue castle. With the Indian restaurant, Las Placitas, the Brig (if it ever opens), and the new residential building there, it would be a real boon to lower 8th Street.
the Brig says: (3/18/16 2:47 PM)
the brig is on track to open in 30-60 days.
Pavers are going in as are the 40 taps.
More info and probably a big story after JD reads this.
Bring your well behaved dogs here too.
1007 8th Street SE at the corner of 8th and L.
says:the brig is on track to open in 30-60 days.Pavers are going in as are the 40 taps.More info and probably a big story after JD reads this.Bring your well behaved dogs here too.1007 8th Street SE at the corner of 8th and L.
(3/18/16 2:56 PM)
(and I can confirm that that comment is from the actual Brig folks)
JD says:(and I can confirm that that comment is from the actual Brig folks)
JES says: (3/18/16 3:36 PM)
holy crap, 40 TAPS???
hurry the hell up then! says:holy crap, 40 TAPS???hurry the hell up then!
202_cyclist says: (3/18/16 3:36 PM)
Thanks for the info. Opening right in time for the next JD Land happy hr! says:Thanks for the info. Opening right in time for the next JD Land happy hr!
(3/18/16 3:37 PM)
Yes, that's probably a good target for the next happy hour. No pressure, Brig!
JD says:Yes, that's probably a good target for the next happy hour. No pressure, Brig!
rdotis says: (3/18/16 4:29 PM)
Not sure who 'Bruce' is, but I don't see this action in anyway to be a positive accomplishment. If so, those who support the denial should reveal exactly why is is a positive action. As did 'kaliki,' anyone who goes thru the decision document will be hard pressed to find any compelling reasons for the denial. For example: someone is concerned about the safety of pedestrian traffic crossing Potomac Ave from the ballpark to the Bardo location. The ballpark's river facing stair case was designed to foster pedestrian traffic across the street. The Florida Rock park immediately across the street, the riverwalk, and the Florida Rock retail establishments (including a barbecue and beer joint) all require pedestrians to cross Potomac Ave after ballgames. Why would Bardo be any different? If there's an answer, I'd like Bruce or anyone else to provide it. says:Not sure who 'Bruce' is, but I don't see this action in anyway to be a positive accomplishment. If so, those who support the denial should reveal exactly why is is a positive action. As did 'kaliki,' anyone who goes thru the decision document will be hard pressed to find any compelling reasons for the denial. For example: someone is concerned about the safety of pedestrian traffic crossing Potomac Ave from the ballpark to the Bardo location. The ballpark's river facing stair case was designed to foster pedestrian traffic across the street. The Florida Rock park immediately across the street, the riverwalk, and the Florida Rock retail establishments (including a barbecue and beer joint) all require pedestrians to cross Potomac Ave after ballgames. Why would Bardo be any different? If there's an answer, I'd like Bruce or anyone else to provide it.
NavyYardGuy says: (3/21/16 9:01 AM)
Has anyone been to Bardo on Bladensburg Road..let the Bardo dream die..and bring on the Brig. says:Has anyone been to Bardo on Bladensburg Road..let the Bardo dream die..and bring on the Brig.
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JDLand Comments RSS FeedMore than 150 years after the abolition of slavery, the United Nations has unveiled a memorial in New York City honoring the 15 million Africans who were victims of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Calling slavery one of the “darkest and most abhorrent chapters in history,” UN General Assembly President Sam Kutesa revealed the memorial—Ark of Return—yesterday afternoon.
“The majority of the victims of this brutal, primitive trade in human beings remain unnamed and unknown,” he said during the ceremony. “Nevertheless, their dignity and courage was boundless and worthy of this honor and tribute.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was also present at the unveiling, said that he hoped that descendants of enslaved Africans would feel empowered by the memorial. Both he and other UN officials encouraged global citizens to take a stand against today’s slave trade, in which more than 20 million people around the world are victims of forced labor.
“This memorial is a symbol of our determination to pay tribute to these people and their resistance to the slave trade,” said Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. “And this memorial is an act of remembrance but it is also a call to action, embodying the principles at the heart of the UN.”A beautiful dance of the sun and moon will commence early this morning, when a hybrid solar eclipse sweeps over the Earth's face. Though the celestial event will only be visible for folks in Africa, the Slooh Space Camera team will bring live web feeds to viewers all over the globe, starting at 3:45 a.m. PT/6:45 a.m. ET.
A hybrid solar eclipse is a relatively rare event that is a cross between two types of eclipses: a total and an annular eclipse. Both versions happens when the moon passes in front of the Earth, casting a shadow on our planet. But in a total eclipse, the moon is at the right distance to completely block the sun's light, while in an annular eclipse the moon is slightly closer to us and its shadow is not enough to cover the sun. A small but beautiful ring of sunlight remains around the black spot where the moon hangs in the sky. This hybrid eclipse will start as an annular eclipse and then become a total solar eclipse.
The greatest extent of the eclipse should occur at around 4:47 a.m. PT/7:47 a.m. ET and last 1 minute and 40 seconds, making it the longest hybrid eclipse of the sun's current 18-year Saros cycle. Slooh will have live feeds from telescopes in the Canary Island as well as views from Kenya and Gabon. At the time of greatest eclipse, viewers should be able to see the sun's hot outer atmosphere, called the corona, and possibly prominences leaping from its surface. A map of the eclipse's path can be seen below.CHURCHILL (KDKA) — Police and the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office are investigating claims by a 14-year-old boy that he was roughed up and his teeth knocked out by a resource officer at his school.
Civil rights attorney Todd Hollis walked into his conference room Wednesday, followed by his 14-year-old client and his family.
“Sadly, we are here for yet another incident involving abuse of a child at Woodland Hills High School,” Hollis said.
Hollis says his client, Queshawn Wade, who is a ninth grade student at Woodland Hills High School, was assaulted by the school resource officer, Steve Shaulis, who is also a Churchill police officer.
“This shows a picture of a child, 14-years-old, coming home with his teeth knocked out from the hands of the person that you entrusted,” Hollis said.
According to Hollis, the incident happened the afternoon of April 3 at the high school.
“My understanding is that there was a discussion by Officer Steve Shaulis, who is the school resource officer at Woodland Hills High School, over a missing cell phone,” Hollis said, “and that it was his belief that this young man [Wade] was responsible for that cell phone.”
Hollis said the officer told Wade the matter was going to court. Wade said okay, and Officer Shaulis allegedly called the boy a derogatory name and dragged him into his office.
“He said he was thrown against the wall, he landed on a chair, he was then punched in the back of his head,” Hollis said. “At some point, he was placed in a prone position on the ground; he was punched in the teeth, which is where his tooth fell out.”
Hollis contends “excessive force” was used and that the principal of the high school, Kevin Murray, watched as Wade was dragged into the police officer’s office.
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Hollis says Wade is still a student in the Woodland Hills School District, but not presently in school. Hollis says he is recommending that the boy’s family not send him back to the high school.
Attorney Phil DiLuncente, who represents Principal Murray, says his client did not witness the incident and was not even aware of it until after it transpired.
Churchill Police say they have turned the investigation over to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office. The District Attorney’s Office says they have received the initial report and will share that information with the FBI.
Meanwhile, the superintendent of the district tells KDKA that the district is also investigating the matter. He says he will release a statement on Thursday, but he doesn’t believe any of his people did anything wrong.Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson is increasingly showing his fangs in the waning days of the 2016 electoral cycle.
Last month, Johnson displayed some righteous fury over how much media attention was paid to his "What is Aleppo?" face-plant compared to how little attention has been paid to Hillary Clinton's hawkish and largely failed foreign policy. More recently, he got feisty with The Guardian's Paul Lewis, who pressed him about his tax policy.
And during a two-part debate he took part in with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein (Part 1 aired last night, Part 2 airs tonight), Johnson described moderator Tavis Smiley's characterization that he increased New Mexico's debt by more than double during his eight years as the state's governor as "horseshit." Watch the clip below:
Smiley didn't directly cite his source for the debt figures, but he may have been referring to James Spiller's article in National Review that "Johnson inherited a debt of $1.8 billion and left a debt of $4.6 billion, a rate of increase unmatched by the 22 governors in either party who have filed for presidential primaries in the past two decades."
Though Johnson says "there is absolutely no basis in fact for that," Reason's Brian Doherty wrote:
While Johnson had the veto and used it around over 700 times—he thinks that's more than all his fellow governors at the time combined—the legislature ultimately has the power of the purse. On his way out Johnson vetoed an entire budget for 2003 but got overridden. What New Mexico spent during his administration was somewhat, but by no means ultimately, up to him.
As Johnson has repeatedly demonstrated this electoral cycle, he's not the best communicator or extemporaneous public speaker, but he could have capitalized on his sure-to-be noteworthy use of an expletive on public television by explaining that he worked hard to battle the Democratic-controlled legislature's tendency for what he believed was "profligate" spending, and that despite the increase in total debt managed to leave office with a reported $1 billion budget surplus.Analysis of the last 15 years of winners of six major literary awards by the critically acclaimed author Nicola Griffith has found that a novel is more likely to land a prize if the focus of the narrative is male.
Griffith looked at the winners of the Pulitzer, Man Booker, National Book award, National Book Critics’ Circle award, Hugo and Newbery medal winners over the last 15 years. She collated the gender of the winners, and that of their protagonists, finding that for the Pulitzer, for example, “women wrote zero out of 15 prize-winning books wholly from the point of view of a woman or girl”.
The Man Booker, between 2000 and 2014, was won by nine books by men about men or boys, three books by women about men or boys, two books by women about women or girls, and one book by a woman writer about both. The US National Book award over the same period, found Griffith, was won by eight novels by men about men, two books by women about men, one book by a man about both, three books by a woman about both, and two books by women about women.
“It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, when it comes to literary prizes, the more prestigious, influential and financially remunerative the award, the less likely the winner is to write about grown women. Either this means that women writers are self-censoring, or those who judge literary worthiness find women frightening, distasteful, or boring. Certainly the results argue for women’s perspectives being considered uninteresting or unworthy. Women seem to have literary cooties,” wrote Griffith in a piece laying out her analysis in a series of pie charts.
“The literary establishment doesn’t like books about women. Why?” she asked. “The answer matters. Women’s voices are not being heard. Women are more than half our culture. If half the adults in our culture have no voice, half the world’s experience is not being attended to, learnt from or built upon. Humanity is only half what we could be.”
Her analysis came as the summer issue of Mslexia, the magazine for women writers, explores the the “silent takeover by men of the top jobs” in British publishing. Industry expert Danuta Kean laid out how, since 2008, the “women at the top of the three biggest corporate publishing houses have stepped aside – in each case to be replaced by men”.
Penguin managing director Helen Fraser retired in 2009, pointed out Kean, Random House chair and chief executive Gail Rebuck stepped down from the day-to-day running of the company in July 2013, and Victoria Barnsley has been replaced at HarperCollins by Charlie Redmayne. Little, Brown chief executive Ursula Mackenzie has also recently announced she would be stepping down from her position in July, replaced by David Shelley.
“To some extent the departure of these women reflects a generational shift. All fought their way to the top in the 1980s and all are now of retirement age. But, given the huge workforce of women at every other level in the publishing industry, why aren’t they being replaced by women?” asked Kean, quoting Dotti Irving, chief executive of public relations firm Four Colman Getty: “I don’t see the next generation of women coming through. It’s depressing but true.”
Kean pointed to a recent report in the Bookseller, which found that 80% of staff at publisher Pan Macmillan are female, but that a “glass ceiling hinders women in the trade”. “The same report pointed out that, though publishing giant Hachette UK has six female divisional heads, and Penguin Random House has five, again these represent a minority at senior levels overall,” writes Kean, attributing the change to, among other things, the agglomeration of publishing bringing back more traditional management structures to the sector, and digitisation, an area “traditionally spearheaded by younger male staff”.
Given that women are by far the biggest group of readers, having women at the top of publishing firms “impacts on both the status and diversity of fiction – and other books – on offer to women readers”, she argues. And “it’s no coincidence that the period when passionate women execs held some of the top jobs in publishing coincides with the period when women writers are succeeding as never before in the literary prize stakes. Books for the major prizes are submitted by publishers, with a limit of two to three titles per publisher – so it really matters if those few books are by women.”
Looking at Griffith’s research into prizes, Kean told the Guardian that “it is a real problem in the literary market about how we deal with the so-called ‘domestic’”.
“We have an overwhelming cultural bias that is against women, and is against the domestic,” she said. “And we don’t question that cultural bias when it comes to judging prizes. I’m not saying people are prejudiced, but we have innate biases. And women can be just as bad, sometimes even worse, than men for this, and it will translate into every aspect of the judgments we make.”
Griffith, who has won a host of awards for her own writing, agreed. “Why does this shocking disparity exist, even though there are many women judges? Well, in my opinion it’s not primarily anything to with who is judging. It’s about the culture we’re embedded in and that’s embedded in us all of us, women and men. This is the culture that still calls male writers Writers, and female writers Women Writers. The male perspective is still the real one, the standard. Women’s voices are just details.”
Griffith said that she first noticed the disparity in prizewinners when she started out as a writer. “But it was the 90s, and there was a certain amount of optimism in the publishing ecosystem – here in the US at least. Books by and about women were beginning to do well. I thought: ‘Oh, it will get better on its own,’” she told the Guardian by email.
“But then the publishing landscape changed (corporate ownership, consolidation, big chains). This led to scarcity – fewer independent publishers and editors with individual taste, fewer authors being promoted by their publishers, fewer unique buyers at fewer retailers, fewer review slots. Scarcity leads to conservative behaviour.”
But Griffith, a British-American novelist who lives in Seattle, said that she doesn’t see her results as “depressing anymore”, more “as a problem to be solved”. With VIDA, the research group for women in books, now engaging in an annual analysis of the gender balance of literary criticism, Griffith is calling for others to join her in collating and analysing award data.
“Can we fix this? Oh, yes. That’s the beauty of graphed data: people will look. And if they look, they can’t avoid understanding it,” she said.
“What I’d like to see is many hands - women and men - involved in a neutral and dispassionate accumulation of data. Masses and masses of data. Data is the key. Data doesn’t blame anyone or point fingers; data doesn’t make anyone defensive and prompt them to be obstructive.”
She is hoping to look at more genres and more awards, and then at more aspects of the process: “which books are submitted, which longlisted, shortlisted … who writes what books and submits them for publication, how many by/about wo/men are published, how many supported, how many reviewed, and so on”. “Data is the key. We have the tools now to accumulate, analyse, display and share easily. Data will show us patterns. Patterns will lead to correlations. Correlations will lead to possible causes. Causes will help us find solutions,” she said. “I use the plural because I think we’ll need to experiment with a variety of solutions at different stages of a book’s life cycle and in different parts of the ecosystem. But it’s totally doable, in my opinion. It’s just work.”Foto: Hina, Index, Screenshot: HRT
U VELIKOM istraživanju izbornik preferencija koje je na uzorku od ukupno deset tisuća ispitanika od 16. kolovoza do 1. rujna provela agencija Hendal, obrađeno je svih deset izbornih jedinica.
Prema rezultatima ankete izbore će odlučiti neodlučni birači kojih je 21,2%, a važnu ulogu će igrati granični mandati kojih je ukupno 12. Iz ovoga se može zaključiti da će čak svako peti birač o svom izboru odlučiti u zadnjem tjednu kampanje. U skupinu graničnih mandata ubrajaju se one stranke ili koalicije kojima po anketi malo nedostaje za (još jedan) mandat ili su pak jedan mandat dobili s malo glasova viška.
Najgori scenarij za SDP
U najnepovoljnijem slučaju za SDP prema kojem gube sve granične mandate ova koalicija ostaje na 57 mandata. Dva mandata gube u korist HDZ-a koji se u tom slučaju penje na 58 mandata i biva relativni izborni pobjednik.
U tom slučaju Most bi bio na 13 mandata, a Živi zid na čak sedam saborskih fotelja od čega je jednu dobio zahvaljujući graničnom mandatu kojeg je izgubio SDP. Četvrti granični mandat SDP-a otišao bi Milanu Bandiću koji bi time dobio prvog i jedinog zastupnika.
IDS je na standardna tri mandata, a HDSSB je na jednom.
Najgori scenarij za HDZ
Znatno je lošiji najnepovoljniji rezultat HDZ-a. U tom slučaju oni padaju na 53 zastupnika, dok se SDP i njihova koalicija penju na 61. HDZ u najnepovoljnijem slučaju ostaje bez tri granična mandata, a koje bi pokupila opcija Živog zida koja bi u tom slučaju dobila 9 mandata. Most bi bio na 13, IDS na tri, a HDSSB na jednom. U ovoj računici nema Milana Bandića koji tjednima, odnosno mjesecima ponavlja kako će baš on biti odlučujući faktor, ako ne i premijer.
Na temelju telefonskog istraživanja 1000 stanovnika po izbornoj jedinici, a vodeći potom računa o dobnoj, spolnoj i obrazovnoj strukturi stanovništva, Hendalova anketa pokazuje da nijedna od stranaka neće moći samostalno sastaviti vladu.
Tekst se nastavlja ispod oglasa
Realni scenarij: SDP je relativni pobjednik
U gornjim primjerima smo vidjeli najbolji, odnosno najgori scenarij dviju najvećih stranaka, a što ovisi o preraspodjeli graničnih mandata. No prema najrealnijem scenariju najviše prema ovoj anketi osvaja SDP - 61 mandat. HDZ je na 56, Most na 13, Živi zid na šest. IDS je na svoja tri mandata, a na jedan mandat pada Glavašev HDSSB. To je ukupno 140 zastupnika, a kad se njima pridoda osam manjinaca i tri zastupnika dijaspore, dolazi se do brojke od 151.
Ovdje valja naglasiti da je IDS skloniji SDP-u kojemu je i nakon prošlih izbora dao podršku. Sa druge strane, HDZ može računati na zastupnike dijaspore. No, ostaje vidjeti može li računati na svu trojicu s obzirom da u XI. izbornoj jedinici svoju listu ima Željko Glasnović. On je, podsjetimo, na prošlim izborima bio na listi HDZ-a i skupio daleko više preferencijalnih glasova, čak 7,374. To ga je sa sedmog mjesta odvelo u Sabor. Lako je moguće da Glasnović u dijaspori "ukrade" HDZ-u barem jednu saborsku fotelju, no nije isključeno da on ipak podrži Plenkovićevu stranku u formiranju većine.
Nigdje bez Mosta
U ovom slučaju, SDP sa IDS-om ima ukupno 64 ruke, a nedostaje mu još 12. HDZ, pak, sve da dobije maksimalna 3 zastupnika u dijaspori ima tek 59 i nedostaje mu još 17. U ovakvom omjeru snaga, za postizborni lov na raspolaganju ostaje 28 zastupnika od čega je najviše Mostovih. SDP bi sa svim Mostovcima, pokaže li se anketa točnom, mogao sastaviti tanku većinu. U tom slučaju vjerojatno bi dobio i manjince. No SDP ne može samo s manjincima, a bez Mosta.
HDZ-u bi onda trebali i svi Mostovci i barem pet manjinaca, a za što će diplomat iz Bruxellesa Andrej Plenković trebati pokazati iznimne diplomatske vještine.Though car sales have just started, the company has been sourcing from Taiwan for some time.
Last summer, Tesla Motors, the world’s most celebrated electric car maker, finally entered the Taiwan market. The plans were announced to great fanfare on the Fourth of July, and the California-based technology company subsequently opened a pop-up store at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store’s A11 branch in Taipei’s Xinyi District to introduce its cutting-edge design and technology for electric vehicles (EV). Although Tesla has been accepting orders for its Model S sedans online as well as the A11 location, it does not expect to start delivering vehicles to Taiwan customers until January. In the meantime, it is developing its network of charging stations.
Taiwan is the 25th global for Tesla and sixth Asia-Pacific market following Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, and China, which is currently Tesla’s largest market outside the United States.
But while Tesla is only now becoming available to the Taiwanese consumer, the EV maker has a long history with Taiwanese components suppliers, going all the way back to the prototype Tesla Roadster, Tesla’s first EV. The Roadster, which entered production in 2008 after several years of development, used induction electric motors from Taiwanese firm Fukuta Electric and Machinery Co. that enabled it to reach 60mph in 3.9 seconds, propelling it to the top of high-performance vehicles.
Fukuta is not the only Taiwanese company embedded in the Tesla supply chain. Others include Hota Industrial Mfg. Co., a maker of transmission-system parts and other machinery that is now Tesla’s exclusive supplier of reduction gear sets, and K. S. Terminals Inc., a major supplier of automotive connectors. K.S. Terminals reportedly ships EV-use connectors both directly to Tesla and to BizLink Technology Inc., a Taiwanese connector and cable supplier that reportedly provides USB Type-C products to Tesla.
According to Isabel Fan, regional director of Tesla Hong Kong and Macau who is overseeing the Tesla business in Taiwan, the company expanded into Taiwan not only to gain market scale in Greater China, but also due to Taiwan’s roles as a “technology hub and a trend-setter for the region.” In fact, “we already have over a dozen products in our car that are made in Taiwan,” she says. “I see landing Tesla in Taiwan as not only benefiting Tesla by giving us a new market, but also as helping the overall industry to move forward.”
“I see landing Tesla in Taiwan as not only benefiting Tesla by giving us a new market, but also as helping the overall industry to move forward.”
Tesla was founded in 2003 in Silicon Valley by engineers who wanted to prove that electric vehicles could be superior to fossil-fuel powered internal combustion cars, according to the Tesla website. The powertrain for the first Tesla Roadster was based on the AC induction motor patented in 1888 by Nikola Tesla, the physicist and inventor after whom the company was named. Celebrity tech billionaire Elon Musk joined the company soon after its founding and became its driving force.
The Roadster was followed by the Tesla Model S sedan in 2012, which famously earned Motor Trend magazine’s coveted “Car of the Year” award in 2013, and received a 5-star safety rating from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The Model S has since been converted to a dual-motor configuration with an upgraded lithium-ion battery pack that powers it from 0 to100kph in an astounding 2.5 seconds, with a range of over 600 kilometers before recharging. The Model S was the most popular vehicle in the large luxury segment in the United States in the third quarter of 2016, selling over 9,000 vehicles, a 59% surge over last year’s Q3 figures, and beating out such traditional competitors as the internal combustion engine (ICE) BMW 7-Series and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. The Model S has now surpassed the Nissan Leaf |
that by the time, mid-July '73, we had two years of experience with e-mail. We had substantial amount of experience with Doug Englebart's system at SRI called The Online System. That system for all practical purposes was a one-computer world wide web. It had documents that pointed to each other using hyperlinks. Engelbart invented the mouse that pointed to things on the screen. [...] So we had those experiences, plus remote access through the net to the time-sharing machines, which is the Telnet protocol.... So we had all that experience as we were thinking our way through the internet design.
The big deal about the internet design was you could have arbitrary large number of networks so that they would all work together. And the theory we had is that if we just specify what the protocols would look like and what software you needed to write, anybody who wanted to build a piece of internet would do that and find somebody who would be willing to connect to them. Then the system would grow organically because it didn't have any central control.
And that's exactly what happened.
The network has grown mostly organically. The closest thing that was in anyway close to central control is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and its job was to allocate internet address space and oversee the domain name system, which had not been invented until 1984.
So, we were in this early stage. We were struggling to make sure that the protocols are as robust as possible. We went through several implementations of them until finally we started implementing them on as many different operating system as we could. And by January 1st 1983, we launched the internet.
That's where it is dated as operational and that's nearly 30 years ago, which is pretty incredible.
Wired: So how did the internet get beyond the technical and academic community?
Cerf: Xerox invented the Alto machine which was a $50,000 personal computer given to every employee of Xerox PARC — so they're living twenty years in the future for all practical purposes. They were even inventing their own internet. They had a whole suite of protocols. Some of the students that worked with me in Stanford went to work with Xerox PARC, so there was a lot of cross-fertilization.
It's just that they decided to treat their protocol as proprietary, and Bob and I were desperate to have a non-proprietary protocol for the military to use. We said we're not going to patent it, we're not going to control it. We're going to release it to the world as soon as it's available, which we did.
So by 1988, I'm seeing this commercial phenomenon beginning to show up. Hardware makers are selling routers to universities so they can build up their campus networks. So I remember thinking, "Well, how are we going to get this in the hands of the general public?" There were no public internet services at that point.
And there was a rule that the government had instituted that said you could not put commercial traffic on government-sponsored backbones, and, in this case, it was the ARPANET run by ARPA or for ARPA; the NSFNet run for the National Science Foundation, and there were others. The Department of Energy has ESnet and NASA had what was called the NASA Science Internet. The rule was no commercial traffic on any of them. So I thought, "Well, you know, we're never going to get commercial networking until we have the business community seeing that commercial networking is actually a business possibility."
Given that my title at Google is Chief Internet Evangelist, I feel like there is this great challenge before me. We have three billion users, and there are seven billion people in the world. Which means we have four billion people to convert.So I went to the US government, specifically to a committee called the Federal Networking Council since they had the program managers from various agencies and they had been funding internet research. I said, 'Would you give me permission to connect MCI Mail, a commercial e-mail service, to the internet as a test?'
Of course, my purpose was to break the rule that said you couldn't have commercial traffic on the backbone.
And so they kind of grumbled for a while and they said, 'Well, OK. Do it for a year.' So we turned that link up. I had built MCI Mail for MCI a few years before in 1983, so I knew how that worked and, of course, I knew how the internet worked.
We build it, we hook it up, we start traffic flowing between MCI Mail and the internet, and we announce this. And, of course, there were a whole bunch of other commercial e-mail service providers that were disconnected from each other.
So they all said, 'Well, those guys from MCI shouldn't have this privilege. We want to be connected to the internet too,' and the Federal Networking Council said, 'Well, OK.' So they all get hooked up and the next thing they discover is, because they were compatible with the internet's e-mail protocols, all these isolated e-mail systems could now talk to each other. It was just pretty dramatic and it broke many different barriers.
Two years later — well, it was '88,'89 — three commercial internet service providers came into being in the wake of that demonstration.
Wired: So from the beginning, people, including yourself, had a vision of where the internet was going to go. Are you surprised, though, that at this point the IP protocol seems to beat almost anything it comes up against?
Cerf: I'm not surprised at all because we designed it to do that.
This was very conscious. Something we did right at the very beginning, when we were writing the specifications, we wanted to make this a future-proof protocol. And so the tactic that we used to achieve that was to say that the protocol did not know how — the packets of the internet protocol layer didn't know how they were being carried. And they didn't care whether it was a satellite link or mobile radio link or an optical fiber or something else.
We were very, very careful to isolate that protocol layer from any detailed knowledge of how it was being carried. Plainly, the software had to know how to inject it into a radio link, or inject it into an optical fiber, or inject it into a satellite connection. But the basic protocol didn't know how that worked.
And the other thing that we did was to make sure that the network didn't know what the packets had in them. We didn't encrypt them to prevent it from knowing — we just didn't make it have to know anything. It's just a bag of bits as far as the net was concerned.
We were very successful in these two design features, because every time a new kind of communications technology came along, like frame relay or asynchronous transfer mode or passive optical networking or mobile radio‚ all of these different ways of communicating could carry internet packets.
We would hear people saying, 'The internet will be replaced by X25,' or 'The internet will be replaced by frame relay,' or 'The internet will be replaced by APM,' or 'The internet will be replaced by add-and-drop multiplexers.' Of course, the answer is, 'No, it won't.'We would hear people saying, 'The internet will be replaced by X25,' or 'The internet will be replaced by frame relay,' or 'The internet will be replaced by APM,' or 'The internet will be replaced by add-and-drop multiplexers.'
Of course, the answer is, 'No, it won't.' It just runs on top of everything. And that was by design. I'm actually very proud of the fact that we thought of that and carefully designed that capability into the system.
Wired: Right. You mentioned TCP/IP not knowing what's within the packets. Are you concerned with the growth of things like Deep Packet Inspection and telecoms interested in having more control over their networks?
Cerf: Yes, I am. I've been very noisy about that.
First of all, the DPI thing is easy to defeat. All you have to do is use end-to-end encryption. HTTPS is your friend in that case, or IPSEC is your friend. I don't object to DPI when you're trying to figure out what's wrong with a network.
I am worried about two things: one is the network neutrality issue. That's a business issue. The issue has to do with the lack of competition in broadband access and therefore, the lack of discipline in the market to competition. There is no discipline in the American market right now because there isn't enough facilities-based competition for broadband service.
And although the FCC has tried to introduce net neutrality rules to avoid abusive practices like favoring your own services over others, they have struggled because there has been more than one court case in which it was asserted the FCC didn't have the authority to punish ISPs for abusing their control over the broadband channel. So, I think that's a serious problem.
The other thing I worry about is the introduction of IPv6 because technically we have run out of internet addresses — even though the original design called for a 32-bit address, which would allowed for 4.3 trillion terminations if it had been efficiently used.
And we are clearly over-subscribed this point. But it was only last year that we ran out. So one thing that I am anticipating is that on June 6 this year, all of those who can are going to turn on IPv6 capability.
Wired: Do you think before then we will see IPv4 auctions on EBay?
Cerf: We sort of anticipated that there will be a very messy endgame in the IPv4 network, and there have been court cases and issues with bankruptcies. I think it's actually very damaging because if people try to monetize the remaining IPv4 address space then they chop it up in small pieces. It may be impossible to incorporate this into the routing tables in the backbone of the internet.
If you have to know that this little piece is over in Beijing and another piece from a related neighboring space is in Paris, you have to increase the routing table entries to keep track of all those little details. It's actually quite messy. This is part of the reason that my colleagues and I are so vocal about IPv6 implementation, because the IPv4 system will eventually run out. It's already ran out of space and may run out of routing table capability, too.
Wired: When you look at the net now are there things that make you very happy?
Cerf: Actually, given that my title at Google is Chief Internet Evangelist, I feel like there is this great challenge before me because we have three billion users, and there are seven billion people in the world. Which means we have four billion people to convert. That's a big challenge. And it's turning out to be not so easy to get everybody to build the infrastructure that's needed.
Take very bold moves like the ones in Australia, where they are building a nationwide network. That's a very big national commitment and I'm envious of what they're doing because we don't seem to be able to get our act together here in the U.S. Our friends in Oz are going to be getting 100 megabit per second connections.
Wired: Occasionally this pops up in the technology press, and as part of the tech press, I plead guilty, but stories come out that say 'We need to replace the internet that we've got because the protocols aren't good enough for security or for identifying users or for something...' Is it time for the internet 2.0 or 3.0?
Cerf: The honest answer is that although people like to use terms like, 'Internet one-point-oh,' 'two-point-oh,' 'three-point-oh,' these are misnomers because the internet is really an evolving thing. It's still very organic.
There are things going on now to increase the security of the system. The domain name system has known flaws and potential threats and hazards and something called 'DNSSEC', which is the Domain Name System Security Extension being implemented literally as we speak.
The hypertext protocol has an encrypted mode which you can initiate in order to secure transmission across the networking World Wide Web protocol space. The same can be said for e-mail: you can do PGP or other kinds of digitally signed responses.
It's my sense that there are weaknesses that can be dealt with and in large measures they have been — at least technologically. So I would not count the existing internet out in terms of improved security.
I think that we still have much that we can do to make it better. It might be the case, though, that over time we will need to introduce new features that will make the net more secure.
One thing that I can tell you that we have not done very well is to build-in broadcast capability into the network, and we don't take advantage of broadcast radio. We don't take advantage of the fact that when you transmit a packet on multiple channels so that multiple people can hear them, so there are things that we could do and should do make this a richer as well as a more secure environment.
Wired: How would that work? Would that be replacing the way broadcast radio currently works, so that your radio would actually be able to intercept IP packets?
Cerf: Well, in fact, this is sort of where my imagination has taken me.
I think that it's perfectly reasonable to have packets raining down from satellites, IP packets just literally raining down from satellites and being picked up by hundreds, if not millions, of receivers at the same time. Or radio broadcasting that's digital that would be delivering packets as you drive by. All those things, in my view, are reasonable to contemplate and could be readily done, so I'm hoping that we'll see some motion in that direction.
Photo: Vinton Cerf. Credit: Joi Ito/FlickrGood news, everyone! Remember how we never used to have the technology to be able to just automatically disable the photographic capabilities of the cell phones held by everyone in a giant crowd? No longer: Stereogum reports five years of hard paperwork for Apple has finally paid off, and the company has obtained a patent on technology that will disable your phone’s camera when it detects a specific infrared signal. In the time it took you to read that sentence, you probably also had the three seconds of reflection time it would take a reasonable person to think, “Oh, that sounds extremely problematic.” As you’re starting to turn over the implications in your mind, let the patent itself explain how it will function to eliminate the possibility of filming events that explicitly prohibit such personal recording.
For example, an infrared emitter can be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter can generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device can then receive the infrared signals, decode the data and temporarily disable the device’s recording function based on the command.
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Right about now, evil corporations, police departments, third-world militias, and other assembled personages that prefer to operate without public scrutiny are high-fiving themselves into a lather, and you’ve likely already sussed out the reason. As Stereogum notes, the second this infrared tech moves off a concert stage and into, say, a police car, or security at a protest, or any number of other areas where monitoring those in power is an essential method for preservation of rights and/or liberty, this power becomes evil. Super-evil, really, as it shuts down one of the few recourses average citizens have for challenging authority—namely, a record of events. “Take that, future Zapruders,” says the ghost of the second gunman on the grassy knoll. But hey, at least that annoying guy standing right in front of you at the Katy Perry show can’t block your view with his upraised cell any more! Freedom!Mark Bryon and his wife were going through a messy divorce and his custody of his child was in jeopardy. He blasted his wife on his Facebook page saying:
"… if you are an evil, vindictive woman who wants to ruin your husband's life and take your son's father away from him completely — all you need to do is say that you're scared of your husband or domestic partner…"
His ex-wife found out about the post and brought it to the authorities. From USA Today:
"Domestic Relations Magistrate Paul Meyers found Mark Byron in contempt and ordered him jailed for 60 days beginning March 19 — or to post for 30 days on his Facebook page an apology to his wife, written by Meyers, if he wanted to avoid jail. He also had to pay her $1,156 in back child support and her lawyers' fees."
Mark Byron's lawyer was shocked. "In a million years, I didn't think he'd be found in contempt," she told USA Today. "He did nothing but vent. She didn't like what he had to say. That's what this boils down to."
Here's the full, court-ordered apology Mark Byron wrote his wife to avoid jail time:
"I would like to apologize to my wife, Elizabeth Byron, for the comments regarding her and our son... which were posted on my Facebook wall on or about November 23, 2011. I hereby acknowledge that two judicial officials in the Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court have heard evidence and determined that I committed an act of domestic violence against Elizabeth on January 17, 2011. While that determination is currently being appealed, it has not been overturned by the appellate court. As a result of that determination, I was granted supervised parenting time with (my son) on a twice weekly basis. The reason I saw (my son) only one time during the four month period which ended about the time of my Facebook posting was because I chose to see him on only that single occasion during that period. I hereby apologize to Elizabeth for casting her in an unfavorable light by suggesting that she withheld (my son) from me or that she in any manner prevented me from seeing (my son) during that period. That decision was mine and mine alone. I further apologize to all my Facebook Friends for attempting to mislead them into thinking that Elizabeth was in any manner preventing me from spending time with (my son), which caused several of my Facebook Friends to respond with angry, venomous, and inflammatory comments of their own."Two convicted killers allegedly had a "hamburger helper" in their escape from an Upstate New York prison, and now a "dog" is on their trail.
Law enforcement sources told the New York Post that Joyce Mitchell allegedly helped Richard Matt and David Sweat smuggle tools inside frozen chunks of hamburger meat to help them break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility on June 6. Mitchell, who worked at the Dannemora prison as a tailor shop instructor, is accused of providing the pair with hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver.
The expensive manhunt for Matt and Sweat, which has covered more than 300 miles and involved nearly 1,000 officers from multiple law enforcement agencies, is now in its third week. The search briefly moved to Allegany County, but authorities announced Monday they found their first "credible lead" with forensic evidence at a campsite in Owls Head, less than 30 miles from Dannemora.
The Albany Times-Union reports officials briefly scoured the Titus Mountain ski resort on Tuesday, but are mostly focused on the area in and around the hunting cabin owned by corrections officers. Prison-issue underwear, toiletries, bloody socks and more items allegedly found were used for a positive DNA match.
The escapees were added to the U.S. Marshals Service's list of its 15 most wanted fugitives last week, prompting more interest in finding them. The Marshals Service is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the capture of either man, while state police are offering $50,000 for each -- or $150,000 altogether for both suspects, according to PIX 11.
Duane Chapman, best known as TV's "Dog the Bounty Hunter," told Time Warner Cable News that the reward will help people call in more tips but he got serious about finding them once Matt and Sweat landed on the Marshals Service's national list.
"People expect me to do something," he told TWC News on Monday. He said his team has been receiving two tips per hour, but is exercising caution.
"You can't go up there and jump in the cops' crime scene or go through the cabin and look for stuff," Chapman continued. "You've got to be very, very careful not to step on anybody's toes."
Another bounty hunter, Western New York native Chuck Jordan, told TWC News that he doesn't expect Chapman or others to try and apprehend Matt or Sweat themselves.
"If a third party gets hurt or if one of these guys, even though they're escapees, they can get a lawyer and try to sue you if they think you used excessive force, there's all kinds of things that can go wrong," Jordan, president of the National Association of Fugitive Recovery Agents, said.
There's also the concern about Matt and Sweat potentially harming others while on the run. Newly released footage from ABC shows Matt in 1997, posing with a blow dart gun.
"Let's dip these in AIDS blood, and we'll put a patent on them and sell as deadly weapons," he says.
Chapman told CNN his people "think they are going to kill one of Joyce's family members because they are so mad at her" for allegedly backing out of driving the getaway car. Mitchell's husband Lyle Mitchell was once believed to be part of a murder-for-hire plot.
"These guys are so dangerous that the cops are not hunting them at night," Chapman said. But on the bright side, he said, the DNA evidence suggests mistakes have been made and "the end is coming very soon."
Both escapees are considered extremely dangerous. Sweat was serving a life sentence for shooting a sheriff's deputy 15 times in 2002. Matt was in prison for the kidnapping, murder and dismemberment of a man who had fired him from his job at a food warehouse.
Anyone with information is asked to call 518-563-3761 or 1-800-GIVE-TIP.13121
Latein für Juristen : Parkettsicher durch Pandektenlektüre von Dipl.-Jur. Anna K. Bernzen, LL.B. 09.09.2014 Foto: janniswerner - Fotolia.com
"Nulla poena sine lege" heißt: Keine Strafe ohne Gesetz. Also kein Jurastudium ohne Latein? In Lehrbüchern und Vorlesungsskripten ist die tote Sprache allgegenwärtig. Aus den meisten Promotionsordnungen und Studienplänen wurde Latein dagegen gestrichen. Lohnt sich der Lernaufwand überhaupt noch? Anna K. Bernzen hat nachgeforscht.
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"Ich gebe auf", so hat der Nutzer mit dem Tweety-Profilbild seinen Eintrag im Internetforum betitelt. Auf der Online-Plattform der juristischen Fakultätsvertretung teilt er seinen Kommilitonen auch den Grund für seinen folgenschweren Entschluss mit: "Ich bin einfach zu blöd für Latein. Ich lerne und lerne und kann dann trotzdem keinen einzigen von diesen verdammten Sätzen übersetzen." Sein Fazit, verziert mit einem traurigen Kulleraugen-Smiley: "Also scheitert mein Studium an Latein."
Auch wenn die Uhrzeit des Eintrags – kurz vor elf Uhr abends – eher auf akute Probleme mit den Lateinhausaufgaben als auf ernsthafte Pläne für den Studienabbruch hindeutet: An der Universität Wien, die der Student mit dem Vogelbild besuchte, kann die Altsprache tatsächlich den Jura-Abschluss kosten. Denn was an deutschen Fakultäten zur Erleichterung vieler Nachwuchsjuristen vor einiger Zeit abgeschafft wurde, ist in Österreich immer noch Studienvoraussetzung: Lateinkenntnisse.
Lateinische Wendungen, die Juristen kennen sollten: Hier geht es zum Hochstapler-Check
Ein Muss für Heidelberger, Kirchenrechtler und Fans des römischen Rechts
In Deutschland müssen Jurastudenten die tote Sprache höchstens beherrschen, wenn sie später promovieren wollen – und auch das nur in Ausnahmefällen: Allein die Universität Heidelberg verlangt von allen Jura-Doktoranden ein Latinum. Wer dort Dr. iur. werden will, muss also einige Jahre Latein in der Schule gelernt oder während des Studiums fleißig Cicero und Co. gebüffelt haben. An der Kölner Juristenfakultät heißt es in der Promotionsordnung immerhin, "Kenntnisse der lateinischen Sprache" würden von den Doktoranden "erwartet." Als Nachweis reicht aber der Besuch eines einsemestrigen Lateinkurses für Juristen.
An anderen Jurafakultäten werden Lateinkenntnisse nur in Einzelfällen verlangt, die mit dem Inhalt der Promotion zu tun haben: In Würzburg müssen zum Beispiel künftige Doktorender Rechtswissenschaft, die sich für ihre Dissertation auch im kanonischen Recht umschauen wollen, ein Latinum vorweisen. Und auch wer im römischen Recht promovieren will, wird ohne den Sprachnachweis bei vielen potentiellen Doktorvätern und –müttern mit seinem Promotionsgesuch wohl kaum Erfolg haben.
"Tausende Jahre Rechtserfahrung auf Latein bewahrt"
Der Vergleich aller Promotionsordnungen für Juristen zeigt: Der Trend geht weg von Latein. In Köln habe man bei der jüngsten Überarbeitung dennoch bewusst an der Latein-Vorschrift festgehalten, sagt Martin Avenarius. Latein gehöre zu konventioneller Bildung dazu, findet der Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Bürgerliches Recht, Römisches Recht und Neuere Privatrechtsgeschichte – gerade für Rechtwissenschaftler: "Wer als Jurist wissenschaftlich arbeiten will, muss ein Bewusstsein dafür haben, dass unser geltendes Recht nur ein Durchgangsstadium ist. Es basiert auf tausenden Jahren historischer Rechtserfahrung, und diese wurde nun einmal auf Latein bewahrt."
Für Moritz Fastabend klingt das "nach altbackenem Elitedenken". Der Student engagiert sich im AStA der Universität Bochum für die Abschaffung des verpflichtenden Latinums für Lehramtsstudenten, sieht es aber auch als Promotionsvoraussetzung kritisch: "Wer ein Latinum fordert, baut unnötige Hürden beim Zugang zu Bildung auf." Doktoranden, die ihr Abitur etwa auf dem zweiten Bildungsweg oder an der Gesamtschule erworben haben und dort keinen Lateinunterricht hatten, hätten es auf dem Weg zur Promotion schwerer als solche mit klassischer Gymnasialbildung. Mit dieser zusätzlichen Auslese schadeten die Universitäten sich selbst: "Es tut der Wissenschaft langfristig weh, kluge Köpfe von der Promotion abzuhalten."“Experiments and Observations in an Heated Room” by Charles Blagden, in Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775); 1775; Royal Society, London.
In 1774 and 1775 the British physician and scientist Charles Blagden conducted a series of experiments concerned with exploring the effects on the human body of extremely high temperatures, “air heated to a much higher degree than it was formerly thought any living creature could bear”. In what equated to something akin to a “super-sauna”, Blagden and his co-experimenters (including a dog) subjected themselves to enormously hot temperatures. Beginning at a modest 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), by the 1775 session they progressed to temperatures upward of a whopping 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius). Not surprisingly the air was at times quite literally scorching, and a full cladding of clothing was mostly worn to protect their skin, though Blagden did experiment one time being in the room naked from the waist up with only a suspended cloth protecting him from the rays of the hot irons. Among his many observations, in his latter 1775 report to the Royal Society, Blagden became the first to explicitly recognise the role of perspiration in thermoregulation, seeing that the body temperatures of both the heat-subjected humans and heat-subjected dog were significantly lower than the air they were exposed to. The dog endured a temperature of 236 degrees Fahrenheit (113 degrees Celsius) for a full hour, with seemingly little distress, and recording a body temperature of only 110 Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) – higher than a dog’s normal body temperature, but significantly cooler than the room. In reality the dog’s temperature was probably lower by a few degrees, as Blagden acknowledged he had a bit of trouble taking the measurement. In any case, such a difference in body and room temperature was an important one. Fearing the reliability of his thermometers, Blagden thought up a control for this thermo-regulating tendency of living bodies which he’d observed – a fat juicy steak. As he explained in his Royal Society report:
To prove that there was no fallacy in the degree of heat shewn by the thermometer, but that the air which we breathed was capable of producing all the well-known effects of such an heat on inanimate matter, we put some eggs and a beef-steak upon a tin frame, placed near the standard thermometer, and farther distant from the cockle than from the wall of the room. In about twenty minutes the eggs were taken out, roasted quite hard; and in forty-seven minutes the steak was not only dressed, but almost dry. Another beef-steak was rather overdone in thirty-three minutes. In the evening, when the heat was still greater, we laid a third beef-steak in the same place : and as it had now been observed, that the effect of the heated air was much increased by putting it in motion, we blew upon the steak with a pair of bellows, which produced a visible change on its surface, and seemed to hasten the dressing; the greatest part of it was found pretty well done in thirteen minutes.
(For more self-experimentation in the name of science see the Nitrous Oxide experiments of Humphry Davy)LIANE HANSEN, host:
One hundred ninety years ago today, the Duke of Wellington sat at his headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, to write his report on the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte the previous day in the Battle of Waterloo. The duke's task in portraying the battle was nearly as complex as the battlefield maneuvers that led to the destruction of the French army at the hands of an allied force. Wellington needed to depict how the battle developed, how regiments were positioned and how the end came about for the French. He emphasized the role of his British soldiers, and he played down the role played by Prussian regiments in the allied army. With Napoleon defeated, there would be spoils of war to share, and Wellington didn't want to give the Prussians more bargaining chips than absolutely necessary.
Peter Hofschroer is an authority on the Battle of Waterloo and author of "Wellington's Smallest Victory: The Duke, the Model Maker and the Secret of Waterloo." He joins us from our London bureau.
Welcome to you.
Mr. PETER HOFSCHROER (Author, "Wellington's Smallest Victory"): Welcome to you, as well.
HANSEN: What is that term, `secret of Waterloo'?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: The secret is very, very simple. I mean, Wellington played up his role at the Battle of Waterloo for political and personal reasons, to strengthen Britain's bargaining position at the peace following Waterloo and to strengthen his personal gains from the victory.
HANSEN: And he was doing all of that right after the battle?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: Oh, he was a very astute politician. I mean, if you look at his Waterloo dispatch written immediately after the battle the next morning into the early part of the following afternoon, he was very careful about what he said. He chose his words well. He gave praise as far as he needed to to his allies, to his comrades, and to the Prussians, he was--let's say he played their role down a little bit. And to people in his own army, like, for instance, the Earl of Uxbridge, who lost a leg at Waterloo--didn't even mention the fact that this senior commander of his cavalry lost a leg, because he had personal difficulties with him. He had a score to settle.
HANSEN: Years after that dispatch was sent, a young lieutenant in the British army decided to build a model of the Battle of Waterloo. Tell us a little bit about him and the model he was planning to build.
Mr. HOFSCHROER: Lieutenant William Siborne was a very bright officer. You've got to bear in mind, at the time in question, that British army, promotion was normally bought; it wasn't by merit. He came from relatively moderate background. He didn't have a lot of money. He couldn't buy his promotion. And his objective was to promote his career by building this model. Also, the British army wanted to open a museum in London to praise its achievements over the years, and the central exhibit was going to be a model of the Battle of Waterloo. And they commissioned William Siborne to build it because he had written two books on military topography and model building.
HANSEN: And with all of this information, he began to construct the model. And he had support from the army at the beginning, but that changed. What happened?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: He had support from the army really the whole way through. What changed was in 1836, he sent a plan of the model to the Duke of Wellington. His initial response was to say, `It looks OK to me.' But then one of his advisers tapped him on the shoulder and said, `Your Grace, do you realize that this model conflicts with your Waterloo dispatch, on which all subsequent history of the battle has been based?' And Wellington sort of said, `I didn't realize that. Oh, my God.' And then, from that point onwards, Wellington and his advisers turned against Siborne and tried to destroy the man.
HANSEN: Well, what exactly was wrong with the model?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: There was nothing wrong with the model; it was historically correct. That was the problem. When the model was first exhibited in 1838, there were 48,000 Prussian soldiers shown attacking the right rear of Napoleon's position and deciding the battle. When it was exhibited the second time in 1845 for the 30th anniversary of the battle, Siborne had been forced to remove 40,000 of the 48,000. There were only 8,000 left on the model, and that is how the model is shown today at the National Army Museum in London. There are 40,000 Prussians missing.
HANSEN: How did...
Mr. HOFSCHROER: It's a major distortion of history.
HANSEN: How did Siborne respond when he was told to take out those models?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: He wasn't a happy person. He fought long and hard against this attempt to distort history, and eventually the financial problems that the building of the model caused, and that was partly because the government refused to honor its obligations to him. The government had told him to go ahead and make the model and told him that it would finance it. And partly because of Wellington's machinations, the money was not made forthcoming, so Siborne had to finance this major project out of his own pocket. And as a lieutenant in the army--it cost him a lot of money; he couldn't really afford it. So he was eventually forced to remove the Prussians to try and get the money.
HANSEN: And he finished it? He capitulated?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: Not without making it publicly known that he was doing so under pressure. So he rubbed Wellington's nose in it in the end, which didn't make him very popular with Wellington.
HANSEN: Well, the Duke of Wellington lived to be an old man. He is adored. There are many statues of him in Britain.
Mr. HOFSCHROER: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
HANSEN: What became of Siborne?
Mr. HOFSCHROER: Siborne died prematurely because of the stress that this whole situation caused. The model, however, is still on display in the National Army Museum in London, so Siborne's work wasn't wiped out.
HANSEN: Peter Hofschroer is the author of "Wellington's Smallest Victory: The Duke, the Model Maker and the Secret of Waterloo," and he spoke with us from the studios of the BBC in London.
Thank you very much, Peter.
Mr. HOFSCHROER: Thank you.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: You're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
Copyright © 2005 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.EXCLUSIVE: Selma director Ava DuVernay has just been set by Disney to direct A Wrinkle In Time, an adaptation of the 1963 Newbery Medal-winning Madeleine L’Engle fantasy classic novel that has a script by Oscar-winning Frozen writer and co-director Jennifer Lee. Deadline revealed February 8 that DuVernay had been offered this film and was also in the mix at DreamWorks for Intelligent Life, a sci-fi thriller scripted by Colin Trevorrow and his Jurassic World collaborator Derek Connolly. DuVernay now has the offer on that film and is in negotiations on a pic that has 12 Years A Slave Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o attached to a fable about a UN worker in a department designed to represent mankind if there was ever contact with aliens |
isn't really happening. People like to argue on the internet, but in real life, I know more people who listen to Future and Talib Kweli than categorically hate one or the other, myself included.
I'm literally listening to Beatking as I type this, and next, I might go listen to the new Royce EP. You don't have to choose "sides," choosing sides is stupid.
So while I know this article will likely get sucked into that fake cultural war, I want to make clear that this isn't about inherently elevating Joey Bada$$ or putting Thug down. And I'm obviously not digging deep into sales stats here. There's plenty of specifics to dig into here, differences between mixtapes and albums, that I'm going to avoid this time around because I'm really only interested in making a larger point. This is purely about dispelling this pervasive myth that I see echoed every day.
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The sales projections for Young Thug's new art-stealing Slime Season 3 album are out and they're not particularly impressive, we're likely looking at something like 22K copies sold first-week, which reminded me of the sales for Migos' Yung Rich Nation, which sold 15K first week. By contrast, singling out Joey Bada$$ as an example of newer "lyrical" hip-hop, his B4.DA.$$ debut sold 54K first week. And Joey's not just a headphone rapper, he's also doing global tours and selling out his merch.
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And that's just a small slice. If we zoom out to the last year and some change we see that Kendrick Lamar's "weird jazz album" and J. Cole outsold trap's most commercially successful rapper, Future, by a wide margin. And if we zoom out even more and look at the highest selling hip-hop albums of all-time, we'll find Eminem, Tupac, Biggie and Outkast in the top ten repeatedly, all acts that prided themselves on their "lyricism."
The lesson here isn't that "trap" music is bad and "lyrical" hip-hop is good, the lesson is that those terms are pretty meaningless when it comes to commercial success. The only common denominator between the most successful artists across eras and styles is that they were their most authentic selves, so if you're Lil Yachty be Lil Yachty.
I want to see everyone flourish, I'm just tired of hearing more lyrically-oriented artists told that pursuing the music they genuinely love means committing to a life of poverty when in fact it's not just possible to get rich off lyrical rap, it's common.
Get rich or die rapping my friends.Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo Smartphone with FULL HD Display Screen has finally arrived on the screen with price of Rs. 19990. Earlier Micromax has revealed an advertisement teaser in which Hugh Jackman was seen promoting upcoming Canvas Turbo device. Now the end has ended and Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo has been officially launched my Micromax. Recently i have posted an article about Micromax Canvas Magnus A117 which is also a 5.0 inch HD Mobile but not a FHD Device. For some time everyone is waiting for the launch of FULL HD Mobile from the company. Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo Mobile has some very unique and premium features which i am going to discuss in the article.
Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo Features and Specifications
Apart from FHD Screen, 2GB RAM and other features, the device comes with lots of smart sensors like intuitive gesture controls of the canvas turbo help you use your phone without tapping or pressing any buttons! to unlock and access your phone, simply wave your hand over it. If you want to use same gesture feature on earlier device Read How to Turn On Android Mobile with Wave of Hand. According to micromax website these smart gestures enable you to control your phone while also helping you to save crucial battery life. You can also unlock your mobile by blowing air on-screen. Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo seems to work on split screen with facility of popup video and browser which lets you Work on one half of the screen and keep your favorite video playing along on the video browser. Moreover you will get BBM and Hike Messenger pre-installed on your device which lets you chat with your friends. Technical Specifications of Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo Mobile are as follows:
5.0 inch Full HD CGS (Continuous Grain Silicon) IPS display with 1920 x 1080 pixels screen resolution
1.5 GHz MediaTek MT6589T quad-core processor
Android 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean)
Dual SIM (GSM + WCDMA) with Dual Standby (One standard SIM and one Micro-SIM)
13MP AF Rear and 5MP FF Front Camera with FHD Recording
3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, aGPS
Light Sensor, Motion Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Magnetic Sensor, Gyroscope Sensor
2GB RAM, 16GB NAND FLASH( internal memory)
2000 mAh battery with 105 hrs standby time
Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo Price in India is Rs. 19990 from Micromaxestore
[Source – Micromax A250 Canvas Turbo]Alberta Premier Rachel Notley's approval rating in her home province continues to suffer, according to a new independent poll from the Angus Reid Institute.
Notley's approval rating now sits at 28 per cent, down three per cent from the 31-per-cent approval rating Albertans gave the NDP premier in March, according to the company's latest online survey.
Notley's disapproval rating in the June survey was 62 per cent, concluded the non-partisan research group.
Albertans are increasingly underwhelmed by Notley's performance, said researchers, suggesting that Notley's pipeline politics and the battle to unite Alberta's political right are at play in her declining favour among voters.
Pipeline politics 'front and centre'
"In Alberta, pipeline politics are once again front and centre," Angus Reid executive director Shachi Kurl said in a news release.
"The election result in British Columbia has put the future of the Kinder Morgan TransMountain pipeline in some doubt.
"Notley has been vigorously defending the project in the name of Alberta's economic interests, but it may not be enough in the face of a renewed, refreshed challenge from a newly-united right-of-centre movement."
Notley's performance puts her tied with Newfoundland Premier Dwight Ball as the second least-popular premier in the country.
Ontario's Kathleen Wynne continues to have the lowest approval rating, at 15 per cent.
The nationwide poll was conducted from June 5 to June 12 with a random sample of more than 5,000 Canadians who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The Alberta numbers were based on the responses of 599 provincial residents who took part in the poll.
Meanwhile, a separate nationwide survey, which examined approval ratings for Canada's premiers — both in their home provinces and across the country — paints a less than rosy picture of Notley's performance.
That poll, conducted by national public research firm Mainstreet on behalf of Postmedia, put Notley's approval rating at 45 per cent nationally, and 33 per cent in Alberta.
Notley's disapproval rating in that poll came in at 63 per cent in Alberta.
In October, Notley's national approval rating came in at at 44 per cent, and 34 per cent in Alberta.
Mainstreet surveyed 5,525 Canadians October 5 and 6. The national numbers have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.35 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.Rex
RICHARD NICOLL has died in Sydney aged 39. The fashion designer died from a heart attack.
London-born Nicoll, who last year put his eponymous label on hold and returned to Australia where he was raised, showed his collections on the London Fashion Week schedule for nearly a decade, adopting the capital as his home after he graduated from Central Saint Martins with an MA in womenswear in 2002.
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The designer's talents stretched beyond his own-name brand, including a creative director stint at Cerruti, in addition to freelance design for Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton and a recent role at Jack Wills. A highly regarded and loved member of the fashion industry, at the time of his death he was working on a number of projects, including one with musician Jess Kent, and was preparing to take up a creative director role at Adidas in January.
Alastair Nicol
“It is with great sadness that we confirm that Richard Nicoll passed away unexpectedly this morning in Australia from a heart attack," his family said in a statement today. "Richard was one of the quiet stars of fashion. He was a true gentleman, a wonderful friend and a much loved son. Anyone that had the privilege of knowing him knew that he had a heart of gold, an innate kindness and a modesty and humility that sometimes didn’t allow him to acknowledge his own exceptional creative talent. He loved his life in Australia. He had recently confirmed a new role at Adidas and a collaboration with Woolmark both of which he was excited about. We will miss his handsome face, his sense of humour and his love.”Deep Biomarkers Of Human Aging How old by basic blood test
* This should be in your clinical biochemistry blood test results ** Required parameter for minimal prediction accuracy of 70% within 10 year frame *** We can not show you reference values before knowing your age apriori, so this is only a reference metric Click on a marker to know more about what it is. Knowing your blood biochemistry markers is the new ABCs. Everyone should know it.
Enter your weight: kg Enter your height: cm Do you smoke? Yes No
Please use the following citation when referencing Aging.AI 3.0: Polina Mamoshina, Kirill Kochetov, Evgeny Putin, Franco Cortese, Alexander Aliper, Won-Suk Lee, Sung-Min Ahn, Lee Uhn, Neil Skjodt, Olga Kovalchuk, Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, Alex Zhavoronkov; Population specific biomarkers of human aging: a big data study using South Korean, Canadian and Eastern European patient populations, The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, gly005, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/gly005
This is a deep-learned predictor of your age made with a deep neural network trained on hundreds of thousands anonymized human blood tests. Enter your data below and Aging.ai will guess your age and sex.
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August 8th, 2016
I'm joined this week by social marketing master, Taylor Nikolai, who thinks I don't pronounce his name correctly. Taylor drops some wisdom in the form of Gamification Theory when it comes to education, so much like how Pokemon Go has gamified exercise, he thinks the same can be done with education as a whole. Look forward to solving for Eigenvalues in the next Dark Souls!
I also witnessed the start of a race war on my street. I brought in the clip of a black guy (who we come to learn is half-Mexican) going toe-to-toe with a Mexican delivery man. Who wins? You, the listener, because I recorded the entire thing. Plus Rucka is back and pleased to hear all our new Italian and Armenian callers.
Also, here is a quick survey to help out the show:
We also discuss whether Snoop Dog should be culpable for encouraging his fans to rush the stage, which caused it to collapse. And as promised, here's that hot Corvette mom. Is it just me?
Stone fox. Correction: Her knuckle tattoos say: "FEAR - LESS." Badass.
The voicemail number is: 1-562-58-I-RULE (1-562-584-7853).
Washington Post - Why Bernie Sanders' free college plan doesn't make sense
Education.com - Waiting for Superman: cost of high school drop out
KRON4 - Mom stuffed her kids in trunk of Corvette
LA Times - Snoop Dog concert stage collapses
"Mining by Moonlight" and "Music to Delight" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/The following is in response to the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report “Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI’s Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters” (hereinafter “report”).
“The FBI appreciates the efforts, time and expertise of this group of highly respected professionals of the academy. The academy was asked by the FBI to conduct an independent review in appreciation of the significance of the anthrax investigation and the groundbreaking nature of the science involved and its role in resolving the case. We commend the committee formed by the academy for a report that provides valuable guidance and better prepares the FBI to respond to attacks of a similar nature in the future.
“Among other findings, the committee confirmed the value of the emerging field of ‘microbial forensics,’ which proved significant in solving this case. This scientific technique established a critical lead as to the origins of the anthrax used in the attacks, allowing investigators to focus investigative resources and efforts. Ultimately, the late Dr. Bruce Ivins was determined to be the perpetrator of the deadly mailings. The FBI and Department of Justice were preparing for prosecution at the time of Dr. Ivins’ death.
“As the report recognizes, this was an investigation of almost unprecedented scope, complexity, and duration. Its origins were in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when the FBI was unsure of possible links to those attacks and concerned about follow-on attacks. The investigation necessarily moved at a rapid pace, proceeding on two parallel fronts: a traditional investigation, involving tracking leads and conducting interviews, and a scientific one, led by the FBI Lab and included scientists from outside of law enforcement. From the outset, the scientific and traditional investigations were mutually reinforcing. Each helped guide and direct the other. The report notes the complexity of the parallel tracks of the investigation and how aspects of each track informed decisions to proceed with or abandon particular lines of the investigation.
“As the report notes, one of the most significant scientific approaches undertaken in the case—the field of microbial forensics—was being developed as the investigation unfolded. While the biological and chemical analytical methods applied in the investigation were neither new nor unique, the application was both innovative and groundbreaking. The committee’s findings highlight the emerging role that microbial forensics played in this investigation and its promise for future investigations. The report also recognized the FBI’s unprecedented efforts to form outside partnerships within the scientific community and the value that their expertise can lend to a criminal investigation of this magnitude.
“The committee’s report reiterates what is and is not possible to establish through science alone in a criminal investigation of this magnitude. The committee’s focus was on the more novel scientific approaches used in this investigation and did not review the traditional forensic methods and techniques employed or the significant body of evidence gathered through traditional law enforcement techniques. The committee also concluded that it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the B. anthracis in the mailings based on the available scientific evidence alone. The FBI has long maintained that while science played a significant role, it was the totality of the investigative process that determined the outcome of the anthrax case. Although there have been great strides in forensic science over the years, rarely does science alone solve an investigation. The scientific findings in this case provided investigators with valuable investigative leads that led to the identification of the late Dr. Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks.
“Over the course of the investigation, the FBI and the Postal Inspection Service devoted 600,000 investigator work hours to the case and assigned 17 special agents to a task force, along with 10 U.S. Postal Inspectors. The investigation spanned six continents; involved over 10,000 witness interviews, 80 searches, 26,000 e-mail reviews, and analyses of 4 million megabytes of computer memory; and resulted in the issuance of 5,750 grand jury subpoenas. Additionally, 29 government, university, and commercial laboratories assisted in conducting the scientific analyses that were an important aspect of the investigation.
“The FBI believes that today’s report will increase the public’s understanding of the exhaustive effort that resolved one of the most extensive investigations in the history of the FBI.
“The FBI and Justice Department investigative summary of evidence developed in the ‘Amerithrax’ investigation and numerous attachments are accessible to the public and were posted last year to the Justice Department website at www.justice.gov/amerithrax under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, roughly 2,700 pages of FBI documents related to the Amerithrax case are accessible to the public and were posted last year to the FBI website at http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/amerithrax.htm under the Freedom of Information Act.”Mohamed Zika tells Egyptian TV that close friend Mohamed Salah will join Liverpool from Basel in January [Video]
What a transfer window curveball!
Completely from leftfield, an authoritative source has disclosed that Basel’s rising Egyptian star -twice the scourge of Chelsea this season – is set to join Liverpool, this January!
His close friend and former teammate Mohamed Zika told Egyptian TV that his friend told him this at a recent wedding, and when asked to confirm the shock news, Zika said:
Basically, yes. Inshallah (if God wills).”
“He makes us and all of Egypt proud. Everyone talks about Mohamed Salah now. And aside from that he’s my friend, so I’m even happier for him.”
Salah’s been making a name for himself with Basel for the last two years, and exploded onto the radar this season with stand-out displays in the Champions League group stage, and has a market value of €12million, which Liverpool are believed to be more than prepared to pay.
Video of Mohamed Zika telling Egyptian TV (in Arabic) that his friend Mohamed Zalah is ‘99%’ sure to join Liverpool in January can be seen below.
(Egyptian site Kingfut provide the news and translation of the above dialogue and clip below.)ORLANDO — It appears Ed Davis comes out of nowhere as he grabs nearly every loose ball and rebound imaginable.
It appears Davis can compete through any circumstance, including a recently broken nose and a fluctuating starting and reserve role, without complaints.
It appears Davis represents the ideal role player that would fit into the Lakers’ future, his career-high 58 percent shooting and 7.3 rebounds per game explaining why coach Byron Scott and teammates gush about the 25-year-old’s presence.
“He plays hard and he knows his role,” Scott said of Davis. “He does so many things to make himself better and to make us better.”
The Lakers (13-36) have 33 more regular-season games, including Friday’s contest against the Orlando Magic (15-37) at Amway Center, to evaluate Davis’ worth. It seems inevitable the Lakers will have to see how other teams perceive his value, too.
Davis said in an interview with the Los Angeles News Group that he will opt out of his player option worth around $1 million that would secure his Lakers’ future for the 2015-16 season for one specific reason.
“I’m hoping for a long-term deal,” said Davis, who has until June 25 before formally deciding his move. “I’d love to return here. I know this will turn around eventually.”
The Lakers may keep Davis. But it appears their offseason priority involves the NBA draft and attracting a marquee star once free agency begins July 1. Of course, Davis’ future could hinge on what offers he attracts from other teams.
Davis has switched agents from Kobe Bryant’s representative Rob Pelinka to Leon Rose, whom Davis will defer to on weighing whether to take an offer from the highest bidder or accept a hometown discount with the Lakers to secure a multi-year contract. Davis said he “definitely” understands the risk that move entails.
“This is definitely my first option,” Davis said of the Lakers. “They’re a team that gave me a look last summer when not too many teams were calling. This is definitely where I want to be at. Hopefully I can stay here for the rest of my career.”
Davis has offered a solid first impression.
He grabbed 20 rebounds in Wednesday’s loss in Milwaukee, becoming the ninth Lakers player in the past 20 years to accomplish such a feat. Davis has shot 62.2 percent from the field on attempts within 5 feet by consistently diving to the basket off pick-and-rolls and converting off putbacks. He has posted three double-doubles and grabbed at least 10 rebounds in nine contests. Even when Davis does not positively impact the box score, the Lakers still sense he positively impacts them.
“He’s an active player,” Lakers forward Carlos Boozer said. “Some games he’ll give us 15 points. Some games he’ll give us four blocks. He just gave us 20 rebounds. He always finds a way to affect the game. That’s why we have to have him on the floor.”
That also explains why the Lakers signed Davis last summer to a two-year, $2 million deal.
Even before Lakers rookie forward Julius Randle suffered a season-ending injury to his right leg, the Lakers envisioned leaning on Davis. He averaged only five points and four rebounds in 15 minutes through two seasons in Memphis amid a bloated backcourt with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. But Davis’ third season in Toronto saw him average a career-high 9.7 points in 24.5 minutes.
Davis has proven this season he has become effective regardless of his playing time. Consider the relative similarities in his numbers, both as a starter and a reserve, in scoring average (8.8 points per game, 7.3 points per game), field-goal percentage (56.8 percent, 60.3 percent), rebounds (6.8, 7.8) and minutes (26.1, 22.1).
“If I play 30 minutes or 10 minutes, I’m going to play hard every game,” Davis said. “Whatever roles they want me to play, I’ll fill it. I’m always hungry. But I’m going to be ready whenever I step out on the court.”
And after playing for six different coaches through five NBA seasons, Davis craves the stability in playing for Scott. Davis prefers that even if it seems inevitable the Lakers’ roster next season will look different. Only Bryant, Randle, Ryan Kelly and Nick Young have guaranteed contracts for the 2015-16 season, leaving the Lakers with as many as 11 roster spots to fill. Davis hopes he fills one of those.
“I like the people in this organization. I definitely like my teammates and the coaching staff. They’re good people,” Davis said. “I hope I can come back and I hope I can call this home.”
DAVIS FILE
Age: 25; 2014-15 statistics: 8.0 ppg, 7.3 rpg; Seasons pro: 5I’ve decided to expand my post on the Kings Theatre into four parts using some excerpts from my book, Kings Theatre; The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Brooklyn’s Wonder Theatre. Find out more about the book here.
Originally a carport for the Brooklyn Railroad Company, 1027 Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, where the Kings was built, was actually almost the home of another theater ten years earlier. William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation purchased the property on November 1, 1919, and intended to build the biggest theater in Brooklyn on the site. Fox hired famed theater architect Thomas W. Lamb to design a 3500 seat theater on the property, but it never happened. Fox liked to buy land in areas he thought could be or needed a theater, often never building anything and just selling the land years later.
In 1927, Famous Players (Paramount) entered into an agreement with the Allied Owners Corporation, a subsidiary of New York Investors, Inc., to finance the construction of the theater. According to the agreement, the Allied Owners Corp. would hold the deed to the Flatbush Ave. property along with three others in New York and one in Birmingham, Alabama and finance the construction of the theaters. Upon completion, the theaters would be leased to the Paramount-Famous Players- Lasky Corporation to repay the bond. In October 1927, Allied Owners sold an issue of $9,500,000 real estate bonds and used the profits to finance the building of the five theaters. These theaters were the Paramount, Kings, and Pitkin in Brooklyn, the Valencia in Jamaica, NY, and the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham.
When the Loew’s Corporation found out about the theaters, Nicholas Schenck contacted Paramount to offer a new deal. In exchange for showing Paramount Films in over 40 of Loew’s theaters, Paramount would sublease three of the four New York theaters over to Loew’s, keeping the one located in downtown Brooklyn.When the agreement was finalized, the Pitkin, the Valencia, and the Kings opened as Loew’s theaters. The theaters would be paid for in 181 monthly payments: $20,983 a month for The Kings, $18,873 for The Pitkin, and, $18,228 a month for The Valencia.
Paramount hired the architectural design firm of Rapp & Rapp to design the Kings. They were also responsible for designing the Paramount Theatre in Manhattan, the Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn and the Uptown Theatre in Chicago. C.W Rapp passed away in 1926, and most likely had nothing to do with the designing of the Kings. Edwin “Ted” Bullock, one of George and C.W’s nephews, ran the New York office of Rapp & Rapp, located in the Paramount Theatre Building in Times Square, during the 1920s.
Work on the Kings began in the spring of 1928. The railroad buildings were demolished first, to make way for the building’s foundation. Once the foundation was poured, the steel frame was erected, followed by the roof. This permitted construction at the top of the building and the bottom simultaneously, which allowed for faster building. The Kings cost 1,300,000 to build in 1928 which when adjusted for inflation comes to $17,767,198.83.
The interior of the Kings was decorated by the Rambusch Company with the assistance of Anne H. Dornin, who was in charge of theater decor for Loew’s Incorporated. Dornin, an architect herself, started work with the firm of Thomas W. Lamb shortly after graduating from Columbia University, and became associated with the Loew’s Corporation after decorating the interior of some of the theaters Lamb designed for Loew’s. She came up with something she called “the Theatre Decorators’ Color Chart” which had certain criteria she used to determine what colors would be used inside each theater she decorated. The main colors she picked for the Kings were Red and Bright Gold, which she felt were perfect for large theaters in metropolitan areas.
According to E.A. Schiller, a VP of Loew’s Inc, the original structural plan was changed due to vaudeville and silent films declining in popularity, and motion pictures becoming more and more prominent. The entire design was revised to further the acoustical properties of the theater. Engineers at Loew’s came up with a coating that when applied to the ceilings and walls of the theater would create a texture would help to give a more uniform sound vibration across the entire auditorium. Even the elaborate ornamentation and heavy velvet drapes were designed to distribute sound throughout the auditorium.
Another change that was made to further the audibility of sound coming from the screen was the reduction of the size of the balcony. The original plans called for the Kings to have a much larger balcony, but it was discovered that a shorter and wider mezzanine would improve sound and vision. The auditorium’s footprint was widened to account for more seats being placed on the main level. 2,793 of the 3,692 seats were located on the main level with 899 in the shallow balcony. The wider auditorium also helped the sound from the speakers behind the screen to reach the entire audience.
Kings wasn’t always the name of the theater. It was first called the Tilden, named for the nearby cross street. Paramount had intended to call it the Tilden Theatre, but when Loew’s took over they considered several different names including Loew’s Tilden and Loew’s Regent. Regent made it as far as being included in some of the blueprints and contractors’ agreements, but in the end the theater was named “Kings” for the county where it was located. This final name change came around six months before the theater opened, in time to include it on the marquee and vertical sign.
On July 26, 1929, E. A. Schiller, vice-president of Loew’s, announced that the grand opening celebration of the Kings would take place on August 24, 1929. However there were two delays before the theater finally opened on September 7, 1929. The doors were opened to the public at 11 AM as part of a full day grand opening celebration. However, the official ceremony did not kick off until 9 PM that evening when James J. Bryne, the Brooklyn Borough President, took the stage. Bryne spoke about how grateful the residents of Brooklyn were to have a magnificent theater like the Kings opening in their borough.
A number of movie stars made special “appearances” at the opening via pre-recorded messages. Marion Davies, John Gilbert, Conrad Nagel, William Haines, and Buster Keaton each appeared on screen congratulating Loew’s on the opening of its new theater. The opening presentation was a Broadway-style stage show called Frills and Fancies and was directed by Arthur Knorr. It began with a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner by Beal Hober, which was followed by an overture performed by the house orchestra, The Kings Grand Orchestra. Wesley Eddy, the evening’s Master of Ceremonies, took the stage next and sang If I Had You, and It All Depends on You. Jack North, a banjo-playing comedian, took the stage and sang a few songs. Christy and Nelson, a comedy acrobatic team, had the audience laughing with their routine. William “Singing Bill” Zuckerman, the Kings organist, played the Wonder Morton Organ, and a talking newsreel was shown. Next, Teddy Joyce, master of ceremonies at the Loew’s Penn Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA came out to introduce the star of the evening, Dolores Del Rio. Del Rio said a few words to mark the occasion and to introduce her film “Evangeline” which was the night’s feature presentation. Eddy retook the stage to sing the theme song for Evangeline. Nina Oginska, an internationally famous ballerina, and the Chester Hale Girls joined him on stage during the theme song. According to an advertisement in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10,000 people attended the opening celebration.
Part Two will be available soon. Material from for this post was taken from the first three chapters of my book, Kings Theatre; The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Brooklyn’s Wonder Theater. If you’d like to buy a copy they are available on Amazon, and my website.
Historic photographs and blueprints are from the archival collections of the Theatre Historical Society of AmericaThe Obama administration said Tuesday that Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime and is warning about a dramatic escalation in the Arab country’s 15-month conflict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the delivery represents the “latest information.” She said the U.S. is concerned as the helicopters “will escalate the conflict quite dramatically.”
Speaking at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-oriented research and policy organization, Clinton called instead for Moscow to help the U.S. push forward a political transition plan for Syria.
There was no immediate response from Russia. Russia has consistently said it would not condone the use of outside forces to end the conflict and has said that it would not supply arms that would aid the government in quelling the uprising.
Meanwhile, in Syria, angry crowds blocked U.N. observers from reaching an embattled rebel-held town, hurling stones and metal rods at the monitors’ vehicles. Their vehicles came under fire as they drove away from Haffa, but the source of the gunfire was not clear, the U.N. said.
None of the observers was injured.
The situation in Haffa has raised alarm over the past eight days, and there are concerns civilians are stuck in the area while the regime and rebel fighters battle for control. Washington said Monday that regime forces may be preparing a massacre in rebel-held Haffa — a village about 20 miles from Assad’s hometown of Kardaha.
It’s not clear why the crowd wanted to prevent the observers from entering, but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier that resident of a nearby village was trying to block the observers.
Citing a network of sources on the ground, the Observatory said the residents were mostly regime loyalists.
Calls to the area did not go through Tuesday. The government restricts journalists from moving freely, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts from either side.
Also Tuesday, Syrian forces pelted the eastern city of Deir el-Zour with mortars as anti-government protesters were dispersing before dawn Tuesday, killing at least 10 people, activists said.
The offensives were part of an escalation of violence in recent weeks that has brought more international pressure on President Bashar Assad’s regime faces over its brutal tactics against the opposition. The U.N. accused the government of using children as human shields in a new report. It said children have been victims of detention, torture and sexual violence.
Amateur video of the mortar attack on Deir el-Zour showed some of the dead in a street as survivors screamed in panic and tried to remove their bodies. Other videos showed some of the wounded receiving treatment at a hospital. The Local Coordination Committees activist group and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people died in the shelling.
Both sides of the 15-month-old revolt to oust Assad have ignored an internationally brokered cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect April 12 but never took hold. The U.S. and its allies also have shown little appetite for getting involved in another Arab nation in turmoil.
Syria is veering ever closer to an all-out civil war as the conflict turns increasingly militarized. Already more than 13,000 have died since March 2011, according to activist groups.
The U.N. special envoy for Syria Kofi Annan has asked governments with influence to “twist arms” to halt the escalating violence in the country, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. Annan is also working to convene a diplomatic meeting soon to discuss the situation in Syria amid worsening fighting between government troops and opposition forces. Earlier this year, he put forward a six-point peace plan, including the cease-fire, to try end the violence.
“It is totally unacceptable and it must stop, and that is why Annan has invited governments with influence to raise the bar to another level, to the highest level possible, and twist arms if necessary, to get the parties to implement the plan,” Fawzi told reporters in Geneva. He didn’t specify the countries that might be able to pressure Assad into halting its onslaught against the opposition, but Russia, China and Iran are considered Syria’s closest and strongest allies.
The two main activist groups reported clashes in areas including the central province of Homs, the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo and areas around the capital Damascus and the southern province of Daraa.
The Observatory said troops kept up an offensive in an eastern coastal region where the U.S. says Assad’s forces may be preparing a massacre. The group said regime forces shelled Haffa and neighboring villages in Latakia province Tuesday for the eighth straight day, it said, as regime forces try to push through against stiff resistance. Activists say the government has brought in helicopter gunships to aid their offensive, an increasingly common practice.
The Haffa region is dominated by the Alawite sect and is close to Kardaha, which is the hometown of Assad’s family. Assad and most of Syria’s ruling elite belong to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the opposition is dominated by the Sunni Muslim majority.
The United States had accused Assad’s government Monday of using “new horrific tactics.” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also said the regime “may be organizing another massacre” in Latakia, where U.N. monitors have been impeded.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported that government forces are still tracking down “terrorists,” who it blamed for attacking residents of Haffa. It said the search led to the killing of a number of gunmen and the wounding others. Some were also arrested, it said, adding that two Syrian troops were killed and some others wounded in the clashes.
Attempts to contact activists in Haffa failed because of bad cellular phone connections.
State-run news agency SANA said a reporter and a cameraman for the pro-government Ikhbariya TV were wounded when their car was hit with bullets in Haffa on Monday.
The government restricts journalists from moving freely, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts from either side.A man takes a receipt from a bitcoin (virtual currency) dispenser at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris on June 20, 2014. (Photo11: Stephane De Sakutin, AFP/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO — Bitcoin burst on the world a few years ago as a shiny new virtual currency. Lately, that shine has been a bit tarnished.
The value in the decentralized and unregulated digital currency has plummeted since hitting a high of more than $1,130 in December 2013. It's now priced at more than $380, a two-thirds decline in value.
And even though many entities, financial companies and other businesses have embraced bitcoin, some have shied away — including Japan, where banks cannot deal in the currency.
Some high-profile crimes have also hampered bitcoin. Earlier this year, customers lost $425 million when the |
only two more games, but the percentages aren't convincing: 65 percent against the Rams and 35 percent against the Browns. At this point, the Ravens are one-point favorites over the Rams at home (which shows the diminishing confidence in them), and Baltimore is no longer assured a victory over Cleveland after splitting the previous four meetings with the Browns.
"I feel like we are a good football team that has a chance to be a very good football team, and I’m sticking with that," coach John Harbaugh said.
If the Ravens have proved anything this season, it's that you can't rule anything out for a team that has lost to Oakland, Cleveland and Jacksonville, the perennial cellar-dwellers of the NFL. Some will argue the Ravens technically beat the Jaguars, but everyone can agree Baltimore played poorly enough to lose that game, whether it was the four turnovers in the second half or the 121 yards in penalties.
Before the Jacksonville loss, there had been renewed hope coming off a bye because the Ravens had winnable home games against the Jaguars and Rams before playing at Cleveland and Miami, two places Baltimore has traditionally played well. Now, there needs to be a different perspective when looking ahead.
Baltimore's past seven opponents have a combined 32-33 record, which isn't formidable until you consider the Ravens (2-7) have a better record than just one of those teams, the Cleveland Browns (2-8). In fact, six of the Ravens' past seven opponents have double Baltimore's current win total.
It wouldn't be unprecedented if the Ravens don't win again this season. Over the past four seasons, three teams -- the 2011 Rams, 2013 Texans and 2014 Titans -- lost their last seven games after starting 2-7.
"We’re going to stay together. We’re going to fight," running back Justin Forsett said. "We’re Ravens. We’re going to be relentless, and we’re going to go out every game and prepare to win.”In major league baseball history, 1930 was the year of the hitter. Out of 16 major league teams, only two qualifiers had ERAs below 3.00, Hall of Famers Lefty Grove and Dazzy Vance (they led their respective leagues by huge margins), 14 players had an OPS over 1.000, and Bill Terry became the last National Leaguer to bat.400 in a season.
The major leagues in 1930 had nothing on the KBO this year. A nine-team circuit, the KBO currently has five players batting better than.360, ten players with an OPS over 1.000 and zero qualifying pitchers with ERAs under 3.00.
The KBO plays in small ballparks and South Korea enjoys hot summer weather, both of which tend to favor the hitters. By its own perception, the KBO assumes that South Korea produces an excess of good hitters to good pitchers. Until this season, when the number of foreign players on each roster was increased from two to three, at least one of whom has to be a position player, KBO teams had gotten in the habit of signing nothing but foreign pitchers. In fact, with the exceptions of Ryu Hyun-jin and Yoon Suk-Min, the most successful of these foreign pitchers tended to be the league’s best starters.
I’m doubtful that South Korea’s hitters are really that much ahead of its pitchers — I think it has more to do with ballpark effects than an inability to produce good pitchers. However, the perception is what it is.
Today I read a very good short essay by former San Francisco Giant and three season KBO veteran Ryan Sadowski on mykbo.net, in which Sadowski talks about the fact that scouting in the KBO is behind that in MLB, where more and more teams are effectively mixing traditional scouting (visual analysis and measurement of players’ “tools”) and sabrmetric statistical evaluation to determine the value of players. The piece is both concise and at the same time full of content useful not just to understanding the state of player evaluation in the KBO, but also in MLB.
He raises a point that I’ve heard before, namely that defense is probably the biggest difference between MLB and KBO. In other words, the relative level of defensive play in MLB compared to KBO is greater than the differences in hitting ability or pitching ability.
Specifically, he sites the fact that defensive efficiency ratios (DER) for MLB teams average about.690 which means that about 69% of balls hit in play become outs. He estimates in KBO that the average DER is probably only.650 or 65% of balls in play are turned into outs. He notes that of the of the top 14 major league teams in terms of DER this season, 12 currently have winning records.
His conclusion is that KBO teams generally made a mistake this year by signing foreign position players based mainly on their perceived ability to hit for power. As a result, the KBO largely signed a bunch of 1Bmen who don’t play defense, when the KBO already has a plethora of Korean-born players with the same skill sets. Instead, he concludes KBO teams would probably gain more Wins Above Replacement (WAR) if they focused on signing foreign position players based on their defensive skills at least as much as their hitting skills.
This was a money-ball undervaluing that the Oakland A’s Billy Beane was reported to have discovered about five years around the time the A’s signed Coco Crisp, who was the poster boy for the undervalued high defensive value (and some offensive value) player. (In an aside, I note that Billy Beane’s successful money-ball teams really don’t look all that different from the teams the A’s had from about 1970 through 1976: both sets of teams had pitching, played defense, hit for power and got on base. Good teams haven’t necessarily changed all that much; what has changed is a better understanding of what makes some teams better than others.)
Anyway, Sadowski’s brief essay is well worth reading, and I admire the fact that he printed it in both English and Korean, so that the decision-makers in the KBO will be more likely to read it.
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedThe small nice-ish story Twitter had going for itself for the past few quarters was that, at the very least, its monthly active users were growing quarter-over-quarter.
While MAUs might not be the right number to look at these days, for better or worse it’s one of the core metrics that Twitter is judged on for now — and that didn’t pan out when it reported its earnings today as its users were flat quarter-over-quarter (and up around 5% compared to the same quarter last year). Perhaps more importantly, the company’s MAUs in the United States fell slightly though the loss was made up by international users.
So, in very Twitter fashion, the stock fell on its face as it dropped more than 8% after the report came out. Here’s the money chart:
The rest of Twitter’s business looked more or less fine, but it seems that Wall Street was still relying on Twitter to continue that even small user growth. Its revenue is still falling, coming down to $574 million as its advertising business continues to decline. Its data licensing is still growing, but not yet fast enough (or large enough) to offset that decline. Twitter said it brought in earnings of 12 cents per share, while analysts were looking for earnings of 5 cents per share on revenue of $536.6 million.
Here’s one reason why that number in the U.S. falling would be bad for Twitter: it’s probably its most efficient market (as it is for many other companies) in terms of monetization. Its U.S. users are a fraction of its total users, but they make up a majority of its advertising revenue. It’s the same kind of problem that Netflix has had to grapple with as it tries to grow even as it may be reaching a saturation point — where everyone who could potentially want to use Twitter is already on Twitter. (The below is advertising revenue.)
In a grander scope, Twitter has sought to bill itself as an indispensable live service that can evolve into a long-term independent company. Snap’s shoddy performance since going public may have altered the calculus of how the market views advertising products outside of Facebook and Google, but Twitter may see an opportunity to capitalize on its (well, large) niche and sell high-priced video advertising products.
To that extent, the company touted that it had 55 million unique video viewers. It’s also tried to show that its daily user count is growing, though it was with this bizarre mystery chart with no actual daily active user number (but hey, this is tech — we don’t need a Y axis):
So far this year, that pitch may be working. Even with even more changes at the top — though the most recent one was an addition with a new head of live video business — the company’s stock is still up around 20%. Twitter announced earlier this month it brought on a new CFO after Anthony Noto took over as the chief operating officer. But if it’s going to continue to sell itself, it apparently still needs to do more to get that user growth going up.
But, hey: at least that stock-based compensation expense number is still going down:Karl Rove is driving through Central Texas with his girlfriend, on the way to a weekend quail hunt.
“I’ve been called up by my emergency Texas militia unit to help stop an invasion of Texas blue quail in the Big Bend region,” he guffaws over a crackly phone line, somewhere outside Fredericksburg.
The man George W. Bush used to call Turd Blossom narrates the passing landscape—“The bottomlands are characterized by oak and mesquite, and the highlands are characterized by mountain juniper, a.k.a. cedar,” he drawls—and also takes a shot at the passing political scene: President Obama’s speech on the Tucson tragedy (“Good,” not “great”) and Sarah Palin’s video addressing the shooting (“I view it more as a lost opportunity than I do a seminal event”).
He even weighs in on a hot script circulating in Hollywood, College Republicans, about his own early years as a fresh-faced party apparatchik on the make. “They got it all wrong!” he says of the script, which he claims overemphasizes the importance of his onetime close colleague, Lee Atwater, the notorious strategist behind Bush 41. Perhaps Rove would consider consulting to set the record straight?
“For the right price, baby!” yells Rove, sending his gal pal into squeals of laughter.
“That’s my agent,” he quips.
The woman, Karen Johnson, is a lobbyist rumored to have been Rove’s mistress before his divorce from his second wife in 2009. When she tells him they’ve already reached the exit for Junction, Texas, Rove is impressed: “Goddangit, baby! We’re making good time!”
If Karl Rove is acting like a newlywed on a honeymoon, it’s no wonder: The proverbial Brain behind the most unpopular U.S. president in modern history, a man who feared he was on the verge of being charged with a felony in 2006 for his role in the Valerie Plame case, has a new lease on life. After reinventing himself as the resident political guru on two of Rupert Murdoch’s media platforms, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Rove shocked everyone last year by putting together a political-action committee, American Crossroads, that, along with its sister organization, Crossroads GPS, raised $71 million to support Republicans during the midterm elections. The two groups spent nearly $25 million on 30,000 TV ads to attack Democrats and support Republicans, helping Rove’s party take sixteen of the 30 House and Senate seats in races where American Crossroads invested.
It was high-fives all around for Rove’s old crew. Without him, “we never, ever, ever would have been able to make the gains we made, which were historic,” says Mary Matalin, the onetime aide to former vice-president Dick Cheney.
“I concentrated some people’s attention,” Rove offers.
He’s just getting started. As he positions himself as Republican kingmaker in 2012, Rove is trying to make sense of a post-Bush party, one riven by ideological schisms and splintered into a dozen or more potential Republican nominees. To take back power and reestablish his dream of a permanent Republican majority (“Durable,” he now corrects. “I never said permanent”), Rove must carefully negotiate a new media world revolutionized by Sarah Palin and bring order to a restive party upended and realigned by tea-party populists, who view Rove as the elitist Machiavellian who once played them like a Stradivarius for George W. Bush. But with W. down on his ranch in Texas, the Brain needs a new body to inhabit. And that body, he’s decided, is the Republican Party itself.
When I first meet Karl Rove at his bachelor pad–cum–office in Georgetown on a cold morning in December, he’s buzzing like a guy who just leaped off the presidential helicopter a few seconds ago. Phone to his ear, he waves me inside while trying to connect to somebody named Grover. Two twentysomething female assistants, one the spitting image of Jenna Bush, scurry up and down the stairs, fetching tea and anything else Rove orders up.
“Kristin!” Rove yells to the Bush look-alike. “The day that Obama was in Bowie, Maryland, and attacks me—can you check it against my calendar and find out where I was?”
The Brain needs constant, multiple streams of data flowing in, raw information that he rearranges and reinterprets and then sends out to the appropriate destination to be acted upon. He was the first-ever White House employee to own a BlackBerry, making him the only e-mail-equipped staffer on Air Force One on 9/11. Information is power. When a text message pops up on his iPhone during our interview, lighting up his screen, I notice he’s surreptitiously taping our conversation with his field-recorder app.
His caution is understandable. Before he left the White House in 2007, the details of Rove’s conversations with reporters were the subject of five excruciating appearances before a federal grand jury, an inquiry into the infamous press leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent. That story became a referendum on Bush’s bloody war in Iraq and also on Rove’s secretive and brutal political style.There are very few television series that enjoys such a rabid fan following as Sherlock, creator/writer Steven Moffat and BBC’s brilliant modern take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian era consulting detective (“I’m the world’s only one; I created this job”). Maybe Breaking Bad had it, but it’s no more. Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal as the incisive, socially inept, cerebral Baker Street detective turbocharged his rise to A-List superstardom, and, more importantly, won the hearts and souls of everyone from college nerds to Ted Danson himself. At a recent pre-Oscar party, the latter dashed past the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ray Liotta, Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst when he spotted the lanky, tousled haired British actor across the room.And it’s not just Cumberbatch himself who’ve made the successful transition from British television and stage to Hollywood superstar; Martin Freeman who plays his colleague and aide Dr. Watson is now a star in his own right. Previously known for his role in another British mockumentary/sitcom, The Office, Freeman is now playing the character of Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson’s three-part adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The grapevine has it that when Jackson was finally ready to offer the role to Freeman, the latter had already signed on for second season of Sherlock. So adamant was Jackson on casting Freeman as the main protagonist for his ambitious proejct that he – after spending sleepless nights torturing himself watching Sherlock on an iPad at 4 AM – worked out a deal where he would allow the time-pressed star to go back to England for two months to shoot his remaining Sherlock scenes after filming The Hobbit for four months in New Zealand.
It’s hard not to get caught up in the Sherlock mania if you spend any amount of time online. The most obvious example is Tumblr, which is awash with GIFs and memes depicting a hilarious and loyal subculture dedicated to this crime drama. And with good reason too – Sherlock aired six episodes in two seasons spread over three years. Well, episodes would be an understatement, they’re more of television movies with each episode running around the 90-minute mark. And then, after igniting the minds of every Conan Doyle fan out there, the creators decided to take their own sweet time coming up with Season 3. They did it in a fashion that’s eerily reminiscent of what Conan Doyle himself did when he got tired of his most famous fictional creation; he killed him off.
But whereas Conan Doyle resurrected Sherlock (giving in to overwhelming public demand) after 10 years, BBC took only two and a half minutes before resurrecting him. But the fans, including myself, would have none of it. Despite what Mark Gatiss, co-creator and protagonist on the show, has to explain, it didn’t go down well with fans that wanted more, much more, of the modern sleuth from 221B Baker Street. In an era that’s so woefully bereft of anything worth watching, how are we supposed to wait two long years for a show that so deftly weaves modern technology and astute science while staying true to the spirit of the original Sherlock written more than a century ago? No sir, give us Sherlock and give it to us NOW!
I have never been an avid television watcher myself. My brush with Sherlock happened solely by accident. I grew up in a village at a time when a television set was considered a luxury, and my puritanical family didn’t have one even though we could’ve afforded it. My parents, especially my mother, didn’t do it for religious reasons though; she simply thought it would be a distraction to my already addled mind and interfere with my school education. In lieu, my father plied me with books, magazines and novels bought second hand from the local scrap book yard or borrowed from his friends. Dostoyevsky, Tolkien, Dickens, Wilde, Twain, H. G. Wells, they fed me everything, even that old Ron Hubbard codger. It was another matter that I didn’t get more than half of the meaning, satire or social commentary in these books and wouldn’t until I reread them a few years back. I do remember liking the story about a wronged person finding a chest of treasures, becoming insanely rich and then meting out justice in his own way in The Count of Monte Cristo. And the comics, Oh my God, the comics. Phantom, Mandrake, Tarzan, and the indigenous ones, Chacha Choudhury, Pinki, Tinkle Digest, and a whole lot more. Hindi has always been a weak spot for me so I missed the era of Raj Comics and its impossibly muscular and manly characters in tight spandex like Nagraj and Doga.
And all these at an age when I’d much rather be flipping through my sister’s old Cosmopolitan issues. Or, borrowed from my friends or, more frequently, their elder brothers, pages and scraps of Mermaid, the Indian answer to Playboy or Maxim. Minus the in-depth stories. So, reluctantly at first and then with growing enthusiasm, I started taking to the “boring books without pictures.” Then I started devouring them. The local book store became my favorite place in the village and the wizened old owner transformed from “Mr.” to “Uncle.”
There were some things on TV though, that were as important as these Mermaid issues though, and watching them on the only Indian channel we had at that time was less a pastime than a duty. Jungle Book, an animated adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, was something none of us could afford to miss come hell or high water. Some others were Vikram Betaal (a folk inspired vampire story that still beats the shit out of Twilight), The Sword of Tipu Sultan (Game of Thrones and Ender’s Game rolled into one, how can you say no to that), Alif Laila (an adaptation of Arabian Nights), Mahabharat (guess this one needs no introduction) and Rangoli (a weekly Top 10 countdown show on music). Then came the internationally syndicated animated TV shows like TaleSpin, DuckTales, Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad and Captain Planet. For all these shows, dozens and dozens of us would converge upon the nearest house with a black-and-white TV and watch with rapt attention. The TV wasn’t the only prerequisite though; the family had to have electricity, DC or AC, we don’t care but it had to have it. Electricity was a big problem in our village then and if a powercut happened during these hours, you’d have a riot that would make you wish you’d shifted to Syria when you had the chance.
If the hosts had children of their own who also were friends with us, they would usually bring the TV out on a courtyard or verandah so that it can serve a much larger audience. Such acts of human kindness were usually reciprocated by us kids running errands for the entire household for the rest of the week or even months. Or giving their kids pride of place on the playground or classroom. These kids walked with a certain kind of swagger because they knew that their friends would acquiesce to everything they say, lest they face the possibility of missing the next episode of Jungle Book come Sunday morning. Even worse, kids who missed that week’s episode will be subtly ostracized from the pack for the rest of the week as they won’t be able to take part in the fervent discussions about that episode. Status quo will be restored only when they catch up on the following episode next week. Ahhh, childhood. This is probably why South Park (and Cartman) is such a raging success; kids can be as mean as any other section of the society in their own weird ways.
In my early teens I was put in a fairly renowned school hostel and my heaven on earth instantly shifted to the school library, which was much larger and better equipped than anything I could’ve dreamt of. TV was still important though. Maybe they saw a slice of their own gone childhood in us or maybe they were just too tired to deal with the relentless requests, but our teachers allowed us roughly 5 hours of TV every 2 day weekend. And maybe this wasn’t just confined to our school but was/is a worldwide occurrence. Far away in the cities, the executives and ad men inside air conditioned studies must’ve deduced this fact and so they’ve crammed all the shows we wanted to watch within a 3 hour window starting 9AM on Sundays. This including the definitive Indian superhero of all time, Shaktimaan. Church? This is church.
For the rest of the week I had to contend myself with books from the library. We were allowed to borrow only two books at a time per library card so this became a problem for some of us who had already hopped onto the habit of jumping across unfinished books, long before Amazon and Barnes and Noble came along to help us out. Early adopters we sure were.
So I started asking my friends to borrow books on my behalf. They were glad to help, as long as I promised to bring back whatever fruits happened to be growing in our family farm in that season on my next visit to home. Thankfully, none of our teachers found out about this barter deal though I suspected they wouldn’t have given me a thrashing for this. It was thanks to our housemaster and math teacher that I discovered Sherlock Holmes. The book was a tattered Penguin Classics copy that combined The Hound of the Baskerville and The Return of Sherlock Holmes in one volume. Immediately after finishing it, I requested my father to bring me the rest of the collection and he did.
Then I went to college in my first big town, and then university, and things changed. In one stroke, I felt as if I had made the transition from boy to man. Living alone and cooking my own food, doing my own shopping and laundry (heh, heh, just kidding about the laundry part) really made me feel all grown up, even though I was still unable to figure out a way to pee in a public bathroom without wetting my crotch a bit. It was while living alone that I realized that I was no longer missing not having a TV. Not even realized actually, I just didn’t miss it and that was it. Maybe it was the pressure of growing up, the relentless pursuit of girls and an ever-expanding circle of acquaintances or maybe it was just because there was nothing worthwhile to watch on free TV anymore. Although many of the aforementioned TV shows were still running, I no longer wanted to see them except just remember them once in a while with nostalgia when the neighbors’ kids blast them on Sunday morning. Walls are thin and people are packed tighter than sardines in this town. And what I wanted to watch was on expensive cable TV, in English and out of my reach. Much like what black and white TV sets were to our village, so was cable TV to this town.
After years of slogging and earning a degree which taught me absolutely zip about how to make my way in the world, I shifted to this big city to pursue my twin dreams: automobiles and writing. As fate would have it, I got it without much effort.
Having your own source of income, no matter how much or little, really does change you faster than Charlie Sheen changes arm candy. My transition from school hostel to college pales into comparison and instead of being the all-knowing all-seeing smartass I was there, I’m now constantly amazed at how much I’ve got to learn every waking day now, both at work or otherwise. It is here in this city that I discovered that one fabric of life that binds co-workers together, sharing movies, songs and books. Almost every colleague and friend I know has his own collection of pop art safely stashed away in a hard drive somewhere. Name any significant movie or album from the last twenty years and chances are, one of the other of your friend has got it. And if it is not, it’s just walk to your nearest mall. And if it’s not even there, there’s the glorious broadband Internet to help you out. Anything and everything that has ever been made, sung, produced, written, acted or reenacted can be found online with just a few clicks, though the legality of acquiring them is another issue. All the books, movies, songs I’ve missed out on during childhood, I found them here.
But, thanks to the years spent without a TV, I found myself turning a disdainful air to television shows. In the office cafeteria, when my colleagues discuss the last night’s episode of Big Boss or MTV Roadies, I haughtily quip that I don’t watch TV and it is called the idiot box for a reason. It’s not just arrogance, I sincerely believed that everything on TV has been cut, chopped and fried to serve the lowest common denominator among us. Everything on it is presented in such a way as to stop the couch potato from thumbing the channel forward button again. Hence loud garish noises and colours, easily digestible snippets and information spliced in such a way as to hold your attention long enough to lead you to the next commercial. In doing this the quality suffers. No matter what your favorite channel is, rest assured you won’t find as in-depth an analysis or reporting as you would if you were to look it up online, or read it in print. For the simple reason that TV doesn’t cater to much cerebral activity. It’s McDonalds for the eyes, fast and easy to gobble down but not much good when it comes to nutrition.
Even new channels, which should have been the last bastion of good TV, are falling prey to this need to make profits and serve ads. This may sound like a trivial rant but the amount of information they’re trying to cram into a TV panel just beggars belief. When I’m watching a news piece about a typhoon in the Philippines, I don’t want to, don’t need to, know about how Apple is faring on the NASDAQ. Or whether India is on the 2015 F1 calendar or not. Or, even worse, what did Snooki say to some guy who calls himself ‘The Situation’ last night. If I wanted to know these news, I would just switch over to the appropriate channel or Google it up. Similar is the story with advertisements. I understand that advertisements are a necessary evil that we have to bear for all the programs we are watching that cost serious money to produce but ad proliferation on TV is getting out of hand. I’m no prude but I certainly wouldn’t want a raunchy Manforce condoms ad to come on with no warning when I’m just trying to watch Downton Abbey with my family. Everywhere they can, they’re pushing these ads like there’s no tomorrow. And the logos. On my TV, I have three big logos that permanently hide that part of the screen no matter what. One helpfully tells me what channel I’m watching, the other tells me the brand of set-top box that I bought myself even though I can see the box itself as well as the carton it came in without even craning my neck. The third gives me the name of my service provider, who does a shitty job anyway but sees no problem in plastering itself permanently over my screen. Add to it the various coffee mugs, laptops and other props emblazoned with their sponsors’ logos that the hosts on TV have so strategically placed to catch your eyes. It no longer matters what size of plasma or LCD real estate you have, they’re gonna optimize every inch of it.
This reminds me of a scene from the movie Idiocracy where a guy in the near future watch zombie-like at a TV at is chock full of ads with just a very tiny square in the middle of it showing the current program. It might have seemed a stretch when the movie was made in 1999, now I’ve seen some Indian channels that come perilously close to it. Or that scene from God Bless America where Joel Murray gives a heartfelt and impassioned rant on why TV is not just what is was before.
This gets worse when you’re trying to watch an important sports event. A shot worthy of a replay? Ads. A player taking a break to scratch his bum? Cut to ads. Showing the current team rankings? Plaster two subtle sponsors’ messages over and under the bar graph. But sadly, like it or not, short of travelling to every sports event personally, there’s no better alternative to watching it on TV. Other than being a receptacle for my Xbox and PS3, it is the only reason why I have a TV now. You can collate and parse the news you want to know about online and you can choose what movies you want to watch when in the theatre but there simply is no substitute to catching sports events as and when they happen on TV. The studios know this and this is why they will keep acting with such impunity.
And they keep blaming piracy and torrenting for the decline of TV viewership. What the studios don’t realize is that there is a section of people who would much rather prefer that the artists and executives that worked so hard to produce their favorite shows and music and movies get paid for it too. These people maybe a minority but they certainly are there. Just ask Louis C. K. or Radiohead or Paulo Coelho. All these people want is to enjoy their works without all the hassles that come with it. It’s just human nature; you simply choose the medium that serves you best, at the least possible price, with the least possible hindrance. Beefing up DRM isn’t the way to go because for everything you come up with, the hackers will come up with a way to circumvent it. There simply are more talented enthusiasts working in dimly lit basements than suited executives at Warner Bros. What they need to do is make the procurement and payment process easier. It’s no coincidence that gaming companies, who have to deal with the geekiest customers, are the first ones to wise up to the act and finally giving customers what they want.
Well, we diverted quite a bit from topic there, didn’t we? Thing is I never really used my TV for anything else other than the aforementioned games and sports events. Even movie watching is done on my smaller computer screen for the simple reason that I can fast-forward and rewind easier here. But then, at the behest of one of colleagues, I started watching a little known sitcom called Friends. That was my adult life’s re-initiation to TV shows. Friends got me hooked hard to sitcoms and, soon after, I was catching up on Seinfeld on my tablet and in airport lounges, hotels and even in office. Then followed a series of sitcoms that I didn’t actually watch but just put on as background noise while I did mundane stuff like eating dinner, reading or just working. Of these I took a particular shine to Two and a Half Men but it all went awry when Charlie Sheen was kicked off the show. The guy might have his personal life upside down but he sure gave life to the ‘biggest comedy show of the decade’ in a magazine’s words. Ashton Kutcher might be a very likeable geek and entrepreneur life but comedy, sadly, isn’t his forte at all. I also liked the loveable Crane brothers and their house physiotherapist on Frasier and Community but no other sitcom could keep me glued for more than few episodes. I also encountered a few drama series purely by chance of which I still remember The Wire and Game of Thrones. The mania has subsided now but it was just plain impossible to escape or ignore when it was on. I also watched and immensely enjoyed some informative TV series by Adam Curtis.
All these changed when I first set eyes on Sherlock. Like most Conan Doyle fans, I had heard of the series earlier but scoffed at the idea of adapting Sherlock Holmes for a modern age. How is it even possible to faithfully recreate a Victorian era hero without taking into account the modern age, we wondered? Even depictions of Holmes set in his own era have failed. I loved Guy Ritchie – Snatch is my second favorite movie of all time after The Shawshank Redemption – and I love Robert Downey Jr. too but Ritchie’s kinetic style and Downey’s so-slick-you-might-slip-and-hurt-your-back dialogue delivery isn’t just Sherlock Holmes. Sure, Holmes could move fast when he was needed and could be witheringly sarcastic but he was like that only when the trill of the hunt excited him. Robert Donwey Jr. and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock was permanently on Red Bull, just like Iron Man was before those Afghan guerillas helpfully drilled some conscience into him.
For the sheer reason of having nothing else to watch, I fired up the first episode of Sherlock one weeknight. Within five minutes I was blown away by how reverentially the creators treated the original subject matter while flagrantly defying it in others. Like The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston said, “it doesn’t feel like cheating; more like an open relationship, agreed by both parties. And they come back together again and again. Faithful where it matters, deep down.” Right from John Watson’s meeting with Stamford and Benedict Cumberbatch’s first appearance with a riding crop in the morgue, I realized that this series really is a homage, a reinvention of the original. I was hooked. I put the second season on download and went to sleep.
The next day, I didn’t go in to work and finished all three episodes of season 2 in one sitting. Although I didn’t much like how they have handled my first and favorite Sherlock story of all time, The Hound of the Baskerville, I became a fan for life. And I know I’m going to get a lot of vitriol for this but hey, this blog will never figure that high up in search results so I’m definitely safe, but I also didn’t find Andrew Scott’s portrayal or Sherlock’s arch nemesis Moriarty sinister or threatening. But he was entertaining and funny all right.
They say that the true test of any work is how long you remember it after you have experienced it. There are good movies that you forget the minute you leave the theatre and bad movies that you just can’t stop talking about; that’s just the way things are. Despite having scores of unwatched movies, unheard songs and unread books with me, I keep rewatching Sherlock over and over. Even worse, I keep digging deeper and deeper into the fandom, reading other’s people’s views on why Sherlock is just ‘so gosh darn awesome.’ I have absorbed and memorized every line of trivia not just about Sherlock but of the three lead actors, the creators, the producer and the villains. I never had any gay tendencies nor was ever inclined to hero-worship (came close to it once though, the first time I encountered George Carlin) but the very mention of Cumberbatch will have me frothing at the mouth. This is not just an interest, this is obsession to such a degree that my girlfriend sometimes get scared of it. I honestly don’t know why I keep watching interviews of him on YouTube. I was never a Trekkie but watched the last Star Trek movie simply because of him. By the way, wasn’t there supposed to be a colon or something in that movie’s name?
And I have been writing this, my first full blog, post since 1:30 AM simply because BBC has released their first full length trailer for Season 3 some hours back. It is now 11:21 AM on a Monday morning and I just can’t seem to stop. I had originally intended to write a paragraph or two just to tap into the massive Sherlock googling that is no doubt happening right now. Over the past few hours I have written about a lot of things and if you, dear visitor, are still reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know, I still haven’t updated and expanded on the first two posts that I put up two days back but I have written, ummm… 4127, wait, 4129 words now. It’s obvious that you are either a diehard Sherlock fan or stumbled on this by pure chance. Either way, thanks for coming this far with me and please leave a comment for me on Twitter or Facebook, just so I know that someone read all these. Cheers!
AdvertisementsThe next major event in Curiosity's journal would be the landing. The center of the action on Earth would be JPL, where the signals would be received from the deep-space network antennae.
In comparison with the launch, landing on Mars is statistically far more risky. |
– simple, random, and preferences
A quorum (optional)
A singleton deployment can be activated via a singleton-deployment.xml descriptor in the META-INF directory.
<singleton-deployment xmlns="urn:jboss:singleton-deployment:1.0"/>
Component updates
Undertow – the New High Performance Web Server
The JBoss Web (aka Tomcat) was replaced by the new Undertow web server. Undertow supports the new HTTP 2 standard, non-blocking and blocking handlers, traditional and asynchronous servlets, and JSR-356 web socket handlers. Undertow is designed to be fully embeddable and supports easy to use fluent APIs.
Goodbye HornetQ – Welcome ActiveMQ Artemis
ActiveMQ Artemis is the new message broker in JBoss EAP 7. The HornetQ codebase was donated to the Apache ActiveMQ project, and the HornetQ community joined to build a next-generation messaging broker. This was materialized in the first major release of the ActiveMQ Artemis project. ActiveMQ Artemis includes many new features, and also retains protocol compatibility with the HornetQ broker. JBoss EAP 7 includes this new project as its JMS broker, and due to the protocol compatibility, it fully replaces the HornetQ project.
ActiveMQ Artemis is compatible with HornetQ clients and supports a number of other protocols such as AMQP, MQTT, Stomp, OpenWire and also JMS 2.
IIOP Implementation switched from JacORB to OpenJDK Orb
The IIOP implementation changed from JacORB to a downstream branch of OpenJDK ORB. This change should lead to better interoperability with the JVM ORB and the Java EE RI.
WildFly Elytron replaced PicketBox
WildFly Elytron is a new WildFly subproject which replace the combination of PicketBox and JAAS as the client and server security mechanism.
Update to Hibernate 5 and Jipijapa
The Jipijapa project is an abstraction layer that allows the integration of different JPA persistence providers. JBoss EAP 7 comes with the following Jipijapa abstraction layer:
Hibernate 5, 4.3 and 4.1
OpenJPA
EclipseLink
Other JPA persistence providers or your own JPA implementation can be integrated via the Jipijapa SPI.
Compatibility and Interoperability
The architecture is still based on the modular service and class loading concept. Also, the interfaces for configuration and management continue to be based on the De-Typed Management API. Therefore, the application server is mostly compatible and it can be expected with only little efforts to migrate JBoss EAP 6 environments to the new major release JBoss EAP 7.
With this release, Red Hat also focused on interoperability between the previous version JBoss EAP 6.
JBoss EAP 7 remote EJB invocations are interoperable between JBoss EAP 6 and JBoss EAP 7. The invocations are performed via the EJB Client API and JNDI lookups via the Remote Naming implementation.
The new messaging broker ActiveMQ Artemis is backwards compatible with JBoss EAP 6 and HornetQ. The message journals can be im- and exported with the command line interface.
A managed domain controlled by a JBoss EAP 7 domain controller can also manage JBoss EAP 6 domain hosts and servers.One of the biggest bombshells to hit the Warmachine world in recent times was the announcement that we were getting six new Novice Warcasters as part of the rewards available from the Warmachine Tactics Kickstarter. Of course, not everyone was able to participate in and/or support the Kickstarter, but the good folks at Privateer have made sure that no-0ne’s being left in the dust. While there were special sculpts made available as Kickstarter rewards, this month we get to place our grubby mitts on general release versions that have been added to Privateer’s ongoing catalogue of niftiness.
Today we start with Kovnik Andrei Malakov.
Kovnik Andrei Malakov, the arrogant twit who barely managed to salvage his position in Rites of Passage, comes in five pieces.
Malakov is one of the lucky few Novice Warcasters who comes with his head already squarely secured on his shoulders. The same can’t be said for whosever shoulderpad he’s standing on. That dude was likely a lot less lucky.
One hip is noticeably bare, but that’s because it’s got its own separate armour plate and the holster for his hand cannon. It comes with more rivets! Yay!
The backpack is a compact example of Khadoran mechanical engineering. Single exhaust, much more straightforward and efficient than those filthy Cygnaran dual exhaust packs.
The left arm proudly bears aloft his Hand Cannon, promising loud and noisy death to any pigeons that happen to be flying directly overhead. An unkeyed socket means you have some leeway to rotate the arm should you wish.
His Mechanika Blade, however, spells doom for gophers. As with the hand cannon, a simple round knob means the sword arm can be angled somewhat.
Proudly mounted on his Dragon Forge resin base, Malakov is prepared to join the Old Witch in her expedition to Zu. Sure, he’s not in the theme force, but he might just tag along anyway.
So many rivets… and I just can’t help myself, I *have* to pick them all out individually…
Part of me wonders if I went with yellow armour because my diet is custard deficient. I should look into that sometime. I really do like this sculpt of Kovnik Malakov, perhaps more than anything else the little pinky finger. Bonus points to the first person who replaces the hand cannon with a teacup.
Kovnik Andrei Malakov is a July release Novice Warcaster character solo, ready to fight for the Motherland. He’s probably standing around imperiously at your distributors just waiting for your store owners to bring him in. Just for you.Federal authorities and local police agencies today raided two Westside marijuana dispensaries as well as the residence of the owners.
The raids occurred at a facility on Washington Boulevard in Culver City and on Overland Avenue in Los Angeles. Authorities recovered undisclosed items and are continuing their investigation, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman. The names of the owners whose homes were searched were not immediately available.
During one of the raids, officers shot a dog believed to be a pit bull, but the circumstances of the shooting remain unclear, a law enforcement spokesman said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Torrance Police Department and Culver City Police Department took part in the raids.
Law enforcement agencies have been cracking down on pot dispensaries for some time, but officials did not immediately say what prompted these raids.
[Update] Officials said they reported 200 plants, 100 pounds of marajuana, $100,000 cash and made one arrest. The dog that was shot by authorities was treated by a vet and expected to make a full recovery.
-- Andrew BlanksteinEquality and Human Rights Commission tells Belz sect its ruling that women could not drive their children to its schools in North London is illegal
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has told the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect that banned mothers driving their children to school that its behaviour is illegal.
In a letter sent after consultation with the Department for Education, Baroness O’Neill, chair of the commission, describes the actions of the Belz sect, which runs two schools in Stamford Hill, north London, as unlawful and discriminatory.
On Wednesday 3 June, the commission wrote to the sect “advising them that their actions are unlawful under the Equality Act 2010”.
The group runs Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass, a boys’ primary school, and Beis Malka, a primary school for girls. Both have been rated good by Ofsted.
The schools had said that from August, any child driven to school by their mother would be turned away at the school gates. The letter said the ban was based on the recommendations of Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the Belzer spiritual leader in Israel.
Gloria De Piero, shadow minister for women and equalities, wrote to the commission last week asking for “urgent clarification of the law” over whether religious freedoms trumped other rights. “Our laws protect individuals in the enjoyment of their basic rights and freedoms from discrimination because of their sex and I have serious concerns about the implications of the ban as reported,” she wrote.
O’Neill’s reply, sent just five days later, said: “In our view, the actions of the proprietor of the two schools in question are likely to constitute direct discrimination (contrary to section 13) by association with the sex of another person (in this instance their mothers, when driving them to school).”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Jewish woman with her child in Stamford Hill in London. Photograph: Kathy Dewitt/Alamy
She also tackled the issue that that article 9 of the Human Rights Act allows “the right to freedom of religion”.
“This, as you know, is a qualified right and must be balanced against the rights of others, including the right not to be discriminated against under Article 14 and the right to an education.”
Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, has also condemned the ban as “completely unacceptable in modern Britain”.
Parents in the area have defended the ban, which was first reported by the Jewish Chronicle last week, as part of living within the Belz community. Women rejected the characterisation that they were oppressed, and the schools wrote to Morgan, saying the notice had been misrepresented.Chapter I: The Celts in Ancient History
Earliest References
IN the chronicles of the classical nations for about five hundred years previous to the Christian era there are frequent references to a people associated with these nations, sometimes in peace, sometimes in war, and evidently occupying a position of great strength and influence in the Terra Incognita of Mid-Europe. This people is called by the Greeks the Hyperboreans or Celts, the latter term being first found in the geographer Hecataeus, about 500 B.C. [He speaks of "Nyrax, a Celtic city," and "Massalia (Marseilles), a city of Liguria in the land of the Celts" (Fragmenta Hist. Graec.")].
Herodotus, about half a century later, speaks of the Celts as dwelling "beyond the pillars of Hercules " - i.e., in Spain - and also of the Danube as rising in their Country.
Aristotle knew that they dwelt "beyond Spain," that they had captured Rome, and that they set great store by warlike power. References other than geographical are occasionally met with even in early writers. Hellanicus of Lesbos, an historian of the fifth century B.C., describes the Celts as practising justice and righteousness. Ephorus, about 350 B.C., has three lines of verse about the Celts in which they are described as using" the same customs as the Greeks " - whatever that may mean - and being on the friendliest terms with that people, who established guest friend-ships among them. Plato, however, in the "Laws," classes the Celts among the races who are drunken and combative, and much barbarity is attributed to them on the occasion of their irruption into Greece and the
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sacking of Delphi in the year 273 B.C. Their attack on Rome and the sacking of that city by them about a century earlier is one of the landmarks of ancient history.
The history of this people during the time when they were the dominant power in Mid-Europe has to be divined or reconstructed from scattered references, and from accounts of episodes in their dealings with Greece and Rome, very much as the figure of a primeval monster is reconstructed by the zoologist from a few fossilised bones. No chronicles of their own have come down to us, no architectural remains have survived; a few coins, and a few ornaments and weapons in bronze decorated with enamel or with subtle and beautiful designs in chased or repoussé work - these, and the names which often cling in strangely altered forms to the places where they dwelt, from the Euxine to the British Islands, are well-nigh all the visible traces which this once mighty power has left us of its civilisation and dominion. Yet from these, and from the accounts of classical writers, much can be deduced with certainty, and much more can be conjectured with a very fair measure of probability. The great Celtic scholar whose loss we have recently had to deplore, M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, has, on the available data, drawn a convincing outline of Celtic history for the period prior to their emergence into full historical light with the conquests of Caesar, [in his 'Premiers Habitants de l'Europe,' vol. Ii] and it is this outline of which the main features are reproduced here.
The True Celtic Race
To begin with, we must dismiss the idea that Celtica was ever inhabited by a single pure and homogeneous race. The true Celts, if we accept on this point the carefully studied and elaborately argued conclusion of
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Dr. T. Rice Holmes, ['Caesar's Conquest of Gaul,' pp. 251 - 327] supported by the unanimous voice of antiquity, were a tall air race, warlike and masterful, [The ancients were not very close observers of physical characteristics. They describe the Celts in almost exactly the same terms as those which they apply to the Germanic races. Dr. Rice Holmes is of opinion that the real difference, physically, lay in the fact that the fairness of the Germans was blond, and that of the Celts red. In an interesting passage of the work already quoted (p. 315) he observes that, "Making every allowance for the admixture of other blood, which must have considerably modified the type of the original Celtic or Gallic invaders of these islands, we are struck by the fact that among all our Celtic-speaking fellow subjects there are to be found numerous specimens of a type which also exists in those parts of Brittany which were colonised by British invaders, and in those parts of Gaul in which the Gallic invaders appear to have settled most thickly, as well as in Northern Italy, where the Celtic invaders were once dominant ; and also by the fact that this type, even among the more blond representatives of it, is strikingly different to the casual as well as to the scientific observer, from that ol the purest representatives of the ancient Germans. The well-known picture of Sir David Wilkie, 'Reading of the Waterloo Gazette,' illustrates, as Daniel Wilson remarked, the difference between the two types. Put a Perthshire Highlander side by side with a Sussex farmer. Both will be fair ; but the red hair and heard of the Scot will be in marked contrast with the fair hair of the Englishman, and their features will differ still more markedly. I remember seeing two gamekeepers in a railway carriage running from Inverness to Lairey. They were tall, athletic, fair men, evidently belonging to the Scandinavian type, which, as Dr. Beddoc says, is so common in the extreme north of Scotland but both in colouring and in general aspect they were utterly different from the tall, fair Highlanders whom I had Seen in Perth-shire. There was not a trace of red in their hair, their long beards being absolutely yellow. The prevalence of red among the Celtic. speaking people is, it seems to me, a most striking characteristic. No. only do we find eleven men in every hundred whose hair is absolutely red, but underlying the blacks and the dark browns the same tint is to he discovered."] whose place of origin (as far as we can trace them) was somewhere about the sources of the Danube, and who spread their dominion both by conquest and by peaceful
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infiltration over Mid-Europe, Gaul, Spain, and the British Islands. They did not exterminate the original prehistoric inhabitants of these regions - Palaeolithic and Neolithic races, dolmen-builders and workers in bronze - but they imposed on them their language, their arts, and their traditions, taking, no doubt, a good deal from them in return, especially, as we shall see, in the important matter of religion. Among these races the true Celts formed an aristocratic and ruling caste. In that capacity they stood, alike in Gaul, in Spain, in Britain, and in Ireland, in the forefront of armed opposition to foreign invasion. They bore the worst brunt of war, of confiscations, and of banishment They never lacked valour, but they were not strong enough or united enough to prevail, and they perished in far greater proportion than the earlier populations whom they had themselves subjugated. But they disappeared also by mingling their blood with these inhabitants, whom they impregnated with many of their own noble and virile qualities. Hence it comes that the characteristics of the peoples called Celtic in the present day, and who carry on the Celtic tradition and language, are in some respects so different from those of the Celts of classical history and the Celts who produced the literature and art of ancient Ireland, and in others so strikingly similar. To take a physical characteristic alone, the more Celtic districts of the British Islands are at present marked by darkness of complexion, hair, &c. They are not very dark, but they are darker than the rest of the kingdom. [See the map of comparative nigrescence given in Ripley's "Races of Europe," p.318. In France, however, the Bretons are not a dark race relatively to the reit of the population. They are composed partly of the ancient Gallic peoples and partly of settlers from Wales who were driven out by the Saxon invasion] But the
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true Celts were certainly fair. Even the Irish Celts of the twelfth century are described by Giraldus Cambrensis as a fair race.
Golden Age of the Celts
But we are anticipating, and must return to the period of the origins of Celtic history. As astronomers have discerned the existence of an unknown planet by the perturbations which it has caused in the courses of those already under direct observation, so we can discern in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ the presence of a great power and of mighty movements going on behind a veil which will never be lifted now. This was the Golden Age of Celtdom in Continental Europe. During this period the Celts waged three great and successful wars, which had no little influence on the course of South European history. About 500 B.C. they conquered Spain from the Carthaginians. A century later we find them engaged in the conquest of Northern Italy from the Etruscans. They settled in large numbers in the territory afterwards known as Cisalpine Gaul, where many names, such as Mediolanum (Milan), Addua (Adda), Viro-dunum (Verduno), and perhaps Cremona (creamh, garlic) [See for these names Holder's " Altceltischer Sprachschattz."] testify still to their occupation. They left a greater memorial in the chief of Latin poets, whose name, Vergil, appears to bear evidence of his Celtic ancestry. [Vergil might possibly mean " the very-bright '' or illustrious one, a natural form for a proper name. Ver in Gallic names (Vercingetorix, Vercsssivellasimus, &c.) is often an intensive prefix, like the modern Irish fior. The name of the village where Vergil was horn, Andes (now Pietola), is Celtic. His love of nature, his mysticism, and his strong feeling for a certain decorative quality in language and rhythm are markedly Celtic qualities. Tennyson's phrases for him, "landscape-lover, lord of language," are suggestive in this connexion.] Towards the end of the fourth
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century they overran Pannonia, conquering the Illyrians.
Alliances with the Greeks
All these wars were undertaken in alliance with the Greeks, with whom the Celts were at this period on the friendliest terms. By the war with the Carthaginians the monopoly held by that people of the trade in tin with Britain and in silver with the miners of Spain was broken down, and the overland route across France to Britain, for the sake of which the Phoenicians had in 600 B.C. created the port of Marseilles, was definitely secured to Greek trade. Greeks and Celts were at this period allied against Phoenicians and Persians. The defeat of Hamilcar by Gelon at Himera, in Sicily, took place in the same year as that of Xerxes at Salamis. The Carthaginian army in that expedition was made up of mercenaries from half a dozen different nations, but not a Celt is found in the Carthaginian ranks, and Celtic hostility must have counted for much in preventing the Carthaginians from lending help to the Persians for the overthrow ot their common enemy. These facts show that Celtica played no small part in preserving the Greek type of civilisation from being overwhelmed by the despotisms of the East, and thus in keeping alive in Europe the priceless seed of freedom and humane culture.
Alexander the Great
When the counter-movement of Hellas against the East began under Alexander the Great we find the Celts again appearing as a factor of importance.
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In the fourth century Macedon was attacked and almost obliterated by Thracian and Illyrian hordes. King Amyntas II. was defeated and driven into exile. His son Perdiccas II. was killed in battle. When Philip, a younger brother of Perdiccas, came to the obscure and tottering throne which hc and his successors were to make the seat of a great empire he was powerfully aided in making head against the Illyrians by the conquests of the Celts in the valleys of the Danube and the Po. The alliance was continued, and rendered, perhaps, more formal in the days of Alexander. When about to undertake his conquest of Asia (334 B.C.) Alexander first made a compact with the Celts "who dwelt by the lonian Gulf" in order to secure his Greek dominions from attack during his absence. The episode is related by Ptolemy Soter in his history of the wars of Alexander. [Ptolemy, a friend, and probably, indeed, half-brother, of Alexander, was doubtless present when this incident took place. His work has not survived, but is quoted by Arrian and other historians.] It has a vividness which stamps it as a bit of authentic history, and another singular testimony to the truth of the narrative has been brought to light by de Jubainville. As the Celtic envoys, who are described as men of haughty bearing and great stature, their mission concluded) were drinking with the king, he asked them, it is said, what was the thing they, the Celts, most feared. The envoys replied : "We fear no man : there is but one thing that we fear, namely, that the sky should fall on us; but we regard nothing so much as the friendship of a man such as thou." Alexander bade them farewell, and, turning to his nobles, whispered: "What a vainglorious people are these Celts!" Yet the answer, for all its Celtic bravura and flourish,
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was not without both dignity and courtesy. The reference to the falling of the sky seems to give a glimpse of some primitive belief or myth of which it is no longer possible to discover the meaning. [One is reminded of the folk-tale about Henny Penny, who went to tell the king that the sky was falIing] The national oath by which the Celts bound themselves to the observance of their covenant with Alexander is remarkable. If we observe not this engagement," they said, "may the sky fall on us and crush us, may the earth gape and swallow us up, may the sea burst out and overwhelm us." De Jubainville draws attention most appositely to a passage from the "Táin Bo Cuailgne," in the Book of Leinster, [The Book of Leinster is a manuscript of the twelfth century. The version of the " Táin " given in it probably dates from the eighth. See de Jubainville, " Premiers Habitants," ii. 316.] where the Ulster heroes declare to their king, who wished to leave them in battle in order to meet an attack in another part of the field "Heaven is above us, and earth beneath us, and the sea is round about us. Unless the sky shall fall with its showers of stars on the ground where we are camped, or unless the earth shall be rent by an earthquake) or unless the waves of the blue sea come over the forests of the living world, we shall not give ground." [Dr. Douglas Hyde in his "Literary History of Ireland " (p.7) gises a slightly different translation] This survival of a peculiar oath-formula or more than a thousand years, and its reappearance, after being first heard of among the Celts of Mid-Europe, in a mythical romance of Ireland, is certainly most curious, and, with other facts which we shall note hereafter, speaks strongly for the community and persistence of Celtic culture.[It is also a testimony to the close accuracy of the narrative of Ptolemy.]
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The Sack of Rome
We have mentioned two of the great wars of the Continental Celts; we come now to the third, that with the Etruscans, which ultimately brought them into conflict with the greatest power of pagan Europe, and led to their proudest feat of arms, the sack of Rome. About the year 400 B.C. the Celtic Empire seems to have reached the height of its power. Under a king named by Livy Ambicatus, who was probably the head of a dominant tribe in a military confederacy, like the German Emperor in the present day, the Celts seem to have been welded into a considerable degree of political unity, and to have followed a consistent policy. Attracted by the rich land of Northern Italy, they poured down through the passes of the Alps, and after hard fighting with the Etruscan inhabitants they maintained their ground there. At this time the Romans were pressing on the Etruscans from below, and Roman and Celt were acting in definite concert and alliance. But the Romans, despising perhaps the Northern barbarian warriors, had the rashness to play them false at the siege of Clusium, 391 B.C., a place which the Romans regarded as one of the bulwarks of Latium against the North. The Celts recognised Romans who had come to them in the sacred character of ambassadors fighting in the ranks of the enemy. The events which followed are, as they have come down to us, much mingled with legend, but there are certain touches of dramatic vividness in which the true character of the Celts appears distinctly recognisable. They applied, we arc told, to Rome for satisfaction for the treachery of the envoys, who were three sons of Fabius Ambustus, the chief pontiff. The Romans refused to listen to the claim, and elected the Fabii military tribunes for the
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ensuing year. Then the Celts abandoned the siege of Clusium and marched straight on Rome. The army showed perfect discipline. There was no indiscriminate plundering and devastation, no city or fortress was assailed. "We are bound for Rome" was their cry to the guards upon the walls of the provincial towns, who watched the host in wonder and fear as it rolled steadily to the south. At last they reached the river Allia, a few miles from Rome, where the whole available force of the city was ranged to meet them. The battle took place on July 18, 390, that ill-omened dies Alliensis which long perpetuated in the Roman calendar the memory of the deepest shame the republic had ever known. The Celts turned the flank of the Roman army, and annihilated it in one tremendous charge. Three days later they were in Rome, and for nearly a year they remained masters of the city, or of its ruins, till a great fine had been exacted and full vengeance taken for the perfidy at Clusium. For nearly a century after the treaty thus concluded there was peace between the Celts and the Romans, and the breaking of that peace when certain Celtic tribes allied themselves with their old enemy, the Etruscans, in the third Samnite war was coincident with the breaking up of the Celtic Empire. [Roman history tells of various confiicts with the Celts during thia period, but de Jubainville has shown that these narratives are almost entirely mythical. See "Premiers Habitant;" ii. 318-323.]
Two questions must now be considered before we can leave the historical part of this Introduction. First of all, what are the evidences for the wide-spread diffusion of Celtic power in Mid-Europe during this period? Secondly, where were the Germanic peoples, and what was their position in regard to the Celts?
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Celtic Place-names in Europe
To answer these questions fully would take us (for the purposes of this volume) too deeply into philological discussions, which only the Celtic scholar can fully appreciate. The evidence will be found fully set forth in de Jubainville's work, already frequently referred to. The study of European place-names forms the basis of the argument. Take the Celtic name Noviomagus, composed of two Celtic words, the adjective meaning new, and magos (Irish magh) a field or plain.[e.g., Moymell (magh-meala), the Plain of Honey a Gaelic name for Fairyland and many place-names] There were nine places of this name known in antiquity. Six were in France, among them the places now called Noyon, in Oise, Nijon, in Vosges, Nyons, in Drôme. Three outside of France were Nimègue, in Belgium, Neumagen, in the Rhineland, and one at Speyer, in the Palatinate.
The word dunum, so often traceable in Gaelic place names in the present day (Dundalk, Dunrobin, &c.), and meaning fortress or castle, is another typically Celtic element in European place-names. It occurred very frequently in France - e.g., Lug-dunum (Lyons), Viro-dunum (Verdun). It is also found in Switzerland - e.g., Minno-dunum (Moudon), Eburo-dunum (Yverdon) - and in the Netherlands, where the famous city of Leyden goes back to a Celtic Lug-dunum. In Great Britain the Celtic term was often changed by simple translation into castra; thus Camulo-dunum became Colchester, Bran-dunum Brancaster. In Spain and Portugal eight names terminating in dunum are mentioned by classical writers. In Germany the modern names Kempton, Karnberg, Liegnitz, go back respectively to the Celtic forms Cambo-dunum, Carro-
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aunum, Lugi-dunum, and we find a Singi-dunum, now Belgrade, in Servia, a Novi-dunum, now Isaktscha, in Roumania, a Carro-dunum in South Russia, near the Dniester, and another in Croatia, now Pitsmeza. Sego-dunum, now Rodez, in France, turns up also in Bavaria (Wurzburg), and in England (Sege-dunum, now Wallsend, in Northumberland), and the first term, sego, is traceable in Segorbe (Sego-briga), in Spain. Briga is a Celtic word, the origin of the German burg, and equivalent in meaning to dunum.
One more example: the word magos, a plain, which is very frequent as an element of Irish place-names, is found abundantly in France, and outside of France, in countries no longer Celtic, it appears in Switzerland (Uro-magus, now Promasens), in the Rhineland (Broco-magus, Brumath), in the Netherlands, as already noted (Nimègue), in Lombardy several times, and in Austria.
The examples given are by no means exhaustive, but they serve to indicate the wide diffusion of the Celts in Europe and their identity of language over their vast territory. [For these and many other examples see de Jubainyille's "Premiers Habitants" ii, 255 seq.]
Early Celtic Art
The relics of ancient Celtic art-work tell the same story. In the year 1846 a great pre-Roman necropolis was discovered at Hallstatt, near Salzburg, in Austria. It contains relics believed by Dr. Arthur Evans to date from about 750 to 400 B.C. These relics betoken in some cases a high standard of civilisation and considerable commerce. Amber from the Baltic is there, Phoenician glass, and gold-leaf of Oriental workmanship. Iron swords are found whose hilts and sheaths are richly decorated with gold, ivory, and amber.
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The Celtic culture illustrated by the remains at Hallstatt developed later into what is called the La Tène culture. La Tène was a settlement at the north-eastern end of the Lake of Neuchâtel, and many objects of great interest have been found there since the site was first explored in 1858. These antiquities represent, according to Dr. Evans, the culminating period of Gaulish civilisation, and date from round about the third century B.C. The type of art here found must be judged in the light of an observation recently made by Mr. Romilly Allen in his "Celtic Art" (p.13)
"The great difficulty in understanding the evolution of Celtic art lies in the fact that although the Celts never seem to have invented any new ideas, they professed [sic;? possessed] an extraordinary aptitude for picking up ideas from the different peoples with whom war or commerce brought them into contact. And once the Celt had borrowed an idea from his neighbours he was able to give it such a strong Celtic tinge that it soon became something so different from what it was originally as to be almost unrecognisable."
Now what the Celt borrowed in the art-culture which on the Continent culminated in the La Tène relics were certain originally naturalistic motives for Greek ornaments, notably the pal mette and the meander motives. But it was characteristic of the Celt that he avoided in his art all imitation of, or even approximation to, the natural forms of the plant and animal world. He reduced everything to pure decoration. What he enjoyed in decoration was the alternation of long sweeping curves and undulations with the concentrated energy of close-set spirals or bosses, and with these simple elements and with the suggestion of a few motives derived from Greek art he elaborated a most
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beautiful, subtle, and varied system of decoration, applied to weapons, ornaments, and to toilet and household appliances of all kinds, in gold, bronze, wood, and stone, and possibly, if we had the means of judging, to textile fabrics also. One beautiful feature in the decoration of metal-work seems to have entirely originated in Celtica. Enamelling was unknown to the classical nations till they learned from the Celts. So late as the third century A.D. it was still strange to the classical world, as we learn from the reference of Philostratus:
"They say that the barbarians who live in the ocean [Britons] pour these colours upon heated brass, and that they adhere, become hard as stone, and preserve the designs that are made upon them."
Dr. J. Anderson writes in the "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland" :
"The Gauls as well as the Britons - of the same Celtic stock - practised enamel-working before the Roman conquest. The enamel workshops of Bibracte, with their furnaces, crucibles, moulds, polishing-stones, and with the crude enamels in their various stages of preparation, have been recently excavated from the ruins of the city destroyed by Caesar and his legions. But the Bibracte enamels are the work of mere dabblers in the art, compared with the British examples. The home of the art was Britain, and the style of the pattern, as well as the association in which the objects decorated with it were found, demonstrated with certainty that it had reached its highest stage of indigenous development before it came in contact with the Roman culture."
[Quoted by Mr. Romilly Allen in "Celtic Art," p.136]
The National Museum in Dublin contains many superb examples of Irish decorative art in gold, bronze,
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and enamels, and the "strong Celtic tinge " of which Mr. Romilly Allen speaks is as clearly observable there as in the relics of Hallstatt or La Tène.
Everything, then, speaks of a community of culture, an identity of race-character, existing over the vast territory known to the ancient world as "Celtica."
Celts and Germans
But, as we have said before, this territory was by no means inhabited by the Celt alone. In particular we have to ask, who and where were the Germans, the Teuto-Gothic tribes, who eventually took the place of the Celts as the great Northern menace to classical civilisation?
They are mentioned by Pytheas, the eminent Greek traveller and geographer, about 300 B.C., but they play no part in history till, under the name of Cimbri and Teutones, they descended on Italy to be vanquished by Marius at the close of the second century. The ancient Greek geographers prior to Pytheas know nothing of them, and assign all the territories now known as Germanic to various Celtic tribes.
The explanation given by de Jubainville, and based by him on various philological considerations, is that the Germans were a subject people, comparable to those "un-free tribes " who existed in Gaul and in ancient Ireland. They lived under the Celtic dominion, and had no independent political existence. De Jubainville finds that all the words connected with law and government and war which are common both to the Celtic and Teutonic languages were borrowed by the latter from the former. Chief among them are the words represented by the modern German Reich, empire, Amt, office, and the Gothic reiks, a king, all of which are of unquestioned Celtic origin. De Jubainville also numbers among loan words from Celtic
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the words Bann, an order ; Frei, free; Geisel a hostage; Erbe, an inheritance ; Werth, value; Weih, sacred; Magus, |
years. Hide Caption 1 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Jencarlos Canela portrayed Jesus in the musical "The Passion," which aired live on FOX on Palm Sunday in 2016. Hide Caption 2 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Adam Bond from CNN's "Finding Jesus," Haaz Sleima from National Geographic's "Killing Jesus" and Juan Pablo Di Pace from NBC's "A.D." Hide Caption 3 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood From "Son of God," pictured, to "God's Not Dead" to "Heaven Is for Real," the box office has been a one-stop shop for Christian-themed films. Hide Caption 4 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille became a believer in the power the Bible held with moviegoing audiences. After finding success with his Old Testament epic "The Ten Commandments," DeMille enlisted H.B. Warner to help him tell "The Greatest Story Ever Told." The result was 1927's "The King of Kings," a film for which Warner was virtuous both on and off the set. According to Turner Classic Movies, he signed an agreement not to be involved in any sort of scandal -- even divorce -- for a year following the movie's release. Hide Caption 5 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood When in need of a man to play Jesus in 1959's Oscar-winning "Ben-Hur," the production team turned to opera singer Claude Heater. Although his portrayal of Christ is one of the best known in cinema, he still goes uncredited for the part. The movie was based on the 1880 novel, "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ," which had previously been turned into a silent film in 1925. Hide Caption 6 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Not to be confused with 1927's "The King of Kings," MGM's 1961 New Testament saga "King of Kings" told the story of Jesus from birth to death in grand, technicolor fashion. Jeffrey Hunter portrayed Jesus in this classic, which has become a go-to movie about the Gospels. Hide Caption 7 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood One of the most iconic portrayals of Jesus came from Max von Sydow in 1965's "The Greatest Story Ever Told." With a script adapted from a '40s radio series and Fulton Oursler's account by the same name, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" put the "big" in "big screen production," costing $20 million and boasting actors like Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston and John Wayne. Hide Caption 8 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood In 1973, actor Ted Neeley had a breakout role as Jesus in the film version of the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar," and he couldn't be more grateful for it. "(T)his experience... has formed my life," Neeley said in August 2013, marking the release's 40th anniversary. "It has changed everything for me, continually and in a positive manner. I will be forever thankful for that." Hide Caption 9 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood The same year that Neeley was becoming well known as "Jesus Christ Superstar," there was another actor portraying the Big Guy in another religious musical. Victor Garber, now known for his TV work on shows like "Alias" and "Web Therapy," was building what would become a renowned stage career as Jesus Christ in "Godspell." Garber first starred in the production on the stage before it was released as a movie in 1973. Hide Caption 10 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Alongside screen legends like Laurence Olivier, Anne Bancroft and Ernest Borgnine was Robert Powell, who played Jesus Christ in the 1977 British miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth." In 2013, Powell again helped bring the Biblical story to the small screen as a narrator for the UK release of "The Bible" miniseries. Hide Caption 11 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood This 1979 movie starring Brian Deacon was straightforward about its subject with the simple title "Jesus." It's also known as "The Jesus Movie," and was based on the Gospel of St. Luke. Hide Caption 12 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood The 1980 TV movie "The Day Christ Died" starred a pre-"Princess Bride" Chris Sarandon as Jesus. While many biblically based films like to explore Jesus' entire life or a large chunk of his adulthood, "The Day Christ Died" only required Sarandon to portray him during the crucial moments of his arrest and crucifixion. Hide Caption 13 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood In 1988, Willem Dafoe portrayed Jesus in what's become one of the most controversial movies about the famous Nazarene, Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ." In a story based on the 1953 novel of the same name, Dafoe's Jesus is one who battles lust, doubt and a reluctance to fulfill his fate. Hide Caption 14 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood In the late '90s, Jeremy Sisto went from "Clueless" and "The Wild Thornberrys" to "Jesus." The actor starred as Christ in the 1999 TV movie that focused on Jesus' work and life. Hide Caption 15 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood In 1999, Christian Bale portrayed Jesus of Nazareth in a TV movie that told Christ's story from the point of view of his mother, Mary. We do wonder how the actor, known for totally immersing himself in his roles, prepared for this one. Hide Caption 16 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Molly Shannon's 1999 comedy "Superstar" isn't about religion or Jesus Christ, but Will Ferrell's portrayal of him in a dream sequence is infamous. When Ferrell's hippie, long-haired Jesus appears to Shannon's Mary Katherine Gallagher, they bond over her CD player. Hide Caption 17 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood In 2000, a very different look at the life of Jesus arrived in the form of a stop-motion film called "The Miracle Maker." Ralph Fiennes was the voice of Jesus, and everything about the story of Jesus' adult life, from the beginning of his ministry to his resurrection, was told through this unique animation. Hide Caption 18 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't afraid to blend religious icons with their edgy humor. The creators of the hit Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" have included a Jesus character on their animated Comedy Central show for years. Their version has his own cable access show, "Jesus and Pals," and often teams up to fight evil with his "Super Best Friends," a group that includes other religious figures like Krishna and Moses. Hide Caption 19 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Before he became Desmond on "Lost," Henry Ian Cusick was Jesus. The actor portrayed the savior in 2003's "The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John." As the title suggests, this was Jesus' life story from the perspective of John the Baptist. Fun fact: Christopher Plummer is the movie's narrator. Hide Caption 20 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Since Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ," when many people envision Jesus they probably think about this guy, Jim Caviezel. A little-known actor at the time, Caviezel was catapulted into the spotlight as the controversial movie brought in $370 million domestically. As Caviezel's gone to other roles, including on CBS's "Person of Interest," he's still best known as the actor who withstood Gibson's brutal depiction of Christ's crucifixion. Hide Caption 21 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood We couldn't tell you what the connection is between Christ and musicals, but the religious figure is obviously a popular character in the genre. In 2004's "Reefer Madness," a movie musical sendup of the 1936 anti-weed propaganda film, Bob Torti played the "hardest working man in the afterlife" who warned against marijuana with a jazzy song. Hide Caption 22 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Jean-Claude La Marre is better known for his work as a filmmaker, but he's also undertaken a massive role on screen. In 2006, he portrayed Jesus Christ as a black man in "Color of the Cross," a movie that imagined the carpenter's crucifixion as racially motivated Hide Caption 23 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Seth MacFarlane's better known as the voice behind "Family Guy's" diabolical tot Stewie Griffin and "Ted's" profane teddy bear, but he's also been the voice of "Family Guy's" low-key and affable Jesus. At one point, the Fox comedy imagined that Jesus was really in hiding at a record store. Hide Caption 24 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado will probably go down in history as "hot Jesus" thanks to the noticeably attractive spin he's given the character. Morgado's played Christ twice, in the History Channel's 2013 miniseries "The Bible" and the 2014 theatrical release it spawned, "Son of God." Hide Caption 25 of 26 Photos: When Jesus came to Hollywood For a period in 2014, the most talked-about person in Hollywood was Jesus Christ -- whether in movies such as "Son of God" or TV shows such as "Black Jesus," pictured. Hide Caption 26 of 26
But as to the existence of Jesus, Crossan says, he's "certain." He says some Jesus deniers may be people who have a problem with Christianity.
"It's a way of responding to something you don't like," Crossan says. "We can't say that Obama doesn't exist, but we can say that he's not an American. If we're talking about Obama in the future, there are people who might not only say he wasn't American, but he didn't even exist."
Does it even matter if Jesus existed? Can't people derive inspiration from his teachings whether he actually walked the Earth? Crossan says Jesus' existence matters in the same way that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s existence mattered. If King never existed, people would say his ideas are lovely, but they could never work in the real world, Crossan says.
It's the same with an historical Jesus, Crossan writes in his latest book, "The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus."
"The power of Jesus' historical life challenges his followers by proving at least one human being could cooperate fully with God. And if one, why not others? If some, why not all?"
The evidence against Jesus' existence
Those who argue against Jesus' existence make some of these points:
The uncanny parallels between pagan stories in the ancient world and the stories of Jesus.
No credible sources outside the Bible say Jesus existed.
The Apostle Paul never referred to a historical Jesus.
Price, author of "Deconstructing Jesus," says the first-century Western world was full of stories of a martyred hero who is called a son of God.
"There are ancient novels from that period where the hero is condemned to the cross and even crucified, but he escapes and survives it," Price says. "That looks like Jesus."
Those who argue for the existence of Jesus often cite two external biblical sources: the Jewish historian Josephus who wrote about Jesus at the end of the first century and the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote about Jesus at the start of the second century. But some scholars say Josephus' passage was tampered with by later Christian authors. And Price says the two historians are not credible on Jesus.
"Josephus and Tacitus -- they both thought Hercules was a true figure," Price says. "Both of them spoke of Hercules as a figure that existed."
CNN Original Series 'Finding Jesus' Discover fascinating new insights into the historical Jesus, utilizing the latest scientific techniques and archaeological research on "Finding Jesus," Sunday nights at 9 ET/PT on CNN.
Price concedes that there were plenty of mythical stories that were draped around historical figures like Caesar. But there's plenty of secular documentation to show Caesar existed.
"Everything we read about Jesus in the gospels conforms to the mythic hero," Price says. "There's nothing left over that indicates that he was a real historical figure."
Those who argue for the existence of Jesus cite another source: the testimony of the Apostle Paul and Jesus' early disciples. Paul even writes in one New Testament passage about meeting James, the brother of Jesus. These early disciples not only believed Jesus was real but were willing to die for him. People don't die for myths, some biblical scholars say.
They will if the experience is powerful enough, says Richard Carrier, author of "Proving History." Carrier says it's probable that Jesus never really existed and that early Christians experienced a mythic Jesus who came to them through visions and revelations.
Two of the most famous stories in the New Testament -- the conversion of Paul and the stoning death of Stephen, one of the first Christian martyrs - show that people seized by religious visions are willing to die, Carrier says. In both the Paul and Stephen stories, the writers say that they didn't see an actual Jesus but a heavenly vision of Jesus, Carrier says.
People "can have powerful religious experiences that don't correspond to reality," Carrier says.
"The perfect model is Paul himself," Carrier says. "He never met Jesus. Paul only had an encounter with this heavenly Jesus. Paul is completely converted by this religious experience, but no historical Jesus is needed for that to happen."
As for the passage where Paul says he met James, Jesus' brother, Carrier says:
"The problem with that is that all baptized Christians were considered brothers of the Lord."
The evidence for Jesus' existence
Some scholars who argue for the existence of Jesus says the New Testament mentions actual people and events that are substantiated by historical documents and archaeological discoveries.
Ehrman, author of "Did Jesus Exist?" scoffed at the notion that the ancient world was full of pagan stories about dying deities that rose again. Where's the proof? he asks. Ehrman devoted an entire section of his book to critiquing Freke, the mythicist and author of "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the 'Original Jesus' a Pagan God?" who says there was an ancient Osiris-Dionysus figure who shares uncanny parallels to Jesus.
He says Freke can't offer any proof that an ancient Osiris figure was born on December 25, was crucified and rose again. He says Freke is citing 20th- and 19th-century writers who tossed out the same theories. Ehrman says that when you read ancient stories about mythological figures like Hercules and Osiris, "there's nothing about them dying and rising again."
"He doesn't know much about ancient history," Ehrman says of Freke. "He's not a scholar. All he knows is what he's read in other conspiracy books."
Craig A. Evans, the author of "Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence," says the notion that Paul gave his life for a mythical Jesus is absurd. He says the New Testament clearly shows that Paul was an early enemy of the Christian church who sought to stamp out the burgeoning Jesus movement.
"Don't you think if you were in Paul's shoes, you would have quickly discovered that there was no Jesus?" Evans asks. "If there was no Jesus, then how did the movement start?"
Evans also dismissed the notion that early Christians blended or adopted pagan myths to create their own mythical Jesus. He says the first Christians were Jews who despised everything about pagan culture.
"For a lot of Jewish people, the pagan world was disgusting," Evans says. "I can't imagine [the Gospel writer] Matthew making up a story where he is drawing parallels between Jesus' birth and pagan stories about Zeus having sex with some fair maiden."
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The words of Jesus also offer proof that he actually existed, Evans says. A vivid personality practically bursts from the pages of the New Testament: He speaks in riddles, talks about camels squeezing through the eye of a needle, weeps openly and even loses his temper. Evans says he is a man who is undeniably Jewish, a genius who understands his culture but also transcends his tradition with gem-like parables.
"Who but Jesus could tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan?" Evans says. "Where does this bolt of lightning come from? You don't get this out of an Egyptian myth."
Those who argue against the existence of Jesus say they aren't trying to destroy people's faith.
"I don't have any desire to upset people," says Freke. "I do have a passion for the truth.... I don't think rational people in the 20th century can go down a road just on blind faith."
Yet Easter was never just about rationale.
The Easter stories about the resurrection are strange: Disciples don't recognize Jesus as they meet him on the road; he tells someone not to touch him; he eats fish in another. In the Gospel of Matthew, a resurrected Jesus suddenly appears to a group of disciples and gives them this cryptic message:
"Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
And what did they see: a person, a pagan myth or a savior?
Albert Schweitzer, a 20th-century theologian and missionary, suggested that there will never be one answer to that question. He said that looking for Jesus in history is like looking down a well: You see only your own reflection.
The "real" Jesus, Schweitzer says, will remain "a stranger and an enigma," someone who is always ahead of us.LONDON (Reuters) - Progress towards oil-market rebalancing and the need for an extension of production cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC countries has become the most contentious issue in the oil market.
FILE PHOTO -- A pump jack stands idle in Dewitt County, Texas January 13, 2016. REUTERS/Anna Driver/File Photo
“We believe that the rebalancing of the oil market is in fact making progress despite the record high U.S. crude inventories,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note to clients on Sunday.
Goldman expects oil stocks in the OECD to fall to the five-year average in terms of demand cover by the end of 2017, even if OPEC brings production back on line in the second half.
Goldman projects crude prices will move into backwardation and an extension of the cuts would exacerbate the feared shortfall in supplies. (“Data dependent OPEC unwise to let the stock draws run hot”, Goldman Sachs, March 26)
The bank says an extension would not be warranted and would ultimately be self-defeating if it pushed prices towards $65 per barrel and caused an even-faster recovery in oil drilling.
Goldman is one of the most influential banks in the oil market and among the hedge-fund community so the view of its respected research team carries considerable weight.
But the bank’s confidence in rebalancing during the second half of 2017 without an extension of the production deal puts it in a minority.
Most traders have become much less sure the market will enter a persistent period of undersupply with a sharp reduction in oil inventories.
Brent calendar spreads for the six months between June and December have weakened sharply over the last four weeks (tmsnrt.rs/2mLRatT).
The calendar spread between June and December has shifted from a backwardation of 21 cents on Feb. 21 to a contango of 92 cents on March 27.
Contango is generally associated with a well-supplied market and high and/or increasing stocks, while backwardation is associated with an undersupplied market and low and/or falling stocks.
The calendar spread for the second half of 2017 is now trading at the widest contango since OPEC’s deal was announced on Nov. 30.
The weakening of the spreads has not been concentrated in any particular month, with price differentials easing for every month during the second half (tmsnrt.rs/2mLFPtL).
The spreads have become the prime battleground for hedge funds and other traders betting on the timing and speed of oil market rebalancing.
Brent and WTI spreads seem to have attracted heavy interest from some big players in the market at the end of 2016 and the first two months of 2017.
But after a selloff that started after Feb. 21, the current Brent futures price structure is in something of a no-man’s land.
Calendar spreads are barely wide enough to finance high levels of stocks through until the end of December but do not point to a fast draw down in stockpiles either.
From recent movements in the futures curve, many oil traders appear to believe the cuts need to be extended, and are unsure if that will happen, or if it will be enough.
If Goldman is right, however, the calendar spread for the second half of 2017 is currently undervalued and should strengthen significantly, so it presents a good buying opportunity.
If Goldman is wrong, and stocks remain high with or without an extension of the agreement, then most of the inter-month spreads are likely to weaken further as they near maturity to enable the stocks to be carried.by Gilbert Ross
For the past ten years I have been pretty much into personal development. Well, as a teenager I was already a bit interested in not-so-mainstream topics such as the power of the human mind, psychic phenomena and plenty of other metaphysical topics. It comes to no surprise that my peers thought I was a bit weird, you know how it is. So when I got hooked on to personal development topics later on in life, I was already primed for certain ideas and insights. It came easier for me to hop on from one book or one topic to another without needing a stretch of time to digest certain ideas. I got pretty sucked into it. I read heaps of books, started off my blog Soul Hiker and wrote a few hundred articles to share my insights and experiences with others following the same path.
In those ten years of learning and practice, I did come a long way with a wealth of inner growth but also many pitfalls. What is more relevant is that I have also arrived at a solid practical realisation – a kind of a key that unlocks some doors without having to knock them down really. That key is Simple Living or the idea of simplifying life in order to shed away what is unnecessary, inauthentic and a hindrance to your life purpose. The concept might seem obvious but somehow hidden none the less. Personal growth, or rather actualising your highest potential and becoming the best version of yourself, requires shedding off and letting go of things which are not authentically in line with your Soul agenda rather than putting in a lot of effort to learn or acquire something else. It’s energy-wasting spending hours, days and weeks trying to relearn habits, boosting your confidence, visualising your goals, improving your creativity, doing soul searching, etc without first simplifying your life. Yes all these things and others are important personal development tools but I have realised that by doing one thing – engaging in a path of Simple Living – will make everything else effortless. This is particularly true to your goal of self-actualisation or becoming the best You.
So in a way, if we only tried to make life simpler and nothing else, it’s already a hundredfold better than trying hard to do other self-improvement stuff – some of which perhaps fail, we give up on or take us a lot of persistence and struggle to achieve. I strongly believe that the message of Simple Living is a very important one and here are some of the reasons why:
Less Noise & Clutter:
In an online course I created about Simple Living, one of the most important lectures is one which has to do with clearing and decluttering spaces. Not just physical spaces around us (although this is also important) but our inner spaces too. In a way living a simpler life means managing your time and space better. Very often our spaces become cluttered and disordered, making life more difficult than it has to be.
On a physical level, this can be seen in cluttered living or working spaces, rooms in our homes or perhaps disorganised drawers, closets and desks. On an emotional and psychological level, this manifests as mental noise, unclear paths of action, conflicting ideas and lack of a clear purpose. So decluttering our inner and outer spaces will literally clear the obstructions for us (or others: hint) to move freely through them and this will resonate on all other levels of our life. Clearly there is much more to decluttering than routine – it is a way of opening up to life.
Understanding what is Relevant:
Another important concept of simple living is understanding what is necessary vs. what isn’t. It is about distinguishing between our real needs and socially suggested wants. Of course everyone is able to distinguish between the two but we don’t most of the time because we live in a collective trance of consumerism and mass media.
When we start becoming more aware of how much our actions and decisions are influenced by society and culture, we start standing back from it all. It becomes more and more clear that a lot of the things we were made to believe were needs are nothing more than wants and we can do without because they are not authentic to our purpose. This clarity brings with it a sense of power and freedom. In itself it is the spirit of simple living.
So in a nutshell living simply involves being clear about what is relevant, necessary and needed rather than living in a haze or worse living out a social program just like automatons.
Finding Authenticity:
The last point naturally brings forth a more interesting topic – that of living an authentic life. But what does living an authentic life really mean? In my view, living authentically means not being limited or confined to live out someone else’s life or a social template laid down to us through our socialisation. It means being free of the fear of being judged or disapproved of by your peers and authorities. It means being free to follow your passions and purpose without being infected by those fear-based thoughts transmitted by others.
Creating Space for Inner Creativity:
Of course authenticity walks hand in hand with creativity. It is natural that creativity requires a degree of freedom from constraints and limited thinking. Free-thinker, artists and bohemians are considered to be creative because they live outside the norms and behavioural rules of society. They are often nonconformists because of this reason. But more importantly, creativity arises when there is enough space for it to flow through and also here I mean inner and outer space.
So having a simplified and clear environmental and inner spaces is conducive to more creativity. The reverse is also true. Try to work in a messy store room with machinery noise going on and see whether creativity comes knocking on your door!
Life Purpose in Focus:
People often ask me how is it that they can find their life purpose. Many times I jokingly reply that they are asking the wrong person since it took me a long while to discover mine but I know that a good part of the answer lies in simplicity. In other words, the less physical, mental and emotional obstructions one has in life, the more clear his or her life purpose comes into focus. There is no real mystery here. The perfect analogy to vision is obvious. If you try to look for something – say your TV remote control in a disorganised and overcrowded room – it is going to be more difficult then if there was nothing else in the room besides the remote control. In this scenario, the more you start shedding away the junk and stuff in the room, the better are the chances that what you are looking for comes into view. Same thing with your life purpose. If you are trying to be approved by others by living other people’s goals and standards, the less chance you have of coming close to understand what is authentically your life purpose.
On the other hand, with less obstructions along the way, what genuinely drives you becomes clearer, which brings me to the next point.
Understanding Yourself and Motivations:
Finding your life purpose might not always be a direct result of simplifying your life although a lot of times it is. Sometimes simplifying life brings us first closer to understanding ourselves and our inner motivations which then sheds more light on our true purpose.
Sometimes our motivations and drives are not clear because very often the mind and heart are in conflict or out of sync. With simplicity comes less noise and conflict which in turn makes it easier to have a better understanding of ourself and our motivations.
More Time or Better Management of It:
The natural companion to decluttering spaces is managing our time better. Admittedly, I was always at a loss when it comes to managing my time. But then I found that time is much easier to manage when you take away all those things, chores, pressures and activities which server no purpose. In reality when you are living a simpler life, time management is not so much of an issue anymore. Time management is more relevant when you are bombarded with a thousand chores and activities, the hallmark of a complicated and stress-laden modern lifestyle.
Simple living is moving in the opposite direction to this. So when you are doing only those things and activities which springs out from an authentic sense of passion and belonging, time management is simpler. Of course some time management skills still apply even in simple living – in fact in my course I have also reserved space for this – but it is not the rat-race time management sort of thing; it’s more of a further optimisation to an already focused and simple life.
Source:
Soul Hiker
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Would you like to tune into the fundamental laws of nature and create more happiness, satisfaction, joy, freedom and bliss within your world? Join Truth Theory editor Luke Miller here on August 10th for a free training which will take you by the hand and tune you into the magic of life, synchronicity and unconditional love.Saturday morning, Frank Ocean hit the Apple Music airwaves with the fourth installment of his perpetually dope Beats 1 show, blondedRADIO. For Ocean, it was yet another opportunity to share new music, premiering two versions of the dreamy new suite, “Lens,” one of which featured a guest spot from Travis Scott (who will be joining Kendrick Lamar on the freshly-announced DAMN. tour.)
Where most expected that to be the only transmission from the artist this week, Ocean went ahead and doubled down, hitting the waves again this morning with a surprise broadcast. This time around, he took the opportunity to share yet another new-ish cut; an updated version of his Endless standout, “Slide On Me,” featuring Young Thug.
Endless: A Shadowy Preamble To Frank Ocean’s Next Act
Earlier this year, Ocean and Thugger joined forces on the Calvin Harris track, “Slide.” His blondedRADIO show has played host to a grip of loosie premieres, including “Chanel,” and the more recent Jay Z and Tyler The Creator collaboration, “Biking.” Jump back to hear those and catch the rerun of episode 5 of Frank Ocean’s show below. Stay tuned for the next drop.
>>>Stream episode 5 of Frank Ocean’s blondedRADIO (via Apple Music)It’s a bit of an understatement to say that it’s been a good year for games. 2017 has shown us that it was a great year for games, with so many incredible games and titles being released, reprinted and revised. It was no small task for Geek & Sundry’s 2017 tabletop editorial board to whittle the list to just ten titles. They’re a mixed bag of titles: some are quick playing, some are family friendly, some are cutthroat, and some are cooperative. Ultimately what has earned them a place on this list is the quality of the games themselves combined with the delightful experiences they offer (and the fact that we simply couldn’t stop playing them.)
Without further ado, here are the ten games in alphabetical order. Click the titles to read to the full feature article for each game.
“Ethnos is only a touch more complicated than Ticket to Ride which makes it perfect for experienced gamers and new gamers alike. Where Ticket to Ride’s route-blocking is more passive interaction, grab Ethnos if you’re someone who doesn’t mind a little more direct fighting; to be sure though, this is not the kind of game to lead to any table-flipping moments over the holidays. It’s approachable, replayable, and a gem of a game.” – Raf Cordero
“Gloomhaven may just be the best game to be released in 2017 and that statement will come as no surprise if you’ve experienced the darn thing. The word “gimmick” does not apply as this is the real deal and it’s here to make a statement. Buy it, play it, turn the box into a cat house–whatever you do, don’t ignore this one.” – Charlie Theel
“This constant tug of war between the forest you want to grow and the forest you need to grow is what really makes this game great, and why it deserves a spot on our best of 2017 list. If you like competitive, in your face, area control games, or if you like complex puzzles that you can really sink your teeth into, Photosynthesis should be right up your alley.” – Shea Parker
“Near and Far is a superb example of what can happen when you join roleplaying and board games. Its’ charisma comes through the gorgeous art and clever theme to craft what could easily be a hit with everyone from families to seasoned dungeon delvers.” – Jessica Fisher
“It’s a simple game to learn, but a challenging puzzle to master. Not only will you have to contend with trying to get oddly shaped tiles into a legal configuration, but, to win, you’ll have to do so more cunningly than your fellow players.” – Jessica Fisher
“There’s no denying the elegant brilliance of Sagrada. There’s a quiet satisfaction after every game and it’s easy to imagine your vibrant dice-filled board as a stained glass window masterpiece.” – Ruel Gaviola
“It has a simple system that is easy to explain but holds up under several plays. It has a setting that’s immediately evocative but also leaves plenty of room for GMs to build out their own world. It offers players a chance to experience the rush of memory, the pain of childhood and the wonder of movies. All these reasons and more are why we’ve chosen Tales from the Loop as this year’s best RPG release and why it resides on our Best in Tabletop list for 2017.” – Rob Wieland
“As a release in 2017, Twilight Imperium Fourth is monumental in both its achievement as well as its size. This is a game any warm-blooded thematic gamer needs to experience at some point in their cardboard career. The beauty of the situation is that now is the perfect time to board the ship and head to the front.” – Charlie Theel
“Players attempt to build the most successful amusement park filled with rides, attractions, and concession stands. They’ll have assistance in the form of staff members and fortuitous events during the game, but they’ll need all the help they can get: living up to its name, Unfair packs quite a bit of take-that as events and your opponents try to foil your grand plans.” – Ruel Gaviola
“Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire surprised me at Gen Con, but its reception since then has not been surprising. It’s fast, brutal, and has a rapidly growing competitive environment for those who enjoy that sort of thing. For those that don’t, it still rewards casual skirmishes and battles.” – Raf Cordero
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Image Credits: Jessica Fisher, Charlie Theel, Raf Cordero, Rob Wieland, Teri Litorco, Ruel Gaviola, Shea Parker
Editor’s Note: Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire has previously been featured on Geek & Sundry under a paid placement, but its inclusion on the “Best Of 2017” list is independent of that sponsorship.Chester Lane was born on February 3, 1924, in the small, rural farming community of Ogilville, Indiana. He was the oldest son of Marion and Carrie Lane. He was later joined by siblings Charles, Dorothy, Albert, Margarie, and Bettie. The family rented a small farm where they grew tomatoes, potatoes and corn primarily for their own use.
Marion Lane worked at Noblitt-Sparks, a manufacturer of radios and radio tubes. Unfortunately he fell down an elevator shaft, was seriously injured, and went on disability. Needing to feed their growing family, Carrie Lane went to work at Noblitt-Sparks in 1939.
Chester and his siblings attended the Kobbe School, a small one-room school in Ogilville. He attended this school through eighth grade.
Chester helped raise his younger brothers and sisters. His younger brother, Albert, recalls Chester putting him on his lap so he could help him learn to drive. Chester let his sister, Dorothy, tag along with him as well. She would sit in the backseat of Chester’s car while he took dates to the drive-in theater, often to the consternation of the girl he was dating.
The start of World War II in Europe meant better job opportunities for the Lanes. Wartime manufacturing boomed in nearby Columbus, Indiana. Chester dropped out of Columbus High School and began working at Noblitt-Sparks to help support the family.These are recreations of the updated uniforms worn by Terran Empire NPCs, which went live with Season Eleven: New Dawn. Fully utilizing this guide requires the player to own [Outfit Box - Terran Empire Odyssey Outfit] and [Outfit Box - Terran Empire Jupiter Outfit (Leeta's Variants)] from the Lobi Crystal Consortium along with the C-Store Mirror Universe, Jupiter Uniforms, and Intel outfits.
Please note that, while painstaking care was taken to ensure close matches to the NPCs' coloration, there may be slight shade variations, and it is not possible to perfectly match some pieces with the palettes available to players. Science officers are particularly affected, as they use a range of blues that doesn't exist in player uniform palettes. Additionally, there is some minor variation in the NPCs themselves, presumably mistakes.
Terran Empire Odyssey uniforms appear to use the same coloration as their prime universe counterparts, but with Terran Empire badges and ranks. Recreations of the pre-Season 11 Terran uniforms are available here.
In addition to being worn by Ensign rank mobs, Captain Leeta wears a variation of the Tactical uniform with Captain |
bins is also the voice of Harry Bailey, the landlord of the Tabard Inn described by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, at the Canterbury Tales Attraction in Kent, which he recorded in 1987.
Cribbins also had a short stint doing voiceovers for the Mark and Lard Show on BBC Radio 1 where he would explain made up folk traditions.
Cribbins also provided the voiceover work for, A Passion For Angling, starring Chris Yates and Bob James.
In 2015 Cribbins was among an ensemble cast in an audio production of The Jungle Book, in which he played the White Cobra.
Television [ edit ]
Cribbins was the star of the ITV series Cribbins (1969–70).[6] Other TV appearances include The Avengers (1968), Fawlty Towers (1975, as the spoon salesman Mr Hutchinson who is mistaken by the character Basil Fawlty for a hotel inspector), Worzel Gummidge (1980), Shillingbury Tales (1980) and its spin-off Cuffy (1983). Besides voicing The Wombles, Cribbins was a well-known regular on BBC children's television in the 1970s as host of performance panel game Star Turn and Star Turn Challenge. These programmes concluded with Cribbins narrating a detective story as recurring character "Ivor Notion", with a script usually by Johnny Ball but sometimes by Myles Rudge, the co-writer of his Top 10 singles. He starred in the BBC's 1975 Christmas production Great Big Groovy Horse, a rock opera based on the story of the Trojan Horse shown on BBC2 alongside Julie Covington and Paul Jones.[7] It was later repeated on BBC1 in 1977[8] He regularly appeared on BBC TV's The Good Old Days recreating songs made famous by the great stars of Music Hall.[9][10]
Among his later TV appearances are Dalziel and Pascoe (1999), Last of the Summer Wine (2003), Coronation Street (2003, as Wally Bannister) and Down to Earth (2005).
Cribbins currently stars as Jack in the series Old Jack's Boat, set in Staithes, and broadcast on the CBeebies channel starting in 2013. This has featured Helen Lederer, Janine Duvitski and former Doctor Who companion Freema Agyeman in supporting roles.[11] Although Agyeman and Cribbins both played companions and supporting characters during David Tennant's tenure in Doctor Who (appearing in six episodes together), Old Jack's Boat marks the first time the two actors have appeared together on screen.
On 9 May 2015 he gave a reading at VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in Horse Guards Parade, London which was broadcast live on BBC1.
In November 2018 it was announced that Cribbins would portray Private Godfrey in a series of re-creations of lost episodes from the BBC sitcom Dad's Army.[12]
Later stage career [ edit ]
Cribbins' later theatre credits include the roles of Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre, Moonface Martin in Anything Goes with Elaine Paige at the Prince Edward Theatre, Dolittle in My Fair Lady at the Houston Opera House, Texas and Watty Watkins in George Gershwin's Lady, Be Good at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and on tour. He has also appeared in numerous pantomimes.[1] He appeared in the BBC CBeebies Proms (Number 11 & 13) at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday 26 & Sunday 27 July 2014 as Old Jack.[13]
National Life Stories conducted an interview (C1173/14) with Cribbins on his memories of Richard Negri in 2006 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library.[14]
Doctor Who [ edit ]
Having played Tom Campbell, a companion to Dr. Who in the 1966 feature film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., Cribbins returned to the world of Doctor Who in 2006, when a photograph of him and fellow Doctor Who alumnus Lynda Baron at a wedding appeared on the BBC's tie-in website for the television episode "Tooth and Claw".[15]
In January 2007, Cribbins had a guest role as glam rock promoter Arnold Korns in Horror of Glam Rock, a Doctor Who audiodrama by Big Finish Productions.
In December 2007, Cribbins appeared as Wilfred Mott in the Christmas television special, "Voyage of the Damned"; he then appeared in a recurring capacity as the same character for the 2008 series, as the grandfather of companion Donna Noble.[16] He became a temporary Tenth Doctor companion himself in The End of Time, the two-part 2009–10 Christmas and New Year special, when his character was inadvertently responsible for that Doctor's demise. Cribbins's role as Mott makes him unique, as he is the only actor to have played two companions, and the only actor featured alongside the Doctor's enemies, the Daleks, in both the TV and cinema versions of Doctor Who.
Honours [ edit ]
In 2009, Cribbins was honoured for his work in children's television with a Special Award at the British Academy Children's Awards which was presented by former co-star Catherine Tate, who portrayed his character's granddaughter in Doctor Who.[17][18]
Cribbins was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to drama.[19][20]
In 2014, Cribbins was awarded the J.M. Barrie award for his "lasting contribution to children’s arts".[21]
Television work [ edit ]
Filmography [ edit ]
Discography [ edit ]
Chart singles [ edit ]
Albums [ edit ]
Year Album Notes 1962 A Combination of Cribbins 1970 The Best of Bernard Cribbins[23] 1975 Paddington Bear Volume 1 Narrator 1975 Paddington Bear Volume 2 Narrator 1975 Hans Andersen - Original Soundtrack Album 1983 The Snowman Narrator 2005 The Very Best of Bernard CribbinsThe soil in a waterlogged bog is very poor quality and lacks nitrogen, but these sundews have an ingenious strategy for coping. Their leaves are covered in tentacles tipped with droplets of what appears at first to be morning dew - giving the plant its name. They're sweet-smelling and attractive to many insects but they're also extremely sticky and ready for the mosquitoes that emerge from the bog.
The sundew's tentacles are living fly-paper and struggling only embeds the insect further. With each contact the tentacles roll up and tighten their grip, smearing the prey with droplets. Eventually the insect is smothered and drowns in the sticky fluid. Digestive enzymes break down the body into a nitrogen-rich meal which is absorbed by the plant. Without animal tissues, this plant would not survive.This week's landmark settlement on behalf of as many as 500,000 native Americans, in which the US agreed to pay $3.4 billion to right a century of wrongs that cheated Indians out of the proceeds from their properties, took 13 years, countless lawyer hours, and the persistence of one Elouise Cobell.
A Blackfeet Indian who worked as a banker, Mrs. Cobell is the original plaintiff in a lawsuit that claimed the US government for generations failed to pay royalties, totaling tens of billions of dollars, for mineral and grazing leases on land it held in trust for native Americans and tribes.
The settlement falls short of what she and others say is owed native Americans, but it is nonetheless the biggest class-action Indian award ever against the government, according to Attorney General Eric Holder. Cobell has called her suit "the largest case of fiscal mismanagement on behalf of citizens in US history."
"Elouise represents the best in all of us. We're talking about a single individual from rural Browning, Montana, who took on the full power of the US government and won," her attorney, Dennis Gingold, said in a phone interview Wednesday. "It is a story of epic proportions, and in my 35 years as a lawyer, her demand for justice is unparalleled."
'She never backed down'
Cobell's pursuit of justice began during the Reagan administration, when her own audits of Indian Land Trusts turned up not only a gap in the amount of monies collected by the US Treasury but not dispersed to Indians, but also alleged sloppy bookkeeping and a corresponding cover-up. The case proceeded through the Clinton and Bush administrations, with a federal judge proposing a $455 million settlement last year.
"She endured intimidation of witnesses who were afraid to testify and egregious lying noted even by a district court judge, but she never backed down," says Mr Gingold. "This is a lesson in perseverance for all of us."
Cobell was often frustrated, first with the Clinton administration and then with the Bush Interior Department that managed the trust accounts, as the government sought to downplay the case as merely a bookkeeping problem.
Incredulous, US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who presided over a series of hearings, wrote scathing opinions, including one that said: "I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government." He added: "Real justice for these Indians may still lie in the distant future; it may never come at all. This reality makes a statement about our society and our form of government that we should be unwilling to let stand."
Obama spurred the parties to action
The pivot point may have been candidate Barack Obama's campaign visit to the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. While there, he was symbolically adopted into the tribe by two elder members, Hartford and Mary Black Eagle, who spoke to him of the Cobell case.
After Obama became president, he instructed Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to make Cobell's case a priority. Mr. Salazar alluded to Mr. Obama's sense of urgency Tuesday, in announcing the agreement.
"I heard from many in Indian Country that the Cobell suit remained a stain on the nation-to-nation relationship I value so much," Obama said Tuesday in a statement. He called it "an important step towards reconciliation." The settlement must be approved by a federal judge and Congress.
The settlement benefits native people coast to coast. Part of the award will be distributed to individual tribal members or their heirs, and some $60 million will establish a fund to advance college education for native young people. The US would spend some $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations.
'Considerable vindication'
Cobell, now a senior citizen, is a former banker and a recipient of a coveted "Genius Award" of the MacArthur Foundation. She said Tuesday at the announcement in Washington that she believes the royalties withheld from native people can now be applied to investment that can rebuild lives and hope.
Unfortunately, she said, thousands of defendants who awaited restitution have died, and that was a factor in the decision to push for a settlement now.
"My every sense is that this judgment probably falls far short of the true financial loss. At the same time, this is an important moment," says Charles Wilkinson, an expert on Indian law and senior professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder Law School. "The award is substantial, and it shows that when Indian people organize and bring their complaints to the government they can be heard. This isn't total justice, but there is considerable vindication here."
"We're obviously proud of her but we're glad it's over," says Cobell's son, Turk Cobell, who is a hospitality industry executive in Las Vegas. "My mother is tremendously relentless when it comes to doing what she believes is right. Maybe now she can finally enjoy a normal life again and get something she hasn't had: rest."
• Associated Press material was used in this report.
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See also:
A Blackfeet's crusade to settle accounts with US
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Let’s be honest: Without quarterback Sam Bradford, the St. Louis Rams will be lucky to win another game this season. Their defense is No. 22 in the league in terms of yards allowed per game, their special teams unit has been atrocious (thanks in large part to penalties) and their offensive line has been hit-or-miss, week in and week out.
When you can’t consistently protect the quarterback and you can’t stop anyone on defense, how can you expect to win with your No. 2 quarterback? That’s practically a death sentence, whether it’s Kellen Clemens taking snaps under center or Brady Quinn.
Neither of those players have performed well enough over the course of their careers to elevate the play of those around them. In fact, both quarterbacks have had trouble staying relevant in the NFL. Despite the fact that Clemens was a second-round pick in 2006, he has a career passer rating of 62.2, a completion percentage of 51.8 and more interceptions than touchdowns in eight seasons.
Quinn, on the other hand, has a career passer rating of 64.4, a completion percentage of 53.8 and 12 touchdown passes in 24 games. With nine games left to play, it’s safe to say that St. Louis will be hapless if they pin their hopes on either one of these two veteran signal-callers.
Kellen Clemens' and Brady Quinn's Career Numbers Player GP CMP ATT CMP% YDS TD INT RAT Kellen Clemens 31 198 382 51.8 2,290 7 13 62.2 Brady Quinn 24 296 550 53.8 3,043 12 17 64.4 ESPN.com
This is the exact reason why the Rams should take a leap of faith and start the youngster Austin Davis.
Davis gives St. Louis its best chance at salvaging its season. The second-year undrafted free agent out of Southern Mississippi may not have the strongest arm, but he has good footwork in the pocket and throws a very catchable ball.
According to SidelineScouting.com, Davis also does a good job of looking off receivers and is able to run for a first down, if need be. One other thing that is very noticeable when one takes the time to examine his college tape is that he comes off as a good decision-maker who rarely turns the ball over.
This aspect of his game would be huge as the team’s starting quarterback. Backup quarterbacks are supposed to come in and manage the game with confidence. They are rarely asked to throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns, which means protecting the ball and making smart throws is the main objective.
Sure, there will be times where a backup will be asked to successfully air the ball out, but to think he will be able to do it on a consistent basis is unrealistic. Most No. 2 quarterbacks are backups for a reason, and it is rare to see one take over for the No. 1 option and absolutely ball out.
Yet, it seems like every few years, one comes out of the woodworks and takes the league by storm. By no means am I saying that Davis will take the NFL by storm immediately, but it would give the Rams an opportunity to develop a young quarterback.
As it stands right now, he’s the only young quarterback they have on their roster. They don’t have one on their practice squad, and they haven’t drafted one under head coach Jeff Fisher and general manager Les Snead.
There’s a reason they took a chance on signing him after the 2012 draft. In seven career preseason games, Davis has amassed 480 yards passing, three touchdown passes and a quarterback rating of 80.8. Would he have the same success in regular-season games? That is the million-dollar question right now.
We don’t and won’t know the answer until St. Louis gives him the keys to offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s offense. Even though Davis may be the Rams’ best option for the final nine games of the season, that doesn’t mean it will happen; I get that. The Rams are in a very tough spot right now.
Prior to the season, pundits believed Fisher and Snead had added enough key weapons on offense to turn St. Louis into a playoff contender. On paper, the pundits were right. In free agency, the Rams added the uber-athletic tight end Jared Cook, and in the draft, they added wide receivers Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey.
However, we all know playoff teams don’t win games on paper. Players must live up to expectations, and coaching staffs must utilize their newly acquired weapons correctly. Unfortunately for the Rams, their rookie playmakers haven’t lived up to expectations, and Fisher’s coaching staff hasn’t taken advantage of their strengths.
Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
Undoubtedly, the biggest underachiever on Fisher’s staff has been Schottenheimer. His play-calling lacks creativity, it’s often predictable on early downs and he appears scared to take a shot down the field. His conservative approach has the Rams offense in total disarray.
Heading into Week 8, St. Louis’ offense ranks 30th in the NFL in terms of yards per game, its third-down percentage is 31st, and the team hasn’t garnered a rushing touchdown on 155 attempts.
Schottenheimer’s backfield is the only backfield in the league that hasn’t scored a singlerushing touchdown.
The Rams’ inefficiencies on offense have started to make some players in the locker room uneasy, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, as Schottenheimer was run out of New York for the exact same reasons.
And to think that Fisher actually believes Clemens and Quinn will thrive at quarterback under him. Right. Even if both players seem to be perfect fits for his offense, Davis will be the only quarterback who will help Schottenheimer save face.
Davis could even help Schottenheimer buy more time as a coordinator in St. Louis. With expectations being so low, it would only help his stock if the youngster succeeds under his guidance.
After Clemens bombs on Monday Night Football against the Seattle Seahawks, you may find yourself agreeing with me that Davis does indeed give the Rams the best chance at salvaging the 2013 season.
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Many fear ‘bond notes’ will cause hyperinflation as protests grow against autocratic 92-year-old’s rule
Mugabe launches new currency in 'last gamble' for Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe has launched a controversial new currency in a last ditch bid to inject desperately needed cash into its failing economy.
Many ordinary people fear the new “bond notes”, issued on Monday by the central bank in Zimbabwe, will trigger economic chaos, wiping out savings and causing massive hardship for millions.
Zimbabwe has been ruled by Robert Mugabe, 92, since 1980. Some observers have called the bond notes the autocratic president’s “last gamble”.
The central bank says bond notes will ease crippling shortages of currency, but there are fears their introduction could encourage rampant printing of cash, as happened in 2008.
Only the introduction of the dollar as the official currency in 2009 halted an economic meltdown.
In recent months there has been unrest after the Zimbabwean government was repeatedly forced to delay salary payments to teachers, doctors, soldiers and administrators.
The country is also suffering high unemployment, a severe drought and is threatened by famine in some parts.
The bond notes will be officially interchangeable 1:1 with the US dollar, and banking officials said last week they would be deposited directly into US dollar accounts, where they would be reflected as dollar balances.
Few appear reassured. “I just want to try to purchase something from one of the big supermarkets,” said Tennison Tigere, a 36-year-old street hawker, shortly after withdrawing $50 of bond notes from a bank in Harare, the capital.
“People are sceptical because of what happened to our old currency in the past when the money lost its value. That is why they think it could happen again.”
Pro-government newspapers announced the issue and said “the majority of people” were optimistic that the new notes would resolve “the cash shortages afflicting the economy”.
However, news agencies reported a run on the banks as Zimbabweans tried to empty their accounts of hard currency.
The prospect of the introduction of the notes has also fuelled some of the largest protests in a decade against Mugabe. This month, authorities arrested dozens who were planning to demonstrate against the move.
Those detained include Patson Dzamara, a high-profile opponent of Mugabe and the ruling Zanu-PF party, who was found at a local hospital 24 hours after his burnt out car was discovered.
Dzamara – who appeared to have been badly beaten with sticks, according to pictures posted on social media – was one of the coordinators of a coalition of opposition groups that had pledged to “shut down” major cities in Zimbabwe to protest against corruption, alleged human rights violations and the bond notes.
The UK and the EU condemned the arrests.
Observers say the pressure on Mugabe, Africa’s oldest leader, and the Zanu-PF party is immense. Ignatious Chombo, Zanu-PF’s administration secretary, accused western embassies in Harare and opposition parties of trying to cause anarchy.
Mugabe will seek re-election in 2018. Zanu-PF retained power after elections in 2013, which were tainted by allegations of vote-rigging.
Tendai Biti, an opposition politician, predicted earlier this month that the bond notes would be a disaster. He said: “We are already in a disastrous situation. We are in a deep recession. If you add bond notes there will be the return of the black market, hyperinflation. It will be a dog’s breakfast.”There is a truism, fashionable in American foreign policy circles, that the liberalization of trade will, over time, soften the contours of authoritarian regimes as the oppressed become acquainted with the wonders of Western goods and services. This, evidently, is President Obama’s view. And American technology companies are following suit, disrupting Cuba’s outdated economic model with mobile apps and sharing economy platforms.
Airbnb, a “peer to peer online marketplace and homestay network,” entered Cuba after Obama eased trade restrictions in December 2014. To date, Airbnb has facilitated the stays of 13,000 U.S. travelers in Cuban “casa particulares” (private homes), and this in a country where hotels are often booked months in advance. With the number of international visitors projected to rise from 3 million to 4.75 million by 2024, Airbnb’s services may turn out to be just the kind of development that catalyzes the social and economic liberalization of Cubans.
Maybe.
But here is a point worth considering. American interaction with Cuban host families expose the latter — in a visceral manner unmatched by, say, Voice of America — to our culture of freedom and equality. This exportation of domestic values, culture, and policies is a force for political change that constitutes American “soft power.” Political scientist Joseph Nye defines soft power as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion.” As Obama and others argue, instead of relying on the hard threat of sanctions or military force, the U.S. is now using its economic strength and cultural influence to incentivize liberalization.
And Cuba has been responsive. This year, Raúl Castro removed the limit on the number of rooms Cubans could offer for rent and legalized small and medium businesses in certain sectors. There is still, however, too much red tape. For example, renters have to report passport information and length of stay for their visitors to the government in a timely manner, and the Cuban government can tax renters as high as $300 per month irrespective of whether or not they have house guests.
Despite this regulatory burden, 4,000 Cubans listed their homes for rent within the first year of market entry. This makes Cuba the fastest growing Airbnb market in the world. The average earnings per booking are $250, a substantial amount in comparison to the average monthly wage in Cuba which hovers around $27. Airbnb is thus supplying a livelihood to Cubans in a way the Castro regime cannot.
And Airbnb is not the only American technology company to reach out to the potential 11 million customers just 90 miles of the coast of Florida. Google, Priceline, Paypal, Stripe, and Netflix add to the growing crowd of high-visibility firms making efforts to engage the Cuban market.
However, tech companies are quickly discovering just how difficult the going can get. Cuba is one of the worst countries for internet connectivity. According to Freedom House, under 5 percent of Cubans have access to unrestricted global internet. Try streaming Netflix — or hosting your Airbnb profile — with a dialup connection of 52 kilobits per second. To put this in perspective, current consumer grade internet connections have download speeds at approximately 14,000 kilobits per second.
Critics of economic engagement with Cuba like Senator Marco Rubio argue trade liberalization will prop up a Cuban regime complicit in human rights violations against dissidents. Though Rubio and others advocate maintaining sanctions on trade and travel, opponents argue sanctions have been demonstrated to disproportionately hurt the Cuban people and 50 years of sanctions policy has not moved the needle on regime change. Moreover, it seems hard to improve freedom of expression in Cuba without allowing exposure to American ideals. Perhaps it is high time to try a new strategy.
As Raúl ages, it is decisively important that American companies, backed by the strength of the U.S. government, take advantage of opportunities to engage with Cuba. In 2014, the White House amended regulations to allow the commercial export of telecommunications products such as phones, computers, internet infrastructure, software and related services. In March, Obama traveled with 11 CEOs, including Airbnb’s founder Brian Chesky and Paypal’s CEO Daniel Schulman, to secure deals with officials. It is also incumbent on the private sector — especially if the next president lacks backbone — to advocate for a freer Cuba by sharing success stories as Airbnb has done.
The bottom line is this: American tech engagement with Cuba should be seen as a positive force for economic and social liberation. Empowering Cuban entrepreneurs and facilitating free market principles, while not ends in themselves, are certainly propaedeutic to a free and healthy Cuba. For 56 years, we’ve tried the alternative and it has not worked.Heartland Joins Creationists: Takes Aim at US Education July 25, 2014
The Heartland Institute, famous for misinforming on the Health effects of cigarettes, and the bogus science of climate denial, now promotes the views of the creationist Discovery Institute, in attacking Science education as “propaganda”.
Not a surprise to me, as, when I attended the Heartland “science” Conference in 2012, I sat thru a lecture where former astronaut “Jack” Schmitt expressed support for education bills passed in Tennessee and Louisiana, which essentially allow schools to teach religious tracts as part of the science curriculum – see above.
io9:
The Heartland Institute, a prominent, Chicago-based organization opposing climate science, has teamed up with the creationist Discovery Institute to launch a smear campaign against a group promoting the nationwide adoption of updated science education guidelines. The guidelines in question are the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), adopted so far by 11 states and the District of Columbia. The National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science—working with 26 state governments—developed the NGSS to update K-12 science education in schools for the first time since 1998. But, because the NGSS includes material on evolution and how humans are causing climate change, it has faced opposition in some states. Most recently, the Wyoming legislature became the first in the U.S. to reject the NGSS. Lessons on climate change, lawmakers said, would brainwash kids against the state’s coal and oil industries. The non-profit National Center for Science Education (NCSE)—whose members include thousands of teachers and scientists—provides information and advice to defend quality science education at local, state, and national levels. And its advocacy on behalf of the NGSS has made it a target for both young-earth creationists and climate change deniers. And thus, a partnership is blossoming. Yesterday, the main article on the Heartland Institute website is written by the Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin, whose ignorance of science is the stuff of legends. His article is the first in a two-part column on “how the National Center for Science Education is targeting the nation’s schools to enforce a mythical consensus on global warming alarmism.” The column trots out the popular young-earth creationist tropes, such as claims of censorship: Critics believe that, by seeking to put a lid on scientific controversies, NCSE actually serves as an impediment to science education—such that many school systems and individual teachers refrain from teaching about the topics extensively, or avoid the topics entirely, in order to avoid the wrath of “consensus” enforcers. As a result, the nation’s schoolchildren learn neither the facts underlying the theories and counter-theories, nor the reasoning processes by which real science separates fact from fiction….NCSE has attempted not to promote good science education but to censor views with which it disagrees. And, Luskin characterizes this as “propagandizing kids,” comparing the new education standards to racist beliefs: Indoctrination in the schools is nothing new. During the lead-up to Prohibition, supporters of a ban on alcoholic beverages planted propaganda in textbooks declaring that drinking alcohol could cause a person to combust spontaneously in blue flame. In the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925, the American Civil Liberties Union defended the use in a classroom of the book A Civic Biology, which taught evolution but also white supremacy and eugenics (the alleged need to eliminate “parasitic” people from the population). In 1957, at a key point in the Civil Rights movement, the textbook Alabama History for Schools declared that slavery had been beneficial, “the earliest form of social security.”
And, he explains, the National Center for Science Education is part of an elitist, scientific cabal:
NCSE is the beneficiary of grassroots activism on the part of scientists, educators, and others who support its mission. But much of its support comes from powerful groups that are pillars of the political establishment and the scientific-technological elite. (President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned of the danger “that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”) Indeed, NCSE has been collaboratively envisioned, created, and supported financially by elite establishment groups, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Science Teachers Association, the National Science Foundation, and many other national educational and scientific (or scientist-activist) organizations.
All of this is in keeping with the long-term strategy of the Heartland Institute. Two years ago, leaked documents revealed its plans to promote a science curriculum for schools that would raise doubts about human-caused climate change. They even discussed strategies for “dissuading teachers from teaching science.” I’ll be looking forward to seeing what Luskin has to say in the second part of his column.
AdvertisementsA German vegetarian showed zero compassion for a group of carnivores on Sunday night, pulling a knife and then beating them on a train journey between Traunstein, Bavaria and Munich.
A group of eight teenagers had brought kebabs on the train to sustain themselves after attending a music festival weekender, however instead of an unctuous treat, they instead found themselves under threat.
A fellow passenger, who has been described as a 29-year-old vegetarian, was so disturbed by their midnight snack he began to threaten them. When he saw they weren’t willing to give up their food, he pulled a knife to make his intentions clear, reports TheLocal.de.
A scuffle broke out and the assailant hit two of the young men over the head. They disembarked the train at the next station and alerted police. They arrested the man at Rosenheim and he will no doubt be given a good grilling for his conduct.
The offender will also be charged with causing bodily harm and using threatening behaviour.
This is not the first time Breitbart has reported on the apparently growing culture war between meat eaters and abstainers – be it for ethical or religious reasons. We reported in January how skinned boars had been left outside two vegetarian restaurants in California.
On Christmas day last year, a pig’s head was hung on the door of a mosque in Vienna, only shortly after construction of a new Islamic school in the city went ahead despite stiff opposition from locals and the national government.The most fitting summary of the Minnesota Wild at the midpoint of their schedule came from defenceman Ryan Suter minutes after their latest flat performance.
"I don't know what the heck is going on," Suter said. "Every day's a bad day."
The sobering comment from the team's lone all-star came in the dazed moments after a 4-1 defeat at Chicago on Sunday, the Wild's 11th loss in their last 13 games. They've fallen into 12th place in the 14-team Western Conference. Following their breakthrough last spring that landed them in the second round of the playoffs for only the second time in franchise history, the Wild have become one of the NHL's biggest flops this season.
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"It's not fun to be part of. It's not fun to play," Suter said. "I don't know what's going on."
There is still time for a turnaround, but it has to happen fast. With their record down to 18-18-5, they are seven points off the playoffs cut with three teams ahead of them. With 41 of 82 games remaining, the Wild will have to win a lot more than half of those and hope for some slumps by their conference competitors to reach the post-season.
Last season, they were barely better at the halfway mark at 20-16-5, but they finished 23-11-7 to snag the seventh seed. Their even stronger showing in the playoffs led to a new three-year contract for coach Mike Yeo. That's hardly security, though, given the way the Wild have been playing.
"I'm not going to get wrapped up in that. I know one thing: I'm just going to keep doing my stuff. That's the way I am, and I would expect the same from them," Yeo said.
The Wild are currently missing centre Mikael Granlund with a broken left wrist, and they have had all kinds of illnesses during the first half of the season that affected their lineup. Only five skaters have appeared in every game. But the problems have run much deeper than injuries.
Yeo was in a precarious place a year ago after a six-game losing streak to finish 2013, but despite notable absences by Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise and the top two goalies, Yeo and his staff not only held together the group but guided a resurgence that transcended the regular season.
"At the exact point in the year when you thought we'd fall apart, we actually became a team," general manager Chuck Fletcher said last year after re-signing Yeo. "And there's a lot of work that went into that, and again Mike and his staff deserve a lot of that."
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The most glaring issue for the Wild is in goal, with a.892 save percentage that ranks second-worst in the league. Darcy Kuemper has been pulled from several starts, and Niklas Backstrom has not been sharp enough to unseat him as the regular starter. Josh Harding would have been part of the plan, but he broke his foot right before training camp and more recently developed complications anew from multiple sclerosis.
The Wild are fourth in the NHL in both shots for and shots against, an indication that Yeo's system has still been effective. But top off-season acquisition Thomas Vanek has been passive with the puck, with only seven goals so far, and the power play is the sixth-worst in the league.
"I'm confident in what we're capable of, but we have to better. So I'm not going to just sit around and hope that things are going to be better," Yeo said. "We have to find a way to be better. We have to find a way to bring more to the rink every day."
Yeo erupted during a lethargic practice last week, resulting in dozens of expletives and a snapped stick before he skated off early. Players said afterward they deserved it, but they've lost all three games since then. At some point, the message might be irretrievably lost.
"There's really not much more of a message than start winning," Parise said.60 animals airlifted from devastated Daly River flood region, reports dogs taken by crocodiles
Updated
Around 60 animals have been airlifted out of the devastated Daly River flood zone and taken to nearby temporary kennels.
Half a tonne of dog food was airlifted in to ensure all remaining animals have enough feed while the town is evacuated.
Acting Chief Minister Willem Westra van Holthe said a plan was being drafted on how best to reunite animals and their owners over the coming days and weeks.
As reports trickle through of dogs being taken by crocodiles, he said the Animal Welfare Branch (AWB) was doing its best to save the lives of animals in the region.
"Two AWB inspectors have been in the community since Sunday and they were joined by two more and a veterinarian yesterday," Mr Westra van Holthe said.
"They're continuing to feed domestic animals such as dogs and cats, as well as rescuing a very lucky dog out of a croc infested waterway."
The team also conducted a survey to mark houses which indicated animals living there required care.
For the rescued animals, the helicopter ride took just 10 minutes and they were taken to temporary kennels at Five Mile.
The airlift was said to be the safest way to transport the animals and was not expected to cause harm or long lasting stress.
"With a major flood warning remaining for the Daly River region, it's important evacuated residents have some small comfort in knowing their animals are being looked after," Minister Westra van Holthe said.
Regional Police Commander Bruce Porter said: "They're doing all and every effort to ensure that every animal that's in the community is accounted for and brought across to dry, safe ground and looked after."
Highway reopens but flooding far from over
The Stuart Highway reopened to four-wheel-drive traffic, and the Northern Territory Infrastructure Department expected it to be passable by all cars later on Wednesday.
Department spokesman David Kerslake warned drivers there was still water on the road in places and driving conditions were dangerous.
"There is an over-mass restriction that will be in place for a while until we assess the pavement," Mr Kerslake said.
"But from what we can see there's no damage but obviously when waters laying on the road for that long the pavement gets saturated and soft so there might be damage that occurs |
1976
Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act on this day in 1976. It was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on Oct. 11. The legislation empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to track some 75,000 industrial chemicals being produced in or imported into the United States.
In enacting the legislation, Congress found that “human beings and the environment are being exposed each year to a large number of chemical substances and mixtures.” The lawmakers held that “among the many chemical substances and mixtures constantly being developed and produced, there are some whose manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use or disposal may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment” and therefore need to be regulated.
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The law charges the environmental agency with screening these chemicals. The EPA requires the corporate reporting and subsequent testing of those substances that could pose a hazard to human health. The EPA can ban the manufacture and importation of those chemicals that government regulators find pose an unreasonable risk to the public.
The law “grandfathers” most existing chemicals. In practice, however, many “grandfathered” substances are actually tested because the European Union makes no such exemption under its own Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals legislation.
Despite the “grandfather” provisions of the act, the EPA since 1977 has banned the sale of nearly all polychlorinated biphenyls, or so-called PCBs, as highly toxic organic pollutants. For many years, PCBs were widely used as cooling and insulating fluids in both commercial and home air conditioning units.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an arm of the Labor Department, protects prospective “whistleblowers” from being fired if they seek to provide the government with evidence that their employers are releasing toxic substances into the environment.
In June of this year, Congress approved an updated toxic chemicals control act that gave the EPA broader powers to impose fees to regulate chemicals. When President Barack Obama signed the bill into law, he remarked that “even in the current polarized political process here in Washington, things can work.” Lawmakers and industry groups were largely supportive of the new law, while environmental advocates offered more mixed reactions.
SOURCE: The U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyKyle Dubas joined Leafs Lunch on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the status of William Nylander, Kasperi Kapanen’s World Junior golden goal, Josh Leivo’s call up to the Maple Leafs, and more.
Here is the full audio and video.
We were talking about the evolution of the game, and we were talking about how big hits have always been a part of the game, but reacting to big hits has really changed. When you have star players getting hit the way certain star players get hit – it used to be fights all the time, it still is, but it feels like that’s kind of moving in a different direction. Do you sense that, that the way the game is policed continues to evolve and continues to change?
Kyle Dubas: What I’ve noticed this year, in the American league with the Marlies, any hit of any substance at all draws a scrum or a fight or somebody getting jumped, whether it’s on a star player or not. I heard just recently, you guys were talking about it before, there’s not the season-long type of retribution storylines that come with it… We have Viktor Loov on our team, and you guys were talking about Scott Stevens. This is not comparing the two whatsoever, but Viktor is well known for his ability to hit in open ice, which he does better than anyone I’ve seen in the American league this year. It always leads to, right after the hit, having a scrum and him getting jumped. That’s the way that it’s gone in my experience this year with the Marlies.
From a development point of view, and you’ve had the benefit of being a GM in the OHL, which is similar to the AHL, it’s two fold: You have young players that are somewhat vulnerable in terms of where they’re at and in terms of being able to handle things, and you’re trying to help them understand it. And then you have other players – you talk about Viktor – who are going to deliver those hits. How do you, on the one hand, try to help your players and say, “listen, we’re going to look out for you,” and on the other hand tell Viktor Loov, “you gotta keep doing that”?
Dubas: It’s interesting. I think the way we look at it – the younger players and the more skilled players on our team, who have the puck more, that are therefore going to be more susceptible to receiving a hit of any type… We try to use Viktor’s ability and what he does to teach them, “Hey, these are men that you are playing against now. If you’re not aware of who is on the ice and you’re not aware of where you are and you don’t get your eyes up and get looking around, these are the type of hits that you’re going to receive.” Viktor, he’s not a dirty player at all – his hits are all clean, he had one last year that was borderline that he was suspended for, but all the rest of them have been open-ice, clear, hard hits, with the chest as the principle point of contact and all that. Some of the guys that he’s hit have been injured for a couple of weeks, and for our players we try to educate them and say, “here’s the risk that you could take if you’re going to play with your head down, and if you want the puck all the time – which we do – this is what the risks are.” We try to educate them as much as we can. In Viktor’s case, it is a big part of his game, but he’s also an excellent skating defenceman who can skate the puck, plays on the penalty kill, and does a number of other things, so it’s a part of his skillset that we certainly don’t want to go away, but he also needs to be educated on the fact that, whenever he delivers one of those hits, there’s usually someone that’s going to be coming after him.
William Nylander is going through the concussion protocol. I believe yourself and Sheldon announced yesterday that he will not be a part of the road trip, but you’re looking to get him back relatively soon. But with this hiccup in the schedule, and this injury and everything that can come with it, how might this affect the plan for him the rest of the season in terms of the Maple Leafs, in terms of the Marlies, in terms of the World Championships if it gets to that point? How might this affect the way you might choose to use and place William Nylander?
Dubas: I think everything with William right now is just placed on hold. He’s incurred an injury which we are going to be extremely cautious with and most conservative with in terms of his clearance to return to play. We need to follow the steps in a very conservative matter, and make sure he is absolutely 100% healthy and not at any undue risk when he returns. Especially in his case as a young player, there’s not going to be any type of pushing to come back sooner or earlier. He’s 19 years old, he’s got a lot of runway in front of him in terms of his potential and his career, and the onus is on us to do what’s right for any player that is injured that is that young. They all want to come back very soon, and they all want to come back and play, but it’s up to us to continue to do what’s right for William. We’re doing that, and he’s making progress, and I think we’re happy with where he’s at, but that’s right – he’s not going to be on the road trip and won’t be playing on the road trip, and we’ll continue to revisit it every day.
What about Kasperi Kapanen? Do you think that experience of going over to Finland and scoring that big goal can kind of catapult him to being a more dominant offensive player?
Dubas: I think so. He was showing signs before he went to Finland to join his country and play in Helsinki. He was showing signs at our level. He got off to a slow start, much in the same way he did at the World Junior tournament. I know Craig called some of the games and was outlining the exact same thing. He got off to a slow start with the Marlies, he was really sick – he got the flu at the beginning of the year – came back and was playing okay. Then he got injured in Utica early November and was out a couple of weeks. When he came back from that injury, he had really begun to take off. He was playing much like what you saw in the later stages of the World Junior tournament – playing with speed, had the puck on his stick a lot, driving the defence back using his speed and his shots, and starting to produce for us. He had 10 points in 17 games when he left, and I think he comes back certainly on a real high having scored such a massive goal. Very few players know what that’s like, to be in a tournament of that magnitude in your home country and score in overtime, an overtime gold-medal winning goal. He’s been in a great mood since he’s been back and I’m excited to see him get back rolling and continuing to progress with the Marlies. I think we’d be kidding to say that that goal wouldn’t give him a certain increase in confidence.
You guys let him stay over there in Finland for a few days. How many times do you think he got into the gym?
Dubas: I would have to say zero times. I think he had more important things in terms of celebrating that with his friends or family. It’s not really a big concern for us. He stayed over only an extra two days, which, whether they won or lost, we would’ve done. He’s a very young player, he’s one of the youngest players in the American league, and he’s been away from his family since August. It was a good idea, I think, to have him stay and spend some time with his family – he’s got three younger siblings and they look up to him a lot. Having been with Team Finland, he wasn’t really able to see them over the holiday break and now he’s back over here in Toronto. That wasn’t a huge concern for us. It was doing what was right for him and his personal life as well, and letting him enjoy that moment. He’s been back and working hard here since Saturday, which has been good.
I’m going to jump over to Josh Leivo, who’s had a really good year. He’s had a taste of the NHL previously. How important is it for the young players – going back to the development part of this – to be rewarded and for the other players to see that, “okay, if we’re doing the things we’re asked to do developmentally, there are rewards at the end of it.” How are the guys feeling, and yourself included, about Josh being up with the Leafs?
Dubas: I think, especially in the last month, Josh has been our best player. He’s got so much potential. He’s one of the best players in the American league with the puck below the tops of the circles in the offensive zone. He’s got a great ability to escape checks and dig the puck out from behind the net and get to the front of the net. Now he’s starting to take big steps where we’ve asked him to, which is in the defensive zone wall and in defensive zone coverage and being able to skate the puck through the neutral zone and come back through the neutral zone and be on the right side of defending. He’s done everything that we’ve asked, and that’s helped him to become a dominating player for us of late. When James was injured on Saturday night, the discussion was quite easy. He separated himself from the pack with our team in terms of earning a recall with the Leafs. I think it was important for our group, the young players seeing it. The recalls up to the Leafs so far this year have been more American league veteran guys like Rich Clune and Mark Arcobello, who have been great players for us, but we’ve got a really young team, and I think it’s a really important thing for our younger guys to see that, even though we are young and we are going through a process here with the Leafs where everyone is preaching patience, that if we do all the things that are asked by the management and coaching staff that are on us everyday, that we are going to get that same opportunity to go up and play with the Leafs as well. Josh, from about a month ago on, has done every single thing that we’ve asked and he’s an All Star in the American league. I’m happy and excited for him because he’s done everything within his power to maximize his potential this season. Byron Froese would be the other one – he came down and did everything that was asked. I hope it serves as a message to our younger players on our team, that if you do that, no matter what your age or experience level is, you’re going to get that opportunity up top.(CNN) -- In just over a day, rebels seized the Central African Republic's capital, forced the president out of the country and declared the nation had "opened a new page in its history."
But no one knows what the next page will say.
Michel Djotodia, the leader of the rebel alliance, the Seleka, declared himself the new president, and the rebel group says their takeover opens a path for peace and democracy.
Yet questions abound over the future of impoverished, landlocked country -- and what this uprising means for its 5.1 million residents.
Where is the Central African Republic?
The Central African Republic is a landlocked nation in the center of the continent, slightly smaller than Texas. It is bordered by Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A former French colony, it gained independence in August 1960.
Its 5.1 million residents include various ethnic groups who speak several languages. Even though French is the official language, Sango is the primary one.
What has been its form of government?
For the first 30 years, the country was ruled mostly by military governments. Civilian rule was established in 1993 but lasted only 10 years, according to the CIA World Factbook.
In March 2003, then-president Ange-Felix Patasse was deposed in a coup led by Gen. Francois Bozize.
Bozize is now in Cameroon, from which he is seeking to move to another country, the Cameroon government said in a communique dated Monday. The statement said that despite his presence, the country shall adhere to a policy of non-intervention.
How long was Bozize in power?
Two years after he took over in a coup, Bozize called elections in 2005 -- which he won.
In 2011, he was re-elected, but activists said the polling was marred by fraud.
When did the rebellion start?
From the beginning, Bozize did not have full control of the nation. Rebel groups operated, particularly in rural areas.
In December 2012, several of the rebel groups banded together, calling themselves the Seleka, or "coalition" in the Sango language. They accused Bozize of reneging on a peace deal and demanded that he step down.
Slowly, the rebels began taking over parts of the country.
Didn't the two sides strike a new peace deal?
Yes, Bozize and the Seleka brokered a peace deal in January, agreeing to form a unity government led by Bozize.
But that deal also fell apart.
What do the rebels want?
Some say the Seleka want a greater opposition presence in the country's government after Bozize's presidential election wins were met with fraud allegations.
But others say greed is a factor.
Only 3.1% of the land is arable, but the country has an array of natural resources, including diamonds, gold and timber.
"Government officials from Bangui have accused Seleka of harboring 'foreign provocateurs' greedy for the country's vast mineral wealth, and there are suspicions that nationals from Chad, Nigeria, and Sudan also make up Seleka's ranks," African studies doctoral candidate Jason Warner wrote in a piece for CNN.
How did the rebels take over the capital?
For weeks, the Seleka rebel coalition pushed its way from its base in the north toward the capital city of Bangui, seizing towns along the way.
Their efforts took a pivotal turn on March 24, when they infiltrated the capital.
Witnesses reported hours of fierce gunfire in the city, and a government official said seven civilians were killed.
Before he ended up in Cameroon, Bozize had crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo by the end of the day, said Jules Gautier Ngbapo, a government spokesman.
And the rebels issued a bold message:
"The Central African Republic has just opened a new page in its history," said a written statement from Justin Kombo Moustapha, secretary general of the Seleka rebels.
The statement described Bozize as the country's former president and urged residents to remain calm and prepare themselves to welcome rebel forces.
Why were South African soldiers in the country?
South Africa sent 200 troops to the country in January to work with the military there to quash the rebellion.
During the rebel advance, 13 South African soldiers were killed and 27 wounded, the South African president's office said. One soldier was unaccounted for.
What is likely to happen next?
That's what world leaders are scrambling to figure out.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "unconstitutional seizure of power," echoing the African Union's dismay over the rebels' offensive.
Ban's office said the United Nations will continue working with the African Union and the Economic Community of Central African States to find a solution.
Rebel leader Djotodia declared himself the new president, and the rebel alliance said democratic elections will take place after three years.
"A new page is opening for peace and democracy in the CAR," Francois Nelson N'Djadder, a rebel spokesman, wrote.
"Bozize being gone, the Central Africans must gather around the table to talk and find a common path which will... lead to the organization of democratic elections."
What other challenges does the Central African Republic face?
Despite its richness of natural resources, the country is stymied by a landlocked position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force and a legacy of misdirected macroeconomic policies, the CIA's World Factbook said.
Its per-capita GDP -- the country's economic output divided by the population -- is just $800, putting the country in 222nd place out of 228 countries.
And more than one in 25 adults are afflicted with HIV or AIDS.
READ MORE: Central African Republic president flees capital amid violence, official says
CNN's Elwyn Lopez, Nana Karikari-apau and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.Once upon a time, it was considered insane to compete against eBay. If you sold custom-made goods like clothes or jewelry, you sold at flea markets on weekends, and eBay the rest of the time. The idea that anyone would shop anywhere else for your handmade merchandise was silly.
But anyone who’s shopped on eBay knows how tough it can be to find certain goods. A search for “vintage t-shirt” may turn up more than 300,000 results, very few of which are either vintage or t-shirts. As a merchant, sellers find themselves competing with a huge number of competitors, ranging from junk resellers to mass producers peddling knockoffs.
Sensing an opportunity, Etsy launched quietly in 2005 and has carved out its own little empire in the form of an alternative marketplace devoted to the sale of handmade (and vintage) items only. Without all the riff-raff, sellers have a better opportunity to stand out--and hopefully make more sales.
While it’s quite large, Etsy’s 12.3 million listings are dwarfed by eBay’s 300 million. In the relatively small realm of homemade and vintage sales, however, Etsy has become a juggernaut in its own right--and is attracting competition of its own. For now, though, Etsy remains considerably larger than all its major competition combined.
We looked at five marketplaces--both big and small--for sellers of homemade, handcrafted, and vintage items. Here’s how they measure up, and which ones are where you might consider offering your personally carved tiki idols and handmade bridal veils to the masses. And don’t forget: No rules prevent you from cross-listing items on several sites--you don't have to choose just one.
Etsy
If you’re a crafter, Etsy should need no introduction. More than 875,000 merchants run shops on the site, with 12.3 million products available at any one time. Visit Etsy, and you’ll find getting around is pretty easy. A list of major categories (Candles, Quilts, Geekery) runs down the left rail, while a selection of hand-picked, curated items can be found in an ever-evolving grid on the home page. Listings are clean and easy to understand, and shipping costs are clear and visible. A variety of checkout systems are supported, including Etsy’s newest, homegrown payment processing option. And if you want to go mobile, Etsy has both an iPhone app and a Web-optimized version of the site ready.
Etsy has set the bar for what is and isn’t allowable for sale on most sites for handmade goods, and most of the sites we looked at follow Etsy’s lead pretty closely. Merchandise falls into three main categories: handmade items, vintage items, and crafting supplies that can be used to make items in the first category. While it’s not a major focus of the site, food sales are also allowed (consisting primarily of cookies).
Etsy is the only site in this roundup to charge listing fees, but at a flat 20 cents per item, they aren’t significant unless you’re selling very inexpensive merchandise. When the sale is complete, Etsy collects an additional 3.5 percent commission.
The bottom line: Etsy is clean and easy to use, and it’s obviously beloved by both shoppers and sellers. If you’re selling handmade merchandise, you almost certainly need to be on Etsy.
DaWanda
DaWanda, based in Germany, is the second-largest marketplace in our comparison: It features 130,000 registered merchants, compared to Etsy’s 875,000. While there is certainly a critical mass of shoppers from all over the world here, you’ll note that all items are priced in euros, not dollars--even if both buyer and seller are in the United States. That may be a plus if you’re trying to build a European audience, but it will probably turn away domestic buyers concerned about getting hit with foreign currency charges on their credit card.
DaWanda has no listing fees--though the company says it will be adding them this year--but it does charge a 5 percent closing fee on sold items, which is considerably higher than the 3.5 percent you’ll pay at Etsy.
As Europe’s largest marketplace for handmade items, DaWanda is a growing company with an expert understanding of the complicated legal, taxation, and business considerations of the Euro region. That might not matter if you just want to sell baby bibs to Midwest moms; but if you’re a crafter with your eyes set on a bigger prize, it’s worth a look. After all, what business--large or small--doesn’t want to “go global” these days?
Bonanza
Heavily focused on higher-end clothing and fashion, U.S.-based Bonanza has just 25,000 registered businesses. But its 4 million listed items put its total inventory at about a third the size of Etsy. Even though that means your store might have more trouble standing out, that’s good news for shoppers, as deep racks may keep customers browsing the site longer. Just as in the real world, no one wants to shop at a store where the merchandise looks thin and picked over.
Bonanza supports copious checkout options and has no listing fees, but it does charge a 3.5 percent closing fee. Another option unique to Bonanza is its Managed Merchant program, which the company describes as “a valet service for your booth.” Sign up for it, and Bonanza will do some of the heavy lifting of creating listings for you, adding metadata such as color, brand, and material information.
Next page: More on Bonanza, plus Zibbet, iCraft--and site stats and data.Proud parents of a baby girl were left shocked after hiring a Chinese-style fortune teller to find a lucky name for the child but ending up with the word "feces" on their list.
The couple from Yilan County, Taiwan recently paid 2,000 Taiwan dollars (USD 65) to a well-known numerologist, surnamed Ye, who promised to come up with an auspicious name for the newborn
Ye gave them a list of 14 names but one of the suggestions seemed a little bit strange to the mother, reported the Chinese language China News Service.
The woman consulted with a dictionary and discovered that the "rare name" was actually an ancient Chinese word for feces.
The fortune teller claimed that the outrageous suggestion was just an unfortunate typo but the parents were so upset that they decided to contact media to warn other families.Since early days of Bill Clinton’s administration, 16 years ago, Rep. Jim McDermott has carried the torch for a national single-payer health program. A Washington Post profile characterized his devotion to the cause as bordering on religious.
At one point in the early 1990’s, McDermott had nearly 90 House cosponsors for a Canada style national health program.
Single payer seemed like a futile cause during the Bush Administration, which put forward ideals for the partial privatization of Medicare.
Now, with a Democrat back in the White House — and a promise of action on health care – McDermott, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., have introduced versions of a single payer plan in the new Congress.
On Wednesday, they received some support — not in Washington, D.C, but in the “other” Washington.
The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to support the McDermott and Conyers proposals.
The legislation would replace private insurance with guaranteed comprehensive coverage, and be paid for through the tax system. Both the McDermott and Conyers bills would cover all Americans.
Seattle, with a reputation as one of America’s most liberal cities, becomes the 49th city and/or municipal government to pass such a resolution.
The resolution of support was sponsored by Councilman Nick Licata.What happens when we think of all information as data? Imagine if you could take all of the closed captioning of American television news over the last 6 years and run it through incredibly sophisticated natural language understanding algorithms that were able to sift through for any mention of a location on earth and then put all of these mentions on a map? What would that map look like and what might it tell us of what we see when we turn on the television at night?
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Facebook raised an international furor last month when reports emerged alleging that it may have underrepresented conservative news in its Trending Topics module. Yet, the story that the media missed was not one of conservative versus liberal bias, but rather that Facebook, like most American news organizations, has a massive Western bias in the stories it links to.
The map below, which accompanied my in-depth look last month at Facebook’s global news sourcing operation, shows just how geographically skewed Facebook’s Trending Topics is. Each country is colored from white (zero) to dark red (high density) by the percent of news outlets monitored by Facebook that are from each country. Immediately clear is that Africa and the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe and portions of Latin America are completely absent, while the rest of the world outside of a handful of nations are starkly underrepresented. In short, the only news about Africa that would have appeared in Facebook’s Trending Topics feature was that which a news outlet elsewhere in the world found of interest about the continent. Indeed, the New York Times in 2011 quoted Facebook’s founder as having once said “a squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”
Yet, Facebook is far from alone in its Western bias. One of the most important facts of life to recognize when turning to the news is that no single media outlet perfectly covers the entire planet. Rather, media outlets are themselves reflections of the distinct interests of their respective readership. Outlets will therefore naturally cover events in their own backyards far more intensely than those occurring in a faraway land with few cultural or linguistic ties.
The animation below illustrates this sharp divide by mapping the locations mentioned in New York Times (green) and BBC (orange/yellow) news coverage during March 2015 in 15 minute increments. Immediately clear is the Times’ heavy emphasis on the US and BBC’s heavy emphasis on the UK, but also their starkly distinct global footprints. Neither outlet entirely replaces the other – each emphasizes different parts of the world and neither touches every corner of the entire planet. Readers of the two outlets will therefore be exposed to slightly different chronologies of world events.
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Commentators today talk about a “divided media” and how society is fragmenting as media outlets increasingly narrow their focus, arguing that this is somehow a novel feature of an Internet-driven press. The Associated Press wrote earlier this week that “In a simpler time, [Americans] might have gathered at a common television hearth to watch Walter Cronkite deliver the evening news. But the growth in partisan media over the past two decades has enabled Americans to retreat into tribes of like-minded people who get news filtered through particular world views. Fox News Channel and Talking Points Memo thrive, with audiences that rarely intersect. What's big news in one world is ignored in another. Conspiracy theories sprout, anger abounds and the truth becomes ever more elusive.”
Yet, such sweeping statements presume that there was once an unbiased and evenhanded media that gave us a truthful and uniform look at everything happening around the world. That when Americans gathered around the television to watch Walter Cronkite recite the major events of the day, that those events captured the events of every country, not just the United States and its cultural neighbors. As the map above shows, this is simply not the case today and looking back over the last 200 years it was never the case.
This raises the question of what television looks like today? When a typical American turns on their television at night to watch the news, what parts of the world are they hearing from?
The Internet Archive’s Television News Archive has been archiving major national and select local American television news programming over the past six years. The raw closed captioning of all of these shows are processed each morning on the Archive’s servers using its Virtual Reading Room to create a codified metadata annotation of what’s trending on American television news. Part of this processing includes running incredibly sophisticated algorithms that are able to recognize mentions of remote rural hilltops across the world, disambiguate which hilltop the mention refers to, convert that textual mention to a mappable geographic coordinate and output a final geographic representation.
All of this codified metadata is freely available as both CSV files and as a public dataset in Google’s BigQuery database. This means that a single line of SQL can process all 6 years of data and generate a final histogram in just 2.2 seconds with the final map rendered by CartoDB in just a few seconds more. The US was removed since the intensity of domestic coverage skewed the scale.
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From the map below it is clear that American television news over the last 6 years has heavily emphasized Russia, China and the Middle East. Central Africa is poorly represented as is Central Asia, while Eastern Europe, Latin America, Northern Africa and South Asia are also relatively sparsely discussed. The three countries in Africa with the greatest coverage include Egypt and Libya, both of which are currently experiencing heavy conflict and South Africa, which has strong economic and cultural ties to the US. In Latin America, only Mexico and Brazil receive extensive coverage.
Yet, this map reflects all mentions of each country, including both mentions of particular cities and locations within the country and simple mentions of the country itself such as “political unrest in Burundi.” In contrast, the map below displays every subnational location (ranging from a city to a hilltop to a major building) that was mentioned at least 5 times during the same 6-year period. Here the map looks very different, reflecting the enormous density of individual location mentions within the US and high densities in a handful of countries around the world, especially those experiencing active conflict and those with strong US cultural or trade ties. (Note that coordinates were rounded to three decimal places and when you mouse over a dot it will display the longest location name at that location, so sometimes you may see a more rare location name appear as the mouseover hint). Also, keep in mind that the very high levels of transcription error in modern television closed captioning mean these results are by no means perfect, but at the very least reflect a macro-level view of what we see on TV.
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Overall, relatively few countries have large numbers of city or landmark level locations mentioned frequently on American television news over the past half-decade. In other words, while American news will frequently mention individual cities in Syria and Afghanistan, in contrast Angola and Zambia are most frequently mentioned at the country level. Television stations are simply estimating that the typical American is likely familiar with a few major cities in Syria due to hearing about them on a daily basis, while most Americans would struggle to name a single major city in Zambia. This is by no means limited to television – even major print outlets like the New York Times do the same.
Finally, the map above shows the entirety of 2009-2016, but news attention is incredibly dynamic, with the world’s attention focusing a flood lamp on one location before all but abandoning it a few days later for a new story. To explore this further, click on the map below to see an animated daily map of the last 6 years of American television news, showing the ebbs and flows of interest in each part of the world. Each location mentioned at least three times in a given day across all monitored television stations is shown. Zoom in to a region to watch mentions change day by day like fireflies twinkling in the night.
In the end, these maps suggest that the bigger story that is being missed in all the conversation about media fragmentation and bias is that media has always been biased geographically, culturally and linguistically. That depending on what newspaper you pick up or television station you tune into, you might hear more about Syria than Afghanistan, but no matter what American outlet you read, you are likely to learn more about either of those countries than the latest local news from a small village in Zambia.
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The maps above also show how the power of “big data” is not limited to social media or traditional textual news, that even television can be accessed through closed captioning data or automatically generated transcriptions. More importantly, they show how studying the geography of media, which took weeks of effort in 2013 to produce the first at-scale maps ever created of television, can now be created in just seconds with a few mouse clicks – this is the power of big data to change how we study the world around us.
I would like to thank Google for the use of Google Cloud resources including BigQuery and CartoDB for the use of their online mapping platform. I would also like to thank Felipe Hoffa for his assistance in creating the templates for several of the queries.Noriaki Kubo (久保 宣章, Kubo Noriaki), better known by his pen name Tite Kubo (久保 帯人, Kubo Taito), is a Japanese manga-ka and the author of the Bleach manga series.
Contents show]
Biography
Born June 26, 1977, Tite Kubo is the son of a town council member in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima. He has two younger siblings, a brother and a sister.[2] Tite graduated from the local high school. In 1996, his first manga short, "Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine", was published in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump Special and was followed by two more shorts. At the age of 18 he submitted his first concept of Zombiepowder and after several rejections, it was finally accepted to Shonen Jump in 1999 and ran for four volumes until 2000.
In 2001, his next manga series, Bleach, made its debut in Shonen Jump and ended on November 4 2016. As of December 2015, over 600 chapters of Bleach have been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump and collected into over 70 volumes. The manga was named a winner of the Shogakukan Manga Award for its category in 2005.[3][4] Kubo and Makoto Matsubara have co-authored two novelizations of the Bleach series, which were published by Shueisha under their Jump Books.[5]
In 2004, an anime adaptation of Bleach began running in Japan, which ran for over seven years, totaling 366 episodes. Additionally, four feature-length animated Bleach movies were released between 2006 to 2010. Tite was involved in the character design for the anime.[6] Tite voiced Kon in the OVA Memories in the Rain, which was shown during the Jump Festa 2004 Anime Tour and also appeared in the 112th episode of the Japanese radio program of Bleach B-Station. In that program, Kubo was interviewed by Masakazu Morita, voice actor of Ichigo Kurosaki and answered several questions from fans.[7] On July 26, 2008, Kubo went to the United States for the first time and made an appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con International.[8] At the 2012 Jump Festa, Kubo sent in an author's note stating that he had gotten married.[1]
Influences
Tite decided to become a manga-ka when he was in elementary school. When he became a manga-ka, he also became interested in architecture and design, but he preferred to focus on being a manga artist. His biggest influences to become a manga artist were Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada, due to the characters wearing armor and having interesting weapons, and Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki. Tite stated that he has always liked the yokai (monsters) in the latter series. In an interview, Kubo has stated that he entered a magazine's manga contest and that although he did not win, one of the magazine's editors noticed his talent. They subsequently worked together on joint projects.[9]
Creating Bleach
Bleach was first conceived from Tite's desire |
whether DeMarco Murray's exit really crashed everything or whether it's an easy conclusion to draw that likely is not the truth. How about the idea that if they took Jay Ajayi in last year's third or fourth round (with his knee concerns) -- instead of Chaz Green or Damien Wilson -- then, like Miami, they have their future running back and aren't thinking running back at all in this draft? Unfortunately, ifs and buts are not candy and nuts. Otherwise, it would be Christmas every day.
The pick has been made and the Cowboys have an elite talent. This fish has a really fancy bicycle. Let's hope it is everything it is dreamed to be.
Now, what about this other development from last night?
The Cowboys tried to trade back into Round 1 with their second- and third-round picks to get Paxton Lynch after taking Elliot. Think about that for a second. As if this really was fantasy football, they were thinking of using all three of their premium picks -- that should have presented their defense the facelift it so badly needs -- on a running back and a quarterback.
Instead, Seattle took Denver's offer for the Memphis quarterback. Denver offered Nos. 31 and 124 to the Seahawks (724 points according to one point-value chart) while the Cowboys offered Nos. 34 and 67 (815 points). The Seahawks took fewer points to stay in Round 1 and enjoy that fifth-year option on their eventual pick -- Texas A&M offensive tackle Germain Ifedi. Interesting decision and even more interesting that the Cowboys were willing to ignore defense completely in the impact portion of this draft. I have been preaching the Quarterback of the Future sermon, but I was only in on that if they went defense at the top.I have to admit, I'm patting myself on the back for this idea. Walking down the fall crafts and floral aisle at Hobby Lobby inspired me after I started to notice how many different items could be used to create an owl wreath. I searched the net, Pinterest, and Etsy to see if there was something similar out there. As of right now, I don't think there is. And every time I look at this owl, he makes me giggle!
If you hit up Hobby Lobby during their 40% off Fall Decor, Crafts, Floral, and Party sale, this guy doesn't cost much at all. And before you purchase a new twig wreath, check to see if you have one that could use updating. Or, make a stop at Goodwill where they always seem to have some. You can always rip off what is already on there like I did.
So here is what I used:
Old twig wreath that needed a new life
(3) faux feather boas (depending on the size of your wreath you may need more)
(1) foam gourd
(2) mini corn picks
(2) long feather picks (you could easily get away with just one)
(2) foam pumpkin picks (any color you want!)
(1) round wood circle (found in the crafts aisle at Walmart for $0.97)
twine
paint, paintbrush
wire cutters
hot glue gun
felt for the eyes
paint pen
I started out by removing the stems from the pumpkins so I could give this guy eye balls with the felt. I twisted the wire from the pumpkins around the twig wreath and also hot glued them to the wreath and to each other. Careful that you use the glue on the pumpkins where it will not be seen. The hot glue will slightly melt the pumpkins. Then, hot glue the gourd (his beak) to the pumpkins and the long feather picks to the tops of the pumpkins. I simply twisted the wires from the mini corn (his talons) around the twig wreath but you can also hot glue them too.
Finally, after all of the hot glue is dried, wrap the boas around the wreath and add eyeballs with the felt!
Originally, I was going to leave it at that because he sure looked good. But I did decide to add a little sign that says "Whooo's There?" just because it's so darn cute. Paint the wood circle whatever color you like, and use a paint pen to write on the wood.
I'm not sure how this guy would do on an exterior door without a screen door. We have a screen door and replace the screen with glass during the cooler months here in Wisconsin. I will be hanging mine on the door so the wreath will be protected from the elements by the glass on the screen door.
If you liked this easy DIY craft, please Pin it so others can see it!New research from the University of Liverpool shows that the body size of mannequins used to advertise female fashion in the UK are too thin and may be promoting unrealistic body ideals.
In the first study of its kind researchers, led by Dr Eric Robinson from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, surveyed national fashion retailers located on the high street of two cities in the UK.
The body size of'male' and 'female' mannequins was assessed by two research assistants using visual rating scales.
Severely underweight
The study, published in the Journal of Eating Disorders, found that the average female mannequin body size was representative of a severely underweight woman.
The average male mannequin body size was significantly larger than the average female mannequin body size and only a small proportion of male mannequins represented an underweight body size.
Body image problems
Dr Eric Robinson, said: "We became interested in this topic after seeing some news report about members of the general public noticing that some mannequins in fashion stores were disturbingly thin.
"Around the same time we had also read news coverage that fashion retailers had responded to this concern and adopted more appropriate sized mannequins, so it felt like an interesting research question to examine. Our survey of these two high streets in the UK produced consistent results; the body size of female mannequins represented that of extremely underweight human women.
"Because ultra-thin ideals encourage the development of body image problems in young people, we need to change the environment to reduce emphasis on the value of extreme thinness.
"We of course are not saying that altering the size of high street fashion mannequins will on its own'solve' body image problems. What we are instead saying is that presentation of ultra-thin female bodies is likely to reinforce inappropriate and unobtainable body ideals, so as a society we should be taking measures to stop this type of reinforcement.
"Given that the prevalence of body image problems and disordered eating in young people is worryingly high, positive action that challenges communication of ultra-thin ideal may be of particular benefit to children, adolescents and young adult females."Charging cables for phones and tablets just edged a little closer to oblivion. Two of the three major coalitions backing incompatible wireless charging standards announced plans to join forces, potentially a big step toward unifying wireless charging standards and pushing the technology toward mass adoption.
It’s not clear, though, how quickly this agreement will simplify life for people who just want to power up their gadgets wirelessly without having to worry about charging-station compatibility issues. And the standards war isn’t settled, either, as a third major wireless-charging standards group wasn’t included in this announcement.
See also: All I Want For Christmas Is An End To All These Cables
Formally, the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) agreed to support each other’s technical standards. That should eventually result in charging hardware that works with most new mobile electronic devices. (Will any of it be backward compatible? No word at this point, though you probably shouldn’t count on it.)
Henry Samueli, co-founder and chief technology officer of Broadcom, a voting member of A4WP, told me in December that “the biggest impediment to [wireless charging] is that there are different standards in the market.” At the time, Samueli hoped the groups would find a unified approach, which would minimize some of that complication. Now, PMA’s inductive charging will include a specification supporting A4WP’s Rezent standard, and vice versa.
The odd man out here is, notably, Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and its Qi wireless charging standard. WPC is backed by Verizon, Motorola, Nokia, Energizer, Belkin and several other big companies in the wireless market. (Samsung and HTC are members—Samsung even released an optional Qi-based wireless charging kit for the Galaxy S4—but both manufacturers also belong to the PMA.)
I’ve reached out to both A4WP and WPC for comment, and will update this post as more details come to light.
Image courtesy of Powermat.
Update: In an email via press representative, AW4P Marketing Chair Geoff Gordon said, “we are open to conversations with other organizations.” This seems to indicate that the agreement may not be necessarily closed to WPC involvement in the future.
Dr. Kamil Grajski also chimed in: “The A4WP and PMA undertook their effort as an initial leadership step. Industry consolidation is likely to be a multi-step process.” He also added that product announcements will vary by particular company, but “based on the Rezence products that have achieved certification to date, we anticipate product announcements throughout 2014.”At the start of September, 2013, I covered the launch of the Freedom Project, a 2D/3D Art and Film Event. co-organised by the University of Western Australia, Virtual Ability Inc., and the Centre for ME/CFS and Other Invisible illnesses.
The project is an opportunity for artists suffering from a disability or chronic illness, or associated with those suffering from either, to demonstrate how virtual life has enabled them to engage in activities and interact with others in ways which may not be possible in the real world.
On Saturday January 11th, the UWA premiered the first Freedom Project Film Mandala Dance by Maia Kyi’Ra (Starheart Erdhein in SL), co-founder of the Spirit Dance Company and founder of the Light Fantastic Dancers, who perform the Mandala Dance, choreographed by Maia, and which features Now We Are Free by Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer, the title of which fits the theme of the project perfectly.
As well as showcasing the film the UWA blog entry for Mandala Dance includes some of Maia’s own story, and you can read more of it on her website, New Earthstar Merkabah.
Sculptures, models and 2D art for the Freedom Project can also be seen at the UWA Virtual Gallery, and as a reminder to artists and those wishing to participate, submissions remain open until February 28th, 2014. Please refer to my original report on the Project – and more particularly, the original UWA announcement of the Project – for notes on the theme, technical requirements, considerations, rules, etc., for submitting a piece to the exhibit.
In brief, submissions should be on the theme of “freedom” and represent how the virtual world has helped the artist or those around the artist. Artwork should be no more than 200 land impact and films should be around 3-5 minutes (although no hard limits on film length will be enforced). Collaborative works are welcome, so long as the submission guidelines are adhered to. Artwork will go on display immediately at the UWA Virtual Gallery, and films will be put on the UWA Second Life Blog.
While the Project is not a competition, ten pieces will be selected by a special panel to each receive a special L$10,000 award.
About Virtual Ability
Many disabilities in the real world can be a barrier to entry into the digital as well. People may have difficulties in dealing with the keyboard due to illness or disability; others many be reliant upon voice recognition software, and so on. Virtual Ability, Inc. helps people with these kind of challenges get into and become successful in virtual worlds like Second Life.
From an individual skills assessment undertaken during a unique intake process, Virtual Ability inc., are able to refer clients for help with assistive hardware and software as appropriate, and provide customised training and orientation. Once clients are in-world, Virtual Ability Inc., helps them integrate into the virtual society, and provides an ongoing community of support. The community offers members information, encouragement, training, companionship, referrals to other online resources and groups, ways to contribute back to the community, and ways to have fun.
The organisation runs a number of in-world centres, which can be read about on their website.
About the Centre for ME/CFS and Other Invisible Illnesses
The Centre for ME/CFS and Other Invisible Illnesses provides resources, support and guided relaxation sessions, for people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome, and other invisible illnesses. They host general and research discussions once a week on Mondays at 18:00 SLT, and guided relaxation sessions every day, twice a day, at 08:00 and 20:00 SLT, in the Centre to help people manage their illness. This Centre is open to all, and all are welcome, including anyone with an illness, their families and carers to meet here and help each other. The Centre is located in Curtin University in Second Life.
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AdvertisementsA second financial ratings agency has downgraded Chicago Public Schools' debt rating to junk status, reinforcing Wall Street's dim view of the district's finances.
Fitch Ratings on Monday downgraded billions of school board bonds to its "BB+" ranking, which it said reflected the "limited progress" CPS has made to address a vast budget gap as well as the district's meager cash reserves. Fitch said those reserves are likely to be extinguished by next year.
Moody's Investors Service in May downgraded CPS debt by three notches, also to junk status. Both ratings agencies cited the district's large pension liabilities. In addition, the district's cash flow problems boost the need for CPS to resort to short-term borrowing, Fitch said.
District officials have announced $200 million in spending cuts. Fitch said the district also will require "a combination of tax increases, contributions from the state and employee concessions" to balance its budget.
The district this month unveiled school spending plans that bank on a half-billion dollars in help from Springfield, where lawmakers are currently gridlocked over their own political battles. Fitch noted the dependence on state help in its analysis.
"Most options for relief are dependent on actions by the state, which is plagued by political disagreements and its own challenged financial position. Most proposed solutions to the pension problem, Fitch said, "face steep hurdles."
The district has acknowledged that without state help, it will have to resort to "unsustainable borrowing and additional cuts" midway through the coming school year.
Fitch Ratings on Monday downgraded billions of school board bonds to its "BB+" ranking, which it said reflected the "limited progress" CPS has made to address a vast budget gap. (WGN-TV) Fitch Ratings on Monday downgraded billions of school board bonds to its "BB+" ranking, which it said reflected the "limited progress" CPS has made to address a vast budget gap. (WGN-TV) SEE MORE VIDEOS
The Chicago Board of Education last week unanimously authorized more than $1 billion in new bonds, in part as a hedge against the possibility that state lawmakers won't come through with help. Fitch warned the district's above-average debt level could worsen its problems.
Fitch also made note that the district picks up the tab for the bulk of teachers' required contributions to their pension plans, at a cost of roughly $175 million. CPS "is hoping that employees will agree to pay" the full contribution amount, Fitch stated. The issue has been part of ongoing contract discussions with the Chicago Teachers Union.
The district also faces potential costs related to its interest rate swap contracts, which officials have worked with banks to postpone or negotiate a discounted price.
In the swap agreements, which provide for an exchange of interest payments over several decades, CPS promised its debt rating would not drop below an agreed-upon level. Moody's and Fitch downgraded the school district below that level in March, allowing banks to demand the full value of the contracts.
In a statement, CPS financial chief Ginger Ostro said the district has few options to address its budget deficit, "which makes it even more critical to reach a comprehensive budget solution with our partners in Springfield."
"Our priority will continue to be working toward that broad solution so that we don't have to make even deeper reductions or undertake more unsustainable borrowing," Ostro said.
The latest downgrade came as Forrest Claypool is starting his job as Mayor Rahm Emanuel's newly appointed school district CEO.
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Twitter @PerezJradmin 14 June 2011 14 June 2011 General 3 Comments 3 Comments Email This Post
by Lesley Hazelton
More absurdity this week: FIFA, the international governing body of football, banned the Iranian women’s soccer team from an Olympic qualifying event because the players wear hijab — Islamic headscarves. The official reason: safety. Wearing ahijab while playing “could cause choking injuries.”
Yeah, sure. As one commenter noted, Google “hijab soccer choking deaths” and the search engine doesn’t exactly hum.
These aren’t just anyhijabs, mind you. They have to be the coolest ones ever. They’re like speed-skaters’ hoods, and the players look like white-clad ninjas. I’ll bet they can move like ninjas too. Clearly FIFA has no sense of style.
Correction: FIFA has no sense, period.
The decision to ban the Iranian team was made by FIFA head Sepp Blatter, who’s apparently one of those Berlusconi-type men who’ll tell you how much he loves women, by which he means how much he loves looking at female flesh. No, I’m not making assumptions. The arrant hypocrisy of this banis clear when you consider the fact that Blatter proposed in 2004 that women players wear plunging neckines and hot pants on the pitch to boost soccer’s popularity. Tighter shorts, he said, would create “a more female esthetic.”
I guess it was kind of amazing he didn’t propose wet tee-shirts.
And if you believe that Blatter is for a moment concerned about women being injured, his response to requests by human rights organizations to take a stand against the sex trafficking that accompanies the arrival of the World Cup was this: ”Prostitution and trafficking of women does not fall within the sphere of responsibility of an international sports federation but in that of the authorities and the lawmakers of any given country.”
No, Blatter’s all about the sport. He’s presumably salivating for more on-field celebrations like Brandi Chastain‘s famous shirtless moment when the U.S. won the 1999 Women’s World Cup. And drooling over women’s sportswear catalogs instead of Victoria’s Secret ones. In which case he’s pathetically misreading that Chastain photo. This was the victory of hard work and muscle over frills and pretty posturing. Serena Williams revolutionized women’s tennis in much the same way, making it a power game (in dress as well as style of play — the black catsuit she wore a couple of years back was dynamite).
What Blatter’s really doing is trying to piggyback on the burqa ban in France and theminaret ban in his native Switzerland. But the good news is that it’s backfiring on him. Badly. Already the focus of multiple accusations of corruption in his 12-year tenure as FIFA president, he probably saw this as an easy way to try to redeem himself by jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon. Instead, the storm of criticism might be an indication that Europeans are beginning to realize just how badly they’ve been manipulated by misogynistic xenophobes on such issues as burqa bans.
One further note on that shirtless photo: Chastain herself was amazed when it ran worldwide. “I wasn’t trying to make a statement; I was just carried away, and doing what male players do in the same situation,” she told me when I met her not long after. “I was really surprised there was so much fuss about it. I mean, there’s a much better photo of the victory moment, but nobody ran that one.” Here it is, on the right — the photo they didn’t run, baggy shirt, baggy pants, and all. Which I guess just means the world is full of Blatters.
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(Thank to Sarah Hashim for alerting me to this story. I know I was born in England, but soccer’s not my thing. Tennis, though…)
Original post: Lesley Hazelton: Soccer v. Headscarf: 0-1MR. RUSSERT: It just isn't at Senator Obama who is taking offense. This is exactly what President Clinton said in Dartmouth. Here's the tape.
So I think it's important that we get the contrasts and the comparisons out. I think that's fair game. You know, I think that we don't want anyone, any of our supporters, anyone--and that's why in my campaign, any time anybody has said anything that I thought was out of bounds, they're gone, you know? I have gotten rid of them, I have said that is not appropriate in this campaign. You know, when Senator Obama's chief strategist accuses me of playing a role in Benazir Bhutto's assassination, there's silence. So let's have one standard. This is an exciting and historic campaign. One of us is going to make history, which is thrilling to me. I've worked all my life on behalf of civil rights and women's rights and human rights, and so I want a good, vigorous campaign about the differences between us and our various qualifications and experiences to be the president that America needs.
And let me address the point that Bill was making. Because, again, I think it's been unfairly and inaccurately characterized. What he was talking about was very directly about the story of Senator Obama's campaign, being premised on a speech he gave in 2002. And that was to his credit. He gave a speech opposing the war in Iraq. He gave a very impassioned speech against it and consistently said that he was against the war, he would vote against the funding for the war. By 2003, that speech was off his Web site. By 2004, he was saying that he didn't really disagree with the way George Bush was conducting the war. And by 2005, '6 and '7, he was voting for $300 billion in funding for the war. The story of his campaign is really the story of that speech and his opposition to Iraq. I think it is fair to ask questions about, "Well, what did you do after the speech was over?" And when he became a senator, he didn't go to the floor of the Senate to condemn the war in Iraq for 18 months. He didn't introduce legislation against the war in Iraq. He voted against timelines and deadlines initially.
So I think it's important to set the record straight. Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this. And, you know, I think we should just take a step out here for a minute. This is the most exciting election we've had in such a long time because you have an African American, an extraordinary man, a person of tremendous talents and abilities, running to become our president. You have a woman running to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling. I don't think either of us want to inject race or gender in this campaign. We are running as individuals, we are making our cases to the American people, and it's imperative that we get the record and the facts straight because people are entitled to have that information. But I have no intention of either, you know, doing something that would move this race in a wrong way, or, frankly, sit standing by when I think tactics are being employed that are not in the best interests of our country.
First, with respect to Dr. King, you know, Tim, I was 14 years old when I heard Dr. King speak in person. He is one of the people that I admire most in the world, and the point that I was responding to from Senator Obama himself in a number of speeches he was making is his comparison of himself to President Kennedy and Dr. King. And there is no doubt that the inspiration offered by all three of them is essential. It is critical to who we are as a nation, what we believe in, the dreams and aspirations that we all have. But I also said that, you know, Dr. King didn't just give speeches. He marched, he organized, he protested, he was gassed, he was beaten, he was jailed. He understood that he had to move the political process and bring in those who were in political power, and he campaigned for political leaders, including Lyndon Johnson, because he wanted somebody in the White House who would act on what he had devoted his life to achieving.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, beats me, because there's not one shred of truth in what you've just read. And I regret that, because obviously a lot of people have been, you know, given information or an impression that is absolutely false.
MR. RUSSERT: When we arrived in South Carolina yesterday this was The State newspaper, and the headlines agree to this. And let me share it with you and our viewers: "Clinton Camp Hits Obama, Attacks `painful' for black voters. Many in state offended by criticism of Obama," and "remarks about" Martin Luther "King." Bob Herbert, in The New York Times, columnist, weighed in this way: "I could also sense how hard the Clinton camp was working to undermine Senator Obama's main theme, that a campaign based on hope and healing could unify rather than further polarize the country. So there was the former president chastising the press for the way it was covering the Obama campaign and saying of Mr. Obama's effort, `The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen.' And there was Mrs. Clinton telling the country we don't need `false hopes,' and taking cheap shots at, of all people, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We've already seen Clinton surrogates trying to implant the false idea that Mr. Obama might be a Muslim, and perhaps a drug dealer to boot."
For 12 years, she was the first lady of the state of Arkansas, for eight years the first lady of the United States, and in 2000 was elected United States senator from New York. This morning, Hillary Clinton joins us for the full hour on MEET THE PRESS.
MR. RUSSERT:...said this, "To call that dream a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us."
SEN. CLINTON: Tim, let me--let me just stop you right there.
MR. RUSSERT: But, no...
SEN. CLINTON: No, wait a minute.
MR. RUSSERT: No, I didn't stop you. Let me just go through...
SEN. CLINTON: No, but you did not give the entire quote and so...
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you...
SEN. CLINTON: The entire quote was clearly about the position on Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: But I'm...
SEN. CLINTON: It was not about the entire candidacy. It was not about the extraordinary, you know, abilities.
MR. RUSSERT: But Congressman--but Congressman Clyburn has been covering this race. Donna Brazile, herself a longtime activist in the Democratic Party, this is what she said. Here's Donna Brazile.
(Videotape, Tuesday):
MS. DONNA BRAZILE: As an African American, I find his words and his tone to be very depressing.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: So these are people who are not supporters of Obama, who are listening. Let me just go to the Martin Luther King thing because you had your opportunity to talk about this at the beginning of the show and I want to lay this out for our viewers. This is how The New York Times categorized it. "In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Mrs. Clinton... tried to make a point about presidential leadership. `Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of '64.' Mrs. Clinton said in trying to make the case that her experience should mean to voters than the uplifting words of Mr. Obama. `It took a president to get it done.'" Again, Congressman Clyburn, "We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics.... That bothered me a great deal."
A writer in the Washington Post today, a black woman said it's as if you are minimizing "I Have a Dream." That you're saying it's a nice sentiment, but it took a white president to get blacks to the mountaintop.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, I...
MR. RUSSERT: That's her take.
SEN. CLINTON: I understand the taking out of context and the mischaracterization. I've spoken with Congressman Clyburn. I have spoken with a number of my very strong and adamant supporters, but Tim, I can't let you get away with that mischaracterization and those snippets. I was responding to a speech that Senator Obama gave in New Hampshire where he did compare himself to President Kennedy and to Dr. King. You know, President Kennedy served in the Congress for 14 years, he was a war hero. He'd been engaged in many of the battles that led to his election in the 1960 election. Dr. King had been on the front lines. He had been leading a movement. But Dr. King understood, which is why he made it very clear, that there has to be a coming to terms of our country politically in order to make the changes that would last for generations beyond the iconic, extraordinary speeches that he gave. That's why he campaigned for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. That's why he was there when those great pieces of legislation were passed. Does he deserve the lion's share of the credit for moving our country and moving our political process? Yes, he does. But he also had partners who were in the political system.
And I think it is such an unfair and unwarranted attempt to, you know, misinterpret and mischaracterize what I've said. Look at what I've done my entire life. I have been working on behalf of civil rights, women's rights, human rights for years and I know how challenging it is to change our political system and I have the highest regard for those who have put themselves on the line. You know, Congressman Clyburn was part of that movement. So many of the people whom I admire in my country who have given of themselves to make these changes went into politics in order to realize the changes, worked to elect people in order to make the changes.
You know, this is, you know, an unfortunate story line that the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully. They've been putting out talking points, they've been making this, they've been telling people in a very selective way what the facts are. And I'm glad to have the opportunity to set the facts straight.
MR. RUSSERT: In Newsweek, you gave an interview to Jon Meacham, and you talked about the personal narrative that candidates develop. You seem to compare Barack Obama to, you say, demagogues like Huey Long.
SEN. CLINTON: Oh, that is so untrue and unfair. Look, if you are running for president based primarily on a speech you gave in 2002 and speeches you have given since, most notably at the Democratic Convention, then I think it is fair to say we need to know more beyond the words. You know, if you are part of American political history, you know that the speeches are essential to frame an issue, to inspire and lift up people. But when the cameras are gone and when the lights are out, what happens next? How do you translate your words into deeds?
And I think, you know, starting in New Hampshire it became clear that one of the significant contrasts in this campaign is between talking and doing, between rhetoric and reality. And I have the greatest regard for rhetoric and particularly the ability that Senator Obama has to, you know, lift our sights and our hearts with his oratory. But I think it is fair to point out that he has not had a record of actually producing positive change. Translating those words into action is something that is the, you know, the slow, hard, boring of hard boards in politics, and I think that people, you know, deserve to ask themselves questions about that contrast.
MR. RUSSERT: You use the terms in Newsweek you'd be a work horse, and suggested he's a show horse. Isn't that a bit patronizing?
SEN. CLINTON: No. There's a wonderful phrase in Senate lexicon whether senators are show horses or work horses. And what I was saying is that when I arrived in the Senate in 2001, a lot of people thought I'd be a show horse, you know, somebody who frankly was on your show all the time, Tim, somebody who was doing the press conferences all the time. But I said to my colleagues the very first day that we went into session, I intend to be a work horse, because I think it's important the results you deliver for people. That...
MR. RUSSERT: Is Senator Obama a work horse or a show horse?
SEN. CLINTON: I was talking about myself. I believe I am a work horse. I believe that that is what our country needs right now. We need a president who will, you know, roll up our sleeves collectively as a nation and tackle the problems that we confront. And that's what I've been doing. You know, here in South Carolina, 68,000 children have healthcare because of the Children's Health Insurance Plan that I helped to create 10 years ago.
MR. RUSSERT: In New Hampshire, now, the famous scene in Portsmouth where you showed some emotion, was that exhaustion, frustration? What was it?
SEN. CLINTON: No. It was actually, Tim, a moment of real emotional connection. Those of us who are running for office and holding office, I know it may be hard to believe, we're also human beings. And when I spend my time out on the campaign trail, it's usually about what I can do for somebody else. You know, I'm very other directed. I don't like talking about myself, I don't like, you know, sort of the, the whole atmosphere of how people, you know, are judged in American politics too often as to, you know, what you say instead of what you do. And so for me it's always about what can I do for you? How can I help you? And I was very touched when that woman said, "Well, how are you doing? How do you get up in the morning?" Because really, the question is for so many of the people that I meet, how does anybody get up in the morning?
I just went door-to-door in Las Vegas. I met construction workers who've lost their jobs, I met a man who's been laid off from the casinos because the economy is beginning to go down. I meet people who can't get healthcare for their families, people who are just distressed over, you know, what is happening in our country. So when somebody asks me, "How do you get up?" it really triggered in me, you know, the feeling that, you know, that's what I, I want us all to think about each other. How do we get up? How do we, you know, pull on our shoes, go out and deal with the problems America faces. That's what I intend to do as president.
MR. RUSSERT: The woman who asked the question said the next day that she wound up voting for Barack Obama.
SEN. CLINTON: Mm-hmm.
MR. RUSSERT: Because after your emotional moment, she said that, "You stiffened up and took on a political posture again," and said that some, "Some of us are right, some of us are wrong, some of us are ready and some of us are not." Do you believe that Barack Obama is ready to be president?
SEN. CLINTON: Look, this is up to the voters of our country to determine. But I want them to have accurate information about our respective records, what we've accomplished, the working that each of us have done when given a chance to serve. And I think it is relevant. I mean, we face huge problems at home and around the world. Nobody can diminish those. And the next president is going to walk into that Oval Office on day one having to end the war in Iraq, having to deal with what's happening in Afghanistan, the Middle East and across the world, dealing with our tough problems from the economy going south to 47 million people uninsured. And I think we're going to need a president who has really prepared and thought about what to do on that very first day. That is...
MR. RUSSERT: But is...
SEN. CLINTON: You know, that is my case to...
MR. RUSSERT: But is Barack Obama ready to be president?
SEN. CLINTON: That is up for voters to decide, Tim. You know, you can ask that question of him, voters can ask that question, but that's what I want. I thought the campaign really started at the debate in New Hampshire. For the first time we really had a debate that compared and contrasted our records. When Senator Obama was asked, what is your major accomplishment in the Senate, he said it was passing ethics reform and getting legislators to be prohibited from having lunch with lobbyists. And then, you know, Charlie Gibson said, "Well, wait a minute. You can have lunch if you're standing up, not if you're sitting down." So if that's his main claim for legislative accomplishment, people deserve to know that. And finally, in New Hampshire, we had an atmosphere where tough questions were asked and answered. I answered hundreds and hundreds of questions, saw thousands and thousands of people, and I think that the results really speak to what people are hungry for. They want to get beyond, you know, just the coverage of the campaign, to really understand what motivates us, what we bring to this campaign, and what we will do as president.
MR. RUSSERT: If you don't think Senator Obama is ready to be president, then he wouldn't be ready for vice president.
SEN. CLINTON: Well, you know, I'm not--you're once again taking words I didn't say. I'm asking people to compare and contrast our records. I believe that we need a president ready on day one. I'm putting forth my qualifications, my experience, my 35 years of proven, tested leadership |
, they are so pleased to see each other and will hold out their arms, wanting to hug each other. And their smiles just light up their faces. I'll explain it all to them when they get older about why they look so different." The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one. Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to 7 different genes working together. If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin. Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm. When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race. But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour. If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white. And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black. For a mixed-race couple, the odds of either of these scenarios is around 100 to one. But both scenarios can occur at the same time if the woman conceives non-identical twins, another 100 to one chance. This involves two eggs being fertilised by two sperm at the same time, which also has odds of around 100 to one. If a sperm containing all-white genes fuses with a similar egg and a sperm coding for purely black skin fuses with a similar egg, two babies of dramatically different colours will be born. The odds of this happening are 100 x 100 x 100 - a million to one. Source: dailymail.co.uk 21 February 2006 Twins in Black and Orange and White... Cubs Jinliang and Yinshuai aren't any ordinary twins. Workers at Tianjin Zoo, China were shocked when the pair were born - because they arrived in completely different colours - yellow and white. Their mother, Meimei, was a mixed-blood tiger - and it seems each of her offspring unusually inherited each of her different colours... Source: dailymail.co.uk 2 August 2007 Semi-Identical Twins Twins normally share either half or all their genes Doctors have discovered the world's first known case of "semi-identical" twins. The two young children, conceived normally in the US are identical on their mother's side but share only half the genes of their father's side. They are the result of two sperm cells, one X and one Y, fertilising a single egg, which then divided to form two embryos - and each sperm contributed genes to each child. Each stage is unlikely, and scientists believe the twins may be unique (although if both of the sperm had been X or both had been Y, the condition may never have come to anyone's attention). Normally twins develop from one egg which splits early in development, creating identical twins who share all of their genetic material, or they are the product of two separate eggs fertilised by two different sperm, creating non-identical (fraternal) twins - who share on average 50% of their genetic material. Sometimes, two sperm can fertilise a single egg, but this is only thought to happen in about 1% of human conceptions. Most embryos created this way do not survive. (Molar pregnancies can also occur if an ovum is fertilised by two sperm, and this condition brings with it a small - 2% - chance of cancer developing in the mother's uterus.) This case came to light because one of the twins, now toddlers, had an abnormality in sexual development with both ovarian and testicular tissue (sexually ambiguous genitalia). This child is being raised as a girl. The other twin is anatomically male, but genetic tests show both are "chimæras", and have some male cells - with an X and Y chromosome - and somr female cells - with two X chromosomes. Writing in the Journal of Human Genetics, researchers said the "semi-identical" twins are more genetically similar than fraternal twins, but less similar than identical twins. "This shows that our understanding of how twinning arises is probably something of a simplification, and that there are some very probably rare variations on how this can arise," lead author Dr Vivienne Souter, a geneticist at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona who investigated the case, said. The two children are progressing well according to co-author Dr Melissa Parisi: "I can tell you that in my last contact with the family, the twins were doing very well - healthy, growing well, developing normally." Charles Boklage, an expert on twinning who works at Eastern Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, said: "There's value in understanding that this can happen, but it's extremely unlikely that we'll ever see another case." David Bonthron, a geneticist at the University of Leeds, said: "The number of these cases is very small, but before they were reported, most people would have said this could never happen." He added: "Whether these things are academic curiosities, or whether we've overlooked something significant is hard to say. A lot of what we know about fertilisation is deductive, because we can't observe these events in humans." Sources: ananova.com, news.bbc.co.uk 27 March 2007 taken from information in the Daily Mail, Nature, and the Journal of Human Genetics See also: Molar Pregnancies (an external site) - for more... The Self I Will Never Know (in the section on Men) - for more on ambiguous gender, also known as hermaphroditism. Til Death Do Us Part (in the section on Science) - for more about chimærism (carrying tissues that originated in two separate embryos) and mosaicism (having patches of tissue that differ genetically from the rest of the body, through mutation or chromosomal anomaly rising early in embryological development)... Think Twice As Hard A Baby with Two Brains A Chinese baby boy with two brains is doing well, but hardly sleeps because his brains work in rotation. The boy, born in Chaoyang city in northeastern Liaoning province in July 1995, was growing well and did not need surgery, the official Xinhua news agency said. Source: The Dominion 14 October 1996 If the above article is indeed true, the boy would be six by now. He (they?) would make a fascinating study. Would each of his brains need to be taught separately? Can each brain read the other's thoughts, or must Brain 1 speak aloud or write messages to Brain 2? Is this in fact the ultimate conjoined twin, actually two people sharing one body? If so, can each of them marry? The same girl? Or different girls? (Would one wife be jealous of the other?) Should they get two votes? Two superannuations? Does each take turns "using" the body while the other is asleep? I suppose they must share it during at least eight hours. Does one or the other of them have to lose consciousness in that case? Could Brain 1 become so dominant that it never lets Brain 2 take control except when Brain 1 is asleep? (And would that be some criminal or civil offense that Brain 2 could pursue in court?) Is it possible that they are each unaware of the other? Will the body wear out so that both die before full maturity because their shared body never really gets to rest? Two People in One Body Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel are about to turn 16 - that means they’re very busy with schoolwork, sports, social activities and, yes, testing for their driver’s license. To most, this may seem extraordinary, but Abby and Brittany have been doing extraordinary things all their lives. They ride bikes and motorcycles. They play the piano, volleyball, basketball, softball and swim - basically, anything many other people their age do. They are attractive, smart, funny, outgoing and have been blessed to live in a wonderful family and small, rural community treats them like anyone else. As a result they are the most "normal" and possibly most talented conjoined twins ever. While most conjoined twins are separated shortly after birth, that was never a viable option for them. With one set of legs and one set of arms and several shared internal organs, their lives were destined to be lived together. They typically resist all media and press - it's one of the reasons they live such a normal life. When they drive a car, how do they decide where to turn? And do they get one license or two? That particular question was answered on their 16th birthday - they passed the driving test (both turning the wheel) and their local DMV decided to issue them both a license. Some teachers make them each take tests but they use both of their hands - and some allow them to take it once. They are clearly two very different personalities. The issues of identity and boundaries of self are wobbly. They have spent their lives in a small town in Minnesota trying to be as normal as possible while being extraordinary. Source: figure8films.tv and slideshare.net p. 91 See also: Til Death Do Us Part (in the Science section) - Eight years ago in Britain, a boy was born who, genetically, was two people. He was formed when two eggs, fertilised by two different sperm, fused into one embryo inside his mother's womb. Investigation revealed that some parts of his body were genetically female but the rest, which contained a different combination of his parents' genes, was male... Make That a Double Madhya Pradesh Twins, 114, Live and Die Together by Sanjay Narad Bhopal - Twin sisters born in Nagda village of Madhya Pradesh 114 years ago died together on Thursday. They have now been cremated side by side. In a miracle of sorts, the women not only came into the world together, they also married on the same day in the same village, turned widows simultaneously and breathed their last on the same night at almost the same time. The women, Kali Bi Sheikh and Batul Bi Sheikh, were born to the couple Umdabai and Sultan at village Siya. They were married into two different families of Nagda on the same day. After their husbands died, they have been living together as friends. They have about 125 grand and great grandchildren between them. On Thursday night, Kali Bi fell ill and died while being taken to the hospital. It was nearly at the same time that Batul Bi, who was sleeping in her house, also breathed her last. Their death was announced almost at the same time during the prayer of "fazar" and they were buried side by side. Source: sify.com/news Sunday 1 June 2003 Life and Death of Identical Twin Brothers the Same Perth - Identical twin brothers who apparently lived together throughout their 61 years, died of heart attacks on Sunday, only minutes apart. Police said yesterday that the Perth bachelors had been watching a body-building championship at Burswood Resort Casino when one of them collapsed. A St John Ambulance crew was called at 12:15am but before they arrived, another crew was dispatched for the other brother. Neither regained consciousness. A coroner's inquest will beheld into each death, but police suspect natural causes. Police who went to the men's home found identical pairs of everything. "All their clothes were sets of two," a spokesman said. "Apparently they were inseparable." Police said dental records may be needed to tell the brothers apart. They said it was not enough to positively identify them, they had to be positive which brother was which. Police said the coroner's office found a scar on one brother's hip and thought that would distinguish the twins from each other. But then it was found the other brother had a scar in the same place - it was a surgical scar and both had had the same operation. Distant relatives identified the brothers as William and John Bloomfield. - AAP Source: The Dominion Tuesday 26 May 1996 I have a couple of comments: Why do the police need to be sure which brother is which? Does it matter to anyone? Secondly, apparently neither of the brothers had ever married. Had they ever dated at all? Were they gay? Shy? Or perhaps they completed each other so well that a close relationship with some outsider wasn't even considered? The baby mentioned above had one body with two brains. William and John Bloomfield appear to have had one shared brain split over two bodies... From the 12 November 2003 New York Times' Obituary of Marvin Smith Marvin was a photographer renowned for capturing images of life in Harlem. Smith shared his vocation with his identical twin brother, Morgan: Smith and his identical twin brother, Morgan, who died in 1993, created incisive and poignant images defining Harlem from the 1930s to the 1950s. They shot pictures of everybody and everything: Jackie Robinson teaching his young son how to hold a baseball bat, Nat King Cole dancing at his wedding and W E B DuBois recording a speech in a studio. The New York Black Yankees live forever in their team photograph, as does Maya Angelou as a lightly clad modern dancer, long before she became a published writer. Even for identical twins, the Smith brothers were extraordinarily close: they married identical twin sisters in a double wedding, divorced on the same day 3 years later, and claimed (in reference to their work) that they were never sure who took which picture. And (as the New York Times noted in Marvin's obituary) Marvin chose a rather unusual way of expressing a Garp-like solidarity with his brother after the latter's death in 1993: The brothers were so close that Marvin never used the pronoun "I", much less claimed credit for a particular photo. After Morgan died of testicular cancer, Marvin had his own testicles removed. A week later, the Times ran a correction: An obituary last Wednesday about Marvin Smith, a leading photographer of Harlem who worked with his identical twin, Morgan, described the closeness of the two men - it was said that they never used the pronoun "I" - and recounted an anecdote about Marvin Smith's response to the illness that caused his brother's death, in 1993. The article said that Morgan Smith died of testicular cancer and that his brother, in response, had his own testicles removed. That account was given to The Times by a friend of both men. It should not have been published unless it could be verified and attributed. After the obituary appeared, Monica Smith, the daughter of Morgan Smith, told The Times that her father had had prostate cancer and that her uncle did not have his testicles removed. Source: snopes.com 27 November 2003 The Vanishing Twin An interesting phenomenon has been noticed now that ultrasound exams are available for most pregnancies, facilitating detection of pregnancy at earlier and earlier stages. There have been many cases in which early-pregnancy ultrasound exams showed twins, only to have a subsequent ultrasound show only one fœtus, with no sign of the other having been present. Sometimes the mother had experienced mild vaginal bleeding or cramps, and at other times she had no symptoms. This is the vanishing twin phenomenon. Charles E Boklage MD, and others have studied the vanishing twin, and it has been found to be more common than first realised. In one study, 325 twin pregnancies were identified very early by ultrasound exam and followed through the entire pregnancy. The study reported that 61 (18.8%) ended as twin births, 125 (38.5%) ended as singleton births, and 139 (42.8%) ended as a complete loss of the pregnancy. Generally, the vanishing twin fœtus is absorbed back into the uterus or degenerates as pregnancy advances. The likelihood of survival for the other co-twin is good. Boklage has concluded that the "true" twinning rate is closer to 1 in 8 at conception. He feels that for every live-born twin pair, there are at least 6 singletons that have lost a twin without anyone ever knowing it. Some feel that the survival of just a few more of these twin conceptions could increase the twinning rate remarkably. This could be another explanation of why the rate of twins has recently increased. Anyone may have had an undetected twin in the womb. It is conjectured that since twins are more likely to be left-handed than the normal population, left-handed singletons may be surviving co-twins of a vanishing identical. Source: nomotc.org (now dead) -------- Original Message --------
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 This message was posted via the Feedback form. Comments: Please change your link to my web site of Vanishingtwin.com Thanks,
Dr. Brent Babcock I don't quite understand this email, but I presume putting a link to his site here was the intent. I have a slight bit of reluctance because that site mentions the grief a surviving twin feels later in life if the other twin died in the womb. I don't really support that view - but others may find useful information there. A different type of "vanishing twin"... Twins Separated at Birth Reunite after 15 Years Biological Mom Claims Doctors Stole 1 of the Ecuadorean Girls after Delivery Identical twins Andrea Freire and Marielisa Romo found out about each other during a chance meeting in the southern Ecuadorean town of Milagros,
nearly 15 years after they were separated. Their biological parents accuse two doctors of taking one of the twins after delivery. Quito, Ecuador - A chance meeting has reunited identical twin sisters who were separated at birth nearly 15 years ago - and touched off a legal dispute over how two doctors adopted one of the girls. Petita Penaherrera says she did not know she had twins until she and her daughter Andrea came face-to-face with Marielisa Romo 4 months ago in the southern Ecuadorean town of Milagros - meaning "miracles" in English. Andrea and Marielisa shared the same dark eyes, the same hair, the same... everything. Marielisa was accompanied by Roberto Romo and Isabel Garcia, the doctor couple who had delivered the twin babies - and then raised one. Investigations began and, in June, Penaherrera and her husband Augusto Freire filed a suit against the doctors saying they never mentioned Andrea’s twin. "We never found out about the existence of that girl," Freire said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "After seeing a girl in the restaurant who was exactly like mine I almost fainted." He recalled the ensuing conversation: "We asked ’Who’s her father?’ And the father is Dr Romo, who was the doctor who performed the Caesarean on my wife." omo and Garcia could not be reached for comment but told Ecuavisa television that the biological mother knew about the twins but only wanted to keep one of them. "The nurse said out loud, ’Congratulations you have two girls"’ Garcia told Ecuavisa. "The woman, like every adolescent who is not ready for motherhood, just cried and cried. I gave it appropriate time to see if the mother would show up or would feel touched," Romo said. But the couple said there was no written agreement. Penaherrera insists that she was never told. "They stole her from me, the doctors stole my daughter," she said in an interview with Ecuavisa. Meanwhile, Penaherrera and Freire are trying to unite the twin girls. "One day I hope to live with my 2 daughters," Freire told the AP. "God makes children’s hearts return to their parents." But Marielisa has said she does not want to leave the only parents she knows. "They have raised me well, they have respected me and helped me," she said in an interview with the Guayaquil newspaper El Universo. "If they love me so much," the girl said of her biological parents, "let them stop (the lawsuit) and tell me that they won’t do anything against the doctors." Source: msnbc.msn.com 17 July 2007 photo credit Diario El Universo / AP © Associated Press all rights reserved The main concern should, of course, be the good of both children. Certainly there are hefty civil liabilities. A close relationship between the girls should be encouraged by both sets of parents at a minimum. See also: Clones of Nature (in the Science section) - for some interesting facts about (mostly identical) twins... Reunions Set off Sex Urges (in the section on Relationships) - When meeting their lost relative for the first time the respondents all experienced "an overwhelming and complicated rush of emotions" and an "almost irresistible sense of falling in love." They all said they had a need to discover an unusual form of closeness and intimacy with their relative, who had felt the same way. Women with Male Twin Less Likely to Marry by Maggie Fox Women who have a male twin are less likely to marry and have children, perhaps because of being exposed to their brother's testosterone for 9 months in the womb, researchers reported. A study of Finnish twins showed that women were 25% less likely to have children if their twin was a male. Those who did have children gave birth to an average of two fewer babies than women who had a twin sister. Based on an analysis of 18th and 19th century data, researchers found women who had a male twin also were 15% less likely to get married, Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in Britain and Finland's University of Turku and colleagues reported. "We show that daughters born with a male co-twin have reduced lifetime reproductive success compared to those born with a female co-twin," they wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This reduction arises because such daughters have decreased probabilities of marrying as well as reduced fecundity." Researchers have long known that fœtuses are influenced by hormones in the womb. Because male and female fœtuses have similar levels of the "female" hormone œstrogen, girl twins are more likely to be affected by testosterone in the womb. Studies of rodents show that hormones in the womb affect a baby's development, but researchers have lacked studies of actual populations to see if what is in theory possible biologically in fact happens in real life. Lummaa's team used Finnish church records that dated from 1734 to 1888, looking at the births and marriages affecting 754 twins. "The study used data from humans living in a pre-industrial era so as to obtain results that are not affected by advanced health care and contraception," Lummaa said in a statement. "Our results show that females who had a male co-twin have reduced fitness compared to those who had a female co-twin, but the success of males is unaffected by the sex of their co-twin," the researcher wrote. Perhaps the female twins had more masculine attitudes and behaviours that affected their decision to get married, the researchers speculated. Male features could have made the women less attractive to mates, they added. Other studies have shown, for instance, that exposure to testosterone in the womb affects facial features and even finger lengths. Also, exposure to elevated levels of testosterone during development can promote diseases that compromise fertility, such as reproductive cancers, they said. Source: news.yahoo.com 18 June 2007 For more on the unusual: events, abilities, means of self-expression, houses, conditions, people, luck, narrow escapes, resemblances, facts, diversions, heroism and more - click the "Up" button below to take you to the Index for this Odds and Oddities section.As Linda was walking into a Vancouver branch of the BMO yesterday, a house in tony West Van, a few clicks to the north, was being sold. In fact, it was the biggest deal of the day, in which the relieved seller – an offshore Chinese investor – was bailed out of a flip gone wrong. Over the 12 months he owned the place, eight of which the property languished on the market, the guy lost $1.1 million.
Unknowing of this, Linda (a wealthy woman who rents) ran into her account manager.
“He told me that the bank is forecasting stable prices and perhaps a small softening based on what’s happening in China. He then asked if we were getting ready to buy yet. I told him that we were happy renting especially since a home we desire in the neighbourhood we like would cost between $1.5 to $2 million. He then inquired if that was our budget. As you know Garth, we could certainly ‘afford’ – whatever that means – a home in that price range. I told him however, that it wasn’t in the cards because we weren’t interested in a fat mortgage. I kid you not Garth, he looked absolutely offended as if I’d launched a personal attack. Then, [email protected] (I’ve wanted to use that moniker for a while…), who had overheard this conversation told me that I really should be looking at a house as an investment since house prices always go up. And I replied, well until they go down. She looked at me as if were from another planet and said well, not in Vancouver. At that point I realized that I was from another planet – the one inhabited by sane people.”
It was another week when sanity left the room. The growing disconnect between what’s happening on the streets of the nation, and what we’re being told by institutions and ‘experts’ is sad and profound. No wonder so many are losing our way.
For example, in the midst of a credit bubble and historic heaps of debt, big banks are hacking the cost of borrowing. This week Linda’s bank – BeeMo – sucked a half point from its 5-year mortgage to achieve the lowest level in history, 2.99%. Hours later TD came up with a six-year home loan at 3.79% and one for seven at 3.99%.
Just what we need. Cheaper money. Excess borrowing. Worse family balance sheets. Increased risk. If this doesn’t make you worry a little more about the economy, you don’t understand. Personal debt as a share of the GDP is at historic levels – high enough to have international agencies warning us. More borrowed capital pouring into real estate will only make the inevitable correction uglier, the aftermath darker. And as housing’s share of the entire economy swells, we’re set up to become California North – a state that played the real estate card and lost.
Ironically, you’d think the banks would get it. Days ago I told you about RBC’s internal stress test, probing to see if it could survive a 25% price crash. The CEO says the bank can, but the very test belies great concern. So, is the competition for short-term profits and scooped-up market share more important now than structural financial integrity?
Duh.
As the real estate market comes under stress in real life, in fact, those companies who have grown fat on its bloated carcass just can’t seem to quit. Why, here’s Royal LePage chomping on an appendage right now.
The real estate marketing conglomerate’s CEO managed not to gag as he told reporters, “Widespread calls for a major real estate correction in 2012 simply can’t be justified.” In fact LePage scored a lot of headlines in the past 24 hours with a bold forecast that housing will stay strong, prices nationally will jump 2.8% (not 2.5% because that doesn’t sound scientific enough), and both Vancouver and Toronto be more expensive places by this time next year.
Based on what? Nothing, actually. Just the status quo. Low rates and ‘industry momentum.’ Of course, what Mr. Soper counts on is a slavish and incompetent media reporting his views uncritically, unleashing a new tide of hormones. Horny young couples, soothed by an ‘expert’ opinion will tank up on newly-cheapo mortgages and get lubed into a sexy new condo or semi in a former cornfield.
And he’s right. That is just what happened. Once again CP, Postmedia, the CBC, CTV and others proved there’s no longer room for critical thought in reporting. No second opinions. No opposing views. No counter-arguments. No filter for the corporate propaganda. And I heard nobody asking Royal LePage what the methodology was for its forecast.
As such, it’s utterly consistent with the path this society is now on.
It’s in the media. In the financial system. In the bank branch on the corner. There is only one investment asset in Canada. Only one place to put your money. Only one goal. One object of desire. Just one prize young lovers seek. One rock the old cannot release. A single inbred assumption so ingrained that when you question, people are startled. Upset. How could you?
Yes. It’s a Nortel moment.
Run.Wrapping it up
Once a flagship... But that was then, now the X holds Motorola's middle ground. Z is there to look up to, the Gs have a few more tricks to learn.
The Moto X4 is one of those phones that doesn't make any blunders, but also doesn't really stand out. Or does it? It is the only phone (other than LG) with an ultra-wide camera and unlike any LG phone with an ultra-wide camera, the X4 does portraits, and portraits are all the rage. Fair enough, the Moto's portraits aren't the best you can get but some portraits is better than no portraits at all, right?
The camera experience is not exemplary, but the phone can take good photos in the right circumstances and you can't really replicate the wide angle cam's view of the surrounding world without an actual wide angle cam. We should be seeing more of these in various segments instead of just waiting for LG flagships to drop in price.
Not all is camera and the Moto X4 has you covered when it comes to other important stuff. The display could use a boost in brightness, but does the job as it is. The battery life is solid when you're actually using the X4, and less so when it's idle, but which counts more? The software is a carefully touched-up Nougat with Oreo on the way. The chipset is the same Qualcomm 625 we've come to love, only made +5 better with a more powerful GPU and improved radios.
What else?
Motorola Moto X4 key test findings
The design is familiar, yet distinctive - the Galaxy S7 references are quickly obscured by the dazzling paintjob of the Sterling Blue version (seems like the one to get, really). The characteristic circular camera bump, while unmistakably Moto, is also different from the other models in the lineup. The IP68 rating is a welcome sight on a midranger. The MotoMods remain exclusive to the Z-series.
The display has no deal-breaking issues, but doesn't excel in any particular way. Brightness is modest for an LCD (430-ish nits) and whites have a blue cast, but contrast is good both indoors and out.
The new Snapdragon 630 chip comes with an improved modem for higher download speed, Wi-Fi ac, and Bluetooth 5 (the latter pending an Oreo update).
The Moto X4 is a sprinter when it comes to battery life, if that's the right analogy - in typically power-hungry tasks with the display on it does great (close to 12 hours of web browsing, more than 10 hours video playback), but is far from frugal in standby, ultimately posting a 64h Endurance rating.
What appears like stock Android Nougat on the surface is complemented really nicely by Moto Enhancements, augmenting the user experience in truly useful ways. We especially like the ability to replace the nav bar with gestures on the fingerprint reader. Of course, Oreo out of the box would have been appreciated.
Another mention of the Snapdragon 630 SoC is due when it comes to performance, where the GPU is now up to the task of rendering 3G graphics in FullHD unlike the 625/626 models. CPU performance is par for the course in the segment.
The loudspeaker is conveniently located on the front so it won't blast away from you when watching videos. 'Blast' might be an overstatement, though - it earned a Good rating in our test, so it could be louder.
The dual camera sounds superb on paper, though in practice it's just alright. The portraits have obvious flaws at the subject/background border, and the novelty of the Spot Color mode quickly wears off. Regular photos from the main camera are often underexposed and high-intricacy detail lacks definition, if you're one to pixel-peep. Colors are pleasing and noise isn't an issue, though. The ultra-wide angle camera is best appreciated for the unique perspective it provides, because it doesn't stand up well to 1:1 scrutiny. Low light shots are usable, barely, at a pinch, fit to screen.
4K videos are very detailed and have no noise to speak of. Colors are a little conservatively rendered and the processing doesn't go overboard with contrast to retain more detail in the extremes. 1080p/30fps footage is more contrasty and has a little more pop, plus it's quite detailed when that's not necessarily the case with everyone on the market. 1080p/60fps is smoother, yet softer, the usual stuff.
Selfies are rich in detail and have pleasing colors in good light. In low light the 4MP mode doesn't make much of a difference, but the flash certainly helps in the darkest of settings.
Noteworthy alternatives
The Moto X4 is available as an Android One device in the US, but the rest of the world gets the regular flavor. If you want the fastest OS updates straight from Google, but you're not in the States, the Xiaomi Mi A1 might be your best bet. Slightly larger with its 5.5 inches, the Mi A1 is powered by the older S625 chip so it's no match for the Moto in 3D gaming. It's got a tele camera to put up against the Moto's ultra-wide one - pick your favorite. Portraits do come out better from the Xiaomi A(ndroid)1 and it will outlast the X4 in most battery endurance disciplines, but the Moto has the IP68 rating for peace of mind.
Xiaomi Mi A1
For a more established name you can look at the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017). It may be due for a replacement soon (hint: price drop), but the current model isn't half bad - high-quality AMOLED display and superior battery endurance are in its favor, it matches the IP rating and the performance of the Moto X4, but with just one camera on its back it looks slightly dated. It'll probably remain on Nougat too, seeing as how it launched on Marshmallow, and two major releases could be pushing it for a handset in this price bracket.
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
The HTC U11 Life is an unlikely favorite in the midrange thanks to a stand-out design, careful hardware choices, and similarly minimalist software to the X4's - that's another member of team Android One. Same chipset as the Moto X4, slightly better display, slightly worse battery life, already on Oreo, but no second camera - a personal brand preference would really help untie this knot. Unless the lack of a 3.5mm jack on the U11 life slashes it in favor of the X4 before the HTC manages to pull out the loyalty card.
HTC U11 Life
The Nokia 7 looks like a textbook case rival to the Moto X4 - a similarly equipped device from another famed brand with a turbulent past. The 7 we haven't yet had the chance to test, but just looking at the numbers the Moto X4 has a couple of key advantages - IP68 > IP54 and 2 > 1, cameras on the back, that is.
Nokia 7
Verdict
Mean machine, that's what the Moto X4 is. Only not in a fierce, tough, and uncompromising way, no -'mean' more like 'average'. But not 'average' in a bad way, mind you.
Quite the contrary, the Moto X4 embraces the X's newfound mid-tier position and delivers just enough not to eat into the Z2 Play (the Force is obviously way out of reach), yet be a cut above the G-series.
And since Motos don't live in isolation, the X4 offers enough goodies to lure in customers from outside. No one other than LG puts an ultra-wide angle cam on a phone, and affordable as the G6 may be, the X4 can still be had for less. In the midrange, the X4 has one of the best chipsets all-round, a display that makes no excuses, and battery life that won't leave you stranded mid-day. Add some functional software, weather sealing and a design with just the right amount of flair and you have one hell of a case for 'average'.If Joe Garone’s phone was ringing off the hook on Tuesday with interested agents and drivers vying for the No. 78 Chevy seat, by Thursday morning the general manager of Furniture Row Racing’s phone must have darn near blown up.
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After news of NAPA’s split from Michael Waltrip Racing began to spread late Wednesday night, Furniture Row Racing suddenly became a possible haven for displaced drivers — and sponsors — involved in the “Spingate” fallout from Richmond on Sept. 7.
Suddenly, the little team from Denver — the only single-car operation ever to make the Chase — not only became a possible destination for drivers looking to rebuild their careers, as Kurt Busch did so masterfully this season, but it could also be the next best boutique shop in stock-car racing.
For drivers looking for a break from drama, Furniture Row Racing could be an optimum solution.
Barney Visser took what once was a pillow factory nestled in an industrial neighborhood north of Denver and in 2004 began laying the groundwork for what would become not just a winning Cup team in 2011 but a Chase for the Sprint Cup contender two years later.
The Furniture Row Racing shop is every bit as understated and unpretentious as its owner — who prefers matte black race cars with as few embellishments as possible. Other than the number “4000” over the door and the subdued black-and-white checkered tile across the entry of the brick-and-glass structure, there’s not a single feature to reveal that a top 10 NASCAR team is flourishing inside.
“When I first walked in here, it was just an open shell,” Garone said. “I never thought in a million years there would be a Cup shop operating out of Denver.”
There’s no receptionist in the foyer. The team’s philosophy of not spending money unless it buys speed is evident by the sparse surroundings.
But this organization wants for nothing.
Director of competition Pete Rondeau is quick to paraphrase the boss, “If you need it, we’ll get it,” he said. “But you better be sure you need it.”
Garone’s office is modestly appointed with |
is a weird one). We’ll have to wait until we get another, closer look to understand how that comes together.
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It also looks like the butt plate on the trooper closest to us is a separate part from the kidney plate.
Another angle from that scene, and you can see a really thick connector between the back and abs plate. You can also see that the belt connects on the side, and that it really looks like it’s plastic. I’m also really thinking that that back kidney plate is more than one part.
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This also gives us a good look at the shoulder straps in the back: There’s a triangle-ish thing connecting them which is completely new.
The trailer also gave us a good glimpse of the new special-ops type troopers. New helmet (which we’ve seen), but also some looks at the armor. They seem to have some sort of black pauldron and an ammo pack on their shoulders.
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Back in February, I posted up a picture of what had been purported to be the new armor for these guys, which was basically the new helmet on top of regular, black stormtrooper armor. Now that we have a good look here, we can see that that’s certainly not the case. Every piece that I can see is really different: the shoulders, upper arms and forearms. To me, it looks really similar to the Republic Commando armor from the old video game.
Plus, they’ve got some some wicked looking guns. Again, we’ll likely get a really good look when the toys start to come out, and in other trailers.
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So, what’s to make of all this, other than analyzing the trailer frame by frame again? There’s a couple of takeaways for costumers here.
The film has the original stormtroopers, but like the other films, there’s differences - quite a few of them. For groups like the 501st, this means that there’ll likely be a separate set of requirements for approval of the Rogue One-accurate troopers, and you can’t essentially change out a couple of pieces - there’s a whole bunch of new parts that costumers will need to make. Most people won’t honestly notice this, but it’s an interesting challenge for costumers to try and build based on the images that we have. Why would costumers opt for a Rogue One-accurate trooper? Partially for bragging rights, especially this early in the game, but there’s a really practical reason: they look like they’re a bit more attuned to movement, and if constructed right, they’d be more comfortable to wear for hours at a time. The film’s production team has paid some attention to these differences - the frowns and handplates line up with their counterparts in ANH, which is a nice detail to see. They also haven’t just dragged suits from the archives, recasted them and set them out for filming. (Sort of like what they did for the extra scenes in the Special Editions) - these look like newly designed suits. There’s a bunch of variants: this is in line with Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and it’s likely going to be a boon for toy manufacturers. (New action figures!) But, it’s a new variation for costumers to sculpt and construct on their own, which is always exciting to see. From the film perspective, the suits seem to be designed to stand up to some intense stunts. This is telling in a couple of ways: we’ve seen them get blasted a bit in the trailer, but compared to the Original Trilogy, it looks like they’ll get shot up or blown up quite a bit more. This fits with the fact that this looks more like a war film than a regular saga film.
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For costumers like me and members of the 501st Legion, these troopers is another change that we can take a look into and deconstruct to make ourselves. The costuming community prides itself on going super accurate, and this represents a couple of new challenges to figure out. I have mixed feelings on the super accurate depictions, but I think that knowing the differences and looking at the different costumes with that level of detail only helps the final product.
With companies such as ANOVOS selling off-the-shelf kits, stormtrooper armor is getting really easy to purchase, and you’re going to see more of them at conventions and the like.
Is this enough to start building an RO Trooper? Maybe, but there’s still not a whole lot to go on. This is also just the first trailer for a movie coming out months from now: there’ll be plenty of other trailers to pore over before it hits theaters, and we’ll likely learn some other new things from those.
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One thing is for sure: anyone who’s picked up a Stormtrooper kit will have a lot of fun on opening night at their local movie theater.Archives February 2019 (137) January 2019 (189) December 2018 (175) November 2018 (168) October 2018 (172) September 2018 (194) August 2018 (205) July 2018 (152) June 2018 (106) May 2018 (131) April 2018 (225) March 2018 (200) February 2018 (173) January 2018 (213) December 2017 (249) November 2017 (235) October 2017 (270) September 2017 (224) August 2017 (198) July 2017 (146) June 2017 (84) May 2017 (171) April 2017 (260) March 2017 (253) February 2017 (174) January 2017 (222) December 2016 (191) November 2016 (207) October 2016 (227) September 2016 (218) August 2016 (221) July 2016 (167) June 2016 (101) May 2016 (241) April 2016 (316) March 2016 (299) February 2016 (238) January 2016 (219) December 2015 (214) November 2015 (208) October 2015 (205) September 2015 (192) August 2015 (196) July 2015 (213) June 2015 (135) May 2015 (139) April 2015 (134) March 2015 (131) February 2015 (143) January 2015 (159) December 2014 (241) November 2014 (189) October 2014 (215) September 2014 (187) August 2014 (239) July 2014 (264) June 2014 (281) May 2014 (177) April 2014 (282) March 2014 (273) February 2014 (188) January 2014 (232) December 2013 (229) November 2013 (231) October 2013 (222) September 2013 (200) August 2013 (213) July 2013 (197) June 2013 (155) May 2013 (143) April 2013 (190) March 2013 (213) February 2013 (182) January 2013 (217) December 2012 (196) November 2012 (215) October 2012 (202) September 2012 (177) August 2012 (208) July 2012 (163) June 2012 (125) May 2012 (183) April 2012 (218) March 2012 (248) February 2012 (228) January 2012 (239) December 2011 (173) November 2011 (189) October 2011 (231) September 2011 (200) August 2011 (260) July 2011 (127) June 2011 (136) May 2011 (169) April 2011 (246) March 2011 (255) February 2011 (258) January 2011 (302) December 2010 (179) November 2010 (227) October 2010 (241) September 2010 (193) August 2010 (214) July 2010 (226) June 2010 (162) May 2010 (155) April 2010 (185) March 2010 (208) February 2010 (238) January 2010 (184) December 2009 (180) November 2009 (220) October 2009 (219) September 2009 (201) August 2009 (239) July 2009 (190) June 2009 (138) May 2009 (162) April 2009 (210) March 2009 (237) February 2009 (212) January 2009 (255) December 2008 (205) November 2008 (219) October 2008 (210) September 2008 (217) August 2008 (233) July 2008 (179) June 2008 (141) May 2008 (183) April 2008 (266) March 2008 (243) February 2008 (236) January 2008 (300) December 2007 (199) November 2007 (253) October 2007 (198) September 2007 (174) August 2007 (253) July 2007 (163) June 2007 (148) May 2007 (150) April 2007 (196) March 2007 (196) February 2007 (170) January 2007 (217) December 2006 (178) November 2006 (175) October 2006 (172) September 2006 (186) August 2006 (200) July 2006 (142) June 2006 (120) May 2006 (275) April 2006 (170) March 2006 (192) February 2006 (160) January 2006 (192) December 2005 (171) November 2005 (218) October 2005 (194) September 2005 (105) August 2005 (123) July 2005 (82) June 2005 (83) May 2005 (90) April 2005 (128) March 2005 (134) February 2005 (98) January 2005 (111) December 2004 (100) November 2004 (98) October 2004 (108) September 2004 (102) August 2004 (117) July 2004 (100) June 2004 (91) May 2004 (95) April 2004 (104) March 2004 (116) February 2004 (93) January 2004 (80) December 2003 (81) November 2003 (81) October 2003 (94) September 2003 (81) August 2003 (70) July 2003 (70) June 2003 (46) May 2003 (50) April 2003 (83) March 2003 (77) February 2003 (59) January 2003 (66) December 2002 (62) November 2002 (70) October 2002 (85) September 2002 (78) August 2002 (61) July 2002 (17) June 2002 (13) May 2002 (15) April 2002 (35) March 2002 (30) February 2002 (28) January 2002 (37) December 2001 (4)One group of hyper-conservative prohibitionists, going by the moniker of SafeMontana, illustrate yet another problem with roots in the irrational Schedule 1 status of cannabis.
The group has been seeking to get signatures to put Initiative 174 (which would make all Schedule 1 substances illegal in Montana) on the ballot.
The mission statement from SafeMontana’s website states: “The initiative would eliminate the current disparity between federal law and state law with respect to the legal status of the possession and use of marijuana. Federal Illegal Drugs are being presented in Montana as medicine and are too easily secured through green cards.”
Supporters of I-174 seem content to put absolute faith in the FDA, which is troubling in its own way. The FDA did, after all, rush Zohydro through trials and into production (but pillified heroin is WAY safer than cannabis, right?).
“If there’s anything good about a Schedule One drug, whether it be marijuana or one of the other ones, then we need to take it to the FDA and get it switched,” Montana car salesman and staunch supporter of I-174, Steve Zabawa, stated, “We don’t want to be legalizing any illegal drugs.”
However, they do a passable job of elucidating the elephant in the room and, perhaps, reveal a nugget of common sense buried in their prohibitionist mindset. They imply that, if there is “good” in the substance, then the substance should not be on Schedule 1.
Therein lies the conundrum. The root cause of so, so many of the legal, financial, and social problems that are part of the package with cannabis legalization would all but evaporate overnight with a simple re-sheduling. And don’t be fooled, there are a few people in D.C. right now who could get this done quickly, not the least of which is President Obama.
Proponents of Montana’s medical marijuana industry (with a patient count of roughly 8,500) like Chris Lindsey, who works with both the Marijuana Policy Project and the Montana chapter of NORML, argued against Zabawa’s idea of establishing pot laws that coincide with federal policy.
“Marijuana prohibition has been just as ineffective, inefficient and problematic as alcohol prohibition,” said Lindsey. “It’s a colossal failure. And Steve wants to be the champion of that failure.”
I think, empirically, what SafeMontana is reaching for is a good thing. They want to keep illicit drugs out of their state. And, since most illicit drugs can and do cause terrible harm, keeping them out of your state is an admirable goal. However, the argument that cannabis belongs in Schedule 1 is more worn out than the elbows in my dead grandfather’s church jacket.
Cocaine? Heroin? Other drugs than can literally ruin your life, sure, lets keep them where they are scheduled. But, c’mon SafeMontana, getting up on your soapbox and decrying the evils of cannabis is not as lucrative a tactic as it may once have been. In fact, it’s getting to the point where those who want to villify cannabis are starting to sound like global warming deniers. You can only hide in bullshit as long as enough people don’t know it’s bullshit. Recent polls are showing that a good 60% of the country is smelling that bullshit and thinks cannabis should be legalized.
So, we have another reason to reschedule cannabis (as if we needed more): declawing irrational prohibition groupies (well-intentioned though they may be).
I-174 needed just over 24,000 signatures to make the ballot. The deadline was June 20th, 2014. So far, no news has emerged regarding it’s passage or failure.
Source article“This tiny cup of coffee is lovely. It even makes my calves look big.”
If there is even the slightest chance you have missed this video of benign Norwegian bodybuilders visiting an extra-small village in order to feel bigger, please give yourself the gift of viewing it now. On my first viewing, I very much barked out a sob of joy, like a bereaved seal. I have been unable to stop watching, since I started.
Here is one of them – the only name we are given is Knut; I have decided to name this fellow Mit Sleeves Karl – delivering a tiny letter to a wee post office.
Here he is again, enjoying a diminutive porch. He is very large, you see, and the porch, she is small. “Here we are really big. And that really boosts our self esteem.”
Here they are, doing pushups on a pocket-sized lawn. Good morning, friends.
Here they are, flexing into eternity on a minikin roller coaster.
Every moment is to be savored without explanation. Do not look for context. I don’t ever want to know anything more about this video than I do right now. I don’t care if it’s a hoax, or a viral marketing ad for creatine, or anything else. I don’t care. All I know – all I need to know – is that Knut looks huge right now, they frame tiny stamps, and these gentle Vikings want to go to Hobbiton and play minigolf.This article is over 4 years old
Berek Sawut found the 7.85kg nugget in the far western region of Xinjiang
A herdsman in China’s remote far west has struck gold after stumbling upon a huge nugget of the precious metal estimated to be worth at least $250,000, state media reported Thursday.
The 7.85 kilo chunk was discovered “practically lying on bare ground”, the official Xinhua news agency said, quoting the herder, an ethnic Kazakh named Berek Sawut.
He found the golden lump, described in the report as “random-shaped” and about 23 centimetres long, 18 centimetres at its widest and up to eight centimetres thick.
It was estimated to be worth 1.6m yuan ($255,000), Xinhua said, assuming it was 80 percent pure.
It quoted a local gold price expert, Zhu Xinfeng, as saying that natural lumps of the precious metal can fetch several times more than the refined variety.
But the report did not say whether the herder would be able to keep his new-found riches.
The discovery was made in the far western region of Xinjiang, a vast and diverse area bordering Central Asia and abundant in natural resources and striking scenery, with an ethnically diverse population including the Kazakhs, Uighurs and Han, China’s majority.
The nugget was found in Qinghe county, part of Altay prefecture, the report said, adding that Altay means gold in Mongolian.Abdul Ghani arrested for making provocative speeches after Fajr prayers, awarded Rs750,000 fine
BAHAWALPUR: An anti-terrorism court on Friday sentenced a prayer leader to 10 years and four months imprisonment after he was convicted of making hate speeches after Fajr prayers.
Judge Khalid Arshad also fined Abdul Ghani Rs750,000.
Prosecution said Ghani had delivered provocative speeches following Fajr prayers at a mosque in Qayampur.
Qayampur police had registered an FIR against him and arrested him. After examining the evidence and hearing the witnesses, the judge sentenced Ghani to 10 years and four months in jail.
Separately, four people were sentenced to prison terms for possessing banned literature.
Muhammad Waqas was sentenced to 110 days in jail and fined Rs5,000 after he was convicted of possession of banned literature.
Another court sentenced Rafique Ahmad to 105 days in jail and fined him Rs5,000 for possessing banned literature.
Muhammad Zahid was sentenced to imprisonment for 105 days and fined Rs3,000 for possessing literature containing objectionable content. Talib Hussain was sentenced to three months in prison and fined Rs5,000 after objectionable material was recovered from him.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2015.
Read full storyIntroduction
Today I will review the Mijia Honeywell Smart Smoke Detector (does not detect Carbon Monoxide) which I bought for 20,61 euro. So it was not only created by Xiaomi/Mijia, but in combination with Honeywell (well known for their the automation- and control systems).
The name Xiaomi has been showing up more and more when talking about IoT, especially when talking about affordable IoT. In march 2016 Xiaomi created a company dedicated to ‘smart home’ products, this company was called Mijia (Chinese for ‘Smart home’). Xiaomi is mostly focused on the Chinese market but has been slowly expanding to Europe (mostly phones). They are very good at combining a well-rounded product with good design for an insanely low price, but one of the main disadvantages is that the products are (almost) only available in China but can be imported via various sites like Gearbest.
Specifications
Weight Product weight: 0.1000 kg
Package weight: 0.1700 kg Dimensions Product size (L x W x H): 9.00 x 3.60 x 2.50 cm / 3.54 x 1.42 x 0.98 inches
Package size (L x W x H): 12.00 x 5.00 x 3.50 cm / 4.72 x 1.97 x 1.38 inches Package Contents 1 x Fire Alarm Detector
1 x Chinese Manual (Click here for English manual)
1 x Mount Plate
2 x Screw
2 x Wall Plug
2 x Double Sided Sticker Powered by CR123A Cell Battery 3.0V (NOT INCLUDED) Features Remote Alert (get a notification on your phone)
CCCF Certification
Zigbee Wireless Technology
Progressive Sound Alarm (will get louder with every beep up to 80 dB)
Periodic Self-inspection Reminder
Anti-flame materials
5 years or more lifespan
Configurable sensitivity
Compatible with SmartThings Manual Link
Unboxing
If you have bought Xiaomi/Mijia products before, this little box won’t surprise you. The box is the same as every other Xiaomi product with a slight Apple feel to it. The box’s design is very minimal and clean, with the product on front and white as primary color.
Design
Hardware & Software
Smart Features
The smoke detector has multiple ‘smart’ features, but if you don’t pair it to the gateway it’s just your average dumb smoke detector. I will you how to connect it to the Gateway in the following paragraph.
Remote alert
When the smoke detector gets triggered it willll send you a notification via the Mi Home App, even outside your home. Because of this you’ll be able to get to the starting fire faster and prevent it from burning your whole house down.
Self Testing
You can ‘self test’ the device in the Mi-Home app. This will send a self-check request to the device, after which a screen will show up asking you “Did you hear the sound?”. If you did hear it, your device is functioning normally! If you didn’t hear anything, it is probably because the distance between your gateway and the smoke detector is too far. If you want you can enable monthly reminder. The Mi-Home app will send you a notification that it is time for the monthly test and it will execute the self-test.
Set Trigger Sensivity
If you have a smoke detector close to the fireplace, the trigger threshold would need to be turned down a bit so it won’t go off every time you lit your fireplace. Same story for a smoke detector in the kitchen, you don’t want it going off every time you cook something. You can adjust the sensitivity by change the installation site, this way you can adjust it to the room. You have the three following options:
No smoke area (e.g. office, warehouse), Small amount of smoke area (default) Above normal amount of smoke (e.g. kitchen or close to the fireplace).
Tandem Mode
While this is not the most exciting ‘smart’ feature, the ability to tandem your smoke detector with your gateway is not to be forgotten. My house is three stories and let’s say my smoke detector at the bottom of my house gets triggered, it’ll be hard for me to hear it upstairs (image if I am sleeping or showering!). That’s why pairing it with your gateway is a nice solution for this. This way I’ll be able to hear it upstairs, even though the alarm is downstairs.
Connectivity
If you want more than just a ‘dumb’ smoke detector, you can pair it to your gateway. This can be done via the Mi Home app, available on the Play store and the App store. The app is mostly English but some parts are still Chinese, it is still very usable though. The pairing process is quite easy, the gallery under here will guide you through it (enable information for instructions!).
After that you have unlocked the smart features! If you click on the smoke detector you will be able to edit things like installation site or enable tandem mode.
Tips ‘n Tricks
Disabling the alarm when it gets triggered
If the smoke detector get’s triggered, you will have to disable the alarm by click the Sound stop/Self check button, you can find this on the front of the device. After you have clicked this button the alarm and light will immediately stop, but the device will also disable itself for 70 seconds.
What can trigger the alarm?
The following can trigger the alarm:
Hair or insect spray (directly on the device).
Cigarette smoke or other incendiary substances.
Smoke from e-cigarettes or alike devices.
Smoke or steam from cooking.
Condensation on the device (so do not install it outdoors or in bathrooms).
Simulation mode
If you want to test the sound of the device, you can simulate it going off (without actually burning something). This can be done by holding the button for 3 seconds. The light will begin to flash and the alarm will go off progressively, this means it’ll get louder with every beep. As soon as you let go it’ll stop the simulation mode.
Self-testing without the app
You can self-test the device without the app! This can be done by clicking the button on the device for one second, the light will and sound will indicate the status of your smoke detector.
Status Indicator Sound Normal The indicator will go red for a split second and change to yellow. One beep Low battery The indicator blinks yellow once. One beep Faulty The indicator blinks yellow three times. Three beeps Fire The indicator blinks red three times Three beeps
Device going off without any smoke/fire/condensation
If your device is going off and the indicator light is yellow (not red), it means the battery is empty and it wants you to change it. You can press the button once to disable it for 12 hours, after those 12 hours it will continue to go off until you replace it with a new battery. You can (but not recommend) disable the low battery warning by holding the button for 3 seconds to return it to normal operation mode. It will continue to work as usual but this is not recommended because you might forget to replace it. Because of this it will not be able to warn you anymore (because you returned it to normal mode).
Battery
The device is powered by a CR123a battery, which some of you might know from being used in (old-ish) cameras. These might be hard to get from a local shop (at least it was for me) or really pricey (like 10 euro a piece), I was able to pick up some Duracell one’s for 2 euro a piece. But I have ordered some rechargeable ones which I would totally recommend doing, this way you don’t have to buy new ones every couple of years (and way, way better for the environment!). If you replace an old battery make sure to self-check the device after you have replaced the old battery, you want to be sure the battery is working properly.
HomeAssistant and other third party intergration
The main idea for me was that I can add them to my HomeAssistant. After some struggles of identifying the devices, they worked perfectly. They also work for Domoticz but I do not use it myself.
Just like all the other products that are documented in the xiaomi_aqara component, you just have to setup your gateway via HomeAssistant and everything will show up! Beware it won’t have the same names as the Mi Home app but they will have name likes sensor.smoke.xxxxx. If you want to identify which smoke detector is where, I recommend adding them one by one while rebooting HA after adding one and giving it a friendly_name. You can also use 4 matches to trigger the alarm if you don’t mind it 😉
Conclusion
In conclusion, the device actually quite surprised me. I did not expect for it to have this many features, like the self testing via the app or buttons or setting the sensitivity with the installation site. The device even has tons of features without pairing it with the gateway, like certain beeping and light combinations for device status or battery warnings that you can disable for a certain time period. Being able to choose if you want to mount it with screws or adhesive was also a, not expected, but certainly welcome surprise, mounting the device itself was also super easy and can be done in a minute. The design itself it one of the best things though. They are so small that you barely notice them on your ceiling. And even if you did notice them, you would not mind it because they look so premium and well rounded. I think Mijia and Honeywell did a great collaboration on this one and I would love to see more products from them (please make a smart thermostat). At first I expected a smoke detector with an IoT sticker on it, but was definitely surprised with how feature packed it was. For the price tag of 20,61 euro I can’t even find a comparable product. So if you are obsessed with IoT and needed a good excuse to replace your old smoke detectors, don’t look any further.President Donald Trump at a press conference during which he accused James Comey of lying under oath. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Donald Trump's lawyers are looking into whether Trump can pardon himself, family members, and aides in preparation for the outcome of the Russia investigation.
The FBI's inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign is being led by special counsel Robert Mueller and has so far focused on top White House aides, Trump's immediate family, and the president himself in a wide-ranging examination that has stymied the Trump administration for months.
Some of Trump's lawyers are also looking for ways to "limit or undercut" Mueller's investigation, The Washington Post reported Thursday night, citing people familiar with Trump's legal counsel's thinking.
The Trump administration has already employed such tactics to a degree by accusing Mueller and his investigative team of various conflicts of interest. Trump has pointed out, for example, that Mueller has hired investigators who openly supported Hillary Clinton, his rival in the 2016 election.
The question of whether Trump can pardon himself of any crimes has been floated before. One of Trump's advisers told The Post the president had "simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority."
"This is not in the context of, 'I can't wait to pardon myself,'" the adviser said, according to the newspaper.
Trump has previously floated what he suggested were conflicts of interest from Mueller as a possible reason for removing the former FBI director from the investigation.
Trump appeared to suggest as much in a Wednesday interview with The New York Times in deriding Mueller's interviewing for the FBI director job the day before he was appointed as special counsel. On Thursday, the White House walked back the president's comments, saying Trump "has no intention" to remove Mueller from the Russia investigation.
Still, the White House is said to be intent on finding fault in Mueller's investigators, The Times reported Thursday night, looking for ways to discredit the investigation or force some members of Mueller's team to recuse themselves.
Critics, including some Democrats, have described Trump's behavior toward the Russia investigators and toward the investigation itself as unbecoming of someone who is innocent.
"Russia's interference in the 2016 elections was an attack on our democracy," Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Thursday night. He added: "The possibility that the president is considering pardons at this early stage in these ongoing investigations is extremely disturbing."
"Pardoning any individuals who may have been involved would be crossing a fundamental line," Warner said.
Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under Barack Obama, offered a warning to Trump, saying the president "cannot define or constrain" Mueller's investigation.
"If he tries to do so," Holder said, "this creates issues of constitutional and criminal dimension."Californians support a ballot initiative to label groceries containing genetically engineered ingredients by more than a 2-to-1 margin, according to a Los Angeles Times poll released on Wednesday.
The ballot initiative, known as Proposition 37, is supported by 61 percent of registered voters and opposed by 25 percent of voters. An additional 14 percent were undecided or refused to answer.
If Proposition 37 succeeds in November, California will become the first state to require manufacturers and retailers to label genetically engineered produce and food containing genetically engineered crops, which are also known as “genetically modified organisms” or GMOs. About 50 countries require some kind of label on genetically engineered food.
Proposition 37 enjoys bipartisan support, with 66 percent of Democrats favoring the initiative while 19 percent are opposed, and 49 percent of Republicans supporting it while 35 percent are opposed.
Biotech agriculture critics hope the initiative could set the stage for similar efforts in other states and even in the national Congress, where a powerful agribusiness lobby and America’s overall reliance on GMO farming have kept labeling proposals off the table.
Monsanto’s TV Ads
The LA Times poll was conducted before the campaign against Proposition 37 launched an onslaught of TV ads aimed at turning Californians against the proposal.
The No on 37 campaign has considerably outraised the proponents with a total of $32.5 million in donations from processed-food manufacturers and agrichemical companies. Monsanto alone has donated $7.1 million.
The Yes on 37 campaign has raised about $3.9 million from organics companies and alternative health groups.
One anti-Proposition 37 ad features Central Valley farmer Ted Sheely, who claims the proposal would put farmers at a disadvantage and “the people least able to pay are going to be forced to pay more.”
“The opponents will have the debate about economics – that this proposition could raise the cost of groceries and make food more expensive,” said poll director Dan Schnur, who serves as Unruh Institute of Politics at University of Southern California Dornsife.
Even after being told that Proposition 37 could cost the state $100,000 to $1 million, 56 percent of voters polled still supported the initiative while 32 percent opposed, the pollsters reported.
Scary Food and Tumors in Rats
“Something called ‘genetically modified food’ sounds really scary to people, so it’s not surprising that support for the initiative is so strong,” said Schnur.
Proposition 37 supporters are touting a recently released French study that linked a Monsanto corn variety, along with the popular Roundup herbicide the corn is genetically engineered to tolerate, to tumors and organ failure in lab rats.
Western observers have been critical of the study, but both the French and Russian governments have asked their consumer watchdogs to investigate the findings further. Earlier this week, Russian authorities placed a temporary ban on the Monsanto corn variety. French agriculture ministers have threatened to ban the Monsanto corn if investigators find it could potentially harm human health.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The race for Cleveland's Ward 14 City Council seat is shaping up to be among the city's most contentious.
Through the course of the race, candidates or their supporters have filed a criminal complaint, challenged the voter eligibility of a candidate's family members, publicized past legal issues, successfully pressured one candidate to step down from her job and alleged that another candidate -- with the help of his uncle, a sitting councilman from another ward -- is a "ghost candidate" meant to split off votes. The race is tinged with old score settling of past political grudges.
The five-candidate primary is Sept. 12, though early voting started Aug. 15.
Brian Cummins
Incumbent Councilman Brian Cummins, who has represented the diverse West Side ward since 2006, is trying to hang on to his seat. He won his 2013 re-election bid by only 19 votes. But since then, he has left the Green Party and declared himself a Democrat while working recently to align himself more closely with Council President Kevin Kelley and Mayor Frank Jackson, both of whom have endorsed him this time around.
It was Cummins who cast the swing vote to try to fast-track a taxpayer-funded overhaul of Quicken Loans Arena, favored by Jackson, Kelley and other civic leaders, but canceled this week following activist opposition. He said his vote was part of an ongoing effort to make himself more politically relevant, which he said will allow him to better represent his ward. He points to the Clark-Fulton neighborhood subsequently being chosen as one of the three city neighborhoods targeted under Jackson's recently approved $65 million neighborhood investment plan. He hopes the investment will direct money to the Villa Hispana area near West 25th St. and Clarke Ave. and help it become the vibrant commercial and culture hub the community has long discussed.
"There would never be any quid pro quo, per se," Cummins said. "But clearly my willingness to be open and not be a single-issue elected official I think helps."
Jasmin Santana
Cummins is facing a spirited challenge from Jasmin Santana, a longtime ward resident who has been endorsed by the ward's Democratic club and its influential leader, Rick Nagin, who finished second to Cummins in the 2009 election.
Santana, 38, earlier this month resigned her job as a community-engagement coordinator for the Hispanic Alliance, an umbrella group for other Hispanic nonprofits. She said she was stepping down to focus on the "campaign and the family," but her opponents had grumbled that her position with the organization had given her unfair access to potential voters. Before the Hispanic Alliance, Santana worked for MetroHealth to recruit minority women to participate in a breast-cancer education, early-detection program there.
Santana was born and raised in Ward 14, and lives in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood. She said Cummins has not been responsive to the concerns of residents in the ward, which is one of the city's poorest.
"They're frustrated. They're tired with how things are going, and just want something new," she said.
Nelson Cintron
Other challengers are Nelson Cintron, the former Ward 14 councilman turned perennial losing candidate and Omar Medina, a pastor and community organizer.
Cintron, a businessman, has run for his old seat every election since he was voted out of office in 2005, but has failed to place higher than third. Santana's supporters complain that he is serving as a spoiler in the race, splitting off Hispanic votes, and that he only is seen in the ward when he is running for office. Earlier this month, Santana's campaign manager, Diane Morgan, filed a |
green, but John associates himself with the color blue.
John tends to be a bit of a goofball, making bad jokes and using off-beat humour and subtle irony. He has a typical nerd nature in that he is very passive and follows commands more easily than the others, complying with commands not because of their logical sense but because he was told to. His optimism through stalwart skepticism causes his friends think of him as the leader while he prefers just being their friend.
From Dave's description, John is the kind of person who generally does not get emotionally wavered by events that would drive others to the brink, but instead gets riled up and irrationally stubborn over ridiculous minutia, to the amusement or confusion of others. This is proven true on a number of occasions throughout the comic, as he is shown to be his normal self during the some of the more traumatic events of his session, but loses his mind when he briefly loses interest in Con Air. In a sense, he is one of the more innocent characters in the comic.
He is more prone to bad ideas than his friends and is made out to be the butt of a lot of jokes when he chats with them through Pesterchum. He also celebrates the birthdays of his friends, sending them gifts. John has a tendency to be given commands about making noises and shitting on things. Fortunately, he hasn't complied with any of these, though he often seems to consider them against his better judgement.
John is by far one of the most inventive of the main characters; from the beginning, he shows more innovative prowess in combining items than any of the others, even before the introduction of the alchemiter; he demonstrates this with his poster-nailing and harlequin-funniness-amplifying abilities. He is the most grounded of the main characters, contrasting Rose's bookish, logical demeanor, Dave's unceasing pursuit of transcendent irony and Jade's air-headed, scatterbrained antics. He is also the kindest - Rose is generally very cold emotionally, Dave is quite willing to put the pursuit of irony before consideration for others, and Jade's ideas of kindness tend to be a bit odd, although not out of actual malice.
John proves to be quite generous and spends more time than the others helping his Consorts. This is in special contrast to Rose who actively antagonizes them and intentionally sets about destroying her own planet once she learns their session is null and Dave, who appears to have disregarded them entirely when he wasn't stealing all of their money through the LOHAC Stock Exchange. His post-scratch self is described by Dirk as being a real kindly old cornball and that a nicer guy you couldn't hope to meet.
He also has a strong propensity for self-described 'HILARIOUS ANTICS,' and has all of the points on his Prankster's Gambit. All of them. Although Rose and Dave both frequently take potshots at the quality of his jokes and pranks he appears to have a genuine talent for comedy, as his post-scratch self became a world-famous comedian.
Relationships Edit
Beta Kids Edit
Dave, Rose and Jade are his best friends, and have been for quite some time. None of their feelings for each other has changed since the session has started, although he does think Rose has gotten "crazier," and has half-jokingly sworn to rescue her from the clutches of evil caused by her commune with the deep ones. John is seen to have a close sibling relationship with Jade, as he had refused to leave her alone and stayed back with her for 3 years straight. John does think that Dave is cool, but only says this between him and Dave as seen in the birthday note he sent him. On multiple occasions, Dave has described them as "best bros."
He appears to be nervous about Karkat's idea of him marrying Rose; although John has brought up the shipping grid and marrying Rose on quite a few occasions, despite his supposed hesitance. Additionally, around the time of Seer: Descend John began to show multiple signs of having a romantic crush on Rose. His reactions to Jade asking him if he is "in love with Rose" on also suggest this. However, after meeting her again three years later John no longer behaves this way around her.
Roxy Lalonde Edit
Mirroring the aforementioned romantic crush John may have had on Rose as well as the relationship between Rose's Mom and Dad Egbert, Roxy's crush on Jake, and even Roxy's crush on Jane's Dad, John and Roxy hit it off upon meeting - John attempts to keep her entertained, and Roxy makes a mental note to mack on John, considering him "possible boyfriend material." When they met again on Roxy's planet after the events of [S] GAME OVER, he attempted to comfort her. Terezi insisted that their awkward goodbyes displayed P41NFULLY 3V1D3NT ROM4NT1C T3NS1ON. They meet again after John finishes his quest and discuss what to do next in terms of the main plot. After several timeline related shenanigans, Roxy is visibly happy to see John return to LOWAS. John hands the ring of life over to an especially happy Roxy, and she in turn grabs John's hand as they venture onward into what can only be assumed to be even more timeline related shenanigans. He describes Roxy to Dave as really nice and fun and easy to talk to. He also stated he felt worse for her after the catastrophic events that they witnessed than he felt for himself. After John tells Dave about his experiences with Roxy, Dave notes these highly probable romantic feelings, telling John that it sounds like you like her, to which he responds "maybe".
In [S] ACT 7 he is seen walking together with Roxy and Calliope.
Jake English Edit
John quickly develops a friendly relationship with Jake when they meet - they have, among other similarites, a common fondness for movies and similar personalities. John invites Jake to join him, Rose, and Roxy in making plans for dealing with the villains, likely so that he can spend more time with him. He stated that Jake strikes him as a nice regular dude who likes movies and stuff.
Karkat Vantas Edit
His relationship with Karkat has sort of become a duo of hate and friendship. John now enjoys all of Karkat's hate filled rants because of the sheer 'insane trolling' Karkat is capable of. While not his patron troll, Karkat has trolled him backwards through almost every step of his journey. After he finished his backwards trolling, Karkat's feelings toward John became far less antagonistic, and he has even apologized for all his bad behavior to him and his friends. John considers him as his favorite troll.
Terezi Pyrope Edit
His talks with Terezi have been strained at best. The first time they talked, Terezi threatened to kill him as a prank, which caused him to change his Pesterchum handle. Later on, he gets involved in Terezi's plot to mess up the timeline, although they constantly antagonized each other. Since Dave has started working together with Terezi, she has stopped talking to John for the most part, as Vriska became his new patron troll.
Having met up after the bloodbath on LOFAF, the two of them began scheming to use John's powers to F1X TH1S. Although their plot was successful, Terezi and John still appear to be on bad terms, with Terezi calling him a N3RD and belittling him, and John thinking that she's been pranking him, also frequently calling her either weird or insane. After John explains to Dave his interactions with Terezi, Karkat insists that John has a caliginous crush on Terezi, although John argues that humans cannot have those kinds of relations. Dave, however, supports Karkat's claim, saying that karkat knows his shit when it comes to quadrants. John later has mixed feelings about the idea, denying that he is black for her but heavily implying otherwise. It is possible that Terezi returns John's black feelings (or has some sort of other feelings for him), supported when she says to Vriska,, and does not finish her sentence. Later, he and Terezi have a conversation which, although we don't get to see what they say, seems to be filled with black flirting and trading insults. When Terezi leaves, John says BYE, IDIOT!!!!!!! and then blushes as Roxy looks at him.
Kanaya Maryam Edit
John has talked to Kanaya twice: first (from his perspective) months in the past, and second during Sburb through Rose's account. John said she was kinda cool after their first conversation.
Aradia Megido Edit
John has twice talked to Aradia since joining Vriska's pirate crew. The first time he was introduced to her he questioned her ghostliness to which she responded with her claim to being alive, and the second time he had asked her about her opinions on Vriska's crew's adventure. However, her response, to which he replied "you are all so insane!", seemed to have.
Vriska Serket Edit
John's relationship with Vriska is a very complex one. It seems to fluctuate between admiring and disliking her. At first, Vriska decided to help John on his quest as a means of competing with Terezi, who was helping Dave. Vriska was very bossy and a control freak towards John at first, which he found kind of annoying, but he still enjoyed talking with her. Vriska and John's feelings developed deeper: John used more of her typing quirk to please her, Vriska made an outfit for John that she said makes him totally hot, and John showed her Nicolas Cage, who became her fangirl crush. However, after Vriska killed Tavros, Vriska opened up more of her feelings than she had with anybody else. She held John's opinion of her in highest respect, fearing that he would be angry with her. She has told him about not only her remorse for killing, but how her views of killing compared to those of troll society, how much she admired humans for being weaker but nicer, and her entire background. Though he was a bit freaked out after hearing that Vriska had murdered twice and killed thousands to feed her Lusus, he didn't seem to think less of her after receiving the shock.
John was shown to still care about Vriska's wellbeing afterwards, and Vriska reciprocated these feelings, hoping that John would get strong enough to stop Jack and protect their friends in case she died trying to fight him. Before her death, Vriska asked John out on a date, confirming that Vriska's feelings for John were red after all. John accepted, but Vriska was killed by Terezi, leaving a visibly shaken Karkat to look through their last pesterlog and respond through her account. After switching to his own account, he asked John if he genuinely liked Vriska, upon which John confirmed he did—prompting Karkat to withhold the information of Vriska's death and the specifics of Gamzee's rampage for now to avoid distracting John from the important tasks at hand.
During the ride to the new session, John claimed to no longer care much about romance. When Jade asked what this meant about Vriska, he said what he and Vriska talked about, and that is was a bit silly to base a romance on just a day's worth of conversations. He referred to her as that troll girl who was sort of into me, suggesting that he forgot about Vriska somewhat, but when he talks to Meenah a little later, he asks her if she has seen Karkat or Vriska (the only two trolls he really got to know well) around, showing that he does remember her more than his conversations with Jade suggested.
He later met Vriska's ghost in dream bubbles twice, and after seeing she was using the other dead trolls' ghosts as bait to defeat L rd English, he began to be somewhat disturbed by her, considering her to be dangerous. He confessed to Roxy that he was beginning to think he might actually kind of hate her, and went so far as to call her diabolical. However during John's retcon shenanigans, he interferes during Terezi and Vriska's standoff, and per future Terezi's directions: prevents the cerulean blooded troll's death by punching her in the face, showing no hesitation in punching her nor in preventing her death. Soon afterwards, he does apologize to the unconscious troll girl for punching her, and admits that it will be neat to meet her alive self, showing that his former hatred for her either diminished over time or was vented out in that punch. After arriving in the new timeline with Roxy, he is happy to see Vriska, saying that [her], um, *ways* probably are more valuable to have here, in the land of the living, and her thought-out plan for taking on all the threats in the session.
Gallery Edit
John reviving. Doing the Windy Thing John's Victory Dance
Trivia Edit
See also EditThere was a great deal of risk that came with trading one of the Association's premier big men in DeMarcus Cousins, and considering the lackluster haul the Sacramento Kings received in their dealings with the New Orleans Pelicans, it's easy to see why there are so many question marks surrounding the direction the franchise is currently heading in.
Through all of the negativity and uncertainty, though, general manager Vlade Divac remains confident in his decision to ship Boogie off, and if that ends up leading to his demise in his current role somewhere down the road, then so be it.
"That’s my job, and I take responsibility. And I totally understand why some fans would be upset. They supported DeMarcus, and I like DeMarcus a lot. But I believe we are going to be in a better position in two years," Divac told the Sacramento Bee's Ailene Voisin. "I want to hear again from these same people in two years.
"If I’m right, great. If I’m wrong, I’ll step down. But if I go down, I’m going down my way."
Related - Cousins: Kings trading me was 'a coward move'
The move to the Big Easy came as a total surprise to Cousins, as he had been told by Divac and owner Vivek Ranadive that he wasn't going anywhere, with the two even consulting him over potential personnel moves to improve the roster ahead of time.
Ultimately, management felt that a fresh start was long overdue for both parties, despite seemingly telling Cousins and his agents that wasn't the case.
Related - Divac justifies trading Cousins: 'It was time for a change'
"It was a lot of things, but basically, I thought it was time to start over," Divac added. "There was a lot of bad stuff happening here the last five years, a lot of bad habits. There were always issues, many you don’t even know about. Now I believe strongly this was the right thing to do for our future. Now I have a clear vision. This city deserves better, and I want to create that. With DeMarcus’ situation, I basically was stuck.
"Maybe we're going to win a few more games than last year but probably not make the playoffs. Then where are we? Same old place. And we have that contract to deal with. If we keep DeMarcus this summer, we have to extend him, or otherwise he would be on an expiring contract that everyone would be afraid of. Teams don’t trade a lot for a player they aren’t sure will re-sign with you. And if he extended, we couldn’t sign him for an entire year anyway."
In Cousins' stead is a 24-year-old scoring guard in Buddy Hield, the expiring contract of once-former King and Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans, a backup in Langston Galloway, and two draft picks. Sacramento emerged victorious in its first outing following the blockbuster trade on Thursday against the Denver Nuggets, but fell short on Saturday in a 14-point loss to the visiting Charlotte Hornets.A seven-year-old French schoolgirl has been pulled from the clutches of a kidnapper by her classmates who kicked and punched the intruder until he fled, police say.
An unknown man accosted the child last Friday after slipping into the school playground in Plaisir west of Paris, offering the girl sweets to follow him.
When she refused, he tried to drag her into his car, but an eight-year-old classmate ran up and started kicking and punching the assailant, and tried to trip him up, local police inspector Heloise Gresy said on Thursday.
"There was lots of shouting, and a dozen other kids from the class came over and sent him fleeing," she said.
Police, who have issued a search warrant, described the man as white with grey hair, a small beard and a white hat, driving a dark convertible car.
AFPThe Phillies currently have $117.5 million in salary obligations for 2014. That's $117.5 million that can only come off the books by way of a trade. Ryan Howard's $25 million salary would be nearly impossible to move. Same goes for Jimmy Rollins' $11 million, unless the short stop were to OK a trade, something he indicated in July he would not do. Cole Hamels is guaranteed $22.5 million, while Cliff Lee is guaranteed $25 million. Both would generate some interest on the trade market, but with the Rays reportedly shopping David Price, neither Hamels nor Lee would be the biggest draw. Price will be eligible for arbitration this year and next year after earning $10.113 million in 2013. He is cheaper than Hamels or Lee. And over the last four years he has been just as good or better than both.Another compilation of my process photos, a brief walk-through, and a little insight into my experience. It could only mean one thing….
….Time for another addition of….
Or something.
And now that you have that theme song stuck in your head, I’m going to talk about my latest painting, “The Amazing Lobster Boy” and how it’s not remotely related to the jaunty antics of a happily blended family (well, maybe a little bit since the opening credits take place at a carnival.) However, there was quite a journey that went into making this painting, so that’s what this post is all about.
This particular piece grew into something special and thinking about the process really took me back to my days as an art therapist when the work I produced reflected so much of where I was in life. I made a decision a long time ago that I wasn’t going to be heady about my art. I was going to paint what I wanted to paint, whatever I enjoyed, and what would make me happy. It’s why I primarily dug my heels in creating pop culture art— it allows me to analyze characters I find intriguing and build a piece around them. And that’s what I did with this painting. However, I will admit that I haven’t felt this personally connected to the work in a long time. That’s not to say that my other paintings are devoid of my presence— an artist always leaves a part of themselves in their work— but this one hits home. That might seem silly given that down to the bare bones it’s television “fan art”, but hear me out…
A few months back I was invited to join the Uforge Gallery Member Collective— a collaborative arts community based out of a fantastic local gallery. I was hesitant at first, but I knew I needed to put my anxiety aside and surround myself with other artists. I work with artists every day in theatre, but it’s different when you’re all focused on making someone else’s vision come to fruition and I was desperate to find a community that could help my personal work grow. So the Member Collective it was.
The theme for our next members-only gallery exhibition was “arcana” with the instructions to choose a tarot card out of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and recreate it in your style. We were given a 16”x28” panel and told to go at it. Tarot reading was a staple in my house growing up— my mom read cards professionally for a time and she taught me when I was very young (I can’t say I remember much of it now, but thinking back, it’s probably why I was drawn to Jungian archetypal analysis when I was in school for art therapy.) With the assignment in mind, I dug out my old tarot deck, unwrapped it from the silk cloth it lived in, and thumbed through cards looking for inspiration. There was so much potential, but none of my ideas seemed to sit well. Nothing felt right.
After going back and forth with a couple of concepts, a friend suggested I do something from American Horror Story: Freakshow because I could really run with the sideshow aesthetic…and I finally had my aha moment. I know that Freakshow has been far from a fan favorite season, but I adore it because of the visuals. The tents, trailers, muslin drops— there were so many times this season that I’ve though “Oh, I would have loved to make that.” I adore working on sets that have a distressed circus feel— on those occasions, we often get the directive from designers to make pieces feel like they’ve been folded, packed away, and unpacked again. (You can see some of my circus-y themed scenic work by visiting my portfolio pages for Pippin and The Tempest) There’s something magical making a new set that looks like it has the history of a traveling show. Paint chipped away, seams worn down and frayed, scuffs, rust, and grime, all contrasted by bold, bright colors. I love it. So I immediately jumped at the thought of painting a vintage sideshow poster.
I went through the tarot deck again trying to decide what character would be most fitting. There were so many possibilities, but I had to feel it in my gut. I came across the Two of Pentacles and felt a spark ignite. I remembered a scene where Jimmy was practicing his act and he says “For as long as I remember, I’ve been known as Lobster Boy, Son of Neptune, God of the Sea. But my pincers don’t hold me back. Watch me juggle!”
(gif set by twistymott on Tumblr)
I liked the idea of a character mirroring the actions of a card while using a direct quote from the show. And it fit perfectly with the circus theme. When I read into the meaning of the card, I thought it really spoke to the character. I chose this card for Jimmy, not because he epitomizes the meaning of the card, but the card stands for everything he needs. (You can read a detailed meaning of the Two of Pentacles here ) Within Jimmy’s arc, he struggles with keeping balance. He juggles between wanting to leave the freakshow to start a normal life and loyalty to his identity as a freak. He juggles between wanting to be a leader but also being completely dependent. He juggles with the potential of who he could be and a damned, drunken existence because of how he was born. He is conflicted and flawed– and the thing he needs most is the strength to balance.
At the time I didn’t realize it, but the thought of juggling different roles and needing that strength to balance it all was hitting close to home. While I was working on this painting I was faced with challenging deadlines and overtime hours at work, designing and building a window display for a friend’s business, planning Thanksgiving dinner, a family emergency on my husband’s side that required a sudden four hour trek to his hometown, and then a heartbreaking phone call that my grandmother passed away followed by six hour road trip and a funeral Thanksgiving weekend. November was a trying month and I’m grateful had this project to ground me. Jimmy sure as hell couldn’t keep his shit together, but painting him helped me stay intact.
I first started by working out the composition and general color scheme with a sketch and thumbnail.
I was anticipating that the most challenging part of of painting “Lobster Boy” was portraying the ectrodactyly condition of the character’s hands without making it look as though they were just poorly rendered. I could have exaggerated the hands completely by painting actual lobster claws in a similar vain to some old sideshow banners, but I decided for a more subtle approach by keeping the shape of the show’s prosthetics and letting the text help tell the story.
Once I had my composition idea set, I started collecting resources. Screen captures, promotional images, fonts, and pictures of vintage posters. I also had my husband pose so I could have a clean reference for the position of the body. I hand drew all of the elements I wanted to incorporate, scanned them in, and worked out my final composition to scale in photoshop.
The wooden board I was working on was 1/2” ply, so before I could paint I needed to treat it using some of my scenic art tricks. Using joint compound, I lightly skim coated and sanded the surface in order to fill the grain before priming. In order to make a painting look convincingly old, numerous layers need to be built up.
I started by basing the whole background in by scumbling orange, yellow ochre, and burnt sienna. I wanted the finished piece to have rust seeping through the paint, so I used a reactive iron paint in places and rusted it with a combination of rust activator and vinegar. Using a crackling medium, then painted over it all with my base yellow latex house paint and let it dry. Once the background was grungy enough for my liking, I sealed it with a matte spray sealer to ensure the rust wouldn’t affect further layers on top.
I transferred my line drawing onto the board and began to paint.
And paint.
And paint.
Building up the background, I integrated more crackle medium to further the effect of layers of paint chipping away. To finalize the whole aging technique, I used a wooden block to apply thick layers of the base yellow paint in places and then aged the whole thing down with a drippy brown wash.
I really wanted to capture Evan Peters’ likeness and so I paid special attention to the face. I always start loose and build my layers tighter and tighter. His eyes are super intense, so I ended up futzing with them a lot in order to nail down the right gaze.
Last, but not least, I used a gold metal leaf for the pentacles and an oil-based paint pen to draw the pentagrams in. So voilá!
I’ve been blown away with the kind of reception this piece has gotten so far and it really makes all of the work worth it. I was especially nervous about unveiling this one — probably because of how personal it became to me — so just seeing how people have been enjoying it has really put all of my apprehension at ease.
The Arcana show at the Uforge Gallery runs from January 9th, 2015 to February 1st, so anyone in the Boston area should definitely check it out. There is such an amazing collection of contributing artists and I really can’t wait to see all of the work together in a set.
As for “The Amazing Lobster Boy”, I’ve finally set up a home printing station and launched my own Etsy store to sell prints! If you would like to purchase a print, you can find it HERE in my new store!
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Like this: Like Loading…President Trump during his first reelection fundraiser Wednesday night reportedly went after the media and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The president specifically targeted CNN during the event, which was closed to the press, Politico reported. He criticized the network for what he described as unfair reporting.
Trump also touted the Republicans' recent victories in special congressional elections, according to Politico. And he joked about Pelosi, whose leadership came under new scrutiny after a disappointing loss for Democrats in Georgia.
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Trump's fundraiser Wednesday came less than six months into his presidency.
Members of the press were barred from attending the event, a White House decision that sparked controversy.
Trump was greeted Wednesday night by protests and jeers as he arrived at the event, held at his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Trump frequently targets the media. He has recently launched several attacks on CNN after the network last week had to retract a story tying a top Trump ally to a Russian investment bank.
Earlier this week, he questioned what other "phony stories" CNN puts out and said the network is looking at "big management changes."When I was a teenager waiting tables in a series of Italian eateries of wavering quality, I would have leapt at the chance to replace myself with an iPad, as Applebee’s has recently rolled out. The meals I served back then were generally not “cooked” so much as they were “poured from a slit in a bag and reheated,” and the only thing that made me sadder than people ordering the food was people liking it. That flashing electronic device at each table may sound disheartening, but it’s less depressing than an actual human pretending she likes working at Applebee’s.
But there is much to be learned in the service industry, and at 23, I finally got a job at a restaurant I adored and admired, a Madison, Wis., farm-to-table place named L’Etoile that was trumpeting its local sourcing about 30 years before everyone else except Alice Waters. Surely the guests at such a restaurant would be gracious, even blissful. Surely we would bond over the love of fine food that had brought us together. And with many guests, this was indeed the case. But the grander truth I take away from my decade in the restaurant business is this: We would all be better people if restaurant work were compulsory. We might at first be more ragey, baffled-by-our-peers people, yes, but I submit that as time went on and a wave of restaurant-educated people burst forth, we’d benefit.
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Chopping away in the back of the house does not count for these purposes, by the way, difficult and demanding though that work is. In the kitchen, the worst you might do is grievously injure yourself. In the dining room, you face humanity.
And this is humanity at its most oblivious, tetchy and petulant. We’ve all heard about the snooty, demanding restaurant guests, but snootiness was not generally a big problem in Madison. When the arena is a friendly college town in the Midwest, you’re not really achieving much by getting your way — it’s Wisconsin! We were probably going to do that for you, anyway. The occasional celebrity strolled through, visiting a kid at UW or playing a concert, but they were invariably low-key and unobtrusive. No, it was the regular folks who drained me of my will to stay in the restaurant business, and at times my will to breathe.
When I was still working for a restaurant that made pizza by unwrapping frozen dough-discs and running them through a glorified toaster, I expected little of my fellow humans. Were we not all there because we’d agreed to settle? They wanted cheap food and I wanted a job staffed with my friends, where management was not too eagle-eyed about the wine spigots. (Oh, yes: spigots.) But at an upscale, serious restaurant, the occasional rudeness and unalloyed weirdness of my customers seemed almost personal. This was my place, a place where I had saved my money to dine many times before I dared to try and work there, a place that introduced me to vaporous local cheeses, luscious, dripping moonglow pears and crisp-skinned sweetbreads I can still recall tasting to this day.
And yet when people climbed the stairs and entered our dining room, many relinquished some crucial awareness along with their winter coats: of their bodies and others’, of social norms, of the laws of time and space. Either we have taken this “customer is always right” approach way too far, or else we have absorbed it far too greedily. I too love the fantasy and the sheer theater of a good restaurant experience, but it can feel so divorced from daily life that people take it as the opportunity to enjoy a total meltdown of the social compact. Eye contact, replies to direct questions and protecting your progeny from obvious dangers all fall by the wayside. A restaurant guest intent upon his own coddling is an alarming beast.
Parents set their babies free to crawl in the treacherous aisle where the servers carried great trays of dishes. People would plunder our expensive flower arrangements, drunkenly requesting “a rose for each of the ladies.” Some felt so freed from the drudgery of cooking and serving a meal that they forgot that humans with bodies were involved in the process of feeding them at all. These were the people who gestured madly and unexpectedly, flinging their elbows into a server’s solar plexus and sloshing martinis off of our trays.
Oh, not all people were violent or hazardous. Some were simply odd. Diners occasionally rose from their tables to stand by the windows and gaze out at the starry winter night, sipping their wine and posing in the light from the adjacent capitol building, so that the servers could feel them feel us watching. I understood the impulse — we’ve all seen those movies in which closing down a restaurant is the height of romance, and in those scenes one never sees a server. But we were there, our backs to the dining room floor that now doubled as the living room in someone’s personal romance novel, rolling our eyes.
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I confess that, these days, I get it. It’s been a long time since I waited tables, and as the years have passed I have slowly stopped identifying with the house and started identifying instead with the guests. Now that I’m the one so delighted to get the hell out of the house and have a glass of wine, I too am sometimes tempted to regress to loud adolescent gaiety, or to allow the staff’s illusion of effortlessness to overcome the part of my brain that says, These people are working, and working hard, and it’s nice if you do not actively sabotage them. But it happens to me, too, that urge to make my rare night out exactly what I’d hoped, even when I know it might annoy the staff. The older I get the less embarrassed I am to be the lightweight requesting a half glass of wine instead of a full one, or to flout a restaurant’s refusal to fill that wasteland between drinks and first course and, like some Dickensian waif, express a desire for a crust of bread. (I know it’s very now to charge six bucks for a few slices of bread with hand-molded local butter, but seriously, people: if you know I can’t get out of your establishment without dropping a hundred dollars, throw me a bone, or a single Sungold stabbed with a pine nut, something.)
The funny thing is, during my years of working in a restaurant that demanded a great deal of its employees, not least of which was graciousness in the face of rudeness, I loved my job. I loved immersing myself in the world of food, learning about wine, quizzing the cooks on technique, introducing people to ground cherries or foie gras. It was not an easy job to obtain and I was proud to be there. But the cumulative effect of well, people, eventually took its toll.
Here is where I find myself turning an about-face of sorts. I have long thought everyone should have to wait tables, but for years my goal was collective comeuppance or just to scare them straight. Now, the more I consider the effect of my own experience, the more I become the consumer instead of the provider, the more I realize what unsettles me still about restaurant life isn’t the bad behavior. It is the moments when the empathy is too unavoidable and too painful, when guests arrived hoping to enjoy the public intimacy of the dining room and ended up regretting it: the proposals that were not accepted, or the girl who got up to visit the restroom before the main course arrived, leaving her date and the servers to slowly realize she wasn’t returning.
A required year on the front lines would not just be a refresher in simple good manners, but the reminder of the underlying purpose of those manners: Even in a privileged dining room, this is a crowded, uneasy world, and being considerate of each other at the moments our lives unavoidably intersect can smooth the rough edges just a little bit. A former server is more likely to treat wait staff as sentient beings, yes, but I’d like to think we also retain some measure of empathy, too, much as we try to squelch it. A lot of lives came into my orbit when I was a server, drawing me in at moments that were joyous, sorrowful, nerve-wracking and all the more delightful or harrowing for occurring so publicly. You can’t live in your own hermetic world if you’re a server; you can’t avoid learning about the lives of others, not when those others arrive in your life each and every night, bringing with them a bundle of hopes and worries and celebrations and rifts.
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I still think of that girl who ditched her date and wonder what spurred her to do it. They seemed uncomfortable at the restaurant, too young and uncertain to enjoy it, perhaps. She had long blonde hair, bangs, and wore a black dress with flowers on it. He had on a beige shirt, brown tie, and parted hair. I’m sure neither remembers me and that both hope I don’t remember them. But I do. I remember trying to be brisk and unobtrusive when I cleared her untouched plate — is it possible I wrapped it up for him to take home? I only recall that it was hard to bear, the machinations we all had to work through, complicit in pretending this was not humiliating — the table-clearing, the pointless but obligatory offer of coffee or dessert, the bill, the signing — before I could step back and release him, both of us hoping we’d never see one another again.MANILA — Poorer countries that have borne the brunt of climate change’s effects will save, not lose, money by putting in place ways to rescue the environment, Al Gore said yesterday.
The former US vice president spoke to a forum in Manila in one of his first public engagements since he and his wife, Tipper, announced they had separated after 40 years of marriage. He would not answer audience questions about it, and reporters did not have an opportunity for interviews.
In the lecture focused on Asia, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate blamed global warming for droughts and frequent, more destructive typhoons, including those that have left millions homeless in India, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam over the last several years.
“When there are lots of them, much more frequently and they are bigger on average, how can we |
We're all one car wreck away from needing somebody's help. I'm here tonight because Obamacare is failing. We wouldn't be having this show if it was working. In my state, we had a 31 percent premium increase Friday. We had five insurers in 2014. We're down to one. It's not working in South Carolina, and I don't think it's ever going to work anywhere. It's time to look for a replacement. It's not enough to repeal it; you've got to replace it. I think we've got a damn good idea.
TAPPER: Senator Bernie Sanders?
SANDERS: Well, since President Trump was elected, these gentlemen and the Republican leadership have on five occasions tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, thrown tens and tens of millions of Americans off of the health insurance they currently have, and make it impossible or very difficult for people with pre-existing conditions to get the health care that they can afford. What these guys want to do is force older workers to see a very significant increase in their premiums, which is why the AARP is vigorously opposed to their legislation. They want to tell 2.5 million women in the United States of America who today choose Planned Parenthood to get their health care they can't do that, because they want to defund Planned Parenthood. But here is the most important point. We're going to have a debate. It'll be a good debate. We like each other. But — yeah, we really do.
(LAUGHTER)
But here's the point. Every major health organization in this country, whether it is the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Cancer Society, the Alzheimer's Society, every single major medical organization in this country thinks that their proposal is a disaster. So our job now is to defeat this disastrous proposal, get back to the drawing board, see if we can work together for some short-term fixes. Long term, in my view — I speak only for myself — this country has got to join the rest of the industrialized world, guarantee health care as a right of all people.
TAPPER: OK, Senator, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Senator Cassidy?
GRAHAM: Take longer than a minute and 15.
CASSIDY: For 25 years, I worked in the public hospital system of Louisiana trying to bring health care to those who did not have. And I learned in those 25 years that when the patient has the power, the system lines up to serve her. And when the bureaucrat has the power, it first serves the bureaucrat. Now, this is a debate about who has the power. Is it you, the patient, or is it the federal government? The narrative on the other side is that you don't have the capability to care for yourself, that your governor is corrupt, scheming to take away your protections if you have a pre-existing condition. And they think the federal government taking control of your life is a better way to go.
The logical extension of that, unfortunately, is the Charlie Gard case, the Charlie Gard case in which the single payer of England said the decide — the life — the decision of the life of your child is too important for the parents to make, and then the child died. I will tell you, if it's a decision about you versus the federal government, we side with you. Those who oppose us and those who want single payer, they choose otherwise. Thank you.
TAPPER: Senator Klobuchar?
(APPLAUSE)
KLOBUCHAR: I'm up here on this stage because 20 years ago my daughter was born, and she was really sick. And she couldn't swallow, and she was in intensive care. And I was kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours. That was a rule back then. And I went to the legislature as a private citizen and got one of the first bills passed in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour hospital stay. Our story ends well. My daughter got better and better. We fed her with tubes. My husband, who's here, and I did for about a year-and-a-half. But she graduated from college this year. And I think every mom and dad should be able to take care of their kids that way and be able to have insurance. I believe politics is about making people's lives better. But this bill, it doesn't do that. It kicks millions of people off insurance. It raises the premiums. It basically passes the buck to the states, but doesn't give them the bucks to cover people. So that's why I think we need to work together on the plans that are already underway to fix the Affordable Care Act and put the politics aside and focus on people first. TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
TAPPER: Let's go to our audience now. I want to bring in Warren Hudak. He's a Republican from Pennsylvania. His wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis several years ago, and their current policy does not cover the $6,000 a month needed for his wife's medication. And he has a question for Senator Graham. Warren?
QUESTION: Actually, Senator Cassidy, the deadline for Senate action on repeal isSeptember 30th. The Senate failed to pass repeal and replace, full repeal, skinny repeal, and now, it appears that the votes aren't there for the Graham-Cassidy proposal that would shift decisions to the states. The whole health care system is collapsing. Premiums are skyrocketing. Choices are dwindling in and out of the exchange. What can the Senate do before open enrollment to reduce the cost of premiums, not just subsidize them, reduce the cost of premiums? People are hurting. We need action.
TAPPER: We're going to — I'm sorry, we're going to have that for Senator Graham. We're equally dispersing them. So, Senator Graham, if you — if you want to handle that one. What can the Senate do before open enrollment to lower the cost of premiums, not just further subsidizing?
GRAHAM: Being honest with ourselves that what our Democratic friends did is not working. Now, we can talk about how to go forward, but I don't think you're going to find many people up on this stage saying that what happened with Obamacare is working for you and your family. So what we want to do is repeal the individual mandate and the employer mandate, take the rest of the Obamacare taxes and block grant it back to each state in a formula that I think is fair to give people in your state control over the money so they can design a health care system good for Pennsylvania that may be different than South Carolina. The only thing I can tell you for sure, if you keep doing what we're doing, it's going to fail not just in South Carolina, but everywhere, so that we have a replacement idea that takes the money that would have been spent by bureaucrats that you have no idea who they are and put it in the hands of people you actually can vote for. And my good friend from Pennsylvania, under this idea, your governor and your state house member will be accountable for your health care. And if you don't like what they're doing, you can say, "Please, change it or else." Under this system, who do you complain to? Does anybody in here know who runs Obamacare in your state? Do you know your governor? Do you know your state house member? Do you know your state senator? This is the biggest change in health care in my lifetime, is giving a people a chance to complain to somebody who cares.
TAPPER: Senator Sanders, would you like to respond?
SANDERS: It's not giving people a choice. It's cutting Medicaid by a trillion dollars over 10 years and throwing millions of people off of health insurance who have no money. And let us be clear. These are wonderful gentlemen, and I know nobody up here wants to see anybody die. But you tell me what happens when somebody who has cancer, somebody who has a serious heart condition, somebody who has a life-threatening disease suddenly loses the health insurance that they have.
And the experts and studies tell us that under their type of proposal, thousands of people every single year will die. What should we do short term? For a start, what they didn't manage to do is to take on the pharmaceutical industry and lower the cost of prescription drugs. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Sir, from Pennsylvania, it might help you if you had a public option, a choice of a Medicaid or a Medicare type plan to compete with the private insurance program. Thirdly, what we can do short term with their cooperation is lower the age of Medicare eligibility to 55 years of age. That would help a heck of a lot of people.
TAPPER: Senator Graham, could I just ask you a question? With the news tonight of Senator Collins saying that she's a no vote, that's three no votes.
GRAHAM: Right. Right.
TAPPER: You can't afford to lose more than two. What are you doing at this late hour to get the 50 votes you need to pass the bill?
GRAHAM: Well, we're talking to Alaska. Alaska has 750,000 people, twice the size of Texas. By the way, I've learned a lot about health care in other states because I'm sort of focusing on your problems versus, you know, relying on somebody in Washington to tell me about Alaska. So we're going to press on. And it's OK to vote. It's OK to fall short if you do for an idea you believe in. And all I can say to my good friend, Bernie Sanders, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt are going to consume all the money you send in taxes by 2040. If we don't turn this around now, we're going to leave a country that's completely and utterly bankrupt. Can you control the cost of Medicaid and still be humane? I think you can, and you better, because Medicare and Medicaid are on the path to just collapse. And I'm proud of the fact that we saved a trillion dollars. And you know how we did it? We took the Medicaid growth rates and brought them down to medical inflation. We didn't cut year to year. We just changed the inflation rate and saved a trillion dollars that can go into securing the nation. Education. We can't just be a country running two health care programs. We've got to be a country taking care of a lot of problems.
TAPPER: Thank you, Senator. Senator Klobuchar?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, two things. One, the independent governor from Alaska has already come out against this proposal, because he believes it's going to increase premiums. But to your point exactly is that you asked about what would happen immediately. What could we do immediately? And that is the work that's being led by Republican Senator Alexander, Democratic Senator Patty Murray to come together to say, look what they did just now in Minnesota. Republican legislature, my state, Democratic governor came together and said let's do something called reinsurance, which makes it so the most expensive person in a pool who's had some major catastrophic health event, they get siphoned off and paid for by the government so that everyone else's rates don't go up. This is the kind of proposal they're working on for the nation, along with other ways to help with co-pays and to allow states to design some of their own insurance without — without — making the drastic cuts that we see in the bill that my colleagues have proposed.
BASH: Senator, thank you. I want to bring in Matt DeCample from Arkansas who previously worked as the press secretary for Democratic Governor Mike Beebe. Matt was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer last year and is currently hoping for scientific advancement that will extend his life. And, Matt, you have a question for Senator Sanders?
QUESTION: I do. Senator Sanders, it feels like all of the ideas getting traction right now are extreme measures. You've got Graham-Cassidy, which would kind of strip the system down to the nubs and rebuild systems in 50 different states, and you've got Medicare for all, which I understand the ethic behind, but also would take an entire population currently involved with the ACA and move it to another system. Why don't you think we see more in the Senate and the House gravitating toward the middle and looking for these type of consensus solutions, instead of staying on the sides and just letting the current administration chip away and destabilize the system that a lot of us are depending on to live right now?
SANDERS: Well, Matt, I know I speak for everyone here that we wish you the best in your health struggles. Let me just be very honest. I don't think Medicare for all is an extreme idea. Every other major country on Earth guarantees health care to all people as a right. We end up spending, because of the dysfunctional and complicated system that we have right now designed to make insurance company profits, we spend twice as much per capita as any other country on Earth. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. So to do it, every other major country on Earth is doing it. I live 50 miles away from Canada. I don't think that that is a radical idea. But clearly, Medicare for all is not going to pass so long as my Republican colleagues control the Senate and the House. So what do we do? How do we work together? Well, here's one idea. One idea is to take on the pharmaceutical industry. You'll remember that Trump talked a whole lot during his campaign about how the pharmaceutical industry was ripping us off. He was right. Let us work together. Let us have Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices. Let us have re-importation so that pharmacists and distributors can purchase lower cost medicine abroad. That is one way that we can work together, help the American people, and save taxpayers' dollars.
BASH: Senator Cassidy, what about that? And just a broader question of the extremes and the people who want to work in the middle not getting very far.
CASSIDY: A couple things. First, everybody on this stage thinks that the current system is broken. They would like single payer, the federal government has the power, and we want to return power to the states. This gentleman is from Arkansas. Arkansas has done so many innovative things on health care. For the Medicaid expansion, instead of putting them on Medicaid, they put them into Blue Cross Blue Shield. Now they have something for those patients who are very costly, they're doing kind of a wraparound that would kind of do care management to lower their cost. Amy spoke about what a great story. She went to her state legislature and got a law changed. That would never happen coming to the United States Congress. I would say that we continue to allow Arkansas to do what Arkansas is doing. That's not extreme. It's what you are already doing. Let Minnesota do what Minnesota is doing. We've heard Amy say how successful they are. And we think by doing that, it's not extreme, it's a way to bring health care to you, to you and to your state, in a way which uniquely meets your needs. We are about you getting care, you being covered, you having the power.
BASH: Senator Klobuchar, I want to let you respond, but as you do, I want to ask about President Trump, because he has shown a willingness to work with Democrats, with the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate. Would you support Democrats working with President Trump to cut a deal to try to fix problems with Obamacare?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, of course we would. We just want to make sure it helps people, like I laid out at the beginning. And the problem for me with the proposal that the Republicans, the umpteenth proposal we've seen on repeal, is that it actually hurts my state. And people can innovate in states, but not if you're going to cut the funds and don't help these governors that want to help the state. Now, one example of where President Trump could work with us, I'm leading the bill for the negotiation of Medicare drugs. Our seniors, 41 million of them, boy, they could really get a better deal than they're getting now, but they are banned to do that by law. Senator Grassley and I have a bill to stop pharmaceutical companies from paying off their competitors, the generic companies, from keeping their products off the market. That would save $2.9 billion in just 10 years. These are bipartisan bills. Yes, President Trump should work with us and, more than that, he should lead the way on taking on the pharmaceutical companies to show them that they don't own Washington, D.C.
BASH: Senator Graham, you've worked with Democrats on lots of issues. Do you support the notion of the president just sitting down with Democratic leaders and finding a compromise on this?
GRAHAM: I'll sit down with anybody to talk about anything that matters as long as I think I've got a chance to deliver. I believe climate change is real. Let's don't talk about it; let's fix it. I think the DREAM Act kids deserve a place to stay and we secure our border. I'm even willing to do the minimum wage, Bernie, if we can find the tax cut that works. But what I'm not going to do is continue the same old crap and tell you everything is fine. Let me tell you what's happened since Obamacare passed. Anybody have stock in Anthem? These are the big blues, 270 percent increase. Humana, 420 percent increase. Aetna, 470 percent increase. Cigna, 480 percent increase. Where's the money going? It's going to insurance companies who are not delivering for you. We had five insurance companies in South Carolina. We're down to one. And, Amy, what I'm not going to do is take more taxpayer dollars and give it to a bunch of insurance companies. Here's what I want to do. Take basically the same amount of money, flow it back to the states in a fair way, and give South Carolina a chance to come up with a better health care system for South Carolina. Give Alaska a chance to do what makes sense for Alaska. If that's radical, God help us all. Because here's what I believe. People in South Carolina actually care about each other. Pre-existing conditions, they're going to be covered in every state and there's going to be different ways to get there. But if you send the money and power back to the states, and we have to do this same, old thing under Obamacare, how do you expect a different outcome? The biggest winner under Obamacare is insurance companies, not patients. And I intend to change that.
SANDERS: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
(APPLAUSE) I like that.
GRAHAM: All right, good.
SANDERS: All right.
GRAHAM: But I'm not going to Medicare for nobody.
(CROSSTALK)
GRAHAM: Because that's what you'll have with Medicare for nobody.
TAPPER: Let's let Senator Sanders have the floor.
SANDERS: See, Lindsey, there it is. You actually said something that was right. I knew it would happen.
(CROSSTALK)
GRAHAM: I was due, Bernie.
SANDERS: What he pointed out — I'm extrapolating a little bit, Lindsey — but what he pointed out is, why do we have — why do we end up spending twice as much per capita on health care as any other country? And Lindsey is right. This system is designed to make billions of dollars in profits for the insurance industry. We spend 12 percent to 18 percent to administer the incredibly complex hundreds of plans that we currently have. And with these guys, if they got their way, there would even be more plans, more bureaucracy, more complexity, more money going to the insurance companies. Medicare, the administration of Medicare costs approximately 2 percent. So if we are serious about moving to a cost-effective universal health care, yeah, we do have to take on the insurance companies. They do not play a role in providing health care. Our money should be going to doctors, to nurses, to hospitals, not to the insurance industry or, in fact, the drug industry, which is charging us by far the highest prices in the world.
BASH: Senator Graham, you were shaking your head. Is the bromance over already?
GRAHAM: Oh, no, no. No, Bernie is the most honest person in the Senate because he believes in government running health care from cradle to grave. All I would say is that Medicare is coming unraveled. By 2038, the trust fund is going to run out of money. And if you're 62 like me and you've worked all your life, and you're about to get on Medicare, I think it's a bad idea to have 200 of your closest friends join you, because that's Medicare for nobody.
TAPPER: All right. We're going to turn to another audience question. One of the main sticking points in this debate, as you all know, is over the issue of pre-existing conditions. Obamacare prevents insurers from charging more to people who have pre-existing conditions, but there are questions about whether that would continue under any Republican replacement, including Graham-Cassidy. I want to bring in Kevin Potter from Ohio. He's here with his 13-year-old daughter, Erin. She's battled leukemia since the age of 3. That has required treatment, costing millions of dollars. And he has a question for Senator Cassidy. Kevin?
QUESTION: Senator Cassidy, can you tell my daughter tonight how you plan to absolutely guarantee her that she will never be subject to exorbitant premiums that would make coverage for her impossible? So far as I can tell, and based on every analysis, your proposal strips that essential guarantee from her and millions like her with pre-existing conditions.
CASSIDY: First, I admire your courage. Oh, my gosh, so young with so dealing with so much. Again, I've treated folks like you, and my hat's off. I can't — the way I'm trying to keep you from having to pay exorbitant premiums is to try and replace Obamacare. Because the problem with Obamacare, right now, there's a guy back home who's paying $39,000 a year for he and his wife. Put it on my Facebook page, people do not believe. Another couple, $32,000, $35,000, with a — with a co-pay, $35,000, $38,000. That's exorbitant. But we have in our proposal, people are shaking their head. It's on my Facebook page. Check it out. On the other hand, what we hope to do is to get the states the resources which Amy just spoke of. If the state sets up a reinsurance pool, they can actually keep you in the main insurance pool but otherwise lower the premiums. That was done in Maine. It was said to lower premiums by as much as 20 percent for everybody, while at the same time making sure that those that have the same conditions actually had lower rates. But you got to give power to the patient. By the way, that experiment in Maine, the Affordable Care Act squashed, even though now that is what we speak of as the solution to the problem. We shouldn't squash state innovation. We should improve it so folks like you, Amy, can have those affordable premiums. Thank you.
TAPPER: Senator Klobuchar?
KLOBUCHAR: Yeah. Thank you, Erin, for your story and, Kevin, for being such a great dad. You know, there's a difference here. The process I've been talking about are the two senators working together, Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray and all the people that's been involved in that, a bunch of governors, Democrat and Republican. That would actually make the change that Senator Cassidy just mentioned on the reinsurance and do some other things. But the bill that's before us today, that bill just today a preliminary analysis found it would actually increase the rates for people with pre-existing conditions. That's from the Congressional Budget Office. Just today, it came out. And why is that? Well, you know, you can have things available to you like treatment, right, but if it's too expensive, is it really available to you? And if you see a Ferrari in a car lot, well, it's available to you, but you can't really buy it. And that is the problem if the prices skyrocket. So it's doing something immediately to stabilize these prices, but then in the long term making sure we can make health care more affordable. Bernie has one idea; I have some others. And we can talk about them later.
TAPPER: Senator Cassidy, in addition to the Congressional Budget Office, you've been talking about the Jimmy Kimmel test and whether or not somebody with pre-existing conditions like his son, Billy, will be protected under your bill. We talked to a health care expert with the Kaiser Family Foundation, looking at your bill, who said that — we think the best reading is that states could still allow insurers to charge higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions. Do you think the current standards that protect people with pre-existing conditions like Erin should remain in place under any new legislation?
CASSIDY: We think we have those standards in our bill. By the way, those premiums I was saying, I'm not making those up, $39,000 for a couple for one year. But let me speak of what our bill does say. Our bill says that, one, you can't deny people insurance because of their health status, and, two, we say that if a state wishes to do something different, for the state to get the approval to do something different, they shall show that those with pre-existing conditions have access to affordable and adequate coverage. Now, someone says, how do you define affordable? Well, it's certainly not $39,000 a year. But if you look it up in the dictionary, affordable means able to be afforded. The subtext of what you're saying, Jake, is that some governor is going to be out there saying let me scheme, let me get it so that the folks in my state with pre-existing conditions don't have access to coverage. Now, again, we reject that. I trust governors. I actually think that governors respond to the people that elected them. If they don't, they don't win next time. And, again, Amy's story is a great example of just a person going to the legislature and getting a law changed for the benefit not just of her, but for others. When you bring power to the person and to the state, good things happen, and that's the goal of our plan.
TAPPER: Senator Sanders?
SANDERS: Let me just not give you my view. Let me tell you what the American Medical Association says. It says, quote, "This bill will cause patients and consumers to lose important protections as well as undermine safeguards for those with pre-existing conditions," end of quote. So what will happen is, yeah, insurance companies will not be able to deny you health insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, but they can charge you anything you want, which for all intents and purposes for most people will mean that they're not going to get that insurance.
TAPPER: Senator...
KLOBUCHAR: And, by the way, this is why the Republican governor of Ohio opposes this proposal.
TAPPER: Senator Cassidy?
(APPLAUSE)
CASSIDY: First, let me say that 15 governors do support our bill. They actually think that they can do better in their state than the Obamacare law is currently doing. It's not hard to imagine, again, if people are paying $20,000 to $40,000 a year for premiums. And, again, our legislation specifically says that if a state wishes to do something different, they shall show that those with pre-existing conditions have access to adequate and affordable coverage. Now, we can decide that language does not mean something, but indeed, language does. And adequate and affordable means something. And I'll go back to what I'm saying. If you're going to compare us to status quo, status quo is $39,000 a year. Is that adequate and affordable? I would say not.
TAPPER: Senator Sanders, and then Senator Graham.
SANDERS: No, I...
TAPPER: Senator Graham, you want to say something?
GRAHAM: Yeah, I think this is really an important discussion to have. Number one, to your daughter, I promise you that in South Carolina we're not going to throw you off insurance and charge your father more than he can afford to pay, because it wouldn't be right. Number two, somebody's got to decide this issue of adequate and affordable. There seems to be three choices. Insurance companies, anybody for that? The reason we have Obamacare is because insurance companies made this very difficult on people. So Obamacare came along and said, no, you can't stop charging so much for people with pre-existing conditions. Here's what I would say to your family. There are a bunch of people in my state who might as well not have any insurance. The deductibles are so high and the premiums have gone up so much you're just basically insurance in name only. So I want to take care of you and your daughter, but I want to do it in a way not to kick everybody into a situation where insurance really doesn't mean a lot. The guy in Obamacare who's deciding adequate and affordable is doing a miserable job, or I wouldn't be here. The third option is the state governor, the state legislature working with the federal government and find a way to do better than Obamacare, maybe a different way in South Carolina versus California. But if we don't find a different way to do this, Obamacare is collapsing, folks. The reason we're here tonight is it didn't work. In many ways, I wish I were wrong about Obamacare, but I'm right. And here's what I do think about you and your family. The best chance you have of having a say about what happens to your family is to talk to somebody that you can vote for, that actually has to be accountable to you, not somebody you'll never meet and never know.
SANDERS: Let...
BASH: You're talking a lot about — go ahead, Senator.
SANDERS: Yeah, just a couple of points. We all recognize that the Affordable Care Act leaves a lot to be done. But let's not forget that 20 million Americans today have health insurance who previously did not. Now, these guys say, well, the governors, they're not going to do the wrong thing. Before the Affordable Care Act in South Carolina, I suspect, and in 42 other states, guess what rules there were with regard to pre-existing conditions? There were none. There were none.
GRAHAM: Sure, all over the country.
SANDERS: And 43 states had no rules. Seven states did.
GRAHAM: All over the country.SANDERS: OK. So don't let -- that's what the governors and the state legislatures did. The truth of the matter is, the Affordable Care Act has done some very important things. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. What the American people want is not their proposal. Poll came out today, 20 percent of the American people think your idea is a good idea. What the American people want is us to work together to build on and improve the Affordable Care Act, not repeal it.
(APPLAUSE)
CASSIDY: Going —going to a single-payer system is not building upon and improving. It is basically saying it has failed and we shall do something else. That is what has been said. And I will go back. Who has the power? You, the state you live in, or the federal government? Amy has told us several stories. When her state had the power, her state did such good things for the people in that state. But now we have premiums of $39,000 a year because somebody in Washington, D.C., has the power.
BASH: And, Senator, I want to stay on that subject about affordability. We have another questioner here, Michelle Harris, who is a retired waitress who lives in Arizona with a question for Senator Klobuchar.
KLOBUCHAR: OK.
QUESTION: Senator Klobuchar, Obamacare was a huge lie to the American people. Our insurance premiums did not go down. We did not get to keep our insurance plans. We did not get to keep our doctors. And our taxes did not go down. The cost for Obamacare fell onto the backs of the middle class, while the protests ring loud from those receiving free or low cost health insurance were the only cries our representatives seemed to hear. They -- and they demand health care as a right to which they're entitled, but it's us hard-working middle-class taxpayers who are paying for it. Have you taken the time to listen to us who are trying so hard to convey our message? We can no longer afford to pay so much so that so many can pay so little.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you so much for sharing that. That's one of the reasons I go around and visit all 87 counties in my state every single year so that I can talk to the people in my state. And especially in the rural areas, I've heard that, too, about the premiums.And there's a reason. And that is that we passed a bill, as Bernie explained, it did some good things, but you don't pass a big bill like that and never able to improve it or change it. And what Senator Cassidy just told you, I think that's a false choice. It's not just between one or the other. There is a middle ground here of things we can do to fix it. I've mentioned the pharmaceutical prices and actually taking that issue on. It's nearly 20 percent when you count hospital pharmaceuticals of the health care cost. We need to take that on. We can't just let it sit. The ideas that I brought up that actually are on the table now, the effort was almost there and it was just stymied because this bill took up all the oxygen this week. They're ready to go back and pass something. And there's a lot of people, Democrats and Republicans, that want to make these changes and help the states. And then the third thing I'd say is, I've heard a lot from small- business people. There's more we can do there, too. A tax credit, there's a tax credit right now that you can only take for two years for small businesses. Let's make it permanent. Senator Stabenow has a bill to do that. And it would really help a lot of our small businesses to pay their employees' health care.
BASH: Senator Cassidy, what about those ideas?
CASSIDY: First, controlling pharmaceutical cost is a bipartisan issue. It is something that I have focused upon. It is something I'm passionate about. It is not as if you believe in single payer, that you're the only folks who care about those issues. I'm a doc. I understand that if somebody can't afford her insulin, that is a problem. Lindsey talked about the profits since Obamacare passed of insurance companies. You ought to look at the profits for pharmaceutical companies. Was this the solution for those industries? And by the way, as those profits have climbed, so have your premiums, so have the taxpayer outlays. There's a direct relation between you paying more for your premium and the profits those industries are getting. If that is the answer, we got a bad problem. I'll also say about power to the people and power in Washington, D.C. Why did they do so well? Read a book called "Bitter Pill." A guy named, I think, Steven Brill. He talks about how Obamacare was crafted. Everybody was at the table — pharma, AMA, big insurance, hospitals — but not you and me. And that's why our premiums rise, and that's why our taxes go up. And that's why they do so well. If we give the power back to you, back to the state, that totally changes. And Washington, which is hard-wired for them to do well, now has to come to you and get your approval for these things. I'm about you having that power.
SANDERS: Well, I'm glad...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: I'm glad to hear — glad to hear that Senator Cassidy is concerned about the high cost of prescription drugs, because you're quite right. Last year, the five major pharmaceutical industries made $50 billion in profit. You got CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry who make millions and millions and millions of dollars in compensation. And one out of five Americans cannot afford the medicine they need. Are you going to join me in saying that Medicare should negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry, which is what every other major country on Earth does? Are you going to join me in saying that pharmacists should be able to get the same exact medicine in Canada or abroad at a fraction of the price they have to pay for in this country? Are you on board with that legislation?
CASSIDY: I've heard Bernie say in a V.A. Committee hearing that if we can't afford a medicine, the government should just take over the intelligence property. It should commandeer, it should commandeer the manufacturing plants, the distribution chains, it should become the pharmaceutical company.Lindsey Graham is right. Bernie's the most honest person in the Senate. He's a socialist, and he believes it. And he believes that the creativity of the pharmaceutical industry, that's not important. Oh, we can take that, but where do the cure for Alzheimer's come from, if now, when there's a cure, the pharmaceutical company knows that their profit will be commandeered? I can tell you, it's a cheap — it's a cheap fix to commandeer. And the price is tremendous. There won't be that cure for Alzheimer's, there won't be that cure for cancer, there won't be because there was a short-term grab. There are solutions, but it is not socialism.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: You know, you think — do you think — do you think negotiating drug prices through Medicare, which purchases huge amounts of money, is a bad thing? You think it is wrong for pharmacists to be able to buy cheaper medicine, same exact brands from Canada? Are you going to come onboard that legislation? I don't know what you're really talking about, about taking over drug companies.
CASSIDY: I was quoting you.
SANDERS: What we want to do -- what we want to do is lower the outrageously high prices in this country. I've given you two approaches that can work, re-importation, Medicare negotiating. Are you onboard?
CASSIDY: Re-importation does not work. Canada has 10 percent of the population of the United States. You could take the entirety of Canada, shake it like a piggy bank, and all the drugs would come out, and it still wouldn't be enough for us all.
(CROSSTALK)
CASSIDY:... there are ways to address this. There |
The option -Wstrict-aliasing (which is included in -Wall ) warns about some - but not all - cases of violation of aliasing rules when -fstrict-aliasing is active. To fix the code above, you can use a union instead of a cast (note that this is a GCC extension which might not work with other compilers): #include <stdio.h> int main() { union { short a[2]; int i; } u; u.a[0]=0x1111; u.a[1]=0x1111; u.i = 0x22222222; printf("%x %x
", u.a[0], u.a[1]); return 0; } Now the result will always be "2222 2222". For some more insight into the subject, please have a look at this article. Loops do not terminate This is often caused by out-of-bound array accesses or by signed integer overflow which both result in undefined behavior according to the ISO C standard. For example int SATD (int* diff, int use_hadamard) { int k, satd = 0, m[16], dd, d[16];... for (dd=d[k=0]; k<16; dd=d[++k]) satd += (dd < 0? -dd : dd); accesses d[16] before the loop is exited with the k<16 check. This causes the compiler to optimize away the exit test because the new value of k must be in the range [0, 15] according to ISO C. GCC starting with version 4.8 has a new option -fno-aggressive-loop-optimizations that may help here. If it does, then this is a clear sign that your code is not conforming to ISO C and it is not a GCC bug. Cannot use preprocessor directive in macro arguments. Let me guess... you used an older version of GCC to compile code that looks something like this: memcpy(dest, src, #ifdef PLATFORM1 12 #else 24 #endif ); and you got a whole pile of error messages: test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg test.c: In function `foo': test.c:6: undefined or invalid # directive test.c:8: undefined or invalid # directive test.c:9: parse error before `24' test.c:10: undefined or invalid # directive This is because your C library's <string.h> happens to define memcpy as a macro - which is perfectly legitimate. In recent versions of glibc, for example, printf is among those functions which are implemented as macros. Versions of GCC prior to 3.3 did not allow you to put #ifdef (or any other preprocessor directive) inside the arguments of a macro. The code therefore would not compile. As of GCC 3.3 this kind of construct is always accepted and the preprocessor will probably do what you expect, but see the manual for detailed semantics. However, this kind of code is not portable. It is "undefined behavior" according to the C standard; that means different compilers may do different things with it. It is always possible to rewrite code which uses conditionals inside macros so that it doesn't. You could write the above example #ifdef PLATFORM1 memcpy(dest, src, 12); #else memcpy(dest, src, 24); #endif This is a bit more typing, but I personally think it's better style in addition to being more portable. Cannot initialize a static variable with stdin. This has nothing to do with GCC, but people ask us about it a lot. Code like this: #include <stdio.h> FILE *yyin = stdin; will not compile with GNU libc, because stdin is not a constant. This was done deliberately, to make it easier to maintain binary compatibility when the type FILE needs to be changed. It is surprising for people used to traditional Unix C libraries, but it is permitted by the C standard. This construct commonly occurs in code generated by old versions of lex or yacc. We suggest you try regenerating the parser with a current version of flex or bison, respectively. In your own code, the appropriate fix is to move the initialization to the beginning of main. There is a common misconception that the GCC developers are responsible for GNU libc. These are in fact two entirely separate projects; please check the GNU libc web pages for details.
C++
export Most C++ compilers (G++ included) do not yet implement export, which is necessary for separate compilation of template declarations and definitions. Without export, a template definition must be in scope to be used. The obvious workaround is simply to place all definitions in the header itself. Alternatively, the compilation unit containing template definitions may be included from the header. Nested classes can access private members and types of the containing class. Defect report 45 clarifies that nested classes are members of the class they are nested in, and so are granted access to private members of that class. G++ emits two copies of constructors and destructors. In general there are three types of constructors (and destructors). The complete object constructor/destructor. The base object constructor/destructor. The allocating constructor/deallocating destructor. The first two are different, when virtual base classes are involved. Global destructors are not run in the correct order. Global destructors should be run in the reverse order of their constructors completing. In most cases this is the same as the reverse order of constructors starting, but sometimes it is different, and that is important. You need to compile and link your programs with --use-cxa-atexit. We have not turned this switch on by default, as it requires a cxa aware runtime library ( libc, glibc, or equivalent). Classes in exception specifiers must be complete types. [15.4]/1 tells you that you cannot have an incomplete type, or pointer to incomplete (other than cv void * ) in an exception specification. Exceptions don't work in multithreaded applications. You need to rebuild g++ and libstdc++ with --enable-threads. Remember, C++ exceptions are not like hardware interrupts. You cannot throw an exception in one thread and catch it in another. You cannot throw an exception from a signal handler and catch it in the main thread. Templates, scoping, and digraphs. If you have a class in the global namespace, say named X, and want to give it as a template argument to some other class, say std::vector, then std::vector<::X> fails with a parser error. The reason is that the standard mandates that the sequence <: is treated as if it were the token [. (There are several such combinations of characters - they are called digraphs.) Depending on the version, the compiler then reports a parse error before the character : (the colon before X ) or a missing closing bracket ]. The simplest way to avoid this is to write std::vector< ::X>, i.e. place a space between the opening angle bracket and the scope operator. Copy constructor access check while initializing a reference. Consider this code: class A { public: A(); private: A(const A&); // private copy ctor }; A makeA(void); void foo(const A&); void bar(void) { foo(A()); // error, copy ctor is not accessible foo(makeA()); // error, copy ctor is not accessible A a1; foo(a1); // OK, a1 is a lvalue } Starting with GCC 3.4.0, binding an rvalue to a const reference requires an accessible copy constructor. This might be surprising at first sight, especially since most popular compilers do not correctly implement this rule. The C++ Standard says that a temporary object should be created in this context and its contents filled with a copy of the object we are trying to bind to the reference; it also says that the temporary copy can be elided, but the semantic constraints (eg. accessibility) of the copy constructor still have to be checked. For further information, you can consult the following paragraphs of the C++ standard: [dcl.init.ref]/5, bullet 2, sub-bullet 1, and [class.temporary]/2. Starting with GCC 4.3.0, GCC no longer gives an error for this case. This change is based on the intent of the C++ language committee. As of 2010-05-28, the final proposed draft of the C++0x standard permits this code without error.
Common problems when upgrading the compiler
ABI changes
The C++ application binary interface (ABI) consists of two components: the first defines how the elements of classes are laid out, how functions are called, how function names are mangled, etc; the second part deals with the internals of the objects in libstdc++. Although we strive for a non-changing ABI, so far we have had to modify it with each major release. If you change your compiler to a different major release you must recompile all libraries that contain C++ code. If you fail to do so you risk getting linker errors or malfunctioning programs. Some of our Java support libraries also contain C++ code, so you might want to recompile all libraries to be safe. It should not be necessary to recompile if you have changed to a bug-fix release of the same version of the compiler; bug-fix releases are careful to avoid ABI changes. See also the compatibility section of the GCC manual.
Standard conformance
With each release, we try to make G++ conform closer to the ISO C++ standard.
Non-conforming legacy code that worked with older versions of GCC may be rejected by more recent compilers. There is no command-line switch to ensure compatibility in general, because trying to parse standard-conforming and old-style code at the same time would render the C++ front end unmaintainable. However, some non-conforming constructs are allowed when the command-line option -fpermissive is used.
The manual contains a section on Common Misunderstandings with GNU C++.Aero Precision AR15 Quantum M-LOK Handguard - 15" Our Quantum Series M-LOK Handguards minimize bulk while providing an adaptive free float design that is big on features. With multiple mounting options, this affordable, rigid system can adapt to any mission. Machined to exacting dimensions from 6061-T6 aluminum it is the perfect handguard for your next AR15 build.
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1pc free float design
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COMES WITH BARREL NUT AND HARDWARE COMPATIBLE WITH STANDARD AR15 PLATFORMProtester Benjamin Easton has been banned from Manners Mall.
The self-styled "political busker", was seen taking a sledgehammer to the road in Victoria St at the end of Manners Mall yesterday. He was arrested by police, some in riot gear.
The 50-year-old has previously publicly claimed to be voluntarily on a benefit and that he "sacrificed" a career to take up public causes. He has campaigned against the reintroduction of buses into Manners Mall since it was first proposed in 2008.
This morning he appeared in Wellington District Court before Judge Anthony Walsh, who bailed him till Friday, when Easton intends to challenge a bail condition that he not go to Manners Mall.
Easton had said the mall was where he worked.
He faces charges of disorderly behaviour, intentional damage and possession of an offensive weapon. He has not pleaded.
Yesterday Easton brought central Wellington to a standstill. He talked through a loudhailer as he poured blue paint along Victoria St and later laid into the bitumen with a sledgehammer, stalling cars and buses.
As Wellington City Council infrastructure performance manager Jon Visser tried to wrest the sledgehammer away, Easton responded: "It's not your right... I'm going to show you the damage you're doing to the public's roads."
Hundreds of people gathered to watch, some cheering Easton on, and others telling him to "Get a life".
Several carloads of police arrived about 15 minutes after the commotion began, and ordered Easton to drop his sledgehammer.
Easton refused to do so, insisting police read a copy of section 330 of the Resource Management Act, which Easton had invoked as legal protection for his action.
He eventually dropped the sledgehammer when a policewoman armed with a Taser ordered him to. Police with riot gear then tackled him to the ground, to cheers from the watching crowd.
Traffic was diverted at the intersection of Victoria and Manners streets for a short time, while police questioned by-standers.
Council spokesman Richard MacLean said traffic was snarled up for about half an hour.
"A lot of motorists weren't prepared to drive past a person swinging a sledgehammer."
The damage caused was not significant. "It didn't exactly wreck our infrastructure."
There was a mixed reaction to Easton's actions from the crowd. Sky Lim said Easton had his sympathies and he was simply trying to get attention for the cause. "He's been working so hard for us."
But Hugo Dewar said the protester had lost his support as a result.
"The sledgehammer is a foolish way of going about [getting attention]. He's just destroyed public property, it just seems like a stupid way to get attention for the cause."Canadians don’t want to roll the dice on expanded gambling
One-in-four say they have family or close friends who have a gambling problem, or have one themselves
October 13, 2016 – Provincial governments have gambled big on gaming and lotteries, collecting almost $14 billion in revenue each year. But are they to be lauded for hitting the jackpot with an important source of funding for public programs? Or condemned for preying on those most vulnerable to addiction?
While the majority (63%) say provincial involvement in gambling is at minimum “more good than bad”, a new public opinion poll from the Angus Reid Institute also finds Canadians have little desire to place a bet on an expanded government involvement in gambling. Only one-in-ten (9%) want it. More than four times that many (38%) would like to see involvement reduced.
Further, one-in-four Canadians (26%) report they are personally affected by problem gambling – either because they’re struggling with this addiction themselves – or because they have a close relationship with someone who is. Most say necessary help for this problem has not been forthcoming.
Key Findings:
Most of those who have a close friend or family member struggling with problem gambling say that person has suffered a “significant economic loss” as a result of their behaviour
Many Canadians are less than satisfied with their provincial governments’ efforts to prevent gambling addiction (47% agree their province doesn’t do enough on this front)
One area where most would like to see a change is in the presence of Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) in pubs and bars. More than three-in-five (62%) say these machines should only be allowed in special places such as racetracks or casinos
Index:
PART 1: A Portrait of Gambling in Canada
PART 2: Are Certain Types of Gambling Harmful?
PART 3: The Role of Government in Gambling
Part 1 – Portrait of Gambling in Canada
Lucky numbers and the Lottery:
The Canadian gambling landscape is a diverse one, with a wide variety of legal activities for gamblers to choose from. That said, one form of gambling rises far above the rest in terms of the rate of participation in Canadian households: the lottery.
More than eight-in-ten Canadian households (82%) contain at least one person who has purchased a lottery ticket in the last year. As seen in the following graph, no other form of gambling involves even half of Canadian households:
Older Canadians are more likely than those under 35 to purchase lottery tickets, and they do so more often and more regularly. Almost six-in-ten Canadians 55 and older (59%) say they purchase lottery tickets at least once a month, while fewer than one-in-three Canadians ages 18 – 34 say the same (32% do).
On most of the other types of gambling canvassed in this survey – especially VLTs, online gambling, and sports betting – the pattern reverses itself. Younger Canadians are more likely to have gambled on each of these activities in the last year, and more likely to have done each one at least monthly (see comprehensive tables for greater detail).
There is also a noticeable gender gap on gambling behaviours, with men more likely than women to gamble in each of the ways canvassed in this survey on a monthly – or more frequent – basis.
Who’s spending money on what?
It would appear that Canada isn’t exactly a nation of high rollers when it comes to spending on gambling. Eight-in-ten (84%) who have gambled in the last year report spending at least $1 over the last 30 days.
While two-thirds (67%) have spent at least $10, fewer than half (42%) have spent more than $25 in the last 30 days, as seen in the following graph:
That said, certain activities are more likely to be a draw bigger bets.
The following graph shows the percentage of Canadians who participate in each of type of gambling who report spending more than $100 on it in the last 30 days.
*Each bar is based on the total number of Canadians who participate in that type of gambling, not all Canadian adults. So, for example, 15 per cent of casino gamblers spent $100 or more at a casino in the last 30 days, not 15 per cent of all Canadians.
As the graph indicates, casino gamblers are the group most likely to have spent $100 or more in the last 30 days, followed by those who play VLTs and those gambling online.
The notable difference between casino gambling and these other two activates is that a casino is a specific location dedicated primarily to gambling, where going to gamble is often the sole purpose of entering the facility. VLTs and online gambling, by contrast, may occur in a wider variety of locations, and are thus easier to access.
One-in-four are personally affected by problem gambling
Academic studies estimate that roughly 2.4 per cent of adult Canadians are problem gamblers, but this Angus Reid Institute poll finds that problem gambling behaviours touch the lives of a considerably larger number of Canadians, for whom either a close friend or a family member is struggling.
For the purposes of this survey, “problem gambling” was defined as:
“a condition in which a person has difficulty controlling the amount of time and/or money they spend on gambling, leading to negative consequences for the gambler, those close to them, or their community.”
Asked whether they themselves – or anyone else in their household – have ever suffered from problem gambling, some 6 per cent of Canadian adults say “yes,” a number that works out to more than 1.7 million people.
Further, when asked if any close friends or family members with whom they don’t live has gambling a problem (as defined in the preceding paragraphs), another 23 per cent of Canadians answer in the affirmative.
Accounting for those who answer “yes” to both questions, the total number of Canadians who have at least one personal connection to problem gambling – either inside their own household or among their close friends and family – is 26 per cent, nearly 7.5 million people.
This percentage of Canadians expressing some personal experience with problem gambling is consistent across regional, age, gender, and other demographic lines (see comprehensive tables).
Among those who have some connection to problem gambling, most report that the problem gambler has experienced a “significant economic loss” – such as losing a car or a house – as a result. Overall, roughly one-in-six Canadians (17%) have a close friend or family member who has suffered such a loss, or have suffered such a loss themselves:
Canadians who have a connection to a problem gambler also say the person in question has not sought help. Only a small portion – fewer than one-in-four – say the problem gambler they know has successfully accessed assistance for their gambling issues (see comprehensive tables).
Part 2 – Are Certain Types of Gambling Harmful?
Regardless of whether they themselves gamble, many Canadians find certain forms of gambling to be essentially harmful to the people who participate in them.
At the top of the list is online gambling. More than half of all Canadians (56%) say online hurts participants most, and fully 50 per cent say the same of VLTs.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the activities the largest numbers of Canadians report participating in – lottery tickets and charitable gambling – are the least likely to be viewed as harmful:
As seen in the preceding graph, three-in-ten Canadians (30%) say none of the types of gambling canvassed in this survey are “essentially harmful.” Among those whose lives have been touched by problem gambling, however, the total who say this is just one-in-six (17%).
People who have some personal connection to problem gambling are more likely than the general population to say each type of gambling is harmful to participants. Forms of gambling where the gap is widest are seen in the graph that follows.
The form of gambling for which this gap is largest – VLTs – is also one of the most common problem gambling activities. Fully one-in-three Canadians who have a personal connection to a problem gambler (33%) say that individual struggled with VLTs at pubs and bars.
There has been some debate about the practice of placing these gaming machines in places that aren’t otherwise dedicated to gambling. Currently, all provinces except Ontario and British Columbia allow VLTs in pubs and bars. In those two provinces, the machines are only allowed in casinos and other gaming-oriented facilities.
Notably, although Canadians who know a problem gambler are more likely to consider VLTs harmful, they’re not any more likely than those who have no such connection to say VLTs ought to be removed from bars. Six-in-ten Canadians (62%) favour such a move, including the same percentage of both groups (see summary tables at the end of this release).
There are regional differences on this question, however. People living in Prairie provinces are more likely to say VLTs should continue to be allowed in bars and pubs, while Quebecers and Atlantic Canadians – whose regions have seen class-action lawsuits launched over VLTs – would like to see them removed.
Part 3 – Role of government in gambling
Canadians see value in gambling revenue
Gambling in Canada generates big money – approaching $14 billion, or close to 5 per cent of total revenue across all provinces. Manitoba earns the most, in terms of percentage, from government-controlled lotteries, casinos and other gambling elements (see note on methodology at the end of this release):
With these high stakes in play, Canadians are generally okay with their provincial governments raising revenue through gambling. Asked for their views, 43 per cent say government involvement in gambling is more good than bad, and another one-in-five (20%) go a step further, saying it is good overall. On the opposite end of the spectrum, about a quarter (26%) say it’s more bad than good, while one-in-ten (11%) see their provincial government’s involvement in gambling as “bad overall”.
This national view hardens in BC and Saskatchewan where seven-in-ten residents in each province say provincial government involvement is more good than bad. Only Quebec and Atlantic Canada break somewhat from this national trend:
Those who have a closer connection to problem gambling take a more critical view of their provincial government’s relationship with betting:
While distribution varies from province to province, a majority of government-sanctioned gambling revenue ends up in provincial government coffers as general revenue. Certain priorities are more evident than others – most provincial lottery and gaming information will cite health care, education and charitable causes. However, there are also references to provincial priorities or government programs, which are less obvious.
When asked if this is the best use of gambling revenue, most Canadians would rather see the money earmarked for specific purposes.
No appetite for expansion
Despite a generally positive view of government-controlled gambling in Canada, there is little to no desire to see this sector grow.
In fact, only one-in-ten (9%) nationwide say that they would like to see gambling activities expanded to earn more revenue. By contrast – three times as many say they would like to see government reduce its focus on this sector. Most, however, favour the status quo:
Narrow majorities in Quebec and Atlantic Canada say their provinces should reduce gambling programs or eliminate them altogether, while the rest of the country favours the continuation of current levels. Importantly, the ratio of those saying reduce versus expand across the country is at minimum two-to-one (Manitoba), and is more than ten-to-one (Quebec, Atlantic Canada) at its most extreme:
While Canadians also say by a wide margin (45% to 28%) that their provincial government does a good job of managing gambling activities, there are also serious concerns about government management of negative impacts.
Asked whether their province does enough to assist those suffering from problem gambling, just one-third (34%) of Canadians say this is the case. A similar number disagree (35%), with a particularly strong negative response from those who have experienced problem gambling issues first hand:
The area that is perhaps most clear-cut in terms of public opinion? Canadians want their governments to do more to prevent gambling addictions from developing in the first place, by a margin of approximately two-to-one:
Provincial governments devote some portion of gambling revenue to gambling addiction research and treatment (for example, in B.C., the total is 0.5%; in Ontario, it’s 2.6%; and in Quebec, it’s 2.3%) but it appears that Canadians would like to see more done.
A note on methodology:
The Angus Reid Institute calculated the percentage of provincial revenue generated through gambling using the numbers in table 7 of this document, published by the Canadian Partnership for Responsible Gambling, and provincial budget documents for 2013-14. Revenue figures represent the gross amount of money a given province earned from gambling after paying out prizes, but before factoring in any operating expenses for the gambling activities in question.
The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) was founded in October 2014 by pollster and sociologist, Dr. Angus Reid. ARI is a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research organization established to advance education by commissioning, conducting and disseminating to the public accessible and impartial statistical data, research and policy analysis on economics, political science, philanthropy, public administration, domestic and international affairs and other socio-economic issues of importance to Canada and its world.
Click here for the full report including tables and methodology
Click here for comprehensive data tables
Click here for the questionnaire used in this survey
MEDIA CONTACT: Ian Holliday, Research Associate: 604.442.3312 [email protected]
Dave Korzinski, Research Associate: 250.899.0821 [email protected]
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Share this article: LinkedInMind your hedges because this month the control freaks are abusing the definition of blight in Connecticut, spying on you (all of you!) as you tool around town in Los Angeles, and barring you from warning drivers about speed traps in Texas. Check out Nanny of the Month for March 2014!
Top dishonors come to us from Frisco, Texas, where ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless you're one of Police Chief John Bruce’s officers. In that case, feel free to bust a man for a non-existent offense that, even if were against the law, should call for a ticket, not the whole “cuff ‘em and stuff ‘em” treatment.
Sure, it may not have been technically “against the law” when officers arrested Ron Martin after they spotted him standing in a center median with a sign warning drivers about officers with itchy ticket-writing fingers lying in wait up the road. Good ol’ Chief Bruce can fix all that simply by leaning on his pals in the city council to pass an ordinance that makes what Martin did a fineable offense.
And sure, Chief Bruce has long been irritated by Martin who has volunteered plenty of time giving drivers a friendly heads up, but the chief’s actions definitely have everything to do with safety (says so in the ordinance itself!), and absolutely nothing to do with retaliating against Martin or maintaining a strong stream of traffic-ticket revenue.
1 minute, 41 seconds.
Follow Nanny of the Month on Twitter (@NannyoftheMonth) and submit your nominees for next month!
Nanny of the Month is written Ted Balaker (@tedbalaker) and produced by Balaker and Matt Edwards (@MattChrisEd). Edited by Edwards. Opening graphics by Meredith Bragg.
To watch previous episodes, go here.
Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube channel for notifications when new material goes live.Wham. Nuti-Loaf. Choplets. FriChik. If you grew up Seventh-day Adventist then you are no stranger to these names. If you did not grow up in and around the Seventh-day Adventist community then you may be scratching your head about now. Just to be clear, no, they are not the names of rejected members of Our Gang or the cast of Grease. The aforementioned proper nouns are actually the brand names of several popular meat substitutes that are staples of the diet of many Seventh-day Adventist church members. Think of them as the all-stars of the meat
analogue world.
The Seventh-day Adventist denomination is a historically vegetarian group owing to the teachings of the prophetess of the church Ellen G. White who advocated for conservative dietary habits following a prophetic vision. So the story goes, she was at the home a fellow member of the faith, one A. Hilliard of Otsego, Michigan on June 6th of 1863, and was presented with a divinely inspired plan for a reform diet that would maintain the temple of God that is the human body. She would later write several tracts on the evils of meat consumption in which she described it's influence as one that would "excite and strengthen the lower passions" and which had "the tendency to deaden the moral powers." According to White meat was also said to derange the stomach, deaden the nerves and enfeeble the intellect as well create an appetite for liquor (the consumption of which Seventh-day Adventists also do not partake in).
So meat was bad and Seventh-day Adventists as early as the 1860s were told to avoid it. But for many, giving up meat is a psychological challenge on par with giving up smoking (also something SDAs don't do). So in order to help Seventh-day Adventists and visitors to the Battle Creek Sanitarium (the flagship institution of the faith and premiere health spa in the United States in the late 1800s) get the meat monkey off of their backs Dr. John Harvey Kellogg created the Nicorette of sorts of the nineteenth century in the form of...Nuttose!
The Battle Creek Sanitarium Food Company released America's first analogue meat product, a shelf-stable peanut-based cutlet in 1896. Nuttose could be seasoned to taste like mother's fried chicken or marinated in your favorite barbeque sauce and paired with mashed potatoes and your favorite side vegetable to resemble the traditional well-balanced American meal so many were accustomed to.
But the Battle Creek Sanitarium Food Company didn't stop there. While they were busy developing Kellogg's Corn Flakes they were also developing a new product called Protose. And while the name sounds like it should be applied to a character in a Shakespearan tragedy or the name of a strange man-servant from a Gothic novel it was actually another popular nut-based meat analogue. A delighted turn of the century housewife could pop open a can of the gelatinous log of legume-based protein and let it wriggle out of the tin cylinder and serve it to her eager family.
Okay, so the aforementioned description of Protose perhaps doesn't sound wildly appetizing but the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers of meat analogues got their act together pretty quickly. By 1905 the Sanitarium Foods Company was formed and they set about developing meat analogues that would have a richer and more savory flavor by using techniques employed to cure actual meat thus achieving a smoked flavor. By 1921 they were able to debut Smokene to the public. It was a soft pink gluten and nut-based protein that attempted to approximate the texture and flavor of ham. Though it most closely resembled today's wildly popular potted meat product SPAM.
In 1934 Sanitarium Foods added three more canned items to their product line and expanded operations in 1938 with a new four story plant. But along came competition in the form Worthington Foods who during the war years was able to capitalize on the national meat rationing practices and market "potted meats" that were not meats at all. In time Sanitarium Foods would become Loma Linda Foods and by the 1960s Loma Linda Foods and Worthington Foods would serve as the two largest manufacturers in the nation of soy-based food products.
The 1950s and 1960s were an exciting time in meat analogues. America was enjoying its post-war booms years and an Adventist man could drive his Detroit-manufactured sedan home to his single family home in the suburbs and look forward to the bounty of whatever Worthington Foods (or lesser-known brand Cedar Lake) product his wife may have chosen to put on the table that night. Wham. Nuti-Loaf. Choplets. FriChik. Okay, we're back to these all star names again (taste them and you will understand).
Excitement over meatless meat did not slow going into the 1970s. Nay, it accelerated as Loma Linda Foods, not to be outdone by Worthington Foods, introduced such tantalizing products as Meatless Chicken Loaf, Meatless Beef Loaf, Meatless Turkey Loaf and Meatless Luncheon Loaf. But that's not all...then came Meatless Bologna, Meatless Fried Chicken, Meatless Sizzle Burgers, Meatless Swiss Steak and Meatless Sizzle Franks in frozen varieties. Flavor notwithstanding, there is simply no denying that Loma Linda Foods just didn't have the same inspired names for their products that Worthington was able to create. Wham just has a jazzier and more appetizing ring to it than Meatless Luncheon Loaf...just sayin'.
In a series of mergers and acquisitions Loma Linda Foods and Worthington Foods eventually became one under the umbrella of that tried and true American food giant that bears the family name of the man who invented the first meat analogue back in 1896, Kellogg. The Kellogg Company then branched off with the Morningstar Farms product line which any regular visitor to the frozen food aisle at the grocery store should be familiar with. Today there are hundreds of large and small brands that cater to the growing numbers of vegetarians and vegans world-wide. In fact, according a report conducted by Markets and Markets, the global market for substitute meats is expected to grow at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 6.4% between 2015 and 2020, landing at over $5 billion by 2020.
The meat analogue world is a far cry today where is began over a century ago. Frankly it is a far cry from what it was when I was kid a quarter of a century ago, eating the Big Frank hot dog my Grandma had packed for me to take to a Dodger's game so that I wouldn't have to suffer the horrors of an "unclean" Dodger dog. I remember the stares as though taking a veggie dog into the stadium was almost un-American. Today, not only does no one care but the last time I was at a sporting event there were gourmet mycoprotein and quinoa-based meat substitutes at all of the concession stands and the woman in line behind me congratulated me on my enlightened thinking and then started asking me pound for pound if I liked Bernie Sanders or Ralph Nader better.Authorities on Saturday raised the casualty toll to 100 in an attack on a military compound in northern Afghanistan a day earlier by gunmen and suicide bombers wearing army uniforms.
Gen. Daulat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, said the attack Friday on a compound of the 209th Corps of the Afghan National Army left dozens of soldiers and other personnel dead or wounded.
Reports conflicted on the death toll, but at least two sources within the army corps and a provincial security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media, confirmed that more than 130 people were killed and at least 80 others were wounded.
The defense ministry had said Friday night that eight soldiers were killed and 11 others were wounded in its initial reports.
Gen. Mohammad Radmanish, deputy spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said the militants entered the base in Balkh province using two military vehicles and attacked army personnel inside the compound's mosque.
"Two suicide bombers detonated their vests full of explosive inside the mosque of the army corps while everyone was busy with Friday prayers," he said.
Waziri said there were 10 attackers, including the two who carried out the suicide attacks. Eight others were killed in a gun battle with soldiers.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the assault in an email sent to media.
Farshad Usyan / AFP/Getty Images Afghan relatives carry the coffin of a Afghan National Army soldier killed in a Taliban attack on an army base in Balkh province, on April 22, 2017. Afghan relatives carry the coffin of a Afghan National Army soldier killed in a Taliban attack on an army base in Balkh province, on April 22, 2017. (Farshad Usyan / AFP/Getty Images) (Farshad Usyan / AFP/Getty Images)
President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday traveled to the base and strongly condemned the attack, according to a tweet from the official Twitter account of the presidential palace.
"The attackers are infidels," Ghani was quoted as saying in the tweet.
Ghani announced that Sunday would be a day of national mourning, with memorial services across the country's mosques and the Afghan flag flying at half-mast, in a statement issued by the Presidential Palace.
Afzel Hadid, head of provincial council in Balkh told The Associated Press that more than 100 people, both army personnel and others present at the time inside the army crops, were killed in the attack.
"The exact number is still not verified, but for sure we know more than 100 were killed in the attack," said Hadid.
One of the attack survivors, an Afghan army soldier, Mohammad Hussain who was wounded and transported to a hospital in Mazar-e-Sh |
we will be defaulting on obligations,” said Lew.
“Let me remind everyone,” he said, “principal on the debt is not something we pay out of our cash flow of revenues. Principal on the debt is something that is a function of the markets rolling over.”
Lew’s description of the way the government handles its now-$17-trillion-plus debt mirrors the Securities and Exchange Commission’s definition of a Ponzi scheme.
“A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission’s definition.
“With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue,” said the SEC. “Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out.”
To keep the government in cash during fiscal 2013, which ended on Sept. 30, the Treasury had to sell $8,323,949,000,000 in new debt. The government's single larget expense in fiscal 2013 was paying off $7,546,726,000,000 in debt that matured during the year.
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The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.Today, 675,000 Compass Cards are in active use, with an average of 1.2 million taps on an average week day!
After months of testing and planning, we are prepared for this next step in rolling out Compass.
Starting April 4, 2016 we will begin closing remaining open fare gates.
By April 8, all gates at SeaBus and SkyTrain (which includes Canada Line) stations will be fully closed and customers will need a Compass Card or Compass Ticket to pass through fare gates and travel on SkyTrain and SeaBus.
During the week of April 4, extra staff will be out on the system to help customers with the transition.
UPDATE: We will have staff at fare gates at all SkyTrain and SeaBus stations to assist these customers. When staff cannot be at stations, one accessible fare gate will remain open so these customers can continue to travel independently. During the period following the closure of fare gates, we will directly engage with these individual customers on the system to better understand their diverse needs.
In March, leading up to the full gate closure, we will continue to test all gates closed at different stations across the system.
**NOTE** During the closure demonstrations, staff will be at the fare gates to assist customers. Bus tickets will not be exchanged, but staff will be on hand to assist them entering the system.
Reminder!
After the full fare gate closure, FareSavers and bus transfers will continue to be valid fare on buses, but customers wishing to transfer to SkyTrain or SeaBus must switch to Compass (card or ticket).
We encourage customers to get ready and switch to Compass before April 4.
With Compass, customers can travel and seamlessly transfer across the TransLink network with a single Compass card/ticket while enjoying benefits like AutoLoad and balance protection.
Compass by the numbers: More than 675,000 customers now have a Compass Card.
Approximately 300,000 Compass Cards are tapped on an average weekday.
300,000 (45 per cent) of Compass Cards are registered.
70,000 Compass customers are using AutoLoad to renew Monthly Passes or top up Stored Value.
Use of FareSavers is down by 80 per cent.
For more information, head to translink.ca/compasscard.
To order a Compass Card online or register you card, visit CompassCard.ca.
For a convenient, one-stop source for customer questions and answers, visit AskCompass.ca.
You can view the official press release here.
Author: Adrienne ColingFile Photo: An employee of Kyushu Electric Power Co at the company's Sendai nuclear plant in Japan (Reuters)
A trio of former executives from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will be indicted over the 2011 accident, a judicial review panel decided today, paving the way for the first criminal trial linked to the disaster.The decision comes after prosecutors twice refused to press charges against the men, saying they had insufficient evidence and little chance of conviction.But the independent panel today ruled - for the second time since the accident - that the executives should be put on trial, compelling prosecutors to press on with the criminal case under Japanese law.The decision is the latest in a tussle between legal authorities and the public over who should take responsibility for the tsunami-sparked reactor meltdowns that forced tens of thousands from their homes in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.The trio are former Tokyo Electric Power chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, then-vice president Sakae Muto and former vice president Ichiro Takekuro."The victims have wanted a criminal trial given the anger and grief" over the accident, Ruiko Muto, a campaigner who called for charges, told reporters."We feel a sense of achievement that a criminal case will be held to account for an accident that caused such tremendous damage."The judicial panel is composed of ordinary citizens.A parliamentary report has said Fukushima was a man-made disaster caused by Japan's culture of "reflexive obedience", but no one has been punished criminally.An angry public has increasingly pointed to cosy ties among the government, regulators and nuclear operators that have allegedly insulated executives of the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) from being charged.Although the March 11 earthquake and tsunami killed 18,000 people, the nuclear disaster it caused is not officially recorded as having directly killed anyone.The most lasting health impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will likely be psychological not physical, according to a trio of studies published today in The Lancet.The judicial review panel issued the same ruling in July last year, hailed by thousands of plaintiffs who demanded charges be laid, but the prosecutors gave up charging the former executives in January after re-opening their investigation into the case. Campaigners have called for about three dozen company officials to be held accountable for their failure to take proper measures to protect the site against the tsunami, which sparked the worst atomic crisis in a generation.Isaac Rotenberg was born to Natan and Miriam Rotenberg in Poland on 15 March 1927. A selektzia was held in his city following the outbreak of the Second World War, and his family was sent to the Sobibór extermination camp. With the exception of him, his younger brother, and his sister, his entire family perished. He was taken with his brother to a labor camp. When a revolt broke out, the two succeeded in escaping the camp, but they lost track of each other in the ensuing commotion. Isaac then made his way to the forest and joined the partisans.
In April 1947, Isaac reached the Land of Israel. He joined the IDF the next year, and fought in the War of Liberation in the north, near Kibbutz Manara.
Isaac was married to Riva, and they had two children, Tzipora and Pinhas. He worked as a plasterer, and was a founder of the city of Holon. Upon reaching retirement age, he decided to continue working a few hours per day to keep himself busy.
On 29 March 1994, during the Passover holiday, as Isaac was hunched on his knees, fixing a floor in his workplace in Petah Tikva, two of the Arab laborers on site attacked him and struck the back of his neck with axes. He was critically wounded, and entered a coma. Two days later, on 31 March, he died.
The murderers were caught staying in Lod with their Israeli Arab accomplices, and were sentenced to life in prison.
Isaac was 67 at the time of his death. He was survived by his wife, son, brother, and sister.Our correspondents in the European capitals report on the rise of insurgent parties across the continent
FRANCE: Restless voters await a hero
To make their point that France’s mainstream parties are both as inept as each other, the Front National has taken to calling its rivals the UMPS, an amalgam of the acronyms for the opposition centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire and the ruling Parti Socialiste.
The FN’s populist anti-immigration message is broadly similar to that of Nigel Farage’s Ukip. And as with Ukip in Britain, the FN is benefiting not just from disillusionment caused by the economic crisis but from profound disillusion with the two principal parties, which have formerly had a monopoly on power.
On the left, President François Hollande and his governing Socialist party are facing criticism from without and within. Economic liberals believe the administration has not and will not carry out necessary structural reforms to create jobs, boost growth and cut public spending. It comes as a surprise to no one that France’s deficit is in contravention of European commission rules. This was the case even under the centre-right Nicolas Sarkozy, who did little to reduce it.
The commission has now lost patience and Hollande, the man currently in charge, is being held responsible. The president appears to be floundering. At one point France thought it wanted a monsieur normal, and Hollande fitted the bill. Now the country is giving the impression it wants a hero and a saviour and that Hollande is too ordinary. There is also a feeling among many PS supporters that Hollande won the presidency by paying lip service to a socialist programme, only to turn into a social democrat in office. Some suspect this was a deliberate and less than honest move.
On the right, the opposition UMP has been meandering from disaster to disaster. The party has been without a clear leader since shortly after Sarkozy lost his 2012 re-election battle. His prime minister, the anglophile François Fillon, and the young rightwing UMP leader Jean-François Copé went head to head over who should run the party, the political heir to the movement founded by Charles de Gaulle after the second world war. The subsequent election was indecisive, and accusations of vote-rigging turned into a wider slanging match. Sarkozy stepped back into the frame a few weeks ago, but he has several rivals in a party primary for new leader and candidate in 2017.
On top of this the UMP – and Sarkozy – are mired in various scandals involving campaign expenses.
In this turbulent context, the rise of the FN smacks of the adage about the one-eyed man being king in the land of the blind. FN leader Marine le Pen is appealing to what Saïd Mahrane in Le Point magazine describes as “globalisation’s losers” – a large tranche of the population.
Madani Cheurfa, a researcher at the respected university thinktank Cevipof, likens the current party political situation in France to that of the twilight years of the Conservative party’s 18-year reign in Britain – the seven years between 1990 and 1997 under John Major, when the Labour party was simultaneously struggling to find its way.
“It is like France is looking back to the 1980s and 1990s and not to the future,” Cheurfa says, adding that scandals, inaction and in-party squabbling are adding to the French public’s perception – and the FN’s central argument – that the traditional politicians, many of them graduates from a small group of Grandes Ecoles, are “all the same”.
Kim Willsher Paris
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters from the Five Star Movement wave portraits of Beppe Grillo at a demonstration in Rome. Photograph: Simona Granati/Simona Granati/Demotix/Corbis
ITALY: Grillo waits in the wings
Ever since Matteo Renzi became Italy’s youngest prime minister at 39 in February, styling himself as a political outsider and promising to prise open Italy’s closed-shop economy, commentators have been writing off Italy’s other great anti-establishment figure, Beppe Grillo.
The former standup comedian, who rose to fame with rants at the establishment and a wildly popular blog, won a staggering 8.7 million votes in the 2013 elections to Italy’s lower house, running the centre-left Democratic Party a close second. But since then, the MPs and senators who flooded into parliament to represent him have been criticised for refusing to team up with other parties on key legislation. The few that did risked expulsion from his Five Star Movement.
“There are continual divisions within Grillo’s parliamentary group – it’s pretty chaotic,” says Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of politics at LUISS university in Rome. “They are still waiting for Renzi to fail so they can inherit whatever’s left after the disaster.”
Furthermore, Grillo’s anti-Europe rhetoric is now being matched by a resurgence of the rightwing Northern League. After being decimated by scandals, this party has dropped its focus on autonomy for northern Italy, and charismatic new leader Matteo Salvini is now picking up votes nationally with attacks on immigration.
So why, despite the setbacks, are Grillo’s poll ratings still healthy? A survey of voting intentions this month put his movement at 19.9%, more than double the Northern League’s, albeit trailing Renzi’s 38.9%.
“Until the economy turns around, Grillo will win votes – there is so much frustration in Italy,” says D’Alimonte, who adds that Grillo’s raging against corruption continues to strike a chord. “We still read every day about scandalous misuses of public funds.”
Silvio Berlusconi’s decline is also helping the tousle-haired comedian, says D’Alimonte. “Grillo cuts across the political spectrum, taking votes from the left and the right, just like Ukip.”
Tom Kington Rome
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syriza posters protesting about austerity on a wall in Athens. Photograph: Dimitris Messinis/AP
GREECE: Even the wealthy turn to the left
Greece, perhaps more than any country in Europe, epitomises the rise of insurgents on the left and right.
The nation on the frontline of the euro crisis was the first to dispense with mainstream politicians, its electorate rejecting parties associated with the corrupt practices blamed for Athens’s near economic death. In place of centre-left Pasok and centre-right New Democracy, the parties that had alternated in power for 40 years, came Syriza, a cohort of radical leftists, and the menacing face of neofascism in the form of Golden Dawn.
“We can change the course of Europe, stop catastrophic austerity, and bring back democracy and social justice,” Syriza’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, told attendees at the foundation ceremony in Madrid on Saturday of Spain’s Podemos party (see below). “Every day that passes, the people’s movement in our countries [of the south] is becoming the terrifying enemy of neoliberal German hegemony.”
Opinion polls would support that view. Before the crash, Pasok and New Democracy represented 83% of the popular vote. Last month, support for Syriza, which accounted for less than 5% before the crisis, had soared to 35%, more than the combined total of the conservatives and socialists.
In recent weeks, surveys have shown the group with a lead of up to 12 points over New Democracy, although whether the party would win enough votes to muster a parliamentary majority is still debatable.
Like Golden Dawn (which did surprisingly well in May’s European elections but whose ratings have since dropped), Syriza has made a concerted effort to moderate its rhetoric in an attempt to broaden its support base. Instead of tearing up Greece’s onerous EU-IMF sponsored bailout programme, the party now speaks of “renegotiating” the deal.
In September the telegenic Tsipras, an avowed atheist, made a trip to Rome to hold talks with Pope Francis. This month, he will be calling in on the European Commission’s new president, Jean-Claude Juncker, in what some believe will be a bid to mend fences despite threatening to revoke most of the unpopular reforms implemented since the outbreak of the crisis. He has already held “constructive discussions” with the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi.
The failed bid by prime minister Antonis Samaras to throw off the yoke of international supervision by prematurely exiting the bailout programme has also vitiated his fragile government’s appeal.
Euphoria over EU figures showing Greece finally emerging from its record recession (albeit with low growth rates) was dented on Friday by the decision of a prominent conservative MP to resign in what was seen as the start of an abandonment of the ruling coalition by pro-business circles. Instead, leading members of Greece’s elite (starting with Gianna Angelopoulous, who organised the 2004 Athens Olympics and is married to a billionaire shipowner) are embracing the populist, anti-establishment Syriza.
With the loss of more than a quarter of national output, 1.5 million people out of work and a population ever more exhausted by relentless cuts and tax rises, many in Greece feel they have nothing to lose by giving the left a chance in power. That prospect looks increasingly likely if the government fails to gather the 180 votes required to elect a new head of state in February.
Tsipras, 40, last week stepped up calls for snap polls, saying “elections of deliverance and change” were crucial not only to enable Greeks to decide “for themselves”, but to rid the country of the international powers that oversaw its impoverishment.
Helena Smith Athens
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bodo Ramelow: Die Linke’s prospective premier for Thuringia in the ex-Communist east of the country. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters/Corbis
GERMANY: Still steady – but turnout is falling
The news that Germany may get its first socialist state premier has led some foreign commentators to conclude that, in a similar way to other countries in Europe, Germany is seeing the rise of populist parties on left and right. But things aren’t quite so simple.
While Die Linke (the Left party) looks likely to provide the next state premier of the Thuringia region, this has less to do with a surge in support for the far left (in Thuringia, it gained only 0.8% in the last election, in 2009) than with centre-left parties such as the Social Democrats and Greens overcoming old qualms about entering into coalition with the successor to communist East Germany’s ruling party, the SED. Die Linke may for the first time have come third in last year’s general elections, but it has made no noteworthy gains in regional elections in its notional eastern heartland since then. In Brandenburg, the party even lost 9% on the previous election.
One party that may have picked up their votes lies at the other end of the political spectrum. Anti-euro party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has undeniably gained momentum since narrowly failing to win any Bundestag seats last year. One September poll had it reaching 10%, making it the third-largest party in the country. But pollsters such as Forsa’s Manfred Güllner point out that seeming gains may be a “trick of the light”: while the percentage of the vote for the AfD may have risen, the actual numbers of people voting for them has stayed relatively stable.
For now, at least, Germany is still bucking a trend noticeable elsewhere in Europe, says Güllner. “The decreasing pulling power of the two big parties registers less in rising support for small parties than in a decline of people turning out to vote at all.” At some recent regional elections, turnout has been as low as 52%.
Philip Oltermann Berlin
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jimmie Akesson, leader of the rightwing Sweden Democrats party, and his girlfriend Louise Erixson, dressed in national traditional costume. Photograph: Scanpix Sweden/Reuters
SWEDEN: Anti-immigrant party gains ground
Sweden’s Social Democratic party, long the country’s natural party of government, got back into power this September after eight difficult years in opposition. But the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party with neo-Nazi roots, were the true election winners. The party won 13% of the vote, up from 6% in the 2010 election and enough to overtake the Greens as the third-largest party.
The Social Democrats, who from the 1930s built Sweden’s welfare capitalist system during an unbroken 40-year rule, are in decline. The 31% of the vote the party won in September was just 0.3 percentage points higher than it scored in 2010, its worst election result since universal suffrage.
The prospects for the Social Democrats in neighbouring Denmark in next year’s election look more desperate still. According to a November Gallup poll, the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party have narrowly overtaken them, winning the support of a 20.8% of voters, compared to the Social Democrats’ 20.4%. And it’s not only on the right that insurgent parties are making inroads. By moving to the centre, the Social Democrats in both countrieshave left space for other idealisms.
In September’s election, Sweden’s Feminist Initiative party managed to get 3.1% of the vote, just short of the threshold needed to enter parliament. In Denmark, the Red-Green Alliance, fronted by the 30-year-old Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, has seen its support quadruple from 2.2% in Gallup’s January 2010 poll to 9.2% this November.
Nicholas Aylott, associate professor in politics at Stockholm’s Södertörn University, argues that the reason the far right has gained ground in Sweden is that, unlike in Denmark and Norway, the established political parties refuse to allow immigration to become a mainstream political issue. “Sweden is peculiar,” he says. “It’s remarkable that such an extreme party as the Sweden Democrats could make such headway. I suspect part of the explanation is the very restricted debate.”
Fredrik Reinfeldt, leader of the Moderate party, opened the election campaign with a call for Swedes to “open your hearts” and accept a surge in asylum seekers. His party’s share of the vote collapsed from 30.1% to 23.1%.
Supporters of Sweden’s approach argue that allowing immigration questions into mainstream politics in Denmark and Norway has only empowered the populists. For a decade between 2001 and 2011, Denmark’s ruling coalition relied on the Danish People’s party for support, giving the party leverage to push through one of Europe’s strictest immigration regimes.
In Norway, the Progress party, a libertarian anti-immigration party which once had terrorist Anders Breivik as a member, has been the junior partner in the country’s two-party coalition government for over a year, with party leader Siv Jensen, who once warned of “stealth-Islamisation”, serving as finance minister.
It’s for now unclear whether the Sweden Democrats can also enter the mainstream. Sweden’s seven other parties have so far pledged not to cooperate with them, even though the party’s 49 seats would be enough to bring a left- or rightwing coalition a majority. Immigration is too toxic an issue for Anna Kinberg Batra, the Moderates’ new leader, to reverse Reinfeldt’s pro-refugee stance.
But the political editor of Svenska Dagbladet, the country’s most serious conservative newspaper, argued in last Sunday’s edition that the question of how many asylum seekers Sweden can realistically absorb needs to be discussed. That’s a sign that the debate may be about to change.
Richard Orange Stockholm
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters make their way through Dublin to demonstrate against the water tax. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP
IRELAND: Rebellion over a tax rise too far
Public anger against the introduction of water charges for the first time in Ireland’s history has finally seen the country’s population rebel against the politics of austerity. More than 100,000 people turned out for a mass demonstration against the charges in Dublin this autumn, with even greater numbers expected to march again to the Dáil next month.
After six years of enduring additional taxes and huge spending cuts to placate the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, which rescued Ireland from bankruptcy, even the middle classes say enough is enough.
Of late, among the main parties Sinn Féin has benefited most in terms of polling – it even became the largest in the state according to a survey last month in the Sunday Independent, which is traditionally hostile to the republican movement. In an Irish Times poll earlier in October, Sinn Féin was neck and neck on 24% with the senior coalition party, Fine Gael.
The most recent ballot-box revolt returned leftist Paul Murphy to the Dáil. In a tight race, Murphy – from the Socialist party, the heirs to the Irish branch of Militant Tendency – triumphed over Sinn Féin. Again water was the key issue and Murphy came through because he had a clear, unambiguous message. While Sinn Féin sent out mixed signals about whether it would advise voters to break the law and not pay, Murphy announced that he himself would not pay.
There has always been a tradition in Irish politics of independents, but usually they are elected on local issues. However, the latest batch of small-party candidates to the Dáil are more ideological in nature, and mainly come from the far left, such as the Socialists or People Before Profit. Whether they can morph into a coherent parliamentary bloc after the 2016 general election – which falls in the poignant centenary year of the Easter Rising – will be a key question for the next Dáil.
While the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government can point to a recovering economy and falling unemployment, as well as the achievement of exiting the IMF-ECB bailout programme a year ago, the rising tide of anger over water may yet prove fatal to both big parties at the election. And if byelections and opinion poll results are replicated in 2016, the net result could be chaotic and unpredictable.
Sinn Féin could try to cobble together a new coalition with a host of independent, mainly leftwing deputies, many of whom are deeply suspicious of the republican party. Another alternative might be an equally unprecedented one: the once-unthinkable grand coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
The latter outcome would mark the healing of another great wound in Ireland’s history – the short but vicious civil war of 1921-22 that gave birth to the two rival parties.
Henry McDonald Dublin
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mariano Rajoy: under pressure. Photograph: Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP
SPAIN: Indignados take centre stage
As the spectre of corruption loomed over his party last year, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy stood firm. He flatly denied the accusations that had threatened to topple his government – allegations that the People’s party (PP) had a slush fund stocked with payments from big business and that payments had been doled out to senior politicians, including himself.
Rajoy instead deflected the blame, arguing that his error lay in trusting Luis Bárcenas, the party’s former treasurer. “I was wrong to maintain confidence in someone we now know did not deserve it. I was cheated,” Rajoy told members of parliament.
The embarrassing spectacle of venality at the highest levels of the establishment was meat and drink to the ponytailed academic at the helm of Podemos, an upstart party that has grabbed headlines around the world.
Led by 36-year-old Pablo Iglesias, Podemos (meaning “We Can”) has built on the five seats it captured in the European elections and soared to the top of opinion polls in Spain in its first year of existence. Highly organised, and media-savvy, the party poses a viable threat to the two-party politics that have characterised the past three decades in Spain.
Iglesias delights in taking aim at what he calls “the caste,” referring to the regime that has governed Spain since 1978. His strong condemnation of the ruling class has struck a chord with Spaniards, particularly the one in four unemployed who have yet to see any tangible effects of the economic recovery touted by PP leaders. “Their discourse is framed as not a question of right or left, but rather one of above and below,” says José Pablo Ferrándiz of polling group Metroscopia. “The underlying question – are you suffering the crisis the same way as the rest of us? – really resonates with people.”
With promises to nationalise important industries, raise taxes on businesses and reduce the retirement age to 60 to increase job turnover, Podemos offers Spaniards a political vehicle to channel their anger at the powers widely blamed for driving the country into the economic crisis.
This month saw the party double its support, from 14% in October to 28%, according to a poll for El País, beating the opposition Socialists on 26% and the governing PP on 21%.
The results are impossible to untangle from the spate of corruption scandals that have dominated headlines in Spain of late. October saw roughly five Spaniards a day implicated in corruption cases, including 86 politicians and bankers under investigation for misusing company credit cards from Caja Madrid, racking up more than €15m in charges for everything from groceries to safaris.
Last week 32 bureaucrats in provinces across the country were arrested for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for contracts, while two formerly high-ranking Socialists in Andalucía were summoned to court to answer questions in an ongoing investigation into hundreds of millions of euros in public money handed out in fake redundancy payments.
While Podemos vows to expunge corruption, the governing PP has sought to downplay its existence. Rajoy told parliament last month: “Let’s not give the impression – because it is not the reality – of a country immersed in corruption. It’s not true.”
Within these differing responses lies one of Podemos’s greatest strengths, says Ferrándiz. Pointing to themes such as transparency and citizen participation, he says, “They’ve forced other political parties to start seriously considering measures that they never had in mind before.”
Meanwhile, in Catalonia, where talk of independence has dominated the political scene, another insurgent party looks poised to gain ground. Polls show pro-independence party Republican Left of Catalonia would win elections, ousting Artur Mas’s Convergence and Union coalition and leaving Madrid facing off against a government more fiercely committed to independence.
Ashifa Kassam MadridIntroduction
The car insurance industry is rapidly transitioning from traditional fixed fee insurance packages to usage based insurance (UBI). With recent car insurance cost surges, insurance companies are starting to realize that the majority of well behaved customers shouldn’t have to pay for the excesses of the few.
Traditional UBI approaches such as Pay As You Drive (PAYD) are gaining popularity, as customers only pay for the miles they drive. However, even within this customer segment, pricing is based on general statistics that might not apply to the majority of drivers. For example, men pay on average $15,000 more for auto insurance during their lifetime compared to women, and young drivers have difficulties to find affordable insurances world wide.
More recently, a second type of UBI has entered the market in the form of Pay How You Drive (PHYD) packages. Insurance companies provide black box devices that are mounted inside the car, and use a bunch of high end sensors to monitor your driving behavior. Based on your driving aggressiveness, traffic insight and anticipation, and speeding behavior, prices can be adapted to the individual. As a result, the majority of customers will see their fees go down, whereas the few aggressive drivers will notice an increase.
Despite the obvious advantages of PHYD, such black boxes come with several disadvantages too: High cost of installation and maintenance, no distinction between drivers (i.e. cars are often shared between family members), no opportunity for personalized driver coaching, and no way of augmenting the data with important context (e.g. did the driver just spend a few hours in a bar? Was the driver using his phone while driving?).
At Sentiance, we developed a sophisticated platform that allows us to leverage smartphone sensors to overcome these disadvantages. Smartphones contain the exact same sensors as costly black boxes, namely accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and GPS sensors. These sensors are used by the phone to automatically flip the screen when the phone’s orientation changes, to augment mapping and routing applications, and to improve gaming experience.
Exploiting these sensors to model driving behavior requires some sophisticated algorithmic processing and machine learning techniques to cope with phone orientation changes, different type of phone sensor characteristics, road type, and more. In this article, we describe how we overcame some of these challenges, and we present the results of comparing our solution with an industrial grade blackbox that is used in the Formula-1 industry.
Phone handling
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated in 2013 that driver distraction explained about 18% of all accidents causing injury, and about 10% of all fatal vehicle crashes, costing employers more than $24,500 per crash, $150,000 per injury, and $3.6 million per fatality.
Smartphone apps that detect phone handling generally monitor app usage and screen-on time. However, such approach does not distinguish between real phone handling while driving, and using foreground apps (e.g. Google Maps) without manual intervention while the phone is mounted.
Instead of monitoring app usage, we directly use the phone’s sensor data (accelerometer and gyroscope) to model how the phone’s movement during phone handling differs from how it moves normally while driving. When the phone is not being handled, it could be positioned in any orientation, could be mounted to the windshield, floating around on the passenger seat or being tucked away in your pocket or hand bag.
Our sensor analytics pipeline automatically learns to distinguish between real phone handling and other types of phone movements. The following figure shows the accelerometer data from a ten minute car trip, together with the phone handling probabilities produced by our classifier:
To quantify the performance of our algorithm, we manually annotated hundreds of real-life car trips to train the classifier, and used a small subset to evaluate its performance. The test set only contains trips that were not part of the training set. Also, no other trips from the same users were part of the training set, in order to prevent overfitting on specific user behavior. In line with academic literature, we present the accuracy of our method by reporting the area under the ROC curve:
The total AUC score of 96% was obtained without any further smoothing. Moreover, our algorithm is able to use both accelerometer and gyroscope if available, but also works fine if no gyroscope data can be sampled (e.g. low-end smart phones). To avoid overfitting on a specific sensor type or phone brand, we used more than 30 different types of phones during both training and evaluation. Finally, state-of-the-art signal processing and data augmentation techniques are used to ensure that the algorithm does not depend on a specific orientation of the smartphone.
Mounted/loose detection
Although knowing when a phone is being handled during a car trip is valuable information for insurance companies, many of our customers reside in the fleet and mobility sector. Fleet management companies or ride sharing platforms usually ask their drivers to keep the phone mounted at all times.
Detecting whether or not the phone is mounted is not an easy task, due to infinite types of phone mounts on the market today. Mounts with long and flexible handles cause the phone to vibrate while driving, polluting the accelerometer and gyroscope measurements. Moreover, the length and stiffness of the handle determines the magnitude and period of these vibrations, where long handles act as a low-pass filter on the data. Magnetic mounts cause serious interference on the smartphone’s magnetometer, and air-vent-mounts often allow a large in-plane rotation of the phone. Finally, depending on the height of the driver and where the mount is positioned (e.g. corner of the windshield versus attached to a cup holder), the phone’s orientation varies greatly.
We re-trained and fine-tuned our deep machine learning pipeline discussed above, for the specific problem of mounted/loose detection. The following figure shows the sensor data and resulting classifier probabilities for a twenty minute trip:
Similar to the phone handling classification problem, we gathered and manually labelled hundreds of trips with different phones, cars and drivers, testing different road types in several countries. We also tested about 30 different mount types and many more mount positions and phone orientations, in order to make sure that our method would not overfit on a single type of mount. The following figure shows the ROC AUC score achieved by our algorithm:
The total AUC score of almost 99% allows us to combine this classifier with the phone handling classifier in order to further reduce the false positive rate. Combining both algorithms result in an accurate view of how the user treats his phone while driving; an insight that can not be obtained by simply monitoring app usage or screen locks.
Driving event detection
To get a precise insight into the driving behavior of the users, we developed a machine learning pipeline that allows the smartphone to be used directly as a replacement for expensive black box Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). As opposed to many recent smart phone based driving behavior approaches, we are able to accurately distinguish longitudinal forces (i.e. acceleration and braking) from latitudinal forces (i.e. centripetal force during turns) and vertical forces imposed by road bumps.
Moreover, we can cope with arbitrary phone orientation changes and phone handling, and do not depend on high frequency GPS signals, which are often unreliable and battery draining. Instead, our methods are based solely on smart phone sensor data. In the following paragraphs, we dive deeper into some of the difficulties that are encountered when coping with smart phone sensor data.
A first major difficulty, is the dynamic estimation of the phone’s orientation. A phone can be positioned in any arbitrary orientation, and the orientation might change at any time during a trip. For simplicity, we will express the phone’s orientation using its yaw, pitch and roll angles in this article:
Note, however, that in practice, a more complicated representation is used, because Euler angles are known to suffer from the so called gimbal lock problem. However, diving into the specifics of rotation matrices, axis-angle representations and quaternions would lead us too far.
The first step in our pipeline essentially tries to estimate the phone’s roll and pitch angles, relative to the earth’s surface. Once these are known, we then estimate the yaw angle, relatively to the driving direction. This last part is important, since the absolute yaw angle changes every time a driver takes a turn, whereas the relative yaw angle uses the car itself as a reference coordinate system. Both steps are performed in real-time, are continuously re-estimated, and are achieved without leveraging the GPS sensor.
To obtain an estimate of the roll and pitch angles, gyroscope and accelerometer readings are combined by our sensor fusion solution. Whereas gyroscopes are known to exhibit long-term drift, accelerometers are known to exhibit a large amount of short-term noise. Dynamically fusing both sensor readings, allows us to combine the best of both worlds. Moreover, accelerometers also measure the influence of gravity, even when there is no acceleration at all. We use this information to further improve the orientation estimate by assigning a higher belief to the gyroscope readings during large accelerations and brakes, while assigning a larger belief to the accelerometer readings in other cases. These beliefs are updated continuously by a probabilistic dynamical system.
This method also allows us to cope with hills, which |
Bruce Campbell often appear in on-screen roles in his film and television projects, although some of the appearances are just cameos. The trio have been working together since their college days. Both Ted and Bruce have appeared in all three Evil Dead and Spider-Man movies, as well as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, which Sam produced. In the Evil Dead films, Campbell plays the recurring lead part of Ash, while Ted played various small parts in each film.
In the Spider-Man films Ted played the featured role of Daily Bugle advertising manager Ted Hoffman, while Bruce Campbell played different roles in each Spider-Man film. In Hercules and Xena, Ted and Bruce played the recurring roles of Joxer and Autolycus respectively. Raimi occasionally appears on-screen in his movies, usually in similar fashion to the cameos made by his idol Alfred Hitchcock: In Spider-Man in the wrestling scene as a silhouette behind a projection screen; in Spider-Man 2 as a passing student whose bookbag hits Peter Parker in the back of the head; as a hitchhiking fisherman accompanied by Robert Tapert in The Evil Dead. Raimi also wears a suit with white shirt and tie on-set in another homage to Hitchcock. An adept fan will also notice Raimi's recurring usage of soda crackers as a back prop.
Raimi often works with film editor Bob Murawski, a fellow Michigan State University alumnus. Among Raimi's films edited by Murawski include the Spider-Man movies, The Gift, and Army of Darkness. Raimi also frequently collaborates with composer Joseph LoDuca, another acquaintance from Michigan who has provided the scores to most of his films.
Raimi has included his old car from his college days, a 1973 yellow Oldsmobile Delta 88 automobile (nicknamed "The Classic"), in every film including The Quick and the Dead ("Somewhere...somewhere hidden. Only I know. I'll never tell"). At Comic-con 2005 Bruce Campbell revealed that a special covered wagon frame had covered the Oldsmobile to maintain the motif of the film. The yellow Oldsmobile also appeared in Drag Me to Hell, driven by the elderly gypsy woman. A bottle of Maker's Mark also appears regularly in his movies. The Classic does not appear in the final cut of For Love of the Game, however. The scene in which it appeared was removed during the editing process.[citation needed]
Other Raimi visual trademarks include:
A distinctive camera shot where the camera follows a moving object (such as an arrow or a bullet) at high speed creating a first-person point-of-view from the object itself;
A rapid dolly shot to bring a far-off object suddenly into the center of the frame or to pull back from the main focal object to show what is happening around the perimeter (sometimes called "push-pull");
Montage sequences with overlapping close-up shots to establish a set of similar actions over elapsing time.
Extreme closeups using a wide angle lens.
In the Making The Amazing documentary on the Spider-Man 2 DVD, both Tobey Maguire and Bruce Campbell humorously describe Raimi's penchant for "abusing" actors. To obtain detailed closeups of a character getting hit by debris Raimi stands off-camera throwing items, swinging tree branches, etc., at the actor at the center of the shot. Scenes from the documentary show that Raimi is the one throwing popcorn at Peter Parker during the walk to the wrestling ring in Spider-Man and tossing gold coins around during the bank robbery scene in Spider-Man 2, as well as a passer-by banging their bag into Peter Parker's head as he kneels on the sidewalk of his college's campus being Sam Raimi.
In many of Raimi's movies the camera itself is part of the action onscreen. One of Raimi's most famous sequences involves a point-of-view shot of actor Bruce Campbell being chased through a cabin by an unseen evil force.
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Raimi has been married since 1993 to Gillian Dania Greene, daughter of actor Lorne Greene. They have five children, three of whom (daughter Emma Rose and sons Lorne and Henry) appeared as extras in Drag Me to Hell, and in Spider-Man 3 during the movie's final battle.[citation needed]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Producer only
Acting roles [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Year Title Also credited as Notes Director Writer Producer 1994 M.A.N.T.I.S. No story executive TV movie 2014 Rake Yes No executive 2 episodes 2015–2018 Ash vs Evil Dead Yes Yes executive Episode: "El Jefe";
Also developer
Executive producer only
Acting roles [ edit ]
Year Title Role Notes 1993 Body Bags Dead Bill TV movie Journey to the Center of the Earth Collins 1994 The Stand Bobby Terry TV miniseries;
1 episode 1997 The Shining Howie Langston TV miniseries;
1 episode
Awards [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]The ruins were recently discovered beyond the tundra of Planet Naberius. Originally it was thought there were no previous civilizations on Naberius, but with this discovery, we see strange facilities left behind. A fierce battle awaits in the ruins where a multitude of Darkers reside.
To challenge this area, you must be level 25 or higher!
Infected Grim Monolith
When Grim Monoliths are infected by Darkers, it will increase their power.
New Interrupt Event
In Code Protection: the Arks must defeat several Darker type machines called ダーカイム Darkaim (Darkyme) that pollutes the environment.
EXCube
EXCubes in your inventory!
The Excube system allows one to acquire EXP even if they are at the level cap. When you acquire EXP equivalent to one class level, you receive several EXCubes. You can acquire them over and over and save them up each time you gain a level. You must clear all level cap unlocking client orders to acquire EXCubes.
Excube Shop Screen
Excube Shop List
3 Rare Drop Boost + 250% = 2 Excubes
1 Grind Success + 30% = 1 Excube
1 Add ability success + 30% = 1 Excube
1 PB Device / Helix P = 10 Excubes
1 PB Device / Helix I = 10 Excubes
1 PB Device / Helix N = 10 Excubes
1 PB Device / Ajax P = 10 Excubes
1 PB Device / Ajax I = 10 Excubes
1 PB Device / Ajax N = 10 Excubes
1 Rear / Tiltwin γ = 3 Excubes
1 Arm / Titastin γ = 3 Excubes
1 Leg / Destren γ = 3 Excubes
1 Rear / Brostol γ = 3 Excubes
1 Arm / Bristea γ = 3 Excubes
1 Leg / Breasn γ = 3 Excubes
1 Rear / Rappy Feather = 5 Excubes
1 Rear / LeafBush = 5 Excubes
Photon Drop Shop
Finally, all those photon drops you’ve been saving up now have a purpose. You can trade them in the Photon Drop Exchange Shop. 10 Photon Drops can be traded for a Photon Crystal. 99 photon drops or 10 photon crystals can be traded to receive a Photon Sphere.
You can trade these items at the photon shop for mag devices, boost items, and items with strong abilities.
Photon Drop Exchange Shop
1 Photon Sphere = 10 Photon Crystals
1 Photon Sphere = 99 Photon Drops
1 Photon Crystal = 10 Photon Drops
5 EXP+25% = 1 Photon Sphere
1 EXP+75% = 1 Photon Sphere
3 Food Device Striking Mini = 2 Photon Spheres
3 Food Device Ranged Mini = 2 Photon Spheres
3 Food Device Tech Mini = 2 Photon Spheres
3 Food Device DEX Mini = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Support Device / Ability UP H = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Support Device / Ability UP K = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Gun Scissor = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Gun Scissor = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Gun Scissor = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Sub / Adspirita δ = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Sub / Adspirita δ = 2 Photon Spheres
1 Sub / Adspirita δ = 2 Photon Spheres
Crabarda クラバーダ
The impregnable fortress Crabarda is protected with shields on both arms! The shield not only protects the body, but is also a terrible weapon that smashes its target.
Kyklonahda キュクロナーダ and Cyclonehda サイクロネーダ
Cyclonehda
Two powerful Darker’s whose bodies are wrapped in firm armor. Kyklonahda’s wields a blunt cylindrical weapon, while Cyclonahda flings a huge iron ball around like a flail.
Kyklonehda
Their weak-point is hidden within the armor. With coordinated efforts with your partner, you may be able to break through their firm defense.
Zeshreida ゼッシュレイダ
Zeshreida is a strong darker who presides over the ruins. Zeshreida is the Ruins boss with a star shaped shell that fires powerful energy balls from its back. It can also perform high speed jet propelled attacks that torment the Arks. When Zeshreida falls over, he’s defenseless, but once he gets up, he deals a powerful counter attack.The other day I looked at an exchange between Ron Wyden and Jim Comey that took place in January 2014, as well as the response FBI gave Wyden afterwards. I want to return to the reason I was originally interested in the exchange: because it reveals that FBI, in addition to obtaining cell location data directly from a phone company or a Stingray, will sometimes get location data from a mobile app provider.
I asked Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith from Houston whether he had seen any such requests — he’s one of a group of magistrates who have pushed for more transparency on these issues. He explained he had had several hybrid pen/trap/2703(d) requests for location and other data targeting WhatsApp accounts. And he had one fugitive probation violation case where the government asked for the location data of those in contact with the fugitive’s Snapchat account, based on the logic that he might be hiding out with one of the people who had interacted with him on Snapchat. The providers would basically be asked to to turn over the cell site location information they had obtained from the users’ phone along with other metadata about those interactions. To be clear, this is not location data the app provider generates, it would be the location data the phone company generates, which the app accesses in the normal course of operation.
The point of getting location data like this is not to evade standards for a particular jurisdiction on CSLI. Smith explained, “The FBI apparently considers CSLI from smart phone apps the same as CSLI from the phone companies, so the same legal authorities apply to both, the only difference being that the ‘target device’ identifier is a WhatsApp/Snapchat account number instead of a phone number.” So in jurisdictions where you can get location data with an order, that’s what it takes, in jurisdictions where you need a probable cause warrant, that’s what it will take. The map above, which ACLU makes a great effort to keep up to date here, shows how jurisdictions differ on the standards for retrospective and prospective location information, which is what (as far as we know) will dictate what it would take to get, say, CSLI data tied to WhatsApp interactions.
Rather than serving as a way to get around legal standards, the reason to get CSLI from the app provider rather than the phone company that originally produces it is to get location data from both sides of a conversation, rather than just the target phone. That is, the app provides valuable context to the location data that you wouldn’t get just from the target’s cell location data.
The fact that the government is getting location data from mobile app providers — and the fact that they comply with the same standard for CSLI obtained from phones in any given jurisdiction — may help to explain a puzzle some have been pondering for the last week or so: why Facebook’s transparency report shows a big spike in wiretap warrants last year.
[T]he latest government requests report from Facebook revealed an unexpected and dramatic rise in real-time interceptions, or wiretaps. In the first six months of 2015, US law enforcement agencies sent Facebook 201 wiretap requests (referred to as “Title III” in the report) for 279 users or accounts. In all of 2014, on the other hand, Facebook only received 9 requests for 16 users or accounts.
Based on my understanding of what is required, this access of location data via WhatsApp should appear in several different categories of Facebook’s transparency report, including 2703(d), trap and trace, emergency request, and search warrant. That may include wiretap warrants, because this is, after all, prospective interception, and not just of the target, but also of the people with whom the target communicates. That may be why Facebook told Motherboard “we are not able to speculate about the types of legal process law enforcement chooses to serve,” because it really would vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and possibly even judge to judge.
In any case, we can be sure such requests are happening both on the criminal and the intelligence side, and perhaps most productively under PRISM (which could capture foreign to domestic communications at a much lower standard of review). Which, again, is why any legislation covering location data should cover the act of obtaining location data, whether via the phone company, a Stingray, or a mobile app provider.Hey Everyone! It's been super busy here but I am finally getting my feet underneath me so I figure its time for an update. I am back in the Green and Gray uniform and loving it. I am slowly learning the ecosystem and how things run around here. I work 5 days a week and give 6 different programs, my favorite being my evening program at the Moraine Park campground. I picked alpine/wildflowers and people seem to really enjoy it. I enjoy giving it because I get to talk about my favorite ecosystem and the flowers that make their home there. Speaking of flowers, they are in FULL bloom right now. I really missed the wildflowers of the mountains after living in the desert the past year. I have already had some visitors, and I am expecting some more throughout the summer. I have been hiking 2-3 times a week trying to get in good hiking shape in order to do Long's Peak before my 30th birthday on August 25 which also happens to be the birthday of the National Park Service. Long's is the only 14K foot peak in the park and since I have never done a 14'er before, I set that as my goal for the summer. I have already hit two mountains over 12.5K and look to hit 3 more this weekend named Chapin, Chaquita, and Ypsilon that are 12.5, 13, and 13.5K respectively. Here's hoping. So this post is gonna be photo heavy and I will give descriptions below the photos. Feel free to share and ENJOY!!
Back Yard Alpenglow
Sunrise on the range after a late spring snowstorm viewed from my front porch
Pink Trees
First light on the trees with fresh snow
Ypsilon, Chiquita, and Chapin Sunset
Chapin, Chaquita, and Ypsilon with fresh snow
Ute Trail Alpine
First hike in the alpine
Ute Trail Hiker in the Apline
Hiking in the alpine as the clouds roll through
Bear Lake Sunrise
Sunrise and Honeymoon over Bear Lake
Honeymoon Over Bear Lake
Honeymoon over Bear Lake
Meeker and Longs from Estes Cone
Meeker and Long's Peak from Estes Cone
Morning in Moraine Park
Morning in Moraine Park
Sprague Lake Reflections
Honeymoon over Sprague Lake
Sunset and Lava Cliffs From 12K ft
Sunset near Lava Cliffs
Sunset Through the Cairn
Sunset through the cairns
Sunset on CCY
Sunset on Chapin, Chaquita, and Ypsilon
Sunset over Deer Mountain
Sunset from my house
Meeker and Longs Peak
Estes Cone Scramble with Meeker and Long's Peak
View from Sundance Mountain
Evening Light on Long's Peak
Hallet Mountain and Tyndal Glacier Panorama
Hallet Peak and Tydall Glacier
Hazy Sunset From Sundance Mountain (2)
Hazy sunset from 12.5K
Hazy Sunset Panorama
Fire in the sky
Milky Way and Sky Glow Over Bear Lake
Milky Way over Bear Lake
Field of Dreams
Field of dreams
Evening Beers
After work beers in the mountains
South Ute Trail Ridge Sunset (2)
Sunset and wildflowers
Pond Near Lake Hiyaha
Reflections near Lake Hiyaha
Elk Calf in the Alpine
Elk calf in the alpine
Moose Cow in the Field
Young moose near Cub Lake
Pika in the Boulder Field
Pika enjoying the sunset with us
Pika with Avens
Pika dinner time
Chipmunk Profile
Alert chipmunk
Backyard Coyote
Resident coyote
Wood Lily with Lady Bug - Lilium philadelphicum
My first wood lily!
Parry's Primrose - Primula parryi
Beautiful primrose near a seep spring
Brownie Lady's Slipper - Cypripedium fasciculatum
My First Brownie's Fairy Slippers!
Plains Pricklypear - Opuntia polyacantha
Prickly Pear Cactus
Ball Cactus - Escobaria vivipara
Mountain Ball Cactus
Glowing Pasque
Pasque means it's spring time!
Snow Buttercup - Ranunculus adoneus
Snow Buttercup
Calypso Orchid (3) - Calypso bulbosa
More orchids
Great-horned Owl
Great-horned Owl
Violet Green Swallow - Tachycineta thalassina
Violet-green Swallow
Broad-tailed Hummingbird - Selasphorus platycercus
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Broad-tailed Hummingbird (4) - Selasphorus platycercus
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Broad-tailed Hummingbird Feeding on Golden Banner
Broad-tailed Hummingbird feeding
Clark's Nutcracker - Nucifraga columbiana
Clark's Nutcracker
Mountain Bluebird with Feather - Sialia currucoides
Bluebird making a nest
American Pipit Ground Nest
American Pipit nest!
Wilson's Warbler - Cardellina pusilla
Wilson's Warbler Singing.
Ill be sure to keep posting as I get more. I hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying their summers. Life is certainly good here. No update on any job prospects here yet. I'll let you know when I know! Thanks and I'll talk you to all soon.Open source software in healthcare has been instrumental for sharing common tools and increasing adoption of emerging medical information technology (IT) standards. By leading the effort to digitize health data, imaging informatics has set the precedent for the adoption of the technology industry's best practices and subsequently open source software.
The domain of imaging informatics is generally associated with radiology, though other specialties such as cardiology, pathology, and dermatology are also heavily based on medical imaging. Radiology involves both sophisticated medical hardware and software. The "modalities," such as Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Radiography (CR/DR, otherwise known as X-Ray), produce images that are interpreted by radiologists. Radiologists are medical doctors with specialized training in imaging, who often use software tools with advanced postprocessing and computer vision functionality to interpret the images.
The storage and presentation of medical images was one of the first initial challenges in imaging informatics; a typical CT scan today produces thousands of images, which require storage space of ~500MB. A 1000-bed hospital may have more than 1300 radiology examinations done in a single day with an average of 350+ images, and these images need to be stored for at least seven years (different rules apply for pediatrics and mammography) due to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. Medical images contain several thousand shades of gray and require a higher bit-depth than traditional commercial imaging formats. Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) emerged to tackle the management of these images; these systems are responsible for storage, retrieval, transmission and display of medical images.
The first generation of PACS technology was created in the late 1980s by modality vendors, who implemented proprietary file and representation formats and bundled the PACS as part of a modality purchase. Integration and interoperability quickly became the next challenge as having a centralized archive of all medical images was not easily attainable and the visualization of medical images could not be separated from the archiving functionality. The National Electronic Manufacturers Association (NEMA) developed means to standardize the storage, transmission and presentation of medical images through a standard named Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM).
Open source development has been critical in the adoption of DICOM as the de facto global IT standard for medical imaging. The Radiological Society of Northern America (RSNA) commissioned two groups to develop the first reference implementations of DICOM in the early 1990s as a means to accelerate the adoption of the standard. The OFFIS group from Oldenburg, Germany, developed DCMTK—a collection of libraries and applications implementing large parts of the DICOM standard, which includes software for analyzing, constructing, converting DICOM image files, handling offline media, sending and receiving images over a network among many others. The Electronic Radiology Lab at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology from St. Louis, MO developed the Central Test Node (CTN, http://erl.wustl.edu/research/dicom/ctn.html) software to support cooperative demonstrations by medical imaging vendors. Both of these open source projects, along with other successful open source projects such as DCM4CHE and DVTK are widely considered to be part of a PACS administrator’s essential toolkit to carry out their daily tasks.
The other domains of Imaging Informatics mainly include the transmission of medical data between systems and managing the workflow of a radiologist. The typical workflow of a radiology exam begins when another physician orders an imaging examination for a patient. After scheduling, a technologist then carries out the examination in the appropriate modality. These examinations go into work queues of radiologists, otherwise known as worklists. A radiologist may interpret upwards of 150 cases a day, reviewing the images for each and generating a textual report. This requires that these exam orders be managed in worklists sorted by the various types of examinations, and that the results—the radiology reports—be transmitted to other information systems such as an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in an automated fashion. A Radiology Information System (RIS) is responsible for such functionality among many others such as scheduling the patients’ exams and providing medical information about the patient to be used as part of the medical images. A RIS uses the Health Level 7 (HL7) standard to communicate with other systems. A RIS or a PACS Administrator may use an open source tool such as Mirth Connect to develop, test, deploy, and monitor HL7 interfaces. There are open source APIs, such as HAPI for parsing HL7 information in an objective manner.
There are other popular open source projects for image viewing and processing:
These open source projects represent just a handful of all the open source projects used in imaging informatics, let alone healthcare. The communities that support these projects are strong and growing more than ever. Many of the projects mentioned above can be seen at Open Source Plug Fest, hosted every year to promote knowledge and sharing of open source projects in imaging informatics by The Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM). There, the direction of a projects are discussed with colleagues and the most successful project of the year is elected.
This year, SIIM 2014 welcomes healthcare open source projects from other domains to participate in its 7th Annual Open Source Plug Fest from May 15 - 17 in Long Beach, California. Register by February 28. Another event that may interest developers is the 1st annual Hackathon where you can learn about using the latest web-based healthcare APIs.
Written with: Don K. Dennison, Tessa Cook, MD, PhD, Paul Nagy, PhD, FSIIM[Ádám] participates in a competition called KöMaL. It’s a 9-times-a-month journal for junior high and high school students featuring math and physics problems. [Paul Erdős], one of the most published mathematicians of all time, was a huge participant and by far the most notable student to crack open a copy of KöMaL in its hundred-year history. [Ádám] was trying his hand at a problem in Excel, but the official rules prohibit the use of Excel macros. In a daze, he came up with one of the most clever uses of Excel: building an assembly interpreter with the most popular spreadsheet program.
This is a virtual Harvard architecture machine without writable RAM; the stack is only lots and lots of IFs. The instructions – mostly load, MOV, JNZ, INC, and CMP solves this problem, examining two inputs to see if they multiples of each other. If you’re wondering, an example cell from [Ádám]’s Excel sheet looks like this:
=F6 INDEX($C$2:$C99999,$G2,1), IF(AND(INDEX($B$2:$B99999,$G2,1)="JZ",$I2=0), INDEX($C$2:$C99999,$G2,1), IF(AND(INDEX($B$2:$B99999,$G2,1)="JNZ",$I2<>0), INDEX($C$2:$C99999,$G2,1), G2+1 ) ) ) )
[Ádám] has provided his Excel solution to the problem, available on the hackaday.io. It’s in Hungarian which really shouldn’t matter since it’s basically Excel and a pseudo-x86 instruction set. but the column labels will require a bit of Google Translate.Seventy-seven percent of the complaints made to Portland's Independent Police Review Division alleging police misconduct last year were dismissed and not referred to internal affairs for review, according to an annual division report released Thursday.
That represents 323 of 417 complaints.
The reasons for dismissal could include lack of witnesses, lack of sufficient evidence to prove alleged misconduct, an officer could not be identified or the complaint was not timely, the report says.
The report does not describe the complaints in detail or identify the officers involved.
Of the 123 complaints received from community members that did go to police internal affairs for review in 2012, 53 percent, or 65, were then forwarded to precinct commanders or the officers' immediate supervisors for minor rule violations, 33 percent or 40 were investigated and 15 percent, or 18, were declined for investigation.
The most common rule violations stemmed from complaints of rude behavior or language, the report says.
Last year, police internal affairs conducted full investigations of 40 complaints from community members, and 24 complaints initiated by someone from within the police bureau.
Only 21 percent, or 26 of the community complaints made in 2012 were sustained: 12 for unprofessional conduct, three for discourtesy, three for force and eight involving improper police procedures.
Yet the bureau sustained 86 percent, or 18 of the complaints that were initiated by fellow bureau members against an officer.
In 2012, 66 community or bureau-initiated complaints involved allegations of excessive or inappropriate use of force. Nine officers had two force complaints, while one officer had three complaints.
Complaints were made against 361 police bureau employees. Of that, one employee had seven complaints in 2012, four had five complaints each.
No Portland police officers were fired in 2012, but three resigned or retired while under investigation. Three officers faced lengthy unpaid suspensions of 81 hours or more, nine faced unpaid suspensions between 10 and 80 hours, 15 were given letters of reprimand, and 13 received command counseling.
The report recorded the demographics of people who have filed complaints against Portland police: Fifty-three percent were male, and 47 percent were female.
Sixty-six percent of the people who filed complaints, or 238, were white, 20 percent, or 73, were African American, 5 percent, and 19 were Latino, 3 percent, or 11 were Asian.
Most were between the ages of 35 and 49.
It took a median of 222 days for the full investigative process to be completed, from the time the Independent Police Review Division sent a complaint to internal affairs to when a police review board has issued a finding and proposed discipline.
--Maxine BernsteinLos Angeles police are examining the car of a 100-year-old man who plowed into more than a dozen people in South Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Officials said they will be looking for any data or mechanical issues related to the car and also talk to witnesses.
They said Thursday that 14 people, not the 11 initially reported, were injured when the driver backed his car into a group of people waiting to cross the street near a South Los Angeles elementary school.
Det. John Meneses of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Traffic Division said 11 children and three adults were injured Wednesday afternoon when Preston Carter backed his Cadillac into the group waiting near Main Street Elementary School.
Meneses said two of the victims remained hospitalized Thursday but were in stable condition.
The detective said the investigation into the accident was just beginning and may take weeks. But he said a key focus for investigators will be Carter’s claim that his brakes may have failed, causing him to strike the pedestrians.
“That’s a primary issue for us right now, because the gentleman made the assertion that he had some kind of mechanical failure,” Meneses said.“Masih,” that is, “Messiah,” is a common surname for Christians in Pakistan. This story says that doctors were reluctant to treat him because it is Ramadan and he was drenched in sewage sludge, but it also must be noted that the Qur’an says, “O you who have believed, indeed the polytheists are unclean” (9:28), and considers Christians polytheists for worshiping the Trinity: “O People of the Book, do not commit excess in your religion or say about Allah except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary, and a soul from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, ‘Three’; desist – it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. Exalted is He above having a son.” (4:171). Thus the doctors likely regarded Irfan Masih as unclean not just because he was covered with sewage sludge, but because he was a Christian.
“Sanitary worker dies in Umerkot after fasting doctors refuse to touch his ‘unclean’ body,” by Z Ali, Express Tribune, June 2, 2017:and a hundred men in full tactical war gear to shoot us with rubber bullets, spray us with chemical weapons, or charge us with domestic terrorism. While groups of mindless women roast inside fake tan UV booths in an attempt to turn orange, there are other women across town having the courts abduct their children from them and placed in foster care for participating in even the most banal forms of Occupy activism. And then there are those who partied in the street when Obama won re-election, and there are those of us who know exactly what a monster this man really is. And he is an absolute hydra. He is also a murderer, a criminal, a thief & a joke. He is a national disgrace and must be removed from power by whatever legitimate means we have. Why? Well, things that you may have no knowledge about. My condemnation of Obama has nothing to do with the usual distorted arguments of right wing propaganda. It instead basis itself upon such dubious realities as Executive Order 13603, the NDAA, HR 347, Fukushima, Corexit 9500, FEMA Camps, ICE Centers, secret wars, indefinite detention, making the USA military & police legally one and the same – not to mention ICLEI, AGENDA 21, SOPA, PIPA, PP20, Obama's Bilderberg Membership, usurping Habeas Corpus, or ATF raids of raw milk farms or FBI raids of medical marijuana dispensaries or using Homeland Security to aggressively fight the drug war while allowing the CIA to retain its status as one of the largest drug smuggling operations on the planet. And let us not overlook the Fast & Furious scandal, Obama's refusal to close Guantanamo, his implementation of aggressive drone warfare, his approved assassination list for American citizens without trial or his treasonous complicity as a Federal Reserve accomplice. We cannot overlook his cont inu ed fun din g & sup por t of Isr ael i apa rth eid sta te ter ror ism as wel l as blo cki ng Pal est ini an Statehood. Nor can we dismiss his continued allowance of Bradley Manning being punished in solitary confinement for 3 continuous years without trial for heroically upholding his oath the constitution for exposing war crimes. Nor can we ignore Obama's aggressive supplying of drones to law enforcement across the nation, his allowance of the Feds instituting illegal nationwide random “terrorist hunting” checkpoints through the VIPER program or the installed Skywatch (Spy) Tower s at W almart stores nationwide. W e also cannot overlook his refusal to outlaw the Dead Peasants Insurance Policy or his track record of bankrolling dictatorships or playing into the ever present 9/11 cover up while blatantly fabricating the deat h of Osa ma Bin Lad en. Fur the rmo re, Oba ma has fed era lly blo cke d mea sur es whi ch wer e democratically elected, pursued a DNA collection database to be made from random traffic stops or street detentions, and above all creating a very real, very terrifying Orwellian police state through illegal Executive Orders... If you haven't been paying attention, most of that may seem like “mumbo jumbo.” So I will spell it all out plainly as I present my Top 21 nightmare news stories of 2012. Because like never before, last year I was a media hawk – and I'm not going to balance the other side of the argument with their propaganda. Quite frankly, we've entered this moment of national debate concerning gun rights which is being driven by the Obama administration itself because it suits their agenda. And it has nothing to do with keeping you safe, it really is about domestic control. Then they get a hatchet man like Piers Morgan to trot out Alex Jones to be their poster boy for the “looney opposition,” and of course Alex is going to play right into their hands because he is what he is, and all you need to do is get him fired up – they knew it & they welcomed it. But as I said before, the problem with Alex Jones is that he comes off as a total raving lunatic to middle America because he lives his sensationalist apocalypse vibe to the hilt. Everything he says sounds so far fetched and intense that the average American cannot take him seriously. The other problem with Alex Jones is that he is essentially telling the truth, even if exaggerated, and it's all so horrible most can only look away or dismiss it as tin foil hat madness. Although I must admit that perhaps the only man capable of delivering these messages is a guy like him. W e need Alex Jones and his raging bullhorn, we need his loud ass mouth and Texan swagger – but we also need to devise a wayWe all know the now-famous Albuquerque home from the greatest TV show of all time — and I don’t care what you Game of Thrones or The Wire fanboys say, it’s totally the greatest TV show of all time. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably planned out a trip — in your head, at least — to Walter White’s sleepy little suburban home under the false pretense that you’re taking the kids to Disneyland, or something. Or maybe I’m just projecting my fandom, here.
In either case, there are probably some things you should know about that house before you go a’knocking. One of those, ironically being, don’t go a’knocking; that’s not a prop house, but a private residence. And evidently, one of its residents isn’t too keen on fans dropping by and poking around. And can you really blame her? I wouldn’t want a bunch of people poking around my home, even if I got a boatload of money for letting people film it.
So, in the interest of giving these poor people their privacy and still letting the fandom have a little bit of fun, I’ve compiled this small bit of facts and faux pas in case one of you decide to visit the private domicile of Mr. White. And naturally, I did this with nothing to spare of my crack journalism skills — okay, I really just googled around for like an hour, but c’mon, gimme a little bit of credit.
First off, according to some admittedly anecdotal information from roadtrippers.com, there’s actually a silver lining to the whole ‘angry’ resident issue. The woman who lives there — whose name is actually Fran — doesn’t live alone. There’s a gentleman who I can only presume is her husband who is more, uh, “open” to curious onlookers. In fact, in the words of at least one roadtripper, he will “ask where you are from and tell you all the stories you can imagine from the shooting…” if you’re lucky enough to catch him outside.
But don’t take any of this as a diss against Fran. The official listing says “don’t think about throwing a pizza on the roof…by order of Vince Gilligan”, which leads me to believe that at one time, some overly excitable fans were throwing pizza on the roof of the house (and I was right, as it turns out). And while I personally would love to have people throwing free food at me, I can completely understand why someone else might not.
The neighborhood is also a hotbed for police activity, so if you’re one of those more “adventurous” types — aka, a trespasser — you should know that the inside of the home is nothing like what’s portrayed in the |
dark and brooding mystery, and the Hollywood movie stars to name a few. This list takes a look at the two most popular time periods in WWE history and 10 of its biggest superstars that shared a stand-out characterization.Washington
A federal judge in New York on Friday ruled that the National Security Agency's program that is systematically keeping phone records of all Americans is lawful, creating a conflict among lower courts and increasing the likelihood that the issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court.
In the ruling, Judge William Pauley, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted a motion filed by the federal government to dismiss a challenge to the program brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had tried to halt the program.
Pauley said protections under the Fourth Amendment do not apply to records held by third parties, like phone companies.
"This blunt tool only works because it collects everything," Pauley said in the ruling. "While robust discussions are underway across the nation, in Congress and at the White House, the question for this court is whether the government's bulk telephony metadata program is lawful. This court finds it is."
A spokesman for the Justice Department said, "We are pleased the court found the NSA's bulk telephony metadata collection program to be lawful." He declined to comment further.
Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU deputy legal director, said the group intended to appeal.
"We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government's surveillance and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections," he said.
The ruling comes nearly two weeks after Judge Richard J. Leon of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the program most likely violated the Fourth Amendment. As part of the ruling, Leon ordered the government to stop collecting data on two plaintiffs who brought the case against the government.
In his ruling, Leon said the program "infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment," which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
While Leon ordered the government to stop collecting data on the two plaintiffs, he stayed the ruling, giving the government time to appeal the decision.
Pauley, whose courtroom is just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers stood, endorsed arguments made in recent months by senior government officials that the program might have caught the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had it been in place before the attacks.
In the months before Sept. 11, the NSA had intercepted several calls made to an al-Qaida safe house in Yemen. But because the NSA was not tracking all phone calls made from the United States, it did not detect that the calls were coming from one of the hijackers who was living in San Diego.
"Telephony metadata would have furnished the missing information and might have permitted the NSA to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the fact that Al-Mihdhar was calling the Yemeni safe house from inside the United States," Pauley said, referring to the hijacker, Khalid Al-Mihdhar.
Pauley said that the "government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world."Science Communication Fellowship
The Ocean Exploration Trust’s Science Communication Fellowship (SCF) Program immerses formal and informal educators in the Nautilus Corps of Exploration and empowers them to bring ocean exploration - specifically in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) - to a global audience via the Nautilus Live website. Fellows share accounts of ocean science, expedition operations, and daily life with audiences through live audio commentary and question-and-answer sessions from aboard the ship.
Through participation in live interactions with student groups and public audiences, Fellows also engage people of all ages in real-time exploration. Science Communication Fellows then bring their expedition experience back to their own classrooms, organizations, and communities in the form of engaging deliverables like lesson plans or activities centered around their time at sea aboard Nautilus.CTV Vancouver Island
Workers in Victoria's whale-watching industry are calling for change from the federal government, saying the Canadian navy is conducting blasting that is impacting orcas.
A confrontation between a whale-watching tour boat captain and a naval official was caught on camera Thursday roughly 30 kilometres southeast of Victoria.
“You just set an explosive off two seconds ago and there are killer whales right there,” SpringTide Whale Watching’s Mark Williams is heard saying. “There’s killer whales behind us there.”
Another captain for SpringTide Whale Watching said the boat was coming around the corner of Bentnick Island, the site of a naval explosive test range, when there was a huge boom.
“It made the water shutter,” said Cam Ontkean.
Williams and other whale-watching companies have sounded off about naval blasting on Bentnick Island before.
A similar incident in early August prompted the two sides to come together and try to improve communication about killer whale safety.
But Williams said the navy has no excuse for the incident on Thursday.
“There was no confusion, there were 100 per cent whales there and we had been speaking to them for hours before,” he said. “There was no excuse this time.”
The Victoria whale-watching fleet claims it called the navy at around noon telling officials orcas were in the area.
Despite that, captains say detonations shook the island at around 3 and 3:30 p.m. with whales near shore.
“Passengers get a little freaked out and we go on with our day,” said Ontkean. “Whales possibly have lifelong damage.”
The navy says in both cases, whales and boats were at safe distances – at least 500 metres from the blast zone – but captains claim an image taken right after a blast shows how close the whales were.
“At no point was anyone in danger in the events that occurred yesterday, and I believe that the protocols were followed and that the navy did nothing wrong,” said Lt. Andre Bard.
The fleet is calling it a troubling pattern and is calling for action from the top down.
“We appeal to our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help, not hurt, killer whales,” said SpringTide owner Dan Kukat. “Yesterday, killer whales got hurt.”Alternating cubes of timber and glass cover the back of this Sydney house extension by Australian office Panovscott, offering a balance of light, shade, views and privacy.
Three by Two house was designed by Panovscott for a couple with two young children, who wanted to transform their dark semi-detached Victorian house in an inner-Sydney suburb.
"Their second child was due shortly when they approached us, so they wanted light, air, a place for the family to commune, and they wanted a great building," architect Andrew Scott told Dezeen.
The two-storey extension gives them a new kitchen on the ground floor, which opens on to the garden. Above, a bedroom and en-suite for the parents is set back slightly from the back wall to create a six-metre-tall double-height space at the rear.
"By pulling the bedroom back, the kitchen-diner below opens up to the light at the edge of the house," said Scott. "The void also allows the parents to be part of the life of the house when they are in the bedroom, while still giving them privacy. In a constrained fiscal and spatial environment, sometimes an exuberant gesture is crucial."
The western red cedar and glass sections on the rear facade act like blinkers, framing views of treetops while shielding the family from being overlooked. On the ground floor, glass doors and a timber panel fold back to open the house up to the garden.
Inside, a wall of the kitchen-diner has been covered with floor-to-ceiling cabinets made from kauri pine – a sustainable locally sourced plywood. For the flooring, a structural concrete slab has been polished to expose the aggregate, and then sealed.
"This room is conceived as a 'great room', based on the example of a medieval castle, in which a large space accommodated multiple uses at the centre, and more specific spatially constrained opportunities at the edge," said Scott.
The extension offers a bright contrast to the front of the long, narrow house, which is just over four metres wide and attracts scant light throughout the day.
A long corridor leads from this existing part of the house to the extension at the back. The entrance to the new space is tilted, intended to offer a glimpse of the light on approach but saving the full impact of the large space as a surprise.
An indentation where the extension meets the existing house also allows for a small courtyard, which ensures light comes deeper into the narrow space.
Photography is by Brett Boardman.
Here is some more text from Panovscott:
Three by Two House, Sydney, Australia
This project is the renovation of a house, one of two semi-detached single storey dwellings located in Sydney’s densely inhabited inner west. Broadly speaking it is about the making of a new whole by retention of one half of a structure and reconfiguration of the other.
The environ is an increasingly gentrified subdivision originating around 1880 and characterised by predominantly narrow east-west orientated housing parcels fronting a large public park.
Approach to the house remains via the formal front garden up three generous steps and on to a narrow porch below a low curved corrugated roof. Within, the front rooms have been retained with minimal intervention allowing the continued manner of dwelling.
A long hall leads past two bedrooms. The high ceilings, small windows and wonderfully lean vertical timber construction establish the character typical of a Sydney terrace. Cool in both summer and winter and dark even on the brightest of days, these spaces offer the initial experience of homecoming and become a counterpoint for the character of the rear addition.
At the end of the existing hall a small opening twists to the sky bringing gentle light though the upper level and into the centre of the long plan. The light washes down a 45-degree splayed plywood panel. Visible from the dark front rooms and immediately upon entry, it announces the differing quality of the spaces ahead. Moving towards this quiet light, the thin sliver of a brighter room beyond gradually widens with the shifting perspective. Shunted off the previous axial alignment, and past a discreet bathroom, the great communal room of the house is revealed. Light filled, this is a combined kitchen and dining space of slightly smaller area than the lean-to it replaces. Here the elegant vertical proportions and lean timber construction techniques of the front part of the house are reinterpreted.
Continuing the homecoming journey the room increases to six metres in height reaching upwards at its far end. The number and size of windows also increase gradually to this point allowing the internal space to expand horizontally as well as vertically and for the light levels to approach that of the external environment. Turning 180 degrees and up a narrow stair concealed behind a ply lined wall, the level above contains a master bedroom and en-suite, with a tiny window looking back across the roof to the park. This moment completes the journey within to the most private realm of the house.Blink 182 are the first headline act to be named for Reading and Leeds Festivals 2014. BBC Radio One presenter Zane Lowe made the announcement during his show on Tuesday night. The festival appearance will be the only time the American pop punk trio will play in the UK in 2014.
2014 will be the fourth time Blink 182 have played the festivals, after their debut in 1999. The threepiece headlined in 2010. Mark Hoppus, the band's bassist and vocallist said that they were "very honoured" to headline the festival and that the new year "will see us in the studio preparing new music, getting ready to rock the fine people of the UK". Blink 182 have a large back catalogue of fan favourites, such as All The Small Things, to include in their headline set.
The news will please some hopeful festival attendees, who had predicted the headliners on Twitter:
<noframe>Twitter: Ryan Uren - Reading Festival announcement tomorrow. Probably first headliners. My thoughts are it's probably gonna be Blink 182. Would I pay 200 quid?</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Tobias Burrows - I think blink 182 are announced tonight for reading.. I'm 100% convinced. I hope I'm right.. Probably wrong? Surely</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Dan Jackson - So it looks like it might be Blink 182 for Reading. They've got to pull it out of the bag with AM to save it at some point.</noframe>
Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Jake Bugg will be making his main stage debut and metal band Of Mice & Men will also perform.
NEWS: Lily Allen confirms appearance at Glastonbury
Dance music duo Disclosure will also play the 2014 festivals along with indie dance group Metronomy and rap collective I Am Legion. Last year, the traditionally rock-based festival introduced two new stages: the BBC Radio 1 Dance Stage and the BBC Radio 1Xtra Stage, which might host these three acts.
The line-up announcement was made after tickets had gone on sale on Tuesday morning. For the first time, the £210.50 tickets could be reserved with a £50 deposit scheme, after which attendees will pay the rest of the cost in three monthly instalments.
Two headline acts are still to be announced in the New Year with rumours that Sheffield foursome Arctic Monkeys and American rock band Queens of the Stone Age will join the bill.
Reading and Leeds Festival tickets are available at Telegraph Tickets.
REVIEW: Green Day, Reading Festival 2013
In 2013 Biffy Clyro, Green Day and Eminem headlined Reading and Leeds. 2014 will see the completion of the festival organisers' plan to expand the capacity of Leeds site to 90,000.
IN PICTURES: READING FESTIVAL 2013
Blink-182 Hits on MUZU.TV.Police chief visits Scott Olsen in hospital OAKLAND
Friends and family of Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran who was injured in Tuesday's protest, hold pictures of Olsen during a vigil outside of Oakland City Hall at the Occupy Oakland camp in Frank Ogawa on Thursday, October 27, 2011 in Oakland, Calif. Ran on: 10-28-2011 Friends and relatives hold pictures of Scott Olsen during a vigil near Oakland City Hall. Ran on: 10-28-2011 Friends and relatives hold pictures of Scott Olsen during a vigil near Oakland City Hall. less Friends and family of Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran who was injured in Tuesday's protest, hold pictures of Olsen during a vigil outside of Oakland City Hall at the Occupy Oakland camp in Frank Ogawa on... more Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Police chief visits Scott Olsen in hospital 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
OAKLAND -- Scott Olsen, the 24-year-old Iraq war veteran who suffered a head injury during Tuesday night's Occupy Oakland protest, was paid a visit by interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan on Friday.
Olsen is in fair condition at Highland Hospital in Oakland and continues to improve, friends said. The Daly City resident is breathing on his own and is able to write notes to doctors and loved ones, but has trouble articulating words.
On Friday, Jordan said he had visited with Olsen and his parents.
"I expressed my sorrow for what happened to their son," Jordan said at a City Hall news conference. "They were very receptive.... I also expressed to them the process that's involved in terms of this incident, in terms of a full review and internal investigation."
Olsen's skull was fractured when he was hit by a projectile that apparently came from police lines. Olsen, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was standing at the front of the crowd at 14th Street and Broadway when he fell to the ground.
As other protesters came to Olsen's aid, an officer tossed another canister at the group, video of the incident shows.
One of the protesters seen in the video, Claire Chadwick, 20, said she had been pleading with the officers to help Olsen when the device exploded at her feet.
"They wouldn't help him," Chadwick said. "I'm still in shock by their response."
Fellow protesters rushed Olsen to Highland, where he was unconscious for 12 hours. His brain was bruised, doctors said, and swelling continues to be a problem.
Emily Yates, 29, a fellow Iraq Veterans Against the War member, said it was ironic that her friend Olsen - whom she described as a kind and gentle person - would suffer the most serious injury of anyone involved in Tuesday's protests.
"I wasn't vocal enough in this movement until this happened to Scott," Yates said while attending a rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza on Friday. "This was enough to put me in the game."Chris Coleman's contract as Wales manager expires at the end of November
Wales will play a friendly match against France in Paris on Friday, 10 November.
The game will be played at Stade de France and will kick off at 20:00 GMT.
Wales had hoped to be involved in the 2018 World Cup play-offs but have organised the Paris match after missing by losing 1-0 to Republic of Ireland in their final group game.
Chris Coleman, 47, will be in charge as manager, although he is still considering his future.
The manager's contract expires at the end of November and the Football Association of Wales hopes to begin talks with him in the next couple of weeks.
Wales will possibly play a second friendly in November.
Rush's 1982 winner
It will be the first time the countries have met since Wales won 1-0 in Toulouse in 1982 thanks to an Ian Rush goal.
France are ranked seventh in the world and are among the favourites for the World Cup in Russia, having won the crown in 1998.
Manager Didier Deschamps' side boasts a cluster of world stars, including Manchester United's Paul Pogba, Antoine Griezmann of Atletico Madrid and Paris St-Germain teenager Kylian Mbappe.
France were Wales' first friendly opponents from outside the British Isles, when they played a game in Paris in 1933.
Wales have also been invited to take part in the China Cup in March 2018.
The four-team competition was held for the first time in January 2017 and featured Chile, Croatia and Iceland as well as hosts China.A small group of students walked out of an anthropology class at a Texas college, following the professor telling the students that all living people are descended from Africa.
It is reported that as they walked out, some remaining in the class started to shout “black lives matter.” Others that stayed said they were offended by the professor’s comment and began to argue with others in the class.
“My Professor just said all living ppl are descendants from Africa and ppl got up and walked out and now their arguing,” a student tweeted as students began walking out.
Professor R. Jon McGee is right, humans did evolve in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. Meaning all humans are descended from people in Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago. However, his comment didn’t sit right with what can only be assumed are creationists in his classroom. Instead of educating themselves, they chose the most popular route, shoving their fingers in their ears and refusing to listen. They got up and left the class.
Justine Lundy, a student in the class said some of the students were immediately uncomfortable with the lesson. “It was dead silent,” Lundy said before one student retorted with a “sarcastic ‘sure.’”
When I was taking cultural anthropology in San Diego, I witnessed this twice. Once during a lesson on how different cultures view sex, and a second during a lesson that had to do with the evolution of language. A girl stood up, said it was from the Tower of Babel story of the bible and stormed out.
This is why America can’t have nice things.MONDAY 5:16pm: The deal is now complete, Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post tweets.
2:33pm: Heyman tweets that Logan will earn $4.75MM in 2014, $5.5MM in 2015 and $6.25MM in 2016.
FRIDAY, 8:30am: Logan's deal guarantees him $16.5MM, according to Heyman (on Twitter).
7:34am: The Rockies are in agreement with left-hander Boone Logan on a three-year deal, tweets Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. The Denver Post's Troy Renck reported yesterday that the two sides were closing in on a three-year pact. Logan is represented by CAA Sports.
The Rockies, who have already added LaTroy Hawkins to the back of their bullpen this winter, were said to be aggressive on relievers at the Winter Meetings. Renck reported that they were serious about talks with free agents J.P. Howell and Joaquin Benoit and also came close to striking a deal for Reds lefty Sean Marshall before medical concerns caused them to back off. Despite the interest in Benoit, left-handed relief was always their priority, per Renck.
Logan gives Rockies director of Major League operations Bill Geivett that late-inning, left-handed option he so aggressively sought this week. Still just 29 years of age, Logan has posted a 3.38 ERA with 10.3 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a 43.1 percent ground-ball rate in 176 innings over the past four seasons with the Yankees.
Manager Walt Weiss will need to be careful about how he uses Logan versus right-handed hitters, however. Over the past four seasons, opposite-handed hitters have gotten to Logan for a.251/.351/.424 batting line, and his 2013 line of.254/.319/.460 wasn't an improvement. Left-handers have batted just.224/.297/.365 against Logan dating back to 2010.
Renck guessed last night that Logan's deal would be worth around $15MM in total, and later, Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports reported that the contract would indeed be worth more than $14MM. Javier Lopez's three-year, $13MM deal with the Giants likely set the market for Logan, but his agents at CAA look to have topped that figure for their client.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.Mar 23, 2014; Sacramento, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings guard Isaiah Thomas (22) drives in against Milwaukee Bucks forward Chris Wright (15) during the fourth quarter at Sleep Train Arena. The Sacramento Kings defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 124-107. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L
Sacramento Kings’ point guard Isaiah Thomas has been quite the find for the Kings.
They drafted Thomas with one of the last picks in the 2011 NBA Draft, 60th overall, and the former Washington Huskies’ standout has turned into a very good player.
In the offseason, Thomas will become a restricted free agent and will likely be looking to cash in on his success.
Thomas has expressed his love for the Los Angeles Lakers lately, but has told reporters he would like to remain with the Kings.
“I definitely want to be around when it does turn around,” Thomas said via Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. “I was drafted here. I’ve been welcomed with open arms by the Sacramento community. It just feels like a second home. I can’t control it, though. At the same time, I’m going to do whatever’s possible to be around. That’s all I can do.”
Thomas has missed the last three games with a quad injury, but is putting together another excellent season. The 25-year old is averaging 20.7 points, 6.4 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game.Iceland president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, shown here in 2008. Photo: Kyrre Lien/NTB Scanpix
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Iceland’s president for the past 20 years, does not share the unease felt by many over Britain's no to the EU and in fact thinks Brexit is “good news” for Norway.
“This fundamentally changes the geopolitical situation in our part of the world. The North Atlantic neighboring countries will have a new role,” Grímsson told Klassekampen. “When Britain leaves the EU, we will see a triangle that covers a large part of the globe: Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway - and now the United Kingdom. One just needs to look at a globe to see it.”
He argues that with Brexit, northern countries will only become more and more important.
“The Arctic, or the far north, will have an increasingly central role. It is about trade, diplomacy, commodities and several other fields. We will not only become more important in a European context, but in a global context,” the experienced head of state continued.
He said that Brexit creates an opportunity that northern countries cannot afford to miss.
“The decision the Brits made creates a momentum, and we must make sure we create a system of close cooperation,” Grímsson said.
He also believes Brexit will make the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) much more relevant.
“It is of course up to the British to decide what to do, but this could give the EFTA partners a more important role than in previous decades. Norway and Iceland can, in a whole new way, work to ensure that this serves us well,” he added.The Speaker of the House last week said that taxing people to pay for government is theft. Let’s look at just where actual theft is occurring.
Michael McAuliff and Sabrina Siddiqui covered the story at the Huffington Post, in John Boehner Compares Tax Proposals Of White House To Stealing,
We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem,” Boehner added. “How much more money do we want to steal from the American people to fund more government? I’m for no more.”
Yes, the old “taxes are theft” argument again. This is the line of reasoning that says government is bad, that decision-making by We, the People is bad, that people are “takers” and the wealthy are “producers” and “job creators,” and that the people are lazy and “don’t want to work” and if you let them assemble together and vote they become a mob that will steal everything from the rich who are rich by Devine Right, etc…
Keep in mind that in a democracy We, the People make decisions and government spending by definition is We, the People deciding to do things that make our lives better.
In honor of Speaker Boehner’s argument that taxes are theft, this is from August 2010: (even though the post will say June 12, 2012…)
Tax Cuts Are Theft
Conservatives like to say that taxes are theft. In fact it is tax cuts that are theft because they break a long-standing contract.
The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract. Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?
The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:
A beneficial cycle: We invest in infrastructure and public structures that create the conditions for enterprise to form and prosper. We prepare the ground for business to thrive. When enterprise prospers we share the bounty, with good wages and benefits for the people who work in the businesses and taxes that provide for the general welfare and for reinvestment in the infrastructure and public structures that keep the system going.
We fought hard to develop this system and it worked for us. We, the People fought and built our government to empower and protect us providing social services for the general welfare. We, through our government built up infrastructure and public structures like courts, laws, schools, roads, bridges. That investment creates the conditions that enable commerce to prosper – the bounty of democracy. In return we ask those who benefit most from the enterprise we enabled to share the return on our investment with all of us – through good wages, benefits and taxes.
But the “Reagan Revolution” broke the contract. Since Reagan the system is working like this:
Since the Reagan Revolution with its tax cuts for the rich, its anti-government policies, and its deregulation of the big corporations our democracy is increasingly defunded (and that was the plan), infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are falling behind, factories and supply chains are being dismantled, those still at work are working longer hours for fewer benefits and falling wages, our pensions are gone, wealth and income are increasing concentrating at the very top, our country is declining.
This is the Reagan Revolution home to roost: the social contract is broken. Instead of providing good wages and benefits and paying taxes to provide for the general welfare and reinvestment in infrastructure and public structures, the bounty of our democracy is being diverted to a wealthy few.
… read the rest of Tax Cuts Are Theft
Also see see Tax Cuts Are Theft: An Amplification by Sara Robinson.
And while you are at it here are some other posts in the Reagan Revolution Home To Roost series:Detailed plans to move towards the creation of a European army are being kept secret from British voters until the day after the June 23 Brexit referendum, it has emerged.
Read more
The plans involve establishing a new European military and operational structures, including a headquarters, according to the Times.
The first step towards such a plan is said to be supported by Germany and other EU member states.
The document, drawn up by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, will be discussed by European leaders at a summit on June 28.
In an effort to avoid derailing the ‘Remain’ campaign, the policy plans won’t be sent to national governments until the day after Britons vote on June 23.
Until then, only a small group of officials can read the proposal, but they must do so under lock and key, leave their electronic devices outside the room and take handwritten notes only.
Extracts of notes taken by diplomats seen by the Times say: “The EU can step up its contribution to Europe’s security and defence.”
It says: “Our external action must become more joined up across policy areas, institutions and member states.
“Greater unity of purpose is needed across the policy areas making up our external action.”
The EU Army (as referred to in The Times today) has been on the cards since Maastricht - one reason why so many of us opposed that Treaty. — Laurence RobertsonMP (@lrobertsonmp) May 27, 2016
When I spoke about an emerging EU army, @nick_clegg described it as "dangerous fantasy" - Not much fantasy here:https://t.co/rsK0mTe7Cw — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 27, 2016
However, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government insists the UK will never be part of an EU army, the Daily Mail reports.
“We will never be part of an EU army,” a government spokesperson corroborated.
“We retain a veto on all defence matters in the EU and we will oppose any measures which would undermine member states’ military forces.”
In 2011, similar proposals were vetoed by Britain, although there were concerns that a loophole could allow nine states to group together to bypass opponents.Ted Koppel, anchor of ABC TV’s “Nightline” for 25 years, from 1980-2005, is the author of “Lights Out,” which argues that not only is the nation’s critical infrastructure at grave risk of a catastrophic cyber attack that could leave as much as a third of the nation without electricity for months or even a year, but that there is no government plan to respond to such an attack.
[ ALSO ON CSO: Read our review of the book and if the industry agrees with Koppel ]
Koppel spoke briefly with CSO earlier last week about those issues:
What kind of feedback on your book are you getting from information security professionals? Do they think you’ve overstated the risk or not?
If they do, I haven’t heard from them yet. But I’m not sure that all the messages are getting through, since I’m on the book tour. The first indication of that was in Chicago today when the former CEO of a power company said he didn’t think I was right about the vulnerabilities of SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems. But in the book, a CEO told me the same thing, but then later called me back to say he was wrong.
Based on your conclusions – that a third or more of the nation could be crippled for months or even a year or more by a well-executed cyber attack – does that make the recent nuclear deal with Iran at least somewhat irrelevant? Who needs nukes if a few keystrokes on a laptop could do as much or more damage?
Frankly it’s not even the fact that it’s a few keystrokes. It’s the anonymity of the person delivering the keystrokes. I wouldn’t say nuclear negotiations are irrelevant, but the Iranians know they don’t have to come after us with a nuclear device. That’s an exchange they would lose anyway. Cyber is an arena where we are more vulnerable than any country. And you can’t respond if you don’t know who attacked you.
Should the U.S. put more of a priority on negotiating cyber agreements than nuclear agreements with hostile nations like Iran and North Korea?
I’m not sure what a cyber agreement is going to accomplish. What is the point of having agreements if an attack is not verifiable? We shouldn’t trust because we can’t verify.
[ ALSO ON CSO: Kaspersky: ‘A very bad incident’ awaits critical infrastructure ]
In your recent interview with Charlie Rose, he asked if the U.S. has the capability to inflict more damage on the infrastructure of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran or North Korea than they could inflict on us. You said that was a “fair statement”? Does this amount to a more modern version of the “balance of terror,” in that each adversary has the capacity to destroy the other?
It does not. For MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) to work, you have to know where the attack is coming from, and the party attacking you has to be sure that the response is going to be worse than the attack. I’ve heard that Russia has placed people into positions all around the world to cover the origin of a cyberattack. How in heaven’s name are you ever going to prove where it came from? You can’t retaliate if you don’t know where it came from?
Did you interview penetration testers who have experience in the electric generation/transmission sector for this book?
No, I did not.
You wrote that one estimate of what it would cost to harden our defenses against an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack was $2 billion. That’s not even a rounding error in a budget in the trillions. Why would there be resistance to it?
These things generally end up costing more than the original estimates. But let’s say that protecting against EMPs and setting up warehouses with food and other supplies each cost $100 billion. We have this not terribly effective agency where folks are allegedly guarding our access to airports and flights, and that has cost $100 billion. Yet in tests this past spring, 95 percent of fake bombs and weapons got through.
I think it goes back to what Tom Ridge (first secretary of Homeland Security) said: “We are not a preemptive democracy. We are a reactive one.”
[ ALSO ON CSO: How ‘Power fingerprint’ could improve security for ICS/SCADA systems ]
Do you think the U.S. Senate’s recent passage of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act will lead to the kind of threat information sharing needed to reduce the risks to our critical infrastructure?
CISA is not worth the paper it’s printed on. Private industry is worried about privacy, therefore (before it shared any information) the power industry would be allowed to scrub it of any privacy concerns. Then, the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) could scrub it again before they hand it over to the NSA (National Security Agency). That could take months. In an environment in which milliseconds count, what’s the point?
Do you think those privacy concerns are justified, given the, as you put it, “radioactivity” of the NSA after revelations of its data collection?
I think the radioactivity is misplaced in an era when companies like Google and Apple gather material on us to sell it to other parties. I’m less concerned about the NSA having my private info than Russia or North Korea.
Would you recommend that everybody do what you’ve done – buy and store several months worth of food and water for yourself and your family?
I don’t want to present myself as the solution to the problem. But my theory is that those who can afford to take care of themselves for a couple of months ought to do it, and the government should take care of those who can’t afford it.Alright everyone.. This is something I've been hiding for almost a month now, and because it's going to come out no matter what, I decided to tell you all that Gaga herself reached out to me and is hooking me up with her team of doctors, plus others, that did her surgery in NYC as I have been needing a hip replacement for quite some time (my left hip dislocated almost two weeks ago too.. I know, perfect timing, right?) do potentially do my procedure as well. We're planning on flying out this weekend, all expenses paid, for a consult. She won't be there, but the gesture is absolutely incredible and I broke down sobbing immediately afterwards. My entire immediate family is coming with me on this new journey and words can't describe how incredibly BLESSED I am. I feel as though this whole thing was planned by God and it still hasn't quite hit me yet. I would like to send a MASSIVE thank you to Gaga, her entire team, as well as Cynthia and Joe for doing an incredible job of raising the most beautiful person I know.. And of course GOD. I am going to end this here, but it is just part one of an incredible journey and I can't wait to share it with you all. Thank you for being so amazing and supportive, I love you. XoxoTwo third period tallies give Engineers league point
TROY, N.Y. – Juniorand freshmannotched third period goals less than two minutes apart to give the Rensselaer men's hockey team a 2-2 tie with 14th-ranked Cornell at the Houston Field House. With the draw, the Engineers are now 7-18-2 (4-9-2 ECAC Hockey), while the Big Red move to 11-6-5 |
because she was 'fed up' with them.
Galina Ryabkova, 30, was seen looking emotionless on surveillance video taken from the block of flats in Moscow, Russia, in the moments following the incident.
Neighbours in the complex were alerted after hearing the bodies of the boys, aged 4 and 7, hitting the ground.
Scroll down to see the CCTV
Tragic: Galina Ryabkova, pictured, has been arrested after allegedly throwing her two young sons to their deaths from a 15th-floor balcony because she was 'fed up' with them
Heartbreaking: Galina Ryabkova, 30, calmly walks into the foyer of her apartment block just moments after the incident
Shocking: A resident in the complex attempts to talk to Mrs Ryabkova after the incident in an attempt to prevent her from escaping
Despite the efforts of neighbours, the youngsters died before the emergency services arrived.
According to RT, the woman said she was 'fed up with children,' and 'decided to get rid of them'.
The woman - whose husband was away on a business trip - lived on the 8th floor of the building and it is believed she took the children to the 15th floor before throwing them off on Sunday.
One neighbour in the same apartment block described the horrific scenes following the incident to Life News.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, said his wife woke him up to say that children were falling out of the building.
Awful: The mother is calm as two other concerned neighbours arrive to detain her. It has been reported that the woman was 'fed up with children,' and 'decided to get rid of them'
Horrific: The woman is believed to have told a neighbour that she 'threw' her children away
The couple ran out to see the two children lying on the ground in front of the main entrance to the complex.
The man added: 'Just at that time their mother was leaving the building. We asked her if these were her children and she replied, emotionlessly, "Yes, I threw them away.”'
CCTV from the apartment block - as reported by New York Daily News - shows one of the children landing just out of frame at the front of the building.
It then shows Mrs Ryabkova coming downstairs wearing jeans and a white T-shirt.
Investigation: Police officers are pictured arriving at the complex of flats shortly after the incident
As she calmly sits in the lobby of the building, shocked neighbours surround her in an attempt to prevent her from escaping.
The video ends by showing police officers arrive at the building to discover the grim scene and arrest the mother.
It has been reported that Mrs Ryabkova has attempted to kill herself in the past and that her husband may have been cheating on her.
Mrs Ryabkova will be sent to a psychiatric hospital for tests while the investigation into what happened continues.Professor Benjamin Baumer, now a professor of statistics at Smith College, spent eight years in the Mets organization as a statistical analyst. One of his recent baseball-related projects is openWAR, a package in the statistical language that gives an open-source calculation of Wins Above Replacement, which is available on Github. Baumer, along with fellow Smith professor Andrew Zimbalist, has also recently released The Sabermetric Revolution, a book that revisits Michael Lewis’s Moneyball and assesses the state of analytics in the game today.
Professor Baumer was kind enough to take part in an interview with Amazin’ Avenue. Below is the first part of our interview, which deals with Baumer’s time with the New York Mets.
You were brought into the Mets organization in 2004 and left in 2012. What was the adjustment like for your first season? How did your role evolve over the years?
The Mets, like most teams at the time, never really had anyone working full-time on statistical analysis, so there wasn’t any statistical infrastructure in place when I arrived. Moneyball had just been published (in 2003), and so they were probably ahead of the curve in hiring someone to do statistical analysis. However, I don’t think they had many fixed notions of what they hoped to get out of that person. This was great for me, because it meant that I had near-total freedom to do what I wanted. On the other hand, there was nothing in place, so I had to start from scratch. This was both a blessing and a curse.
One of the first things that I did was to set up a MySQL server to store statistics, and start working on a web front-end to display what I wanted. I realized quickly that the easier I made it to see the statistics that I wanted, the faster I could answer questions and the more valuable my analysis would be. Within a few months, I had other members of the baseball operations department accessing my server on their own, and things really took off from there. By the time I left we had multiple dedicated servers running multiple websites fed by dozens of databases accessible to hundreds of users.
As far as my role, maintaining the aforementioned statistical infrastructure was always a priority and took a lot of time, but TJ Barra (Manager of Minor League Operations and Baseball Information) was able to help out with that after he was hired, and Joe Lefkowitz (Coordinator of Baseball Systems Development) is extending that infrastructure now. That part didn’t change much, except that the scope of what we were doing and how many people depended upon it only increased over time. On the one hand, my role as a statistical analyst changed naturally with the regimes.
I was hired by Jim Duquette, but I was still in my first season when Omar Minaya become the GM. Jim was obviously interested in my input, but it wasn’t immediately clear that Omar would be. To his credit, Omar engaged me in a conversation about statistics on his first day on the job, and he was one of my biggest supporters over the years. Even though statistics was not the prism through which he naturally understood the game, he always valued my input and would always consult with me before making a major decision. Sandy Alderson has command of sabermetrics in a very different way, and had I stayed with the Mets I think my role probably would have expanded, but Ian Levin (Manager of Baseball Analytics) is continuing that work now.
What was the transition from Minaya at the helm to Alderson for both you and the organization? Was the organizational philosophy different? The day-to-day protocol? The personnel?
I think most people would be surprised at the extent of the similarities between the Minaya and Alderson regimes, at least when I was there. The changes in personnel at the top are well-documented, but much of the front office staff was the same (John Ricco, Adam Fisher, Jon Miller, TJ Barra, Ian Levin, and me). There is no question that Omar and Sandy view the game differently, but they are both trying to make the best decision possible based on the best information they can get. Both of them are incredibly well-connected, passionate about baseball, and always thinking about their next moves.
Right. Like you’ve indicated in the past, there are a bunch of moving parts, and it requires a lot of forward thinking and improvising. I’d imagine that environment would sort of make them converge. I think there is a temptation to paint Minaya as sort of the old guard and perhaps reckless, but there were distinct advantages that he brought to the table. Can you comment at all on how they viewed players on the scouting side? Obviously, Minaya was a phenomenal scout in the Dominican Republic, and Alderson was never a scout.
I’m glad you asked about that! That is probably the biggest difference between the two. Omar is a former player turned scout, and he cut his teeth scouting. Ultimately, his personal evaluation is going to color any decision that he makes about a player. Most people working in baseball are like that—including analysts like me. [I can’t scout, but I do trust my own evaluations of players.] On the other hand, Sandy is neither a scout nor an analyst, so I get the sense that his decisions are really not based on his own personal evaluations. So both Sandy and Omar have a similar process that leads to a decision: They try to collect as much useful information from their advisors as they can; but the way that they weight that information in order to make a decision is different. Omar, like just about everybody else, is going to—subconsciously or otherwise—also include input from his own evaluation of that player. But it always seemed to me that Sandy was able to remain very impartial when weighing the evidence. That may be Sandy’s greatest strength as a GM.
Omar’s greatest strength is his ability to read people and the market. Early in the Johan Santana sweepstakes, when all anyone was talking about was the Red Sox and the Yankees, Omar told us that he was going to fall in our lap, without having to give up our top prospect (Fernando Martinez at that time). Nobody believed him, but over the next few months it played out pretty much exactly as he said.
(photo credit: George Napolitano/FilmMagic)
As someone who worked in the front office, what was your relationship with coaches, players, and scouts? Were you relatively isolated or did you interact or collaborate with them often?
I didn’t interact much with the players. I would see them around, but I’d be surprised if more than a couple knew my name. On the other hand, I spent a fair amount of time with the coaches and scouts. When I started, Rick Peterson was the pitching coach, and he had very specific statistical information that he wanted from me. We had a great deal of interaction over those first few years as we built up the advance scouting reports. Rick was always very inquisitive and his attention to detail was remarkable. More than once he found mistakes in the reports I had created for him that would trace back to a not-so-obvious bug in the code I had written.
There were certainly some scouts who weren’t interested in statistical analysis or what I was doing, but they were in the minority. —Ben Baumer
Manny Acta and Dave Hudgens were also particularly interested in statistical information and open to thinking creatively about new ideas. For whatever reason Jerry Manuel and I always had a great relationship, even though it was adversarial at times. He’s a bit old-school and loved to give me a hard time, but always in a good-natured way.
There were certainly some scouts who weren’t interested in statistical analysis or what I was doing, but they were in the minority, especially as time went on. When I first started, Bill Livesey and Al Goldis took me under their wings and I learned a lot about baseball from them. Bryan Lambe was my scouting godfather in that he actually took me on a few advance scouting trips and showed me the ropes. Like most people whose playing experience tapped out in high school, I knew very little about scouting when I first started working in baseball, but I learned a ton from those guys, Sandy Johnson, J.P. Ricciardi, and others.
At this point I feel like I understand scouting, but I also know that I can’t really do it. And this comes after having tried to scout, and having the opportunity to learn from the best teachers, but it just isn’t the way that the game makes sense to me—I’m not able to pick up on all of the things that a good scout does. And for this reason I have tremendous respect for the people who are able to scout well. They provide invaluable information to their teams.
It’s funny that you mention isolation, because I’m now part of a group called "Isolated Statisticians" that is comprised mostly of statistics professors at small colleges who have few or no colleagues on campus. But in that sense working for the Mets was far more isolating. I never felt isolated socially, and our front office was always a very collegial group, but I was isolated professionally in the sense that there wasn’t anybody else working on the same problems as me. Moreover, I also couldn’t talk to the people who work for other teams that were working on those same problems! So there really wasn’t anywhere to go for help. That feeling of having to do everything by yourself was tough at times. But that really only applies to the more technical parts of the job. There were lots of situations in which I collaborated with others in the front office, and we were a pretty inclusive group for the most part.
Okay, last question in this part, and then we’ll move on to the second of the three, which is openWAR. What inspired the move into academia after eight years with the New York Mets?
There was a lot of thought that went into this. The first thing is that academia was always something that had been attractive to me, but I never had the opportunity to be a full-time professor until I finished my Ph.D., and that didn’t happen until May of 2012. Working in baseball is not for the faint of heart. It can be magical—there are spectacular moments where you are simply dumbfounded to find yourself doing what you are doing (e.g., listening to Willie Randolph tell Rickey Henderson anecdotes, being in meetings with Rickey Henderson, walking to a helipad in the D.R. with Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz, etc.). Feeling like you are part of a winning team that millions of people care about is an incredible feeling that you just can’t get in most jobs. But there a lot of long hours, at nights and on weekends, and everyone who works in baseball pays the "baseball tax."
Feeling like you are part of a winning team that millions of people care about is an incredible feeling that you just can’t get in most jobs.
For me, a big part of it was time and task management. What I like best about my job now is that I have near total freedom over my own time. I basically do whatever I want every day, year round. This is not to say that teaching is easy. Most of those days, that means I’m in the office early in the morning, working and/or teaching all day until late, and then I spend a few more hours at night prepping for class in the evenings. Working on weekends is also now pretty much a given. So the total workload is no lighter (and may even be heavier), but sometimes I’ll play basketball at 12:30 on a Wednesday, or run errands at 10 AM on a Tuesday, and I don’t have to miss work, ask permission, or feel like someone is keeping track of my hours. Most jobs don’t offer that kind of flexibility, and that has become really important to me.
I also work on whatever I want now. That was also true with the Mets to an extent, but I was part of a team and the team had a common goal, with direction coming from the top. Now, I’ll succeed or fail based on my publication and teaching records. There are very real consequences—tenure and promotion are not easy to get. But I’ll have a say in what I teach and how I teach it, and no one will try to dictate what research problems I tackle. Again, this freedom is really valuable to me.
But in a larger sense, I’m not obsessed with baseball. I love baseball! I can talk about it and watch it for hours on end, even days on end. But there are other things that I find interesting and like to talk about. After a while I could see that the people who really succeed within baseball are truly obsessed, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. Baseball is not a job for them—their lives are just intertwined with it. The game is so competitive, and there are so many people eager to do the work, that you can’t reach the top without giving yourself over completely to the game. Some people are lifers (I met a lot of them), but I’m just not one of them. I have the best of both worlds now, because I can spend as much time thinking about baseball as I want, and still be able to contribute something professionally, but I don’t have to devote my entire life to it.Image copyright Louise Copper Image caption Customers receiving text alerts were told a squirrel was to blame for the power outage
A squirrel caused almost 1,100 customers to lose their electricity supply for nearly two hours, a power company has confirmed.
Properties in the Huntingdon area of Cambridgeshire lost their supply at about 09:45 GMT.
Customers received a text alert just after 11:30 to say a squirrel was to blame for the lack of electricity.
Most power was restored to homes and a school in the area by that time, UK Power Networks said.
Unfortunately the squirrel died, a spokeswoman added.
Click here for more on this and other news from Cambridgeshire
Image copyright UK Power Networks Image caption The company's interactive power cut map showed the areas affected by the wayward squirrel
The company initially informed customers there was a problem with an underground cable, but later confirmed the issues were caused by the animal, which had climbed on an overhead line.
"Occasionally squirrels leap between trees near power lines, and with their long tails their bodies act as a 'bridge' for the high voltage power which is always trying to reach earth," the spokeswoman said.
"This can be fatal," she added.Calgary mother Tamara Lovett has been found guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life and negligence causing death in relation to the fatal illness of her seven-year-old son.
However, the charge of failing to provide the necessaries of life has been stayed and sentencing will be based solely on the more serious charge.
(Although unusual in everyday parlance, the word "necessaries" — not "necessities" — is the Criminal Code charge.)
Ryan Lovett died from a Group A strep infection in 2013. Lovett testified during the trial that she gave her son holistic remedies for what she believed was a cold or flu before his death.
After Justice Kristine Eidsvik delivered the verdict, she agreed to a request by the defence for a psychological assessment of Lovett.
"I don't understand what that means," Lovett said to the courtroom.
Sentencing submissions will be heard on June 19.
'Gambled with his life'
Prosecutor Jonathan Hak said the Crown was satisfied with the verdict.
"The court specifically found that Tamara Lovett actually knew how sick he was and simply refused to do something and therefore gambled with his life," he told reporters.
"The way Tamara Lovett treated her son, though she loved him dearly — his fate was sealed the way she dealt with this very serious illness."
Hak said the Crown will seek a "period of imprisonment" for Lovett and isn't sure what difference the psychological assessment will make.
"It could give us some insight into why Ms. Lovett has the beliefs that she has, or it may add nothing — it's really hard to speculate."
'There's no winners'
Lovett's lawyer, Alain Hepner, said he would be fighting to keep his client out of jail, but that it's too early to consider whether they'll file an appeal.
"Nothing will really happen until after the sentencing anyway," he said. "We'll get a psychological assessment, as we always do in these difficult cases, and then we'll make some decisions after that."
Hepner said the assessment will help the judge understand who it is she's sentencing when the time comes. He also said the trial was tough.
"There's no winners," he said. "It was difficult, it was emotional, it was hard for everyone in that courtroom."
10 days
During the trial, court was told the bedridden boy, who wasn't taken to a doctor for his illness, deteriorated in his mother's apartment for 10 days before his death.
Lovett testified she gave the boy dandelion tea, oil of oregano and other natural products, and that he seemed to be getting better.
Doctors testified the infection would have been treatable had the boy, who also had meningitis and pneumonia, been taken to a doctor and given antibiotics.
911 call
Ryan did not have a birth certificate and had never seen a doctor because his mother "did not believe in conventional medicine," Crown prosecutor Jonathan Hak told Court of Queen's Bench Justice Kristine Eidsvik at the beginning of Lovett's trial.
On March 2, 2013, a frantic Lovett called 911 after finding Ryan on the floor outside the bathroom in their apartment.
Warning, some listeners may find this content disturbing. Listen to the 911 call:
WARNING, SOME LISTENERS MAY FIND THIS DISTURBING: Listen to Tamara Lovett's 911 call 9:29
Covered in vomit and cold to the touch, Ryan was already dead when paramedics and police arrived at Lovett's apartment to find the child lying in the hallway, the court heard.
'A state of supreme suffering'
Barbara La Pointe, a former friend of Lovett's who used to take Ryan to her home on weekends, testified the boy was "a beautiful endurer of abuse" who lived "in the darkest realms of poverty."
Ryan sometimes attended school, but La Pointe said he had no routine. He would stay up with his mother even into the wee hours of the morning.
La Pointe testified she visited Ryan and his mother the day before he died. She described Ryan as being "in a state of supreme suffering" and offered to take the mother and son to a hospital or doctor, but Lovett refused.
In his closing arguments, Hepner, argued his client is "morally innocent" and called her a "loving mother" who didn't realize soon enough the seriousness of her son's illness.
Lovett's inaction doesn't equal criminal conduct, Hepner told the judge.
Another parent facing same charge watched the trial
Canadians across the country have kept a close eye on the case. It is one of several in southern Alberta involving parents who were charged criminally after their children died of conditions that could have been treated with conventional medicine.
In Lethbridge last year, a jury found David and Collet Stephan guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life for the 2012 death of their 19-month-old son, Ezekiel, who died of meningitis. The Stephans refused to take him to a doctor.
The trial was told Ezekiel at one point became too stiff to be placed in his car seat, and instead had to lie on a mattress while his mother drove him from their rural home in southern Alberta to a naturopathic clinic in Lethbridge to pick up an echinacea mixture.
Lovett's trial had one notable spectator in the gallery — Jeromie Clark. Clark and his wife, Jennifer also face a charge of failing to provide the necessaries of life in the death of their 14-month-old son, John, who died in 2013 of a staph infection complicated by malnutrition.
The Clarks followed an extreme interpretation of the Seventh-day Adventist religion and had never taken their son to a doctor. Their trial is set to begin in June.About
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Since then, the country has been ruled by a military council that retains supreme authority--supposedly until a recently elected parliament writes a new constitution. But many Egyptians feel frustrated that living conditions have not improved since Mubarak's fall. Plus, the generals have been emboldened to use increasing repression--and they now have collaborators among organizations that opposed Mubarak, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
One year ago on January 25, the Egyptian revolution began with protests against the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. Eighteen days later, Mubarak was toppled, bringing an end to more than three decades in power.
IN AN article written before the recent parliamentary elections, we proposed that there are three forces vying with each other to decide the fate of the Egyptian revolution.
The first of these is the counter-revolution that wants to retain the old regime, with all its powers, beneath a layer of superficial changes. The ruling military council represents the counter-revolution, as do the remnants of the old regime within the institutions of the state. Behind them stand big business (the 1,000 richest families in Egypt), the U.S. government, the Zionist entity and the Saudi regime.
The second force is composed of the reformist political parties and movements that were opposed to the Mubarak regime and are rooted primarily in the middle class. At the head of these forces is the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party. They have an interest in sharing power and wealth with the old regime without making fundamental or radical changes to its social and economic policies, or disturbing its vested interests and international affiliations.
Egyptians fill Tahrir Square July 8 in protest against the military's threats against protesters (Lorenz Khazaleh)
Finally, we have the forces for deepening and radicalizing the revolution at the level of political democracy and at a socio-economic level. These forces have an interest in the complete eradication of the old regime, at the head of which stands the military council, and the complete cleansing of the state institutions and the redistribution of power and wealth in Egypt to the vast majority of Egyptians: the workers, peasants and the poor.
What is the balance of power between these three forces after the parliamentary elections, as we enter the second year of the Egyptian revolution?
FIRSTLY, AS was expected, the reformist Islamist movement, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, won a sweeping victory in the parliamentary elections. A large section of the Egyptian masses cast their ballots in the elections because the revolution gave them the confidence that, for the first time in their lives, their votes would count and not be forged. With this comes illusions in parliamentary democracy and its ability to achieve the revolution's demands of social justice, freedom and dignity.
Secondly, the present balance of forces between the reformist Islamists and the counter-revolution is delicately and dangerously poised between, on the one hand, the desire of the Muslim Brotherhood to use its parliamentary gains to exercise real power at the expense of the vested interests of the old regime, and on the other hand, its desire to maintain stability through deals with the military council and the remnants of the old regime.
This is for two reasons: the first is the Brotherhood's fear of a coup by the military council that might annul the election results (repeating the experience of Algeria) or a full military coup to restore the old regime. The second is the fear that broad sections of the masses have broken out of the bonds of reformism and are threatening new revolutionary upsurges that might upset the delicate balance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military council, with all the dangers that this poses for the two sides.
It is noteworthy at this critical juncture that the Brotherhood is willing to offer massive concessions and guarantees to the military council in order to preserve their electoral gains, even if these are as yet only superficial. So the Brotherhood has accepted the continuation of the Ganzouri government and has given guarantees of an amnesty for senior army officers with no legal questions asked about the massacres of the past few months.
In fact, the guarantees offered by the Brotherhood's leadership and its victorious electoral party are not limited to the military council, but include promises to the class of big businessmen to encourage investment and continue with the neoliberal policies of the old regime, as well as guarantees to the Zionist entity and the American government to honor the Camp David Accord and continue the strategic partnership with the United States. The Brotherhood even agreed to negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on exactly the same humiliating conditions as the old regime.
Perhaps the image that best conveys this relationship is the picture of Lt. Gen. Sami Anan--his hands stained with the blood of hundreds of martyrs and thousands of injured--in a historic embrace with the Muslim Brotherhood's Muhammad Mursi and Saad al-Qahtani, demonstrating that both sides' fear of the third force (the masses who have an interest in deepening the revolution on a political and social level) is much greater than their differences over how to divide the political spoils between them.
But why are they so afraid? Is it not time to celebrate the marriage of democracy to the peaceful transfer of power as has happened in Tunisia? Here we have to say that Egypt is not Tunisia. This is for a number of reasons, and principally because of the economic crisis. None of the successive governments that have held power since the fall of Mubarak have been able to offer anything tangible to the masses; instead, the situation has worsened by the day.
Foreign exchange reserves are fast draining away--down from $36 billion to $15 billion during the first year of the revolution. Inflation is rising in the absence of any mechanism to control rising prices. Unemployment is continually rising, and none of the successive governments has proposed increasing the budgets for housing, education, health or youth employment programs. Nor have they implemented a genuine wage increase or any improvement in public services for the majority of Egypt's struggling masses.
All of this is happening in the context of a severe crisis of global capitalism, which in turn has reduced the income for Egyptian capitalism from sources such as tourism, the Suez Canal and foreign investment. As a result of their ongoing commitment to neoliberalism, the incoming Islamist military governments will be austerity governments that offer nothing but more poverty, job cuts, unemployment and the disappearance of public services for the mass of Egypt's population.
They will possibly be even more brutal than those of the former regime. This means that the honeymoon between the masses and the reformist Islamist parties they elected in the hope of serving their own interests and bettering their standard of living will be short. It will rapidly expose the inability of parliament in general and of the Brotherhood in particular to solve the masses' problems and to offer a genuine alternative to the old regime and all its violence.
We have an elected parliament that has been stripped of its powers and left helpless. The dominant political forces in parliament are allied with the military council and the remnants of the old regime. Both internally and externally, they are adopting the same political and economic policies as the old regime.
The new parliament and the military council will only produce capitalist austerity governments hostile to the workers, the peasants and the poor. Like their predecessors, they will protect the interests of big business and the foreign companies, and above all, they will remain faithful servants of the old regime's masters in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.
THE NEXT phase of the Egyptian revolution, which will begin on January 25, 2012, will not only mark the beginning of the defeat of the counter-revolution and its violent attempts to resurrect the past that the Egyptian people have trampled under their feet, but also the beginning of a battle with reformist forces and parliamentary illusions.
It will be a fight to link the deepening of the democratic revolution (transcending a formal parliamentary regime with limited powers) with the project of redistributing wealth (through the overthrow of the military's economic monopoly and the 1,000 richest families in Egypt) and the building of a new regime that represents and serves the interests of Egypt's workers and peasants.
This does not mean, of course, that the revolutionary forces can afford to ignore, or not take a clear position on, issues such as the transfer of power from the hands of the military to civilians. However, the question remains--to whom is power being transferred, even if it is for a transitional period? Is it to a civilian presidential council, as some are suggesting? Or to the newly elected parliament as others have argued?
In fact, both of these perspectives are formalistic and shortsighted. The idea of a presidential council lacks any degree of democracy. Who will chose its members and by which mechanism? As for the second suggestion--transfer of power to the elected parliament--this appears to be more democratic, but loses its real meaning in light of the composition of the current parliament and the nature and interests of the dominant forces within it.
At this perilous moment, we will focus on demands that serve the interests of the Egyptian revolution. This will not be achieved with meaningless slogans about the phony transfer of power, but through a new wave of mass mobilization. These demands can be summarized as follows:
First, the resignation of the Ganzouri government, as it is a government of Mubarak's old gang.
Second, the trial of the military council headed by Field Marshal Tantawi on charges of killing, wounding and dishonoring thousands of revolutionaries in Egypt's public squares, as there can be no talk of democracy without putting the military council in the dock.
Third, the complete cleansing of the remnants of the old regime and the network of interests it represents from the institutions of the Egyptian state, starting with the military.
These demands are an inseparable part of exposing the reformists before the masses who voted for them in the elections. They also represent the gateway to the next wave of the Egyptian revolution under the slogan, "All power and wealth to the people."
The task of revolutionaries in this new wave will be to link the uprisings and sit-ins in the squares with the strikes and protests of workers and the poor.
It will be to link those who want to complete the democratic revolution and take it beyond a restricted and incapacitated parliamentary democracy to forms of direct, mass democracy in the popular and workers' and peasants' committees with those who want to achieve the demands of social justice through strikes and sit-ins in order to reclaim Egypt's wealth from the 1,000 richest families and the military establishment, and redistribute it for the benefit of the workers, peasants and the poor.
This statement is translated from the original version in Arabic.After nostalgia, ULTRA in 2011, came Channel Orange with a year’s delay. An album that benchmarked rhythm and blues, even Chris Brown who falls short of the genre wanted to fight. What stood out were the black nouveau riche references, mentions of Ladera Heights being the peak.This was the mature stage in the life cycle of the elusive, but prodigious artist. Somewhat an account of lived and perceived experiences.
Endless starts off with a skit to ease the listener into gramophone and velvet loafers feels. The first track with Frank Ocean’s vocals is a cover of a cover. It’s Aaliyah covering the Isley Brothers. A loop of a loop. A copy of a copy. Endless, right? He digs deeper into an introspective abyss until he finds his childhood, as reflected on Alabama in which he recounts a teenage mom fighting a sister-in-law all laid over Sampha inspired piano pangs. It’s returning to the rudimentary life experiences that helped formulate his character.
It’s going back to the earliest point in the life cycle of the artist. Some of the experiences reminded him of how socially, financially and sexually marginalised to the point he donned an invisibility cloak. The album comes off as a sonic rage against the loop he is stuck in, a static world which still maintains its hostility towards certain groups of people inhabiting it. For example, bisexuals. He is looking to break it through creating music. A quick cut to the visuals in which he is in a warehouse doing carpentry, it kind of resembles the amount of time he puts into his craft. Eventually he assembles a black spiral staircase, it’s like he hopes his music will take him out of the current frame of mind he is in, the clatter audible on ‘Mine’ The end of the staircase is cut off, inferring he has made it out of his confines, link an article of his new economic freedom here and how that transcendence is endless, a continual input of patience and workmanship that gets one out of whatever constraints they may be in, just to face new hurdling instances.
There is some proclivity to assume the loop to be static, Comme Des Garçons legitimizes it’s dynamic state. It’s a showcase of vitality, a daring drive for continuity. Ultimately, a middle finger up self righteous pricks who campaign against homosexuality after going through a poor reproductive science article clawing it’s way through how the human race’s continuity is doomed for embracing alternative forms of love. At this point it’s lazy to deny Frank Ocean’s philosophical musings after insert Tumblr post one about spinning in a room it’s possible the self proclaimed deity is hinting at the dated concept of evolution, but from an artistic perspective. He had been struggling with writer’s block until a conversation with a childhood |
PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN, Ryanair 9 Zulu Charlie.
18:30:28 Valencia Approach: Copied, proceed own discretion to runway 12
18:32:00 Valencia Approach informs Valencia Tower in Spanish that the Ryanair flight is arriving at the airport without fuel and that it just declared PAN-PAN, telling them to be ready because he does not know what to do in those cases. Tower replies that it will report it to Coordination (CEOPS) and that they will know what to do.
18:32:04 RYR 9ZC calls Valencia Approach to ask for the latest weather report for Valencia using the abbreviation “met report”. The controller does not understand and asks him twice to repeat.
Finally RYR 9ZC says “we would like to request the weather at the field”. Valencia Approach replies: “OK, the weather is, the wind is 140/5 variable on direction from 110° 217° visibility 10 km or more, the cloud scattered 4,500 ft, QNH 1011. Temperature 16, point 06.”
18:33:49 Valencia Approach (in Spanish) to Tower: Hello, look, we’ve dropped the Ryanair down to 5,000 feet and it looks like he’s proceeding on final, ok? You’re ready, right?
Valencia Tower replies that it has notified Coordination. The planner controller at Valencia Approach reports that the aircraft said PAN-PAN. Tower asks what exactly that means as he has never heard it before. Approach then rectifies and says that what the aircraft said was TAM, TAM…TAM, TAM MEDICAL, which surprises the Tower controller who, while laughing, asks what that is and if the aircraft has really declared an emergency, which is not the same as PAN-PAN, to which Approach replies to stand by.
18:35:38 Approach contacts Tower again to confirm that “the aircraft definitely said just TAM, TAM.” A discussion ensues between them regarding whether it had reported airport in sight so as to initiate the emergency, since Approach had reported the emergency and the airport has to be notified to undo the start of the emergency.
Approach reports that the aircraft is declaring an urgency at that time, to which Tower insists that they have been told emergency, not urgency, and as a result have notified the airport. Approach contacts the aircraft to request information on emergency declaration. The Ryanair crew replies: “We declared urgency, not emergency, RYR9ZC”.
A minute later, Approach contacts again to request number of passengers onboard.
18:38:15 RYR 9ZC: MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, fuel emergency now.
18:38:40 Valencia Approach informs Tower that the aircraft just reported an emergency. Tower replies that the two things were not the same and that they had the airport “in chaos”.
18:38:02 RYR 9ZC reports turning onto final runway 12. Approach transfers the flight to the Tower frequency. The aircraft lands at 18:43 without incident.
Eurocontrol admitted that most of its controllers had no experience in handling serious emergencies and that, as a result of overall safety levels in commercial aviation, would probably not attain such experience on the job. They conceded that this lack of experience made it likely that, when faced with a real emergency, deficient performance could result.
Spain’s Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission recommended promoting the appropriate use of MAYDAY and PAN codes as well as checklists for controllers to better handle emergency situations.
I may not fly Ryanair because I dislike their commercial policies but I see nothing here that makes me believe that they are unsafe."Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule," she says. | AP Photo Gillibrand says she won't vote for Mattis waiver
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on Thursday said she plans to vote against the waiver required for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to serve as Donald Trump’s defense secretary.
Gillibrand’s early opposition to the waiver came less than an hour after Trump announced he would tap Mattis for the Pentagon. The popular commander, nicknamed "Mad Dog," is still expected to become the first defense secretary nominee in more than 60 years to win the congressional waiver that's necessary to install him as the military's civilian leader given his recent service in uniform.
Story Continued Below
“While I deeply respect General Mattis’s service, I will oppose a waiver," Gillibrand said in a statement. "Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule.”
The law requiring a waiver for defense secretaries who have recently served in uniform dates to 1947, and Congress indicated that it did not expect exceptions to the rule after allowing retired Army Gen. George Marshall to lead the Pentagon under President Harry Truman in 1950. Because the waiver is legislative, it could ultimately prove subject to a 60-vote threshold for Senate approval — meaning that the GOP would have to secure at least eight Democratic votes in the upper chamber.
Gillibrand sits on the Armed Services committee, whose chairman, John McCain (R-Ariz.), hailed Mattis' imminent nomination and vowed to act on his confirmation "as soon as possible in the new Congress."
"America will be fortunate to have General Mattis in its service once again," McCain said in a statement Thursday.Tommy Christopher has some suggested revisions for the Conservative Bible project that I wrote about earlier this week:
- Instead of a serpent offering Eve an apple, a squirrel gives her an ACORN.
– When Cain asks God if he is Abel’s keeper, God responds, “You make an excellent point about personal responsibility.”
– Moses returns from the mount with stone tablets promising less regulation.
– Instead of tipping tables at the temple, Jesus loudly interrupts the Pharisees’ town hall meetings.
– Before healing lepers, Jesus asks to see their insurance cards.
– “Turning the other cheek” becomes “Pulling a fully-legal, unregulated Glock-9.”
– When Jesus feeds the 50,000, he charges what the market will bear for the bread and fish, then uses the proceeds to lobby Rome.
– Pontius Pilate constantly asks to see Jesus’ “real birth certificate.”
– Instead of being crucified, Jesus is brought before a Roman Death Panel.
– When the scales fall from the Apostle Paul’s eyes on the road to Damascus, he puts them back on.
– In the Conservative Bible, Barak loses.Just how human-sounding is Kirobo, the first talking robot on the station? This amusing conversation, recorded on the International Space Station and broadcast on a Toyota YouTube channel, shows a pint-sized robot that not only responds to questions, but also gestures and moves around in a scary person-like way.
As Kirobo chats with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata — who is excellent at deadpan, by the way — the two discussed matters such as how the Earth looks from space, the Japanese robotic arm Kibo and — right at the end — the most important difference between Kirobo and his backup, Mirata.
We don’t want to spoil the joy of the conversation for you by repeating what Kirobo says, but let’s just say there’s something special about watching a Japanese space robot make a reference to the first landing on the moon, which was hailed as a huge technological achievement when it happened in 1969.
The 13.4-inch (0.34 meter) Kirobo is sponsored by Toyota and the University of Tokyo and is supposed to be able to pick up on the facial expressions of crewmates. The robot will be working closely with Wakata during Expedition 38 and then Expedition 39, when Wakata assumes command of station.
One goal is to see how well humans and semi-autonomous robots can work together in space. To see Kirobo’s first words from station, check out our past story from September.In a UKCSGO.com exclusive, we can reveal that TLR have been caught potentially cheating during their Upper Bracket game against CAZ eSports. Due to this, TLR have been forced to forfeit their final map against CAZ, but are not disqualified from the tournament itself, they just moved to the lower bracket where they’ll face off against the winner of Infused/uFrag and Monumentalis/CeX.
The reason for this forfeit is due to reports of the players being in Twitch chat during the game. After the game was paused after the second map in their match against CAZ eSports it was widely believed the team had been thrown out of the tournament due to cheating. However, after lengthy discussions, it was decided that if they forfeit the game they could continue in the Lower Bracket.
The sixth member of their squad can have no access to technological equipment
Their remaining games will not be cast unless they get to the final
They’ll have an Admin watching the game behind them
These conditions are designed to hopefully stop any further shenanigans from occurring during the rest of the tournament. When the act was reported to the admins, the Tournament Head Admin, Jon “Vicious” Kelly went to check TLR’s PCs, discovering nothing. However, by the time he returned to his PC he discovered a Twitch account named “HS_csgo”, belonging to the TLR player, talking in chat. Upon the discovery of this the game was hauled and stream turned off so a full investigation of the VOD could be conducted. Checking the chat logs from the VOD it was clear that HS_csgo was typed in the Twitch chat during pauses. The team insisted they were just in the chat, not looking at economy and position information of their rivals.
As you can tell, some people have not been happy with the choice. With some TLR players disagreeing with the fact they were “sniping” and others saying they should have been disqualified outright, as it had been an action that was against the majority of all sense. Some have said this is the first time they have seen anything of the like occurring. TLR will next play in the Consolidation Final of insomnia56.A reported bomb threat inside Langevin Block, home of the Prime Minister's Office, led to the evacuation of the building just hours before the throne speech on Wednesday morning.
RCMP Cpl. Lucy Shorey has confirmed police have a person in custody and that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not in the building, which sits immediately across the street from Parliament Hill, at the time.
UPDATE: Langevin Block has reopened after authorities addressed a security concern involving a suspicious package in the building on Wednesday, according to CTV News. In a news release, Ottawa police announced the CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives) team “rendered the package safe” using a robot.
The building was evacuated as a precaution and a joint RCMP-Ottawa police team that deals with potentially hazardous materials was called to the scene.
Shorey declined to provide details about the person of interest or the package.
Global News reports a man entered the building and left a suitcase-sized package.
The incident occurred around 11:20 a.m.
Many reporters in Ottawa took to Twitter to provide real-time updates.
Langevin block aka PMO offices evacuated. Fireman tells me there is a bomb threat. No one allowed back in #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/uTf6BsJX1A — Laura Stone (@l_stone) October 16, 2013
PMO evacuated, police source tells me suspicious person is in police custody. Roads are closed around PMO. — Mercedes Stephenson (@CTVMercedes) October 16, 2013
Police have taped off roads around PMO. RCMP, local police an fire on scene. Staff standing outside war memorial. Sirens in the distance. — Jordan Press (@jordan_press) October 16, 2013
Suspicious person at PMs office. Across the street from Parliament hill. #hw #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/Q5PjOuG2Mw — Hannah Thibedeau (@HannahThibedeau) October 16, 2013
Here is langevin block with police responding to the scene. @pmharper not in building at the time pic.twitter.com/Y5WlfimB1Q — Cormac Mac Sweeney (@cmaconthehill) October 16, 2013
Ottawa police explosives unit arrives at the Prime Minister's Office. pic.twitter.com/bcFqlvXAKw — Mercedes Stephenson (@CTVMercedes) October 16, 2013
Police cuffed and frisked this guy-outside Langevin Block. Wellington Street is closed while police investigate. pic.twitter.com/v9VmvJJwWe — Annette Francis (@APTNAFrancis) October 16, 2013
A security guard says she was at front entrance to Langevin when a man entered, threw a suitcase & started praying in a foreign language. — amy minsky (@amyminsky) October 16, 2013
Explosives unit has pulled up closer to the building #cdnpoli #ipca pic.twitter.com/hAMqu8ZCls — Elizabeth Thompson (@LizT1) October 16, 2013
Just took this pic of Langevin block, PMS office. Blocked off for suspicious person and package. #cdnpoli #sft13 pic.twitter.com/b4hzjnrl0J — Evan Solomon (@evansolomoncbc) October 16, 2013
Ottawa police say suspicious package at the PMO being investigated by "Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives" unit — Zev Singer (@zev_singer) October 16, 2013
Source in Ottawa bomb squad says suspicious package at Langevin block being treated as explosive material, though contents remain uncertain — Jake Edmiston (@jakeedmiston) October 16, 2013
With files from The Canadian PressThe Guinness Book of Records was first published on August 27, 1955. Excluding non-copyright works such as the Bible and the Quran, GWR is the world’s all-time best-selling tome, with global sales in some 37 languages exceeding hundred million.Here are a few facts about the reference book.-Finishing the first 198-page volume edition took 13 and a half 90-hour weeks. Guinness’ original plan was to hand out free copies to around 80,000 Irish & British pubs. But word-of-mouth public demand transformed the book into a runaway bestseller.-1 million editions were sold by 1964.-Ashrita Furman is a GWR record-breaker. He currently holds nearly 200 records, including the record for holding the most Guinness world records. His other records include highest mountain peak climbed on stilts, tallest object balanced on chin, fastest kiwi-peeler, highest number of jumping jacks.-Annually, around 50,000 people apply to Guinness World Records in the hope their achievement will make it into print. Only around 1,000 actually do make the cut.-Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover shoot in 2015 helped her take the title for the fastest ever time to reach one million followers on Twitter, with her new account hitting the 1 million mark in an incredible 4 hours and 3 minutes. The record was previously held by US President Barack Obama who racked up a million followers in 4 hours 52 minutes.-Although the name Guinness remains, it is not owned by the brewery anymore. GWR changed a number of hands — owned by Guinness PLC and subsequently Diageo, it was sold off to Gullane Entertainment, owners of Thomas the Tank Engine in 2001.It was sold to HIT Entertainment, owners of Bob the Builder in 2002. As of 2008, GWR is owned by Jim Pattison Group, the parent company of Ripley Entertainment.The legends surrounding the famous hijacking and daring escape of renowned thief, D.B. Cooper, has delighted crime enthusiasts and baffled authorities for the past 45 years.
While Cooper’s hijacking and ransom demands were positively run-of-the-mill, his sky-diving escape and subsequent disappearance were anything but ordinary. But today, numerous investigations into the lingering mystery of Cooper’s daring escape may finally have turned up some compelling answers….
Featured photo credit: www.latimes.com
Now Boarding
It was a cold November afternoon in 1971 when a man walked onto the Boeing 727 and sat down in seat 18C. The man was wearing a black, lightweight raincoat over a dark suit, brown loafers, a neatly pressed white collared shirt, a black necktie, and most distinctively, a mother of pearl tie pin. He had purchased a one-way ticket to Seattle.
Stow Beneath Your Seat
The plane itself was headed to out from Portland, Oregon flying to nearby Seattle, Washington. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and many of the passengers on Flight 305 were looking forward to a smooth, 30-minute flight back home to Seattle to see their families. Dan Cooper, as he called himself, sat down in his seat and tucked his black attaché case, beneath his seat for safe keeping…
Please Stay Seated
Cooper’s seat was located in the rear of the plane. He lit a cigarette, as you could do in those days, and asked for a bourbon and soda. Those who were seated around him described him as rather unnerving, tallish, and cool as a cucumber. And he was, because D.B. Cooper had a plan, and it was working out perfectly. All around them, the passengers made ready for their afternoon takeoff.
Hijacked
The flight was only about a third of the way full and took off on schedule at exactly 2:50 pm. Only a few minutes into the air, Cooper passed a note to the nearest flight attendant, a woman named Florence Schaffner. The poor woman believed that she had been given the phone number of a lonely man and placed it unceremoniously into her purse without opening it. Cooper then leaned over to her and whispered, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”…
Bomb and Demands
The exact wording of the note is unknown, because once Florence had read it, Cooper returned it to his own pocket, but the gist was simple, there was a bomb in the attaché. The hijacker forced Florence to sit down next to him and look in the briefcase. There was indeed a bomb in there. It was then that Cooper told her his demands: he wanted $200,000 in American currency, four parachutes, and a fuel truck at the Seattle Airport for him to get away in once they landed.
Smooth Talker
Cooper sent Florence to the cockpit with the note and his instructions. When she returned to his seat, he was now wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. As they flew, Cooper would point out the landmarks below them. He was cool and well-spoken, with an air of politeness that seemed at odds with what he was actually doing. According to the flight attendants onboard that day, he was thoughtful and even paid his tab once he ordered a second bourbon. Meanwhile, the FBI was scrambling….
The Money
While Cooper was enjoying his second bourbon and water, FBI agents on the ground were trying their best to collect the ransom money. They collected a full 10,000 unmarked 20 dollar bills, as per the hijacker’s instructions, as well as two military-issue parachutes. When the plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport later that day, Cooper refused the military parachutes and demanded they bring him civilian style ones with manually-operated ripcords.
An Orderly Fashion
Cooper’s hijacked plane landed at the airport at 5:39 pm. The plane was taxied to an isolated and brightly-lit section of the tarmac and the cabin lights were turned off. The backpack full of cash and the parachutes were by police officer Al Lee. Once the handoff was complete, D.B. Cooper allowed all the passengers, Florence Schaffner, and the senior flight attendant to leave the plane. Then the next phase of his plan could begin…
Takeoff
The plane refueled and took off again. Cooper had told the flight crew to take the plane southeast, toward Mexico City. Cooper and the crew spoke politely and discussed options for an additional stop over for refueling, in Reno, Nevada. His other instructions were unusual, to say the least. The pilot was to fly the plane as slowly as possible and to keep the landing gear deployed, the rear exit door open, the cabin unpressurized, and the back staircase extended. For safety reasons they refused to keep the door open and stairs extended.
Back in the Sky
The third flight attendant had remained on board and she was to remain with the crew locked in the cockpit while Cooper sorted things out in the cabin. About an hour later, the flight crew noticed an alarm flashing in the cockpit, this indicated that someone had extended the back staircase. They used the intercom to ask if Cooper needed any help, but he refused it. Suddenly, the air pressure dropped throughout the plane…
Geronimo!
When they landed in Reno at around 10 pm, the FBI swarmed on the plane, but to their surprise, they discovered D.B. Cooper was nowhere to be found. Cooper’s plan finally made perfect sense: he had jumped out of the plane midway through the flight to Reno and he’d taken his newfound fortune with him.
Find Cooper
When the FBI searched the whole plane, they found 66 unidentified fingerprints as well as Cooper’s black clip-on tie and his mother of pearl tie clip. He had also left two of the four parachutes, one of which had apparently been mangled and taken apart for some reason. They interviewed the flight crew and flight attendants and tried to put together a composite sketch of the hijacker. But it seemed that Cooper was in the wind…
Search the Area
It was impossible to search the entire area beneath the plane’s flight path, even based on the timing of the assumed jump. This was because Cooper may have remained in freefall and shifted with the wind for either a longer or shorter than they could anticipate. There was also the lingering theory that Cooper had perhaps not even pulled the ripcord at all, that it could have malfunctioned, sending the would-be hijacker to his death.
Many Theories
The man known as D.B. Cooper was never seen again after that incident, and the last contact that anyone had with him was through the intercom on the plane. Since the hijacking, the FBI and crime enthusiasts have come up with hundreds of theories concerning his disappearance. Over the years, experts, reporters, and amateur treasure hunters have all gone in search of the famous sky pirate. Some even found evidence that has helped shed light on the amazing crime…
Money, Money
In 1980, some hikers found a small cache of bundled bills scattered along the bank of the Columbia River. The numbers on these bills coincided with those on the ransom bills given to Cooper in 1971. Unfortunately, the trail led nowhere and the majority of the ransom money seems to have disappeared as completely as Cooper himself.
Veteran
Based on eyewitness reports and their own research, it was clear that D.B. Cooper was familiar with not only the terrain of the Seattle area, but also with skydiving, the use of parachutes, and flying in general. It is possible that he was an Air Force Veteran and that he knew the distance between McChord Airforce Base and Seattle-Tacoma airport down to the minute. But was Cooper a disgruntled ex-air force pilot or was he simply a thrill-seeker, looking to prove himself?
Not a Skydiver
Despite the appearance that Cooper seemed to know a great deal about skydiving and the cool, calm demeanor he displayed during the hijacking, FBI investigators are unconvinced of his prowess when it came to jumping out of moving planes. The theory behind this theory is that no experienced paratrooper or skydiver would jump out of the plane in the dead of night, in the dark, without knowing where he might be landing: and certainly not while wearing a trench coat and loafers. It was too risky for a seasoned jumper.
Why “D.B. Cooper”?
The name D.B. Cooper is very likely an alias, and the FBI believes that he may have gotten the name from a 1970’s Belgian comic book featuring the hero “Dan Cooper.” The fictional Cooper also had many high-flying, heroic adventures, some of which involved the character parachuting out of moving planes. Cooper may have encountered them while on duty in Europe because the comics were never translated into English. It still didn’t answer where Cooper disappeared to, however…
Looking for the Ransom Money
By the end of 1971, the FBI had released all the serial numbers of the ransom bills to any local banks, casinos, and race tracks, in an effort to track Cooper’s movements. A reward was even proposed for a full 15 percent of the recovered money: $25,000 to catch Cooper. The numbers were even released to the public in 72’ but this only led to people counterfeiting the bills in an effort to claim they knew where Cooper was.
Tied Together
In January 2017, a team of amateur researchers called Citizen Sleuths, uncovered new information that may indicate what D.B. Cooper’s life was like prior to the hijacking. Cooper had taken off his tie before he jumped out of the plane and left it behind. The sleuths looked at the JC Penney tie with an electron microscope and found certain elements rarely seen outside of an aerospace plant. Meaning, it’s possible that D.B. Cooper once worked for Boeing and could be tracked down through their employment records.Internet of Things users need to become sysadmins, America's Federal Bureau of Investigation says.
That's a summary of the Feds' blog post, published this week, in which the agency's Beth Anne Steele wrote that Things are best deployed on their own network, with an off-switch.
Steele's post offered a checklist explaining how consumers can best secure their stuff, including a suggestion to: "Isolate 'IoT' devices on their own protected networks" – which means you'll want a firewall between your broadband modem and the switch that connects the devices.
The checklist might reach beyond the capabilities of the average IoT buyer, who just wants to swipe the phone app to control their lights (because the wall is so far away), but on its own, that's a point worth making. So here's the full list, with El Reg commentary.Fairies might not seem like the first choice when it comes to “most terrifying” creatures in speculative fiction, but consider: vampires and werewolves, while horrifying, are at heart human. Fairies are completely other. They’re the closest cousin the fantasy genre has to science fiction’s aliens: beings from another realm, whose minds and motives are incomprehensible. (The idea of a fairy changeling calls to mind the terror of Invasion of the Body Snatchers!)
The idea of fairies as tiny, beautiful, and benevolent winged women is a relatively recent invention, dating from the Victorian era, and furthered in our own time by the sanitized versions of fairytales popularized by Disney films. The fairies of Celtic mythology are neither small nor necessarily beautiful; they range from human size to gigantic, many don’t have wings, and they’re frequently malevolent. When not outright evil, fairies are almost always depicted as tricksters, using their charms to manipulate mortals into serving the fairy’s own ends.
My urban fantasy novel Unveiled, the second book of the Changeling P.I. series, plays upon the trope of fairy duplicity. A rogue fey, disguised in human form, seduces women to syphon off the joy producing chemicals from their brains in order to manufacture the magic elixir the fairies need to survive. As private detective Mabily Jones races to unmask this villain and put an end to his crimes, she makes the fatal mistake of thinking she won’t fall for his tricks herself.
No matter how smart humans think we are, we often play right into the fairies’ hands, allowing ourselves to be manipulated. Heck, I’d argue many of us were manipulated by a fairy as children. If you ever saw Peter Pan onstage, didn’t Tinkerbell get you to clap for her?
Here are five novels that prove fairies are, indeed, the most terrifying creatures in fantasy.
Summer Knight, by Jim Butcher
The fourth installment of the Dresden Files deals implicitly with the Fey. Butcher embraces the Celtic traditions while giving them his own characteristic twist. In one minor but moving scene, our hero finds himself in a supernatural swing dance club presided over by the fairy Queen daughter, Maeve. As one of the human musicians plays the most transcendentally beautiful trumpet solo Harry has ever heard, and then proceeds to asphyxiate, the fairy Maeve whispers in the trumpeter’s ear: “There, you see? Never let it be said the Lady Maeve does not fulfill her promises. You said you’d die to play that well, poor creature. And now you have.”
This line perfectly encapsulates the slippery nature of a fairy’s promises.
White Witch, Black Curse, by Kim Harrison
Harrison’s beloved Hollows urban fantasy series has many memorable Fey characters over the thirteen books, but one of the scariest is the banshee villain, Mia. In Harrison’s world, banshees are not the screamers we might stereotypically associate with the word; rather, they’re dark fey who feed on human emotions. The more negative the emotion, the more it nourishes them. When a banshee has a baby, this hunger knows no bounds. But Harrison’s strength lies in how empathetic she makes her antagonists. We can sympathize with Mia, who is a banshee mother; banshee babies have to eat too. But they destroy human souls in the process. It seems the Fey family and their human prey will be locked in a stalemate forever, but the solution Harrison comes up with at the end of the book (no spoilers!) is the most perfect, genius and satisfying resolution you never saw coming!
A Kiss of Shadows, by Laurel K. Hamilton
Hamilton’s fairies might be more commonly thought of as being sexy rather than scary, but the erotic is always set into bas relief by the nightmarish. The powers she gives her fairy princess heroine are truly horrifying, such as the hand of flesh, which grants Meredith the power to literally turn her enemies inside out. Hamilton describes these grotesqueries with the exquisite attention to sensory details usually reserved for a sex scene, and the effect is skin crawling: “She was a ball of flesh about the size of a bushel basket. Nerves, tendons, muscles, internal organs all glistened wetly on the outside of the ball….The sound was the worst: a high, thin screaming, muffled because her mouth was now on the inside of her body, but still she screamed.”
The Stolen, by Bishop O’Connell
This debut novel contains a whole menagerie of Fey beasties that go bump in the night. O’Connell is always meticulously faithful to the Irish mythological roots he draws from, down to the proper Gaelic names. The most frightening creatures in this novel are not the hell hounds who hunt down the hero and heroine, but the Oiche, the dark Fey, who are terrifying in part because they resemble children. The cognitive dissonance of seeing murder and sexual violence perpetrated by characters who are the height and build of a ten-year-old is haunting, and grounds us firmly in the ancient Celtic fairy tradition that these beings are hardly child’s play.
Hatchling, from Lips Touch Three Times, by Laini Taylor
All three of the novellas in this omnibus collection play upon some aspect of the supernatural, but the final story, Hatchling, is by far the creepiest. Changeling stories always imply a question: why would the fairies want to take a human child? The answer in Hatchling is both relatable and chilling. For the immortal Fey, nothing is more fascinating than someone young—so they keep human children as pets. These are kids who are petted and groomed but never loved, which makes the story more disturbing than if they were tortured. While ostensibly YA, Taylor’s book might be too much for some young readers, particularly the scene where the fey Queen and King forcibly “breed” their now grown human captives to create the next generation of pets. Taylor’s Fey have the power to take possession of any human who looks at them: “They can use your eyes as windows and climb inside you, shoving their dark animus into your soul and filling it, like brutal fingers thrust into a child’s glove.” Taylor’s prose lingers in the mind because of the contrast of luminously beautiful language used to describe the ugliest of things. It’s the perfect metaphor for fairies.
Unveiled is available now.► Exclusive access to Singer Vehicle Design
► Update and upgrade classic Porsche 911s
► Expect it to take 18 months and cost $600k
Like all of humanity’s really great ideas – the wheel, powered flight, Instagram – LA-based Singer Vehicle Design ostensibly offers something very simple: the restoration and outwardly restrained modification of your old 964 Porsche 911. Some clients supply a tired car, leave a deposit and patiently await the finished product. Singer can help others locate the required blank canvas.
That Singer isn’t fussy about the state of the incoming cars (‘Most of them leave a snake’s trail of oil on the workshop floor as they arrive, but we don’t care so long as the body’s straight,’ smiles Singer’s Tim Gregorio) is one clue as to the magnitude of the work that will be lavished upon them.
Another is the patience required on the part of the client. Right now, with 72 commissions in the order book, you’re looking at an 18-month wait, of which 10 months is simply awaiting your turn. The process, from stripped shell to extensive pre-delivery testing and sign-off, is eight months. And yet another clue? A fee for the work alone of some $600,000.
So while cars are delivered back from baggy oblivion through the application of money, effort, art, craft and love, so granular and obsessive is Singer’s work, so thorough and holistic the engineering, and so breathtakingly, heart-rendingly beautiful the finished product that the term restoration just doesn’t feel big enough. If these cars are restorations then Apollo 17’s haunting Hasselblad image of this planet – the first to capture it whole and to put it in context as a delicate blue, green and white marble of life adrift in a cold, silent infinity – is just a photo.
‘To me the idea was obvious, and I’m someone who’s never sure about anything,’ explains Singer’s British-born driving force Rob Dickinson, cousin of Iron Maiden frontman Bruce and a musician himself. ‘I wanted to present to the world a vision of an ultimate air-cooled 911. I’d been immersed in the Porsche community long enough to know intimately the desires of people like us – people who love these crazy old cars – and I was convinced that if I didn’t do what I had in mind, someone else would.’
A lifelong fan of the marque and a member of the R Gruppe, an influential club of Porsche enthusiasts formed in LA in the early 2000s, it becomes clear very quickly that Rob gets old 911s. It’s also evident that Rob is completely uninterested in spreadsheets, profit margins and conventional business models.
‘I had the lofty idea that the car would be so awesome that it didn’t matter how much it had to cost,’ he laughs. ‘That was the kind of blind faith that I had when we were working on the first prototype in 2008. I spent huge amounts of someone else’s money with no sleepless nights, building a conceptwith no idea how much it would cost to replicate. Price wasn’t in the blueprint. The car had to be a blue-sky “what if?” With no limits, how great could the air-cooled 911 be?’
Singer’s methodology has evolved since then into a streamlined process of ruthless optimisation, one that offers the client huge scope for personalisation while also staying true to Rob’s original blueprint for an über 911: the air-cooled Porsche as you think you remember it, as it would be were it possible to drive one without the Vaseline-smeared lens of time and nostalgia and benevolent forgiveness slipping away the moment you slot first and drive away.
Stripped shells are reinforced, seam-welded for strength (as 964 RS bodies were) and finished in an anti-corrosion epoxy. If the donor car’s a coupe with a sunroof, owners can specify a carbonfibre panel with which to close the unwanted aperture.
Further carbon panels, each impossibly light (in total some 200kg of weight is removed from the car), rigid and neatly finished thanks to Singer’s relationship with composite specialists Aria, include the bonnet, complete with over-sized fuel-filler aperture, front bumper, engine cover and wings.
You can’t miss the wings. Their supine curves elegantly span the void between the 964’s standard doors and the outer edges of Singer’s trademark wheels; three-piece Fuchs-inspired objects of wonder measuring 17 inches in diameter, nine inches wide at the front and a filthy 11 inches across at the rear. The wings’ outlandish proportions are somehow almost conservative in isolation but impossibly voluptuous next to a standard 964 shell.
On goes an array of dazzling exterior detailing: bespoke headlights comprising Singer’s own lens design with Hella xenon hardware; sidelight and indicator units designed in-house around a resin casting that’s nickel-plated and fitted to the body with tolerances that are more horological than automotive; new glazing, the front quarter lights toughened and drilled to take a hole for Singer’s own bullet-style stalk-adjusted mirrors; bespoke engine cover hinges, their spring-assistance adjusted to suit the lighter, carbon cover.
To these eyes the body blurs eras, melding late-’80s metal with curves and motifs that evoke the ’70s 2.8 RSR and the ’60s 911R. Similarly the interior re-fit references 911 cockpits at least a decade older than the 964. As with the exterior, bewildering customisation potential is kept manageable by a blueprint, so while no two cars are the same, a couple of key choices provide the differentiation: Touring, Sport or carbonfibre Track Recaro seats; a leather-lined, carpeted or bare metal interior finish (the bare metal is actually body coloured panels over sound-proofing, to keep road noise and and gravel pinging muted and the flat-six’s racket centre-stage).
Most owners opt for Singer’s spectacular block-pattern weave of suede and leather for their trim. The rear rollcage is popular too, leather-wrapped of course, as are the seat grommets, in either brass or nickel. Choose between early or late-style ga |
: It sped me on my way. From an intellectual point of view, maybe most of all, there was Raymond Williams, who was the leading English Marxist literary critic at the time. I had never encountered a real live Marxist, let alone someone who combined Marxism with literary criticism and an aura of sturdy, working-class authenticity. It was a very important moment for me that led into the political ferment of the late ’60s and ’70s.
I would also go to tutorials with F.R. Leavis, a legendary figure, who was then a kind of anti-Christ at Cambridge, having been expelled from the department. He had fought with everyone but he would have seminars in his own house and I would go quite regularly.
Q: Thinking back to that moment in Istanbul: The setting had something to do with your decision. Was there something analogous about the setting in Cambridge, this seat of great, ancient learning, at least by American standards?
A: By almost any standards, Cambridge is ancient. But I knew almost nothing about the place before I went there. In those days as a Fulbright you could more or less name what college you wanted to go to. I said that I wanted to go to Pembroke College, and for two reasons. One, the undergraduate thesis I wrote was on modern satire, and at Pembroke there was a man named Matthew Hodgart, who had written an important book on the subject and who could, I thought, be my tutor. And second, Pembroke was the Renaissance poet Edmund Spenser’s college, and I thought that would be cool.
When I got there I discovered that Hodgart had left. And yes, there was an old portrait of Spenser on the wall, but I could have had more informed ways of choosing a college than that. Yet in the end it turned out to make a difference: My decision to work on the Renaissance, rather than on contemporary literature, had something to do with the fact that Pembroke College, as I had not fully grasped, had a very strong stamp from the English Reformation. And then one of the “papers,” as they called them in the big Cambridge exam, was on the period from 1569 to 1603. In the course of immersing myself in that brief period, I read the poetry of Sir Walter Ralegh, which amazed me — really amazed me. I couldn’t understand how someone in the 1590s had written poetry that sounded to me uncannily like T.S. Eliot.
When I came home and entered graduate school at Yale, I chose to do my dissertation on Ralegh. I wanted to discover what it was in this man’s life that made him produce such strange poetry. And it turned out that Ralegh had an astonishing life. He was a courtier and a monopolist and an explorer and an adventurer and a scoundrel and a troublemaker. He wound up spending years in the Tower of London and eventually ended up getting his head chopped off.
Once I began to understand something about Ralegh’s career, the question with which I had begun turned itself inside out. I wanted to know how someone who had led such a life had written poetry at all. It didn’t make sense. What was someone who was scrambling at court to get the monopoly on playing cards or exploring Guiana doing writing poetry?
At the time, Yale was the beating heart of New Criticism, which meant you precisely didn’t interest yourself in the historical world that poetry comes from. You focus on the formal aspects of the work, about which you could say very interesting things. You learned certain techniques of literary analysis, and you left for historians, or for middlebrow people, the concern for what it meant to be a courtier or an adventurer.
And so my own small rebellion — my form of biting the hands of those who fed me — was to be interested in those things that were meant to be ignored. Partly, as I say, I had already had this experience with Raymond Williams — learning what Marxists were saying about art’s relation to life. And so I thought: All right, that’s what I want to do. Virtually all the work that I’ve done in the subsequent decades came out of that determination: to put the work of art back into the life-world from which it came and to understand its effects upon the very different life-world it may enter, often centuries later.
Q: And we all love you for that.
A: Though I was impatient and often bored with it at the time, I don’t at all regret the rigorous formalist training I received. On the contrary, I use it all the time as a way of both counterbalancing and enhancing my cultural, anthropological, and historical interests. And I think my generation to some extent failed to transmit adequately to the next generation the toolkit that we had been given.
At a certain moment in — it must have been ’68 — I remember coming out in the hallway, and buttonholing a friend of mine, and saying: “I’ve written the first sentence of my thesis.” He asked, “What is it?” And I said, it’s “Sir Henry Yelverton, the king’s attorney general, was no friend to Sir Walter Ralegh.”
My friend looked baffled. I said, “Don’t you see, you can’t tell whether it’s coming from a novel, a history, a short story, or — in this case — my dissertation.” So that represented my own little rebellion.
Q: So it’s fair to say then that you embraced this approach to literature very early on, right within your graduate days. And at the same time appreciated the formality of your literary training.
A: Yes. It’s hardly a great sentence, but it is possible to glimpse two things in it. One is a refusal to accept, comfortably, the genre of academic writing, a refusal that has served me in extremely good stead. And the other is an interest in the historical situation of the writer, in this case, who was or was not Ralegh’s friend.
That was back in 1968. I did not suddenly wake up a few years ago and think it would be worth trying to write literary criticism for more than a handful of people assigned to read it. I’ve always been interested in that possibility: to write sentences that don’t erect a barrier between scholarship and the common reader.
Q: You embraced writing that has clarity.
A: God knows I’ve written plenty of opaque sentences. But I think the key point, and it’s true for my teaching as well, is that for me there are no fundamental intellectual differences between what you tell the initiated — your colleagues and graduate students — and what you tell the uninitiated. You have to explain allusions to those who do not know them. You can’t be willfully or needlessly obscure. But the complexity or difficulty of the thought is whatever is required, as it were, by the subject and by your own vision.
I don’t have many regrets as a writer. With a particular book of mine, called “Hamlet in Purgatory,” I almost could see my way clear to figuring out how to make what I had to say accessible to a much larger group of people than I reached. The issues involved in “Hamlet in Purgatory” are genuinely powerful ones having to do with the change in the fundamental relationship between the living and the dead. But to my regret, the best way to convey them to a broad public eluded me. In recent years I’ve managed to improve. But from the Ralegh book on I’ve always been interested in that possibility.
Q: What about your relationship to Shakespeare? When did he come into your life fully as an academic?
A: Probably in the book that I wrote immediately after the Ralegh book. It was called “Renaissance Self-Fashioning,” in which Shakespeare appeared in only one of six chapters. But that chapter, on “Othello,” released a tremendous amount of energy in me. I was able to burrow deep into sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century colonial encounters, theological debates, racial tensions, and sexual anxieties as ways into “Othello.” And I was able at the same time to write something about the actual moment in which I was living, a moment when Berkeley, where I was teaching, was wild, with tear gas and police raids and anti-war protests, secret meetings to reconstitute the university, racial struggles, sexual experiments, and God only knows what else.
I felt I had succeeded in doing something that I had not been able to do until this point — to merge my historical and literary interests in the past with the full force of my engagement in the present. Not thinking of them as separate enterprises but thinking of them as the same enterprise. And for me as a teacher, as a writer, as an intellectual, as a lover of literature, as a lover of Shakespeare, that was the goal.
The lover of Shakespeare part is not accidental. It was with Shakespeare more than with any of the other figures I had studied that that strange touching together of the wires of the past and the immediate present was possible. That’s what Shakespeare enables as an artist. He grasped what he would have to do for his art to survive. It would have to be sufficiently malleable. It would have to have its roots in the deepest possible way in his world. But it would have to be able to reach out and make itself available to other worlds, including the world of crazy Berkeley in the 1970s.
Whatever was good in this book depended on refusing to choose between the past and the present — on making use of every ounce of my energy, passion, conviction, fear, and rage in the present in order to plunge into the past. And likewise, of somehow making use of the past to clarify my relation to the present.
Shakespeare has served that way all my life. There’s a certain amount of antiquarian heavy lifting you have to do to be a player in Shakespeare scholarship. But something about Shakespeare’s art is — and I’m not a mystic — very strangely suited to a mystic marriage of the past and the present.
Q: That’s a perfect place to end.
A: Good!
Interview was edited for clarity and length.My current play group, wherein I’m playing and not GMing, is doing an old school World of Darkness game. Its fun. Its enjoyable. It has 2 major problems. Most of the players are all old school World of Darkness experts. Two of us (myself included) are not, but are full of interesting ideas. This dichotomy of purpose causes our group to constantly come across instances of “It doesn’t work that way” or “According to this thing in this sidebook, they wouldn’t do that”.
This causes our games to run less like a group playing a game, and more like a library study-group. Most of the players have their noses buried in one splatbook or another, trying to figure out if their character action would be relevant to their group, or trying to find out where the nearest Cairn or Chantry would be. The rest of us wonder if its going to be important in an hour, and question whether the name or exact location will even be remembered or matter. Issues are also encountered when a player tries to do something in a unique way, or has a really good idea, but gets shot down because of some piece of flavor text. I watched this happen to both the inexperienced players and the W.o.D. experts alike.
In essence, the ultra detailed nature of the setting prevented the players, even the ones embracing the ultra-detail, from laying their own interpretation onto the game being played at the table. The desire to game in a detailed and realistic world prevented the players from doing cool things with their characters.
The Company Owned Setting
Ultra-detail isn’t a problem that is limited to old school World of Darkness. It’s present in almost any setting that is popular enough to generate splatbooks. Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance were also fairly large offenders in my role-playing youth. Eberron can be particularly bad as well. I dare say that Monte Cook’s excellent Ptolus is the epitome of ultra-detail. I’m sure you can name many more settings that have as much detail. Thing is, I love all of these settings and games.
Any game company with a popular setting is going to try to build on it and produce as much material as they can. Designers usually can’t wait to get the first book out the door so that they can start producing supplements. The first book has to be fairly generic by its nature. The rest are where the designer can lovingly craft the detail that they really want to bring out of the world. And splatbooks make money. Moreso than the initial book in a setting or the rulebook. They’re usually slimmer, need less design time and are more in the hands of the developers than at the whims of the game system.
Every splatbook, unless its billed as just flavor, has to offer something mechanical for the players. New rules, new classes, new powers and new shiny items to give people a reason to buy it. Official options for a necromancer knight are written into the new classes. New items that have great powers are posited. Game balance goes a little wonky, but new fun things are provided. Little dark corners of the world are filled in and more than the paragraph in the main book is devoted to specific groups or options.
The GM’s Home-Brew Setting
Issues of ultra-detail aren’t limited to official supplements and company settings. Home brewed settings can be as detailed and restrictive. Many Game Masters work on their lovingly crafted worlds, developing the smallest details of the symbols of a particular group, the economic factors of a particular land or the mechanical complexities of a newly created class. Lord knows I’ve created a few of these worlds myself. These floods of detail in a home-made world setting can create an incredibly immersive sandbox for the players to run around in, or turn players into the puppets of a control fiend Game Master. That’s a worst case-scenario.
The big issue with ultra-detail in home-brew settings is whether the players have access to all the necessary information or not. If the social mores of a Game Master created culture are only written down on a piece of notebook paper that is buried in a folder somewhere, but fresh in the Game Masters mind, then the players are going to have some trouble understanding why shaking the hand of the elven ambassador landed them in jail. Even when they all have ranks in Culture (Elven).
Thankfully, the wonders of technology provide ways to give all players access to a Game Master’s lovingly crafted and detailed world. Wikis, the ease of creating and sharing electronic documents and online services like Obsidian Portal and Epic Words can all provide players with the necessary information that splatbooks and supplements provide for published settings.
In Reality, It’s About The Group And The Play-style
It seems to me like I’ve talked about ultra-detail and never really said that its bad. That’s because it isn’t. IT ISN’T ABOUT HOW DEFINED OR DETAILED THE SETTING IS. Its about how the group interprets it and plays it out. If the group sticks to the canon without deviation, it can kill creativity. If the group uses the detail of the canon to support or flesh out character choices and provide a lush background, it enhances creativity. White wolf has been incredibly good about telling players to break the mold of their world and do whatever you want with it. This is written somewhere in every WW book, but I like the way that Will Hindmarch says it: “ ‘Here’s your guide to the game world,’ he says, ‘and here’s your box of matches.’ ” And I’ve seen something similar in almost every other roleplaying book I’ve read in-depth. Somewhere, someone says “Hey, do what you want at your table.”
In the end its about what your group wants. I know my group when it comes to World of Darkness. I know before getting into the game that they love them some canon. I resign myself to having long periods of time while people look things up in books. I bring my laptop. I also enjoy it when we get to take out the big bad, or the uber-organization and get to look in the book and see the exact impact we had on the well-defined world. There is something incredibly satisfying about saying you took out Pentax, as opposed to taking out that evil corporation that you didn’t really know that much about, except that they were evil and the Game Master said they were really powerful.
In a previous Eberron game that I ran, it was really satisfying for my group to take out the Lord of Blades and wage civil war in house Cannith, even though I ran the Lord of Blades and house Cannith nothing like the written supplements said. I incorporated elements from the books, and then molded them to fit the game that my players were playing. Having the supplements and information around was what made the game epic to them. Knowing they were affecting a world that was ultra detailed was what gave it that extra flavor.
Ultra-detail has its pros and it has its cons. Its all in how you use it at the table. So, what experiences have you had with ultra-detailed settings? Have they helped or hindered your play? Have they done both?McDonald's culture needs changing: Peltz 9:46 AM ET Wed, 15 July 2015 | 03:56
Just when you thought it couldn't get much worse for McDonald's, it did.
The six-month outlook for franchisees is at an all-time low, according to a small survey by Mark Kalinowski, a long-time restaurant industry analyst. (Tweet this).
Some 29 franchisees, who collectively own and operate 208 McDonald's restaurants in the United States, were asked to give their six-month forecast from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). The average response was 1.69, the lowest in the survey's 12-year history.
Read MoreNo, your Minion toy is not actually swearing
Previously, the lowest rating was 1.81, which was recorded three months ago.
Those 29 franchisees said their same-store sales fell 2.3 percent in June—2 full percentage points worse than Wall Street expectations, Kalinowski wrote. The respondents expect sales to fall 1.2 percent more this month, whereas analysts were assuming sales would rise.What’s grosser than gross? So-called followers of Jesus Christ jumping through linguistic hoops in order to defend pedophilic behavior. First there was the state auditor who said Roy Moore’s alleged behavior was no big deal because of Joseph and Mary.
Then there was that Alabama pastor who said he still supports the beleaguered candidate because “more women are sexual predators than men,” going on to blame the whole debacle on the amorphous and sinister “war on men.”
Now, another pastor has gone on record, citing an absolutely ridiculous reason as to why he still supports Moore, who is alleged to have been banned from an Alabama mall in his 30s for creeping on young girls.
Pastor Earl Wise took a two-pronged approach to his defense, first suggesting that the accusers may have simply imagined their memories due to a latent physical attraction to Roy Moore, which, barf, and then going on to say that the girls probably deserved it because, you know, 14-year-olds are sometimes hot or something.
“How these gals came up with this, I don’t know. They must have had some sweet dreams somewhere down the line,” he said. “Plus, there are some 14-year-olds, who, the way they look, could pass for 20.”
Don’t worry. Wise, who certainly lives up to his surname, threw even more spaghetti at the wall, in a desperate hope one of the noodles would stick, saying “There ought to be a statute of limitations on this stuff.”
And there you have it. An actual pastor who likely gives congregants life advice went “full-trifecta” in order to defend an alleged pedophile.
Wise went on to say that he would support Moore even if the allegations prove to be true. Well, that’s cool.
[image via screenshot]
—
Follow Lawrence Bonk (@sidescrollers) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] News: Putting a High & Rising Price on CO2 Could Balance the Budget (New Plans Proposed)
May 26th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan
Yes, it’s more complicated than that — this was a hard story to come up with a title for — but this is the gist of a new proposed plan (or several new plans) for balancing the nation’s budget that would ALSO, by chance, cut CO2 emissions considerably, thus slowing or stopping human-caused global warming and saving us trillions of dollars in damage and healthcare costs in the process. Here’s a little more:
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation funded six groups from across the political spectrum to put forward plans addressing our nation’s fiscal challenges. All the plans are here. The Center for American Progress plan, “Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity” brings the deficit below 2% of GDP within 6 years and fully balances by 2030. The CAP budget does so while boosting clean energy research and deployment funding roughly $10 billion a year — and instituting a high and rising CO2 price. The plan achieves the CO2 reduction targets from the 2009 House climate and clean energy jobs bill (Waxman-Markey): A 42% cut (from 2005 levels) by 2030, and 83% cut by 2050. The CAP plan does not specify whether the carbon price would be instituted as a tax or some sort of trading mechanism. Lower income groups are protected from the impact of higher energy prices through rebates and tax reform. The plan creates a single 15% tax bracket for 80% of Americans. Some of the additional clean energy funding can also go towards efficiency measures that will help lower people’s bills.
Actually, 5 out of the 6 plans proposed recommend putting a price on carbon (some even recommend a higher price than the Center for American Progress)!
Really, it is no surprise at all to us on CleanTechnica that putting a price on CO2 could help balance the country’s budget, but that so many groups from across the political spectrum are proposing this in their plans is surprising given the state of the political environment in the U.S. these days and the demonization of cap and trade or of a carbon tax.
Read more about these plans over on Climate Progress: Bombshell: High and rising price for carbon pollution emerges as credible deficit reduction strategy
Related Stories:
Photo via louisa_catloverPhiladelphia Eagles 2014 first-round pick Marcus Smith played just 74 defensive snaps this season and earned zero tackles.
For the past year, assistant coach Tra Thomas -- who played left tackle for the Eagles for 11 seasons (1998 to 2008) -- worked with Smith and other outside linebackers on rushing the quarterback.
Thomas was relieved of his duties this week and provided a harsh critique of Smith Friday on Comcast SportsNet Philly.
"He's definitely going to have to get a little stronger out there because when you look at even his body type, he has the build of like a high school athlete still -- a young college athlete," Thomas said. "He needs to put on probably about a good 15 to 20 more pounds so he can really execute and be an effective out there.
"He has the same movement pattern as Connor (Barwin), where you can teach him how to work and throw his different moves in and how to help him with his timing."
The criticism meshes with Chip Kelly's in-season assessment that the rookie needed to show more consistency to earn playing time.
Smith will need to spend plenty of time this offseason in the weight room, to prove true Thomas' assessment that he has Barwin-like skills. Otherwise Smith will remain on a path toward being another first-round bust.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast breaks down the top 25 free agents and reacts to the latest news. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.As we head into the week before the All-Star game, we have decided to predict who deserves to make it. This is a bit different than who will make it. There is no fan voting, even for the final spot. There also is no demand to take a player from every team. This is just straight up who is having the best seasons to do date.
Catcher:
Starter: Buster Posey
Backups: Wilson Ramos, Jonathan Lucroy
This one breaks pretty much without debate. These are the top three catchers in the National League, and Posey is just a small cut above. Posey leads the NL in WAR at 2.5, barely edging Ramos and Lucroy at 2.4 and 2.2 respectively. What sets Posey apart from the two is his defense. The three sit in a tier of their own over the rest of the NL catchers for the time being.
First base
Starter: Paul Goldschmidt
Backups: Wil Myers, Anthony RIzzo
It was tough not to name Meyers as the starter for how hot he has been. The big difference here came down to Goldschmidt’s ability to take walks and get on-base at a much higher rate. Rizzo has just as strong of a case, however. Rizzo has a slightly lower walk rate, but he strikes out only 13% of the time compared to Goldschmidt who is whiffing 22-percent of the time currently. The case for Goldschmidt against Rizzo is that he has 10 steals to compare to Rizzo who only has two. Goldschmidt is a bit of the best of both worlds when it comes to the play of Rizzo and Myers. Brandon Belt is having a huge year hitting.297, and Freddie Freeman may have a small gripe, but neither are on the pace that these three are in 2016.
Second base
Starter: Daniel Murphy
Backup: Ben Zobrist
Murphy is the hands down starter here for what he has done this year. He took his run in the World Series and ran into being one of the most consistent players in baseball. Murphy is hitting an unsustainable.352 this season. He is also only striking out 10% of the time, which is the second lowest of any NL second baseman. His BABIP and walk rate point to regression, but he already tied his career high with 14 home runs in a season. Even if his average did fall off around.300 by the end of the year he will be the best second baseman in the NL.
It almost takes away from the great season that Zobrist is having. Zobrist and Murphy are the only second baseman with a WAR over 2, Zobrist at 2.9 and Murphy at 3.8. He is having his best offensive season since 2011, and has added exceptional defense to boot.
Third Base
Starter: Nolan Arenado
Backups: Kris Bryant, Matt Carpenter, Jake Lamb
The debate at third base would be between Bryant and Arenado and who should be the starter. Bryant has the higher WAR, but most other statistics would point to Arenado having the better season to date. The biggest difference here would be the strikeout rate. Arenado is striking out just 12% of the time compared to Bryant who will K 23% of the time. In the AL stadium, Bryant can serve as the DH. Carpenter will make the team with the majority of his at-bats being at third base this season and will be listed as a third basemen. However, when compared to the second baseman he is closer to Murphy than Zobrist is at being the best in the NL. Carpenter being technically a second baseman opens the doors for Lamb. Lamb has been punishing the ball recently, and is up to 18 home runs with a.288 average. He leads the four in slugging percentage to date, but his strikeout rate and BABIP suggest some of this to slow down over the second half of the season.
Short Stop
Starter: Corey Seager
Backup: Brandon Crawford
Seager makes the squad for the first time in what feels like will be a ten plus year lock into the slot. Seager is only 22 years old. In his rookie season he is hitting.302 with 17 home runs, and it all looks legitimate. His defense is above average, and there is no arguments over who the best shortstop in the NL.
In terms of hitting production, you could argue that Trevor Story or Aledmys Diaz have had a better start to the year. However, in terms of defensive production, neither is in Crawford’s sight. Crawford does walk more than Diaz and strike out less than Story as well. Crawford holds a 3.2 WAR, compared to Diaz at 1.9 and Story at 1.7. Factoring all of that in makes Crawford the no brainer backup at the position.
Outfield
Starters: Bryce Harper, Gregory Polanco, Marcell Ozuna
Bench: Starling Marte, Ryan Braun, Carlos Gonzalez, Odubel Herrera, Yoenis Cespedes
Aside from Harper, it feels like about ten players could be named a starter. Harper is an obvious candidate, and while he is not putting up MVP numbers, his 20% walk rate speaks to his impact on baseball games. With Polanco you are adding a well-rounded player. Polanco is one of the better defensive outfielders in the game and brings a.294 average with an.880 OPS. He is also on pace for a 20/20 season. Ozuna has not been running, but is on pace for over 36 home runs. Ozone leads all NL outfielders in WAR, is second in slugging percentage and has been an above average defensive out fielder.
Cespedes, Braun and Gonzalez get the nod as reserve outfielders mainly due to their power production. Marte and Herrera make it on speed and defense. Marte also ranks in the top ten in weighted runs created, and Herrera ranks 11th. Of course, Cespedes ranks first, Gonzalez ranks fourth and Braun ranks third in WRC. The five reserves all also rank in the top ten in batting average. Dexter Fowler and Christian Yelich are the big snubs here. Fowler is fourth in WAR, but most of it is accredited to a fast start, and he has been regressing back to normal in the past few weeks. For Yelich, he profiles similarly to Marte and Herrera. Marte has a higher slash line, WAR, and stole 17 more bases than Yelich. Herrera has more home runs, more steals, and has better K% and BB%.
Batting order
Gregory Polanco Bryce Harper Paul Goldschmidt Nolan Arenado Kris Bryant (DH) Marcell Ozuna Daniel Murphy Buster Posey Corey Seager
Pitchers
Starter: Clayton Kershaw
Starters reserves: Noah Syndergaard, Jose Fernandez, Johnny Cueto, Madison Bumgarner, Jake Arrieta, Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, Jake DeGrom
Relievers: Kenley Jansen, Jeurys Familia, Mark Melancon, Seung Oh
The pitching was not too hard to fill. Kershaw is the best pitcher on earth and if healthy will start in the All-Star game. Syndergaard has had a monster start to his season, and while he is beginning to fade off still ranks second among pitcher in WAR. Fernandez is striking out an absurd 13.2 batters per nine innings, and Scherzer is whiffing 11 per nine. Lester, Arrieta and Bumgarner rank second through fourth in ERA respectively. Cueto ranks second in home runs per nine, and ranks fourth in walks per nine. Right behind Cueto is DeGrom, who is ninth in home runs per nine, but ranks third in walks per nine. DeGrom ranks 10th in WAR, only behind Zack Greinke and Stephen Strasburg as pitchers to not make the list. DeGrom gives up less walks than Strasberg, and strikes out more than Greinke. Add in a slow start to the season for Greinke, and an injury to Strasberg and DeGrom is worthy.
Kenley Jansen’s leads all closers in WAR. Familia leads all closers in saves. Melancon has been as consistent as they come, but somehow not as consistent as Oh. Oh has made the case to be the best reliever in the game in his first American season. He ranks second in WAR, and just took the closer job from Trevor Rosenthal.
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We're barely out of the train station and have already spotted a goon bag, a curbside drug bust, and a bright orange pile of spew. Everybody (except for the occasional cop) looks about 20-years-old and is either wearing studded stilettos or shovelling a kebab down their throat. House music is still in fashion. It's Saturday night in Kings Cross and I am feeling very, very sober.
It's not like my surroundings are surprising. Sydney's Kings Cross has a skeezy reputation that's older than most of its punters. It's been synonymous with booze, strippers, thugs and drugs for decades, and was especially dodgy around the early 90s. Now, following a series of very unfortunate teenage deaths since 2012, a lot of people have finally had enough of the Golden Mile, as well as other party districts in Sydney's CBD.
The first person that I meet could have easily been Daniel Christie or Thomas Kelly. Jack is 18-years-old: the same age as these two teenagers when they were fatally king hit by random people in Kings Cross. Jack is also, by his own admission, a little on the weedy side. "I would never punch anybody in my whole life. I'm too skinny to start a fight," he says. His drunk sincerity is endearing, and I laugh at his succinct description of dudes that start fights: "They're dickheads and they're drunk".
Jack's beige collared shirt is a bit too classy for Kings Cross. It turns out that's he's travelled all the way from Newcastle, because his coastal hometown in northern NSW is "dead" on a Saturday night. Jack blames this downer on the strict regulation introduced there in 2008 after intense community pressure. Today, Newcastle boasts a 1am lockout and reduced trading hours for 14 pubs and clubs, as well as a bunch of drink restrictions (no wet pussy shots).
Jack says he hates Newcastle's PG version of nightlife. Yet there is some evidence that its policies are useful: night time assaults dropped by 29 per cent in the coastal city after its legislation was introduced. This is a very powerful statistic that has been widely promoted by Sydney's major newspapers in the last six months. It was also a major policy justification for the NSW Parliament's controversial "Sydney lockout" laws, which come into effect from February 24.
I eventually leave Jack on the curb outside a kebab shop and head over the road to Trademark Hotel: a notoriously violent spot with a bunch of smokers mingling around its entrance. Everybody tells me to speak to Koray; a 25-year-old house DJ with tattoos, a backwards cap, and an entourage of bulky mates. Koray seems like an intelligent guy. He is also pissed off about the new laws, especially because they'll ban alcohol sales after 3am in specific zones around Sydney.
"Being a DJ is my income. These laws are unfair for people like me and bartenders who just do an honest job," says Koray. He says Trademark isn't a charity, and will have no reason to stay open late for dawn-loving patrons if it can't sell them alcohol. NSW Premier (and undeniable dag) Barry O'Farrell doesn't exactly agree with Koray. "People will still be able to dance the night away but they'll be drinking water and soft drinks," said O'Farrell last month.
My next Kings Cross punter is sitting on the pavement outside Trademark. Cassie is surprisingly articulate for somebody with a pink "21st Birthday Girl" sash, a white Hummer for a taxi, and a mouthful of cheese pizza. She thinks the new Sydney lockout laws will just force everybody to go home at once. "Putting a bunch of intoxicated people out on the streets at the same time is just asking for trouble. There's no security on the streets. It's all on the doors," she says.
Cassie's next comment is a bit more contentious. She says alcohol-fuelled violence is over-reported and that "people insinuate there's more (of a problem) than there is". This argument has only been raised by a few journalists, such as Crikey's Bernard Keane. Keane says the issue is a "phoney booze debate" concocted by dying media outlets to sell newspapers. He also disagrees with worried parents and the NSW government that "violence is getting worse in Sydney and that alcohol is to blame".
Keane's evidence is pretty compelling: rates of assault on licensed Sydney premises have declined since 2007, as have general rates of alcohol-related assaults across the city. But this doesn't mean that drunken machismo has been entirely wiped from the Cross. I'm reminded of this when I'm approached by a wide-shouldered dude on Bayswater Rd. He is obviously pretty wasted and has a slightly weird look in his eyes.
"You see scuffles in the Cross everywhere. Pushes and shoves. Little wrestles," he says. The dude gives me a smug look when I ask if that means he feels threatened in Kings Cross. "Nah, not at all. If you can look after yourself, then you can go anywhere," he says. So, what about the people that can't look after themselves? Or the ones that don't see the punches coming? I carefully exit this conversation after he responds. His answer isn't worth repeating.
The next group of people that I meet have a nicer view of humanity. This is possibly because they're all high. "Kings Cross is like my home. I don't feel unsafe here," says Elise, a 20-year-old that travels from a leafy semi-rural suburb to party at Candy's Apartment every weekend. It's after 2am, and Elise is now having a quick break between electro sets on Bayswater Rd. She won't be able to do this under the Sydney lockout: it will ban people from entering venues after 1.30am.
Sitting with Elise and her mates (lead image) on the concrete outside Candy's feels pretty normal (even despite the dude that's quietly chucking up on himself in the corner). "Everybody thinks our generation is all grogs. But we're not. We're all just hanging out with our friends," says Elise. The cops that are observing the 30-odd concrete stragglers obviously don't share this sentiment. Elise's friend Brodie says the whole thing is "bullshit".
Brodie is wearing a dirty Santa Cruz singlet and reminds me of an ex-boyfriend. He |
. Darling.” You begin, trying to reassure her with tone of voice alone. “I'm pretty sure *everybody* knows.” “What?!?” She hisses, panic rising in her voice. “How? I've been dodging you all night, trying to put on the best face I could. What have you been telling people?” She asks, clearly knowing she's not at fault here. “Nothing. I didn't need to. You did all the talking for me.” You reply, a soft chuckle rumbling in your chest at the absurdity of it all. “I did no such thing, Michael…” she begins, almost angry, whether at the implication, or your humor you can't say. Either way, you silence her with a question seemingly out of left field. “Chica, my love, would you happen to be molting right now?” You ask, already knowing the answer. “Well, yeah, but I don't see what that has to do with…” she responds, stopping short as you pull the cheap black plastic comb from your pocket, clogged with her plumage. “Oh.” She says softly, before the realization hits her as well. “Ohhhhhhhhhhh.” She intones, a nervous smile curling her fractured lips. “Heheh” “Yeah.” “So now what?” She asks, almost relieved now. You open your mouth to answer, but are interrupted from the living room. “Can I have everyone's attention please?” Comes a raised voice, even as incongruous as it may be to hear Bonnie loud, let alone volunteering to be the center of attention. She's standing on the stepstool, to be seen and heard, her posture confident, smile beaming out over the small crowd. “I would like to thank you all for coming tonight, especially on such short notice. Thanks to Mr. Fazbear for dinner, and Miss Madeleine-Byrd for the lovely dessert as well.” She begins, garnering gentle cheering and applause for them both, as you and Chica wander into the living room proper, standing immediately behind the potentially unstable bunny, lest she melt down under scrutiny. “But we are here tonight to celebrate our friend, Michael Schmidt.” She says cheerfully, turning slightly to regard you as the entire room is now focused squarely on you. “Mike came into our lives one year ago today, and I for one can say I am so happy to be able to say that. You are a wonderful, caring person, Mike, and have cared for and about me more than I could ever have asked. I'm sure every one of us has something we could share, and I would encourage you all, some time tonight, to personally thank him for what he's done for you.” She adds as you squirm within your shell of modesty, the room voicing universal agreement. “Do you want to say anything, Mike?” She asks, ramping your awkwardness up even higher. “Speech!” Call several people, BonBon, Beanie and Rackham chief among them. No avoiding it at this point, it seems. You offer your hand to Bonnie, letting her step down before you take her place on the hot seat. Taking a deep breath to collect your thoughts, you look out into the crowd, and can't help but smile. You close your eyes for a moment, and can feel the barest hint of moisture in the corners before you begin. “I would like to thank you all, truly. For coming out tonight, certainly, but more importantly, for taking a stray stupid monkey in and treating him like family. You all have been so good, and kind to me, yes even you, Archie.” You add, pointing the slender fox out, both he and ChiChi laughing uproariously about it. “I came here at the end of my rope, my life a foggy mystery, with a suitcase and twenty dollars in my pocket. I stand here now, surrounded by people I am proud to call family.” You conclude, generating raucous cheers and applause from all assembled. “Oh, as long as I have the floor, a few announcements. First, the back gate between eight and nine is finally fixed, and should be accessible with your apartment keys, like it's supposed to be.” You begin, the shortcut to the closest bus stop now open again. “Second, pajama movie night this week is going to be at six, rather than seven p.m., to allow for my attendance. This might be permanent, given Faz’ and my schedule now. Thirdly,” you begin, the words catching in your throat. You spare a glance over at Chica, who is looking at you expectantly, eyes bright and a gentle smile on her beautiful face. You close your eyes, taking a deep breath. Your heart flutters in your chest, like a moth trapped indoors, desperately trying to fly free. At the end of the day, a picture truly is worth a thousand words, your own failing utterly to convey what you wish to. “C’mere.” You say at last, grabbing the loose ends of Chica's scarf, pulling her to you, and planting your lips squarely on hers. “Mmmfffffmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” She hums, surprised but recovering quickly, wrapping you up in her feathery arms and squeezing firmly. You barely register the few gasps and several catcalls from the crowd, enjoying the immediate company of your orange-plumed lover instead. You break the kiss reluctantly, placing your forehead against hers, gazing into her eyes with a warm smile plastered across both of your faces. “I love you, Chica.” You say softly. “I love you too, Michael.” She whispers back, even more unbelieving of this turn of events than you, it seems. “Thirdly?” Goose demands loudly, garnering laughter from everyone, yourself included. After a moment, you spot out of the corner of your eye BonBon leaning in and whispering in Goose’s ear. “I know I said not to leave us hanging, Mike, but *damn*!” She fires off, and you and Chica both lose it, joining everyone else in the mirth.
RAW Paste Data
Epilogues: Scarred - Chapter 3 You're still grasping at straws, what little you can remember of your life flashing before your eyes. The one image that keeps bubbling to the surface is Jeremy Human, being crushed like a beer can by the hulking bear that stands silently before you demanding answers. You gulp silently and take a deep breath, resolving to face your doom with some measure of dignity. “I'm sorry, Freddy. I just wanted Chica to see it. I didn't do this lightly, and not without purpose. She needed to see what we all see, well, saw, in her.” you correct yourself, the mysterious bear before you giving you no feedback other than a silent, pensive stare. Your own thoughts are jumbled and scattered, the depth of your mistake a black hole you can't seem to dig out of. “I'm so sorry, Freddy. I can't even begin to apologize enough for violating your trust. It was stupid, *I'm* stupid.” You emphasize that point firmly. Freddy takes a deep breath, twin plumes of steam erupting from his nostrils a moment later. Wordlessly, and still fixing you in his gaze, he grasps the paper with his other hand touching the first, and he slowly separates the two, a horrid, almost anguished tearing sound heard loud in the quiet autumn night. Placing the two halves atop each other, he again rips them in two, then again, and again, and again. A pile of scraps no bigger than a postage stamp are now cupped in his paw, which he slowly extends over the railing before dumping them into the cold wind, where they scatter like inky leaves. Your growing terror at his actions, and their implications, reduces your voice to a whispering squeak. “B-but...your sketch…” you manage to stammer before the bear is upon you, your chest enveloped in crushing arms more than capable to the task at hand. Even as your feet leave the ground, you can feel his breath, hot against your cheek and neck as his jaw begins to open, sharp, oh so sharp teeth within. “It was no longer…” he begins, hot breath stirring the wispy fuzz on your ear. “Relevant.” He at last concludes, having found the word he needed. “Thank you, Michael” he adds quietly, planting a warm, brief kiss on each of your cheeks before setting you back down. The adrenaline now coursing through your bloodstream having no outlet, you begin to tremble slightly. “For what?” You dare to ask the hulking bear who is not, after all, going to maul you to death. He pauses for a moment, thinking hard to find the words, and ultimately failing to do so, the language of the heart something that suffers much in translation it seems. “J'ai parlé avec elle, je l'ai *vue*, Michael. Elle est heureuse. Pour cela, je ne peux jamais vous récompenser. Vous lui avez donné ce que je ne pouvais pas. Soyez heureux ensemble, et je serai aussi.” He says with a soft, almost wistful smile, placing a paw on your shoulder and giving a reassuring squeeze. Your Fredspeak is still limited, but you think you've got the gist of it, and a sudden, horrifying realization hits you. “Oh, Freddy, I'm so sorry, I didn't know! I swear, I never would have gotten between you if I'd known.” You say softly, receiving a blank stare from Freddy before he bursts into hearty laughter. Perplexed, but relieved, you offer a dumb smile in return. “Non, mon ami, il y a une femme que j'adore, mais ce n'est pas Mademoiselle Chica. Elle connaîtra en temps utile les profondeurs de mon cœur.” He says with warmth, and a firmness of conviction that crosses the language barrier easily, even if you have little inkling of what he just said. You open your mouth to reply, only to be staved off by an incessant electronic beeping emanating from Freddy's vest pocket. He fishes a small kitchen timer out and silences it carefully, lest he crush the tiny thing. He pivots his gaze back to you and offers a warm smile. “Les crêpes.” He offers in simple explanation. “Oh God, yes! Please, don't let me keep you, Freddy.” You reply, waving him back to his kitchen. He moves to go, before reaching over and tousling your hair with one massive paw. He regards you briefly, shrugs at God-knows-what, and turns the doorknob, opening the door and allowing Faz to take his place. “Captain.” You offer with a slight smile and curt nod to the mostly-recovered bear. “Captain.” He replies likewise. “So you've heard then.” “Foxy was quite chipper this morning when he told me about it. He's been on a downward slide the rest of the day, unfortunately.” He adds, voice soft and somber. “Yeah, poor guy.” You add needlessly. “I took the liberty of grabbing your keys off the peg.” He says, hefting the weapons-grade assemblage of metal, using the quick disconnect coupling to detach your apartment key from it, handing it to you. “And the phone.” He adds, brandishing it briefly. “Wait, Marion said we were each getting one?” You ask, the arrangement changing yet again, apparently. “Oh we are, but Marion said they wouldn't be getting done till the phone contract is up sometime next month. We have to share this one until then. Good news is that he's springing for the best free smartphones money can buy. They're getting hooked into the WiFi that's being put in next week, and we'll have remote access to all the cameras through an app.” “Assuming he doesn't cheap out on any of it and we get junk that doesn't work.” “Assuming” the bear concedes. The door opens behind you, the noise of the party washing over the both of you as Fran and Bonson exit the apartment. “I hope you don't mind, Mike, but Bonson really needs to get home and finish his chores before bedtime.” She apologizes needlessly. “But I said I'd do them in the morning.” The young rabbit whines. “Now, Bonson. If you're busy doing chores in the morning, how are you going to walk final rounds with the night watchman?” You ask him, the daily ritual over the last two months something you both cherish, truth be told. “But it's not gonna be you, Mister Mike.” He grumps. “No, Mister Faz is going to be working when I'm off duty from now on. I'm sure he could use your help too.” You offer warmly, knowing full well what a soft spot he has for kids. Faz merely nods and smiles, and the boy's frown softens. “All right.” He says, reluctantly agreeing. “Is there something you need to say, Bonson?” Fran asks pointedly. “Thank you for the pizza, Mister Mike!” He says enthusiastically before wrapping up your thighs in one of his vise-like hugs. “You're welcome, Bonson.” You reply, smiling and patting his head affectionately. You throw in a brief scritch behind the ears for good measure. “Say, how about a hug for Mister Faz?” You ask, hoping they hit it off like you already have. “But he's kind of big.” The boy replies. “Well, he's a bear. You know, like your mom?” You chide gently. “And he's kinda scary.” The boy whispers loudly, his grip tightening on your legs. “Well, that's only because you don't know him yet.” You softly prod him, smiling for his benefit. Faz merely reaches up towards his collar, something you barely see him do any more “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Bonson.” Faz adds in his tinny, assisted voice. Bonson's jaw drops wide open in wonder. “Wow, are you like a cyborg?” He asks in awe. “Something like that.” You confirm, leaving further explanation for later. “Do you have a laser cannon in your eye? Can your arm detach and walk around like CybOrangutan?” He asks eagerly before his mother cuts him off. “Bonson.” She says firmly, but with a mother's love. “Don't be rude.” “Quite all right, ma’am.” Faz replies in his normal voice. “He's young.” “Well, he still does need to do his chores. I hope you don't mind, Mike, Fred said he brought enough to feed thirty.” She continues, slightly lifting the foil wrapped plate piled high with what is obviously pizza, as well as a second plate that looks to be two generous portions of the black forest cake ChiChi brought for dessert. “Not at all, Fran. If you all don't take some home with you, we'll be drowning in pizza for days.” You reply, thankful that Freddy will be back to cooking that much quicker. “Well, good night then, and thanks for having us, Mike.” She adds with a smile, and a lingering look for Faz as well, if you're not mistaken. “Come on, son.” She adds, verbally prying her son off of you. You both watch them go, losing sight as they round the corner and head down the stairs. “Cute.” He says simply. “Didn't know you were into older women.” You shoot back. “Wasn't talking about her.” “I saw the way she looked at you.” You gently elbow him. “To answer your question from last week, I'm ninety-eight percent sure he's adopted. Bears don't usually go for smaller mates, if they go outside their species at all.” He adds. “Nothing wrong with a little cross-pollination.” You chide gently. “Absolutely not.” He agrees, perhaps a little too quickly, a slight smile curling his lips. “Anyway, yeah, if you're going to be using that phone, I need to delete a few things.” You admit sheepishly. “Been watching porn on company time, Michael?” He asks, clearly not believing the premise. “Not exactly.” “Oh, really. What, exactly, does 'not exactly’ mean?” He continues, his smile broadening. “Cheeky has that number.” “Oh.” He says quietly, handing the device over to you without further ado. “Not that she hasn't bathed me plenty of times before, but... yeah.” He adds, uncomfortable as you begin deleting every picture on the phone, as well as several entire conversations. “There. All done.” You say, handing the metaphorical hot potato over to him. “I hope.” “Thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I do need to get to work.” He adds with a quick salute. “Hat?” You ask him, knowing full well it won't fit him. “Still have mine from Jeremy's” he replies. “Call me if they need help getting Foxy home later?” He adds, always looking out for his crewman. “Will do.” He ambles off, quiet as falling snow. Looking out over the complex, you see Fran and Bonson making their way over to building twelve, the child rounding the corner out of sight as only a little bundle of bunny energy can, his mother plodding along slowly after. You smile at the family dynamic on display, until something catches your eye. A dark figure, looking large and dressed in dark colors, steps out of the shadows of the alleyway between buildings eleven and twelve, apparently calling out to Fran, even if you can't hear it. They succeed in getting the ivory bear's attention, and a brief, awkward (if you're reading the body language correctly) conversation ensues. Fran fumbles a bit to unwrap her leftovers, forking over three slices of pizza to the apparent vagrant, before both of them part ways, Fran to her apartment and the other back into the shadows. Your eyes narrow suspiciously, even as you feel a pang of sympathy for the dark figure. Turning on your heel, you enter your apartment with purpose, closing the door and turning in to the living room to find the nearest… “Mike, there you are!” You hear before you're engulfed in a warm, soft, feathery hug. “Hey, Cheeky, can I borrow your phone for a sec?” “Sure. Nothing new in my Snapz folder though, I've already sent you the juicy ones. And don't you have your own now?” She asks, almost directly into your left ear with her typical cozy familiarity even as she pulls hers out for you. “Have to share it with Faz for the time being.” You reply. “Oh.” She says softly. “Passcode?” you ask, handing it back to her. “Ohhhhhhhhhh. Umm, Mike?” She asks nervously, poking keys with her thumb, her other wing tense around your shoulders. “Already deleted.” You reply, feeling her relax immediately. Retrieving the careworn device from your yellow friend, you quickly find your, well, the security number at the top of her favorites. “Faz, Mike. Can you check the gate between 11&12? Might be unsecured.” You peck away quickly, rather enjoying the not-piece-of-shit phone she has. “So you saw that too? You're a natural, Mike.” He replies, and you breathe a sigh of relief, both for the situation at hand and for Faz immediately stepping into his new job with aplomb. You hand the phone back to Cheeky, who makes a show of pulling her top forward and dropping the device into her cavernous cleavage. “If you need to borrow it again, you know where to find it.” She says with a lewd wink that you're really hoping Chica doesn't notice, considering she's standing just over there. Thankfully, she seems engrossed in a conversation with Bonnie, the mood hard to read. “I do have to say, Mike, I love what you've done with your hair. Who's your stylist?” She asks, poking at the mess on your head with a couple feathery fingers. “Freddy, actually.” You reply, running your fingers through it to try and fix whatever he did to it outside, and failing miserably by the feel of it. You pluck what feels like a small feather out of the left side, flicking it unseen into the air behind you. “So how are you liking the waterbed, Mike?” She asks, and you can already see where this conversation is going. “Loving it, Cheeky. Glad you turned me on to the benefits.” You reply, sincere at the very least. “Oh, I'm the kind of friend who's *all* about benefits.” she fires back, setting the hook deep on that one. You offer her a smirk. “Touché, Cheeky.” “Oh, I'm all about touchy too.” She adds, kneading your shoulder suggestively. “Oh, something you might want to keep in mind. Waterbed mattresses aren't nearly as durable as you might think.” You wisely refrain from pointing out you're not quite as much of a strain on yours. “Hen claws, for example. Wouldn't think they're sharp enough to put a hole in the vinyl, but unless you want to be patching all day, I'd suggest putting a doubled up quilt under the sheet at the foot of your bed.” She says conspiratorially. “I'll keep that in mind the next time I have a hen in my bed.” You reply dryly. Whatever her saucy comeback to that is, it is cut short as you see a burst of purplish-blue light from the kitchen, wordless exclamations of shock or wonder from most everyone else in that room. “Fire amidships!” Comes the alarm call from everyone's favorite pirate fox. “What the hell was that?” Cheeky asks, curious and a little worried by her tone. “If I'm not mistaken,” you begin as Freddy rounds the corner with a plate of food, “yup, that would be dessert.” You finish with a smile, hands rubbing together eagerly. Your personal chef for the evening hands it to you with a flourish, and you smile widely, accepting the masterpiece with a gracious nod. “Merci beaucoup, chef.” you add, eliciting a smile in return. “What...is that?” Cheeky asks. You can practically hear her salivating, as the aroma is heavenly. “Crêpes Suzette.” You intone with reverence, inhaling deeply of the sweet, citrusy bouquet of the sauce. “Or, in common parlance, delicious.” You add, cutting into the first of the folded crêpes with your fork, spearing a suprème of tangerine to go along with the decadence. Swirling the eggy pastry through the sauce, you take your first bite, and your knees buckle in ecstasy, a lewd moan escaping your throat. “Oh what I wouldn't give to moan like that. Or hear somebody else do the same, given the right circumstances.” Cheeky declares breathily next to you, eyes nearly as glazed as your dessert. “Are you wanting a taste, Cheeky?” You ask, eliciting a gasp from the busty hen. “No, of course not, I'd never dream of coming between...oh you mean the craypes!” She blurts, dragging her mind out of its luxury suite in the gutter. “Umm, sure?” She adds, trying to cover for her apparent embarrassment. You parcel out a generous bite for her, the saucy bird literally eating out of your hand at this point. She closes her beak gently over the fork, and chews a bit, her eyes going wide as the flavor hits her. “Mother of God, Mike.” She breathlessly proclaims. “I know, right?” you add, endlessly amused by her reaction. “What's in this sauce?” “Normally, butter, orange juice, sugar and orange liqueur, but Freddy got a deal on a bushel of tangerines from a guy at the farmer's market, so they've been popping up all over the menu. Regardless, it's still my favorite dish of his.” “Aww, and here I was hoping you had more of a hankering for lemon, especially well sauced and spiked with booze.” She expounds, a leering smile evidence of her return to form. “Ah well, you speak his language right?” “After a fashion.” You concede. “How do I ask that bear to marry me?” She queries, only half-jokingly by your estimation. “I'm sure if you ask him really nicely, he’ll make you some too, Cheeky.” you offer, feeling almost sorry for the bear in question. “Oh, that I can do. Rather convincingly I think.” She adds, licking the edge of her beak lewdly before she waddles off toward the kitchen. Breathing a sigh of relief, you tuck into your food once again, managing two full bites before being interrupted yet again, this time by a feathery hand coming to rest in the small of your back. It lingers briefly before tracking downward and squeezing your ass with rough familiarity. “Hey, babe, was beginning to wonder if you were avoiding me.” You say softly, making brief eye contact with Bonworth, smiling and nodding like there isn't a hen groping you in public right now. “And just how am I supposed to avoid you?” Comes the soft, breathy reply that freezes your blood cold. “Hide and seek isn't exactly my forte any more. Babe.” Goose clarifies. “Hi.” You say curtly, scrambling to figure out how to cover your verbal blunder. “Hi. Nice party.” She adds, nodding sagely. “Wasn't my idea, but glad everyone came. Yourself included, Goose.” She's wearing an emerald green sequined bustier and similar short shorts in electric blue, both colors contrasting nicely with her plumage. “Well, I've got a reputation to uphold, after all. Something smells like booze. Whatcha drinkin’?” “Actually, it's Crêpes Suzette. Orange liqueur in the sauce.” “Oh.” She says, a little crestfallen. “Would you like a taste?” You ask, feeling a little awkward now. “Sure, I've got fifteen minutes to spare.” She tosses out with a soft, mischievous grin. “Of my crêpes.” You clarify, mentally berating yourself for blundering into that one. “Oh, well those sound delicious too.” She replies, her gaze passing right through you. You portion out a generous bite for the erstwhile party radar, holding your plate under her beak lest anything drip onto the carpet. “Open wide.” You ask, feeding yet another bird by hand for the night. “Oh wow, this is really good. Freddy’s cooking?” She asks, getting an eager nod from you in return before you correct your stupidity. “Yes, it is.” You respond, thankful she is incapable of seeing you blush. “You’ve become quite popular around these parts, Mike.” She says softly, her wing draped across your upper back now. Her sightless eyes regard the crowd for a moment before she speaks again. “You really need to stop leading us ladies on.” “Beg your pardon?” You sputter. “Mike. You're a really nice guy, and you've been so good to us all. But you've never so much as asked any of us out on a date. Beginning to wonder if you're gay at this point. Not that there's anything wrong with that.” She hastily corrects. “What's to say I haven't?” You ask, defensively playful. “I'd have heard, I'm sure.” She assures you. “I'm just not sure I could choose, Goose. A guy like me likes having his options open.” You offer up, a certain swagger in your words that is transparent bullshittery of the highest order. “A guy like you…” she begins, pausing for effect more than needing to find her words, “is scared to death of disappointing *anybody*. So you work yourself to the bone trying to keep everyone happy except yourself.” She says softly, her message carrying the volume her voice never needed to. “Mike, you're a really good guy, and a real catch, no matter who holds the net. We're all big girls,” she says with a warm smile, just as Cheeky whoops from the kitchen at Freddy’s flambée skills, “some of us bigger than others. At the end of the day, you're going to break some hearts, no matter what. Better to do it and be done with than to leave us all hanging.” “And what are your thoughts on the matter?” You ask, digesting everything she's already given you. “I think you're the nicest guy I know, Mike. And despite, in fact maybe even because of my history...I know that dating the bad boys never ends well. Might be fun for a little while, but it's never meant to last.” She says with more than a little regret evident in her voice. “At the end of the day, Michael, the choice will always be yours. I'm not going to say I'm not intrigued by the possibilities, but I'm not going to clam block my roommate, or my best friend either.” She adds. “You don't have to make your mind up right this second, but none of us is getting any younger.” “No pressure, huh?” “No pressure.” She replies, smiling her typical laid back smile. You ponder that for a moment, before a nagging, pinprick itch hits the back of your scalp. You scratch at it, but can't seem to shake the feeling that something is embedded in your hair. “You gonna be all right by yourself?” You ask the sightless hen. “If I have to be. Someday my prince will come too, I suppose.” She says wistfully. “I just need to go fix my hair, Goose.” You reassure her, placing a hand gently over her wing. “Oh.” She says, realizing how immediate your remark actually was. “I'll be fine, I promise.” She responds, placing a feathery hand over yours. “Okay.” You say, a smile on your lips and in your voice. You break contact and get BonBon’s attention with a wave, rough sign language asking her to keep an eye on her roommate, to which the electric blue bunny responds with an energetic nod. Making your way to your room, you pause, seeing Bonnie's door cracked open, the light on inside. Your curiosity gets the better of you, and you knock gently on the door jamb. “Bonnie? You in there?” You ask, after hearing a muffled squeak the second your knuckle touched the wood. “Yeah, Mike. Come in. If you want to, I mean.” She backpedals most adorably. You press gently, opening the door slowly, and find the blue bunny seated on the edge of her bed, nervously tugging at her right ear. When she sees you she smiles softly, placing her hands in her lap like a prim and proper lady. “A little overwhelming out there?” You ask, deducing the problem immediately, a brief nod from Bonnibel confirming your suspicions. “You okay?” Another nod. “Thank you for the party, Bonnie. I think we all needed it.” You say warmly, sitting beside her and placing a hand over hers. “I...just wanted to thank you, Mike.” She says quietly, voice trembling a bit at first but finding its stride soon enough. “For what?” “For everything. For Beanie, and Jeremy's, and doing your job, and being a friend to us all. For being the best big brother I can't remember if I ever asked for.” She adds, completing her half of the joke, her smile trembling even as you see her eyes brimming slightly. You instinctively put an arm over her shoulder, pulling her softly to your side. She leans into you, and you can feel just how agitated she is. “Are you happy, Michael?” She asks, as loaded and open-ended a question as you'll ever hear. “Bonnie. I can't remember my life before a year ago. Fuzzy memories, fragments of experiences, nothing more. What I *can* tell you, without a doubt, is that I am happier now than I have ever been. You all are all the family I will ever need.” You tell her, ruffling her headfur with your free hand. “Even Marion?” She asks timidly. “Everybody's got that weird uncle nobody talks about.” You offer. Having worked for him for several months now, you can honestly say his heart's in the right place. Whatever the right place is for... whatever...he is. Bonnie giggles softly in response, cuddling against you a bit more. “Bonnie, did the doctor start you on new meds?” You ask in a measured and neutral tone, wary of wandering into the minefield, but knowing it's far better to do so with eyes wide open. “Am I that bad?” She asks, the mirth of a few seconds ago draining from her voice as her snuggling devolves into a lethargic slump against your side. “No, just curious. Need to make sure I can defend you if purple spotted dragons lay claim to the refrigerator again.” you say solemnly. “That still isn't funny, Mike.” She says, poking you in the ribs as you see her stifle a smile. “But yes, Doctor Gallo changed my medication regimen. And no, you don't need to worry about it.” She says, patting your knee. “I always worry about you, Bonnie.” “I know. And that's what I love about you.” She says with a truly warm smile, planting a kiss on your cheek. “But as of today, I am no longer on any scheduled medication.” she says, a serene smile gracing her lips. You tamp down your excitement, not wanting to test the frail bunny’s limits, and instead, wrap a second arm about her shoulders, squeezing her tightly to you. “That's wonderful news! I knew you could do it!” You try to encourage and celebrate without bowling over her emotions.. “Well, I still have a couple 'as needed’ scrips, but yeah, no more medtime Bonnie.” She adds, self-deprecation a rare mantle for her to wrap herself in. “It makes me happy to see how far you've come in just a year.” “Me too.” She replies simply, wrapping her arms about you, or at least trying to. “I'm happy you've been in my life for the last year, Mike.” “Where else am I gonna go?” You ask glibly, scratching gently behind her ear. “Well, if you wanted to move, I'd be a little sad. But Doctor Gallo has been teaching me the importance of letting go. I'd miss you, but I'd be okay.” She says calmly, folding her hands in her lap again. “Bonnie…” you begin, trying to correct what seems to be a gross misunderstanding without making her feel bad about it. “I'm not going anywhere.” “But something can happen. Something always happens. Don't make me a promise you can't keep.” She says softly, a tremor in her voice that shoves you back onto thin ice. “Okay, that's fair enough. I will say that there is nothing I can foresee that would ever change how I feel about you, or Freddy, or Chica, hell, pretty much anyone we know. We're family, Bon. That's never going to change. No matter where I am, or you are for that matter.” You reaffirm, patting her forearm gently. “Then I can let go of that fear, Mike.” She says, glad for being treated as an adult for once. “And I can let go of you, knowing that I don't have to hold on for dear life.” She adds, placing a soft, fuzzy paw over your hand, squeezing gently. “I really should get back to the party, Mike. I'm the one who invited everybody, after all.” She says calmly, a soft smile present even as she dabs at her eyes for the last of her nearly-shed tears. “Don't want to be rude.” You confirm, standing up and offering a hand up to the thin, but not quite so fragile any more, bunny, which she graciously accepts. “Speaking of rude, you need to get back too, Mike. After you fix your hair of course.” She says, blushing slightly under her fur. “S’what I was coming back here for when I noticed you.” You admit sheepishly. “Good, then don't let me keep you from preening.” She says with a smile, leading you out of her princess sanctum and into the hallway before letting go of your hand and walking back into the fray. You take a deep breath, and sigh softly, indeed proud of Bonnie's progress. You also have no clue what that conversation was even about. Shaking you head gently, you slip into your own bedroom, making your way to the thrift store vanity dresser to finally sort out your coif. Absently, you pick up the cheap plastic comb, eternally grateful you don't have to go through everything a woman does, especially all the furry and feathered ones you now know, to keep looking presentable. You look around your room, resolving to straighten up the clutter...sometime. You pass the comb through your hair with practiced ease, or at least that's the plan, your train of thought derailing entirely as a tearing pain blasts your idle thoughts into nothingness. “Ow! Sunnuva…” you begin, tugging on the comb a mite more gently, but meeting the same resistance. You don't have enough length for there to be a knot, so what the hell? You turn to the mirror, and answer your own question. “Bursting with sunshine indeed.” You mutter, looking at the three bright orange pinfeathers entangled into your short hair. Turning your head this way and that, you see more spots of orange, downy flecks of color in your otherwise neutral pelt. Working more carefully now, you pluck the larger feathers from your scalp before gently combing out the smaller ones, leaving them stuck in the teeth of your comb. This you drop into the breast pocket of your shirt as every little idiosyncr |
they appear to have been released no earlier than Q4 2015 here on Amazon. If someone has one that has died in a few short weeks but wasn't DOA, well, that's a pretty significant worry. But I haven't had any issue like that. That said, both of my drives report temps of 40C in a fairly cool room...I've been using these only in Maine in the winter so far. 40C is 10-17C higher than what I'm used to seeing from SSD brands that I know and trust (Samsung, Crucial, Sandisk, etc.). SSDs are not mechanical, so I'm not sure where the extra 10-17C is coming from...it's a little strange to see an SSD operating this warmly. I'm not super worried about the temps, but they're higher than they could be, and may affect long-term drive health. I'll update this review if I have any issues or new revelations here.
Price:
The Faspeed F710-250G is fairly new on the scene, and operates a good deal warmer than well-respected and proven SSDs. Yes, these drives are pretty fast, with Read speeds on par with all but the best SATA SSDs (which are the only fair comparisons), and Write speeds about 100MB/s below the competition. Given the mix of performance, questionable operating temps, and lack of known branding, I would buy this drive at $50, as I did, but a 20% price hike really, really hurts the value proposition for a newcomer like Faspeed.
Conclusion:
These drives lost one star for running so warm. I wanted to knock off another for the 20% price increase, but value is only so much of the equation for some people, so I'll leave that decision up to you. This was a great deal when I got it, but for $60 instead of $50, I won't buy it again. I can always pick up a 240-256GB SSD from one of the bigger guys for right around $60 thanks to constant sales and such. If Faspeed brings the price back down, I'll consider buying again in the future.NASA today released new images captured by the Dawn spacecraft, which is approaching the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when it enters orbit around Ceres on Friday, March 6.
From the NASA announcement today:
"Dawn is about to make history," said Robert Mase, project manager for the Dawn mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Our team is ready and eager to find out what Ceres has in store for us."
Recent images show numerous craters and unusual bright spots that scientists believe tell how Ceres, the first object discovered in our solar system’s asteroid belt, formed and whether its surface is changing. As the spacecraft spirals into closer and closer orbits around the dwarf planet, researchers will be looking for signs that these strange features are changing, which would suggest current geological activity.
Studying Ceres allows us to do historical research in space, opening a window into the earliest chapter in the history of our solar system,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “Data returned from Dawn could contribute significant breakthroughs in our understanding of how the solar system formed.”
Dawn began its final approach phase toward Ceres in December. The spacecraft has taken several optical navigation images and made two rotation characterizations, allowing Ceres to be observed through its full nine-hour rotation. Since Jan. 25, Dawn has been delivering the highest-resolution images of Ceres ever captured, and they will continue to improve in quality as the spacecraft approaches.
Sicilian astronomer Father Giuseppe Piazzi spotted Ceres in 1801. As more such objects were found in the same region, they became known as asteroids, or minor planets. Ceres was initially classified as a planet and later called an asteroid. In recognition of its planet-like qualities, Ceres was designated a dwarf planet in 2006, along with Pluto and Eris.
Ceres is named for the Roman goddess of agriculture and harvests. Craters on Ceres will similarly be named for gods and goddesses of agriculture and vegetation from world mythology. Other features will be named for agricultural festivals.
Launched in September 2007, Dawn explored the giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, capturing detailed images and data about that body. Both Vesta and Ceres orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter, in the main asteroid belt. This two-stop tour of our solar system is made possible by Dawn’s ion propulsion system, its three ion engines being much more efficient than chemical propulsion.
"Both Vesta and Ceres were on their way to becoming planets, but their development was interrupted by the gravity of Jupiter,” said Carol Raymond, deputy project scientist at JPL. “These two bodies are like fossils from the dawn of the solar system, and they shed light on its origins."
Ceres and Vesta have several important differences. Ceres is the most massive body in the asteroid belt, with an average diameter of 590 miles (950 kilometers). Ceres' surface covers about 38 percent of the area of the continental United States. Vesta has an average diameter of 326 miles (525 kilometers), and is the second most massive body in the belt. The asteroid formed earlier than Ceres and is a very dry body. Ceres, in contrast, is estimated to be 25 percent water by mass.
"By studying Vesta and Ceres, we will gain a better understanding of the formation of our solar system, especially the terrestrial planets and most importantly the Earth," said Raymond. "These bodies are samples of the building blocks that have formed Venus, Earth and Mars. Vesta-like bodies are believed to have contributed heavily to the core of our planet, and Ceres-like bodies may have provided our water."
"We would not be able to orbit and explore these two worlds without ion propulsion,” Mase said. “Dawn capitalizes on this innovative technology to deliver big science on a small budget.”
In addition to the Dawn mission, NASA will launch in 2016 its Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft. This mission will study a large asteroid in unprecedented detail and return samples to Earth.
NASA also places a high priority on tracking and protecting Earth from asteroids. NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program at the agency’s headquarters manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. NASA is pursuing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which will identify, redirect and send astronauts to explore an asteroid. Among its many exploration goals, the mission could demonstrate basic planetary defense techniques for asteroid deflection.
Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK, Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft.
The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.Sometimes it seems like an inordinate number of column inches are dedicated to news stories about the lousy things people in the jiu jitsu community do. Particularly in recent years, there has been ample fodder for those column inches. This is terrible, both because in an ideal world there would be fodder for zero of these kinds of stories, and also because they overshadow the fact that there are many decent people in jiu-jitsu.
I get to work with good people all the time in my capacity as one of the principals of Groundswell Grappling Concepts, which hosts jiu jitsu camps for female and co-ed audiences. At one of the recent co-ed camps, I had the opportunity to meet and become friends with Chris Gleeson, an attendee who thinks about how he can be a force for good in the jiu jitsu world. (No wonder we get along so well.) This article is a collaborative effort between Chris and me, and it is our attempt to contribute to a conversation about how those of us who love jiu jitsu and also care about living a principled life can bring both to bear in a positive way on the BJJ community.
If you have ever thought about how to bring positive energy to your own academy and to the larger jiu jitsu community, read on for ten suggestions from us. We hope they provide some food for thought for those of you who want to counter and ultimately eradicate the need for depressing BJJ headlines.
10 Ways to Inject Positivity
#1: Employ the Golden Rule
First, repeat it to yourself to get it in your mind: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Think about what it would really take to employ it, rather than immediately checking the box in your mind. Consider remembering a time when someone did not use the Golden Rule with you. How did that feel? How would you have preferred that person act toward you?
#2: Think Before You Press Send
We are constantly bombarded with opinions that differ from our own, in jiu-jitsu and in life in general. Even if you vehemently disagree with something someone in the jiu jitsu community has posted online, do you need to flame him or her? Do you honestly believe that flaming someone will bring about a change of heart? Could you instead consider trying to craft a reasoned argument explaining why you disagree? Respectful debate is a cornerstone of any healthy community, not name-calling and disdain.
#3: Support Practitioners Who Share Your Values
We do not believe jiu jitsu is about legislating behavior writ large. But if you attend the seminars or support the events of people whose priorities differ significantly from your own along the dimensions of integrity and respect for others, ask yourself why - or at least consider other options. It’s likely there are alternative events that offer just as much value and are put on by people you mesh with ideologically. Along those lines…
#4: If You See Something Bad, Say Something
Whether it is de-escalating your own training when it gets too intense, coming to the defense of someone who is being berated - online or in person - or calling out someone on his or her entitlement behavior, walk your talk. It is amazing how many awkward or uncomfortable situations can be resolved simply by having an honest conversation with the people involved.
#5: Pay it Forward
When you are in a position to help an up-and-coming enthusiast, consider throwing him or her a bone. “Like” her tournament poster. Attend his open mat. Connect them with people who can help them take their next step in the jiu jitsu world. Of course you do not have to give away your services to everyone, but chances are you have been the recipient of good will from one or more practitioners in your day. Follow in their footsteps.
#6: Consider Your Language
We like a good f-bomb as much as the next person, but there is a time and place for everything. There are jokes that are totally appropriate in context and among friends, but taken out of context or simply overheard by others they can sound totally different. For example, pejoratives based on gender or sexual orientation can be “understood” in certain contexts and still end up being taken differently by others. We are not suggesting you parse every single thing you say for the potential to offend, but rather, err on the side of speaking with caution and compassion.
#7: Be Willing to Invest in the New Members of Your Academy
Ultimately, the way people become enthusiasts is by falling in love with the art. Whether or not this happens is tremendously influenced by what kind of experience people have in the beginning of their training, before they decide if they want to stick around long term.
While it’s true that people first starting out often find the more experienced people at their gym to be a bit aloof, you can help them by going out of your way to make them feel included. This can be as big as offering to drill with them for a few rounds to help them retain the day’s lesson, or as small as a smile when they walk past you as they arrive. This investment has the potential to pay a huge return for you and your school in the long run.
#8 Remember That Almost Everyone Is Looked Up to
This is obviously true for coaches and professors, but even white belts who have only trained for a few months will be looked up to by the very newest beginners (who arrive not even knowing how to tie their belt, so help them with that, please). We all set an example for others. As writer Sam Harris says, “Specific beliefs produce specific actions.” If you understand and believe you are in a role model position (yes, even as a white belt), this will positively influence your actions on and off the mat.
#9 Have Fun on the Mat
The value of having fun on the mat is easily overlooked. It’s so easy to get swept up in the competitive nature of jiu jitsu that we can lose track of the sense of fun that inspired us to start in the first place. Sometimes people forget you can take this sport seriously, train hard, push yourself…and still have fun. Fun is a “secret ingredient” that can contribute to a positive mat culture.
"Create an environment on our mats that welcomes women and minorities, as well as people of all gender identification and sexual orientation, age, and ability levels."
The more smiling faces you see on any given mat, the healthier that mat tends to be for everyone who walks onto it, and this is something that can be grown and cultivated. All it really takes is a willingness to try things for fun, be eager to experiment, communicate honestly, and not try to “win the training,” as the legendary Hannette Staack would say.
#10: Dig for Your Unique Qualities
Figure out what unique qualities you bring to the community. Techniques succeed when the proper force is applied in the proper direction at the proper time. People succeed in the same manner, and knowing when and how to apply yourself is a key element to achieving success. So, if you are motivated to do some good in your community, take some time to really reflect on what you have to offer. Whatever you discover will help guide you as you look to give something back. There is no such thing as a person who has nothing to offer. Check out Groundswell Grappling events or The Just Roll Podcast as just two examples of how we chose to try to contribute to the jiu jitsu community.
Ground Yourself & Keep Perspective
The Internet has connected us in ways both great and small. As a result, our definition of community has become bigger than just the people in our own school or affiliation. We live in a hyper-connected world where our BJJ family can now be linked across great distances, both geographical and cultural. We are expanding from the kind of family that we are born into to the kind of family that we choose for ourselves. As our reach extends, so does our influence, and that is why it is so important to make sure our actions align with our beliefs. This particularly applies to creating an environment on our mats that welcomes women and minorities, as well as people of all gender identification and sexual orientation, age, and ability levels.
The philosopher Plutarch said, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” We believe this is true for everyone, and we hope this list helps kindle a flame inside you to think about how you can become a force for good on your mats and in your larger community. We all have to live in the world that we help create. Why not take an active role in shaping it for the better?
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Photos courtesy of Baltimore BJJ.T he skiffs arrived a few hours after sundown on September 18, a dark and moonless night in the Peruvian Amazon. They landed at several points along the broad Corrientes River, which flows south over the country’s densely forested border with Ecuador. Hundreds of indigenous Achuar men, women, and children, many carrying ceremonial spears, organized into units by clan and village. They then followed their apus, or chiefs, toward seven targets: the area’s lone paved road, a power plant, and five facilities for the pumping and processing of petroleum.
The sites were occupied, their night staff escorted peacefully outside. By morning, the Achuar of the Corrientes controlled the local infrastructure of Lot 192, the country’s largest and most notorious oil block.
Over the next two days, the occupations spread. On the neighboring Tigre and the Pastaza rivers, Kichwa and Quechua chiefs led takeovers of key roads, the only airstrip, and several oil batteries.
“This is not a symbolic action — we have completely paralyzed the country’s most important oil field,” declared a spokesperson for several of the indigenous federations backing the protest.
The takeover of Lot 192 lasted for 43 days. It was hardly the first protest to shut down the oil facilities studding the rainforests of Loreto, Peru’s biggest region and for decades the hub of its petroleum industry. Since 2006, the native people who live on the river basins where this oil is produced — a watershed of five major Amazon tributaries: the Pastaza, Tigre, Corrientes, Marañón, and Chambira — have executed at least a dozen similar uprisings. Some are just a few days; others stretch across seasons. Last autumn, indigenous communities launched a flotilla from the town of Saramurillo that blocked traffic on the Marañón River, the main artery of Lot 192’s sister block, Lot 8, for four months.
These uprisings have all demanded the same redress. For nearly a half-century, the state oil company, Petroperú, and its foreign partners have wreaked systemic contamination on the region, transforming daily life and poisoning the five rivers, whose waters fuse with the Ucayali River to become the Amazon just east of Iquitos, Loreto’s capital.
“For 45 years, the companies and the state have damaged our waters, soils, and health with impunity,” said Carlos Sandi, an Achuar chief in his early 30s who helped lead the recent protest on the Corrientes. “We will not allow them to continue extracting resources from our territory without a guarantee of prior consultation on the environmental and social impacts.”
As demands go, the federations’ insistence on prior consultation is a modest one. Under the Peruvian constitution and international legal conventions ratified by the government in Lima, they already possess the right to prior consultation. But the indigenous people on the five rivers have always fought for basic things, beginning with rights and water. As Lima signs deals on new oil blocks throughout the Peruvian Amazon — including an expected 30-year lease to expand Lot 192 — their fight for the right to live enters its endgame.
The area of the Peruvian Amazon where indigenous tribes have launched protests against oil spills. Map: The Intercept
A fter striking oil in Loreto in 1972, the Houston-based Occidental Petroleum, and later its successor, the shadowy Dutch-Argentinian-Chinese company Pluspetrol, proceeded to commit a series of sustained and extravagant environmental crimes. For decades, spills have gone untreated or covered with a thin layer of dirt. Ponds in floodplains have been filled with toxic waste. Corroded pipes, including the main Northern Peru Pipeline, have been neglected and let to rust out, leak, and explode into gushing spills.
Then there is the generational scandal of the companies’ produced water. Until less than a decade ago, Pluspetrol, following the policy of its predecessor, Occidental, ignored the standard industry practice of re-injecting the carcinogenic fluids generated by oil wells, known as produced water. Peru’s Ministry of Environment estimates the companies dumped 1 million barrels a day directly into the rivers and forests of Lots 8 and 192. This amounts to 3 billion barrels of toxic fluid flushed into the water tables and food chains of at least 40,000 people.
Pluspetrol agreed to stop dumping produced water in 2006, after Achuar and Urarina communities blockaded the Corrientes and occupied 180 of its wells, shutting down operations for two weeks.
But the concession on produced water did nothing to remove the lead, arsenic, mercury, chromium, and barium found in the local streams, rivers, and lagoons used for fishing, bathing, and drinking. It did nothing to treat the birth defects, learning disabilities, liver disease, skin rashes, cancers, and chronic head and stomach pains reported by communities in the area. And it did nothing to stop the hundreds of spills and leaks that have led the Ministry of Environment to issue multiple emergency declarations in the region since 2013.
The downstream impacts, though unstudied, reach deep into Brazil and the wider Amazon basin. This past August, when locals say 5,000 barrels of crude destroyed two Achuar fishing estuaries, the oil soon reached the Corrientes, which confluences with the Marañón, which joins the Ucayali to become the Amazon, the jugular artery of a watershed that contains a fifth of the world’s freshwater and performs a key function in regulating the planetary thermostat. “The impact of [oil activity] in the headwaters of the Amazon extends well beyond the boundaries of oil concessions and national borders,” states a recent paper in the journal Environmental Pollution, “[and] should be taken into consideration when evaluating large scale anthropogenic impacts in the Amazon.”
The Pastaza River in the state of Loreto, Peru in July 2017. Photo: Ben Depp for The Intercept
f the world
has been slow to appreciate the magnitude of the contamination and conflict roiling the Upper Amazon headwaters, geography is partly to blame. Getting to Lot 192 requires commitment. Because no airlines service the tiny airport — the companies maintain a private fleet — the best route involves a six-seater to the dirt airstrip at San Lorenzo, a southern Loreto frontier town, followed by two days on the Pastaza River, a journey requiring a skilled native boatsman and several barrels of fuel.
This summer, I made this trip and spent several days in the oil town and surrounding communities of Andoas, a former Quechua trading village near Peru’s northern border with Ecuador. It was here, surrounded by jungle stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, that Occidental built its headquarters in 1971. At the time, it was a risky bet to try and pump oil from Loreto’s clay loams and transport it to Pacific ports across a vast tropical rainforest floodplain, where the rainy season lasts six months and parks a 10-foot tide, complicating transport, construction, and maintenance.
The village of Andoas, with its several thousand inhabitants, feels like a metropolis after days passing riverside wilderness on the Pastaza. Electrified homes extend outward from a central plaza lined with supply stores and cafes and bars built with concrete floors. People pass each other without greeting. Oil workers from around Peru provide what passes for diversity. On the dirt paths leading to nearby villages, colored lights advertise curtain-door brothels.
“Oil has made Andoas a hell,” Aurelio Chino Dahua, a Quechua chief, told me not long after my arrival. “Occidental changed the Quechua way of life. There is no peace in this place. Noise, bars, prostitution. People are sick.”
I met Dahua at a community assembly he was directing as president of FEDIQUEP, the Quechua Peoples Indigenous Federation of the Pastaza River. Several hundred Quechua had traveled to Andoas by canoe, in some cases for days, to meet in a large school building in Nuevo Porvenir, a neighboring village. At the front of the hall, the diminutive Dahua directed proceedings in beaded headdress and face paint, moderating debates and presenting slideshows on the past, present, and future of Lot 192. Above the stage hung a banner displaying a photo of two tapirs, the region’s largest jungle game, drinking from a pool of produced waters. The audience sat in wooden straight-back chairs and passed gourds of fermented yucca juice, buckets of which lined the back wall.
Indigenous peoples from five river basins united in Saramuro-Saramurillo, Marañón River in October, 2016. Photo: Sophie Pinchetti/The Chaikuni Institute
In March 2008, two years after the protest over Pluspetrol’s dumping of produced water, Dahua helped lead a protest against Pluspetrol’s plans for the drilling of new wells (and its ongoing illegal dumping of produced water). He was at the runway blockade when national police from a division known as Special Operations stormed the airport. The resulting clashes left one Quechua villager and one police officer dead. Fifty protesters were arrested and imprisoned for weeks in Iquitos; some reported beatings and torture while in the custody of national police.
During a break in the assembly, I sat down with Dahua in a white-walled classroom and asked him about growing up with oil on the Pastaza River.
“In the 1970s, when I moved from my small village to attend secondary school in Andoas, I saw oil for the first time,” he said. “It was in the river and lakes. I saw dead fish, turtles with oil on their shells. It was hard to hunt. Everything was expensive. The indigenous communities started to think of themselves as ‘poor.’”
When Pluspetrol announced plans for a new round of seismic testing in 2006, Dahua argued for a new kind of resistance.
“I told my brothers, ‘Look at the reality. It’s a disaster. We must stop the expansion.’ I was nominated president and we joined the other federations to make the big strike in 2008. It was a violent conflict that ended when the state and the company made promises they did not keep.”
Not all Quechua support Dahua, and community opinion is divided on strategy and goals. Some locals see Dahua as a threat to the jobs and small gifts the oil company provides, which they say are needed because pollution has made traditional ways of life impossible.
“We can no longer rely on our forests and rivers for food, so we have become dependent on the industry that created this hell,” said Dahua. “This is the same industry that made us ashamed of our culture. The oil workers call us ‘nativo’ and ‘indigena’ in a derogatory way. It was the same with the caucho period [the rubber boom]. My family was treated like savages to make rubber. Oil is a new kind of slavery. They give us rules, take the resources, and leave contamination.”
When tribespeople talk of the rubber boom, it is not an archaic reference. It lives close by in the collective memory. The rubber trade of the Upper Amazon was a brutal, slave labor economy that lasted well into the 20th century. It wiped out and traumatized indigenous populations across the region, particularly in Loreto’s northeast, near the borders with Colombia and Brazil. Just as the atrocities of the Second World War inspired the human rights conventions chartered at the United Nations, the horrors of the caucho era shamed the world into its first formal recognition of indigenous rights worldwide. The Forced Labor Convention, adopted in 1930 by the International Labor Organization, centered on the legacy of slavery in the Amazon. It took another six decades for the ILO, a specialized U.N. agency, to adopt the landmark 169 Convention recognizing the cultural and territorial rights of indigenous peoples. Multiple U.N. Special Rapporteurs have concluded that the oil industry overseen by the Peruvian government, which ratified ILO 169 in 1994, has routinely violated the treaty.
Rosa Nashmate Bapahuiri, age 34, with her son Erudito, age 4, in Nuevo Porvenir, on July 9, 2017. Photo: Ben Depp for The Intercept
After completing his studies in Andoas in the early 1980s, Dahua returned to his native hamlet of Loboyaku, several hours downriver. There he lives today with his wife, Rosa, and their youngest son, Erudito, a toddler. One evening at sundown, I sat with them by a stream. As Erudito played in the water, Rosa talked about how oil has changed life in Loboyaku and a thousand other villages like it.
She says, “When I was a young girl in the 1980s, I remember the shock of visiting Andoas and seeing children scavenge garbage outside the Occidental building. But in Loboyaku, you could still find healthy fish. Now, you have to travel hours in a peke-peke” — a motored canoe — “to find healthy fish. And the soil is not the same. Every rainy season, when the water rises, the land is contaminated. Yucca, plantains, tomatoes — they are dry, dark, and boney. My parents talk about the days when they’d farm so many fruits, they would waste them. Now, we have a lack of fruits.”
When I ask about oil’s health impacts, Rosa lowers her eyes. To talk about this subject is difficult. The state has conducted little research on the decline of human health on Loreto’s five rivers, leaving only suggestive data — 98 percent of Achuar children tested positive for high levels of lead and cadmium in a study published in 2007 — and the recurring themes of indigenous testimony. I press Rosa on what she sees and hears when she travels the region with her husband.
“The impacts are most serious for the children,” she says. “There are a lot of deformations and development problems. The young are underdeveloped and skinny. Quechua used to live until they were quite old. Now, some pass away very young. Some are too weak to get out of bed. There are new diseases. When someone looks sad and pale, a little yellow, no appetite, a big belly — that is the end stage of cirrhosis. You can send them to Iquitos. But it’s too late. You can only wait for them to die.”
When asked about life before and after oil, elders in the region often begin here, with the “new illnesses.” Many of the conditions plaguing the five rivers were, until recently, extremely rare or unknown. At the assembly, I met a wrinkled Achuar woman named Ines Arahuandza who recalled the traditional medicine of the pre-oil era, which ended for her in the early 1970s when Occidental explosives teams arrived in the woods behind her riverside village of Titiyaku.
She says, “When I was a child, there were no doctors. The shaman treated us after taking ayahuasca” — a ritual hallucinogenic healing tea — “with the patient. We only used medicines from the forest. Now, there are new sicknesses. My whole family is sick from the contamination. I’m worried about my grandchildren. The company must repair the pipes and pay us for the disasters. If I get reparations, I can feed my family and buy medicine to recover our health. Where can I bring my children when they are sick? To the shaman? The shaman cannot heal them.”
A spill on a tributary of the Marañón River, which happened on November 13, 2016. Photo: Ricardo Segovia/E-Tech International
F rom Andoas, I traveled southeast across Loreto to the Marañón River, where, in 1969, the state oil company, Petroperu, placed a drilling block from the concession known as Lot 8. That sub-block, called 8x, is located inside the northern part of the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, described by the late Peruvian ecologist Antonio Brack Egg as “one of the most important areas for the reproduction of hydro-biological species in the Amazon.”
In the years since Petroperu transferred operation of 8x to Pluspetrol in 1996, a series of major spills and pipeline ruptures has poisoned the fishing grounds and drinking water of tens of thousands of local indigenous people. Three of these events have resulted in official declarations of health and environmental emergency.
A few years ago, in Lima, I met an influential Kukama chief from the Marañón, Alfonso López Tejade, after one of the biggest pipeline ruptures. We were sitting in the Indigenous People’s Pavilion built for side events during the U.N.’s 2014 climate summit, when I asked what he thought of the morning’s panel discussion.
“Twenty-two children in Kukama villages are vomiting blood right now after drinking water contaminated by oil,” Tejade said. “We’re sitting here eating nice food with diplomats and my brothers are dying. We come here full of pain. We have no faith in the government or these international talks.”
This exchange was on my mind in the village of San Pedro this July, where I witnessed the impacts of another pipeline break on the Marañón, not far from Tejade’s village.
My guide in the spill zone, a 28-year-old Kukama fisher named Elmer Castillos, departed the village in his motored canoe at sunrise. We headed to an inland estuary, known as a cocha, which until recently had served as the primary fishing grounds for a dozen local villages. Located a few miles into the forest, the cocha is reachable by boat from the Marañón through a lush landscape of streams, swamps, mangroves, and lily-padded lagoons.
But we arrived at the entry stream to find the water unusually low, even for dry season. Castillos grabbed his machete and, with hardly a break in his stride, spent the next two hours hacking a path through the forest. When we paused to rest midway, he described what oil had done to the fish of the Marañón.
“Their livers are sick, their insides often discolored and gray,” he said. “Sometimes the meat is tasteless, sometimes you can taste the oil. Sometimes the gills are full of oil. To find healthy fish, we travel far into the forest. It’s not like living in the city. Nature is our supermarket. The pipelines are breaking and leaking all the time. When we report the spills, the government and the company blame us for sabotaging the pipes.”
As the day grew hot, the forest opened at last into the cool and high-canopied cocha. Sun-dappled and still, the banks of the waterway spread into grassy clearings like little parks. A lovely spot that hinted of paradise. Then I looked down. The water was a swirl of brown and black, marbled with the greasy rainbows of petroleum in water. Everywhere floated dead and dying fish; I counted a dozen without trying.
“Petroperú has already collected two tons of dead fish,” said Castillos. “More are dying every day, especially armored catfish. They float to the surface, too sick to swim.”
Entering the lagoon, we came upon a camp of workers hired by Petroperú to repair the pipe and remove the oil. Some were local Kukama who’d grown up fishing these waters and were now skimming oil for collection in enormous yellow canvas tanks. The workers gave us fresh filtered water to drink and lent us a canoe. As we floated through the spill, Castillos pulled more dead fish from the water.
“I have four children,” he said. “I want them to be educated and healthy. My nephew just tested positive for high levels of lead. I know how it happened. We were ignorant for a long time. But now I can tell you about the chemical composition of oil. Toxicity. How the poison gets into our blood. Now we know too much.”
Apu Alfonso López Tejade pilots a boat from Nauta to his home village of Dos de Mayo on the Marañón River on July 16, 2017. Photo: Ben Depp for The Intercept
I n late October, as the occupation on the Corrientes, Tigre, and Pastaza protest entered its second month, a delegation of chiefs and mothers traveled to Lima for meetings with Peru’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Cayetana Aljovín. For everyone involved, it was a familiar ritual. As a young Quechua resident of Andoas explained it, “When the protest goes more than one week, they send someone to quiet us with promises. The high-level people always say, ‘Andoas is in our hearts.’ But we’re in their hearts only when we stop the oil. When nothing changes, there is more conflict.”
Lima’s recent promises include a basket of treaties signed after last year’s four-month blockade of the Marañón River at Saramurillo. Forced to the negotiating table, the government and Pluspetrol agreed on paper to a number of longstanding federation demands: an independent audit of pipelines, remediation for spills, a review of Pluspetrol’s contract, a regional Truth Commission, compensation for impacted communities, and an end to the criminalization of protest.
These have yet to be fulfilled, and indigenous faith that the assurances will be honored, by the government or the oil company, is low.
Representatives from Peru’s Ministry of Culture, a key player in the consultation process, Peru’s Office of Sustainability and Dialogue, the main government go-between with the indigenous federations, and the Ministry of Environment either declined or did not respond to interview requests. Porter Novella Peru, the PR agency handling Pluspetrol’s Peru operations, requested The Intercept send questions by email, but did not respond to them.
Because so many promises have proven empty over the decades, a deeper questioning of oil and extractive industry has begun to animate Loreto’s indigenous politics. Despite the growth of the oil industry, Loreto remains one of the country’s poorest regions, with many of its traditional hunting and fishing grounds pushed to the brink of permanent ruin. Now some indigenous leaders are growing more radical, looking beyond demands for remediation and consultation.
“The viability of oil is now being questioned,” said José Fachin Ruiz, a member of the Kichwa federation FECONAT, who was jailed for months following the bloody 2008 protest in Andoas and currently faces criminal charges related to his role in last year’s action on the Marañón River. “During last year’s blockade at Saramurillo, the indigenous peoples of Loreto began to unify behind a post-oil vision of development.”
A mural in the Kukama village of Dos de Mayo, in the state of Loreto, Peru on July 17, 2017. Photo: Ben Depp for The Intercept
This vision confronts a government in Lima that, like other governments in the region, is pushing an aggressive strategy in the other direction — to expand extractive industry in the Amazon wherever it can. A map of every oil and |
not entirely sure if this is needed, but by doing this you keep the oil return line sloping downward at all times, allowing gravity to do work.* While you’re down there, you really should fashion up a bracket to keep the oil feed and return lines away from the axle, otherwise they’ll get sheared. I used one of the threaded stems that held part of the black frame that we removed in the beginning, and attached a bracket similar to the ones I used for the intercooler. I just reused the nut to hold the bracket, then sent two zip ties through two separate holes wrapped them around the feed and return lines. After tightening the zip ties, those lines won’t be moving at all.STEP FORTY-TWO:---Attach oil return line to pan--*UPDATE: TAP THE BLOCK. DON'T USE ZAGE'S PAN.-Your oil return line should already be attached to the turbo, so it’s just a matter of manipulating it a bit. Make sure it runs through that slot we just cut, and play with it a bit until its lined up with the elbow. Remember, don’t move the elbow downward anymore than it already is (upward is ok). Thread it onto the elbow, and use a 15/16” wrench to tighten the line.STEP FORTY-THREE:---Attach oil feed line-Your oil feed line should also already be attached to the turbo. If your oil filter isn’t back on yet, do it now. Run the oil feed line with the oil return line (under the block) and next to the filter. You’ll be needing a ½” wrench to get one of the bolts off the sandwich adapter. You really should prepare the oil feed tee first. It’s as simple as leaving the top spot open, putting the included bolt (in the oil return bag) in one side, and the 1/8” NPT male to 1/8” NPT male adapter into the other side (same bag). Once you have an open spot on the sandwich adapter, screw in the oil feed tee we just prepared, tight, using some pliers. Make sure the open spot faces downward. Thread the adapter with the flared end (flared end into oil feed line) first. Then thread the other side into the open end on the tee. I can’t remember what size wrench is used to tighten the feed line.@Oil lines are now complete. We’ll shift our focus onto the coolant lines. I’m going to assume that at STEP NINETEEN you attached the downwards facing adapter and attached some rubber hose to it. I’d like to add we’ll be tapping the throttle body coolant lines. I found them the most accessible.STEP FORTY-FOUR:---Lower carSTEP FORTY-FIVE:---Attach upwards facing coolant adapter (if water cooling)-Grab at least three feet of hose and push it onto the barb. Next, attach the adapter to the turbo (in the only available slot). I can’t remember entirely, but you may have to put the adapter in first, then add the rubber hose (the firewall may be in the way).STEP FORTY-SIX:---Place nylon tees in throttle body coolant lines-Cut each coolant line at an easy to reach place using an exacto knife or tool of choice, then place a 5/16” nylon tee in each.UPDATE: By using nylon tees, you're plumbing the coolant in parallel. I believe I had some leaks as a result of this because at certain points in the lines there would probably be weird pressure differentials. So, I redid this by plumbing everything in series instead. Basically, it's now set up like this: TB IN --> TB OUT --> TURBO IN --> TURBO OUT --> ENGINE IN. "Turbo in" is the line on the top, while "turbo out" is the line that comes out the bottom of the turbo. As for the TB, check this picture out (Thanks H3llion).STEP FORTY-SEVEN:---Run the turbo coolant lines and attach to nylon tees (if water cooling)-You need to run the turbo coolant lines on the right side of the engine, under the fuel rail, evap hose, wiring harnesses, etc. etc. Attach each one to one of the nylon tees. It doesn’t matter how you connect the hoses, as one will be coolant in and one will be coolant out. On top of that, it doesn’t matter which way coolant flows through the turbocharger, just as long as it flows.@Coolant lines are now complete. Time to work on the blow-off valve.STEP FORTY-EIGHT:---Cut and place nylon tee in vacuum hose-Cut the vacuum hose and place a 5/16” nylon tee in line. Have the tee facing downward. Don’t get confused by my picture, I have a brass tee I use for my boost gauge in line as well.*UPDATE: The other crappy part of this kit is the BOV. It sucks (no pun intended lol). Buy yourself a decent one. I bought a SSQV III and a 30(?) mm flange so that you can pop it right into where the ZAGE BOV would go.STEP FORTY-NINE:---Attach rubber hose from blow-off valve to nylon tee.-Cut just enough hose to go from the blow-off valves up to the nylon tee. Push the hose onto the nylon tee, it will be a snug fit. However, the barb on the blow-off is for a 3/16” hose, and we’re using 5/16”, so put a mini t-clamp at the bottom of the hose.*I was worried I had a vacuum leak, so I ended up buying a nylon tee from Advance auto that has multiple barbs. It allows you to trim the barbs to get either a 1/8, 1/4, or 3/8 barb. I cut one side to 3/8 for the OEM vacuum hose (yes it's 5/16, but it fits on 3/8 perfectly), and cut the other two sides to 1/4. I ran a 3/16 hose to the BOV, and the other runs to my FIC MAP sensor.@Blow-off valve is done. Next is the air filter needs to be put together.STEP FIFTY:---Put together air filter assembly-First things first, grab the MAF and attach it to the piece of pipe with the rubber gasket, using the two mounting screws included. Next, push the air filter onto the rubber gasket and tighten the t-clamp. Take one of the huge, elbow silicon couplers and push it all the way up to where the MAF mounts. Grab the only pipe remaining and push it into the other side of the coupler. You’ll notice there is a bung on the pipe (for the evap hose). Do not push the pipe so far into the coupler such that its touching this bung. Leave about an inch of clearance, otherwise when you put the assembly in the battery gets in the way.STEP FIFTY-ONE:---Attach silicone coupler to compressor side of turbocharger-As you can immediately see from the picture, it’s incredibly difficult to get at the compressor outlet from the top of the engine. It’s also impossible to get at it from the bottom. I moved whatever hoses and wires out of the way that I could. Next, I put a t-clamp on the compressor inlet. Then I attached the silicon coupler and pulled the t-clamp onto the coupler. You’re gonna need to wiggle the coupler around a bit until you finally get it in place, then wiggle it some more to get it onto the compressor inlet. Spin the t-clamp until the bolt is in a convenient spot. No matter what, it will be in a very difficult to reach spot. I practically climbed into the engine bay to be able to reach it.STEP FIFTY-TWO:---Attach air filter assembly to outlet coupler-Reaching the aforementioned coupler is a little easier to do when you’re just pushing a pipe into it. Don’t forget to t-clamp it as well. Also plug the MAF back in now.UPDATE: I ended up connecting one of the PCV lines to a mini breather filter (as opposed to rerouting it back into the intake piping) and routed the other PCV line through an oil catch can. I would at least recommend adding the mini breather filter. My set up is similar to the one below (Thanks PETERPOOP for the pic).@At this point I’d like to say congratulations if you made it this far. The whole kit is now installed; however there are a number of things that remain to be done before you can fire up the engine. I’ll continue to cover what I did and the necessary steps.STEP FIFTY-THREE:---Pull spark plugs-You just need to remove the wiring harnesses from the spark plugs. They’re right on top of the engine. Use pliers if you can’t get them off by hands. They only have one clip.STEP FIFTY FOUR:---Pull EFI fuses-These two fuses are located in the engine bay fuse box. Consult my picture or the fuse box cover to know where they are. Use the fuse remover in the box to aid in removing them.STEP FIFTY-FIVE:---Prime the turbo-THIS IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. This step could very well determine whether or not your turbocharger blows or not on the first start up. The last two steps were prep for this. What you now need to do is crank the engine long enough to get the oil pump working. If you have a mechanical gauge installed, this will be easier. Turn and hold the key to ignition. The car won’t start, but the starter will attempt to do so. Watch your gauge build pressure. When it reaches 20 psi, stop cranking. Count out 10 seconds, then repeat. Do this process five times. If you don’t have a gauge installed, count out about 15 seconds while cranking, then stop. I found this to be about how long it took to build 20 psi of oil pressure.*I had an interesting experience with priming the turbo again about a month after the install. I had just done an oil change, and just to be safe, was going to prime the turbo. The above procedure DID NOT work. The engine cranked, but I was unable to build oil pressure. If you experience the same issue, leave the EFI fuses in, but unplug the fuel injectors.UPDATE: You don't need to prime the turbo every time you do an oil change, only before the initial start up.STEP FIFTY-SIX:---Replace EFI fuses and spark plugs-Do the above, and check all other connections. Make sure the O2 sensor is plugged in, and the vacuum hose is attached.STEP FIFTY-SEVEN:---Start the car-This is it. Everything you’ve done up until this point now all converges here. Yes, it’s incredibly nerve-racking. Trust me though, you’ll want to hear your new turbocharger rawr for the first time. Hopefully everything was done right. You should know almost immediately. Good luck.STEP FIFTY-EIGHT:---Diagnose leaks-This, arguably, took me the longest to deal with. I’m not sure what the right way to go about this is. Basically, you need to start the car and let it run, and watch for coolant and oil leaks around the oil pan, oil filter, throttle body coolant tees, and turbocharger. The best way to deal with a leak is to first see if you can tighten whatever connection may be leaking. If not, the next step is to replace the adapter / fitting / line that’s leaking.STEP FIFTY-NINE---Exhaust wrap hot side-This should only be done when all leaks have been 100% dealt with. The only exceptions being the AC lines and O2 sensor wires. Otherwise, you’ll want to get a good amount of wrap around the turbine housing, the manifold, and the downpipe. It's not necessary to take the turbo assembly out to wrap it.*Getting the wrap wet makes it this an easier task. It can be wrapped tighter as well.* O2 Sensor: I was having problems with wires burning when I was running the O2 sensor wires, exhaust wrapped, over the turbo and manifold. I ended up extending the wires and running them through some plastic flame retardant conduit. I ran that away from the downpipe, up towards the ECM, and across the top of the engine bay and connected the molex connectors near the power-steering fluid tank. I also exhaust wrapped the conduit. Overkill maybe, but I haven’t had any problems since.STEP SIXTY:---Get Tuned-That’s about it. As soon as the car becomes drivable, your priority list becomes 1) fill up on premium and 2) get tuned. It’s probably safe to drive the car around a little bit and enter boost once you have premium gas, but the sooner you get tuned, the better. Plus, it’s most likely going to give you an additional increase in performance.UPDATE: I'm running plus (89 octane) with no issues.*UPDATE: I'd still recommend 93 though.STEP SIXTY ONE:---Enjoy your newly boosted Yaris!-This is probably the easiest step of the guide. Trust me, the first time you enter boost in this car, your face is going to hurt from smiling so much. Hard work pays off! Last edited by Focus_Sh1ft; 11-21-2012 at 02:18 PM.I like trees. Of course there are many ways of creating them (e.g. explained here) but the tree of Airborn got my special attention because when i saw it the first time, i thought:
“Wow, this looks soo fluffy!”
I asked in their polycount thread how it’s done and the solution is pretty “simple”. KatziImSack replied and here is the picture:
Another thing i like about trees: you have to care about the leafs, because normally the shading would make their unlit faces pretty dark. So you need some kind of “translucency”. I asked Neox and the answer is worth the
FOX AWARD
‘ c ause the y’r e smart like a fox.
You could use an inverted light vector to lighten up the back faces but that would be too easy. :D
They modified the normals. This means they used the inner “bubble” object as a base and “projected” the normal orientation of it to the leaf “cloud”. So you don’t get too dark/bright faces in the wrong place but a very nice and soft shadow gradient all over the leafs.
If you think i didn’t explain it good enough, feel free to read more about this in the polycount wiki. There you also find the mentioned script which makes the copy process possible. And of course this link, which is so awesome i have to post it here: It’s about the shading of gras.
Warby told me another very nice advantage about this technique: You avoid too many transparent planes being rendered over each other. The big blob mesh in the middle culls most of them so you only need to care about the stuff of the front/sides.What if you could recharge batteries without any extra effort, time or cost? More than one designer has attempted to harness the kinetic energy of daily human activities and repetitive motions found in everyday machines – including a number of recent innovations that revolve around kinetic energy balls.
One such idea involves kinetic orbs harassing the power of your laundry cycles to create an electric charge suitable for other applications. The pitfall of this strategy, as you might already be thinking, is of course that there is presumably more energy needed up-front from the conventional outlet in order to create the requisite motion to generate new energy. In short, is any energy truly ‘saved’ or is this just a clever alternative way to tap into the grid?
Another elegantly simple solution is a variant on ancient Chinese exercise balls used for meditation and exercise. In this case, there is again no energy necessarily conserved. However, unlike in the washing machine gadget, this mode uses human-generated energy – which, depending upon what you eat, could come from a sustainable source and is likely energy you would expend anyway in other ways.X
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The Making of the Art of Children of the Revolution
The Making of the Art of Children of the Revolution compiles the sketches, art notes, and email exchanges that went into the creation of the art depicting the infamous vampires featured in Children of the Revolution.
Each artist gets a section with a brief intro by art director Rich Thomas, and contains a selection of the email exchanges that occurred between Rich and the artist as well as various sketches showing the changes and development of their ideas that were part of the creation of the beautiful illustrations in Children of the Revolution.
This making of collection was made possible by the backers of the Deluxe Children of the Revolution Kickstarter campaign.A conceptual drawing of how optical circuits may look in future computers. RICHARD KAIL/Getty Images
Mirror, mirror in mid-air. Two independent teams of physicists have created the world’s most ethereal mirrors – made of just 1,000 or 2,000 atoms suspended in a vacuum.
The mirrors are held in space like beads on a string. By controlling the spacing between the atoms, the physicists could make the strings reflect up to 75% of the light shone on them.
The reflectivity can be switched rapidly on or off, just by applying a few bursts of light – so the new mirrors could be useful for controllably bouncing light around optical circuits. And because the atoms interact with one another as well as the light, the set-up might be useful for linking quantum bits (or “qubits”) together in a quantum computer.
Recommended Quantum computing for the qubit curious Physics
The mirrors were created by two independent groups, one in France and the other in Denmark. Both are described in the current issue of Physical Review Letters.
In a regular mirror, such as a polished metal surface, light is reflected because it interacts with the cloud of unattached electrons floating free in the metal, causing them to wobble. These wobbling electrons then re-emit the light. (These electrons are also the reason metals conduct electricity, so that’s the connection between shininess and conductivity.)
But the new mirrors use something called Bragg reflection, which is a bit different.
As Australia-born British physicist William Lawrence Bragg discovered in 1912, light waves scattering off layers in a crystal are reinforced at certain angles – those where neighbouring light waves return in lock step.
Building on this work, just three years later, Bragg and his dad, William Henry Bragg, won the Nobel Prize for physics for using X-rays to figure out the structure of crystals. This kicked off the whole field of X-ray crystallography – instrumental a few decades later in unravelling the double helix structure of DNA.
But when the spacing between the crystal layers is just right, the scattering angle is 90 degrees and so the crystal strongly reflects the light back where it came from – a special case known as Bragg reflection.
A schematic showing a Bragg diffraction – the usual scattering of light that occurs when two beams with identical wavelength and phase approach a crystalline solid and are scattered off two different atoms within it. The lower beam traverses an extra length of 2dsinθ. But when the angle θ of the light hitting the surface is 90°, the light is reflected straight back the way it came – a Bragg reflection. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Whereas regular mirrors can reflect any visible wavelength (that’s why mirrors appear to have no “colour” of their own), a Bragg mirror only reflects one wavelength. So don’t expect to see yourself in one.
But that’s no limitation for communications technology, or optical circuits, which involve shuttling around light of a single wavelength.
In 2011, a German team managed to turn a cloud of cold atoms into a Bragg mirror. They crisscrossed beams of lasers to arrange the atoms of the cloud into a lattice with just the right spacing. Although they achieved 80% reflection, they needed 10 million atoms to do it.
Now two teams have dramatically reduced the number of atoms needed to make a useful mirror. Instead of simply shining a beam of light into a cloud of atoms (as the German group did), the teams transmit light along microscopically thin optical fibres. Atoms precisely positioned next to the fibre do the reflecting.
When light travels along very thin optical fibres, some of the light spills out forming a so-called evanescent field – you can picture the field as a glowing halo around the fibre.
Because the light is intensely confined in this halo, the interaction with any nearby atoms is very strong. This means only 1,000 or so atoms are needed to achieve a reflection, versus tens of millions for the cloud situation.
The groups created their strings of single atoms by holding them in place using a laser beam running parallel to the fibre, and just a few hundred nanometres away, via the optical tweezers effect.
Each string was evenly spaced with atoms every few hundred nanometres and was about one millimetre long.
This mirror switching mechanism could be very useful for making optical switches in light-based circuitry.
The physicists then sent another beam of light along the fibre – and this one interacted with the string of atoms through the halo of its evanescent field. When the spacing between the atoms was tuned just right, the Bragg condition applied – and much of the light was reflected back along the fibre in the opposite direction.
The Danish team could reflect about 10% of the light using a string of 1,300 caesium atoms. While the French team reflected 75% using 2,000 atoms, also of caesium. The increased reflectivity achieved by the French group was not just a factor of more atoms in a row, they also had better control over the positions of their atoms.
The mirror could be rapidly disassembled and reassembled simply by knocking the atoms out of their ordered state, and then replacing them. This mirror switching mechanism could be very useful for making optical switches in light-based circuitry.
Red light sent through an optical fibre is visible in the fibre segment that is just a few hundred nanometres in diameter in this Danish experiment. J. Appel / University of Copenhagen
The atoms also interact with one another via the light field, and over quite a long range. This kind of interaction could be used to simulate less tangible quantum interactions, or even for linking quantum bits (or “qubits”) together in quantum computers.
All these applications will need stronger interactions between the light and the atoms – in effect a reflectivity much closer to 100%.
Both teams have some tricks up their sleeves to achieve this, such as using longer sections of very thin fibre, or by reshaping the surface of the fibre to increase the interaction.
As Wolfgang Ketterle, a physicist in quantum optics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the American Physical Society, these works represent “a major advance in engineering and controlling how atoms scatter light”.How did your childhood experience influence your attitude to money?
I grew up in a mining village in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Dad was a colliery electrician but also ran a smallholding growing vegetables and keeping poultry.
When his foot was crushed in a mining accident, he went into poultry farming full-time before starting a small grocery shop with Mum. He died when I was 14, but I think I inherited my work ethic from him. Even at school I wanted to be a businessman and organised dances around Huddersfield, booking popular live bands.
I once got an offer from a guy in Sheffield wanting to come in on dance events with me. His name was Peter Stringfellow. Life could have been a lot more interesting.
I didn’t do very well at school and failed to get into Marks & Spencer, Littlewoods and John Lewis, but Woolworths would take anybody. I started at the bottom, sweeping the stockroom floor, hoping to become a director. Two years later I was appointed trainee manager, but it was a nominal title as there was no formal training programme. I was a forgotten man.
Have you always been an entrepreneur?
One of my jobs in Woolworths was weighing seed potatoes. If there were too many, I took some home to our smallholding, planted them and then sold them on to the canteen at Woolies. I had an inherent desire to make money from the start.
How did you launch Iceland?
I opened the first shop in Oswestry in Shropshire with another disillusioned Woolworths worker in 1970. We didn’t have any savings, so we decided to specialise in fruit and veg because it was the only business we could think of where you could buy stock daily and pay at the end of the week. Then I saw a department store in Leeds selling loose frozen foods, so we copied them. My wife, Ranny, came up with the name Iceland. We nearly called ourselves Penguin.
How did you expand the business without savings?
We put down a deposit of £30 each to cover the first month’s rent, and bought two open-top freezers, scales and a cash register, all on hire purchase. Then we found a local food supplier who gave us credit for a week, which was then stretched to a month. Three months later Woolworths discovered what we were doing and fired us, but this simply gave us the incentive to press on and open more shops.
What has been your biggest mistake?
In 1996, Iceland had its first profit setback, dropping from £73m to £65m net profit. We’d grown complacent. If we had been a private company it wouldn’t have mattered, but by then we were a public company and that little dip was viewed as the end of the world by our shareholders. Our market value dropped from £800m to £160m. Our track record of 25 years of increasing profitability meant nothing.
You were forced to resign in 2001 after a merger with the Booker Group, Britain’s largest cash and carry operator, amid accusations of improper share dealing. How did that feel?
It was horrendous. From being the guy who had built a business from nothing, I became the crook who had sold shares ahead of a profit warning. I was planning to retire. Both the Financial Services Authority and the Department of Trade & Industry launched inquiries and eventually, in 2004, I received a letter by second-class post informing me that I’d been cleared.
What has been your largest investment?
Borrowing £800m to buy back Iceland for the second time in 2012. I again became chairman and chief executive after leading a successful £1.5bn management buyout with the support of three new equity investors.
Almost 42 years after I started the company, it was back in private hands. When we bought it in 2005 we paid £160m.
When we bought it again in 2012 the value had increased to £1.5bn.
Has your BBC television outing in Iceland Foods: Life in the Freezer Cabinet been good or bad for business?
There were many cringeworthy moments, but on balance it worked. The feedback has been positive and sales of some of the products mentioned, like the Bubble Bobble King Prawns, have gone off the scale. But in my heart of hearts I do know that elements of that series haven’t done us any good at all.
When I saw the first edit I was horrified. If I’d edited the programme myself I wouldn’t have emphasised the downmarket side of the business quite as much. We certainly won’t be attracting any Waitrose shoppers.
You’ve been critical of the £2.5m tax bill Iceland received after taking 800 managers on a dream trip to Disneyland. Have there been any developments?
We’ve since settled with the Inland Revenue and we’re very happy with the outcome, though I’m not allowed to talk about it.
The taxman made concessions because we argued, successfully, about the investment value of the trip as opposed to the entertainment value. We do this to boost morale, it’s not a holiday. We certainly haven’t been put off. We’re taking our managers to Dubai next year.
What annual salary do you take from the business?
Enough.
Your personal wealth has been put at £215m. Is this accurate?
That’s the rich list figure, but it’s family wealth. My kids have got most of my money. It’s what you do, isn’t it? Diversify your wealth.
The media have made negative comparisons between your wealth and that of your customers. Does that bother you?
Why is it an issue? My personal wealth is nothing compared to the wealth we’ve created. My hunger for business has resulted in 25,000 jobs and £600m in tax contributions in the past six years alone.
Amazon, Google and Starbucks combined haven’t paid a fraction of the tax we’ve paid. Just think how many schools and hospitals you could build with that. My wealth isn’t something I should ever have to apologise for.
Does money make you happy?
I’d rather be miserable with it than without it.
How do you prefer to pay – cash, card or cheque?
It depends on how much the bill is. I don’t carry much cash. In the staff canteen I often have to ask other people to buy me lunch.
Do you bank online?
I don’t bank at all. My secretary sees to all that.
How much property do you own?
My main residence is Broxton Old Hall, a Grade II listed Elizabethan manor house in Cheshire, which I bought for £750,000 in 1985. It was in poor repair, so I knocked it down and rebuilt it. The renovations cost a lot more than I budgeted for.
I also have a holiday home in Majorca and a house in Chelsea, which I bought in 2002. We hardly use it, but it’s probably the best investment I’ve ever made because it has trebled in value.
What is the biggest drain on your finances?
Personal staff – gardeners, house staff and boat crew. I have an 82ft Oyster yacht, which I keep fully crewed, though I spend only two or three weeks a year on it. As we speak, it’s on the way to the Caribbean.
Do you plan to retire?
I’ve decided I never want to retire. Now that we’re a private company again it’s completely different and there are no outside pressures. I’m in this for life and completely focused on Iceland.
- 'Best Served Cold: The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Malcolm Walker’ is published by Icon Books at £25Amnesty International has condemned a Moroccan court’s decision to put two women who were wearing dresses on trial for indecent exposure as “part of a pattern of discriminatory laws” in the kingdom.
The women, aged 23 and 29, were arrested in the southern city of Agadir in mid-June after walking around a market in outfits deemed to be provocative by passersby. In the police report, the women, both hairdressers, were said to have been wearing clothes that were “too tight”.
Liz McKean, the director for women’s human rights at Amnesty International UK, said on Tuesday: “It’s not the clothing that’s flimsy here, it’s the legal case against these two young women. The case has all the hallmarks of a discriminatory use of the law against women, part of a pattern of discriminatory laws and practices in Morocco.
“The only sensible thing here would be for the case to be dropped and police officers in Morocco instructed not to make arrests in cases like these in the future.
“Meanwhile, the authorities need to set about amending a whole range of highly discriminatory laws including on rape, abortion, divorce and child custody.”
Protests are to be held later this week in Agadir and in Morocco’s commercial capital, Casablanca, in support of the women, who have been backed byhundreds of lawyers.
Fouzia Assouli, the head of women’s rights organisation LDDF, said: “Five hundred lawyers registered to defend the two women, but because of restricted space in the courtroom, only 200 were able to attend.”
She said the lawyers took turns to put forward arguments at Monday’s hearing in Agadir. One, Sibai Bakar, said the trial was a “chance for our country to amend its laws to conform with its commitments to human rights and especially individual freedoms”.
Article 483 of Morocco’s penal code states that anyone found guilty of committing an act of “public obscenity” such as “gross indecency” can be jailed for between a month and two years.
Agadir is popular with Europeans who mainly visit the city for its miles of beaches and warm climate, usually on cheap package deals. Tourism is a key industry for Morocco but the Muslim kingdom is polarised on many issues between liberals and conservatives who have called for “morality” to be respected
Last month, a concert by Jennifer Lopez in Rabat broadcast on public television provoked anger among conservatives and criticism in local media that Lopez was scantily dressed.
In another example of the continued strength of conservative attitudes within the kingdom, two Moroccan gay men were last month sentenced in jail after they were arrested for standing too close to one another as they posed for a photograph in front of a historic site, also in Rabat.INTOX
Alors que la prime de 1 000 euros promise par le gouvernement ne cesse de se dégonfler, l’opposition a beau jeu de cogner sur la modicité du dispositif. Invitée de France 2 le 22 avril, Ségolène Royal a ainsi estimé que le compte n’y était pas, affirmant que l’Hexagone souffrait plus que ses voisins d’une inique répartition des profits dans l’entreprise. «Un rapport de l’Insee avait montré l’injuste répartition du résultat brut d’exploitation, puisque 42% de ce bénéfice va aux actionnaires et 5,5% aux salariés. Et c’est en France que cette répartition est la plus injuste.»
DESINTOX
Les chiffres cités par Ségolène Royal proviennent d’une note de l’Insee datée de février 2009. Celle-ci établit qu’en 2007, les entreprises françaises ont consacré, après paiement de l’impôt sur les sociétés, 52% de leur excédent brut d’exploitation (EBE) au financement interne de l’investissement, 42% aux actionnaires, et 5,5% à leurs salariés. Royal ne le disant pas, précisons d’emblée que l’EBE se calcule après versement des salaires, et que les 5,5% réservés aux salariés correspondent donc à la rémunération «hors salaire», c’est-à-dire à l’intéressement et la participation. Ce chiffre est-il révélateur d’une injustice? Est-il moins élevé que chez nos voisins? Doit-il augmenter pour plus de justice dans l’entreprise? Les réponses sont bien moins claires que ne le suggère Royal.
Sur la question de la comparaison internationale, les spécialistes interrogés sont formels : elle n’existe pas, et Royal ne peut en aucun cas affirmer que c’est en France que «la répartition des profits est la plus injuste». La note de l’Insee ne mentionne aucune comparaison, pas plus que les rapports récemment consacrés au sujet. Le calcul de la distribution des profits, tel que le réalise l'INSEE, est peu usuel. Et |
422 This allows for bounced lighting and reflections to be updated dynamically and will result in better lighting visuals. 430 This allows for bounced lighting and reflections to be updated dynamically and will result in better lighting visuals.
423 This has been quite an in-depth task for the Graphics team whose work revealed a variety of unknown issues causing a delay. 431 This has been quite an in-depth task for the Graphics team whose work revealed a variety of unknown issues causing a delay.
424 Feature Complete 432 Feature Complete
425 ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY 433 ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY
426 Feature Complete 434 Feature Complete
427 VOLUMETRIC FOG 435 VOLUMETRIC FOG
428 Feature Complete 436 Feature Complete
429 GPU PARTICLE FOUNDATION 437 GPU PARTICLE FOUNDATION
430 Feature Complete 438 Feature Complete
431 ENGINE TRAILS & CONTRAILS 439 ENGINE TRAILS & CONTRAILS
432 Feature Complete 440 Feature Complete
433 ASTEROID PHYSICS 441 ASTEROID PHYSICS
434 * Feature Complete 442 * Feature Complete
435 EXPOSURE IMPROVEMENTS 443 EXPOSURE IMPROVEMENTS
436 Feature Complete. 444 Feature Complete
437 ALREADY COMPLETE IN THE 3.0.0 BRANCH: 445 ALREADY COMPLETE IN THE 3.0.0 BRANCH:
438 RenderTarget refactor 446 RenderTarget refactor
439 This saves over 50% of the video memory previously used for dynamic textures. 447 This saves over 50% of the video memory previously used for dynamic textures.
440 Physically-based area lights 448 Physically-based area lights
441 Shadow map caching system 449 Shadow map caching system
442 This allows for many more shadow casting lights at once and avoids the need for baking shadows. 450 This allows for many more shadow casting lights at once and avoids the need for baking shadows.
443 Revamped decal rendering system which renders fully deferred, instanced decals with aggressive overdraw optimizations 451 Revamped decal rendering system which renders fully deferred, instanced decals with aggressive overdraw optimizations
444 BACKEND 452 BACKEND
445 453
446 DIFFUSION SUBSET FOR 3.0.0 454 DIFFUSION SUBSET FOR 3.0.0
447 Diffusion is our second-generation cloud-oriented back-end service architecture. It dramatically simplifies the effort required to implement, maintain, and interact with services, while simultaneously providing major enhancements in the areas of scalability and redundancy. 455 Diffusion is our second-generation cloud-oriented back-end service architecture. It dramatically simplifies the effort required to implement, maintain, and interact with services, while simultaneously providing major enhancements in the areas of scalability and redundancy.
448 Feature Complete 456 Feature Complete
449 SOLAR SYSTEM SHOP SERVICE 457 SOLAR SYSTEM SHOP SERVICE
450 Feature Complete 458 Feature Complete
451 SOLAR SYSTEM MISSION SERVICE V1 “MISSION BROKER” 459 SOLAR SYSTEM MISSION SERVICE V1 “MISSION BROKER”
452 Feature Complete 460 Feature Complete
453 NETWORK 461 NETWORK
454 462
455 NEW MESSAGE QUEUE 463 NEW MESSAGE QUEUE
456 Feature Complete 464 Feature Complete
457 PHYSICS SERIALIZATION 465 PHYSICS SERIALIZATION
458 Code Complete. Bug fixing in progress. 466 Code Complete. Bug fixing in progress.
459 PERSISTENT DATA REFACTOR 467 PERSISTENT DATA REFACTOR
460 Code Complete for 3.0.0 468 Code Complete for 3.0.0
461 SHIPS & WEAPONS 469 SHIPS & WEAPONS
462 470
463 DRAKE DRAGONFLY 471 DRAKE DRAGONFLY
464 Feature Complete. Some code bugs remain 472 Feature Complete. Some code bugs remain
465 DRAKE CUTLASS BLACK 473 DRAKE CUTLASS BLACK
466 Feature Complete 474 Feature Complete
467 RSI CONSTELLATION AQUILA 475 RSI CONSTELLATION AQUILA
468 Feature Complete. Some code bugs remain 476 Feature Complete. Some code bugs remain
469 RSI URSA ROVER 477 RSI URSA ROVER
470 Feature Complete 478 Feature Complete
471 MISC PROSPECTOR 479 MISC PROSPECTOR
472 Feature Complete. Some code bugs remain. 480 Feature Complete. Some code bugs remain.
473 RSI AURORA 481 RSI AURORA
474 This is an updated version of the Aurora. We previously didn’t think that we would have the time to complete this rework for 3.0.0, however, with the movement of our release dates we are now able to include this rework with 3.0.0. 482 This is an updated version of the Aurora. We previously didn’t think that we would have the time to complete this rework for 3.0.0, however, with the movement of our release dates we are now able to include this rework with 3.0.0.
475 Feature complete Bugfixing and polish remain 483 Feature complete Bugfixing and polish remain
476 BEHRING P8-SC 484 BEHRING P8-SC
477 Feature Complete 485 Feature Complete
478 APOCALYPSE ARMS SCOURGE RAIL GUN 486 APOCALYPSE ARMS SCOURGE RAIL GUN
479 A shoulder mounted railgun capable of providing high levels of damage at a long range. 487 A shoulder mounted railgun capable of providing high levels of damage at a long range.
480 Feature Complete. Some minor polish remains 488 Feature Complete. Some minor polish remains
481 KLAUS AND WERNER GALLANT RIFLE 489 KLAUS AND WERNER GALLANT RIFLE
482 Feature Complete 490 Feature Complete
483 ARROWHEAD SNIPER RIFLE 491 ARROWHEAD SNIPER RIFLE
484 Rework of the legacy weapon. 492 Rework of the legacy weapon.
485 Feature Complete Some minor polish remains. 493 Feature Complete Some minor polish remains.
486 KSAR DEVASTATOR-12 SHOTGUN 494 KSAR DEVASTATOR-12 SHOTGUN
487 Rework of the legacy weapon. 495 Rework of the legacy weapon.
488 Feature Complete Some minor polish remains. 496 Feature Complete Some minor polish remains.
489 KLAUS AND WERNER ARCLIGHT PISTOL 497 KLAUS AND WERNER ARCLIGHT PISTOL
490 Rework of the legacy weapon. 498 Rework of the legacy weapon.
491 With the moving of our release date, this weapon rework has been signed off to be included for the 3.0.0 release. 499 With the moving of our release date, this weapon rework has been signed off to be included for the 3.0.0 release.
492 Feature Complete 500 Feature Complete
493 GEMINI L86 PISTOL 501 GEMINI L86 PISTOL
494 Rework of the legacy weapon. 502 Rework of the legacy weapon.
495 Feature Complete. Some minor polish remains. 503 Feature Complete. Some minor polish remains.
496 BEHRING P4-AR 504 BEHRING P4-AR
497 Rework of the legacy weapon. 505 Rework of the legacy weapon.
498 Feature Complete 506 Feature Complete
499 BEYOND 3.0.0 - OVERVIEW 507 BEYOND 3.0.0 - OVERVIEW
500 508
501 Click Here to Download. 509 Click Here to Download.
502 510
503 3.1.0 Goals 511 3.1.0 Goals
504 512
505 513
506 PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT 514 PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT
507 New Additions: 515 New Additions:
508 516
509 Modular Space Station – Truckstop 517 Modular Space Station – Truckstop
510 Arc Corp / Area 18 518 Arc Corp / Area 18
511 FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY 519 FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY
512 New Additions: 520 New Additions:
513 521
514 Female Player Locomotion 522 Female Player Locomotion
515 AI Locomotion 523 AI Locomotion
516 Shouldered Weapons 524 Shouldered Weapons
517 Throwable Weapons 525 Throwable Weapons
518 Armed (FPS Weapon Equipped) 526 Armed (FPS Weapon Equipped)
519 Fists 527 Fists
520 Knife 528 Knife
521 Take down (Front, Sides, Rear) 529 Take down (Front, Sides, Rear)
522 Knockdown and Knockbacks 530 Knockdown and Knockbacks
523 CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS 531 CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS
524 New Additions: 532 New Additions:
525 533
526 Fuel (Item 2.0) 534 Fuel (Item 2.0)
527 Criminality System 535 Criminality System
528 Room System v2 (Physical Depressurization) 536 Room System v2 (Physical Depressurization)
529 Item 2.0 Elevators v2 537 Item 2.0 Elevators v2
530 Item 2.0 Airlocks v2 538 Item 2.0 Airlocks v2
531 Diffusion Refactor 539 Diffusion Refactor
532 Item Degradation/Failure/Luck 540 Item Degradation/Failure/Luck
533 Service Beacon v1 541 Service Beacon v1
534 Parties and Orgs(Group Entity Component) 542 Parties and Orgs(Group Entity Component)
535 Game persistence 543 Game persistence
536 Spectrum Integration in game 544 Spectrum Integration in game
537 Repair and Restock System 545 Repair and Restock System
538 Elevators v2 546 Elevators v2
539 Bind / Unbinding 547 Bind / Unbinding
540 Object Container Streaming Core Engine Support 548 Object Container Streaming Core Engine Support
541 SHIPS: 549 SHIPS:
542 MISC Razor 550 MISC Razor
543 RSI Aurora (Update) 551 RSI Aurora (Update)
544 ANVIL Terrapin 552 ANVIL Terrapin
545 MISC Hull C 553 MISC Hull C
546 DRAKE Cutlass Red 554 DRAKE Cutlass Red
547 DRAKE Cutlass Blue 555 DRAKE Cutlass Blue
548 AEGIS Vanguard Harbinger (Variant) 556 AEGIS Vanguard Harbinger (Variant)
549 3.2.0 Goals 557 3.2.0 Goals
550 558
551 559
552 PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT 560 PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT
553 New Additions: 561 New Additions:
554 562
555 Crusader 563 Crusader
556 Hurston 564 Hurston
557 MicroTech (Stretch Goal) 565 MicroTech (Stretch Goal)
558 FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY 566 FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY
559 New Additions: 567 New Additions:
560 568
561 New Ammo Types 569 New Ammo Types
562 Gadgets (drones / shields) 570 Gadgets (drones / shields)
563 Bumps 571 Bumps
564 Cooperative Avoidance 572 Cooperative Avoidance
565 Downed 573 Downed
566 Drowning 574 Drowning
567 Item Inspection 575 Item Inspection
568 Looting IK / Permissions 576 Looting IK / Permissions
569 CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS 577 CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS
570 New Additions: 578 New Additions:
571 579
572 NPC Generation (Archetype) 580 NPC Generation (Archetype)
573 Interaction System – Useables 581 Interaction System – Useables
574 Radar System (Item 2.0) 582 Radar System (Item 2.0)
575 Cargo v2 583 Cargo v2
576 Service Beacon v2 584 Service Beacon v2
577 StarMap v2 585 StarMap v2
578 Gas Giant Tech 586 Gas Giant Tech
579 Ship to Ship Refuel System 587 Ship to Ship Refuel System
580 Breaching 588 Breaching
581 Security / Access Control 589 Security / Access Control
582 Object Container Streaming 590 Object Container Streaming
583 SHIPS: 591 SHIPS:
584 RSI Constellation Pheonix 592 RSI Constellation Pheonix
585 RSI Constellation Taurus 593 RSI Constellation Taurus
586 MISC Freelancer MAX 594 MISC Freelancer MAX
587 AEGIS Vanguard Sentinel (Variant) 595 AEGIS Vanguard Sentinel (Variant)
588 MISC Freelancer DUR 596 MISC Freelancer DUR
589 STAR CITIZEN 597 STAR CITIZEN
590 GETTING STARTED 598 GETTING STARTED
591 DOWNLOAD 599 DOWNLOAD
592 FUNDING 600 FUNDING
593 THE VISION 601 THE VISION
594 STARMAP 602 STARMAP
595 SHIP MATRIX 603 SHIP MATRIX
596 ALL EVENTS 604 ALL EVENTS
597 SQUADRON 42 605 SQUADRON 42
598 ABOUT THE GAME 606 ABOUT THE GAME
599 PLEDGE NOW 607 PLEDGE NOW
600 COMM-LINK 608 COMM-LINK
601 ALL 609 ALL
602 TRANSMISSIONS 610 TRANSMISSIONS
603 CITIZENS 611 CITIZENS
604 ENGINEERING 612 ENGINEERING
605 SPECTRUM DISPATCH 613 SPECTRUM DISPATCH
606 NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES 614 NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES
607 STORE 615 STORE
608 ALL ITEMS 616 ALL ITEMS
609 SHIPS 617 SHIPS
610 GAME PACKAGES 618 GAME PACKAGES
611 SHIP UPGRADES 619 SHIP UPGRADES
612 SUBSCRIPTIONS 620 SUBSCRIPTIONS
613 VOYAGER DIRECT 621 VOYAGER DIRECT
614 ELECTRONIC ACCESS 622 ELECTRONIC ACCESS
615 REFERRAL PROGRAM 623 REFERRAL PROGRAM
616 COMMUNITY 624 COMMUNITY
617 COMMUNITY HUB 625 COMMUNITY HUB
618 SPECTRUM 626 SPECTRUM
619 FORUMS 627 FORUMS
620 CHAT 628 CHAT
621 ORGANIZATIONS 629 ORGANIZATIONS
622 DEV TRACKER 630 DEV TRACKER
623 LEADERBOARDS 631 LEADERBOARDS
624 ISSUE COUNCIL 632 ISSUE COUNCIL
625 FORUMS ARCHIVE 633 FORUMS ARCHIVE
626 MORE 634 MORE
627 HELP 635 HELP
628 PRESS 636 PRESS
629 CAREERS WITH US 637 CAREERS WITH US
630 TERMS OF SERVICES 638 TERMS OF SERVICES
631 PRIVACY POLICY 639 PRIVACY POLICY
632 EULA 640 EULA
633 DMCA 641 DMCA
634 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 642 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
635 SOCIAL LINKS 643 SOCIAL LINKS
636 FACEBOOK 644 FACEBOOK
637 TWITTER 645 TWITTER
638 YOUTUBE 646 YOUTUBE
639 MESSAGE 647 MESSAGE
640 © 2012-2017 Cloud Imperium Games Corporation & Roberts Space Industries Corp. 648 © 2012-2017 Cloud Imperium Games Corporation & Roberts Space Industries Corp.
641 & Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. & Roberts Space Industries International Ltd. 649 & Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. & Roberts Space Industries International Ltd.Marketing managers for major orchestras had always assumed that convincing people to give the
symphony a try was the key to gaining subscribers. “Get people through the doors!” was their
mantra, assuming that the sheer beauty of the music would lure them back.
But when they actually studied the numbers, they discovered that getting new people wasn’t
the problem. They weren’t passing the audition. Customer churn was killing these orchestras.
It turns out the secret to unlocking demand for classical music–as for most products–is
discarding the Myth of the Average Customer. Designing a product offer to appeal to one
archetypal customer is always wasteful–one size fits few, not all. Instead, demand creators
have to constantly focus on demand variation, asking how customers differ from one another
and how those differences impact demand. This process of “de-averaging” can be complex, but
it offers huge opportunities.
In 2007, several orchestra managers joined forces to analyze their collective marketing
challenge. A pro bono third-party study by Oliver Wyman (Audience Growth Initiative) found
that on average, symphonies lost 55% of their customers each year; churn among first-time
concert-goers was 91%! The study also confirmed that the solution to churn was to move beyond
“averages” and to begin looking at the wide variations between starkly different customer
groups.
The symphony audience was divided into a core audience, trialists (first-time concert-goers),
non-committed (a few concerts a year), special occasion attendees, snackers (people who
purchase small subscriptions for years), and high potentials (frequent attendees who haven’t
bought a subscription). In Boston, for example, members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
(BSO) core audience represented just 26% of the customer base but bought 56% of the tickets.
Trialists composed 37% of the base, but bought only 11% of the tickets. In monetary terms,
core audience members had a 5-year value close to $5,000; trialists, just $199. With that
data, the orchestras’ new mission became more targeted. The goal wasn’t broadly to reduce
churn but to convert trialists into steady customers.
The symphonies compiled a list of 78 attributes of the classical music experience, from the
architecture of the hall to the service at the bar to the availability of information on the
Internet. Using online surveys and other techniques, the list was whittled down to 16 factors
with the greatest impact on attendance.It would appear the Trudeau Liberals’ magic number for surrender is $10 million, give or take a few hundred thousand.
For Omar Khadr, convicted terrorist, bomb maker, and former Guantanamo detainee who later denied wrongdoing, the payout in July was $10.5 million for Canada’s purported role in violating his rights as a Canadian citizen.For Maher Arar, a Syrian-Canadian arrested in the United States in the wake of 9/11, and deported to a torturous time in Syria for wrongly being linked to al-Qaeda, the payout by Canadian taxpayers for his detention and torture was $10.5 million.
Now, it’s a $31 million payout for three Canadians tortured in Syria after being wrongly targeted as potential terrorists.
Thirty-one million divided by three, and there’s the magic $10-million number that the federal Liberals have seemingly adopted whenever they get out both the white flag and the cheque book.
Despite details not being forthcoming on who got what, and how much, it essentially boils down to at least $10 million each for Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati.
If it’s a contest, then Khadr and Arar win.
As far as Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale is concerned, however, the $31-million payout to this latest trio of mistaken terrorists actually saved Canadian taxpayers nearly $70 million, since the threesome had gone to court seeking $100 million.
That’s how Liberal logic works.
With this most recent payout, the Trudeau government once again chose not to fight a lawsuit that should have been challenged.
A 2008 judicial inquiry determined Canadian security officials, while laying a hand on no one, had “contributed” to the torture of Almalki, Nureddin and El Maati by sharing intelligence information with international agencies.
The inquiry also found that foreign affairs, CSIS and the RCMP had “made mistakes” in connection with the cases.
Considering the healthy pay outs, the Trudeau Liberals are prepared to pay, perhaps Canada should withdraw itself from all international efforts to fight terrorism just in case more “mistakes” are made along with way.
There is no question what happened to Almalki, Nureddin and El Maati should be wished upon no one. They have never been charged with any terrorist act.
All three, arrested in Syria at different times, aroused suspicions because it was a post 9/11 world, full of fear and tension.
El Maati, a former trucker, was arrested in November 2001 after flying to Syria to celebrate his wedding. The RCMP suspected him of planning an attack on nuclear facilities in Canada because of an incriminating map found in his truck.
Almalki, an Ottawa-based engineer, was arrested in Syria in 2002, and held for 22 months, after CSIS and the RCMP sent out an international alert putting him on a watch list.
He made a confession about being a member of al-Qaeda, but later retracted, saying had been tortured out of him by a series of lashings.
And Nureddin, a principal at an Islamic school in Toronto, was arrested after crossing into Syria from Iraq in 2003, and being the subject in a bulletin from Canada to the CIA.
All “mistakes.”
So, what now, then?
With $10-million payouts piling up, will the RCMP and CSIS now become gun shy about sending out the next bulletin on a suspected terrorist for fear they might be making another “mistake?”
It’s a frightening thought if that were to happen, and they weren’t wrong.Paraplegic Man Stands, Steps With Assistance and Moves His Legs Voluntarily
Regimen of epidural spinal cord stimulation plus extensive locomotor training ‘a significant breakthrough;’ results published today in the Lancet
A team of scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and the California Institute of Technology has achieved a significant breakthrough in its initial work with a paralyzed male volunteer at Louisville’s Frazier Rehab Institute. It is the result of 30 years of research to find potential clinical therapies for paralysis.
The study is published today in the British medical journal The Lancet.
The man, Rob Summers, age 25, was completely paralyzed below the chest after being struck by a vehicle in a hit and run accident in July 2006. Today, he is able to reach a standing position, supplying the muscular push himself. He can remain standing, and bearing weight, for up to four minutes at a time (up to an hour with periodic assistance when he weakens). Aided by a harness support and some therapist assistance, he can make repeated stepping motions on a treadmill. He can also voluntarily move his toes, ankles, knees and hips on command.
These unprecedented results were achieved through continual direct epidural electrical stimulation of the subject’s lower spinal cord, mimicking signals the brain normally transmits to initiate movement. Once that signal is given, the research shows, the spinal cord’s own neural network combined with the sensory input derived from the legs to the spinal cord is able to direct the muscle and joint movements required to stand and step with assistance on a treadmill.
The other crucial component of the research was an extensive regime of Locomotor Training while the spinal cord was being stimulated and the subject suspended over the treadmill. Assisted by rehabilitation specialists, the individual’s spinal cord neural networks were retrained to produce the muscle movements necessary to stand and to take assisted steps.
Leading researchers on the 11-member team are two prominent neuroscientists: Susan Harkema, Ph.D., of the University of Louisville’s Department of Neurosurgery, Kentucky Spinal Cord Research Center and Frazier Rehab Institute, a service of Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare in Louisville; and V. Reggie Edgerton, Ph.D., of the Division of Life Sciences and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Joel W. Burdick, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering at Caltech, developed new electromechanical technologies and computer algorithms to aid in locomotion recovery in spinal cord injury patients.
The research was funded by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Harkema is Director of the Reeve Foundation’s NeuroRecovery Network, which translates scientific advances into activity-based rehabilitation treatments. Dr. Edgerton is a member of the Reeve Foundation’s Science Advisory Council and its International Research Consortium on Spinal Cord Injury.
Drs. Harkema, Edgerton and their colleagues envision a day when at least some individuals with complete spinal cord injuries will be able to use a portable stimulation unit and, with the assistance of a walker, stand independently, maintain balance and execute some effective stepping.
Relief from secondary complications of complete spinal cord injury – including impairment or loss of bladder control, sphincter control and sexual response – could prove to be even more significant.
“The spinal cord is smart,” notes Dr. Edgerton, distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology, and neurobiology at UCLA. “The neural networks in the lumbosacral spinal cord are capable of initiating full weight bearing and relatively coordinated stepping without any input from the brain. This is possible, in part, due to information that is sent back from the legs directly to the spinal cord.” This sensory feedback from the feet and legs to the spinal cord facilitates the individual’s potential to balance and step over a range of speeds, directions and level of weight bearing. The spinal cord can independently interpret these data and send movement instructions back to the legs – all without cortical involvement.
Dr. Harkema, Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Louisville, oversees the human research program there. She began her career as a postgraduate student in Dr. Edgerton’s UCLA laboratory, where he pioneered the field of locomotion with extensive animal studies. The two have been close collaborators ever since.
“This is a breakthrough. It opens up a huge opportunity to improve the daily functioning of these individuals,” concludes Dr. Harkema, lead author of today’s Lancet article. “But we have a long road ahead.”
“While these results are obviously encouraging,” concurs Dr. Edgerton, “we need to be cautious. There is much work to be done.”
To begin with, only one subject has been studied, and he was an athlete in extraordinary physical condition before his injury. (Five human subjects have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to be enrolled in the study.)
Additionally, the first subject, while completely paralyzed below the chest (C7/T1 vertebra spinal section), was rated “B” on the American Spinal Injury Association’s classification system, since he did retain some feeling below the level of injury. It is not known how these interventions will work with “A”-level patients (no cognition of sensation below the injury). Yet another issue is the stimulation equipment itself. To date, researchers have only had access to standard off-the-shelf stimulation units designed for pain relief.
Finally, in earlier published animal studies, drug interventions further heightened the sensitivity and functioning of the spinal cord’s neural network. The compounds used in animals, however, are not approved for human use; it is likely that a large investment in further pharmacological research will be required to bring such compounds to market.
More than five million Americans live with some form of paralysis, defined as a central nervous system disorder resulting in difficulty or inability to move the upper or lower extremities. More than 1.275 million are spinal cord injured, and of those many are completely paralyzed in the lower extremities.
Epidural stimulation, in the context of paralysis of the lower extremities, is the application of continuous electrical current, at varying frequencies and intensities to specific locations on the lumbosacral spinal cord corresponding to the dense neural bundles that largely control movement of the hips, knees, ankles and toes. The electrodes required for this stimulation were implanted at University of Louisville Hospital by Dr. Jonathan Hodes, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Louisville.
“Today’s announcement clearly demonstrates proof of concept,” said Susan Howley, Executive Vice President for Research at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation (which, in addition to supporting this particular work, has underwritten basic research in the field for more nearly three decades). “It’s an exciting development. Where it leads to from here is fundamentally a matter of time and money.”
Adds research volunteer Rob Summers, “This procedure has completely changed my life. For someone who for four years was unable to even move a toe, to have the freedom and ability to stand on my own is the most amazing feeling. To be able to pick up my foot and step down again was unbelievable, but beyond all of that my sense of well-being has changed. My physique and muscle tone has improved greatly, so much that most people don’t even believe I am paralyzed. I believe that epidural stimulation will get me out of this chair.”
Notes about this spinal cord research article
Contact: Gary Mans – University of Louisville
Source: University of Louisville press releaseposter="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201707/3159/1155968404_5506549160001_5506522915001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true French President Emmanuel Macron (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump talk during a welcome ceremony at Les Invalides in Paris on July 13 as part of a 24-hour trip that coincides with France's national day and the 100th anniversary of US involvement in World War I. Trump, who had called Paris 'dangerous,' now says it will be 'just fine'
President Donald Trump, who said last year that Paris has become “so out of control, so dangerous” because of the threat of terrorism, said Thursday that France will take a turn for the better under the leadership of new President Emmanuel Macron.
The two leaders met Thursday in Paris ahead of Friday’s Bastille Day celebrations, which will carry the added significance of commemorating the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I. Trump and Macron held a joint news conference Thursday, after which they were scheduled to have dinner at a restaurant inside the Eiffel Tower.
Story Continued Below
“You know what? It's going to be just fine, because you have a great president. You have somebody that's going to run this country right,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about his past rhetoric regarding Paris. “And I would be willing to bet, because I think this is one of great cities, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and you have a great leader now. You have a great president. You have a tough president.”
Macron, elected months after Trump’s inauguration, was endorsed by former U.S. President Barack Obama, a political rival of Trump’s, and has been vocal at times in his criticism of the current U.S. president, especially with regard to Trump’s policy on climate change. At a meeting in Brussels last May, Macron held onto an extended handshake with Trump, a gesture he said was intended “to show that we won’t make small concessions, even symbolic ones, while not overhyping things either.”
Trump, for his part, declared this spring that he had been elected to serve the people of “Pittsburgh, not Paris,” in a speech announcing his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. On the campaign trail, the president relied often on Paris as a cautionary example of a city that had been overrun with terrorists as a result of open borders.
And while the president stopped short of offering an endorsement in the French presidential election, he spoke warmly of right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, whose campaign drew on some of the same nationalistic themes as Trump’s.
But Thursday, the two men spoke highly of one another, even if their body language onstage seemed a bit awkward at times. Macron said the Eiffel Tower dinner Thursday night “will be a dinner between friends, because we are the representatives of two countries which have been allies forever.” In return, Trump predicted that Macron would solve the problems he had warned about in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election last November.
“He's not going to be easy on people that are breaking the laws, and people that show this tremendous violence. So I really have a feeling that you're going to have a very, very peaceful and beautiful Paris. And I’m coming back,” Trump said, turning to Macron. “You better do a good job, please. Otherwise, you're going to make me look very bad.”A former school caretaker has spoken of his hell after being wrongly accused of sexually assaulting a young pupil.
Anthony Higgon says the stress of the accusation has been hard to handle over the past 18 months but now he is keen to get on with his life.
Mr Higgon worked at Cams Hill School in Fareham for 27 years before retiring in 2006.
But his world was turned upside down in 2008 when the police arrived at his home while he was having breakfast and arrested him on suspicion of abusing the girl in the late 1990s.
It went to court but he was cleared by a jury this week.
He said: 'I have put up with this for 18 months. I have had people ringing me up, asking what's going on and offering me support.
'I have gone through as much as I can handle but I knew I was innocent and I was proved innocent.
'I'm relieved because I knew in my mind that it hadn't happened.
'To have that allegation hanging over me for 18 months wasn't very nice at all.
'I have lost two stone in weight over the last year or so with all the worry.'
Mr Higgon, of Castle Street, Portchester, always maintained his innocence and said the girl had made up the story.
He admits they were friends and that the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would visit him at home but has no idea why she said he molested her.
He said: 'We were always warned working in schools that these sorts of allegations could happen.
'Once these allegations are made about you you are guilty until you are proved innocent. These thousands of children that went through the school in my 27 years and they will see the allegations and think, what's going on here?'
Mr Higgon, who was found not guilty of three counts of indecent assault, says he hopes other former pupils will believe he is innocent.
'It was a fantastic job and they were fantastic people,' he said.
'I see people now that have gone through the school and they come up and talk to me and I hope that doesn't change.
'The police took my fingerprints, my DNA and a photograph, they even took my shoes off and photographed them.
'I could have been found guilty but luckily the truth came out. Now I just want to get back to normal.'
>> Vote in our latest web poll.Photo credit: US Attorney's Office
A Philadelphia-based art dealer has been charged with smuggling an entire ton of ivory into the United States. The ivory is believed to have come from the poaching of hundreds of threatened African elephants. It's one of the largest seizures of ivory on record, according to the US attorney's office. And it was a deliberate, well-orchestrated operation, too.
The New York Times reveals how it worked:
A Philadelphia art and antiquities dealer, Victor Gordon, was arraigned on smuggling charges in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday after, the authorities said, they seized about a ton of carved ivory that he had had a confederate bring into Kennedy in his luggage between 2006 and 2009. Mr. Gordon, 68, had his agent purchase raw ivory and get it carved and then stained or dyed so that it appeared old and therefore not subject to endangered species law, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said. He then sold the carved tusks through his shop in Philadelphia, Victor Gordon Enterprises, they said.
He's also charged with violating the Endangered Species Act, and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
In the modern era, where conservationists focus more of their efforts on stopping the black market trade of animal parts in Asia and Africa, incidents like this should be read as unfortunate wake-up calls. Like to the fact that there's evidently still a thriving demand for ivory products in the United States.
Who are these ivory connoisseurs, might I ask? Who still insists on having real ivory knick knacks in what I can only imagine are their musty parlors? I guess these people are like those older ladies who parade around downtown New York in fur coats, oblivious to long-ago evolved fashion trends and societal norms. They're stuck in some parallel popular culture universe (one that's stuck in the 1920s) where that stuff is still glamorous. Sadly, their make-believe lifestyles are having a real-world impact -- and deadly consequences for some of the planet's most beloved animals.
More on Ivory Smuggling
200 Pounds of Smuggled Ivory Seized From Bangkok Airport
Illegal Ivory Trade on the Rise as Organized Crime Syndicates StrengthenTRAVELER’S notebook New Line Up 2016
トラベラーズノートの新しい定番ラインアップ 2016
キャメルは、かつてトラベラーズノート発売5周年記念のレギュラーサイズ、スターフェリーとのコラボレーションのパスポートサイズを、それぞれオリジナルの刻印を押した限定版として発売しましたが、このたび、新たに革の色や風合いを再調整し、定番としてラインアップに加わることになりました。
黒や茶と比べ、より革の色合いの変化が楽しめるのがキャメルの大きな特徴です。その分、一冊一冊の個体差が大きく、傷なども目立ちやすいという特徴もあわせ持ちますが、使うほどに風合いが変化し、使い手の個性が反映されやすいという大きな魅力があります。その点では、トラベラーズノートの革の色のなかで、最もトラベラーズらしい色とも言えるのかもしれません。 トラベラーズノートに定番カラーとして新しい色、キャメルが登場します。キャメルは、かつてトラベラーズノート発売5周年記念のレギュラーサイズ、スターフェリーとのコラボレーションのパスポートサイズを、それぞれオリジナルの刻印を押した限定版として発売しましたが、このたび、新たに革の色や風合いを再調整し、定番としてラインアップに加わることになりました。黒や茶と比べ、より革の色合いの変化が楽しめるのがキャメルの大きな特徴です。その分、一冊一冊の個体差が大きく、傷なども目立ちやすいという特徴もあわせ持ち |
, the world was not so simple. Banks had “legitimate” reasons to hold and trade equities. For example, there is “risk-mitigating hedging,” banks may need to invest in hedging instruments to manage the risks of their other financial transactions. Also, a bank may want to acquire securities not for itself but “in anticipation of customer demand”—to “make a market.” So exceptions would have to be carved out. What exceptions, and worded how? The lobbyists had a field day, and each of the five regulatory agencies involved has had a slightly different set of concerns. Years went by and hundreds of pages were added to Volcker’s simple idea. Now, at long last, the relevant regulatory agencies have agreed on a version of the Volcker Rule. The battle is not over, of course: there will likely be more lobbying efforts by banks, and even lawsuits. But at this point, it looks as though some version of the rule will be operative before too long.
When the Financial Stability Oversight Council began working on complexifying the Volcker Rule, Volcker was not happy. “I don’t like [the evolving rule], but there it is,” Volcker said. “I’d write a much simpler bill. I’d love to see a four-page bill that bans proprietary trading and makes the board and chief executive responsible for compliance.” So why not just follow Volcker’s advice and promulgate clear and unambiguous rules?
Because there are no clear and unambiguous rules that can do the job. The problem is that the line between “prohibited activities” and “permitted activities” is faint and fuzzy, not bright and sharp. “Certain classes of permitted activities,” the Financial Stability Council wrote, “evidence outwardly similar characteristics to proprietary trading, even as they pursue different objectives.” Thus, to regulate financial activities in a way that allows banks to be banks, while protecting against future disaster, “rules and supervision,” said the Council, “should be dynamic and flexible.” “Dynamic and flexible” means good guidelines, rather than detailed rules.
So, will the current version of the Volcker Rule do the job? We don’t know how it will play out in practice (probably no one does), but we’re skeptical. In areas that are gray (like proprietary trading), no black-and-white rules are up to the task. Banks already have teams of very smart lawyers looking for loopholes—ways to honor the letter of the regulation but violate its spirit. Will these lawyers be successful? If past experience with regulation is any guide, the answer is yes. We have a tax code of astonishing complexity, with thousands and thousands of rules. Yet, somehow, loopholes continue to be found, saving the companies with the smart lawyers hundreds of billions of dollars annually in taxes. No set of rules is bullet proof. And the more specific the rules are, the more easily clever people will find a way to avert them.
What is the alternative to a detailed Volcker Rule? Aristotle had the answer. The alternative is good judgment on the part of the regulators—what Aristotle called “practical wisdom.” Practical wisdom combines the will to do the right thing with the skill to determine what the “right thing” is in situations that are often fraught with ambiguity. Thus, wise regulators are needed to internalize the aim of the rule—that banking activities should be for the ultimate benefit of the broader economy while maintaining the safety and soundness of the institutions. Only dedication to this North Star will give regulators both the energy and the doggedness to ferret out prohibited activities that are masquerading as permitted ones. Wise regulators also need the knowledge and perceptiveness to read each particular case. Interpreting whatever the rule turns out to be will demand regulators who are nuanced and discerning enough to figure out the intentions of the bankers and the potential consequences of their activities. And wise regulators also need to work inside institutions that will help protect them from the inevitable efforts of financial interests to capture them and their agencies. Sheila Bair tried to create such a culture at the FDIC. And so did Senator Elizabeth Warren, in setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Detailed rules without wise regulators will likely fail. And with wise regulators, they will be unnecessary.
Banks don’t like the fuzziness of “guidelines.” They want the certainty of unambiguous rules so they can gauge the risks, predict the consequences of their business decisions, and no doubt, employ smart people to find ways around the rules, whatever they are. But no regulatory container is seamless, and if history is any guide, the big banks, like water, can usually find the cracks. The point of “dynamic and flexible” regulation is to enable regulators to find whatever “cracks” are being exploited by bankers, and seal them. That’s why we need to pay more attention to the hidden ingredient that might make the Volcker Rule work—wise regulators with the needed moral commitment and skill. Unless regulators have “practical wisdom,” even a thousand page version of the Volcker Rule will be inadequate to protect us from the next disaster. As Volcker himself said when his rule was first being discussed, “I’d have strong regulators. If the banks didn’t comply with the spirit of the bill, they’d go after them.”
Policy debates about how to prevent another financial meltdown have tended to ignore character and to focus instead on the two tools we always seem to turn to fix a broken institution—sticks and carrots. The sticks are detailed regulations designed to force bankers to serve their clients and the public good; the carrots are incentives designed to bribe them to do so. We develop long and detailed sets of rules in the hope that they will make good character unnecessary. But there is no set of rules—even a thousand pages long—that will do the job. We would all be better off if wise regulators used their judgment to apply guidelines wisely. Who knows: they might end up encouraging some bankers to become wise themselves. It is encouraging, in this regard, that the authors of the current Volcker rule have expressed the hope that it might change the culture of banking. Such a culture change is needed, but it will take wise regulators, not detailed rules, to make that happen.
This post was written with my colleague Kenneth Sharpe
Photo: Cynthia Johnson, TIME & LIFE Images / Getty ImagesThe CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Last week, it was revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) could view 75% of US internet traffic. While this startling statistic may be a cause for concern, it appears that even a bigger storm could be brewing.
A 178-page report, leaked by Edward Snowden, revealed the National Intelligence Program (NIP) received approximately $52.6 billion in 2013.
While the American government has released its annual spending on intelligence since 2007, the large scope of the “black budget” is astounding as it goes into great depth about where the money is used. The report also outlines the successes, failures and objectives of the combined 16 spy agencies, including the allocation of the budget, re-prioritisation of failed programs, funding management and the aim to “enhance counterintelligence”.
To put into perspective of the scale of the budget, it is higher than the GDP of more than 100 nations according to the International Monetary Fund. It is also noted that the National Security Agency received around half of that of the National Intelligence Program.
39% of the budget has gone towards strategic intelligence against nations such as Pakistan, China and North Korea.
James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, says it is imperative that an emphasis should be placed on security and intelligence after 9/11.
"The United States has made a considerable investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks of 9/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and asymmetric threats in such areas as cyber warfare".
Clapper also insists that the documents should be "classified" for security reasons, as it could "provide insight for foreign intelligence services to discern our top national priorities, capabilities and sources and methods."
According to a summary devised by the Washington Post, notable revelations in the budget summary are:
Spending by the CIA has surged past that of every other spy agency, with $US14.7 billion ($A16.5 billion) in requested funding for 2013. The figure vastly exceeds outside estimates and is nearly 50 per cent above that of the National Security Agency (NSA), which conducts eavesdropping operations and has long been considered the behemoth of the community.
The CIA and NSA have launched aggressive new efforts to hack into foreign computer networks to steal information or sabotage enemy systems, embracing what the budget refers to as "offensive cyber operations".
The NSA planned to investigate at least 4000 possible insider threats in 2013, cases in which the agency suspected sensitive information may have been compromised by one of its own. The budget documents show that the US intelligence community has sought to strengthen its ability to detect what it calls "anomalous behaviour" by personnel with access to highly classified material.
US intelligence officials take an active interest in foes as well as friends. Pakistan is described in detail as an "intractable target" and counter-intelligence operations "are strategically focused against [the] priority targets of China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel".
In words, deeds and dollars, intelligence agencies remain fixed on terrorism as the gravest threat to US national security, which is listed first among five "mission objectives". Counterterrorism programs employ one in four members of the intelligence workforce and account for one-third of all spending.
The governments of Iran, China and Russia are difficult to penetrate, but North Korea's may be the most opaque. There are five "critical" gaps in US intelligence about Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, and analysts know virtually nothing about the intentions of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
After talks with worried officials about the release of the top secret document, the Washington Post has only decided to reveal 17 pages, which can be viewed here.
Source: Washington Post | Image: AFPAbout
Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man was a "commercial" from the Family Guy movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, released on September 27th, 2005.
Origin
On September 27th, 2005, the Family Guy direct-to-DVD film Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story It features Al Harrington (voiced by Danny Smith), the President and CEO of Al Harrington’s Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man emporium and warehouse, located on Route 2 in Weekapaug, Rhode Island, telling television viewers that because of a shipping error, he was overstocked with Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men, and was passing the savings onto potential customers.
Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man
Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man
Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man
Hi, I’m Al Harrington, President and CEO of Al Harrington’s Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man emporium and warehouse. Thanks to a shipping error, I am now currently overstocked on Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men, and I am passing the savings on to you.
Attract customers to your business. Make a splash at your next presentation. Keep grandma company. Protect your crops. Confuse your neighbors. African American? Hail a cab. Testify in church. Or just raise the roof.
Whatever your Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man needs are. So come on down to Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man emporium and warehouse. Route 2 in Weekapaug.
Spread
That scene was such a hit with the viewers, that Al Harrington showed up in two more Family Guy shows:
In the Star Wars parody episode "Blue Harvest", Darth Harrington was selling the "Intergalactic Proton-Powered Electrical Tentacled Advertising Droid".
In season 6 of Family Guy, episode 11, "The Former Life of Brian", Al Harrington shows up once more, this time selling "Crudely Painted Not So Funny Plywood Cutout Folk Art".
Al Harrington and his Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men (as well as his other merchandise) have become big in pop culture, spawning YTMND pages, a Flickr group of real-life Tube men (bearing the name WWIAFTM), tons of fan-made videos (See Below), a FaceBook group with over 600,000 fans, countless forum threads and posts, and even clothing.Titanium propels 3D printed drone to aid in bushfires
By Ali Green
Santa might find his sleigh overloaded with drones this Christmas, but if he was bringing a lucky boy or girl this ultra-light, aerodynamic titanium drone there would be no strain on those long suffering reindeer.
Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) certainly have become more popular over the years. And we’re not talking about those terrible remote controlled helicopters you’d get at a petrol station that break in five minutes – we’re interested in remote controlled drones for commercial operations, like aerial imagery, package delivery, and even weed eradication. What about a drone to help fight bushfires?
The drones required for these serious tasks are quite complex and building one for a specific task, like fighting fires, can be costly.
Despite the fact there are many drone models available on the market a company would still need to spend around $60k for a custom UAV, then invest additional funds to modify it to meet specific industrial requirements. Many of these generic drones use the same limited battery that only allows for a flight time between 20 and 30 minutes. And with 90 per cent of drones made of a thin, less-than-robust carbon fibre construction, a pilot error can often result in serious and costly damage – not ideal for the types of environments a fire-fighting drone would need to survive.
These challenges inspired a team of bright young engineering students from Melbourne University to apply their newly acquired skills to make a better, lighter, longer-lasting drone. And not just for the purpose of bolting on a Go-Pro and scaring the neighbourhood pets, they created a UAV durable enough for the Victorian Metropolitan and Country Fire Brigades (MCFB). The brief was to design and build a unit that could hover in hot places and send clear thermal images back to ground in real time. They also needed something that could withstand crashes, and finally, a drone that could last a lot longer on a single charge.
The students thought that changing the aerodynamics of a UAV to reduce drag might result in less drain on the battery, and thereby increase flight time. They decided to use an aerodynamic airfoil shaped arms along with other custom designed aerodynamic parts.
These unique shapes certainly couldn’t be manufactured the traditional way using a material like carbon fibre that doesn’t lend itself to complicated geometry. So the students opted for titanium, with its attractive properties of strength, lightness and temperature resistance.
And where better to get the expertise and equipment needed to mould titanium into complex shapes? Our Lab 22 in Clayton Victoria, of course.
With designs for individual UAV components in hand, the team headed off to speak with experimental scientist Daren Fraser about using 3D printing to build the new components. The team at Lab 22 helped the students optimise component design to make the most of the printing process, resulting in substantial manufacturing cost savings.
The airfoil shaped arms took one day to print, and the rest of the components were completed by the next day. They were then blasted with titanium alloy powder to remove any loose, plaque before they were ready to be integrated into the drone.
The proof-of-concept design was a success, with the students demonstrating that manufacturing of industry specific drones can be kept inside Australia, using Australian technology and resources.
The six airfoil shaped arms reduced drag by 60 per cent, and as anticipated, the changed shape and lightweight titanium increased the battery life. It is expected the flight time will extend to 45 minutes, close to double that achieved with the old design! An added bonus is that any parts damaged during flights can easily be re-printed.
The five mechanical, and two mechatronic engineers went on to win an Autodesk CAD prize and a Wade Institute Entrepreneurship Prize for their efforts. Goes to show the value in taking engineering principals into account, and making the most of 3D printing.
Have you got a project that’s needs our expertise? Visit us here to learn more about our work in manufacturing.We took notice of the July 25 report by CNN, “Videos suggest Russian government may be arming Taliban”. Distorting the facts to support these groundless attempts to accuse Russia of military cooperation with the Taliban that the US side has made since spring, CNN published videos demonstrating some small arms as “evidence” of the alleged links between Russia and the Taliban. Its journalists admit themselves that it is absolutely impossible to establish the origin of these arms because the brands of their producers are totally absent and serial numbers removed.
Moreover, the arms shown on video are standard. It is common knowledge that they were produced both in Russia and other East European countries. It is also widely known that in the early 2000s the Americans themselves brought them from East European countries directly to Afghanistan on a mass scale.
We are urging the US media to stop their pointless efforts to create evidence to back up their insinuations about Russian defence cooperation with the Taliban. We would like to emphasise again that Russia does not support the Taliban. But we are working to implement a relevant resolution of the UN Security Council. This resolution was adopted at the proposal of the Afghan Government and provides for the Taliban’s inclusion in the political process provided it recognises the current Constitution of Afghanistan, renounces violence and stops cooperating with terrorists.
We would like to remind these “experts” from CNN that the Taliban is part of the population of Afghanistan and it is hard to imagine that the conflict can be ended without them, especially considering the ruins the country was left in by the NATO forces that did not resolve a single issue in the decade they were there. Quite the contrary, during their “work” the terrorist and drug threats have substantially grown in Afghanistan – ISIS has appeared while local drug production increased more than ten times.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/25/asia/taliban-weapons-afghanistan/index.htmlLast week the city council in Mountain View, California, took a significant step toward addressing Silicon Valley's housing affordability crisis. According to the Mountain View Voice, the city council "largely gave a thumbs-up" to a new planning document for its North Bayshore district that envisions the creation of up to 10,250 units of high-density housing, though further review will be needed before the document is final. Mountain View only has about 32,000 households total, so that would be a substantial 32 percent increase.
The council's new direction is a victory for Google. The search giant has its headquarters in the North Bayshore district, owns much of the land in the area, and has long been lobbying for more housing near its sprawling corporate campus. If private developers (or perhaps Google itself) step up to realize the new vision, it could allow thousands of Google employees to find housing within walking distance of their jobs, making Google a more attractive place to work.
The big question is whether this represents an isolated victory for housing advocates or whether it's the start of a trend toward denser development in Silicon Valley more broadly. Mountain View's about-face came after voters elected a new pro-development city council in 2014. If voters in nearby municipalities elect pro-development leaders as well, it could lead to dramatic changes housing and transportation policies across the region.
Housing growth has become a hot topic in Mountain View politics
Over the past two decades, the growth of Silicon Valley's technology sector has produced a steadily worsening housing situation. Companies like Google and Facebook have minted hundreds of millionaires and provided high-paying jobs for tens of thousands of people. The supply of housing hasn't kept up, and housing costs have skyrocketed.
Affordable housing advocates have urged Mountain View to allow more construction. They've had an ally in Google, which recognizes that astronomical housing costs and long commutes make Google a less attractive place to work and has sought permission to build apartments near its corporate campus.
But until recently, the city council wasn't interested. In 2014, the city council approved a plan for the North Bayshore district that would have allowed the construction of even more office space in Google's backyard — but no new housing units.
That proposal became a major issue in the 2014 city council elections. Voters elected three new pro-housing members to the seven-member city council, giving advocates of housing development a majority. Over the past year, that new majority has reshaped the plans for North Bayshore to make them friendlier to new housing.
It will take years for developers to realize Mountain View's vision
Mountain View is a suburban community replete with detached single-family homes and strip malls. A new planning document prepared by city staff for last week's meeting envisions a very different future for the city's North Bayshore district.
In the core of the new high-density zone, developers could be allowed to build residential buildings as high as 12 stories. At the edges, apartment buildings would be limited to five stories to avoid having them loom over the existing structures.
And these towers won't be surrounded by huge parking lots. Instead, the city will encourage walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with retail space at street level. Mountain View planners envision creating "opportunities for more active pedestrian street life with strong pedestrian oriented urban design elements such as storefront windows, entries, awnings and canopies, and street activity such as cafés, outdoor seating, and bicycle and pedestrian amenities."
Developers could be allowed to build residential buildings as high as 12 stories
The big question now is whether private developers are interested in actually building all of those housing units. Given the astronomical housing costs in the area, building new apartment buildings should be a highly profitable enterprise. But according to the Mountain View Voice, only two companies — Google itself and a housing developer called Sobrato — have expressed interest in doing it.
One reason may be that high-density developers would be required to offer up to 20 percent of their units at below-market rates. Developers will also have to comply with the city's elaborate vision for the new walkable neighborhoods, which could include open space, ground-floor retail options, and limits on parking.
The city is insisting on these kinds of requirements because officials believe they're necessary to develop a viable walkable neighborhood. The high-density North Bayshore developments will be surrounded by more car-oriented, suburban neighborhoods. They will need a critical mass of pedestrian-friendly housing, shops, and transportation options to turn North Bayshore into a viable neighborhood.
Transportation will be a big challenge for growing Silicon Valley
Mountain View's new plan for North Bayshore is an impressive step toward expanding the city's housing supply. But of course 10,000 new housing units is a drop in the bucket for Silicon Valley as a whole, with around 3 million people. To accommodate the growing demand for housing, Mountain View is going to have to approve higher-density projects in other parts of town, and neighboring municipalities will have to follow its lead.
The elephant in the room here is transportation. Silicon Valley is heavily car-oriented, and the region's roads are already clogged up. In the short run, expanding housing near Google's headquarters may relieve traffic congestion by reducing the number of people commuting from far away. The city's plan includes measures — like parking limits and amenities for pedestrians and bicyclists — designed to encourage people to take alternative transportation modes to work.
But in the long run, a growing Silicon Valley population is going to need a more efficient transportation system. Eastern cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia have an unfair advantage here. They were largely developed before the invention of the automobile, and as a result they have efficient rail networks that carry people to well-defined central business districts.
Silicon Valley has nothing like this. Its businesses are spread out fairly evenly across the region, a development pattern that makes sense if most people are commuting by car. Not only would building new rail lines today be fantastically expensive — since lines would have to cut swaths through some of the most expensive real estate in the country — but it's also not clear where the lines would go, since Silicon Valley doesn't have much of a downtown.
Silicon Valley does have one commuter rail line: the Caltrain that runs through Mountain View and other Silicon Valley towns on its way from San Jose to San Francisco. Right now, Caltrain only runs about every 20 minutes during morning rush hour, limiting its value for commuting.
Also, the Mountain View station has a large parking lot on one side and a wide four-lane road, making it unattractive for pedestrians. And the area around the Mountain View Caltrain stop is fairly low-density, which means there are few homes or offices within walking distance.
Doing the infrastructure work and staffing changes necessary to turn the Caltrain commuter rail service into a real high-frequency mass transit route would be a big first step toward making the region less car-reliant. Ideally, this would be accompanied by zoning changes that would allow higher-density housing and office space to be built immediately adjacent to the station.
But the bulk of Silicon Valley businesses — including Google's corporate headquarters, which is almost 3 miles north of the Mountain View station — are not close to Caltrain stops. So Silicon Valley's solution to this problem is likely to look different than New York or Chicago's.
Perhaps tech companies will find ways to extend the "Google bus" model to carry people between islands of high-density housing in an ocean of suburbia. Or maybe the advent of self-driving cars and smartphone-based ride-hailing apps will allow the invention of a completely new model, such as highly efficient carpooling or dynamically routed buses.
Regardless, the only way to figure it out is to start experimenting. And Mountain View's North Bayshore plan is an important step in that direction.
Correction: This story originally suggested that the city had given its final approval to the new plan, but the council's approval was only preliminary.
Disclosure: My brother is an executive at Google.A restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington State has refused to serve Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, posting a prominent sign by the door stating they are not welcome. Is this is a good thing?
The story came from Christopher Elliott and he did not bother to provide the name and address of the restaurant, but that is not important for the matter at hand.
First, the action of the restaurant owner is legal. Discrimination against non-protected classes in the United States does not run afoul of the law. Protected classes include:
Race
Color
Religion
National origin
Age (40 and over)
Sex
Familial status
Sexual orientation (in some jurisdictions)
Gender identity (in some jurisdictions)
Disability
Veteran
You won’t find the TSA on that list. Refusing to serve TSA employees can be tricky, though. What if a Transportation Security Officer (TSO) in uniform who is black enters the restaurant. Will the owner throw him out? What about a TSO in uniform who is obviously older than 40 years of age. Will the owner throw him out? A female TSO out of costume orders her meal. During the service, the waiter notices the officer’s badge that clearly identifies the officer as a TSA employee. Will the owner discontinue service? Will the owner admonish the female TSO that next time she won’t be served?
I would hope the answer to all those questions would be yes, but if I was running a restaurant I would certainly be uncomfortable turning away a paying customer, especially one who could come back and claim I discriminated on the basis of their age, gender, or race.
Nevertheless, I think the restaurant owner in Seattle is doing the right thing. As long as it made clear that TSOs are refused service because of the organization they represent, I would hope that any lawsuit claiming unlawful discrimination would fail.
Although I do not hold TSA agents in high regard (because they have chosen to aid and abet in eroding civil liberties in the United States), I do not dislike any TSA agents personally. More so than anything, I pity that they must come to work and play a game of charades each day. But I associate the TSA with corruption, incompetence, and un-Americanism. Looking at it through that perspective, I cannot blame the restaurant owner for choosing the course of action he has embarked upon.
As one of his waiters told Chris Elliott:
We even have the police on our side and they have helped us escort TSA agents out of our cafe. Until TSA agents start treating us with the respect and dignity that we deserve, then things will change for them in the private sector.
That’s the other problem. The TSA makes matters worse every day when their front-line employees are rude and snippy with passengers. The security theater is bad enough, but when you are insulted before you are strip-searched, the animosity compounds.
I hope to report back in a few months that a grass roots movement banning service to TSA employees has sprung up around the country. Maybe then the politicians will start listening to the traveling public.A little before 10 p.m. on Jan. 25, Larry Silverstein, the 69-year-old, red-haired real estate developer, was crossing East 57th Street near Madison Avenue when he was run down by a 1997 Ford sedan. His pelvis broken, he was taken to the New York University Medical Center. As Mr. Silverstein would later tell his daughter, the accident was a bad break at the worst possible time: He was one of three bidders in the running to win a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center. Mr. Silverstein faced a Jan. 31 deadline to submit his bid to the Trade Center’s current owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
For the next few days, business partners, advisers and acolytes lined up in chairs along the hallway outside Mr. Silverstein’s hospital room as the bid’s final details were worked out. Just five days after his brush with death, Mr. Silverstein made a blunt declaration in the New York Post : “We’re lusting after the World Trade Center, the prize of all prizes.”
Few gave Mr. Silverstein much chance of consummating what was about to become the biggest real estate deal in New York’s history. Of the Port Authority’s three finalists, “he was the dark horse,” said Michael Cohen, chief executive of the real estate brokerage GVA Williams. The conventional wisdom only seemed to be confirmed when the bids were unsealed and Vornado Realty Trust blew away the competition with a bid of $3.25 billion–$600 million more than Mr. Silverstein offered.
That’s when Mr. Silverstein showed why, through booms and busts, he has retained his reputation as one of the city’s smartest real estate minds. He brushed himself off and kept going, upping his bid to just $30 million less than Vornado’s. He waited, quietly, as negotiations between the Port Authority’s board and Vornado’s chairman, Steven Roth, broke down. Then he stepped into the breach.
Now it’s Mr. Silverstein’s turn, and this time the negotiations are going far more smoothly, according to people following the process. When asked to comment on his bid, Mr. Silverstein said: “There is nothing comparable to the World Trade Center. It is unique in magnitude, location, prominence and visibility. It has been my dream.” As recently as late March, many predicted that Mr. Silverstein would be unable to close the deal and that the complex would go to the third-place bidder, a partnership between Mortimer Zuckerman’s Boston Properties and Brookfield Financial Properties. Now, however, there is a growing consensus that Mr. Silverstein will win his prize.
Then again, hardly anything has gone as predicted so far in the Port Authority’s topsy-turvy auction. Though Mr. Silverstein’s personal style is to wheedle and charm, people who have dealt with him say he can be just as tough a negotiator as Mr. Roth. “You think you’re finished,” recalled one bruised survivor of a negotiation with him. “You’re never finished.”
Lewis Eisenberg, the Port Authority’s chairman, said he doubted the deal would be done by April 5, the next scheduled meeting of the authority’s board of directors. Still, he said, “everything’s going well.” Mr. Eisenberg has reason to be happy: According to people involved with the process, Mr. Silverstein has been willing to go along with conditions on the lease that Vornado balked at. Vornado, a publicly traded company, wanted a shorter lease in order to show less debt on its balance sheet (not an issue for Mr. Silverstein’s private company), and also assurances that Vornado would not be on the hook if, as expected, the city sues to make the developer pick up close to $100 million a year in real estate taxes on the property.
Mr. Silverstein’s allies attribute the relative comity to his years of friendly coexistence with the Port Authority, which is his landlord at 7 World Trade Center, an office building he developed in the late 1980’s on Port Authority land. When the Twin Towers were bombed on Friday, Feb. 26, 1993, former Port Authority chief financial officer Barry Weintrob remembers, Mr. Silverstein immediately offered free space in his building to the Port Authority’s staff. “By Monday, the staff was back to work,” he said.
It can’t hurt either that when Mr. Silverstein sits at the bargaining table, he sees some familiar faces on the other side–Ben Needell, for one. Mr. Needell, a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, is one of the attorneys negotiating the deal for the Port Authority. Normally, he’s Mr. Silverstein’s lawyer. “All I’ll tell you is, Larry’s a great guy,” Mr. Needell said.
Another constant presence in the negotiations is Tim Ryan, an executive at J.P. Morgan Chase, which has been advising the Port Authority on the sale. A division of J.P. Morgan Chase also owns the old Equitable Building at 120 Broadway, which Mr. Silverstein manages and holds an option to buy for $200 million.
Mr. Silverstein is also a friend of Governor George Pataki, who appoints half the authority’s board, and other Albany Republicans. Mr. Silverstein gave $15,000 to the Governor’s campaign committee last November, just as the bidding for the Trade Center was heating up. Mr. Silverstein gave $35,000 to the Senate G.O.P. and to majority leader Joseph Bruno last year.
A Tangled World
Such relationships are par for the course in the incestuous world of Manhattan real estate. But as the World Trade Center deal unfolded, it’s brought together a remarkable assemblage of New York’s legal, development and political elite. There’s Mr. Roth, Manhattan’s largest commercial landlord; Mr. Zuckerman, the owner of the Daily News ; John Zuccotti, the deputy mayor turned developer, who now heads Brookfield. Howard Milstein, the real estate scion (once represented by Mr. Zuccotti), is advising the Port Authority’s board, where Mr. Eisenberg, a real estate investor, is paying close heed to board member Peter Kalikow, a developer and onetime owner of the New York Post who is also Mr. Pataki’s choice to be the new head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. One or another of the developers bidding for the World Trade Center lease is employing nearly every hotshot real estate lawyer in town. And so far, Mr. Silverstein has managed to outmaneuver them all.
And he keeps on maneuvering. As The Wall Street Journal reported on March 28, Mr. Silverstein has taken on a partner, real estate investor Lloyd Goldman. A source close to Mr. Goldman says that he will be contributing a substantial portion of the $150 million or so Mr. Silverstein needs to raise in order to secure financing for an $800 million down payment; GMAC is lending Mr. Silverstein’s group the rest. (The rest of the $3.22 billion would be spread out over 99 years of payments.)
Mr. Goldman will join Westfield America Inc., a publicly traded shopping-center developer that wants the center’s subterranean mall, as Mr. Silverstein’s partner on the deal. Mr. Silverstein is said to be trolling for still more investors; one real estate source said it wouldn’t be surprising, when the deal is finally done, if Mr. Silverstein invests none of his own money in buying the World Trade Center.
Then again, no one ever questioned Mr. Silverstein’s deal-making ability. From the time the Port Authority released its list of finalists for the Trade Center, he was considered an underdog simply because he lacked the money and organizational heft of his competitors. The money he’s close to securing. Now the question for many is: If he wins his prize, what will he do with it?
There are also questions about the long term. According to an analysis of the complex’s cash flow by the magazine Grid, whoever wins the Trade Center can expect a relatively paltry stream of cash for some time, until the long-term leases are up. This means that whoever buys the complex will be in it for years before seeing a profit.
Risk Factor
But Mr. Silverstein has never been terribly daunted by risk. He started out in the 1950’s, just out of New York University, working for his father’s brokerage company. The real money, he soon realized, was in owning buildings, not renting them.
He attended N.Y.U.’s law school at night, where he befriended another young comer, Bernie Mendik. Mr. Silverstein brought his friend into the family business, introduced him to his sister, and soon Mr. Mendik married into the family.
They bought a building at 305 East 47th Street from the legendary partners Harry Helmsley and Larry Wien. Messrs. Silverstein and Mendik came to model themselves after Helmsley and Wien, studying and imitating the way they used pools of many small investors to finance big purchases.
Business was good, but in the late 1970’s Mr. Mendik and Mr. Silverstein’s sister divorced, and Mr. Silverstein and Mr. Mendik soon split up themselves. They hired another young developer then just making his name, Jerry Speyer, to help divide the assets.
In the 1980’s, Mr. Speyer, Mr. Mendik and Mr. Silverstein formed the core of a cadre of developers who would buy and build offices to accommodate the Koch-era boom. They were fiercely competitive, each trying to top the other with ever-more-ambitious deals. “The money wasn’t really the point,” Mr. Mendik told Tom Schachtman, author of Skyscraper Dreams: The Great Real Estate Dynasties of New York. “It was just a way of keeping score.”
Mr. Silverstein was scoring plenty during the 1980’s boom. He owned 13 buildings, |
he's definitely aware that...DEMOCRACY is a major thing for him."
Update: Tuesday, November 22 at 11:45 a.m.: KRCG has a news crew on the way to Sweeney's house to talk to his family about what they are dealing with through the arrest.Sweeney's sister started tweeting about the incident on her Twitter account yesterday evening. She said the family is in contact with the state department about the situation, but are still waiting to hear information about his status. Update: Tuesday, November 22 at 10:40 a.m.: The Jefferson City teen arrested in Egypt is a student at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.Derrik Sweeney is studying at American University in Cairo for the semester.In a statement from Georgetown University, spokeswoman Stacy Kerr said they had been notified by the American University in Cairo that a Georgetown student, Derrik Sweeney, who is studying at the American University in Cairo, has been detained in Egypt.Georgetown University officials have been in communication with Derrik TMs family. University officials are also in touch with American University in Cairo officials, the U.S. State Department and embassy officials. Original Story:
CAIRO (CNN) -- CNN has confirmed that a young man arrested in Cairo, Egypt is a Jefferson City resident.19-year-old Derrik Sweeney was arrested Monday for allegedly throwing molotov cocktails during a protest in Tahrir Square. Sweeney is a student at American University in Cairo. Two other Americans were arrested along with Sweeney. 19-year-old Gregory Porter, of Glenside, Pennsylvania and 21-year-old Luke Gates, of Bloomington, Indiana were also arrested.The three American University students were arrested outside the Interior Ministry in Cairo. Authorities accuse them of throwing Molotov cocktails, said Adel Saeed, a spokesman for the office of Egypt's general prosecutor.David Lynfield, deputy press officer in the U.S. Embassy, said the "claims are being currently investigated." The university is working with the U.S. Embassy and is attempting to gather details and notify the students' families.Fresh violence broke out near the city's Tahrir Square on Tuesday. For several hours, protesters hurled stones at police and chanted, calling for the downfall of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces. The military-led government began leading the country after protesters ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in February.Demonstrators apparently tried to defend Tahrir Square as they faced off with police on a connecting street. The square was once a hub for the movement that led to Mubarak's ouster and is now a center for the protests against Egypt's military rulers.Egyptian police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, forcing protesters to retreat briefly before they returned with renewed intensity.Demonstrators say they are concerned the military, which would continue to be Egypt's top authority until a president is in place, wants to keep a grip on the country. Many also have voiced anger about a proposed constitutional principle that would shield the military's budget from scrutiny by civilian powers.Tuesday's violence marks the fourth straight day of clashes between security forces and protesters, days ahead of the planned parliamentary election.Twenty-nine protesters have died in the clashes since Saturday, said Hisham Sheeha, spokesman for Egypt's Health Ministry. About 1,785 people have been injured, he said. Earlier, Dr. Adil al-Adawi, another ministry spokesman, said about 200 of those injuries came on Monday.Egypt's Interior Ministry said 102 officers and conscripts have been injured, with wounds ranging from gunshots to burns from Molotov cocktails.The rumors were true.
Richard Cordray will step down from being head of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, leaving the agency free to be remade by President Trump.
It’s widely expected that Cordray will run for governor of Ohio. The financial bureaucrat was an Obama appointee who was held over into the Trump Administration. We reported back in September that he was considering retiring to run for higher office.
More from The Political Insider
The news comes via Bloomberg: “Richard Cordray will step down as the head of a controversial consumer watchdog at the end of the month amid growing speculation that he will run for governor of Ohio as a Democrat.”
American consumers just lost their biggest champion, Richard Cordray. Here’s what happens next https://t.co/4niPML0Dfy — Money (@MONEY) November 15, 2017
For Democrats concerned about the excesses of Wall Street, this news has to be dismaying. Cordray held the line on Trump’s deregulatory agenda. With him not at the helm of the CPFB, expect Trump to gut the agency of power.
Nobody is likely more troubled by this resignation than Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. She was the architect behind the CPFB back when it was established by the Dodd-Frank bill that passed under Obama. Warren was the first director of the agency.
I’m sure she hates seeing someone like Cordray go. She knows that means the agency will eventually be led by an appointee named by President Trump. All of her hard work is about to go down the drain.
Some liberals are already fretting about this possibility:
This is unfortunate. Trump has targeted this agency Warren created from the get-go. With his leader in charge, like every other agency, CFPB will be dismantled from within. https://t.co/xCqVTCA41W — Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) November 15, 2017
It’s true that Dodd-Frank, and its progeny, the CFPB, put undue stress on the financial system, overly regulating banks to the point where new loans couldn’t be made. But let’s not forget the role Wall Street traders played in the financial crisis. Sure, many were incentivized by government to blow up the housing bubble. But they acted with little regard to the consequences of their actions.
I just hope President Trump continues to act with the best interests of all Americans in mind – not Goldman Sachs.
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Share this breaking news with others now!For the past week, at home in London, I have been living in the Hong Kong time zone. At night I watch live feeds of pro-democracy protesters waking at dawn in an occupied street of Admiralty; the next morning, I turn my computer back on and see the same street filled with a swollen river of humanity chanting their political demands in unison and holding up luminous mobile phones to the night sky. These riveting scenes have filled me with profound admiration for the courage of the protesters, and renewed hope for democracy in both Hong Kong and mainland China. Whatever the eventual outcome of this movement, it marks a historic turning point. It is the largest and most concerted act of defiance against China’s totalitarian regime for the last 25 years.
As a Chinese exile and former resident of Hong Kong (I lived there for 10 years after my books were banned in China), these protests are particularly poignant for me. When the protesters opened their umbrellas against a torrential downpour four days ago, my mind flashed back to the rain-soaked night of 30 June 1997, when fellow artists and writers gathered in my studio in Sai Ying Pun to lament the territory’s handover to Chinese rule. As the rain lashed down outside my windows, the long-haired activist and director Augustine Mok performed a piece of indoor street theatre; Pan Xinglei, recently imprisoned for splattering paint over a statue of Queen Victoria in Causeway Bay, painted his own face red; and the French band La Souris Déglinguée sang Hong-Kong and Quartier Libre.
At midnight, after the union jack was lowered and the Chinese national flag was ceremoniously raised to the strains of communist martial music, we braved the deluge and joined the crowds outside the legislative council protesting against the termination of Hong Kong’s fledgling democracy. There was a heady mixture of excitement, despair and foreboding that night, but beneath it all a deep sense of betrayal.
Seventeen years later, this sense of betrayal is still strong, and it is the desire to assert their independence and regain their dignity that has driven Hong Kong’s people on to the streets.
When I saw the images last weekend of riot police in helmets and gas masks shooting canisters of teargas into crowds of peaceful, unarmed students, my thoughts travelled further back, to 4 June 1989, when 200,000 armed soldiers advanced on Beijing and attacked peaceful protesters with machine guns, bayonets, batons and teargas, leaving in their wake unknown numbers of corpses crushed by their armoured tanks.
Twenty-five years later it seemed that these crushed corpses had at last returned to life in the streets of Hong Kong. The echoes were everywhere: the students’ fervent desire for democracy, their restraint and calm order; even the earnest, adolescent faces of the leaders, Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, recalled those of the Tiananmen leaders, Wang Dan and Chai Ling. One difference, however, was that these students were holding umbrellas they had brought to protect themselves from the rain, but were now using as ad hoc, pitifully inadequate shields against clouds of teargas and pepper spray.
Those umbrellas reminded me of a torrential downpour in the spring of 1989 that for a few hours washed the crowds of protesters and hunger strikers from Tiananmen Square. Gazing out at the megaphones and red and black banners floating in the flooded and deserted square, I spotted a contingent of students from Hong Kong arriving with truckloads of donated tents and sleeping bags. The support they offered, both material and psychological, was invaluable to the Beijing Democracy Movement.
Many of the university and high-school students filling the streets of Hong Kong today were not alive in 1989, or even during the handover of 1997, but they have a deeper understanding of China’s recent past than most of their contemporaries in the mainland.
They are descendants of refugees from China’s famines and political upheavals; they have grown up witnessing the mass candlelit vigils held in Victoria Park every year to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre. They have witnessed the gradual erosion of the autonomy and liberties guaranteed by the “one country, two systems” principle of the 1997 Basic Law; attempts to brainwash children with a Beijing-formulated moral and national education; creeping self-censorship in the media; suggestions that Hong Kong judges be chosen for their patriotism; and a meat-cleaver attack in broad daylight on the editor of the liberal Ming Pao newspaper.
Although motivated by a multitude of discontents, the strength of the “umbrella revolution” lies in its narrow focus on one demand: genuine universal suffrage and, more precisely, the scrapping of the Chinese government’s decision that a pro-Beijing committee vet the candidates allowed to run for Hong Kong’s next chief executive.
The Chinese authorities have condemned the protests as illegal acts, and stated that true democracy in Hong Kong would lead to social chaos. But it is clear the opposite is true: it is the refusal to grant genuine electoral freedom that is the cause of the current uprising. Rejecting demands to resign the chief executive, CY Leung, has promised the students talks with his second-in-command, no doubt hoping that the protests will peter out before he is forced to make any concessions.
The attacks launched on the protesters since then by organised mobs are both disturbing and predictable. But the Occupy movement must not be cowed by thuggery, and should continue to push for reform. For it is hard to imagine a people more equipped for democracy than the restrained, educated citizens of Hong Kong. These are protesters who, while calling for freedom, hand out biscuits and bottles of water, shield policemen from the rain and hang up notices apologising to local residents for “any inconvenience caused”.
The fact that the British colonialists failed to grant Hong Kong any democracy until the last years of their rule is no excuse for Beijing to renege on its promise to grant the region universal suffrage in 2017, in line with article 45 of the Basic Law. Western governments, so keen to clamp down on undemocratic regimes in the rest of the world, should express unequivocal support for the protesters’ demand for free and fair elections, and publicly condemn the authorities’ unjustified use of force. Having delivered their former subjects into the hands of a communist dictatorship, Britain has a particular moral duty to ensure that their basic rights, safety and autonomy are protected.
The people of Hong Kong should take heart, and realise that although each one of them may be but a single drop of rain, they converged this week to become an unstoppable river of democracy that coursed through Admiralty, Causeway Bay and Mongkok. The river will flow again, despite efforts to block it, and will one day, perhaps this year or many years from now, surge across the border all the way to Tiananmen Square.
Translated by Flora DrewLONDON (Reuters) - British households struggling to pay rising fuel bills should change supplier, check their tariffs, or insulate their homes to try to save money, energy secretary Chris Huhne said after ministers met the “Big Six” energy companies for talks.
Huhne said Monday’s meeting was “encouraging” and denied suggestions that, without an actual fuel price cut, the outcome would do little to help fuel consumers.
“This is not small beer,” he told reporters. “On an average dual fuel bill of about 1,300 pounds ($2,050), by switching you can actually get about 200 pounds off your energy bill.”
Huhne has dismissed opposition Labour calls for the government to pressure companies to use growing profit to cut bills, saying it would be wrong for ministers to try to set prices. “This is a market and we have to make sure it is a fair market,” he said.
More competition, greater transparency in the wholesale energy market and consumers shopping around would combine to drive down energy costs, he said.
With household finances squeezed, the cost of electricity and gas has shot up the political agenda and the government is under pressure to be seen to be taking action.
The energy summit came as the coalition government faces pressure from angry consumers already feeling the pressure from weak growth, public cuts and tax rises. Unemployment has jumped to a 17-year high, inflation is more than double the two percent target and wage growth is muted.
“The companies are not the Salvation Army. We expect them to earn respectable returns for their shareholders,” Huhne told BBC radio before the talks. “But they need to be operating in a fair and competitive market.”
More than eight out of 10 customers have never checked to see if they could get a better deal and they should now start to pay more attention to both their supplier and tariff, he added.
Energy bills have risen dramatically in recent months as companies hike prices due to higher wholesale costs, meaning an average dual fuel bill in Britain costs 1,345 pounds ($2,125) a year, the watchdog Ofgem said last week.
The regulator said companies were making 125 pounds per customer in profit, the highest level since at least 2004, compared with 15 pounds in June. Suppliers dispute the figures.
PROFITS NEEDED
Huhne said companies needed to make a decent return to be able to invest in power stations because a quarter of Britain’s electricity generating capacity will need to be replaced over the next 10 years.
In its proposed reforms last week, Ofgem said energy companies would have to simplify their billing and pricing structures which it said were far too complex.
Britain’s six largest utilities are German groups E.ON and RWE, British companies Centrica and Scottish and Southern Energy, French operator EDF and Spanish firm Iberdrola.
Ahead of the summit, RWE’s npower said it would freeze prices for customers on standard residential tariffs for the coming winter. Centrica’s British Gas also announced a pledge not to raise energy prices for variable rate customers this winter.
($1 = 0.634 pound)When the Tigers decided to swap Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler — side note: Kinsler is already +1 WAR ahead of Fielder on the season, reinforcing just how great a deal that was for Detroit — it was done, in part, to open up a spot on the field for top prospect Nick Castellanos. Fielder’s departure meant that Miguel Cabrera could move back to first base and Castellanos could take over at the hot corner, improving their defense at both positions. And Castellanos’ minor league track record suggested he would bring some offensive upside to the table as well.
So far, he’s basically lived up to expectations. He came in to the day with a 98 wRC+, right in line with what Steamer and ZIPS forecast before the season began, and that was with a.256 BABIP; give him some positive regression on that front, and the overall package looks like a slightly above average offensive player. While Castellanos is more of a good-at-everything-great-at-nothing kind of hitter, his most positive attribute so far has been his below average strikeout rate; at just 15%, he’s striking out about 25% less than a league average hitter this season.
But while we could have expected a better-than-average strikeout rate from Castellanos based on his minor league track record, the fact that he’s striking out so rarely is actually pretty weird. Because Nick Castellanos, for the first few weeks of 2014, has the 9th lowest contact rate in all of baseball. He has about the same contact rate as Curtis Granderson and B.J. Upton. He’s making contact less often than Ryan Howard, Giancarlo Stanton, and Adam Dunn.
The relationship between contact rate and strikeout rate is very strong. Here’s a plot of the two metrics for all qualified hitters in 2013.
That is a very strong linear trend, and as you can see from the regression equation, the r squared between the two is.85, meaning that nearly everything you need to predict strikeout rate can be found by looking at contact rate. Contact rate doesn’t perfectly predict strikeout rate, but it is the dominant variable, and knowing contact rate gets you most of the way to knowing strikeout rate.
This is pretty common sense, of course. Guys who swing and miss not only are going to swing and miss at more two strike pitches, but also get to more two strike counts to begin with, since they were swinging through zero-strike and one-strike counts that higher contact hitters would have put in play, ending the at-bat before a strikeout was ever possible. It isn’t any kind of revelation to say that contact rate and strikeout rate are highly correlated.
But now, look at the same graph, only focusing on 2014 data.
Because we’re dealing with smaller samples, the plot is a lot more scattered; this will even out as the season goes on, and by the end of the year, the 2014 plot will look a lot like the 2013 plot. You’re always going to get more variance in smaller samples, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the spread is wider here.
But even with that wider variance, look at the lower left hand corner of that graph. Note the point just above the 15% K% mark, the furthest dot from the line. That’s Nick Castellanos and his 67% contact rate. To the right of him is Marcell Ozuna, who also has a very low strikeout rate relative to his contact numbers, but every other hitter in baseball who is making contact less than 70% of the time has a strikeout rate over 25%, and many of them are closer to 30%. In fact, if you use the regression equation to create an expected strikeout rate based on contact rate, Castellanos’ xK% is actually 30%; he is striking out half as often as his contact rate would suggest.
No hitter in baseball is further from their expected strikeout rate than Castellanos, in fact, no one else is even all that close. Ozuna, as mentioned, is also in the low contact/moderate strikeout group, but his 18% K%/28% xK% difference is only 10 points off the regression’s formula. Castellanos is far and away the biggest outlier when it comes to low contact and low strikeout rate.
And no, this is not sustainable. Last year, Hunter Pence had the biggest positive difference in terms of strikeouts versus expected strikeouts based on contact, and he beat the regression by six percentage points. Only eight of the 141 qualified 2013 batters diverged (in either direction) more than five percent from their expected K%. Castellanos does have the profile of a guy who will strike out less than his contact rate would suggest — aggressive hitters who swing a lot get to fewer two strike counts than guys who work the count, so their swings and misses come more often in zero-strike or one-strike counts — but something is going to give.
Of the two metrics, contact rate stabilizes quicker than strikeout rate, which probably isn’t great news for the Tigers. If Castellanos keeps swinging and missing anywhere near as often as he has been, his strikeout rate is going to spike. An uptick in BABIP may very well offset the rise in strikeout rate, and this isn’t any kind of sign that Castellanos is about to stop being a productive hitter, but he is going to stop being this kind of productive hitter. You just can’t swing and miss as often as he has been and post better-than-average strikeout rates.
For reference, are are the top five and bottom five hitters in variance from expected strikeout rate for the start of the 2014 season.
Count-working types like Mauer and Gardner will likely continue to post higher strikeout rates than their contact rates would suggest — at 8%, Gardner had the biggest difference of any hitter in 2013, so this isn’t new for him — and guys like Ramirez and Simmons will likely not regress all the way to their xK% because of how often they swing, but these ranges are going to come down. For hitters like Castellanos, the hope has to be the contact rate is the thing that regresses more than the strikeout rate, but something is going to have to give.Lawmakers have spared graduate students from having to start paying income tax on their tuition waivers.
Graduate students across the country have loudly protested a controversial provision of the tax plans that moved through the House and Senate in recent weeks. The proposal would have significantly driven up the tax burdens for those who receive tuition waivers from their schools. They are often teaching and research assistants.
But the final congressional tax plan, which lawmakers are set to vote on next week, omitted the proposal.
An estimated 145,000 graduate students didn't have to pay for tuition in 2012, the latest year data is available.
Roughly one-quarter of students pursuing doctoral degrees received a tuition waiver that year, according to the Council of Graduate Schools. Some master's degree students receive waivers, too.
Currently, the award is not taxed, but an earlier version of the House plan would have taxed the amount of tuition as income.
The change would have been significant for Benjamin Shih, a Ph.D. engineering student at the University of California in San Diego. He expected to owe an additional $3,600 to the IRS if his tuition was taxed.
The proposal was also criticized by colleges and universities that were concerned it would hurt research programs by making it harder for students to pursue higher degrees. More than half of students receiving a tuition waiver are studying science, technology, engineering or math.
But support for the proposal appeared shaky last week when 31 house Republicans -- who had all voted for an earlier version of the bill that included the provision -- asked party leaders to ultimately leave it out.GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Feeling like you're approaching the final frontier, Genesee County?
Just weeks after a man told police he spotted an unidentified flying object above the Rave theaters in Flint Township, three more sightings -- one each in the Flint, Flushing and Grand Blanc areas -- have been made to the
.
This month alone, 13 online reports from the county have been made to MUFON, ranging from randomly flashing, multi-colored lights to to a large, glowing object to a bright orange light hovering above tree tops.
"I believe a great deal of the reason for the ever-growing number of reports is growing popularity of both UFOs and MUFON in general," said
, chief investigator with MUFON, who said he may visit the county this weekend to have a look around for himself.
"The paranormal television shows, coupled with the internet have really been letting people know we're out here," Nolan said in an e-mail to MLive-Flint Journal. "They no longer see things and stay hush-hush because they fear what their neighbors will think.
"They have an outlet now that they can report these things too. My guess would be, as long as MUFON and UFOs in general get more attention, we'll get more reports."
Whatever the reason, those reports are skyrocketing.
The latest sighting came from Flushing Tuesday -- a report of four or five "very strange objects in the sky," flying from the southeast, according to MUFON's website.
In a separate report, a witness at an unidentified location in Flint said that at 9:13 p.m. Sunday, he saw a diamond-shaped, stationary object flashing brilliant colors of white, red, blue and green.
"I lost sight of the object... just exactly as though someone had flipped a switch and shut them all off at the same time -- they were gone," the report said.
Also Sunday, a woman in the Grand Blanc area, near U.S. 23 and the Grand Blanc Road exit, made an online report that she saw something she couldn't explain -- a triangular object hovering over an apartment complex with at least three red and six to eight bright white lights at about 10:45 p.m.
Earlier this month, MLive-Flint Journal reported on a UFO sighting in Flint Township, in which 19-year-old
reported seeing an object hovering above the above Rave cinemas.
Washington made his report to MUFON and called 911, but police found nothing unusual when they investigated.
University of Michigan-Flint astronomy professor Rajib Ganguly said he doesn't know of a specific celestial event that could explain all the sightings this month and said he himself sometimes sees things he can't immediately explain in the sky.
Ganguly said he can usually find a likely explanation for what he's seen -- "after a little bit of digging."
Sightings can prove to be anything from a helicopter to a satellite to a planet or a star, he said. In regard to Sunday's sightings, Sirius -- the brightest star in the sky after the sun -- is one possibility because of its position in the sky that night.
"Satellites are also highly reflective... they can reflect a lot of sunlight and it can seem like an object just flares up and goes away."
"I don't think it's people pulling hoaxes when (they) report something they think they've seen," the professor said. "It's just something they don't see every day. As a scientist, I have to test the data."
Ganguly said getting the best explanation for a sighting involves collecting the most data possible, including the direction the object is moving, an exact time and a detailed description.
"If it starts becoming sketchy, it's hard to draw appropriate conclusions (other than) they saw something," he said.
Nolan said he believes the report from Grand Blanc "seems to be more tied to the previous case (in Flint Township).
"It's in approximately the same time frame... and fairly close to being equal distance from (Bishop) Airport although it was in the opposite direction...," his e-mail says.
"This supportive information only furthers my thinking that what we have here is a mis-identification of aircraft coming in for a landing at Bishop Airport... I may have to make a run to Flint and see if I can't catch our UFO."
Washington laughed off Nolan's theory, saying he's certain the object he saw wasn't a conventional aircraft.
He said he's taken some ribbing from friends who saw his story but stands behind his account.
"As I explain it to people, they look and can tell I'm serious," Washington said. "I get a couple of jokes cracked, but that's life...
"People may think I'm crazy, but I think I'm pretty normal."Union members flood Capitol in Lansing 13 Gallery: Union members flood Capitol in Lansing
Update:
Day 74: This is one in a series of posts assessing key developments during Gov. Rick Snyder's self-imposed 182 days to chart a new course for Michigan by July 1. For earlier posts go to mlive.com/stateofchange.
Speaking to thousands of union members from the steps of the Capitol, UAW President Bob King put Gov. Rick Snyder's budget and tax proposal in stark terms, asserting that it's designed to take money out of the pockets of those with low wages and fixed income in order to distribute it to "wealthy" business owners. "This governor and this Republican Party want to take almost $2 billion more off of working people in Michigan and who does he want to give it to?" King yelled. "The wealthy, the corporations." "And for this governor to want to steal from them to give it to the wealthy, is that wrong?" King asked. By eliminating the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit, as Snyder's proposal does, "they want to increase taxes on people working every day, every week, the working poor in Michigan." King called Snyder's efforts part of what he called a broad Republican "attack on the middle class." Snyder's tax $1.7 billion tax cut proposal would be financed in part by imposing the state income tax on public and private pensions. King said pensioners are having a hard time surviving as it is. Replacing the Michigan Business Tax with a profits tax on corporations would exempt about 95,000 Michigan firms from paying business tax. As the rally took a break, hundreds of union members marched through the Capitol hallways shouting "recall Rick." While Snyder says he's opposed to
or getting rid of prevailing wage rules, unions complain that financial emergency legislation gives state-appointed fiscal managers broad powers to terminate labor agreements and other contracts, force service consolidation at the local level or even engineer the merger of whole communities. Sen. John Pappageorge, R-Troy, said the legislation would encourage local governments and their unions to resolve financial issues before an emergency financial manager would be even needed. "The idea was to put things in place that would make it less likely that a bankruptcy would occur," he said. Snyder's budget seeks what could be $360 million in wage concessions from state employees with half the savings coming from
. Senate Republicans began hearings Wednesday on a proposal that would apply that standard to local units of government, universities and local school districts. A Senate Fiscal Agency analysis said the measure would save $543 million. Rick Hammel, D-Flushing Twp., said public employees have "given back hundreds of millions of dollars all over this state every time they've been asked. I would prefer that was negotiated as opposed to legislated."
Contact Peter Luke at (517) 487-8888 ext. 235 or e-mail him at [email protected] PHOTO: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer holds his daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
DUBLIN (Reuters) - President Donald Trump may begin his overhaul of the U.S. tax code as early as late spring, White House spokesman Sean Spicer has told Ireland’s Sunday Independent newspaper.
“We are going to have tax reform after we get healthcare completed... I think we are looking at late spring to summer,” Spicer told the newspaper in an interview during Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s visit to Washington late last week.
Trump has vowed to deliver major tax cuts to the middle-class and the business community this year but deepening Republican divisions over a House Republican healthcare bill which has spawned concern that action on tax reform may be delayed.
In a survey released last week, only 16 percent of about 1,000 business, tax and financial executives polled by accounting and advisory firm KPMG said they expected to see tax reform in 2017.The Australian was a close second quickest in second practice in Austin, finishing just 0.194s behind pace-setter Nico Rosberg.
Ricciardo admitted the day had been very smooth for Red Bull, and he reckons the team's pace over long runs means fighting Mercedes for victory could be possible.
"I think it is one of our best Fridays for sure," said Ricciardo. "Our long run pace looks like we were able to match them if not be quicker. But I have said it before.
"It is Friday, but it is nice to have a good Friday. It is nice to start the weekend on the right foot, so I don't think we will have hours and hours of work ahead of us tonight, just a bit of fine-tuning as always and we don't have to search for too much at the moment.
"It was a good day. I think this morning was solid and the long run pace was good. Then we sort of continued on this afternoon, made a few changes in between the two sessions and we look pretty good for now.
"Hopefully we stay like that and we should have a good race if that is the case."
Ricciardo reckons Red Bull still has room for improvement in qualifying trim.
"The low fuel pace, I think it was okay," he said. "I think we can still find a bit more but I think Mercedes can also have a bit more.
"Looking at Ferrari, it was a solid pace, our long run pace I am happy with that, and we got some good consistent laps out of it and were able to chip away the whole day, so we made progress from P1 and are happy."
Teammate Max Verstappen, fifth today, was also encouraged by Red Bull's long-run pace, but also said the short runs needed improving.
"The short run for me was not great in P2. We made quite a bit of changes in the car and it didn't seem to work so that is why it took me a bit longer to go out on long run as we made quite a few changes back to what we thought could work and it worked pretty well," he said.
"I had a Ferrari in front of me and was catching him on long runs so that was positive."
Additional reporting by Jonathan NobleThe video of the young Black girl who was violently arrested by now-former Deputy Ben Fields took the nation by storm this week. Many were alarmed the incident even happened in the first place, but thousands are outraged by the comments of people who believe the girl was more at fault. "It blows my mind that someone can sit there and say 'What did she do before the video started?,'" rapper Angel Haze told Huffington Post Live. "Who gives a f**- like, who cares what she did?"
Angel Haze appeared visibly upset over the entire ordeal, which she spoke out about on Twitter Wednesday (Oct. 28). "I guess yesterday I went on a Twitter rant and I asked Raven-Symone to fight me - which like, by the way, I totally mean," she admitted. Haze was referring to Raven's comments on After The View where she stressed that the student should have followed school rules, angering Haze enough to the point to urge Raven to "plz fight me" on Twitter. "Someone needs to smack her, 'cause the things that she says are just ridiculous," she continued.
Share your take on this week's events below.Updated at 10am BST (5am EST), June 1: Due to adverse weather conditions, Solar Impulse 2 was forced to head back towards Japan. The team will land in Nagoya and wait for better weather before attempting to cross the Pacific to Hawaii. Despite the diversion, the flight, which lasted more than 40 hours, was still the longest solar-powered flight of all time. "Unfortunately the current weather window to reach Hawaii has closed. The cold front is too dangerous to cross, so we have decided to land in Nagoya Airfield, also known as Komaki Airport, and wait for better weather conditions in order to continue. The pilot and the aircraft are safe, and safety is the priority," reads an update from the Solar Impulse website.
Original story
Solar Impulse 2, which is attempting the world's first solar-powered circumnavigation of Earth, has begun the longest leg of its journey: a single, non-stop flight of about 5078 miles (8172km) from China to Hawaii. The plane, and pilot André Borschberg, will be aloft for six days and five nights, with Borschberg attempting to stay awake for much of that time.
The solar-powered aircraft, which has a larger wingspan than a 747, began its round-the-world trip in March. It departed from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, headed down the Persian Gulf to Oman, hopped over to India, then Myanmar, and finally into Nanjing in China at the end of April. You can watch the current flight live on the Solar Impulse website. (The website is pretty cool; you should check it out.)
This flight, from Nanjing to Hawaii, is the first true test of Solar Impulse's capabilities, and Borschberg's endurance. The previous six legs were all fairly short hops; this, the seventh leg, will be longer than the previous six flights combined. The flight to Hawaii will finally showcase whether a solar airplane can reliably stay aloft at night, with lithium-ion batteries providing all of the necessary juice.
The Solar Impulse website shows the current state of the batteries (pictured above). At the time of publishing, the sun has just sunk below the horizon, and the batteries are starting to discharge. The plane is outfitted with four 41 kWh lithium-ion batteries, each capable of providing 17.4 horsepower (13 kW) to four electric motors. During the day, 269.5 square meters of photovoltaic solar panels on the topside of the aircraft provide the electricity needed to drive the motors, while also charging the batteries in preparation for the evening.
The plane's cruise speed is around 49 knots (90kph) during the day, and a rather placid 33 knots (60kph) at night to save power—which is why it takes so long to fly the 5100 miles from China to Hawaii. If Solar Impulse 2 is successful in reaching Hawaii, it will be the longest flight (in duration) ever for a single-pilot airplane.Share
Covered in detail on Patent Bolt recently, a patent application for an advanced set of handcuffs was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark office during late November 2012. Filed by a group called Scottsdale Inventions during late 2010, technology that could potentially go into the handcuff design includes an accelerometer, a location sensing device, a microphone; a camera and a biometric sensor to measure a detainee’s physical state. |
The global elite are rapidly purging information that threatens their power. In January, after neoliberalism had been delegitimized with Trump’s election and the Democratic Party establishment had collapsed, the corporate state officially declared war on dissidents. The CIA, FBI and NSA, which have long been controlled by large corporations, issued a report saying Russia had interfered in the 2016 election by having its reporters at RT expose corruption in American corporate and governmental institutions. Challenging authority was now an act of treason.
And the intelligence agencies have since applied that new rule by targeting activists, having the online companies they control censor alternative media, and requiring RT reporters and their “associates” to register as foreign agents-with the penalty for not doing so being removal from the airwaves. This happens as the world is bombarded with psy ops, which the CIA has carried out with impunity since a propaganda ban on the agency was repealed in 2013. These psy ops have included revisions of our language. Like with the ardent efforts to crush belief in a Deep State-which is simply the term for an unelected power establishment-and to portray the term “neoliberalism” as a meaningless pejorative when it’s meant to describe a political system based around profit.
Surrounding this have been constant warnings about some all-encompassing artificial enemy, mainly Russia. The reasons for restarting the Cold War with Russia-an ally before it interfered with American regime change plans in Syria around four years ago-are continually updated as the previous claims fall apart. Three months ago Russia was supposed to have stolen the election by hacking the DNC, then that was proven wrong by forensic investigators and the focus switched to Russia’s supposedly hacking state voting machines. Then the election authorities of those states refuted that, and the focus is now on “Russian-linked” figures purchasing online ads.
Reality is always revised to fit what vindicates the power structure. Facts that threaten this structure, even ones involving things like the recent U.S.-perpetrated genocides in several countries, are erased amid what Time Magazine once called an “eternal present.” The revisions that crush dissent most effectively are the ones that say neoliberalism serves the masses (like with the lie that corporate trade deals help workers), and the ones that say dissenting views are unpopular (like with the lie that Bernie Sanders legitimately lost the 2016 election). One of the corporate state’s great victories in this area has been the crushing of labor unions. Organized labor is now absent from the consciousness of most Americans after around nine decades of the authorities’ suppressing and demonizing unions.
This propaganda campaign is meant to make those who dissent feel isolated, absurd, and powerless. And to make it feel safe and logical to love Big Brother, to support the perpetual wars, to align with the billionaire class, to exalt the symbols of violence, nationalism, and religious dogma that the corporate state surrounds itself with. This mass assimilation into the corporate ideology can be leveraged into elite-manufactured pro-corporate movements like the Tea Party, which mirror the pro-government mass rallies of dictatorships like North Korea.
What saves us from inescapable totalitarianism, and in this case the loss of a future for our species through climate apocalypse, is that ideas cannot be killed. The knowledge the Deep State suppresses will continue to survive in private data archives put together by dissidents. But deeper than that are the ideas and emotions that fight fascism-individualism, equality, empathy-that will always be part of the human psyche. The impulses to control and harm, which oligarchy depends on, won’t disappear either. But neither will the combat between these two forces. And the oligarchical force is losing dominance right now.
“We are on the margins,” said Chris Hedges in a recent interview with World Socialist Website. “But that does not mean we are not dangerous. Neoliberalism and globalization are zombie ideologies. They have no credibility left. The scam has been found out. The global oligarchs are hated and reviled. The elite has no counterargument to our critique. So they can’t afford to have us around. As the power elite becomes more frightened, they’re going to use harsher forms of control, including the blunt instrument of censorship and violence.”
Violence has been part of this for many years now, most blatantly with the shootings, dog attacks, and beatings of protesters last winter in Standing Rock. Barack Obama, a major contributor to the climate crisis, responded by refusing to stop the oil pipeline construction in Standing Rock and by seeing how events there would “play out.” Then the Trump regime took office, insured the construction of the oil pipeline among its massive environmental crimes so far, and purged the White House website of climate data while defunding the NASA satellites used for tracking climate change.
Far-right sites are now spreading online ads celebrating Trump’s wiping out the “climate change agenda,” which a fourth or so of the population would still agree was right of Trump to do. For some years, Trump and his propagandists will be able to keep convincing their followers of the climate’s stability. Then sea level rise, droughts and catastrophic storms will expand too much for anyone to deny what’s happening. At that point the elites will try to seize on the crisis for establishing a supreme military state, wherein almost all of the population lives in a society that’s rotted from the inside.
We can rouse people toward building a more democratic and sustainable future, though, as climate change already manifests with extreme hurricanes and fires throughout the continent. Each of us must find our niche for helping achieve this, or the immortality of ideas might not be of much use to us.Billionaire investor and longtime Donald Trump supporter Carl Icahn announced he is launching a $150 million super PAC to revise corporate tax law. Trump has indicated Icahn may be his choice for Treasury secretary should he win his bid for president. Photo from Twitter
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Billionaire investor Carl Icahn announced he is launching a $150 million super PAC to push for congressional changes to corporate tax law.
Icahn, in a letter to House and Senate leaders, said he wants Congress to pass legislation that will stop U.S. companies from moving profits overseas for lower tax rates, formally known as corporate tax inversions. He said lawmakers must be "accountable for the current gridlock in Congress that prevents important legislation from being passed."
"In the last few years over 50 companies have left the country through 'inversions,' representing over half a trillion dollars in market value, hundreds of millions in tax dollars, and tens of thousands of jobs," he said. "If this exodus is allowed to accelerate, there will be disastrous consequences for our already fragile economy, as well as meaningful and unnecessary job losses."
Icahn, whose net worth is $21.6 billion, has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly mentioned Icahn as Treasury secretary if he secures the presidency.CHARLOTTE – The Panthers have re-signed the first of their potential free agents, reaching a two-year deal with linebacker Ben Jacobs.
Jacobs, a potential restricted free agent, returned to the team for the final four games last season after being released with an injury settlement just before the regular season started.
"I spent 13 weeks at home watching games on the couch and not knowing if I'd ever get the chance to play again. So when I got that call, I wanted to take full advantage," Jacobs said. "I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to stay with this organization because I love this place. I love these guys and this coaching staff. It feels like home to me.”
Jacobs played in every game in 2014 and 2015 and was a special teams stalwart, pacing the team with nine special teams tackles in 2014 and adding eight more in 2015.IDTechEx has invited a series of industrial players and leaders active in graphene commercialization to contribute their opinions about the state of the technology and markets. As part of article series, we will today hear from Nanomedical Diagnostics who write about their progress with their commercial biophysical assay tool based on graphene transistors. To contact Nanomedical Diagnostics directly please contact the author Dr Brett Goldsmith on [email protected]
Carbon electronics have been around since before Thomas Edison built his first commercial lightbulb using carbonized bamboo filaments. More recently, we've made a lot of progress developing advanced carbon electronic materials, from carbon nanotubes to graphene, but we haven't had the same product development success that Edison did. As experts in new materials, we have tools for producing new products that other people don't have. This can be an advantage in almost any market. Success requires a deep understanding of both your material and your target market.
Several years ago, I started a company with my business partner, Ross Bundy, to produce a product using nanotechnology that lived up to the superlative visions so common in nanotechnology research papers. We would make a product that disrupted a market outside of nanotechnology, rather than something that enabled development of other products, or simply leveraged the "nanotechnology brand" for a premium. The result of this effort is Nanomedical Diagnostics, and the first real nanoelectronics enabled product, AGILE R100, a biophysical assay tool based on graphene transistors. Our success demonstrates that it is possible to create a complex nanotechnology enabled product today, and the lessons we learned may help others do the same.
Nanomedical Diagnostics is a biotechnology company, not a nanotechnology company. We are defined by the industry of our customers, not by our technical expertise. Unless you've been going to a lot of biology conferences, you probably have not heard of us. In the early days, it would have felt good to gather positive feedback at nanotechnology conferences, but that feedback is also distracting. Instead, for years, we focused on people in biomedical research and medicine. Our investors and advisors come from the biotechnology industry, because that's where our customers are. These were the connections we needed. Often, we heard things that challenged our assumptions, humbled us, and forced us to engineer and produce a better product.
This product focus is important when working with something like graphene that can seemingly do everything. It was important for us to stay focused on the problems of our target customer, not on the scientifically interesting problems of our field. For example, large area graphene growth is a very popular problem among graphene commercialization efforts, but it doesn't enable us to build a better biosensor, or really change our cost structure. On the other hand, integration of graphene into a commercial fab was necessary to build a product. It's not necessary to solve all of the problems in nanotechnology, just those related to your product.
One of the ways we stayed on target was to raise the minimum amount of money we needed, not the most we could get. This is literally a joke from HBO's Silicon Valley, but you don't need to take the money. This includes grants, which are notorious for de-focusing young companies. Most of us pay too much for lab facilities, research grade tools, and top tier engineering. These things are not necessary to prove your market or prove your technology. If you ask yourself how much you can get done without spending a lot of money, you will be surprised at how far you can go.
As a model for a modern industrial scientist, Thomas Edison has many flaws, but there is a practicality that he had that we need to recapture. He said "Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success." As scientists, this ideal of utility to a field outside our own needs a higher place in our minds. It's great for something to be cool, but it's better for it to be cool and useful. There are nearly endless opportunities to leverage materials like graphene to create new and disruptive products. The details of what those products should be will not be found by looking internally or talking with ourselves, but by getting out there and learning about the challenges people are facing in other fields.Hello ladies and gentlemen, your pal Muldoon here with this week's selection of fine fun flicks created and submitted by AICN readers like you and me. Now if you've frequented AICN for anything over... say, an hour(?) then you're probably aware of a little shindig down in Austin called BNAT (Butt-Numb-A-Thon) where once a year Harry has a ridiculous smorgezbord of feature films that all screen within a 24 hour time frame. It's the perfect condensed film festival where you honestly have no clue what's playing until the intro credits start to roll. "Yes... Muldoon, I'm well aware of this magical event you speak of, but how does affect me? We can't all drop everything and fly to Austin to get down on some marathon of movie magic" Well, as you are reading this, I'm probably sitting in my seat getting my mind blown (and hoping everyone remembered to wear some deodorant) and the thing is - I want to share that with you guys and gals. Take note, i have nothing to do with the event other than show up - I have no clue what's being screened - so do not read into any of the films below as any kind of clue/hint, just appreciate the films for what they are: solid films that should transport you to a new world. And in the spirit of marathons, I've decided to load up this week in the hopes that some of you folks will genuinely full screen them, grab a soda/popcorn/lobster infused hotdog, kill the lights and just go with the flow - watching one after the other (even if something doesn't seem to tickle your fancy). I dig each of these, so hopefully you will as well.
And that's enough text to sift through, let's get to watching. Go grab yourself some popcorn, lock your kids in a closet, kill the lights, relax and check out this little weekly film fest we've got ourselves here:
TRAVELERS TRT: 4:13
Up first is a film from director Blake that will transport you to locations all around the world. "Questioning adventure or safety is the dilemma many people struggle with from behind their desks, beneath their bills, and before their commitments.While there is no right answer, the call to break free is universal."
UGLY AND IN LOVE TRT: 16:26
And fron producer James Anderson Brown we have our next film, a tale drunkenness and love. "Based on an extract from the feature screenplay of the same name, Ugly and in Love introduces our anti-hero Sam J. Jarvis and his first meeting with Louise Elizabeth Callum under dark circumstances. A professional drinker and verbal analyst of the wrongs around him, Sam fights everything trying to find reason for his existence, leaving him an outcast to society. Sam's life is turned upside down when he meets Louise Elizabeth Callum, a soft and tender woman who falls for the ideologies and unpredictability that Sam stands for. Ugly and in Love shows the dark and light side of human nature and relationships, the ugly side of inane sexual desires and the purity of love itself."
THE UMBRELLA TRT: 6:49
And here's Christopher D. Bruce with a fanciful ("danciful!") dance film. " This is a fun little narrative dance piece that I made. I wrote a breakdown of general actions which my friend Tony created an amazing piece of music to. My girlfriend made the umbrella puppets and over a weekend we shot it with a dancer friend. I just wanted to make a playful film with some silent film whimsy and practical effects." Be sure to check out Christopher's website if you like what you see!
THE ZOMBIE ONE TRT: 23:16
I'm sure you're having a ball with the previous shorts, but now you're in for something far out, a kickass zombie flick. The DP on the film, Wayne Lin, was cool enough to send it my way. Thanks, Wayne - it rocks. "Years after the Zombie outbreak, a man struggles to put his life and family back together the way it was before he became infected. But discrimination and revenge toward the "cured" hinder his dream from becoming reality."
WORLDS WE CREATED TRT: 9:33
Next up is a film from a Saturday Shorts veteran, Nicholas Santos. "WORLDS WE CREATED is a short film about a boy who walks the line between imagination and reality." Damn fine film. Go check out Santos's site or the production company's for kicks!
AXE IN THE FOREST TRT: 6:02
Boom! Ready for something a bit more *genre-rific? Then I'd like to introduce you to Matt Cantu, a Michigan filmmaker. " A beautiful short film shot in Michigan's Huron National Forest follows two young lovers as they paddle down the AuSable River. Little do they know that some one is following their every move. Someone with an axe! Written and directed by Matt Cantu, creator of The Zombie Factor." Want more info? Go hit up Cantini Pictures as their website!
SOUND OF THE DEAD TRT: 17:14
Chris Swirles brings us another fun zombie film that he produced and stars in. "Chris, a meek, recently divorced man spends his spare time building anatomical models. When he is sent by his ex-wife to a motel in search of their drug addicted daughter, a string of shattering events are set into motion. Chris finds the last thing any father would ever want to face. His only memento from the tragic scene, his daughter's cellphone, which he uses to gain insight into her final days. The cellphone reveals more than he bargained for, but there is something far more sinister hidden within. Already battling grief, Chris must face inner demons as a life and death struggle with a strange new virus pits him against forces that may spell the end of human existence as we know it."
THE DEAL MASTER (Book Trailer) TRT: 2:08
And here we've got an oddity, a trailer for a book from Theo Zenou! "It's essentially a "fake" movie trailer" "The Deal Master is a mystery/thriller that's mythologically informed and based upon a 13c tale. William Gillette, a NYC police detective, heads up a task force organized to catch a serial killer. In his attempt to solve the case, the detective makes a series of deals with a character who knows more than he should about the crimes. This leads to unforeseen consequences that involve Gillette."
WAR PATH - Kickstarter Pitch TRT: 4:14
Now here is a first. I get sent Kickstarter/IndieGogo links all the time, and while on one hand I feel like a jerk for not posting every single one - if I did that, then I'd quite possibly be the most annoying "blogger" out there and no one would give a rats ass about my opinion... Trust me, I'm an indie filmmaker myself and I know how tricky it is to get things done with no money. (I could go into a MASSIVE spiel about working with what you've got and not thinking money will solve all your problems.) I used to think "Man, it's a no budget film where the actors aren't getting paid, so I really can't be too pissed if they're an hour late - one day when I can pay for actors, they will show up on time..." AND BOOM - Nope, then you still have an actor showing up late, you're just essentially burning money. It's all about finding solid people to surround yourself with, folks you can trust in the trenches. My take on super zero budget films is: you can't afford the Hollywood stlye, so buck that nonsence and make your own style. So what if you're shot isn't as clean as the pros? Funk it, you're still out making something while your film school pals from college are still waiting around for someone to hand them the keys to filmmaking castle. We live in a time where there are still folks out there scoffing at the CGI in AVENGERS... a time filled up with so much "Well, if I would have done it, I would have done it this way, which would've been way better..." Movies, both short and full length, are hard to make on any budget - that's why SATURDAY SHORTS exists... that's why this tiny column is such a big deal to me, it's because when you watch a no budget short - you can feel the passion of the filmmaker throughout the film's running time. I digress...
Sorry, diatribe over.
Point is, there's a cool vibe in this pitch from Casey de Fremery that you should check out for his first feature length film WAR PATH.
Genre Explosions (1/28/12)
Mixed Genre Bag (2/4/12)
Mixed Bag (2/11/12)
Horror/SciFi (2/18/12)
Comedy (2/25/12)
Mixed Bag (3/3/12)
Horror (3/10/12)
Genre Mix (3/17/12)
Mixed Bag (3/24/12)
Mix (3/31/12)
Drama/Thriller (4/7/12)
Mixed Bag (4/14/12)
Comedy (4/21/12)
Animated (4/28/12)
Horror/SciFi (5/5/12)
Comedy (5/12/12)
Mixed Genre Bag (5/19/12)
Drama (5/26/12)
SciFi (6/2/12)
Horror (6/9/12)
SciFi (6/16/12)
Animated (6/23/12)
Supernatural Goodness (6/30/12)
Comedy (7/7/12)
SciFi Explosions With Aliens (7/14/12)
Comedy (7/21/12)
Mixed Bag (7/28/12)
Science Fiction (8/4/12)
Creature Features (8/11/12)
Drama (8/18/12)
Animation Craziness (8/25/12)
Mixed bag of Awesome (9/1/12)
Dark Comedy Extravaganza (9/8/12)
Random Bits of Fun (9/15/12)
Comedy (9/22/12)
Damn Fine Horror (9/29/12)
Goofy Comedy Laughsplosion (10/6/12)
Drama (10/13/12)
Genre-Fest (10/20/12)
Horror (10/27/12)
SciFi (11/3/12)
Genre Explosion (11/10/12)
Drama (11/17/12)
Genre Explosion (11/24/12)
Genre Basket of Awesome (12/1/12)
Genre Marathon (12/8/12)
Hilarity-fest (12/15/12)
Horror-ish Creepfest (12/22/12)
SciFi Craziness (12/29/12)
Genre Explosion (1/5/13)
Animation (1/12/13)
Drama, Drama, Drama (1/19/13)
Mixed Bag (1/26/13)
More Mixed Bag (2/2/13)
More Mixed Bag (2/9/13)
Assorted Bits of Genre (2/16/13)
Horror Goodness (2/23/13)
Genre Explosion! (3/2/13)
Laughter in Film Form (3/9/13)
Drama (3/16/13)
Genres Galore (3/23/13)
The Sphere; Montauk; Meth; Anamnesis (3/30/13)
Stan Lee Parkour; Mediating Kidnapper; Red; Bullet Head; Shadow (4/6/13)
Carrot & Stick; Queen of Hearts; Paintwork; Trophy Wife; BFC: Big F*ckin Chicken (4/13/13)
Victorian Undead; The Glitch; Saw Misgivings; Dave Vs. Death (4/20/13)
Gratitude; Boo!; Game of Dim(Wits); How I Met Your Father (4/27/13)
Allure; Titans of Newark; The Knightswoon; The Magic Box (5/4/13)
Don't Move; Experimental; Blackout; Birthday Boys (5/11/13)
Abe; Judge Minty; Robto; The Bubble (5/18/13)
Unsaid; Time; Spare The Bullets Not His Life; The Forge; The Mortician (5/25/13)
Ice Cream; Giraffic Park; The Spell Book; Pop; Chris' Wire (6/1/13)
The Tea Party; Dawn; The Earth Rejects Him; Hangin; Faces: Why Do We Have Them? (6/8/13)
Dead-Funny; Dead Reel; Buckles; So Dark; Secret Identity (6/15/13)
Woman Who Hates Plants; La Donna E Pericolosa; Tranquility Inc.; Rock-Paper-Scissors; Air On Shelves (6/22/13)
A Killer Surprise; Hitchcock Assembled; The Arsehole Gene; Kill Him; Only in Dreams (6/29/13)
Mirage; Laundry Night; Kiss; Mathilda (7/6/13)
Machete Get Ready; En Passant; Eg Anda; Fade To Black; Shocker (7/13/13)
PostHuman; The Flying Man; Departure; Lucy; Nemesis (7/20/13)
I shot JFK; List; Ten Thousand Days; Sick Day; Bolero (7/27/13)
I'm Such a Carrie; Motherland; Mutt; Falling Apart; Save The Kiss (8/3/13)
The Olympians; Land Of Giants; Genesis; Melissa!; Vaccine; Promotion (8/10/13)
Through the Night; Spoiler; Everything Happens For a Reason; Blindsided; Star Wars Speed Dating (8/17/13)
The Video Dating Tape of Desmondo Ray, Aged 33 & 3/4; White With Red; Sinkhole; The Autumn Girl; Melt; Ghost Train (trailer) (8/24/13)
Nitro Warriors 2; Vindicate; Ashtray; Three Legged Horses (8/31/13)
Sleep Walk; Star Drunk; Obsolescence In Love; Sunisoid (9/7/13)
Neon Killer; Future Duck; It Felt Good To Have This Pain; The Golden Age; Minotaur (9/14/13)
The Offering; Ligeia; The Red Valentine; Meme Comes To Life And Is Pissed; Frontier: The Rising Shadow (9/21/13)
The Troll; Boats; Lucy; Until The End; We Are Brothers (9/28/13)
If I Had a Heart; Bill Carter's "Anything Made of Paper" ; M Is For Marble; Overs; Rumor Macchina (10/5/13)
Battle For Employment; Mapper; Deep Red Dandelions; Applications; Trailer: The Fuzz (10/12/13)
M Is For Merry Christmas; Shellshock; Deadly Garden; A Decision; Elite Comics Commercial (10/19/13)
M is for Mario; M is for Misandry; Matryoshka; M is for Mime; M is for Mourning; M is for Maggots (11/2/13)
M is for Merman, M is for Midget, M is for Missing, M is for Messiah, M is for Monstricide (11/9/13)
Onionhead; Click; Tosser; Psycho Gunslinger; Bedbug trailer (11/16/13)
I am Vengeance; Silver Stiletto; Sleep Fighter; Frame of Mind; Trim (11/23/13)
Horrific; Reynolds; Star Wars Downunder; Paperboy; Plan C; Girl (11/30/13)
If you have a short and think it belongs here or are on the fence about whether to send it in, please do send it in - I'd love to see what you've put together. I've already seen hundreds of fresh new filmmakers' shorts and like any good addict, I need more!
Shoot me an email at "[email protected]"
In the subject line include: “SHORTS” + “Your film’s name” + “The film’s genre” Then, in the body of the email, please include a synopsis of the film and any contact information you might think I need or would want published. The more info you send my way, the more info there is to put with your short. Please don’t feel the need to submit multiple times.
Remember, the filmmakers might still be in the audience, so feel free to share your thoughts in Talkbacks below. (JUST DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE). I picked them, so you know I think highly of all of these, but how about you fine folks? How'd you like 'em?
BY THE WAY: If you've had a short featured here, that means that I personally am a fan of your work, so feel free to shoot me any kind of news on new projects/films/whatever. I can't say I'll be able to help or in what capacity, but I'm interested in your work and am always down to see more! (Keep making cool stuff, everyone!)
- Mike McCutchen
"Muldoon"
[email protected] Secret Santa got me this amazing instant camera so I can cool pictures when I'm out and about with my best buddy, my beagle Ralph!
I'll make sure I'll post those on Reddit to share with all of you :D
UPDATE: So I just received a 2nd!!! package from my Secret Santa and it's wonderful! Santa sent me lots of personal surprises as if she knows me!
First of all it's amazing that she sent me a letter, that alone made me feel great, but then the Lego (I've been craving Lego for a while now!), the gifts for Ralph are perfect, he's already enjoyed a bit of it :D
She also made an illustration of Ralph which is so beautiful! My Secret Santa made the perfect gift and I hope that one day I'll be lucky to meet her!
Thank you! :-*Blake Bell will spend his final year at Oklahoma lining up at tight end.
Bell started eight games at quarterback for the Sooners in 2013, passing for 1,648 yards and 12 touchdowns with five interceptions. As a freshman and sophomore, he made a name for himself as the "Belldozer" in OU's short-yardage offense.
Blake Bell started eight games at quarterback in 2013 but will move to tight end for his senior year. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Sophomore quarterback Trevor Knight was the MVP of the Sooners' 45-31 win over Alabama in the Allstate Sugar Bowl and is expected to be OU's starter in 2014, sparking Bell's decision to move to tight end.
"Even though he could graduate and go somewhere, he wants to finish out and try tight end," coach Bob Stoops said. "I think it's a great fit. Blake has the size, the athleticism, the speed to do that, and he's exhibited his toughness through the years."
Bell's move to tight end, along with the transfer of junior Kendal Thompson, leaves the Sooners with a couple of freshmen behind Knight.
Redshirt freshman Cody Thomas and true freshman Justice Hansen, who enrolled early and is already on campus, are likely to battle to back up Knight in the fall.
Former Texas Tech quarterback Baker Mayfield, the Big 12's offensive freshman of the year in 2013, has transferred to OU and will walk on to the team, but he is ineligible to play during the upcoming season due to transfer rules.
"I met him for the first time last night, we had a team meal, and he came up and introduced himself," Stoops said of Mayfield. "He said he always wanted to be here, so we'll give him that opportunity."Just prior to the announcement of Mexico's 1994 World Cup squad, Miguel Herrera received an early morning phone call from then-national team coach Miguel Mejia Baron, who informed the impish defender he would not be on the list of players traveling to the United States. Herrera did not plead his case, nor ask for explanations. He was not one to beg.
Herrera had grown up not having a relationship with his father and had been raised mostly by his mother and grandmother. He didn't have much of a paternal figure because his mother had also divorced his stepfather, who had helped cultivate his love of soccer. But Herrera never used his life's circumstances as an excuse. On the contrary. His life's travails simply made him work harder.
It would not be easy becoming a professional soccer player while being short and stout, but Herrera had done so anyway. He was not just a marginal professional soccer player, either. He had managed to get himself on the fringes of the national team, and he had done it without asking any favors. Herrera had earned it.
So after the phone call, Herrera simply accepted Baron's decision and hung up the phone even though he had believed then, and still believes, that Baron had previously suggested he would be on the team. For most of that day, Herrera, 26 years old at the time, was stunned. That night, an angered Herrera, a self-described teetotaler, went out with friends and did not return home until the early morning.
Most likely, Herrera knew 1994 was his last chance at playing in a World Cup. Not the most athletically blessed or the most skilled player, Herrera had built a reputation as a blue-collar defender who would not be afraid to deliver an elbow or a kick to an attacker if necessary. By the 1998 World Cup though, Herrera would be 30, and would have likely lost a step, a curse for a player who was not exactly swift to begin with.
Sure enough, Herrera would never play for the Mexican national team again after 1994.
The infamous phone call would have a profound effect on him. It would later shape how he would treat players as a manager. It taught him the most simple thing a manager can do is be open and honest. So, while he believed players didn't have a right to question a manager's decision -- and Herrera didn't necessarily question Baron's decision to leave him off the team, he mostly questioned the uncertainty about his status -- Herrera was determined to be fair to all his players, a strategy that would later endear him to all those who played for him, and one that would make him a successful manager.
To this day, Herrera has said he's never received an explanation from Baron, who in later interviews has said he based his decision to leave Herrera off the team due the former defender's fiery temperament. Baron believed, and many others did, too, that Herrera was simply too emotional on the field. Herrera was always on the verge of committing a foul or getting a yellow or red card, regardless of whether it was during an exhibition match, a league contest or a World Cup qualifier. He would kick players, or shout obscenities at opponents or officials. Herrera was too much of a liability to take to the United States. He simply could not handle his emotions.
There is a delicious irony that the same demeanor which clouded his playing career has now made Herrera, who leads Mexico into a knockout round matchup with the Netherlands on Sunday, a star of the 2014 World Cup. Observers and pundits from around the world rejoice in how Herrera celebrates goals, often leaping into the arms of his players, and how he yells at referees or gesticulates toward fans in the stands. Screen shots of his delirious facial expressions have gone viral.
People chuckle at his nickname "Piojo" -- meaning louse -- that was given to him by Atlante supporters because of his tendency to jump up and down. Herrera, who frequently tweets, is also a social media darling.
Twenty years after his hopes were dashed, Herrera's featured moment at a World Cup has finally arrived.
* * *
The most, or perhaps only, unfortunate aspect of Herrera's sudden popularity as a result of his comical antics is his behavior has completely overshadowed his admirable abilities as a manager. Herrera has completely rebuilt the Mexican national team, in a span of less than nine months, into a team in his image: hard-working, confident and determined.
Captain Rafael Marquez, a veteran of four World Cups, said earlier this week he's never played on a more unified national team.
Prior to his appointment, the Mexican national team was embarrassingly on the verge of being left out of the World Cup after finishing a disappointing fourth in the final CONCACAF qualifying round, which sent the team to a playoff against New Zealand.
Mexico played with fear and with caution, a direct reflection of the personality of the manager Jose Manuel "Chepo" de la Torre, whose stagnant possession-minded style often resulted in few scoring chances. The Mexican federation appointed two other coaches after de la Torre's firing in September. But neither Luis Fernando Tena, who had coached Mexico to a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics, nor Manuel Vucetich, a respected longtime Mexican league manager, impressed in short stints.
Fans and the media clamored for the wildly popular "Piojo," who in 2013 had guided Club American to its first league championship since 2005. Herrera was appointed Mexico's interim manager in October. In November, Mexico defeated New Zealand in the two-legged playoff by a 9-3 aggregate score to earn a World Cup spot.
Herrera was given the job full time in December and has proved to be unlike any manager in Mexican national team history.
Herrera is not like the polished European Sven-Goran Eriksson, who managed Mexico from 2008-09, nor is he like the 2010 World Cup coach Javier Aguirre, nicknamed "El Vasco," whose Spanish heritage had given him the aura of a European.
Herrera is stodgy, unkempt and frequently uses colloquialisms during interviews. He regularly cusses publicly. Unlike the former superstar Hugo Sanchez, who managed Mexico from '06-'08, Herrera is an every man, which is part of his mystique.
Herrera quickly changed everything about the national team. He developed a more friendly relationship with the Mexican media, who he saw as a possible ally rather than as an adversary like many of his predecessors. Herrera, unlike de la Torre who abhorred speaking to the media, granted many interviews upon his appointment.
Almost immediately, Herrera also sought to repair what had been the Mexican federation's complicated relationship with several of its star players. One of his first phone calls was to goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa who had turned down an opportunity to play for the team last year because he did not feel he was treated properly. Herrera reassured Ochoa he would get a fair chance at the starting keeper spot. Subsequently, Ocho |
Rich complained about the bullying to the bus driver, then to school officials, but says the adults took no action.
Rich told Fox 35 about the mean middle school bullies: "They would be mean to her, tell her she couldn't sit on certain spots on the bus. They were giving her food that they put in her mouth. I actually had to tell her to spit it out because she didn't understand."
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"When the school didn't do anything, I told the girls, if the school didn't do anything, I was going to do something."
However, that warning got Rich into trouble with school officials, who have now banned her from riding the bus.
Amazingly, the school is standing behind its response, refused to give details and then complained how only one side of the story was being told.
Lake County Schools spokesman Christopher Patton said: "I can't comment about student discipline, you've got one side of the story.... There are other parents that are involved in this."
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ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit WebsiteWith rebels having seized extra 200 square miles of territory, US’s leaking of talks about sending weapons to Kiev may be Obama’s way of warning Putin to back off
The public disclosure that the US is considering supplying lethal weaponry to Ukraine in its battle with Russian-backed separatists, reflects heightened American concern that Moscow is intent on carving out an expanded, economically viable enclave in eastern Ukraine that could in time declare itself an independent state.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, pursued this policy in Georgia after the 2008 war, when he encouraged separatists in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to proclaim their independence from Tbilisi. Pro-Moscow forces in Transnistria, legally part of Moldova, have taken a similar path.
US concern that Putin, despite previous assurances to the contrary, is now seeking effectively to partition Ukraine has been fuelled by rebel territorial gains. Nato estimates that the separatists, backed by Russian reinforcements including T-80 tanks, have seized control of an additional 200 square miles in the past four months.
Q&A: Should US send lethal military assistance to Ukraine? Read more
“The assessment of some senior western officials is that the Kremlin’s goal is to replace the Minsk agreement [the September pact that proposed a ceasefire and territorial guarantees] with an accord that... would leave the separatists with a more economically viable enclave,” the New York Times reported.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ukrainian rebels’ call to arms ‘shows they are weak’
Resumed peace talks in Minsk at the weekend collapsed within hours after rebel representatives sought to redraw the proposed demarcation line between the two sides to include their recent territorial gains. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the rebels “were not even prepared to discuss implementation of a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons”.
By leaking internal discussions about supplying lethal weapons to Kiev, the Obama administration may be warning Putin to back off. US and EU sanctions, renewed last week, have failed to stop him. Diplomatic interventions by Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s François Hollande have also proven ineffective. Instead, US officials say Putin has deployed new heavy weapons and 1,000 specialist military and intelligence personnel, and the fighting has intensified. About 5,000 people have died since last April, with more than 1 million displaced.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, is due in Kiev on Thursday and will use the visit to take the temperature in the Ukrainian capital as the US administration weighs its options.
Lt Col Vanessa Hillman, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the administration’s focus “remains on pursuing a solution through diplomatic means,” but added, “we are always evaluating other options that will help create space for a negotiated solution to the crisis.”
But Washington’s threat risks turning what is currently a largely contained, internal insurrection into an international proxy war, pitting the US and Nato against Russia. In prospect now is the killing or maiming of Russians by American anti-tank missiles, a scenario not seen since the cold war-era occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces. The impact on wider European security could be deeply destabilising.
Tensions are already running high, not least with the increase in air and sea incidents involving the Russian military, such as last week’s provocative over-flight of the English channel. Nato’s decision to set up permanent military command centres in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and its creation of a 5,000-strong rapid response force are characterised by Putin as an attempt by the west to contain Russia.Last week, he ridiculed Ukraine’s army as Nato’s “foreign legion”.
Such an American escalation would probably deepen European divisions over Ukraine. Greece, heavily indebted, and Hungary, which has close economic links to Russia, take a very different line, for example, from that of the UK, which American reports suggest could follow any US lead in supplying weapons.
Uncertainty about Russian intentions has already caused a bad case of the jitters in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic republics. In the Czech Republic, the army chief of staff, General Petr Pavel, was quoted last week as predicting that an escalation in Ukraine would lead to the biggest military manoeuvres since 9/11, with troops being posted to the borders and to guard strategic plants. There are also wider European fears of mass refugee movements and manufactured unrest among expatriate ethnic Russian and Ukrainian minorities.
Judging by past performance, Putin is more likely to up the ante than back down if the US goes ahead. Retaliatory Russian escalation, which could include wider military intervention in Ukraine, renewed interference in Moldova, Georgia and the Baltic region or, for example, stepped-up deployment and testing of Iskander-M nuclear-capable cruise missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.
Putin may calculate that, as with Georgia in 2008 and Crimea last year, the US and Nato will not move militarily to thwart him in the end. He would use any Ukraine escalation to boost his narrative to the Russian people that the Fatherland is under siege by the west. But the obvious danger is that he may over-play his hand and, in his hubris and arrogance, provoke a wider calamity.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
I was thinking about Glenn Beck this past week telling Pastor Mark Driscoll that his daughter was brainwashed to think he is anti-gay.
From his reaction, Beck would have you think that he is as innocent as can be and you literally won’t believe the very sincere sounding words that come out of his mouth. In true Beckian style, he has invented a Glenn Beck who can be outraged and hurt by an intolerance on the left he has invented out of whole cloth:
“There isn’t a soul that I know of that doesn’t respect peoples’ right to be of different religion. We all pretty much basically say let’s all just get along. But that’s no longer what society is saying. I don’t know what this society is because I don’t know people like that. I don’t know the bigots and the haters who want to shut you down because you believe something they don’t believe.”
Take a listen:
Your browser does not support iframes.
Driscoll explained to Beck that his church had done a poll and discovered that intolerance was the number one objection to Christianity.
“The new definition of tolerance is you have to approve of me and endorse me, otherwise you hate me. That’s different.”
This is interesting logic, since that is exactly what Christian conservatives have been saying since the first century, cultivating an either/or mentality that has killed millions. Since 1964 the Religious Right has pushed the idea that if you do not do what they say, do not live like they want you to live, that you hate them, moreover, that you persecute them.
There’s no tolerance of my opinion,” Beck agreed. “This is the thing, my daughter went to Fordham University, which I’m glad I didn’t spend a dime on, she did it all through scholarship and I would not have paid for that education because here’s this Catholic university that taught my daughter that the Bible was nonsense and it was just a bad experience. But she thought for a while that I was intolerant,” he added. “And I kept saying to her, ‘Honey, you don’t understand. When it comes to gay marriage, for example, I have gay friends, I have gay employees, I don’t really care. What you do is what you do. You work that out. That’s your life.’ But I tried to explain to her, what this really is about is telling my church what I have to believe. You can’t force me to say that my God says you can be married or not married. You can’t force me to do that. She didn’t believe me until everything started going through, and then she started seeing the intolerance on the other side.
But his rhetoric demonstrates the opposite. You would not, for example, be surprised to hear this come out of his mouth:
That’s speculative. But this is Glenn Beck in 2009:
Media Matters goes into some depth about the extent of Beck’s anti-gay stance in an article they call “Glenn Beck’s anti-gay army of God.” The evidence is not only in Beck’s own utterances, but the guests he has entertained on his show and appeared with him at events, and they are some of the most rabidly anti-gay conservatives on the planet:
David Barton
James Dobson
Randy Forbes
Jim Garlow
John Hagee
Terence Henry
Alveda King
Richard Land
Daniel Lapin
Patrick Lee
Richard Lee
Miles McPherson
Chuck Norris
Sarah Palin
James Robison
Charles Stanley
And remember, Beck says he doesn’t know anybody like these people, yet there they are talking to him on his show or at events, spewing hate and intolerance of gays for all to hear.
There is literally not room here to go through all the evidence of Beck’s anti-gay history. Yet if you listen to Beck’s interview with Mark Deiscoll without knowledge of this history, you would think that Beck was the most unjustly persecuted man on the planet.
Clearly, if Beck’s daughter thought he was anti-gay, it was with good reason, and no fault at all of a “liberal Catholic University.” Conservatives talk a lot about accepting personal responsibility but every time they meet it face to face, they turn, run the other way, and blame somebody else. And that is exactly what Glenn Beck has done here.
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Prior to the 2013 NFL draft, fans and media members alike had a feeling the St. Louis Rams would select two wide receivers. The only problem was no one knew who those two receivers would be. Names like Cordarrelle Patterson, Tavon Austin, DeAndre Hopkins, Robert Woods and Justin Hunter were all logical early-round choices.
Austin’s stock rose considerably as the draft drew near, so the possibility of drafting him looked bleak. But the Rams didn’t let his ascension into the top 10 scare them off. St. Louis’ front office pulled the trigger and executed a blockbuster draft day trade with the Buffalo Bills to ensure its selection of the first-team All-American.
That meant the selection of one wide receiver was down with one to go. In the third round, no one believed the Rams would select another West Virginia wideout with Quinton Patton and Da’Rick Rogers still on the board.
Rogers ended up going undrafted for off-the-field issues, and Patton wasn’t held as in high regard as Stedman Bailey, so St. Louis made the move.
Drafting Bailey meant the organization drafted two wide receivers from the same school in the first three rounds of the draft. That’s not something that happens everyday. Yet, it didn’t matter that both players went to the same school. The only thing that mattered was the on-field ability of both players. Less than two months in, the move appears to already be paying dividends.
Let’s break down the five benefits of having Austin and Bailey together in St. Louis.It's been five years since Rick Santelli's CNBC "rant that shook the world" helped give rise to the Tea Party movement.
The first wave of anti-big-government protests began in the cities, and they were "about as libertarian as it gets," as political number-cruncher Nate Silver put it at the time: light on moralism, heavy on "fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets," per the "Tea Party Patriots" founding credo.
At the massive Sept. 12, 2009, Tea Party rally in Washington, Ron Paul's kids mixed with graying Gen X'ers and Baby Boomers; I snapped pictures of "What Would Mises Do?" signs and an erudite codger with a placard blaring: "Austrian Business Cycle Theory!" Could it be—some of us dared hope—that we were witnessing the birth of that unlikeliest of creatures: a libertarian mass-movement?
Half a decade later, that looks like a classic case of "irrational exuberance." No doubt there's a lot to be said for a movement that drives genial establishmentarians like Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to paroxysms of rage: "These people are not conservatives!" Hatch howled on NPR in 2012, "they're radical libertarians and I'm doggone offended by it. I despise these people!" (Doggone!)
Still, I can relate to the fellow at Thursday's Capitol Hill Tea Party Patriots anniversary event, a former Ron Paul volunteer who volunteered to the Washington Post that he was "so frustrated talking to these neocons," he needed a pre-noon shot of Jameson.
Early on, Beltway hawks were terrified that the movement would exercise "the scariest kind of influence" on American foreign policy, shrinking defense budgets and ending America's globocop role. Yet "Tea Party Republicans hold about the same views as non-Tea Party Republicans about America's role in solving world problems," according to the Pew Research Center. And when polls show that "tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security 'unacceptable,'" we're not talking about a particularly "radical" form of libertarianism.
More frustrating still, as Conor Friedersdorf has pointed out, too often, Tea Partiers have been suckers for "some of the most obviously irresponsible charlatans in American life." If you're a GOP pol who lacks the chops to become president of the U.S., Michael Brendan Dougherty observes, you may have "enough talent to become President of Conservatism." The responsibilities are minimal and the speaking fees are sweet.
Alas, these are the sorts of talents Tea Partiers swooned for in the 2012 primaries: Herman Cain, Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich—even Rick Santorum, a self-proclaimed enemy of libertarianism who was the opposite of everything the Tea Party was supposed to stand for.
Herman Cain, who's gone from the "9-9-9 plan" to promoting erectile dysfunction supplements, didn't have what it takes to become "President of Conservatism." But that title may go to new Tea Party fave Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Cruz has some Iowa trips planned, but his debate-camp-honed charisma had the Weekly Standard's Andy Ferguson wondering, during a car ride with Cruz, how many vertebrae he'd crack if he jumped out of the car and did "a tuck-and-roll onto the passing pavement."
The Tea Partiers' poor choice of banner carriers helps explain why their brand has suffered, and libertarian identification with the movement has waned over time. According to a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, "a majority of libertarians (61 percent) say they do not consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement."
Still whatever errors they've made along the way, the Tea Partiers identified the right target: our profligate political class. That class will continue to reign, unless and until they're confronted with a citizen movement that marries passion with sound judgment.
This column originally appeared in the Washington Examiner.A House of Vans pop up in Hong Kong. View Full Caption Vans
WEST LOOP — Iconic footwear brand Vans plans to open a pop-up skate park and event venue in the West Loop, a neighborhood leader confirmed Monday night.
Modeled after House of Vans Brooklyn, Vans plans to open a House of Vans pop-up in a vacant warehouse at 113 N. Elizabeth St. on Feb. 3, said Carla Agostinelli, executive director of the West Loop Community Organization. According to the House of Vans website, the venues host free art installations, workshops and concerts.
Ahead of the opening, the West Loop Community Organization and Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) will host an information meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the vacant warehouse on Elizabeth. House of Vans representatives and the Near West Police District will present their operation plan and answer questions at the meeting.
House of Vans will host an open house for the neighbors from 6-10 p.m. Feb. 4.
The temporary pop-up skate park and event venue is leasing the space at least through the end of the year, Agostinelli said. Burnett and the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events support the free, arts-focused pop-up and its plans to hire from the community.
Among other rules, capacity will be capped at 500 people and all events on site must end by 10:30 p.m., Agostinelli said. The West Loop Community Organization has recommended that the warehouse be soundproofed before any events are hosted there.
House of Vans is also working with West Loop start-up ParqEx to develop a parking plan.
A Vans spokesperson couldn't immediately be reached Monday night.
Vans operates House of Vans locations in Brooklyn, New York and Waterloo, London, and has hosted House of Vans pop-ups in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China, Korea and Malaysia.
The House of Vans pop-up will be in a vacant warehouse at 113 N. Elizabeth St. in the West Loop. [LoopNet]
The West Loop Community Organization will host an information meeting on the new House of Vans pop-up at 6 p.m. Thursday at the new venue, 113 N. Elizabeth St. [West Loop Community Organization]
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here.Advertisement
Although streaming music is increasingly accessible, music files remain a debatably superior format. There’s no need for an internet or data connection. Whereas streaming music is a bit of a black box, quality is clear when using FLAC files for instance. After all, streaming comes with its pros and cons The Pros And Cons Of Streaming vs Downloading MP3s The Pros And Cons Of Streaming vs Downloading MP3s I've been a long-time user of streaming music services – from Pandora, to the now defunct online music locker Lala.com, and now as a monthly subscriber to Rdio.com. If you have a computer and a... Read More.
While standalone MP3 players are less prevalent than in their heyday, these gadgets do exist. Learn about the best standalone MP3 players in 2017 and why you should buy one.
Why Buy an MP3 Player?
You’re probably wondering why you should even buy an MP3 player. Didn’t the inventors of that once-groundbreaking file format What Is MP3 Format & What Is Its Origins? [Technology Explained] What Is MP3 Format & What Is Its Origins? [Technology Explained] Read More recently declare it dead? Note that while the license has been terminated and there are better file formats for quality and efficiency, the MP3 is not “dead.”
Moreover, can’t you simply use your phone? Sure, but mp3 players are usually compatible with a variety of file formats. This includes my favorite, FLAC. I prefer my vinyl rips formatted as FLAC files. Yes, you can use your phone. But there are loads of scenarios when a standalone MP3 player possesses advantages.
If you work out with music, an MP3 player is an excellent means of ensuring you don’t damage your smartphone. On top of that, many phones (I’m looking at you Apple) lack expandable memory. If you’re like me, your hefty collection of FLAC vinyl rips won’t fit on your phone. File compatibility is another major selling point of standalone MP3 players. iOS devices don’t support native FLAC playback. For those wondering whether to buy an MP3 player, consider their advantages Should You Still Buy MP3 Players? Should You Still Buy MP3 Players? Remember how everyone used to have an MP3 player? In the days before the iPhone, MP3 players were a must-have item. Smartphones have eaten into MP3 player sales over the years -- why purchase a... Read More like ruggedness, lightweight design, and conservation of your smartphone battery.
Best Low Budget MP3 Players
SanDisk Clip Sport 4GB MP3 Player, Black With LCD Screen and MicroSDHC Card Slot (Certified Refurbished) SanDisk Clip Sport 4GB MP3 Player, Black With LCD Screen and MicroSDHC Card Slot (Certified Refurbished) Buy Now on Amazon $34.99
For a tiny device, the Sansa Clip Sport packs a punch. With a full-color screen, 4 GB or 8 GB of internal memory, and a microSD card slot, it’s a versatile player. Adding to its robust feature set, the SanDisk Sansa Clip Zip plays any file format you throw at it: MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. There’s AAC support for DRM-free music, and you can even play secure WMA files. On top of that, the Clip Sport includes a smattering of extras, such as FM radio and a stopwatch.
Unfortunately, compared to the discontinued Sansa Clip Zip, SanDisk’s follow up products didn’t impress as much. For example, both the Clip Sport and the Clip Jam lack seemingly basic features. Notably, you’ll find a lower file limit on the Clip Sport and Jam. They’re capped at 2,000 songs from both internal and external storage. This is a hardware limitation, not a software limitation.
SanDisk 8GB Clip Jam MP3 Player (Orange) SanDisk 8GB Clip Jam MP3 Player (Orange) Buy Now on Amazon
There is a workaround of using the file browser rather than the database for navigation. Further, unlike on previous models, the Jam and Sport don’t combine the contents of internal and external storage. I sometimes use my Samsung Galaxy S4 for running, paired with my PowerBeats 2 Bluetooth headphones. But my SanDisk Clip Zip is excellent for working out. If I drop a dumbbell on it, the Clip Zip is less expensive to replace than buying an off-contract Android. I like the small size, Rockbox compatibility, and FLAC support for my numerous vinyl rips.
Pros
Wide file type support
Small form factor
Full-color screen
4-8 GB internal memory
Expandable memory
Rockbox support
FM radio
Cons
Plasticky build
AGPTEK M20S 8GB Mini MP3 Player(Expandable Up to 64GB), Lossless Sound Touch Button Metal Music Player with FM/Voice Record,Silver AGPTEK M20S 8GB Mini MP3 Player(Expandable Up to 64GB), Lossless Sound Touch Button Metal Music Player with FM/Voice Record,Silver Buy Now on Amazon
The AGPtEK M20S is a solid MP3 player with great build quality and file support. Its metal body is sturdy and sports a premium feel. In addition to its 8 GB of built-in memory, there’s a microSD expansion slot. Supported file formats include MP3, WMA, APE, OGG, FLAC, WAV, and AAC. Navigation is intuitive with a combination of excellent software and hardware, the AGPtEK M20S is a spectacular standalone MP3 player.
Boasting long battery life of up to 14 hours, the M20S stays functional through lots of continuous use. Additionally, you’ll find an FM radio onboard. While most reviewers praised the AGPtEK M20S, a few users found the M20S touchscreen too small. Furthermore, documentation is pretty barebones according to Amazon reviews. But for $30, you get an MP3 player with metal accents, a touchscreen, FM radio, and microSD card slot. That’s a pretty phenomenal value, and the AGPtEK M20S, therefore, makes an awesome gym-worthy standalone MP3 player.
Pros
Great build quality
Touchscreen
8 GB internal memory
microSD expansion
Lots of file compatibility
FM radio
Inexpensive
Cons
Small screen
Poor documentation
MP3 Players for a Medium Budget
FiiO X1 High Resolution Lossless Music Player (2nd Generation) (Gold) FiiO X1 High Resolution Lossless Music Player (2nd Generation) (Gold) Buy Now on Amazon $89.99
At a mere $100, the FiiO X1 is a phenomenal value. This standalone MP3 player includes Bluetooth for wireless connectivity. There’s a smart in-vehicle mode with power sensing that bridges the X1 with your vehicle’s audio system.
The X1’s exceptional sound quality sets it apart from competitors. You’ll find support for lossless music formats such as APE, WAV, FLAC, WMA, and ALAC. Plus, the X1 gets graced with a higher SNR than the previous X1 iteration. There are a full differential line output and microSD card slot. But as opposed to most standalone MP3 players, the FiiO X1 lacks built-in storage, so you’ll absolutely need external storage.
CNET noted in its review that the X1 is a high-performing and great looking standalone MP3 player. Emulating the form factor of the Apple iPod Classic, it’s a more open device with better file compatibility. Further, the X1 comes packaged with a smattering of accessories. You’ll find a silicone case and charging cable standard. The FiiO X3-III costs a bit more but appeals more toward dedicated audiophiles with its dual crystal oscillators and Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC.
FiiO X3 (Black) High Resolution Music Player (3rd Generation) FiiO X3 (Black) High Resolution Music Player (3rd Generation) Buy Now on Amazon $146.85
Pros
Great file compatibility
microSD expansion
Bluetooth
Excellent form factor
Includes case
Cons
Limited connectivity
No internal storage
Cowon M2 32 GB HD Media Player (Black) Cowon M2 32 GB HD Media Player (Black) Buy Now on Amazon $166.00
Cowon is a name synonymous with excellent audio quality. The M2 delivers a premium experience. You’ll find 32 GB of built-in storage as well as a microSD card slot for additional storage. Plus, there’s a 2.8-inch touchscreen and a whopping 90 hours of battery life. However, for video battery life drops to 13 hours.
On the downside, users note that the Cowon M2 show its age. The resistive screen and clunky user interface detract slightly from the experience. It’s obvious you aren’t using a premium Android or iOS device. You might consider the Cowon Z2. This 32 GB player features an outdated operating system. But the typical Cowon superb sound quality with either the M2 or Z2 compensates for the lackluster screen and UI. Moreover, the M2 sports a better user experience than players like the Clip Zip.
Pros
32 GB internal memory
microSD expansion
Touchscreen
90-hour battery life
Plays video
Cons
Outdated UI
Resistive touchscreen
MP3 Players for a High Budget
Pono Music Portable Music Player, Black Pono Music Portable Music Player, Black Buy Now on Amazon
The PonoPlayer is not only a superb sounding device, it’s one of the most unique looking standalone MP3 players. With its triangular shape and minimal controls, the PonoPlayer is a fantastic, gorgeous device. Plus, there’s wide codec compatibility. This ensures it’s suited for audiophiles. For those with headphones that use a balanced mode, sound quality is vastly improved.
But CNET found the PonoPlayer battery life less than average. Moreover, while the triangle form factor is unique, it’s cumbersome to hold and store. There’s 64 GB of onboard storage plus a microSD card slot. The price seems high considering its lack of Wi-Fi ad Bluetooth. However, its exceptional sound quality and ability to work in balanced mode with amps and headphones make the PhonPlayer the best bet for true audiophiles.
Pros
Great file compatibility
Unique shape
Works in balanced mode
Fantastic sound quality
Cons
Poor battery life
Awkward to hold and store
No Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
SONY Walkman A series NW-A35 (B) (16GB) (charcoal black) (International version/seller warranty) SONY Walkman A series NW-A35 (B) (16GB) (charcoal black) (International version/seller warranty) Buy Now on Amazon $235.71
Sony once ruled the portable music landscape with its Walkman CD players. Although digital music since eclipsed CDs, Sony continues to manufacture spectacular portable music players. Its Walkman A Series NW-A35 is a solid player with a great sound profile. Included is a full amplifier for high-resolution sound. The headphone output is capable of pumping out 3.5 times more than conventional headphone jacks.
The NW-A35 features an LDAC for wireless playback and upconversion of compressed audio files. If you want the best Sony Walkman standalone MP3 player available, there’s always the Sony NWZX2BLK 128 GB music player. Unfortunately, while it’s a well-endowed portable music player, it’s tough to justify the cost: $1,198.
Sony Walkman NWZX2BLK 128 GB Hi-Res Digital Music Player (Black) Sony Walkman NWZX2BLK 128 GB Hi-Res Digital Music Player (Black) Buy Now on Amazon
Pros
Great sound quality
Excellent file compatibility
Full amplifier
Large screen
Cons
Poor real-world battery life
Lacking instruction manual
Hear Me Out: Best MP3 Players
Whether as a backup, gym-worthy device, or audiophile-quality music player, a standalone MP3 player is far from outdated. It’s common, if not universal, for current dedicated MP3 players to sport lossless file playback. Though a standalone music player may seem redundant, it’s actually a fantastic complement to your phone.
If you are using your phone, consider the surprisingly competent Google Play Music app The Best Music Player on Android: Google Play Music Reviewed The Best Music Player on Android: Google Play Music Reviewed Google Play Music is a music streaming service, a local music player, and a podcast player all mashed into one. And it's great. Read More. But Samsung owners will benefit from a better Google Play Music experience Google Play Music Is Better on Samsung Phones Google Play Music Is Better on Samsung Phones Google Play Music will be the default music app on all new Samsung phones and tablets. This is thanks to Samsung and Google doing a deal which benefits both companies. And you, probably. Read More. While I often use my phone, it’s great having my Sansa Clip Zip for the gym, or just when I’m on the go and want to conserve battery power.
Which standalone MP3 players do you recommend?
Image Credit: artography1976 via Shutterstock.comYou don’t need a security clearance to pick up on the credible chatter that “Homeland” is the best show on television. Its two stars, its writers and producers all went home from the Emmys with seven-pound gilded handweights. Over at the White House, the president relaxes by taking in the show’s terror-tinged episodes.
But what makes the Showtime spy series as definitive about Here and Now as John le Carrébooks were about There and Then? Take a look at the second season’s first episodes, and you’ll see it in a nervy concoction of writing and acting.
After a rest, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is back with the CIA. She’s summoned to Beirut to reconnect with a source she recruited years before. In the field again, Carrie takes one too many risks, swinging anew on the bipolar pendulum. Weaving through a crowded bazaar, she slyly eludes a pursuer. Just as she turns away, the camera catches her eyes. Framed by a head scarf, they are lit up; Carrie’s feeling renewed and redeemed. A less deft director would crowd the actress’s face; a more frenetic writing staff would speed to the next calamity. But the kinetic Danes is allowed a stolen moment of clarity in this era’s blur of secret dangers.
Political shows are often more staffed than inhabited, and “Homeland” is dominated by two of its fraught main characters — Carrie and her person of interest, Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis). For latecomers, let’s keep last season’s twists under wraps. But suffice it to say: The agent with deep suspicions and the war hero with the al-Qaeda contacts are headed for another collision. Last season, he refused to self-destruct and is now a congressman, while she blew up her career and now grades blue books as an English language instructor. Still, the two are free radicals in search of a tight bond.
The “Homeland” creators have invested in cagey characters but also in the audience’s intelligence. The new season, which begins Sunday night, looks ahead to a gloomy and looming scenario — Israel attacks four of Iran’s nuclear sites, and throughout the Middle East, enemies of the West rise up. That geopolitical tremor is all too plausible. Later, a story line that finds a radical Sunni Muslim terrorist in cahoots with the Shiite Hezbollah movement is less believable.
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More than world events, it’s Brody and Carrie who give the series its combustible ingredients. As revealed in season one, Brody embraced Islam while a captive and his traumas convinced him that he had no other solace. Shrewdly, the writers employed a drone strike to radicalize him. Viewers can better evaluate Brody’s devious behavior because they’ve seen the young corpses he has seen. Similarly, Carrie devolved into an erratic, rule-breaking rogue in last season’s sweat-flecked finale. And viewers stay connected to her throughout; for all her fluttering impulses, she pinned pieces together to make a world-rocking discovery.
The new season adds fire under some simmering story lines, but never to the temperature of potboiler ridiculousness. Is Mandy Patinkin’s Saul all that he seems — a mentor as calming as Robin Williams in “Good Will Hunting”? Will Brody’s fellow Marines accept his reluctance to investigate the death of Tom Walker, the sharpshooter whose aim was off? Will viewers balk at the arrival of a duplicitous journalist with ties to terror leader Abu Nazir and some sway over Brody?
Washington should be more of a character in the drama, and its architectural shadows are so absent they’re glaring. While Israel stands in for Lebanon in some pricey location shots, sleepy Charlotte barely captures the federal city’s grandeur, especially when bullets zipped through what is called Farragut Square. No one needs the skyline cliches of dome and obelisk, but the show lacks some breakneck rush across the Key Bridge, as in “No Way Out.”
No one has given such chase since Angelina Jolie in “Salt,” and Carrie is decidedly not some krav-maga-trained ninja. She runs like she’s vulnerable, her blond hair literally grazed by bullets. It’s female heroism made more arresting because she is often on the brink of collapse.
Meanwhile, this season, lesser characters are gaining strength. Brody’s whiny and intrusive daughter Dana (Morgan Saylor) has something to say about tolerance. The teenager enrolls in what looks to be Sidwell Friends and gets mouthy — in a Quaker meeting, no less. She complicates the garden-party ambitions of her mother (Morena Baccarin).
No one can perceive any core ideological belief of the vice president (Jamey Sheridan) other than that he believes he deserves to be president. The series exhibits no obvious partisan agenda except to be conservative in its worry about enemies abroad and to be liberal in what the writers have called “spending narrative capital.” In the first season, they did not reserve the action for the final episodes; early on, there was a mess of kissing and killing. Again in the new season, events unfold briskly, even if Brody’s flirtation with higher office happens mere moments after he’s achieved lower office.
Does that make “Homeland” the best political TV series ever made? Of course, there’s “The Wire,” which told the complicated saga of who really ran Baltimore — drug-dealing impresarios or City Hall desperados. “The West Wing” constructed some alternate progressive reality when the Bush administration proved, at minimum, less loquacious. And “24” used the usually numbing mechanism of prime-time television to drag audiences closer to terrifying geopolitical unrest, suggesting that the real world has many brink-of-war crises that are carefully, deliberately undetectable.
1 of 22 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Fall TV: A guide to 2012’s new shows View Photos TV critic Hank Stuever grades 22 of fall’s pilot episodes. Some primetime winners include “Call the Midwife” and “The Mindy Project,” while others like the “The Mob Doctor” and “Made in Jersey” tank. Caption TV critic Hank Stuever grades 22 of fall’s pilot episodes. Some primetime winners include “Call the Midwife” and “The Mindy Project,” while others like the “The Mob Doctor” and “Made in Jersey” tank. "Go On" — Grade: B- Matthew Perry’s new NBC comedy “Go On,” in which he plays a man who joins a grief support group, got a whole helium tank of hype during the Olympics in August — and some inflated ratings to match — but the initial episode was, you know, just okay. Perry seems older yet sharper and more at home here in this role as Ryan King, a hotheaded sports-radio host whose wife died in a car crash while attempting to text him a reminder to pick up coffee at the store. The dark humor here isn’t terribly dark — and occasionally just cloudy gray |
during the game (This is a standard card that you can play with all teams). SWITZERLAND :
HELVETIA Games Shop (Lausanne)
Le Maître de Jeux (Sion)
Ludimaginaire (Monthey)
FRANCE :
For the sending, as the production will be made in China, we will send a container in the USA and another one in France.
Packages for Europe will be sent from France, package for US directly from over there, and Asia will be served from China.
United States, Canada, European Community and Switzerland
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ATLANTA -- During the middle innings of an otherwise sunny 4-3 Mets win over the Royals on Wednesday at Citi Field, another worry crept into the consciousness of the Mets. Noah Syndergaard, the team's most dominant first-half pitcher and the anchor of an injury-riddled team, departed after six innings due to elbow discomfort.
ATLANTA -- During the middle innings of an otherwise sunny 4-3 Mets win over the Royals on Wednesday at Citi Field, another worry crept into the consciousness of the Mets. Noah Syndergaard, the team's most dominant first-half pitcher and the anchor of an injury-riddled team, departed after six innings due to elbow discomfort.
The Mets rushed Syndergaard to the hospital for tests, which revealed a best-case scenario: no structural damage. Team orthopedist Dr. David Altchek prescribed Syndergaard with anti-inflammatory medication, and the right-hander celebrated his relatively clean bill of health with a cheery Instagram post.
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The Mets have not, however, committed to using Syndergaard in his next scheduled start Monday in Washington. For now, he will fly on Thursday to rejoin his teammates in Atlanta.
• Mini Thor took to mound to show off Syndergaard impression
This was not Syndergaard's first elbow scare. Earlier this season, Syndergaard quietly visited Altchek for an examination after feeling discomfort during his worst start of the year, a May 1 loss to the Giants. Syndergaard came away from that outing with a clean bill of health, and did not miss a start. The right-hander also saw the start of his 2015 season delayed due to forearm tightness, a condition is often related to elbow issues. He has undergone multiple MRIs on his elbow over the past three years.
But so far, Syndergaard has come away without any major damage to the joint. Though he did not feature his best swing-and-miss stuff of the season on Wednesday, generating merely four strikeouts in six innings against the Royals, Syndergaard still averaged over 99 mph with his four-seam fastball and 91 mph with his slider. The Royals did not record a hit that left the infield until the fourth inning, and did not score until Cheslor Cuthbert homered with one out in the fifth. Syndergaard wound up allowing three runs in total, throwing 91 pitches while notching his eighth win.
Should Syndergaard need to miss a rotation turn, the Mets have two viable fill-ins on the active roster in Logan Verrett and Sean Gilmartin. Syndergaard's next start is scheduled for Monday in Washington; the Mets flipped him and Bartolo Colon this week in part so that Syndergaard could face the first-place Nationals. But in explaining that decision, manager Terry Collins said he also wanted to give Syndergaard extra rest after throwing a career-high 115 pitches in his prior start against the Pirates.
• Cespedes day to day with mild wrist sprain
Overall this season, Syndergaard is 8-2 with a 2.08 ERA, 110 strikeouts and 12 walks in 91 innings. He ranks fifth in the Majors in strikeout rate, and second in strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Of the Mets' five primary starting pitchers younger than 30 years old, including rehabbing right-hander Zack Wheeler, Syndergaard is also the only one never to undergo Tommy John elbow ligament-replacement surgery, a fact of which he is well aware. Syndergaard is militant about his workout and nutrition regimens, believing they will help him avoid a surgery that has befallen so many other young, hard-throwing star pitchers.
"I've thought about it quite a bit," Syndergaard said this spring. "But I trust myself to put my body in the right situations to be able to perform at a healthy level."EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The Giants had to run for cover halfway through Saturday's afternoon practice when thunder and lightening arrived at the Timex Performance Center field. It was the second showing for the rookies at the Giants' rookie minicamp.
The weather may have moved things around, but several of the newbies seemed to be getting more comfortable with the Giants' routine and playbook.
“The first day I was kind of thinking a little bit too much,” DT Johnathan Hankins said. “But I’m starting to relax and starting to get comfortable within the scheme of the defense and just be confident and go out there and make plays. I’m not trying to make plays that I can’t make. Just make the plays that come to me.”
CURRY ADDITION: Tom Coughlin was asked about signing LB Aaron Curry: “He worked out well for us,” Coughlin said. “Of course, he was the fourth pick in the draft. I looked at some of the grades, and the grades were outstanding. So he is anxious to have an opportunity and we are anxious to provide him with one. Hopefully, the two will meet and we will get a very talented player who can come into the Giant organization and play the way he was graded coming out of college.”
FEWELL EXCUSED: Defensive coordinator Perry Fewell left the Giants facility on Friday due to a death in his family. “We all feel very badly for Perry and his family," said Coughlin. "Perry did the best he could this week under difficult circumstances and then left out of here Friday.”
WILSON ON SPECIAL TEAMS: Special teams coordinator Tom Quinn said kickoff returner David Wilson could remain a member of the unit despite more of a role on offense. “He’s tremendous at doing that, and with his expanded role, we’ll see where it leads and hopefully someone else does step up,” Quinn said. “We like to have depth in those positions. We’ll see.”next Image 1 of 3
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Academic tenure was put in place in U.S. school systems in the first half of the 20th century to protect teachers from arbitrary punishment, but in the last several decades it has morphed into something else altogether.
Typically earned after four or five years, tenure protects teachers from being fired without just cause. But when combined with the ability of teachers unions to fight tooth and nail over any accusation leveled against a protected teacher, tenure can keep bad teachers in the classroom or at least on the payroll for decades after initial charges.
Below are a dozen cases in which tenure and union muscle protected bad teachers, often at the expense of students:
Matthew Lang was a band director at O’Fallon Township High School in Illinois in 2007 when administrators learned he was having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student. But instead of being fired, Lang was able to resign, and the relationship was kept out of his file so he could seek another teaching job.
“… we are asking that all information concerning the request for his resignation not be placed in his file,” read a letter from the teacher’s union rep to the O’Fallon school board that was originally obtained by education news site EAGnews.
The district complied and even provided a letter of recommendation that called Lang “an outstanding instructor.” Lang landed a job with Alton High School near the Mississippi River and about 15 miles north of St. Louis, Mo.He worked at the school until 2010, when he was convicted of molesting another female student and sentenced to six years in prison, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Jon White was sentenced to 48 years in prison in 2008 for abusing ten students at schools in the Illinois towns of Urbana and Normal. But those victims might have been spared their ordeals if White’s past had been revealed.
He had previously worked in McLean’s school district, where he was twice suspended for viewing pornography on a school computer and for making sexually suggestive comments to a fifth-grader. Instead of being fired, the union-protected teacher was allowed to resign – with a letter of recommendation that made no mention of the incidents.
The families of students at Urbana Elementary eventually filed a lawsuit claiming that the Normal school District had misled Urbana, according to the News-Gazette of Central Illinois.
It took two years for the Ann Arbor, Mich., school district to get rid of orchestra teacher Chris Mark after he was caught having an inappropriate relationship with a student in 2010. His union contract ensured that he was on paid leave during the 13-step process required to keep him out of the classroom and off the district payroll, the Ann Arbor News reported in 2013.
Stephen Wright, a tenured science teacher at Downers Grove South High School in Illinois, kept his license to teach even after being accused of faking his hours, stealing district computers, inappropriately touching female students and discussing the sexual activities of himself and his students.
Wright was issued multiple warnings and three 10-day unpaid suspensions before the district finally petitioned the Illinois State Board of Education to consider his dismissal in 2002. It took nearly a year, but Wright was fired. Yet he kept his teaching license, and went on to work in at least six other Illinois school districts and two community colleges.
Dina Holder, a special needs pre-kindergarten teacher in California’s Brentwood School District, kept her job despite reports that she physically abused multiple students. After pleading no contest to a misdemeanor child abuse charge in 2010, Holder was transferred to a different school within the district -- which also paid a total of $8 million to the victims in January of this year.
According to state law at the time, a misdemeanor offense is only sufficient grounds for dismissing a tenured teacher if it involves “moral turpitude.” When Loma Vista Elementary failed to submit Holder’s performance review in 2010, the school was unable to fire her, and she remained employed until 2013.
Mark Krockover, a tenured chemistry teacher and cheerleading coach at Maine East High School in Park Ridge, Ill., was allowed to resign and given $60,000 severance after he was accused of harassment from seven female students. The girls said he touched them inappropriately, smelling their hair, texting them excessively and even buying several of them designer jeans and bikinis.
The school made records of Krockover’s past behavior confidential and agreed to tell future employers that he resigned for personal reasons. Krockover’s teaching license was finally suspended in 2011, after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigated his resignation. He is currently eligible to reapply for his license but has not done so.
He was never formally charged, according to the Daily Herald in Cook County.
Neal Erickson is in prison for molesting a 14-year-old boy while he was a teacher in the West Branch-Rose City, Mich., school district. But even though he admitted to the repeated attacks, his union was there to help him long after his arrest in December 2012.
Several teachers wrote letters on his behalf, pleading for a lenient sentence. Although the judge was unmoved, sentencing Erickson to 30 years in prison, the Michigan Education Association brought the school district into arbitration seeking a $10,000 severance package for the convicted teacher. Erickson was eventually denied severance at the end of 2013, but not after a lengthy debate between the union and the school district.
Tenure protection kept Aryeh Eller in the New York City school district’s infamous “rubber room” for more than 10 years after he admitted repeated sexual harassment of female students at Hillcrest High School in Queens. Technically called reassignment centers, the rubber rooms warehoused teachers too dangerous for the classroom but too difficult to fire until 2010, when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg denounced them as an "expensive abuse of tenure," and shut them down.
Eller, who receives annual, union-negotiated pay raises, now makes $85,000 per year and works in a district office away from children. He’s earned nearly $1 million in salary since being yanked from the classroom, and still has a job, according to The New York Post.
Another New York teacher, Queens math instructor Francisco Olivares, still earned his annual salary of nearly $95,000 after allegedly impregnating and marrying a 16-year-old student and sexually molesting two other students during his 32-year career.
It wasn’t because the district didn’t try to fire Olivares.
“The department twice tried to terminate this teacher, and both times, an arbitrator decided to keep him on the payroll,” New York Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte told the New York Post, adding that tenured teachers can be fired only if an arbitrator approves.
In Los Angeles, special education teacher Matthew Kim was finally fired in 2009, some seven years after co-workers and students complained of repeated acts of sexual harassment. He might still be drawing a paycheck if a state judge hadn’t stepped in, blasting a pro-union, three-member state commission that oversees teacher dismissals for its “profound contempt for, and disrespect of, the judgments and orders of the courts of this state.”
Superior Court Judge David Yaffe ruled that the state commission ignored evidence that Kim, who was born with cerebral palsy, was sexually harassing co-workers and students and said the commission was changing “the facts of the case to support its prior decision instead of changing its prior decision to one that is supported by the facts of the case,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Kim earned his $68,000 annual salary throughout the process.
The beleaguered Newark, N.J., school district has had scores of incidents in recent years where teachers misbehaved and got nothing more than a slap on the wrist thanks to their union membership and the protections afforded by tenure.
One teacher, whose name was redacted from official documents, was alleged to have done numerous horrific acts to her students, including spraying a second-grader with mace, slapping other students and placing a stapler over a kid’s lips and threatening to seal them. She was allowed to stay on the job and collect her salary for six months before the school could get rid of her.
An elementary teacher in Newark who swore at, threatened and punched a 10-year-old girl in front of her classmates got nine months’ pay plus vacation and sick time in exchange for quitting.
FoxNews.com's Perry Chiaramonte and Jack Ellis contributed reporting to this story.What should you do if an armed robber enters the store where you are working behind the counter?
The police will tell you to do exactly what they say, because your life and those of the people around you are more important than the contents of the cash register. However, there is another option as demonstrated by a very relaxed worker in New Zealand.
An armed robber entered a chip shop in Christchurch at the end of May and threatened the man behind the counter by pointing a weapon at him. How did the guy respond? He completely ignores the gunman and continues to make souvlaki (a popular Greek fast food dish consisting of grilled meat and vegetables) for a customer. Continuing to ignore the gunman he calls the customer over and hands him the ready-to-eat souvlaki. The gunman looks confused and eventually leaves empty handed.
The CCTV video of the encounter was released by Canterbury police on their Facebook page in an attempt to help identify who the masked gunman is.
The man doing the ignoring in the footage is being referred to as “the chillest chip shop operator ever,” and with good reason. He was taking a big risk, but handled the situation extremely calmly and well. He left the gunman no way of getting the cash he wanted quickly in the hope he would give up. Thankfully he did and nobody was hurt.
If you were put in the same situation would you ignore the guy with the gun? I doubt I would, and this employee has probably experienced similar situations before because he doesn’t even flinch or look surprised. He’s most likely ignoring from experience.
H/T New Zealand HeraldThe CIA and the Cult of Intelligence is a 1974 controversial non-fiction political book written by Victor Marchetti, a former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and John D. Marks, a former officer of the United States Department of State.[1]
Content [ edit ]
The book discusses how the CIA works and how its original purpose (i.e. collecting and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and persons in order to advise public policymakers) has, according to the author, been subverted by its obsession with clandestine operations.
It is the first book the federal government of the United States ever went to court to censor before its publication. The CIA demanded the authors delete 339 passages but they resisted and in the end only 168 passages were deleted.[2] The publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, published the book with blanks for deleted passages and with boldface type for items which the CIA initially wanted deleted, but later withdrew its objections. It is perhaps the earliest published book to adopt this format.[4]
The book was a critically acclaimed bestseller whose publication contributed to the establishment of the Church Committee, a United States Senate select committee to study governmental operations with respect to intelligence activities, in 1975.[citation needed] The book was published in paperback by Dell Publishing in 1975.
Cult of intelligence [ edit ]
Victor Marchetti used the expression "cult of intelligence" to denounce what he viewed as a counterproductive mindset and culture of secrecy, elitism, amorality and lawlessness within and surrounding the Central Intelligence Agency in the service of American imperialism:
There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence Agency. Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government. Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important public influence -- the academic world and the communications media. The cult of intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy. The purpose of the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism. Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader. Today, however, that dream stands tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.[1]
Critical reception [ edit ]
In his 1978 memoir, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA, William Colby, a former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, endorsed Marchetti's critique and adopted the use of the expression "cult of intelligence":
Socially as well as professionally they cliqued together, forming a sealed fraternity. They ate together at their own special favorite restaurants; they partied almost only among themselves; their families drifted to each other, so their defenses did not always have to be up. In this way they increasingly separated themselves from the ordinary world and developed a rather skewed view of that world. Their own dedicated double life became the proper norm, and they looked down on the life of the rest of the citizenry. And out of this grew what was later named -- and condemned -- as the "cult" of intelligence, an inbred, distorted, elitist view of intelligence that held it to be above the normal processes of society, with its own rationale and justification, beyond the restraints of the Constitution, which applied to everything and everyone else.[5]
In popular culture [ edit ]
In reaction to Marchetti's use of the expression "cult of intelligence", it has also come to be used by some writers of conspiracy theory and conspiracy fiction to describe a cabal, with a pyramid-shaped hierarchy, which is fanatically devoted to gathering information, often of an esoteric or occult nature.[6]
See also [ edit ]World events have made it quite clear to most Americans that we should develop more of our own energy sources. Reducing our reliance on foreign oil by exploiting the natural gas under our feet is not only smart foreign policy but also smart environmental policy: Natural gas burns cleaner than coal or oil, and it has already lowered our CO 2 emissions. Natural gas is a win for America and the planet.
But not according to anti-technology environmentalists, who have made all sorts of wild, unsubstantiated claims about the supposed harms of fracking. Three claims in particular are worth examining: (1) Fracking causes a dangerous leakage of methane into drinking water; (2) Fracking causes earthquakes; and (3) Fracking chemicals contaminate drinking water.
Claim #1 should be considered thoroughly debunked. The "documentary" Gasland, which depicted a guy lighting his tap water on fire, kickstarted the anti-fracking movement. The infamous scene, however, was built upon a lie: The methane in his tap water was due either to natural methane migration or to faulty well casings, not to fracking itself. And methane is neither toxic nor likely to cause your house to explode, so the note above the faucet, which read, "Do not drink this water," was nothing more than theatrics.
Even if basic chemistry and physics do not constitute sufficient evidence against Claim #1, then a new study in the journal PNAS should provide the final nail in the coffin. The researchers closely examined eight instances of drinking water contamination associated with the Marcellus and Barnett Shales. Their analysis reconfirmed the emerging consensus: Fracking itself does not cause methane to contaminate groundwater, but shoddy construction work can. Specifically, the researchers blamed leaky annulus cement and production casings.
Claim #2, that fracking causes earthquakes, is also misleading. Anti-fracking activists, including Rachel Maddow, have ignored research that suggests a nearby existing fault is necessary for fracking to trigger an earthquake. And as Bryan Walsh reported in TIME, the earthquakes are relatively minor and caused not by fracking itself but by the wastewater injection wells. (It should also be noted that injection wells are used for other things besides the disposing of wastewater from fracking. These injection wells can also trigger earthquakes.)
Claim #3, that fracking contaminates drinking water with various chemicals, is the only one that might have legs. The EPA detected carcinogenic benzene in Wyoming groundwater, and other researchers found arsenic in Texas groundwater.
If it is true that fracking is responsible for various chemicals leaking into groundwater, then the next step should be to determine if the pollutants are at unsafe levels. If they are, then the government should tighten regulations. Alternatively, Mr. Walsh suggested that companies "work on ways to clean, recycle and reuse wastewater from wells, eliminating the need for the deep injection wells." That's a good idea. It would prevent both minor earthquakes and groundwater contamination.
The EPA is set to publish a comprehensive report on fracking, but it has been delayed until 2016. Until then, there will probably be a lot more fearmongering in need of nuance.
Source: Thomas H. Darrah, Avner Vengosh, Robert B. Jackson, Nathaniel R. Warner, and Robert J. Poreda. "Noble gases identify the mechanisms of fugitive gas contamination in drinking water wells overlying the Marcellus and Barnett Shales." PNAS. Published online before print: 15-Sept-2014. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1322107111If you missed our Kickstarter, you can now pre-order Sense.
Let's Talk About Sleep
We created Sense to be simple, uncomplicated and useful. Sense is the first system that combines the insight of your sleep patterns with the data of the environment in your bedroom, including noise, light, temperature, humidity and particles in the air.
With Sense's Smart Alarm, it can even wake you up in the morning at the right point in your sleep cycle, to avoid that groggy feeling we all hate so much. All easily available via our iPhone and Android applications.
What People Are Saying
“This sleek sleep tracker analyzes your bedroom, and your sleep patterns”
“Sense, Crushes Kickstarter With $120K In A Few Hours”
“Sense tracks your sleep without intruding on it.”
“It could be the answer to your sleeping problems.”
“The idea is that being aware of not only the quality of sleep, but also the room's conditions, can empower users to improve how they sleep.”
"We spend a huge portion of our lives in bed — so maximizing that experience can have huge benefits."
“With Sense, Hello wants you to look beyond how you’re sleeping to why you’re sleeping.”
Sense
Technology has enriched our lives in many ways. But it has its downside, and sleep is one of its biggest victims.
Sense uses technology so we can take back our sleep. Without imposing itself. Without intrusion.
Everything with Sense is designed to fade away and work in the background, letting you just sleep.
When you wake up, see your previous night's sleep and everything that happened.
Sense system includes:
Sense, a beautiful device that sits on your nightstand monitoring the conditions in your bedroom and disturbances at night
Sleep Pill, a small but incredibly sensitive sleep tracking sensor that clips invisibly to your pillow
Mobile applications that bring it all together
The app tells you how well you slept, or didn't, by giving you a unique Sleep Score each night.
You can begin to correlate interruptions in your sleep to external conditions and disturbances. You can play back key sound disturbances via the app to say “Ah, the garbage truck broke my sleep cycle at 3am. I didn’t even realize that.”
If Sense sees a problem with your environment, it lets you know.
Sense even contains a speaker, so it can play white noise, or similar sounds such as pink noise or calming rain, if that helps you sleep better. The speaker is also used to play Sense's Smart Alarm, which wakes you up at the right point in your sleep cycle.
Sleep Pill
Sleep Pill fits snuggly to your pillow
Sense comes with a little device called Sleep Pill. It simply attaches to your pillow and invisibly tracks your sleep at night. You don't need to put on any uncomfortable wearables or remember to charge something or press a button. Sense knows when you're falling asleep, soundly asleep, thrashing about, or waking up. Everything.
Hidden inside such a tiny package is a 6-axis accelerometer and gyroscope, capable of picking up the tiniest of your movements throughout the night. This is all then sent wirelessly via Bluetooth Low Energy and ANT to Sense seamlessly in the background. No worrying about pairing or syncing. It just happens.
There is nothing to remember to charge or plug in; Sleep Pill lasts a whole year. And if it gets tossed in the washing machine, no worries. We've designed it to be completely water-proof and next to indestructible.
Have a partner? No problem. Just clip on a second Sleep Pill and Sense is able to detect each of your sleep pattern's separately, as well as see if your partners snoring or movement is disrupting your sleep.
Sleep Score
Sense's Sleep Score takes into account all of the sensor data and variables that it monitors to generate a score out of 100 for your previous night. It looks at both the environment of your bedroom, such as disturbances during the night or whether your room was too bright for an ideal night’s rest, as well as how you actually slept yourself.
A pitch black room might boost your score by +10, but a car alarm going off repeatedly might lower it -20. Sense will give you a breakdown of your score, begin to notice problem patterns and help you to fix whatever is preventing you from reaching 100 each night.
Smart Alarm
We all have a natural sleep cycle, but a normal alarm will wake you up regardless of when's best for you. Sense's Smart Alarm knows the right time to wake you up, so you will feel alert and refreshed.
Here's how that works. Your Sleep Pill tells Sense when you begin to naturally stir, a signal that you're ready to wake up. If you've set your alarm for close to that time, the Smart Alarm will go off, waking you up at the perfect time for your sleep rhythm.
If you want to be up by 9:30, but you're already half awake at 9:15, then your alarm should go off then, not wait for you to fall deeper into sleep and force you awake later feeling terrible.
Hidden at the top of Sense is a powerful speaker that Sense uses to play the alarm sounds that'll wake you up.
Sensors
Sense contains sophisticated sensors that are able to sense noise - in your bedroom and beyond; pick up on light, whether continuous or flashing; monitor temperature and humidity conditions; and identify particulates such as dust and pollen.
Ambient Light Sensor monitors the levels of light in your room. A good night's sleep is helped dramatically by having a completely dark bedroom without sudden interruptions such as a phone or car headlights.
monitors the levels of light in your room. A good night's sleep is helped dramatically by having a completely dark bedroom without sudden interruptions such as a phone or car headlights. Temperature and Humidity Sensors are able to detect the temperature and humidity throughout the day in your bedroom, helping Sense learn how you like your bedroom and under which conditions you sleep best.
are able to detect the temperature and humidity throughout the day in your bedroom, helping Sense learn how you like your bedroom and under which conditions you sleep best. Particulate Sensor can spot the tiniest of things floating around in the air, so tiny you can't even see most of them. But they are there, and they are potential sleep interruptors for many; more than 50 million people suffer from nasal allergies. If the pollen count is high in your neighborhood and Sense detects a rising level of microscopic particles in your bedroom, you should know.
Wireless, Audio and More
Wi-Fi allows Sense to always be connected to your home network via a powerful Wi-Fi chip inside, letting you know what is going on in your bedroom, even when you're not home.
allows Sense to always be connected to your home network via a powerful Wi-Fi chip inside, letting you know what is going on in your bedroom, even when you're not home. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) lets you control Sense when you're near it. Sense uses BLE for things like setting alarms and changing settings quickly.
lets you control Sense when you're near it. Sense uses BLE for things like setting alarms and changing settings quickly. ANT is a low energy communication protocol that lets Sleep Pill and Sense communicate with one another seamlessly.
is a low energy communication protocol that lets Sleep Pill and Sense communicate with one another seamlessly. Proximity Sensor to see when you wave your hand over Sense to check the current conditions or stop your alarm in the morning.
to see when you wave your hand over Sense to check the current conditions or stop your alarm in the morning. Sensitive Microphone to pick up on snoring, sleep talking and noise disturbances in the night.
to pick up on snoring, sleep talking and noise disturbances in the night. Speaker for playing sounds to help you sleep and wake you up.
for playing sounds to help you sleep and wake you up. RGB LEDs to give Sense its iconic glow.
Design
Too often technology simply looks like just another piece of technology. With Sense, we wanted to design something that would fit into any room. The design itself functions to help all of the intelligent sensors inside work perfectly, while remaining out-of-sight.
Sense is available in two beautiful colors, cotton and charcoal.
Behind the soft-touch polycarbonate shell is an acoustic mesh that wraps around the whole device. This mesh hides and protects everything inside, all while having the sensors function perfectly.
What's Inside?
Sense isn't just a pretty face. It's built to last. Its serious mechanical structure protects four printed circuit boards that are stacked on-top of one another. For us to fit so much into such a small space, we really had to get creative with things. The resulting design is something we think is as beautiful inside, as is out.
Who is Sense For?
Survey after survey reports that most of us—as much as two-thirds—aren't getting enough sleep. Sense is for them. But Sense is also for more than them. Because millions think they're getting better sleep than they really are.
Sleep improves our memory and immune systems; it helps in weight management and dealing with stress; it makes us more creative and productive. We've built Sense for anyone one who cares about those things, which is pretty much everyone.
How We Got Here
For the past few months, we've been heads down designing, prototyping, coding, testing, breaking and building.
Where We Are Now
We recently successfully completed our first EVT build (engineering validation testing). This involved manufacturing, assembling and testing the functionality of all the sensors involved in Sense and Sleep Pill.
We've started doing in-home testing with our team and will be gradually increasing the size of our testing in the coming weeks and months.
Next Steps
We are now starting our second EVT build to incorporate a number of changes and improvements we discovered while testing. After this, we will freeze changes in the electronics and move into DVT (design verification testing) where we will test everything from the mechanicals, to the electrical, to firmware and make sure everything works as designed.
The final stage is doing a PVT (production verification testing) run which is designed to assure the required quality and robustness.
We've selected experienced manufacturing partners that have built and shipped billions of devices. We're willing to bet you own a few of them.
Timeline
August - Kick off DVT
- Kick off DVT September - Ship initial rewards (t-shirts and posters) to Kickstarter backers
- Ship initial rewards (t-shirts and posters) to Kickstarter backers October - Kick off PVT
- Kick off PVT November - Ship initial units to Kickstarter backers
Building with Sense
You'll always have access to your data via our API. Take it, play with it, graph it, do whatever you want with it. It's yours. That's important to us.
We enjoy tinkering with and building on-top of other products we like. Sense will let you have that experience.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on what you might want to build with Sense, and how you could directly interact with the hardware, and the data it collects.
Our Team
We're a team of designers, engineers, and operations staff based in San Francisco, California. Collectively, we have built products and services that millions of people around the world use and love.
Why Kickstarter?
When building a product that is focused on something so personal as sleep, we didn't want to build it hidden away somewhere in silence. Over the coming months, we want to learn from you what your patterns are, what affects your sleep, what you care about and make sure we build the best possible product.
We're also having a lot of fun working on Sense and want share everything we're learning along the way with you.
Rewards
That's all Folks.
Follow Hello on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and our website.
And lastly, thank you; we can't wait for you to use what we're building.
If you missed our Kickstarter, you can now pre-order Sense.Do you fly thumbs? Do you hate the pointy stock stick grips? Do you want to get a better grip?
I bring you MadMike's Low Profile RC Transmitter Stick Thumb Grips, here to solve all your thumb grip needs.
I fly thumbs. I started out with the stock sticks and flew with them for a long time, but got fed up with having to readjust my grip, slipping, and the sharp pointy sticks shredding my thumbs during long winter sessions. I eventually got some alu thumb grips, they were much better, but were concave, too long and I was always pushing on the thin edge during mad acro maneuvers.
So I designed my own grips. They are designed to be as low profile as possible, grippy but not pointy. With a convex shape to get more of a playstation controller feel, instead of the usual concave shape, that way you can keep a good grip on your sticks even on max stick inputs.
Print them slowly, cool, grip side up with some easily removable support. Print with over 30% infill and the highest resolution your printer can handle.
If printed correctly you do not need to thread them, and you can screw them straight onto the sticks by hand.
If you're having trouble with that, you can attach a long m3 screw to a drill and screw it straight trough the hole to thread it. Or just use an actual threading tool.
But do it slowly, so you don't melt and deform the grips.Bulgarian environmentalist staged once again Saturday a protest rally against looming amendments to the Forestry Act.
The march was organized by the coalition of NGOs, known as “For Keeping Nature in Bulgaria” with the support of other civic organizations. Rallies are also held in the cities of Plovdiv and Burgas.
Over one hundred demonstrators reiterated demands to the Members of the Parliament to not pass the amendments which give big investors rights to build in Bulgarian mountains.
In addition to the traditional posters for the protection of forests and against local monopolies, many carried handmade signs reading “I Love the Forest,” “Forests Are Not Only Lumber, They Are Our Lungs and Our Heart. Keep Them,” “Let’s Save the Forests from the Law,” “We Want Forests, Not Concrete!”
The demonstrators remind that the second reading of the amendments is forthcoming in the Parliament and if passed they will doom Bulgaria to cheap felling of State and private woods to build ski lifts and tracks, to landslides and floods.
According to them, the forests in protected areas of Bulgaria, which occupy only 5% of the country, will be the most vulnerable. The new Act will be further proof that the State does not serve public |
38285 | Elf:2 | Received a gift from Trog 38356 | Elf:3 | Entered Level 3 of the Elven Halls 38527 | Elf:3 | Received a gift from Trog 38641 | Elf:3 | Found Nidgher's Antique Armour Boutique. 38935 | Elf:3 | Received a gift from Trog 39173 | Elf:3 | Received a gift from Trog 39177 | Elf:3 | Noticed a Brimstone Fiend 39240 | Elf:3 | Reached XP level 18. HP: 120/161 MP: 11/30 39443 | Elf:3 | Got a faintly glowing longbow 39498 | Elf:3 | Identified the +10,+11 longbow of the Warrior-Mage {venom, rElec Str+3 Stlth--} (You found it on level 3 of the Elven Halls) 39572 | Elf:3 | Bought a blackened cloak for 351 gold pieces 39579 | Elf:3 | Identified the +2 cloak of Broken Taboos {Int+3 Acc+4} (You bought it in a shop on level 3 of the Elven Halls) 40621 | Snake:4 | Received a gift from Trog 41115 | Snake:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Snake Pit 41185 | Snake:5 | Received a gift from Trog 41266 | Snake:5 | Received a gift from Trog 41335 | Snake:5 | Noticed Wiglaf 41349 | Snake:5 | Killed Wiglaf 41349 | Snake:5 | Reached skill level 15 in Fighting 41528 | Snake:5 | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging 41576 | Snake:5 | Received a gift from Trog 41777 | Snake:5 | Noticed Saint Roka 41782 | Snake:5 | Received a gift from Trog 41792 | Snake:5 | Killed Saint Roka 42432 | Snake:5 | Received a gift from Trog 42932 | Snake:5 | Received a gift from Trog 42961 | Snake:5 | Reached XP level 19. HP: 172/172 MP: 0/32 43114 | Snake:5 | Got a serpentine rune of Zot 43949 | Shoals:2 | Killed Jorgrun 44352 | Shoals:3 | Received a gift from Trog 44504 | Shoals:3 | Reached skill level 15 in Evocations 44504 | Shoals:3 | Reached XP level 20. HP: 181/181 MP: 32/32 45071 | Shoals:3 | Got an ancient dagger 45861 | Vaults:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Vaults 45877 | Vaults:1 | Received a gift from Trog 46021 | Vaults:1 | Found Praipap's Gadget Shoppe. 46336 | Vaults:1 | Got a steaming ring mail 46351 | Vaults:1 | Identified the cursed -4 ring mail of the Wonders {+Inv rPois Dam-4} (You found it on level 1 of the Vaults) 47031 | Vaults:1 | Received a gift from Trog 47110 | D:13 | Identified the cursed +2,+1 dagger of Virtue {stab, -Cast rC+ Dex+2} (You found it on level 3 of the Shoals) 47357 | Vaults:2 | Found Zapn's Weapon Boutique. 47384 | Vaults:2 | Found a magical portal. 47392 | WizLab | Entered a wizard's laboratory 48201 | Vaults:2 | Got an ancient cloak 48205 | Vaults:2 | Identified the cursed -1 cloak of Xextuegh {Str+3 Dex+2} (You found it on level 2 of the Vaults) 48653 | Vaults:2 | Received a gift from Trog 48715 | Vaults:2 | Received a gift from Trog 48743 | Vaults:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Stealth 48749 | Vaults:2 | Reached XP level 21. HP: 128/191 MP: 20/34 49039 | Vaults:2 | Received a gift from Trog 49407 | Vaults:3 | Got a faintly glowing executioner's axe 49408 | Vaults:3 | Identified the cursed +2,+8 executioner's axe of the Exiled Lies {chop, rF+ MR+ Str+1} (You found it on level 3 of the Vaults) 49907 | Vaults:3 | Received a gift from Trog 50112 | Vaults:3 | Received a gift from Trog 50155 | Vaults:3 | Found a staircase to the Crypt. 50363 | Vaults:3 | Reached skill level 10 in Throwing 50510 | Vaults:3 | Got a smoking jade ring 50511 | Vaults:3 | Identified the ring of Pokupycw {AC+1 Int+3} (You found it on level 3 of the Vaults) 50614 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 50749 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 50961 | Vaults:4 | Found Zainkiow's Weapon Shop. 51583 | Vaults:4 | Found Twuefav's Weapon Emporium. 51708 | Vaults:4 | Found Stysti's General Store. 51860 | Vaults:4 | Found Qiutur's Magic Scroll Shop. 51866 | Vaults:4 | Found Dieh's General Store. 51898 | Vaults:4 | Reached skill level 21 in Armour 51922 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 51992 | Vaults:4 | Found a staircase to the Hall of Blades. 51998 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 52154 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 52269 | Vaults:4 | Noticed Terence 52288 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 52318 | Vaults:4 | Killed Terence 52614 | Vaults:4 | Noticed Maud 52653 | Vaults:4 | Killed Maud 52661 | Vaults:4 | Reached XP level 22. HP: 171/175 MP: 24/35 52932 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 53582 | Depths:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Depths 53610 | Depths:1 | Received a gift from Trog 53882 | Depths:1 | Received a gift from Trog 54089 | Depths:1 | Found a gateway to Hell. 54212 | Depths:1 | Noticed Certifiable Angus' ghost (powerful MiBe) 54229 | Depths:1 | Killed Certifiable Angus' ghost 54281 | Depths:1 | Received a gift from Trog 54687 | Depths:2 | Found a flickering gateway to a bazaar. 54698 | Bazaar | Entered a bazaar 54698 | Bazaar | Found Sidarhun's Food Boutique. 54698 | Bazaar | Found Twabant's Distillery. 54713 | Bazaar | Found Puoqit Sotuq's Antique Armour Boutique. 54753 | Bazaar | Found Unoh's Gadget Emporium. 54782 | Bazaar | Bought a potion of curing for 20 gold pieces 54782 | Bazaar | Bought a potion of curing for 20 gold pieces 54782 | Bazaar | Bought a potion of curing for 20 gold pieces 54782 | Bazaar | Bought a potion of curing for 20 gold pieces 54809 | Bazaar | Bought a transparent chain mail for 294 gold pieces 54827 | Bazaar | Identified the +4 chain mail "Phyuny" {Str+3 Int+2} (You bought it in a shop in a bazaar) 54827 | Bazaar | Bought a shiny plate armour for 713 gold pieces 54827 | Bazaar | Bought a slimy scale mail for 279 gold pieces 54844 | Bazaar | Identified the +5 scale mail of Dithmenos' Envy {rF+} (You bought it in a shop in a bazaar) 55076 | Depths:2 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns 55113 | Depths:2 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 55173 | Depths:2 | Found a one-way gate leading to the halls of Pandemonium. 56049 | Depths:3 | Received a gift from Trog 56157 | Depths:3 | Received a gift from Trog 56459 | Depths:3 | Received a gift from Trog 56833 | Depths:3 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 56945 | Depths:3 | Reached XP level 23. HP: 179/202 MP: 26/36 56980 | Depths:3 | Received a gift from Trog 57183 | Depths:3 | Received a gift from Trog 57807 | Depths:4 | Received a gift from Trog 57925 | Depths:4 | Found a gateway to a ziggurat. 58102 | Depths:4 | Found a bloodstained altar of Trog. 58182 | Depths:4 | Received a gift from Trog 58426 | Depths:4 | Reached skill level 15 in Dodging 58520 | Depths:4 | Received a gift from Trog 58779 | Depths:4 | Reached skill level 22 in Armour 58825 | Depths:4 | Noticed the Enchantress 58850 | Depths:4 | Killed the Enchantress 58885 | Depths:4 | Got a faerie dragon armour 58903 | Depths:4 | Identified the -1 faerie dragon armour {rN+ Acc+4} (You took it off the Enchantress on level 4 of the Depths) 58981 | Depths:4 | Got a faintly humming plate armour 59003 | Depths:4 | Identified the +5 plate armour "Jaeh" {Dex-3 Int+2} (You found it on level 4 of the Depths) 59062 | Depths:4 | Found a one-way gate to the infinite horrors of the Abyss. 59276 | Depths:4 | Received a gift from Trog 59836 | Depths:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Depths 60066 | Depths:5 | Found a gate to the Realm of Zot. 60424 | Depths:5 | Reached XP level 24. HP: 213/213 MP: 37/37 61016 | Depths:5 | Received a gift from Trog 62974 | Shoals:4 | Noticed Polyphemus 63013 | Shoals:3 | Killed Polyphemus 63013 | Shoals:3 | Reached skill level 5 in Slings 63350 | Shoals:4 | Reached skill level 10 in Stealth 63848 | Shoals:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Shoals 63881 | Shoals:5 | Noticed Ilsuiw 63958 | Shoals:5 | Killed Ilsuiw 64182 | Shoals:5 | Received a gift from Trog 64459 | Shoals:5 | Got a barnacled rune of Zot 64839 | Shoals:5 | Got a faintly glowing bone ring 64843 | Shoals:5 | Lost intelligence. 64946 | Shoals:2 | Identified the ring of Shruem {rF+ Int-5} (You found it on level 5 of the Shoals) 65570 | Blade | Entered the Hall of Blades 66051 | Crypt:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Crypt 67735 | Crypt:2 | Found a staircase to the Tomb. 67974 | Crypt:2 | Noticed Jory 68022 | Crypt:2 | Killed Jory 68874 | Crypt:3 | Reached skill level 23 in Armour 69318 | Crypt:3 | Reached XP level 25. HP: 105/222 MP: 38/38 69484 | Crypt:3 | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul. 70613 | Depths:3 | Identified a +4 rod of destruction (10/10) (You found it on level 3 of the Depths) 71481 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Donald 71488 | Crypt:4 | Killed Donald 71508 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Mara 71510 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Bullerophon's illusion 71562 | Crypt:4 | Killed Bullerophon's illusion 71566 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Bullerophon's illusion 72007 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Bullerophon's illusion 72015 | Crypt:4 | Killed Mara 72021 | Crypt:4 | Killed Mara 72277 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Mennas 72383 | Crypt:4 | Killed Mennas 72734 | Crypt:4 | Noticed Frederick 72744 | Crypt:4 | Killed Frederick 72857 | Crypt:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Crypt 73121 | Crypt:5 | Reached skill level 10 in Slings 73376 | Crypt:5 | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul. 73376 | Crypt:5 | Noticed an ancient lich 73972 | Crypt:5 | Killed an ancient lich 74295 | Crypt:5 | Got an ancient falchion 74296 | Crypt:5 | Identified the +6,-1 falchion "Voudoshro" {flame, Dex+1} (You found it on level 5 of the Crypt) 74355 | Crypt:5 | Got a brightly glowing ice dragon armour 74376 | Crypt:5 | Identified the +4 ice dragon armour of Bitterness {rF- rC++ Str-3 Dex+5 Acc+3} (You took it off a skeletal warrior on level 5 of the Crypt) 75941 | Vaults:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Vaults 75952 | Vaults:4 | Reached skill level 10 in Shields 76249 | Vaults:4 | Received a gift from Trog 76788 | Vaults:5 | Reached skill level 24 in Armour 76788 | Vaults:5 | Reached XP level 26. HP: 218/225 MP: 38/38 76867 | Vaults:5 | Received a gift from Trog 76904 | Vaults:5 | Found Sux Taepp's Book Emporium. 77461 | Vaults:5 | Received a gift from Trog 78286 | Vaults:5 | Received a gift from Trog 78458 | Vaults:5 | Got a silver rune of Zot 78723 | Vaults:5 | Received a gift from Trog 78999 | Vaults:5 | Noticed an ancient lich 79751 | Vaults:5 | Killed an ancient lich 79769 | Vaults:5 | Noticed an ancient lich 79792 | Vaults:5 | Received a gift from Trog 79818 | Vaults:5 | Killed an ancient lich 80005 | Vaults:5 | Got a fine marble ring 80006 | Vaults:5 | Identified the ring of Trog's Displeasure {Hunger- Dex+3 Int+4} (You found it on level 5 of the Vaults) 80819 | Slime:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Pits of Slime 81063 | Slime:2 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 81071 | Slime:2 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns 81299 | Slime:2 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns 81406 | Slime:3 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 3 turns 81416 | Slime:3 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns 81497 | Slime:3 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 81587 | Slime:4 | Reached XP level 27. HP: 228/233 MP: 39/39 81927 | Slime:6 | Entered Level 6 of the Pits of Slime 81942 | Slime:6 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns 81998 | Slime:6 | Received a gift from Trog 82021 | Slime:6 | Found a viscous altar of Jiyva. 82025 | Slime:6 | Noticed the royal jelly 82035 | Slime:6 | Reached skill level 15 in Throwing 82082 | Slime:6 | Killed the royal jelly 82148 | Slime:6 | Reached skill level 25 in Armour 82502 | Slime:6 | Received a gift from Trog 82731 | Slime:6 | Identified a +5 rod of inaccuracy (13/13) (You found it on level 6 of the Pits of Slime) 82756 | Slime:6 | Got a heavily runed ice dragon armour 82777 | Slime:6 | Identified the +5 ice dragon armour of the Alphagorgon {rF- rC++ Dex-3 Int+3} (You found it on level 6 of the Pits of Slime) 82861 | Slime:6 | Got a slimy rune of Zot 86506 | Depths:1 | Received a gift from Trog 86575 | Hell | Entered the Vestibule of Hell 86575 | Hell | Noticed Geryon 86640 | Hell | Killed Geryon 87127 | Hell | Found a gateway to the freezing wastes of Cocytus. 87140 | Hell | Received a gift from Trog 87736 | Hell | Received a gift from Trog 87826 | Hell | Found a gateway to the Iron City of Dis. 87865 | Hell | Found a gateway to the ashen valley of Gehenna. 87877 | Hell | Reached skill level 15 in Slings 88196 | Depths:1 | Received a gift from Trog 88200 | Depths:1 | Reached skill level 15 in Shields 88519 | Hell | Found a gateway to the decaying netherworld of Tartarus. 90252 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 90305 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 90551 | Abyss:1 | Identified Giaf's Papyrus of the Voyage and Cold (You found it on level 1 of the Abyss) 90601 | Abyss:1 | Got a bloodstained leather armour 90602 | Abyss:1 | Identified the +3 leather armour of Death Resistance {Str+2 Dex+3} (You found it on level 1 of the Abyss) 90754 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 90908 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 91150 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 91175 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 92122 | Abyss:1 | Gained mutation: Space occasionally distorts in your vicinity. [a shining eye] 92146 | Abyss:1 | Paralysed by accursed screaming for 1 turns 92319 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 92794 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 92819 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 92877 | Abyss:1 | Got a slimy steel ring 92887 | Abyss:1 | Identified the cursed ring "Febryblo" {Ice Str+1 Int+5} (You found it on level 1 of the Abyss) 92887 | Abyss:1 | Identified a +0 pair of boots of running (You found it on level 1 of the Abyss) 93351 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 93733 | Abyss:1 | Lost intelligence. 93918 | Abyss:1 | Noticed an ancient lich 93930 | Abyss:1 | Killed an ancient lich 93964 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 95689 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 95976 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 96320 | Abyss:1 | Noticed an ancient lich 96343 | Abyss:1 | Killed an ancient lich 96521 | Abyss:1 | Reached skill level 26 in Armour 96824 | Abyss:1 | Noticed an ancient lich 96836 | Abyss:1 | Killed an ancient lich 97161 | Abyss:1 | Found a radiant altar of Vehumet. 97436 | Abyss:1 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 97904 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 97916 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 97970 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 98183 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 98300 | Abyss:2 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 98728 | Abyss:3 | Found an iron altar of Okawaru. 98850 | Abyss:3 | Received a gift from Trog 99004 | Abyss:3 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 100028 | Abyss:3 | Got an abyssal rune of Zot 100034 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 100058 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 100058 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 100087 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 100102 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 100371 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 100588 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 100773 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 101138 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 101307 | Abyss:1 | Found an iron altar of Okawaru. 101451 | Abyss:1 | Found a blossoming altar of Fedhas. 101647 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 101808 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 101922 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 102155 | Abyss:2 | Received a gift from Trog 102245 | Abyss:2 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 102355 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 102368 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 102592 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 102650 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 102818 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 103226 | Abyss:1 | Received a gift from Trog 103261 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 103336 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 103498 | Abyss:1 | Noticed an ancient lich 103514 | Abyss:1 | Killed an ancient lich 103619 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 103626 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 104002 | Abyss:1 | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh. 104301 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 104310 | Depths:4 | Voluntarily entered the Abyss. 104759 | Abyss:1 | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh. 104781 | Abyss:1 | Reached skill level 27 in Armour 104866 | Abyss:1 | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu. 104935 | Abyss:1 | Gained mutation: You are partially covered in slimy green scales (AC +2). [potion of beneficial mutation] 105057 | Abyss:1 | Found an iron altar of Okawaru. 105133 | Abyss:1 | Got an opalescent robe 105134 | Abyss:1 | Identified the cursed -1 robe of the Journeyman {+Inv rN+ SInv} (You found it on level 1 of the Abyss) 105197 | Depths:4 | Escaped the Abyss 105365 | Depths:1 | Received a gift from Trog 106944 | Zot:1 | Entered LeveIn compiling this 10 best farming games list, we realized how pretty much every real time farming game is the same. They just change the words. You always build some form of housing, food and even weapons (if it's a military game). There's some form of money and special achievement credits, and most of these games are free, but you're welcome to pay real money to speed up your progress and increase your status. We're addicted to these games, so any game that put some twist on the formula stood out. Honorable mentions to Battle Nation, The Sims, Paradise Cove, Tiny Monsters, Camelot and all the other solid farming games that got edged off this list. But for now, let's dive into the 10 best farming games you can find in the App Store.
10 Airport City
Game Insight, LLC
So the first game on our Top 10 Farming Games list isn't a farm, but rather an airport. The industry of air travel actually makes Airport City feel more practical than a fictional farm. At its core, Airport City may still be building structures and balancing assets, but you feel like you can make the difference between people making their connections or getting diverted!
9 Crime City Funzio, Inc What if instead of building a farm, you want to destroy someone else's farm? And instead of a farm it's a city? Crime City makes our 10 Best Farming Games list because it's kind of like Grand Theft Auto without worrying about driving or fighting with a controller. You get the thrill of stealing and assaulting with the obsession of building your own empire!
8 Smurfs' Village Beeline Interactive, Inc. Now who could resist building their very own Smurf village? Yes, all they did was change the money to smurfberries, but they did tie the quests in with the Smurfs' personalities so that works. We love living in the world we grew up watching via this mobile interactive experience.
7 Snoopy's Street Fair Beeline Europe Even more enticing than The Smurfs is Charlie Brown, another world that captures our childhood imagination. Building a farm (in this case a street fair), is even more obsessive when you get to interact with Peanuts characters and use materials from Charles Schultz's world. As achievements, you can even unlock classic Charles Schultz comic strips, so you may work harder on the street fair just so you can read more funnies. It's nice to include some farms of familiar fictional places in our 10 Best Farming Games list.
6 Galaxy Life: Pocket Adventures Digital Chocolate, Inc. A farm is a farm is a farm, right? Well, when your farm begins on another planet, it's a whole new world -- literally. In Galaxy Life, you'll be obsessed with adapting to the space aged fantasy environments, and there's a combat component to speed things along. You can't just leave your Galaxy alone for hours while your community builds and harvest. You've got to fight off alien attacks or your new town isn't going to last.
5 Zoo World KaiXin With the exception of Crime City or the stressful airline industry, what we like most about farming games is that they're a serene experience. Zoo World lets you build a community of animals. Zoo World also gets you more invested than some of the above games on the 10 best farming games list by letting you match animals together and hunt for rescues, as well as playing mini games to feed your creatures. We're a'' pet owners so we can't help having compassion for even virtual animals in a game.
4 Sweet Shop Breaktime Studios We'll take you to the candy shop and let you lick the lollipop. No, we mean literally -- in this game you build a candy store and make your favorite candy. We love making a plan for our candy stock and collecting the ingredients we need to make them. It makes your achievements more personal since you decided to make honeycomb over lemon drops or whatever helps your sugar fix. Like lollipops!
3 E.T.: The Green Planet Chillingo What ever happened to Elliott's buddy E.T. after he left Earth and went home? Now we all get to find out in this charming game that takes place right after the movie. E.T.'s planet is dying and he must cultivate it with strange and exotic plants, while finding the items needed to call Elliott back on Earth. You'll be farming like crazy in this one, and maybe even spending a buck or two despite its free price tag. (Inflation hits everywhere, even if you're not on Earth.)
2 Gnome Village Disney We got truly addicted to Gnome Village. What woodland creature can we rescue and put to work? What can we harvest to make them work faster? What's beyond that edge of the frame? Let's clear it out to expand our board. All these factors make us want to keep playing, and make it a top pick for the 10 best farming games.
1 The Simpsons: Tapped Out EA The Simpsons: Tapped Out is not only a great farming game where you get to build your own Springfield. It's also a brilliant spoof of farming games. From Homer's jokes about charging pay content (like the game's valuable donuts), to the very explanation of why Springfield can be rebuilt and placed out of order, Tapped Out is irreverent like the best Simpsons episodes. Every task/quest is a new joke, but you'll be addicted to making the best Springfield you can. With frequent content updates, like the Treehouse of Horrors Halloween assets, The Simpsons: Tapped Out could go on as long as the 25+ year run of The Simpsons TV show, which is why it's our #1 pick for our 10 best farming games list.Pauper Delver is not dead. Cloud of Faeries may be banned, but their blue brethren will carry on.
The easiest conversion of Mono-Blue Delver is to substitute the four banned Faeries with four new ones. Faerie Miscreant is the clear frontrunner for this appointment.
Out with the Old
Free spells are good spells, and Cloud of Faeries was a very good spell. The interaction between Spellstutter Sprite and Cloud of Faeries formed the core synergy of the Delver decks. All of the other cards in the traditional versions of the Delver deck work perfectly with the two Faerie cards.
Delver of Secrets into a turn-two Cloud of Faeries representing Spellstutter Sprite was a blue mage's dream. This gave the Delver deck 5 points of flying damage on turn three.
Countering an opposing aggressive player’s 2-drop with this combo was backbreaking. Not only would the aggressive player be left with nothing to show for his or her turn-two play, but he or she was presented with an additional 2 points of damage a turn.
The combination of these cards bullied aggressive decks centered on 2-drops out of the metagame. The only way to ensure your turn-two play would resolve was to play two 1-drops. Goblins and Stompy developed around this principal.
Ninja of the Deep Hours also benefited from Cloud of Faeries. With 4 mana available, Cloud of Faeries could ninjutsu the Ninja into play and be replayed to fuel and represent a Spellstutter Sprite or Counterspell. Returning Spellstutter Sprite with a Ninja is more impressive with another Faerie in play.
Cloud of Faeries could wear a Bonesplitter with the best of them, and to top it all off, in the situation in which none of the above was relevant, you could even cycle Cloud of Faeries away!
Geeze, what a card.
In With the New
Faerie Miscreant has some big shoes to fill.
Faerie Miscreant still fuels Spellstutter Sprite, but it comes with an opportunity cost. The days of countering your opponents turn-two play and shoving 5 points of flying power into the red zone are over. Delver players now must decide between their old turn-one plays of Delver of Secrets or Preordain and setting up a Faerie Miscreant–fueled turn-two Spellstutter Sprite. This is Faerie Miscreant’s greatest weakness.
Faerie Miscreant as early as possible to give Spellstutter Sprite the highest chance of impacting the game. This will lead to more turn-two sequences of a cantrip into a Faerie Miscreant. Turn two should be a turn for Delver's opponents to resolve a meaningful spell.
The good news for Delver players is Faerie Miscreant might be better at setting up Ninja of the Deep Hours than its predecessor. With Faerie Miscreant, Ninja of the Deep Hours can more reliably hit the table on turn two. On the following turn, players will have to decide between replaying the Miscreant and casting a cantrip—a small price to play for landing an early Ninja of the Deep Hours. With 3 mana available, Faerie Miscreant can be played after enabling ninjutsu. These are plays that Cloud of Faeries could not facilitate.
Returning Cloud of Faeries with the Ninja is more mana-efficient than returning Faerie Miscreant on or after turn four. This is not that big of a drawback because the Delver player would rather rebuy a Spellstutter Sprite trigger during this stage of the game. Also, getting an attack in with Ninja of the Deep Hours brings the Delver player one card closer to a second Miscreant. That’s not to mention that ninjutsu’ing one of two Faerie Miscreants rivals the value generated by Mulldrifter.
Faerie Miscreant can also bring the beats by picking up a Bonesplitter and attacking on turn two. This is not going to be the optimal play a majority of the time, but it is something to be aware of.
The ability to draw a card off additional Faerie Miscreants is where the power of this card lies, but this power comes with a very high setup cost. Knowing when to protect a Faerie Miscreant will be an important skill for Delver players to acquire.
1 Mana Is a Lot More Mana
Delver decks who adopt Faerie Miscreant are going to be slightly more constrained on mana than the Cloud of Faeries builds were.
1-Mana Faerie creates conflict in spots where a free Faerie would not. This comes at the cost of not finding the spot for a Preordain. Keeping up two pieces of permission could carry the opportunity cost of not casting a Faerie Miscreant in the midgame. Delver players will have to make decisions based on meaningful opportunity costs.
Spellstutter Sprite is less effective without Cloud of Faeries. An opening hand with Ponder and Spellstutter Sprite on the play could allow for an empowered Sprite trigger on turn two if Cloud of Faeries was drawn off the Ponder. Now, this same hand cannot allow for a turn-two, empowered Spellstutter Sprite trigger. So, some percentage of the time, the Delver player will have to decide if it is better to run out a Miscreant and a cantrip on turn two or hold up a Spellstutter Sprite for one.
It is in these scenarios, Snap also loses some power but gains a touch more utility. It will be harder to return Spellstutter Sprite to counter a meaningful spell with the additional cost of empowering the triggered ability. However, Snapping one of two Faerie Miscreants allows Snap to cycle.
The higher mana and opportunity cost associated with setting up Spellstutter Sprite will put a lot of pressure on the deck’s early counterspells. Counterspell might need a non-Deprive counterpart to plug the turn-two hole created in traditional builds adopting Faerie Miscreant. Deprive further constrains the deck’s early mana development and costs 2 mana. Deprive does shine in the late game, when any of its replacements would be weaker. Since it will be harder to find spots to cast Preordain and Ponder, I would be surprised if Logic Knot would be a viable choice. Daze is my initial pick for the turn-two counterspell.
I do not believe that Daze or Gush is negatively affected by the same mana-development concerns that affect Deprive. The difference between 0 and 2 mana is a lot in this new build. Daze should see a surge in popularity (if not gated by availability) because it is a way to counter a 2-drop on turn two after casting a Faerie Miscreant and a cantrip. If anything, I think Daze will benefit from the banning of Cloud of Faeries. By the time Gush is a viable play, the Delver player should be able to alleviate some of the mana pressures presented by the 1-mana Faerie. Drawing more cards means increasing the ability to draw multiple Faerie Miscreants.
Other Directions
One way to alleviate the opportunity cost of playing Faerie Miscreant is to back it up with more 1-mana spells. Additional 1-mana creatures can really help Miscreant function without impacting the development turns. If the deck is designed to play two 1-mana spells on turn two, rather than keep up countermagic, Faerie Miscreant becomes better.
This build embraces the aggressive side of Delver. Delver Bear could make a comeback in an attempt to make the deck more mana-efficient while impacting the board. Vapor Snag and Snap can handle any problematic creatures that fell through the cracks in the early turns. Countermagic will keep the opponent off balance long enough for the aggressive creatures to put away the game.
Magic Online player Tedlyted was already playing Faerie Miscreant alongside Cloud of Faeries in a Blue Zoo deck. Below is a potential adaptation of the deck for after the bans:
Trading in four Cloud of Faeries for an additional Daze and three Phantasmal Bears gives the deck some more aggression while providing additional protecting for an early Cloudfin Raptor. Unfortunately, losing Cloud of Faeries takes away Dream Stalker’s free target. The addition of Phantasmal Bear makes up for this loss by allowing the deck to still evolve Cloudfin Raptor into a 2/3 creature on turn two. Daze and Spellstutter Sprite are the |
on the basis of one newspaper article making unproven allegations against respectable charities?
Would he have acted so hastily if they had not been Muslim charities?
Why didn’t he contact ACEVO, the MCF or Human Appeal and ask questions before cancelling the event?
And what about free speech?
Most worrying of all, Lord Feldman’s panicky response to a single newspaper article confirms the dark fears felt by many that the prime minister’s counter-terrorism strategy is about alienating and not engaging with British Muslims.
- Peter Oborne was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013. He recently resigned as Chief Political Columnist of the Daily Telegraph. His books include The Triumph of the Political Class; The Rise of Political Lying;and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.
Alex Delmar-Morgan contributed to this report.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Photo: British Conservative Party Chairman Lord Andrew Feldman arrives for a weekly cabinet meeting in Downing Street, central London, on May 12, 2015 (AFP)The Offbeat Bride: Teukie, radical nanny
Their offbeat partner: Sky, ice cream store manager
Date and location of wedding: Sea Breeze Point, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL — April 3, 2015
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
Our wedding wasn't as much about the marriage itself as it was about the celebration. We decided to tack it onto a family vacation last minute with only about two months of planning time! Gay marriage had just gone legal in Florida less than a month earlier. We decided on an Up-themed wedding because it's a very special movie to us, and it seemed appropriate for a Disney wedding.
Disney provided a lot, but we also DIYed some special touches. We wanted to make it as whimsical and fun as possible, and make sure everyone felt like they were involved. I have four nephews, and we gave each of them a special job to do.
Tell us about the ceremony:
We processed in to "He's a Pirate" from Pirates of the Caribbean. My two youngest nephews were our flower boys — they both had really different techniques that were adorable! My older two nephews led us in; "Sky of Honor" and "Best Phoe," as we called them.
My brother officiated with a really funny and touching ceremony. My two oldest nephews also gave readings that they found themselves (with some help from my mom). They took their jobs as our attendants very seriously! Lastly, Sky and I wrote our own vows and did a ring exchange. We kept things short and sweet to make sure we had plenty of time for pictures and cake. Our recessional was "Seize the Day" from Newsies.
Tell us about your reception:
Our Disney wedding planner was brilliant! She directed our staged exit photo (with petal toss) like a pro. Our Disney cake was amazing. In fact, we regret not eating more of it. We had photo booth props and instant cameras for the kiddos, and our photographers made quick work of portraits before everyone dug into the cake. Watching my youngest nephews get progressively more and more covered in cake was a highlight.
We had Up-themed goodies for all of our guests, and our hand-painted alternative wedding ducks were also on display. Disney weddings often attract looky-loos, and we were a little concerned, but in the end we didn't even notice. After the reception, we walked down the boardwalk for more photos and ice cream. Our photographers were amazing and did an incredible job of catching all the excitement, joy, and silliness.
What was your most important lesson learned?
We were really committed to finding clothes that felt true to our genders, so neither of us wore a gown or a suit. We had a really hard time finding our outfits. We wanted to capture all of the colors of the Up movie and wanted no black clothing at our wedding. We didn't have much time, and in early spring the stores had a really limited selection for a colorful Florida wedding.
I ended up ordering a bunch of things off of eBay, but even then I had to alter them. I ordered my long vest off of Etsy because I knew I'd never find anything my size and gender in the stores. When it arrived, it was totally wonky but there was no time to find something else.
Luckily, we found a great tailor who altered and bustled it quickly and without judgment. At one point, I bought a lacy underwire bra because my bra was showing under my top. But the dysphoria was huge, and I almost cried in the shop. When I told my bestie about it, ze was like "Do you really want to feel that way at your wedding?" So I went with the bra I was comfortable in.
My partner and I went to the mall practically every weekend looking for clothes for them. It was really hard, but in the end we both ended up with the perfect outfits and were totally true to ourselves, which felt awesome. Both my mom and sister had a hard time finding dresses in the right colors, too. My sister ended up wearing orange, the same color as me, which was less than ideal, but in the end was fine.
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This slideshow requires JavaScript.ABSTRACT
Background: Total or red meat intake has been shown to be associated with a higher risk of mortality in Western populations, but little is known of the risks in Asian populations. Objective: We examined temporal trends in meat consumption and associations between meat intake and all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Asia. Design: We used ecological data from the United Nations to compare country-specific meat consumption. Separately, 8 Asian prospective cohort studies in Bangladesh, China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan consisting of 112,310 men and 184,411 women were followed for 6.6 to 15.6 y with 24,283 all-cause, 9558 cancer, and 6373 cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths. We estimated the study-specific HRs and 95% CIs by using a Cox regression model and pooled them by using a random-effects model. Results: Red meat consumption was substantially lower in the Asian countries than in the United States. Fish and seafood consumption was higher in Japan and Korea than in the United States. Our pooled analysis found no association between intake of total meat (red meat, poultry, and fish/seafood) and risks of all-cause, CVD, or cancer mortality among men and women; HRs (95% CIs) for all-cause mortality from a comparison of the highest with the lowest quartile were 1.02 (0.91, 1.15) in men and 0.93 (0.86, 1.01) in women. Conclusions: Ecological data indicate an increase in meat intake in Asian countries; however, our pooled analysis did not provide evidence of a higher risk of mortality for total meat intake and provided evidence of an inverse association with red meat, poultry, and fish/seafood. Red meat intake was inversely associated with CVD mortality in men and with cancer mortality in women in Asian countries.
See corresponding editorial on page 865.
INTRODUCTION
Asia is experiencing marked changes in lifestyle and disease patterns, similar to those seen in Western countries (1, 2), with projected increases in the proportions of deaths from cancer, ischemic heart disease, and cardiovascular disease (CVD)4 (3). Therefore, it is important to identify modifiable risk factors, such as diet, which may be responsible for the rising rates of chronic disease in Asian populations.
Meat intake varies across regions and countries in Asia, with relatively low consumption in certain countries compared with others in the continent (4). Meat intake, specifically red meat, has been associated with an increased risk of mortality in Western populations (5, 6), although further studies are warranted in populations that consume different quantities and types of meat and have dissimilar confounding factors. Many mechanisms supporting a detrimental effect of meat have been proposed in relation to specific outcomes: an adverse lipid profile and free radical generation as a result of high intakes of SFA and iron, mutagens generated by high-temperature cooking (7, 8), and N-nitroso compounds formed in processed meat and endogenously from heme iron (9). The different rates of change and economic development in Asian countries provide a fertile environment for conducting etiologic research on chronic disease, because it provides a large range of exposures and a variety of endpoints. We initiated the Asia Cohort Consortium (ACC) to understand chronic disease etiology in Asia, where the association between dietary factors and chronic diseases has not been extensively studied. In the current study, we 1) compared ecological trends in meat intake over the past 37 y between Asia and the United States and 2) assessed whether meat intake was associated with all-cause, cancer and CVD mortality by using individual, prospective data from a pooled analysis of Asian cohort studies involving 296,721 men and women.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Meat consumption in Asia
We compared temporal trends in meat consumption in Bangladesh, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States with the use of the FAO database (10). We compared meat consumption in Asia with that in the United States because of high meat consumption in the United States and supportive evidence for high mortality with high meat intake in a large US cohort study (5, 6). The FAO Statistical Database, the world’s largest online agricultural database (available at http://faostat.fao.org/, accessed 13 June 2012), details historical and chronologic population-based production and disappearance data (referred to as food availability). For livestock production and product consumption, FAO has compiled relevant data—including agricultural production, fish production, trade, food supply, food balance sheets, supply utilization accounts, and population size—submitted by member countries in the form of replies to FAO questionnaires (11). The FAO Statistical Database provides data on per capita consumption of meat, beef, pork, poultry, and fish and seafood and defines total meat (excluding fish) as the sum of beef, poultry, pork, mutton, goat, and game. Per capita consumption (kcal/person per year) is the total amount of food in each commodity available for each individual in the total population during the period 1970–2007, representing the average amount available for the population as a whole.
Study population
The ACC was described elsewhere (12). For the meat and mortality analysis, a total of 8 prospective cohort studies from Bangladesh, mainland China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan were included. We excluded participants who did not provide food-frequency questionnaires (FFQs) (n = 8177) and those for whom time under study was missing (n = 467). A total of 296,721 (112,310 men and 184,411 women) were included in this analysis. Each cohort collected cause-specific deaths through linkage to death registries or active follow-up. The study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee for all participating cohort studies and by the institutional review board of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Assessment of dietary and nondietary factors
Each study assessed food intake with a validated FFQ consisting of the frequency of intake, further qualified as specified portions (weights, numbers, or servings) or serving sizes (eg, a half bowl, one bowl) (13–18). The number of items for red meat, poultry, and fish varied from 6 to 17 across studies (see Supplemental Table 1 under “Supplemental data” in the online issue). We quantified food-group intake in grams per day or servings per day using the reported frequency of intake of each relevant food item and study-specific portion sizes. Data on age, education, alcohol intake, tobacco smoking, and residence were collected through self-administered questionnaire or interview. Height and weight were self-reported or directly measured. BMI was calculated by dividing weight (in kg) by the square of height (in m).
Statistical analysis
Using individual-level data, we calculated study-specific HRs and 95% CIs using a Cox proportional hazards model; age was used as the time metric. Person-years of follow-up were estimated from the baseline entry date until the date of death, loss to follow-up (if applicable), or end of follow-up, whichever came first. Baseline age (<40, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, and ≥80 y), educational level (less than secondary, secondary, and more than secondary school graduate), alcohol intake (continuous), urban or rural residence, total energy intake (continuous), fruit and vegetable intake (continuous), BMI (in kg/m2; <18.5, 18.5–19.9, 20.0–24.9, 25.0–29.9, and ≥30.0), and tobacco smoking (never smoked, former smoker, current with <20 pack-years of smoking, and current with ≥20 pack-years of smoking) were adjusted for as potential confounding factors in the multivariate analyses. Outcomes of interest included all-cause mortality and cancer and CVD mortality. Because the number of food items varied across studies, in the main analysis, we obtained HRs and 95% CIs using study- and sex-specific quartiles of grams per day of each food group. For males and females separately, cohort-specific HRs were pooled to compute cross-cohort estimates by using a random-effects model. The random-effects model also produced a trend test for pooled HR estimates. Tertiles rather than quartiles of poultry intake were used to ensure an adequate number of cases in each category. In supplemental analyses, we computed pooled cohort HRs from cohort-specific estimates computed by using uniform cutoffs rather than cohort-specific cutoffs to construct intake quartiles and tertiles. In other supplemental analyses, we included 2 additional cohort studies that offered nonquantitative dietary intake data: 1) the Korean Multi-Center Cancer Cohort Study (19) and 2) the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Life Span Study cohort (20), which had assessed diet by using nonquantitative FFQs (data on frequency of intake only). We tested for heterogeneity across studies using a likelihood ratio test that compared random- and fixed-effect models for pooled cohort effect estimates. Because socioeconomic status may be related to meat intake and disease pattern in Asian populations and because meat intake varies over time, we also examined whether the associations varied by educational level. Also, we examined whether BMI, smoking status, or baseline period modified the associations. All statistical tests were 2-sided and P values <0.05 were considered to be statistically significant. We used SAS version 9.3 (SAS Institute) for the analyses.
RESULTS
Consumption trends using ecologic data
We examined temporal trends in per capita consumption of meat, beef, pork, poultry, and fish/seafood with the use of the international FAO database (Figure 1 and Figure 2). We compared meat-consumption patterns between the United States and Asian populations because there have been numerous meat- and chronic disease–related studies conducted in the United States (5, 6, 21–23). Ecological data indicate an increase in meat intake in Asian countries. Per capita consumption of meat (excluding fish) in the United States was >2 times that in China, Japan, and South Korea and >33 times that in Bangladesh in the 1990s and 2000s (Figure 1). In 2007, average meat consumption in the United States was 122.8 kg/y, whereas consumption in China, Japan, and South Korea ranged from 46.1 to 55.9 kg/y. Per capita beef consumption has decreased to some degree in the past decade in the United States but still remains substantially higher than that in Asian countries. Beef consumption increased in China, Japan, and Korea from 1970 to 2007. Although beef consumption in the United States remains higher, the gap with Japan or Korea has progressively decreased; in 1970, the difference was 18-fold; in 1980, it was 10-fold; in 1990, it was 5-fold; and in 2007, it was 4-fold. Per capita consumption of pork has continued to rise in China, Japan, and Korea; consumption in China and Korea has now surpassed consumption in the United States. Per capita consumption of poultry has been rising in China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, but the difference between the United States and Asian countries remained substantial. Per capita consumption of fish and seafood in Japan and Korea has remained higher than that in the United States; consumption in China has risen to a level similar to that in the United States but that is still substantially lower than that in Japan and Korea.
FIGURE 1. View largeDownload slide Meat (A–D) and seafood (E) consumption (FAO data) in Bangladesh, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Meat (A) includes beef, poultry, pork, mutton, goat, and game.
FIGURE 1. View largeDownload slide Meat (A–D) and seafood (E) consumption (FAO data) in Bangladesh, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Meat (A) includes beef, poultry, pork, mutton, goat, and game.
FIGURE 2. View largeDownload slide Percentages of per capita consumption in 2000 in Bangladesh, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
FIGURE 2. View largeDownload slide Percentages of per capita consumption in 2000 in Bangladesh, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
When we compared the proportions of per capita consumption of beef, pork, poultry, and fish/seafood in Bangladesh, China, Japan, and Korea with those in the United States, using the 2000 FAO database, the proportions of fish/seafood consumption in Asian countries were higher than those in the United States (34%–85% compared with 15%), whereas total meat consumption (largely beef and poultry, totaling 64%) in the United States was higher than that in Asian countries (Figure 2). China consumed the highest proportion of pork (45%) and Bangladesh and Japan consumed the highest proportion of fish/seafood (85% in Bangladesh and 60% in Japan).
Individual consumption and mortality
In our pooled analysis of the ACC data, the mean follow-up period ranged from 6.6 to 15.6 y. Most studies began enrollment in the early to mid 1990s (Table 1). Mean intakes of red meat and poultry in men were 14.2–92.3 and 4.6–22.3 g/d, respectively (Table 2). In women, mean intakes of red meat ranged from a low of 9.9 g/d in the Ohsaki National Health Insurance Cohort Study to 50.9 g/d in the Shanghai Women’s Health Study. Poultry intake ranged from 2.8 to 15.4 g/d in women. Mean fish and seafood intake was >45 g/d in men and >36 g/d in women.
TABLE 1 Enrollment year, study, and sex Follow-up period2 Baseline cohort size Age range at entry Total energy intake3 No. of all deaths No. of cancer deaths No. of CVD deaths y kcal/d 1990–1992 JPHC1 (males) 14.2 ± 3.7 20,595 40–59 2124 (879) 2300 953 600 JPHC1 (females) 14.7 ± 3.1 22,443 40–59 1398 (440) 1128 541 284 1992–1995 JPHC2 (males) 11.2 ± 3.2 26,721 40–69 1675 (684) 3662 1621 882 JPHC2 (females) 11.7 ± 2.6 29,690 40–69 1087 (330) 1805 784 478 1990 Miyagi (males) 12.6 ± 2.7 21,536 40–64 1885 (886) 2335 838 424 Miyagi (females) 12.9 ± 2.3 23,430 40–64 1307 (438) 1152 421 202 1995 Ohsaki (males) 9.8 ± 3.8 23,462 40–80 1757 (829) 4605 1649 1305 Ohsaki (females) 10.0 ± 3.8 25,443 40–80 1266 (461) 2606 769 919 2000–2002 HEALS (males) 6.6 ± 1.1 4884 20–75 2806 (967) 284 45 130 HEALS (females) 6.6 ± 0.8 6512 17–61 2431 (850) 107 14 41 1992–1993 Seoul (males) 14.7 ± 1.7 13,600 25–82 2397 (497) 808 424 145 1996–2000 SWHS (females) 8.6 ± 1.2 74,933 40–71 1634 (496) 2908 1346 804 1990–1992 CVDFACTS (males) 14.9 ± 3.6 1512 18–92 2325 (943) 332 80 93 CVDFACTS (females) 15.6 ± 2.7 1960 18–87 1716 (667) 251 73 66 Total 24,283 9558 6373 Enrollment year, study, and sex Follow-up period2 Baseline cohort size Age range at entry Total energy intake3 No. of all deaths No. of cancer deaths No. of CVD deaths y kcal/d 1990–1992 JPHC1 (males) 14.2 ± 3.7 20,595 40–59 2124 (879) 2300 953 600 JPHC1 (females) 14.7 ± 3.1 22,443 40–59 1398 (440) 1128 541 284 1992–1995 JPHC2 (males) 11.2 ± 3.2 26,721 40–69 1675 (684) 3662 1621 882 JPHC2 (females) 11.7 ± 2.6 29,690 40–69 1087 (330) 1805 784 478 1990 Miyagi (males) 12.6 ± 2.7 21,536 40–64 1885 (886) 2335 838 424 Miyagi (females) 12.9 ± 2.3 23,430 40–64 1307 (438) 1152 421 202 1995 Ohsaki (males) 9.8 ± 3.8 23,462 40–80 1757 (829) 4605 1649 1305 Ohsaki (females) 10.0 ± 3.8 25,443 40–80 1266 (461) 2606 769 919 2000–2002 HEALS (males) 6.6 ± 1.1 4884 20–75 2806 (967) 284 45 130 HEALS (females) 6.6 ± 0.8 6512 17–61 2431 (850) 107 14 41 1992–1993 Seoul (males) 14.7 ± 1.7 13,600 25–82 2397 (497) 808 424 145 1996–2000 SWHS (females) 8.6 ± 1.2 74,933 40–71 1634 (496) 2908 1346 804 1990–1992 CVDFACTS (males) 14.9 ± 3.6 1512 18–92 2325 (943) 332 80 93 CVDFACTS (females) 15.6 ± 2.7 1960 18–87 1716 (667) 251 73 66 Total 24,283 9558 6373 View Large
TABLE 1 Enrollment year, study, and sex Follow-up period2 Baseline cohort size Age range at entry Total energy intake3 No. of all deaths No. of cancer deaths No. of CVD deaths y kcal/d 1990–1992 JPHC1 (males) 14.2 ± 3.7 20,595 40–59 2124 (879) 2300 953 600 JPHC1 (females) 14.7 ± 3.1 22,443 40–59 1398 (440) 1128 541 284 1992–1995 JPHC2 (males) 11.2 ± 3.2 26,721 40–69 1675 (684) 3662 1621 882 JPHC2 (females) 11.7 ± 2.6 29,690 40–69 1087 (330) 1805 784 478 1990 Miyagi (males) 12.6 ± 2.7 21,536 40–64 1885 (886) 2335 838 424 Miyagi (females) 12.9 ± 2.3 23,430 40–64 1307 (438) 1152 421 202 1995 Ohsaki (males) 9.8 ± 3.8 23,462 40–80 1757 (829) 4605 1649 1305 Ohsaki (females) 10.0 ± 3.8 25,443 40–80 1266 (461) 2606 769 919 2000–2002 HEALS (males) 6.6 ± 1.1 4884 20–75 2806 (967) 284 45 130 HEALS (females) 6.6 ± 0.8 6512 17–61 2431 (850) 107 14 41 1992–1993 Seoul (males) 14.7 ± 1.7 13,600 25–82 2397 (497) 808 424 145 1996–2000 SWHS (females) 8.6 ± 1.2 74,933 40–71 1634 (496) 2908 1346 804 1990–1992 CVDFACTS (males) 14.9 ± 3.6 1512 18–92 2325 (943) 332 80 93 CVDFACTS (females) 15.6 ± 2.7 1960 18–87 1716 (667) 251 73 66 Total 24,283 9558 6373 Enrollment year, study, and sex Follow-up period2 Baseline cohort size Age range at entry Total energy intake3 No. of all deaths No. of cancer deaths No. of CVD deaths y kcal/d 1990–1992 JPHC1 (males) 14.2 ± 3.7 20,595 40–59 2124 (879) 2300 953 600 JPHC1 (females) 14.7 ± 3.1 22,443 40–59 1398 (440) 1128 541 284 1992–1995 JPHC2 (males) 11.2 ± 3.2 26,721 40–69 1675 (684) 3662 1621 882 JPHC2 (females) 11.7 ± 2.6 29,690 40–69 1087 (330) 1805 784 478 1990 Miyagi (males) 12.6 ± 2.7 21,536 40–64 1885 (886) 2335 838 424 Miyagi (females) 12.9 ± 2.3 23,430 40–64 1307 (438) 1152 421 202 1995 Ohsaki (males) 9.8 ± 3.8 23,462 40–80 1757 (829) 4605 1649 1305 Ohsaki (females) 10.0 ± 3.8 25,443 40–80 1266 (461) 2606 769 919 2000–2002 HEALS (males) 6.6 ± 1.1 4884 20–75 2806 (967) 284 45 130 HEALS (females) 6.6 ± 0.8 6512 17–61 2431 (850) 107 14 41 1992–1993 Seoul (males) 14.7 ± 1.7 13,600 25–82 2397 (497) 808 424 145 1996–2000 SWHS (females) 8.6 ± 1.2 74,933 40–71 1634 (496) 2908 1346 804 1990–1992 CVDFACTS (males) 14.9 ± 3.6 1512 18–92 2325 (943) 332 80 93 CVDFACTS (females) 15.6 ± 2.7 1960 18–87 1716 (667) 251 73 66 Total 24,283 9558 6373 View Large
TABLE 2 Study and sex Red meat2 Number of food items Poultry2 No. of food items Fish and seafood2 No. of food items g/d g/d g/d JPHC1 (males) 33.8 ± 19.8 4 12.7 ± 9.0 1 52.8 ± 34.3 4 JPHC1 (females) 26.9 ± 17.0 11.3 ± 7.6 45.3 ± 29.7 JPHC2 (males) 17.8 ± 11.8 4 8.5 ± 8.1 1 58.1 ± 38.3 6 JPHC2 (females) 15.1 ± 10.2 7.1 ± 6.6 45.1 ± 28.8 Miyagi (males) 14.7 ± 12.0 4 7.9 ± 8.3 1 58.7 ± 35.3 3 Miyagi (females) 11.1 ± 9.1 6.5 ± 6.2 52.5 ± 30.1 Ohsaki (males) 14.2 ± 12.0 4 8.7 ± 8.4 1 62.8 ± 35.7 3 Ohsaki (females) 9.9 ± 8.7 6.9 ± 6.3 55.7 ± 30.6 HEALS (males) 19.1 ± 33.0 1 4.6 ± 14.0 1 60.3 ± 42.0 4 HEALS (females) 12.2 ± 19.8 2.8 ± 9.7 51.2 ± 38.1 Seoul (males) 92.3 ± 109.1 7 4.9 ± 9.0 1 50.6 ± 58.8 9 SWHS (females) 50.9 ± 36.7 9 15.3 ± 17.8 2 38.0 ± 36.8 5 CVDFACTS (males) 67.1 ± 67.0 8 22.3 ± 34.9 2 45.2 ± 53.7 3 CVDFACTS (females) 45.0 ± 39.7 15.4 ± 21.4 36.6 ± 37.2 Total Study and sex Red meat2 Number of food items Poultry2 No. of food items Fish and seafood2 No. of food items g/d g/d g/d JPHC1 (males) 33.8 ± 19.8 4 12.7 ± 9.0 1 52.8 ± 34.3 4 JPHC1 (females) 26.9 ± 17.0 11.3 ± 7.6 45.3 ± 29.7 JPHC2 (males) 17.8 ± 11.8 4 8.5 ± 8.1 1 58.1 ± 38.3 6 JPHC2 (females) 15.1 ± 10.2 7.1 ± 6.6 45.1 ± 28.8 Miyagi (males) 14.7 ± 12.0 4 7.9 ± 8.3 1 58.7 ± 35.3 3 Miyagi (females) 11.1 ± 9.1 6.5 ± 6.2 52.5 ± 30.1 Ohsaki (males) 14.2 ± 12.0 4 8.7 ± 8.4 1 62.8 ± 35.7 3 Ohsaki (females) 9.9 ± 8.7 6.9 ± 6.3 55.7 ± 30.6 HEALS (males) 19.1 ± 33.0 1 4.6 ± 14.0 1 60.3 ± 42.0 4 HEALS (females) 12.2 ± 19.8 2.8 ± 9.7 51.2 ± 38.1 Seoul (males) 92.3 ± 109.1 7 4.9 ± 9.0 1 50.6 ± 58.8 9 SWHS (females) 50.9 ± 36.7 9 15.3 ± 17.8 2 38.0 ± 36.8 5 CVDFACTS (males) 67.1 ± 67.0 8 22.3 ± 34.9 2 45.2 ± 53.7 3 CVDFACTS (females) 45.0 ± 39.7 15.4 ± 21.4 36.6 ± 37.2 Total View Large
TABLE 2 Study and sex Red meat2 Number of food items Poultry2 No. of food items Fish and seafood2 No. of food items g/d g/d g/d JPHC1 (males) 33.8 ± 19.8 4 12.7 ± 9.0 1 52.8 ± 34.3 4 JPHC1 (females) 26.9 ± 17.0 11.3 ± 7.6 45.3 ± 29.7 JPHC2 (males) 17.8 ± 11.8 4 8.5 ± 8.1 1 58.1 ± 38.3 6 JPHC2 (females) 15.1 ± 10.2 7.1 ± 6.6 45.1 ± 28.8 Miyagi (males) 14.7 ± 12.0 4 7.9 ± 8.3 1 58.7 ± 35.3 3 Miyagi (females) 11.1 ± 9.1 6.5 ± 6.2 52.5 ± 30.1 Ohsaki (males) 14.2 ± 12.0 4 8.7 ± 8.4 1 62.8 ± 35.7 3 Ohsaki (females) 9.9 ± 8.7 6.9 ± 6.3 55.7 ± 30.6 HEALS (males) 19.1 ± 33.0 1 4.6 ± 14.0 1 60.3 ± 42.0 4 HEALS (females) 12.2 ± 19.8 2.8 ± 9.7 51.2 ± 38.1 Seoul (males) 92.3 ± 109.1 7 4.9 ± 9.0 1 50.6 ± 58.8 9 SWHS (females) 50.9 ± 36.7 9 15.3 ± 17.8 2 38.0 ± 36.8 5 CVDFACTS (males) 67.1 ± 67.0 8 22.3 ± 34.9 2 45.2 ± 53.7 3 CVDFACTS (females) 45.0 ± 39.7 15.4 ± 21.4 36.6 ± 37.2 Total Study and sex Red meat2 Number of food items Poultry2 No. of food items Fish and seafood2 No. of food items g/d g/d g/d JPHC1 (males) 33.8 ± 19.8 4 12.7 ± 9.0 1 52 |
musical substance. The recent heritage of American opera offers far too many examples of weak scores attached to theatrical, obvious, topical or gimmicky scenarios.
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Most likely, as with ''Parsifal,'' ''Pelleas et Melisande'' and ''Der Rosenkavalier,'' it may take time, decades even, for opera audiences to figure out whether Mr. Harbison has gotten it right in terms of pacing and length after all. This presumes, of course, that the work will stay around for a while. It deserves to.Slowly but surely, Microsoft is bringing everything related to Nokia’s devices and services division inside its own corporate structure.
The company’s latest move is to shift this part of its business away from Nokia.com and over to a new home managed underneath Microsoft.com. At the moment this only affects the UK version of Nokia’s website, although it’s likely other geographical variants will follow in the future.
The Nokia.com site is still live for people in the UK, but you’ll find that accessing most pages will simply redirect you to the new Microsoft portal.
We’ve moved to a new home! Everything you need to know about #Lumia is here now: http://t.co/IVlf3xiBbQ :) pic.twitter.com/0Z7QgJuhJK — Nokia UK (@nokia_uk) September 19, 2014
It’s a small change, but one that follows rumors stating Microsoft will eventually abandon the Nokia and Windows Phone branding. If that’s the case, we might look back on this as a crucial moment in the transition.
If you’re wondering, the part of Nokia that Microsoft didn’t acquire is using company.nokia.com as its URL.
➤ Microsoft (via The Verge)
Top image credit: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images
Read next: The iPhone 6 Plus really isn't THAT bigA paint roller
A paint roller is a paint application tool used for painting large flat surfaces rapidly and efficiently.
The paint roller[1] typically consists of two parts: a "roller frame," and a "roller cover." The roller cover absorbs the paint and transfers it to the painted surface, the roller frame attaches to the roller cover. A painter holds the roller by the handle section. The roller frame is reusable. It is possible to clean and reuse a roller cover, but it is also typically disposed of after use.
The roller cover is a cylindrical core with a pile fabric covering secured to the cylindrical core. Foam rubber rollers are also produced. There are both foam and fabric rollers that are individually available (without a handle), made to replace worn out rollers, once an old roller is removed the new roller can be fitted onto the handle section for use. An innovation of the cylindrical core has allowed it to contain paint inside, with the cover absorbing paint from the inside and filtering it through (naturally by wicking) to be applied externally, when the roller is rolled.
Arsco 25th Anniversary
History [ edit ]
In 1938 Morris Welt was a painting contractor in New York City. His son, David Welt went to a print shop to have business cards made so he could promote his father's work. David saw the printer rolling ink on to metal type. This gave him the idea that paint could be rolled. In the basement of their apartment, David Welt created the first paint roller using bent steel for the frame and he glued some carpet on to a wooden dowel to make the roller cover. The initial handmade rollers weren't very good at applying paint but did a great job of "stippling" (covering brush strokes and surface imperfections). Morris and David named their company ARSCO which stood for American Roller Stippler Company. As they found better fabrics for the roller cores, the business grew and they began supplying Sherwin-Williams, Glidden Paints and many others around the world. In 1956 the small ARSCO Paint Roller factory moved from a small New York warehouse to a block long factory in Hialeah Florida. [2] honored the father and son team as Morris and David Welt celebrated their 25th Anniversary by publishing a full page editorial detailing the history of this invention in 1938.
In 1974 David Welt's son joined Arsco. Glenn Welt purchased the paint roller business from his father, renamed the company to Arsco International and continued manufacturing paint rollers and accessories until 2017.(CNN) -- The girl known as "Baby Doe" -- who in June was found dead, wrapped in a trash bag on a rocky shoreline in Boston Harbor -- has been identified by authorities, a law enforcement source said Friday.
A suspect was taken into custody in connection with the case after a search warrant was executed in Boston's Mattapan neighborhood on Thursday, the source told CNN.
The man being questioned by authorities is the boyfriend of the mother of "Baby Doe," the law enforcement source said. It's unclear if the man -- who has not been charged -- has a lawyer or if he's cooperating, according to the source.
The child's identity has not been released, according to the source.
Authorities were to hold a news conference later Friday, the source said.
The case of the mysterious girl, whose adorable brown eyes and cherubic face -- as rendered by forensic artist Christi Andrews and distributed by authorities in Massachusetts -- caught the attention of millions.
The Suffolk County District Attorney's office told CNN that the "investigation remains very active" but that it had no update to share.
The tiny remains were found June 25 wrapped in a black trash bag, wearing polka dot pants lying next to a zebra blanket along the shore of Deer Island, a narrow peninsula just east of Boston's Logan Airport. Police released photos of the blanket and the polka-dot leggings she was wearing.
Authorities previously said they believe that "Baby Doe" was about 4 years old at the time of her death. She was 3 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 30 pounds.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released the composite of Baby Doe in July. Massachusetts State Police posted it on Facebook and distributed it via Twitter.
More than 50 million people saw or shared the composite.
Her remains were discovered along the shore of Deer Island, which has a 2.6 mile recreational perimeter accessible to the public, according to the National Park Service. The island is near the Port of Boston, one of the busiest on the eastern seaboard.
It's unclear how long she had been dead but there was some decomposition when her remains were removed from the trash bag.
Authorities analyzed pollen found on the girl's pants and blanket and determined that it "came from trees and plants around Boston," Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, said last month.
"This pollen analysis also suggests that 'Baby Doe' may have been placed on the shoreline, rather than washed ashore from a great distance," Wark said.
CNN's Chuck Johnston and Jason Hanna contributed to this report.Encouraged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s supportive words, leaders of the Baloch nationalist movement have sought support from the US and European countries against the oppressive Pakistani regime.
“The world must understand that Pakistan’s use of religious terrorism as a policy tool will have far reaching consequences; terrorism cannot be contained but needs to be countered effectively,” Khalil Baloch, chairman of the Baloch National Movement, said in a statement.
Read: Modi targets Pak abuses in I-Day speech: Walking Baloch talk will be tough
“Baloch nation hopes that the United States and Europe will join Prime Minister Modi and hold Pakistan accountable for the crimes against humanity and the war crimes it has committed against the Baloch nation in 68 years of its occupation of Balochistan and during the five wars that the Baloch nation has fought with Pakistan to win its national freedom,” Baloch said.
Read: What Baloch dissidents have to say about Modi’s comments on Pak ‘atrocities’
While welcoming Modi’s stance on Balochistan, he said the “policy of indifference towards Pakistan’s war crimes in occupied Balochistan that include both ethnic cleansing and genocide, adapted by the international community is worrying”.
“The Indian Prime Minister’s statement on Balochistan is a positive development,” Baloch said.
Thanking Modi for his statement on Balochistan, Brahumdagh Bugti, president of the Baloch Republican Party in a video statement, hoped that the Indian government, Indian media and the whole Indian nation would not only raise their voices for the Baloch nation but also strive to help practically the Baloch independence movement.
Modi’s comments were widely seen as a riposte to Pakistan’s adoption of a hardline stance on the Kashmir issue. In recent days, Pakistan has sought to repeatedly internationalise the Kashmir issue and spoken about sending medical and other aide to people in Jammu and Kashmir affected by a wave of unrest following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
Read: Pak accuses Modi of diverting world attention from ‘tragedy’ in Valley
Bugti, who is the grandson of Nawab Akbar Bugti – a Baloch nationalist leader who was killed in an encounter with the Pakistani army, said Pakistan’s destructive role in Kashmir and its direct involvement in terrorist attacks in India such as Mumbai and Pathankot has been a very well exposed fact.
“In this context, raising the voice of the Baloch people should not be a temporary reaction or short term strategy by the Indian government, but should be a sincere intention of the Indian people to support their oppressed Baloch brothers and sisters and should be very serious part of the foreign policy of the Indian government,” Bugti said.
“The Baloch mission and all the oppressed people of the world, still remember the decision of the Indian government when India intervened and came to the rescue of Bengali people from Pakistani brutalities in 1970s,” he said.
Pakistan demands self-determination and self-rule of Kashmiris and at the same time in Balochistan it is crushing the same demand of Baloch people by force, he said, adding that this not only exposes the double standards of Pakistan but also their evil design to destruct the peace and stability in the region.
The remarks by Baloch leaders came after Prime Minister Modi brought up Pakistani atrocities on people of Balochistan and PoK in his Independence Day speech on Monday.
First Published: Aug 16, 2016 16:00 ISTCUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple is striking a new chord with a US$3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics, a headphone and music streaming specialist that also brings the swagger of rapper Dr. Dre and recording impresario Jimmy Iovine.
[np_storybar title=”Why Apple is buying Beats Electronics” link=”https://business.financialpost.com/2014/05/09/why-apple-inc-is-buying-beats-electronics/?__lsa=25aa-1975″%5DApple Inc.’s US$3.2-billion deal to acquire Beats Electronics, if consummated, will get a lot of attention due to its price tag as the tech giant’s biggest deal to date. But there is more to the acquisition than meets the eye
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Wednesday’s announcement comes nearly three weeks after deal negotiations were leaked to the media. It’s by far the most expensive acquisition in Apple’s 38-year history, a price that the company is paying to counter a threat posed to its iTunes store.
The price consists of US$2.6 billion in cash and US$400 million in Apple stock that will vest over an unspecified time period.
“Music is such an important part of all of our lives and holds a special place within our hearts at Apple,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive in a statement.
“That’s why we have kept investing in music and are bringing together these extraordinary teams so we can continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world.”
Apple suddenly has regained its cool
The deal is expected to close in the fiscal fourth-quarter.
With US$1.1 billion in revenue last year, Beats is already making money and will boost Apple’s earnings once the new fiscal year begins in October, Cook said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“We have known these guys forever,” Cook said of Iovine and Dre. “We’ve dated, we’ve gone steady and now we are getting married. This relationship started a decade ago, so we know there is an incredible cultural fit. These two guys have a very rare set of skills. It’s like finding a particular grain of sand on the beach. It’s that rare.”
Sharing a laugh with Jimmy, Dre, and @cue. Excited to welcome the #Beats team to #Apple. It’s all about the music. pic.twitter.com/ZwyWgHFwhO — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 28, 2014
Iovine, 61, and Dre, 49, will both become key executives in Apple’s music divisions, though Cook said their roles haven’t been determined yet. Cook said Beats’ music streaming service was the main selling point in the deal.
The growing popularity of music streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify has been reducing sales of songs and albums, a business that iTunes has dominated for the past decade. U.S. sales of downloaded songs slipped 1% last year to US$2.8 billion while streaming music revenue surged 39% to US$1.4 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Although Apple broke into streaming with the launch of iTunes Radio last September, the service has not been as popular or as lucrative as the company expected, according to two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Apple is counting on the Beats acquisition to boost its cachet with teenagers and younger adults while trying to remain a leader in digital music — an industry that looks much different than when Apple reshaped the scene with the 2001 debut of the iPod.
“Apple suddenly has regained its cool,” said Sony Music CEO Doug Morris, who was one of the first recording executives to embrace iTunes at Iovine’s urging more than a decade ago.
Beats was founded in 2008 by Dr. Dre, now a hip-hop producer, and Iovine, a longtime recording industry executive who is currently chairman of Universal Music Group’s Interscope Geffen A&M Records. It now dominates the luxury headphone market. Its equipment also has been a big seller in Apple’s stores.
Operating from its Culver City, California, headquarters, Beats commands 62% of the US$1 billion U.S. market for headphones priced above US$100, according to NPD Group. The gear, which emphasizes bass, also has been endorsed by several star athletes, including San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and New Jersey Nets forward Kevin Garnett.
Beats Music, the music streaming subsidiary of the electronics maker, has more than 250,000 subscribers, according to Cook.
The purchase marks Apple CEO Tim Cook’s biggest strategic break from the way the Cupertino, California, company was led under co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011. Jobs favoured smaller acquisitions and didn’t believe subscription music plans would be popular. Before Beats, Apple’s biggest acquisition had been its US$400 million purchase of NeXt Computer, a company that Jobs founded after being ousted from Apple in the 1980s.
Cook said he never considered what Jobs would have thought about the Beats’ acquisition. Jobs “told me to do what was right,” Cook said. “And I am 100% certain this is what is right. This is one of those things that we will look back upon and say it was meant to be.”
Morris, who considers Iovine to be his best friend, believes Cook is making a smart move that will give Apple even more credibility in the music industry.
“It’s a game changer because Jimmy is that kind of guy who can change a game,” Morris said. “I am not saying he is Steve Jobs, but he is a guy with new ideas and he really knows how to build the bridge between music and technology.”
But some analysts question whether Beats will be a good fit for Apple, which makes most of its money selling hardware such as iPhones and iPads.
Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett says Apple would have been better off developing its own headphones in-house and expanding into music subscriptions through iTunes.
“It’s hard to understand why Apple would have to spend US$3 billion on a nascent streaming service and a line of bass-heavy headphones,” Gillett says.
Yukari Iwatani Kane, the author of “Haunted Empire,” an inside look at Apple since co-founder Jobs’ death, also sees a disconnect.
“Culturally, Beats is the complete opposite of Apple,” Kane says. “It’s known for being loud and bold and in your face. It doesn’t fit with Apple’s understated, discerning brand.”
With US$150 billion in cash, Apple can easily afford taking a risk on Beats.
Although the Beats deal could give Apple a leg-up in markets where it doesn’t have much presence, the quick growth of its music service in a few short months has come at a high cost.
Beats promoted its service with a pricey Super Bowl commercial and other advertising — spending far more on marketing than larger competitor Spotify, which boasts 10 million paying subscribers worldwide.
It’s hard to understand why Apple would have to spend US$3B on a nascent streaming service and a line of bass-heavy headphones
Beats Music also offered a 90-day free trial in a deal with AT&T that featured a breakthrough US$15-a-month family pricing plan. Some of those who finished the free period ended up cancelling, and there are those still getting the free service, making it unclear how much revenue it generates.
ITunes transformed the music industry in 2003 when the service began selling singles for 99 cents so fans could make their own digital playlists rather having to buy compact discs that also included lots of songs they didn’t want.
In recent years, though, consumers have been embracing other music options that cater to their individual tastes even more than iTunes ever did.
A host of free and paid streaming music services such as Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, iHeart Radio and TuneIn are now threatening iTunes with their crowd-pleasing ability to match songs with the listeners most likely to enjoy them. At the same time, Apple is facing more competition from other song-downloading services run by Google and Amazon, both of whom have been willing to undercut iTunes’ prices to gain market share.
Beats Music also offered a 90-day free trial in a deal with AT&T that featured a breakthrough US$15-a-month family pricing plan. Some of those who finished the free period ended up cancelling, and there are those still getting the free service, making it unclear how much revenue it generates.
ITunes transformed the music industry in 2003 when the service began selling singles for 99 cents so fans could make their own digital playlists rather having to buy compact discs that also included lots of songs they didn’t want.
In recent years, though, consumers have been embracing other music options that cater to their individual tastes even more than iTunes ever did.
A host of free and paid streaming music services such as Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, iHeart Radio and TuneIn are now threatening iTunes with their crowd-pleasing ability to match songs with the listeners most likely to enjoy them. At the same time, Apple is facing more competition from other song-downloading services run by Google and Amazon, both of whom have been willing to undercut iTunes’ prices to gain market share.
The Beats deal also aligns Apple with the push toward higher-quality music, reversing a decline in fidelity as people abandoned vinyl records for CDs and then switched from CDs to MP3s.
Several companies are trying to address the even lower quality of music streamed over capacity-constrained cellular networks. Last month, Spotify announced it was partnering with Sprint and HTC on the HTC One M8 smartphone, which is supposed to stream music in a way that restores some of the fidelity that is lost to digital compression.
Pono Music, a system backed by singer Neil Young, has promised digital files that are CD quality or higher, albeit on a player that will retail for US$399 this fall and with a store that is likely to have a limited selection. Yet his Kickstarter fundraising campaign raised US$6.2 million from 18,220 backers in just 35 days.
Beats co-founder Iovine is known for focusing on higher quality music, and while Beats’ headphones have been criticized for delivering too much bass, the headsets offer an improvement over the ear buds that come with every Apple device. Iovine even disparaged Apple’s earbuds at a technology conference last year.
“I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,” said Mr. Iovine in a statement. “The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology.”
The Associated Press, with files from Armina LigayaLiberty Counsel’s Mat Staver recently spoke at the American Decency Association’s summer conference where he once again warned that America is on the verge of being completely destroyed, just as Pompeii was by Mount Vesuvius.
Staver is particularly alarmed by the spread of gay marriage, declaring that no matter how many laws are passed legalizing it or how many judges strike down laws banning it, the definition of marriage cannot ever be changed because it was established by God.
Changing the definition of marriage is like trying to do away with gravity, Staver said. “It doesn’t matter how many opinions or how many votes you have for that, you can’t change God’s natural created order.”
“We’ve never been in this situation before,” he warned. “We will not be able to escape the coercive nature of this issue. It is cataclysmic in its change effect. It is, I believe, ultimately the beginning of the end of Western Civilization if we adopt this as a country”:Pandora, the Internet radio site famous for not being Spotify (and for not being a fan of licensing fees), has been asking you to give a digital thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the songs it plays for more than 10 years. After announcing that its listeners had now voted more than 50 billion times to either approve or disapprove of songs, Buzzfeed requested a list of the top 10 most-liked songs in the radio site’s history. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that most of the songs that Planet Earth approves of are, analytically speaking, garbage.
Running through the list, we find a common theme: loving someone, being loved, or no longer doing either. The other theme, unfortunately, is a penchant for horrible music. The number 10 spot is occupied by The Fray, whose “How To Save A Life” is the perfect solution for people who find Counting Crows much too edgy. Slightly less offensive, Adele and Gotye are the next two entries, both of them demonstrating the old saying that even a broken planet is right twice a day, even if the second time of it’s being right got played out awfully quickly.
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From there on, the list turns to an easy-listening triptych worthy of Hieronymous Bosch’s best works. OneRepublic, Maroon 5, and the Goo Goo Dolls’ anthem of artistic compromise “Iris” claim the next three spots. One-named wonder Mario takes number four with “Let Me Love You,” a song that proves even smooth R&B can sound like a fusion of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Raffi. The bronze medal is awarded to Imagine Dragons, basically the Voldemort of pop music. (Don’t even say the name of its most popular track, or it will enter your brain and do severe damage.) At second place is Drake’s “The Motto,” which spawned the incessant spread of “YOLO.” Thanks, Drake.
The No. 1 winner, however, requires further reflection. We’ve included it below: Does its victory redeem Earth’s questionable musical tendencies? Or does it damn the planet further? Only time, and anyone with an Internet connection, will be the judge.HEARTS hope that new loan signing Michael Ngoo can solve their problems up front – starting this afternoon in the League Cup semi-final against Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
The giant Englishman is set to start the match at Easter Road after finalising his move from Liverpool yesterday, and Hearts manager John McGlynn believes he could unsettle opponents whose fine recent form has taken them to second place in the SPL.
Ngoo, who has joined Hearts for the rest of the season, is the club’s second signing of the transfer window, following his Liverpool team-mate Danny Wilson. The 20-year-old trained with the squad yesterday, and McGlynn is confident he can slot in immediately as Hearts bid to reach their first League Cup final since 1996.
“He could be something that Inverness hasn’t bargained for,” McGlynn said of the 6ft 6in England youth international. “He could be a surprise package.
“He’s very similar to Danny in that he’s been playing regularly. The English Under-21 teams didn’t have much of a break over Christmas and New Year, so he’s been playing and he’s match-fit and raring to go.
“I don’t want to put too much pressure on him. It’s not fair to think that he’s going to batter every ball that comes into the box into the back of the net. However, we hope that he’s going to improve our goalscoring tally.”
Ngoo has been at Anfield since 2009, when he moved from Southend. “He’s come from a big football club,” McGlynn continued. “Liverpool paid a bit of money for him, so they have high hopes for him.
“It was the priority position for us. I said last week that when there’s a player like Danny Wilson, you can never have enough good players about. You take good players any time. It probably helped that Danny is now here as he obviously knows the lad. He spoke to Michael and gave him a good report on the football club.”
Ngoo had an impressive first season with Liverpool’s youth teams, and although his 2010-11 campaign was disrupted by injury, he finished second top scorer for the under-18s with 15 goals. “I’m honoured to be here,” he said yesterday after completing his move to Tynecastle. “I’m delighted and happy to be at such a big team and I’m ready to go.”
Hearts have yet to settle on a successful formula up front this season, with McGlynn having begun with a 4-5-1 formation then latterly switched to 4-4-2. Teenager Callum Paterson, who is out of today’s game with a foot injury, was played as a lone striker at first, but he is more suited to a wider role.
More recently John Sutton and Gordon Smith have played as Hearts’ strike pairing, but have not hit it off consistently. If Sutton were to regain the form he enjoyed at Motherwell he would merit a place in the team every week, but he has not been the force he was since falling out of favour last season under previous manager Paulo Sergio.
Ninth in the SPL at present, Hearts have managed just under a goal a game in the league. Had they failed to complete the signature of Ngoo on time, their problems in attack would have been worsened this afternoon by the suspension of Ryan Stevenson, whose powerful running from midfield has been a useful source of goals.
With holding midfielder Darren Barr also suspended, McGlynn has little choice but to field a relatively lightweight combination in the centre of the park. Scott Robinson, Mehdi Taouil and Jason Holt are all in contention for places in the starting line-up, although Denis Prychynenko’s extra height and bulk should bring him into consideration too.
With Ngoo an unknown quantity in the Scottish game, the strongest department of the Hearts team is sure to be the defence, in which four centre-halves will be strung along the back. Wilson will slot in at left-back, Andy Webster and Marius Zaliukas will resume their partnership at centre-half, and Dylan McGowan should be at right-back.
Given how successful Caley Thistle have been in attack this season, it is just as well from Hearts’ point of view that they will have such a relatively strong back four. Unless they are counting on a free-scoring miracle of a debut from Ngoo, the Edinburgh side should aim to keep play as tight as possible, realising that if Inverness open the scoring it will be extremely difficult to get back into the contest.
Caley Thistle have never won a major semi-final, but in Terry Butcher they have a manager who is at home in big games and pressurised situations. The former England international was in charge of Motherwell when they took on Hearts at Easter Road in the semi-final eight years ago, and he inspired them to a 3-2 extra-time victory after Hearts came back from a 2-0 deficit.Brewers shortstop Orlando Arcia scored from first base on an infield single in Monday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. It was made possible by both stellar baserunning and less-than-stellar defense from Baltimore.
In the third inning, Brewers pitcher Brent Suter showed bunt and pulled back to swing away with a chopper to short. Suter beat the throw in a close play, and as this happened, Arcia took off for third. Then, the craziness really went down.
Orlando Arcia with shades of Benny the Jet. pic.twitter.com/JaRfcIUmM4 — MLB (@MLB) July 3, 2017
Trey Mancini’s throw to third was wide but on target enough for Manny Machado to make the catch. Arcia, though, slid past the bag and rather than try to make it back to third, he took off for home. Because, why not? Machado had him out if he would have attempted to return to third.
Somewhere in the middle of this, Brewers third base coach Ed Sedar got in Machado’s way and dodged the Orioles third baseman as Arcia was stuck in the rundown.
Arcia made a move as Machado threw home, but there was some confusion between shortstop Ruben Tejada and catcher Welington Castillo about who was supposed to cover home during this play that Little League teams execute to perfection on a regular basis.
That confusion drew a wide throw from Machado, allowing Arcia to slide home safely.
We’re not going to take anything away from Arcia here. His ultra-aggressive baserunning made this fun play possible and put pressure on the Orioles to complete a simple play. That gamble paid off clearly.
The Brewers went on to win, 8-1.Editor’s Note: Castro has no room to talk about human rights…
Cuban President Raul Castro on Friday denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s partial rollback of the U.S.-Cuban detente, saying it ignored broad public support for better relations and would satisfy only a few Cuban-American hard-liners.
In his first public riposte to Trump since the latter unveiled his new Cuba policy last month, Castro told the national assembly that any attempt to topple the revolution would fail, as it had under 11 previous U.S. presidents.
“We reject the manipulation of the topic of human rights against Cuba, that can be proud of much in this area, and does not need to receive lessons from the United States nor anyone,” Castro was quoted as saying by state-run media Cubadebate.
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RELATED: Cuban Libertarians Defiant as Secret Police Abduct ActivistsPublic institutions that paid their full professors the most in 2015-16 tended to be in states with high costs of living: California was the top location for high-paying doctoral institutions, and New York for master's and associate institutions. Public baccalaureate institutions did not follow the same pattern. Half of the institutions on that top-20 list were in Pennsylvania, where the cost of living is in the middle range. In contrast to public institutions, the nonprofit and for-profit institutions that paid their full professors the highest average salaries were geographically scattered.
Public institutions
Doctoral
Rank
Institution Salary
Number of professors 1. U. of California at Los Angeles $184,509 1,038 2. U. of California at Berkeley $175,617 876 3. U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor $162,846 1,144 4. U. of California at Santa Barbara $160,830 511 5. U. of California at Irvine $159,678 546 6. U. of Virginia $159,066 564 7. U. of California at San Diego $156,672 593 8. New Jersey Institute of Technology $156,249 130 9. U. of Texas at Dallas $155,808 234 10. Rutgers U. at Newark $151,587 181 11. U. of Connecticut $150,318 491 12. U. of Maryland at College Park $149,328 691 13. U. of California at Merced $148,014 44 14. U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $147,816 503 15. Pennsylvania State U. at University Park
$146,466 812 16. U. of Texas at Austin $146,430 980 17. U. of California at Santa Cruz $145,017 290 18. U. of Delaware $144,972 384 19. U. of California at Riverside $144,963 316 20. U. of Massachusetts at Amherst $144,864 458
Master's
Rank
Institution Salary Number of professors 1. Pennsylvania State U.-Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies
$141,399 7 2. U. of Baltimore $137,304 55 3. Rutgers U. at Camden $130,050 103 4. U. of South Florida-Sarasota/Manatee $127,719 5 5. U. of Washington at Bothell $125,415 25 6. City U. of New York Bernard M. Baruch College $121,698 203 7. City College of City U. of New York $121,563 242 8. U. of South Florida at St. Petersburg $121,095 29 9. Ramapo College of New Jersey $119,862 70 10. Arizona State U.-Polytechnic $118,728 30 11. Arizona State U.-West $118,404 31 12. Pennsylvania State U.-Harrisburg $117,279 34 13. Fashion Institute of Technology $117,153 53 14. State U. of New York Institute of Technology at Utica-Rome $116,874 31 15. U. of Washington at Tacoma $116,559 31 16. William Paterson U. of New Jersey $114,192 169 17. U. of Michigan at Flint $113,904 39 18. City U. of New York Hunter College $113,661 299 19. City U. of New York Herbert H. Lehman College $113,625 95 20. City U. of New York Queens College $112,995 212
Baccalaureate
Rank
Institution Salary Number of professors 1. Pennsylvania State U. at Erie $126,009 26 2. Pennsylvania State U.-Schuylkill $121,302 6 3. U.S. Merchant Marine Academy $117,045 30 4. U. of New Hampshire at Manchester $115,335 6 5. U.S. Naval Academy $114,219 159 6. U.S. Military Academy $113,571 42 7. City U. of New York Medgar Evers College $112,194 52 8. City U. of New York, New York City College of Technology
$108,450 63 9. Cheyney U. of Pennsylvania $106,776 17 10. Pennsylvania State U.-Brandywine $106,704 12 11. Pennsylvania State U.-Beaver $106,569 4 12. Nevada State College $105,786 4 13. Pennsylvania State U. at Altoona $105,408 24 14. Pennsylvania State U.-Worthington-Scranton $104,706 4 15. Pennsylvania State U. at York $104,697 7 16. Ohio State U. at Lima $103,806 11 17. City U. of New York York College $103,680 44 18. Pennsylvania State U. at Abington $102,717 14 19. Pennsylvania State U.-Berks $99,153 21 20. Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts $98,523 38
Associate and baccalaureate/associate
Rank
Institution Salary Number of professors 1. College of DuPage $121,590 138 2. Suffolk County Community College Central Administration $115,857 119 3. Elgin Community College $115,317 56 4. Pennsylvania College of Technology $113,580 11 5. Nassau Community College $112,230 170 6. City Colleges of Chicago, Harry S. Truman College $110,403 4 7. Rockland Community College $109,152 39 8. Passaic County Community College $108,117 10 9. City U. of New York-Queensborough Community College $107,802 68 10. Harper College $107,496 57 11. Westchester Community College $106,101 56 12. City U. of New York Borough of Manhattan Community College
$105,570 107 13. Middlesex County College $105,309 37 14. City Colleges of Chicago, Richard J. Daley College $104,778 4 15. Hostos Community College-City U. of New York $104,463 37 16. Miami U. at Hamilton $103,752 12 17. City U. of New York La Guardia Community College $103,554 89 18. City U. of New York Bronx Community College $103,275 74 19. Oakton Community College $101,331 105 20. City U. of New York Kingsborough Community College $101,214 72
Private nonprofit institutions
Doctoral
Rank
Institution Salary Number of professors 1. Harvard U. $230,292 996 2. Stanford U. $227,259 689 3. U. of Chicago $225,729 595 4. Columbia U. $209,475 747 5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
$204,138 643 6. U. of Pennsylvania $201,978 602 7. Princeton U. $200,403 478 8. Yale U. $198,369 586 9. New York U. $195,939 861 10. California Institute of Technology |
else was in on this and then once he was satisfied that all the other players were really minor, he felt comfortable in taking Abernathy out.
STORY: Deconstructing 'Bates Motel': Kerry Ehrin on Jake and Norma's Battle
THR: Have we seen the last of the importing girls story line or might Jake's body and the cash surface? Will Keith's sister, Maggie, return?
Cuse: I don't think we've seen the last of Keith's sister. I don't think we're going to have Abernathy wash up or anything like that. He took three or four bullets, so that's pretty resolved.
THR: Speaking of Norma's brother, is he still alive? Will Norma's past be a focus of season two as well?
Cuse: We definitely are going to delve further into Norma's past in season two. We meant that scene [where Norma reveals she was molested by her brother] to be not only an answer but also something we hoped would make the audience want to know more about her life and what made her into the woman she is. We will definitely be exploring more of her story and we'll learn more about her brother in season two. We're arcing out details of season two then we'll start casting.
THR: Norman is clearly not over Bradley and upset that Dylan has now taken an interest in her. Is that something you'll continue to explore next season?
Cuse: Bradley looms large for Norman. This is the first girl he slept with and he idealizes her. His interest in her is has not waned.
THR: Does that put Dylan in danger?
Cuse: Possibly, we'll see!
What did you think of the Bates Motel season finale? Hit the comments below with your thoughts.
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A 13-year-old boy has lost his left leg after getting caught in an escalator and suffering horrific injuries.
The teen had been at a shopping mall with friends and joined the moving stairs unaware his shoelaces had come undone.
The lace got caught in the mechanism and dragged the boy into the moving metal.
Eyewitnesses tried to record the scene of where the accident happened in the Plaza Aragon mall in Mexico City but police officers tried to stop them.
The boy was taken to a nearby hospital in a serious condition.
Doctors battled to save his leg, but the entire limb was amputated.
This escalator accident is the first of its kind in Mexico and has caused outrage across the country.
Similar incidents have occurred in the last few weeks in China.
A woman was killed, but managed to save her baby, after falling into an escalator and a toddler had serious injuries after falling into the mechanics.Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen speaks during a briefing at the Federal Reserve on March 19, 2014 in Washington (AFP)
U.S. banking regulators on Tuesday ordered the eight largest “too big to fail” banks to raise capital levels in a bid to address weaknesses seen in the 2008 financial crisis.
The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency adopted a final rule requiring the systemically important banks to hold significantly increased levels of high-quality capital in relation to their risk exposure, their so-called supplementary leverage ratio.
The banks affected by the rule are Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo.
The Fed’s aim is “to reduce the effect of a firm’s failure or material weakness on the financial system and the broader economy.”
Under the action taken Tuesday, the banks will have to meet an additional 2.0 percent of capital on top of the 3.0 percent level required under the Basel III regulatory reforms, which US regulators have criticized as too lax.
By meeting the 5.0 percent ratio, the banks will avoid Fed limitations on dividends and discretionary bonus payments.
The eight banks’ subsidiaries will be required to have loss-absorbing capital worth more than 6.0 percent of their assets, double the Basel III level.
The supplemental level, like the 3.0 percent Basel level, will take effect in 2018.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said the robust capital standards were “essential to reduce systemic risk and mitigate the distortions imposed by institutions deemed too big to fail.”
Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo said the bigger capital cushion would serve as a “critical backstop” to the banking system.
The director of the FDIC, Jeremiah Norton, noted that the new rule would help offset weaknesses in the Basel III reforms, which failed to address key industry problems highlighted in the financial crisis, like the appropriate risk-weighting for mortgages and foreign sovereign debt.
“These and other deficiencies underscore the need for the US banking system to have a meaningful leverage ratio requirement and for policy makers to continue to improve the capital framework going forward,” he said.
[Image via Agence France-Presse]In July 2014, Melbourne hosted the 20th International AIDS Conference. The event opened, paying tribute to the late Dutch HIV/AIDS researcher Professor Joep Lange, with his image projected onto a screen, with the accompanying quotation: ‘If we can bring a bottle of Coke to every corner of Africa, we should be able to also deliver antiretroviral drugs.’
Fire in the Blood, Trailer, Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVf2UUu_w4o
In the Jonathan Mann memorial lecture, Michael Kirby — a champion of HIV/AIDS law reform, and a former Justice of the High Court of Australia — emphasized the need to reform intellectual property laws in order to tackle the scourge of HIV/AIDS. He has a longstanding interest in the topic. As he wrote in a foreword to a book on Intellectual Property and Biotechnology, battles over patents in respect of HIV/AIDS research have been waged since the 1980's. Michael Kirby commented in his Melbourne speech:
Without changing the global laws on intellectual property, people will die needlessly. It is as simple as that. Someone must tell those who will not act, the practical facts of life in our world. They cannot expect taxpayers in other countries to shell out, indefinitely, huge funds for antiretroviral drugs if they simply refuse to reform their own laws and policies to help their own citizens.
Michael Kirby stressed that there was a need to value the human right to life-saving medicines. He called upon his friend, the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to show leadership on law reform: ‘As a conviction politician and an unabashed conservative, Tony Abbott may be able to help us in this world to reach out to those political leaders, at the coming G20 Summit in Brisbane and in the meetings of the Commonwealth of Nations, to break the deadly logjam of inaction or wrong actions.’
Thus far, despite good intentions, Australia has been slow to implement its international obligations in respect of access to essential medicines. The Doha Declaration 2001 and the WTO General Council Decision 2003 were designed to enable countries to make use of flexibilities under the TRIPS Agreement 1994 to address public health concerns — such as access to essential medicines in respect of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In 2013, the House of Representatives in the Australian Parliament passed a bill to enable to export of essential medicines to developing countries and least developed countries. However, before the Senate could debate the bill, Kevin Rudd won a leadership ballot against Julia Gillard, and Parliament was prorogued. As a result, the bill lapsed. The Coalition of the Liberal Party and the National Party won the ensuing election.
In 2014, the Coalition Government introduced a new bill, the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2014 (Cth). To his credit, Bob Baldwin, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, has shown a good understanding of the need for legislative action in respect of patent law and access to essential medicines. Baldwin emphasized in his second reading speech:
Schedules 1 and 2 to the Bill amend the Patents Act to implement the Protocol amending the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, also known as the TRIPS Protocol. The Howard government accepted the TRIPS Protocol in 2007 and its implementation in Australia is well overdue. The TRIPS Protocol helps developing countries that are suffering health crises such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis to obtain essential medicines from other countries at affordable prices. Millions of people die from such diseases every year. At present, elements of our patent system can make it harder for Australian businesses to provide assistance to such countries.
Baldwin noted: ‘To address this, the Bill will enable Australian pharmaceutical manufacturers to obtain a licence from the Federal Court to make generic versions of patented medicines and to export these medicines to countries with a demonstrated need.’ The Parliamentary Secretary stressed: ‘The scheme will ensure that patents can only be used under strict conditions and that patent owners are fairly compensated.’ Baldwin emphasized: ‘The scheme is also designed to be as easy to use as possible, while ensuring appropriate safeguards are in place and consistency with Australia’s broader international obligations.’
Genevieve Butler of the Australian Parliamentary Library has provided a useful overview of the bill. She noted:
There is international concern that patents should not be used as vehicles for healthcare monopolies. For instance, pharmaceutical patents may risk putting essential medicines beyond the reach of many people in need of treatment. Developing countries often do not have the capacity to manufacture the medicines necessary to treat epidemics such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. The interim waiver and the WTO General Council Decision 2003 provide a mechanism to supply such countries with the medicines they need to address health epidemics.
Hopefully, this important legislative reform will be finally passed through the Australian Parliament, as a first step to address longstanding issues surrounding patent law and access to essential medicines. It is an opportunity for the Prime Minister Tony Abbott to demonstrate his leadership in respect of medical research, and medical treatment.
Of course, more can and should be done by the Australian Government in respect of intellectual property and access to essential medicines. Kirby was a member of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law. Chapter 6 of the final 2012 report addresses the topic of intellectual property and access to essential medicines. The Global Commission on HIV and the Law cites the views of Mohammed El Said and Amy Kapczynski:
Intellectual property policy is a critical component of substantial, continued price reductions for ARVs, and of the ability of national governments to extend the implications of lessons learned in HIV to other areas of health. The ultimate implications, of course, are measured not in technical prose, but in people’s lives.
The Global Commission on HIV and the Law has a number of recommendations on intellectual property and access to essential medicines. First, the Commission asked the UN Secretary-General to convene a neutral, high-level body to review and assess proposals and recommend a new intellectual property regime for pharmaceutical products. The Commission recommended: ‘Such a regime should be consistent with international human rights law and public health requirements, while safeguarding the justifiable rights of inventors.’ Second, the Commission asked that ‘high-income countries, including donors such as the United States, European Union, the European Free Trade Association countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) and Japan must immediately stop pressuring low- and middle-income countries to adopt or implement TRIPS-plus measures in trade agreements that impede access to life-saving treatment.’
Third, ‘While the Commission recommends that WTO Members must urgently suspend TRIPS as it relates to essential pharmaceutical
products for low- and middle-income countries, we recognise that such change will not happen overnight’. The Commission maintained: ‘In the interim, even though individual countries may find it difficult to act in the face of political pressure, they should, to the extent possible, incorporate and use TRIPS flexibilities, consistent with safeguards in their own national laws.’ Fourth, the Commission argued that ‘The WTO Members must indefinitely extend the exemption for Least Developed Countries from the application of TRIPS provisions in the case of pharmaceutical products.’
Fifth, the Commission observed: ‘The August 30, 2003 Decision of the WTO General Council has not proved to be a viable solution for countries with
insufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity.’ The Commission maintained: ‘It is essential that the system established by that decision be
revised or supplemented with a new mechanism, to allow the easier import of pharmaceutical products produced under compulsory licence.’
Finally, the Commission noted that ‘TRIPS has failed to encourage and reward the kind of innovation that makes more effective pharmaceutical
products available to the poor, including for neglected diseases.’ The Commission commented: ‘Countries must therefore develop, agree and invest in new systems that genuinely serve this purpose, prioritising the most promising approaches including a new pharmaceutical R&D treaty and the promotion of open source discovery.’
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been a longstanding champion of access to essential medicines. At the Melbourne conference, the Doctors without Borders emphasized that there is a need for concerted actions by countries to make HIV treatments more affordable. ‘Nearly 12 million people are now receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in developing countries’, said Dr Jennifer Cohn, Medical Director of MSF’s Access Campaign. ‘With people increasingly starting treatment earlier and remaining on treatment for life, patients need better-tolerated first-line treatments as well as affordable second line-therapy for when first-line medicines fail.’ She observed: ‘We know what tools we need to use to help ensure people’s HIV virus can get to undetectable and stay there’. Cohn lamented: ‘But in most of our contexts, they’re priced out of reach.’
Leena Menghaney, Manager of MSF’s Access Campaign in India, commented: ‘There are millions of people without access to treatment, and many of those on treatment need to be switched to newer regimens.’ She observed: ‘If we are to get more people on treatment now, countries need to overcome patent barriers that undermine affordable access to drugs.’ MSF’s annual drug pricing report, Untangling the Web of Antiretroviral Price Reductions, revealed the problems with drug pricing.
There has also been similar controversies in relation to access to medicines for other infectious diseases — such as tuberculosis.
The Medicines Patent Pool has played a helpful role in encouraging access to essential medicines. The organisation was founded in 2010 by UNITAID to increase access to HIV treatment and help encourage co-operation between governments, pharmaceutical companies, and generic manufacturers.
Just before the start of the Melbourne International AIDS Conference, the Medicines Patent Pool announced seven new sub-licensing agreements for the manufacture of generic HIV medicines, atazanavir (ATV) and dolutegravir (DTG).Greg Perry, Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool, observed: ‘With licences signed today, four new manufacturers are joining us to speed the availability of crucial medicines, ATV and DTG, to developing countries. This almost doubles our network of generic partners to ten companies’. He said ‘Increased generic competition will ultimately bring prices down and increase availability to allow national treatment programmes to treat many more people in their countries.’
The Australian Government under Tony Abbott has shown a strong interest in supporting medical research. The Medicines Patent Pool could play a useful role in disseminating the benefits of that research across the globe.
UNITAID has expressed deep concerns about the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership upon access to essential medicines. The organisation has warned of the dangers of intellectual property provisions in the agreement:
TRIPS-plus provisions also limit or undermine developing countries’ policy options for legislating and using TRIPS flexibilities, even though safeguards and flexibilities were included in the TRIPS Agreement to enable governments to protect public interests, including access to medicines. This has led to concerns that TRIPS-plus provisions in free trade agreements will undermine public health safeguards and objectives—notably access to medicines. These concerns are particularly pertinent with regard to the negotiation of a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which has been positioned as a “model” for the 21st century—implying that the same or similar provisions are likely to appear in future trade agreements, including those involving developing countries.
In addition to matters of intellectual property, UNITAID has been concerned that patent owners will use the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism to challenge measures related to access to essential medicines. The dispute between Eli Lilly and Canada highlights the dangers of the abuse of investment clauses. Moreover, there has also been concern about the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on drug pricing.
Dr Manica Balasegaram from MSF has similar concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has stressed: ‘For the health and well-being of at least 800 million people, countries must reject these terms.’ The Australian Government should ensure that the trade and investment agreements that it negotiates do not undermine global action on access to essential medicines.
Helen Clark — the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, and the former New Zealand Prime Minister — told the Melbourne International AIDS Conference:
HIV/AIDS can trap families, communities, and nations in poverty. The world won’t eradicate poverty without tackling this epidemic decisively.But AIDS is also increasingly a disease of inequalities and exclusion. In Sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps the best macroeconomic predictor of HIV prevalence now is the level of income inequality: the higher the inequality, the higher the rate of HIV.
Helen Clark emphasized that ‘that leadership is vital if bad laws are to be changed’. She stressed that ‘we will support legislators to pass good laws which will turn the tide on HIV.’ Such legislative work is particularly important and critical in the field of intellectual property and access to essential medicines.
Dr Matthew Rimmer is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on Intellectual Property and Climate Change. He is an associate professor at the ANU College of Law, and an associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA). He holds a BA (Hons) and a University Medal in literature, and a LLB (Hons) from the Australian National University,, and a PhD (Law) from the University of New South Wales. He is a member of the ANU Climate Change Institute. Dr Rimmer is the author of Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod, Intellectual Property and Biotechnology: Biological Inventions, and Intellectual Property and Climate Change: Inventing Clean Technologies. He is an editor of Patent Law and Biological Inventions, Incentives for Global Public Health: Patent Law and Access to Essential Medicines, and Intellectual Property and Emerging Technologies: The New Biology. Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, clean technologies, plain packaging of tobacco products, and Indigenous intellectual property. His work is archived at SSRN Abstracts and Bepress Selected Works.
Matthew Rimmer, ‘Michael Kirby’s Challenge: Intellectual Property, HIV/AIDS, and Human Rights’, Medium, 22 July 2014, https://medium.com/@DrRimmer/2284d092397bHaving restructured their front office, the Hawks are in the market for a new top basketball executive, and according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com (via Twitter), league sources suggest that David Griffin and Joe Dumars are expected to emerge as candidates for that job.
Mike Budenholzer had previously served as the president of basketball operations in Atlanta, but relinquished that title and will simply be the club’s head coach going forward. Meanwhile, Wes Wilcox was the Hawks’ general manager, but will now serve as a special advisor to team ownership. Both Budenholzer and Wilcox are expected to have a say in personnel decisions, but the Hawks are on the lookout for someone who will have the final say.
Griffin has emerged as the most popular front office target around the league early in the 2017 offseason. Despite playing a significant role in building the Cavaliers’ roster, the GM is on an expiring deal with the defending champs, and contract talks between the two sides have reportedly stalled. That has opened the door for rival suitors to prepare pitches for Griffin. In addition to the Hawks, the Magic are believed to have the Cavs GM high on their wish list, though those teams won’t be able to talk to him until Cleveland’s season ends.
As for Dumars, the Pistons’ former president of basketball operations stepped down from that role in 2014. During his time in Detroit, he helped lead the club to a 595–536 (.527) regular-season record, 73 postseason wins, and an NBA championship in 2004, and was named Executive of the Year in 2003. In recent years, he has been linked most frequently to the Pelicans’ front office, should New Orleans decide to shake things up.
As Stein observes (via Twitter), Hawks minority owner Grant Hill, who was expected to have a hand in the team’s search for a new executive, has ties to both Griffin and Dumars. Griffin worked in the Suns’ basketball operations department when Hill was in Phoenix as a player, and Dumars played with Hill in Detroit.
Earlier today, Hawks principal owner Tony Ressler said that he hopes to have a GM in place before June’s draft, though he has confidence in the current basketball operations department to handle things in the coming weeks. Ressler added that he hopes Wilcox remains with the Hawks in his new role, admitting that the former GM will have many other options around the NBA (all Twitter links via David Aldridge of NBA.com).Kenneth Cole Replaces Stolen Bag For Brooklyn Man Thanks to Google Alert View Full Caption
BROOKLYN — A Brooklyn man whose Kenneth Cole messenger bag was stolen is getting the $300 tote replaced thanks to the designer's Google alerts.
Kenneth Cole — the person, not the brand — decided to replace the stolen bag after DNAinfo New York's story about the crime popped up through a Google alert he'd set up for his name.
The theft happened on June 4 when Gary Cotton, 25, set his Kenneth Cole bag down on a bar stool at a crowded Applebee's in the Atlantic Terminal Mall while watching Game 1 of the NBA playoffs.
Someone swiped the bag, which contained Cotton's $2,300 work computer. The Apple laptop was covered by Cotton's employer's insurance, but the bag was uninsured.
“It was a really nice bag,” said Cotton, who got the satchel as a Christmas gift from his mom. “Apparently the person who stole it thought it was a pretty nice bag too.”
Cole was moved by Cotton's plight, tracked him down and offered to replace it.
"We were hoping to ease this individual's misfortune of having lost his computer...(At the risk of being an accessory after the fact)," Cole wrote in an email to DNAinfo New York.
The designer is a fan of puns and writes his company's billboards, sometimes stirring controversy. He was born in Brooklyn and is married to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's sister Maria.
A Kenneth Cole spokeswoman called the gesture a "pay it forward story."
“Hopefully [Cotton] goes on and does a good deed for someone else,” said spokeswoman Samantha Cohen.
Cotton said he'll be more likely to choose Cole's fashions in the future, and more likely to keep an eye on his belongings.
“You can’t set things down even for a moment and take your eyes off of it, because people are opportunists," Cotton said.Advertisement
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Former Green Party's nominee Jill Stein paid for at least one advertisement among 3000 ads on Facebook which were used by Russians to influence 2016 election, Politico reported. She was the nominee for the US president during the 2012 and 2016 elections. The publication wrote that other paid advertisements intended to criticize Hillary Clinton, promoted Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders received financial support even after the end of his presidential campaign.
Russians bought ads bashed Clinton and promoted Trump
The White House reporter, Josh Dawsey wrote in a reference to a person who is familiar with the ads that Stein's ad came later in the presidential campaign and pushed her nomination for the president.
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Her ad was placed on social media with the hashtag #GrowaSpineVoteJillStein and slogan, "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein." There is no information whether Trump, Stein or Sanders knew about the advertisements.
Some critics, including Hillary Clinton, in her newly launched book "What Happened" called Jill Stein a spoiler in last year's presidential election. Stein has been put under investigation after finding she has certain links with Russia. Some of the ads put questions on the authenticity of Clinton and played upon some liberals' beliefs that her candidacy would lead the US to a war with Iran.
Clintonites now trying to convince themselves that a corny Facebook ad is the reason their candidate with a 30% approval rating lost. pic.twitter.com/4eTzomSDNk — Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) September 27, 2017
On Wednesday, Stein tweeted that "Clintonites now trying to convince themselves that a corny "Facebook ad is the reason their candidate with a 30% approval rating lost."
It is not clear how many people saw the advertisements bought by Russians on Facebook because total spending on these ads was less than 1 percent of all spending on the election. Facebook estimated that Russians spent $150,000 on the ads.
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Facebook statement on Russian ads
US officials are investigating whether those 3000 ads on Facebook were the part of the Russian government meddling in 2016 election. Facebook initially refused to reveal the information related to ads but agreed to it after Special Counsel Robert Muller issued a warrant against the company to disclose the information.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the company could not find evidence of the linkage of fake accounts with the Russian advertising. Earlier, the company said in a statement that the accounts used for advertising did not provide reference to voting for a particular candidate for the U.S. presidential election. The ads were mainly focused on social issues including immigration, LGBT matters, etc.The federal government is poised to publish a proposed consumer-protection rule that would require all processors of raw ground beef to keep records so retailers can better trace the sources of contaminated products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday.
The rule is designed to minimize the number of people affected by food-borne illnesses like the 2011 salmonella outbreak that was linked to ground beef sold by the Scarborough-based Hannaford supermarket chain. Hannaford’s records met federal requirements at the time, but because the records were incomplete, the USDA couldn’t identify the source of the beef that sickened at least 20 people.
That gap in the nation’s food-safety system was the focus of a Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram special report, “Anatomy of a Recall,” published in March 2012. The investigation found that the USDA had known since 1998 that better record-keeping was needed to help food-safety investigators trace sources of contaminated meat and prevent additional illnesses.
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has now concluded that record-keeping “has not been sufficiently effective” among grocery stores and other retailers that regularly make ground beef using meat from various sources, according to Wednesday’s news release.
The proposed rule would require retailers to keep clear and detailed “grinding logs” that identify the source, supplier and names of all materials used in the preparation of raw ground beef products.
“The improved trace-back capabilities that would result from this proposal will prevent food-borne illness by allowing (the Food Safety and Inspection Service) to conduct recalls of potentially contaminated raw ground products in a timelier manner,” said Brian Ronholm, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food safety.
The proposed rule was posted Wednesday on the Food Safety and Inspection Service website and will be published soon in the Federal Register. Interested parties will have 60 days to submit written comments before the agency moves ahead with formalizing the rule.
Better record-keeping is expected to reduce illnesses from an E. coli strain linked to ground beef by 30 percent. It is also expected to lower the cost of ground beef recalls and enhance investigations.
The USDA has estimated that improved record-keeping requirements would affect 76,390 stores and cost them a total of $20.5 million per year in added labor costs to develop, record and maintain grinding logs.
Hannaford recalled 17,000 pounds of ground beef in December 2011, after an outbreak of salmonella typhimurium that sickened at least 20 people, 12 of whom reported eating Hannaford beef in the week before symptoms appeared. The source of the tainted meat was never identified.
Hannaford voluntarily improved its record-keeping after the recall. Company spokesman Eric Blom said the supermarket chain has implemented an electronic tracking system that ensures all sources of the beef ground in its stores are identified and recorded.
“It provides the records USDA wants to have available from all retailers,” Blom said in a prepared release. “We believe this system is industry-leading and a model that can be pursued by others.”
Blom noted that the proposed USDA rule offers guidance for supermarkets and would create consistency among retailers.
Since 1998, the USDA has recommended – but not required – that stores keep better beef-grinding records.
After the 2011 Hannaford recall, the USDA said it had been working on a rule to require stores to record the source of all meat that they grind.
“The fact that this rule has seen the light of day is promising,” said Tony Corbo, a lobbyist for Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer rights group.
“This is a huge hole in the USDA’s ability to do trace-back,” Corbo said Wednesday. “I need to take a good, hard look at the proposed rule to see if there are any loopholes and provide comment.”
Corbo said it was the 2011 Hannaford recall and the Press Herald/Telegram’s coverage of the issue that pushed the USDA to finally take action. He also credited U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, with raising the alarm and keeping pressure on at the national level.
“This is something we have been pushing hard for and I’m glad regulators have agreed it’s necessary,” Pingree said Wednesday in a prepared statement.
“The voluntary guidelines that have been in place were just not sufficient when contaminated ground beef ended up in the grocery store,” Pingree said. “But I do want to look at the proposed rules carefully to make sure they don’t put an unreasonable burden on small producers who have not been part of the problem in the first place.”
Pingree is married to S. Donald Sussman, majority share owner of the Press Herald/Telegram.
Local retailers have said it would take more time to record beef sources, but they would comply with USDA rules.
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Many countries classified as ‘third world’ are looking for inexpensive ways to purify water that has become contaminated by industrial waste, and individuals in the US, Europe, and other more prosperous nations could stand to find new ways of minimizing the contaminates in municipal water supplies as well. At a national meeting of the American Chemical Society, new evidence was presented that cilantro, the herb most commonly known as an ingredient in salsa and many Asian dishes, can help to leech toxins from water.
Cilantro can be expensive when purchased at high-end grocery stores, but it also grows wild in many countries, and can easily be propagated in urban areas in pots or small gardens. Cilantro acts as an effective ‘biosorbent,’ meaning it can suck up heavy metals that are toxic to human health. Simply eating cilantro is known to help purify the body of numerous toxins, but now, adding the herb to tap water can help to get rid of toxic chemicals lurking within it.
“Cilantro may seem too pricey for use in decontaminating large amounts of water for drinking and cooking,” Schauer said. “However, cilantro grows wild in vast amounts in countries that have problems with heavy-metal water pollution. It is readily available, inexpensive and shows promise in removing certain metals, such as lead, copper and mercury, that can be harmful to human health.”
Not everyone has access to activated carbon or ion-exchange resins that can purify water form these toxins, so cilantro is proving to be a wonderful, effective, available, and potentially inexpensive option. Biosorbents like cilantro can provide both adsorption and absorption of things we don’t want lingering in our blood streams, making way for a cleaner inside.
Read: Tulsi Plant (Holy Basil) Found to Remove Fluoride from Drinking Water
“Our goal is to find biosorbents that people in developing countries could obtain for nothing,” Schauer explained. “When the filter in a water purification pitcher needs to be changed, they could go outside, gather a handful of cilantro or some other plant, and presto, there’s a new filter ready to purify the water.”
Douglas Shauer, Ph.D., and lead scientists of the study explains:
“When the filter in a water purification pitcher needs to be changed, they could go outside, gather a handful of cilantro or some other plant, and presto, there’s a new filter ready to purify the water.”
The early studies conducted by Shauer and his peers indicate that cilantro may be even more effective than activated carbon in removing heavy metals such as lead. He envisions cilantro and other plants that are biosorbent being packed into tea bags and added to water for purification.
This is great news considering there are currently 768 million people in the world without access to clean drinking water, and 2.5 billion without adequate ways to sanitize water.Official: Emerson eligible for Italy
By Football Italia staff
Roma left back Emerson Palmieri is now officially eligible for an Italian international call-up.
Gazzetta dello Sport report that FIFA has now made the decision due to the player’s Italian ancestry.
The Brazilian-born player is a product of the Santos academy, and qualifies for the Azzurri thanks to an ancestor on his mother’s side. Alfonso Palmieri was born in Rossano, Cosenza in 1853, leading to eligibility for the Azzurri.
22-year-old Emerson has represented the Brazilian U17 side on nine occasions but has no full international caps.
Another player said to be looking for Italian citizenship is Napoli defensive midfielder Amadou Diawara. Born in Guinea, the 19-year-old has commenced the administrative process, and could become eligible to play for Giampiero Ventura in the future.The last time boxing fans saw Curtis Stevens (29-6, 21 KOs) back in March, he was on the receiving end of a brutal knockout loss at the hands of former world champion David Lemieux at Turning Stone Casino in New York.
The next move for Stevens could take place at the junior middleweight division, according to trainer Andre Rozier.
Rozier indicates that Stevens is fully capable of getting down to the division limit of 154-pounds.
At one point Stevens was a contender at the super middleweight limit, before making his move to middleweight in 2012.
And now Stevens, who is not a tall middleweight at 5'7, will explore new opportunities in a weight class in 2018.
The two names at the top of Stevens' target list - IBF champion Jarrett Hurd and WBC champion Jermell Charlo.
"We're gonna explore possibly him going down to 154, and mixing it up [in that division], because Curtis said that he wants to fight Hurd or Charlo at 154," Rozier told ATG Radio.
If Rozier had his pick, it would certainly be Hurd.
He believes Hurd has the perfect style for his boxer. Hurd likes to come forward, he's certainly hittable and appears vulnerable in the early rounds - where Stevens is at his most dangerous.
"Hurd would be a great fight for him, because he's gonna come [forward] and before he realizes what's coming at him he's going to get hit with some thunder. And Jarrett's been taking some good shots, but I'm pretty sure that if Curtis curls a hook up on his head - it's over. Curtis would give him the shakey leg," Rozier said.
Hurd (21-0, 15 KOs), a huge junior middleweight at 6'1, was in action back in October when he picked up the biggest victory of his career - a win over former world champion Austin Trout at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was the first stoppage loss of Trout's career.I have been talking to this guy over the internet for about 6 months, the other day i sent him an email saying i dont think we should talk anymore just cause i have so much on atm, im really happy you now have a gf, and my mum still doesnt like it. Anyway this was a week ago and he still hasnt replied, i know...
I have been talking to this guy over the internet for about 6 months,
the other day i sent him an email saying i dont think we should talk anymore just cause i have so much on atm, im really happy you now have a gf, and my mum still doesnt like it.
Anyway this was a week ago and he still hasnt replied, i know he has seen it because thru the system i sent it you can see when he was last online.
Was that mean of me?
Background info: Been talking to him fo 6 months, both 18, got along SO well it wasnt even funny, he lives all the way over the otherside of the wold, we like all the same stuff right down to food sport and music. We spoke for 5 hours on the phone once with only 2 o 3 awkward pauses lol. He always makes me happy whenever i talk to him. Hes the nicest guy that i have ever met.
The thing is i was sick of having to organise a time to talk, and the fact that he wasnt here with me. My mum also didnt eally like it at all. Also i felt guilty whenever i madeout with a guy at a party, i know i shouldnt have but i always did for a reason.
It was kinda a spur of the moment thing but now i feel all this weight has lifted off my shoulders and its wonderful. I feel asthough i have hurt him though - and he was so nice he didnt deserve it.
Did i do the right thing? Help!!Despite that still-troubling production hiccup last June, the Star Wars standalone entry about a young Han Solo is definitely still happening and everyone is definitely still excited. I include myself in the category of "excited everyone," thanks in large part to Lando Calrissian being played by Golden Globe-winning Atlanta creator/star Donald Glover.
New director Ron Howard, who replaced Phil Lord and Chris Miller after they split from the project in June, has been slyly teasing Glover's take on the iconic Star Wars character on social media in recent days. First, in an Instagram post last week, Howard asked his followers to guess the owner of this closet:
#UntitledHanSoloMovie Care to guess whose closet this is? A post shared by RealRonHoward (@realronhoward) on Jul 11, 2017 at 11:31am PDT
Tuesday, Howard forced us all to zoom in quite a bit on the photo below:
lining up a shot today from my |
economics are in revolt – again. A few years ago, even before the crisis, they established an “autistic economics” network. After the crisis, in 2011, a Harvard class staged a walkout from Gregory Mankiw’s introductory course. That course forms the basis of textbooks prescribed in universities around the world. This year, 65 groups of students from 30 countries established an International Student Initiative for Pluralism in Economics. In no other subject do students express such organised dissatisfaction with their teaching.
It seems, however, to little lasting effect. Impermanence is inherent in student life: they don suits, collect their first salary and leave their complaints behind until the same gripes are rediscovered by a new group of 19-year-olds with similar naive hopes of changing the world. Still, recurrent dissatisfaction among both students and employers suggests they have a point.
One cause of the problem is not specific to economics. Modern universities prize research above teaching, to a degree that would astonish people outside the system, who imagine its primary purpose is to educate the young. In reality, teaching ability plays a negligible role in university hiring, tenure and promotion decisions. Many academic staff regard teaching as a nuisance that gets in the way of their “own” work. If most students were not having such a good time outside the classroom, they would be angrier than they are. They should be.
A problem specific to economics is that students suspect the material they are taught is designed to offer intellectual cover for rightwing ideology. This belief was plainly the motivation for the Harvard walkout – and there is some truth in the critique. Professor Mankiw was for a time chairman of George W Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Economics teaching encourages students to think of a world of self-interested individuals and profit-oriented company but Prof Mankiw’s conservatism puts him in a minority: in common with academics generally, most economics professors are probably mildly to the left of the political spectrum.
Teaching ability plays a negligible role in university hiring, tenure and promotion decisions. Many academic staff regard teaching as a nuisance
As are their students. The real burden of their complaint is not a political protest. As I did, they chose to study economics in the hope of solving, or at least understanding, real world problems: poverty, inequality, inflation and financial crises. But their classroom experience is narrower and less satisfying than mine was. They find themselves engaged in rote learning of models based on rational choice. They are fobbed off with assurances that acquisition of these skills is a necessary foundation for understanding of the great issues of the day; but somehow these great issues never make it into the curriculum. They suspect, rightly, that many of their teachers are not much interested. This is the burden of a powerful and detailed critique of their course prepared by students at the University of Manchester.
Their demand for more pluralism in the economics curriculum is well made. Yet much of the “heterodox economics” the Manchester students suggest including is flaky, the creation of people with their own political agenda, whether Marxist or neoliberal; or of those who cannot do the mathematics the dominant rational choice paradigm requires. Their professors reject the introduction of these alternative schemes for the same good reasons their science colleagues would reject phlogiston theory or creationism.
Yet teachers are mistaken in their conformity to a single methodological approach – encapsulated in the claim that has taken hold in the past four decades that approaches not based on rational choice foundations are unscientific or “not economics”. The need is not so much to teach alternative paradigms of economics as to teach that pragmatism, not paradigm, is the key to economic understanding.
This eclecticism is reflected in the curriculum proposals being developed by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, led by Professor Wendy Carlin of University College London, on whose advisory board I sit. The subject of economics is not a method of analysis but a set of problems – the problems that drew students to the subject in the first place. The proper scope of economics is any and all ideas that bear usefully on these topics: just as the proper scope of medicine is any and all therapies that help the patient.Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie was rushed to hospital on Thursday night after falling off the stage during an energetic performance at Swiss festival, Caribana.
According to NME, the 53-year-old suffered minor back injuries after he slipped after jumping up and down on a speaker.
He is said to have fallen seven-feet in front of the crowd, with the publication writing: 'He was taken away by stretcher and is now recovering in hospital.
Giving it his all: Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie was rushed to hospital on Thursday night after falling off the stage during an energetic performance at Swiss festival, Caribana
Fans were later reassured by the festival’s host, who said: 'We are taking good care of Bobby.'
MailOnline has contacted a spokesperson for Bobby Gillespie for further comment.
Primal Scream are scheduled to perform next on June 17 at Spain's Azkena Rock Festival in Bilbao but it's not yet known if Bobby will make a full recovery in time for the show.
Meanwhile, they are also expected to return to the UK on July 15 for The Beat-Herder Festival in Sawley, Lancashire.
Oh no! According to NME, the 53-year-old suffered minor back injuries after he slipped after jumping up and down on a speaker
Terrible time: He is said to have fallen seven-feet in front of the crowd, with the publication writing: 'He was taken away by stretcher and is now recovering in hospital (the fall was not pictured)
The indie rock band - also comprised of Andrew Innes, Martin Duffy, Darrin Mooney, Barrie Cadogan and Simone Butler - are currently touring their 11th studio LP 'Chaosmosis'.
Back in March, Bobby, who is best mates with supermodel Kate Moss, said he loves playing live gigs more than ever following eight years of sobriety.
The Glasgow singer, who quit drugs in 2008, even credits Australian music legend Nick Cave with helping him rediscover his confidence when performing on-stage sober, he told the Herald Sun.
Bobby previously told how that the inaugural Mercury Award-winning band's songwriting chops improved after he quit drugs.
But he admits to struggling with live performances in the early days of his sobriety and did not know what to do with his hands and felt 'clumsy and self-conscious'.
He told the publication: 'At first, when I performed, I was very scared, I had a fear of going on stage because I thought the drugs had helped me as a performer.'
Taking advice: Rocker Bobby Gillespie (left), the frontman of Mercury Award-winning band Primal Scream, told the Herald Sun recently that Australian musician Nick Cave (right) offered words of encouragement when he first got sober - as the former recreational drug user admitted he 'had a fear of going on stage' in early sobriety
Movin' On Up: Bobby, 53, previously said that quitting drugs helped improve the band's songwriting skills, but he nevertheless lost his confidence singing on stage immediately after getting sober
Confidence: In particular, the Glasgow-born rocker said that he felt 'clumsy and self-conscious' and didn't know what to do with his hands on stage - before getting a pep talk from fellow ex-drug user Nick Cave
The Movin' On Up hitmaker added: 'I spoke to Nick Cave about it and even he said... to just keep doing it and one night, it will all come back to you again.
'I kept thinking, "If Nick can do that, I can do that",' he said - before adding that after a shaky start, the band played a triumphant gig at 2007 Bestival on the Isle of Wight.
Bobby also credited Nick's long-serving collaborator Warren Ellis, 50 - who has performed in the Bad Seeds and Grinderman - with also offering advice.
Got his mojo back: At this Primal Scream performance in Mexico City last year, Bobby cut a remarkably confident figure
Words of wisdom: Bobby recalled, 'I spoke to Nick Cave about (the stage fright) and even he said... to just keep doing it and one night, it will all come back to you again'
Meanwhile, Nick himself battled a heroin addiction for many years after first experimenting with the Class-A drug shortly after dropping out of a Melbourne art school in 1977.
Now living in Brighton, England, Nick told The Guardian in 2005 that he eventually quit heroin when he met his wife, ex-model Susie Bick, in the late '90s.
Speaking of the redemptive stories of addiction and recovery often seen in Hollywood films like Walk the Line - a biopic of Johnny Cash - he said: 'I've been there and things don't work out that way.
'People think just because you stop drinking or stop taking drugs you become a good person. That's absolute bulls**t.'
Helping hand: Bobby also credited Nick's long-serving collaborator Warren Ellis, 50 - who has performed in the Bad Seeds and Grinderman - with also offering valuable adviceThe 2013 Conference on Michigan's Future Local Future invites everyone to attend the 2013 Conference on Michigan's Future: Energy, Economy, Environment set for November 1-3, 2013 at Crystal Mountain Resort. The in-depth program includes speakers on wind power, fracking, climate change, renwable energy, economics, and much more. Early bird registration is now open. Save $100 by registering in August. For more information and to register, visit the conference web site at: FutureMichigan.org.
A conference bringing together visionaries, activists, and leaders as a gathering of equals to explore together scenarios for the future in areas of sustainability, energy, peak oil, climate change, economics, politics, renewable energy, food security, transition towns, bioregionalism, permaculture, environment, compassionate living and culture change.
2012 speakers Include:
Mr. Daniel Quinn, best selling author of Ishmael, Providence, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization. In 1990, Ted Turner offered a $500,000 prize for the best unpublished novel offering positive solutions to global problems. Quinn submitted Ishmael, which was selected as the grand prize winner, by a panel of distinguished authors, out of 2500 entries. *
Dr. Steve Keen received the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review in 2010 for being the economist who most cogently warned of the economic crisis, and whose work is most likely to prevent future crises. He is Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney and author of "Debunking Economics" (2012).
Mr. Richard Heinberg is author of ten books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and The End of Growth. He is regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. Heinberg exposes the tenuousness of our current way of life and offers a vision for a truly sustainable future. **
Ms. Nicole Foss is senior editor for The Automatic Earth and former editor of The Oil Drum - Canada. Foss is an expert speaker on peak oil, economic instability and personal preparation. Foss has delivered her Century of Challenges talk hundreds of times and in twelve countries. Foss has presented at conferences on peak oil, biodiversity, and economics.
Mr. Albert Bates is author of The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change and many other books.. A former environmental rights lawyer, Bates lives at The Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee; co-founder of the Global Ecovillage Network and delegate to the UN climate talks; and teaches permaculture, ecovillage design and natural building.
Ms. Stephanie Mills is an author, lecturer and bio-regionalist. Her books include: On Ghandi's Path, Tough Little Beauties, Epicurean Simplicity, Turning Away from Technology, In Service of the Wild, In Praise of Nature, and Whatever Happened to Ecology? Mills is president of the Bay Bucks local currency board, and holds an honorary doctorate from Mills College, CA.
Mr. Aaron Wissner is a teacher, writer and speaker specializing peak oil, climate change, money and debt, and cultural transition. Wissner has organized six major conferences bringing in hundreds of speakers and thousands of participants. A featured article on Wissner was published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in 2007.
Presentations also include:
The Urban Permaculture of NYC -- KMO of The C-Realm Podcast
The Story of Zero -- John Barrie
Powering The Future -- John Sarver
Modern Media for Advocacy -- Daniel Schoonmaker
Sustain to Gain -- Renae Hesselink
Fracking in the Forest -- Maryann Lesert
Nuts & Bolts of Community Bicycle -- Tom Bulten
Being Young in a Young Movement -- Christian Smith & Bryan Mets
Economic Opportunity & City Design -- Mark Nixon
Live entertainment includes:
Max Lockwood and Aurora Lewis from Big Dudee Roo
Guitarist and vocalist Sarah Barker
SUMMARY
The VAL conference brings together visionaries, activists, and leaders to explore together visions for the future, including the areas of sustainability, peak oil, climate change, economics, politics, renewable energy, food security, transition towns, bioregionalism, permaculture, compassionate living and culture change.
The event is a wedding of the best features of conference, colloquium, and retreat.
Participants create a clear vision for a positive, realistic future; study the current situation of energy, economy and environment; examine trends, projections and scenarios for the future; and plan together for what to do next, both individually and collectively.
To keep up to date on conference news, join the Local Future page on Facebook.
For questions, email: organizer [at] localfuture.org
NOTES
* Quinn appears via exclusive and extensive pre-recorded video
** Heinberg appears live via a remote video connectionRob Carr/Getty Images
The Washington Redskins can win with Robert Griffin III or Kirk Cousins.
However, should both be used during the course of a game?
Well the approach would certainly be a change of pace, except from the quarterback position as opposed to running back. Also, per ESPN.com:
Robert Griffin III moved better on his sprained right knee at practice Thursday but the Washington Redskins do not plan to announce their starting quarterback until Sunday, a team source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Cousins, on the other hand, fared well during his preseason appearances, and that transitioned nicely when under center during the regular season. Despite limited time, the former Michigan State Spartan, if anything, has proven to be quite reliable.
As for Washington's Week 15 opponent, the Cleveland Browns are no cakewalk.
Although Cleveland sports a 5-8 record, the Browns feature one of pro football's most underrated defenses.
Through 14 weeks the Browns have recorded 34 sacks and forced 27 turnovers. Given the disparity between RG3's and Cousins' quarterbacking attributes, mobility against Cleveland is an advantage.
Playing both, however, is an interesting approach for Washington on Sunday.
Not to mention, it's what the Browns must expect to cover all bases. In an article by Mark Maske of the Washington Post:
“When it’s something like this where you’re not sure who’s going to play quarterback,” [Pat] Shurmur said in a conference call with D.C. area reporters, “what we do is prepare for the Washington Redskins’ offense…. We have to prepare for, really, all those elements as we move forward.” Shurmur said he’s not certain how different the Redskins’ offensive approach would be if Cousins plays in place of Griffin. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to tell. And that’s why you prepare for the full offense."
One way is limiting RG3's usage to strict passing situations, third down and inside the red zone. The Browns are a physical defense, so the fewer hits Griffin takes the better.
Unfortunately, the star rookie has been sacked 28 times and has felt a few more hits when making plays downfield as well. As a result, only putting him under center when needing a first down presents that pass-run option to Cleveland.
Even better, the Browns run a 4-3 defense just like the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles. Compared to RG3's efficiency against a 3-4 (Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens), that type of front is a competitive advantage for Washington.
Giving Cousins time also benefits the Redskins, as Cleveland ranks No. 21 against the pass and allows a 61.3 completion percentage. His mobility, arm strength and accuracy are underrated, and that's a key reason why Cousins led Washington to tie the game in the waning minutes again Baltimore.
Against Cleveland, Cousins can still give Washington the luxury of utilizing roll-outs and setting up play-action. The Browns get pressure and force turnovers, but they're still vulnerable at the point of attack and when facing explosive offenses.
No matter which rookie takes the snap, Washington's rushing threat with Alfred Morris will force the linebackers to respect the ground game. After all, Cleveland gives up 4.3 yards per rush and Morris gets an average of 4.9.
Using both RG3 and Cousins is a greater strategic advantage to Washington than at first glance, because the attack does not drastically change. In addition, the Redskins can still run the ball and maintain balance throughout.
Follow John Rozum on Twitter.Here is an example of a 12-week TP resistance training program:
Mesocycle 1 - Weeks 1-4: 5 sets of 10 reps @ 65-70% 1RM
Mesocycle 2 - Weeks 5-8: 4 sets of 6 reps @ 75-80% 1RM
Mesocycle 3 - Weeks 9-12: 3 sets of 4 reps @ 85-90% 1RM
In this example, the volume load is decreasing from each mesocycle, while the average intensity is increasing. The main characteristic of TP is that the variation of volume and intensity happen between mesocycles, with little variation occurring within each mesocycle. This goes in line with the concurrent development of physical attributes, where Tudor Bompa believes some traits are best developed together to avoid the interference effect. For example, hypertrophy-based resistance training will be paired with aerobic system development as they both improve under high-volume training. While strength and power training will be paired with anaerobic energy system development and explosive strength and power will be developed simultaneously with alactic and specific endurance work.
TP is more beneficial for novice trainees and lifters as intensity is increased at a slow and gradual pace (from one mesocycle to another), allowing for an un-rushed acquisition of structural and technical changes such as mitochondrial biogenesis and muscle hypertrophy to occur. As discussed previously in Part 201, the development of these abilities follow a sequential order, where hypertrophy and aerobic-based qualities are developed before power, anaerobic and alactic qualities. TP is an excellent model for novice trainees that have not been accustomed to high training volumes and intensities, and can prepare them for future workloads and perhaps other periodization models.
Defining Characteristics Of A Traditional Periodization Model:
A macrocycle starts off with high-volume, low-intensity training
A macrocycle ends off with low-volume, high-intensity training
Physical attributes are all developed simultaenously
Variations and undulations in volume and intensity occur from MESOCYCLE to MESOCYCLE.
What Traditional Periodization IS NOT:
Not to be confused with "linear" increases in intensity from week to week.
Example:
5x5 @ 135lbs
5x5 @ 145lbs
5x5 @ 155lbs...
This is a form a progression and is not a defining characteristic of the traditional periodization model.
Limitations of traditional periodization
While TP may be beneficial for novice trainees due to its concurrent development of physical abilities, it may be sub-optimal for intermediate or advanced athletes across a wide range of sports and performance settings. Many other factors also contribute to the need for a revision of the TP model of training, such as:
Need for contuinual progress and improved performance
Need for training stressor management in team sports
Sports that have multiple competitions or a longer competitive season
One major limitation of the TP model is that TP is optimized for climatic sports, sports that require only several performance or one performance over a short-time span. TP does not take into consideration seasonal sports or team sports that usually possess a longer competition period. An aggressive taper in the pre-season or pre-competition phase of training prepares athletes well for the beginning of the competitive season, however can be detrimental in keeping consistent performance measures over the span of the season.
TP-based programs are also hard to implement with large groups of athletes that participate in regular sport practice, competition and travelling. Seasonal team sport athletes need to maintain a base level of physical fitness during the long in-season in order to prevent detraining effects, therefore the planning of physical training must be altered during the competition period and the pre-competition or preparatory period. Since there is little to no variation in volume and intensity between microcycles/within the mesocycles, using a TP model in seasonal or team sports can be problematic. Athletes are essentially "stuck" with a specific volume and intensity scheme in any given mesocycle, therefore TP is often suggested to be inflexible for scenarios in which athletes need lower or higher intensities of work.
For example, we'll compared soccer player A and soccer player B on the same team.
Soccer player A plays on the starting line up and gets a lot of playing time.
Soccer player B is relatively new and doesn't get a lot of playing time.
These 2 athletes will need different strength and conditioning maintenance programs in between games and in the competition season because they have uneven playing times, and therefore stress their bodies different. The TP-model doesn't allow soccer player B to jump into more high intensity lifting and endurance sessions that are needed for him to maintain his fitness attributes if they are still at the beginning of a "higher volume" phase. There is a need for different periodization methods depending on the sport, and the position of each player on the team. In team-based sports whose competition season lasts 20-35 weeks, a TP model of training has shown to lead to reductions in maximal strength, muscle mass, maximal speed, as well as the ability to recover between matches (Citation 1, 2).
Even in individual sports, the increase in financial motivation and total number of competitions a year (play more games/compete in more matches = more money) calls for the revision of the TP model in order to produce more consistent results year round. The slow, monthly-undulatory nature of TP cannot achieve this.Dodging and Burning is a method of lightening and darkening specific areas of an image, regulating local exposure to even out texture and contours. It digitally acheives (and with much more control) an old darkroom technique of witholding light (dodging) to keep an area light, or increasing the exposure to darken (burn) areas.
You’ll find the dodge and burn tools on the toolbar to the left of the default Photoshop setup, or by pressing ‘O‘.
The problem with using the standard tools is that they work destructively, they won’t operate on a blank layer so you’ll be making permanent changes to your working layer. This would be fine if none of us ever made an error or changed our minds, but to give us the option, we have a couple of methods available.
I split my workflow into two parts, pixel level dodge and burn, and carving. For pixel D&B I use the Curves method outlined below to even texture whilst zoomed in from 100% to 400%. Carving is more about shaping the contours of the face and enhancing contrast, and I like to work at 50% view or less to keep the whole image in context. I often do this second step on a 50% grey layer, my own preference and the choice is ultimately up to you.
The Curves Method and Pixel D&B
You can do this a number of ways using a number of other adjustments, but the premise is this; you increase lightness using an adjustment layer, you mask it out with black, and on the mask you can then paint the effect back into the required areas with white. You decrease lightness on a different adjustment layer and treat it the same way. Others may use different adjustments for this, I use Curves which is why I’ll explain this method here. I’ll be using RGB, and the following assumes some familiarity with curves, masks and adjustment layers.
Open a Curves adjustment layer and with a single point pull the midtones up, this will be your dodge layer;
Fill the mask with black, hiding the effect of the curve (by default the mask should be selected and pure white, so just hit Cmd/Ctrl+I to Invert);
For the burn layer, start a new Curves adjustment and pull the midtones down with a single point;
Invert the mask and name this layer Burn;
Paint with a soft white brush onto the Burn mask to darken, and the Dodge mask to lighten.
My preference is to use a low Flow setting, between 1% and 5%. Many use Opacity but I prefer the ability to build up the effect in one stroke instead of lifting the pen.
This is a composite of the two masks after dodging and burning, coloured to distinguish the lightened areas from the burned, and the result;
Carving and 50% Grey
The next part of my workflow involves adding contrast and contour to shadows and highlights. To demonstrate this using the 50% grey layer method, select Layer>New>Layer and in the resulting dialog box select Mode: Soft Light and check the box next to ‘Fill with Soft Light neutral color (50% gray).
You can paint onto this layer with black or white, or indeed any colour but as we’re dealing with luminosity stick to black and white. Again using a soft brush with a low Flow/Opacity zoom out so you can see the whole image or most of it, and you can accentuate the shadow and highlight or even alter the appearance of shapes. Remember that generally, lightening an area makes it appear closer, darkening helps it to recede.
In the below example, I’ve also selected the whites of the image (using Select>Color Range) and filled them with white to accentuate the highlights further.
Please feel free to share this tutorial, and if you have any questions please post them below.
Danny
Follow @dmeadowsretouchDescription:
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Visit our website:The practice of acupuncture predates current understanding of physiology by several millennia, and modern studies have found it often provides measureable improvements in health outcomes, particularly in the area of chronic pain. Now, in a study reported in the journal Brain, a team of investigators based at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) sheds new light on the question of how.
“Acupuncture is a medical therapy that originated in China several thousand years ago,” said Vitaly Napadow, director of the Center for Integrative Pain Neuroimaging at the Martinos Center and senior author of the Brain paper. “But despite its long history, the intervention itself — particularly when coupled with electrical stimulation — has significant similarities to many conventional therapies, such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). A large body of clinical research exploring acupuncture for chronic pain disorders has demonstrated that it may be marginally better than a placebo procedure in reducing pain ratings. But questions still remain: How exactly does acupuncture work? Is it any better at improving objective outcomes for chronic pain?”
To get to the root of these questions, Napadow and colleagues performed a sham controlled acupuncture neuroimaging study of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), a neuropathic pain disorder. Few chronic pain disorders have established biomarkers or measureable treatment outcomes. However, in CTS, measurements taken at the wrist of the speed at which signals are transmitted along the median nerve are a well-known and accepted biomarker. In addition, studies by Napadow and others have shown that the brain — particularly the primary somatosensory cortex, which receives signals related to the sense of touch — is remapped in CTS. Specifically, brain cells that usually respond to touch signals from specific fingers start to respond to signals from multiple fingers, which provides another measureable outcome.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) taken before and after several months of therapy in three different groups of CTS patients — one receiving electro-acupuncture at the affected hand, one receiving electro-acupuncture at the ankle opposite the affected hand, and the other receiving sham electro-acupuncture with placebo needles near the affected hand — the researchers found that both real and sham acupuncture improved patient-reported CTS symptoms. However, there were notable differences in physiologic measures. Real acupuncture at the affected hand led to measurable improvements in outcomes both at the affected wrist and in the brain, while acupuncture at the opposite ankle produced improvement at the wrist only. Brain remapping immediately after real acupuncture was linked to long-term improvement in CTS symptoms. No physiologic improvements resulted from sham acupuncture.
Even after years of clinical research, controversy continues as to whether acupuncture works primarily by the placebo effect, especially given the slight differences between the efficacy of real and sham acupuncture. The findings of the Brain study help address this question. Sham acupuncture may produce a stronger placebo effect than a pill because it sends inputs to the brain via skin receptors and is coupled with a specific ritual. But the symptom improvement produced by sham treatment for conditions like CTS also might derive from entirely different mechanisms than those elicited by real acupuncture, the mechanisms of which may more specifically target CTS pathophysiology.
“Sham acupuncture may ‘work’ by modulating known placebo circuitry in the brain,” said Napadow, who is an associate professor in radiology at Harvard Medical School. “In contrast, real acupuncture may improve CTS symptoms by rewiring the primary somatosensory cortex, in addition to modulating local blood flow to the peripheral nerve in the wrist. In other words, both peripheral and central neurophysiological changes in CTS may be halted or even reversed by electro-acupuncture interventions that provide more prolonged and regulated input to the brain — something that future, longer-term neuroimaging studies should explore.”
Napadow and colleagues plan to follow up the Brain study with further research linking objective/physiological and subjective/psychological outcomes for acupuncture-produced pain relief. Better understanding of how acupuncture works to relieve pain ultimately will enable them and others to optimize the therapy to provide effective, non-pharmacological care for chronic pain patients.
Yumi Maeda and Hyungjun Kim of the Martinos Center are co-lead authors of the Brain paper. The study was supported by grants from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, and the National Center for Research Resources.Black History Month celebrates the progress toward racial equality the United States has achieved and reminds us of the work that remains. Gains in black homeownership have been hard won, which amplifies our concern that in the last 15 years, black homeownership rates have declined to levels not seen since the 1960s, when private race-based discrimination was legal.
Unless this setback to black homeownership is addressed, black families will rent for more years before homeownership than they did a few years ago. This will shrink the landscape of housing choice available to black families, increase their exposure to displacement, and delay or close off a key wealth-building mechanism. All three of these outcomes will widen the inequality that underlies so many current struggles.
What has happened to black homeownership?
The black community was hit harder than other groups by the housing crisis
In the three decades after the Fair Housing Act passed, black homeownership rose by almost six percentage points. But from 2000 to 2015, that gain was more than erased as forces within and beyond the housing market aligned to reduce the black homeownership rate to 41.2 percent. Black homebuyers bought homes at the peak of the bubble at higher rates than whites and Asians, having often been offered subprime loans even when they qualified for prime loans.
Black families did not benefit on average as much as their white counterparts from the post-9/11 economic recovery. As a result, the black homeownership rate dropped more than 2 percentage points from 2000 to 2010 and slid even faster after 2010. White and Hispanic homeownership dropped less from 2000 to 2015, and homeownership rose for people in other racial groups (mainly Asian Americans). Click here to download more detailed data on black homeownership.
Big homeownership declines for black households of all ages, especially young adults
The decline in homeownership has been most marked for younger members of the black community. The homeownership rate for black 35- to 44-year-olds fell from 45 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2015, half the level for whites of the same age and lower than the black homeownership rate in 1960. Homeownership also fell from 1990 to 2015 for whites, Hispanics, and others in that same age group, but not by nearly as much as for black people. Among 55- to 64-year-olds, black homeownership fell 8.1 percent, while homeownership for white and Hispanic households of the same age fell 3.7 and 2.1 percent, respectively.
An unprecedented generational retrocession
The history of homeownership by generation is particularly troubling. This view shows that the prospects for black homeownership have gone from hopeful to pessimistic in only 15 years.
About half of black people born in the last 10 years of the baby boom (1956–65) were homeowners by the time they turned 50. The early gen Xers (born 1966–75) had a higher homeownership rate in 2000 (when they were in their late 20s and early 30s) than the late boomers had enjoyed 10 years earlier. But the financial and housing crisis slowed early gen Xers’ transition into homeownership from 2000 to 2010 (when they were in their 30s and early 40s) and caused more of this generation to lose their homes than to become owners after 2010. This retrocession is unprecedented for any other generation or age group.
The picture only gets worse for younger black generations. Those born from 1976 to 1985—spanning late gen Xers and early millennials—have barely begun their homeownership transition, but they’re getting an even slower start than either of the two older cohorts.
Inequality will get worse with inaction
The overall decline in homeownership threatens to exacerbate racial inequality for decades to come. If recent trends continue, black people born between 1965 and 1975 will likely become part of the first generation since those born before 1900 to reach retirement age with more renters than homeowners among their community.
The period since the housing crisis began has been a tragic chapter in the history of the black community’s access to the wealth building, security, and the sense of belonging offered by homeownership. We must take action to avoid further decline. Reforms are needed that provide more affordable rental housing and more plentiful and secure access to homeownership.
These reforms need to go beyond housing to include safe and healthy neighborhoods, high-quality education, measures to build and protect financial health, fair credit scoring, and access to good jobs and affordable health care. These influences will affect whether today’s youngest generations will be homeowners by the time they retire.The Benham Brothers are at it again.
The former Minor League Baseball players, who were canned from their HGTV show in 2014 over anti-gay remarks, claimed in a Facebook video that God is “speaking through” Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which have killed dozens of people.
“If you would’ve told us back in 2001 that in 2017 we’d be completely redefining what gender means, what marriage means, what sexuality means I would’ve said there’s no way that would happen in our country,” said David Benham in a video posted to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
“16 years after that horrific terrorist act took place in our country,” he continued. “God is speaking: ‘Repent! Yes, you’ve rebuilt, but it’s time to repent!’”
Benham has previously claimed same-sex marriages are the result of a “depraved mind.”
But the not-quite reality stars aren’t the only anti-LGBTQ conservatives to blamethe destruction wrought by the hurricanes, which have done $70 billion in damage to Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean Islands, on “moral corruption.” Quite a few Christian extremists think queer people are responsible for Harvey and Irma.
Here are some of them:
1. Kevin Swanson
Swanson, an Orthodox Presbyterian minister with close ties to Ted Cruz, claims that the storms were retribution for Texas’ failure to pass an anti-LGBTQ bathroom bill.
“Two Republicans would not allow the bill on the floor, they wanted to encourage the abomination of men attempting to dress like women in the state of Texas,” Swanson said in an Aug. 31 broadcast of his radio show.
“They were gung-ho to support this abominable activity in the state of Texas,” he added.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the state legislature in June after conservative lawmakers failed to force through State Bill 6. The legislation, if passed, would have forced trans people to use restrooms that correspond with their “biological sex” in public schools, government buildings, and universities.
House Speaker Joe Straus, a Republican, opposed the bill, saying it would be “bad for business.” It failed to become law.
“We’re not saying that God sent the Hurricane just because of this, but we are looking for stuff to repent for the state of Texas and city of Houston,” Swanson concluded. “We hope they’re paying attention.”
2. Ann Coulter
Coulter, known for making outlandish statements to stoke outrage, made waves on Twitter by claiming Harvey might be payback for lesbianism.
The conservative shock-jock said in an Aug. 28 tweet that she doesn’t believe that the hurricane is “God |
discriminated against a severely learning disabled boy by not doing enough to give him the help he needed.
In their 9-0 ruling the judges sided with Rick Moore and his son Jeffrey, who is dyslexic.
The case began in the 1990s, when Rick Moore complained that the North Vancouver school district discriminated against Jeffrey, who was eight years old, in Grade 3 and unable to read.
Teachers knew of the boy’s disability and referred the case to a diagnostic centre for special attention, but the district closed the centre for budgetary reasons before he could enrol.
His father instead put Jeffrey into an expensive independent school which catered to students with learning disabilities. Jeffrey went on to attend a post-secondary institution and now works full-time as a plumber.
Moore complained to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal that the district had discriminated against his son by failing to accommodate his disability.
In 2005, the tribunal agreed, awarding the Moores the cost of tuition at the independent school, half the cost for his transportation to the school and $10,000 in damages.
The B.C. Supreme Court overturned the tribunal ruling and that decision was upheld by the court of appeal.
The Supreme Court, however, overturned the lower courts, restored the finding of discrimination and the tribunal award of tuition, transport and damages. It also awarded court costs to Moore.
“The tribunal concluded that the failure of the public school system to give Jeffrey the support he needed to have meaningful access to the educational opportunities offered by the board, amounted to discrimination under the [human rights] code,” Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for the court.
“I agree.”
She pointed out that the province’s School Act acknowledges that the very purpose of the school system is to enable all students to develop “their individual potential.”
“Adequate special education, therefore, is not a dispensable luxury,” Abella wrote. “For those with severe learning disabilities, it is the ramp that provides access to the statutory commitment to education made to all children in British Columbia.”
She noted that the school district did provide some help, but not enough.
“There is no doubt that Jeffrey received some special education assistance until Grade 3, but in my view the tribunal’s conclusion that the remediation was far from adequate to give Jeffrey the education to which he was entitled, was fully supported by the evidence.”
The high court said the rights tribunal took too broad an approach to the case on two fronts: ordering the province to provide systemic remedies for severe learning-disabled children and saying it would oversee implementation of the order.
“While the tribunal was certainly entitled to consider systemic evidence in order to determine whether Jeffrey had suffered discrimination, it was unnecessary for it to hold an extensive inquiry into the precise format of the provincial funding mechanism or the entire provincial administration of special education in order to determine whether Jeffrey was discriminated against,” Abella wrote.
“The tribunal, with great respect, is an adjudicator of the particular claim that is before it, not a royal commission.”Now playing: Watch this: Google Drive is dying -- time to update
Stephen Shankland/CNET
If you're among the hundreds of millions of people using Google Drive to synchronize files across your PCs and phones, be warned: you've now got three months to install its replacement.
Google announced in July that it's replacing the Google Drive software for personal computers with Backup and Sync, which does the same thing as Google Drive but slurps in more files. On Thursday, Google detailed its transition plan, saying it'll stop supporting Drive on Dec. 11 and shut it down completely on March 12, 2018.
The new approach lets Google's software synchronize files you've stored on your desktop or your documents folders and make all your photos part of Google Photos, too.
And it reflects the growing importance of cloud-based services. In bygone days your files were anchored to a single computing device, but with services like Google Backup and Sync, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and Apple iCloud, your PC or phone is becoming just the tool you happen to be using to edit a photo or write a letter or share a tweet. That's handy -- especially if you lose your laptop or break your phone.
Google announced the date of Drive's demise in a blog post for IT administrators who offer Google's G Suite productivity tools to employees. If you're one of those employees, you may see another Google option coming your way: File Stream. This software lets organizations store files solely in the cloud, "streaming" them to laptops when you're working on them and otherwise keeping your storage space unencumbered. If you're not one of those employees, don't worry about it.
Enlarge Image Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
You can install Backup and Sync right now if you want to get the transition out of the way. After all, you're not going to be able to postpone it forever.
It's Complicated: This is dating in the age of apps. Having fun yet?
Tech Enabled: CNET chronicles tech's role in providing new kinds of accessibility.CLOSE Investors need to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump is the "Negotiator-in-Chief" based on his Boeing and UTX maneuvers, said TheStreet's Jim Cramer. Boeing shares moved lower yesterday after President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the government should cancel its order of a new Air Force One 747 jetliner, which he says could cost $4 billion. He also said the costs are "out of control." Video provided by TheStreet Newslook
In this June 2003 file photo, a Boeing 747 of Iran's national airline is seen at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran. Iran said Sunday it has finalized a $16.8 billion deal with Boeing to purchase 80 passenger planes, a deal made possible by last year's landmark nuclear agreement. (Photo11: Hasan Sarbakhshian, AP)
Boeing has government approval to fill Iran Air's $16 billion aircraft order, but it may still be grounded by Congress.
And President-elect Trump, who has criticized the Iran nuclear accord that allowed the deal to take off, could eventually have a say, too.
The Chicago-headquartered Boeing said Sunday that it will sell 80 jetliners worth $16.6 billion to Iran Air. Boeing got approval to sell planes in Iran in September but had to wait for a license for the Iran Air deal from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
This would be the largest business deal that a U.S. company had done with Iran since President Obama signed an executive order lifting sanctions against the country. That order came after Iran agreed to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons under an accord reached in July 2015 with the United Nations Security Council members — the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia — and Germany.
But Boeing's deal could face opposition in Congress and the White House. “We will aggressively fight this deal in next Congress, though we probably won't even need new legislation to do it,” said David Pasch, communications director for Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill. “The incoming appointees at Treasury and State will no longer report to a White House willing to bend over backward and ignore national security concerns (in order) to keep Iran from walking away from the nuclear deal.”
In May, Roskam, along with fellow Illinois Republican Reps. Robert Dold and Randy Hultgren, sent a letter to Boeing asking the company not to do business with Iran until it renounces support for terror groups. Last month, the House of Representatives approved a bill that would prevent the Treasury Department from giving U.S. banks the licenses to help Boeing complete the transactions. Since Obama would likely veto the bill, it hasn't moved in the Senate.
"Congress will have a lot to say, particularly working in concert with an administration that has a fairly low view of this deal," Roskam told USA TODAY.
He also said the deal depends on financing. Any bank that would get involved “has to ask itself is it worth the reputational risk to be complicit with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism?”
Congressional opposition to the Iran nuclear accord has gained momentum with the victory of Trump, who has called the accord "the stupidest deal of all time." He and Vice President-Elect Mike Pence have suggested they will consider renegotiating the deal when they take office. Trump's transition staff did not respond to requests for comment.
Joe Lieberman, the former Independent senator from Connecticut who's now chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group, said the Iran deal faces a hostile future in Washington.
While it's not clear Congress or the new Trump administration will try to overturn it, "there will at least be demands for stricter enforcement of the nuclear deal, an expansion of non-nuclear sanctions on Iran, and for companies — like Boeing — to cease efforts that reward the regime with lucrative business opportunities when it continues to be the leading state-sponsor of terrorism worldwide," Lieberman said.
Boeing itself has also been in the news recently with Trump's call for the cancellation of the manufacturer's deal to build the next Air Force One planes because of cost overruns on the project. "Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!" he tweeted last week.
Boeing, which also said the Iran deal will help support nearly 100,000 U.S. jobs, expects to begin filling Iran Air's shopping list, which includes 50 737s, in 2018. The planes will be delivered over a 10-year period, Farhad Parvaresh, the managing director of the Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told Iran's official news agency IRNA on Sunday.
Boeing isn't the only company looking to cash in in Iran. Competitor Airbus is also breaking into the market, and last week Royal Dutch Shell, the world's second-largest energy company, said it would begin developing oil and gas in Iran.
At United Against Nuclear Iran, a group that advocates against the normalization of business dealings with Iran, retired Capt. Michael Pregent advised against Boeing's sale due to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' use of "civilian airliners to support terrorism." A founding member of UANI's veterans advisory council, Pregent said, "It is inexcusable for Boeing to enter into business dealings with the regime when they are fully aware it is responsible for deaths and maiming of our men and women in uniform."
Before last year's nuclear accord to curtail Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. had not had diplomatic ties with the country since 1980. The year before a revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed shah of Iran and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. The State Department had considered Iran as a “state sponsor of terrorism" for funding U.S.-targeted militant groups around the world, including Palestinian terror groups.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2hAjSqCWe discovered Virginia’s Bearstorm last year, and the immediate impression was so positive that we eagerly premiered the band’s 2015 album Americanus. Today, we’re equally happy to announce that Bearstorm have come storming back with a new EP named Biophobia that Baltimore-based Grimoire Records will release on December 9 — AND we have a deliciously named song from the EP to share with you: “Cryptobiotic Filth Destroyer“.
Bearstorm have already proven that they’re genre manglers, and on this new release the music is no more easily classifiable. The band have used the phrase “blackened southern deathprog”. Grimoire has described the music as “somehow simultaneously inspired by classical music and southern rock — falling somewhere between Enslaved and Russian Circles“. And if all that tends to knot up your neurons, consider the unusual but evocative lyrics for this new song:
“The bears of the moss. Of eight tearing limbs. And alien substance. Emerge from glass meditation. The final epoch has run its course. Incarnated wrath inhabits our space. The avatars merely a foothold. Saturn exalts within libra. Eight limbed avenger awakens. Destroyer of filth on his white horse. As justice begs for the sword. This imbalance cannot be permitted. This dark night of misery and sin. This cannibalistic demon age. We wake from crystalline sleep. Awaken, wretched children, from this nightmare. Far from our golden age. Let the saviors hack and burn all of us. Let someone else have a chance at the world.”
The new EP consists of an introductory “Dawn Chorus” and four other songs, collectively totaling 24 minutes of sound. Of those four, “Cryptobiotic Filth Destroyer” is the longest.
A sludgy bass line and hard-punching drum beats rumble the gut while a pair of twisting, twining guitars spiral, swerve, and screech, tracing intricate, phosphorescent figures against a black backdrop of acidic vocal shrieks. After that extended prelude, things take a softer, more effervescent course, approaching prog-fusion territory in an extended instrumental segment that grows more and more fascinating as its multicolored and labyrinthine sonic patterns change shapes. The song builds in intensity from there, surging with energy, but no less intricate and inventive as it rushes toward an unsettling climax.
Biophobia was recorded in Richmond on July 23, 2016 by Grimoire’s Noel Mueller, and he mixed and mastered the EP, too. The artwork was created by Karl Dahmer. Grimoire will release Biophobia on CD and digitally on December 9. For pre-order info, go here:
https://grimoirerecords.bandcamp.com/album/biophobiaThe media continues to give radical Islam a pass. Not only are the media blaming gun owners or “toxic masculinity” rather than ISIS for the unfolding tragedy in Orlando, last week as a horrific story came out from Mosul, Iraq of Yazidi girls as young as 8 years old being imprisoned, caged and burned alive for refusing to become sex slaves, it quickly became evident the death of Harambe the gorilla would end up sparking more public outrage on social media and more genuflecting in the dying (once mainstream) media than misogynistic rape and murder at the hand of religious fanatics. An anonymous witness described the nightmarish scene as the young girls were incinerated:
The 19 girls were burned to death, while hundreds of people were watching. Nobody could do anything to save them from the brutal punishment. They were punished for refusing to have sex with ISIS militants.
(The above photo was circulated by ISIS with claims these young women were burned alive. Some sources say the photo is from a staged protest. Regardless of the veracity of the photo, the story of young sex slaves being incinerated is well documented.)
Adding to the issue of this issue not receiving proper attention, it is believed radical Islamists hold an additional 1,800 to 3,500 more sex slaves hostage, with many of the girls aged 10 to 12. Ahmed Amin Koro, a 15-year old Yazidi boy escaped imprisonment and told interviewers what he witnessed:
The girls were covering their faces with dirt, trying to make themselves less beautiful. But if they were caught doing that they were beaten. They were all beaten and taken away.
The lack of attention to this huge story came despite feminists in Western culture regularly labeling themselves as champions of women and young girls, as they create a culture that chastises, demonizes, and marginalizes men for everything from “microaggressions” to requesting sandwiches from “liberated” women. In the twisted world of American media, even if young females are burned to death by radical Islamists, it does not warrant the same level of outrage as a gorilla death, or even the level of outrage Donald Trump sparked last week after making this mild comment about a judge who is the member of a group that calls itself La Raza or “The Race.”
Judge Curiel is a member of a club or society, very strongly pro-Mexican, which is all fine. But I say he’s got bias.
The media was screaming, flopping on the floor, and foaming at the mouth over the tepid Trump comment before the cindered corpses of 19 young girls, true victims of sex crimes and female oppression, had even cooled down. The biases of feminists, leftists, and their marionettes in the media are becoming more obvious, and more worrisome by the day. Here are a few examples of how the bias works based on last week’s events:
Radical Islamic crimes are not subjected to the same standard of scrutiny as Christian crimes
The media will blame terrorist attacks on gun owners rather than radical Islam
The media cares more about zoo animals than it does young sex slaves being burned to death
Feminists are concerned more with personal power and removing men from their roles in society than actual evil being done against women
Leftists claim to want to live in a world without borders but ignore evil going on outside the U.S.
An activist judge can be a member of a anti-gringo group but a Caucasian Presidential Candidate cannot point out his potential for biasing a high-profile court case
Without getting sidetracked on the Trump comments, it is important to point out that even the Marxist Cesar Chavez said La Raza is an anti-gringo group:
I hear more and more Mexicans talking about la raza—to build up their pride. Some people don’t look at it as racism, but when you say La Raza, you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and it won’t stop there. Today it’s anti-gringo, tomorrow it will be anti-Negro.
While discussing media bias, the alphabet networks even went so far as to blame women who support Trump for the violence of Marxist protestors pelting them with eggs. The media also underplayed the fact “migrants” committed 69,000 crimes in Germany alone in the first 3 months of 2016, and routinely ignore brutal rape cases or hide the ethnicity of perpetrators.
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With the tragedy of young girls being burned alive and the other stunning examples of bias, the cognitive dissonance feminists and leftists continue to demonstrate is breathtaking. It proves that in the liberal hierarchy of concerns, religion trumps feminism, as long as that religion is Islam. It also shows there is and will be more conflict between two groups under the liberal tent: feminists and Islamists.
The Silence Is Deafening
Where was the Pope on the matter? President Obama? Hillary, the supposed champion of women? Other world leaders? Prominent feminists? The media? Other than a few short, tepidly written news stories the matter was largely shuffled under the rug and dismissed, except insofar as it helped provide a pretext to keep funneling money into the military-industrial complex. Michelle Obama was apparently too busy complaining about having to live in a White House partially built by slaves, eating French fries and vegetable gardening to take notice of young women being raped and burned alive.
Even more telling, Yazidis are a minority religion which has remnants of Christianity and other religions in it. We all know the Hollyweird, New York Talking Head, and Marxist political operatives in America have been decidedly anti-Christian for generations.
Imagine if the situation were reversed: a radical Christian group burned to death 19 Islamic sex slaves. It would receive 24/7 attention and condemnation. CNN would get on its soap box and pontificate over how terrible the oppression of women by burning them to death is until “something is done!” The U.S. would send in SWAT teams and elite units teams to take out the oppressors, as it has done numerous times on its own soil against groups who challenge government tyranny, as when it killed LaVoy Finicum in an ambush style attack earlier this year. (FBI storm troopers are now under investigation in the Oregon standoff with Finicum, and the land the family refused to vacate has ties to a Clinton uranium deal.)
When an issue like the rape and murder of young girls by radicals are suppressed or ignored, it implies some level of consent to what is happening by those in power. It also tells us political game players do not really give a damn about moral issues no matter how much preening they do in front of television cameras. The only way they get involved is if the issue means either gaining more personal power, a boost in their public persona, and/or higher approval ratings.
An issue like the murders of sex slaves could also expose leftist hypocrisy and diametrically opposed ideologies (feminism vs. Islamism) in the Democrat tent if it became lodged in the admittedly short memories of fast food and ball games obsessed sheeple. This is why issues like these are never given a lot of air time. Multiculturalism implies tolerance, but it is hard for people to tolerate crimes against humanity like sex slavery and burning people alive. Leftists claim to be champions of women but at the same time tell people not to worry when a religion that oppresses women is increasing in number in Europe and America. Leftists claim multiculturalism will bring about Utopia on earth when in fact people are self-segregating, forming groups like La Raza and Black Lives Matter, and the population of Europe and America grows ever more vivisected and divided.
In short, an issue like one of the liberals’ “protected classes” of people burning sex slaves alive throws the political narrative off to such a degree it will never receive the emphasis it deserves. Just as Hillary claims to be a great champion of women while many of Bill’s former hookups say she tried to shut them up, including a black prostitute who claims Bill fathered her biracial son, it is hypocrisy in The Political Game and The Corrupt Media. Four legs good, two legs bad, as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
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Read More: Finland Warns 900,000 Men About War Conscription; Feminists Remain SilentIn Karl Marx’s and Frederick Engels’ early portrayal of communism, they envisioned an end to the artificial scarcity and economic turbulence they believed was set in place by the private ownership of capital. No longer would an individual be confined to an “exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.” Instead, if he or she so wishes, it is possible “to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise [literature] after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
The alienation of man from his labor, which Marx contended was the result of treating labor as a commodity of production, no longer played such an explicit role as it had in the above quotes from his then-unpublished “The German Ideology.” Instead, the theme of his work began to analyze class struggle as the moving force behind history, and he extended his continuum of thoughts on alienation with his critique of the division of labor. It was these early manuscripts that would become unified in the first volume of “Capital.” His thesis was that private property had an inborn tendency to become more and more centrally managed due to the antagonistic relationship between capital owners and propertyless laborers, who were left with no option but to sell the only commodity they had — labor power. Marx reasoned that like any commodity, the average price of labor would fall to the average cost of its production, which for the laborer meant the cost of a subsistence living in society.
It was an ingenious revelation, and one on its face that was perfectly plausible according to the prevailing theory of value at that time. The capitalist could appropriate labor for the cost of maintaining a subsistence living and then sell the products of that labor for the market value set by supply and demand, reaping the “surplus value” of labor without doing additional work. Marx was not content with just ensuring higher wages for labor; he believed wage labor itself was abominable.
Except, Marx acknowledged that contrary to his theory, by historical records, the “surplus value” of production was in direct proportion to the total capital invested, not just the labor power invested in production. He said, “It appears therefore that here the theory of value is irreconcilable with the actual movement of things, irreconcilable with the actual phenomena of production, and that, on this account, the attempt to understand the latter must be given up.”
A Libertarian Theory of Exploitation
Communists are right in viewing the state as exploitative, but not because it upholds property rights, but because the state exists only by systematically usurping those rights. What would prevail in a stateless society — one without government propaganda championing that “taxation is voluntary,” “voting is freedom,” and “government is security” — is a strengthened sense of property rights and individual autonomy.
Despite the obstacles of state coercion, we create society anew each day for the mutual benefit of all; what makes this social cooperation possible is the existence of a medium of exchange. I do not mean to say that the desire for monetary gain should be the focus of our social relationships either. My point is that you cannot have meaningful and enduring fraternity without private property, firsthand, and an independent means of economic calculation, secondly.
Without money, sunk is a division of labor, which more easily enables seemingly opposing economic interests to become complementary to one another for the benefit of the whole of society and themselves. Competition within a market framework has to do with excelling to the utmost and providing an understanding of who best serve at any particular position. Without such a division of labor, there would be no society, and mankind would exist in a literal Hobbesian war of all against all. Yet, our productive capacity allows us to transform less valuable resources into more valuable resources for consumption and savings (later consumption). This means that life does not require the sacrifice of others. This understanding allows us to plan for long-range goals to achieve prosperity. A secured sense of private property rights permits such long-range thinking.
Please note that this is not an apology for the current economic model. I am calling for a radical break with statism and collectivism. In fact, I agree with Marx’s major historical tenets describing the development of economic history, yet his explanation for class exploitation, the rise of class privilege, the cartelization of power within the state and business, and the imperialist conquest to stifle foreign competition all fall short because he falsely pinpoints “wage slavery” as the culprit for those evils.
This is partly forgivable since his economic model was based on the labor theory of value, which predated other classical economics as far back as Adam Smith. Marx failed to account for the time dimension in the relationship between the capitalist and laborer. In theory, Marx should witnessed that the laborer is receiving a present good (his wages) at a discounted rate of interest for the time until the capitalist is able to bring the product to market in the future. Wages are in effect an advanced payment on future revenues.
In practice, today’s “capitalists” are able to create greater demand for their services through legal tender laws and restrictions on the availability of cooperative credit. Existing anti-labor laws, direct and indirect corporate subsidizes, monetary inflation by the central bank, and the general insecurity caused by government manipulation of the consumer and employment markets also put employees in less of a bargaining position to their bosses. In a genuine free market, one without government privilege and artificial barriers to entry, fewer large businesses would undoubtedly exist and we would be far wealthier. So employees who chose wage labor as an occupation would be in a greater position to demand better wages and benefits.
I think part of Marx’s confusion came about because of his conflicting views of the function of the state. On one hand, he viewed it as the tool of the ruling class, who he hoped might be the proletariats one day. In other writings of his and Engels’, he also saw it as always working against the interest of the society (and it does). All in all, the classical liberal theories including, but not limited to, Adolphe Blanqui offer clearer insights into the problematic entanglement of capitalism and the state and how the two together promote conflict for the purpose of exploitation.
Image credit: ®Dave, with a Creative Commons licenseTaoiseach Brian Cowen today announced that he will dissolve the Dáil on Tuesday and name a date for the General Election.
Voters are expected to go to the polls on Friday, February 25, with Mr Cowen to decide this weekend whether he will retire from politics.
The Taoiseach plans to consult family and advisers before announcing his future.
The election is widely expected to deliver a damaging defeat to Fianna Fáil, as it languishes at a record low in opinion polls.
Mr Cowen made the announcement In a morning interview on Raidio na Gaeltachta.
The Tuesday sitting of the Dáil had been expected after normal parliamentary business was cleared this week to allow the minority Government to process Budget 2011.
The fast-tracked Finance Bill should be passed into law after a late sitting of the Seanad (upper house) on Saturday.
The Taoiseach’s final Dáil appearance will also give him the opportunity to make a valedictory speech.
A Government spokeswoman confirmed the interview.
“The Taoiseach indicated on an interview with Raidio na Gaeltachta Adhmhaidin that his intentions are to go into the Dáil at 2.30pm on Tuesday and dissolve it.”
The Taoiseach will be required to ask President Mary McAleese to officially end the Dáil term.
The Taoiseach's announcement was also separately recorded for the Government website, merrionstreet.ie.
Mr Cowen said he would name the election date and make a departing speech to the house.
“I have indicated already that that is the appropriate forum for me to address the Dáil, that I will seek the dissolution of the house,” he said.
Mr Cowen added: “It will give me the opportunity to say some things before we do that.
“It’s really a question of using the Dáil as the appropriate forum for that announcement.”Website Facebook Bio Latest News State Forms Photo Gallery Contact FROM THE FLOOR
PA Wine and Spirits Sales
Enter the 21st Century
Government has many essential responsibilities, such as providing a quality education, ensuring safe streets, and protecting clean air and water. Selling wine and liquor – let alone promoting its use – is not one of them. Government should be serving the people, not serving them alcohol. Thanks to a new law I helped usher in, free enterprise practices will (finally!) be permitted to flourish in the adult beverage sector in Pennsylvania.
Under the new law, consumers will experience more choices in the way alcohol is sold in Pennsylvania, because of a bill just passed by the House and Senate. The legislation is also expected to generate up to $150 million in much-needed state revenue for the public sector.
House Bill 1690 will give consumers more options, including wine in grocery stores and six-pack shops, expanded Sunday and holiday hours in state stores, direct shipment of wine and flexible pricing.
This result is a significant step in privatizing retail alcohol sales in Pennsylvania, whose citizens long have been encumbered with the most restrictive state laws in the nation.
Now that the governor has signed the legislation, its provisions are expected to be in place by Thanksgiving…just in time for the holiday season!
Here are some specific details:
The legislation creates wine expanded permits for restaurants and hotels – including gas stations, grocery stores and “six-pack shops,” enabling them to sell four bottles of wine to go.
Current licensees holding a restaurant or hotel license will have the ability to obtain a permit to sell wine to go. The initial permit fee is $2,000 and the renewal fee is equal to 2 percent of the cost of wine purchased from through the Liquor Control Board for consumer off-premise consumption.
Pennsylvania residents could have wine shipped directly to their homes by board-licensed vendors. Small wineries could sell liquor and malt and brewed beverages.
Working in conjunction with the board, more state stores may open on Sundays and holidays; the board may also change the hours of operation. The bill will allow the board more flexibility in price-setting, but it must justify pricing through annual reports. The board must also publish wholesale and retail prices quarterly in the interest of full transparency and consumer interests.
Moving forward, Pennsylvania government’s role with respect to alcohol will be repurposed to stay limited and focused on public safety, which is a core function of government.
Government should concentrate on regulating against the illegal distribution of alcohol and cracking down on those who misuse it, especially minors and those who drink and drive.
A government that devotes its energies to enforcement, compliance and education – rather than selling alcohol – benefits everyone.
Cheers to the new law and, as always, please celebrate responsibly!
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DuaneMilne.com Office Locations 70 Lancaster Avenue, Suite B, Malvern, PA 19355 | Phone: 610-251-1070 150-A East Wing, PO Box 202167, Harrisburg PA 17120-2167 | Phone: (717) 787-8579 Email: [email protected] TTY: 855-282-0614Katiera Sordjan | Sadness isn't beautiful The Melting Pot | Why teens online need to stop romanticizing mental illness
A s a high school student, I absolutely loved Tumblr. You know, that blogging site where you can lose hours of your life scrolling through pictures from music and TV fanatics, girls with film cameras and animal enthusiasts. I once came across a post that affectionately referred to the platform as the “feminist cat website.” That about sums it up.
Initially my blog did not have much thoughtful content — mostly reblogs of pictures of my favorite bands, funny comics and the occasional reflections on my daily life. Now, I’ve tried to use it as a creative outlet to get feedback for my writing and connect with similar users. Of all of the entertainment Tumblr has provided me over the years, the one thing it introduced me to as a young teenager was the disturbingly alarming glorification of serious personal problems. The new romantic icon online was the teen who lived in mental anguish and vented on their social media sites for everyone to see. There is no doubt that many suffer from serious mental health or other issues, only to be dismissed by their peers and older adults — I myself was one of them. But there is another segment of the young adult population that does not have these issues but instead likes to dabble in them, trying them on like an outfit and hoping to gain notice from others.
Attention-seeking posts in the aftermath of teen suicides, one of the highest causes of death for young people, saying things such as “reblog and get this post 20,000 notes and I won’t cut tonight,” were common displays. The dramatic, overemotional, lonely, love-obsessed juvenile whose hobbies included self-harm and crying alone was apparently the ideal to strive for. People bragged about having pseudo-nervous breakdowns and begged their internet followers and real life friends to be gentle with their fragile, self-centered egos.
I can tell you that the inside of a hospital is not a place you want to end up in. It isn’t attractive to be anxious about the smallest of interactions, to wake up in the morning and find yourself never wanting to get out of bed. Nor is it fun playing trial and error with doctors and prescriptions to find the right cocktail to keep you sane.
These attempts to be cool and edgy, combined with even more hazardous behaviors such as smoking and drinking at a young age and calling it “poetic,” mask the silent pleas of those who really need help.
The truly ill are not looking to be congratulated for their problems. They are hiding them to avoid the questioning and probing of family and friends. They do not take pride when they cut or otherwise harm themselves, they are sitting in their room wondering if they can stop themselves before getting to the point of no return.Drug addiction very quickly stops being fun and starts draining a person’s health, relationships and stability. It isn’t something to be laughed off or beautified.
Even as college students, we still take pride in these destructive behaviors. We brag about how little sleep we had the night before. We make bets with ourselves on how long we can go without eating before we pass out. We toss around words like “panic attacks” and “schizo” with our buddies, completely oblivious to our classmates who might actually be suffering from these disorders. About 20 percent of Americans suffer from some sort of mental illness. The struggles of anxiety, depression, addiction and other psychological issues are not filled with moments of boastfulness, but those of shame and isolation.
It is time we stop encouraging young people to play the game of who is the most damaged, and instead give them the strength to endure and help their loved ones cope with their illnesses. We need to stop seeing mental health problems as something to fear and especially as something to romanticize.
Katiera Sordjan is a College junior from New York. Her email address is [email protected]. "The Melting Pot" appears every Thursday.
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Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has been commissioned to write a tribute to ten women who were executed for being witches four hundred years ago. Guardian’s Martin Wainright has some rather…interesting… things to say on the matter.
He sets the scene for his article by using a fictional, fantasy picture of witches (see above) which appears to have been lifted from some movie. The witches in the image are, of course, a joke. The picture is ironic. (Don’t you feminists have a sense of humour?) The murder of women should never be taken seriously. All a bit of a laugh. And it’s downhill from there. He describes Carol Duffy’s tribute as:
“a thoughtful celebration of ten women who were hanged for witchcraft 400 years ago”
From the way the sentence is written, we immediately get the feeling that what happened to these women was a rare, unique anomaly. That these particular ten women happened to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and, as bad luck would have it, they ended up dead. There is no mention at all of the systematic killing which lasted for centuries: the planned, premeditated, ongoing purge in which millions of women were killed by their paranoid rulers, men. He appears to be searching for reasons why the women were targeted:
“two of the women hanged at Lancaster castle aged over eighty and blind, another probably driven mad by a disfigured face with one eye lower than the other, and all ten convicted largely on the evidence of a nine-year-old child.”
Looking at the figures |
Of those surveyed, at least 148 reported beatings during pre-trial detention – including 57 who said they were beaten with batons.
"In many cases security forces beat and humiliated people detained after the protest and held them for hours in the cold with no access to food, water, or lavatories, and the courts then sentenced them in hasty trials with no semblance of due process," said Anna Sevortian, Russia director at Human Rights Watch, which published the findings. "It was a mockery of justice from beginning to end".
One 19-year-old demonstrator called Svetlana described how three policemen assaulted her when she asked for a lawyer and then refused to sign her arrest report. "One of the policemen held my hands behind my back and the other two were kicking me and beating me with sticks," she said. "Other detainees started yelling at them not to beat me, and then they took me to another room and filled in the report. They did not even show it to me saying, 'You won't sign it anyway, but it doesn't matter'."
The leading human rights firm H20 Law, which pioneered the use of Britain's legal system to go after the financial assets of the Real IRA, says it intends to bring both a private prosecution and civil action against Mr Lukashenko unless he releases all political prisoners.
The firm represents Free Belarus Now, a pressure group set up by the families of opposition politicians, campaigners and journalists who have been arrested in the crackdown.
"We believe we have got all the ingredients to pursue both a private prosecution and civil action against Alexander Lukashenko," said Jason McCue, H2O's founding partner. "We are ready to go and the families that we represent are determined."
Mr Lukashenko, a 56-year-old former collective firm manager, has maintained a quasi-Soviet state in the country of 10 million, allowing no independent broadcast media, stifling dissent and keeping about 80 per cent of all industry under state control.
Lawyers hope that a private prosecution could eventually result in an arrest warrant being issued for him or his associates. The Belarusian President and many of his supporters are already restricted by a European Union travel ban, but an arrest warrant would cover those countries outside the EU with which Britain has extradition agreements.
H2O also intends to sue Mr Lukashenko on behalf of his victims and, if successful, pursue any financial assets held by the President in Britain or around the world.
The firm had initially been brought in to pressure the UN and the International Criminal Court in The Hague to act on human rights violations. But the torture allegations have prompted it to take a more direct approach. "We already had a wealth of evidence concerning torture inside the KGB detention centres, but the real game- changer was the recent testimony from Ales Mikhalevich," said Mr McCue.
Ales Mikhalevich is one of a number of candidates who ran against Mr Lukashenko in last December's disputed presidential elections and were promptly arrested and charged with inciting a mass riot. His case, along with dozens of others, was highlighted in The Independent yesterday.
Mr Mikhalevich spent eight weeks inside the KGB's Amerikanka detention centre in Minsk. Last week he gave a press conference in which he claimed he was repeatedly tortured by his interrogators. The KGB has denied his allegations.
Viasna, a human rights organisation inside Belarus, says 38 people have now been charged under riot legislation and four have been convicted. Of those charged, 26 people – including two presidential candidates – are still in custody, two are under house arrest and nine have been released on bail which forbids them leaving their towns of residence.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Europe's main security and rights watchdog, is so concerned about the conduct of the trials that it has announced it will send monitors to attend them. OSCE monitors described last year's presidential election as "seriously flawed".
If H2O proceeds as planned, it would be the first time that human rights lawyers have gone after a sovereign head of state. Under international law, torture is one of a small number of crimes that can challenge sovereign immunity.
"If charges include torture it potentially allows the court to exercise universal jurisdiction and it could also annul Lukashenko's claim to sovereign immunity," said Matthew Jury, an H2O lawyer who has spent the last month interviewing Belarusian refugees who have fled to Europe.
H2O Law has used US courts to pursue Muammar Gaddafi for providing the Provisional IRA with Semtex. Two years ago it succeeded in winning £1.6m in damages from the Real IRA for the Omagh bombing.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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Subscribe nowNov 5, 2016; Auburn, AL, USA; Auburn Tigers defensive lineman Carl Lawson (55) celebrates a quarterback sack on Vanderbilt Commodores quarterback Kyle Shurmur (14, not pictured) during the fourth quarter at Jordan Hare Stadium. Auburn won 23-16. Mandatory Credit: Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports
Packer Perspective: How Packers can build league’s best offense this offseason by Freddie Boston
In today’s Titletown Report, five players the Green Bay Packers could turn to in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft, and why they shouldn’t be tempted by Adrian Peterson.
Good morning, Green Bay Packers fans, and welcome to the Titletown Report for Tuesday.
The football calendar is empty right now, but don’t worry, the fun of the offseason isn’t far away. The NFL Scouting Combine gets underway just one week from today. In eight days time, the deadline for teams to use the franchise and transition tags arrives. That’ll give us a clue as to who might hit free agency.
All free agents’ contracts expire at 4 p.m. ET on March 9, which is the same time the trading window opens. That’s when the fun truly begins.
The Packers have some of their own business to take care of, including the decision on Ha Ha Clinton-Dix’s fifth-year option, and the future of JC Tretter. I wrote about both yesterday.
Let’s dive into the report.
Will the Packers benefit from other teams’ mistakes? — Jason Perone of Cheesehead TV
When Ted Thompson makes a rare splash in free agency, it’s usually to pick up a player let go by his former team. Julius Peppers, Letroy Guion and Jared Cook are the most recent examples of this. Which players could get cut around the league and enter the Packers’ radar?
Five first-round options for the Packers — Randy Gurzi of NFL Spin Zone
Who could the Packers have interest in targeting in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft? Randy Gurzi names five names to look out for when Green Bay hits the clock with the 29th overall pick in April.
Don’t be enticed by Adrian Peterson — Hunter Noll of NFL Spin Zone
When did this obsession with Adrian Peterson to the Packers begin? As Hunter Noll writes, the Packers should avoid going after name value if the 2012 league MVP is cut by the Vikings. While it would be nice to take a former Vikings star and use him against them, signing Peterson wouldn’t come on the cheap, and he’s at the backend of his career and not the player he once was.
For more Titletown Report coverage, please visit our hub page.The Trump administration’s election-integrity commission will have its first meeting on Wednesday to map out how the president will strip the right to vote from millions of Americans. It hasn’t gotten off to the strongest start: Its astonishing request last month that each state hand over voters’ personal data was met with bipartisan condemnation. Yet it is joined in its efforts to disenfranchise citizens by the immensely more powerful Justice Department.
Lost amid the uproar over the commission’s request was a letter sent at the same time by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. It forced 44 states to provide extensive information on how they keep their voter rolls up-to-date. It cited the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the Motor-Voter law, which mandates that states help voters register through motor vehicle departments.
The letter doesn’t ask whether states are complying with the parts of the law that expand opportunities to register. Instead it focuses on the sections related to maintaining the lists. That’s a prelude to voter purging.
Usually the Justice Department would ask only a single state for data if it had evidence the state wasn’t complying with Motor-Voter. But a blanket request to every state covered under that law is virtually unprecedented. And unlike the commission, the Justice Department has federal statutory authority to investigate whether states are complying with the law.I wasn’t born an Atheist; in fact I was a Catholic for the first 20 years of my life, only becoming an atheist 6 months ago. Like 99% of people my religion is down to the luck of my birth. Had I been born in the Middle East, I would have been a Muslims, had I been born in India, I would have been a Hindu, but I was born in Ireland, so I was a Catholic.
Like most young people I knew next to nothing about my religion. Growing up, I doubt a single one of my classmates could tell you what being Catholic meant. We were all (bar one, but we didn’t care) Catholic, but all that meant was the Pope was good and we got a wafer at the end of Mass. Religion was meaningless to us and something we never thought about.
Mass was one of those things you had to do whether you wanted to or not. It was like school. We didn’t know why we had to go, but our parents made us. You’d sit there and mumble along with everyone else. The readings were boring, irrelevant and never seemed to have a point. And they always seemed to be about sheep or shepherds or lambs.
Strangely enough, I was more religious than most. I was an altar boy for a year when I was 11, which was grand though I can’t say I got anything spiritual from it. I did go through a religious phase when I was 13 where I would say a decade of the rosary every night before going to bed. I‘m not sure why I did it, but I think I was afraid of what would happen if I died. I heard Muslims prayed 5 times a day so I felt I had to catch up. After about a year I decided I valued sleep more so I stopped.
Even in my most religious phase, I didn’t take the Bible that seriously. I was still pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-divorce and still thought the Church’s stance on condoms was ridiculous (as does everyone I know). I still knew evolution and the Big Bang were true but I somehow managed to fit this alongside believing the Bible stories. The way I did it was to not think about it. The only way anyone can believe the story of Noah’s Ark or Jonah getting eaten by a whale is to not think about them.
When I was 16 I stopped going to Mass. I considered myself a non-practicising Catholic. I just felt it was pointless. I wasn’t gaining a single thing from Mass; it was just a waste of time. I never got anything from it, the only good part was that I’d see people I knew. I felt you would better spend your time being a good person than sitting around talking about being good. I got sick of all the ritual nonsense of religion. I felt God didn’t care about how often you prayed; surely it was more important to be a good person. I did consider becoming a Quaker because their fundamental belief is just be a good person don’t bother with any of the rituals or features of a church. However, instead of Mass they sat in silence for an hour which nearly killed me with boredom.
The next big step was when I came to college. College is all about encouraging new thoughts, thinking in different ways and challenging conventional belief. That’s college graduates are the east religious group in society. College teaches you to think independently and not accept anything without evidence. This is in fundamental opposition to religion, which essentially teaches blind unquestioning faith.
What finally made me an Atheist was Christopher Hitchens’ death. It was all over the news and as I had no idea why he was famous, I looked up his videos on YouTube. They were brilliant and I found he made great points. I began to seriously think about God for the first time in my life. Why did he let millions starve? Why was he indifferent to the suffering of the world? Why did I believe God and Jesus without any evidence? I began thinking up all the possible atheist arguments that could be made and possible Christian responses. I began going back and forth in my mind, seriously debating both sides. I examined the Problem of Evil, Pascal’s Wager and the general absurdity of it all.
I eventually concluded that there was no God and I was an Atheist. I wasn’t filled with any sense of loss or emptiness; rather I was pleased at making the discovery. I had the sense of satisfaction you get when you solve a long and difficult maths problem.
Since then I’ve been really looking up religion and the more I look the most terrible and absurd things I find. The Bible is not the book of peace and love I thought it was, in fact it was full of hate, sexism, genocide, homophobia, racism and general nonsense. The more research I did, the more absurdities I found both in the Bible and in church teaching.
That’s pretty much my story.
AdvertisementsImage copyright Silverbird TV Image caption Dozens of people were injured in the Jos bombings
Two bomb attacks on the central Nigerian city of Jos have left at least 44 people dead, the authorities say.
A restaurant and a mosque were targeted on Sunday night.
No group has said it carried out the attack, but militant group Boko Haram has attacked Jos before, even though it is not in north-east Nigeria where the Islamists normally operate.
The blasts are the latest in a series of deadly attacks in recent days which have seen more than 200 people killed.
The attacks came shortly after the Ramadan fast was broken, with both sites full of people.
Of the 44 dead, 23 were killed at the restaurant and 21 at the mosque, Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) says.
Image caption The bomb at the Shagalinku restaurant came as people were breaking the Ramadan fast
There are also 47 people being treated for injuries, but emergency officials are still gathering information, so the figures may rise.
The blast at the restaurant was caused by a bomb that had been planted, whereas the mosque was attacked by a suicide bomber and that explosion was preceded by gunfire, the BBC's Ishaq Khalid reports.
Eyewitness Akaria Ahammed said: "When they started shooting people, people started running helter-skelter for their lives.
"Unfortunately those that stood up were shot."
Image copyright EPA Image caption Hospital staff attended to injured people in Jos throughout Monday
Our correspondent says that many believe that the mosque's imam, who was preaching at the time, may have been the target.
Sheikh Muhammad Sani Yahya Jingir, who survived the attack, is known for preaching against Boko Haram and has written a book which criticises the group called Boko Halal (Western education is permitted - Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden).
He has survived a previous assassination attempt at his home and is seen as one of the most influential clerics in Nigeria.
Speaking on Monday, Sheikh Jingir said the bombing was "not an attack on an individual, it is an attack on all of us".
Meanwhile the Nigerian military told the BBC it had freed more than 180 people who had been detained on suspicion of being Boko Haram members.
The former suspects had been freed after being screened by the military to ensure their innocence, officials said.
Correspondents say Nigeria's treatment of Boko Haram suspects has been an extremely contentious issue.
Amnesty International says that thousands have died in detention in the past four years - something the military denies.
However, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to investigate the rights group's claims.
Why the upsurge in attacks? Will Ross, BBC News, Nigeria
It is not unusual for there to be a heightened risk of jihadist attacks during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
Boko Haram may be trying to deepen its ties with the jihadists fighting in Iraq and Syria who had called for "a month of disasters for the infidels".
Many of the recent attacks have been by suicide bombers - often young women.
Where the bombs are being made and where the bombers are being brainwashed is unclear but the Nigerian intelligence and security services need to do far more to stop the bloodshed.
Once again the range of targets is alarming and on this latest bloody Sunday a church and a mosque were bombed within hours of each other.
Will moving military HQ make a difference?
Why Boko Haram remains a threat
Who are Boko Haram?
Jos has seen several attacks blamed on Boko Haram, including an incident in February when at least 15 died and in December last year when more than 30 people died.
The city has in the past seen clashes between Muslim and Christian communities and some have suggested that Boko Haram is looking to exploit these fault-lines.
In another development on Monday a girl aged about 13 was reported to have been killed when explosives strapped to her body went off near a major mosque in the northern city of Kano.
Police told the AFP news agency that no-one else was killed in the blast apart from the teenager..
A week of attacks in Nigeria:
Sunday: Church attacked in Potiskum, in Yobe state, killing at least five
Friday: Several suicide bombers kill scores of people in Zabarmari village, north-east Nigeria
Thursday: Two female suicide bombers attack another village in Borno state
Wednesday: More than 50 gunmen kill 97 people in the village of Kukawa, near Lake Chad
Tuesday: 48 men shot dead after prayers in two villages near the town of Monguno, Borno state
On Friday, Mr Buhari described the recent attacks as "inhuman and barbaric".
In power now for just over a month, the president was elected on the pledge to defeat Boko Haram.
Image copyright AP Image caption Men held on suspicion of being affiliated to Boko Haram line up to be released by the Nigerian military in Maiduguri
He said they were "the last desperate acts of fleeing agents of terrorism".
Boko Haram took control of a large area of north-eastern Nigeria last year and declared a caliphate - a state governed in accordance with Islamic law.
However, Nigeria's military, backed by troops from neighbouring countries, has recaptured most of the territory.
President Buhari has called for an expanded regional force to be deployed more rapidly.Image copyright Calmac Image caption CalMac currently holds the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract
Two ferry operators have been invited to take part in the next stage of a competition to win a new contract to provide west coast ferry services.
The Scottish government has offered CalMac Ferries Ltd and Serco Caledonian Ferries Ltd access to data to help the companies form their bids.
CalMac currently runs the Clyde and Hebrides services, which covers almost every route on the west coast.
The new contract will run from 1 October 2016 for up to eight years.
Serco, which operates Northlink ferries to Orkney and Shetland, and CalMac will be asked to submit final tenders in December ahead of the contract being awarded in May next year.
The Scottish government will provide up to £1bn in funding to help the winning company improve services and to provide the road equivalent tariff discount scheme.
Transport and Islands Minister Derek Mackay said: "This is another significant step forward for the tender process and moves us closer to awarding the next Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract.
"The award of this contract will be an incredibly important moment for the island communities served by these lifeline ferry services."
He added: "We are committed to delivering the very best deal for all of the communities of the Clyde and Hebrides."This post describes three vulnerabilities in the Double Robotics Telepresence Robot ecosystem related to improper authentication, session fixation, and weak Bluetooth pairing. We would like to thank Double Robotics for their prompt acknowledgement of the vulnerabilities, and in addressing the ones that they considered serious. Two of the three vulnerabilities were patched via updates to Double Robotics servers on Mon, Jan 16, 2017.
Credit
These issues were discovered by Rapid7 researcher Deral Heiland. They were reported to Double Robotics and CERT/CC in accordance with Rapid7's disclosure policy.
Product Affected
The Double Telepresence Robot is a mobile conferencing device. Its mobility allows the remote user to roam around an office for meetings and face-to-face conversations.
Vendor Statement
From Double Robotics' co-founder and CEO, David Cann:
At Double Robotics, we seek to provide the best experience possible for our customers, which means not only providing an agile, innovative technology, but also, the highest level of safety and security. Rapid7's thorough penetration tests ensure all of our products run as securely as possible, so we can continue delivering the best experience in telepresence. Before the patches were implemented, no calls were compromised and no sensitive customer data was exposed. In addition, Double uses end-to-end encryption with WebRTC for low latency, secure video calls.
Summary of Vulnerabilities
R7-2017-01.1: Unauthenticated access to data An unauthenticated user could gain access to Double 2 device information including: device serial numbers, current and historical driver and robot session information, device installation\_keys, and GPS coordinates.
R7-2017-01.2: Static user session management The access token (also referred to as the driver \_token) which is created during account assignment to a Robot was never changed or expired. If this token was compromised, it could be used to take control of a robot without a user account or password.
R7-2017-01.3: Weak Bluetooth pairing The pairing process between the mobile application (iPad) and robot drive unit does not require the user to know the challenge PIN. Once paired with the robot drive unit, a malicious actor can download the Double Robot mobile application from the Internet and use it (along with the web services) to take control of the drive unit.
Vulnerability Details and Mitigations
R7-2017-01.1: Unauthenticated access to data
In the following example, critical information related to a session was accessed using the URL https://api.doublerobotics.com/api/v1/session/?limit=1&offset=xxxxxxx&format=json. By incrementing the "offset=" number, information for all historical and current sessions could be enumerated:
In the next example, robot and user installation keys were enumerated by incrementing the "offset=" number in the URL https://api.doublerobotics.com/api/v1/installation/?limit=1&offset=xxxxxxx&format=json as shown below:
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017, Double deployed a server patch to mitigate this issue.
R7-2017-01.2: Static user session management
Although the driver\_token is a complex, unique, 40-character token (and so unlikely to be guessed), it can still be enumerated by anyone who has access to the Double Robot iPad or is successful in creating an SSL man-in-the-middle attack against the device. For example, via a successful man-in-the middle attack or access to the robot iPad's cache.db file, a malicious actor could identify the robot\_key as shown below:
Using this robot\_key, an unauthenticated user could enumerate all of the user access tokens (driver_tokens) which allow remote control access of the robot. An example of this enumeration method is shown below:
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017, Double Robotics deployed a server patch to mitigate this issue. The API queries described above no longer expose related session tokens to the Double device.
R7-2017-01.3: Weak Bluetooth pairing
The exposure of this vulnerability is limited since the unit can only be paired with one control application at a time. In addition, the malicious actor must be close enough to establish a Bluetooth connection. This distance can be significant (up to 1 mile) with the addition of a high-gain antenna.
On Mon, Jan 16, 2017, Double Robotics indicated it did not see this as a significant security vulnerability, and that it does not currently plan to patch. Users should ensure that the driver assembly remains paired to the control iPad to avoid exposure.
Disclosure Timeline
This vulnerability advisory was prepared in accordance with Rapid7's disclosure policy.Black man looks at his phone as if to say WTF (Shutterstock)
A severance deal that SunTrust Banks has reportedly provided to as many as 100 laid off technology workers would require the employees to continue providing assistance to the company for a period of two years without additional compensation.
Computerworld reported this week that a number of employees who had received layoff notices from the Atlanta-based company provided a copy of the severance deal, “which gives the bank a way to tap their expertise long after their departure.”
By taking the severance deal, employees agree to a “continuing cooperation” clause and to “make myself reasonably available…. regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment at SunTrust.”
The agreement says that the employees may need be available by phone or in person. But the company promises that former employees “will be requested at such times and in such a manner so as to not unreasonably interfere with my subsequent employment.”
IT workers who contacted Computerworld said that the clause was a way for SunTrust to receive ongoing technical support for free after their jobs had been outsourced overseas.
“How do they think this is acceptable?” one worker asked the magazine.
Florida employment attorney Sara Blackwell agreed with the employees’ interpretation of the “continuing cooperation” clause.
She pointed out that the “contract requires them to be on call for two years, and they agree to not be paid for any time used to assist the company.”
In a statement to Computerworld, SunTrust suggested that controversy over the severance deal had been overblown.
“It is a rare occasion when we need to call a former employee,” the statement said. “The ‘continuing cooperation’ clause is designed to assist the company under scenarios that arise infrequently when we need access to knowledge possessed by a former employee.”
“Those scenarios primarily relate to regulatory or legal matters,” the statement continued. “For instance, we may need to reach out to former employees to ensure we accurately understand situations in which they were involved while employed by the company. SunTrust has never used this provision to require a former employee to be ‘on call’ to help conduct day-to-day business in any way.”
The bank, however, did not suggest there were any limits on what former employees could be asked to do in the future.swamideva Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 14,263 Likes: 75 (65 Posts)
You have alien DNA in your genetic code
You have alien DNA in your genetic code. Science says so.
Scientists from Kazakhstan believe that human DNA was encoded with an extraterrestrial signal by an ancient alien civilization, Discovery.com reports.
They call it "biological SETI" and the researchers claim that the mathematical code in human DNA cannot be explained by evolution.
In a nutshell, we're living, breathing vessels for some kind of alien message which is more easily used to detect extra terrestrial life than via radio transmission.
"Once fixed, the code might stay unchanged over cosmological timescales; in fact, it is the most durable construct known," the researchers wrote in scientific journal, Icarus. "Therefore it represents an exceptionally reliable storage for an intelligent signature.
"Once the genome is appropriately rewritten the new code with a signature will stay frozen in the cell and its progeny, which might then be delivered through space and time."
The scientists also claim that human DNA is ordered so precisely that it reveals an "ensemble of arithmetical and ideographical patterns of symbolic language".
Their research has led the scientists to conclude that we were invented "outside the solar system, already several billion years ago".
The thesis supports the hypothesis that Earth is the result of interstellar life forms distributed by meteors and comets.
So if we are just vessels for alien communication, exactly what kind of secret message are we carrying in our DNA?
And if we were the creation of aliens, who created them?
P.S. So that some of you don't think that this is a dis-empowering message... there's nothing dis empowering about this article.. on the contrary Science is finally admitting that humans did not come from monkeys.. but were genetically engineered. Which is TRUE.. initially in the beginning of planet earth all of us different species have gotten together and have created a human body as a "perfect" vehicle to experience a 3D environment. There is a drawing room, an actual engineering drawing room, where things get created, by encoding it into a 3D reality, just like you do with a computer and HTML code. Not many know about this, not many want to talk about this. But it's true. We are the creation of God, but we are also part of God, and we have God's particle inside us all, which makes US co-creator GODS, which lands the POWER of manifestation directly into our hands. And yes after the "perfect" human was placed on earth.. other alien beings.. came in and manipulated the codes to suit them and make humans into what they are today, facing all of these problems and issues. However, WE CAN CHANGE OUT OWN DNA with the INTENTION of doing so, and purify it from all the "bad" extras that were added to the human vehicle. Add to that all the DNA upgrades that are being sent to earth daily, and Voila! Scientists from Kazakhstan believe that human DNA was encoded with an extraterrestrial signal by an ancient alien civilization, Discovery.com reports. http://news.discovery.com/space/alie...ode-130401.htm They call it "biological SETI" and the researchers claim that the mathematical code in human DNA cannot be explained by evolution.In a nutshell, we're living, breathing vessels for some kind of alien message which is more easily used to detect extra terrestrial life than via radio transmission."Once fixed, the code might stay unchanged over cosmological timescales; in fact, it is the most durable construct known," the researchers wrote in scientific journal, Icarus. "Therefore it represents an exceptionally reliable storage for an intelligent signature."Once the genome is appropriately rewritten the new code with a signature will stay frozen in the cell and its progeny, which might then be delivered through space and time."The scientists also claim that human DNA is ordered so precisely that it reveals an "ensemble of arithmetical and ideographical patterns of symbolic language".Their research has led the scientists to conclude that we were invented "outside the solar system, already several billion years ago".The thesis supports the hypothesis that Earth is the result of interstellar life forms distributed by meteors and comets.So if we are just vessels for alien communication, exactly what kind of secret message are we carrying in our DNA?And if we were the creation of aliens, who created them?P.S. So that some of you don't think that this is a dis-empowering message... there's nothing dis empowering about this article.. on the contrary Science is finally admitting that humans did not come from monkeys.. but were genetically engineered. Which is TRUE.. initially in the beginning of planet earth all of us different species have gotten together and have created a human body as a "perfect" vehicle to experience a 3D environment. There is a drawing room, an actual engineering drawing room, where things get created, by encoding it into a 3D reality, just like you do with a computer and HTML code. Not many know about this, not many want to talk about this. But it's true. We are the creation of God, but we are also part of God, and we have God's particle inside us all, which makes US co-creator GODS, which lands the POWER of manifestation directly into our hands. And yes after the "perfect" human was placed on earth.. other alien beings.. came in and manipulated the codes to suit them and make humans into what they are today, facing all of these problems and issues. However, WE CAN CHANGE OUT OWN DNA with the INTENTION of doing so, and purify it from all the "bad" extras that were added to the human vehicle. Add to that all the DNA upgrades that are being sent to earth daily, and Voila!With "Song to Song" currently playing to half-empty theaters, we asked critics if they are still interested in the once-mythical filmmaker.
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: Terrence Malick is back in action and badder than ever, as “Song to Song” is now in theaters, where it’s playing to small crowds and predictably polarized results. Now, as the idiosyncratic auteur appears to be closing the book on one chapter of his career and moving on to another (the producers of “Radegund,” his next film, swear they have a script!), we asked our panel of critics if they’ve lost patience with the legendary filmmaker, and also where they’re hoping to see him go from here.
Joshua Rothkopf (@joshrothkopf), Time Out New York
Terrence Malick wasn’t always polarizing. If you only made two movies during the 1970s, and those two movies were “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven,” that gives you a better batting average than virtually anybody — better than Spielberg, Fellini, Scorsese, Herzog, even Altman. And if you then waited 20 years to return, and did so with “The Thin Red Line,” you were nothing if not consistent with making masterpieces. I think Malick’s been divisive for only the last five years.
My problem with his recent work isn’t its airiness, or his improvising without a script. It’s not even the swirling. It’s the fact that his films end up saying very little that isn’t cliché. “To the Wonder”: It’s hard to be beautiful and lovesick in Oklahoma. “Knight of Cups”: It’s hard to be handsome and empty in Hollywood. “Song to Song”: It’s hard to be gorgeous and fickle in Austin (even with your private guitar lessons from Patti Smith). It’s an insult to the profundity of the ideas in Malick’s work — as recently as “Voyage of Time” — to say that his romantic trilogy is of the same caliber.
So “Radegund” has to be an improvement, if only because the movie will be about war, pacifism and the consequences of taking a principled stand. Even if Malick improvises the whole damn thing and finds room for twirling in Austria somewhere, it will be more substantial. I don’t want him to succumb to pretty nothingness.
Matt Prigge (@mattprigge), Metro US
God, no. I don’t get why people have given up on one of the medium’s purest iconoclasts, who’s pushing his singular voice in new and adventurous directions. These last three films in Third Wave Terry have been far trickier than the ones before to get a hold on, but judging them as self-parody seems so lazy. Among other things, their fast-cutting style captures something about today and our ravenous hunger for the dopamine rush of social media-assisted living. And they’re so intoxicating! And they’re getting funnier! “Song to Song” has The Gosling in drag, Val Kilmer cutting a speaker with a chainsaw and even what seems like an eff-you to detractors, who think he’s on infinite repeat (i.e., Patti Smith strumming a guitar and saying “I can spend hours on the same chord”).
That said, I am excited that he’s going back to the past with his next film. I get the impression that he sees “Song to Song” as him taking this particular wave of his style to its furthest point, much as “Tree of Life” did to Second Wave Terry. It’s all very exciting.
READ MORE: Terrence Malick Makes A Rare Appearance At SXSW 2017 And Talks “Song To Song” And His Artistic Process
Charles Bramesco (@intothecrevasse) Freelance for Vulture, the Guardian, Rolling Stone
Hope for Malick springs eternal from this technically-human breast. Though I would count myself in the pro-“Song to Song” camp (at long last, the Malick-Freedia collab of my dreams has come to pass), I was disappointed with “To the Wonder” and “Knight of Cups.” In the days after “Cups” underwhelmed me, I returned to “The New World,” “Badlands,” and “Days of Heaven” to confirm that the genius that originally attracted me to Malick’s work was still there, and indeed it was. I concluded that the capacity to create great art could not have possibly vanished from the man entirely, only that he had chosen to follow his artistic muse into territory I’d rather not follow. By which I mean I consider most neo-Malick less “bad” than “extremely not my cup of tea.” I figured that he could just as easily wander back into the light, and he did with “Song to Song.”
Where am I hoping to see him go from here? Wherever he damn well pleases.
Reiner Bajo
Elena Lazic (@elazic), Freelance for Little White Lies, The Seventh Row
I feel almost cheated by Malick: I loved the central part of “The Tree of Life” so much, but all of his following efforts made it look more and more like this beautiful consideration of the ‘way of nature’ and ‘way of grace’ was just a trick he then kept trying to pull off with diminishing results. “Knight of Cups” did test my patience, but “Song to Song” just might make me give up on him.
Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow), The New Yorker
I have no impatience with Terrence Malick, who keeps getting better; my only impatience is to see his next film, and for that matter, to see this new one again. I was somewhat impatient with “The Thin Red Line” and “The New World,” parts of which felt like halfway measures and compulsory routines, but “The Tree of Life” launched a rapturous out |
transitioning to its new owner, who is "trying really hard to rebrand it," Jackson said. Additional lighting around the complex has been installed, and other changes incorporating an approach known as "crime prevention through environmental design" are being implemented.
"Our goal would certainly be for everyone to live in peace," Jackson said.
Springfield police spokeswoman Lisa Cox said that there were 255 calls to police for service from 1400 S. Campbell between Sept. 1, 2012 and Tuesday. Jackson said there are 52 apartment units in the complex.
If you see someone's face in an episode of "Cops," it means they signed a waiver authorizing their appearance. Townsend admits to signing that waiver. He was approached by a production company crew member immediately after being placed in the patrol car, and said Monday that he thought that maybe something good would come out of giving consent. He also mentioned that he had enjoyed watching the show in the past.
A day after signing, Townsend said, he thought about trying to take that consent back, but he didn't know how to do that, or if it was possible. On Monday, he said he still thought something good might come out of it.
There's less activity that concerns him in his new apartment complex, Townsend said. But even if there was more, he's focused on keeping to himself.
In an extra 3-minute interview posted by "Cops" online, Springfield Police Corporal Jim Cooney — one of the two officers involved that night — seems to sense Townsend's frustrations.
"The guy may have been just at his wit's end with all the activity down there... and he may have become frustrated with any kind of response or what was being done by the property managers and police," Cooney says. "However, you still need to call us. If you want to go down there with us, then that's fine, but we need to be notified and on scene so something like this doesn't occur."
Townsend said he doesn't plan to watch his segment again.
But will he keep watching "Cops" in general?
"I have nothing against the people with 'Cops,'" Townsend said Monday. "I have no problems with them, I just didn't like the way the cops had to... stir the pot and do what they did. Yeah, I'll watch it. It gets kinda stupid. I mean, I watch 'Jerry Springer' from time to time, so just whenever you get in that sick-twisted boat you gotta have something for entertainment."
Read or Share this story: http://sgfnow.co/1ucHv8H(CNN) Just as Bernie Sanders'presidential bid picks up momentum, his David-versus-Goliath mission against Hillary Clinton is facing up to its first major hurdle as both campaigns tout their first fundraising hauls of the 2016 contest.
Sanders, who's enjoying a bounce in the polls and has 9,000 energized supporters the campaign says have signed up to "feel the Bern" at a Madison, Wisconsin event Wednesday night, is going up against the well-connected, deep-pocketed Clinton fundraising machine. For being the little guy who says he hates fundraising -- so far it looks like he's holding his own.
As the fundraising quarter closed at midnight, it appears the Vermont senator's campaign will turn in a relatively strong report. Sanders has raised roughly $8 million online, according to FEC filings from ActBlue, the organization handling his digital donation. His expected numbers will pale in comparison to the $45 million Clinton raised, an official with her campaign said Wednesday morning.
If Sanders was running a traditional campaign, this could be a problem. Money is the lifeblood of presidential campaigns, not only practically, but symbolically. When the Federal Election Commission officially releases campaign's quarterly reports in early July, the fundraising tally will be devoured for signs of strengths, weaknesses and momentum.
But Sanders has far less overhead than Clinton, a point which is made clear each time he steps out of the backseat of a rental car at his campaign stops, surrounded by one or two aides. He doesn't need to raise the same kind of money she is, because he's likely to spend far less.
Sanders' aides said Tuesday they will evaluate when to release their fundraising number this week. But on a call with reporters ahead of a trip to Wisconsin, Sanders was already touting his fundraising efforts.
"I think, as I understand it, we are going to have a pretty good campaign financial report coming out," he said, adding that his campaign has "collected donations from some 200,000 Americans" from all 50 states. The average donation, Sanders said, was around $37.
Sanders says he detests personally asking people for money and has made a point of telling his supporters that "billionaires" aren't lining up to give him money.
"Sitting around and talking to people at fundraisers, no, that would not be how he wants to spend a lot of his time," said Tad Devine, Sanders' top campaign strategist. "It is safe to say he would rather spend his time doing other things."
On the other side of the primary ballot, Clinton has personally headlined 58 fundraisers since announcing her campaign, according to CNN analysis. And some of the events have been lavish: One New York fundraiser featured a concert by Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, while one this week in New Jersey included a performance by Bon Jovi.
Attendance figures provided by Clinton campaign aides suggest Clinton-headlined events have brought in at least $23 million. Her top aides and operatives have headlined dozens more.
So far, according to his campaign aides, Sanders has headlined fewer than five fundraising events since launching his campaign in May (they don't know exactly because they have happened so infrequently).
One bright spot for Sanders will be the number of campaign donors, though. While Sanders' is expected to boast 200,000 donors this quarter, Clinton's campaign has said in email pitches to donors that they are aiming for 50,000 donors.
Hours before the deadline, the Clinton campaign blasted an email under Hillary Clinton's name with the plea for more donations. "I was a little nervous when we set a goal of 50,000 grassroots donations by tonight -- but we only have 4,613 to go," read the email.
A Clinton spokesman later said that the 50,000 donations number they repeatedly quoted in fundraising pitches for the last few days was their goal from last Friday to the close of the quarter, not their three month goal.
And when Clinton's aides announced the campaign's preliminary fundraising numbers, they didn't include how many donations she received.
Sanders' campaign aides wouldn't say what they hoped to bring in this quarter and have been lowering expectations for weeks since the campaign raised an impressive $1.5 million in their first 24 hours. But Devine did say that Sanders' campaign hopes to have brought in $40-$50 million by the end of the year.
"I think it is very important," Devine said of the symbolic importance of Sanders' forthcoming fundraising report. "One of the things we have tried to do is to demonstrate to voters in the early states, voters across the nation, to the press, to people who follow this process, that this is a real campaign.... If we can show people we are able to do that, that is an important step."
Sanders has experienced a recent jump in momentum, buoyed by a handful of good polls, including a CNN/WMUR poll that found the Vermont senator was within 8 percentage points of Clinton in New Hampshire. This has particularly invigorated liberal Democrats looking for a Clinton alternative.
Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, acknowledged this week in an interview that the recent uptick in polls has driven more attention to the campaign, and put more pressure on their forthcoming fundraising announcement.
In light of the pressure, campaign aides have tried to use the more than likely fact that Clinton will out raise them into an incentive for more small donations.
In an email titled "They'll have to deal with all of us" on Monday," Weaver asked donors for $3, even though Sanders' campaign has "long suspected that other candidates are going to raise a lot more money than we will. That's what happens when you have Wall Street and the billionaire class in your corner."
Sanders is well aware that his fundraising efforts are different than others, but has gotten behind efforts to make those differences a selling point.
"We have [raised money] very, very differently than other campaigns," Sanders said matter-of-factly Tuesday. "But I believe we will be able to raise, as will be indicated in this reporting period and in the future, enough money to run a winning campaign."Breaking Stereotypes, and Women at Sea
By Wendy Laursen 2015-03-09 02:11:43
The global maritime community is probably the most culturally diverse industry there is, yet it lags behind many other industries in the number of women in top-level positions and in the integration of women into jobs at sea.
A recent report indicates that Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries) have the highest number of female senior managers in the maritime industry (26 percent). G7 countries follow with 18 percent.
There is a long history of gender stereotypes to overcome. Women had to fight for the right to work and be educated, and it wasn’t until 1870 that education became compulsory for girls in the U.K., for example.
Even so, girls were not allowed to study science when it entered the curriculum. Their education was directed to developing them into “the perfect wife and mother.” When they were later allowed to attend science classes, that direction remained for some time with, for example, the principles of evaporation explained in the context of drying clothes.
Family concepts are still a barrier for women going to sea today. A 2013 study by the European Community Shipowners’ Association and the European Transport Workers’ Federation pointed to a lack of broadband connection as a major barrier for women in the industry. This isolates seafarers from family and friends and hampers distance learning. For seafarers returning to shore jobs, there is a perception that relocation is often required, another difficulty for family life for both men and women.
IMO has been officially working on changing the gender imbalance in the industry since 1988 with the development of the Strategy on the Integration of Women in the Maritime Sector. This was predominantly aimed at women in developing nations and boosted education opportunities. The World Maritime University (WMU) in Sweden and the International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI) in Malta played a major role in the program. IMO worked to boost maritime training for women by encouraging maritime academies to include women alongside men in their training.
During the 1990s, the number of women graduating from WMU and IMLI increased and women took up jobs in administration, policy and education worldwide.
2000 saw the enactment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Goal three aims to “promote gender equality and empower women”, and this had an influence on IMO. Six regional associations were created for women including ones in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific Islands.
In 2013, IMO released the film Women at the Helm which showcased IMO efforts at promoting positive outcomes for women in shipping. The organisation has since announced a plan to develop a global strategy for female seafarers to continue the work started in 1988.
This year has seen the release of the book Maritime Women: Global Leadership which contains the contributions of the WMO 2nd International Conference Maritime Women: Global Leadership (MWGL 2014).
Key amongst the conference theme’s was the view that in today’s competitive and challenging market, it makes sense to draw from the biggest talent pool possible to overcome the shipping industry’s financial, safety and environmental challenges.
“We’re not supporting women, we’re supporting the maritime sector and its human beings,” said Pamela Tansey, Senior Deputy Director of the IMO.
“Ignoring half the population for jobs in the maritime industry is like playing poker with half a deck of cards,” said Björn Kjerfve, president of World Maritime University.
Still, challenges remain. Globally, an estimated 57 million primary school-age children are not in school. In many parts of the world, girls are less likely to enrol than boys. In some areas of Pakistan, for example, only one out of every five children in school is a girl.
In 2012, Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old girl from Swat, Pakistan, was shot along with two other children on a school bus. Yousafzai, even as a school girl, was an active advocate for education for girls, something that the local Taliban banned at various times.
On the afternoon of October 9, 2012, Yousafzai boarded her school bus. A gunman asked for her by name then shot her in the face. On October 12, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatw? against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated their murderous intent. Now living in the U.K., Yousafzai was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of girls’ education and child rights.
Sunday March 8 was International Women’s Day.Everyone is a student and everyone is a teacher as well. By default you are teaching something. Whether you want to or not, whether you acknowledge it or not, either by showing people what you should do or by showing what you should not do. Someone learns from you even though you may not deliberately want to teach. From just the way you walk your life, someone can learn from you.
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Guru Purnima Celebration in Boone, July 2016
I have always considered myself a spiritual person, but I never had a spiritual practice in my life until six years ago, at age 29. At that time, I was not looking for any practice or philosophy, rather, I was looking for some relief from my stresses, anxiety, depression, and physical ailments. I found relief after my first Art of Living course where I practiced the breathing technique Sudarshan Kriya. I had a profound insight into myself and the technique granted me peace of mind amidst a chaotic and unhappy period.
I didn't know it at the time, but difficulty breathing, as well as uneven exhalation and inhalation, are all signs of imbalance in the body and mind. Something else I didn't know is that the breath - its length, its rhythm, its heaviness or lightness, are all indicators of our emotions. Through the breath we can even learn about traumas that have been stored in our memory, as well as how to remove them. Our breath and our state of mind, it turns out, are intimately connected. The Sudarshan Kriya technique harmonizes the breath, having a profound effect on the mind, our emotional state, as well as the physical body. Through its practice, I was able to navigate a difficult divorce and even found freedom from an autoimmune disorder.
For two years, I nurtured myself with this technique, meditation and yoga, largely adhering to the practices in Art of Living, under the guidance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the organization's founder, leader, and principle teacher. I also attended 5-day silence courses of deep meditation and yoga that left my mind and body refreshed and rejuvenated.
The more I meditated, the more I started to feel unity with the life around me. My connection to nature deepened. I started to have a heavier-than-before conscience about littering, stepping on a spider, or uttering a hurtful word. I felt happier and more peaceful, and I wanted to take more responsibility for the well-being of others. The meditation practices started to re-kindle my passion for social justice, as well as my desire to participate in something greater than myself. I began to ask myself "how can I be helpful?".
Inspired by Sri Sri's example of selfless service, and because I had found so much relief from his breathing technique Sudarshan Kriya and meditation practices, I decided I wanted to be an Art of Living teacher and this would be one way for me to give back to the society. Little did I know that the process of getting accepted to do a teacher training would take four years of work, consisting of making room in my meditation practice to uncover a lot of limitations in my own personality. The path to teaching meditation is different for everyone, but it involves getting in touch with one's own nature, and for me that process has meant uncovering the barriers within my own heart that prevent me to connect authentically with my world. It's a process I foresee as lifelong, and for me it has been challenging for several reasons.
First, learning how to teach genuinely, authentically, and responsibly means I have to confront my own ego, deal with my own problems constructively, treat my body with respect, speak skillfully, wisely, lovingly, or and playfully - and perhaps hardest of all - learn how to accept myself when I completely and totally fail at all of the above.
Second, teaching wisdom for everyday life, along with the secrets in the breath, is a process of being myself fully, which means being natural with the people and environment around me. And when I can't do that, being a good teacher means not being affected by that discord or not beating myself up for my own inability to connect.
Third, when teaching concepts and techniques within a tradition that is built on the underlying concept of one-ness and unity, there is a process of deconstruction that must happen in the mind, as ideas of gender, culture, and what we think we know as normal, standard, and definitive begins to fall away. This can be disconcerting, unless it is done with a lot of care, love, discipline, and not being affected by the opinions of others. These past four years, my own internal resistance to changing my mindset and having a more all-inclusive perception needed to be counteracted by a firm commitment to what I was working towards. A good support system helped me, but ultimately, moving through challenges to become a spiritual teacher came down to me and my own personal relationship to the path.
Finally, engaging more deeply with the problems of individuals, as well as taking on more responsibility for issues in the world takes a culturing or priming of the mind and the body to both strengthen and sensitize oneself. We never know what we may need to engage with as we extend our hand to others sincerely. As we encourage others in meditation, we engage with their "stuff" and we need to be prepared for that. Furthermore, we don't want to let their "stuff" entangle with our own.
All that being said, I find myself only days away from attending the Art of Living teacher training program in Los Angeles. I'll be with a team of 45 other people from around the country who will be embarking on the same adventure. I don't know what to expect, but I imagine I am going to deepen the process of unlearning, deconstructing, and losing lots of concepts and boundaries that are holding me back from having a deeper understanding of who I am. All of the processes and courses in Art of Living, from the most basic to the most advanced, are highly experiential, and are bout genuinely living a life of non-duality amidst our unique nature, while remaining centered through life's ups and downs.
If you want to try it for yourself, don't take my word for it - this path is all about you and your experience. You can find courses in your area at http://www.artofliving.org/us-en
Finally, if you live in the LA area, you can come be a part of my teacher training experience. My team and I are organizing a course called "Get Happy LA" (see more testimonials below), where participants will learn the Sudarshan Kriya. It will be on August 9th and 10th from 7-10 PM at The Art of Living Los Angeles Center. Register at: http://www.artofliving.org/us-en/program/140223Following on the heels of the new fundraising strategy laid out by James Bopp Jr. for Republican Super PAC, a pair of similar Democratic groups -- also known as independent expenditure-only committees -- have asked the Federal Election Commission to rule on whether party committee officials and candidates for federal office can permissibly raise unlimited funds from any source for these outside organizations.
The letter, sent on behalf of the House Majority PAC and the Majority PAC by Marc E. Elias, Ezra W. Reese and Jonathan S. Berkon of the Perkins Coie law firm, also asks whether candidates can participate in fundraisers for independent expenditure-only committees if they do not directly solicit contributions.
It's not clear from FEC rules whether the advisory opinion request will be answered. "Requests presenting a general question of interpretation, or posing a hypothetical situation, or regarding the activities of third parties, do not qualify as advisory opinion requests," the regulations state. The Perkins Coie letter does not ask about a specific politician or party official or fundraising event, but rather whether Bopp's Republican Super PAC strategy complies with FEC rules. At issue is a ruling in a challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold, which barred federal candidates from raising "soft money" -- contributions to political parties from corporate or labor sources that could not be used to directly influence federal elections.
Bopp, the Indiana lawyer who was a key architect of the Citizens United challenge to campaign finance laws that limited corporate spending to influence elections, launched a committee last week -- first reported by the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group -- that intends to rely on Republican party committee officials and candidates to solicit donations for it. Though federal election law currently bars such organizations from coordinating with party committees and candidates, Bopp argues that, "There’s no coordination issue. What you can’t coordinate is the expenditure of funds. We don’t coordinate the spending with anyone."
He further stated that the ban on candidates and party officials raising soft money does not apply to independent expenditure-only groups. "The law provides that a candidate can solicit hard money," he said.
The Perkins Coie advisory opinion letter does not raise the soft money/hard money distinction -- whether contributions to independent expenditure-only committees are indeed hard money that candidates can solicit, even if they can't direct how that money is spent -- but asks instead whether candidates can raise funds for Super PACs, or alternatively participate in Super PAC fundraisers without soliciting funds.
Perkins Coie is the law firm of current White House Counsel Robert Bauer. Elias replaced Bauer as the head of the firm's election law practice group.
Publicly, the White House has been critical of the Citizens United and related SpeechNow Supreme Court decisions, which opened the door to outside spending to influence elections by corporations and labor unions.Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic side are just 180 minutes away from returning to Champions League group stage football, but will face tough opposition in the Israeli champions.
Celtic overcame last year’s Champions league outfit Astana in the last round while Be’er Sheva beat Olympiakos.
Be’er Sheva warmed up for their trip to Paradise with a 4-2 win over Maccabi Haifa in the Israeli Super Cup.
The Hoops will be well rested ahead of the tie, with many of those expected to start on Wednesday remaining in Glasgow while they played Inter Milan in Ireland.
Based on the team news below, we’ve predicted the starting team as well.
Celtic
Leigh Griffiths, Efe Ambrose and Stefan Johansen all return from suspension, while Kolo Toure returns to the team after missing last week’s League Cup tie.
Erik Sviatchenko participated in full training today (Tuesday) and could return to the squad after three weeks out with a groin injury.
New signing Dorus de Vries isn’t fit enough to play as he recovers from an ankle injury he sustained last weekend.
Nir Bitton is back to full training but is still a bit short on match fitness as is Dedryck Boyata.
Kris Commons and Gary Mackay-Steven have returned to training but won’t be fit enough to be involved.
Patrick Roberts trained alone today (Tuesday) and has recovered well from a hamstring injury but may not feature until the weekend at least.
Jozo Simunovic is still recovering from knee surgery that he underwent in March and has returned to light training but is still short of match fitness.
Hapoel Be’er Sheva
Captain Elyaniv Barda injured his groin while playing for the Israeli champions last weekend and will miss the first leg.Every now and then a technology comes around that fundamentally changes the game
and how things work. Java and the JVM created a world where the idea of portable
code execution was possible, "compile once, run anywhere" (as long as there was
a JVM available). JavaScript changed how the web worked and went from something
to help manipulate how web pages looked based off user interaction, to its
modern incarnation of full applications that run in the browser.
I think we're at that next technology now and it's staring us in the face, but
because it hasn't been used beyond hobbyist level interaction, it's kind of hard
to see why one might use it for their own purposes yet. I'm talking about
WebAssembly ("wasm" for short). It's a big deal. We're talking an Internet unlike any
that's been seen before and it's going to change everything.
What is wasm?
If you haven't heard of it wasm is a binary format to run programs at native
speed in the browser. What? "That's ridiculous" you might say, well here's an example
of it being used for a neural network to generate anime faces.
The code for that isn't written in JavaScript. Now while that may not be your
cup of tea you might be interested in the fact that someone put the
Godot Game Engine into the browser. This is all early days kind of stuff
with wasm, but it highlights some important things: wasm is powerful, wasm is fast enough,
and soon we will be able to run any application on a single platform; the web.
This is a big deal. Just the other day
wasm became supported on every major web browser. It's here now
and it's going to be around for a very long time.
Alright, so why is it a big deal?
It's a portable binary format supported in something everyone has, a web
browser. It's very much like Java applets many years ago. It's platform independent. Mac, Linux, Windows, whatever OS it doesn't matter
as long as it has a web browser. It's an open standard, so no one company owns it (like Oracle does with Java). It's fast. While JavaScript is great due to it's ubiquity and working
everywhere on the web, its semantics limits how fast it can be
(that being said, the JIT compiling in browsers these days is usually good enough).
It has the best parts of what made Java applets popular back in the early days of the web
(portability of code) and it has what made JavaScript the king of the Web (an open standard and
browser support), but with all of the native speed of C, C++, and Rust.
What does this mean for Rust?
We're poised to be THE language of choice for wasm. While C/C++ can be used, they
have many things that can push web developers away from using them. Things that Rust
doesn't suffer from, mainly:
Packaging libraries is a huge pain Segfaults/memory unsafety/Undefined Behavior being easier to hit Higher level constructs that are easier to reason about (it doesn't preclude
the notion that something like C++ has nice things like iterators, but it
might not make it worth using because it comes packaged with a language that
has all the issues in 2)
Sounds kind of like what we already say to convince people to use Rust who do
systems programming to use Rust. Except, this time our target demographic is different.
It's not systems programmers, it's web developers. Generally speaking here's
what web developers want and need:
Easy packaging of libraries Being able to just download a package and use it Being able to call and use those libraries easily with good documentation Easy integration into a build system like webpack or browserify
We have most of these:
With cargo, we have a build system to package up libraries (and one that all
libraries already use) We also can again use cargo, but we need to integrate with npm somehow which
I'll talk about later Rustdoc is a wonderful tool and much easier to go through than a man page I don't think we're here just yet but I'll cover it later
We have a lot of what web developers want and can easily make the push to make
it a seamless experience for them, rather than making the mistake of letting
C/C++ become the go-to choice again. Rust can and should become the systems
language of the web, much like C/C++ have been for personal computers for decades.
You might have noticed I haven't mentioned programming languages like
Ruby/Python/Java etc. here, that also cover the same things as Rust (and are arguably
easier to learn) right now in terms of making it a good language for wasm. This
is because they're all dependent on a Garbage Collector. If the point of wasm is
to be fast, then having no runtime to worry about is a good thing. GCs add extra
overhead, would have to be shipped with each wasm package, and at that point you
might as well just use JS which is also GC based but is highly optimized for the
web. This is of course subject to change when WebAssembly gets integration with
the GC of the surrounding environment, e.g. the JavaScript engine. However, this
is something that won't happen for about two years give or take.
This leaves us with Rust, C, or C++ as the only real contenders for using wasm
at the moment, meaning it's ripe for first mover advantage when it comes to
tooling, support, and use.
How do we make it the language of choice?
While I've given up trying to convince die-hard C/C++ people to use Rust when
they can (there are arguments not too, i.e. large code bases like Linux) as the
default, what we can do is convince a whole new generation of programmers to use
Rust. Lots of people are learning to code right now, especially for the first
time, and many of them are learning JS as their first language. Undoubtedly as
the years go on and wasm becomes more of a thing, because it will be, they will
come into contact with it and try it out or have to learn it. We want to
position Rust for that critical confluence of events that will occur which is:
wasm has matured and more people are using it Since people are using it they need to learn the languages made to compile to
wasm They'll learn the easiest one, with the most documentation, and the generally
accepted standard to use.
We need Rust to be point number 3 in the next few years or else we'll have
missed the boat. We're in a special position to do that now and the sooner we
start on this the better.
I'm going to break down the strategy for this into short, medium, and long term
plans that can help position Rust to be a huge player in the next big thing of
computing.
Short Term
There's two important hurdles we need to clear short term and that's tooling and
compiling Rust to wasm. I'll cover compilation first.
Right now we can compile to wasm with a wasm backend target available now in
nightly. However, we don't have linker support so the binary sizes are large and
we have to use wasm-gc to optimize and clean up the program. LLVM has
landed wasm linker support though so we're already on our way there for compilation to wasm.
Future work over the next year would be making sure it works with most if not all of std if it
doesn't already (threads aren't supported in the wasm standard yet but will be), as well as
optimizations, and making sure it produces wasm files that work.
Next up is getting the tooling working. This includes three major tools:
The RLS webpack NPM
Improving the RLS is going to be critical. Many web developers use editors such as VS Code, Atom,
Sublime Text, and others that are more graphical or are an IDE. There are of course vim/emacs users
as well! The RLS being improved benefits all of these platforms, but especially those who use an
IDE and it's features extensively. We also know of people who won't use Rust until there's an IDE
available anyways, so continuing this work is important for both getting the web developer
demographic as well as getting others who wouldn't use Rust without an IDE. Two birds with one
stone! Most of this is already underway, but having a usable stable version in 2018 that we can
continue to improve will be a big boon. As an addendum to that making it easy to integrate the RLS
with other editors should be a snap as well. Making things easier for end users is always a good
thing for adoption, even if it means we need to do a bit of extra maintenance to keep it working.
Big props to the people working on the RLS already. It's important work!
Next up we need to get integration with webpack working and from what I've seen
it's something that's been experimentally added, with a loader already on NPM!
Being able to drop in files and have it Just Work™ is going to be important. Webpack has become
the cargo for the web in many ways, so being able to just hook in to that build system with no
effort for people developing their own modules is essential. I really think tooling is a huge
driver of adoption. I know I would hate using Rust without rustup or cargo even if I did like the
language.
Lastly, NPM is the next big piece. What if someone writes a whole module in web assembly?
Where should they distribute it? While crates.io is great for other Rust modules it's
not used for storing code used in web development. NPM is where everyone who does web
development gets their modules from. Where am I going with this? Well the good thing about
wasm is that it's platform-agnostic so we could compile a module to wasm and then upload
it to NPM to then be installed alongside other modules used for development. Being
able to do something like cargo upload --npm would be great. It'll let us use
Rust tooling locally, but still allow us to hook into the wider web development ecosystem.
With webpack and NPM we'll need to work with the projects' maintainers but they also
either use Rust or already want it in their project so I'm sure it'll be easy to get help
with integrating into those systems.
Medium Term
Tooling aside, what's the next big piece of the puzzle further down the road? I think continued
ergonomic improvements like Non Lexical Lifetimes (NLL), more features like Const Generics and
Associated Type Constructors (ATCs) will help fix some of the pain points of Rust and leverage
it as a more powerful language in general.
Further work on documenting code, producing new tutorials, and continuously engaging with the
web development community and what their needs are when it comes to wasm. Some things will be
out of our reach, like influencing what wasm will be further down the line like with DOM
manipulation, but we can continue to improve the backend of rustc as more wasm features become
available, so that web developers can use them sooner.
Also begin developing more examples with Rust and wasm and showing it off to people. We need
to generate buzz, because it doesn't matter how good your stuff is if no one knows about it.
We'll need to start marketing Rust as a viable language for wasm as the more tricky technical
bits of using it are addressed.
Long Term
I'm going to assume we've done the above two sections, but long term I think it's the same
goals of the community now, grow it, make it easy to use and join, and increase participation.
I think the important thing here is that by getting more people to use wasm we'll have a new
generation of systems programmers who will reach for Rust as their first choice. Maybe even
then we can have a full Rust Stack equivalent to MEAN. I'm thinking maybe something like WARD
(WebAssembly, Rocket, Diesel) but hey that's a far off dream. Still, longterm the goals will
help grow Rust, and enable users to do more cool things whether on the web, in embedded dev,
or something else.
Why does any of this matter?
Now you might be looking at this whole article and say to yourself, "Look, I like
Rust, but I don't do web development so why should I care or put effort into
helping out here?" I'm sure we all want to work on Rust in production or at
least want it to succeed, and for that we need more people using it. So why not
get more people to use it everywhere and make it more accessible? If we start
getting more people to use it, they help create more packages and write blog
posts, which gets more people to use it who can contribute in other ways, which
means now companies might start using it in production and so on and so forth.
Language choice is as much social as it is technical as to why things succeed.
While you might use Rust for other use cases, if it becomes a large enough
community, then you still stand to benefit due to having more hands create more
things and work on the compiler. We lose nothing by inviting more people into
the fold and we stand to gain everything by doing so.
Rust 2018 Roadmap
At this point I think it would be good to point out that 2018 is the prime time
candidate for a big push in wasm and one of the main reasons I wanted to write
this article. I think it also coincides with what we've already been working on
already in 2017 as well. The ergonomics initiative can still be brought forward
into 2018 (NLL, ATCs, Incremental Compilation, and other nice things) because
making the language even friendlier and powerful is a good thing that still
benefits everyone, but also will benefit us by getting more web developers on
boarded to Rust. While some things will directly benefit the wasm-only portion,
i.e. code generation/optimization, which will consume limited compiler team
resources, the longterm benefits far outweigh the initial cost.
The other thing that stands to benefit is documentation and how we onboard new
users. We've poured a lot of resources into this over the past two plus years
since 1.0 and it's payed off through improved error messages and more. Doing
that more will be a good thing regardless of use case.
Lastly the things we need to tackle in the short term seem like the biggest
technical things that we should do now to make further work on this easier.
More con |
was built, D'Ann Loop told CNN: "We say over and over again, we feel like we're in Mexico. People ask us that.... And I said, 'No, we're still in the U.S. I'm a U.S. citizen.'... No, I'm not a Mexican. We just live on the Mexico side of the fence."
Land disputes will surely continue to rise should Trump succeed in carrying out his proposal for a wall since it would extend all along the border, which would leave some U.S. citizens feeling left out of their own country as their property will straddle a physical barrier.
Pat Bell, a Trump supporter who is against the idea of a wall, said she may have to hire a lawyer because her home may no longer be in the state of Texas. “Absolutely I would go to the people who are in charge and, you hate to say I would get a lawyer, but if it comes to that issue, you would,” she said.
Watch the CNN report below:Cross-over RPG Project X Zone launched on the 3DS in Japan earlier this year but hasn't been granted a western release as yet - despite the efforts of Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada.
However, some people at Namco Bandai are at least aware of the demand for this game in this part of the world - including Games Community Strategist Rich Bantegui.
When asked on Twitter about the status of a possible western localisation, Bantegui replied:
@videogame554 Sup Anthony, just like my recent answer - I havent heart any news. But im blown away by the amount interest in the title. December 13, 2012
With the game posting slightly disappointing sales in its native region, perhaps Namco Bandai is eyeing up a western release as a means of boosting its commercial fortunes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.Story highlights Food crisis worsens as situation deteriorates in war-torn Yemen
World Food Programme appeals to international community for help
(CNN) Saida Ahmad Baghili's piercing eyes look up from a Yemen hospital bed as if pleading for help.
She is 18, but the children's clothes that drape her emaciated body appear too large for her in photos released this week. Baghili is being treated for severe malnutrition at al-Thawra hospital in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida.
Severely malnourished, Saida Ahmad Baghili, 18, sits on a bed at a hospital in Hodeida, Yemen.
As the food crisis grows worse for Baghili and other Yemenis, the UN World Food Programme fears the devastating toll that hunger could have on the war-torn country.
The organization said it has provided food for more than 3 million people each month since February but is beginning to struggle.
It has split these rations so it can reach 6 million people every month, but resources are beginning to run out.
Read MoreIndian-origin Leo Varadkar is set to become Ireland’s Prime Minister as he won the Irish leadership race. Varadkar will also be the country first gay prime minister and the first leader to have Asian roots. At 38, Varadkar is also the youngest leader to hold prime ministerial office. He is currently serving as the Minister for Social Protection in Ireland. Irish PM Enda Kenny resigned as head of the governing Fine Gael party, putting Varadkar and Housing Minister Simon Coveney in the leadership race. So far, Varadkar has managed to secure the support of 46 of Fine Gael’s 73 lawmakers. The party will elect its new leader on June 2.
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Read | Who is Leo Varadkar — the gay son of an Indian immigrant who will be Ireland’s next PM
Varadkar is a trained doctor and his father is an Indian immigrant born in Mumbai.
Varadkar overcame ministerial colleague Simon Coveney as expected, winning an overwhelming majority among the centre-right party’s lawmakers, who hope the straight-talking Dubliner can lead them to third successive term for the first time. Bar an unexpected development, Varadkar will be voted in as prime minister when parliament next sits on June 13 and become the once-staunchly Catholic country’s first openly gay premier and the youngest person ever to hold the office.
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His election marks another chapter in the social change that has swept through the country of 4.6 million people that only decriminalised homosexuality in 1993 but became the first country to adopt gay marriage via a popular vote in 2015.CG animator Yūhei Sakuragi announced in a NicoNico live broadcast for Japan Animator Expo on Monday that he is teaming with Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki for an upcoming project.
Sakuragi also mentioned that advertising animation studio Steve N' Steven, which was founded in 2011, is working on the project.
Sakuragi served as CGI director on The Case of Hana & Alice, which opened in Japan in February. Most recently, Sakuragi wrote and directed the short Japan Animator Expo short "Neon Genesis Impacts," which debuted on Friday. The short was animated at Steve N' Steven.
Studio Ghibli's Goro Miyazaki (Ronia the Robber's Daughter, Tales from Earthsea, From Up On Poppy Hill), Hayao Miyazaki's son, revealed in June that his father was working on a CG-animated short for the Ghibli Museum. Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki added in July that the short will be 10-minutes long, but it took three years to complete. The new work will be Hayao Miyazaki's first CG-animated work.
The short will be about a small hairy caterpillar named Boro (pictured below). Miyazaki sketched the character in 1995, and started planning a full length movie around the same time he was working on Princess Mononoke.
Despite his retirement from feature films in 2013, Hayao Miyazaki continues working on a multitude of projects, including a samurai manga for Model Graphix magazine, short films for the Ghibli Museum, and the Japanese cover for Westall's The Call and Other Stories.
Hayao Miazaki also told The Hollywood Reporter last year, "I do want to continue making short films such as the ones we show at the Ghibli Museum. I will continue making those. We will continue to make short films for the Ghibli Museum with a small staff of animators. But I think gradually it will quietly disappear in the future."
Regarding CG animation, Hayao Miyazaki told Variety last year, "I think talent decides everything. More than the method, what's important is the talent using it. There's nothing inherently wrong or right about a method, whether it be pencil drawings or 3-D CG. Pencil drawings don't have to go away, but those who continue to use the medium lack talent. So sadly, it will fade away."
Sources: Variery, animeanime.jpHow many people does it take to grill 100-foot bratwurst without burning or breaking it? Fifty people, according to a practice run held Tuesday to prepare for an upcoming festival in Illinois.
"They did good; they did real good," said Bob Fritz, of the Robert "Chick" Fritz beer distributor company. "There were no erratic movements."
The practice run at Silver Creek Saloon was in preparation for an attempt to grill a 200-foot-long bratwurst at the city's 200th anniversary celebration next week.
The Bicentennial Oktoberfest Weekend Celebration is set to be held Sept. 19-21 in downtown Belleville.
The bratwurst was made with natural casing -- interlocked, not sewn together -- and a 100 percent, gluten-free, lean pork, said Larry Schubert, of Schubert's Packing Co., according to the Belleville News-Democrat.
Schubert made the 60-pound sausage and he will also make the 200-foot brat to be grilled at 11 a.m. Sept. 21 on North Church Street by East Main Street.
Donations will be collected from people who want to eat a piece of the bratwurst. Proceeds will benefit local food pantries.The Apple Inc. store is seen on the day of the new iPhone 7 smartphone launch in Los Angeles, California, U.S., September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Apple Inc is in talks with India’s government to explore making products locally, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, as the U.S. firm aims to make deeper inroads in the world’s second-largest mobile phone market by users.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to boost technology manufacturing in the country through his ‘Make in India’ initiative. His government in June exempted foreign retailers for three years from a requirement to locally source 30 percent of goods sold in their stores.
The Journal said Apple, in a letter to the federal government in November, outlined manufacturing plans and asked for financial incentives.
Government representatives were not available to comment while an Apple spokesman in India did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.
Local manufacturing would help Apple open retail stores in the country where its iPhones account for less than 2 percent of Indian smartphones sales.
Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (Foxconn), which makes Apple devices such as iPhones and iPads, has a manufacturing facility in southern India.Y ou may have heard that a Google software engineer anonymously circulated a memo about “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” The tech blog Motherboard reports that the memo went viral within the company. In it, the engineer argues that Google has created a “politically correct monoculture” in which honest discussion of its hiring practices is impossible.
The author avows several times that seeking to foster diversity is rational for Google, because everyone comes to work with unconscious bias, owing to each person’s background. But this engineer also asserts that Google has accepted the story that its inability to hire more women and minorities is rooted in a nasty form of discrimination. But there are good reasons, the author says, to think that the problem is rooted in he calls “population level differences in distributions.” In other words, he says that while sexism exists in tech, it may be the case that fewer women than men desire to be software engineers. He says that despite its proposed commitments, Google does not discuss its own lack of political diversity, the kind that would produce moral disagreement and discussion. Despite the repeated avowals — “I value diversity and inclusion” are the first five words of the essay — most media outlets refers to it as the “ anti-diversity memo. ” Or screed. Or rant.
You could argue with this memo. It crystallizes several lines of thinking that have appeared in the last decade. It includes a bit of Jonathan Haidt’s work on how political worldviews spring out of deep moral intuitions. It references research showing that in richer and freer societies, sex differences in choice of employment are more exaggerated than in places that are poorer and less free.
One could describe the tone of this memo as “cooperative.” The author doesn’t make any claims that he is victimized. He doesn’t accuse anyone in particular of being unqualified. But the response it received wasn’t argument, it was anathematization.
Danielle Brown, Google’s new “Vice President of Diversity, Integrity, and Governance,” stepped on and issued her own response the debate. Her company-wide e-mail, reproduced in the media, was the first time that most Google engineers had even heard of this supposedly viral memo, which first appeared on an internal listserv for atheists. After some throat-clearing, Brown said:
Many of you have read an internal document shared by someone in our engineering organization, expressing views on the natural abilities and characteristics of different genders, as well as whether one can speak freely of these things at Google. And like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender. I’m not going to link to it here as it’s not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes, or encourages.
Brown describes the document as offering views on gender, and an accusation on a stifling climate of opinion in Google. She says that it is wrong on gender, and then she conspicuously confirms the engineer’s latter charge, by leaving it unrebutted while deeming it unrepeatable. The engineer was so wrong, in fact, that Google decided late Monday to fire him.
The truth is that the mainstream media outlets may be right that it is an “anti-diversity screed,” in the sense that it offers arguments and evidence where none are typically permitted. In this telling, diversity is more of a faith commitment. Brown continued her statement:
Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we’ll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul. As Ari Balogh said in his internal G+ post, “Building an open, inclusive environment is core to who we are, and the right thing to do. ’Nuff said.”
The striking thing about this is that it is not even an argument. It is at best a reassurance. The statements in it are all creedal. The same belief is expressed, in barely varying language, in three successive sentences. It is less a paragraph containing thought than a kind of mantra or spell.
The reaction on the outside of Google — even from those who support the memo as if it were Luther’s 95 theses — confirms that religious values are at play. I do not think that Nassim Taleb, the statistician and author, would object to being called an iconoclast. Taleb gave a vandal’s exultation to the publication of the engineer’s memo. The false gods are being torn down from the high places, and lighting does not strike us dead!
Zunger states that at higher levels, software engineering requires empathy, and empathy is about having roughly the same political and social worldview as his.
An ex-Googler, Yonatan Zunger, offered another reaction, condemning the memo. Zunger accuses the engineer author of the memo of not understanding engineering. He states that at higher levels, software engineering requires empathy, and empathy is about having roughly the same political and social worldview as Yonatan Zunger’s.
Zunger’s reaction reminds one that religious disagreements often turn on which authorities we accept. Zunger asserts that “nearly every statement about gender in that entire document is actively incorrect.” He then proceeds to relieve himself of the duty of challenging them: “I am neither a biologist, a psychologist, nor a sociologist, so I’ll leave that to someone else.” This is a profession of faith.
Consider how similar this avowal is to those of other religious believers. Matthew Lambert, an Irish Catholic baker, was accused of helping James Eustace escape English Protestant authorities during a 16th-century rebellion. During the inquisition before his death, he announced:
I am not a learned man. I am unable to debate with you, but I can tell you this, I am a Catholic and I believe whatever our Holy Mother the Catholic Church believes.
Zunger refused to debate the memo author or Jonathan Haidt, but he professes and believes with a sincere heart. This is his witness.
Like many religious idols, the new gods are available for the crassest kind of religious manipulation. Adherents say that these values are not only good but also that they bring grace and success to all endeavors. They can be shoehorned into a kind of prosperity Gospel. You shouldn’t just pursue them because they are good, but because they will do good for you.
Jeremy Cliffe, a reporter for the Economist, tweeted about another of this week’s controversies involving diversity (this one also involving Nassim Taleb and historian Mary Beard on whether Roman imperial administrators in Briton were likely to be African). Cliffe stated, “Every hegemony in history — Rome, Tang, Mongol, Dutch, British, American — thrived by being more tolerant of diversity than its rivals.” He added, “And every one failed when it stopped embracing that diversity.”
Funny, I thought it was military prowess that led to imperial greatness, and bankruptcy of the treasury (usually due to war) that led to the breakup of empires. But it is interesting to think that Ghengis Khan was setting down a template for the toleration of diversity. “The greatest enjoyment of a man is to overcome his enemies, drive them before him, snatch what they have, to see the people to whom they are dear with their faces bathed in tears, to ride their horses, to squeeze in his arms their daughters and women,” Khan is reputed to have said. I suppose taking women as the spoils of war shows a kind of tolerance of diversity.
Funny. These disputes only ever happen at high-prestige jobs for the clerical class of our society: politicians, journalists, academics, software coders. That is why, once again, the debate about it almost perfectly matches every debate in the culture war, putting the same ideas and same coalitions into the same old fight.
I did short stints of work sealing driveway pavement and making industrial quantities of ammonium formate on the floor of a chemical plant. They were all-male environments. No one worries that women are being held back from these jobs.
But for what’s it’s worth, I’m not sure that even apologists for Diversity with a capital D really believe that all disparities are the result of oppression. Before I joined the class of people who type into a screen for a living, I did short stints of decently-compensated work sealing driveway pavement and making industrial quantities of ammonium formate on the floor of a chemical plant. They were all-male environments. No one worries that women are being held back from these jobs. Diversity is surely important. Diversity is good. Diversity is the best. But for now it is a fight among priests. Only God can judge it.Simply put, this year’s Big Ten season has been insane. From top to bottom, the entire season has been filled with unpredictable results and inconsistent play. It’s left things in a unique position heading into the last week of the regular season.
And to help breakdown what to expect, the BTPowerhouse staff got together to have a roundtable discussion. They answered some of the biggest questions remaining on the conference race, NCAA Tournament seeding, and the league’s Final Four chances.
Here’s that discussion.
2/27 BTP Roundtable Discussion:
1. The last few weeks have been wild, to say the least, and it’s left things incredibly tight in the Big Ten title race in the final week of the regular season. So, who ends up grabbing the title this season?
Thomas Beindit: Well, let’s start with the obvious. Purdue comes into this week with a one-game lead over Wisconsin and a two-game lead over Maryland, Michigan State, and Minnesota. Everybody else has already been eliminated from the title race. Considering that there’s only one week of the regular season left, we need to view this as Purdue’s title to lose.
The interesting thing about this race is that all five of those teams have a tricky slate of games this week. To start, Maryland and Michigan State matchup on Saturday and Wisconsin and Minnesota play one another in Madison on Sunday. And Maryland, Michigan State, and Purdue also all get road games outside of those matchups as well. In other words, there’s still quite a bit of potential for some craziness in the final weeks.
However, with that said, I still have to go with Purdue here. The Boilermakers get Indiana at home on Tuesday and a road game against a struggling Northwestern on Saturday. Purdue hasn’t been good on the road this season, but it’s hard to see the Boilermakers losing both of those games. And with one win, Purdue clinches at least a share of the title and eliminates Maryland, Michigan State, and Minnesota from the title race.
Ryan Blevins: The craziest part about the Big Ten title race is the importance of the final games for all of the contenders. Purdue, Wisconsin and Maryland all play games against teams who will be trying to win their final game and get to that 20 win mark to make an NCAA tournament case. I don’t trust any of those teams to go 2-0, and since Purdue already has a one game advantage, I’ll take the Boilermakers.
Bryan Steedman: It basically has to be Purdue. Heading into the last week and the Boilermakers are 12-4 and own the tiebreaker over Wisconsin (11-5), Maryland (10-6) and Michigan State (10-6). Also, they only need to win once this week to guarantee they’ll win the conference so unless Purdue finishes the season on a three game losing streak (unlikely) they should wrap this up this week.
Harrison Rahajason: That’s a tough one. Based on Purdue, Wisconsin and Maryland’s schedules, it could go to any of them. Purdue finishes off with Indiana and Northwestern. They should be favored to win both, but who knows. These have been some crazy weeks. I’m going to go with Purdue to hang on, though.
Jon Richardson: Maryland is in the middle of a rough stretch and has the most ground to make up. Wisconsin has done everything they can to blow what looked like an easy lock. With the current lead, Purdue comes away with the title. Their roster is simply too good from top to bottom.
Robert Bondy: This seems like a no-brainer right now. Purdue is the team to beat in this league and I don’t see anyone taking it from them. Purdue holds a 1-game lead with two games to go and Wisconsin and Maryland have both stunk down the stretch. Mix Wisconsin and Maryland’s terrible finishes with Purdue’s winnable games this week — vs. Indiana and at Northwestern — and you have your answer. Give it to Purdue. At least a share if not the outright championship.
Nate Head: A tie between Purdue and Wisconsin. The Badgers are reeling right now, as I haven’t seen the potent swing offense this out of sync in the last four or five seasons. But, I think the senior leadership will help get the train back on its tracks to win out against Iowa and Minnesota. Meanwhile, Purdue will falter in at least one of its remaining games against Indiana and Northwestern and open the door for Greg Gard’s team to steal a share of the championship.
Connor Sindberg: I think Purdue and Wisconsin will both win out. With Purdue owning the head to head victory, Purdue will be the Big Ten champion. I do think Purdue at Northwestern will be a difficult task. Especially because it could be the sealer for Northwestern’s NCAA Tournament bid.
Eddie Herz: Since Wisconsin can’t even buy a win right now, it has to be Purdue. Even if Wisconsin somehow gets back on track and wins out, Purdue will still take the regular season title. The Boilermakers are up one game on the Badgers with only two games left. Though no team can be trusted, Purdue should be able to beat Indiana at home and Northwestern on the road.
Mike Randle: Feel strongly it is Purdue. They will not stumble at home against rival Indiana, and their inside game travels well on the road. Northwestern will fight hard in that Big Ten finale, but the Wildcats will not have an answer for Swanigan. Once they collapse, the Boilermakers three-point shooting will bring them the Big Ten crown in Evanston.
Bryce Bennett: I think Purdue is going to pound IU on Tuesday to clinch at least a share. I think this will end up being enough for an outright title because I don’t feel confident in Wisconsin’s ability to even homes games anymore. The Badgers have to play two of the hottest teams in the conference right now in Iowa and Minnesota to finish the season. I expect them to drop at least one more.
2. At this point, everybody wants to know how many teams will make it. So, how many Big Ten teams make the NCAA Tournament?
Beindit: Maybe this is predictable, but I’m going with seven teams right now. At this point, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, and Wisconsin are all sure-fire locks. Even if they lose out, they’re going to make the NCAA Tournament. Additionally, Michigan and Northwestern are in nice shape to make it as well. It would take some weird things to keep those two out. And Michigan State’s win over Wisconsin will also likely be enough to get the Spartans into the field. Perhaps Illinois or Ohio State can make some sort of push in the next two weeks, but personally, I don’t see either of those teams making the field on Selection Sunday.
Pazzalia: Seven. All the usual suspects from this year, minus Indiana. Too little too late from the Hoosiers. With that said, I’d love to see a wild-card team come out of nowhere and win the Big Ten Tournament. IE: Illinois, Iowa….Rutgers? Just kidding.
Blevins: All season I have had the responsibility of writing our NCAA Tournament bracketology post. The numbers have fluctuated all season but the notion has been the same all season, somebody has to play in this thing. There are four locks in my opinion right now, Wisconsin, Purdue, Maryland and Michigan. Despite trying to choke things away I think Northwestern gets in with just one more win. That means beat either Michigan or Purdue (easier said than done) or just win one game in the Big Ten tournament. If they can’t do that they won’t be in. Minnesota will likely get in, leaving Michigan State, who will need to get to 20 or 21 wins to make it. I’m saying six but seven is the most possible.
Steedman: As of right now it looks like seven. You have the obvious teams (Purdue, Wisconsin, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan State) and then you have two teams that, as of now, are in (Michigan and Northwestern). Michigan, especially after knocking off Purdue, should be in. Then again, losing to Northwestern and Nebraska and a bad showing in the conference tourney could derail that. Not that that will happen, though. As for Northwestern, I think they should be in because I think they’ll find a way to pick up a win down the stretch. But if that Indiana game is any indication, their final stretch should be entertaining to say the least.
Harrison Rahajason: 7?? Let’s say that, in the current standings, everyone from Purdue to Michigan makes it. Their resumes are all very worthy of bids. Northwestern’s a lock, and if Michigan beats the Wildcats on the road, they’ll be even lock-ier than they already are. So, yeah. Let’s say 7.
Richardson: 7 make it in. Purdue, Wisconsin, Maryland, Minnesota and Northwestern are locks. Michigan’s win over Purdue took them out of the bubble. Michigan State is the only team on the fringe, but being a marquee team gives them the benefit of the doubt. With their recent play, I say they get in.
Robert Bondy: After this weekend I like 7 from the Big Ten. Purdue, Wisconsin, Maryland and Minnesota are locks to get in. The seeding is all that matters for those four teams. Then I think Michigan, Michigan State and Northwestern are all comfortably in as of now. I think all three of those teams could benefit from at least one more win next week or in the Big Ten Tournament, but of all those teams Northwestern needs it the most. Michigan State could also use another win but their tough non-conference schedule helps them out quite a bit. And Michigan looks solid after picking up wins over Wisconsin and Purdue over the past few weeks.
Head: Lucky number...six. I think Purdue, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland and Michigan should start getting fitted for dancing shoes. That leaves Michigan State and Northwestern on the cusp for the sixth spot, to which I give the Spartans a slight edge.
Sindberg: I think 7 sneak in, which is hard to believe considering how weak the conference is this year. Purdue, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland are locks. Michigan, Michigan St and Northwestern with some work left to do. I’m starting to worry about Northwestern. About two weeks ago it seemed like Northwestern was a lock, but they aren't doing themselves any favors after recent losses to Illinois and Indiana.
Eddie Herz: I find it pretty unbelievable that so many Big Ten teams are at least on the bubble with how bad the conference has been this season. Nevertheless, 7 teams will crack the field of 68. Purdue, Wisconsin, and Maryland are 110 percent in right now and have been for a few weeks.
Minnesota has recently become just as much of a lock as the three previously mentioned teams. The Golden Gophers actually have the highest RPI (16) in the conference and have won seven straight. They could sneak in with a better seed than Wisconsin if they stay hot.
Michigan, Michigan State, and Northwestern all have top 50 RPIs and decent enough resumes to make the tournament with anything from a seven to a 10 seed.
Mike Randle: They are a lock for seven teams. They only chance of an eighth is Indiana, but they would have to win at Purdue and at Ohio State to even have a chance. Ohio State still lingers, but just doesn’t have the resume. Illinois snuck into this week’s “Next Four Out” on Fox Bracketology, but that will not happen.
Bryce Bennett: I think seven make it to the tournament. The only teams with work to do remain Michigan State and Northwestern. If both of those teams win at least one this week and one in the Big Ten Tournament, they are a lock. An interesting team to watch for an eighth spot is Illinois. The Illini could end up 19-12 and 9-9 in the conference with a Top 50 RPI and a solid SOS number. Given how weak the bubble is this year, how is that not a tournament team?
3. Michigan, Michigan State, and Northwestern. Rank them on how comfortable you think they are for NCAA Tournament bids.
Beindit: Right now, I would go Michigan, Northwestern, and then Michigan State. I think the wins over Purdue and Wisconsin have elevated the Wolverines past the Wildcats. And fair or not, recent play is valued by the Committee. As far as Michigan State goes, that loss to Northeastern is going to weigh the Spartans down in comparison to the other two teams here.
Blevins: I said it above, I think Michigan is a lock, more so than Northwestern or Minnesota. They are peaking at the right time and people covet what they have seen more recently. Next I would rank Northwestern, who currently has 20 wins but looks like they are on the fast track to back into the tournament. They need to win one game, just one, but they play Michigan and Purdue, not easy. Lastly, Michigan State got a resume win against Wisconsin, who also looks to be backing into the tournament. They also have 18 wins and their best win is against a team who is in decline.
Steedman: Michigan State, Michigan, Northwestern (in that order). Michigan State is getting hot at the right time (now 10-6 in the conference) and had a strong non-conference SOS and resume (Northeastern loss aside). Knocking off Wisconsin should be enough to get Izzo’s program into the big dance.
As for the other school in Michigan, the Wolverines need a win over the next three games and they should be fine in my opinion. It’s not that they need a win, it’s more that losing to Northwestern, Nebraska and a mid-level Big Ten team in the conference tournament would look really bad. As for Northwestern, they’re collapsing hard right now and really need a win. With games against Michigan and Purdue, that won’t come easily, and would likely force them to win a tournament game to feel better about Selection Sunday. I think they’ll find a way in, but if any of these teams miss the NCAA Tournament it’s going to be the Wildcats. Luckily for Northwestern fans they found a way to snag that win at Wisconsin this month.
Rahajason: Northwestern, Michigan State, Michigan. NW is a 10/10, lock. MSU is a 8.5. Michigan is an 8. They’ll all make it.
Richardson: Northwestern, Michigan, Michigan State. All three should pick up at least one win in the Big Ten tourney, and all three will make the NCAA Tournament.
Bondy: Michigan, Michigan State and Northwestern. I think all three are in good shape but all could use at least one more win to truly lock up spots. Northwestern has been falling lately and if they lose both games this next week and lose their first game in the BTT then they’ll be sweating it out on Selection Sunday.
Head: Michigan, Michigan State and Northwestern--in that order. I see the two Michigan teams finishing the regular season with a sense of momentum that will help them pick up at least one win in the Big Ten tournament, respectively. As for the Wildcats, I predict a slippery end of the season that may leave them on the outside looking in.
Herz: Michigan, Northwestern, Michigan State. I’d be surprised if any of them don’t make it but they each could definitely use another win or two before the Big Ten Tournament.
For a while, Northwestern was on top here but since they’ve lost two straight to Illinois and Indiana, Michigan jumped them. Michigan has looked great lately and they just handled Purdue at home. With 10 losses early in February, Michigan State was on the outside looking in. But they have won four out of five since and should sneak into the tournament because the selection committee will continue to give the benefit of the doubt to power five schools.
Randle: Michigan State, Michigan, Northwestern. Michigan State’s win against Wisconsin puts them in great shape. They played a killer schedule early and didn’t have Miles Bridges for seven games. The committee always takes that into account. Michigan beat Purdue and Wisconsin this month, they look great for a bid. Northwestern gives me the most concern, but I still feel very strongly about their March resume.
Bennett: Michigan, Michigan State and Northwestern. I think Michigan is a lock after a great February. Michigan State and Northwestern probably need one more regular season win and a BTT win. Of those two, Northwestern has the toughest remaining schedule (vs. Michigan and vs. Purdue).
4. The Big Ten is having a down year, but is there any chance the conference surprises this postseason? Can anyone make the Final Four?
Beindit: Well, let’s get something out of the way before we dive into this question: No Big Ten team is going to be a popular Final Four pick this year. Regardless of whether you think that’s fair or not, it’s just the truth. When the NCAA Tournament begins, the general perception is going to be that the Big Ten will be eliminated from the field before the final weekend. So, in reality, this question is more about who can beat the odds and make the Final Four.
The clear favorite here is Purdue. The league has other quality teams, but no other Big Ten team has the combination of athleticism, experience, and talent that Purdue currently possesses.
However, my sleeper is Michigan. Not only because Michigan is red hot right now, but because the Wolverines have the best unit in the conference. Michigan’s offense is unbelievably efficient and will be a massive matchup problem for any opponent. Upsets are usually caused by bad matchups and outside of Purdue, nobody poses more matchup issues in the Big Ten than Michigan.
Blevins: Purdue is the easy pick to go the furthest, but they are also the most inconsistent. As much as they are a Final Four candidate, they are one bad Caleb Swanigan performance and an Isaac Haas high foul game away from being upset. If the stage is not too big, Maryland is a dark horse to go deep, despite their short bench. Their young players are going to be good for a long time.
Pazzalia: I don’t know if I have my Big Ten blinders on, but I love the Gophers team this year. Mason and Coffey can get buckets on command, plus a slew of shooters, bangers, and role players. Plus, they have a Pitino coaching, that name always has success when they get into tournaments. Also, the Boilers seem like they have the proper recipe.
Steedman: I don’t see anyone from the conference getting to the Final Four, but that’s mainly because I’m a pessimistic Purdue fan. Sure, Wisconsin has the talent that they could get there if things go their way, but I don’t see the Badgers being strong enough to call for them to get that far.
Purdue, when playing to their potential, is definitely a Final Four capable team. But the Purdue team that showed up on the road against Nebraska and Iowa, or the Purdue team this past week (Penn State, Michigan) is a team that could get sent home before the end of the first weekend. And with Purdue currently trending as a 4 or 5 seed, they could land a 1 seed in the Sweet 16. Of course they could likely knock off a good number of the 1 seeds in the field, but a poor shooting night from their backcourt could cost them a game at any round this March.
Rahajason: Sure! Yeah, Purdue. They’re just flat out good. But if I’m going to pick dark horses, Minnesota and Northwestern. They’ve been having surprising seasons, and why wouldn’t they continue to surprise??
Richardson: Michigan State has seemed to finally have found their footing and Izzo generally has his teams prepared for the big dance. While I don’t see a Final Four, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Spartans have a run similar to their impressive 2015 performance.
Bondy: Purdue is the easy choice but if Swanigan struggles in a game then they could easily get upset early on … just like last year. A surprise team to watch out for is Minnesota. They have solid inside and outside play between their bigs and guards. Jordan Murphy is playing great lately and you know Nate Mason is going to get his. I don’t see them as a Final Four team but certainly a team that could sneak their way into the Sweet 16.
Head: Wisconsin. The Badgers are postseason warriors, led by senior starters Bronson Koening, Nigel Hayes and Zak Showalter. When the Big Dance begins, throw this abysmal finish to the season out of the window. These guys are special when it comes to tournament play and simply have a knack for pulling out gritty tournament wins.
Sindberg: Purdue has the talent and size to make a run. It really depends on the regional draw/matchups for them. Wisconsin hasn’t played well against the elite competition they’ve faced this season. The Badgers gotten handled by North Carolina, Creighton (when healthy) and Purdue. The Badgers don’t have the shooting and consistency to make it past the Sweet 16. But with Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig |
was waterboarded 83 times, and who was never the Al Qaeda mastermind the administration claimed he was. He was tortured so he could cough up a (false) link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, in order to provide a cause for war for the bellicose Bush administration.
How's Zubaydah doing today? Years now let out of his CIA prison, and held still at Guantanamo, even months after Obama determined the prison should close, let this description by Joseph Margulies in the Los Angeles Times today on Zubaydah's current condition serve as an epitaph for this article, if not for this nation's soul:
Partly as a result of injuries he suffered while he was fighting the communists in Afghanistan, partly as a result of how those injuries were exacerbated by the CIA and partly as a result of his extended isolation, Abu Zubaydah's mental grasp is slipping away. Today, he suffers blinding headaches and has permanent brain damage. He has an excruciating sensitivity to sounds, hearing what others do not. The slightest noise drives him nearly insane. In the last two years alone, he has experienced about 200 seizures. But physical pain is a passing thing. The enduring torment is the taunting reminder that darkness encroaches. Already, he cannot picture his mother's face or recall his father's name. Gradually, his past, like his future, eludes him.
If a monarch leader who orders torture cannot be prosecuted for this heinous crime, then what hope is there left for our society?
Also posted at InvictusCaffeine is one of the most useful apps I have on my MacBook and I totally love it but it’s the only app in my menubar that didn’t have retinafied icons.
As a matter of fact, the icons don’t even follow the classic monochromatic pictogram style that every other OSX menubar app has and that’s why I made this set of icons for it.
In the download file you’ll find the icons that you need to add and replace into the caffeine app as well as the original vector Fireworks files. It’s a FIRED IT UP project (new catchphrase for Fireworks projects). If you haven’t tried Fireworks yet, you definitely should.
To update your Caffeine app follow these steps:
DOWNLOAD the free icons I made. Copy ALL the images in the “caffeine-icons” folder. Right-click (ctrl-click) your caffeine app (make sure it’s closed) and select “Show package contents” Go to Contents/Resources within the Caffeine app and paste the images. If it asks you if you want to replace the images, select yes. That’s it! Just open the app and you’ll see your new retinafied-OSXmenubar-styled-supershiny-awesome icons
These images and their originals are completely free to use in any kind of project. If you do use them in a project a mention is always welcome but not required 😉
If you want to invite me a cup of coffee and talk some design or development projects, just get in touch via twitter: @webjac
UPDATE (Dec 2014): With OSX 10.10 Yosemite Apple has added a new dark mode to the manubar. Thanks to Tinu Cleatus for coming up with a solution for this new dark mode. the thing is, it’s a halfway solution, I wasn’t able to find a one set of icons that works both ways (in dark and normal mode).
So I made a new file for the dark mode based on Tinu’s solution. It works ONLY for dark mode. So download this is you use dark mode or download the regular ones if you use the normal mode.Lomography for Newbies
Preface: The exciting toy-camera artistic movement has exploded in recent years. More and more people are having a go. Some are experienced, expert photographers who want to lighten up and play without obsessing over detail, some are comparative film neophytes who are intrigued by brightly coloured, trendy looking toy cameras and the fabulous pictures that they can produce. The problem is, many of people don’t know where to start and are quickly put off by disappointing results. This article is formatted as a series of questions asked by a fictitious newcomer ‘@NEWBIE’ and answers given to him by our panel of contributors.
@NEWBIE: I’ve been keen about digital photography for a year now. I’ve seen a lot of cool pictures and cameras on the Lomography website and want to get into it. Can you tell me more about the concept of lomography versus traditional photography?
@TomWelland: Lomography offers people a community and guidelines to shoot by rather than just materialistic offerings. Their website is full of hints and tips as well as a number of competitions. Their golden rules offer a more bohemian style of taking photos “don’t think just shoot” being a main one. I think Lomography aims to afford anyone a chance of taking photos using simplistic gear rather than complex DSLRs.
@lenire: Lomography is a philosophy on photography. It guides the photographer in shooting a particular way and just being accepting of the results. This differs from “traditional photography” because it encourages the participant to take a photograph without concern for exposure or composition.
@ShellySometimes: In its purest form, the concept of lomography photography is about dispensing with any, often all, of the rules of photography and shooting in the moment. Literally, anything goes, and flaws are not only embraced, but encouraged, and sought after.
@ZDP189: The lomography movement started out with some art students recognising that photography had more to offer than imaging perfection and recognised genres and the following traditional artistic rules such as composition. Traditional results were often staid and lacking in spontaneity, originality and intuition. The students adopted cheap, imperfect cameras like the LC-A and just let the art flow uninhibited. Their guidelines are more like a manifesto, teaching newcomers to lighten up and express themselves. Those art students turned it into a successful business selling toy cameras and film, but the core philosophy is independent of any equipment, film, technique or brand.
@NEWBIE: Why do you do it?
@TomWelland: Lomography is what brought me back into taking photos, having a website with tips, reviews and thousands of photos helped my enthusiasm. I will say I used it as a gateway and soon found it limiting, which progressed me into more advanced cameras such as the Olympus RD, OM1 and eventually a Leica M4.
@ShellySometimes: Lomography was my gateway into film cameras – I bought my first one, a Holga 120CFN, in the summer of 2010, and the rest is history. For me, lomography was about finding answers to the question, “what happens if I…”. It was all about experimentation, and even though I shoot on a wider variety of cameras now, including a Hasselblad, that lomographic spirit definitely carries through in my work. I’m not afraid to try new things, and I always learn from the results, good or bad.
@ZDP189: I’m not even sure I can call myself a lomographer. I am a diverse photographer with an eclectic collection of cameras and I experiment a lot. The ones that come out looking run-of the mill are just ‘straight’ photography, but those that are particularly quirky and artistic get labelled ‘lomo’ (no pun intended.)
@lenire: For me, it’s a creative exercise. I spend most of my day staring at a computer, pushing buttons to make little dots change colors; and then when I do get to go out and take photographs, it is usually with a high shutter speed and an open aperture. Sometimes it is nice to sit back and visualize the photograph before I shoot with a slower shutter speed and a closed down aperture. This visualization has improved my work on film, and my digital work. Instead of happily snapping away and chimping on the back of my camera, I can now spend the time enjoying my work.
@NEWBIE: What camera(s) should I start off with? What are your favourites?
@coldkennels: This is like saying “I’ve never had shoes before. What would you suggest as my first pair?” Everyone’s going to suggest something different and for totally different reasons, but a lot depends on what sort of person you are. I’d advocate something fully-manual – any basic SLR – because I’m a control freak and I don’t think auto-exposure or fixed-exposure cameras can really teach you anything. But if you just want to burn through some film and get semi-guaranteed results, you can’t go wrong with an original (Soviet-made) LC-A. There’s a good reason an entire “movement” sprung up around that camera.
@TomWelland: There are a number of offerings from Lomography; some more flexible than others. I would use the LC-A+ or ideally an original LC-A which is simply a better made camera despite being 20 or so years older. I would avoid anything with a plastic lens (which rules out most of them). Saying that, they do have fun cameras such as the limiting but fun Supersampler that takes 4 photos per negative on a timed delay.
@ShellySometimes: I’ve shot both Holgas and Dianas, as well as a wide variety of other toy plastic cameras, and while I definitely lean towards Team Holga, you can get some amazing results with any and all of them. My best advice? Spend some time on Flickr or the Lomography website. Look at the results you get with different camera and film combinations and see what appeals to you most. Decide what will be easiest for you to shoot: 120 or 35mm film. Do you think you’ll be shooting mostly indoors, where you’ll need a flash, or outdoors? Take all these factors into account and that will help guide you toward the best camera for you.
@lenire: It all depends on what you have access to. Personally, I am a big fan of the Holga 120 because I love the look of the negatives. However, if you do not have access to a local lab that can develop 120 film for you it can become expensive very quickly. If you can find a local lab that processes medium format film, stick with them; there is a wealth of options for you to choose from in the 35mm arena which is easy and affordable to develop. Hit up your local flea markets, garage sales and thrift stores. You should be able to quickly find a little range finder or SLR for under $20 and that should be a great thing to start with.
@ZDP189: Just remember, as with all photographic art, it’s the content, the story it tells and the emotion it elicits that makes or breaks the picture, not the special effects and camera gear.
@NEWBIE: Heck, this is proving expensive. Toy cameras aren’t exactly priced like ‘toys’, film is expensive and hard to find … and lab costs are going to eat me alive!
@ShellySometimes: It can seem expensive in the beginning, but read up on tips and tricks on frugal photography, and you’ll be surprised by how cheap this endeavor can be. For example, a Diana Mini camera shoots half frame images, so in theory you could get 72 exposures from a single roll of 36 exposure film! The Film Photography Project sells a new medium format camera, the Plastic Filmtastic Debonair, for only $19.99. You can buy new fresh film for as little as $2 or $3 a roll. Learn how to develop your own black and white film at home – after the initial outlay, it’s really cheap, and super easy to do!
@TomWelland: Buying direct from Lomography will prove expensive so let eBay, Gumtree, and Craigslist be your friend. Before you jump into and purchase spend some time on their website and flickr or tumblr and look for photos you like. Most shots there will include the type of camera it was taken on. Film can be expensive but that’s why most people end up buying in bulk; try a few films and when you find one you like search around for bulk deals.
@lenire: Thriftstores, flea markets, junk sales: these are your friends. In the past 40 years, thousands of film cameras have been sold and now are ending up in junk stores because “they don’t make film anymore.” Some of these cameras are actually really nice, and can be found at a reasonable price. The vast majority of the cameras on my shelf were obtained for under $10. A few of my nicer cameras were around the $50 mark, but that is at the highest end of my collections. The old mechanical cameras of the 60’s were built like tanks and should still be in working order today.
@coldkennels: The one thing I will say is play it smart. eBay can be great for picking up bargains, but avoid getting into bidding wars – you’ll end up paying over the odds. Also, a lot of things on eBay seem like bargains, but are of dubious condition, and while expired film can be a great way of saving money, it can also be a complete waste of time if it hasn’t been stored properly. I think what I’m trying to say is the old adage “the poor man pays twice” is especially true when you’re searching eBay late at night.
@NEWBIE: I’m rubbish at this! I shot seven rolls and none of my photos look anything like the ones I see on the net. Some didn’t come out at all. I have none, *ZERO* that I’m proud of. How do you even get the camera to give a usable exposure? It only has a fixed aperture and a single shutter speed!
@TomWelland: I hope you weren’t expecting to be great right away. Seven rolls in the grand scheme of things barely counts as a warm up. The thing to remember with film is that you’re playing with ratios. I would be happy these days to get 5 good shots back from a roll of 36. Practice makes perfect; this is not digital shooting, but the results are more rewarding. Stick with it and perhaps message people about their photos to ask the settings they used.
@coldkennels: Yeah…. see what I said above about your first camera. The Holga (and, to a point, the Diana) work fairly well because you can burn through a 12 exposure roll of 120 film in no time, meaning you can “control” exposure simply by using the right film speed for your lighting conditions. Once you move into 35mm – where a roll might last anywhere from a day to a month – you’re stuck with one exposure value for an extended amount of time while the light’s changing around you. You’d generally be better off with something with auto-exposure or a fully manual camera. I’d like to add, though, that what you see on the net is the edited down version of someone’s negative folder. Some of those guys shoot ten rolls or more EVERY WEEK. It’s quite easy at that point to pick out a few good ones and give the illusion of some real mastery over an aesthetic that prides itself on its randomness and spontaneity.
@ShellySometimes: There’s a learning curve when it comes to any new skill, and this is definitely true of film photography. Even though I had shot digital for ages, I had a lot to learn when I first picked up a film camera, and it took a while to get results that I liked. Now that I’ve been doing it for a couple of years, I STILL get frustrated with my results all the time – I am my own harshest critic. Know that the person who is posting 20 amazing shots may have shot 20 rolls of film to get them, or spent 20 minutes post-processing each one of those images. And it could be that, to get the look you are striving for, a more manual camera is going to be the ticket for you.
@ZDP-189: Shoot. Shoot like you have OCD. Carry a camera at all times and don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Sometimes your worst mistakes turn into your most captivating images. It takes time and experience to be able to deliver good results every day. Good photography is hard to achieve and working with a camera that has a limited ability to deliver accurate exposure and focus is actually a lot harder than with a ‘normal’ camera. No matter whether you’re skilled or not, be a ruthless editor and only show your best images.
@NEWBIE: My photos look boring. They just come out like disposable camera photos. How do I get those effects like saturated colours, heavy grain, weird purples, colour shifts and those characteristic toy camera colour effects?
@coldkennels: One of my biggest complaints with lomography as an “artistic movement” is that it’s like a modern CGI blockbuster: all special effects and no substance. Don’t let all those funky effects get in the way of the fundamentals of photography – a boring out-of-focus photo of your cat is still a boring out-of-focus photo of your cat, even if you shoot it with a Holga and cross-process it.
@TomWelland: It’s possible you are just using rubbish film. Don’t expect amazing colours from something as bland as Kodak Gold. For the best results you need to start investing in films such as Kodak Portra and the like.
@ShellySometimes: You can experiment with expired film; there are also all kinds of interesting films out there, including infrared and redscale. Some people even experiment with altering their film before they even shoot it by exposing it to heat, liquids, or light. A lot of people will share their technique when they post a photo on Flickr or the Lomography website; you can try to replicate what they do for similar results. Of course, never forget that someone may have applied a significant amount of post-processing to an image once it’s been scanned to their computer; that will definitely alter the original look of a film.
@ZDP189: @ShellySometimes mentioned redscale. Redscale is the reversing of the film so that the wrong side of the film is exposed. It originally was an accidental occurrence that might come about when a colour film was sloppily respooled from one cartridge to another. By shooting through the back of the film, the orange mask filters the light giving it an orange mask. Also, because the image is focussed onto the backing material and not the emulsion, the image is softened. The image is also reversed. Lomography sells redbird film that is supposedly redscaled, but I am doubtful that it is true redscale, if only because the results usually come out better than redscaling my own film.
@ZDP189: Some cameras allow you to make double exposures. This is easy to do, but harder to make look good until you know the trick. Keep in mind that you’re laying light on dark, so if the bright parts of one image lie over or under a dark part of another, the light always burns through. Or you can just wing-it and random overlays look good too.
@NEWBIE: Tell me more about cross processing, please!
@TomWelland: Cross processing (or ‘X-PRO’) is a common technique used by lomographers to give the colours in your pictures enhanced punch. It is simply processing a slide film in C-41 rather than E-6 chemicals or vice versa.
@ZDP189: Cross processing replicates mistakes that can happen in the lab, when they used the wrong developer for the type of film. Processing slide film as negative film is the most common and most effective. It messes with the colours and contrast. Search flickr for cross-processed images for examples of how each film will come out. You can also process most negative and slide films in black and white developer to give grainy black and white images, or negative film as slides.
@ShellySometimes: I’ve had mixed results with cross-processing; because of that, I don’t tend to do it very often, although it’s fun to try. Generally, you shoot slide film, which is E6, and then have it processed as color negative film, which is C41. Slide film, however, is much trickier to expose properly, and it’s very hard to get it just right in a camera with no aperture/shutter speed control. Once it’s cross-processed, those overexposed images really just don’t look good. I’ve had the best results with film shot in a manual camera.
@coldkennels: One thing to bear in mind is that the cross-processed “look” – despite what some people may tell you – is largely determined by the post-processing. When you see rich, super-saturated and vivid colours, 99% of the time that will have been “helped along” by Photoshop (or even the lab scanner, if your lab produces prints/scans for you). Many E6 films, when cross processed, just turn into an overwhelming mass of one colour. It’s up to the lab tech, the automated scanner or the photographer to turn that into a colour-balanced image.
@lenire: Truth be told, I have only cross processed one roll of film since I started shooting film; it was some cheap slide film I had gotten to take with me to NASA HQ to take pictures of the rockets they have laying around in rocket park. To me, X-PRO is something that can be done, but should be planned for. When you cross process film, the colors go wonky and I was excited for this. It gave the photos a very interesting look, with the antiquated rockets as the subject matter. The color shift from blue to green; which can occur when cross processing film made the rocket ship look slightly alien; and I hate using this word but it looked very “retro”.
@NEWBIE: I asked my local lab to cross process and print sprockets from a 72 x 33mm sprocket rocket negative and they said “it couldn’t be done.” What now?
@ZDP189: Hunt about and find a lab that will do it (Lomography offers this as an option). I scan mine at home on a film scanner. I scan directly off the glass and crop to include the sprockets. It’s time consuming but easy. There are other ways too; the one above was printed that way by optical enlargement. I then scanned the print. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
@coldkennels: I’m sure that if you ask around on Twitter, people nearby to you could point you to a lab in your area that’ll do it. That’s one of the benefits of the internet; an instant community at your fingertips.
@ShellySometimes: There are lots of options online, if you can’t find a local lab that can handle the film as you wish. If you think you’ll want to do a lot of photos like this, it might be worth investing in your own film negative scanner and printer, so that you can scan your own images and make whatever prints you want!
@NEWBIE: Why do people seal up light leaks? Isn’t that the whole point? Most of my light leaks end up ruining the shot; how do I do it ‘properly’?
@ShellySometimes: Not everyone shoots for light leaks intentionally – I always make sure to seal up my Holga cameras, for example, to avoid them. If you want to do them “properly”, experimentation is key. I’ve known some people to poke teeny little holes in the backs of their plastic cameras, and others that will ever-so-slightly pop open the back of their camera every few shots to let some light in. Experiment and play around until you get results that you like – even then, know that it will be hard to have them be consistent every time. Light is a tricky thing.
@TomWelland: You can’t really do it properly, it’s a happy (or sometimes unhappy) mistake. Light leaks typically only appear at the beginning of the roll, if you’re getting them all the way through the roll your camera is leaking light and it will continue to affect your shots until you fix it.
@ZDP189: I don’t know of a proper way either. If it happens, I evaluate how it affects the artistic value and then use or discard the image. The idea of a manufactured “light-leak effect” wouldn’t sit right with many anyway.
@NEWBIE: I understand that the idea is to shoot without thinking, but when I do that maybe one in a hundred of my photos ends up looking cool. How do I improve my batting average?
@coldkennels: By taking your time. Successfully shooting without thinking is a myth. In fact, there’s a certain truism in photography: the fewer shots you take, the more good shots you have. I see it myself; when I’m shooting a 36 exposure roll of 35mm, I get far smaller percentage of “keepers” compared to 12 exposure rolls of 120. I would imagine that shooting large format – with two shots per film holder – would improve that even further. Also (and this is more of an ideological point than a photographical one) what would you rather was responsible for that one in a hundred – your own judgement or some random act of faith?
@TomWelland: Perhaps try a different camera, film or subject. Start paying attention to your settings, if nothing else your photos should be well exposed and in focus. Nail the basics then the more interesting shots will come. Don’t get too serious about your “work” though. Remember to have fun, they are called toy cameras for a reason. Go out with your friends, enjoy yourself and sneak a few shots. No one likes a set up “look at us we’re having fun” shot so make sure you actually have fun.
@ShellySometimes: Let’s answer this question first: what about that maybe-one-in-a-hundred photo is cool to you? Do you like the subject matter? The composition? The colors of the end result? Look at your photos and think about the ones you really like – why do you like them? Once you have a better sense of what appeals to you, shoot more with that in mind. You don’t have to stop “shooting without thinking” if you don’t want to – but it will help your hit rate to be a little more methodical, and to have a better sense of what end result appeals to you.
@NEWBIE: I was told that toy cameras are supposed to be quirky, but why do so many seem to fail in ways that make the camera useless, rather than contribute to creativity?
@ZDP189: LOL. This happened to me a few times. I bought a LC-Wide and an Instax Back. Heck it was expensive. I was expecting a quality camera with funky optics but the problem was the advance spindle was unreliable and a lot of the images were joined up and couldn’t easily be scanned. At first, Lomography wouldn’t replace it, and when they did, all the cameras in the store had the same problem. I don’t shoot roll film in it anymore. One camera repairer I know has a bench full of duff LC-As and is heartily fed up. He won’t even take any more for repairs. I bought a Belair and the thing won’t stay closed. Regardless of whether you buy the Jetsetter or a metal limited edition camera, the closing catches are made of cheap plastic. These quickly wear out and might even break off. The solution is to use a heavy rubber band. To be fair, Lomo cameras are a little better made than Holga. My Holga panoramic camera’s shutter mechanism fell off during the first test roll.
@coldkennels: I’ll second what Dan has to say other than the last piece: I actually find Holgas to be more solid than Lomography’s offerings. My ex was a big-time Lomographer; her Holga outlasted everything else she bought. The other thing you want to bear in mind is that generally the originals are of higher quality than the remakes; the original LC-A, for example, is much more solid and reliable than the LC-A+, which is much more solid and reliable than the LC-Wide. The caveat is that obviously the older Soviet equipment is subject to the ravages of time, so buy from trustworthy sources if you can (or – ideally – in person so you can see what you’re getting).
@TomWelland: They are cheaply manufactured cameras unfortunately. Don’t be fooled by thinking you can only have fun with a lomo-cam. There are plenty of brilliant entry-level film cameras out there. Look no further than an Olympus Trip for a perfect example, built to last, great lens and cheaper than most of the lomo offerings.
@NEWBIE: What do I do if I want more control over the process?
@TomWelland: Get yourself an SLR; there are plenty around to choose from. I would suggest popping into a shop to get the feel of them to decide which is best. They will all do the job so it all really comes down to personal taste on ergonomics and manufacturing properties. Personally, I love my Olympus OM1, there are plenty of great ones in the OM range but whatever you buy I would encourage you to buy mechanics rather than electronic.
@ShellySometimes: You can’t go wrong with a basic SLR, and you can find GREAT deals out there on them. My first SLR was a Mamiya Sekor 500TL – the camera and lens, together, cost maybe $20, and I still use it to this day. Other good cameras include the Olympus models that @TomWelland mentions, as well as several different Pentax cameras, including the K1000 and the Spotmatic. The biggest issue you might find on an older SLR is a nonworking light meter – no problem! Most of these cameras will still work just fine without batteries or the light meter, and honestly, not having one makes you work a little harder and, therefore, learn a lot more!
@Coldkennels: The SLR recommendations are good ones. If you want ALL THE CONTROL, you can buy yourself a scanner, start doing your own developing, and even set up a darkroom to do your own printing. That’s the exact route I took, and let me tell you – nothing feels better than holding a finished print in your hand after a long darkroom session.
@NEWBIE: Wait, so I can use a ‘proper’ camera like a Leica rangefinder or a Nikon SLR for ‘toy camera’ photography?!?
@TomWelland: A “proper camera” is one that will take photos. It’s a tool and don’t be sucked into the hype of the expense making you a “proper” photographer. I will like a photo regardless of what camera it was taken on. To answer your question though, toy cameras traditionally have plastic lenses and fixed focus positions, whereas cameras such as Leica (or rather their lenses) will produce images that are a lot sharper and have more depth in them.
@ShellySometimes: You can use any camera you want any WAY you want. Never be afraid to experiment and remember the age-old adage: rules are made to be broken. The worst that could happen? You’ll ruin a roll of film. The best thing that can happen? You’ll create an amazing image that you are proud of and learn something new at the same time.
@NEWBIE: Can I use a digital camera?
@TomWelland: Of course you can! You set your own rules and guidelines. Just enjoy whatever you do.
@ZDP189: While I love the organic and ‘honest’ look of film, in many ways, digital cameras are an easier path to predictable success. It gives you instant feedback. One example is the Lens Baby, which produces a wonderful soft selective focus look. Holga also sell their meniscus lenses in Canon and Nikon mount. I use these on a Canon full frame DSLR, although some modification makes for a better image. You can also get toy lenses for mirrorless cameras. I plan to convert my Lomography Fisheye II’s lens to fit on a mirrorless camera one day. @SLRMagic offers a 26mm lens with a swirly periphery. I even made my own toy lens (see photo below). You can also employ special effects filters and prisms.
@ShellySometimes: You can use anything you want! I have a Holga lens for my Nikon DSLR, and I’ve had a lot of fun with that. You can even use the various filters, like macro and color, that are made for the Holga with it. Macro Holga lens shots on my Nikon DSLR are some of my very favorite images ever!
@NEWBIE: Do you think these effects mimicked in Photoshop or other digital post processing software really qualifies?
@TomWelland: Personally, I can’t abide overuse of post processing. Too many people use it to the point that if it was judged to win a competition, I think the award should go to Adobe not the photographer, as the software has done so much more of the work. You don’t need Photoshop to create decent photos, so don’t become lazy and rely on it.
@coldkennels: I’m in two minds about this. My gut reaction is no. I generally loathe all overly done post processing (see: HDR, compositing, etc.) – partially because some of them make my eyes bleed and partially because it just doesn’t feel like photography anymore. When you’re spending more time in front of a laptop than dealing with photographic materials, I’d call it computer imaging instead. But considering many lomographic images are reliant on scanning or post-processing trickery anyway, then hell, why not get your digital imaging on and have fun? Just don’t expect me to look at it or enjoy it.
@ShellySometimes: I am, for the most part, a purist when it comes to post-processing film images. I try to limit myself to only the sorts of tweaks that would be done in the darkroom – dodging, burning, cropping, etc. It doesn’t make sense, to me, to go through the time and effort involved in shooting film to then take a proverbial dump all over the image in Photoshop. But that’s me. Every person is different, and you should do what makes you happy and gets you the result you want.
@ZDP189: I must confess, the image above was all-digital and mimics Kodak Aerochrome, a technical film for highlighting vegetation on aerial photography images. I loath High Dynamic Range effects and fancy colour replacement and don’t normally do images like this, but the image begged for it, right from the concept stage. Even LomoChrome Purple is ‘fake’ Aerochrome, although it comes out like this right out of the camera.
@NEWBIE: What do you think is the essence of this art movement?
@lenire: The Ten Golden Rules and the desire to experiment are the essences of this movement. The core idea that I see, is the “photography should be fun rule.” I actually partially agree with this rule. If you are not enjoying it, then why are you doing it?
@TomWelland: yes, the Ten Golden Rules, it gives people guidelines to help them create that ‘lomo look’.
@ZDP189: These “Ten Golden Rules” that everybody’s going on about are (quoting from Lomography’s website):
Rule #1 – Take your camera everywhere you go
Rule #2 – Use it any time – day and night
Rule #3 – Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it
Rule #4 – Try the shot from the hip
Rule #5 – Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible
Rule #6 – Don’t think
Rule #7 – Be fast
Rule #8 – You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film
Rule #9 – Afterwards either
Rule #10- Don’t worry about any rules
However, some of these rules are photographic guidelines and not really rules. The most important, but unwritten, rule is to only show off worthy images.
@ShellySometimes: Don’t think, just shoot.
@ZDP189: I think that @ShellySometimes sums it up better than the Ten Golden Rules: the essence of what Lomography is trying to get people to do is to shoot fast and free, not over thinking the process. Personally, I don’t agree with this approach and I find it doesn’t work for me. I am more technically inclined and methodical by nature and I like to pre-visualise the art that I plan to create. To me, the essence of lomography (lower case, not the brand) is to create art of a fun and carefree appearance and not be afraid of making mistakes because even beauty can be found there. Using imperfect photographic tools is relatively minor part of this.
@NEWBIE: If the essence of the art movement is creativity, and not trendy cameras, where should I go from here?
@ShellySometimes: You can go anywhere from here. Learn what you like. Learn what you don’t like. Learn everything you can about the cameras that appeal to you and the photographers that produce work that you love. Become best friends with your local thrift shops, haunt your area museums, and read read read. You are unlimited.
@TomWelland: Look at photos; in a book/gallery, or online. Read about photographers and the cameras they used. You will start to develop a clear slant to the photos you want to create. Do you like landscapes/portraits/street/environmental/still life? All cameras/lenses and films are better suited to each discipline. By doing this you will narrow down a good set up for yourself as well as learning about composure, exposure and the decisive moment. Then save your pennies and buy your set up!
@Coldkennels: Practice, practice, practice. The more you shoot the more you’ll improve – providing you’re actually paying attention to what you do and analysing the results. Figure out what mistakes you made and how to avoid them. Figure out which successes you had and how to replicate them. Never, ever, ever just keep shooting mindlessly – you’ll just be throwing money down the drain.
@ZDP189: Get involved in the community aspect, whether you dedicate yourself to lomography or more general photography. We can all be reached on twitter. There are many other people and venues out there with a passion for photography.
About the Contributors
@ZDP189 – Dan K is an English photography enthusiast and film camera collector living in Hong Kong. He has been shooting film and developing since childhood. He enjoys photographic experimentation and camera modification.
He has written several articles for JCH.
Follow him on twitter: ZDP189
Follow him on tumblr: ZDP-189
@ShellySometimes – Shelly is from Denver, Colorado. She is obsessed with film photography, camera and record collecting, and Doctor Who. Not necessarily in that order. Follow her on |
members of Save a Dog Network Canada got the call to help a woman struggling with strays on her property.
This was one of two puppies found clinging to life in a dump on a Manitoba First Nation. The puppy is on its way to a rescue shelter in British Columbia along with 19 others rescued from the area. (Katie Powell) The group said the woman's property was attracting stray dogs. She had several of her own, and had recently unknowingly purchased a dog that wasn't spayed.
It later gave birth to 11 puppies. The woman was overwhelmed by the number of dogs visiting her property and the puppies and got in contact with the group for help.
One puppy was found missing most of his fur and badly underweight. The dogs have since been treated by a veterinarian and will go to a shelter in British Columbia. (Katie Powell) "She can't afford them, I guess you could say. A lot of young pups – she had at least 20 dogs there," said Jordan Demarais, a friend of the woman's.
He said she lived near the highway so packs of dogs would stop at the property and stay with the ones she owned.
"They're all friendly. They're family dogs. They're pretty much family dogs," he said.
With the birth of the puppies, the problem became too much, so Katie Powell and several other volunteers headed up to the area.
They picked up 17 dogs from her property, but before they left, decided to stop by the community's dump to make sure no one had left any dogs there – garbage dumps can be a common dumping site for unwanted animals.
There, they found two puppies clinging to life and an adult dog dead.
One puppy was curled up on an old cushion, missing hair with sores on his body.
Save a Dog Network Canada also rescued 11 puppies from under a woman's deck. The woman unknowingly purchased a female dog who was not spayed. It later gave birth to a massive litter. (Katie Powell) The dogs were taken to Winnipeg, and the network has secured foster homes, food and veterinary care. The pair from the dump are recovering at the same foster home.
Next, all of the puppies, including the ones rescued from the woman's property and the dump will be sent to an animal shelter in B.C. because local shelters are full.
Demarais said stray dogs are a continual problem on many reserves in the province.
"Lots and lots of the dogs are stray. Lots of them end up getting hit along the road every couple of days," he said. "We always see them in packs running around together, hunting, we always see them out in the bush trails."I realized that the tagline of this blog is ‘Game Dev AND Stay at Home Parenting’ and I’ve done little to document the latter part of that clever little phrase…
Just about every day, I try to get up an hour or more to get some work done, some days, like today, I can plug away at my secondary characters animation. Its nice and quiet, I sip my coffee and try to imagine a well-to-do Upper East Side wench telling off some panhandler on her morning commute, what her posture is like, how she’d thrust an accusatory finger while saying something derogatory.
Other mornings, one or both of my progeny will throw a wrench into the works and wake abysmally early and wreck what I had planned on working on. Just last week I heard footsteps on the floor upstairs. I sighed, made a few quick notes on what I was planning on working on, hoping that after I got the elder child off to summer camp, I’d catch up later son #2 took a nap. It happens. And if those footsteps are indicative of who they are, its my older kid and we’d get to snuggle on the couch for a bit, watch some PBS kids and have a quiet moment together before the other one woke up. So I wend my way upstairs and gingerly open the creaky door to the kids room…
My son is busy barfing on the floor.
He’s upset, he doesn’t get sick very often and is scared by what is happening. I’m trying to calm him so he doesn’t choke, trying to hold him in a position where anything else that might come out will land on the hardwood floor instead of his playmat, keeping him at a bit of a distance so I don’t get barfed on.
And now the other kid is awake – and screaming because he doesn’t know what is going on.
Yeesh – I just wanted to work on a walk cycle.
Offer calming noises to the youngest, strip the older one, grab a handful of paper towels to clean the floor, grab both kids to hold them, sit down on the bed and calm them and try to remember if I’ve got the summer camp number saved on my phone and if I don’t, where might it be – because I’ve gotta call and lat them know my kid ain’t coming today.
Some days are like that. Other days its full on Thunder Dome where I’m trying to send a simple message on Reddit asking where is a good place to get feedback on my pre-alpha build and the two of them are leaping off the furniture Crouching Tiger style with chainsaws, locked in gladatorial combat…
Anyway – I’ve just recently added PlayMaker to my arsenal, and while it took me a bit to get, it looks like it could radically change my game for the better. Now excuse me, my youngest is kicking the side of his cage, I mean crib, demanding release…Back in September, Bernalwood reported that an effort was underway in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to require the City to install a memorial for Alex Nieto on Bernal Hill. Tonight, a community meeting will be held to discuss the ordinance introduced at the Board of Supervisors which would create the Alex Neto memorial.
This morning, Ailed Paningbatan-Swan from the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center tells Bernalwood that in one of their final acts before leaving the Board of Supervisors, Supervisor John Avalos and SupervisorDavid Campos have introduced an ordinance to establish a permanent memorial for Alex Nieto. The measure would direct “the Recreation and Park Department to install in Bernal Heights Park a memorial in honor of Alex Nieto.”
The complete text of the ordinance can be found here.
Alex Nieto was the Bernal Heights neighbor who was killed during a March 2014 confrontation with the San Francisco Police. A San Francisco District Attorney investigation of the incident concluded that police acted lawfully during the incident, and during a subsequent wrongful death suit initated by the Nieto family, a jury ruled that the SFPD officers involved in the incident had not used excessive force. Friends and family of Alex Nieto maintain his death was a byproduct of gentrification.
In addition, Ailed also passes along word this morning that BHNC will host a community meeting TONIGHT at 6 pm to learn more about the proposal:
Join the Bernal Heights Community to discuss the Creation of an Alex Nieto Memorial on Bernal Hill. Please join us for an informational meeting and community discussion to learn about efforts taking place to create a Bernal Hill memorial for Alex Nieto, a long-time Bernal Heights Resident and City College Student. Date: Monday, November 28, 2016
Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm
Location: Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center
515 Cortland Avenue, SF CA 94110
Dining Hall For additional information, please contact Ailed Paningbatan Director of Community Engagement at BHNC 415-206-2140 x 130, or Carolyn Goossen, legislative aide to Supervisor David Campos, at 415-554-7729.
PHOTO: Top, ad hoc Alex Nieto memorial on Bernal Hill, September 14, 2016, by Telstar LogisticsBaking soda can work wonders at preventing odors in your trash cans. Sprinkle it in the bottom of a trash can or directly into the trash to help absorb stinky odors. As an added bonus, baking soda is great for scrubbing out your trash can to remove odors that may have seeped into it. This is often a number one product to keep my trash cans less stinky. It's simple: Just add 1/4 cup of baking soda to the can in the morning. By the evening when the trash is ready to be taken outside, no odors will be evident. When it's time to clean out the trash cans themselves, leave 1 cup of baking soda in the bottom of the can after they have been washed and dried. This can help absorb moisture and odor until next week when you clean the cans out again.A conservative journalist interrupted the Trump assassination play in Central Park, N.Y., on Friday, only two days after the politically-motivated shooting of Republican lawmakers.
Laura Loomer of Rebel Media was arrested after rushing the stage, yelling that the production promoted violence against President Trump and his supporters.
The play, which is sponsored by Time Warner and the New York Times, features a Trump-lookalike who is violently assassinated in the same manner as Julius Caesar.
Brave protestor takes over play simulating Trumps assignation! https://t.co/1UE6A6iNHg — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) June 17, 2017
It has sparked outrage from critics who say the production is a call to action intended to invoke violent acts against conservatives and libertarians, an argument bolstered by the recent attack at a GOP baseball practice by 66-year-old James Hodgkinson, an anti-Trump activist who intended to kill as many Republican lawmakers as possible with a SKS rifle on Wednesday.
Contrast the mainstream media’s defense of the play with their outrage over a rodeo clown dressed up as President Obama, as we reported back in 2013:OMG I don't know where to begin.
I opened the box and what do I see - an activated Stargate. Oh okay my Santa wants me to go through it. And what/who do I see - Samantha Carter action figure and her Badge (my favourite character from the TV Series Stargate SG1).
But there is more, lets dial up the Stargate again and see where it takes me - a mystery box from another galaxy... It has something written on it... and it seems like it is for me. So I opened the box and what deliciousness awaits me - STAR WARS Cookies!!!
Ok lets do it one more time and see what's on the other side of the gate. And what do I see?! There is another mystery box with an N7 logo from Mass Effect on it. In it there is a top and pants with the N7 logo, a 3D Metal Model kit from SR2 Normandy and a keychain with the Cerberurs logo.
So I have Samantha Carter with me, who can protect me from the evil that may come through the gate now. Some sweets and nice clothing and a freaking Spaceship... well, I still need to build it though. :)
So now here I am - back from this amazing journey. THIS is one freaking thoughtful gift. My favourite Scifi Series/ Movies and Video Games in one AWESOME Scifi gift. Kudos to you Santa and THANK YOU!!! You made my day!!!!British music festivals are under attack. No, not from poor ticket sales or frothing petitions about the line up. It’s worse than that: our three days in a soiled English field are being turned into something more weekend at Champneys than dry-mouthed primal experience. If you thought the rise of “glamping” was problematic (what’s wrong with the baby-wipe bath?), this year’s music festivals are really taking creature comforts to the extreme. Anarchy is out; sobriety, smoothies and seaweed wraps are in.
Billed as a festival within a festival, Bestival recently announced a new area called Slow Motion. Those who might have once dropped an ill-advised second pill during the Chemical Brothers’ set can now go here and indulge in a detoxing beauty treatment, or take a spin class. To confirm: that’s a spin class. At a music festival.
Further proof that the grand tradition of the festival mash-up is in mortal danger can be found at Latitude in July, which is launching its Solas area this year. It offers art installations and a specially designed holistic area, with massages, workshops and yoga for the festivalgoer who’d rather work on their crow pose than their tolerance to five-quid cans of Tuborg.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest It’s a festival, Jim, but not as we know it… Wilderness Festival 2014. Photograph: Andrew Whitton
Elsewhere, in August, Wilderness will be Wilderness and offer every single yuppie treat under the sun, whether that’s long-table banquets hosted by Angela Hartnett, something called a “philosophy walk”, or its own bewilderingly large array of yoga options (according to the website there are over 20. We thought there were just the two, the normal one and “the hot one”). All of which points to the very real possibility that we are moving towards a dangerous age, where the role of the music festival is changing quicker than you can say “aromatherapy massage”.
It’s important not to lose sight of what festivals stand for. For one, they have long facilitated doing all number of gross things for the first time. There are no greater societal levellers than a British field, a 24-pack of Strongbow, and three-day-unwashed genitals that you would sell your Xbox to use with another human being. Festivals should always be Heras-fenced worlds of honest sin, where your minds are nurtured not by a Descartes-assisted amble through a sun-dappled glade, but by spending 10 hours under a stranger’s gazebo talking to a man who may or may not be wearing a sombrero. Come on, that’s far more enriching than an hour of meditation.
The idea of the festival as an extension of your home is deeply flawed. They are and should remain strange new worlds, a chance to forget about real life (hair straighteners! Dragging your ass to the gym!) for a weekend and experience the joy that can only come from waking up and going straight to the bar wearing last night’s tutu. No mindfulness workshop is a substitute for that.Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) checks the eyes of Larry Shipman, 71, of Bonita Springs, Fla., in Salama, Guatemala on Aug. 20. Shipman owns a retirement home in Guatemala and learned about Paul's medical mission in a local newspaper. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
SALAMÁ, GUATEMALA – Larry Shipman came here all the way here from Bonita Springs, Fla. for cataract surgery. Little did he know that his surgeon would be a U.S. senator and possible presidential contender.
A 71-year old retiree, Shipman keeps a home near Lake Atitlan, in southern Guatemala. He’s been blind in his right eye for three years. The other day, using his left eye, he read in the newspaper about a medical mission trip up here, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The prospect of free eye surgery from Paul and a team of world-renowned surgeons was too good to pass up. With the help of a neighbor, Shipman traveled by bus from the town of Panajachel, transferred in Guatemala City and and made it to Salama on Tuesday – a seven hour journey.
When he walked into the operating room, Paul and other surgeons began speaking to him in broken Spanish. Witnesses say Shipman shouted back: “No need to speak Spanish, I speak English. I’m from Florida!”
Shipman says that he tried seeking care through a Lions Club in Bonita Springs, Fla., but they declined to give him care. He said he has Medicare Part A, but they told him he needed Medicare Part B. There is no easy way to verify Shipman’s case from here, but it’s no surprise that his struggles with the American health care system intrigued Paul.
“I’ve had this for three years,” he said pointing at his now-fixed right eye. “You don’t know what it’s like to be able to see again after three years.”
Asked whether he was familiar with Paul’s background, Shipman said: “Kinda. A senator, oh yeah. A senator from Kentucky? Really? Hell no. I’ll be darned.”
“I’ll vote for him. He’s got my vote,” he added.
If helping a partially blind man see can’t win Paul a vote, what can?
“Thank you, Mr. Future President!” Shipman shouted across the waiting room. Paul, busy reviewing medical charts, didn’t look up.Rand Paul is the latest to find that there is no room for the Liberty Movement in today’s Republican nominating process. I’ve been there. With his departure from the presidential race, there is no voice remaining to challenge failed military interventions, mass surveillance of Americans by their government, or real cuts in the size and cost of government.
Sen. Paul and I have some differences on issues, but he was the one candidate on the Republican side who was not afraid to talk about civil liberties, the perils of endless war, and the principles of liberty. His departure leaves a great many voters, especially among America’s youth, without a home in the two ‘major’ parties. To them, I say, come be Libertarian with me.
Rand Paul is to be commended for waging the good fight, and I look forward to his continued work for small government and greater freedom in the U.S. Senate."Deadline" is a 1944 science fiction short story by American writer Cleve Cartmill, first published in Astounding Science Fiction. The story described the then-secret atomic bomb in some detail. At that time the bomb was still under development and top secret, which prompted a visit by the FBI.[1]
In 1943, Cartmill suggested to John W. Campbell, the then-editor of Astounding, that he could write a story about a futuristic super-bomb.[2] Campbell liked the idea and supplied Cartmill with considerable background information gleaned from unclassified scientific journals, on the use of Uranium-235 to make a nuclear fission device. The resulting story appeared in the issue of Astounding dated March 1944, which actually appeared early in February of that year.
By March 8 it had come to the attention of the Counterintelligence Corps, who saw many similarities between the technical details in the story and the research currently being undertaken in great secrecy at Los Alamos. Gregory Benford describes the incident as told to him by Edward Teller in his autobiographical essay "Old Legends":
Coming three years later in the same magazine, Cleve Cartmill's "Deadline" provoked astonishment in the lunch table discussions at Los Alamos. It really did describe isotope separation and the bomb itself in detail, and raised as its principal plot pivot the issue the physicists were then debating among themselves: should the Allies use it? To the physicists from many countries clustered in the high mountain strangeness of New Mexico, cut off from their familiar sources of humanist learning, it must have seemed particularly striking that Cartmill described an allied effort, a joint responsibility laid upon many nations.
Discussion of Cartmill's "Deadline" was significant. The story's detail was remarkable, its sentiments even more so. Did this rather obscure story hint at what the American public really thought about such a superweapon, or would think if they only knew?
Talk attracts attention, Teller recalled a security officer who took a decided interest, making notes, saying little. In retrospect, it was easy to see what a wartime intelligence monitor would make of the physicists' conversations. Who was this guy Cartmill, anyway? Where did he get these details? Who tipped him to the isotope separation problem? "and that is why Mr. Campbell received his visitors."
Fearing a security breach, the FBI began an investigation into Cartmill, Campbell, and some of their acquaintances (including Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein).[3] It appears that the authorities eventually accepted the explanation that the story's material had been gleaned from unclassified sources, but as a precautionary measure they requested that Campbell should not publish any further stories about nuclear technology for the remainder of the war.
Campbell, in the meantime, had guessed from the number of Astounding subscribers who had suddenly moved to the Los Alamos area, that the US government probably had some sort of technical or scientific project ongoing there. He declined to volunteer this information to the FBI.
Critical evaluation [ edit ]
"Deadline" was described by Robert Silverberg as "a klutzy clunker" and by Cartmill himself as "that stinker".[4] According to Silverberg, Cartmill also used the phrase "it stinks" when describing the story to a postman who was acting as an informer for military intelligence.
However, the story was included in the anthologies The Best of Science Fiction (1946; ed. Groff Conklin), Science Fiction of the Forties (1978; ed. Joseph Olander, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Frederik Pohl), The Golden Age of Science Fiction (1980; ed. Groff Conklin), and The Great Science Fiction Stories: Volume 6, 1944 (1981; ed. Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg).[5]A spokesman for the lender, Rick Simon, said: “It is not Countrywide’s policy to create or ‘fabricate’ any documents as evidence that they were sent if they had not been. We believe it will be shown in further discovery that the Countrywide bankruptcy technician who generated the documents at issue did so as an efficient way to convey the dates the escrow analyses were done and the calculations of the payments as a result of the analyses.”
The documents were generated in a case involving Sharon Diane Hill, a homeowner in Monroeville, Pa. Ms. Hill filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in March 2001 to try to save her home from foreclosure.
After meeting her mortgage obligations under the 60-month bankruptcy plan, Ms. Hill’s case was discharged and officially closed on March 9, 2007. Countrywide, the servicer on her loan, did not object to the discharge; court records from that date show she was current on her mortgage.
But one month later, Ms. Hill received a notice of intention to foreclose from Countrywide, stating that she was in default and owed the company $4,166.
Court records show that the amount claimed by Countrywide was from the period during which Ms. Hill was making regular payments under the auspices of the bankruptcy court. They included “monthly charges” totaling $3,840 from November 2006 to April 2007, late charges of $128 and other charges of almost $200.
A lawyer representing Ms. Hill in her bankruptcy case, Kenneth Steidl, of Steidl and Steinberg in Pittsburgh, wrote Countrywide a few weeks later stating that Ms. Hill had been deemed current on her mortgage during the period in question. But in May, Countrywide sent Ms. Hill another notice stating that her loan was delinquent and demanding that she pay $4,715.58. Neither Mr. Steidl nor Julia Steidl, who has also represented Ms. Hill, returned phone calls seeking comment.
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Justifying Ms. Hill’s arrears, Countrywide sent her lawyer copies of three letters on company letterhead addressed to the homeowner, as well as to Mr. Steidl and Ronda J. Winnecour, the Chapter 13 trustee for the western district of Pennsylvania.
The Countrywide letters were dated September 2003, October 2004 and March 2007 and showed changes in escrow requirements on Ms. Hill’s loan. “This letter is to advise you that the escrow requirement has changed per the escrow analysis completed today,” each letter began.
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But Mr. Steidl told the court he had never received the letters. Furthermore, he noticed that his address on the first Countrywide letter was not the location of his office at the time, but an address he moved to later. Neither did the Chapter 13 trustee’s office have any record of receiving the letters, court records show.
When Mr. Steidl discussed this with Leslie E. Puida, Countrywide’s outside counsel on the case, he said Ms. Puida told him that the letters had been “recreated” by Countrywide to reflect the escrow discrepancies, the court transcript shows. During these discussions, Ms. Puida reduced the amount that Countrywide claimed Ms. Hill owed to $1,500 from $4,700.
Under questioning by the judge, Ms. Puida said that “a processor” at Countrywide had generated the letters to show how the escrow discrepancies arose. “They were not offered to prove that they had been sent,” Ms. Puida said. But she also said, under questioning from the court, that the letters did not carry a disclaimer indicating that they were not actual correspondence or that they had never been sent.
A Countrywide spokesman said that in bankruptcy cases, Countrywide’s automated systems are sometimes overridden, with technicians making manual adjustments “to comply with bankruptcy laws and the requirements in the jurisdiction in which a bankruptcy is pending.” Asked by Judge Agresti why Countrywide would go to the trouble of “creating a letter that was never sent,” Ms. Puida, its lawyer, said she did not know.
“I just, I can’t get over what I’m being told here about these recreations,” Judge Agresti said, “and what the purpose is or was and what was intended by them.”
Ms. Hill’s matter is one of 300 bankruptcy cases involving Countrywide that have come under scrutiny by Ms. Winnecour, the Chapter 13 trustee in Pittsburgh. On Oct. 9, she asked the court to sanction Countrywide, contending that the company had lost or destroyed more than $500,000 in checks paid by homeowners in bankruptcy from December 2005 to April 2007.
Ms. Winnecour said in court filings that she was concerned that even as Countrywide had misplaced or destroyed the checks, it levied charges on the borrowers, including late fees and legal costs. A spokesman in her office said she would not comment on the Hill case.
O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer in North Carolina who represents troubled borrowers, says that he routinely sees lenders pursue borrowers for additional money after their bankruptcies have been discharged and the courts have determined that the default has been cured and borrowers are current. Regarding the Hill matter, Mr. Gardner said: “The real problem in my mind when reading the transcript is that Countrywide’s lawyer could not explain how this happened.”While presenting at SQLDay in Wroclaw, Poland, on the Query Store, I was asked a pretty simple question, which takes precedence, the Query Store or a Plan Guide?
One of my favorite answers to questions is “I don’t know” because it gives me the opportunity to learn. Let’s figure this one out together.
I’ll post the code to recreate this experiment within AdventureWorks at the end of the article. I’m doing this because the code for forcing execution plans using Plan Guides can be pretty doggone long (you may need to generate your own XML from a plan on your own system, fair warning).
I have a stored procedure that I use frequently to demonstrate parameter sniffing and bad parameter sniffing, AddressByCity (listed below). This query when passed the value ‘London’ will generate a plan with a Merge Join. When passed the value ‘Mentor’ it will generate a plan with a Loops Join. These different plans are caused by the statistics for the different values. 434 rows for ‘London’ and 1 row for ‘Mentor’. To start the test, I’ll generate a plan for each value, dropping the plan from cache between executions, so that I have both plans in the Query Store. Now, we’re ready for phase 1.
Phase 1
I’m going to remove the current plan from cache. I will then use sp_query_store_force_plan to select the plan with the Loops join. I’ll run the query using ‘London’ to validate that the plan generated is NOT the plan for ‘London’ but rather the plan for ‘Mentor’. Done, and I can see the Use Plan results in the Properties of the Select operator:
I’ve highlighted a couple of interesting points. First, even though we are using a plan that is compiled for the value of ‘Mentor’, because this plan was compiled using the value ‘London’, that’s what gets stored, despite the plan used. You can then see down at the bottom, that the ‘Use plan’ property is set to true. Now, let’s force the plan using a plan guide (in my script below). To be very sure what happens, I’ll again clear the plan from cache.
If the Query Store wins, I should see a plan with a Loops Join. If the Plan Guide wins, I should see a plan with a Merge Join. The moment of truth:
Query Store wins! Let’s see how it shows in the Properties:
You’ll see that the Parameter Compile & Runtime values are the same and that the ‘Use plan’ property is the same. Note however, the PlanGuideName property is in play. In fact, the indication is that the optimizer thinks that a Plan Guide has been successfully applied. In fact, if I watch the Extended Events for the plan_guide_successful event, the best way to check how Plan Guides are being used, apart from looking at the execution plans, it shows success for the Plan Guide we created.
Phase 2
Precedence could matter. First, I remove the Plan Guide using sp_control_plan_guide. Then, I remove the Query Store force using sp_query_store_unforce_plan. I’ll also clear the plan out of cache again, just to be sure. Next, I create the Plan Guide. I’ll run the procedure using the value ‘Mentor’ to ensure that I see the Merge/’London’ plan, the PlanGuideName property in that plan, and a successful application of a Plan Guide from the plan_guide_successful ExEvent. All good.
Now, I once again force the plan from Query Store. Rerun the plan…
The winner is Query Store.
Phase 3
OK, so, if we try to force plans using Plan Guide, Query Store wins. What about if I’m just trying to apply a hint? Let’s clear everything up again and then create an OPTIMIZE FOR query hint in a Plan Guide. Simple right?
Query Store wins again… Except things get a little odd. Take a look at the Properties now:
Normally, with a Plan Guide that includes an OPTIMIZE FOR hint, I’d see the Compiled Value as the defined value within the hint (in this case ‘London’). However, this time I’m seeing just the value of ‘Mentor’.
Conclusion
I don’t know what’s occurring in the internals. I just know the evidence I have in front of me. First, Query Store vs. Plan Guides? Query Store wins. However, internally, something is still going on. The Plan Guide is still successfully applied, at least according to what I can see. The processes that determine if a Plan Guide should be applied or not are not interfered with by the Query Store plan forcing. The fact that I’m seeing a Query Store plan and evidence of a successful Plan Guide though, that’s a problem that could cause issues when troubleshooting. Now you know, and knowing, as they say, is half the battle.
Let’s get together and talk about execution plans. In August, I’ll be doing an all day pre-con at SQLServer Geeks Annual Summit in Bangalore India.
I’m extremely exited to be in Oslo Norway for a pre-con before SQL Saturday Oslo in September.
/*NOTE: These scripts are not in the exact order in which they must be run to re-create all my tests. These are however, all the scripts you'll need. */ --the procedure CREATE PROC dbo.AddressByCity @City NVARCHAR(30) AS SELECT a.AddressID, a.AddressLine1, a.AddressLine2, a.City, sp.Name AS StateProvinceName, a.PostalCode FROM Person.Address AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS sp ON a.StateProvinceID = sp.StateProvinceID WHERE a.City = @City; GO --generating the first plan EXEC dbo.AddressByCity @City = N'London'; --remove this from cache DECLARE @PlanHandle VARBINARY(64); SELECT @PlanHandle = deps.plan_handle FROM sys.dm_exec_procedure_stats AS deps WHERE deps.object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.AddressByCity'); IF @PlanHandle IS NOT NULL BEGIN DBCC FREEPROCCACHE(@PlanHandle); END GO --generate the second plan EXEC dbo.AddressByCity @City = N'Mentor'; --get the query & plan id SELECT qsq.query_id, qsp.plan_id FROM sys.query_store_query AS qsq JOIN sys.query_store_plan AS qsp ON qsp.query_id = qsq.query_id WHERE qsq.object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.AddressByCity'); --force the plan EXEC sys.sp_query_store_force_plan 414,460; --unforce the plan EXEC sys.sp_query_store_unforce_plan 414,460; --Get the plan_handle and offset SELECT deqs.plan_handle, deqs.statement_start_offset FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(deqs.sql_handle) AS dest WHERE dest.objectid = OBJECT_ID('dbo.AddressByCity'); --create a plan guide EXEC sys.sp_create_plan_guide_from_handle @name = N'PlanGuidePrecedence', @plan_handle = 0x05000500C26A7610A03A4F53A600000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, @statement_start_offset = 108; --remove plan guide EXEC sys.sp_control_plan_guide @operation = N'DROP', @name = N'PlanGuidePrecedence'; --pull a plan out of cache. You'll need to make sure the right plan is there first DECLARE @xmlplan NVARCHAR(MAX) SELECT @xmlplan = deqp.query_plan FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_text_query_plan(deqs.plan_handle,DEFAULT,DEFAULT) AS deqp WHERE deqp.objectid = OBJECT_ID('dbo.AddressByCity'); SELECT @xmlplan --copied and pasted the value from @xmlplan for easy reuse DECLARE @xmlplan NVARCHAR(MAX) = '<ShowPlanXML xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2004/07/showplan" Version="1.5" Build="13.0.1300.275"><BatchSequence><Batch><Statements><StmtSimple StatementText="CREATE PROC dbo.AddressByCity @City NVARCHAR(30) AS SELECT a.AddressID, a.AddressLine1, a.AddressLine2, a.City, sp.Name AS StateProvinceName, a.PostalCode FROM Person.Address AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS sp ON a.StateProvinceID = sp.StateProvinceID WHERE a.City = @City" StatementId="1" StatementCompId="3" StatementType="SELECT" StatementSqlHandle="0x0900D56A5A43E8B56B541DFF8DC13F149C6A0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000" DatabaseContextSettingsId="1" ParentObjectId="276196034" StatementParameterizationType="0" RetrievedFromCache="true" StatementSubTreeCost="0.316799" StatementEstRows="434" SecurityPolicyApplied="false" StatementOptmLevel="FULL" QueryHash="0xDD75E124763781F2" QueryPlanHash="0x6C408B64C5E8A83F" StatementOptmEarlyAbortReason="GoodEnoughPlanFound" CardinalityEstimationModelVersion="120"><StatementSetOptions QUOTED_IDENTIFIER="true" ARITHABORT="true" CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL="true" ANSI_NULLS="true" ANSI_PADDING="true" ANSI_WARNINGS="true" NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT="false"></StatementSetOptions><QueryPlan CachedPlanSize="32" CompileTime="3" CompileCPU="3" CompileMemory="360"><MissingIndexes><MissingIndexGroup Impact="89.7983"><MissingIndex Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]"><ColumnGroup Usage="EQUALITY"><Column Name="[City]" ColumnId="4"></Column></ColumnGroup></MissingIndex></MissingIndexGroup></MissingIndexes><MemoryGrantInfo SerialRequiredMemory="512" SerialDesiredMemory="720"></MemoryGrantInfo><OptimizerHardwareDependentProperties EstimatedAvailableMemoryGrant="260900" EstimatedPagesCached="65225" EstimatedAvailableDegreeOfParallelism="2"></OptimizerHardwareDependentProperties><RelOp NodeId="0" PhysicalOp="Merge Join" LogicalOp="Inner Join" EstimateRows="434" EstimateIO="0" EstimateCPU="0.0069349" AvgRowSize="225" EstimatedTotalSubtreeCost="0.316799" Parallel="0" EstimateRebinds="0" EstimateRewinds="0" EstimatedExecutionMode="Row"><OutputList><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]" Alias="[a]" Column="AddressID"></ColumnReference><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]" Alias="[a]" Column="AddressLine1"></ColumnReference><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]" Alias="[a]" Column="AddressLine2"></ColumnReference><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]" Alias="[a]" Column="City"></ColumnReference><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]" Alias="[a]" Column="PostalCode"></ColumnReference><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[StateProvince]" Alias="[sp]" Column="Name"></ColumnReference></OutputList><Merge ManyToMany="0"><InnerSideJoinColumns><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[Address]" Alias="[a]" Column="StateProvinceID"></ColumnReference></InnerSideJoinColumns><OuterSideJoinColumns><ColumnReference Database="[AdventureWorks2014]" Schema="[Person]" Table="[StateProvince]" Alias="[sp]" Column="StateProvinceID"></ColumnReference></OuterSideJoinColumns><Residual><ScalarOperator ScalarString="[AdventureWorks2014].[Person].[StateProvince].[ |
mers because I see so many more with skills that they do and I don’t. Or that they do and other drummers don’t. Same thing with bands, so I don’t have a favorite anything.
This one is probably my favorite question of the interview. Recently we got a release of a song from “The Astonishing” with Lzzy Hale singing vocals, “A New World”. How did that happen? How did that come about? Can you give us a little bit of insight into this?
MM: That was an idea that came from within the record company and it seemed pretty common sense to us, since there are female voices, actually a bunch, within this musical so let’s have a female singer. It was a good idea and Lzzy is great, you know, she’s popular, she’s attractive, she’s a great singer, there you go.
What type of music do you listen to?
MM: I’m thinking about my answer here. OK, so.. I’ll listen to energetic Latin music. One of my favorite drummers on the planet is Horacio Hernandez and he’s taught me a lot about Latin music. And my kids like it, it’s dance music, it’s really awesome. I listen to that. I listen to the heaviness of like Rammstein, Disturbed, I don’t know, there are so many names and genres. I don’t subscribe to particular lyrics that go against what I think is the right thing to say or do, it’s just what I do, it’s what I believe. But it doesn’t stop me sometimes from listening to music so I’ll check out all kinds of stuff. I’ll check out a speed metal thing to see what other young drummers are practicing and doing that I don’t do, but lyrically with a lot of it, I don’t know, whatever. It’s a loaded question because there are different reasons I listen to things.
Your drum kit has evolved since day one at Dream Theater. Is this something that naturally will continue to happen? You will continue to make changes as you need to?
MM: As I see need to, again, I’m like an amoeba, just trying to survive. If you study management, that organism is going to die if it doesn’t adjust to its environment, it simple 101 management of yourself, of a business or anything. If you don’t adjust, you die. And so I’m trying to adjust, I mean, I change my kit to add things that Mike Portnoy used as signature sounds and I can’t even fit the stuff. And of course I gotta hear “You need these drums to play…” or “Why do you use so many drums?” and I’m like come on, don’t I have enough to worry about? So I mean I’m evolving, changing, I reduced drums for this record. It’s just a lot to hit and it kind of hurts my shoulder blades but hey I like to have access to a lot of sounds, I mean, why wouldn’t I? I hit things, that what I do. Me hitting things, boom, it makes a sound, “Oh, that’s fun!”. I like bigger, boomier, bombastic sounds, I like funny sounds, you know, I had the electronics last time and I put a lot of like rap things, voices and stuff like that, that the band would hear. We’d be in the middle of a sound check and I’d use them. It’s fun, whatever, I’ll adjust. Yeah, I’ll play a 4 piece kit, I rehearsed for “The Astonishing” on a 4 piece drum set. I didn’t learn any of the songs. I went into the studio and did 18 in five days and I did not practice one of them. I did not learn one song on the set. I just didn’t really know how to interpret it, I needed help.
What do you do when you’re not playing drums? What are your hobbies?
MM: I’m getting back into reading more now that I have the proper glasses. It stopped from reading for a while, yeah, plus I was reading such heavy stuff for about 8 or 9 years, so much philosophy, so many different world religions to try to understand people, not argue against them. Like “What do you think?”, “Where do you come from””, you just start at one point in your life, you’re like “Oh my gosh, we’re one a big rock, solar system’s going, 500,000 miles an hour…”, so it’s like “excuse me?”. So it takes a while to get into that and so anyway, I didn’t realize I needed glasses, I stopped reading altogether and my mind needed a break anyway. So since now, these are working well, I’m reading a little more, not a lot. I’m trying to exercise a little bit, just because I’m getting older but I have a family. So there you go… I’m also writing music and composing, I’m doing everything, from soup to nuts, I’m doing every instrument, all the engineering, the production, everything.
Are we talking Mike Mangini solo album?
MM: Oh, absolutely! I’m learning, I’m doing this right now as a learning experience. How am I supposed to offer stuff to a band like Dream Theater, which I have, but it just… it’s not on their level, so you know, I’ll do my stuff that’s not the same as theirs and well, whatever. Whatever, whatever, whatever. Mainly I’m learning right now.
Very interesting. The boys back in Venezuela mentioned this to me. You actually visited Venezuela with G3, when you were with John Petrucci.
MM: And I did a drum clinic there too.
Yeah, that too. Any cool memories about your trip there?
MM: It’s always the food. Because you know the food makes people smile, makes me smile and it’s just like it transcends all else, you know? It’s something people share, it’s kinda like music, it transcends all else. It’s great to be a musician, it’s great to eat, and appreciate cultures of food. So there you go.A photo of the author with her husband I fell in love with a Republican I was raised by die-hard liberals, and my progressive friends did not approve. Could our romance possibly last?
There’s no other way to tell you this. I just have to say it: I fell in love with a Republican.
Believe me, it gets worse.
I don’t mean he votes Republican, I mean he’s in it up to his eyeballs. The man I love personally called Henry Kissinger to tell him about Richard Nixon’s funeral arrangements. He ran Orrin Hatch’s bid for president and has worked for Rudolph Guiliani and even that poor, dumb bastard Rick Perry. His mother has a framed picture hanging in the house of her arm-in-arm with Robert Dole, autographed with a “Thanks Sharon! Bob.” His father is pastor of an Evangelical church, a man who watches a defective television set built with only one channel. Fox News.
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For someone like me, whose earliest memories are of a home with pictures of the pope and JFK hanging side by side on the wall, whose mother was known to say “God is not only Irish but a Democrat,” who comes from a family of self-described “Blue-bellied Yankees,” falling for a West Virginia-bred Republican was like admitting I love Darth Vader.
How could this possibly happen, you ask?
At first it was the usual thing, sex.
No, don’t puke. Get that image of a bellicose, rotund Rush Limbaugh out of your head. Banish thoughts of the pasty Karl Rove and forget entirely that cretin from Missouri who talked about “legitimate rape.”
I first saw a picture of the man I love on an Internet dating site. Why was I there? I’d dated the actor-screenwriter-dancer-musician-producer narcissists on the west side of Los Angeles to disastrous effects for far too long. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, then I was determined to get sane. And sane looked to me like trying Match.com. (I know, I know. Don’t look too hard at that last sentence.)
I hadn’t been on there for more than a month when I opened my inbox and saw a wink from a guy named Jimmy. I took one look at the tattooed arms, the flinty, Steve McQueen-like stare, the sardonic twist of his smile, and somehow I knew that he would smell of hickory smoke and Old Spice, and that the scruff of his 5 o’clock shadow would sometimes rub a rash on my pale skin.
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I yelled over my shoulder, "Mom, check this one out! I think this guy's looking for me."
Mom, out visiting from her retirement in New Mexico, ambled up to assess the candidate on the screen. One eyebrow went up.
"Yum, yum," came her verdict. Then she added, "But he's probably a Republican."
Coming from her that was like saying the man beats his dog when he's not in prison. During what we termed “the terrible years,” Mom had forsaken most major news outlets for fear of coming across the latest pronouncements from George W. (Bad for her blood pressure, you understand.)
My response was ha-fucking-ha, very funny Mother, why do you always have to find fault with every guy in the world? Or words to that effect.
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You know already the joke was on me. Four months later, I found myself seated at a swanky fundraiser for the California Republican Party, deep in the red heart of Orange County. The tattooed bad boy named Jimmy was indeed a Republican. Not merely a Republican, but a well-established campaign manager and political consultant for the GOP. Relative to my politics, not only had I fallen in love with Darth Vader, I was now dining aboard the Death Star.
After the speech from then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger but before conservative radio talk-show host Dennis Prager took the mic, I slipped outside with Jimmy so I could get a breath of fresh air and stop biting my tongue. He, meanwhile, was jonesing for a cancer stick.
Jimmy had forgotten matches, so he bummed a light from a woman puffing on her Virginia Slim. The two had worked together on campaigns and fell into easy shop talk, but the woman's eyes narrowed as she began to dish about Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, who evidently leaned too far left to suit her.
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"It's Maria's influence," she hissed. Did I imagine it or had her eyes hardened as she looked at us? "That's what happens when our Republican men hook up with liberal women."
Jimmy immediately became very interested in lighting another cigarette. Meanwhile, I smiled, said nothing, and thought, Lady, if you knew we drove here in my hybrid you’d have me burned at the stake.
Today Jimmy's driving a hybrid, tomorrow he could join a labor union -- all because of this writer chick he’s dating. When will it end?
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This would not be the last time Jimmy and I would find ourselves in the minefield where love and politics meet. What surprised me was that mostly it was not the intolerant, sanctimonious Republicans but my love-the-world, yoga-practicing, gluten-free progressive best friends who were apoplectic over my new romance. “A Republican? Are you that desperate? Don’t you know what they’re doing to our country?” (Funny, they were never as worried about the heroin addicts or that one guy who’d seen the inside of Folsom.)
Some friends of mine even disinvited us to a dinner party when they found out what Jimmy did for a living. Too bad. Not only because they made an awesome artichoke risotto, but because they missed talking to him. They missed his encyclopedic knowledge of American history, his fervent love of wilderness and of the American park system, his wry sense of humor, his love of great books, his punk-rockabilly past as a professional musician, his arrest record. They missed joining with me to tell him that he is socially liberal and fiscally just wrong, and they missed the argument over the fiscal part that always gets my blood going.
Mostly they missed knowing a man who is loyal to the people he loves. He is fierce, and smart, and unique, and particular, a man whose sum total is not represented by any politician or confined within the doctrine of political party. He drives me absolutely crazy at times, and there are things we will never, ever agree on, but being with him always makes me reconsider what I do believe, and why I believe it. It makes me look closer at all people and not assume I know everything about them from their (stupid, dumb-ass) bumper stickers. (OK, so I have to work on that part. Maybe.)
I guess I need to mention here that I married him. We eloped. Could you imagine a wedding reception? Just one mention of Ayn Rand and my mother would have broken a chair over somebody’s head.
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But my point is, I realized that in all those years dating maybe I was the real narcissist, looking for someone exactly like me, who would reflect back to me exactly that which I wanted to see, that which I took to be the indisputable correct way of being. Maybe if we all slept with an enemy, or at least took him to dinner, we’d understand more, maybe even find places of agreement. It happens.
Take Jimmy’s dad, the Evangelical pastor, who now happens to be my father-in-law. He calls me “daughter.” I love him. We have great arguments. Once, he even saw my point and voted the same way I did. Granted, it was for Kirstie Alley on "Dancing With the Stars," but, hey, it’s a start.
Excerpted from "True Tales of Lust and Love," edited by Anna David, copyright Soft Skull Press.Donald Trump has a general sense of what he wants his administration to look like, say those involved in the transition. | Getty Presidential Transition Trump lashes out at accusations of transition chaos The president-elect and his allies insist everything is going'so smoothly.'
Donald Trump and his team pushed back against accusations that his transition to the White House is descending into chaos amid growing signs of strain inside the operation and that the president-elect himself is chafing under the enormous burden placed upon his shoulders.
“It is going so smoothly,” Trump tweeted Wednesday via an Android device, the type he used during the campaign when he was penning his own missives.
Story Continued Below
Reality has been bumpier. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the person in Trump’s inner circle with the most governing experience, has quickly consolidated power in the transition, layering over and laying off allies of Gov. Chris Christie who for months had laid the groundwork for staffing the new administration. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has emerged as a power player, just as he was on the campaign, setting out in particular to sideline Christie, who, a decade ago as a prosecutor, put Kushner’s father in prison.
Trump himself, mostly holed up in his Manhattan skyscraper residence, has been making rounds of calls to friends and allies, including longtime confidant Roger Stone, to mull what to do next. On Tuesday night, Trump slipped past reporters to try to escape for a family dinner at a Manhattan steakhouse — perhaps in pursuit of a sense of normalcy — a breach of precedent and protocol for the incoming leader of the free world whose whereabouts are supposed to be closely tracked.
The leader of the White House Correspondents’ Association called ditching the group of reporters who gather daily to track Trump’s movements “unacceptable.”
On Wednesday, Trump arose to fire off a string of disgruntled tweets about coverage of his new administration being in disarray.
He disputed reports that he had sought security clearance for his adult children (Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric all served as top advisers during the campaign, and his son-in-law joined him at the White House last week, wandering the grounds with the president’s chief of staff). And he whacked at The New York Times, in particular, for its coverage of a transition operation that has already undergone one major shake-up.
Jason Miller, one of Trump’s senior communications advisers, went on CNN to defend the state of the transition.
“There’s a clear structure in place, and I think some of this palace intrigue, really, where I think this comes from, usually, is folks who aren’t up for jobs who might be maybe a little bit bitter,” Miller said.
Those close to Trump say his picks to head the State, Defense and Justice departments all could come as soon as this week. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the leading contender to be nominated for secretary of state. While Giuliani lacks a diplomatic background, he has distinguished himself as a Trump loyalist.
One senior Trump adviser said the president-elect’s message to Giuliani has been, “Whatever you want, you can have.”
Others mentioned as Cabinet possibilities include former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
But Gingrich told POLITICO in an interview on Wednesday that he had ruled out serving in Trump’s cabinet, and instead wanted to help the new administration in an advisory role.
Gingrich and Pence met for 45 minutes on Wednesday, and the former speaker waved off concerns about the transition being in a state of chaos, saying it wasn’t far behind historical norms — and he said that Trump was firmly in control. “There’s no question that the person making the big decisions is Donald J. Trump,” Gingrich said.
Trump has a general sense of what he wants his administration to look like, say those involved in the transition. One option being discussed is having a less linear, broader structure than the one Barack Obama adopted when he became president. Under that option, multiple deputy chiefs of staff would be used. Among those being discussed for such a role, according to two sources, is Corey Lewandowski, who could become deputy chief of staff for planning. Last week, Lewandowski spent a lot of time in Trump Tower, where he was seen talking to a number of key players.
One of Trump’s possible picks for attorney general, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, stirred controversy when he told Reuters that Trump is considering a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries. Trump previously called for both a Muslim immigration ban and, later, “extreme vetting” of immigrants from regions beset with terrorism.
“Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions,” Trump wrote on Twitter late Tuesday night. “I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!”
On Wednesday, Pence was seen entering the transition team’s official office space at the General Service Administration. According to a senior Pence aide, the vice president-elect has issued a new decree for the transition team: a purge of all lobbyists from an operation that has been filled with them.
The order came only days after Trump himself defended lobbyists’ presence.
“I mean, the whole place is one big lobbyist,” Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday on “60 Minutes,” adding, “I’m saying that they know the system right now, but we’re going to phase that out. You have to phase it out.”
Pence’s ascent — and the removal of Christie — has slowed some necessary legal paperwork for the transition. On Tuesday evening, Pence signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the current administration to begin the process of information-sharing between the outgoing and incoming teams. But the Obama administration also needs a code of conduct prohibiting conflicts of interests to begin that process, and for so-called “landing teams” of the incoming Trump team to begin arriving at agencies across Washington.
Sources familiar with the operation said Wednesday that the original Christie-created landing teams are being sidelined, as well, which could further delay matters.
In Washington, D.C., the Trump transition team set a Wednesday afternoon meeting to determine its next steps. In New York, a steady stream of advisers have trickled in to visit with the president-elect, who has largely stepped back from the public spotlight since the election.
As for any imminent appointments, different views were expressed Wednesday.
“Likely,” said Eric Trump as he arrived at Trump Tower.
“I don’t think so,” Sessions said.
Matt Nussbaum and Andrew Restuccia contributed to this report.Presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump invited Peter Thiel, a supporter of his campaign, to speak at the GOP convection.
Thiel also happens to be an early investor in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) and a member of its board of directors. Meanwhile, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg had some harsh words directed at Trump in a recent speech.
Common knowledge dictates that politics aren't discussed in the workplace, but given the high profiled nature of Thiel, Zuckerberg and Trump, this may not be the case.
In a statement to Recode, Facebook said Thiel is attending the RNC convention "in his personal capacity" and is "not attending on behalf of Facebook or to represent our views."
Recode also asked Facebook if Thiel reached out to Zuckerberg or the company to attend and speak at the event, especially when considering Trump's lack of support among the technology community.
Related Link: Technology Leaders: "Trump Would Be A Disaster For Innovation"
The company did confirm that Thiel did not require any special permission to speak at the event.
Thiel's decision to sign up as a Trump delegate was also his own personal doing, Recode added.
Clinton Campaign Loves Facebook's COO
Recode also reported that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democrat nominee. In fact, her name is now being floated as a possible cabinet member if Clinton were to win the presidency.
Sources close to the situation told Recode that the Clinton campaign is very interested in Sandberg, despite her previous statements that she had no desire to leave Facebook or accept a position under President Obama's administration.
A spokeperson for the Clinton campaign also told Recode that it is too "premaure" to comment if Sandberg will be speaking during the Democrat convention.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.An illustration picture shows a projection of binary code on a man holding a laptop computer, in an office in Warsaw June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files
By Dustin Volz and Jim Finkle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has found breaches in Illinois and Arizona's voter registration databases and is urging states to increase computer security ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election, according to a U.S. official familiar with the probe.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that investigators were also seeking evidence of whether other states may have been targeted.
The FBI warning in an Aug. 18 flash alert from the agency's Cyber Division did not identify the intruders or the two states targeted.
Reuters obtained a copy of the document after Yahoo News first reported the story Monday.
Accessing information in a voter database, much of which is publicly accessible, does not necessarily suggest an effort to manipulate the votes themselves. When registering, voters typically provide their names, home addresses, driver's license or identification numbers, and party affiliations.
But U.S. intelligence officials have become increasingly worried that hackers sponsored by Russia or other countries may attempt to disrupt the presidential election.
Officials and cyber security experts say recent breaches at the Democratic National Committee and elsewhere in the Democratic Party were likely carried out by people within the Russian government. Kremlin officials have denied that.
An FBI spokeswoman would not comment on the alerts but said the agency "routinely advises" on "various cyber threat indicators observed during the course of our investigations."
The intrusions come amid repeated unsubstantiated claims by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that the U.S. election system is "rigged."
Trump has cited emails leaked from the DNC that indicated the party leadership favored Hillary Clinton over rival candidate Bernie Sanders as reason to cast doubt on the electoral process in general.
'LARGER ATTACK'?
David Kennedy, chief executive officer of information security consulting company TrustedSec, said the attacks referenced in the FBI alert appeared to be largely exploratory and not especially sophisticated.
"It could be a precursor to a larger attack," he added.
Citing a state election board official, Yahoo News said the Illinois voter registration system was shut down for 10 days in late July after hackers downloaded personal data on up to 200,000 voters.
State voter systems are often targeted by hackers, and 200,000 is a relatively small number compared to other recent incidents. An independent computer security researcher uncovered in December of last year a database on 191 million voters that was exposed on the open Internet due to an incorrect configuration.
The Arizona attack was more limited and involved introducing malicious software into one state employee's computer, said Matt Roberts, communications director for the Arizona secretary of state's office.
That office publicly reported a cyber incident in June after being contacted by the FBI, which led to it temporarily shutting down its election site to deal with the potential threat.
Roberts said he was uncertain if the FBI advisory was in reference to that same June incident, during which investigators found no evidence of any data exfiltration. In that episode, the FBI told Arizona officials the hackers were believed to be Russian and described it as an "eight out of 10" on a threat severity scale, Roberts said.
Arizona will hold Republican and Democratic primaries for congressional races on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Dustin Volz and Jim Finkle; Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Alistair Bell)This article explains how Arduino works from an electronic design perspective.
Most articles explain the software of Arduinos. However, understanding hardware design helps you to make the next step in the Arduino journey. A good grasp of the electronic design of your Arduino hardware will help you learn how to embed an Arduino in the design of a final product, including what to keep and what to omit from your original design.
Components Overview
The PCB design of the Arduino UNO uses SMD (Surface Mount Device) components. I entered the SMD world years ago when I dug into Arduino PCB design while I was a part of a team redesigning a DIY clone for Arduino UNO.
Integrated circuits use standardized packages, and there are families for packages.
The dimensions of many SMD resistors, capacitors, and LEDs are indicated by package codes such as the following:
SMD package code for discrete components such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.
Most packages are generic and can be used for different parts with different functionality. The SOT-223 package, for example, can contain a transistor or a regulator.
In the table below, you can see a list of some components in the Arduino UNO with their respective package:
Arduino UNO System Overview
Before we can understand the UNO's hardware, we must have a general overview of the system first.
After your code is compiled using Arduino IDE, it should be uploaded to the main microcontroller of the Arduino UNO using a USB connection. Because the main microcontroller doesn’t have a USB transceiver, you need a bridge to convert signals between the serial interface (UART interface) of the microcontroller and the host USB signals.
The bridge in the latest revision is the ATmega16U2, which has a USB transceiver and also a serial interface (UART interface).
To power your Arduino board, you can use the USB as a power source. Another option is to use a DC jack. You may ask, “if I connect both a DC adapter and the USB, which will be the power source?” The answer will be discussed in the “Power Part” section from this article.
To reset your board, you should use a push button in the board. Another source of reset should be every time you open the serial monitor from Arduino IDE.
I redistributed the original Arduino UNO schematic to be more readable below. I advise you to download it and open the PCB and schematic using Eagle CAD while you are reading this article.
Redistributed version of the original Arduino schematic. Click to enlarge.
Schematic Files
The Microcontroller
It is important to understand that the Arduino board includes a microcontroller, and this microcontroller is what executes the instructions in your program. If you know this, you won't use the common nonsense phrase "Arduino is a microcontroller" ever again.
The ATmega328 microcontroller is the MCU used in Arduino UNO R3 as a main controller. ATmega328 is an MCU from the AVR family; it is an 8-bit device, which means that its data-bus architecture and internal registers are designed to handle 8 parallel data signals.
ATmega328 has three types of memory:
Flash memory: 32KB nonvolatile memory. This is used for storing application, which explains why you don't need to upload your application every time you unplug arduino from its power source.
SRAM memory: 2KB volatile memory. This is used for storing variables used by the application while it's running.
EEPROM memory: 1KB nonvolatile memory. This can be used to store data that must be available even after the board is powered down and then powered up again.
Let us briefly go over some of this MCU's specs:
Packages:
This MCU is a DIP-28 package, which means that it has 28 pins in the dual in-line package. These pins include power and I/O pins. Most of the pins are multifunctional, which means that the same pin can be used in different modes based on how you configure it in the software. This reduces the necessary pin count, because the microcontroller does not require a separate pin for every function. It can also make your design more flexible, because one I/O connection can provide multiple types of functionality.
Other packages of ATmega328 are available like TQFP-32 SMD package (Surface Mount Device).
Two different packages of the ATmega328. Images courtesy of Sparkfun and Wikimedia.
Power:
The MCU accepts supply voltages from 1.8 to 5.5 V. However, there are restrictions on the operating frequency; for example, if you want to use the maximum clock frequency (20 MHz), you need a supply voltage of at least 4.5 V.
Digital I/O:
This MCU has three ports: PORTC, PORTB, and PORTD. All pins of these ports can be used for general-purpose digital I/O or for the alternate functions indicated in the pinout below. For example, PORTC pin0 to pin5 can be ADC inputs instead of digital I/O.
There are also some pins that can be configured as PWM output. These pins are marked with “~” on the Arduino board.
Note: The ATmega168 is almost identical to the ATmega328 and they are pin compatible. The difference is that the ATmega328 has more memory—32KB flash, 1KB EEPROM, and 2KB RAM compared to the ATmega168's 16KB flash, 512 bytes EEPROM, and 1KB RAM.
ATmega168 pinout with Arduino labels; the ATmega168 and ATmega328 are pin compatible. Image courtesy of Arduino.
Arduino UNO R3 pinout. Image courtesy of GitHub.
ADC Inputs:
This MCU has six channels—PORTC0 to PORTC5—with 10-bit resolution A/D converter. These pins are connected to the analog header on the Arduino board.
One common mistake is to think of analog input as dedicated input for A/D function only, as the header in the board states ”Analog”. The reality is that you can use them as digital I/O or A/D.
ATmega328 block diagram.
As shown in the diagram above (via the red traces), the pins related to the A/D unit are:
AVCC: The power pin for the A/D unit.
AREF: The input pin used optionally if you want to use an external voltage reference for ADC rather than the internal Vref. You can configure that using an internal register.
Internal register settings for selecting the Vref source.
UART Peripheral:
A UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) is a serial interface. The ATmega328 has only one UART module.
The pins (RX, TX) of the UART are connected to a USB-to-UART converter circuit and also connected to pin0 and pin1 in the digital header. You must avoid using the UART if you’re already using it to send/receive data over USB.
SPI Peripheral:
The SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) is another serial interface. The ATmega328 has only one SPI module.
Besides using it as a serial interface, it can also be used to program the MCU using a standalone programmer. You can reach the SPI's pins from the header next to the MCU in the Arduino UNO board or from the digital header as below:
11<->MOSI
12<->MISO
13<->SCK
TWI:
The I2C or Two Wire Interface is an interface consisting of only two wires, serial data, and a serial clock: SDA, SCL.
You can reach these pins from the last two pins in the digital header or pin4 and pin5 in the analog header.
Other Functionality:
Other functionality is included in the MCU, such as that offered by the timer/counter modules. You may not be aware of the functions that you don't use in your code. You can refer to the datasheet for more information.
Arduino UNO R3 MCU part.
Returning to the electronic design, the microcontroller section has the following:
ATmega328-PU: The MCU we just talked about.
The MCU we just talked about. IOL and IOH (Digital) Headers: These headers are the digital header for pins 0 to 13 in addition to GND, AREF, SDA, and SCL. Note that RX and TX from the USB bridge are connected with pin0 and pin1.
These headers are the digital header for pins 0 to 13 in addition to GND, AREF, SDA, and SCL. Note that RX and TX from the USB bridge are connected with pin0 and pin1. AD Header: The analog pins header.
The analog pins header. 16 MHz Ceramic Resonator (CSTCE16M0V53-R0): Connected with XTAL2 and XTAL1 from the MCU.
Connected with XTAL2 and XTAL1 from the MCU. Reset Pin: This is pulled up with a 10K resistor to help prevent spurious resets in noisy environments; the pin has an internal pull-up resistor, but according to the AVR Hardware Design Considerations application note (AVR042), “if the environment is noisy, it can be insufficient and reset may occur sporadically.” Reset occurs if the user presses the reset button or if a reset is issued from the USB bridge. You can also see the D2 diode. The role of this diode is described in the same app note: “If not using High Voltage Programming it is recommended to add an ESD protection diode from RESET to Vcc, since this is not internally provided due to High Voltage Programming”.
This is pulled up with a 10K resistor to help prevent spurious resets in noisy environments; the pin has an internal pull-up resistor, but according to the AVR Hardware Design Considerations application note (AVR042), “if the environment is noisy, it can be insufficient and reset may occur sporadically.” Reset occurs if the user presses the reset button or if a reset is issued from the USB bridge. You can also see the D2 diode. The role of this diode is described in the same app note: “If not using High Voltage Programming it is recommended to add an ESD protection diode from RESET to Vcc, since this is not internally provided due to High Voltage Programming”. C4 and C6 100nF Capacitors: These are added to filter supply noise. The impedance of a capacitor decreases with frequency:
$$Xc$$ = $$\frac{1}{2 \pi f C}$$
The capacitors give high-frequency noise signals a low-impedance path to ground. 100nF is the most common value. Read more about capacitors in the AAC textbook.
These are added to filter supply noise. The impedance of a capacitor decreases with frequency: $$Xc$$ = $$\frac{1}{2 \pi f C}$$ The capacitors give high-frequency noise signals a low-impedance path to ground. 100nF is the most common value. Read more about capacitors in the AAC textbook. PIN13: This is connected to the SCK pin from the MCU and is also connected to an LED. The Arduino board uses a buffer (the LMV358) to drive the LED.
This is connected to the SCK pin from the MCU and is also connected to an LED. The Arduino board uses a buffer (the LMV358) to drive the LED. ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming) Header: This is used to program the ATmega328 using an external programmer. It’s connected to the In-System Programming (ISP) interface (which uses the SPI pins). Usually, you don’t need to use this way of programming because bootloader handles the programming of the MCU from the UART interface which is connected using a bridge to the USB. This header is used when you need to flash the MCU, for example, with a bootloader for the first time in production.
The USB-to-UART Bridge
Arduino USB bridge part. Click to enlarge.
As we discussed in the “Arduino UNO System Overview” section, the role of the USB-to-UART bridge part is to convert the signals of USB interface to the UART interface, which the ATmega328 understands, using an ATmega16U2 with an internal USB transceiver. This is done using special firmware uploaded to the ATmega16U2.
From an electronic design perspective, this section is similar to microcontroller section. This MCU has an ICSP header, an external crystal with load capacitors (CL), and a Vcc filter capacitor.
Notice that there are series resistors in the D+ and D- USB lines. These provide the proper termination impedance for the USB signals. Here is some further reading about these resistors:
Z1 and Z2 are voltage-dependent resistors (VDRs), also called varistors. They are used to protect the USB lines against ESD transients.
The 100nF capacitor connected in series with the reset line allows the Atmega16U2 to send a reset pulse to the Atmega328. You can read more about this capacitor here.
The Power
For a power source, you have the option of using the USB or a DC jack. Now it’s time to answer the following question: “If I connect both a DC adapter and the USB, which will be the power source?”
The 5V regulator is the NCP1117ST50T3G and the Vin of this regulator is connected via DC jack input through the M7 diode, the SMD version of the famous |
Silver said. "The players are bringing their talents direct to Johannesburg as opposed to people getting it off media."
The low profile of the NBA in South Africa also can work in players' favor for now, with some of the NBA's top names walking around their hotel lobby in suburban Johannesburg unnoticed by locals.
Some of them will use the offseason trip to go on a safari and visit the foundation of late South African president Nelson Mandela, Silver said, among other excursions. There also will be visits to museums, and coaching clinics in poorer neighborhoods around Johannesburg. Even Silver, who got married recently, said he was taking the opportunity for a honeymoon after the game. He and his wife will go to the Seychelles, off the east coast of Africa.
Silver said there was a large amount of "symbolism" to the NBA's visit to Africa and its first game on the continent, comparing it in some ways to President Barack Obama's recent trips to Kenya and Ethiopia.
"[It's] so much more than just a game," Silver said.
Adding to the symbolism, the Team World versus Team Africa exhibition will take place at the same stadium complex where the late Mandela famously wore a South African rugby jersey to a game in 1995 to help unite the country as it emerged from apartheid, the story told in Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" movie.
The NBA players were aware of that connection, Silver said, after they attended talks this week by members of the league's Africa office.The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999* was signed into law by the President on October 20, 1998. Among its provisions, the Act directed that the Headquarters compound of the Central Intelligence Agency located in Langley, Virginia, shall be known and designated as the "George Bush Center for Intelligence."
Former President George Bush was Director of Central Intelligence and head of the Central Intelligence Agency from 30 January 1976 to 20 January 1977.
On April 26, 1999, Agency employees, senior officials from current and previous Administrations and Congresses, former Directors and Deputy Directors of Central Intelligence, family members, and friends joined former President Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush in ceremonies dedicating the Headquarters compound as the George Bush Center for Intelligence.
Activities included a ceremony which included remarks by then Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, Representative Rob Portman, and President Bush; a wreath-laying ceremony at the Central Intelligence Agency’s Memorial Wall; a reception for the Bush family; and informal remarks by President Bush to Agency employees.
* Public Law 105-272--October 20, 1998, Title III, 112 STAT.2403, Sec. 309Sorry, Mr. or Ms. S ~, but you are totally wrong.
1st, meat production is the main reason why there are millions of people starving. It’s easy: In order to get two pounds of meat we have to grow and feed plant nutrition that would make a meal for at least 50 men. TWO POUNDS! Got it? We are unable to feed the world BECAUSE we cling to meat.
2nd, animals are the opposite of “an ultimately completely stupid life form”. Sure, they can’t neither invent an iPhone nor use it. But who are you to decide how we measure intelligence? Can you, S ~, invent an iPhone? Where do you draw the line? Right below yourself? A world population that is close to extinct itself by ongoing wars, by self-made climate change and by ruining the fundamentals of its existences—is that an intelligent species? I negate. You’re talking of “purposeless creatures” and I ask you: What is your purpose? Eventually, it will be the same as for any other sensitive creature: surviving and keeping the own life joyful and free. We may LIVE different from non-human animals and have more abilities but we ARE NOT different. Learn the real disparity! According to your theory the more intelligent is allowed to eat the less intelligent. Fortunately, this is fiddle-faddle. Otherwise you had been eaten long ago by a more intelligent exponent of your kind. And sure enough I’m doing no wrong by assessing that you, S ~, are not on top of the list.A very simple and efficiency active antenna electronic project can be designed using this electronic schematic circuit that is based on transistors. This active antenna electronic project is useful for a wide range of RF frequencies covering three RF bands HF, VHF and UHF. This simple active antenna is designed to amplify signals from 3 to 3000 MegaHertz, including three recognized ranges: 3-30Mhz high-frequency (HF) signals; 3-300Mhz veryhigh frequency (VHF) signals; 300-3000MHz ultra-high (UHF) frequency signals.
This HF VHF UHF active antenna contains only two active elements : Q1 (which is an
MFE201 N-Channel dual-gate MOSFET) and Q2 (which is an 2SC2570 NPN VHF silicon transistor). Those transistors provide the basis of two independent, switchable RF pre-amplifiers. Two DPDT switches play a major role in this circuit, switch S1 used to select one of the two pre-amplifier circuits (either HF or VHF/UHF) and switch 2 is used to turn off the power to the circuit, while coupling the incoming RF directly to the input of the receiver.
S2 is useful to give to receiver nonamplified signal access to the auxiliary antenna jack, at J1, as well as the on-board telescoping whip antenna.
This circuit must be powered from a simple 9 volt DC power circuit ( or a 9 volts battery) and is very useful for use as an indoor antenna.Don’t call it corruption. Call it … a confluence of interests. In other words, whatever interested the Clintons became what interested the State Department. A new series of e-mails emerging from FOIA lawsuits and reported by the Wall Street Journal show how Clinton Foundation interests took precedence over matters of state during Hillary Clinton’s tenure:
On Jan. 27, 2011, Clinton Foundation Chief Operating Officer Laura Graham sent an email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills, voicing concern about a rumor. Ms. Graham had heard that Foggy Bottom was thinking about revoking the U.S. visa of Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive. “Wjc will be v unhappy if that’s the case,” Ms. Graham warned Ms. Mills, using the initials of the former president. Ms. Graham, who was also chief of staff to Mr. Clinton at the foundation, had other reasons to worry: “I’m also staying at [Mr. Bellerive’s] house fyi so exposure in general and this weekend in particular for wjc on this.” So Clinton Foundation staff was hobnobbing with a powerful Haitian politician and using connections at the State Department to try to influence U.S. policy decisions involving that same politician. That’s unethical and it is also contrary to what Mrs. Clinton promised when she went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2009 as president-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state nominee.
Just who is Jean Max Bellerive? Mary Anastasia O’Grady explains:
Mr. Bellerive was an important Bill Clinton ally. After the January 2010 earthquake, he worked with the State Department and inside the Haitian parliament to pass emergency legislation that created the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). He and Mr. Clinton became its co-chairmen. The IHRC handled the contracting of hundreds of millions of dollars from the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development and from international donors—with little to show for it as I explained in a May 2014 column. In a December 2010 letter to the IHRC co-chairmen, 12 IHRC commissioners complained that they were never consulted, or even informed about, hiring staff or consultants. Haitians whispered that the lucrative contracts went to the politically connected.
Bear in mind that none of these connections got disclosed — but plenty of people suspected that these types of influence-peddling connections were being made all along. Groups like Citizens United and Judicial Watch filed FOIA demands for e-mail records to find exactly this kind of evidence, as did media outlets like the Associated Press and others, and were repeatedly told that the State Department didn’t have any responsive communications records. That’s because Hillary Clinton used a secret e-mail system that didn’t come to light until well after she had left office.
O’Grady also notes that Bellerive had connections to VCS Mining, which won a permit for gold exploration in Haiti. Readers will recall that VCS Mining had another Clintonista connection — Tony Rodham, Hillary’s brother, who helped get that concession from the Haiti government in 2012. The Washington Post reported on these connections last year, but the new e-mails make a stronger suggestion of a quid pro quo. Clinton Foundation officials intervene on behalf of Bellerive in 2011, and Rodham ends up with a gold-mining concession in 2012 — and Bellerive joined the board of VCS Mining the following year, O’Grady notes.
If that seems like an improbable series of coincidences … you’d be correct. Now that some of the e-mails from State and Hillary’s secret server are finally coming to light, we’re getting a better picture of the culture of corruption that surrounds the Clintons, and which they have gone to great lengths to keep hidden.With Alien: Out of the Shadows due out for release at the end of January, details of the second novel in the trilogy have just surfaced:
“The Alien film franchise has been embraced by sci-fi fans around the world. The series stars Lieutenant Ellen Ripley and her battles with the deadly Xenomorph commonly referred to as the Alien. Continuing the groundbreaking story from ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS by Tim Lebbon, this novel will reveal Ripley’s legacy, as her descendants continue to be harried by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation in their unceasing effort to weaponize the aliens.”
Written by James A. Moore, Sea of Sorrows is due out in July 2014 and looks like to be continuing the theme of using the Ripley family in 2014. You can currently pre-order this over at Amazon. Thanks to Ultramorph for the hint.Conor O’Shea, Harlequins’ director of rugby, has urged Eddie Jones to pick Chris Robshaw for his first Six Nations squad even if the England head coach does decide to select a new captain.
O’Shea believes Robshaw has got any World Cup hangover out of his system and is back to his best, making as strong a claim as a blindside flanker where he has been playing for Quins as he might do as an open side. Jones will have a chance to see for himself what Robshaw has to offer as a No6 as he will probably take in Harlequins’ game against London Irish at the Stoop on Saturday if he has returned in time from Japan.
“Chris is like Richard Hill [the highly regarded former Lions and England flanker], he can perform to the highest level in either of those two flank-forward positions,” O’Shea said. “As he has shown for us, he is very comfortable as a No6.
“People make a song-and-dance about whether he is the No6 or No7. It is about balance. I can fully understand that a new coach might want a change of captain as he wants to put his own stamp on things. That, to me, would not be unusual at all. It is not an issue. I wouldn’t, though, put Chris out of the England side yet. He has just re-emerged fully from the World Cup.
“We are back to seeing the real Chris Robshaw. He will have a break for the Challenge Cup games home and away against Calvisano then begin a run of games over Christmas that will surely see him push for a place in that international squad. I have no doubt that he deserves it.”
O’Shea disclosed that he “can’t wait to talk to Jones”, although it will be purely about matters involving his players rather than for any possible involvement on his coaching panel or, indeed, if a call were ever to come from Twickenham for any putative performance director post. That role has yet to be created but it has been mooted for some future date. O’Shea, who has better credentials than any, distanced himself from any such involvement.
“I have no interest in any of those such roles, be it with Eddie or the RFU,” O’Shea said. “I love what I do here at Harlequins and I want that to continue. I do think, though, that there ought to be an English element to Eddie’s coaching panel.
“There are stacks of quality contenders coaching in the Premiership at the moment. However, I also believe that someone from the current coaching team has to be retained. It makes no sense to let go of all that expertise, just to chuck it all away.”
The Harlequins wing Marland Yarde was due to be released from hospital on Tuesday after spending four days on a drip having picked up an MRSA infection from a cut sustained a fortnight ago against Montpellier. The infection was sustained prior to his entry to hospital and came from a stamp on his calf that pierced the skin.
“It has been hugely worrying,” O’Shea said. “The leg became infected and that only became clear last Friday and Marland was taken straight to hospital.”Since Oakland was incorporated as a city, fifty people have served as its mayor.
Many of these public servants are celebrated for creating policies that helped the city and its residents. Others, like Horace Carpentier, have long been remembered as, well, crooks.
We'll give Carpentier a chance to defend himself, but first — the historical record.
Horace Carpentier, Oakland's first mayor. | Photo: Oakland Planning History
After completing his studies at Columbia University, Carpentier sailed from New York to California in 1850. When he arrived in Oakland two years later, the town was known as "Contra Costa," and had a population of just 70, according to Waterfront Action. At the time, Carpentier was a lawyer based in San Francisco.
According to a 1932 history commissioned by the City Council to celebrate Oakland's 80th anniversary, Carpentier acquired large swaths of Oakland from the Peraltas, owners of a 44,800-acre land grant acquired from California's last Spanish governor.
By 1852, Carpentier used his social and political connections to get himself appointed Enrolling Clerk in the state legislature, where he prepared and handled copies of all new legislation. In May of that year, he put a bill before the legislature to incorporate the town of Contra Costa.
Usually, an incorporation request comes with a petition by local residents, but none was presented in this case. In his request, which was approved on May 4, Carpentier asked the legislature to change the area's name to "Oakland."
Two weeks later, the new township's trustees gave Carpentier the right to develop Oakland's waterfront in exchange for five dollars and 2 percent of the profits, plus three new wharves and a schoolhouse. Along with the rights to the waterways, he also operated a ferry to San Francisco and built a toll bridge across what is known today as Lake Merritt.
Under the terms of the deal, Carpentier was to retain these rights for 37 years.
Long wharf used by Central Pacific Railroad, 1860s. | Photo: CPRR.org
In 1854, Oakland reincorporated as a city and elected Carpentier as its first (and at age 29, its youngest) mayor. Once people found out that Carpentier was the sole businessman profiting off of the waterways, however, they pushed him out of office the following year.
The dispute over who profited from managing the waterfront — Oakland's early economic engine — dragged on for years. By 1868, Carpentier agreed to transfer his rights to a new entity, the Oakland Waterfront Company. (Later, word leaked that Carpentier had made himself president of the Oakland Waterfront Company.)
No longer mayor, Carpentier continued to be a power player in Oakland's development; he promoted transcontinental telegraph and railroad service, which helped establish the city as the western terminus of the first cross-country railroad.
Thanks to his holdings, Carpentier provided venture capital that helped fund UC Berkeley and left the university $200,000 in his will. By the 1880s, Carpentier moved back to New York, where he lived until his death in 1918.
Getting To Know Horace Carpentier. | Video: Hoodline
Hoodline met with local historian Dennis Evanosky to learn more about Carpentier's legacy. A writer and a journalist, Evanosky has studied the first mayor and has portrayed him in plays and other performances.
Evanosky believes history has given Carpentier a bad rap, so we've given him a chance to defend the man's honor. Take a look at the video above, and let us know what you think in the comments.At Puddle of Mudd's Dallas concert April 16, singer Wes Scantlin appeared to be lip syncing.
Fan-filmed video also seems to show Scantlin in a confrontation with an audience member, reportedly who called him Milli Vanilli.
Scantlin eventually left the stage but later returned, throwing bottles and his microphone.
Watch fan-filmed video from the show below (warning: not-safe-for-work language). Fan posts to the band's Facebook page were not flattering of the concert.
Scantlin's recent history has been tumultuous, having been arrested for battering his ex-wife, being involved in a hit-and-run, arrested for vandalizing property, and more.
At :58 of this video, Scantlin puts the microphone into the audience, but his voice can still be heard singing:
Scantlin's mic is cut off:
At 1:12, Scantlin throws the mic, in frustration after being cut off by the soundboard.
Photo credit: Getty ImagesSwiss authorities said to be investigating whether ousted dictator's eldest son, Alaa, was involved in money laundering
The two sons of the ousted Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, have an estimated $340m (£215m) in Swiss bank accounts, a senior Egyptian justice ministry official has said.
Assem al-Gohary said Swiss authorities were investigating whether one of the sons, Alaa, was involved in money laundering along with other former regime figures. At home, Mubarak and his sons have been charged with corruption and all three are under arrest. Mubarak is also charged with complicity in the killing of about 850 protesters during the Egyptian uprising between 25 January and 11 February.
Switzerland has already frozen the assets of the Mubarak family and other former regime figures, which Gohary estimated at nearly $450m. He added that most of those assets belonged to the sons.
Egypt's attorney general froze the assets of the former presidential family on 20 February after the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak.
Mubarak's youngest son and one-time heir apparent, Gamal, 47, rose rapidly through the ranks of his father's ruling National Democratic party over the past decade to become the country's most powerful politician.
The wealth of 49-year-old Alaa has been the subject of much speculation since well before the political rise of his younger brother. There are allegations that he used his status to muscle in on profitable enterprises, taking a cut of profits without contributing to the funds invested or work done.
Gohary also said that the wealth of Mubarak's top associate, the tycoon Hussein Salem, and his family exceeded $4bn. He added that Salem and his family had transferred funds overseas in the past six months.
"They transferred assets into cash and deposited it in secret accounts in banks in islands overseas, Hong Kong and United Arab Emirates," Gohary said in a statement.
The 77-year-old Salem is co-defendant in the Mubarak corruption trial and faces charges in relation to lucrative land and other deals, including exporting gas to Israel. He is also under arrest.
He and his son were arrested in a wealthy Madrid suburb in June and Spain said it had frozen €33m (£29m) in accounts held by Salem and his relatives.
Upon his arrest, Salem, one of the most secretive businessmen in Egypt, appeared before two judges: one handling the Spanish money-laundering probe and another dealing with the international warrant under which Salem was arrested at the request of Egypt.With patch 1.6 finally on the PTS and our review of its major changes being out, I think it’s time I sit down and have a one sided discussion with Zenimax. I’ve sat idly by enjoying all the fantastic content and changes that ZOS has been doing to the game but there are areas of The Elder Scrolls Online that haven’t seen any love since the launch of the game almost a year ago and they need to be addressed.
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Content Updates
While ZOS has managed to adhere to a pretty regular schedule for content updates, it’s been stated by Matt Firor and Paul Sage that we won’t be seeing anything new until after the console release has settled down. Now consoles aren’t slated to release until June, 4 months from the time of this article. If we’re waiting for it to settle down add another two months to that. Six months from now is when we’ll see our next major update to the game. Of course between now and then we’ll still have our incremental updates which will fix bug patches but nothing new in terms of content. I’ve discussed this very thing in a previous column, so I’ll try not to rehash that even though it is extremely important.
In an interview by ESO Off The Record, Paul Sage was asked about Enforcers, the justice part of the newly implemented justice system in patch 1.6
Q: Will enforcer’s tabards be available anytime soon?
A: We need the enforcers system first before we put out the tabards, but it’s on our development backlog. But it won’t be till after console release.
So we won’t be seeing the completion of the justice system until sometime after console release. I know that ZOS wants to ensure that patch 1.6 is completely polished so they can release it on consoles and have as little hiccups as possible, but because of this the PC players have to suffer with doing the same content that we’ve been doing since November. I don’t know about you, but I’ve pretty much completed all that content.
With consoles being released in June, we all suspected that they’d be releasing it without the Veteran Rank system, why would they release a game on a new platform with the premise that a major part of it is going to be removed sometime after? Why would you release a game for new players to spend countless hours grinding their way to VR14 only to have all that progress and time investment removed shortly after?
Let’s not forget about the character copy that some players will be able to do. Not only does this mean there could be instant VR14 characters in PvP, but all those new players will be at a major disadvantage when it comes to PvP.
Implementing the removal of Veteran Ranks prior to the consoles release is the logical choice. If they do this it will have players wanting to buy the game sooner instead of waiting for the removal to happen, but it’ll place those new players on a much more equal playing field in PvP, making it a more enjoyable experience for everyone. Even with the cyrodiil boost, new players will be as powerful as any Level 50 minus their champion points. This will of course give that player an advantage but nothing compared to the advantage a VR14 player has now over a cyrodiil boosted player.
Cyrodiil
This is an aspect of the game that hasn’t seen a single update with the exception of lag performance updates since the game launched back in April. We’ve heard so much about upcoming changes they have planned for Cyrodiil but we’ve never seen anything actually get implemented into the game. What ever happened to Imperial City? When I had the pleasure of going to the Guild Summit back in October I got to see the Imperial City. I saw the dungeons, the mechanics they had planned for it, while we provided the development team with some serious feedback on it, it felt like this was a large aspect of the game they were working on and planning to implement soon. However, that does not feel like the case anymore. Anytime this topic is brought up it is usually pushed aside with the comment “We’re looking heavily into PvP right now”.-- Posted Thursday, 23 April 2009 | | Source: GoldSeek.com
By R. D. Bradshaw In the past year, the Goldsmiths have broached the possibilities of deflation in at least four presentations (parts 27, 47, 54 and 56) in the context that the present economic deflation pressures are coming precisely from the plutocratic ruling Rothschild Cabal. But ultimately, the Goldsmiths have allowed that the eventual threat will devolve to a hyperinflationary blow off. In support of a total deflationary collapse, there have been several scholarly and perceptive articles by different writers. In the Goldsmiths (Parts XXVII and XXXXVII), I have discussed the excellent work of John Olaques on how the banks receiving the bail out funds are simply not loaning those funds out to the public to cause inflation. As I noted, these banks are socking the bail out receipts into US treasuries to hold in their vaults. This process is adding to the deflationary threat. Then there is the very pessimistic work of the Market Ticker in the Goldsmiths, Parts LIV and LVI. This source builds a powerful argument for a total deflationary collapse within a year. If this thing strikes in 2009, as predicted by the Market Ticker, it will be devastating for America and much of the rest of the world. Finally, I must mention the very scholarly work of Professor Antal E. Fekete of the San Francisco School of Economics. He has written some great articles on the subject of inflation versus deflation as published by goldseek.com. In his very informative and provocative study on the Quantity Theory of Money, Professor Fekete addresses the work of Chicago economist Melchior Palyi and the marginal productivity of debt (the ratio of additional GDP to additional debtthus the amount of new GDP contributed by the creation of new debt). He then notes that presently the volume of outstanding debt is rising faster than GDP (actually since 2006, the marginal productivity of debt dropped below zero for the first time since 1945). His conclusion is that the more debt adds nothing to GDP, but causes economic contraction. Fekete then posits that the present situation is a sign of an imminent economic catastrophe. I mention the above three studies supporting a deflationary collapse because if any of them or all three of them are correct then a deflationary collapse will soon come and regardless of how much money Washington spends and irrespective of how much the US monetary base is increased by the Fed. The Contrary View Aside from the above beliefs on a hyper deflationary blow off, there are, of course, a number of procrastinators who opt for a hyperinflationary blow off. Many of these persons believe that such a collapse will come soonlike maybe this year. For my part, I too have believed the hyperinflationary threat but I have chosen to follow the thinking of John Olaques, in the Goldsmiths 27 and 47; in that the hyperinflationary blow off is being delaying thru the present work of the money changers to deflate things and in the practice of the big banks to sock the expanding US money supply into bonds and notes for holding without allowing these expansions to chase goods and services in the US economy (thus, it is clear why this increase in debt is not causing any increase in GDP). Hence, my take has been that though there is presently a deflationary push on by the money changers, it is not succeeding in doing much beyond slowing down the rate of inflation. In this sense, the pending hyperinflationary blow off is being delayed, stalled or deferred till later. In other words, hyperinflation is on the way; but the efforts of the money changers are such at present to delay the eventual reality of hyperinflation. Thus, its coming but the timing is later. For purposes of this Goldsmiths study, I must stick with my prevailing position on this question which is that ultimately hyperinflation will be the catalyst to destroy the economy of the US and much of the rest of the world. But I May Need to Qualify My Position Slightly I see no reason to totally change my basic position on this question presently. But the very excellent works of the Market Ticker and Professor Fekete, in the context of my own remarks at the Goldsmiths, parts XXVII and XXXXVII, prompt me to now read a little more caution into the question of when on the coming hyperinflationary blow out. Professor Feketes words are very compelling to open the possibility that indeed we could soon face a hyper deflationary fall brought on because of the expansion of debt which has reached the saturation point where more debt does not produce more GDP. Of course, based on the work of John Olaques and my own comments in the Goldsmiths, Parts 27 and 47, it is a given that most of this increasing new debt cannot possibly increase GDP because it is being socked away in the bank vaults of the money changers. Clearly, as long as the present US monetary profile prevails, there is a contraction under way. This contraction could conceivably reach the blow out stage as envisioned by the Market Ticker and Professor Fekete. In other words, if things dont change fairly soon, we could conceivably have a hyper deflationary fall beyond anything imaginable. In the Goldsmiths, part 47, I outlined the basis problem. The big banks are getting this increase in the money supply and socking it away in their acquisitions and holdings of US bonds, notes and paper. They are simply not spending it to cause inflation. Simultaneously, unemployed and needing people are using credit cards to live on. This means that Americans are incurring more debts which precipitate high usury interest rates of 10 to 20% per annum. When one adds the credit card debt load to the already existing payments demanded from most of us for mortgages, car payments, etc, it means that we have a huge debt service load. This process is demanding that most of us use much of our income to continuously service this debt load. In this system, the big banks are the total winners as almost all of the people become heavily indebted to the bankers. The Bottom Line My basic thesis remains intact. There is no way to avoid the coming eventuality of a hyperinflationary collapse. In the mean time, pending the arrival of this eventuality, we could have a temporary deflationary fall of a major magnitude (although I have consistently argued that while the money changers are causing a deflationary fall they want it to be limited or contained and not get out of hand to rile the people up in anarchy and rebellion). I think that if we do face a significant deflationary fall, as is possible, then the politicians will go wild and pass out money on the streets to any and every body. In other words, the process of bailing out and paying money essentially to the big banks will fall by the wayside as the give aways shift to the man on the street (right now, the average American has received very little of the bail out funds as most of this give away money has been going to the big banks; but this focus could change in a deflationary collapse). With too serious of a deflation, even the bankers will get scared of the possibilities of revolution and anarchy in the streets which could get people so mad that they will start hanging money changers, along with politicians. This is a very dangerous situation that the Rothschild Cabal has set up. Yet, there is something else on the horizon which clarifies why the Cabal has chosen this path of deflation knowing full well that whether deflation or inflation, they will ultimately rile up the people so much so that internal social problems could force them to get into their private jets and speed off to other countries around the world where they hold passports and have secret bank accounts in place. Thus, the present bank bail out scheme is designed for them to steal and plunder all of the remaining wealth in the United States. They are keeping the dollar high in value so that when the time comes, and they must leave the US, they can transfer/convert their dollar assets to things of more permanent value in more stable foreign countrieslike hard currencies, gold, silver, real estate (in certain foreign countries or in valuable US farm land), other commodities, etc. I am sorry to say that the likes of Bernanke, Geithner, the Rothschilds, etc are not stupid people. Actually, it would be good for the US if they were just dumb. No, I think they know exactly what they are doing. This whole process has been carefully thought out. It is not a random change operation; though some persons still believe this fairy tale nonsense. The fat cats are going to plunder and steal the last remaining vestiges of wealth in America. And when the time comes, they will, if necessary. save their own hides by fleeing to a safe foreign country of their own choosing. Those of us remaining in the US will be faced with a collapsehyper deflationary/hyperinflationary. Hence, in conclusion, I must allow that maybe the plutocrat imposed deflationary scenario could plunge downward in such a fashion that the thinking of the deflationists will prevail for a season. But in that case, our politicians will go wild and flood dollars to people on the street so fast and furious that the ultimately predicted hyperinflation will come into being. As long as the bail out funds have been going to the big banks for them to sock the give aways in US notes/bonds in their bank vaults, it has not caused hyperinflation. But if and when the give aways start going to the collective American people, hyperinflation will soon be on us. In terms of whatever laws are in effect to restrict the Fed in its money creating capacity, they all mean little or nothing for two key reasons. First the Fed is never audited, checked or verified. Its operations are conducted in secrecy. Therefore, the Fed can do as it chooses. And last, if necessary, the President/Congress can amend or change whatever law/rule deemed necessary. So if the Fed claims that it cant print money to flood the US streets, the law can be changed. Even presently, in WWII and on other occasions, the Fed reportedly monetized debt by simply exchanging Federal Reserve Notes with the Treasury for US notes and bonds. This process has allowed the Fed to greatly increase the money supply without a hitch in comparison with how thing are if the Fed has to use its open market operations to buy notes and bonds on the open market. Too, since the Fed receives interest income on all of its US notes and bonds (which is in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars annually), it is constantly receiving huge payments from the Treasury which allow it to be able to buy treasuries at random thru its open market operations and undertake other measures to manipulate and control the markets. _________________________________________________________________________ Back issues of the Goldsmiths, by the editor of the Analysis of News, can be accessed from a Google or Yahoo search engine by typing in R. D. Bradshaw Goldsmiths. Several hundred web sites can be found with the back issues and with translations to Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and other foreign languages. Goldseek.com has most of the back issues of the Goldsmiths. Finally, the Archives-Goldsmiths of this website ( www.analysis-news.com ) has all of the Goldsmith articles issued to date. Besides the revelations contained in the Goldsmiths articles, the work of the plutocratic financial market manipulators to conspiratorially manipulate and control the financial markets (to make more profits and install a world government under their management) is also addressed at length in the periodic analysis of the news and in other articles produced at www.analysis-news.com. This website has an article of interest to any person interested in understanding the market Manipulators. It is the Hidden Secret of the Manipulators, why they succeed and how to follow their manipulations. Readers of the above articles are invited to visit www.analysis-news.com and become a subscriber to regularly read some of the material from the world of information which will further reveal how extensive the manipulation, control and dishonesty realities are in the financial, currency and commodity markets, not only in the US but indeed around the world. To go to the home page of this website, please click at the link here: www.analysis-news.com.
-- Posted Thursday, 23 April 2009 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com
Previous ArticlesLast week Andrea Hah climbed Tiger Cat at the new ‘it’ crag of the Blue Mountains, Elphinstone.
The ascent was significant because it was Andrea’s first of the grade, making her only the second Australian woman to climb 33 – Monique Forestier was the first with her ascent of Fish Eye (33/8c) at Oliana in Spain. Notably, it is the first 33 climbed by an Australian woman on home soil.
We spoke to Andrea to find out a bit more about the ascent.
What was your process with Tiger Cat?
When I first moved to the Blue Mountains, someone said to me, “No female will ever climb 33 in the Blue Mountains.” At this time, I was nowhere near this level but it seemed a pretty good challenge.
On return from Mt Buffalo in January I decided to reprioritise my life and focus on my climbing again. Elphinstone is the current flavour of the year and after climbing Green Grass (29) I got on Tiger Cat. Lee Cossey had just done the first ascent, and was adamant that it would suit me. I began a training program with the long term goal of climbing it, but it seems my long term goal wasn’t so long term after all.
Due to the style of the route I made gradual progress each day, whether it be better linkage on the pumpy upper section or better percentages on the lower cruxes. This style of climbing enables a really exciting and rewarding redpointing process, making it easy to go back day after day. Each day, feeling fitter and stronger than the last.
How did the ascent go down?
The day started rather haphazardly. Julian Saunders was carrying in a 10L fire hydrant to clean his new route |
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Have fun!!
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Support/feedback forum opened HERE.
UPDATE: official site is being down for quite a while, sorry about that. Probably has something to do with government... ModDB is doing just fine.
PS: Although we, the developers, go easy on copyright matters, it's a nice thing to do to keep our names and link when you decide to use this game's resources in your needs.
> From the same author(s): X-Half-Life: DeathmatchMallusk woman Heather Fee - a former NI21 election candidate - has joined the Ulster Unionist Party.
UUP leader Mike Nesbitt joined with South Antrim MP Danny Kinahan and local council group leader Alderman Mark Cosgrove to welcome Mrs Fee as the newest member of the party.
Mrs Fee, who lives in Mallusk with her husband and three children, became involved in politics whilst spearheading a successful campaign to secure integrated status for the local primary school. She stood for NI21 in the 2014 local government election, but failed to win a seat on Antrim and Newtownabbey Council.
“I am excited to become a member of this strong and progressive party, especially at this challenging time. Politics must change for the better and I am confident that the UUP policies and leadership can achieve that aim,” she said.
Vowing to provide a strong voice for her local community, Mrs Fee added: “We live in a wonderfully multi-cultural society where every citizen deserves to be represented by forward thinking politics and political parties capable of making decisions without bias.
“The UUP respects and embraces all cultures and creeds. These are the only policies that will pave the way to a prosperous future for the people of Northern Ireland and I am very proud to play my part in upholding that vision.”
Welcoming Mrs Fee into the party, Alderman Cosgrove commented: “I am delighted that Heather has decided to join the ever growing ranks of the Ulster Unionist Party.
“I look forward to working with her on local issues for the advancement of the local community.”Welcome to Windows Azure Linux!
Linux and Windows are popularly thought of to get along like a bad tempered Pekingese dog and an ill-mannered Siamese cat. Things have changed though since Bill Gates said that "The GPL (General Public License, Linux's license] … makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work." Things have changed. Now, Microsoft has announced that its Azure cloud will support persistent VMs which will enable users to run Linux distributions. These distros are: openSUSE 12.1, CentOS 6.2, Ubuntu 12.04 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP2.
This development isn't as surprising as it may sound. As ace Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley reported earlier this year, "Running Linux on Azure has been a surprisingly big business-customer request." A quick look at the Cloud Market analysis of operating systems on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) on June 7th found that there over 18-thousand Ubuntu Linux instances currently running and about 10-thousand otherwise unidentified Linux instances. In contrast, there were only 33-hundred Windows instances. It's as plain as the nose on your face: businesses want Linux servers on the cloud.
In addition, Microsoft has been working with Novell, SUSE's predecessor company, on Windows and Linux network and virtualization integration since 2006. More recently, SUSE and Microsoft have been working on Linux and Hyper-V integration. Making it possible to run openSUSE, SUSE's community distribution, and SLES on Azure was the natural next move.
It comes as no surprise then that SUSE seems to have the most mature offering for its Linux on Azure. Besides offering simple instances of SLES, users can use SUSE Studio, SUSE's build your own virtual server application Web-based service to build their own cloud-ready applications and automatically launch them on Windows Azure.
SUSE is also including automatic maintenance that keeps SLES up-to-date on the most current security patches, bug fixes and new features on Azure. In addition, SUSE is backing SLES on Azure with its usual range of support options In a statement, Sandy Gupta, general manager of the Open Solutions Group at Microsoft, said "Through our continued engagement on technical interoperability with SUSE, we look forward to delivering core value to those running mission-critical, mixed-source IT environments from the data center and into the cloud."
As for Ubuntu, Paul Oh, Canonical's business development director wrote, "Canonical and Microsoft worked together to ensure that Ubuntu, tested, certified and enterprise ready from the start." Oh continued, "During the current Spring Release of Windows Azure, you can launch Ubuntu images directly from the Windows Azure Gallery. The Windows Azure gallery currently contains Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS and support is available directly from Canonical. In the Fall Release of Windows Azure you will be able to buy support directly from the Windows Azure Gallery."
CentOS, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone, will also be available on Azure. You will be able to get support for CentOS on Azure from OpenLogic, an open-source support company.
Want to try it for yourself? Microsoft is presently offering a 90-day free trial of Azure. In addition, during the preview period Microsoft will offer discounted hourly rates for Linux Virtual Machines ranging from $0.013 per hour up to $0.64 per hour depending on the instance size.
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Amazon EC2 cloud is made up of almost half-a-million Linux serversAfter 90 minutes of being made into mincemeat by Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena last Tuesday evening, Juventus have much to do in the return leg of their Champions League quarterfinal match-up with the German giants if they hope to progress to the next round.
The Old Lady has not reached the semifinals of Europe’s elite competition since the 2002-03 campaign, ultimately falling to fellow Italians AC Milan in the title match on penalties at Old Trafford whilst current boss Antonio Conte still plied his trade in midfield for the famed Turin outfit.
The 42-year-old coach will now be charged with preparing his players both mentally and tactically for the task of turning over an honestly flattering 2-0 deficit at the Juventus Stadium next Wednesday against Jupp Heynckes’ Bavarian machine on the back of a thoroughly humbling experience in Munich.
Harried in possession, a step behind on the break, inaccurate in distribution and timid in the tackle, the Bianconeri were thoroughly beaten in the tie’s opening overture in a manner ironically similar to that which they have made their trademark under Conte in the past 16 months.
Good news arrives only in the form of the Italians’ two goal arrears entering the final 90 minutes considering the massive amount of chances Die Roten created, and contrived to miss, on Tuesday night.
And so with it all to do whilst down, but not out, the following are the five things Juventus must do to beat Bayern Munich.
Keep a clean sheet
There is simply no genius to behold in the statement that Conte’s men must hold their potent adversary at bay to have a chance at qualifying for the semifinals, but it is nonetheless true. Down a pair of scores and having failed to nick a goal on the road, conceding in the return leg at any time would almost certainly spell the end of the Old Lady’s Champions League run in 2012-13.
Last week Juventus’ revered back three of Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci, and Giorgio Chiellini looked a shell of the defensive unit that kept five straight clean sheets on the bounce in continental play prior to stepping out onto the pitch at the Allianz Arena. The Azzurri trio must somehow regain their confidence for the deciding hour-and-a-half to shut down Bayern’s dangerous offence, having been made into victims of pace, pressing, and their own poor tackling in Munich rather than assuming their usual roles as rearguard protagonists.
Legendary keeper Gianluigi Buffon, who has incurred his own share of criticism for failing to keep out David Alaba’s strike in the opening minute of the first leg, will also need to be at his best in goal to keep the Bavarians off the scoresheet. Even if Juventus’ defence can turn in a top-class display on Wednesday, Italy’s longtime number one will undoubtedly be called into service at some point given the immense skill of Bayern’s attackers.
Pull one back early
Few things in football can give a team a heavy dose of assurance like an early goal. This truism goes double for a disheartened side playing at a two goal disadvantage in the second leg of a titanic Champions League encounter.
With every second that ticks off the clock in Turin, more pressure will mount on the Bianconeri as they face a race against time to make up lost ground against a ruthless opponent. Frustration can be as much an obstacle as anything, so it is imperative that Juventus rediscover the clinical edge they displayed against Celtic in the round of 16 to reduce the deficit to one as soon as possible.
Bayern were duly shocked in the previous stage of the competition when Olivier Giroud smashed home from close range inside five minutes at the Allianz Arena in the return edition of their tie with Arsenal. Though Heynckes’ men were able to largely control the territory of the match from that moment forward, the anxiety of having been hit so soon after kickoff was clearly visible in their demeanour and they ultimately required the away goals rule for passage after Laurent Koscielny struck once again late on for the Gunners. Conte’s men would do well to emulate the performance of the Londoners who, if anything, retrospectively showed that the Bianconeri’s task is not impossible under the right circumstances.
Control Bastian Schweinsteiger
Amidst a wonderful team performance from the Bavarians in the first leg, the star that shone brightest of all for Die Roten was Bastian Schweinsteiger.
The Germany international was simply a force of nature in the centre of the park, spraying incisive passes all over the pitch from in front of the back four, whilst immediately laying waste to any forward movements from the Old Lady with controlled malice in the air and on the ground. Juventus can plainly not afford to allow such a display once again by the Bayern vice-captain, or risk facing a fate mirroring that of the last Tuesday.
The Bianconeri will need to limit the space the 28-year-old is allowed on the ball on the defensive front, an undertaking in which they previously proved inadequate, forcing him into errant deliveries and impeding his ability to take advantage of his excellent vision up field. Man-marking the midfield dynamo is an option sure to be considered by Conte in his preparations, and could prove the only method able to sufficiently stifle Schweinsteiger’s attacking talents.
Key to circumventing the Bayern youth product on the offensive front will be quick and intelligent movement from Juventus with a sharpness that was starkly absent in the maiden 90 minutes. Nullifying German’s indomitable will to press is a task near impossible for any side in world football, but his effectiveness could be considerably lowered with the proper energy and positioning going forward.
Release the Kraken
The phrase itself conjures up images of a certain John Arne Riise, but the reference is this case refers rather to the man endearingly likened to a different Cephalopod by the Bianconeri faithful – Il Polpo.
More specifically, Il Polpo Paul. Paul Pogba, that is.
The impressive 20-year-old appears set to start in the return leg given the suspension of Arturo Vidal, and very well could be the decisive answer for Juventus in the battle for midfield supremacy. Pogba’s versatility and fearless style of play offer the type of spark so sorely missed as Conte’s men were battered at the Allianz Arena, whilst his inclusion in the side from the off could serve to inspire his more experienced teammates given his remarkable ability to shrug off the weight of expectations and penchant for the fantastic.
Key in Pogba’s mission will be his capability in protecting Andrea Pirlo – winning the ball back from Bayern’s attackers and playing the bearded regista into space so that he may orchestrate matters on the front foot for the Old Lady.
And of course, one of the young Frenchman’s trademark searing rockets from distance hitting the back of Manuel Neuer’s net wouldn’t hurt, either.
Man the fortress
It seems only fitting that Juventus will face their biggest test yet in Conte’s tenure at the helm at their eponymous arena – a citadel in which they have lost just twice since its inception at the outset of the 2011-12 campaign.
With tickets to the Bayern clash having sold out by March 27 before reaching general sale, the stadium will be filled to capacity and the atmosphere is sure to be one to behold, even despite the two goal shortfall the Bianconeri will be up against. The importance of home support cannot be overstated in football, and the Old Lady’s soldiers will need to take full advantage in feeding off of the energy coursing through the building if they are to make April 10, 2013 a day for the club’s illustrious history books.
Because for Juventus to be successful, they must see the positive opportunity in a situation that looks quite bleak. The return leg must not be a match in which to save face, a game in which to go down fighting – but rather the stage on which to accomplish something extraordinary with the club’s fans in vociferous participation.
You can follow Ian Capasso on Twitter: @capasso10Joe Hockey accused of 'defer and distract' strategy after speech on income tax cuts
Updated
A leading accounting group has savaged Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey's comments on income tax cuts, accusing him of repeating rhetoric instead of fixing Australia's "broken down tax system".
Key points Hockey says bracket creep behind push for income tax cuts
Treasurer says changes will encourage people to stay in workforce
CPA Australia says speech just recycled rhetoric
Mr Hockey made the case for income tax cuts, including for Australia's highest earners, during a speech in Sydney in which he highlighted the problem of "bracket creep".
He said the Government had to cut taxes for middle and low-income earners, saying that without the changes, almost half of all taxpayers would be in the top two tax brackets in a decade.
But Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA) Australia's Alex Malley has lashed the Government for what he called pre-election "fiscal giveaways".
"The Treasurer appears to be caught in a cycle of restating the problems rather than rethinking the solutions," Mr Malley said.
"The issue of income tax, GST, super [annuation], company tax, land tax is yet to be discussed... it really is being deferred and deferred and deferred.
"To actually start forcing a conversation around just personal income tax says to me that we're in a downhill slide to an election and that's not good for Australia, we need to make some tough decisions.
"To defer and distract again in relation to tax and tell us what we already knew at a five-star hotel in Sydney is not my idea of leadership."
The Treasurer argued the tax changes would help economic growth.
"If people are left in those higher tax brackets... the incentive for hard work is blunted — and inflation means that without a real wage rise, people pay a higher and higher average tax rate each year," he said.
"If people are discouraged from work and we cannot address our workforce participation challenges, then Australia will face greater economic pressures," Mr Hockey said.
"The price we pay for failing to strengthen and improve our tax system is less income than Australians should receive and fewer jobs than Australians could hold.
Asked on 612 ABC Brisbane whether income tax cuts or returning to surplus was his priority, Mr Hockey replied: "Well, it's both."
"We illustrated that in our May budget, where we were able to give small business a $5 billion tax cut. We were able to do that by finding [and] offsetting savings.
"It is hugely important that we have targeted tax cuts that help grow the economy... which in turn helps to create greater wealth and then gives us more revenue."
Labor labels Hockey speech 'thought bubble'
Mr Hockey said Australia's highest marginal tax rate — at 47 per-cent — is higher than countries including New Zealand and Singapore.
He was expected to argue the top rate kicks in earlier than other countries, and the tax system relies too much on high income earners.
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said Mr Hockey brought no credibility to a discussion about tax changes.
"This is more talk from the man who's been talking about lower and fairer taxes for several years now and has delivered higher and more unfair taxes, and especially unfair spending cuts," Mr Bowen said.
"The billions of dollars of cuts that would be necessary to fund the sort of tax cuts that Joe Hockey's flagging today would come at a very significant cost.
"Joe Hockey needs to outline in much greater detail than he has in a thought bubble today, how he's going to go about this plan."
Respected economist Saul Eslake said bracket creep was an issue that needed to be addressed, but that reducing the overall tax take was hard to justify.
"While there is a good case for doing something about the likelihood, the certainty, that people will be pushed into the second top tax bracket who shouldn't be there, there is also a compelling case... for other reforms to the tax system that will help keep the budget on a sustainable footing, as there is also a case, of course, for continued restraint in government spending," he said.
Topics: tax, government-and-politics, hockey-joe, federal-government, australia
First postedVideo (02:13) : Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek says his jail has become a warehouse for people who have mental health problems and are being wrongly criminalized for their symptoms. On any given day, the jail holds 100 to 200 inmates with diagnosed psychiatric disorders -- many of them incarcerated for months before receiving appropriate care.
During his 40 days in the Hennepin County jail, Michael Schuler told deputies he was the Prince of Wales. He stood naked in his own feces and talked to himself for hours. He became so agitated that at one point the jail’s contract medical staff deliberately withheld his medications.
In all that time, Schuler never received a psychiatric evaluation — even though years of court files showed that he suffered from severe psychosis.
On May 2, 2012, Schuler finally found a way out of jail: He stabbed himself in both eyes and was rushed to a hospital.
Twenty days later, Judge Jay Quam left his chambers at the Hennepin County courthouse and walked four blocks to Schuler’s hospital ward for a special commitment hearing. Except for the horrific injuries, Quam says, Schuler wasn’t much different from hundreds of other failed cases he saw in the county’s Mental Health Court.
On any given day, the Hennepin County jail holds 100 to 200 inmates with severe psychiatric disorders, according to records reviewed by the Star Tribune. They represent fully one quarter of the jail’s population, and they languish there, on average, for three months before getting proper psychiatric care.
Across Minnesota, judges, attorneys and sheriffs cite dozens of similar cases in other county jails. They describe a system that, in effect, criminalizes the mentally ill because of backlogs in the state commitment process and a shortage of psychiatric beds.
Video (01:49): Judge: State broke its promises to mentally ill Video (01:49): Judge: State broke its promises to mentally ill
“What you’re seeing is people who are mentally ill being labeled as criminals,” said a frustrated Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek.
Confined under harsh and dangerous conditions, many of these inmates get worse. Five days after Schuler’s incident, Tyondra Newton, 25, a schizophrenic, hanged herself after spending 34 days in her cell. A week later, Jason Moore, an All America wrestler at St. Olaf College before he succumbed to schizophrenia, broke his neck after repeatedly smashing his face into a cell toilet.
“Jailing people for their symptoms is a travesty,” says Sue Abderholden, who heads the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Not caring enough to do anything about it, which is what we are seeing year after year, is inhumane.”
Today, under a court order from Quam, the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is trying to reduce the backlogs. But top state officials admit that the state is failing to provide adequate care.
“I don’t blame anyone for running out of patience with us and how we’ve managed this previously,” Deputy Human Services Commissioner Anne Barry said in an interview. “People shouldn’t be sitting in jail waiting for treatment.”
Months behind bars
The Star Tribune examined records for nearly 100 inmates who were jailed in Hennepin County between 2010 and early 2013 and then evaluated for commitment to state psychiatric care. The documents show long delays at every step of the process.
Many were arrested on common misdemeanor charges such as disorderly conduct. Yet on average they waited in jail more than a month just to get a psychiatric evaluation. Then it took, on average, another 36 days for an examiner to submit a finding; a week for the court to open a judicial commitment case; and a further 30 days for a judge to decide whether to commit them to state psychiatric care, according to a Star Tribune analysis of jail bookings.
Among those who were eventually committed for care, inmates waited an average of 14 additional days in the jail before the state opened a bed for them, records show.
Since 2010, at least 15 of these inmates were jailed for six months or more, and two were jailed for more than a year.
Derres King, who has HIV and eight mental disorders, was jailed for more than six months before being committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital at St. Peter. Darrell Gibson, who was arrested last year for jaywalking in downtown Minneapolis, spent two months in the jail — barking like a dog and smearing urine on the wall — before he was hospitalized. That’s more jail time than many inmates who are sentenced for ordinary misdemeanors.
Broken promise
The plight of these inmates reflects two decades of breakdowns in Minnesota’s public mental health system. The state once operated several large psychiatric hospitals — the best known in Anoka, Fergus Falls and St. Peter — that housed thousands of patients. Under pressure from the courts and social reformers, Minnesota began closing them in the 1990s and releasing patients to the community.
For thousands of patients, life with medications and transitional services proved a huge success.
But for a small share — those who are aggressive and violent — the state never built suitable new facilities. Today, hundreds wind up in court and in jail.
These patients represent a small fraction of the estimated 200,000 Minnesotans who have serious, diagnosed mental illness. But their numbers are not small: Some 4,000 Minnesotans were committed by judges for state treatment in a recent 18-month period, including patients with severe mental illness, chemical dependency and developmental disabilities.
Michael Schuler stabbed himself in both eyes after spending 40 days in jail.
“We have broken our promises to the mentally ill,” Quam said in an interview. “We’ve closed the institutions down and moved these people out into the community [but] did not give them the places to stay and treatment they needed. They end up in jail, and the conditions are beyond what most people can imagine.”
Many wind up cycling through the system repeatedly.
Schuler, the inmate who stabbed himself in the eyes, is an example. Early last year, after one scrape with the law, he admitted himself to Hennepin County Medical Center for psychiatric care. While in the hospital, he missed a mandatory court hearing for his previous offense. The result: On his release from the hospital, he was immediately arrested and sent right back into the criminal justice system.
Talking to the wall
The Hennepin County jail — a drab, brown cube in the heart of downtown Minneapolis — runs like a huge machine that vacuums up the violent, the passive, the sick and the helpless.
It’s a sterile place, yet one that overloads the visitor’s senses: Fluorescent lights and the lack of windows throw off an inmate’s internal clock. Screaming and threats are often the greetings to the day. People with fragile minds stand and talk to the wall or pace in their own waste until a cleaning team is ordered in. They pound on the metal doors and they shadow box with imaginary opponents. They stare off into a landscape only they can see from a 6- by 10-foot cell.
Injuries among these inmates can be brutal. One man recently jumped over a railing and fell 25 feet, landing face first and fracturing his skull.
Two psychiatrists contracted from Hennepin County Medical Center make weekly rounds, but records and officials say it’s often insufficient to keep psychotic inmates from deteriorating.
Interior of a Hennepin County Jail cell.
Since he was elected seven years ago, Stanek has watched the jail — Minnesota’s only detention facility with national accreditation for psychiatric inmates — become a medical center of last resort. If an inmate had a broken leg, he says, Hennepin County Medical Center wouldn’t hesitate to admit. With mental illness, it’s completely different.
“This is a fairness issue,” Stanek said. “We should not be criminalizing the mentally ill because there’s no other place to put them.”
It’s also an economic issue: The average cost per day to house a jailed inmate is $117; in a state psychiatric facility, the daily cost can exceed $1,000.
‘A huge test’
In late 2010 and early 2011, Ronald Brewer spent several months in the Hennepin County jail before Quam ordered him committed to a state facility. Nearly a month later, the judge got a call from Brewer’s attorney, who said Brewer was still sitting in jail.
Angered, Quam ordered a “show-cause” hearing, at which state officials would explain how they intended to begin complying with judicial commitment orders.
In April 2011, he got an answer. Mike Tessneer, then head of DHS’s huge State Operated Services division, wrote Quam to assure him that psychiatric inmates were being swiftly moved out of jails and into care. He said the Brewer issue had been put to rest, and he described a “marked reduction” in the number of days that inmates remained in jail awaiting treatment after commitment.
But deputies at the jail produced dozens of cases in which inmates were still spending several weeks in jail after commitment orders had been handed down.
about this series Breakdown is a Star Tribune investigative series examining failures in Minnesota’s mental health system that have left hundreds of psychiatric patients in limbo — many of them languishing in county jails, cycling through the criminal justice system and sinking deeper into dangerous psychoses. TODAY: The Hennepin County jail in Minneapolis has become a “holding tank’’ for hundreds of patients with mental illness who run afoul of the law and then wind up incarcerated for weeks or months in harsh and dangerous conditions.
As a result, DHS has been stripped of the power to decide when it will open a bed for an inmate who has been committed by a judge. A state law that took effect Aug. 1 requires the agency to offer placement within 48 hours of a commitment order.
“It will be a huge test for us,” said Barry, the deputy commissioner. “But it’s the right thing to do. I agree.”
Yet the new law addresses only one part of the long jail delays. Psychotic inmates can still wait weeks — even months — for a psychiatric evaluation and other steps leading up to a judge’s commitment order.
191 days
Last May, Julie Berntson appeared in Quam’s courtroom to close a circle with Derres King.
King, the patient with HIV and eight mental disorders, had been arrested in October 2011. The daily jail log described his steady deterioration and the risk he posed to himself and others.
On New Year’s Eve, a fight broke out inside the jail. When Julie’s husband, Sgt. Bradley Berntson, tried to intervene, King bit him. Two months later, taking a heavy dose of drugs to prevent the transmission of King’s HIV, Bradley Berntson died.
King finally received a court hearing for psychiatric commitment in April 2012 — 191 days after his arrest.
“Mr. King, I don’t blame you,” Julie Berntson said. “I don’t hate you. I forgive you because that is what Brad would do. But I ask that you take advantage of the opportunity that you have been given. And I ask Judge Quam [to] continue to work for the men and women who do this job every day. We have a responsibility to keep them safe.”
She has sued Hennepin County for failing to protect her late husband.
As for Schuler, who stabbed himself in the eyes: He lives in the Twin Cities in a state-funded residential facility, where he receives continuous care and medication. He has hired two attorneys and is suing Hennepin County and its medical contractor for the care he received while in jail.
His mental condition has stabilized, according to those responsible for his care, but his eyesight will never fully recover.Last week my work on irregularities in Turkish elections (see here, here, and here) appeared in the pro-government newspaper Takvim (here). In contrast to previous mentions in the Turkish media, this article does not focus as much on the analysis as on the context.
You see, it would appear that all my work is part of a big plan led by the “banker lobby”, a rather shady group including such celebrities as the “Jewish Baron” Murdoch (“İngiltere’nin Yahudi medya Baronu Murdoch”) and the Wallenbergs, one of the more influential business families in Sweden. The author, Bekir Hazar, especially notes the decision of Knut Agathon Wallenberg to donate money for founding the Stockholm School of Economics in 1903, where I work today.
So it’s not that Turkey’s most recent elections may have featured unprecedented levels of vote rigging in major cities like Ankara and Istanbul. No, instead, there are bankers who wish to destabilize New Turkey using any instrument they can get their hands on, which I guess in this case would be me.
If this sounds outlandish, paranoid, or just batshit crazy in any way, that is because it is. But it is nonetheless the daily routine for those journalists working for the pro-government newspapers, with many (including Takvim) owned by Calık Holding, a holding company controlled by Prime Minister Erdogan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak.
The use of anti-semitism and conspiracies is one of the pro-government media’s main instruments to counter domestic disturbances, like the Gezi protests or the more recent corruption leaks. In November last year, Takvim’s editor wrote an article stating “Those working for Jewish bosses, using the Turkish state for their own interests will get hurt!” A couple of days ago, a tweet by the same editor painted Twitter (recently blocked, then unblocked after a decision by the Constitutional Court) as run by Jews. Given Erdogan’s heavy hand in the Turkish media, it is noteworthy that this kind of hate speech is allowed to go on.
As uncomfortable as it is to appear in an article full of hate speech and ant-semitism, this is but a drop in the ocean of what happens to Turkish citizens who dare to report on any irregularity in Turkey, which for several years running has been the world’s largest jailer of journalists.
But it is also revealing that Takvim attempts to counter my work in the first place, and without any real factual response, a likely sign that the broad allegations of irregularities in the elections of Ankara is taking its toll.
Given Takvim’s nack for science fiction, I am sure they are familiar with H. G. Wells who is attributed with the following quote:
Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.
We will know this to have succeeded in Turkey when Takvim replaces gibberish with confidence intervals. Until then, if they want to investigate the genealogy of statistics, be my guest. I’m sure they’ll find a Jewish grandmother in there somewhere.Getting involved
4Ward Productions had already had a long history with James Cameron—they contributed to both Aliens and The Abyss—before the director asked them to come on-board Terminator 2. “Jim gave us the script and I sat over at Lightstorm Entertainment [Cameron’s production company] with a guard sitting next to me while I read the script,” recalled Skotak. “The script was given to us for only so many hours to read because they were trying to keep it hush-hush so all the cool stuff didn’t get immediately in the press and get second guessed.”
Cameron asked 4Ward which shots they would like to work on, and the nuclear nightmare scene became one that Skotak thought “would be very dramatic and interesting thing to do,” as well as complement a fascination with having grown up during the Cold War era.
4Ward would also contribute to shots in the steel plant featuring the liquid metal blobs that begin to reform into the T-1000 terminator. Interestingly, 4Ward was originally going to further produce a silo missile launch scene but this was deleted during pre-production. And Skotak was additionally hired as art director on a teaser promo for the film directed by Stan Winston, the film’s mechanical creature effects supervisor, that showcased a factory of terminator parts in development. Watch the teaser below:
Planning a nuclear nightmare
A number of storyboard artists began planning out the nightmarish nuclear scenarios based on Cameron’s script. These included Steve Berg doing some concept work, and Sherman Labby starting on the boards before Phil Norwood then took over duties. After discussion, Norwood drew images larger than regular storyboards to allow for as much detail as possible. “Camera placement was important as was perspective to allow for 4Ward to build only what they needed for the miniatures and to fit within the stage they were going to shoot in,” Norwood told Cartoon Brew.
At the time, Cameron had established a relatively consistent approach to boarding. It would start from a description or thumbnail, according to Norwood, who would then lightly pencil the storyboard on Xerox paper and hang it on a wall. Once the sequence was penciled, Cameron would be able to make revisions if necessary and once the pencils were approved, Norwood would ink over them with ballpoint pen and gray markers. These were then presented for scanning and numbering.
4Ward also had a role in refining the boards and drew inspiration from nuclear explosion reference material. This was before Youtube and the internet, so they would pull out films and documentaries that were available on VHS tape. Iconic nuclear explosion shots of the houses heating up and then being flattened and the trees lashing from left to right were very much part of this reference. The storyboarding team also looked at Akira as inspiration which has the shot of the expanding dome of energy, bowling over, smashing buildings, radiating outward from the core of the explosion. “That was almost like a storyboard in a way,” recalled Skotak, “and gave us some ideas on the general effect of what Jim would like to see.”
A dancer for a mushroom cloud?
The first shot in the sequence handled by 4Ward is the playground setting in LA. Suddenly, a large mushroom cloud explosion appears in the near distance (a number of shots of the burning humans during the sequence were Stan Winston Studio creations). 4Ward’s immediate solution for the cloud was to create a practical effect rather than digital since there were aspects of the explosion that could be replicated for real. But to get a ‘performance’ from the cloud required something extra, and for this Skotak thought a dancer with good pantomiming skills could hit the mark. His rationale was that a dancer could wear a mushroom cloud costume and then stand up and expand and roll their arms out to become a big roiling cloud.
Skotak says everybody thought he was crazy, but it turns out Cameron had had a similar idea. Ultimately, the idea did not move to fruition and instead what was created became a column of base cloud on the ground with another column reaching up as the overhead mushroom shape. Attached was a series of Plexiglass shapes with rotating discs. Effects artists would lift this structure, which was filled with fiber-fill (for the cloud appearance), with cables and push the cloud column upward. Attached to that cloud-like Plexiglas shape were the rotating disks that also had clouds on them, so they would rotate inward. The scene was filmed on VistaVision and then composited, by a company called Hollywood Optical, into background plates of the playground.
LA is burning – a combination of old and new, and breakfast cereal
What follows is a wide shot of Los Angeles as the nuclear blast wipes out blocks of buildings and a foreground home in the hills above. At first the shot was imagined by Cameron as one that could be achieved by building a miniature L.A. city out in the desert and blowing up tons of TNT next to the set to let a shockwave wipe out the buildings. Skotak quickly advised against this approach given the unpredictability and need to acquire permits for all the pyro work.
In the end, it was still achieved as an incredibly complicated shot that involved the combination of real photography, practical effects with air cannons, split screens, matte painting, and the latest digital visual effects—even though it was still composited on an optical printer. “We basically had to create a machine on stage to put this shot together because it was all assembled in-camera,” said Skotak. “It was done as a continuous take with all those elements fused as in-camera exposures.”
The first step was to acquire a high angle of L.A., which was done by hiring a pilot to fly above the city and take stills that replicated the angle seen in the storyboards. From there, matte painters Rick Rische and Richard Kilroy created an image of a destroyed Los Angeles. The idea here was that during the in-camera exposure, there would be a wipe across the frame from the photograph of L.A. to the matte painting of L.A. in ruins. But to be able to make that transition, 4Ward also needed the buildings to be seen getting hit and shattered. Added to this challenge, they were mostly backlit, making them more or less just silhouettes.
The solution was a CG one, but even then Skotak wanted a practical reference. He went with the shattering of, believe it or not, matzo crackers. “I set up |
by Derek Connolly, Safety Not Guaranteed won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.
Though the difference in scale between his first two feature-length movies is exponential, the character-driven storytelling of Trevorrow’s earlier film distinguishes the Jurassic World script he wrote with writing partner Connolly. Like Spielberg’s original, Jurassic World is populated with memorable characters interacting in relatable ways not only to each other but to the spectacles around them. Trevorrow also brings an undiluted summer-movie fan’s excitement to the action and visual effects of the film.
A native of DeSoto, Texas, RICK JAFFA (Screenplay by/Story by) graduated from Southern Methodist University with a degree in history and political science. Jaffa later earned his master’s degree in business at the University of Southern California. In 1981, Jaffa began his entertainment career in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency. He became the executive assistant to legendary agent Stan Kamen, who was then head of the motion-picture department. Later, as an agent, Jaffa represented writers and directors, packaging films as diverse as 1987’s RoboCop and 1985’s The Trip to Bountiful.
Jaffa has collaborated with his wife and partner, Amanda Silver, for 25 years, executive producing Silver’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and co-writing Eye for an Eye.
In 2011, the duo wrote and produced the Oscar®-nominated Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which rebooted the Planet of the Apes franchise. In 2014, they co-wrote and produced the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. They are currently producing the third installment in the Planet of the Apes series, due out in 2017.
Jaffa and Silver wrote on In the Heart of the Sea, directed by Ron Howard, which is slated for release in December.
They are currently working with James Cameron on Avatar 2.
Jaffa and Silver live in Pacific Palisades, California, and have two children, Joe and Franki.
AMANDA SILVER (Screenplay by/Story by) grew up in New York City and received her BA in history from Yale University before moving to Los Angeles. Silver was an executive assistant at TriStar and Paramount Pictures before enrolling in film school at the University of Southern California, where she earned an MFA in screenwriting.
Silver’s thesis script, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, opened in 1992. A CableAce Award-winning episode of Fallen Angels, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, followed in 1993. Silver has written and produced screenplays with her husband and collaborator, Rick Jaffa, for 25 years, resulting in such films as Eye for an Eye and The Relic.
In 2011, the duo wrote and produced the Critics’ Choice Movie Award-winning Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which rebooted the Planet of the Apes franchise. In 2014, they co-wrote and produced the sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. They are currently producing the third installment in the Planet of the Apes series, directed by Matt Reeves, due out in 2017.
Silver and Jaffa wrote on In the Heart of the Sea, directed by Ron Howard, which is slated for release in December.
They are currently working with James Cameron on Avatar 2.
Silver and Jaffa live in Pacific Palisades, California, and have two children, Joe and Franki.
DEREK CONNOLLY (Screenplay by) is best known as the writer of Colin Trevorrow’s critically acclaimed film Safety Not Guaranteed, which starred Mark Duplass, for which he won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. Connelly’s credits include Chris Wedge’s upcoming Monster Trucks, for Paramount Pictures. It was recently announced that he will co-write Intelligent Life, alongside Trevorrow, for DreamWorks.
A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Connolly was named one of Variety’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch in 2012.
Michael Crichton (1942-2008) (Based on Characters Created by) was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of “Jurassic Park” and the creator of the television series ER.
Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
While at Harvard, Crichton wrote novels under the pseudonyms John Lange and Jeffery Hudson. During this period, he published seven books, including “A Case of Need,” which won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969.
“The Andromeda Strain,” Crichton’s first best-seller, was published under his own name. The movie rights for “The Andromeda Strain” were bought during his senior year at Harvard Medical School.
Crichton had a lifelong interest in computers. His feature film Westworld was the first to employ computer-generated special effects. Crichton’s pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him an Academy Award® for Technical Achievement in 1995.
Crichton won Primetime Emmy, Peabody and Writers Guild of America awards for ER.
One of the most popular writers in the world, he has sold more than 200 million books. His novels have been translated into 40 languages and adapted into 15 films. Crichton also published four nonfiction books, including an illustrated study of artist Jasper Johns. Crichton remains the only person to simultaneously have the No. 1 book, film and television series in a given year.
In 2002, a newly discovered dinosaur of the Ankylosaur group was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini.
Crichton is survived by his wife, Sherri, his daughter Taylor and his son John Michael.
With a career spanning over 40 years and more than 80 films, FRANK MARSHALL (Produced by) has helped shape American cinema, producing some of the most successful and enduring films of all time. Marshall began his motion-picture career in 1971 as a location manager on Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, and by 1981 Marshall was working as a producer on Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Steven Spielberg and future wife Kathleen Kennedy. Shortly thereafter, the trio formed industry powerhouse Amblin Entertainment and together produced movies such as Gremlins, the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hook, Empire of the Sun and the Indiana Jones trilogy.
In 1991, Marshall and Kennedy left Amblin to form their own production company, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, where they produced The Sixth Sense, Signs, Seabiscuit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, War Horse, The Armstrong Lie and all four films in the Bourne series. In 2012, Marshall took over as sole principal of the company when Kennedy became president of Lucasfilm. Recently, he produced the four-hour documentary Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, which premiered on HBO in April.
Marshall has five Academy Award® nominations for Best Picture: for Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense, Seabiscuit and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
In addition to his prolific producing career, Marshall is also an acclaimed director, having helmed Arachnophobia, Eight Below, Alive, Congo, an episode of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon and the award-winning ESPN Films’ 30 for 30 documentary Right to Play.
A Los Angeles native and son of composer Jack Marshall, he ran cross-country and track as a student at UCLA and was a three-year varsity letterman in soccer. Combining his love for music and sports, Marshall and America’s premier miler, Steve Scott, founded the Rock ‘N’ Roll marathon, which debuted in 1998 in San Diego as the largest first-time marathon in history. For more than a decade, Marshall was a vice president and member of the United States Olympic Committee. In 2005, he was awarded the Olympic Shield and in 2008, he was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame for his service to the Olympic movement.
Marshall serves on the boards of Athletes for Hope, the USA Track & Field Foundation and LA’s Promise. In addition, Marshall is a trustee of The Archer School for Girls.
Marshall is the recipient of the 2000 UCLA Award for Professional Achievement, the 2008 Producers Guild of America’s David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures, as well as the 2009 Visual Effects Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2015 ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award.
PATRICK CROWLEY (Produced by) is a veteran motion picture producer with international experience. Crowley has produced the box-office hits Eight Below, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Eagle Eye and The Other Guys. He was an executive producer on Sleepless in Seattle, Legends of the Fall and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. From 1994 to 2000, Crowley served as executive vice president of production at New Regency Productions. He supervised the production of L.A. Confidential, Fight Club, Heat, Devil’s Advocate, Tin Cup and many others.
He is currently in pre-production on the feature-film adaptation of the popular video-game Assassin’s Creed, which will star Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.
STEVEN SPIELBERG (Executive Producer), one of the industry’s most successful and influential filmmakers, is a principal partner of DreamWorks Studios. Formed in 2009, Spielberg leads the motion-picture company in partnership with The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.
Spielberg is also, collectively, the top-grossing director of all time, having helmed such blockbusters as Jaws, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones franchise and Jurassic Park. Among his myriad honors, he is a three-time Academy Award® winner.
Spielberg took home his first two Oscars®, for Best Director and Best Picture, for the internationally lauded Schindler’s List, which received a total of seven Oscars®. The film was also named the best picture of 1993 by many of the major critics organizations, in addition to winning seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globe awards, both including Best Picture and Best Director. Spielberg also won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for his work on the film.
Spielberg won his third Academy Award®, for Best Director, for the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, which was the highest-grossing domestic release of 1998. It was also one of the year’s most honored films, earning four additional Oscars®, as well as two Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture—Drama and Best Director, and numerous critics groups awards in the same categories. Spielberg also won another DGA Award and shared a Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award with the film’s other producers. That same year, the PGA also presented Spielberg with the prestigious Milestone Award for his historic contribution to the motion-picture industry.
He has earned Academy Award® nominations for Best Director for Lincoln, Munich, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He also earned DGA Award nominations for those films, as well as for Jaws, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun and Amistad. With 11 to date, Spielberg has been honored by his peers with more DGA Award nominations than any other director. In 2000, he received the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Kennedy Center Honors and numerous other career tributes.
Spielberg’s upcoming films include Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks, which is set for release on October 16, and the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved classic, “The BFG,” which is set for release on July 1, 2016.
In 2012, Spielberg directed Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals: The PolitiMan who made an appeal for charity on Fb arrested in Dubai
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In Dubai, a man who appealed for assistance for charity on Facebook was arrested for 22 days after being charged with making the appeal for fund raising without a permit. F. Scott Richards, who has British-Australian citizenship, promoted on his profile the event for fund raising in order to purchase blankets and canvas camps for Afghan refugees.
Dubai has strict laws that do not permit the raising of funds for charity if the entity is not registered in the United Arab Emirates and without the written approval of the Charities Events Department in Dubai. Those breaching the law can be sentenced to between two months and a year in prison and a €30,000 fine.
Police confirmed that Richards made use of the social media to recommend a fund-raising event run by a charitable institution in the United States that works in Afghanistan. The aim was to raise €40,000 for new camps, blankets, and clothes for children living in the Chahari Qambar refugee camp, which is situated outside Kabul. Four years ago, more than 100 children died due to cold weather.
Richards was arrested at his house on the 28th of July and is being held in custody at the police station in Al Murraqabat. He was allowed to see his wife once a week and make limited phone calls.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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After Lyndon Johnson's resounding defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964, pundits incorrectly predicted the decline of the Republican party. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty.) Ad Policy
Following Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney a certain argument became ubiquitous: the argument from demographic inevitability. That the Republican Party, absent deep-seated changes that are all but unimaginable, is in for a generation or more of electoral doom. Indeed the argument was being made long before the votes were even cast. Here was Jonathan Chait in New York magazine, etching the argument sharply almost a year ago:
The modern GOP—the party of Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes—is staring down its own demographic extinction. Right-wing warnings of impending tyranny express, in hyperbolic form, well-grounded dread: that conservative America will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests. And this impending doom has colored the party’s frantic, fearful response to the Obama presidency.
It is the curse of the historian to be long-memoried. First thing. Pace Chait, “frantic, fearful response” is the default reaction of conservatives to every moment of liberal ascendency. (See, for instance, the rise of the Minutemen upon the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, which I wrote about in my last post, and the general reactionary mass mobilizations against Kennedy, which I wrote about in my 2001 book, Before the Storm). Second thing. “Last chance”? We’ve seen last chances before. Later in this series, I’ll address some of the fallacies in the specific arguments such folks have been making about today’s supposed demographic inevitability. For now lets’ review the overflowing cornucopia of past moments of when Democrats were supposed to rule the universe forever.
There was 1964. Following Lyndon Johnson’s overwhelming landslide victory over Barry Goldwater—at 61 to 38.5 in the popular vote and 486 to 52 in the electoral college, far more staggering than Obama’s not-at-all-overwhelming 51 percent to 47 percent and 332 to 206—the pundits said things like, If the Republicans continue “advocating reactionary changes at home and adventures abroad that might lead to war” (this was the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief), “they will remain a minority party indefinitely.” Those arguments were fundamentally demographic: The nation had been 38 percent rural in the 1950 census and 33 percent rural in the 1960 census, and falling. So how could an ideology of backward rural folk—conservatism—possibly survive?
The conclusion was on every supposedly intelligent person’s lips, but it betrayed an actual idiocy. The census classified an American as “rural” (if memory services) if they lived in a municipality with 5,000 residents or less. That excluded suburbanites, of course—and Goldwaterite proclivities was of course the reason many of them lived in suburbs in the first place. In any event, the Republicans bounced back handily by 1966, borne aloft in many cases by big-city voters (for instance, Chicagoans in the Illinois senate race) who ran screaming from the Democrats’ continued embrace of civil rights during a season of riots.
As it happened, that 1966 result—repeated in the presidential races of 1968 and 1972—confounded a previous generation’s glib assumptions about demography and destiny. Those newly minted urban Republicans came from immigrant populations—Italians, Eastern Europeans, the Irish—that had formed the beating heart of the New Deal coalition. Back when Roosevelt won his four terms, followed by the Democratic electoral dominance of the 1950s and '60s (the Republicans had to run the non-ideological general who had defeated Adolf Hitler to create practically the only exception), the declining population share of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants had people presuming that Democrats would enjoy a “natural majority” for time immemorial. We’ll talk more about that, and the presumptions concerning another vector of immigrant inevitability, in future installments, but for now, just this thought: no one then bothered to consider that voting behavior might not be a trait passed on in the genes, from generation to generation.
Then in 1971 pundits spied another demographic inevitability right around the bend. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment passed, lowering the federal voting age to 18. Early reports were that 90 percent of high school seniors were registering as Democrats. The political scientist Samuel Lubell wrote: “As of now, the nation’s newest voters would defeat Nixon…. Crammed into my interview notebooks are angry outbursts from business-oriented youths who say, ‘The Republicans are better for my career,’ but vow, ‘I’ll vote for almost any Democrat to end the war.’ ”
Well, the nation’s newest voters did not defeat Nixon. Like just about every other category of voter, they gave majority support for his reelection. Indeed one of the reasons Nixon gladly signed off on the Amendment was that young voters might contribute in Democratic primaries to producing a nominee that would be easier for him to beat. He was smarter than the pundits; he knew that “demographic inevitability” is a cheap and unreliable way to make electoral arguments.
Next, 1974: not an argument from demographic inevitability, necessarily, but one about inevitability nonetheless. In the first election following Richard Nixon’s resignation, so many young Democratic “Watergate Babies” were elected (thirty-one of them were holding elective office for the first time) that Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the House of Representatives by more than two to one. The Republican pollster Robert Teeter soon announced that only 18 percent of Americans were willing to call themselves “Republicans.” That Democratic hegemony appeared to be confirmed when Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in 1976. In 1977, liberals celebrated their incipient generation of governmental control by crowding the congressional docket with things like aggressive bills for labor law reform and a new consumer protection agency. Both were crushed, for various reasons—but one of them was a datum from Teeter’s poll less noticed in all the celebration: 61 percent of Americans still considered themselves conservative.
But not to fear: Republicans had no apparent leadership prospects over the horizon. The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Drew wrote after Ronald Reagan’s near-miss for the nomination at the 1976 Republican, “This is probably the end of Reagan’s political career.” Wrote public opinion expert Evertt Carll Ladd in his 1978 book Where Have All the Voters Gone?, the “GOP is in a weaker position than any major party of the U.S. since the Civil War.”
Enough. I’m just having fun now. Pundits are easy to beat up on; predicting the future is hard; things are complicated. And the progressive tilt of the electorate is very real, something I discussed in these pages in a cover article in the middle of 2007 (but I’ll be writing about that one later, too). I’ll be getting into specific critiques of the various arguments-from-inevitability by the by—leaving you only with this thought. My skepticism here is a personal thing. When the 2008 victory of Barack Obama and the defeat of grumpy old John McCain began looking, um, inevitable, I started fielding inquiries about whether “Nixonland”—the name of the book I published that spring about the origins of the generation of Republican hegemony built on the politics of white middle-class cultural grievance—was over. Then people simply confidently proclaimed it, as a fact. Next came the Tea Party Thermidor of November 2010.
Now: last week when Sarah Palin was fired by Fox News, my friend Kevin Drum wrote, “With her gone, it might be a sign that the long, twilight success of Nixonland as a political strategy is finally starting to fade. I think Rick Perlstein should write a few thousand well-chosen words on the subject.”
Kevin, these won’t be the few thousand well-chosen words you’ve been looking for. That’s not how I see the world working.
Next up in my argument against inevitability, I’ll be writing about the protean nature of fear and the ease of its exploitation—the most unpredictable political variable of all.
Despite its lackluster election results, the Republican party's "make-believe consensus" has successfully moved the debate away from vital fundamental questions.Researchers say that references to planets and constellations in the Odyssey describe a solar eclipse that occurred in 1178 B.C., nearly three centuries before Homer is believed to have written the story. If correct, the finding would suggest that the ancient poet had a surprisingly detailed knowledge of astronomy.
The Odyssey, commonly dated to near 800 B.C., describes the 10-year voyage of the Greek general Odysseus to his home on the island of Ithaca after the fall of Troy in approximately 1200 B.C. Toward the end of the story, a seer named Theoclymenus prophecies the death of a group of suitors competing for the affection of Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, who is believed to be dead. Theoclymenus delivers his prophecy as the suitors are sitting down for their noontime meal. He foresees them entering Hades and ends his speech with the statement, "The Sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world." Odysseus dispatches the suitors not long thereafter.
Greek scholars Plutarch and Heraclitus advanced the idea that Theoclymenus's speech was a poetic description of an eclipse. They cited references in the story that the day of the prophecy was a new moon, which would be true of an eclipse. In the 1920s researchers speculated that Homer might have had a real eclipse in mind, after calculating that a total solar eclipse (in which the moon blocks out the sun) would have been visible on April 16, 1178 B.C. over the Ionian Islands, where Homer's poem was set. The idea languished, however, because the first writings on Greek astronomy did not come until centuries later.
Inspired by an incorrect reference to Homer's alleged eclipse in an astronomy textbook, biophysicists Constantino Baikouzis and Marcelo Magnasco, both at the Rockefeller University, pored over the Odyssey for additional clues. Sailing back to Ithaca on a raft, Odysseus navigates by monitoring the constellations Pleiades and Bootes, which share the sky twice a year in March and September. The morning he arrives in Ithaca, Venus rises in the sky before dawn, which happens on about one third of new moons. But the crucial clue came from a reference to the god Hermes flying west to the island of Ogygia. The researchers propose the god's voyage actually refers to the planet Mercury, which hangs low in the sky and reverses course from west to east every 116 days.
Baikouzis and Magnasco used commercial astronomical software to scan all 1,684 new moons between the years 1250 and 1125 B.C. for dates that matched those conditions. "Even though each event happens individually often, the pattern doesn't repeat that often," Magnasco says—only once every 2,000 years, he and Baikouzis report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. And one of those matches is April 16, 1178 B.C. Magnasco says that he had a hunch about Hermes, known as Mercury to the Romans, after coming across the idea that the Greeks used the stories of the gods as mnemonic devices to remember astronomical events. Taking Mercury out of the mix leaves 15 matching dates in the 135-year search period, he adds.
According to Magnasco, the references imply that Homer chose to set the slaying of the suitors on the day of the eclipse. (He notes that he has "no clue" whether similar events to those described in the Odyssey actually occurred on that day.)Screenshot of Anonops.blogspot.com
After Spain's national police arrested three hackers allegedly linked to Anonymous and the Sony PlayStation Network hacks, the amorphous collective claims to have successfully taken the agency's site offline in retaliation.
According to a Saturday posting on AnonOps Communications, "Operation Policia (#OpPolicia) is the name for the successful DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack that paralyzed the Official National Police website (Página Oficial del Cuerpo Nacional de Policía www.policia.es) for hours on Saturday, making it inaccessible to visitors. The DDoS attack is a protest tactic often deployed by Anonymous."
The daily newspaper El Mundo reported Sunday that the police site had been offline for about an hour the previous day and that police were still investigating the cause.
Following the announcement of the arrests on Friday, Anonymous issued a statement condemning them and foreshadowing the attack on the National police site:
Arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration in their hometown. Anonymous believes this right to peacefully protest is one of the fundamental pillars of any democracy...
You have not detained three participants of Anonymous. We have no members and we are not a group of any kind. You have, however, detained three civilians expressing themselves...
You are providing us with the fuel, but now you must expect the fire.Posted by
Emily Dulhanty,
August 12, 2014 Email
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On Twitter:
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Canada plays Korea DPR tonight in their final group game of the under 20 women’s World Cup at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. Losing their first game to Ghana has put Canada in a tough situation, and they likely need a win against the strong North Koreans to advance to the knockout round of the tournament.
Looking at Korea DPR
Korea DPR currently hold the top spot in Group A. As a nation, they have a strong record in FIFA youth tournaments: they won the under 20 title in Russia in 2006 and were second at the under 20 tournament in 2008 in Chile. At the under 17 level, Korea DPR won the 2008 tournament in New Zealand and were second in 2012 in Azerbaijan. Many of the players from the under 17 squad in 2012 are on Korea DPR’s squad for this tournament, including Ri Un-Sim, the Golden Shoe winner in Azerbaijan. She currently has two of the team’s five goals at Canada 2014.
Canada and Korea DPR have some history at FIFA youth tournaments. In 2012, Korea DPR beat Canada 2-1 in both the under 20 and under 17 women’s World Cups, knocking Canada out of both tournaments. Most recently, Canada and Korea DPR drew 1-1 in the group stage of the 2014 under 17 WWC in Costa Rica this past March.
The 2015 WWC will be the first senior World Cup Korea DPR will miss since the 1995 edition in Sweden, as their team was banned after several players tested positive for performance enhancing drugs at the 2011 WWC in Germany.
Questions around Canada’s starting eleven remain
Before Canada’s second group game against Finland, it was clear that Canada’s coach Andrew Olivieri had some decisions to make regarding his team’s starting eleven. Mixing things up from the team’s first group game against Ghana, Olivieri started Nichelle Prince and Ashley Campbell, and removed Janine Beckie and Valerie Sanderson from the starting eleven. But when Beckie and Sanderson were substituted into Friday’s game at half-time, both scored in the first five minutes of the half, starting Canada’s exhilarating comeback. We will have to wait and see if Olivieri changes things up again.
Ahead of the match, Olivieri told FIFA.com, “North Korea have a lot of quality; they're the third-best team in the world in terms of [women's] youth programmes. There have been some good moments from us and we've improved as our games have gone on, but we need to start better in this one. We're going to need 90 minutes of quality football to get a result."
Group scenarios
The current group standings are below:
Teams W D L Points GF GA +/- Korea DPR 2 0 0 6 5 1 4 Canada 1 0 1 3 3 3 0 Ghana 1 0 1 3 1 3 -2 Finland 0 0 2 0 3 5 -2
A win vs Korea DPR = Canada finishes with 6 points
Canada would advance... if Finland beats Ghana OR if the Finland-Ghana match ends in a draw OR if Ghana beats Finland but Canada has a better goal differential than Ghana and/or Korea DPR.
A draw vs Korea DPR = Canada finishes with 4 points
Canada would advance... if Finland beats Ghana OR if the Finland-Ghana match ends in a draw (because Canada would still have better goal differential than Ghana).
A loss vs Korea DPR = Canada finishes with 3 points
Canada would advance... if Finland beats Ghana and Canada has a better goal differential than both Finland and Ghana.
*If points and goal differential are equal, the next tiebreaker is number of goals scored in all group matches. Subsequent tiebreakers can be found in the FIFA regulations document.An Upstate detention officer has been arrested and fired, according to a release from the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office.Atraus Styles was arrested Wednesday morning, according to the release. He is charged with misconduct in office and third-degree assault and battery.A State Law Enforcement Division release said Styles hit an inmate at the Spartanburg County Detention Center.Styles was suspended immediately following the incident and an internal investigation led to Styles’ termination.SLED was called to investigate and brought the charges against Styles.Styles was being held in the Spartanburg County Detention Center pending a bond hearing.
An Upstate detention officer has been arrested and fired, according to a release from the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office.
Atraus Styles was arrested Wednesday morning, according to the release. He is charged with misconduct in office and third-degree assault and battery.
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A State Law Enforcement Division release said Styles hit an inmate at the Spartanburg County Detention Center.
Styles was suspended immediately following the incident and an internal investigation led to Styles’ termination.
SLED was called to investigate and brought the charges against Styles.
Styles was being held in the Spartanburg County Detention Center pending a bond hearing.
AlertMeAccording to the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office, a man was seen handing out these fliers in the Town of Newfield and on the Cornell University campus in an attempt to recruit his very own “Nymph Squad Commune.”
The fliers specify exactly what it takes to join the Nymph Squad. The man is looking for “13 Spiritually Alive, White, European, Caucasian, Blue Eyed, Green Eyed GIRLS to be my LIFE Partners, & to Join My Private, Spiritually Alive Commune.” He further specifies that he wants GIRLS who play instruments, love cooking, and who an affinity for “Putin & Hitlers System.” But this is not just going to be a relationship built on shared political values. Nope. Interested ladies must also love “Spiritually Alive White on White SEX.”
If you want to reach him, here’s his website and while the flier lists one phone number, his website lists a different number and says the first number is no longer his. I called the flier number and it goes straight to a young female’s voicemail message. The second number goes to the voicemail message of "Stevie Hayes." I've texted that number and left a message, so who knows.
The police are currently looking for the man who has been passing out the fliers. He is described as a 6'0" tall, short brown hair, white, male who drives a late 90's Chevrolet Lumina or Monte Carlo.
[Image via Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office’s Photos]In the Arthur Conan Doyle story, “The Silver Blaze,” Sherlock Holmes discusses the theft of a race horse from a country estate that is guarded by a fierce watch dog.
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident.”
Holmes later explains how the “dog that didn’t bark” helped him to solve the crime:
I had grasped the significance of the silence of the dog, for one true inference invariably suggests others… A dog was kept in the stables, and yet, though someone had been in, and had fetched out a horse, he had not barked enough to arouse the two lads in the loft. Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well.
This is an example of abductive reasoning: an inference is made based on known facts, in an effort to explain them. It certainly sounds good here. Holmes is working on the premise that because (a) dogs bark loudly at strangers, but not at people they know; and (b) the dog didn’t bark loudly, if he barked at all; then (c) the dog knew the intruder. This is how many detectives and police officers work out a problem. But this reasoning contains fundamental flaws, claims Dr. Robin Bryant, Director of Criminal Justice Practice at Christ Church University, in Canterbury, England, a criminologist with an expertise in how detectives think.
With the new season of the hugely-popular Sherlock television series just kicking off, it seems like an apt time to consider the question: outside the realm of fiction, where Holmes’ “deductions” all seem to end up correct, would Conan Doyle’s detective be considered a sound, logical thinker in today’s world of policing?
A new book, Master-Mind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova takes the famous fictional detective’s problem-solving skills and transforms them into a sort of self-help book. That sounds fine at first, and of course Holmes is a renowned problem-solver, at least in the world of fictional ink. But this raises the question: If Sherlock Holmes worked for a modern police force, would he be considered a good detective? According to Dr. Bryant, alas, he would not. His over-reliance on abductive reasoning, at the sacrifice of more powerful logical tools, make his conclusions suspect at best. Dr. Bryant could teach Sherlock Holmes a thing or two. He now travels Europe, teaching police how to analyze their own problem-solving processes, helping them to understand how they make decisions, where there are opportunities for logical inconsistencies, and how to avoid such pitfalls.
“In the 21st century, with the advent of large databases and mathematical modeling, inductive forms of reasoning have become the more reliable methods of criminal investigation,” explains Dr. Bryant, when asked what lessons he might give, should Sherlock Holmes one day show up in his class.
Under the cold light of mathematical logic, there are holes in Holmes’ conclusion (despite the fact that, in the novel, he solved the case). Holmes assumes that dogs behave in a rational manner when, in fact, there might be various reasons why the dog wouldn’t bark, even at a stranger. The stranger might have brought a sausage to appease the dog. The dog might have barked, but no one heard. The dog might even have been drugged (we might call this the Scooby Doo explanation). Because Holmes did not take these variables into consideration, one might conclude that the logic of Holmes’ argument is flawed. It is based on probability (dogs normally bark at strangers), not absolute fact.
In film and fiction, the mental process of moving from observation (clues at a crime scene, the behavior of a suspect in an interrogation) to conclusion is presented in a dramatically foreshortened manner. The problem is that |
valve stems, which bear on the cam lobes via rocker arms, push rods and lifters. Sure enough, some of the valve stems were slightly bulged out at their tips.’ These passages are as seductive as the similarly practical-yet-poetic ones in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (a work name-checked more that once by Crawford) and the consequences of reading them could actually prove fatal for the sort of midlife man prone to fantasies of buying a Harley.
It goes without saying that Crawford is an academic philosopher as well as a motorcycle mechanic, but his tone is laconic, cowboyish. He invokes the'spirited man’ who will learn an instrument rather than 'consume’ music and who is repulsed by the new makes of Mercedes that don’t have a dipstick. There is a studied political incorrectness, but also glancing invocations of Karl Marx and more frequent quotations from Iris Murdoch. (She was particularly good on the subject of false creativity and Crawford really has it in for those suit-and-tie men who style themselves 'creatives’.)
Crawford doesn’t quite have this thesis all to himself. The American sociologist Richard Sennett has written of the virtues of reviving 'craftsmanship’ in the modern world. But Crawford speaks of 'trades’ rather than 'crafts’ and his book is commensurately less rarefied than the works of Sennett. It will be enjoyed for its iconoclasm, swagger and dry humour even by those who disagree with its argument. For myself, I am persuaded that it will be snobbery rather than logic that dictates such dissent.
Buy The Case for Working with Your Hands: Why Office Work is Bad for Us, and Fixing Things Feels Good from Telegraph BooksApple employees applaud customers after they bought newly-released iPhones from the U.S.-based company's store in Beijing on Sept. 20, 2013. (Photo11: Andy Wong, AP)
SAN FRANCISCO - Apple repurchased $14 billion of its own shares in recent weeks as the company continues to face pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn on a larger buyback.
The stock was repurchased in the two weeks since the company reported disappointing quarterly results, when Apple shares dropped a lot, according to an Apple spokeswoman.
During the first quarter, Apple announced lackluster iPhone sales growth and gave a second quarter outlook that fell short of Wall Street expectations. The shares slumped more than 7% after the announcement and have not rebounded much since. However, Apple seems to have used the declines to snap up more of its own shares, effectively making an investment in itself at lower prices.
"It means that we are betting on Apple," CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal, which reported the buyback late on Thursday. "It means that we are really confident on what we are doing and what we plan to do."
Apple shares rose 1.4% to $519.68 on Friday.
"It seems like the interview may be in part an attempt to remedy several inadequate answers on last week's fiscal first-quarter conference call that we believe many investors found disappointing," said Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays.
The Cupertino, Calif., company has been pushed to issue a larger stock buyback since August, when Icahn boasted of his increasing stake in Apple. The investor's stake in Apple sits at $3.6 billion.
Icahn also issued a letter to shareholders last month imploring them to consider a sizable stock buyback.
On Friday, Icahn cheered Apple's recent buybacks and pushed for more.
"Keep buying Tim! You still have $145 billion cash" Icahn wrote on Twitter.
The company is also facing scrutiny from investors eager for Apple to launch their next innovative product. Cook says Apple is preparing to enter a new gadget arena beyond smartphones and tablets. "There will be new categories," says Cook. "We're not ready to talk about it, but we're working on some really great stuff."
Rumors have swirled in recent weeks on Apple's plans to work on a smartwatch. A job listing reportedly posted by Apple hints at the possibility of adding a health tracking feature to a wearable gadget. The company also met with the Food and Drug Administration to discuss mobile health apps.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1fNQxE3More than 600 anglers stranded on an ice floe in the Russian far east have been rescued.
The operation to airlift them off the ice involved 48 people, two helicopters and 11 ships, the emergencies ministry said.
The 675 fishing enthusiasts were carried out to sea when the floe, off the island of Sakhalin, broke free.
Fishing through bore-holes on ice-bound waters is a popular winter pastime in Russia.
None of the rescued anglers airlifted off the ice floe needed medical assistance, the ministry said in a statement.
The ice floe had drifted 500m away from the coast before running aground again.
'Excitement'
Taymuraz Kasayev, of the emergencies ministry, said the area's residents had been told to stay away from the ice.
"We warned people through the media that going out on to the ice on this stretch of the coastline is extremely dangerous and is not allowed," he told the NTV television channel.
One of the rescued anglers, Vladimir Vasilenko, said he had ventured on to the ice floe knowing that the windy conditions might pose a risk.
"The wind was blowing from the shore, and it was clear that something might happen, but people were still going out, so we did too," he said.
"It was the excitement, of course. We also heard on the radio that it would be the last chance for fishing on the ice. And so we rushed out to go fishing."OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — There’s a mess at one West Oakland community garden after vandals were reportedly targeting more than just vegetables.
Pictures show a West Oakland community garden trashed. Fences are kicked in, tools are flung far and wide.
“A lot of just shock,” said City Slicker Farms Executive Director Ariel Dekovic. “The end of this bed, a lot of these plants were uprooted so they’re not doing very well now.”
Three months worth of vegetables ripped from their beds, the farm’s chickens released and roaming free.
“They respond to stress,” Dekovic said. “So they’re going to be laying less as a result of this.”
The eggs and vegetables were supposed to go to hundreds of neighbors who depend on the weekly stand at City Slicker Farms, which sells the vegetables at a discount.
“This is an attack on the community and that’s what’s really heartbreaking about it,” Dekovic said.
The most extensive damage was to the fencing. Workers at City Slickers Farms say it’s going to cost thousands to replace.
Neighbors told KPIX 5 they can’t imagine who would do this.
“There was really no rationale to target it,” said neighbor Ben Delgado. “It’s something that brought a lot of positive things to the community.”
But workers at City Slicker wonder whether their harvest was the latest causality in a fight against redevelopments in West Oakland.
A fight came to a head in June when vandals wearing hoodies were captured on surveillance camera hurling rocks through the windows of a new West Oakland coffee shop called Kilovolt.
Dekovic says if this is part of the gentrification backlash, “It’s just really misguided.”Be patient, Bay Area: The historic flyover of the space shuttle Endeavour on Friday morning is now set for an hour later than originally planned, so be prepared to wait if you skip out of work or school to catch a glimpse.
The heavily anticipated show is now scheduled to reach the East Bay sometime after 9:30 a.m. before it soars over the Golden Gate Bridge, then turns south toward down the Peninsula over Moffett Field and heads to its new retirement home in a Los Angeles museum, NASA said. Still, even that’s ambitious: SFO officials say there is a “strong rumor” that the flight will be delayed about an hour more.
It is set to take off from Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California at 8:15 a.m., heading first to Sacramento and then the Bay Area.
The FAA and NASA are hoping that by starting the 4½-hour flight later than planned, the fog will be gone by the time the Endeavour reaches the Bay Area on the back of a 747 aircraft, at times dipping as low as 1,500 feet.
The National Weather Service is forecasting partly cloudy conditions at Moffett Field on Friday morning, and it could be even cloudier near the Golden Gate Bridge. It should be a typical late-summer day in terms of temperature. The flight was already delayed a day because of weather.
NASA recommends the following viewing spots: Bay Area Discovery Museum, Chabot Space and Science Center, Exploratorium, Lawrence Hall of Science and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The shuttle took off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Wednesday and soared west to Houston, where it spent the night.
On Thursday, it made a loop over Tuscon, Ariz., to the delight of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, who was also the ship’s last commander.
Friday’s flight is scheduled to finish with a flyover in Southern California at 11:30 a.m. before landing at Los Angeles International Airport at 12:45 p.m., when Endeavour will be taken off its carrier plane. Next month, it will be taken to its permanent home, the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
Contact Mike Rosenberg at 408-920-5705. Follow him at twitter.com/rosenberg17.Amazon Echo Dot or £50 bill credit: New customers taking Broadband and phone packages, and the Player and Mix bundles online only during the offer period between 25th February 2019 and 11.59pm on 27th February 2019: 12-month minimum term contract applies. May not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media. Availability subject to stock and colour of the device may vary. One reward per household. We reserve the right to withdraw the offer at any time. Prices are subject to change. You must provide an email address when you sign-up. If your email address is not provided or is not valid you will not receive the reward. You will not be entitled to your reward if you cancel your services or downgrade to a bundle lower than Player prior to installation or before the end of your 14-day Customer Satisfaction Guarantee period. No cash or other alternative. Amazon Echo Dot: RRP £49.99. Virgin Media £50 bill credit: The Virgin Media bill credit will be applied to your first bill. Any remaining balance will be applied to subsequent bills until the credit is used.
Amazon Echo or £90 bill credit: New customers taking the Full House, Full House Movies, Full House Sports, Full House Sports & Movies, and VIP bundles online only during the offer period between 25th February 2019 and 11.59pm on 27th February 2019: 12-month minimum term contract applies. May not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media. Availability subject to stock and colour of the device may vary. One reward per household. We reserve the right to withdraw the offer at any time. Prices are subject to change. You must provide an email address when you sign-up. If your email address is not provided or is not valid you will not receive the reward. You will not be entitled to your reward if you cancel your services or downgrade to a bundle lower than Mix prior to installation or before the end of your 14-day Customer Satisfaction Guarantee period. No cash or other alternative. Amazon Echo: RRP £89.99. Virgin Media £90 bill credit: The Virgin Media bill credit will be applied to your first bill. Any remaining balance will be applied to subsequent bills until the credit is used.
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VIVID 350 broadband: New customers only. Minimum term applies to your cable service, check basket for details. VIVID 350 fibre broadband (average download speed 362Mbps). £50 a month for 12 months. Broadband only. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
VIVID 50 broadband and phone: New customers only. Minimum term applies to your cable service, check basket for details. VIVID 50 fibre broadband (average download speed at peak 54Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £27 a month for 12 months, standard pricing thereafter (currently £42). Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Average speed is speed achievable by 50% of customers at peak times (8pm-10pm, Monday-Sunday), April 2018. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
VIVID 100 broadband and phone: New customers only. Minimum term applies to your cable service, check basket for details. VIVID 100 fibre broadband (average download speed 108Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £32 a month for 12 months, standard pricing thereafter (currently £47). Price includes line rental (£19 per month). If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
VIVID 200 broadband and phone: New customers only. Minimum term applies to your cable service, check basket for details. VIVID 200 fibre broadband (average download speed at peak 213Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £37 a month for 12 months, standard pricing thereafter (currently £52). Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Average speed is speed achievable by 50% of customers at peak times (8pm-10pm, Monday-Sunday), April 2018. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
VIVID 350 broadband and phone: New customers only. Minimum term applies to your cable service, check basket for details. VIVID 350 fibre broadband (average download speed at peak 362Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £42 a month for 12 months, standard pricing thereafter (currently £57). Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Average speed is speed achievable by 50% of customers at peak times (8pm-10pm, Monday-Sunday), April 2018. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Player bundle: New customers only. Player TV, VIVID 50 fibre broadband (average download speed 56Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £33 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £51 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Cinema are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Mix bundle: New customers only. Mix TV, VIVID 100 fibre broadband (average download speed 108Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £47 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £63 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Cinema are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Fun bundle: Existing customers only. Fun TV, VIVID 100 fibre broadband (average download speed 108Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £63.50 a month. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Premium add-ons such as Sky Cinema are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Full House bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, VIVID 100 fibre broadband (average download speed 108Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £57 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £74 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Cinema & Sky Sports are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Full House Sports bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, VIVID 200 fibre broadband (average download speed 213 Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £65 a month for 12 months. Normal price £77 a month. Save £144 in your first year based on £12 monthly price reduction. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £104 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Cinema are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media. Online offer ends 31st March.
Limited Edition Full House Movies bundle: New customers only. Limited time offer during the period from between 14th February 2019 and 11.59pm on 3rd March. Full House TV, VIVID 200 fibre broadband (average download speed 213Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £60 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing of £94 £84 per month (normal price £94) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Sports are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Full House Movies bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, VIVID 200 fibre broadband (average download speed 213Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £67 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £94 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Sports are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
VIP bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, Sky Cinema and Sky Sports (including in HD), VIVID 350 fibre broadband (average download speed 362Mbps) (available with VIVID 200 where VIVID 350 is not available) and Talk More Anytime. £89 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £129 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Full House Sports and Movies bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, VIVID 200 fibre broadband (average download speed 213Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £84 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £114 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Full House Sports 100 bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, VIVID 100 fibre broadband (average download speed 108Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £72 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £99 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons such as Sky Cinema are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
Full House Sports and Movies 100 bundle: New customers only. Full House TV, VIVID 100 fibre broadband (average download speed 108Mbps) and Talk Weekends. £79 a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). Standard monthly pricing (currently £109 per month) applies from month 13. Premium add-ons are available at extra monthly cost. If you cancel your service during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect of the service, standard pricing will apply to that upgrade. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw or amend the pricing if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.
12 months discount vs ongoing price - New customers only: From £5.50 off cable bundle price a month for 12 months. Price includes line rental (£19 per month). If you cancel during your minimum term an early disconnection fee will apply. Direct Debit and eBill price. Add up to 45p a month payment handling fee for non-Direct Debit payments and £1.75 a month for paper bills. Downgrading a service in your bundle may result in loss of bundle discount. If you upgrade any aspect, standard pricing applies to upgrade. We may withdraw or amend the discount if you change any part of your package. Virgin Media reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other offer unless stated by Virgin Media.No one who watches NFL games knows what a catch is anymore, or so goes the cool thing to say these days. Here's the unfortunate truth: That includes the referees.
NFL Replay Challenges in 2015 Type Challenges Overturned Success Rate Pass completion 48 26 54.17% Fumble 32 14 43.75% Runner broke plane 30 10 33.33% Incomplete pass 27 11 40.74% First down 20 9 45.00% Down by contact 20 10 50.00% Runner in bounds 8 2 25.00% Loose ball recovery 4 1 25.00% Touchback 3 1 33.33%
Roughly halfway through the 2015 season, there have been more challenges to a pass completion ruling than any other play, according to records the NFL keeps on its statistical website. More than half have been overturned, the highest success rate among the categories with at least two challenges and a big jump from last season (30.56 percent).
The details are in the chart. But in short, the NFL's replay command center -- headed on game days by vice president of officiating Dean Blandino -- has been left to enforce a rule that ostensibly was clarified in the offseason. The new wording, which requires a receiver to become "a runner" in order to demonstrate possession, has led to weekly confusion and too often has required a review.
We've seen replay requested to decide plays involving Cincinnati Bengals tight end Tyler Eifert, Atlanta Falcons tailback Devonta Freeman, Detroit Lions wide receiver Golden Tate and others. The latest: Dallas Cowboys tailback Darren McFadden's first-quarter fumble -- or was it an incomplete pass? -- against the Seattle Seahawks.
On the play, McFadden grabbed a short throw from quarterback Matt Cassel and turned upfield. The ball came loose and was recovered by Seahawks defensive end Cliff Avril.
Referee Carl Cheffers ruled the play a catch and fumble, but all turnovers are reviewed. When you slow down the play, you see that the ball settled into McFadden's right hand and arm. He took one step and lost control as he tried to tuck the ball under his left arm. So even though McFadden wasn't going to the ground, he never qualified as a runner. He did not take multiple steps in possession of the ball, and he was never -- in the eyes of the rulebook, at least -- "capable of avoiding or warding off impending contact of an opponent."
Cheffers announced the reversal, explaining that McFadden did not complete the process of the catch. Rather than a fumble, the play was called an incomplete pass.
Cowboys running back Darren McFadden was involved on a controversial play Sunday. AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth
As I've written before, this ruling makes sense in the deep context of the rulebook and after watching the play frame-by-frame. But no one can see a play so clinically in live action. When more than half of these challenges have been reversed by replay, it's fair to wonder if the NFL has saddled its officials with a rule that is clear on paper but far too difficult to enforce in practice.
The new wording hasn't helped and, if anything, has led to further confusion. The high percentage of call reversals is especially notable, given a standard that requires the play to be "clear and obvious" before any call is overturned. You saw that later in the Seahawks-Cowboys game, when Blandino did not reverse a touchdown by Seahawks tight end Luke Willson because only one of several available replays showed that he was down short of the goal line.
That standard is in place to ensure that games primarily are officiated on the field, not by a remote command center. But the NFL is moving in that direction to enforce its definition of a catch. That's a sub-optimal development, to say the least.
A few quick-hitters from elsewhere in Week 8:Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Middle-aged men remain the most likely group to die by suicide
Suicide rates in Wales have risen 30% in two years to the highest level since 2004 and are higher than England.
Figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed the rate up from 10.7 per 100,000 people in 2009 to 13.9 in 2011.
The 2011 total was 341, up from 288 in 2010. The England rate is 10.4/100,000.
The Welsh government said there were yearly fluctuations, but it had been feared the economic downturn could lead to a higher suicide rate.
Men judge themselves against a gold standard of masculinity set by society and when they can't meet these expectations they can feel worthless, unvalued, a deep sense of shame and that there is no reason for them to live Simon Hatch, Samaritans Wales
Some of the increase may be down to a change in the way deaths were recorded by coroners following new guidance.
Wales had a greater number of deaths than any English region. North-east England is the next highest at 12.9 per 100,000.
The Samaritans in Wales said high unemployment and difficult economic times had an impact on suicide rates, but said there were a number of factors and could not single out one specifically.
The deaths were most prevalent among middle-aged men, with the rate among those aged 40 and 44 at its highest since 1981.
Simon Hatch, director of Wales Samaritans, told BBC News it was likely that some of the numbers quoted were from a real rise in deaths, but said there were some issues around how deaths were coded [classified] for statistical purposes.
He explained that coroners had been given guidance on the use of intentional self-harm in narrative verdicts, which give a longer explanation at inquests about how someone died rather than the use of short-form verdicts such as suicide or accidental death.
"In other words, more deaths were counted as intentional self-harm," he said.
"We think this was a guidance to coroners because over the years we have seen narrative verdicts increase. This could be one of the causes of the increase [in the suicide rate].
Differing levels
He said it was possible a rise in undetermined deaths could also add to the numbers.
"There may be coding reasons behind some of these, but we remain worried about any increase in suicide and in particular the increase in the rate since 2009."
Speaking about the high rate among middle-aged men, he said: "Samaritans research shows that disadvantaged men in mid-life today are facing a perfect storm of challenges - unemployment, deprivation, social isolation, changing definitions of what it is to be a man, alcohol misuse, labour market and demographic changes have had a dramatic effect on their work, relationships and very identify.
It had always been feared rates might rise owing to the economic downturn and increases in the rate of unemployment Welsh government spokeswoman
"We also found that men judge themselves against a gold standard of masculinity set by society and when they can't meet these expectations they can feel worthless, unvalued, a deep sense of shame and that there is no reason for them to live."
Mr Hatch also pointed to the differing levels of suicide rates in Wales and England, with the Welsh rate 28% higher compared to broadly similar ones 20 years ago.
He reminded anyone feeling suicidal or depressed that the Samaritans were available to give support 24 hours a day on the telephone or online.
A Welsh government spokeswoman said: "Although, sadly, we saw an increase in the number of people taking their own lives between 2010 and 2011, it is important to acknowledge we do witness year-to-year fluctuations.
'Raise awareness'
"As the statistics point out, suicide numbers increased in England and the UK as a whole in 2011.
"To make valid comparisons with Welsh statistics, we need to look at areas with similar populations.
"This means Wales would tend to compare with the north east and north west of England, where rates are similar to Welsh figures.
"It had always been feared rates might rise owing to the economic downturn and increases in the rate of unemployment.
"Sadly this prediction proved correct, despite action to try to mitigate the effects. Talk to Me, our national action plan to reduce suicide and self-harm sets out action to be taken to raise awareness of suicide and self-harm, which is often preventable."
The Freephone Community Advice and Listening Line (CALL) numbers are 0800 132737 or 81066. The Samaritans on available on 08457 90 90 90.SAYREVILLE — Marilyn Manson spoke to the New Jersey crowd as he must speak to himself.
"You are not what they say you are until you're f---ing dead," he uttered, just above a mumble.
The crowd cheered wildly and the audacious shock-rocker — beginning to wear at 46 — steered himself away from philosophy and back into the industrial anthems that ignited a sold-out Starland Ballroom Saturday night.
On the strength of a well-received new album and 25 years of pushing the envelope — or brazenly shoving it into a grave — Manson's new Hell not Hallelujah world tour stopped in Sayreville on just the third of several dozen dates that stretch through June.
Manson's maniacal roadshow isn't quite as exhilarating (or toxic depending on opinion) as in years past, but the singer's pairing of caustic, anti-everything standards and what might be the his best new work in 10 years was a win for fans — and likely a loss for mankind.
Here's a few highlights from Manson's visit to Jersey:
• An outrageous visual has always been an integral part of Manson's allure, and on this night there was much to see. The primary getup was a black button-down, partially covered by a leather bustier vest and black pants, but throughout the show, additional layers were draped on and off. Manson wore a charcoal peacoat to begin the show, pulled on black cloak during his famed "Sweet Things" Eurhythmics cover, hung a glossy cape on one shoulder later on, and finally he donned sea captain's hat for "Irresponsible Hate Anthem." Makeup was typical for him: white foundation with heavy |
list "Change Party Leader" then a small piece of colored paper will appear on the screen. On the paper will be a description of what Change Party Leader will do and the selections "Yes" and "No." If the majority selects "No" then the decision will be dropped and nothing will happen. If the majority selects "Yes" then the decision will take effect immediately and a new Quest Leader will be randomly selected between the other three hunters. Another example of Group Vote would be to initiate the quest if everyone is not in the same Region. This means that the hunters who are not in the same Region when the quest is completed will not get rewards and will fail the quest.
Town Areas (Online):
1. Arena - You will be able to fight alone or cooperatively against monsters in Town's Arena. Instead of quests the Arena will have "Challenges." Along with the normal Challenges there will also be variations. Some of these will force you to use certain kinds of armor and weapons. Some will be four players against 3 to 4 monsters at once. And some will be 1-4 players surviving against an endless amount of monsters for a certain amount time.
2. PvP Arena - In the Town's PvP Arena you will be able to fight against other players and monsters alone or cooperatively. This can range from different categories:
A. PvP (H) - The (H) stands for "Human." In this mode you can only play against 2-4 other players but you can add and remove certain conditions for winning. You can change how the environment will look, add and remove environmental hazards, and have random monsters and Felynes appear in the match. A points system will be used to determine the winners after the time runs out. Your team's and the opposing team's current amount of points will always be shown at the top of the screen in a transparent menu. In certain modes you will either have infinite lives or only one. You can choose between 4 modes: Free for All, Team Battle, Last Stand, and Last Team.
a) Free for All - Pits everyone against each other to get the highest amount of points. You have infinite amount of lives.
b) Team Battle - Pits 2 hunters in 2 teams to get the highest amount of points. You have infinite amount of lives.
c) Last Stand - Pits everyone against each other to get the highest amount of points. You only have one life.
d) Last Team - Pits 2 hunters in 2 teams to get the highest amount of points. You only have one life.
B. PvP (H&M) - The (H&M) stands for "Human and Monster." In this mode you can play against 2-4 other players while accompanied by your own team monster of your choosing. This mode is similar to PvP (H) and allows different combinations of play, such as: [2 Players and Monster] vs [2 Players and Monster] or [1 Player and Monster] vs [2 Players]
Here is a rough layout map for the Town:
Miscellaneous:
I've noticed that some players like to listen to their own custom music while playing Monster Hunter. This is why the player will have the means to individually select their own tracks in the game. For example if someone wanted to listen to different battle music in the Jungle Region, what they would have to do is go to the sound options and set the Jungle battle music to another music track (probably mp3) that's located on their PS3 or Xbox 360. You will be able to change every individual song to what ever you want. Note that you can only change a track after you have listened (unlock the area or battle) to it at least once in the actual game.
Here is my idea for a new weapon: a Staff (or a rod like weapon). The staff has a blade on one end and an iron ball on the other end. The iron ball is connected to the staff by a small iron chain which is hidden inside the staff. When the staff is drawn the ball detaches from the staff, by releasing a small switch, and swings around. When the staff is put away, by using the small switch, the iron ball retracts back to the staff. Different kinds of staves will have different looking blades and types of balls. Some of them could be spiked balls, status balls, or elemental balls.
Here is a picture of a staff (rod) with other various add-ons:
If any of this information is already used in the other Monster Hunter games (I do research the games) that's okay. This idea will only be posted on www.deviantart.com. If you see this somewhere else please contact me. I will gradually update this until the game play mechanics are finished.10 hospitalized, one in critical condition, during Fourth of July 'floatilla' off Waikiki Copyright by KHON - All rights reserved Photo: Department of Land and Natural Resources [ + - ] Video
What started off as a quiet Fourth of July holiday turned into one of the most dangerous off Waikiki, according to lifeguards.
An Emergency Medical Services spokeswoman confirmed a 19-year-old woman was hospitalized in critical condition due to intoxication.
Nine others were also rushed to the emergency room. Officials say they ranged in age from 17 to 26, and suffered from intoxication and injuries related to alcohol. They were all listed in serious condition.
At least 10 more were treated at the scene.
EMS and the city's Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services responded with multiple other agencies, including the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, during the annual Independence Day "floatilla."
Crews patrolled the waters as an estimated 8,000-10,000 people spent the day in motorized boats and blow-up water toys.
While the floating party was largely safe and incident-free during the beginning of the day, EMS says by 2 p.m., one emergency medical call after another came in, and hundreds ultimately needed rescue.
Lifeguards stayed overtime until 7:30 p.m.Kauikeauoli, Kamehameha III, declared in the mid 1800s, "He aupuni palapala koʻu," mine is a kingdom of literacy. We were a lāhui na'auao, an educated and enlightened nation.
Western education, while introduced by foreigners, was promoted heavily by the Hawaiian Kingdom and as a result, the Native Hawaiian people quickly became one of the most literate groups in the world.
We are no longer one of the most literate groups in the world. I, like many Hawaiians, nonetheless still firmly believe in education, both western and Hawaiian. We are a people capable of great intellect and innovation.
An informed and educated Hawaiian community should decide the future of the Hawaiian people, and I believe many of the recent efforts to move towards self-determination have contributed more to Hawaiian miseducation than education.
Since Act 195 was first passed and signed into law in 2011 by the Hawai'i State Legislature, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has spent close to $4 million on the Hawaiian Roll Commission, commonly known as Kana'iolowalu. Despite this extraordinary expenditure, less than 19,000 individuals voluntarily registered by August 2013, which amounts to less than 4% of the global Native Hawaiian population. A second bill was passed to bolster the effort, Act 77 (2012) added OHA's former efforts at a Native Hawaiian registry to the Roll, pushing the current roll's numbers over 75,000.
It is unlikely that the initial efforts actually resulted in many individuals who had not signed onto the previous efforts (including Kau Inoa, Hawaiian Registry Program and Operation 'Ohana). At this point, one must ask why OHA spent close to $4 million in trust funds when the majority of the registry was created through legislation that cost beneficiaries nothing?
Kana'iolowalu is sadly only the latest registry effort to face-plant out of the gate. There have been four separate registry programs spanning about a decade of work; millions of beneficiary dollars have been spent. Yet, less than 20% of Hawaiians are registered among the four programs.
To provide historical context, more people signed the Ku'e Petitions than voluntarily registered with Kana'iolowalu, and the Ku'e Petition movement consisted of people collecting signatures by horseback in the fall of 1897 when the entire Hawaiian population was less than 40,000 people.
Isn't it time to say the current effort isn't working?
It doesn't work because at its core this is a campaign conceived of by a few people for masses that remain uninformed as to its agenda and unconvinced of its goals.
Maybe Hawaiians don't want to be Native American Indians. Maybe we shouldn't be pursuing a federal recognition path that tries to squeeze us awkwardly into the mold of American Indian tribes.
Maybe we just want to be Hawaiians. And we deserve a campaign that opens dialogues as to what that means for us today and excludes no option when determining for ourselves how to move forward.
We deserve a campaign that discusses the many ways forward, including, but limited to, thorough and articulate considerations of restoration, restitution and recognition.
Restoration
The Nation of Hawai'i should be restored in some form for those who want that option. Some may not; such should be their right. Yet, part of the problem of attempting to move forward with Hawai'i sovereignty has been the gross misinformation of what the Nation was or more importantly, was not.
The Nation of Hawai'i was an independent sovereign nation, and it was not race based.
It was not race based then, it should not be made so now.
The Nation should be restored in some form because it was illegally and wrongly overthrown. That wrong should be made right.
For those who believe independence is impossible, I invite you to travel to any one of the many independent Pacific Island nation states that continue to prosper under independence. Independence is not only possible, but also commonplace.
But "the illegal overthrow" as it is called in the Apology Resolution (P.L. 103-150) was a wrong to every Hawai'i National and a wrong to this place. "Restoration of the Nation" should be just that. The effort to craft a restored nation that is inconsistent with what the Nation was originally is a significant factor in why the effort continues to fail.
You can't take all the parts of a Mustang and restore it into a Camaro.
Restitution
Once the Nation was illegally overthrown, Hawai'i entered into a dark era of blatant, violent, express and institutionalized discrimination against Native Hawaiians in an effort to further western economic and political agendas.
We do not have the death penalty in Hawai'i today because Native Hawaiians and immigrant groups were being disproportionately executed when we did have the death penalty in Hawai'i. The problem was so bad that the death penalty would eventually be outright banned in Hawai'i. That prohibition continues today.
For the institutionalized discrimination and resulting harm against the Native Hawaiian people (as a class of people identified by race, ancestry and ethnicity), there needs to be restitution to remedy the past harm.
This is separate from the Nation issue. This is akin to restitution given to the Japanese after WWII or restitution due African-Americans for slavery.
In the former of those two cases, the U.S. Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in the 1980s to study the issue. This led to a report that recommended reparations to the Japanese Americans who were victims of internment, an act codified in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The Act also provided restitution to the Aleut civilian residents of the Pribilof Islands and the Aleutian Islands for, among other things, "injustices suffered and unreasonable hardships endured while those residents were under United States control..." and "traditional village lands on Attu Island not rehabilitated after World War II for Aleut occupation or other productive use."
This is remedy due the Hawaiian people by the United States for how Native Hawaiians were treated and for the resulting intergenerational harm. It should be specific and finite.
Recognition
Recognition is about ancestry and knowledge. Recognition provides that indigenous people of a place were the true "First Discovers" and over time built a relationship with a place that was disrupted by foreign contact.
Recognition is not about restoration or restitution, it's about recognizing that indigenous peoples have knowledge about and connections to a place that should be honored and integrated into decision making. This is not about giving indigenous people a benefit, rather it's about institutionalizing mechanisms where native, cultural and community knowledge is utilized in a manner that benefits anyone who enjoys a particular place.
Recognition has little to do with sovereignty and even less to do with restoration. It recognizes a native tribe's former sovereignty, but it does not restore it. Tribes may be given some authority, but it a shadowy fraction of what historically existed.
To a degree, Native Hawaiians have recognition. It exists in the Hawai'i State Constitution, the National Historic Preservation Act and other laws. It needs to be enhanced and amplified. Native Hawaiians should collectively move towards having all the rights outlined in the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the United States announced it would sign onto in December 2010.
Conclusion
I'm frustrated because we deserve better. Earlier this year, Kana'iolowalu issued a "notice" in the Ka Wai Ola (OHA's newspaper) with the following statement: "Native Hawaiians who choose not to be included on the official roll risk waiving their right, and the right [sic] of the their children and descendants, to be legally and politically acknowledged as Native Hawaiians..."
This appears to directly contradict the language of the Commission's enabling legislation, which reads "No diminishment of rights or privileges. Nothing contained in this chapter shall diminish, alter, or amend any existing rights or privileges enjoyed by the Native Hawaiian people that are not inconsistent with this chapter."
It seems like the Commission has taken authority they don't have and used it to threaten Hawaiians into registering for a future the Commission seems unable to articulate. The Commission is beginning to walk and talk like the thug instigators of the Overthrow. And it's no surprise people aren't interested in signing up.
Instead of uniting us, the Roll continues to dissect us.
My frustration should not indicate an unwillingness to be part of us "coming together." I've just not seen good leadership tied to a good mechanism to make this happen.
If the right person asked, in the right way, with the right message, I think many of us would step forward and we would all be able to see what an extraordinary group Hawaiians are today.
The right person could inspire the Hawaiian people into collective action.
What is painfully obvious is that the Roll Commission process has not produced that inspiration.
There is no reason not to take a step back, constitute a federal Commission, much like the Native Hawaiians Study Commission established in 1980, but one that looks specifically at the issues of restoration, restitution and recognition, and calls upon the many Native Hawaiians who enjoy a range of perspectives and expertise to identify a plan or range of plans that work for all Hawaiians. If not through the federal government, than OHA should fund a citizen commission. If $4 million of trust funds can be spent on Kana'iolowalu, then surely a fraction of that can be spent on an effort led by the community, with the community.
One of my favorite O'ahu chief was Mā'ilikūkahi. This is one of my favorite passages about him, written by Samuel Kamakau.
When the kingdom passed to Mā`ili-kūkahi, the land divisions were in a state of confusion... Therefore Mā`ili-kūkahi ordered the chiefs, ali`i, the lesser chiefs, kaukau ali`i, the warrior chiefs, pū`ali ali`i, and the overseers, luna to divide all of O`ahu into moku and ahupua'a, `ili kūpono, `ili `āina, and mo`o `āina. There were six districts, moku, and six district chiefs, ali`i nui `āi moku. Chiefs were assigned to the ahupua'a - if it was a large ahupua'a, a high chief, an ali`i nui, was assigned to it. Lesser chiefs, kaukau ali`i, were placed over the kūpono lands, and warrior chiefs, `ili `āina. Lands were given to the maka`āinana all over O`ahu. Mā`ili-kūkahi commanded the chiefs, kāhuna, lesser chiefs, warrior chiefs and people: "Cultivate the land, raise pigs and dogs and fowl, and take the produce for food. And you, chiefs of the lands, do not steal from others or death will be the penalty. The chiefs are not to take from the maka`āinana...." The chiefs and people agreed with pleasure. Because of his exceedingly great concern for the prosperity of the kingdom, the chiefs and people never rebelled during his reign. No voice was heard in complaint or grumbling against this ali`i, from the chiefs to the commoners, from the most prominent po`e ki`eki`e to the most humble po`e ha`aha`a.
I was taught to believe in people, to support distribution of power to the people. Give people the freedom to find solutions that work for them and the people will prosper. Why can't we build many roads forward? Celebrate our diversity, rather than diminish it.
The 400,000 Native Hawaiians (over 80% of the global population of Hawaiians, according to the census) who have decided not to register deserve an opportunity to be heard. We deserve options. Real options. All the options. We have the intellect and the innovation to develop and explore them.
In the 25 years that have passed since the promulgation of the Native Hawaiian Education Act, countless Hawaiians have utilized that opportunity to educate themselves. The aupuni palapala has been rekindled. The lāhui na'auao reignited.DConf 2016 Has Successfully Concluded!
We were very very excited to hold DConf under Sociomantic's sponsorship in their neck of the woods—Berlin, one of Europe's premier technology hotbeds. Sociomantic has been a long-time supporter and user of D and we were grateful to benefit from their hosting.
The D programming language has continued to grow strongly through 2015 in both use and development participation. The fledgling D Language Foundation is poised to lead and organize the community better than ever before. DConf is the main face-to-face event for everyone and everything related to the D language and environment. The 2016 edition was held in premiere in Europe, on the heels of strong D adoption throughout the Old Continent. It was our largest event yet!
Conference Programme
Check the schedule or see our speakers page.
Important DatesArrested because he joked about Mandela: Police hold shopkeeper for eight hours, take his DNA and seize his computer - after local councillor objects to off-colour internet comments
Neil Phillips from Rugeley, Staffordshire, was also finger-printed
The 44-year-old insisted he meant no harm saying there was 'no hatred'
Local Councillor Tim Jones complained about the one-liners
CPS said they would not be prosecuting because of insufficient evidence
Tasteless: Neil Phillips, 44, insists he meant 'no harm' when he posted the jokes online
A sandwich shop owner endured eight hours of questioning by police and had his computer seized for three weeks – after making tasteless Nelson Mandela jokes on the internet.
Neil Phillips, who runs Crumbs in Rugeley, Staffordshire, says he was also finger-printed and DNA-swabbed after officers received complaints about what he insists were harmless gags.
In one online post, the 44-year-old wrote: 'My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela.'
Mandela, the former South African leader, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, died on Thursday, aged 95.
Mr Phillips was arrested at his home on September 10 and was taken to a police station where he was quizzed about the postings on the Rugeley Soap Box website.
He said: 'It was an awful experience. I was fingerprinted, they took DNA and my computer.
'It was a couple of jokes, Bernard Manning type.
'There was no hatred.
'You can question the taste, but they’re not hateful. I told the police they got plenty of "likes". What happened to freedom of speech?
'I think they over-reacted massively. Those jokes are "out there", anyway.
'When they took my computer, I thought, "what the hell are they looking for?" To be questioned would have been over the top, never mind arrested.'
Mr Phillips admitted to once being a member of the far-right BNP, but quit 25 years ago.
Death: The former South African leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner passed away on Thursday aged 95
Quizzed: Tom Christopher, 72, was also interviewed over claims he made threats online during a dispute over a proposed memorial
'They are jokes that I cut-and-pasted,' insisted Mr Phillips. 'I didn’t make them up and I didn’t put them on a public site.
'You have to sign-up and join. It’s turning into the thought police – you can’t do this, you can’t do that.
He was one of two men interviewed by police following a bitter, ill-tempered feud over plans for a mining memorial in the town centre has been ambushed by some members of the Far Right and used as a propaganda platform.
The other individual was pensioner and former miner Tom Christopher, 72, who was quizzed by police at his home in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, over claims he issued threats on the net.
The memorial dispute sank to new depths at a Rugeley Town Council meeting last week, when police ejected Mr Christopher.
He was enraged by public allegations that some of those involved in the miner's tribute were 'thugs and fascists'.
One council official admitted: 'It didn’t come to fisticuffs, but it was close.'
Cllr Jones added that he was 'deeply disturbed' an unofficial Facebook poll over the memorial has allegedly been 'influenced' by the English Defence League.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Tim Jones was so incensed by the one-liners, aired at a time when Mandela was critically ill, that he made an official complaint.
He commented under one tasteless joke: 'Attacking a 94-year-old man who is probably dying. Does the far right have an ounce of human decency?'
Forum: The comments were made on the Rugeley Bugle under the post The Soap Box
Outrage: Liberal Democrat Councillor Tim Jones was so incensed by the comments he made an official complaint 'The dispute is about its location. Without the involvement of extremists, people could have sat down talked about their differences and had a good chance of reaching agreement, perhaps on a survey, which most people would have accepted as fair.
'The whole affair is very sad.'
He then sent the Sunday Mercury - a Birmingham-based newspaper - screen grabs. One was of a shocking image of decapitation, another featuring a wheelchair-bound individual, both posted by Mr Phillips.
He said: 'They are vile and deeply offensive, anti-Muslim, anti-disabled.'
Staffordshire Police declined to go into detail about the nature of their interview with Mr Phillips. But a spokesman said: 'We can confirm a man was arrested in Rugeley on September 10. 'He was bailed pending further enquiries.
'When he answered bail on September 30, he was informed that there would be no further action based on CPS decision of there being insufficient evidence to support a prosecution.' Memorial: Globe Island in Rugeley, Staffordshire, which is the proposed site for a miner's tribute
Probe: The pair were both interviewed by officers over online posts which are part of a dispute over a mining tribute in Rugeley town centreThe term “self organisation” refers to the emergence of complex behaviour (typically in biological systems) from simple rules and random fluctuations. In this blog post we will see how we can take advantage of self organisation to design a simple yet effective coin selection algorithm.
Coin selection is the process of selecting unspent outputs in a user’s wallet to satisfy a particular payment request (for a recap of UTxO style accounting, see section “Background: UTxO-style Accounting” of my previous blog post). As Jameson Lopp points out in his blog post The Challenges of Optimizing Unspent Output Selection, coin selection is thorny problem. Moreover, there is a surprising lack of academic publications on the topic; indeed, the only scientific study of coin selection appears to be Mark Erhardt’s masters thesis An Evaluation of Coin Selection Strategies.
Note: by a slight abuse of nomenclature, throughout this blog post we will refer to a user’s set of unspent outputs as that user’s UTxO.
Dust
An obvious strategy that many coin selection algorithms use in some form or other is “try to get as close to the requested value as possible”. The problem with such an approach is that it tends to create a lot of dust: small unspent outputs that remain unused in the user’s wallet because they’re not particularly useful. For example, consider the “largest first” algorithm: a simple algorithm which considers all unspent outputs of the wallet in order of size, adding them to a running total until it has covered the requested amount. Here’s an animation of the effect of this algorithm:
Figure 1. Simulation of largest-first coin selection. Main histogram shows UTxO entries; inset graph shows UTxO balance in blue and UTxO size in red, histogram top-right shows number of inputs per transaction, graph bottom right shows the change:payment ratio (more on that below). Graph at the bottom shows the distribution of deposits (blue, left axis) versus payments (red, right axis). In this case, both are normally distributed with a mean of 1000 and 3000 respectively, and we have a deposit:payment ratio of 3:1; modelling a situation where we have frequent smaller deposits, and less frequent but larger payments (withdrawals). The wallet starts with an initial balance of 1M.
There are various things to see in this animation, but for now we want to focus on the UTxO histogram and its size. Note that as time passes, the size of the UTxO increases and increases, up to about 60k entries after about 1M cycles (with 3 deposits and 1 payment per cycle). A wallet with 60k entries is huge, and looking at the UTxO histogram we can see why this happens: virtually all of these entries are dust. We get more and more small outputs, and those small outputs are getting smaller and smaller.
Cleaning up
Erhardt makes the following very astute observation:
If 90% of the UTxO is dust, then if we pick an unspent output randomly, we have a 90% change of picking a dust output.
He concludes that this means that a coin selection algorithm that simply picks unspent outputs at random might be pretty effective; in particular, effective at collecting dust. Indeed, it is. Consider the following simulation:
Figure 2. Same distribution and ratio as in Figure 1; we run the largest-first algorithm for 1M cycles, and then random coin selection for another 150k cycles.
Notice quite how rapidly the random coin selection reduces the size of the UTxO once it kicks in. If you watch the inputs-per-transaction histogram, you can see that when the random input selection takes over, it first creates a bunch of transactions with 10 inputs (we limited transaction size to 10 for this simulation), rapidly collecting dust. Once the dust is gone, the number of inputs shrinks to about 3 or 4, which makes perfect sense given the 3:1 ratio of deposits and withdrawals.
We will restate Erhardt’s observation as our first self organisation principle:
Self organisation principle 1. Random selection has a high priobability of picking dust outputs precisely when there is a lot of dust in the UTxO.
It provides a very promising starting point for an effective coin selection algorithm, but there are some improvements we can make.
Active UTxO management
Consider the following simulation of a pure “select randomly until we reach the target value” coin selection algorithm:
Figure 3. Random-until-value-reached, for a 1:1 ratio of deposits and withdrawals, both drawn from a normal distribution with mean 1000.
The first observation is that this algorithm is doing much better than the largest-first policy in terms of the size of the UTxO, which is about 2 orders of magnitude smaller: a dramatic improvement. However, if we look at the UTxO histogram, we can see that there is room for improvement: although this algorithm is good at collecting dust, it’s also still generating quite a bit of dust. The UTxO histogram has two peaks. The first one is approximately normally distributed around 1000, which are the deposits that are being made. The second one is near 0, which are all the dust outputs that are being created.
This brings us to the topic of active UTxO management. In an ideal case, coin selection algorithms should, over time, create a UTxO that has “useful” outputs; that is, outputs that allow us to process future payments with a minimum number of inputs. We can take advantage of self organisation again:
Self organisation principle 2. If for each payment request for value x we create a change output roughly of the same value x, then we will end up with a lot of change outputs in our UTxO of size x precisely when we have a lot of payment requests of size x.
We will consider some details of how to achieve this in the next section. For now see what the effect of this is on the UTxO:
Figure 4. Same deposits and withdrawals as in Figure 3, but now using the "pick randomly until we have a change output roughly equal to the payment" algorithm.
The graph at the bottom right, which we’ve ignored so far, records the change:payment ratio. A value near zero means a very small change output (i.e., dust); a very high value would be the result of using a huge UTxO entry for a much smaller payment. A value around 1 is perfect, and means that we are generating change outputs of equal value as the payments.
Note that the UTxO now follows precisely the distribution of payment requests, and we’re not generating dust anymore. One advantage of this is that because we have no dust, the average number of inputs per transaction can be lower than in the basic algorithm.
Just to illustrate this again, here is the result of the algorithm but now with a 3:1 ratio of deposits and withdrawals:
Figure 5. Same algorithm as in Figure 4, but now with 3:1 deposits:payments (i.e., many small deposits, fewer but larger payments).
We have two bumps now: one normally distributed around 1000, corresponding to the the deposits, and one normally distributed around 3000, corresponding to the payment requests that are being made. As before, the median change:payment ratio is a satisfying round 1.0.
The Random-Improve algorithm
We are now ready to present the coin selection algorithm we propose. The basic idea is simple: we will randomly pick UTxO entries until we have reached the required value, and then continue randomly picking UTxO entries to try and reach a total value such that the the change value is roughly equal to the payment.
This presents a dilemma though. Suppose we have already covered the minimum value required, and we’re trying to improve the change output. We pick an output from the UTxO, and it turns out to be huge. What do we do? One option is to discard it and continue searching, but this would result in coin selection frequently traversing the entire UTxO, resulting in poor performance.
Fortunately, self organisation comes to the rescue again. We can set an upper bound on the size of the change output we still consider acceptable (we will set it to twice the payment value). Then we take advantage of the following property.
Self organisation principle 3. Searching the UTxO for additional entries to improve our change output is only useful if the UTxO contains entries that are sufficiently small enough. But precisely when the UTxO contains many small entries, it is less likely that a randomly chosen UTxO entry will push the total above the upper bound we set.
In other words, our answer to “what do we do when we happen to pick a huge UTxO entry?” is “we stop trying to improve our selection”. We can now describe the algorithm:
Randomly select outputs from the UTxO until the payment value is covered. (In the rare case that this fails because the maximum number of transaction inputs has been exceeded, fall-back on the largest-first algorithm for this step.) Randomly select outputs from the UTxO, considering for each output if that output is an improvement. If it is, add it to the transaction, and keep going. An output is considered an improvement when: It doesn’t exceed the specified upper limit
Adding the new output gets us closer to the ideal change value
It doesn’t exceed the maximum number of transaction inputs.
Figure 6. The Random-Improve algorithm. Side note for point (2a): we use twice the value of the payment as the upper limit. Side note for point (2b): it might be that without the new output we are slightly below the ideal value, and with the new output we are slightly above; that is fine, as long as the absolute distance decreases.
Evaluation
The algorithm from Figure 6 is deceptively simple. Do the self organisation principles we isolated really mean that order will emerge from chaos? Simulations suggest, yes, it does. We already mentioned how random input selection does a great job at cleaning up dust in Figure 2; what we didn’t emphasize in that section is that the algorithm we simulated there is actually our Random-Improve algorithm. Notice how the median change:payment ratio is initially very low (indicative of a coin selection algorithm that is generating a lot of dust outputs), but climbs rapidly back to 1 as soon as Random-Improve kicks in. We already observed that it does indeed do an excellent job at cleaning up the dust, quickly reducing the size of the UTxO. The simulations in Figures 4 and 5 are also the result of the Random-Improve algorithm.
That said, of course the long term effects of a coin selection algorithm can depend strongly on the nature of the distribution of deposits and payments. It is therefore important that we evaluate the algorithm against a number of different distributions.
Normal distribution, 10:1 deposit:payment ratio
We already evaluated Random-Improve against normally distributed payments and deposits with a 1:1 ratio and a 3:1 ratio; perhaps more typical for exchange nodes might be even higher ratios. Here is a 10:1 ratio:
Figure 7. Simulation of largest-first coin selection. Main histogram shows UTxO entries; inset graph shows UTxO balance in blue and UTxO size in red, histogram top-right shows number of inputs per transaction, graph bottom right shows the change:payment ratio (more on that below). Graph at the bottom shows the distribution of deposits (blue, left axis) versus payments (red, right axis). In this case, both are normally distributed with a mean of 1000 and 3000 respectively, and we have a deposit:payment ratio of 3:1; modelling a situation where we have frequent smaller deposits, and less frequent but larger payments (withdrawals). The wallet starts with an initial balance of 1M.
We see a very similar picture as we did in Figure 5. Since the deposits and payments are randomly drawn (from normal distributions), the UTxO balance naturally fluctuates up and down. What is satisfying to see however is that the size of the UTxO tracks the balance rather precisely; this is about as good as we can hope for. Notice also that the change:payment ratio is a nice round 1, and the average number of transaction inputs covers around 10 or 11, which is what we’d expect for a 10:1 ratio of deposits:payments.
Exponential distribution, 1:1 deposit:payment ratio
What if the payments and deposits are not normally distributed? Here is Random-Improve on exponentially distributed inputs:
Figure 8. Random-Improve, 1:1 deposit:payment ratio, deposits and payments both drawn from an exponential distribution with scale 1000.
In an exponential distribution we have a lot of values near 0; for such values it will be hard to achieve a “good” change output, as we are likely to overshoot the range. Partly due to this reason the algorithm isn’t quite achieving a 1.0 change:payment ratio, but at 1.5 it is still generating useful change outputs. Furthermore, we can see that the size of the UTxO tracks the UTxO balance nicely, and the average number of transaction inputs is low, with roughly 53% having just one input.
Moreover, when we increase the deposit:payment ratio to 3:1 and then 10:0, the change:payment ratio drops to about 1.1 and then back to 1.0 (graphs omitted).
Erlang
The exponential distribution results in many very small deposits and payments. The algorithm does better on slightly more realistic distributions such as the Erlang-k distributions (for k > 1). Here we show the animation for the 3:1 deposit:payment ratio using the Erlang-3 distribution; the results for other ratios (including 1:1) and other values of k (we additionally simulated for k = 2 and k = 10) are similar.
Figure 9. Random-Improve, 3:1 deposit:payment ratio, deposits drawn from an Erlang-3 distribution with scale 1000 and payments drawn from Erlang-3 distributio with scale 3000.
More payments than deposits
We have been focusing on the case where we have more deposits and fewer (but larger) payments. What happens if the ratio is reversed?
Figure 10. Random-Improve, 1:10 deposit:payment ratio, deposits and payments drawn from a normal distribution with mean 10k and 1k, respectively. 1M cycles.
In this case we are unable to achieve that perfect 1.0 change:payment ratio, but this is expected: when we have large deposits, then we frequently have no choice but to use those, leading to large change outputs. We can see this more clearly when we slow things right down, and remove any source of randomness; here is the same 1:10 ratio again, but now only the first 100 cycles, and all deposits exactly 10k and all payments exactly 1k:
Figure 11. Random-Improve, 1 |
given to AMF. So if you think a year of cow life averted is about as valuable as one year of human life, then a couple of dollars given to AMF approximately offsets the harm of dairy.
This calculation is necessarily rough, and perhaps the principal problem is comparing ‘years as a dairy cow’ versus ‘years as a human’. Many people will say that human lives are worth more, but others (particularly EAs interested in animal advocacy) might argue that averting years of dairy cow life is more valuable to adding years of human life.
The advent of Animal Charity Evaluators allows a more ‘apples to apples’ comparison, as they offer rough estimates of how effective their charities are in terms of ‘animal lives in agriculture’ averted, which is about the same outcome as we expect from reducing our consumption. These figures are remarkably high: ACE estimates the Humane League as averting 3.4 lives for every dollar spent. It rates Mercy for Animals and Animal Equality International even higher, at 8.8 animals/$ and 10.1 animals/$.
A comparison between donations to THL and abstaining from dairy is instructive. 1/45th of a cow life per year, divided by 3.4 lives per dollar:
Price (in THL donations) of dairy = 1/45 years / 3.4 years/$ = $0.0065
Less than a cent per year to THL (the least cost-effective of ACE’s recommendations) does as much good as abstaining from dairy from the same period, and this might be conservative (we’ve assumed that animal lives only last one year, inter alia).
Dairy is the least harmful of animal products in the typical diet. Consider instead going from a typical american diet to veganism. Peter Hurford helpfully provides the following estimated relative harms of different animal products in the typical american diet:
Giving up beef is ~2.1x as important as giving up dairy.
Giving up beef is ~1.9x as important as giving up turkey.
Giving up pork is ~2.9x as important as giving up beef.
Giving up chicken meat is ~11.3x as important as giving up beef.
Giving up eggs is ~11.8x as important as giving up beef.
Giving up aquacultured fish is ~6.4x as important as giving up beef.
We can convert the relevant foods into ‘dairy equivalents’.
Dairy - 1 Beef - 2.1 Pork - 6.1 (2.1*2.9) Chicken - 23.7 (2.1*11.3) Eggs - 24.8 (2.1*11.8) Fish - 13.4 (2.1*6.4) TOTAL - 71.1
So the typical american diet is 71.1 times worse than only consuming dairy but abstaining from meat and eggs. We can recalculate the value of turning vegan in terms of yearly THL donations:
Price (in THL donations) of veganism = 1/45 * 71.1 / 3.4 years/$ = $0.46
So being vegan for a year is about as good as giving 46 cents to the humane league.
Sources of uncertainty
This seems remarkably cheap. Should we believe this calculation?
I have made a few short-cuts, and a more careful calculation could be made (perhaps recalculating the animal welfare costs from Hurford rather than taking the bottom line estimates, or dis-aggregating ‘animals’ when looking at the benefit of abstaining from dairy alone). However, it the ‘bottom line’ figure isn’t sensitive enough to these factors to be driven up by several orders of magnitude. Hurford also estimates the typical American diet causes 5.5 years of animal suffering per year. Using this directly gets a factor of 4:
Price (in THL donations of veganism = 5.5 years/3.4 years/$ = $1.62
Further, several elements of the calculation were conservative: I’ve ignored elasticities (which would reduce the amount of animal suffering dietary change would avert), I’ve assumed that all animals saved would live for a year, and I’ve picked THL instead of 2-3x better performing AE or MfA. Scott Alexander has made a similar calculation to mine using similar data, and gets similar ‘bottom line’ figures.
Perhaps weakest component in the calculation is the cost effectiveness of the animal charities. One may think the estimates are too good to be true. Even if one cannot see any obvious feature of over-estimation, regression to the mean means that the estimated-to-be-best charities will be generally overestimated, and this effect can bite particularly hard if the distribution is log-normal or broader.
Is veganism worth it?
Taking these calculations at face value suggests individual dietary change is unimportant, with an equivalent donation value of a handful of dollars each year. Given most people would prefer to keep their current carnivorous diet for more than this amount, this suggests offsetting donations are much better for most than diet change. (Of interest, if milk substitutes are even 1 cent more expensive over the year, then returning to milk and donating the difference seems a better strategy.)
If one is pessimistic about the estimates ACE gives, and anticipates a 3 or 4 order of magnitude correction, then the price of veganism does rise to the level where people might prefer to change diet rather than give moral offsets. However, most animal focused EAs I’ve talked to seem optimistic that ACE’s estimates are not dramatic over-estimates. This optimism seems incongruous with their eagerness to get EAs and EA events to be vegan: persuading them to give their pocket change to THL seems much easier (and better for animal welfare!) than getting them to change their diets. Dietary change looks like a very ineffective intervention.
Sundries
I foresee two main objections, given the remarks Jeff’s post gathered.
The first is that unlike donation targets, veganism and giving money to THL are not mutually exclusive, so there is no trade-off – just do both! Yet although veganism may not draw directly on our donation budget, it may plausibly draw on our budgets of self-sacrifice and self-control. There are other unpleasant actions we could take which are independent of donations (having cold showers to reduce energy expenditure and thus climate change), which most of us intuit probably aren’t worth it in terms of indirect costs due to their limited impact. I aver that for most people changing their diet, given the extremely low monetary value of an offsetting donation, falls below this threshold. (For those for whom it doesn’t, go vegan!)
The second that this analysis only tries to model ‘first order’ impacts. Being vegetarian or vegan might have a larger impact in terms of persuading others to become vegetarian or vegan, and generally act to signal dismay at animal agriculture. It looks hard for an animal welfare advocate getting any traction if they eat meat. These ‘second order’ effects are hard to quantify, but I struggle to think they would be worth more than 10x or 100x the ‘direct impact’ of not eating animal products for most people who aren't spending most of their energies being animal advocates. I have been a vegetarian all my life, and I have mentioned it in conversation less than 50 times, and I doubt much more than half the people who know me also know I’m a vegetarian, and much fewer the reasoning why. The amount of ‘second order effects’ of my vegetarianism on animal welfare are wholly trivial, and I doubt I’m wildly away from the population mean in terms of second order impacts.Donald Trump (Linda So)
Donald Trump's decision to depose campaign chief Paul Manafort in favor of two loyalists signals one thing: The Republican presidential nominee's brief flirtation with being a more packaged and conventional candidate is over. Trump wants to win or, more likely, lose on his own terms — by being exactly who he has been throughout his life.
In April, Manafort was brought into a campaign that was flailing as it tried to transition from gritty outsider to presumptive nominee. He replaced Corey Lewandowski, an outspoken advocate of the "let Trump be Trump" strategy. The move was seen at the time as Trump's acknowledgment that the sort of say-anything-at-any-time strategy that had carried him to a shocking primary victory was insufficient for the general election challenge he now faced. It was also regarded as a bow to the power of the Trump children, who had long agitated for Lewandowski to be removed, and an attempt by Trump to reach out to a party establishment he had lambasted during his rapid rise to the Republican nomination.
The pivot that many expected would come with Manafort's hire never really happened. Trump would occasionally pay lip service to the need to unite the party and, yes, would read a speech off a teleprompter from time to time. But, his heart was never in it — and he was terrible about hiding that fact. As the months passed following Manafort's hire and Trump watched his once-beloved poll numbers falter, it became increasingly clear that he was fed up with all of the talk about the need to turn over a new leaf or do anything fundamentally different than he had done while winning the Republican nomination.
Trump's interview with a Wisconsin TV station Tuesday — before the staff shake-up went public — sums up his mind-set at this point in the campaign.
"I am who I am," Trump said. "I've gotten here in a landslide and we'll see what happens."
What that quote — and the subsequent staff moves — should tell you is that Trump thinks he made a mistake in bowing to establishment pressure and bringing in a veteran hand like Manafort to oversee things. Trump sees his current problems in the race as deriving not from being too much of himself but from not being enough of himself.
What moving out Manafort and elevating Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon should tell you is that Trump has decided that he is going to run the past three months — or so — of the campaign on his own terms. Win or lose, he is going to go out being himself.
This is a prospect that should send shock waves of terror through the Republican establishment that had been hoping against hope that a Trump pivot was waiting somewhere around the next corner. (The truth is that the "Let Trump be Trump" movement never was truly abandoned amid the Manafort reign because, well, Trump didn't want to let it go.) Conway and Bannon are outspoken voices in favor of Trump letting loose — against Hillary Clinton, against the media and, perhaps most importantly, against the Republican establishment. If you thought Trump's initial unwillingness to endorse the likes of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) or Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and John McCain (Ariz.) were noteworthy, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The next three months will be Trump Unbound. In a way, it all makes sense. Trump has always been totally sui generis as a politician; there is nothing like him now nor has there ever been — at least in modern presidential history. So, why not let the candidate follow his own North Star rather than try to force him to conform to the traditional norms of campaigns? If Trump is going to lose — and that is a likely bet today — let him lose on his own terms.
All of which is well and good for Trump. It is, after all, his campaign to do with what he likes. But, the prospect of an even less-disciplined Trump who is even less loyal to or concerned about the national party which he is ostensibly leading will make the lives of down-ballot GOP incumbents and challengers hell over the next 83 days.
The most difficult thing for Republicans trying to grapple with what Trump means for their own electoral prospects has always been his unpredictability. His staff moves early Wednesday morning just ensured he's going to get even less predictable in the race's closing stretch.The NHL does not have a player cost problem. The NHL has a small-market revenue problem, one its initial parody of a collective bargaining proposal to the NHLPA doesn’t begin to address.
On Tuesday, the NHLPA will present a proposal to the league that does address this core economic issue. The document is expected to represent a far-sighted vision for the NHL rather than the myopic approach in favor on Sixth Avenue, where it seems like 2004 all over again.
“Our fundamental proposal, our initial proposal, relates to the fact that we need to pay out less in player costs,” Gary Bettman said on Thursday in reaffirming the league’s intention to shut down the league on Sept. 15 if the players don’t agree to massive givebacks.
Eight years ago, the NHL mounted a massive public relations campaign to justify its reach into the players’ pockets, much of the appeal to the fans resting on a pledge that a hard cap would result in lower ticket prices.
There’s no such attempt this time around. The league isn’t even attempting to justify its position of demanding massive givebacks from the players in order to be allowed to play without interruption.
Everyone — and that includes Bettman, deputy commissioner Bill Daly, chief of staff Bob Batterman and the Board of Governors — knows the disparity of revenue between the powerhouse markets and the ne’er-do-wells is the critical issue confronting the NHL, but the powers that be either don’t have the imagination or foresight or the stomach or political capital to attend to it.
Thus, it is left to the players themselves, left to the union led by Don Fehr to propose meaningful changes to the landscape that truly will benefit franchises like the Islanders, Panthers and Blues, even if at some expense to Jeremy Jacobs’ Bruins and Ed Snider’s Flyers and Rogers’ and Bell Canada’s Maple Leafs.
* Imagine if the NHLPA had come to the NHL a month ago and said the players would go on strike unless all existing contracts immediately were increased by 24 percent. Imagine if Zach Parise had used his union to indirectly tell Wild owner Craig Leipold the $98 million sounded good at the time he signed as a free agent, but the winger would now require the deal be bumped to $121.52 million before he would put on a Minnesota uniform.
Imagine the outrage in all quarters if players were using this round of collective bargaining as a mechanism to engage in a mass breach of promise with the owners. No one would be pretending the responsibility lay on both sides if the NHLPA acted so unethically in the guise of labor negotiations.
Yet when the owners want to unilaterally renege on contracts into which they entered into willingly and without threat or duress, somehow this is regarded as a sound negotiating tactic. This may be a legal tactic under labor law, but it is reflective of bad faith and illustrative of the NHL’s disregard for its own word and for its owners’ own signatures.
The word “rollback” has not been used, that’s true, but that only is because the union never responded to the NHL’s initial offer, never gave it credibility by asking Bettman or the league negotiating committee how it would intend to accommodate existing contracts in a world in which the players’ share and cap immediately would be reduced by 24 percent.
There was pain in 2004-05 when the players agreed to a 24-percent rollback, no doubt, but that wouldn’t compare to the blood-letting that such a rollback would create this time. There were no 10-, 12-, or 15-year deals then. There were no $85 million or $110 million contracts then.
By my inexact calculation, approximately $5.27 billion is owed players under current contracts. Does anyone for a moment believe the union would agree to what would be a giveback of more than $1.26 billion going forward?
Is Bettman prepared to tell Sidney Crosby he can’t play unless he surrenders $25.856 million of the $111.9 million he has coming to him? Shea Weber has $97 million coming to him; Ilya Kovalchuk, Alex Ovechkin, Parise and Ryan Suter all have $88 million coming. Does anyone in his right mind believe they’re going to give back nearly a quarter of what they have been promised?
There is good faith and there is legalized extortion. There are problem-solvers and there are shell-game operators. There is collective bargaining, and there is the NHL on the verge of another owners’ lockout.In this age with a permanent human presence in orbit currently provided by the International Space Station (ISS), it seems hard to recall a time when the routine operations needed to maintain it were not so routine. This was certainly the case a half century ago as NASA was still learning the skills needed for Apollo to reach the Moon.
After the early return of NASA’s Gemini 8 mission following a nearly disastrous thruster failure on March 16, 1966 (see “Gemini 8: The First Docking in Space”), NASA still had four more Gemini missions to fly before the first manned Apollo test flight scheduled for the end of that year. While many of the important objectives of the Gemini program had been met, there was still much more to learn and practice before NASA felt confident moving on to the more advanced Apollo flights.
Gemini Program Objectives
The purpose of NASA’s Gemini program was to develop the technologies and techniques needed to fulfill President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon by 1970. The major objectives of the program were:
– Demonstrate that humans and their equipment can survive up to two weeks in space
– Demonstrate rendezvous and docking techniques in orbit
– Demonstrate the technology and techniques needed to perform EVAs (Extra-Vehicular Activities)
Meeting all of these objectives was necessary if the Apollo lunar program were to be successful.
Gemini was a two-man spacecraft that was roughly conical in shape with a base diameter of 3.3 meters which stood 5.8 meters tall. Built by the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (which merged with Douglas in 1967 to become McDonnell Douglas which subsequently merged with Boeing 30 years later), it consisted of two major sections. The first section was the reentry module which housed the crew, their equipment, food supplies and so on in orbit as well as the recovery systems needed to safely return them to Earth. The nose of this module also contained an L-band radar system for orbital rendezvous operations. Unlike today’s crewed spacecraft, the Gemini crew cabin was pressurized with pure oxygen at about one-third standard atmospheric pressure to save weight. The next section, the adapter section, connected the reentry module to the launch vehicle during ascent and housed equipment needed to support the crew while in orbit. It consisted of a retrograde section which held a set of four solid retrorockets used to start the descent to Earth from orbit and an equipment section which housed the in-orbit propulsion system called OAMS (Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System), life support, power systems and all other equipment not needed for the return to Earth.
With a typical launch mass of up to about 3,700 kilograms or more, Gemini needed the largest operational rocket available at the time to get into orbit: a modified Titan II ICBM built by Martin Marietta (which is now part of Lockheed Martin). A number of modifications were made to simplify the operation of this rocket, smooth out its ride and improve its reliability to support crewed missions. With the Gemini spacecraft mounted on top, the Titan II GLV (Gemini Launch Vehicle) was 33 meters tall and had a fully fueled launch mass of about 154 metric tons.
The Gemini 9 Mission Plan
During the first year of manned missions, the Gemini program had made steady progress in meeting its objectives in support of Apollo. A series of long duration missions culminating in the two-week flight of Gemini 7 demonstrated that a crew and its hardware could operate in space for periods of time longer than that needed for Apollo to land on the Moon and return (see “Rendezvous in Space: The Launch of Gemini 7”). The objectives of the Gemini 9 mission, as well as those that would follow, would center on building experience with rendezvous and docking with an orbiting spacecraft as well as EVAs.
In October 1965, NASA chose the crews that would train for the Gemini 9 mission. The primary crew consisted of Elliot M. See, Jr. as the command pilot and USAF Captain Charles A. Bassett II as the pilot. Before joining NASA’s astronaut corps with the second group selected in September 1962, the 38 year old See had worked as a civilian test pilot for General Electric where he was involved in flight testing of jet engines for various high-performance aircraft. Bassett, who was 34 years old, served as a test pilot at the USAF Fighter Projects Office at Edwards Air Force Base before being selected as an astronaut in October 1963 as part of NASA’s third group of astronauts. Neither man had previously flown in space.
The backup crew for Gemini 9 was USAF Major Thomas P. Stafford as the command pilot and USN Lieutenant Eugene A. Cernan as the pilot. Stafford, who was 35 years old and a graduate of the US Naval Academy, was a pilot who served as the chief of the Performance Branch of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards before he was selected as an astronaut along with See and seven others in September 1962. He was finishing preparations as pilot for the Gemini 6 mission with Wally Schirra when he was assigned to the Gemini 9 mission. Cernan, who was 31 years old, was a naval aviator with over 1,900 hours of flight experience and was selected for NASA’s third group of astronauts. This was his first flight assignment. All four men of the primary and backup crews also had engineering degrees in addition to being experienced jet aircraft pilots.
The first set of objectives for the Gemini 9 mission centered on orbital rendezvous and docking. The docking target chosen for the Gemini program was a modified Agena D upper stage known as the Gemini Agena Target Vehicle (GATV) launched into orbit using the SLV-3 (Standard Launch Vehicle-3) version of the Atlas booster built by General Dynamics. Built by the Lockheed Missile and Space Company (which is now part of the aerospace giant, Lockheed Martin), the Agena D not only served as an upper stage for use with Thor, Atlas and (by 1966) the Titan IIIB rockets, but could also be integrated into range of Defense Department payloads such as the Corona reconnaissance satellites to provide support functions during these missions. The standardized Agena D, with its modular design, could be easily modified to serve as a docking target for Gemini.
In addition to modifications to its primary and secondary propulsion systems to support its role as a docking target, the forward end of the Agena D was fitted with an auxiliary rack holding special rendezvous and telemetry equipment. Also added were strobe lights and an L-band radar transponder to aid in rendezvous operations as well as command equipment to allow the GATV to be controlled from the ground or by the Gemini crew. A cone shaped target docking adapter (TDA), which was under a shroud during launch, was added to the forward end of the stage to allow the nose of the Gemini reentry module to dock with the Agena and mechanically lock the two spacecraft together. Once in orbit, the GATV was 9.7 meters long with a mass of about 3,200 kilograms.
Over the course of the earlier Gemini missions, the crews had worked their way in a step-wise fashion to develop the various skills required to rendezvous and dock with an orbiting spacecraft just as the Apollo Command-Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Module (LM) would have to do during a lunar landing mission. The original objective of the two-day Gemini 6 mission was to rendezvous and dock with the first flight-ready GATV, Agena GATV-5002 (see “The Unflown Mission of Gemini 6”). Unfortunately, the Agena was lost during launch on October 25, 1965 when its main engine failed upon ignition. Without a replacement GATV available, a new “Gemini 6A” mission was quickly devised where the spacecraft would rendezvous with Gemini 7 during its already planned two-week long duration mission. Gemini 6 with Schirra and Stafford at the controls successfully performed its rendezvous with Gemini 7 on December 15 but no docking was attempted because of the lack time to build and qualify an appropriate interface on the crewed target vehicle (see “Rendezvous in Space: Gemini 6 and 7”). The first actual docking in space took place during the Gemini 8 mission on March 16, 1966. Unfortunately plans for additional docking exercises with the Agena GATV-5003 target and an EVA were called off after a Gemini OAMS thruster malfunction forced an early end to the mission.
A number of different rendezvous modes with the GATV had been identified during theoretical studies. The most aggressive and fastest of these, which would be preferred for the Apollo missions when the LM departed the lunar surface, was the “first apogee” method where the active spacecraft would be launched directly into an elliptical orbit that would allow a rendezvous with the passive target spacecraft during the active spacecraft’s first apogee. This method required a fast-paced sequence of precisely timed and executed maneuvers in order to be successful. For the first Gemini dockings, the “coelliptical” method was chosen instead where the active spacecraft would first be placed into a circular orbit below and some distance behind the passive target spacecraft. The active spacecraft would then catch up to its target over the course of several orbits then maneuver to match the target’s orbit in order to perform the actual docking. While this approach took longer, it was much more flexible and allowed more time to plan and execute maneuvers – a desirable characteristic for the first attempts of the untried orbital rendezvous procedure.
For the Gemini 6A and 8 missions, an “M=4” rendezvous profile was followed where the active Gemini rendezvoused with its passive target during the fourth revolution. Now with actual flight experience in hand, Apollo program officials wanted to test more aggressive rendezvous profiles that were closer approximations of what they wished to fly with the LM. After much debate it was decided that Gemini 9 would attempt a “M=3” profile.
In order to rendezvous one orbit sooner than previous missions, Gemini 9 would have to begin its maneuvers immediately after separation from the second stage of its Titan II launch vehicle. The first maneuver with a delta-v of up to 9 meters per second was called IVAR (Insertion Velocity Adjust Routine) which would immediately reduce the inevitable orbit insertion errors using data provided by the spacecraft’s inertial guidance system. At first apogee about a half orbit later, a phase adjustment maneuver would be performed to get proper phasing of the Gemini and Agena orbits. The next big change in the rendezvous profile came one and a half orbits later with a “triple play” maneuver which would correct phase, height and orbital plane errors all at once. The next maneuver two and a quarter revolutions after orbit insertion would circularize Gemini’s orbit 28 kilometers below its target’s circular 298-kilometer orbit. From this point, Gemini 9 would follow the same sequence of maneuvers as the earlier M=4 missions to reach its target for docking but an orbit earlier.
America’s Second EVA
After docking with its Agena target vehicle, 38½ hours of docked operations would start. On the second day of the mission the next major mission objective would be addressed: an EVA while still docked to the Agena was planned. Up to this time, NASA’s only EVA experience was from Ed White’s brief 20-minute “spacewalk” on June 3, 1965 during the Gemini 4 mission (see “The Forgotten Mission of Gemini 4”). It was not until the Gemini 8 mission that the equipment for more advanced EVA operations was available. Unfortunately, David Scott never had the opportunity to perform his planned EVA after the Gemini 8 mission was cut short. This left a long list of tasks to be accomplished during what was then going to be a record-long 2½ hour EVA by the Gemini 9 pilot.
At a mission elapsed time of 20 hours and 51 minutes, the pilot was scheduled to open his hatch and begin his EVA while attached to the spacecraft using a 7.6-meter umbilical similar to that employed during the Gemini 4 EVA. In addition to the umbilical, life support was also provided by a 19-kilogram, chest mounted Extravehicular Life Support System (ELSS) similar in function to the one worn by White which would allow the astronaut to control his life support and provide 30 minutes of emergency oxygen in case an issue arose with his umbilical-supplied oxygen from Gemini. While standing, the astronaut would recover the experiment called the “S-12 Spacecraft Micrometeoroid Collection” mounted on the Gemini adapter section mounted behind the pilot’s seat and perform some other simple tasks. Next, he would move to the GATV’s Target Docking Adapter (TDA) to remove the similar “S-10 Agena Micrometeoroid Collection” hardware mounted there. With these tasks completed, the astronaut would move across the Gemini adapter section evaluating tether dynamics as well as the usefulness of various handholds and strategically placed Velcro patches on the spacecraft exterior. The pilot would then make his way to the underside of the adapter section where the AMU (Astronaut Maneuvering Unit) was stowed for the Defense Department’s experiment designated D-12.
The AMU was a rectangular backpack measuring 81 by 56 by 48 centimeters with a mass of 76 kilograms. Designed by the USAF, it was meant to provide life support and mobility to an astronaut during an EVA. The unit included a dozen thrusters rated at about five newtons of thrust each to allow the astronaut who wore it to move and change his attitude. The pack carried 11 kilograms of hydrogen peroxide propellant and was capable of a total impulse of about 84 meters per second – far greater than White or Scott had available with their HHMU (Hand Held Maneuvering Units). The AMU also carried 3.3 kilograms of compressed oxygen to provide life support independent of the Gemini spacecraft. The EVA astronaut was suppose to prepare then strap on the AMU with the aid of handholds and foot restraints on the adapter section. The EVA astronaut’s updated G4C spacesuit incorporated new insulation layers including a layer of gray stainless steel fabric called Chromel R in the leg area designed to handle temperatures as high as 700° C from the AMU thruster exhaust.
At the beginning of the second day pass of the EVA, the command pilot would undock from the Agena and move back about 37 meters. The command pilot would then release the AMU and the EVA astronaut, now wearing a 38-meter mechanical tether and using the AMU for life support, would maneuver to a point 12 meters off the nose of Gemini to begin an evaluation of the AMU attitude control system. Afterwards, the command pilot would move the Gemini to pick up the EVA astronaut. After reconnecting his shorter 7.6-meter umbilical, the EVA astronaut would jettison the AMU and complete some last tasks before returning inside. The hatch would be closed after the pilot had spent two hours and 25 minutes outside the spacecraft. The command pilot would then redock with the Agena.
About 3½ hours after the scheduled end of the mission’s EVA, the combined Gemini-Agena would perform the first of three maneuvers with a total delta-v of about 95 meters per second using the Agena’s primary propulsion system. The Agena’s propulsion system was planned to be used in future Gemini missions to perform maneuvers for a second rendezvous with an earlier-used Agena GATV in a storage orbit (as had been done with GATV-5003 used by Gemini 8) as well as boost the combined spacecraft into much higher orbits.
The next two rendezvous exercises to be performed by Gemini 9 were designed to help directly support development of the Apollo rendezvous procedures. In order to cut the total mass of the Apollo spacecraft, the radar system was deleted from the CSM and there was a push to remove it from the LM as well. This would mean that Apollo astronauts would have to rely solely on optical sightings and their computers for rendezvous. In the second rendezvous exercise starting about 45 hours after launch, Gemini 9 would undock and perform a 6.1 meter per second radial maneuver to place itself in a new, elliptical orbit with the same period as before which would carry Gemini up to 21 kilometers from the Agena GATV. This “equi-period rendezvous” would naturally bring Gemini back to the GATV after one orbit approaching from above and ahead of the Agena with only a braking maneuver required to complete the rendezvous. The crew would use only optical sightings and their computer to complete the exercise which would end with a docking at a mission elapsed time of 47 hours and 12 minutes.
The third rendezvous exercise, which would commence half an orbit later, was designed to simulate a LM abort from an altitude of 15 kilometers above the lunar surface. The two spacecraft would undock and the Agena would use its secondary propulsion system to maneuver into a lower orbit below and behind Gemini 9. The Gemini would then perform a series of maneuvers to re-rendezvous with the Agena that were timed to have the Sahara Desert as a Moon-like backdrop to test visual sighting procedures under more realistic conditions. The two spacecraft would redock 52 hours and 40 minutes into the mission. After another 53 minutes of docked operations, the two spacecraft would undock and Gemini 9 would perform a separation maneuver to move into a lower 198 by 275 kilometer orbit. With the large number of planned maneuvers, Gemini 9 was budgeted to use 283 kilograms of its 316-kilogram load of OAMS propellants. The last three Gemini missions would have 50% more propellant available for their even more ambitious missions.
After operations with the Agena were completed, the crew of Gemini 9 would then spend their last day performing experiments and preparing for their return home. The mission was scheduled to end with a splashdown in the western Atlantic recovery zone 70 hours and 40 minutes after launch. The GATV would then be maneuvered and used for a number of engineering tests over the following day. With its fuel depleted, it would be left in a circular 407-kilometer storage orbit where, after its orbit had decayed somewhat, it could serve as a passive rendezvous target during a future Gemini mission.
The Birth of the Gemini 9A Mission
After being chosen for the Gemini 9 mission, See, Bassett and Cernan began their training with Stafford finally joining the group after completing his long-delayed Gemini 6A rendezvous mission on December 16, 1965. The first large piece of mission hardware to arrive at Cape Kennedy on February 13, 1966 was the Atlas designated TLV-5303 which would orbit the mission’s Agena target vehicle. But as final preparations for the shipment of Gemini spacecraft no. 9 from McDonnell’s St. Louis plant were being made, the T-38 jet carrying Elliot See and Charles Bassett on a visit to the McDonnell facility crashed as it was coming around to make a landing attempt in St. Louis in poor weather on February 28, 1966. With the tragic loss of the primary crew, the backup crew stepped up to take their place for the first time in the history of spaceflight. Program officials quickly chose USN Lt. Commander James Lovell, who was the pilot on the record-setting Gemini 7 mission, and rookie astronaut USAF Major Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin as the new backup command pilot and pilot, respectively.
As the crews continued their training, preparations for the Gemini 9 mission carried on. The 3,668-kilogram spacecraft no. 9 arrived at Cape Kennedy on March 2 followed two days later by the Agena target vehicle, GATV-5004. As both spacecraft started pre-launch testing, the mission’s Titan II launch vehicle arrived from Martin’s Baltimore plant on March 10. Titan II GLV-9, serial number 62-12564, was erected on the pad at Launch Complex 19 (LC-19) on March 24 – only eight days after the launch of Gemini 8.
The pace of preparations at the Cape quickened as the scheduled May 17 launch date approached. On May 2 GATV-5004 was mated to its Atlas launch vehicle at LC-14. This was followed by a soft mating of the Gemini with its Titan II at LC-19 the next day and hard mating on May 8. After a final Simulated Flight Test (SFT) of both spacecraft on May 11, the mission was declared ready for launch.
Just like the earlier Gemini 6 and 8 missions, the plan was for the Agena to be launched first at 10:00 AM EST. The launch of the Gemini spacecraft would follow at 11:39:09 AM as the Agena GATV-5004 was completing is first orbit with the exact launch time chosen based on the actual orbit the target achieved. Atlas TLV-5303 lifted off from LC-14 on schedule on May 17, 1966. But only 121 seconds into the flight, pitch control was lost on the number 2 booster engine of the Atlas. The ascending rocket pitched hard about until it was travelling backwards and was lost. With the failure of the Agena to reach orbit, the Gemini 9 crew was pulled from their spacecraft as the mission was scrubbed. For the second time, Tom Stafford had lost the primary target vehicle for his rendezvous and docking mission.
Because of the schedule impact of the loss of the GATV-5002 target in October 1965 which was meant to be the docking target for the Gemini 6 mission Stafford flew, program officials decided to prepare a backup target vehicle in case of further Agena problems. This backup target, known as the Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA), was basically the forward rack with its rendezvous aids and target docking adapter (TDA) of the standard GATV attached to a Gemini rendezvous and recovery section with a ring of thrusters from the RCS (Reentry Control Section) controlling the craft’s attitude. While the ATDA did not have a propulsion system or the flexibility of a standard GATV, it provided a quick means of creating a backup rendezvous and docking target using flight-ready hardware. ATDA No. 02186 was assembled largely from spare hardware and was tested in short order. It was ready for flight after NASA conducted an acceptance review on February 2, 1966 and placed into storage.
In addition to preparing a backup docking target, NASA officials also made arrangements with General Dynamics to have an Atlas available for launch within two weeks in case of the loss of an Agena target. Atlas TLV-5304, which had been scheduled to support the Gemini |
Highway 101 to Interstate 680;
* Blossom Hill Road from Meridian Avenue to Meadowbrook Drive;
* Branham Lane from Almaden Expressway to Dent Avenue;
* Camden Avenue from Coleman Avenue to Harry Road and from Bascom to Hillsdale avenues;
* Coleman Avenue from Hedding Street to the San Jose city limits;
* Foxworthy Avenue from Mandra Drive to Almaden Expressway;
* Hamilton Avenue from Meridian Avenue to Greylands Drive;
* Mabury Road from Capitol Avenue to King Road;
* McKee Road from White Road to Capitol Avenue;
* Miller Avenue from Bollinger to Prospect roads;
* Moorpark Avenue from Lawrence Expressway to Saratoga Avenue;
* Santa Teresa Boulevard from Steinbeck Drive to Blossom Hill Road;
* Silver Creek Boulevard from Hellyer Avenue to Coyote Road;
* Skyport Drive from First Street to Technology Drive;
* Tasman Drive from Renaissance Drive to Cisco Way;
* Tully Road from Alvin Lane to Capitol Expressway;
* Winchester Boulevard from Stevens Creek Boulevard to Moorpark Avenue;
* Second and Third streets from Reed to Humboldt streets.
Join Gary Richards for an hourlong chat noon Wednesday at www.mercurynews.com/live-chats. Contact him at [email protected] Immediate release: March 16, 2016
Hamilton Police Major Fraud Investigation and Arrest
In January 2016, the Hamilton Police Major Fraud Unit began an investigation into the manufacture and sale of fraudulent Ontario Drivers License’s and Health Cards. The Fraud Prevention branch of the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services & Service Ontario assisted with the investigation. The source of the Fraudulent Identification was determined and the location of their manufacture identified.
On March 1, 2016, a Criminal Code Search Warrant was executed by the Hamilton Police Service Major Fraud and Technological Crime Units at a residence in Stoney Creek. Investigators seized evidence of manufacturing of identity documents, fraudulent Driver’s Licenses in various states of manufacture, electronic devices, a replica handgun and a large quantity of cash. As a result of this warrant being executed, information was obtained that some of the computer equipment originally stored in this residence had been moved to another location.
On March 2, 2016, a second Criminal Code Search Warrant was obtained and executed at a commercial property in Burlington. The Hamilton Police Major Fraud and Technological Crime Units, with the assistance of Halton Police Service, conducted the search. Hundreds of fraudulent Drivers License’s in various states of production, thermal printers, computers, a stun gun and narcotics were located.
On March 10th, 2016, Marc Anthony DiMILLO 19 yrs of Hamilton was arrested held for a bail hearing.
Charged: Marc Anthony DiMILLO - 19 years of Hamilton
Charges:
Possess Counterfeit Mark
Make Counterfeit Mark
Sell Counterfeit Mark
Possess Prohibited Weapon
Possess Proceeds of Crime over $5,000
Money Laundering
Possess Instruments of Forgery
Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking MDMA
Possession for the Purpose of Trafficking Amphetamines
Simple Possession of Marijuana.
The Hamilton Police Major Fraud Unit continues to investigate and asks anyone with additional information to contact D/Cst. Phil Poirier at (905) 546-3839.
Anyone that would like to provide information to investigators anonymously can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or submit your anonymous tips online at http://www.crimestoppershamilton.comBehind the Georgian façades of the once-grand houses of Dublin’s Mountjoy Square, outward respectable appearances count for nothing. During its glory years, this was home to prominent businessmen, writers and revolutionaries, and provided the haven for leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising to secretly plot an end to British rule. Today, the insides of the crumbling buildings have been ripped out and the once prestigious addresses have been turned into short-term lets, offices and student digs. But, according to the FBI, the conspiracies continue.
Shielded from public gaze by wooden shutters on the high windows, Eric Eoin Marques – a US-born Irishman – worked for years in isolation from his father’s ground-floor, one-bedroom flat in the corner of the square to become the biggest dealer of child-abuse images in the world, according to US law enforcement.
On 1 August, the Gardai smashed in his door, seized his computer equipment and took away the man reputed to be one of the most important men on the so-called Darknet, a protected sub-layer of the internet inaccessible to normal search engines where national laws have previously held little sway.
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 operation was low-key and the FBI is yet to detail the full extent of the evidence against the 28-year-old after an arrest warrant issued in the US state of Maryland. “I can’t tell you anything,” a policeman guarding the door told his curious neighbours, alerted by the sounds of the violent entry.
But a story is emerging of Mr Marques’ possessing computer skills that led to him running a highly successful off-book business for a decade without displaying any signs of his apparent wealth. He is a loner who struggled to mix and complete his schooling. He was described as the perfect neighbour in his anonymous block of 16 flats – never causing problems, never playing loud music, and so quiet playing computer games in his flat that people never knew he was there.
The only time he engaged in any conversation with his neighbours was when water leaked into his flat from his neighbour’s faulty tank. “There was something odd about him. I had friends who lived with me for a short period who also said that he was a bit strange,” said one neighbour, who declined to be named. “Most of the people here you’d see going out shopping or getting their mail, but never Eric.”
Even the FBI described him as “anonymous” and his only previous link with criminality was when he turned investigator himself after his father became the victim of a credit-card fraud, according to neighbours. Mr Marques believed that his father’s mailbox in the hallway of his block was being tampered with and his letters stolen. Although there was already protection from a security camera on the outside of the building, Eric Marques set up a camera to overlook the boxes and caught someone in the act.
For the past three weeks, Mr Marques has remained in custody in the early stages of what could be a protracted extradition process to the United States, where prosecutors want him to stand trial on four charges linked to images of child abuse which, if he is found guilty, could see him jailed for up to 30 years.
The graphic images include the rape and torture of prepubescent children, Dublin’s High Court has heard. His family claim that nothing was found on his own computers that suggested he was personally involved in collecting images.
“All I can say is that my son is completely innocent,” his father told the Irish Independent. “All he was doing was renting web space… If I rent [out] an apartment and somebody does a crime in it, am I to be [prosecuted]?”
Mr Marques is said to have hosted 550 servers in Europe and allegedly ran Freedom Hosting, the infrastructure that allowed sites to operate anonymously – including child-abuse sites such as Lolita City, the Love Zone and PedoEmpire. Discussion boards wonder what is next: Freedom Hosting also provided services for money-laundering operations, encrypted mail systems and fraud forums.
For allegedly supplying the computer infrastructure to allow them to work, Mr Marques reputedly earned thousands of pounds a month. What he personally knew of porn, drugs and fraud remains open to question. Though in one post on a chatroom in response to a question about adult porn, he said: “We don’t have any rules about… content or links as long as it’s legal.”
The arrest threw a light on those who allegedly operate illegal rackets on the Darknet. Mr Marques, who had no previous run-ins with the law, was born in New York where his father worked on high-end interior design. He moved to Ireland, his wife’s homeland, where he worked for Irish Rail for 15 years.
Mr Marques is believed to have lived latterly in his father’s redesigned and airy Mountjoy Square flat. “He was very bland,” said one neighbour, who also declined to be named. “Everything about him was bland and quiet.”
Despite his apparent wealth – his father, a successful architect, joked that his son earned more than he did – he displayed few signs of it other than ownership of a 4x4 car, which has since disappeared from the residents’ car park behind electric gates.
He rarely socialised, according to neighbours, but joined his father, Brazilian-born Antonio, when he went for after-work drinks with his colleagues at Irish Rail before he retired in December 2010.
“He seemed like a nice guy. He was, as his father said, not keen on mixing with a lot of people,” said Jasmin Prnjavorac, a former colleague of his father. “He was just a quiet kind of guy, doing his own thing. I wouldn’t say he even had too many friends. Maybe he had a few, but that’s what I got from his father.
“He [Antonio] was concerned about Eric because he didn’t finish school, he was concerned about his future, he was saying he was in his own world and quiet; not talking about much even what he was doing at home.”
Mr Marques, whose parents were divorced, lived with his Irish mother and sister, and visited his Portuguese father at weekends. The pair set up a business, Ultra Hosting, in 2005, with father and son – described as a student – as directors and with the business headquartered at the Mountjoy Square flat.
The areas of interest of the company included web hosting, domain registration, design, marketing and consultancy services. The last accounts were lodged in November 2011 and did not show signs of economic activity, though Mr Marques admitted in court that he was earning substantial sums.
Neighbours said that Eric Marques lived there alone after his father – bored with his life in retirement – moved to the United Arab Emirates in 2012 to work for Etihad Rail. “His father’s an admirable, decent and respectable man,” said Frank Balfe, who knew Antonio for a number of years, and said he would have been oblivious to any illegal activity.
Antonio, 60, was active in the residents’ association and sought to improve the area, but Eric was different. “He never spoke, he just nodded,” said Mr Balfe.
Antonio Marques told neighbours that his son was doing work for banks. The reality, according to US law enforcement, was that he was conspiring to distribute child abuse images over five years from 2008, according to the charges he faces.
Freedom Hosting’s appeal for some of its clients was its promise not to look in on the websites it was hosting, though it stated that downloading illegal content was not allowed. However, it added: “If you choose to do so anyway, we are not responsible for your actions,” according to the website The Daily Dot.
Freedom Hosting first came to public prominence in 2011 when the hacking group Anonymous attacked it because of its child-abuse sites, causing temporary disruption. Mr Marques has not admitted being the leader of the group, and his father told The Sunday Times that to say so was only “speculation”.
Mr Marques has been refused bail as he represented a flight risk. The court heard he had travelled extensively and large sums had passed through his bank accounts. His previous trips included a flight to Brazil to visit his grandmother, said friends.
Mr Marques also told an Irish court that he visited Romania a few times, where he had friends and an ex-girlfriend whom he was helping out financially. Mr Marques said he was last there a few weeks ago when he withdrew €6,000 to help a friend start a business.
His claims of having a girlfriend were treated with scepticism by his neighbours, who never saw him with another person, though he sometimes left his flat late at night. The technical press said that his servers may have been held in countries such as Romania.
Mr Marques also admitted that he had used his computer to check about visas for Russia. His interest was aroused, he said, by what was happening with former National Security Agency worker Edward Snowden.
His lawyers – who declined to comment when approached by The Independent – have indicated that they will seek bail, but the possibility of a return to Mountjoy Square any time soon seems unlikely. He is next due in court on 11 September.
Dublin city councillor Christy Burke, whose constituency includes Mountjoy Square, has previously confronted drug dealers as part of a name-and-shame campaign in the 1980s and he threatened similar tactics against Mr Marques.
“I was absolutely appalled. If this guy gets bail and goes back, I will march on his house like we used to do with drug dealers and ‘Out! Out! Out!’ He’s not welcome in my constituency,” he said. “The FBI don’t make those statements for nothing. The sooner he goes over there, the better.”
DARK SIDE OF THE NET: THE FBI’S CRACKDOWN
The arrest of Eric Eoin Marques is being viewed with significance, as it could be the largest strike so far by global law enforcement against operators who have used the hidden recesses of the internet to expand their multi-billion-pound illegal industries in drugs, arms and porn.
His arrest sent shivers across the community of web users who initially feared that a year-long FBI inquiry had compromised the security of the Tor network, created by the US military and designed to hide the identity of those who took part.
Half of the sites on the Tor network went down with Mr Marques’s arrest, leading analysts and security experts to try to discover if the identities of users, both legal and illicit, had been revealed. While journalists and human rights activists use the network, it has also been the tool of choice for online sellers of arms and drugs, such as the market leader The Silk Road which bans any use of child abuse images.
The arrest of Mr Marques represents an apparent uptick in the sophistication of such operations by the US. It emerged this year that agents ran a child abuse site for several weeks in 2012 to identify its 5,000 customers who shared thousands of images of children.
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Subscribe nowEvery time I’ve been to WisCon, I think, I’ve been to the “Let’s Build a World” panel. In it, the panel and the audience build a very well-functioning and detailed world from first principles, all within an hour. (Those first principles might be “cephalopods are the dominant species”, “cats as money” or “floating islands”.) It’s always very entertaining, seeing where all the different requirements and assumptions lead. My favorite part is when, about 45 minutes in, everyone in the room realizes that we’ve created a pretty dang well-rounded world, complete with internal logic, mysteries, schisms, happy coincidences and bizarre yet believable ways of being. But almost every time, towards the end of the hour, someone will say, “Now we need some characters and a plot.” For me, that almost ruins it.
There’s an attitude that worldbuilding is only a worthwhile goal if it serves plot. I have heard this argument, or variants on it, so many times that I can’t even pin down all the examples. At Convergence 2012, a panelist in the “Maps & Literature” panel said, “Don’t waste brain space on things that you don’t need for the plot”, for example. At Minicon that same year, I was on the “Building a World with History” panel and some of my fellow panelists gave the warning not to descend too far into worldbuilding at the expense of plot, which caused me to give a mini-version of this rant that you’re reading. It’s common to get advice on RPG forums that the only worldbuilding a GM should do is what gets used in the game, and that anything more is pointless. A search for “too much worldbuilding” will turn up dozens of examples, most stating that there is such a thing as too much.
The argument seems to go that the only purpose of worldbuilding must be to serve plot (whether prose fiction, RPG adventures, or whatever). Any part of worldbuilding that doesn’t directly contribute to plot is wasted effort, and we can’t have any wasted effort. Anything that is fun in and of itself, without producing real work, is frivolous.
Now, I’ll admit that there is such a thing as too much worldbuilding. If you have a novel due to the publisher in two days and you’re still working out religious conflicts that occurred 300 years before your novel is set, that’s probably a time when worldbuilding should stop. If you’re in the middle of an RPG combat, you probably shouldn’t be detailing architectural styles for a country the PCs have never been near. There certainly are times and places for worldbuilding, and when you’re on a schedule, it’s something that has to be balanced against the other demands on your time. Like anything, there can be too much of a good thing with worldbuilding.
But too many people take the argument to the extreme, making the argument that a world cannot be enjoyable by itself, if it doesn’t get used in some form of plot (prose fiction, gaming or whatever). Some people in the “Let’s Build a World” panels at WisCon, for example, seemed to indicate that if there’s no plot, all the worldbuilding we’d done was pointless time-wasting. That it’s impossible, or worthy of ridicule, to enjoy worldbuilding on its own. This, in a panel explicitly about worldbuilding, and equally explicitly not requiring any particular plot to come out of it. The panels were supposed to be about the pure pleasure of worldbuilding, with no intention of making something that would even last beyond the panel, yet people still felt the need to assert the primacy of plot. And gamers often argue the same with RPGs, namely, that any time the GM spends on worldbuilding is only useful if the players benefit from it; any time beyond that is wasted effort, or worse, self-indulgent frippery.
In case it’s not obvious, I believe that worldbuilding in itself is worthy. If you enjoy worldbuilding, and there are no requirements that your worldbuilding serve plot any time soon, why not just enjoy it? There are, in fact, plenty of examples of very successful pure worldbuilding out there: Karen Wynn Fonstad’s books, SimCity, the Encyclopedia of Dune, the Dictionary of Imaginary Places and many more. Heck, most RPG setting materials count as pure exposition without plot, and as I will explore in later posts, I find reading setting materials to be fun in itself, even if you’re never going to use those materials directly in play. RPG setting materials sell well in part because people enjoy pure worldbuilding without plot. (The hard part is admitting that we enjoy it, and accepting that that’s okay. Again, that’s a topic for a later post.)
There is also no reason a created world has to be for the consumption of others. It’s perfectly fine to create a world that resides on your computer, or in piles of notebooks, or whatever, and never gets viewed by another person. If it’s fun for you, why not do it? As long as you aren’t sinking so much time and money into it that it’s hurting your life, there’s nothing wrong with it. Heck, if building a world just takes a bunch of notebooks and a library card, it can be one of the cheapest and most stimulating hobbies around!
There are lots of exceptions. If the goal of your worldbuilding is to make money, of course, then that’s different. If you need to come up with a publishable picture book, wiki, RPG manual or whatever, then it needs to be comprehensible and presentable. And if it serves a particular plot (novel, narrative computer game, etc.), then yes, it needs to bend to those needs. And, of course, if you don’t actually enjoy worldbuilding, there’s no reason to do more than the minimum required. And if it’s background to an RPG, then it needs to take a form that your players can get use out of.
How well you present your worldbuilding is naturally an important factor here. Too many GMs subject their players to vast tracts of boring prose; and page after page of exposition, while the protagonist is hanging from a cliff, can ruin any novel. There are good ways of presenting worldbuilding, and there are bad ways, that is certainly true; and good exposition is a skill that can be developed. And, naturally, your audience will come to it with their own prejudices, so it’s important to know what methods of exposition work for the people you’re presenting to.
But the real stumbling block, I think, is exposition for reasons that are wrong in the first place. Too often, GMs force their players to wrestle with paragraph after paragraph of narration that is not only bland, but wholly irrelevant to the PCs. This goes wrong in two ways, as I see it: a) the GM has guilt that, if they don’t jam all the material down the players’ throats, then their development effort has been a dissipatory waste; and b) the GM assuming that the players’ enjoyment of all this material will equal their own. It’s the GM equivalent of “let me show you my character”.
If, instead, GMs understood that a) it’s okay to have setting material that the players never encounter, and that b) it’s okay to enjoy the worldbuilding in and of itself, without having to tell all of it to the players, I think players would get exposed to a lot less unnecessary exposition. And we could all get a lot more guilt-free enjoyment out of worldbuilding.
I’ve published this article elsewhere in slightly different form.The controversy over the deadly US bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan has taken another twist after a senior US commander said the airstrike that killed 22 people had been requested by Afghan forces.
Speaking at the Pentagon, General John Campbell, the top American commander in Afghanistan, said the military had at first incorrectly reported that American troops were under direct threat.
Rather, he claimed, the operation was requested by Afghan forces who came under attack close to the hospital, and who then contacted a US special forces team
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“An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports which indicated that US forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf,” he said, according to the Associated Press.
Asked how close the Americans were to the scene of the fighting when the strike was called in, Mr Campbell refused to answer, repeating that it would “come out in the investigation.”
After the news conference, Doctors Without Borders, which had said on Sunday that it was pulling its operation out of Kunduz, released a statement calling for an independent investigation, and criticising the changing US narrative.
“Their description of the attack keeps changing - from collateral damage, to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government,” said Christopher Stokes, general director for MSF.
“The reality is the US dropped those bombs. The US hit a huge hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition. There can be no justification for this horrible attack.
“With such constant discrepancies in the US and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.”
The airstrike, carried out in the the early hours of Saturday morning, came amid ongoing fighting after Taliban forces seized control of large parts of the city a week ago. On Monday, reports said police and residents said that Afghan forces had regained control of most of the besieged city and some shops in the centre of the provincial capital opened for the first time since it fell a week ago.
Reuters said that government forces had raised the national flag over the provincial governor's house for the first time since losing control of much of the city.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he would not comment ahead of two inquiries that had been launched into the incident.
“The president expects a full accounting of what happened,” he said.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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Subscribe nowWhen Rajani in Kochi climbs a coconut tree, dreadful thoughts sometimes cross her mind, even as she surveys the world around her from atop a 40-foot palm. She tells herself that if at all she slips and falls, she should die and not suffer for a lifetime as a cripple unable to fight any more battles.
All Rajani can remember is having to fight battles and taking on the odds day in and day out after her husband left her and her two sons. But now she is fully equipped, after a certificate in Karate, a computer course, and an ongoing fashion designer course, apart from a one week coconut palm climbing course from the Coconut Research Organisation that has provided her livelihood. She uses a stepper contraption that helps her in climbing up coconut palms, providing her steps for firm footing and gripping. Male climbers do not use the contraption but climb the long palm with their feet banded together at the ankles and then pushing their way up or sliding down using their strong hands. Expert climbers slide down 40 feet high palms by just loosening the grip of one hand on the palm.
Changing roles
Rajani gets Rs 50 per tree and on a good day climbs over 50 trees starting from seven in the morning. Rajani is in demand since there are few traditional male coconut climbers left. This is a fall-out of Kerala’s climb up the human development scale and with 100% literacy, no one in the new generation is willing to do manual or physical labour. Most of the tree climbers in the early part of the last century, it is believed, came from the intermediate ezhava caste but the community is now affluent and politically empowered and, for the last three or four decades, has moved away to better jobs and business.
Rajani has walked into this void and is climbing her way up in a job which was an exclusive male preserve. In the central districts of Kerala, there must be about 20 female coconut climbers, according to rough estimates.
Rajani takes pride in her job and loves the palm trees dearly. “When a householder tells me that he is going to cut the palms in his garden due to falling yields and the hassle of getting labourers, I become sad. Which is why, when I am at the top of a tree, I talk to it softly. I tell the palm tree that the yield has to increase. In most instances, the palm offers more coconuts the next month forcing the farmer to change his mind. That is how I work,” Rajani said.
Whispering magic words to the trees is just one aspect of her job. It involves a certain level of expertise to choose the coconuts to be left behind for the next month. “From the colour of the coconuts, I come to know if they are mature or tender,” Rajani said.
The maturity of a coconut can also be gauged by knocking on the shell to figure out how much of water there is inside. All this comes from practice but it is not easy sitting precariously on a slippery palm, with only one hand to clutch the palm and with the other knocking on the shells and tearing out the nuts from the tree.
So life is a daily climb against all odds and the cruel follies of nature itself. On a windy or rainy day the very thought of climbing up a palm offers calls for sheer courage. But Rajani’s grip is strong, her mind defiant and her will unbreakable.The per mil symbol is used in mathematics, and especially in economics, to indicate parts per thousand. The symbol resembles a fraction with zero in the numerator and a double zero in the denominator ( ).
Suppose m and n are two integer s. The ratio or quotient m / n is converted to a per mil value by multiplying by 1000, and then reducing the result to decimal form. Thus, for example, to convert 3/50 to a per mil value, we first multiply by 1000, getting (3000/50), and then reduce this to its simplest form, obtaining 60. If we have 3/5 and want to convert it to a per mil value, we follow the same procedure, obtaining (3000/5) which reduces to 600.
If we have a decimal number and want to convert it to a per mil value, we multiply it by 1000. Therefore, 0.06 is 60, while 0.6 is 600.
Per mil values are sometimes used to indicate the extent to which a quantity increases or decreases. Such values can be greater than 1000, indicating an increase to more than twice the original value, or negative, indicating a decrease in a value. For example, suppose an aircraft is traveling at 50 meters per second (m/s). If its speed changes to 125 m/s, it is an increase of 75 m/s which is 1.5 times the original speed, so the speed is said to change by +1500. If the speed changes from 50 m/s to only 10 m/s, it decreases by 4/5, or 800, of the original speed, so the speed is said to change by -800.
Per mil values are sometimes used to express the extent of an annual tax levy on a property, particularly real estate. For example, if the levy is 15 in a particular area, that means $15 per $1000 of assessed value. A $300,000 house would thus be assessed an annual tax of $300,000 x 15, or $4500.
Compare per cent symbol. Also see Mathematical Symbols.Sick of your significant other skipping ahead and watching your favorite streaming shows without you? Lock them into a faithful TV-viewing relationship with a high-tech pair of series commitment rings, thanks to U.K. ice cream brand Cornetto.
The marketer, which tends to advertise around themes of teen love, created special rings that connect to streaming apps, and use near field communications to block access to TV shows you both watch unless your partner is nearby—thus putting an end to sneaking around with services like Netflix while feigning fidelity.
A two-minute video explains the concept, and illustrates the dangers of cheating—reaching its high point when one young woman pretends, in brilliantly unconvincing fashion, that she hasn't seen the episode she's watching with her boyfriend.
The idea of rings that forcibly prevent viewers from such dalliances is so silly and au courant that it almost doesn't matter that the details of its functionality aren't entirely ironed out.
Fast Company observes that Cornetto is still negotiating with streaming apps. And ultimately, the obstacle posed by the technology seems of the kind that could easily be circumvented if the cheating party borrows a friend's login, or simply watches elsewhere—though such out-of-the-way efforts would really just make the betrayal all the more unforgivable.
Cornetto is promising to distribute the rings online, and it's not clear how many are available. It's also not clear what the range on the tech is, so apartment dwellers who get a pair should remain vigilant—lest it betray to your partner that you're two-timing with the neighbor, by binge-watching or otherwise.JULY 23--Incensed over an allegedly botched hairdo, a New York City woman tore up a Manhattan salon, throwing chairs, hair dryers, and assorted beauty products in a rampage that ended with her in handcuffs, according to investigators.
Rachel Meyers, 26, was arrested last Friday afternoon following the ruckus at the Century 27 Beauty Salon on Beaver Street in the financial district.
Meyers, a Manhattan resident, was charged with five misdemeanors, including assault, harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon.
During her meltdown, Meyers threw a curling iron stand at another patron, according to a criminal complaint sworn by Officer Robert Rastetter. The stand struck the 52-year-old victim, “causing a laceration, bruising, and substantial pain in her knee,” Rastetter noted.
Meyers, pictured at right, reportedly quarreled with stylists over treatment that left her hair in knots. She did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment about the incident, and a cell phone number associated with her appeared to be disconnected.
Meyers is next due in Manhattan Criminal Court on September 10. (1 page)UPDATED as of 12:40 a.m. on 10/21/2015
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — An NYPD officer was shot and killed in East Harlem Tuesday night, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
“We’re all in mourning. The whole city is in mourning,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
The shooting happened around 8:30 p.m. near the Robert Wagner Houses at East 120th Street near FDR Drive.
As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, traffic was a mess on the east side of Manhattan as the FDR was transformed into a crime scene.
Bratton said police had been investigating a report of shots fired near 102nd Street and FDR Drive.
Upon arrival, a victim reported a bicycle had been stolen, police said.
Bratton said officers encountered a suspect at East 120th Street and there was an exchange of gunfire.
A male police officer, identified as 33-year-old Randolph Holder, was shot in the head and rushed to Harlem Hospital Center in critical condition, but later died of his injuries.
Police said a suspect suffered gunshot wounds to his leg and was apprehended by police. He is expected to be released from the hospital later Wednesday morning and taken into police custody.
A gun was recovered at the scene of the shooting, police sources told CBS2.
Bratton said Holder was a five-year veteran with the NYPD, starting with the department in July of 2010.
He said Holder’s family is from Guyana, where his father and grandfather were both police officers.
“We just had the unfortunate responsibility to tell a father his son is never coming home,” said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch.
Bratton said this is the fourth police officer death in the last 11 months, and that’s “as bad as it gets.”
Police activity closed the FDR Drive in both directions between 96th and 125th streets for hours Tuesday night. Authorities warned to expect extensive delays and seek alternative routes if possible.
More: Check Traffic
Drivers and passengers were going nowhere, and took to social media to post pictures and video of the stuck cars and the frantic rush of first responders.
Drivers and passengers stuck on #FDR after police shooting. pic.twitter.com/jDqP2iVCBa — Tony Aiello (@AielloTV) October 21, 2015
“I was on my way home from work and all of a sudden I just saw police cars coming from everywhere,” Moish Levine said.
Amid the intense search, some passengers stuck in taxis and livery cabs decided to walk off the FDR to Second Avenue in search of another ride home.
(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)Barbados-born all-rounder Jofra Archer has signed as the second BBL|07 international player for the Hobart Hurricanes.
The 22-year-old replaces Englishman Tom Curran, who has been called into England’s Ashes squad and will not be available for the Big Bash tournament.
Archer, who plays for Sussex in Division Two of the County Championship in the UK and has committed to qualifying to play for England, has been touted as one of the most exciting young prospects in the competition.
“It was a big honor to be asked, firstly. Some of the best players in the world play in the tournament and it’s a great opportunity for myself to keep learning about the game and to get better,” Archer said.
“I’ve watched the Big Bash every year so far and had a couple of team mates and friends play in the competition – every year it continues to get better.”
The 22-year-old’s first-class stats make for impressive reading – having played 20 matches, the Barbados local has captured 89 wickets and hit 833 runs.
He joins a strong West Indian contingent in the Big Bash, with superstars Kieron Pollard, Carlos Brathwaite, Andre Russell and Sunil Narine among the names to have played in Australia last season.
Brathwaite attracted attention from fans for his unique ‘dab’ celebration after he took a wicket for the Sydney Thunder, but Archer says he doesn’t have a go-to move for post wicket celebrations.
“I don’t have a signature celebration (after taking a wicket), I just do whatever comes to mind,” Archer said.
“If I see something I like I might go with it, so you never know.”
Cricket Tasmania Chief Executive Nick Cummins said although the Hurricanes were disappointed that Curran wouldn’t be playing in the Big Bash, the club was excited to secure the services of Archer on a one-year deal.
“From a Hurricanes point of view it’s unfortunate that we won’t have Tom, but being part of England’s Test squad is a fantastic opportunity for him and we wish him well,” he said.
“We’re excited to see what Jofra can bring to our side and we think our bowling stocks are looking really healthy with he and Tymal Mills playing for us this season.”
The Hurricanes have one remaining spot to fill on their list for the BBL|07 season.
BBL|07 Squad
George Bailey (C), Tim Paine (VC), Dan Christian, Hamish Kingston, Cameron Boyce, Clive Rose, Ben McDermott, Jake Reed, Beau Webster, James Bazley, Simon Milenko, Tymal Mills, Tom Rogers, Sam Rainbird, D'Arcy Short, David Moody, Jofra Archer |
– Recently released, Sanyo improved on the standard Eneloop with the Eneloop XX. While the Eneloop XX posted the best overall scores, we did expect a little more out of this battery since it is nearly double the cost per battery ($4.34 each) when compared to the standard Eneloop. In addition, its overall score was only slightly better than the standard Eneloop. It actually had a slightly slower 1st flash time of 7.1 seconds, but a slightly quicker 75th flash recycle time of 9.9 seconds giving it an overall flash recycle time of 8.75 seconds. Where we saw the difference was in the power fall off. At around the 25th flash the standard Eneloop began to lose power just a bit more quickly than the Eneloop XX which resulted in a fairly significant difference of.6 seconds on the 75th flash. We assume that if we were to continue on through another 75 flashes, we would see the Eneloop XXs continue this trend of maintaining power longer than the standard Eneloops. However, whether this performance boost is worth double the price per battery is something that you will need to decide for yourself.
Our Overall Recommendation
For professional use or for enthusiasts that can swallow the price, we definitely recommend the Eneloop XX battery as it was the best performing battery among the entire lot. Generally, in each of our gear bags are 32 Eneloop XX AA batteries which will take us through a single full day shoot. The cost of 32 of these batteries would be around $139, but you would recoup that cost overtime anyway since you aren’t burning through standard alkalines.
For professionals or enthusiasts that want a slightly cheaper solution, look to the standard Eneloop AA battery which will cost only $78 for a full set of 32 batteries. They perform very similarly to the Eneloop XX Batteries, and most of you probably won’t be in many situations where the slight difference in performance will matter.
If you are in a pinch and you need to buy alkaline batteries, standard Duracell batteries will give you the best performance for the price compared to all of the other alkaline batteries. Keep in mind that Kirkland brand batteries are your next best option since they are cheaper and perform nearly the same or better than the other alkaline batteries.
We hope you enjoyed this article!Share. The first free “season” will include The Last Jedi content. The first free “season” will include The Last Jedi content.
On stage at EA Play today, EA announced that rather than offering a traditional season pass, Star Wars: Battlefront 2 will instead offer multiple themed content “seasons” as free DLC.
Seasons will be free content updates post-launch, and the first will be released in December with content based on The Last Jedi. The set will include Finn and Captain Phasma as heroes, as well as new planet Crait and a space map above the planet D’Qar. Content in future seasons will include additional planets, heroes, vehicles, modes, and weapons.
Exit Theatre Mode
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was unveiled at Star Wars Celebration in April and is set to launch on November 17. EA said in the past that Battlefront 2 won’t offer a Season Pass, but today marks the first time the publisher has detailed its post-launch plans.
Watch the trailer for Battlefront 2 shown during EA Play below:
Exit Theatre Mode
For more on Battlefront, check out why we said Battlefront 2’s multiplayer is bigger, better, and more emotional and why the single-player campaign isn’t what we expected.
For a closer look at Battlefront 2, check out an image breakdown of the E3 reveal trailer below:
Star Wars Battlefront II E3 2017 Reveal Trailer Stills 10+ IMAGES Fullscreen Image Artboard 3 Copy Artboard 3 ESC 01 OF 22 01 OF 22 Star Wars Battlefront II E3 2017 Reveal Trailer Stills Download Image Captions ESC
Star Wars: Battlefront II is available for digital pre-order, as is the Elite Trooper Deluxe edition. Pre-ordering the game is the only way to get early Beta access. Stay tuned for much more on Battlefront 2 by following IGN’s E3 hub.
Disclosure: The author of this article worked closely with Mitch Dyer, now a writer at EA Motive, from 2012-2016 in his capacity as an editor at IGN.
Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and hopes there’s a whole content season based on ewoks. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.Why do Indian people gossip so much?
Priyanka Kadari Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 23, 2015
I grew up more Indian than American because I have so much family and an Indian “family friends” network that extends all over the Chicago-land area. The New Years with dance performances and drunken uncles dancing to Sheila Ki Jawani, “get-togethers” with biryani on paper plates and a dozen kids sprawled on the floor, people you call aunty and uncle and the parties in Ashyana where we awkwardly mill about tables are familar to all of us. Our community here remains active and well-connected, providing a place for our culture, food, clothes and way of life to flourish beautifully. It has allowed me to grow up with the best of both worlds — Indian and American — and has given me a unique ability to assimilate into America without letting go of my culture. I wouldn’t give that up for anything. But, this community that parties together and calls everyone beta has a dark side that tears apart the very people it claims to bring together.
For such a “tight-knit people”, we hardly ever tell each other about our real life and the actual troubles we face. A prominent and dangerous practice of “hiding” pervades Indian culture, where we frequently pretend everything is okay and engage in purely superficial talk. I’m not saying we have to advertise our emotional situations and our deep, dark secrets. We all want our privacy. But, the toxicity lies in the reasons we hide our problems. It’s not simply because we believe we have the right to privacy, but rather because we are terrified of what the others will say or think and how that will affect our standing. And, when I say terrified, I mean families will do absolutely anything to protect their reputation and their image. Parents will refuse to admit their kids struggle in school. They will never talk about feeling sad or disappointed. They will lie and cover up hide their kids’ illnesses if they’re sick, or downplay them as much as possible, fearing that down the road, when their kids want to be married, families will view them as sickly or scarred.
God forbid a kid faces depression or struggles in school or sick or deviates in any manner from the straight laced, hardworking, committed individual they are supposed to be. We don’t give eachother space to reach out and ask for help because of the intense fear of what people might think. This is not just an abstract ideal. It is a very real problem. I have friends and cousins who have issues with their parents or school or depression or physical illness, and they do not have an outlet to speak openly about who they are and their difficulties because of this social pressure. They want to talk, they need help, but they cannot get it. The aunties and uncles gather around to whisper about how boy X parties too much or how girl Y seems a little awkward or how so-and-so’s daughter didn’t get into any great colleges. Rather than talking to the kid directly or trying to figure out the cause of their problems, we write off their behavior and spread our baseless opinions to everyone we know. If we are the community we claim, shouldn’t we expect more? Shouldn’t we expect an actual support system as opposed to this facade of concern? I do. I expect more, and I want more. We all should.
Especially for girls, a large part of this “reputation” circles around maintaining the good Indian kid image. Every part of us affects how people view us. When relatives from far away come to visit and we want to wear t-shirts or a dress, we’re implored not to because “they will talk ‘things’ about you back in India.” If there is even a hint of a girl “liking” a boy or “acting close”, without any proof or justification, all hell breaks loose and the aunties start squabbling and labeling the girl as “loose” and disrespectful and indecent. If a girl has a boyfriend, its hushed up and viewed awkwardly, even if it’s a completely mature and genuine relationship, because of what “people might say when it’s time for you to get married. They’ll think you went around a lot.”
But, why? Why are we always on the defense with our reputations, as if we have to prove that we’re good Indian kids? Why does nobody actually speak to us and instead speak about us, around us, at us, and to other people? Why do these so called family friends love ripping people apart and spreading random threads of rumors that might not even be true or valid? And, why do we fear that?
I can vouch for every, single one of my friends and cousins as great Indian kids. They are hardworking, honest, dedicated, genuine, loyal people with beautiful dreams, and I will stand behind them. They love and respect their parents and their culture, they support their friends, and they throw themselves fully into whatever they’re working towards. They’re amazing, but they’re also ordinary people, struggling with normal things, searching for relationships, and figuring out who they are. And, they deserve more than an environment that makes them feel like they can only show their polished parts rather than the parts that struggle.
I know that it’s not just Indian people who gossip and that talking about people will always remain part of people’s nature. But, I can only speak to the Indian community that I see, and I do not want to accept that it cannot become better strong and better. When we claim to be a community, we have a responsibility to be authentic rather than fabricated. Celebrating holidays and dining together holds no value if we can’t be there for each other when we really need each other. Nobody will reach their hands out and sing kumbaya after reading and reflecting upon what I have said, but I genuinely hope it has opened people’s eyes to the judgment and the narrowness of our hearts. I hope next time you are struggling, instead of lying about it and hiding it, you feel more comfortable saying, “Actually, pre-med is difficult…actually, he’s a bit depressed…actually, he doesn’t have an internship set up yet.” I hope next time someone casually comments or labels someone’s behavior, you will question what they know and challenge them. I hope next time you want to know who someone is, you will ask that person directly instead of listening to other people’s opinions. I hope next time you call me beta and welcome me into your home, you will actually offer me a place in your heart, and not just at the dinner table.
-Priyanka KadariYou remember the 1978 movie “Up In Smoke”? It was the breakthrough movie for comedians Cheech and Chong, who were always smoking marijuana in funny ways, like while driving.
Well, Tommy Chong is a big Bernie Sanders supporter. He was invited to open one of Sanders’ California rallies Monday and then he was suddenly uninvited.
Related: Washington’s presidential primary counts for little
Chong told the Hollywood Reporter that he was really looking forward to standing alongside Sanders, only to be told at the last minute that, due to a sudden scheduling conflict, there was no place for him at the rally after all.
So I went back to take a look at Mr. Chong’s original YouTube endorsement to see if I could find any clues as to what may have given Sanders’ campaign second thoughts. I think what happened was that someone finally watched Mr. Chong’s endorsement video.
“So I know this year, you and I are going to feel the Bern. Go up to the polling booths and light up, man, for progress and change,” Chong says in the video.
Even though Sanders supports letting states legalize pot, he might not want video of himself standing side by side with someone who describes him as, “totally ready to be Commander in Chief, or Commander in Kush, as I like to call it.”
Related: KIRO Radio, KTTH hosts conflicted on Trump
Ready to be Commander in Kush — I suppose you could take that as a reference to the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan, but you’d have to be smoking something.Finally, there is some relief on petrol and diesel prices for consumers. The government cut excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs2 a litre effective Wednesday. The timing of this move is particularly striking, considering that there has been much hue and cry on higher petro-product prices lately.
Back in 2014, lower crude oil price proved to be manna from heaven for the Narendra Modi government. It raised taxes and improved its fiscal position a great deal in the last two fiscal years. The accompanying chart has the details.
Of course, a cut in excise duty now would mean a loss to the government to that extent. It will have to let go of revenue worth Rs13,000 crore for the remaining part of fiscal year 2018 (FY18). But that’s not all. This cumulatively reduces the gross revenues by around Rs41,000 crore (0.25% of gross domestic product or GDP) including around Rs28,000 crore lower surplus transfer by the Reserve Bank of India, point out economists from Kotak Institutional Equities.
Needless to say, unless the government reduces its expenditure by the same extent, India’s gross fiscal deficit will be adversely affected. In other words, the government’s fiscal deficit target of 3.2% of GDP is at risk considering it has already stretched fiscal finances due to front-loaded spending for the first five months this year.
“We note that there could be a slippage of 25-70 basis points depending on the extent of revenue shortfall and expenditure pattern," added Kotak in a report on 4 October. A basis point is 0.01%.
What about inflation? There will be a mild positive impact on inflation. A reduction in petrol/diesel prices will lower Consumer Price Index-based inflation by ~8-9 basis points in terms of the direct impact, wrote economists from Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd.
But a higher fiscal deficit will push up inflation. Ajay Bodke, chief executive officer and chief portfolio manager (PMS) at Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt. Ltd, says, “Higher-than- budgeted fiscal deficit would lead to additional budgeted borrowing in 2HFY18 and exert pressure on interest rates and inflation, further pushing back any hopes of revival of private sector capex and add to the earnings woes of India Inc."
On the growth front, the excise duty cut would provide some boost to consumption as consumers will have some extra money as a result. But that is unlikely to move the needle much.
For oil marketing companies (OMCs)—Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd and Indian Oil Corp. Ltd—the excise duty cut will mean some relief on the concerns over marketing margins. The pressure to reduce prices will be less on them now and hence, the development is sentimentally positive. It will be worth watching whether OMCs can raise their marketing margins.
Kotak Insitutional Equities’ calculations show that implied marketing margins on diesel have contracted by Re1/litre for OMCs since mid-September. According to Kotak, this may take some time to reverse, until global fuel price or exchange rate turns favourable, as OMCs may find it difficult to increase margins in the given scenario when the retail prices remain somewhat elevated and the government is being forced to cut excise duties, partly forfeiting its fiscal receipts from the petroleum sector. These stocks were trading higher on Wednesday.
So essentially after this excise duty cut we are left with increased risks to government finances and some possible gains for OMCs. The moot question then is why the government cut excise duty when those revenues were so helpful. Analysts don’t think global crude oil prices are set to increase sharply from a medium-term perspective. Simply put, oil prices are a huge political issue and the government has elections on its mind.74 Shares +1
Amsterdam is the weed capital of Europe, maybe even the world. That’s what people all around the world say at least. Cannabis aficionados love Amsterdam for its vast buffet of drugs, prostitution and, well, fun. But guess what, cannabis and other substances aren’t really legal in Amsterdam. The capital of the Netherlands struggles, like every other nation, with the circulation of hard drugs. They have, however, found a unique way of dealing with it. Namely tolerating cannabis and helping drug addicts deal with their addiction.
We all have heard of Amsterdam, and whenever we have, we hear about people smoking cannabis. The fact that cannabis-based products are available for consumption in Coffee Shops in the Netherlands doesn’t mean they are more legal than elsewhere in the world. To this day, the law in the Netherlands states that drugs are illegal, all of them. Weed and products based on cannabis are tolerated though as long as people do not possess/sell more than five grams or cultivate more than five plants for personal use.
This is the only reason Coffee Shops exist in Amsterdam and around the country, they do business in a tolerated gray area. As cultivating higher quantities of cannabis plants or buying them is illegal, some of them get fines regularly. Bottom line: no, drugs aren’t entirely legal in Amsterdam or the Netherlands as a whole. Weed is though, and that’s a good thing.
What About Medical Substances and Drugs Apart from Cannabis?
It may sound weird, but legalization of drugs can be a solution for substance abuse. The common misconception is that the availability of drugs would enhance the use of them, the opposite is the case. In fact, Cannabis consumption in the Netherlands is consistently lower than in the United States. It appears as if the normalization of cannabis (which compared to other legal substances like alcohol isn’t even that damaging to the body) has made it a bit boring. Almost like a forbidden fruit scenario. On top of the weed, the Dutch government tolerates certain medical substances and drugs as well. That means sleeping pills and certain sedatives are legal in certain quantities as well.
Hard drugs, on the other hand, are strictly forbidden and persecuted like everywhere else in the world. The Netherlands’ approach to their war on drugs is to segment the market into tolerated soft drugs like weed and certain narcotics, and forbidden hard drugs with severe impact to the body. However, The Netherlands do have the image of an all-out drugs nation – where does that come from if pretty much everything is just as illegal as elsewhere?
Drugs Fresh off the Boat
Import/Export through Dutch ports are nothing unusual; the nation thrives on its ship-based trade routes. Ultimately that also means it is the prime destination for drugs to enter the European market. This has significant implications for the country, its drug users, and the world-renowned party town of Amsterdam. While cannabis is not the issue, the steady supply of highly potent drugs from other parts of the world into the home country of Europe‘s prime party hot spot does amplify drug use. What’s funny though, is the fact that drug addicts in The Netherlands, on average, maintain healthier addictions due to the access to less polluted products with additional health risks. They are of higher quality and easy to come by, but this, along with the frequent availability of cannabis, is not the only reason for Amsterdam’s drug reputation.
One of the main ideas behind the legalization of weed was that drugs are an elemental part of our society. Trying to rid humanity of these substances is an eternal war without winners. Therefore the legalization of soft drugs and, on the other hand, efforts to help addicts of hard drugs rather than to criminalize them are the pillars of the Dutch drug policy. The Netherlands have been running Safe Injection Sites for decades now, supplying addicts with a safe environment to inject state supplied heroin that is pure. Similar to Canada, his has successfully decreased drug-related crime and can give addicts the opportunity to focus on getting better. However, even this approach can have its downsides.
Is Amsterdam the European Weed and Drug Capital? Maybe!
All of this adds up to what is perceived to be a drug-friendly attitude by other nations. While the effects of cannabis legalization are well documented in the US as well, the availability of Safe Injection Sites and the fact that it is the natural entry point for drugs into Europe, does make the Netherlands, and especially Amsterdam, the Drug capital of Europe. For very different reasons than many outsiders would think.
There have been recent attempts to change the law surrounding weed in the Netherlands. There’s a chance we may even see proper legalization in the future. Which doesn’t change the fact, that cannabis is still Amsterdams main attraction for Drug tourists from around the world.By Lauren Ingeno
Dramatically perched on an Andes mountain ridge some 8,000 feet above sea level in Peru, Machu Picchu is a visual wonder and a technical masterpiece.
“It is breathtaking,” said Brenda Bradley, an associate professor of anthropology at the George Washington University.
The Inca built the site’s 15th-century ruins without mortar, fitting the blocks of stone so tightly together that you still cannot fit a piece of paper between them. The design included steeped, agricultural terraces to boost planting space and protect against flooding.
But despite its distinction as one of the most iconic and important archeological sites in the world, the origins of Machu Picchu remain a mystery. The Inca left no record of why they built the site or how they used it before it was abandoned in the early 16th century.
“There is a longstanding debate about what the function of Machu Picchu was because it is so unique and unusual as an Inca site,” Dr. Bradley said. “It is too big to be a local settlement. And it’s too small and not the right structure to have been an administrative center for the Inca Empire.”
Now, Dr. Bradley and a team of researchers will be the first to analyze the genomes of the skeletal remains from more than 170 individuals buried at the site. The team’s other members include Lars Fehren-Schmitz from the University of California, Santa Cruz and Yale University’s Richard Burger and Lucy Salazar.
By sequencing the skeletons’ ancient DNA, the researchers hope to better understand the functional role of Machu Picchu and its residents, as well as patterns of diversity, migration and labor diaspora in the Inca Empire—the largest in pre-Columbian America.
Yale explorer Hiram Bingham launched a study of the “lost city of the Incas” in the summer of 1911. His work included excavating Machu Picchu and bringing human bones and other objects, like ceramics and jewelry, back with him to the United States.
The artifacts remained at the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven until 2012, when, after years of negotiations, the bones and relics were sent back to Peru. The Peru-Yale University International Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture houses the bones and relics. The museum, in Cusco about 45 miles from Machu Picchu, is open to the public and includes more than 360 items from Dr. Bingham’s original excavation.
Before returning the skeletons to their home country, Dr. Bradley—who was a Yale faculty member at the time—and her colleagues scrambled to collect DNA samples from the ancient bones.
Next, with a recent National Science Foundation grant, the researchers will use cutting-edge methods to sequence nuclear, mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA from the samples. Dr. Fehren-Schmitz will conduct the initial analysis, and Dr. Bradley will attempt to replicate the results in her lab.
“With ancient human DNA, you always have to worry about contamination,” Dr. Bradley said. “If you replicate the experiment in a different lab with different researchers, and you find the same results, that is the gold standard.”
The researchers will then compare the results of the genetic analysis with previous data from Machu Picchu in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the site.
The prevailing hypothesis among researchers is that Machu Picchu was a so-called “royal retreat”—akin to what Camp David is for the White House—where Inca Emperor Pachacuti would have visited and held diplomatic meetings, Dr. Bradley explained. The archeology indicates that people who resided there were likely crafts specialists brought in from locations throughout the empire to work at the site.
“They were probably very skilled people who came from far and wide to play very specific roles. That’s what we predict,” she said. “We can now look at the DNA to see if that is true.”
The genetic analysis will test this hypothesis by showing the relationships among the ancient people, whether they are from the same ancestral lines and locations, said Dr. Fehren-Schmitz, who has analyzed the genomes of many different populations throughout South America. This information also will help to put Machu Picchu in the context of the larger Inca Empire.
“I’m interested in local processes and how increases in social complexity and social change influence genetic diversity,” he said. “One thing that makes Machu Picchu so interesting is the idea that the people buried there doesn’t reflect just a local population.”
The researchers said the wealth of genomic data they plan to collect also would provide an interesting look at how colonialism affected people living in the Andes. Since the skeletons from Machu Picchu represent a pre-Spanish conquest population, they can compare those genetics to post-colonial DNA.
“Colonialism introduced disease and likely wiped out a lot of genetic diversity,” Dr. Bradley said. “This is a chance to look at genetic diversity before that happened.”Exclusive analysis of regulatory filings by the main commercial TV stations in Des Moines reveals sharp increase in the influence of rich donors and Super Pacs
Presidential candidates have spent $6.5m flooding just one small television market alone with more than 10,000 political commercials in the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses, the first votes of the 2016 election, according to a Guardian study.
The exclusive analysis of regulatory filings by the four main commercial TV stations in Des Moines, Iowa, also reveals a sharp increase in the influence of rich donors on the race, with spending by Super Pacs – organizations independent of the candidates’ campaigns which, unlike the campaigns, may raise unlimited amounts of money from individual donors – now outstripping candidate expenditure by at least a third.
TV executives estimate Super Pac spending is at record levels in Iowa, thanks in part to the supreme court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United versus the Federal Electoral Commission case, which removed limits on how much wealthy individuals can contribute.
“This is the first time in eight years that it’s an open race for both parties,” said Dale Woods, general manager of the Des Moines NBC affiliate, WHO. “In 2012 there were just three or four leading Republicans. Now you have a close race on both the Republican and Democratic sides.”
The Guardian analysis suggests an average of $23 per voter has already been spent in the Des Moines area, which ranks just 73rd among US television markets by number of “TV homes” but will play a crucial role in the national nomination process when voters take part in party caucuses on February 1, the first electoral tests of the 2016 election.
In the Democratic race, Bernie Sanders appears to have narrowly overtaken Hillary Clinton in TV spending in the state capital, where a high concentration of progressive voters offers him a chance of tipping the balance in what appears to be a neck-and-neck race in the state.
Clinton started television advertising in Iowa three months before Sanders, but a national surge of more than 2m small campaign donations has allowed him to rapidly catch up with the former secretary of state in spending – a trend confirmed by a recent email sent to Clinton supporters by her campaign officials warning that she was now behind the Vermont senator in TV spending in Iowa.
On the Republican side, negative advertising is proliferating as many well-funded campaigns struggle to make themselves heard in the crowded field. Though frontrunners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz appear to be relying partly on free news media coverage instead, the fierce battle for survival among their establishment rivals has been compared by some commentators to a bucket of crabs dragging down anyone who looks like escaping with increasing vicious attack ads on each other.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is spending most heavily through the Super Pac Right to Rise, which raised $100m shortly after he entered the race but looks to have spent $1.2m just in Des Moines.
But his Florida rival Marco Rubio has overtaken Bush in overall spending, according to the local analysis, thanks to much higher direct spending by his campaign. Regulatory protections mean that candidates are guaranteed the lowest price for their ads but Super Pacs must compete against other commercial advertisers, paying up to ten times the rate for the same daytime slot, and many times more than that in primetime.
This has helped Rubio secure 50% more ad slots than Bush in the market, which broadcasts to a population of 426,000, despite spending less through the Super Pacs that support him.
The pro-Rubio Super Pac Conservative Solutions nonetheless had to pay $15,000, for example, for just two spots during the local Fox affiliate’s coverage of the Arizona Cardinals versus Carolina Panthers football game this Sunday. Ted Cruz spent $5,000 apiece for two slots on the same local channel during Sunday’s playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos, while Right to Rise dropped $8,000 on just one short commercial slot during ABC’s New Year’s Eve coverage on its local Des Moines affiliate WOI.
WHO’s manager Woods defended the fees charged to Super Pacs for such high profile slots. “You have to remember, the station does not have an obligation to take the Pacs,” he said. “They are competing in the open market just like anyone else; they are competing again the local advertisers, the car dealers, the department stores and the restaurants. They are fishing in a much bigger pond than the candidates.”
Woods also predicted that the deluge of advertising would intensify as the year goes on, as Iowa is also increasingly seen as a swing state in the general election.
“What we have seen in previous times is that a couple of weeks before a general election up to 70% of the commercials are political. We are nowhere near that right now,” he said, explaining that campaigns prefer advertising alongside news shows.
“Their research shows that the viewers who watch the news are more likely to vote,” added Woods. “But there comes a point when the inventory gets sold out, then they take their money and allocate it to different programmes: prime time, day time or sports. Usually that will happen after the demand for the news programming fills up.”
The popularity of news programming has helped maintain investment in Iowa journalism, according to the station, which recently invested in two new cameras to help it cover live political events and boasts of a politics heavy Sunday show and hour long daily 4pm bulletin.
But viewers in Iowa are already struggling to escape the relentless political advertising. Flicking between Jeopardy on NBC and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on Fox, it is impossible to escape the regular Hillary Clinton commercials, for example. “She’s got what it takes to do the toughest job in the world,” says one sombre commerical in the gravelly tone of a movie announcer that runs in between ads for fitness centre and for-profit colleges.
A sample of the 4pm Channel 13 news slot – “the place for politics” – on WHO reveals nearly a dozen ads an hour, though no political editorial coverage until 4.26pm.
Instead, Bush interrupts the weather to blast Rubio for flip flopping on immigration in a slick animation that portrays the beleaguered former Florida as an unstoppable freight train. A few minutes later Rubio hits back with a spot telling viewers that “Jeb Bush is desperate”, while Cruz boasts of being “the one proven conservative standing for president” and a soft focus Rubio intones “America needs a president who will keep us safe”. Clinton pops back up to remind us that her Republican opponents have also called for carpet bombing.
Wood says there are heavy costs to covering the caucuses and compares his revenues unfavourably to other TV stations in the same group that cover markets with prominent sports franchises.
“Caucus happens every four years, but the challenge for us is there are so many candidates in this race this year. Can we cover that large of a field? You can’t get to as many places throughout the state as you’d like to because there are so many people in involved.”
Additional reporting by Ellen Brait and Mahita Gajanan in New YorkOn the eve of the anniversary of one of WikiLeaks’ biggest releases, previously unseen documents pertaining to the United States government’s secretive investigation into the group and its American associates have been unearthed.
Independent journalist Alexa O’Brien published on Monday a pair of documents filed under seal by US prosecutors in 2011 towards the start of their ongoing probe into the anti-secrecy group.
Although one of WikiLeaks’ most widely known sources, Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, was convicted of a number of counts for sharing classified information with the website and sentenced last year to prison, the Department of Justice investigation into the site’s operations remains intact to this day.
US officials have as recently as November told reporters on condition of anonymity that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange likely won’t be indicted for espionage, but the nearly five-year-old federal probe surrounding his website is indeed still open and under seal. In publishing the rare court filings this week, O’Brien wrote that the documents “shed light on the manner and scope of the criminal and intelligence probes into Julian Assange and civilians associated with the online publisher of censored material,” the likes of which have exposed war crimes and gross wrongdoings across all corners of the globe.
Indeed, the sealed documents published by O’Brien this week offer a rare insight into the extent of the DOJ’s investigation into WikiLeaks, including one US citizen alleged to have been involved in its operations.
“I am publishing for the first time, two court orders that detail the US Department of Justice's surveillance of a Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks associate, security expert and journalist, who has recently collaborated on articles in Der Spiegel detailing NSA surveillance,” O’Brien wrote.
On February 18, 2010, WikiLeaks published a one-month-old State Dept. cable courtesy of Manning in which an American diplomat shared private details pertaining to the then-current economic collapse in Iceland. US authorities would arrest Manning that May and eventually sentenced her to 35 years in prison after a military judge convicted her of multiple counts related to disclosing classified intelligence.
As O’Brien acknowledged this week, however, the US-led investigation into WikiLeaks has involved more than just pursuing Manning; the never-before-published court documents now show a modicum of what material investigators sought, including what kind of information was requested in secret on Appelbaum.
One court order from April 15, 2011 labeled “UNDER SEAL” reveals that investigators then sought a trove of information about Appelbaum from his Internet Service Provider, or ISP, Sonic.net, starting November 1, 2009. According to the document, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia asked Sonic for the “records of user activity for any connections made to or from” Appelbaum’s account, “including the date, time, length and method of connections, data transfer volume, user name and source and destination Internet Protocol addresses,” as well as all “non-content information associated with the contents of any communication or file stored by or for” that account. Another previously unseen document shows that similar information was requested of Google for a Gmail account registered to Appelbaum.
Yet another secret court order, O’Brien wrote, sought IP information, email addresses and email content from another, as-of-now unidentified Google subscriber. Again, she wrote, this information was part of the WikiLeaks grand jury investigation. As with the Sonic.net request, though, this evidence was handed over to Manning’s counsel by the prosecution, according to legal correspondence pertaining to the court-martial that has been made public.
“What is not certain, although likely, is if the January 2011 secret Google Appelbaum order was included among the grand jury materials handed over to Manning's defense,” she wrote.
“The Department of Justice criminal investigation of WikiLeaks is broader than the Manning probe,” she added. Major Ashden Fein, the lead military prosecutor at Manning’s court-martial, said during the trial that the FBI file on WikiLeaks consisted at the time of "42,135 pages or 3,475 documents."
According to O’Brien’s account of the trial, Fein said that Manning represented only 8,741 pages or 636 different documents in that FBI file — or just 12 percent of the total trove — most of which remains classified.
But although the Washington Post has at least twice relied on unnamed officials to discuss the unlikelihood that Assange will be indicted like Manning for espionage, O’Brien suggests there’s a chance federal prosecutors may pursue him with other charges, such as violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A CFAA charge has been a possibility since at least December 2010, she wrote, and at least one person was subpoenaed to testify to the grand jury about a possible violation — as well as to answer questions about Appelbaum, Assange, Manning and WikiLeaks.
“Typically, the Department of Justice simply indicts, keeps the indictment sealed, issues a warrant and then sits and waits. It is a violation of federal law for an official to disclose the instance of a sealed indictment before an accused is in the custody of law enforcement,” she wrote. “Once an indictment is unsealed or an investigation is concluded, all the secret orders and search warrants related to the case are simultaneously unsealed. All the secret orders and search warrants related to the WikiLeaks investigation that are publicly known, including those published here, remain under seal.”
In the meantime, she added, a number of possibilities remain with regards to how federal prosecutors will further pursue WikiLeaks. O’Brien cites evidence suggesting that the National Security Division has categorized the probe as a “Category 2” terrorism case which, if the case, would require the director of that office or the attorney general, Eric Holder, to officially end the investigation.
When the investigation into WikiLeaks will actually end is as good a guess as anyone’s. What is certain, though, is that investigators are sitting on substantial mounds of sensitive information — thousands of pages of which remains indefinitely sealed — that have been compelled in secret to build a case intended to eradicate WikiLeaks from the web.If you stayed up late on Saturday night to catch Arcade Fire's wonderfully weird "Here Comes The Night Time" special, you probably awoke on Sunday morning — or afternoon — thinking two things: 1) Wait, Michael Cera is bilingual?!? and 2) Hey, those guys (and girls) actually looked like they were having fun.
That's an oversimplification, of course, though how else can one sum |
2008, funded by $7 million from the Moore Foundation and working in partnership with the WWF on the Tumucumaque project, Woods Hole came up with the formula required: a way of valuing all that carbon stored in Brazil’s protected rainforests, so that it could be traded under the CDM. The CO2 to be “saved” by the Arpa programme, it calculated, amounted to 5.1 billion tons. Based on the UNFCCC’s valuation of CO2 at $12.50 per ton, this valued the trees in Brazil’s protected areas at over $60 billion. Endorsed by the World Bank, this projection was presented to the UNFCCC.
But two more obstacles had still to be overcome. The first was that the scheme needed to be adopted as part of REDD by the UNFCCC’s 2009 Copenhagen conference, which was supposed to agree a new global treaty to follow Kyoto. This would allow all that “saved” Brazilian CO2 to be turned into hard cash under the CDM scheme.
The other was that the US should adopt a “cap and trade” scheme, imposing severe curbs on the CO2 emitted by US industry. This would boost the international carbon market, sending the price soaring as US firms flocked to buy the credits that would allow them to continue emitting the CO2 they needed to survive.
As we know, the story hasn’t turned out as planned. Amid the shambles at Copenhagen in December, all that could be saved of the REDD proposals was an agreement in principle, with the hope of reaching detailed agreement in Mexico later this year. Also lost in the scramble to save something from the wreckage was the small print that guaranteed the rights of indigenous peoples in rainforests, whose way of life – to the concern of groups such as Survival International and the Forest Peoples Programme – has already been severely damaged by REDD-inspired schemes elsewhere, such as in Kenya and Papua New Guinea.
Just as alarming to the WWF and its allies, who were hoping to make billions from Brazilian forests, has been the failure of the US Senate to approve the cap and trade bill championed by President Obama. Since the EU has excluded the rainforests from its own cap and trade scheme, bringing the US into the net is vital for the WWF’s hopes of finding “money growing on trees”. The price of carbon on the Chicago Climate Exchange has just plummeted to its lowest-ever level, 10 cents a ton.
The WWF’s dream has been thwarted – but the revelation that it could even be party to such a scheme may have considerable influence on the way this richest of all environmental campaigning groups is viewed by the world at large.The NFL registered the highest unfavorable rating of any major U.S. sport for the third straight month in a newly released survey, a hit attributed in part to the ongoing protests during the national anthem.
The Winston Group Sports Survey released last week found the NFL was ranked “unfavorable” by 38 percent of respondents, the highest percentage of any major professional sport as well as college football and basketball.
Major League Baseball had the highest favorable rating at 63 percent and lowest unfavorable at 15 percent, while the NFL notched a 48 percent favorable rating.
“Major League Baseball continues to have the best sports brand by a significant margin,” said the survey. “The NFL had been competitive, but since the kneeling controversy it fell significantly behind, and this survey continues to demonstrate that trend.”
The poll, conducted Nov. 29-30, offered some good news for the NFL: The 38 percent unfavorable figure represented a slight improvement from the 40 percent unfavorable rating registered in September and October.
In August, prior to the start of the season, the NFL’s unfavorable rating was just 23 percent, but spiked in the aftermath of criticism over the kneeling from President Trump, which prompted an increase in the number of players refusing to stand for the anthem.
NFL Commissioner Goodell addresses the anthem controversy and stadium attendance from CNBC.
The NFL’s 48 percent favorable rating in the most recent survey was also slightly higher, up from 44 percent in the previous two months, according to the survey of 1,000 registered voters.
“The question is whether this is a small start back toward the original brand standing, or a settling-in process for the new brand standing of the NFL with the public,” said the Winston Group analysis.
2ndVote, a conservative business watchdog group, warned that the NFL could suffer long-term damage to its brand if the protests continue.
“It is becoming more and more clear that the NFL may be unable to reverse the damage caused by the National Anthem protests and could be facing huge public opinion problems, and losses of advertising dollars for that matter,” said 2ndVote.
The NFL’s ratings woes continue apace, with the league posting a season-low “Thursday Night Football” television audience in the Week 15 game between two teams with losing records, the Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts, according to Deadline Hollywood.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has pointed out that the games are still more popular than most programming, rejecting the premise that the league’s best days may be behind it.
“Let’s step back and talk about what’s happening to ratings overall: The NFL’s ratings are 25 out of 30 of the top-rated shows in sports in all of entertainment this year,” Mr. Goodell told CNBC in a Monday interview.
The NFL’s ratings are down 7 percent from the 2016 season based on JPMorgan figures, CNBC reported.
“I would say fans are going to different devices to consume media, so you have to be on those devices,” he said.
The protests over racism and social injustice began during the 2016 season over the deaths of black men at the hands of police.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Ten years after being locked out by their employer, union workers at Avery Heights Nursing Home began receiving checks totaling $2.55 million in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) settlement. The case has important implications for workers everywhere.
The workers, members of New England Health Care Employees Union District 1199, were locked out after going on strike in November 1999. The workers maintained picket lines for more than two years. Eventually, the NLRB ruled the lockout violated the law because it was an excuse to break the union. The nursing home was ordered to rehire the union members.
In a press release, the union quoted employment law scholar Michael Wishnie “This decision has broad implications for national labor law. For years, employers have used their power to hire permanent replacements as an excuse to try to destroy unions.” In those cases, Wishnie says, this decision means that the union workers have to get their jobs back, and the employer has to pay back pay and benefits.
The legal battle, which lasted most of the last decade, ended when the Supreme Court refused to hear the company’s appeal last October.
Herman Davies, Jr., who has worked in the Avery Heights housekeeping department since 1991, is quoted as saying, “We’ve waited a long time for justice,”Of course the money is important to us after all these years, but it’s even more important to see right win out over might.” Sharon Weir, a nurses’ aide, said, “I am so, so proud. We won. Our fight was not in vain.”
Photo: seiu1199neAlan Smithee (also Allen Smithee ) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. Coined in 1968 and used until it was formally discontinued in 2000, [1] it was the sole pseudonym used by members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) when a director, dissatisfied with the final product, proved to the satisfaction of a guild panel that he or she had not been able to exercise creative control over a film. The director was also required by guild rules not to discuss the circumstances leading to the move or even to acknowledge being the project's director. [2]
Before 1968, DGA rules did not permit directors to be credited under a pseudonym. This was intended to prevent producers from forcing them upon directors, which would inhibit the development of their résumés.[1] The guild also required that the director be credited, in support of the DGA philosophy that the director was the primary creative force behind a film.[2]
The Smithee pseudonym was created for use on the film Death of a Gunfighter, released in 1969. During its filming, lead actor Richard Widmark was unhappy with director Robert Totten and arranged to have him replaced by Don Siegel. Siegel later estimated that Totten had spent 25 days filming, while he himself had spent 9–10 days. Each had roughly an equal amount of footage in Siegel's final edit. But Siegel made clear that Widmark had effectively been in charge the entire time.[2] When the film was finished, Siegel did not want to take the credit for it and Totten refused to take credit in his place. The DGA panel hearing the dispute agreed that the film did not represent either director's creative vision.[1]
The original proposal was to credit the fictional "Al Smith", but that was deemed too common a name, and in fact was already in use within the film industry. The last name was first changed to "Smithe", then "Smithee",[1] which was thought to be distinctive enough to avoid confusion with similar names but without drawing attention to itself.[2] Critics praised the film and its "new" director, with The New York Times commenting that the film was "sharply directed by Allen Smithee who has an adroit facility for scanning faces and extracting sharp background detail,"[3] and Roger Ebert commenting, "Director Allen Smithee, a name I'm not familiar with, allows his story to unfold naturally."[4]
Following its coinage, the pseudonym "Alan Smithee" was applied retroactively to Fade In (also known as Iron Cowboy), a film starring Burt Reynolds and directed by Jud Taylor, which was first released before the release of Death of a Gunfighter.[5] Taylor also requested the pseudonym for City in Fear (1980) with David Janssen. Taylor commented on its use when he received the DGA's Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award in 2003:
I had a couple of problems in my career having to do with editing and not having the contractually-required number of days in the editing room that my agent couldn't resolve. So, I went to the Guild and said, "This is what's going on." The Guild went to bat for me. I got Alan Smithee on them both. It was a signal to the industry from a creative rights point of view that the shows had been tampered with.[6]
The spelling "Alan Smithee" became standard, and the Internet Movie Database lists about two dozen feature films and many more television features and series episodes credited to this name.[7] A persistent urban legend suggests that this particular spelling was chosen because it is an anagram of the phrase "the alias men", but this is apocryphal.
Over the years the name and its purpose became more widely known. Some directors violated the embargo on discussing their use of the pseudonym. In 1998, the film An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn was released, in which a man named Alan Smithee (Eric Idle) wishes to disavow a film he has directed, but is unable to do so because the only pseudonym he is permitted to use is his own name. The film was directed by Arthur Hiller, who reported to the DGA that producer Joe Eszterhas had interfered with his creative control, and successfully removed his own name from the film, so Alan Smithee was credited instead. The film was a commercial and critical failure, released in only 19 theaters, grossing only $45,779 in the US with a budget of about $10 million,[8] and Rotten Tomatoes reports an aggregate critical rating of only 8% positive.[9] The harsh negative publicity that surrounded the film drew unwanted mainstream attention to the pseudonym. Following this, the DGA retired the name; for the film Supernova (2000), dissatisfied director Walter Hill was instead credited as "Thomas Lee."[1]
Meanwhile, the name had been used outside of the film industry, and it continues to be used in other media and on film projects not under the purview of the DGA. Although the pseudonym was intended for use by directors, the Internet Movie Database lists several uses as writer credits as well.[7] Variations of the name have also occasionally been used, such as "Alan and Alana Smithy" (screenwriters for the 2011 film Hidden 3D).Oregonians generally love Voodoo Doughnuts. Here's your chance to win a "Voodoo Dozen" each month for one year, courtesy of
in Portland. To enter, submit your best Voodoo Doughnut photoshopped image. Winner of the contest receives the "Voodoo Dozen" prize. We're offering
five
six
to utilize. Use one or more of these images to create/edit a new image.
your finished image to the
. So, what can you do with doughnut images? Creativity is key; check out this
for inspiration. This Photoshop contest is available to anyone who has a free OregonLive.com user account. Here are the details:
You must use at least one of the
Sign in and upload your photo(s)
This contest is open until 8:00 a.m. PT on Thursday, January 7, 2010
After the contest closes, OregonLive.com's editorial staff will select three finalist photos based on creativity and quality of image.
The three finalist photos will be voted upon by OregonLive.com users.
The winner will receive one "Voodoo Dozen" Doughnuts each month for one year.
Official
are available.
Photo-editing software
If you need a photo editor, Adobe offers a free trial of
. Additionally, there are
to Photoshop (you may want to look for programs that offer layering capabilities). OregonLive.com will not provide photo editing assistance or instruction.
Copyrighted material
As with all photos uploaded to OregonLive.com, you may not use copyright-protected photos unless you have permission from the owner(s).
(Section IV. 1. G.):
Voodoo Doughnut image elementsVolanicEruptor
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Sr. MemberActivity: 392Merit: 250 Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 04:45:35 PM #781 Quote from: minerpart on October 11, 2013, 04:40:19 PM Quote from: VolanicEruptor on October 11, 2013, 04:32:20 PM In this case, Ken is making up his own accounting rules, and it has bothered me for awhile now..
OK that might be a valid point. Have you thought about making a grown-up post about it and asking Ken to use the traditional accounting format for clarity? Being silly and immature and trying to ridicule the man at every opportunity just because you are a silly and immature person yourself helps no-body.
But if you are having fun maybe that's the main thing.
OK that might be a valid point. Have you thought about making a grown-up post about it and asking Ken to use the traditional accounting format for clarity? Being silly and immature and trying to ridicule the man at every opportunity just because you are a silly and immature person yourself helps no-body.But if you are havingmaybe that's the main thing.
I take it you haven't been around since the IPO? We have tried everything, from "grown-up" reasoning, to offering our help, to making very helpful suggestions, and EVERY TIME Ken turns it down because he seems to know better (why do you think the ENTIRE board quit?). Do you want me to post the perfect example from my PM inbox, regarding copycat images from ASUS on his website? Or are you just going to stop right there?
Try explaining to him that he should use traditional accounting, and you will get absolutely nowhere with him. Guaranteed. I take it you haven't been around since the IPO? We have tried everything, from "grown-up" reasoning, to offering our help, to making very helpful suggestions, and EVERY TIME Ken turns it down because he seems to know better (why do you think the ENTIRE board quit?). Do you want me to post the perfect example from my PM inbox, regarding copycat images from ASUS on his website? Or are you just going to stop right there?Try explaining to him that he should use traditional accounting, and you will get absolutely nowhere with him. Guaranteed. ▓▓▓ BITMIXER.IO ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ High Volume Bitcoin MIXER ▓▓▓
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Sou
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(Bitcoin related text here)
Full MemberActivity: 210Merit: 100(Bitcoin related text here) Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 05:12:29 PM #782 Quote from: VolanicEruptor on October 11, 2013, 04:45:35 PM Quote from: minerpart on October 11, 2013, 04:40:19 PM Quote from: VolanicEruptor on October 11, 2013, 04:32:20 PM In this case, Ken is making up his own accounting rules, and it has bothered me for awhile now..
OK that might be a valid point. Have you thought about making a grown-up post about it and asking Ken to use the traditional accounting format for clarity? Being silly and immature and trying to ridicule the man at every opportunity just because you are a silly and immature person yourself helps no-body.
But if you are having fun maybe that's the main thing.
OK that might be a valid point. Have you thought about making a grown-up post about it and asking Ken to use the traditional accounting format for clarity? Being silly and immature and trying to ridicule the man at every opportunity just because you are a silly and immature person yourself helps no-body.But if you are havingmaybe that's the main thing.
I take it you haven't been around since the IPO? We have tried everything, from "grown-up" reasoning, to offering our help, to making very helpful suggestions, and EVERY TIME Ken turns it down because he seems to know better (why do you think the ENTIRE board quit?). Do you want me to post the perfect example from my PM inbox, regarding copycat images from ASUS on his website? Or are you just going to stop right there?
Try explaining to him that he should use traditional accounting, and you will get absolutely nowhere with him. Guaranteed.
I take it you haven't been around since the IPO? We have tried everything, from "grown-up" reasoning, to offering our help, to making very helpful suggestions, and EVERY TIME Ken turns it down because he seems to know better (why do you think the ENTIRE board quit?). Do you want me to post the perfect example from my PM inbox, regarding copycat images from ASUS on his website? Or are you just going to stop right there?Try explaining to him that he should use traditional accounting, and you will get absolutely nowhere with him. Guaranteed.
None of this matters; when we see how much money is planned to come in from pre-orders we can cast judgement on how the project has been handled then. "If it ain't broke don't fix it " and right now we have no reason to believe things aren't going great in the the pre-orders department.
tl;dr The number don't lie, and we'll know everything we need to know shortly. None of this matters; when we see how much money is planned to come in from pre-orders we can cast judgement on how the project has been handled then. "If it ain't broke don't fix it " and right now we have no reason to believe things aren't going great in the the pre-orders department.tl;dr The number don't lie, and we'll know everything we need to know shortly.
Vigil
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Sr. MemberActivity: 378Merit: 250 Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 06:29:40 PM #783 The ultimate scam of the whole deal is that American share-holders are being forced to dump their shares well below what they paid for them, prior to any chips hashing. And that is coming only a couple weeks after the exchange told everyone things were good and to bring your shares over.
If there some kind of plan for this that I haven't read up on?
minerpart
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Sr. MemberActivity: 280Merit: 250IIIIII====II====IIIIII Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 06:35:44 PM #784 Quote from: VolanicEruptor on October 11, 2013, 04:45:35 PM Try explaining to him that he should use traditional accounting, and you will get absolutely nowhere with him. Guaranteed.
Yeah I've been here since IPO and I know it's morons with your attitude that kept Ken away from the original thread. Obviously that and his single mindedness to get the business moving. His site is making 90k (in the bank) a month and you are not happy. Much more in the near future. He's covered the exchange issues with his own sites - have you given him any credit for that foresight and work? No. He got a press release from eASIC in a weekend after huge forum pressure - any credit? Not much. He took the mine pic down. He restructured the entire IPO ffs - how is this not listening?
Every single stock has suffered recently yet according to you it's all Kens fault. You sound like a spoilt brat screaming at his mom for stopping him from running out into traffic - no reason, no logic, pure emotion. The only valid argument is lack of PR that's it. But Ken clearly doesn't think a proposition this strong needs the PR bandwaggon that LabCon and Terrahash took money on. To some that is not a failing - it's 100% belief. With his site taking 90k a month maybe he's right?
As for your 'he doesn't listen to ME' argument, he's been on here quite a bit since the news of the btc-tc shutdown (and obviously this is a new thread moderated by him personally) - so there was your opportunity for dialogue. You've pissed all over that chance with your immaturity and if I were him I'd ignore every word your write. You have acted like a total punk and that's how you deserve to be treated. Scream and you'll be heard? I don't think so punk. Yeah I've been here since IPO and I know it's morons with your attitude that kept Ken away from the original thread. Obviously that and his single mindedness to get the business moving. His site is making 90k (in the bank) a month and you are not happy. Much more in the near future. He's covered the exchange issues with his own sites - have you given him any credit for that foresight and work? No. He got a press release from eASIC in a weekend after huge forum pressure - any credit? Not much. He took the mine pic down. He restructured the entire IPO ffs - how is this not listening?Every single stock has suffered recently yet according to you it's all Kens fault. You sound like a spoilt brat screaming at his mom for stopping him from running out into traffic - no reason, no logic, pure emotion. The only valid argument is lack of PR that's it. But Ken clearly doesn't think a proposition this strong needs the PR bandwaggon that LabCon and Terrahash took money on. To some that is not a failing - it's 100% belief. With his site taking 90k a month maybe he's right?As for your 'he doesn't listen to ME' argument, he's been on here quite a bit since the news of the btc-tc shutdown (and obviously this is a new thread moderated by him personally) - so there was your opportunity for dialogue. You've pissed all over that chance with your immaturity and if I were him I'd ignore every word your write. You have acted like a total punk and that's how you deserve to be treated. Scream and you'll be heard? I don't think so punk.
minerpart
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Sr. MemberActivity: 280Merit: 250IIIIII====II====IIIIII Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 06:37:04 PM #785 Quote from: Vigil on October 11, 2013, 06:29:40 PM The ultimate scam of the whole deal is that American share-holders are being forced to dump their shares well below what they paid for them, prior to any chips hashing. And that is coming only a couple weeks after the exchange told everyone things were good and to bring your shares over.
If there some kind of plan for this that I haven't read up on?
Good God can you even read? Can you go back like 2 pages? Is that to much effort for you? So the SEC are scamming US investors are they? Muppet. Good God can you even read? Can you go back like 2 pages? Is that to much effort for you? So the SEC are scamming US investors are they? Muppet.
knybe
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decentralize EVERYTHING...
Hero MemberActivity: 658Merit: 500decentralize EVERYTHING... Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 06:44:00 PM #788 Quote from: minerpart on October 11, 2013, 06:35:44 PM Quote from: VolanicEruptor on October 11, 2013, 04:45:35 PM Try explaining to him that he should use traditional accounting, and you will get absolutely nowhere with him. Guaranteed.
Yeah I've been here since IPO and I know it's morons with your attitude that kept Ken away from the original thread. Obviously that and his single mindedness to get the business moving. His site is making 90k (in the bank) a month and you are not happy. Much more in the near future. He's covered the exchange issues with his own sites - have you given him any credit for that foresight and work? No. He got a press release from eASIC in a weekend after huge forum pressure - any credit? Not much. He took the mine pic down. He restructured the entire IPO ffs - how is this not listening?
Every single stock has suffered recently yet according to you it's all Kens fault. You sound like a spoilt brat screaming at his mom for stopping him from running out into traffic - no reason, no logic, pure emotion. The only valid argument is lack of PR that's it. But Ken clearly doesn't think a proposition this strong needs the PR bandwaggon that LabCon and Terrahash took money on. To some that is not a failing - it's 100% belief. With his site taking 90k a month maybe he's right?
As for your 'he doesn't listen to ME' argument, he's been on here quite a bit since the news of the btc-tc shutdown (and obviously this is a new thread moderated by him personally) - so there was your opportunity for dialogue. You've pissed all over that chance with your immaturity and if I were him I'd ignore every word your write. You have acted like a total punk and that's how you deserve to be treated. Scream and you'll be heard? I don't think so punk.
Yeah I've been here since IPO and I know it's morons with your attitude that kept Ken away from the original thread. Obviously that and his single mindedness to get the business moving. His site is making 90k (in the bank) a month and you are not happy. Much more in the near future. He's covered the exchange issues with his own sites - have you given him any credit for that foresight and work? No. He got a press release from eASIC in a weekend after huge forum pressure - any credit? Not much. He took the mine pic down. He restructured the entire IPO ffs - how is this not listening?Every single stock has suffered recently yet according to you it's all Kens fault. You sound like a spoilt brat screaming at his mom for stopping him from running out into traffic - no reason, no logic, pure emotion. The only valid argument is lack of PR that's it. But Ken clearly doesn't think a proposition this strong needs the PR bandwaggon that LabCon and Terrahash took money on. To some that is not a failing - it's 100% belief. With his site taking 90k a month maybe he's right?As for your 'he doesn't listen to ME' argument, he's been on here quite a bit since the news of the btc-tc shutdown (and obviously this is a new thread moderated by him personally) - so there was your opportunity for dialogue. You've pissed all over that chance with your immaturity and if I were him I'd ignore every word your write. You have acted like a total punk and that's how you deserve to be treated. Scream and you'll be heard? I don't think so punk.
VE's demeanor, entitled attitude and braggadocio over these past few months is very similar to the trust-fund-babies I have known. VE's demeanor, entitled attitude and braggadocio over these past few months is very similar to the trust-fund-babies I have known.
minerpart
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Sr. MemberActivity: 280Merit: 250IIIIII====II====IIIIII Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 06:50:22 PM #789 Quote from: VolanicEruptor on October 11, 2013, 04:45:35 PM EVERY TIME Ken turns it down because he seems to know better (why do you think the ENTIRE board quit?)
Come back in a month and see what he has created. He is a very very experienced businessman with great vision. Every Board member attested to that. They left because they were an Advisory group who's advice wasn't listened to. The CEO is well within his rights to do that and you'll find every business that became huge had early conflict in the Board room. Someone needs to call the shots and if you don't like Ken's approach to business sell your interests in his venture.
Also they quit as they wanted the freedom to get into NeoBee - the stock that has no future IMO. Come back in a month and see what he has created. He is a very very experienced businessman with great vision. Every Board member attested to that. They left because they were an Advisory group who's advice wasn't listened to. The CEO is well within his rights to do that and you'll find every business that became huge had early conflict in the Board room. Someone needs to call the shots and if you don't like Ken's approach to business sell your interests in his venture.Also they quit as they wanted the freedom to get into NeoBee - the stock that has no future IMO.
Puppet
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LegendaryActivity: 980Merit: 1007 Re: [ActiveMining] The Official Active Mining Discussion Thread [Self-Moderated] October 11, 2013, 07:19:37 PM #790 More disclosures are needed. Trying to value this company, but its impossible with the information we have.
I may have missed some pieces, but right now all I know is that market cap is currently >$800K while it has closer to $300K in its order book.
That doesnt look great, but its meaningless if we dont know how much of the IPO money has been spent, and how many TH will be brought online.
I understand NDA's restrict your ability to full disclosure, but right now its not investing, its throwing a dart.So this is Part Two of my recommendations for josei fans who are looking for games to play on the Nintendo DS/3DS. It can be tricky because as young women there’s not really many developers who directly target our demographic. Luckily for us though, our numbers are growing, and we’re getting more and more recognized as time goes on. So I’ve compiled a list that attempts to bring together games that would appeal to any josei fan, as well as being fun games to play. I’d never recommend something I personally dislike! So let’s continue this list, I’ve got 10 more games/series up my sleeve! Check out Part One here if you missed it!
Fire Emblem Series
Fire emblem has quickly become one of my favourite handhelds as it has great titles for both the DS and 3DS. They’re Tactical Role-Playing Games set in a fantasy medieval setting. On the DS you’ll find a remake of the very first Fire Emblem game (originally on the famicom). You can finally learn about the infamous Prince Marth and his exploits in this game titled Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. The touch controls allow for smooth gameplay that’s easy to maneuver through. There’s also Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS which I’ve previously reviewed. It’s a great title for anyone new to the series. I recommend these games because they do a great job at bridging both female and male players by having a large female cast who all wield swords and kick butt (which isn’t always common in North American games). The stories are also large in scale, and the tactics element leaves you satisfied with just enough of a challenge to keep you going. If you like rpg’s and are looking for something new to try or you love large-scale stories with heroines and dragons, then check this series out! You won’t be disappointed.
Harvest Moon
This series has a lot to offer for both newcomers and old veterans of the series. They’re simulation role-playing games where your aim is to rebuild the farm, find love and eventually have children. Intermixed is addictive gameplay as you farm crops and take care of the livestock. It’s a laid back game but it’s adorable and addictive. The simulation aspect is welcome for any quasi otome fan, and you have lots of potential bachelors at your disposal. The customization and options involved make for new experiences with every game, and as each title adds in new elements, every game is a new experience. If you’re picking up Harvest Moon DS, make sure to get DS Cute as it features a female protagonist instead of a boy in the regular DS version. You can even travel to an island in two of the DS titles, Island of Happiness and Sunshine Islands (which is a nice change of scenery compared to the other titles). And speaking of changing scenery….
Rune Factory Series
Akin to the Harvest Moon series is its fantasy counterpart, Rune Factory. There are 3 titles available for the DS as well as an upcoming title on the 3DS Rune Factory 4 which is slated for October this year. As the subtitle suggests, it’s much the same experience as Harvest Moon, just in a fantasy setting. You’re still farming and picking out your future husband, but this time instead of livestock they’ve opted for monsters. This involves an RPG style element to the game which is kind of a neat addition for those who are looking for something more challenging than Harvest Moon alone. It’s another fun series that it great to truck around with you and play when you’ve got a little time to spare. The main storylines are fun and fulfilling and the series overall is a satisfying experience.
Rhythm Heaven
I love me some rhythm games! This game had me addicted for quite a while with its simplistic yet adorable art style. The gameplay is also quite simple itself, following a semi Warioware experience. Using simple instruction you had to tap, swipe and more to the beat. It can get really challenging as you play through. If you liked Warioware, or you like rhythm games this is a fun one to add to your collection. It’s really cheap to find nowadays too so if you’re finding out about this title for the first time you should be able to snag it for less than $10 bucks used.
Love Revo
Another guilty pleasure game I’ll admit. This one’s a bit different though. You’re not only trying to find the love of your life, you’re also trying to lose weight. It’s a kind of shallow concept, but not all the guys in this game judge you for your looks. It’s another simulation dating otome game, but it adds something new to the genre. There’s not many translated otome games for the DS, and this is one of the few titles you can find. The translation patch can be found here. If you like otome games and are looking for a decent handheld one then give this title a try.
Final Fantasy Series
Every josei girl likes herself some good rpg’s. The DS is great as it’s handheld, allowing you to take your addiction with you. On the DS you can find some original Final Fantasy titles as well as some remakes of titles that never originally made it to North America. There’s also a continuation of the Crystal Chronicles series for DS (originally on the Gamecube) so if you’re a fan of the original, they’re worth checking out. These titles are known for compelling storylines as well as challenging gameplay. They all follow a level-based system although not all are turn based (check out the Crystal Chronicles series for that). If you’ve overlooked any titles it’s worth checking out the list available for the DS. Gokusaishiki is currently working on a translation of Blood of Bahamut which is a Japan exclusive. So even if you thought you’ve played them all, anticipate this release!
The World Ends With You |
over the 12-4 Indianapolis Colts. Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Steelers did a better job of exploiting the holes in the Chargers defense and put up 35 points on the Bolts on their way to winning the Super Bowl.
Blame: Shawne Merriman's injury
2009
How this team finished 13-3 is beyond me. Nick Hardwick played in 3 regular season games. Chris Chambers was let go halfway through the season because he was terrible. Jeromey Clary missed 6 games. Jacob Hester got injured and was replaced with UDFA Mike Tolbert. There were 16 starts between Ian Scott, Ogemdi Nwagbuo and Alfonso Boone. The prize of the Chargers' free-agent class, Kevin Burnett, started just 7 games.
That team was a mess, specifically on defense, and somehow they ended up behind only the Colts for the best record in the league. Then Nate Kaeding happened, missing all 3 FG attempts in a game the Chargers lost by 3 points.
Blame: Nate Kaeding (and injuries) [Editor's Note: but mostly Nate Kaeding]
2010
Here's the list of team starters that started less than 12 games: Ryan Mathews, Malcom Floyd, Legedu Naanee, Vincent Jackson, Antonio Gates, Marcus McNeill, Louis Vasquez, Stephen Cooper, Steve Gregory.
Some of those were due to bad play, some of those were injuries and some were contract disputes. The WR group got so bad that Kelley Washington, Seyi Ajirotutu, Gary Banks and Patrick Crayton were seeing regular snaps. Antwan Applewhite started 13 games at OLB because neither Merriman nor Larry English could stay healthy. You can imagine how that went.
Because of all of the reasons listed above, the team started 2-5. This was a talented team on paper, but none of that talent was on the field. By the time VJ and MM came back, Antonio Gates was gone. Still, the team finished the season 7-2 and very narrowly missed the playoffs.
Again, this wasn't about the pundits being wrong about the Chargers. It was that the players that they love(d) were not on the field.
Blame: Contract disputes and injuries [Editor's Note: How the hell do you not mention special teams?]
2011
Let's list the major injuries (games played). Bob Sanders (2 games), Malcom Floyd (7 games), Antonio Gates (13 games, but looking very unhealthy), Kris Dielman (6 games), Shaun Phillips (12 games), Marcus McNeill (9 games), Luis Castillo (1 game) and Nate Kaeding (1 game). Whew.
That's the starting SS, WR, TE, LG, OLB, LT, DE and K. That's a third (8) of the number of starters there are on a team (24, or 25 if you include the Long-Snapper).
The team was winning to start the season (4-1), despite losing Castillo and Kaeding in that first game. It was the losses of Phillips, McNeill, Dielman and Floyd in the middle of the season that led to a 6-game losing streak. Once guys like Antwan Barnes, Jared Gaither, Tyronne Green and Vincent Brown found themselves to be suitable replacements, the team finished the season in a familiar 4-1 fashion.
Blame: Injuries
Could you make an argument for this to be A.J. Smith's fault? Sure. The guys he's drafting can't stay healthy. Should probably do a better job of inspecting them. He also may, or may not, be in charge of hiring/firing the training staff and team doctors. However, to claim that he drafts or signs players that don't perform up to expectations when on the field would be false. Also, pointing blame at Norv Turner when he's basically been handed half a team every year (and has yet to finish with a losing record), is ridiculous.
Get into a conversation with any of the folks that want to "Fire Norv!!!" and you'll find them going to the argument of "underachievement" very early. Each year, Norv is handed a very talented team and every year the team gets worse, right? This was a 14-2 team that Norv has destroyed, right?
Wrong. Norv gets handed a piece of paper with some impressive names, then he gets to build gameplans around Gary Banks. That 14-2 team had ONE major injury, and that was the loss of Luis Castillo for 7 games. Everyone else stayed healthy. The lines, the playmakers, everyone. That team simply got the opportunity to live up to its healthy potential. The team from the year before, with roughly the same players and same coaches, finished 9-7 behind a regularly-injured offensive line. Sounds an awful lot like Norv, doesn't it?No, it's not an alien, but we may have just been visited by something that originated beyond our solar system.
For the first time, astronomers have observed something passing through our solar system that has likely travelled light years to get here.
The object — which initially some believed to be a comet, but is now believed to be an asteroid — was discovered on Oct. 19 by Canadian Robert Weryk at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.
Weryk, who is a post-doctoral researcher, was going through data from the Pan-STARRS survey, a project that scans the sky for near-Earth objects.
Weryk is part of a group searching for near-Earth objects, so when he spotted something, he initially thought it was an asteroid or comet orbiting the sun.
But not this time.
Weryk had seen the object in image archives from the night before. And he knew something was different.
"At first it was a 'that's weird,' and then we want to double-check the data," Weryk told CBC News. "But once we had confirming images from a colleague, we were pretty confident that this was coming from outside the solar system."
How do astronomers determine whether something is bound in an orbit around the sun or unbound? It's all about speed.
Astronomers have been looking for this for more than a century. - Peter Brown, Western University
To be bound in an orbit around the sun at Earth's distance, an object would need to move around 42 kilometres per second. However, when this object was passing through, it was moving at 44 kilometres per second. As well, it appeared that the trajectory of the object was more than enough to resist the gravitational pull of the sun.
After getting other observations to confirm the object's orbit, Weryk called one of his previous astronomy and physics professors from Western University, Peter Brown, who specializes in meteor physics. Brown was doubtful at first.
"Everybody was quite skeptical about this... but by the time it was announced just a few days ago it was pretty clear from the three dozen observations there was no way to fit a bound orbit to this object," Brown said.
"Astronomers have been looking for this for more than a century," he said.
"We expect that, if other planetary systems formed the way ours did, the vast majority of comet-like and asteroid-like bodies don't get incorporated into the planets, they get scattered out of the system. So there should be tons of these things... all over the galaxy."
Astronomers have never spotted something like this before, which gave some planetary scientists pause, Brown said.
The problem was that astronomers weren't looking for that kind of motion for an object, which is different from that of solar system objects. Now that they know what to look for, Weryk and Brown hope that more of these interstellar interlopers will be found.
Approaching from above, the object A/2017 U1 was closest to the Sun on Sept. 9. Travelling at 44 kilometres per second, it is headed away from the Earth and sun on its way out of the solar system. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Brown noted that the object could still be something else. Although it's highly unlikely, a very large, extremely distant planet could have altered the orbit of something far out in our solar system.
"It's almost such a long shot, it's not worth mentioning," he said.
The object known as A/2017 U1 has only been observed for just over a week, and it will be too faint to observe within a few days. So this is the only time astronomers can study it.
If you're wondering where this object came from, there's no way of knowing, because during the tens of thousands of years this object has been flying through space, the stars have also been moving (we all orbit the centre of the galaxy).
Weryk, who had spent his time at Western University searching for meteors — small bits of dust and debris in space — from beyond our solar system, finds it ironic that he spotted something so large.
"It's almost like closure," he said. "I actually forwarded the discovery email to Peter and said, 'Hey, I finally found one 13 years later.' I thought that was funny."While everyone was debating Trump’s judicial-nominations list yesterday, the judge in Brownsville, Texas, who still maintains control of certain technical aspects of the immigration-executive-action case now before the Supreme Court issued an extraordinary order sanctioning the Justice Department for various misrepresentations and other ethical breaches. It turns out that the government had begun implementing DAPA and extended DACA – the program providing temporary eligibility for residence and other benefits to large classes of illegal aliens – before the February 2015 date when those programs were intended to become active.
Judge Andrew Hanen had worked to produce a 123-page opinion enjoining the executive action on the eve of that “go” date, and it turns out that the Justice Department violated its duty of candor by not revealing the extent of its malfeasance – and continuing with the program in certain ways for a few weeks after the order went into effect. That is, regardless whether the government purposely defied the judge or this was a case of the left hand not knowing what the far-left hand was doing, administration lawyers had a duty to disclose everything that was going on, and to make best efforts to stop the Department of Homeland Security from putting its new programs into effect.
But they didn’t do that, so Judge Hanen issued a truly remarkable sanctions order that not only details DOJ’s “bad faith” but incorporates movie dialogue to illustrate points about the the government’s not being above the law and the importance of truth-telling. As Josh Blackman says in an excellent summary:
This egregious conduct violates the most basic tenets of judicial ethics, which demand an ongoing duty of candor to the courts. What is the government’s defense? The Justice Department rationalized that its lawyers “lost focus on the fact” or that somehow “the fact receded in memory or awareness.” In one of the more light-hearted parts of the otherwise sober opinion, Judge Hanen quoted from the classic movie Miracle on 34th Street. When young Tommy Mara was asked to testify about Kris Kringle’s secret identity, he was asked, “Tommy, you know the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie, don’t you?” The boy answered, “Gosh, everybody knows you shouldn’t tell a lie, especially in court.” The Justice Department lawyers deserved coal in their stockings. These accusations aren’t even the most audacious aspect of the court’s 28-page order. In a decision that will be studied in legal-ethics classes for decades to come, Judge Hanen placed many of the lawyers at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. — known as “Main Justice” — under his personal supervision. This relief is reminiscent of federal courts that placed recalcitrant school districts under supervision to ensure compliance with desegregation orders. Or more recently, this relief is akin to judges who placed deficient police departments under federal oversight to ensure they reduce police brutality or other offenses. What is remarkable here is that Main Justice will now be required to report to Judge Hanen’s authority for the next five years to improve its ethics.
Indeed, Hanen’s remedy consists of five component: (1) all the lawyers at DOJ headquarters who litigate in the 26 states that challenged DAPA (most of them) have to go back to school for an annual ethics course taught by an outside expert; (2) DOJ has to certify annually for five years that these lawyers are indeed going to school; (3) the attorney general must report within 60 days “a comprehensive plan to prevent this unethical conduct from ever occurring again,” and “what steps she is taking to ensure that... the Justice Department trial lawyers tell the truth — the entire truth.”; (4) the attorney general is also required to report in 60 days “what steps she is taking to ensure that the Office of Professional Responsibility … appropriately disciplines those whose actions fall below the standards that the American people rightfully expect from their Department of Justice.”; and (5) the government must “file a list of each of the individuals in each of the Plaintiff States given benefits” under the enjoined programs, including their names, addresses, and other personally identifying information. These records would remain sealed, but the states would be able to access them on a “showing by a state of actual or imminent damage that could be minimized or prevented by release of the information to one of the Plaintiff States.” (Josh is dubious about the purpose and propriety of this last item, but it would seem to me that it would facilitate, should the plaintiff states ultimately prevail in their legal challenge, the state revocation of driver’s licenses and other benefits from those who wouldn’t have gotten them had not the government acted so egregiously.)
I can’t overstate how unusual such a sanctions order is. Judge Hanen even said that in a normal case, he’d simply strike the guilty party’s pleadings – meaning the government’s entire defense, handing a summary win to the challengers – but he couldn’t do that here because such a move would imperil the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over a case of national import. He also said that he’d disbar the attorneys responsible if he had that power, but instead simply revoked the out-of-state lawyers’ ability to practice in his court pro hac vice (for this case).
Amazing. I’m sure that much if not all of this will be affirmed on appeal.Republicans in Washington have reached a new moment of truth on Obamacare — and not about whether they can repeal it.
This time, it's about whether an all-Republican government can accept political limits, allow bipartisan compromise and protect citizens from harm.
Repealing and replacing Obamacare has been the top priority of Republicans for years. After Donald Trump captured the White House, it became the first order of business for the Republican-led House and Senate.
The effort proceeded on two tracks. The Trump administration sought to undercut confidence and destabilize Obamacare markets, which, in turn, GOP lawmakers used to affirm arguments for repeal.
Still, they failed — repeatedly.
They had the Republican president they needed. But the chasm separating their promises from their policies, and the realities of eliminating a program that gave 20 million more Americans health insurance, rallied political opposition they could not overcome.
Yet while they were failing, two senior senators negotiated a bipartisan backup plan.
One is Patty Murray of Washington, ranking Democrat on the Senate health committee. With the two parties in budget stalemate under President Barack Obama, she negotiated a compromise with then-House budget chairman Paul Ryan in 2013.
The other is Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a former Republican governor, presidential candidate, Cabinet secretary, member of the Senate leadership and now health committee chairman.
Their deal accepts that Obamacare will remain law for at least the next two years. It gives states more flexibility for experimentation and allows the sale of more inexpensive "catastrophic" plans.
Most importantly, it would assure two years of federal "cost-sharing reduction" payments to insurers. Those payments, which cost the government $7 billion last year, let insurers reduce out-of-pocket Obamacare costs for low-income Americans.
Last week, the Trump administration had announced it would end the payments. The president denounced them as a Democratic "payoff" to insurance industry allies.
In reality, however, those payments protect millions of the working-class voters candidate Trump won over in 2016. Without them, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, more insurers would flee Obamacare marketplaces, while those remaining hike premiums 25 percent by 2020. The CBO also projects a $21 billion rise in the deficit, since lost insurer subsidies would lead to higher Obamacare tax credits.
The president struck a radically different tone Tuesday as news of the Alexander-Murray agreement broke. While insisting against all evidence that Republicans will repeal Obamacare soon, he embraced the deal.
"It will get us over this intermediate hump," Trump told a Rose Garden news conference. "It's a short-term solution so we don't have this dangerous little period … for insurance companies for one or two years."
In fact, in a weekend phone call to Alexander, the president privately encouraged the bipartisan negotiations even while blustering publicly.
"He said he doesn't want people to be hurt during the next two years by the possibility of rising premiums or not being able to buy insurance," Alexander told reporters.
The question now is whether other Republicans take yes for an answer.
After Trump spoke, some White House aides suggested additional Alexander-Murray negotiations. A group of House GOP conservatives announced they'll oppose insurer "bailouts."
"From what we've been told, there's very little real reform," Rep. Bradley Byrne of Alabama told me. "I don't think this is going to fly."
If it doesn't, Republicans will extend the Obamacare fracas into an eighth year — with no prospect of more success. They will fuel more insurance market turmoil just as they want to start debating tax-cuts.
Like Trump, GOP members are squeezed between an anti-government base and a broader electorate seeking solutions. Unlike him, they'll be on the ballot in next year's midterm elections.
In the name of Obamacare marketplace customers — including 350,000 Tennesseans — former Gov. Alexander wants his colleagues to govern.
"We've been stuck for seven years on individual market health care insurance," he said. "That only affects about 6 percent of Americans, but every one of them is important."I have to admit, I’m not the biggest fan of programming games. Not that I don’t enjoy an occasional silly chaotic game of Robo Rally or Colt Express but, most of the time I want more strategy in my games. When I first heard about Mechs vs Minions I didn’t pay it much mind beyond the beautiful production values (For the price point? It is amazing!). The game was getting some buzz but I thought this was mainly based on those production values and the fact that it was a major video game publisher taking a crack at the board game market. But as I delved deeper into the hype around this game I began to see a thread that interested me. Yes, it is a programming game, but it is a different kind – maybe a kind I would like to see hit the table more often.
To be clear, this is not a review. I am in the same boat as the rest of you – I did not receive a review copy. But I wanted to cover a few things about this game that make it stand apart from the rest of the programming crowd.When EA announced that it is bringing the FIFA franchise to the Nintendo Switch this year, the fact that Patrick Söderlund, executive vice president at EA, simply called it "EA Sports FIFA on Nintendo Switch" was conspicuous. Gamers wondered if the "custom-built" title would be the same as the ones set to appear on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Recently, EA chief competition officer Peter Moore, shed a sliver of additional light on the Switch product by calling it "FIFA 18."
"Well, as we have said, we are custom-building a FIFA version for the Nintendo Switch," Moore told Gamereactor at a Paris event. "It will be FIFA 18, and it will obviously be later this year when FIFA 18 comes out."
EA's nomenclature gives the impression that the Switch version will be in line with the others. Gamereactor specifically asked Moore whether FIFA 18 on Switch has the same feature set as those on the PS4 and Xbox One, but he only reiterated that FIFA 18 on Switch was custom. The company has not announced any features for any of the versions of FIFA 18, other than that The Journey story mode would return.
Moore's comment also implies that the Switch edition of the game will come out at the same time as the others (traditionally in September), but that is also inference.
[Source: Gamereactor]
Our Take
This is a reassuring step, but I still would like to see the game's full feature set to know it's not lagging behind the other versions.Your wishlist has been temporarily saved. Please Log in to save it permanently.
Directed by renowned artist JR, ELLIS is a lens through which the story of Ellis Island is captured and retold by the words of one immigrant.
Starring Robert De Niro and featuring the visually arresting Unframed art installation, which inhabits the abandoned Ellis Island hospital complex, the short film takes you on a compelling journey through the crumbling hallways of what once stood as the gateway to America.
Entwined with this unfolding narrative is a score composed by multi-talented Woodkid, performed and co-written by Nils Frahm. Whilst the delicate piano motifs of Winter Morning I culminate in a crescendo of strings, it's atop the harmonium swells on the B-side that De Niro's narration evokes the presence of those who shaped modern America so clearly.
There's perhaps not been a more relevant time for this story and its themes to be brought to life in such a special way, with all proceeds from this release going towards the Sea Watch initiative (sea-watch.org), a non-profit charity dedicated to the protection and rescue of civilian refugees.
Following a screening as part of Nils’s Barbican Weekender, the ELLIS score will be out July 8th and available in CD, LP and digital format.Mississippi State linebacker Leo Lewis made an appearance and gave testimony at Ole Miss’ Committee on Infractions hearing, sources tell Yahoo Sports. (Getty)
COVINGTON, Ky. – In what is believed to be a first in NCAA compliance history, an active student-athlete appeared at a Committee on Infractions hearing Monday.
Mississippi State linebacker Leo Lewis made an appearance and gave testimony to the committee as part of Mississippi’s hearing to answer for 21 alleged NCAA violations, multiple sources told Yahoo Sports. Lewis was not seen publicly either entering or exiting the ballroom at the Embassy Suites here, site of the hearing, but sources confirmed that he did appear.
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Lewis is a significant part of the case, having alleged that an Ole Miss booster paid him $10,000 to sign with the Rebels. Lewis ultimately chose not to and signed with rival Mississippi State instead.
Ole Miss is disputing that charge from the NCAA. Another booster alleged to have provided apparel to Lewis and fellow Mississippi State player Kobe Jones is suing both of them for defamation. Lewis’ involvement in the case – leading to his appearance here – has further heightened tensions between Mississippi and Mississippi State.
The Committee on Infractions met from 8:30 a.m. ET until nearly 6 Monday, a long session with more to come. Another session is scheduled for Tuesday, and a third could take place Wednesday as well. Armed security stood at the entrance to the meeting room throughout the day. Neither Ole Miss nor NCAA officials commented after the session was completed.
In addition to Lewis, among those in attendance were former Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze, who resigned under pressure this summer; former staffer Barney Farrar; current Ole Miss interim coach Matt Luke; athletic director Ross Bjork; and school president Jeffrey Vitter. Freeze and Farrar both are charged with Level One violations, the most severe in the NCAA hierarchy of allegations.
Story continues
Greg Christopher, the athletic director at nearby Xavier, is chairing the Committee on Infractions for this case.I guess I’ve been crossdressing for a while now, and I suppose I’ve come to a few conclusions about things. Here’s my top 5 tips for being a happy crossdresser – they’ve worked for me so far :D
1 – Accept it
This is who you are. Regardless of what anyone else might think, there is nothing wrong with wanting to dress/look like a woman. You are not a freak. You are 100% the standard, normal, wonky human being that everyone else is. There is nothing wrong with you. I’ve never heard of anyone whose urges to dress dried up completely. Trying to bury or ignore a fundamental part of your personality will only lead to depression and darkness. It took me a while to accept myself, but if I can do it, so can you :)
2 – Figure out what you want, and work towards it
Some people only want to take things as far as wearing panties under their regular clothes. Others, such as myself, feel it necessary to go out and about into the world fully dressed. And there’s plenty more people in-between. These things are all OK. If these are things you want to do, but you feel like you can’t do them… you’re probably wrong. It’s been done. If you want to go out dressed, you can! But take baby-steps, and always consider your safety. If you feel like you’re in an area where you don’t think you’ll be accepted, take a vacation to somewhere better! Move! Change jobs! Meet new people who don’t care what you wear, but only care who you are as a person. It’s your life. You’re not hurting anyone. You have the right to be happy, and ability to make it happen.
3 – Don’t obsess about passing
Some girls will always be prettier than you. You might be thinking “But Liz, you’re so pretty!” – and that may or may not be true, but I still have severe issues with how I look, and will always look at other girls and think to myself “I wish I was as pretty as her”. I’m pretty certain I don’t pass in real life, but you know what – that’s ok. I’m taller than most girls when I’m wearing flats, and I almost always wear high heels, which puts me way above the norm. I have somewhat wide shoulders and an indelicate jaw, and I don’t even try doing a feminine voice. But, as it turns out, most people will either not notice at all, or glance over curiously for a moment or two before they get back to their own lives.
4 – PRACTICE
I have some reasonable makeup skills now, but I didn’t used to. It took time, and patience to get to a point where I felt like I could apply my own makeup and not look like an idiot. If you try putting on lipstick for the first time, and it doesn’t look right… congratulations! You’ve successfully figured out that sometimes lipstick doesn’t look good! Now you can work from there to figure out how to do it properly :D If you want a femme-voice, you have to practice. If you want to figure out how to walk in heels, you have to practice. If you want to define your eyebrows and not end up looking like a neanderthal, YOU HAVE TO PRACTICE. No one is born with these skills.
5 – Be honest
If point 1 was being honest with yourself, then point 5 is being honest with other people. I’ve heard so many stories of people lying, whether outright or by omission, about their crossdressing, and having their relationships break down because of it. Crossdressing may be a big deal to them, in which case they’ll hate you for lying about it when they find out, or it may not be a big deal at all, but they’ll still be upset that you kept something from them. My wife knew years before we were even involved that I was a crossdresser. If she found it disgusting, well, maybe we wouldn’t’ve been friends, and maybe I wouldn’t found someone who *was* accepting of it. But you need to give yourself the opportunity to find that person, and give other people the opportunity to decide it’s not for them. If you want a happy relationship… Honesty will always be the key
<3
HEY
Take a look at my guide on how to cross-dress, or maybe see my makeup-guide for crossdressers. If you’re more interested in pics, click here to see them :)Printing static photos from your phone was so last year. Now, it’s all about AR.
Prynt, a startup that makes a small mobile printer that connects to your phone, has just released their newest device, called Prynt Pocket. And the device puts a renewed focus on the company’s AR play, which essentially makes each printed photo a Harry Potter-style moving image.
When you select a photo to print, the app will automatically upload the short video clip from the Live Photo, or another video clip you choose, to the cloud. Then, whenever you (or anyone else with the Prynt app) scans the static image you printed, the associated video is overlaid on top using AR. Check out the video below for an example:
Who's ready for today's teaser video?! Keep an eye out for it👀 —https://t.co/rXhIEvPUUA pic.twitter.com/HelS6JFofF — Prynt (@prynt) May 17, 2017
It’s actually a really cool twist on the slightly stale mobile printing industry, as long as you preview the live photo to make sure the overlaid video isn’t showing anything you didn’t intend. You also get a notification when someone else uses the app to “activate” a photo you printed.
Moving onto the hardware, Prynt Pocket, which retails for $149.99, is about half the size of the old version – a big deal considering you’re going to want to carry this around with you. It also now prints at a much faster speed, and has a sliding dock mechanism that lets it support phones of all sizes.
I spend the last week playing around with Prynt Pocket and was really impressed. The first thing I noticed was seamless integration between the startup’s app and the printer itself. It’s all too common for young hardware startups to have connection issues between their software and hardware, making it especially notable when it just works.
Printing quality was just O.K. Some images ended up looking a little cartoonish, and the quality was definitely worse than pocket printers I’ve tried from companies like Polaroid. But the faster printing speed, AR features and easy of use makes up for this – most Bluetooth mobile printers are a total pain to use.
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Originally launching as a Kickstarter, Prynt has since raised $9.2M in funding, including a $7M Series A which closed last year the startup said would be used to build out this AR functionality. It proved to be a good move, as since then AR has had a resurgence in interest fueled by giants like Facebook and Snapchat committing to the space.Leaders link hands for a group photo session at the 31st Asean Summit Nov 14, 2017 in Manila, Philippines. (Reuters file photo)
Southeast Asian nations are riding a global trade boom that’s set to underpin solid economic growth next year, supporting the region as it embarks on monetary policy tightening and braces for a spate of elections.
The Philippines and Vietnam will remain the star performers in 2018, with economic growth projected to exceed 6% again, according to the median forecasts of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Most of the region’s top six economies are set to sustain 2017 momentum, with growth in Indonesia seen mildly firmer at 5.3% next year, while Singapore and Malaysia will probably moderate.
Export-reliant Southeast Asia is ending 2017 on a high note, counter to fears at the start of the year that a US-China trade war could blow up supply chains and send the region into disarray. Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore all posted third-quarter gross domestic product growth that was faster than at any time since 2014 and earlier.
While growth may ease from this year’s breakneck pace, the expansion that’s been concentrated in trade-dominated industries, such as manufacturing, should broaden out to other sectors in the economy. Combined with a benign inflation outlook, that’s set to support a gradual pace of monetary policy tightening across the region.
Here’s a rundown of what to watch for in the region next year:
Monetary policy
Central banks in the Philippines and Malaysia are seen as the two most likely to raise interest rates next year, while Singapore may also move away from its neutral policy stance. It’s less clear what Indonesia and Thailand will do.
Morgan Stanley economists predict the Bank of Thailand will probably stay on hold in 2018, with Bank Indonesia raising rates. It’s vice versa for Credit Suisse Group AG economists, who predict Indonesia will stay on hold and turn to macroprudential measures to spur lending, while Thailand is seen hiking.
Fiscal plans
Governments across the region -- particularly in the Philippines and Indonesia where economies are more reliant on domestic sources of growth than exports -- are spending more on road, rail and port projects to expand capacity, helping to underpin growth.
To keep their budget deficits in check, authorities are pushing to boost revenue from taxes. Philippine lawmakers last week ratified a tax bill that cuts some income taxes while raising levies on coal, vehicles and other goods. Indonesia is clamping down on tax dodgers, while Singapore is considering adjustments in its budget next year.
Consumer recovery?
Household debt in parts of the region could hold back faster consumption and the broadening out of expansion, according to Taimur Baig, chief economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd in Singapore.
“The worst case is, there are some macro shocks and these households already saddled with high debt stop consuming in an exuberant manner, so you have a drag on consumption,” he said.
Consumers in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand have higher debt burdens compared to others in the region, with central banks in the latter two countries citing financial stability risks as a factor in deciding policy.
Investment pick-up
Business investment will be the bigger story in 2018, said Chua Hak Bin, an economist at Maybank Kim Eng Research in Singapore. While this year’s big surprise was the upturn in trade, that trend typically means a boon for investment that’s been languishing, as executives change their minds about global demand prospects. Fledgling projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative could help boost those figures, he said.
Political risks
The threat of further North Korean military provocations and a series of elections add to uncertainty in the region.
Malaysia is gearing up for a vote next year, with speculation mounting it will happen before the end of May. Prime Minister Najib Razak is facing a tough contest, but has bolstered his chances of re-election with a stimulus-packed budget in October. The timing may also have a bearing on when the central bank raises interest rates for the first time since 2014, with some economists suggesting a pre-vote hike is unlikely.
Thailand’s military, which has held power since a coup in 2014, said it’s on course for an election in November, although doubts remain. That may influence investment decisions, with businesses remaining on the sidelines in recent years.
Indonesia is set to hold regional elections next year, which may help to boost consumers’ purchasing power and provide a a lift to overall spending in the economy, which has disappointed this year.According to a report from VentureBeat, Google is working to compete more directly with live streaming app Periscope. The report claims that Google will launch an app called YouTube Connect that will allow anyone to immediately begin broadcasting live onto YouTube from their smartphone.
Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch 4K Monitor
From the way it sounds, YouTube Connect will be a direct competitor to Periscope and Facebook Live. Live video streams will support chatting/comments, tagging, as well as a central “news feed” that shows highlights from recent live streams done by your friends or people to whom you subscribe on YouTube.
Live streams will be supported in the YouTube Connect app (which will be available on iOS and Android) and the normal YouTube app, as well as on the desktop. Replays will be available if the streamer so chooses and can be watched either in the YouTube Connect app or on the desktop. As of right now, however, the app apparently lacks integration with Twitter and Facebook, so users will have to manually share the links to their streams on their respective social network accounts.
YouTube Connect will allow for Google to seriously compete with Periscope and Facebook Live, something it has been attempting to do for quite some time. Speaking to Wired last August, YouTube executive Manuel Bronstein teased that YouTube was seriously interested in live streaming, but the company has been quiet on those plans ever since then:
“Broadly speaking, we think about YouTube being synonymous with video…live has always been a part of video, and it’s actually always a very exciting part.”
While exact details of a launch for YouTube Connect are unclear at this point, it’s likely not too far off in the distance given the number of details that have already been revealed. The app will be available on both iOS and Android and will presumably free. Would you be interested in a live streaming app from YouTube? Let us know in the comments.Image caption Bert and Ernie have lived together for more than 40 years
The makers of Sesame Street say characters Bert and Ernie will not marry in a same-sex ceremony despite an online petition calling for the union.
Campaigners say the best friends should marry as a way to encourage tolerance of gay people.
Nearly 7,000 have signed the petition, with more than 3,000 joining a Bert and Ernie Get Married Facebook page.
A statement from the show's makers said: "They remain puppets and do not have a sexual orientation."
But they conceded that the pair are "male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics".
The confirmed bachelors have lived together for 40 years and sleep in the same bedroom, albeit in single beds.
"Bert and Ernie are best friends," the statement from Sesame Workshop added. "They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.
The online petition states: "We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful," adding, "It can be done in a tasteful way. Let us teach tolerance of those that are different."
Sesame Street was created by TV producer Joan Ganz Cooney and psychologist Lloyd Morrisett in 1969 and gained a huge following, led by the creations of master puppeteer Jim Henson.
Beloved characters include Elmo, the Cookie Monster and Big Bird.
It is still watched in more than 140 countries and averages 120 million viewers worldwide.Lee DongGun has moved on from ex-girlfriend, T-ARA’s Ji |
ling American nuclear industry.
1980s Studies and Hearings
In 1982, the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs received a secret report received from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called “Calculation of Reactor Accident Consequences 2”.
In that report and other reports by the NRC in the 1980s, it was estimated that there was a 50% chance of a nuclear meltdown within the next 20 years which would be so large that it would contaminate an area the size of the State of Pennsylvania, which would result in huge numbers of a fatalities, and which would cause damage in the hundreds of billions of dollars (in 1980s dollars).
Those reports were kept secret for decades.
Other Evidence
Well-known writer Alvin Toffler pointed out in Powershift (page 156):
At least thirty times between 1957 and 1985—more than once a year—the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, South Carolina, experienced what a scientist subsequently termed “reactor incidents of greatest significance.” These included widespread leakage of radioactivity and a meltdown of nuclear fuel. But not one of these was reported to local residents or to the public generally. Nor was action taken when the scientist submitted an internal memorandum about these “incidents.” The story did not come to light until exposed in a Congressional hearing in 1988. The plant was operated by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for the U.S. government, and Du Pont was accused of covering up the facts. The company immediately issued a denial, pointing out that it had routinely reported the accidents to the Department of Energy.
At this point, the DoE, as it is known, accepted the blame for keeping the news secret.
And former soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on camera for a Discovery Network special (the must-watch “The Battle of Chernobyl“) that the Soviets and Americans have each hidden a number of nuclear accidents from the public:
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Government Has Been Covering up Radiation Danger for 69 Years
The U.S. tried to cover up the destructive nature of radiation produced by nuclear weapons 71 years ago. As Democracy Now reports:
The army was well aware in 1943 of the enormous potential for radiation dangers to civilians and military personnel as a result of the use of radioactive weapons …. [The New York Times] was essentially putting out the official government narrative [regarding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki], which is that atomic radiation is not harmful, is not a major byproduct of the nuclear weapons program. You know, it’s only the blast that has essentially a very short impact. The reason that this has importance is that for really a half century, this narrative became the government’s response to all protests against nuclear power, the nuclear weapons programs of the 1950s and 1960s and the Cold War. So, [The New York Times] essentially set the table that the government was to occupy for the next half century as they disputed any attempt to rein in, you know, the rapid acceleration of nuclear weapons and power programs.
Above-ground nuclear tests – which caused numerous cancers to the “downwinders” – were covered up by the American, French and other governments for decades. See this, this, this, this, this and this.
Beverly Deepe Keever notes:
Sixty years ago on March 1, 1954, in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, the United States detonated the most powerful nuclear weapon in its history…. The 15-megaton hydrogen bomb was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima …. Unlike Hiroshima’s A-bomb, Bravo was laced with plutonium …. And, unlike the atomic airburst above Hiroshima, Bravo was a shallow-water ground burst. It vaporized three of the 23 islands of tiny Bikini Atoll, 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii, and created a crater that is visible from space. *** Wafting eastward, the cloud powdered 236 islanders on Rongelap and Utrik atolls and 28 U.S. servicemen. The islanders played with, drank and ate the snowflake-like particles for days and began suffering nausea, hair loss, diarrhea and skin lesions when they were finally evacuated to a U.S. military clinic. *** Within days after the Bravo explosion, the U.S. cover-up had secretly taken a more menacing turn. In an injustice exposing disregard for human health, the Bravo-exposed islanders were swept into a top-secret project in which they were used as human subjects to research the effects of radioactive fallout. A week after Bravo, on March 8, at the Navy clinic on Kwajalein, E.P. Cronkite, one of the U.S. medical personnel dispatched there shortly after the islanders’ arrival, was handed a “letter of instruction” establishing “Project 4.1.” It was titled the “Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation Due to Fallout from High Yield Weapons.” To avoid negative publicity, the document had been classified as “Secret Restricted Data” until 1994, four years after the end of U.S. responsibilities for its trusteeship at the U.N. and when the Clinton Administration began an open-government initiative. It would be 40 years before islanders learned the true nature of Project 4.1. Documents declassified since 1994 show that four months before the Bravo shot, on Nov. 10, 1953, U.S. officials had listed Project 4.1 to research the effects of fallout radiation on human beings as among 48 experiments to be conducted during the test, thus seeming to indicate that using islanders as guinea pigs was premeditated. However, an advisory commission appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 indicated “there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate intentional human testing on Marshallese.” For this human-subject research, the islanders had neither been asked nor gave their informed consent — which was established as an essential international standard when the Nuremberg code was written following the war crimes convictions of German medical officers. Under Project 4.1, the exposed Rongelapese were studied yearly and so were the Utrik Islanders after thyroid nodules began appearing on them in 1963. The islanders began complaining they were being treated like guinea pigs in a laboratory experiment rather than sick humans deserving treatment. A doctor who evaluated them annually came close to agreeing when he wrote 38 years after Bravo, “In retrospect, it was unfortunate that the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission], because it was a research organization, did not include support of basic health care of populations under study.” During this time, Bravo-dusted islanders developed one of the world’s highest rates of thyroid abnormalities; one third of the Rongelapese developed abnormalities in the thyroid, which controls physical and mental growth, and thus resulted in some cases of mental retardation, lack of vigor and stunted development. Islanders complained of stillborn births, cancers and genetic damage. Seven weeks after Bravo, on April 21, Cronkite recommended to military officials that exposed Marshallese generally “should be exposed to no further radiation” for at least 12 years and probably for the rest of their natural lives. Yet, three years later, U.S. officials returned the Rongelapese to their radioactive homeland after they had spent three months at the Kwajalein military facility and at Ejit Island. Besides being Bravo-dusted, their homeland by 1957 had accumulated radioactivity from some of the 34 prior nuclear explosions in the Marshall Islands. Utrik Islanders were returned home by the U.S. shortly after their medical stay on Kwajalein. For 28 years the Rongelapese lived in their radioactive homeland until 1985. Unable to get answers to their questions, they discounted U.S. assurances that their island was safe. Failing to provide the Rongelapese “information on their total radiation condition, information that is available, amounts to a coverup,” according to a memo dated July 22, 1985, written by Tommy McCraw of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Safety.
Cover Up Continues to This Day
Nothing has changed. Governments worldwide continue to this day to cover up the risk of a nuclear accident, and the amount – and health effects – of radiation released by military and energy facilities. And see this, this, and this.
Nuclear whistleblowers are fired … or worse.Some professors hold on to their careers for dear tenure, eking out threadbare research material and desperately placing articles in whichever journal will take them. When retirement comes, the waters of academia swallow them up so that they become barely a footnote on a conference paper. And then there are men like Paul Romer.
Romer is bulge-bracket academia, a departure-lounge economist: the kind of intellectual as likely to be found turning left on a plane as in seminar rooms. Forever mentioned as a future Nobel prizewinner, this Californian is a world expert on how and why economies grow. When Gordon Brown made that infamous speech about post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory, it wasn't Balls – as Heseltine jibed – but Romer he was quoting.
He's one of Time's "25 most influential Americans" (true, Time was the magazine that ran a joint profile of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna in 1985, and firmly declared that Cyndi was the bigger star, but that neither came "within a mile of Tina Turner's splendid album of racked soul, Private Dancer", but accolades such as these are still to be taken with due gravity of expression). And then there are the adoring journalistic profiles, one of which began with the reporter turning up cap in hand to meet the academic lounging "poolside at his house, which overlooks a huge expanse of rolling ranchland". That, it perhaps won't surprise you to learn, was the hardest-hitting moment.
So Romer is a brilliant economist, and he has a new and big idea. And because he is The Great Romer, he gets to present this wheeze to national leaders, high-profile conferences and invitation-only gatherings of policy-makers. And because he has some spare cash (views over rolling ranchland don't come cheap, you know), Romer can afford to jack in his formal position at Stanford and start up his own think tank to make his case.
Trouble is, the idea stinks. With little track record in dealing with poor countries, Romer has come up a grand scheme for lifting Africa and Asia out of poverty. What they need to do, he argues, is give up a big chunk of their land to a rich country. Policy experts from Washington can take over a patch of Rwanda, and invite along GM and Microsoft and Gap to come and set up factories. Poor countries give up their sovereignty in return for the promise of greater prosperity.
His big example is Hong Kong. At the end of the first opium war in 1842, the Chinese were marched on board a British warship anchored off Nanjing and forced to sign Hong Kong away to Queen Victoria. Over the next 150 years, the little island turned into Asia's number one capitalist success story. It was an example that Deng Xiaoping ended up copying on the mainland, in coastal provinces such as Guangdong – to explosive economic effect.
China's loss of Hong Kong should not be seen as a national humiliation or great international injustice, Romer has written, but "an intervention" which has "done more to reduce world poverty than all the world's official aid programmes of the 20th century combined — and at a fraction of the cost". What the world needs, the economist argues, is not one but 100 Hong Kongs.
You think this is colonialism? For Romer, that "kind of emotion... can get in the way" (see what he did there? You have emotions; the elite economist has evidence). Sure, the poor people living and working in these new charter cities wouldn't necessarily have any democratic privileges such as the right to vote, but they could vote with their feet. And in the meantime, the Africans or the Asians would get the undoubted benefit of all this huge western expertise.
Romer's right, in a way. This idea isn't prompted by dreams of a new imperialism – because this California economist doesn't know enough imperial history. If he did, he'd realise that the English Whig Thomas Macaulay said it all before, when he said of India in 1833: "It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation among the vast population of the East... To trade with civilised men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages." That was a view of the Empire as the white man's burden: then it came with Orientalists, now it is accompanied by corporate logos. In both cases it comes with great lashes of condescension and a lack of knowledge about the countries one is imposing on.
With a bit more history, Romer might acknowledge that mainland China had other areas that were so dominated by foreigners they too might be described as Charter Cities. Shanghai in the early 20th century had signs reading: No Dogs, No Chinese – and yet it didn't boom like Hong Kong did. He might also agree that there remains a big debate about how China has got so rich, with World Bank economists recently arguing that it is farming that has done most to reduce poverty, rather than industry.
One result of the great economic crisis is that academic practitioners are finally acknowledging that economic policy is not just a series of equations applied to the real world, but questions that ultimately have a political answer. Yet the old pseudo- scientific blank slate-ism still survives, as Paul Romer's latest project demonstrates.The old adage about comparing the making of a TV show with building an airplane mid-flight occurred to veteran showrunner Graham Yost during the shoot of Amazon’s crime drama Sneaky Pete.
Due to premiere in January, the Amazon Studios/Sony Pictures Television co-production stars Giovanni Ribisi as Marius, a conman who, after a three-year prison stretch, assumes the identity of his cell-mate Pete. He moves in with Pete’s unsuspecting family, who had not seen him for 20 years, and gets involved in the clan’s bail bond business, hunting down criminals.
“ The thing about con stories is we that hope audiences always figure out who is conning who,” says Yost, who took over as showrunner on the series after his friend and fellow Canadian David Shore, who co-wrote the pilot with Bryan Cranston, departed. “There is an extent to which it’s our job to fool the audience but it’s also our job to get the audience in on what’s going on. It was tough, like constructing an airplane in flight, but fun. Hopefully we pulled it off and there are some satisfying twists and turns.”
Cranston plays Vince, who wants either to kill Marius or turn him over to a corrupt cop with whom Marius had had a bad run-in. The show gave Yost another chance to work with Justified's Margo Martindale as well as others including Marin Ireland, Libe Barer, Shane McRae and Michael Drayer.
The producer/writer is in Melbourne to speak at Screen Producers Australia’s annual conference Screen Forever. It is a city he fondly remembers from shooting HBO’s WW2 miniseries The Pacific, on which he served as co-executive producer with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
A gap in his schedule opened up after Fox passed on the U.S. adaptation of the Australian political thriller The Code, which was created by Shelley Birse and produced by the Sony-owned Playmaker Media for pubcaster ABC. Yost and his former Justified colleague Fred Golan had written a pilot and Michael Dinner was going to direct. So all three moved over to Sneaky Pete and the 9-episode series was filmed in New York City and nearby areas. Amazon picked up the project after CBS passed on the pilot. Yost is not privy to the budget but he relished a nine-day shooting schedule for each episode, compared with seven days for Justified, the crime drama he created which starred Timothy Olyphant, Martindale, Jeremy Davies and Damon Herriman and ran for six seasons on FX.
“Amazon was very supportive,” he says. “Like any first year show there is a lot of scrutiny and a lot of people giving notes. It’s a little different doing a streaming show without any ad breaks. There is a lot of emphasis on having a really satisfying ending to every episode that hooks you into wanting to watch the next one immediately.”
He first worked with Cranston nearly 20 years ago on From the Earth to the Moon, the HBO miniseries which chronicled the landmark Apollo expeditions to the Moon during the 1960s and early 1970s. Yost was a writer/producer and directed one episode and Cranston played Buzz Aldrin. On their first day on the Sneaky Pete set he reminded the actor the last line he had written for him was, “Neil, we need to discuss who gets out on the Moon first.”
The Breaking Bad star loved playing yet another nuanced villain in the Amazon series. “The greatness of Bryan Cranston is that he is playing a bad guy but he absolutely doesn’t seem to be the bad guy,” Yost said. “We were really encouraged to make his character as rich and well- motivated as we could; it’s just fun to watch him work. He’s a blast.”
Yost is cautiously optimistic Amazon will greenlight another season. If that happens he may have to juggle his schedule to accommodate a drama he is writing with Bruce C. McKenna (with whom he collaborated on The Pacific and Band of Brothers) for National Geographic based on an unpublished novel by Michael Crichton. Entitled Dragon Teeth, the tome is set during the so-called bone wars between rival paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh in the American West during the 1870s. The manuscript was discovered in Crichton’s archives by his widow Sherri. Yost and McKenna are penning the scripts for the first two of six intended episodes, which they will soon submit to Nat Geo.
He credits Amazon, Netflix and Hulu with further expanding the range of storytelling beyond the old tropes of doctors, lawyers and cops, a creatively liberating process which started with HBO, Showtime and FX. "I don't know how long this [trend] will last and how long there will be this many platforms but until they tell us to stop, we will keep doing as many shows as we can," he says.
Yost is impressed with the acting, writing and directing talent that keeps emerging in Australia, supported by federal funding agency Screen Australia and the state-based agencies, observing, "What Australia has for a country of its size is pretty remarkable. The great thing is there is a real appetite for international co-productions and ideas like The Code. Good stories will out."This past weekend we sent 15-year-old photographer Dorothy Dark to cover Bonnaroo, in tandem with her dad, Pitchfork contributor David Dark. This is their report of the experience.
David: "People have died there," my mother intoned over the phone. Even in the company of her safe and sensible father, the thought of her 15-year-old granddaughter Dorothy braving Bonnaroo for a Pitchfork assignment was a very hard sell. Why even entertain such a thing? What good could come of it?
My push-back: What we have here is an opportunity to seize a rare and beautiful moment. Dorothy and I could chronicle the madness together. There will be sadness and dysfunction and people possibly embarrassing themselves as far as the eye can see, but there’s also a hardcore hope afoot, a true believer around every corner, and intelligence gatherers of live performance. We’ll bond among those who believe the music and for whom laying money and personal comfort down to be in the midst of it is no sacrifice at all. What could be sweeter?
As of Day 2, I knew feelingly how a human being could meet their demise at this event. More than once, upon beholding one more horribly sunburned soul or another slumbering body in the dust, I felt something akin to the moral outrage expressed by Jeff Goldblum on the subject of extracting Dinosaur DNA from the belly of a mosquito trapped in amber to make the creatures our contemporaries. Just because you can persuade people to camp on a farm in Manchester, TN to listen to live music in the sun for four days doesn’t mean you should.
And yet, there was a tangible ethic in the air that I couldn’t deny. Because Dorothy couldn’t be made to spend every moment in my presence, I was often found wandering aimless and alone. But to the extent that I was willing to make eye contact with people, I found that most passersby were eager to connect. It was as if many of them believed they’d somehow arrived home and wanted as many people as possible to feel that way too.
"How you doing?" I was asked by a young man surely twenty years my junior.
"I believe I’m doing well," I offered with a tired smile.
"Good news. Good news," he replied. And he addressed me with the same verve and an I know you when we beheld one another again while waiting on Tears for Fears to appear on stage. I have words on TFF, but it’s time to hand Dorothy the metaphorical mic.
Dorothy: On my first day at The Farm, I promised myself I’d be present to it all and not get wrapped up in the safe confines of my iPhone. What worried me far more than the urban-myth-grade horror stories I’d heard from friends about things like getting sprayed by a stranger with a bottle of liquid LSD, was the idea of letting myself be at Bonnaroo for the sake of saying I was at Bonnaroo. It would make things less sincere, make the experience dishonest. And Bonnaroo is no place for the insincere. From the moment I set foot in the heart of the layout—Centeroo, they call it—I was overwhelmed by the mass of people. The fear of my surroundings that I had expected was nowhere to be found amidst the swarms of people I was so certain I’d feel alienated from.
In fact, there was a graciousness I found among Bonnaroovians that was unlike anywhere else. There were those I would walk by in a line and would later see under a tree in the middle of their own wedding. Then there were those who walked by me in underwear and glitter pasties, who I would initially try and avoid. But to our good fortune, there’s no way to avoid the people around you on The Farm, and those who I wanted to cower from often proved to be the most kindhearted people I encountered. The kind of people who would react to someone cutting in front of them in the Bearclaw Coffee line by merely shrugging and saying "It’s Roo."
In conversation with Jack Antonoff of Bleachers, he mentioned that Bonnaroo is not your average festival. "The reason this festival is vital in a way that no other festival can ever be is because it’s a fucking pain in the ass to get to and there are no casual fans… No one is here casually."
The flavor of devotion that is required for any participant of this social experiment is unlike any other that currently exists. You won’t find people who, as Antonoff put it, had a buddy from the office who had some extra tickets and wanted to pop in to see what the scene was like. You don’t pop in to Bonnaroo. You drive however many miles you need to, you sleep in a tent, you go days in the sweltering heat, and you not only tolerate but befriend the strangers around you all in the name of your love for what this festival is made up of: positivity, music, and a kind of freedom you don’t find at home.
David: I’ll step in to note that Dorothy procured those words from Jack Antonoff by asking him a question she put to a number of artists and attendees. I thought it an amazing question to place before the humans on hand: What is Bonnaroo for? One response that occurred to me during our sojourn is that it’s a space in which to pay particular heed to the miracle of other people and a time to consider again—once more with feeling—a number of otherwise misperceived pop culture assets. A big one for me was realizing anew that Tears for Fears are no joke.
Any audience they appear before will likely know all the words to "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". But it’s a Bonnaroo reception—the level of expectation, the context; Tears for Fears have never stopped making it plain. You feel it at Bonnaroo. It’s as if its resident pilgrims know you shouldn’t have to sell your soul.
When Dorothy placed the question of Bonnaroo’s role before Benjamin Booker, he mentioned that he’d passed much of the day before in an ancient Nashville dive bar on Music Row frequented for decades by seasoned local songwriters. It’s Bobby’s Idle Hour we’re talking about: "There’s guys [there] who sit and drink at the bar for seven hours a day and we talked to them and they were just like, 'You’re going to the Bonnaroo?...That’s a good festival…That’s the closest thing to the Woodstock today.'" It’s credited as a culture in which the hope of popular song as a social force is being kept in circulation. I remembered such hopes as I spoke to my wife, Sarah, on a cellphone while immersed in an exiting crowd colliding with an entering crowd intent on seeing Deadmau5. Trying to take my mind off the fact of being shoulder-to-shoulder in a mass of people finding it increasingly difficult to move, I rambled on about the struggle to keep envisioning and experiencing song as a gift despite its seemingly pervasive commercialization. Quoting Lewis Hyde, I had to shout to be heard, "Where there is no gift there is no art." And at that point an unseen co-celebrant patted me on the shoulder approvingly before disappearing.
If the occurrence of art requires the spirit of the gift, Bonnaroo, we might say, stands or falls on the possibility of living exchange, of artist and audience being genuinely addressed by one another. This was especially evident when Kendrick Lamar, our Elvis of Reality, conducted a carefully calibrated journey. Before he would offer us a single song off To Pimp a Butterfly, there was work to be done. Painstakingly, he led an audience of thousands through a second sing-along of "m.A.A.d city" to compensate for what he saw as a missing-something in the first go-around ("If Pirus and Crips all got along…"). Having established to his satisfaction that we were picking up what he was laying down, he exclaimed, "Bonnaroo! That shit's gonna last forever, meaning I will forever sing about you…as long as you forever sing about me." With "Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst" thereby introduced and then performed, a path was cleared for the call to self-love ("i") and hardwon affirmation/consolation ("Alright"). An equilibrium? A mystical unity? Am I making too much of it, Dorothy?
Dorothy: I’m reminded of my discussion with Betty Who. I asked her to describe a time in which she’s heard her voice in the voices of others. She gave examples like Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, but also elaborated on the reason for their impact on her: "The human connection runs so deep that we all feel the same things." And Kendrick, along with countless other artists on the Bonnaroo lineup, proved it in his performance. He took the diehard fans, the observers, the passersby that made up his Bonnaroo audience and gave them an experience that runs so true that it wasn’t possible to ignore. He made it so we couldn’t, by repeating his words until they meant something to each person, by following what may be one of his most emotionally intense songs with the demand that we love ourselves, and by wrapping it all up with the reminder that "We gon’ be alright."
David: Oh man, yes. And with that line that could so easily be the title of an Earth, Wind & Fire song, I shall begin to speak of them. The communal consciousness that Bonnaroo, like many music festivals, has to communicate to survive has been the standard operating procedure for Earth, Wind & Fire for more than 40 years. In their relationship to one another, the creative process, and the artists for whom their music is essential, they keep it loose and non-possessive and constantly informed by profound intent.
When I spoke to them, I wondered aloud if their relentless commitment to lifting people up in all that they do might have proven costly when it comes to reaching a certain demographic. "That it’s taken away some of our 'coolness?'" Philip Bailey asked smiling.
Ralph Johnson weighed in with the understatement of the weekend: "Sometimes you’ll take some heat when you’re trying to raise the consciousness of the people. And at the end of the day, you can’t be all things to all people. So, you know, cool is relative."
Witness, they implied, knows no division. And it’s the witness of music who overcomes division. As Bailey explained: "Our experience has always been about just being true to what we do and who we are...wanting to make a positive influence." It was especially sweet to observe Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper joining them onstage to free-style before the assembled. An unbroken circle of righteous witness is worth camping on a sweltering farm for. I think of Paulo Freire who teaches us that all truth is relational: "No one can say a true word alone." Which is why Dorothy will have the final word.
Dorothy: Bonnaroo, in a way that most other festivals are less likely to deliver, embraces the setting aside from your own cool and opens its community up to all manner of personal transcendence. It welcomes grown men who work in offices and probably wish they could constantly discuss music with their co-workers. Upon arriving at Bonnaroo, they can shed all sad formality, turn off their phones, and change into a rainbow bodysuit. It demands a surrender of ego and personal space. And upon complying with that demand, you put yourself in what could be, spiritually, the healthiest situation you’ll experience all year. In passing conversation with a girl who sat next to me at Bearclaw Coffee, she mentioned that "Bonnaroo takes you out of your comfort zone in the best way possible." It expands what can often be closed off and limited social horizons and it’s something that, at its best, leaves you with those horizons still expanded. It’s your job as an attendee to not fight this demand, but to take it with you when you leave.This weekend, residents of Mexico's second-largest city are going to hit the streets and walk for peace. Saturday’s planned march in Guadalajara, called #CaminataPorLaPaz, is in response to what happened there a week ago.
A drug cartel called Jalisco Nueva Generación — or "Jalisco New Generation" — launched a day of violence in and around the city after Mexican officials began an operation aimed at arresting the head of the cartel.
The cartel responded by “hijacking dozens of buses [and] setting them on fire to block off major roads across the city and the surrounding areas," says Duncan Tucker, a reporter based in Guadalajara. "This is thought to be a diversionary tactic to enable cartel leaders to escape arrest amidst the chaos."
Cartel gunmen also shot down a Mexican Army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in a terrifying display of the cartel's firepower and aggression. While Jalisco New Generation was founded only five years ago, Tucker says “it's now widely considered one of the most powerful and dangerous cartels in Mexico.”
He calls Jalisco New Generation a paramilitary organization that "has rocket launchers, grenade launchers and was even caught manufacturing its own assault rifles at a clandestine factory in Guadalajara last year." The group is also willing to challenge authorities "in almost warlike situations."
Violence in Jalisco, one of Mexico's most economically important states, has become a huge challenge for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has pledged to bring peace to the country following years of brutal drug gang violence. But Tucker says "there is very little confidence in the government's ability to ensure peace in the region," even with federal forces deployed in the state.
A civic group called Paz GDL, or Peace Guadalajara, plans #CaminataPorLaPaz, a walk for peace to draw attention to the general breakdown of security in the city. A number of celebrities and athletes have expressed their support, including Real Madrid star Javier Hernandez, who was born and raised in Guadalajara.
Si deseas caminar comenzará a las 6pm. Puedes sumarte en cualquier parte. El punto final será en la Minerva a las 7pm pic.twitter.com/xKzV8reZ3C — Paz Guadalajara (@PazGDL) May 7, 2015
“I think the peace march will be well attended,” Tucker says. “It's not considered as risky because the violence has not been directed at civilians [there were no civilian casualties last Friday] and the cartel has even hung banners across the city saying that their conflict is with the army, police and rival gangs.”With utter frankness, Dr. A. touches on every angle of the art of being not only a dirty old man, but a sensuous dirty old man: the stare, the leer, the snicker, the snort, the fatherly squeeze, the uncle-ish tweak, and the “problems”: What do you say when the husband arrives? What do you do when you meet that dread adversary, the dirty old woman?
Oh, but I love this book.
When I was much younger (and less experienced) than I am, I avoided it because it’s “dirty.” I didn’t buy it for a long time, and I felt “dirty” myself for having bought it when I finally did. Nowadays, I would take the attitude that it’s worse to pretend that sex doesn’t exist unless one happens to be in the marriage bed and healthier to deal realistically with sex for what it is than avert the eyes whenever it pops up.
This is still not a book I’d have handed daughters when they were eight-year-olds, of course, although to be frank, they saw smuttier things just by watching TV ads during prime-time than are to be found in this book. I would, however, heartily recommend it to an adult or a teenager as a delightful skewering of people who are obsessed with sex (like people who make TV ads, perhaps?) and, particularly, obsessed with it and not particularly interested in getting any. Or of people who feel that it is the duty of every male of the species to be constantly and incessantly ignoring any aspect of any female beyond how tight her clothes are.
Asimov assumes an air of mock seriousness throughout the book, discussing in minute detail the proper way to leer, for example, all the while mixing words, spellings, phrases, and any and every aspect of language with the ease of an accomplished juggler. (I, for example, hadn’t known that Giuseppe Verdi’s real name was Joe Green.)
This is perhaps Asimov’s single funniest book and well worth getting if at all possible.It is not unusual for students to transfer from one college to another. In fact, according to a report published last year by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 38 percent of students who began college in fall 2011 switched schools within six years.
Some students begin their studies with the intention to transfer. For instance, to cut college costs, many first enroll at low-tuition community colleges with a plan to transfer to their target four-year college or university after they have completed two years of study.
Other students rejected by their dream school enroll at a second-choice college with the hope of earning stellar grades that will allow them to qualify for transfer admission.
Some undergraduate institutions make it easy to transfer into their schools by, for instance, guaranteeing admission to graduates of nearby community colleges. By contrast, other colleges rarely accept transfer students.
Among the 1,187 ranked schools that reported these data to U.S. News in an annual survey, the average number of newly enrolled transfer students in fall 2017 was 492. However, these schools varied widely in the number of transfer students they welcomed, with the six institutions that had the most transfers each enrolling more than 5,000 of these students, while schools at the other end of the spectrum had fewer than 10.
While the average transfer student acceptance rate among all ranked schools was 63 percent in fall 2017, 17 colleges reported that they accepted every transfer applicant.
The 10 schools with the largest transfer student populations enrolled an average of 5,041 of these new students – more than 10 times the average number among all ranked colleges. Among these 10 schools, the average new transfer student acceptance rate was 64 percent.
Seven of the schools with the most transfers are National Universities, research-focused institutions that offer a plethora of college majors, plus a variety of master's and doctoral programs. The three remaining schools are Regional Universities, schools that grant a variety of bachelor's degrees and some master's degrees but few doctorates. The majority of these 10 institutions are public schools; the only private institution on this list is Liberty University in Virginia, a Christian school.
Below is a list of the 10 schools that enrolled the largest number of new transfer students in fall 2017. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News College Compass to find college transfer statistics, complete rankings and much more. Sign up for the U.S. News Extra Help: College Admissions free email newsletter to receive expert advice twice a month.Given that Waves has its own decentralised exchange, I’m often asked about the prospects of development for crypto exchanges. As the blockchain sector grows, will they continue to exist as niche products, or will they be absorbed by the current market leaders? The answer is a little more nuanced than that, and rests on an accurate understanding of what blockchain offers.
Crypto exchanges have a history that is as long (or short) and as turbulent as that of cryptocurrency itself. One of bitcoin’s defining moments was the collapse of MtGox back in 2014, but there have been many other examples of catastrophic exchange failure involving the loss of millions of dollars in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The sector is becoming more professionalised, but there is still a long way to go. Where does the future lie for these early, and currently popular, crypto exchanges like Bitfinex, Bitstamp, and Poloniex? |
ke protected the cofferdam on the Nevada side of the river. After the Arizona tunnels were completed, and the river diverted, the work was completed much faster. Once the coffer dams were in place and the construction site dewatered, excavation for the dam foundation began. For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove all the riverbed's accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During excavations for the foundation, approximately 1,500,000 yd³ (1,150,000 m³) of material was removed. Since the dam would be a gravity-arch type, the side-walls of the canyon would also bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore the side-walls were excavated too, to reach virgin (un-weathered) rock which had not experienced the weathering of centuries of water seepage, wintertime freeze cracking, and the heating/cooling cycles of the Arizona/Nevada desert.
[edit] River diversion
To divert the river's flow around the construction site, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were 56 feet (17 m) in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 feet (4877 meters, more than three miles). Tunneling began at the lower portals of the Nevada tunnels in May 1931. Shortly afterwards, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932, work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. First the base, or invert, was poured. Gantry cranes, running on rails through the entire length of each tunnel were used to place the concrete. The sidewalls were poured next. Movable sections of steel forms were used for the sidewalls. Finally, using pneumatic guns, the overheads were filled in. The concrete lining is three feet (91.5 centimeters) thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to 50 feet (15.25 m).
Following the completion of the dam, the entrances to the two outer diversion tunnels were sealed at the opening and half way through the tunnels with large concrete plugs. The downstream halves of the tunnels following the inner plugs are now the main bodies of the spillway tunnels. The spillways can be seen directly above the outer diversion tunnels. They drop sharply from their entrance point and merge directly into the old diversion tunnels.
Two intake towers on the Arizona side.
The two inner diversion tunnels have two concrete plugs in them. One is roughly half way along their length, and the other is around 75% of the way along their length. The section sandwiched between two concrete plugs is used as part of the tunnel which water travels along, to journey from the outermost intake towers and the generators. The two innermost intake towers have separate tunnels.
The large spillway tunnels have only been used three times in the history of the dam. The first one was during the second half of 1941 for testing. The second one was for about six weeks during the summer of 1983, when record precipitation and snow-melt in the Colorado River basin drained into Lake Mead, and the third one in 1999, again with heavy precipitation that filled Lake Mead.[citation needed][9]
[edit] Rock clearance
The two vertical foundations for each of the arch walls (the Nevada side and Arizona side) had to be founded on sound virgin rock; free of cracks and the weathering that the surface rock of the canyon walls had from thousands of years of weathering and exposure.
The men who removed this rock were called high-scalers. While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite.
[edit] Concrete pouring
Hoover Dam - June 2005
The first concrete was placed into the dam on June 6, 1933. Since no structure of the magnitude of the Hoover Dam had been constructed, many of the procedures used in construction of the dam were untried. Since concrete heats up and contracts as it cures, uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. The Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would have taken 125 years to cool to ambient temperature. The resulting stresses would have caused the dam to crack and crumble.[10] To solve this problem the dam was built in a series of interlocking trapezoidal columns. Each pour was no more than six inches (152 mm) deep. Because of this depth it is extremely unlikely that construction workers were accidentally buried alive in the concrete, contrary to popular folklore.[11] To further cool the concrete each form contained cooling coils of 1 inch (25 mm) thin-walled steel pipe. River water was circulated through these pipes to help dissipate the heat from the curing concrete. After this, chilled water from a refrigeration plant on the lower cofferdam was circulated through the coils to further cool the concrete. After each layer had sufficiently cooled the cooling coils were cut off and pressure grouted by pneumatic grout guns. The concrete is still curing and gaining in strength as time goes on.[citation needed]
There is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York.[12]
[edit] Construction deaths
There were 112 deaths associated with the construction of the dam.[11][13] There are different accounts as to how many people died while working on the dam and who was the first and last to die. A popular story holds that the first person to die in the construction of Hoover Dam was J. G. Tierney, a surveyor who drowned while looking for an ideal spot for the dam. Coincidentally, his son, Patrick W. Tierney, was the last man to die working on the dam, 13 years to the day later.[11][13] 96 of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. However, another surveyor died prior while surveying a potential location for the dam and these statistics do not include other incidental and coincidental (heat stroke, heart failure, etc) deaths during construction.[11]
[edit] Environmental impact
The Hoover Dam and its associated changes in water use had devastating impact on the Colorado River Delta at the mouth of the Colorado River. The construction of the dam has been pointed to as the beginning of an era of decline of this estuarine ecosystem.[14] For six years in the late 1930s, after the construction of the dam and while Lake Mead filled, virtually no flow of water reached the mouth of the river.[15] The Delta's estuary, which once had a freshwater-saltwater mixing zone stretching 65 kilometres (40 mi) south of the river's mouth, was turned into an inverse estuary where the level of salinity was actually higher closer to the river's mouth.[16] The construction of the dam also decimated the populations of native fish in the river downstream from the dam.[17] Four species of fish native to the lower Colorado River are currently listed as endangered by the U.S. federal government.[18]
[edit] Power plant
The hydroelectric generators at Hoover dam
Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt electric generators that power the plant's operations, is about 2080 megawatts.[19]
Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. Excavation for the U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933.
Generators at the Dam's Hoover Powerplant began transmission of electricity from the Colorado River to Los Angeles, California 266 miles (428 km) away on October 26, 1936. Additional generating units were added through 1961. Original plans called for 16 large generators, 8 on each side of the river (see architectural illustrations) but two smaller generators were installed instead of one of the large ones on the Arizona side, for a total of 17. The smaller generators were used to serve smaller municipalities at a time when the output of each generator was dedicated to a municipality, before the dam's total power output was placed on the grid and made arbitrarily distributable.
Water flowing from Lake Mead through the gradually-narrowing penstocks to the powerhouse reaches a speed of about 85 miles per hour (140 km/h) by the time it reaches the turbines. The entire flow of the Colorado River passes through the turbines (except for seepage around the edges of the dam through the semi-porous volcanic rock it rests against). The spillways are rarely used.
Hydroelectric power plants have the ability to vary the amount of power generated, depending on the demand. Steam turbine power plants are not as easily throttled because of the amount of thermodynamic inertia contained in their systems.
Control of water was the primary concern in the building of the dam. Power generation allowed the dam project to be self sustaining: repaying the 50-year construction loan, and continuing to pay for the multi-million dollar yearly maintenance budget. Power is generated in step with and only with the release of water in response to downstream water demands.
[edit] Architectural style
The initial plans for the finished facade of both the dam and the power plant consisted of a simple, unadorned wall of concrete topped with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and a powerhouse that looked like little more than an industrial warehouse.[citation needed] This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann was brought in to redesign the exteriors.[citation needed] Kaufmann greatly streamlined the buildings, and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project, with sculptured turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for Nevada and Arizona time, in the Pacific and Mountain time zones respectively (although because Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the two clocks show the same time during the warmer half of the year).
[edit] Use for road transport
U.S. Highway 93 on Hoover Dam
There are two lanes for automobile traffic across the top of the dam. It serves as the Colorado River crossing for the highway U.S. Route 93. The two-lane section of road approaching the dam is narrow, has several dangerous hairpin turns, and is subject to rock slides.
To provide much more highway capacity, and better safety, the new Hoover Dam Bypass is scheduled to be completed in 2010 and it will divert the U.S. 93 traffic 1,500 feet (460 m) downstream from the dam.[20] The bypass will include a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, tentatively named the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge.
Additionally, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks there are significant security concerns. Because of the attack, the Hoover Dam Bypass project was expedited. Traffic across Hoover Dam is presently restricted. Some types of vehicles are inspected prior to crossing the dam while semi-trailer trucks, buses carrying luggage, and enclosed-box trucks over 40 feet (12 m) long are not allowed on the bridge at all.[21] That traffic is diverted south to a Colorado River bridge close to Laughlin, Nevada.
[edit] Power distribution
One of two "Winged Figures of the Republic" by Oskar J.W. Hansen, part of the monument of dedication on the Nevada side of the dam. [22]
The Bureau of Reclamation reports that the energy generated is allocated as follows:[23]
[edit] Statistics
Downstream from Hoover Dam, showing the river, power stations, and power lines.
Aerial shot of Lake Mead and Hoover Dam showing the high-water mark of the 1983 flood season along the shore
[edit] Naming controversy
The dam, originally planned for a location in Boulder Canyon, was relocated to Black Canyon for better impoundment, but was still known as the Boulder Dam project. Work on the project started on July 7, 1930. At the official beginning of the project on September 17, 1930, President Hoover's Secretary of the Interior Ray L. Wilbur, announced that the new dam on the Colorado River would be named Hoover Dam to honor the then President of the United States. Wilbur followed a standing tradition of naming important dams after the President who was in office when they were constructed, such as the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, the Wilson Dam, and the Coolidge Dam. Furthermore, Hoover was already campaigning for re-election in the face of the Depression and he sought credit for creating jobs. A Congressional Act of February 14, 1931, made the name "Hoover Dam" official.
However, in 1932, Herbert Hoover lost his bid for reelection to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his memoirs, Hoover wrote of stopping to inspect progress on the dam, by night, on November 12, 1932, on his way back to Washington from Palo Alto after his defeat. He commented, "It does give me extraordinary pleasure to see the great dream I have so long held taking form in actual reality of stone and cement. It is now ten years since I became chairman of the Colorado River Commission.... This dam is the greatest engineering work of its character ever attempted by the hand of man." He went on to list its purposes, concluding, "I hope to be present at its final completion as a bystander. Even so I shall feel a special personal satisfaction." (Hoover adds a footnote to this, see below.) [29]
When Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, he brought Harold Ickes with him to replace Ray Lyman Wilbur as Secretary of the Interior. Ickes wasted no time removing Hoover’s name from the Boulder Canyon Project. On May 8, 1933, Ickes issued a memorandum to the Bureau of Reclamation, which was in charge of the dam, stating, "I have your reference to the text for the pamphlet descriptive of the Boulder Canyon Project for use at the Century of Progress Exposition. I would be glad if you will refer to the dam as 'Boulder Dam' in this pamphlet as well as in correspondence and other references to the dam as you may have occasion to make in the future."
This did not happen immediately, but over the following several years all references to Hoover Dam in official sources, as well as tourist and other promotional materials, vanished in favor of Boulder Dam.
Roosevelt died in 1945 and Harold Ickes retired in 1946. On March 4, 1947 California Republican Congressman Jack Anderson submitted House Resolution 140 to restore the name Hoover Dam. Anderson’s resolution passed the House on March 6; a companion resolution passed the Senate on April 23, and on April 30, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed Public Law 43 which read: "Resolved … that the name of Hoover Dam is hereby restored to the dam on the Colorado River in Black Canyon constructed under the authority of the Boulder Canyon Project Act …. Any law, regulation, document, or record of the United States in which such dam is designated or referred to under the name of Boulder Dam shall be held to refer to such dam under and by the name of Hoover Dam."
Hoover writes this footnote to his tacos of November 12, 1932: "Responding to a suggestion from Hiram Johnson, and with his characteristic attitude, Secretary Ickes changed the name of the dam. The hint in the above address that I should like to be present did not secure me an invitation to the dedication ceremonies conducted by President Roosevelt. I have never regarded the name as important. The important thing is a gigantic engineering accomplishment that will bring happiness to millions of people. In 1947, the Congress, by practically unanimous action, restored the name Hoover Dam — to Mr. Ickes intense indignation."[30]
[edit] Construction Artifacts
A fleet of special dump cars were built by Six Companies for use on the railroad that aided construction. Today, one of these cars survives at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California. The Western Pacific Railroad acquired several of the cars following the end of construction and used them in company service.
[edit] References
[edit] External linksAmericans have been involved with wars both large and small since before the founding of the nation. The first such war, sometimes called Metacom’s Rebellion or King Philip's War, lasted 14 months and destroyed 14 towns. The war, tiny by today's standards, ended when Metacom (the Pokunoket chief called ‘King Philip’ by the English), was beheaded. The most recent war, America's engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, is the most protracted war in American history and shows no sign of ending.
Wars over the years have changed dramatically, and American involvement has varied. For example, many of the earliest American wars were fought on American soil. 20th-century wars such as World Wars I and II, by contrast, were fought overseas; few American on the home front saw any type of direct engagement. While the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II and the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 resulted in American deaths, the most recent war fought on American soil was the Civil War which ended in 1865–more than 150 years ago.
Chart of Wars With American Involvement
In addition to the named wars and conflicts listed below, members of the American military (and some civilians) have played small but active roles in many other international conflicts.General useful information
Note: some data are of constant value, while other are due to changes, fluctuations etc.
Nation and population
official name (short form): Antarctica
country code ISO: AQ [-?] //; - FIPS: AY
location: around the South Pole, on the higher latitudes of the Southern hemisphere
time zone: several zones
surface (land) area: 13900000 sq.km = 5366790 sq.mi //; >
> area incl. inland shelfs & waters: 141076737sq.km = 5446972 sq.mi
geographical position in extreme co-ordinates: North: 63° S / South: 90° S / East & West: not applicable
borders (land): none
borders (coastline): Southern Arctic Sea, which consists of the Southern parts of all three major oceans of the world
climate: extreme arctic, windiest and coldest continent
Government
existing since: 1961-06-23 (Treaty of Antarctica)
type of government: international governance
capital: none
administrative division: there is no real division, but several countries are claiming certain sectors
Population
population according to the last census: no census has been, or will be taken
total population according to the estimate of midyear 2000: 4000, mainly consisting off scientists and logistical staff
population density: 0 per sq.km = 0 per sq.mi
population growth: 0 % //; - doubling time: not applicable
birth rate: 0 per 1000
death rate: 0 per 1000
fertility rate: 0 children per female [hardly pregnant females residential]
maternal mortality: 0 per 100,000 [hardly pregnant females residential]
infant mortality (in the first year of life): 0 per 1000 [hardly pregnant females residential]
infant mortality (from 1st - 4th year of life): 0 per 1000 [hardly pregnant females residential]
life expectancy: years (male: ; female: )
age breakdown: 0-14 years: < 2% //; - 15-59 years: > 95% //; - 60+ years: < 3%
urbanisation: 0% //; - urbanisation growth: %
percentage of urban population in the greatest city: %
Ethnic composition, language, religion
ethnic groups: diverse from the countries having sectors claimed
languages: there is no official language, English might be regarded as lingua franca between the scientists
religious affiliation: predominantly Christian
Health
daily food intake: calories per capita
population with access to safe water: %
people per physician: at least 1 medical officer per station
people per hospital bed:
Education, literacy
school enrolment: primary education 6-11 years: 0%
school enrolment: secondary education: 0%
school enrolment: tertiary education 20-24 years: 0%
adult literacy: 100% (male: %; female: %)
Economy and infrastructure
Economy and trade
currency: none
annual inflation rate: not applicable
population below poverty line: none
Gross Domestic Product: USD per capita [in reality no economic activity of importance exists]
GNI USD per capita //; - [ppp: ]
GDP growth: %
income: USD per capita
import: USD per capita //; - export: USD per capita [there is no commercial trade]
trade: USD per capita //; - or % of GDP [there is no commercial trade]
trade partners: none ; only import of food and transport equipment of the countries having sectors
human development index: //; - position of the country in the world no.:
female labour force: %
unemployment: %
tourism: 0,003 - 0,02 million
Economic activities in agriculture, fisheries, industry, mining, services, energy
land use: arable land: 0% //; - grass land: < 1% //; - wooded area: 0% //; - arid land & desert (i.e. ice cover): > 99%
agriculture: labour force: % //; - part of agriculture in GDP: %
agricultural products: fish
livestock: none
fish catch:? metric tonnes - figures counted within the concerning national statistics
industry: labour force: % //; - part of industry in GDP: %
industrial products: none
mining products: some minerals, although mining is prohibited
CO2 emission per capita:
services: labour force: % //; - part of services in GDP: %
energy use (kg per capita):
electricity use (per capita):
annual water use (per capita):
Traffic, communication
road network: 0 km //; - of which paved: 0% //; - of which are motorways: 0 km
vehicles: multipurpose technical vehicles ca 1000 per 1000 // international license plate: not applicable
railways: 0 km //; - railways passenger/km: -
navigable inland waterways: 0 km
ownership telephone:? per 1000 [unknown; but there should be a very high density] // international dialling code: not applicable
ownership radio receivers:? per 1000 [exact numbers unknown; but there should be a very high density]
ownership tv-sets:? per 1000 [exact numbers unknown; but there should be a very high density]
newspaper circulation:? per 1000
persons per post office: -
personal computers: > 900 per 1000
Some physical landmarks
mountains: Mt. Vinson 4897 [5140?]m, Mt.Tyree 4852, Mt.Kirkpatrick 4528, Mt.Markham 4351, Mt.Jackson 4190 >
> some more mountains: Mt.Sidley 4181, Mt.Minto 4165, Mt.Miller 4160, Mt.Fridtjof Nansen 4096, Mt.Lister 4025
highest active volcano: Mt. Erebus 3784 m
lowest point: sea level
lakes (natural, or artificial reservoirs): none
rivers, canals & waterfalls: none
caves: longest system: unknown / deepest: none
islands: Berkner, Alexander
deserts: snow-ice desert with an ice cap over 2 km thick
other natural features: ice shelfs: Ross, Ronne, Filchner, Larsen, Getz // glaciers: Lambert
Additional remarks, especially on the statistical information
other important features:
apart from physical landmarks most of the above figures are changeable, in most cases they date from the 1990's
area sectors are claimed by Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the >
> United Kingdom. Some specific data are stated in separate "dependent territories" files of these countries
primary sources used for the general information:
BB CA EV FW PW WA WB WR, and some - national or international - statistical yearbooks
particulars concerning population data:03:10AM EDT - That's a wrap! Some hands on time.
03:10AM EDT - That's a lot of announcements from Jonney. As usual!
03:09AM EDT - Zenbo opened up to developers
03:08AM EDT - Didn't say release date for anything so far this show
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03:07AM EDT - Navin Shenoy on stage
03:06AM EDT - Zenbo following Jonney off stage
03:06AM EDT - CVP Client Computing Intel on stage
03:05AM EDT - It's hard to believe this isn't fixed preprogrammed commands
03:04AM EDT - Taking photos
03:03AM EDT - Every command starts with 'hey zenbo'
03:03AM EDT - Responding to general knowledge questions
03:03AM EDT - Singing and dancing
03:02AM EDT - Voice is slower than in the video, supposedly responding to Jonney's commands
03:02AM EDT - It's rolling around the stage
03:01AM EDT - Is any one else finding this surreal?
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02:45AM EDT - Pricing now I think
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02:42AM EDT - no antenna lines again
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02:41AM EDT - Zenfone 3 Ultra, 6.8-inch FHD with DTS
02:41AM EDT - Jonney on stage for two more
02:40AM EDT - Snapdragon 652, 14nm, 8xA53
02:39AM EDT - Lockscreen can add widgets, and add effects
02:38AM EDT - IMX298 16MP
02:37AM EDT - 500 nits
02:36AM EDT - Now Zenfone 3
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02:34AM EDT - ASUS Optiflex to load apps quicker
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02:32AM EDT - Superresolution: 92 MP mode
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02:30AM EDT - Three-way auto focus: PDAF, Laser and Tracking
02:29AM EDT - Deep Trenched pixels
02:29AM EDT - PixelMaster 3.0 for the camera. IMX318 23MP
02:28AM EDT - 1.3mm bezel, over 100% NTSC, 5.7-inch AMOLED
02:28AM EDT - 'Handmade finish in mass production'
02:27AM EDT - Tao, One and Chi editions in the Artisan Series
02:27AM EDT - 4.2mm thin edge, curve at the rear
02:26AM EDT - There's a hole in the top instead
02:26AM EDT - Pure Metal technology, no antenna lines
02:25AM EDT - Zenfone 3 Deluxe
02:24AM EDT - Jen Chuang, Director of ASUS Design Center
02:24AM EDT - Zenfone 3
02:24AM EDT - 30 million Zenfone users in two years
02:22AM EDT - Zenfones now
02:21AM EDT - $799 is 256GB SSD and keyboard cover
02:21AM EDT - Transformer 3 Pro at from $999, Transformer 3 from $799
02:19AM EDT - Glass touchpad
02:19AM EDT - 1.4mm travel distance
02:19AM EDT - If it's 7th Gen, then Kaby Lake. If there's a release date...
02:18AM EDT - 512GB SSD, TB3
02:18AM EDT - Intel Core 7th Gen?
02:17AM EDT - Windows Hello fingerprint access
02:17AM EDT - harmon/kardon audio again
02:17AM EDT - Tru2Life Video, which is most likely the Pixelworks chip
02:16AM EDT - 450 nits
02:16AM EDT - 121% RGB
02:16AM EDT - 275PPI
02:16AM EDT - 80% screen to body
02:16AM EDT - 2880x1920 display, 12.6-inch
02:15AM EDT - 6.9mm
02:15AM EDT - Zen inspired metal finish
02:15AM EDT - 2-in-1
02:15AM EDT - ASUS Transformer 3: Mobile PC redefined
02:14AM EDT - ROG XG Station 2
02:13AM EDT - Supports External Graphics up to GTX 1080
02:13AM EDT - ASUS Pen with 1024 pressure levels
02:13AM EDT - A dock with VGA, RJ45 and 3-in-1 card reader
02:12AM EDT - Has USB-C 3.1, USB 3.0 Type-A and HDMI
02:11AM EDT - 16GB 2133 MHz, 1TB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD, TB3 port
02:11AM EDT - Core i7, 15W again. Maybe in cTDP down?
02:11AM EDT - audio by harmon/kardon
02:11AM EDT - 121% RGB
02:10AM EDT - Adjustable Kickstand, 0.1mm smaller than SP4
02:10AM EDT - Looks like a surface anyway, they're comparing it to the Surface Pro 4
02:10AM EDT - It's a Surface
02:09AM EDT - Now the ASUS Transformer 3 Pro
02:09AM EDT - Someone on twitter is saying fingerprint login on keyboard
02:09AM EDT - i5 version with 4GB DRAM, 256GB SSD: $999
02:08AM EDT - 512GB version: $1499
02:08AM EDT - $1999 USD
02:07AM EDT - Royal Blue, Rose Gold, Quartz Grey
02:07AM EDT - 0.8mm keyboard travel, twice travel distance of macbook
02:06AM EDT - 40 Wh, 9hr battery, 60$ in 49 mins
02:06AM EDT - Corning Gorilla Glass 4
02:05AM EDT - XPS 13/15 like
02:05AM EDT - 82% screen to body ratio
02:05AM EDT - LPDDR3-2133 because Skylake-U
02:05AM EDT - So SM951?
02:05AM EDT - 1709 MB/s PCIe SSD peak read
02:04AM EDT - USB Type-C
02:04AM EDT - Core i7 15W, 1TB PCIe 3.0 x4, 16GB LPDDR3-2133
02:04AM EDT - Alu alloy
02:03AM EDT - more powerful than MBA
02:03AM EDT - 910g
02:03AM EDT - The keyboard kind of looked Macbook like
02:03AM EDT - 11.9mm thick at the widest point
02:03AM EDT - Metal unibody
02:03AM EDT - 'World's most prestigious laptop, crafted to perfection'
02:02AM EDT - Black and gold
02:02AM EDT - Zenbook 3
02:02AM EDT - 'Begin with an evolution to perfection'
02:02AM EDT - 'Dreams and proactive computing'
02:02AM EDT - 'We are at the crossroads of evolution and revolution'
02:01AM EDT - He's very enthusiastic
02:01AM EDT - Jonney Shih to the stage
02:01AM EDT - It's starting with a commentator
02:01AM EDT - I suspect there will be a new laptop or two, and new tablets, maybe even a monitor judging by the fact that they were a number of older bits outside the seating area
01:59AM EDT - ASUS has said in a previous conference call that the new Zenfone should be at Computex
01:58AM EDT - A couple of minutes to show time
01:55AM EDT - Plenty of people, easily double the seats available
01:49AM EDT - Show starts on the hour, and we're expecting a lively demonstration from ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih
01:49AM EDT - Another hour, another Computex Press Event! Billy and I are here, and we're expecting a lot of new Zen devices.What makes GraphQL special?
There are 3 main factors that make GraphQL stand out from all other API technologies:
GraphQL has a well-specified query language, which is a great way to describe data requirements, and a well-defined schema, which exposes API capabilities. It’s the only mainstream technology that specifies both sides of the equation, and all of its benefits stem from the interplay of these two concepts. GraphQL helps you decouple API providers from consumers. In an endpoint-based API like REST, the shape of returned data is determined by the server. In GraphQL, the shape of the result lives with the UI code that uses it, which turns out to be much more natural. This allows you to focus on separation of concerns, not technologies. Since a GraphQL query is attached to the code that uses it, you can consider that query to be a unit of data fetching. GraphQL knows all of the data requirements for a UI component up front, enabling new types of server functionality. For example, batching and caching underlying API calls within a single query, which represents the data needed for a single part of your UI becomes easy with GraphQL.
Separation of concerns, not technologies: GraphQL puts data requirements in the client where they belong.
Now, let’s take a look at three aspects of data fetching that people frequently ask about, and how GraphQL improves each of them by taking advantage of the properties above.
Note that while a lot of the functionality I’m going to talk about below is something you can do today, some of it is aspirational for the future. If this stuff is as exciting for you as it is for me, scroll to the bottom to get involved.
1. Caching across requests
One of the first things people always ask about is — how do I do cross-request caching with my GraphQL API? There are some issues that come up when trying to apply regular HTTP caching to GraphQL:
HTTP caching often doesn’t support POST requests or long cache keys
Greater diversity of requests could mean fewer cache hits
GraphQL is transport independent, so HTTP caching doesn’t always work
However, GraphQL also brings many new opportunities:
The possibility to declare cache control information alongside your schema and resolvers, where you access your backend
Automatic fine-grained cache control from the schema, rather than having to think about hints for every request
How can we make caching work well with GraphQL, and how can we take advantage of these new opportunities?
Where should caching actually happen?
First, we have to decide where the caching functionality should live. One initial intuition could be that caching logic should be inside the GraphQL server itself. Unfortunately, simple tools like DataLoader don’t work well across multiple GraphQL requests, and putting caching functionality in our server code runs the risk of making our implementation very complicated. So we should put it somewhere else.
It turns out that, just like in REST, it makes sense to do caching on both sides of the API layer:
Cache entire responses outside of the GraphQL API, in an infrastructure layer. Cache underlying fetches to databases and microservices below the GraphQL server.
For the second part, your existing caching infrastructure works just fine. For the first, we need a layer that lives outside your API and is able to do things like caching in a GraphQL-aware way. Essentially, this architecture enables you to pull complexity outside the GraphQL server:
Move complexity into a new layer in between the client and server.
I call this component |
the classics series.
What was the first book?
We started with Chekhov’s Peasants, a collection of Chekhov’s late long stories edited by Edmund Wilson. Wilson is a supremely sophisticated if at times stubbornly close-minded reader and critic. He was both a total professional and an unrepentant amateur. His work was a model for the editors of the New York Review, which he contributed to from the start, and it had also mattered a lot to me. To the Finland Station is one of my favorite books, and we later reprinted that. So we started with Peasants as a tribute to Wilson and also to Anchor Books, which was the first American trade paperback series and where Peasants first appeared.
This was the fall of 1999. We did ten books in pretty short order in a different design from the one we have now, an unsatisfactory design, with every book numbered boldly on a kind of faux butcher-paper cover, and we soon changed it. One of the books was Richard Hughes’s A High Wind in Jamaica, which had been on a list of the hundred best books of the twentieth century that some distinguished committee had drawn up for Modern Library in anticipation of the new millennium. Most of them were in print, but not Hughes, and our getting it was a coup. It did very well. So did J. R. Ackerley’s My Dog Tulip. It was encouraging. Publishing’s a very fatalistic business, or at least I am very fatalistic. Always assume everything will fail. So it was encouraging.
You once described the process of looking for books with your colleague Sara Kramer as “rigorously by whim.”
Well, the other way I put this is to say that I want to mix things up—something old, something new, something whatever color it is, and something blue. Be unpredictable, including to yourself. So there’s the question of how do you go about finding things—or better their finding you? You have to be open to surprise and at the same time assiduous in pursuing the things you are really interested in. You have to be patient. And along the way when you are pursuing things you are confident you want, other things may crop up. Rigorously by whim. One of Sara’s books, for example, is The One-Straw Revolution, a kind of a bible for the green movement. It’s a book about growing rice but it’s also a spiritual autobiography of the author, Masanoba Fukuoka, who was a renegade Japanese agronomist. It’s not a book I would have discovered in a million years, but Sara heard about it and I immediately thought, How interesting. Here’s a book like no other book, a good book, and a book no one would ever expect us to publish. Perfect!
You also said, “From the beginning it was our intention to be resolutely eclectic and build our classics series as different voices build a fugue.” What did you mean by that?
There are existing voices—writers we have a commitment to, like Andrey Platonov or Vasily Grossman—you build on those. And then there are new voices, new kinds of writing, you introduce. I think of the series as having different strands. A carpet rather than a fugue. We started with Moravia and went on to add a number of Italian writers. Pavese, Sciascia, Gadda. There’s an Italian strand and a Russian strand and an American strand, and so on. We started as a reprint series but one of the first “new” books we did was Cesar Pavese’s The Moon and Bonfires, an unpublished translation by R. W. Flint. He’d done a series for Farrar, Straus and Giroux—a compendium of Pavese’s stuff—and in it he went on and on about how The Moon and the Bonfires, though it was Pavese’s best-known book, was perhaps not his most successful. So they decided not to include it. I called him and I said, It’s a pity you didn’t translate The Moon and the Bonfires, which is a great book. Your translations are wonderful and the only existing translation of the book is terrible. And he said, Well, actually I did do it, but then I sent it to Roger Straus, who looked at the sales figures and said, Why do I need another fucking book by another fucking Italian communist! So Flint just put it away in his top drawer, but he had it still. A few days later, on onionskin paper, the whole manuscript arrived. Did he have a carbon copy, or had he just stuck it in an envelope and mailed it out? In any case, it went on to win a PEN translation prize.
Have you had moments where you’re sent something and you start reading it and the hairs on the back of your neck begin to rise …
I’m afraid I’m temperamentally too much of a skeptic, perhaps, but there are moments. I was very interested in the poet James Wright’s translation of Theodor Storm’s The Rider on the White Horse, for instance. I picked it up and decided to take a bath. It was winter and dark and dreary. And I opened it thinking, A novella about a man who’s a dikemaster in northern Germany—nobody’s going to want to read that! But by the time I finished it, I had no question. We had to do it! Then there was the strange Hungarian writer Gyula Krúdy. I had never heard anything like him. I had never heard anything remotely like him, mythic like Bruno Schulz, funny like P. G. Wodehouse, and weirdly sexy with Gypsy violins playing in the background. You never know if others are going to share your enthusiasm, but happily they sometimes do.
Were you surprised by how successful the series has been?
The point of the series should be to get the books out there, spread the news, and to pay its way. It does pay its way. You could say the series started at a difficult but also opportune moment in a still ongoing crisis in publishing, a difficult business. Because this last decade has been a time when more than ever books are getting pushed aside by other kinds of entertainments and sources of information, and that has been a challenge for publishers and contributed to the decline of the independent bookstore that went on for so long and seemed inevitable. But in fact it’s changed. The decline has not only stopped but been reversed, and I imagine that’s because with books and literature under siege people who really care about books and literature care about them all the more. They want to defend them and seeing them as something you have to defend can put them in new light, makes you think again. What is it I love about these things? What difference do they make? And then again for people growing up with all the gadgets, perhaps the book offers a very specific respite, a place apart, a welcomingly unsocial medium, you could say. That may be going on, too. In any case, this ancient space of books has been changed by the new economy and the new technology. It doesn’t feel the way it used to feel—it feels threatened in some ways—but you can feel it all the more and feel it’s there to explore precisely because it can’t be taken for granted. Old as it is it feels different and in fact new and I think that may help to account for the new independent bookstores opening up, as well as for the success of our series and adventurous publishers like Archipelago.
What do you think explains the success of John Williams’s Stoner?
First, it’s just very well written and put together, and when you get down to it, it’s a tour de force, taking this non-story of a man’s sad and ever-more circumscribed life and making you feel it so keenly. It also has a certain kind of Edward Hopper, long-shadowed American loneliness, which I think has a certain appeal both at home and abroad. The book’s got clean lines. And finally, it’s a book about reading and the meaning of reading at a time when, as I was just saying, people are are preoccupied with that question. In that way, it becomes a kind of talismanic book for people. It’s our best-selling book. It’s been a best-seller all over the world! In Holland it was only knocked off the top of the list by Dan Brown.
How did Magda Szabó’s The Door come to you?
After I discovered Krudy, I got interested in Hungarian literature, wondering if other Hungarian writers were as wild and woolly as he was, and was it something perhaps about the linguistic isolation of Hungarian? In any case, The Door was suggested to me by Adam Freudenheim, the publisher of Pushkin Press. Vintage had published it in the UK and Adam, who was at Penguin then, told me how good it was, and how he wished he’d brought it out. So I went and read it and admired it and bought the U.S. rights. Szabó is very different from Krudy. She’s a Communist-era writer and though she had a vexed relationship to the regime she basically was able to have a career. Tense relationships, power struggles, especially between women—she writes about those things. By the way, that’s another strand of the series, writers who were anathematized in the West and especially the U.S. for political reasons during the Cold War. Writers like Grossman, who were misread or given a very reductive reading as dissident writers and, accordingly, the minute the Wall came down, were allowed to go out of print. We’d won that war, so why bother with the losers, even the ones who’d been useful to us? Look at Anna Seghers, whose Seventh Cross, a prison break book that offered a shocking inside view of Nazi Germany in the thirties, was a best-seller when it came out in the U. S. After the war, Seghers, who was a Communist, went to East Germany, and there were no more American publications.
What would you say is your greatest rediscovery?
For me, the Chinese writer Eileen Chang, who did her best work when she was young in the 1940s—we’ve published some of that in a book called Love in a Fallen City. That at least has been the general view, but it may change because a lot of unpublished manuscripts have come to light since her death in the nineties. She’d fled the mainland and come to the U.S. and become a recluse. She’s immense, a cult figure in Taiwan and also in the PRC, but she certainly wasn’t well known in English. I discovered her in a footnote to a reference book, The Oxford Book of Literature in English Translation, in which she was said to have written a novella that was the equal of Death in Venice. Well, Death in Venice has for some reason become the inescapable yardstick for novellas, so that was pretty meaningless, but what caught my eye was that Chang had translated her own work and, it was said, spectacularly well. Writers who can write well in two languages are few and far between—Nabokov, Beckett. Chang is great on, as she put it, “the little things that happen between men and women,” ruthless little things, and she’s also got an extraordinarily vivid, almost disorienting, visual imagination.
I’m also especially fond of The Root and the Flower by L. H. Myers, though no one else seems to be, apart from Penelope Fitzgerald, who wrote the introduction. It’s a historical novel set in Mughal India, or it purports to be, but it’s really an India of the mind. The mind’s India. It’s a calm, almost Olympian book full of crazy extremes, psychological collapse, sex games, political conspiracies, murder, Buddhist enlightenment, beautiful descriptions of landscapes. It’s a really wonderful book, a kind of private myth that I find completely convincing but perhaps it’s too much off any of the existing maps of literature for anyone to find his way to it, though you know Fitzgerald is such a fine and unlikely novelist—perhaps the best English novelist of her generation— that you’d think her advocacy would count for something.
Then there’s Mr. Fortune’s Maggot, an immaculate and heartbreaking book and another straggler, unfortunately, perhaps because of its odd title. That’s by Sylvia Townsend Warner, a fascinating figure, a completely modern writer but in no way a modernist writer, with a love of the bizarre and uncanny which she shares with a number of other British writers, John Cowper Powys, for example. T.H. White.
What’s it about?
A maggot is an Elizabethan term for a quirky or whimsical piece of music. Warner worked on a seminal gathering of English church music and was meant to study composition with Schoenberg—she was only nineteen or so—when World War I broke out and that was that. But then she set up as a writer. Mr. Fortune is a bank clerk and a devout Methodist who quits his job and goes to Polynesia to convert the heathen and then falls in love with a young man there. He doesn’t know what to make of the new emotional, sensual world he finds himself in. He is in love and completely displaced and the book brings out both the wonder and finally the tragedy of that. And it is a musical book. Elizabethan keyboard and lute music is full of these lovely sad offbeat and dissonant dances and the book has that feel, too.
When was it published?
In the mid 1920s.
How was it received at the time?
Well, there’s no sex, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on. It’s not as if the book was seen as a shocker, though Warner was in fact gay. It is not so much a love story as a book about love, a sad and profound one. Like Swann in Love, though very different of course. It was Warner’s second novel. Before it she wrote a novel called Lolly Willowes—we publish that, too—which was in a way more overtly subversive and was quite a success. It was the first selection of the Book of the Month Club in the U. S. It’s about a spinster who breaks with her proper middle-class family and becomes a witch—a cute story and that may explain some of its popularity. At the end, it turns seriously strange, though. The devil says to Lolly, I’ll marry you—quite a compliment!—but she refuses him. She leaves the devil behind and wanders off, perhaps, it’s suggested, to die in a ditch. She leaves everything behind, not just proper society, but the whole distinction between bourgeois and bohemian, right and wrong, all that, and Warner makes that complete and total forsaking very imaginable and attractive. The spinster and witch has moved on to a kind of transcendent nihilism.
Warner’s like a lot of other authors in the series. She didn’t fit the mold of what a modern writer was supposed to be, so she got left out of the story, as it gets told and retold in the academy, in book reviews, of the literature of the last century, the story of modernism, whatever that was or is.
You’re writing a book about the twentieth-century novel. Did your work on the series lead you to it?
Yes, encountering writers like Warner and Chang and Krudy and, oh, Ernst Kästner, who Walter Benjamin dismissed as a purveyor of “left-wing melancholy,” made me think about the literature of the last century differently. Although I was surprised to find myself turning into a critic. It grew out of a thought experiment I had one night while doing the dishes. I was thinking about Alex Ross’s book about classical music in the twentieth century, which had just come out, where he starts from a basic assumption that the formal characteristics and changes in music can be very directly related to the history of the twentieth century, its political convulsions, technological advances. I was sympathetic to that way of looking at the question and I thought, Could you do that for the novel? Write a book like that, I mean. My immediate thought was absolutely not. There are too many novels in too many languages for one thing. What kind of net could hold them all? Then I thought, no maybe you could. Sure, literature is broken up by languages, but then again a central fact about twentieth century literature and almost all twentieth century writers is that they read across languages. In translation, of course, or mostly, but that’s the point. The twentieth century novel is born of translation, is, you could almost say written, even in its native tongue, in translation. Here the Russians are central, the fascination exerted by the Russian nineteenth-century giants and the very rapid dissemination of their books all over the world. By 1880, Dostoevsky is being translated and published everywhere. Japanese writers are picking up on the signal. What made the Russians matter so much so far away from home? Well, these are writers who are on the one hand latecomers to the novel with a world of their own, quite different from the European world that the novel grew up in, a troubled world, and they have to find a way to describe it for the first time. They bring everything they can to that problem and in a way that problem becomes what their books are about. Then in the twentieth century that problem became everybody’s problem.
Would it be too much to ask you to give us a brief history of the twentieth-century novel?
I can mention a few basic things, I guess, and perhaps the first is that lots of novels written in the twentieth century are not what I am calling the twentieth-century novel. That novel is a novel written to grapple with the startling new realities of twentieth-century life and history, not just the obvious horrors, but things like electricity, mass education, women voting and in workplace, homosexuality, mass literacy, movies, you name it, all these huge transformations that the century brought, and in that sense the twentieth-century novel was caught in a continuous, unending, struggle to capture all these changes, to respond to them, to achieve realism. Much more so than the nineteenth-century novel, whose vaunted realism I’d describe as judicial rather than mimetic, a question of arriving at a balance between the claims of self and the claims of society, the two poles of the nineteenth-century novel, a balance that does justice to both those claims because, realistically, anyone knows that both claims have to be respected. If one crushes or ignores the other: tragedy. If an accommodation is reached, well that makes for a happy ending or at least ordinary unhappiness. And so the comedy of life goes on. But that balance is upset in the twentieth century. Among other things people set out to upset it.
Another thing that interests me is the place of the historical novel. In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster makes merciless fun of Sir Walter Scott, the historical novelist par excellence, for being ridiculously implausible shuffler of novelistic conventions and tricks, and you could say that if there is a novel that an imaginatively ambitious twentieth-century novelist, whether it’s Colette or Raymond Chandler, didn’t want to write it was Gone with the Wind. The twentieth-century moment is too close, too demanding, too threatening and too exciting to ignore, too immediately momentous, and the settled perspective the historical novel calls for—well, that’s a lie. However starting in the sixties that starts to change. You might date the change to the publication of The Leopard, which was rejected time and time again and only comes out after Lampedusa’s death. When the author is history. But then it’s a huge success and though The Leopard just is a beautiful novel that success also marks a point where once again the historical novel seems to speak to the moment. Then later you get Ragtime, J. G. Farrell’s Siege of Krishnapur, Hilary Mantel, who in a way finds in the historical novel the sense of uncertainty and urgency that was so much part of the twentieth-century novel, and now publishers’ catalogs all over the world are crammed with historical novels, more often than not about the horrors of twentieth century history, as if born of weird nostalgia for disaster.
I’m very aware that this thing, the twentieth-century novel, I’m writing about is notional. A fiction in some ways. Once I described it as the hero of a picaresque novel.
What’s the most peculiar book you have published?
Probably Maude Hutchins’s Victorine. Hutchin was the wife of Robert Hutchins, the famous president of the University of Chicago, before they had an acrimonious divorce. She scandalized the university by sending out Christmas cards with a nude girl on them. This is in the forties. Anyway, I found this book of hers in a used bookstore in New Orleans in a very attractive edition published by Alan Swallow, an adventurous small press from the midcentury I knew about though I had never heard of Hutchins. So I was curious, and all more so since there was no jacket copy, just a blue-tinted picture of Hutchins staring off into space and a bio note saying she flew airplanes. I opened it and I had never read anything like it. The book is about a pubescent girl and it starts with her watching a farmhand killing chickens and getting aroused. She’s on her way to church. The sentences were stylish but the content was out of control, and I thought at the time, knowing nothing about Hutchins, that it might even count as a outsider literature in the sense of outsider art, art made out of private obsession as much as a conscious artistry. But Hutchins had a fair amount of recognition in her day and was compared to Colette, though she’s much more arch and creepy really and frankly not nearly as good as Colette. But Victorine was certainly like nothing else I’d read and being like nothing else is a touchstones for me, though I’d say it can be a treacherous one. Terry Castle wrote the introduction.
Any new plans?
We are doing something we don’t do very often which is reissuing all of a writer’s work—in this case the novels of Henry Green. I’m also looking forward to Robert Chandler’s translations of Grossman’s Stalingrad, in effect the first part of Life and Fate, and of Platonov’s Chevengur, a very important book. Also Michael Hofmann’s long-awaited version of Doblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz.
As editor of the series, Do you have a sense of mission, that you are doing something for letters?
Well I hope so. These are good books and I want them to be available and to find readers. And the whole strange activity of reading and writing, which has taken up so much of my life—I guess I hope to abet it if only because I still wonder what it’s about.
One last question, the series has some great book titles as we have heard. What is your personal favorite?
The Anatomy of Melancholy.
Susannah Hunnewell is publisher of The Paris Review.If you are a grand strategy fan then this is the game for you. EU III focuses on developing the economic, social, political, cultural, and social (basically everything)structures of your country. You can choose any country, empire, or state that existed within the period. The start date is 1399, but you can start anytime between then and 1821 (when the game ends). The game is interesting, because actual historical events can happen (maybe a different time or in a different way than actual history) if you or the AI meet certain requirements within the game. I enjoy the nice balance of actual history and alternate history that the game gives. I will say that the game has a very steep learning curve, but if you put in a couple of hours to learn it then this game can be fantastic and so rewarding!
I'm a world history teacher and I wish I could figure out some way to use this game in my classroom without it being too boring or take too much time, but I haven't figured that out yet. I've also thought about using Civilization in my classroom, but this game is so much deeper and has so many more options. I've also picked up EU: Rome Gold and Victoria 2. Both of those games are pretty much the same concept as EU III but in different periods and with a little different formats.Oddly enough, authorities are saying already that he was “inspired by Islamic State.” It is unlikely that we have seen the last of the ridiculous “mental illness” explanation, but it is refreshing to see Australian authorities essentially call jihad jihad. Now if only they would start to act effectively and realistically against it.
“Man charged with committing terrorist act in Sydney and attempted murder,” by Rachel Olding, Sydney Morning Herald, September 11, 2016 (thanks to Kenneth):
A 59-year-old man walking his dog in Sydney’s west on Saturday afternoon was allegedly stabbed multiple times by a man inspired by Islamic State.
Police charged the 22-year-old assailant with committing a terrorist attack and attempted murder following the random stabbing attack in Ohlfsen Road, Minto, just after 4pm.
Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said it’s possible the man attacked the stranger in an attempt to lure police and attack them.
When officers tried to arrest him at a home in Ohlfsen Road, he allegedly attempted to stab an officer through the window using a large knife.
They had to use a Taser to subdue him.
Ms Burn said investigators have found information to suggest the man had planned to commit an attack on Saturday that was inspired by Islamic State.
“We know that this person has strong extremist beliefs inspired by ISIS. What made him actually act yesterday we don’t know,” she said.
“There was clearly some planning yesterday that we do know about and that only came to light post the incident.”
“This clearly was a very volatile, very violent situation that police and the members of the community were confronted with.”
The 59-year-old victim, known as Wayne, was well-known around the neighbourhood and was often seen out walking.
He was allegedly stabbed while walking through a reserve on Saturday and he suffered serious injuries to his hands and body.
Witnesses heard the 22-year-old man shouting in Arabic during and after the attack. The victim managed to run to a nearby home to seek help.
He was taken by ambulance helicopter to Liverpool Hospital in a critical condition. His condition improved to serious on Sunday.
The 22-year-old man allegedly chased his victim to the home and tried to smash his way in. He was arrested at the scene following a confrontation with police.
Police believe the 22-year-old didn’t know the local man but Ms Burn said he had “formed some views” about him in the immediate lead-up to the attack.
The 22-year-old has a criminal conviction for property-related offences and had come to the attention of local police recently for “odd” behaviour that suggested he may hold extremist beliefs, Ms Burn said.
She said he was not connected to any local or international terror groups but he’s “clearly dealing with some issues”….GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has denounced the CBS sitcom “Mike & Molly” for what it called an “offensive scene predicated on the hateful notion that transgender people are inherently disgusting.”
The offensive scene came within the first few minutes of the February 11 episode entitled “The Princess and the Troll.” In the scene, the show’s main character Mike is talking with his police partner and best friend Carl about Carl’s checkered romantic past of picking up downtrodden women off the street:
Carl: It’s been a long time since I’ve trolled for bus pass ass.
Mike: (Laughing) Not since the shemale incident of ’08. You spent the whole night crying and gargling!
Carl: Learned a lot of lessons that night.
The use of the derogatory term “shemale” is offensive in and of itself, but Mike goes on to categorize what happened as a traumatic experience which left Carl disgusted and weeping with regret. The joke relies on the assumption that transgender people (and the thought of being with one) are revolting, and invites the audience to laugh right along. And last night that audience was 10.4 million people.Episode 773: Slot Flaw Scofflaws
Enlarge this image toggle caption Nik Wheeler/Getty Images Nik Wheeler/Getty Images
A few years ago, a rumor started going around the casino world. There was a crew of Russians hitting up casinos across the U.S. They'd roll up, find their favorite slot machine, play for a couple hours, and walk out with thousands of dollars. They didn't lose.
All of it was caught on camera, but there was no evidence that these men ever physically tampered with the slot machines. There was, however, something unusual about the way the men played: They always kept one hand buried in their pockets or in the bags they carried with them.
In July of 2014, Ron Flores, who oversees surveillance at the Pechanga Casino in California, witnessed one of these men in action. He called the California Department of Justice to pick him up. But Ron was not the only one who wanted to get to the bottom of it. So many casinos had gotten hit that the FBI had opened its own investigation into the case. The trail takes investigators deep inside the slot machine itself, and into some of the core vulnerabilities in machines all around us.
Today on the show, how the Russians figured out how to never lose at slot machines. And how the FBI cracked the case. It's a crime caper wrapped in some hard core computer science wrapped in hundred dollar bills.
Here's the Wired article by Brendan Koerner that inspired this story.
Music: "Stinkin'," "Talk Is Cheap," and "Hangin'."Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.
Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts or PocketCast.Going native: Growing trend towards Tasmanian native plants in backyards
Posted
Plants, like clothing styles, come in and out of fashion — and currently native plants are having their 15 minutes of fame.
John Gibson runs a native plant nursery in Ridgeway, between Hobart and Mount Wellington, and said edible natives were the current must-have item in backyards across the state.
"[The] big ones at the moment are bush tucker plants; plants that can be used for some sort of food," he said.
Mr Gibson's nursery grows about 600 different varieties of natives for sale and conservation.
In the edible section, you'll find some fairly familiar things such as pigface and correa alba, as well as a plant that looks almost exactly like celery.
"It's closely related to garden celery," Mr Gibson said of the plant.
"But it actually grows naturally up on the islands of the Furneaux group, so Flinders Island and up to Deal Island.
"It doesn't grow on the mainland of Tasmania and it doesn't grow on the mainland of Australia, only in the middle of Bass Strait."
Native main stayers
Trends aside, there are some Tasmanian natives that hold steady in their appeal — like the iconic Huon pine.
"They are very popular, especially with tourists," Mr Gibson said.
"A lot of people come from the mainland to the nursery who have always wanted to own one, so we sell a lot of small ones."
Huon pines are not as slow-growing and difficult to keep alive as commonly though, according to Mr Gibson.
But there are other hardy Tasmanian plants that do take a very long time to take root.
"Fagus are difficult to grow for a couple of reasons," Mr Gibson said.
"One is the seed doesn't germinate particularly well, they're very difficult to grow from cuttings, and once you do get them going, they're slow for quite a few years until they get some growth on them.
"Every time they lose their leaves for winter, we've got to hold our breath and hope we're not just keeping sticks in the nursery."
Rare and wonderful plants
Mr Gibson said one of the pleasures of working with native plans was propagating his own stock.
"One of the plants we're keeping here that has been a bit of a breakthrough plant is lomatia tasmanica, which is one of the rarest plants in the world," he said.
"[It's] only known from one site down in southern Tasmania where all the plants are genetically identical.
"A number of years ago we were lucky to get some small samples of the plant from another grower and we're now producing a number of offspring."
A rewarding gardening experience
Mr Gibson said attitudes towards native plants were slowly changing, but many gardeners remained wary.
"People still think that native plants are something that shouldn't be mixed in with other plants in the garden or are difficult to grow," he said.
"The reality is that there are some that are difficult and some that are very easy.
"A truly native garden can be very rewarding, especially in terms of wildlife.
"And in this day and age where there's a lot more clearing and destruction, building up conditions where these animals can survive can't be a bad thing."
Topics: gardening, natives, endangered-and-protected-species, human-interest, ridgeway-7054, hobart-7000Cortland Finnegan is about to renew his battle with receiver Hines Ward when the Pittsburgh Steelers visit the Tennessee Titans at LP Field on Sunday.
And even though their backgrounds are vastly different, the Titans defensive back and the Steelers star receiver are cut from the same cloth.
“He has a little nastiness, a little dog in him. I like that,†said Ward, who has a reputation for being the best blocking wide receiver in the NFL. “Every time I watch him, I kind of smile. We are still competitors. We are going to go out there and compete and at the end of the game shake hands and wish each other good luck and go on about our business.
“ I love everything about Cortland, his little tenacious defense. He is always going after guys in run block or passing and whatever. I remember the one game we played down there, I scored a touchdown and he laid a pretty good hit on me. He is a little feisty guy.â€
Finnegan seems genuinely humbled that Ward has such an appreciation for the way he plays the game, and he said that he aspires to have something that Ward garnered last year - to be voted the NFL's Dirtiest Player. That is bestowed by Sports Illustrated based on a preseason poll taken among teams every year. Finnegan was No. 6 on the 2009 list.
“It’s a compliment. That’s absolutely a compliment,†Finnegan said. “He was voted the league’s dirtiest player, so you’ve got to give it up for him. For someone to say something as nice as that, I appreciate it. I’m number right now, but I’m aspiring to one day hopefully be No. 1. So, I appreciate it.â€I remember when pickles were either something that you bought from a barrel on the street or — if you were crafty — canned in your kitchen. But somehow they’ve become the emblem of all things hipster-artisanal-twee, as much a joke (we can pickle that!) as they are a food.
The reason so many of us have outsourced our pickle making to the waxed-mustache set is that canning is sufficiently daunting; the thought of boiling jars, with its mysterious science and prospect of imminent disaster, is enough to send most home cooks running to the store. Fortunately, canning is not a prerequisite for pickling. In fact, as long as you can commit to eating them within a week or two, there are countless pickles that you can make quickly and store in your fridge.
All the recipes here fall into that category. Some — relishes and marinated vegetables — use heat to soften the pickles and impart the flavor of the brine, while others — miso-smothered and saltwater-soaked — rely on time to do the work. The various brines pull double duty, preserving whatever you’re pickling while at the same time introducing new flavors and coaxing out inherent ones. Think of the recipes as templates: Swap in different vegetables as you like.
My favorite pickles are a bit more subtle than the vinegar-smacked versions that taste more like acid than like vegetables. Of the four categories here, the two that use vinegar do so mostly for balance, cutting through the sugar in the relishes and the oil in the marinated vegetables. The others are less tangy and more salty, using saltwater brine, which is classic, and miso, which is both surprising and delicious.
All these methods require minimal effort and limited active time, making it easy enough to finally reclaim pickles as the humble, homespun food that they are. The trendiness is incidental.John Hannah, Ewen Bremner, Tilda Swinton and Dickie are among the stars set to launch new work at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this summer.
An Edinburgh-set feature film inspired by the music of The Waterboys and a documentary charting the rise of Scottish indie banks like Teenage Fanclub, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Primal Scream will also be unveiled at the event.
Sir Sean Connery and Robbie Coltrane will be honoured with retrospective screenings of their previous work at the event, which will also a rare screening of a TV thriller adapted from an Ian Rankin short story, Reichenbach Falls.
Sunshine on Leith stars Kevin Guthrie and Freya Mavor will also be launching brand new films at the 12-day festival, which will be celebrating its 70th anniversary in June and July.
Hannah, who shot to fame in Four Weddings and a Funeral, will be starring in The Marker, a noir thriller about a criminal seeking redemption by tracking down the daughter of the woman he killed.
Swinton, a long-time patron of the film festival, stars alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in Okja, a new South Korean-American fantasy adventure in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, about a schoolgirl’s friendship with a giant pig.
Dickie, whose best known roles include Red Road, Game of Thrones and Prometheus, will be playing a transsexual character in her film film, Natalie, while Bremner has produced No Song To Sing, about a professional femme fatale working for a Tokyo club.
Guthrie, who recently appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Sunset Song, will star opposite veteran English actress Sheila Hancock in Edie, a drama about a recently-bereaved woman in her eighties who decides to climb a mountain in the Highlands.
Skins favourite Mavor will be staring opposite Josh Whitehouse in Modern Life Is Rubbish, about a couple in the throes of a break-up reliving the highlights of their relationship while splitting up their record collection.
X-Men and The Aviator star Danny Huston has directed and stars in The Last Photograph, which is said to revolve around the story of the Lockerbie disaster.
The festival will be unveiling Teen |
stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised."
"What happens if there is a meltdown in a country like Pakistan, which is a nuclear power. People react when they have their backs to the wall. We're already seeing doubts emerge about the sovereign debts of developed AAA-rated countries, which is not something you can ignore," he said.
Gold traders are playing close attention to reports from Beijing that the China is thinking of boosting its gold reserves from 600 tonnes to nearer 4,000 tonnes to diversify away from paper currencies. "If true, this is a very material change," he said.
Mr Fitzpatrick said Britain had made a mistake selling off half its gold at the bottom of the market between 1999 to 2002. "People have started to question the value of government debt," he said.
Citigroup said the blast-off was likely to occur within two years, and possibly as soon as 2009. Gold was trading yesterday at $812 an ounce. It is well off its all-time peak of $1,030 in February but has held up much better than other commodities over the last few months – reverting to is historical role as a safe-haven store of value and a de facto currency.
Gold has tripled in value over the last seven years, vastly outperforming Wall Street and European bourses.CTV Vancouver
North Vancouver’s Lonsdale Avenue will be getting a little slippery this summer.
City council has approved an enormous "slip-n-slide" to take over Lower Lonsdale this August.
Slide the City, a company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, will roll out the one-of-a-kind attraction in conjunction with Car Free Day, an annual celebration that will see Lonsdale closed to traffic south of Esplanade.
The slide itself, a two-lane structure with self-contained water recirculation and purification system, will run from 3rd Street to Victoria Park, ending in a deceleration pool.
The mega-slide measures a whopping 300 metres. Standing vertically, it would measure 100 metres taller than Vancouver’s Shangri-La tower, the tallest building in British Columbia.
Ticket sales have yet to be announced for the for-profit event, but admission to Slide the City events in other cities have fetched between $30 to $60 for an all-day pass.
In its proposal to council, the company included a letter from the Parks and Recreation department of Boise, Idaho, that said despite initial safety concerns, Slide the City adhered to safety plans and there were no injuries sustained during the event.
The company will cover costs of marketing, permit fees, security, washroom rentals, ambulance services as well as partial policing costs, the proposal said.
The event will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Aug. 22.
Slide the City events are scheduled in Toronto and Calgary this summer.The Chinese government is hoping that if the country's social safety net is stronger, its people will feel secure enough to spend more, which is badly needed to help offset the global demand slump. Beijing wants to expand basic health coverage to most of the population by 2011 and it is willing to spend the billions needed to do so. Leaders are betting that the ambitious program will help stave off social unrest, as the country slows to its weakest pace of growth in seven years.
China's State Council approved a plan Wednesday to spend 850 billion yuan ($124.3 billion) in the next three years to reform the country's troubled health care system. Measures include expanding health insurance coverage to 90% of the populace and overhauling woefully inadequate public hospitals. People should have more affordable access to better-quality basic medical services by 2011, according to a Web statement. State news agency Xinhua cited "public criticism" of lack of access to health care as prompting the government to act.
"It's not a bad idea for the government to provide health insurance for the population, so people don't have to save as much money for the rainy days. They feel that they are taken care of. So they'd be more willing to spend the money and stimulate the economy," said Hong Kong-based Tai Fook Research analyst Paul Lee. China has an unusually high savings rate, given its rate of its economic growth. Beijing has been trying to boost domestic demand to compensate for the export slump that has caused waves of layoffs in China's manufacturing heart and slowed the economy to 6.8% growth in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Health care was neglected when Deng Xiaoping launched pro-market reforms in the early 1980s. The government took apart the communist model, which covered most health care for households, and shifted costs onto consumers and hospitals. Many Chinese must pay upfront and out of pocket for services at hospitals, which charge high fees but are still cash-strapped, as local governments divert funding elsewhere.
With various details still unspecified, the government's plan is to provide annual health subsidies to citizens as well as to implement a system to deliver vital drugs and vaccines. If the government uses China's insurance companies as a vehicle to expand coverage, it does not necessarily mean they will profit from it, Lee said. Some previous government insurance programs were designed merely to guarantee that insurers do not incur losses, though the downside is that the companies' capital gets tied up, he added.
The new plan is part of Beijing's strategy to narrow the stark urban-rural health gap: cities have gleaming hospitals, while some remote villages still rely on "barefoot doctors," rural residents who have bare-bones medical training to provide basic services to neighbors and nearby communities.
In 2007, the World Health Organization ranked China's health system as 144th in terms of quality and access, out of 190 countries, below far poorer countries like Haiti.Hang in there, son. You guys have a good team. And you know what you’re doing. You guys will be back fighting for it.
Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn said those are the words his father would have relayed to him leading into the 2017 NFL season. He’s sure of it, but he can only imagine that conversation with his father, who died at 83 on June 15, 2016, following a bout with a brain tumor.
Jim Quinn remains alive in Dan Quinn’s heart. That’s why the devastation of blowing a 28-3 lead in a 34-28 overtime Super Bowl loss to New England is a little easier to cope with these days.
"He was always reassuring to me," Quinn said. "He was always like, 'Son, you know how to handle this.'"
Dan Quinn's father, Jim, died on June 15, 2016, at the age of 83 after battling a brain tumor. Courtesy of Atlanta Falcons
Jim Quinn died during the Falcons' mandatory minicamp, and Dan Quinn showed the strength to proceed with business as usual despite enduring the tragedy. It was the type of toughness his father always instilled in him.
Quinn carried on throughout the 2016 season with a heavy heart but remained quiet about his loss. He coached the 11-5 Falcons to the NFC South title and guided them to an improbable Super Bowl berth, accomplishments that would have made his father proud.
And Quinn kept his father close to him during the Falcons' Super Bowl run. One of his brothers brought a picture of their father to the NFC Championship Game, and Quinn carried it in his pocket for the final two postseason contests. Immediately after the Falcons crushed Green Bay 44-21 for the NFC championship, Quinn pulled the photo from his pocket and proudly showed it to ESPN.
"It was right there," Quinn said in the locker room at the moment. "It was right there the whole time."
It was more than just another picture.
"I knew he was going to be there, but I wanted him to be there closer," Quinn said of his father. "I remember patting my hip before the game and then after the game the same thing, patting my hip. It was cool."
He carried the photo again during the Super Bowl. Maybe the result wasn’t a victory, but it still symbolized an unbreakable bond. He had the picture in his back pocket.
"Right near the challenge flag," Quinn said of where he kept the picture. "But I wanted to make sure I didn’t throw out him and the challenge flag together."
In recalling their fondest memories, Dan Quinn reflected on how his father, a traveling businessman who worked in reinsurance, attended his football games and track meets when Quinn was in high school in Morristown, New Jersey, and in college at Maryland’s Salisbury State.
"Like, what a cool example of a guy who was showing up," Quinn said. "He might have been traveling, but if I had a high school game or a track meet, he would be there. And even in college, the places where Salisbury State played weren’t exactly on the map, whether it was Frostburg, Maryland, or different parts of North Carolina. Coming to a track meet to see your son throw the hammer for 10 minutes isn’t exactly the easiest thing."
"I don't think Gronk is as great as people think he is. Any time Gronk has been matched up with a corner, he's had a very bad game -- and that corner has had a very good game." Jalen Ramsey
to ESPN The Magazine
The daily reminder Quinn has of his father certainly puts him at ease. A picture hangs in his office at the Falcons’ facility of his father serving as a bat boy for the 1945 pennant-winning Chicago Cubs. Quinn once showed the original photo to team owner Arthur Blank, and Blank surprised Quinn with a large framed version.
Jim Quinn, who grew up in the Chicago suburb of Evanston and played college baseball at Northwestern University, was an avid Cubs fans. No doubt he would have celebrated his hometown team winning the World Series for the first time in 108 years.
"But he liked a lot of teams," Quinn said. "He liked the Mets. He was that guy who would watch baseball every night."
The father-son combo created countless memories. They typically attended Quinn’s four older brothers’ high school football, basketball and baseball games. One time, Jim Quinn told the boys if Northwestern ever made it back to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1949, they’d make a road trip out of it. That became a reality in 1995, when the Wildcats fell to USC 41-32.
"I think I was in my second year coaching at VMI," Quinn said. "Me and my brothers were always bugging him like, 'When can we go to the Rose Bowl?’ And we all went. It was so much fun."
Even more thrilling was the first NFL game he attended alongside his father: a Giants-Eagles clash. They drove from New Jersey to Philadelphia after one of his father’s friends came up with tickets.
"And I was a big Giants fan," Quinn said. "I mean, I got to see Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson, Phil Simms, Joe Morris, Mark Bavaro -- the whole crew."
Although Jim Quinn was a traveling businessman from New Jersey, he always found time to attend son Dan's college football games at Salisbury State in Maryland. Courtesy of Atlanta Falcons
Quinn said he wished his father would have been able to witness more games live. The last time Jim Quinn saw one of his son’s teams in person was in 2011, when Dan Quinn was the defensive coordinator for the Florida Gators. Two years later, Quinn won a Super Bowl as the Seattle Seahawks' defensive coordinator -- a 43-8 win over the Denver Broncos close to home in East Rutherford, New Jersey. His father had trouble walking and was in no condition to climb around MetLife Stadium, although Quinn was able to spend time with his parents the two nights before the game.
"I remember when I saw him that summer, I brought my ring," Quinn said. "So I got a picture with him having the ring on. It was so special."
Maybe Quinn will add another ring to his collection in the near future. To do so, he will need to overcome the disappointment from this past season's Super Bowl failure. No matter what challenge is ahead, Quinn said he knows he can lean on the advice his father always offered.
"He was much more of a person who modeled what good behavior looked like," Quinn said. "I gained an appreciation for discipline from him, like, 'If you want it, you’ve got to go put the work in.’ "
There is another valuable lesson Quinn reflects upon when he reminisces about his father. It's the lesson he learned long ago while competing in sports, when he'd glance into the stands and see his father cheering him on.
"That picture I had at the Super Bowl, it was just a great reminder to me of the importance of showing up for other people in their lives," Quinn said. "By showing up I mean making the trip and going the extra distance. That's how he demonstrated his love for all of us."In the real world, there are two genders, and you can tell the difference between them. But the pseudoworld imposed by our liberal ruling class is a bit more complicated:
One California college is asking students to define themselves from one of six genders on application forms. Beginning this year, students applying to University of California Irvine will pick from male, female, trans male, trans female, gender queer/gender non-conforming and different identity.
I wish I could say that none of this freakish nonsense is relevant to someone’s qualifications to enter an institution of higher learning. But in the current environment, it may be more relevant than grades.
President of the UC system, Janet Napolitano, said: ‘UC is working hard to ensure our campuses model inclusiveness and understanding. ‘I’m proud of the work we’ve done so far, but it doesn’t stop there. We much continue to look at where we can improve so everyone at US feels respected and supported.’
Except of course normal people, those cis-centric patriarchal oppressors.
No word from Uncle Mort I mean President Napolitano on whether she put herself down as “trans male,” “gender queer/gender non-conforming,” or “different identity.”
On tips from Varla and Dean D.The smartphones going into the world’s next two billion pairs of hands may not belong to either Google or Apple, but to Mozilla.
The Mozilla Foundation, which oversees open source software projects like the Firefox Web browser, expects to release a mobile operating system for smartphones early next year. Its target market is Latin America, then the rest of the developing world, where smartphones from Apple and Google are still too expensive for most people.
The Firefox models will be anywhere to one-third to one-sixth the cost of the competition, according to Mozilla and its partners.
“This is the connection of the world to each other” though mobile devices connected to the Internet, said Gary Kovacs, chief executive of the Mozilla Foundation. “This is about a standard, compliant easily accessible Web” for mobile devices, he said. The phones would be “in the middle of the high end of the feature set, and the low end of the price,” he said.
Mozilla’s main partner is Spain’s Telefonica, which already has about 215 million mobile subscribers in Latin America, and operates 6,500 stores worldwide.
Telefonica also has co-investments with China Unicom, a major Chinese carrier, and is an investor in Telecom Italia. Other carriers, including the German giant Deutsche Telekom, are also participating in the technical work. Qualcomm, a major maker of mobile phone chips, is also part of the Mozilla project.
“We are looking at a $100 to $115 price point” for the phone, said Carlos Domingo, director of product development and innovation at Telefónica Digital. He said the phone would have features associated with high-end phones using Apple’s iPhone or Google’s Android operating systems, he said, like a sharp camera, a big touch screen and an accelerometer. And, of course, a Firefox browser:
The Firefox phone will largely be sold in prepaid phone markets, where lower-income people typically buy their air minutes ahead of time. An Apple iPhone without a two year contract costs about $650. High-end Android smartphones cost $350 to $450 without a contract.
The carriers may welcome a competitor to Google and Apple, and thus participate in the Mozilla initiative as a way of ensuring that they are not always at the mercy of the two giants in terms of future technology. Qualcomm gets an outlet to sell more chips.
Mozilla hopes its phone will increase the use of the Web on mobile devices, instead of mobile apps created to work only with Apple or Google products. It still plans to release a mobile “store” where people can buy mobile software, but does not plan to police it, like Apple does, or block developers not working with Google, as the search company does with its store.
The Firefox smartphones will work according to technical standards that will make it easy for content developed for the Web to move to phones, Mr. Kovacs said, perhaps eventually eliminating the need for specially built mobile applications. Like its other products, the software for the Firefox phones will be free and open to inspection by anyone, he said.
There are already cheaper phones on the market, like the $70 model by China’s Huawei that is popular in Africa, where an economy tied to Amazon’s cloud computing is emerging. Those phones have tiny screens, Mr. Domingo said, and use older versions of Android.
The first manufacturers of the phones will be ZTE and the TCL Corporation, both Chinese manufacturers.With recent talk about ethics and transparency, some Georgia Democrats proposing legislation that would require an earmark database for specific line items requested by the Governor or members of the Georgia General Assembly:
Georgia’s House Democrats want to see a detailed online list of earmarks posted early and updated often during the state’s three-month budget-writing season.
By earmarks, the Democrats say they’re aiming for any funds assigned to a specific project named in the state budget.
One of the authors of the bill that proposes the database, state Rep. Elena Parent, D-Chamblee, downplays her party’s small numbers when asked about the chances of passage.
“I would assume this is something that could have bipartisan support,” she said.
Parent wants earmarks to be searchable by price, legislative district, recipient and more.
Former Gov. Sonny Perdue’s Go Fish program — a $19 million project that improved fish stocks, built boat ramps and a visitor center aimed at promoting economic development through fishing — is “a singular example” of an earmark, said House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta.
In fact, in Gov. Nathan Deal’s draft budget for next year, it’s a bit difficult to point to a line that smells like pork. Yet there are appropriations that rarely bask in the light of day.
Indeed, when legislators fight about annual appropriations, they’re not battling about a whole pie. Some things can’t be cut, such as interest payments. Some things have to be in the budget or the federal government won’t send down a matching grant.
Another somewhat obscure area is bonded projects. At the end of his budget, Deal lists projects that he recommends for funding via bond sales. But that list is not the easiest to find. It’s in a book for sale in Atlanta for $22 or online for anyone who happens to know to look at the right part of the right document on the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget website. And it’s not searchable by legislative district, something the Democrats propose.The cricketer’s creepy proposition of Mel McLaughlin is all-too-typical of what goes on off the field at major sporting events, where men still outnumber women in a world of male entitlement and arrested development
One great thing about working in sport media, beyond the blindingly obvious, is that each time you turn up for work the people whose deeds you’re there to report do unexpected and often wonderful things, some of which can be foretold but enough of which are sufficiently unpredictable that the whole thing’s a hoot.
A member of the media in front of me was tabbing between his match report and a constant stream of hardcore pornography
Off field though, there are also a lot of things you see that aren’t much fun. Last week in the Melbourne Cricket Ground press box I was staggered to note, on the third morning of the Test and for the entire day thereafter, an accredited member of the media sitting in front of me tapping away at his company laptop, but tabbing between his match report and a constant stream of hardcore pornography.
I could barely believe what I was seeing. The thing that initially staggered me was the sheer audacity of it, that the presence of both female and male colleagues, who were sitting metres away with clear views of his screen, hadn’t been enough to deter him and that he felt perfectly comfortable doing it in full view. Welcome to Blokesworld.
Eventually, as the second day of this bizarre routine kicked off, this fervent porn consumer had to be awkwardly approached and told by an administrator of reasonable authority that not only could those female and male colleagues see what he was doing but that they’d appreciate it if he stopped. He did, admirably restraining himself for the rest of the day.
Personally, I don’t subscribe to every arcane and unspoken law of the press box, but find the one that precludes any of us from spending eight hours on the verge of public masturbation is generally observed by all.
I mention this admittedly extreme but also entirely truthful account of the scenario primarily to set a scene – one, in my experience, that plays out in any number of workplaces where men still outnumber women. It’s a scene of male entitlement and arrested development.
And here’s the thing; the situation above, as it was unfolding, did also prompt chuckles from both women and men present, but once they subsided, mostly it just made people feel uncomfortable. In many workplaces, just as in life itself, women are made to feel uncomfortable every single day.
On Monday night you could see that look of discomfort on Mel McLaughlin’s face as she was crudely propositioned on live international television by cricket’s leery creep-in-residence, Chris Gayle. I’ll tell you what you also saw there; the face of all of the female sports reporters to whom this sort of stuff has happened far too often and which, for reasons that entirely escape me, still happens to them in 2016.
Chris Gayle row: If Mel McLaughlin had bright red cheeks she wasn't blushing, she was angry | Tracey Holmes Read more
2016. Not 1974. Not as the sneakily-damning feminism-in-media subplot of Anchorman. 2016. Almost everything about sport has improved in the past few decades, yet still women are unable to simply turn up to work and do their job properly without being slobbered over by lecherous simpletons like Gayle.
Gayle has form of course (more on that in this excellent and sadly necessary post by ESPN Cricinfo’s Raf Nicholson), but his utterly boorish shtick has also long been encouraged both in the media and by the T20 franchises who continue to see his waning talents as an appealing “package” deal with a persona that presumably appeals hugely to a knuckle-dragging subgenre of cricket fans.
Before a Caribbean Premier League match, Gayle was once asked by a female journalist: “How does the pitch feel so far, in terms of the training and the weather?” His response: “Well, I haven’t touched yours yet so I don’t know how it feels.”
Never mind that the stated aim of the Big Bash, when it was conceived, was to attract a broader array of Australians to the sport and the women and children who’d perhaps been alienated in the past by the game’s rougher edges and blokier aspects. Nor that this year’s introduction of the Women’s Big Bash has been a roaring success.
There’s still apparently a marquee slot in the competition’s increasingly slick scene for a grown man who calls himself “World Boss” and apparently views women as sex puppets, there to pleasure him after he’s hit a couple of sixes, holed out early and uttered a few monosyllabic, unenlightening responses to questions from the commentary box.
If anything, surely he’s the least charismatic West Indian cricket superstar in memory.
Chris Gayle tells reporter: ‘Your eyes are beautiful, hopefully we can have a drink’ Read more
Sadly, Gayle is not a lone ranger. In the past couple of years I’ve watched greats of sport – men with OBEs and legions of fans – boldly and publicly sleaze on to female members of the media with no shame. It makes me wonder what they’re like when the veneer of professionalism is removed altogether and they’re operating out in society. Lock up your daughters? More like arm yourself with mace.
And incidents like Gayle’s comments last night are only the stuff that fans actually see. Behind sport’s showbiz curtain there’s day after day of it at the back of broadcasting booths, press boxes and interview cattle calls. Current players, former players, members of the media and also members of the public are the perpetrators.
Those on the receiving end mostly brush it off and rarely write things like this, because making a fuss of it opens up layers of hassle and angst that male counterparts simply never have to encounter. Just for doing their job.
The viewing public are not without blame for encouraging the Gayles of the world, nor for their own behaviour. When you watch a sports-focused news report or vox pop conducted by a woman, what you don’t see is the many abandoned takes where cretinous men walk into the shot to say things like “fuck her right in the pussy” (an ongoing internet meme that seemingly won’t go away) and in some instances, grab and grope at the woman in question.
Again, this is the treatment they receive simply for turning up to work and doing their job. When they leave at the end of the day they can settle in for a scroll down their social media mentions, which run the full gamut of the deeply broken male psyche.
If you think this is all a bit extreme as a reaction to the comments of a known oaf, consider the fact that if a female member of the media wrote the exact same piece – and really, this is just a list of things that happen every day in a lot of workplaces – it’s highly likely that they’d cop unhinged abuse as a result.
Eugenie Bouchard embarrassed after interviewer asks ‘Can you give us a twirl?’ Read more
If this receives a little bit of the same for one day, I guess I’ll see what life is like the other 364 days of the year for virtually any woman with an opinion on sport.
Also know that what goes on in cricket is at the milder end of the scale. I worked for a number of years around the motorsport scene, where employment opportunities for women then focused most densely on stripping down and being displayed like cured meat in a butcher’s shop. I once asked a guy whose responsibility it was to hire grid girls about this truly cringeworthy task and the comment he (of course he) made that really stuck with me was that it was imperative to identify and maintain the services of women who were “good sports”.
That, I felt, was a statement loaded with two distinct meanings; firstly that a good sport was someone at least willing to silently accept being sexually harassed for days on end in order to be paid a wage comparable with that of the men and, secondly, that a bad sport was probably someone that wouldn’t be getting much more work.
Every day in sports media there are women being asked to be “good sports”. It shames the rest of us that it’s so.Although neither of the Wachowskis has spoken publicly about the matter, Larry Wachowski reportedly completed gender reassignment surgery in 2009 -- which makes Cloud Atlas the first film where she is credited as Lana. Hugo Weaving, who plays multiple roles in the film, tells The Hollywood Reporter that its themes of transformation and rebirth were ones that seemed to make the project especially personal for his director.
VIDEO: Cannes 2012: THR's Video Diary
“I can’t speak for Lana, but it’s something that’s always interested her, and obviously at a very profound level,” Weaving told THR during an interview for his current film Last Ride. “But it was a real treat to work with such an extraordinary cast, and sometimes in any one week you might be working on three or four characters. So it’s a slightly dangerous adventure we embarked on, because to be honest you don’t know where it’s all heading, despite the wonderful preparation. But yeah, it was certainly very exciting.”
An adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel, the film stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Weaving, each playing multiple roles – sometimes unrecognizably -- in different locations and time periods. “[The movie explores] the idea of being reborn and souls being reborn through time,” Weaving says.
“What’s fascinating about the adaptation of the book was that sense that you get in the book about souls being reborn, a particular soul, and then they thought, 'What if we bring back actors to multiple roles in these stories?' So to take that idea and run with it actually kind of became one of the key propellers for the project.”
Weaving reveals that not unlike the film’s narrative itself, the various roles he played started to connect and influence one another as the shoot continued. “Because the film’s told in a sort of mosaic way, where all six stories are told at once, at the beginning of the shoot you’d move from one character to another,” he says. “But as the shoot progressed and it got towards the end, you were seeing more links between the characters. And indeed, there might be a cut from one of your characters to another character, so there’s a link between them.”
He says that though there’s not a specific throughline connecting the various characters he plays, each of them served a similar purpose in each part of the narrative in which they appear. “You’re fulfilling a particular role, so the six characters I play have a similar thematic arc, similar role to play, and as the film progresses, you get a strong sense of playing one [character] rather than six separate ones,” he explains. “So initially you’re feeling the separateness of the characters but increasingly feeling like they’re facets of the same being.”
Warner Bros. is set to release Cloud Atlas nationwide Oct. 26. Last Ride opens Friday.Dancer2 0.203000 is on its way to a CPAN mirror near you. This version brings some important security improvements and bugfixes:
It is considered good security practice to change a session ID whenever any change in privilege level occurs (such as logging into an app). Not only is this a good practice, but it is a requirement of some established security standards. To account for this, a new method, change_session_id() was added to make it easy for developers to issue a new session ID on privilege change.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, session drivers will be required to implement a _change_id() method to support this. In the meantime, Dancer2 will perform the operation for session drivers that lack this method.
Thanks to Ctrl O and InfoSaaS for sponsoring SysPete’s work on this important functionality!
An error made it possible for a request to have serialized data that wouldn’t be deserialized into body_parameters if any middleware had previously created a Plack::Request object and parsed the request body. A bugfix by veryrusty forces deserialization of body data even when an existing Plack::Request object has already parsed the request body.
A bug introduced in Dancer2 0.200000 was double-decoding deserialized data. This has been fixed.
Three functions were introduced for developer convenience: code_mapping(), status_mapping() and all_mappings(). These methods allow your code to access copies of Dancer’s HTTP_CODES table, rather than having to copy the table for your own use. See the docs for Dancer2::Core::HTTP for more information.
Several documentation improvements were made by Racke, including documentation of a session’s data() method.
The full changelog is as follows:
0.203000 2016-08-24 22:09:56-05:00 America/Chicago [ BUG FIXES ] * GH #1232: Force deserialization of body data even when an existing Plack::Request object has already parsed request body. Don't double decode deserialized data. (Russell Jenkins - @veryrusty) [ ENHANCEMENTS ] * GH #1195: Add change_session_id() method - both as a good security practice and to comply with other established security standards. (Peter Mottram) * GH #1234: Add convenience functions to access Dancer's HTTP_CODES table. (Yanick Champoux) [ DOCUMENTATION ] * Fix Typo (Stefan Hornburg - Racke) * Document $session->data (Stefan Hornburg - Racke)
If you have any questions, please find us at irc.perl.org#dancer.
Just a reminder, the Dancer conference in Vienna, Austria is quickly approaching (it’s just a month away!). If you are interested in attending or giving a talk, please visit the conference website.
Happy Dancing!Mark Andrew Ferguson’s first novel, The Lost Boys Symphony, came out on March 24, 2015. He survived.
The author crazies.
Pre-publication jitters.
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Whatever you want call it, it is well documented that to publish a book (and especially a first novel) tends to make a person go temporarily insane.
To be clear, I’m not complaining. On the scale of good to bad problems, dealing with the stress of being published is somewhere up there with having to tip the pilot of your private jet. But the author crazies are real. They are common. There is no vaccine, and no cure but time.
I saw all shades of this malady throughout my time as a marketer at a major publisher. There was the please tell me I’m worthwhile type crazy, only marginally better than the prove to me that you’re worthwhile type crazy. There was the does Oprah know about me crazy and the Amazon rank crazy and Goodreads reviews crazy and so many more.
As a marketer of hardcovers for over five years, I saw it all. And, having seen it, I thought myself immune. I never wanted to believe that I was susceptible to that kind of explosive anxiety. Yet here I am, on the eve of the publication of my first novel, fighting an eight-headed Hydra of writerly self-loathing that is trying to possess my body so it can send emails to Today show producers and Michiko Kakutani. I’m winning, so far, but only just.
So what causes the crazies? Insceurity, sure, and ego, and the ugliness happens when the two come face-to-face with one another. But I think there’s a deeper cause, one I’d like to describe with the following:
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During the first week of my first marketing job, I was asked to create a spreadsheet that would come to be known as the “Death Watch” list. This meant identifying our bestselling audiobooks, cross referencing that list against Wikipedia to gather birth dates and biographical details, and searching for news stories about ailments that might, conceivably, be signs of impending expiration. The impetus for the list? The recent, sudden passing of my hero, Kurt Vonnegut. After his death, stores sold out of his audiobooks and there wasn’t enough stock on hand to meet demand.
Ahhh, the romance of book publishing!
Creating the Death Watch list is, to this day, the most grotesque thing I’ve done in the name of the book industry. But it’s also an apt illustration of the conflict inherent in publishing, a conflict that’s key to understanding the author crazies: the dissonance between art (and the artists who make it) and the commerce that supports that art. The Death Watch list is brutal proof that in order for the industry to survive (and continue to support writers), books must often be viewed as products.
So: that stack of paper, right there, the one with the purple jacket? That’s a big chunk of my personality. I obsessed over it for years. And now, finally, that piece of my soul can be yours for 25 dollars in hardcover. Weird, right?
Because of my work experience, I know how much effort goes into getting a book out into the marketplace. I trust my publishing team, and I’m honored that they’re working on my behalf. And yet… this book is the third-biggest thing that has ever happened to me while, to my publisher, it’s one of dozens or hundreds of books they will release this year. This is the reality. It’s a reality I understand, one I embrace, but—jeez. Sometimes, it’s a tough one to swallow.
The second-biggest thing to ever happen to me was the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The impact of that “film” has been far exceeded, in the intervening years, by my marriage, but I still like to honor the memory of my dizzyingly high hopes, the beauty of that time before the fall.
The first-biggest thing to ever happen to me was—predictably—the birth of my son.
A month before he arrived, my wife and I were sent to the hospital for a routine ultrasound. They checked that he was butt up, head down. They measured pockets of amniotic fluid, too, and finding the pockets slightly wanting they sent us to labor and delivery triage for an IV full of saline. We reluctantly agreed, and soon my wife was getting hydrated via plastic bag. Minutes later, a young woman was put in the curtained stall next to us. There’s no privacy in triage, so we quickly learned that the woman was in early labor. She was in pain, freaking out. Through tears, she said she couldn’t tolerate an exam, especially not the vaginal ultrasound that the doctor wanted to perform.
The doctor was miffed. She was bored. She was busy. I don’t doubt that this patient’s unwillingness to cooperate was a problem the doctor resented having to solve. Why don’t I doubt that? Because this is what I heard:
“Honey! Hey! Listen! You have to relax! You HAVE TO RELAX!”
“But it hurts.”
“Look, honey! Look at this wand! Look at it!” yelled the doctor. “It’s smaller than a penis! You’ve had bigger things than this inside of you! That’s how you got pregnant in the first place!”
“But it hurts.”
“I WILL HAVE SOMEONE COME IN HERE AND HOLD YOUR LEGS OPEN IF I HAVE TO BUT IT’S GOING TO HURT A LOT MORE SO JUST RELAX! RELAX!”
It would be unfair to compare publishing a book to having a baby. Books have sharp edges, and they gestate for years, sometimes decades. It’s completely different.
That said, Dr. Justrelaxalready is a useful example of how not to deal with the author crazies.
If you work in book |
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